Deafening (44 page)

Tress stirred a teaspoon of aspirin powder until it dissolved in water, and she waited while Grania gargled and rinsed the back of her throat. The two women lifted her into the newly made bed and tucked the blankets under her chin. Grania closed her eyes.
Jim
, she thought, for the first time since she’d been awake.
Chim
.

She remembered nothing more until she woke and saw that darkness had slipped behind the blind. Once more the stench slid into the room and lay beside her. She wondered if this might be
Death, if Death were in her bed. She’d been harshly wakened from the most wonderful dream about an orange, its juice squeezed onto her tongue. Every drop made her stronger. She looked around her and saw a jagged crack of light but did not know if time had elapsed or if anyone had come into the room for twelve hours, or twenty-four, or forty-eight. Sometimes a shadow sat in Mamo’s chair; sometimes the chair was empty. Someone rocked, or the chair tipped back and forth by itself. There was a faint scent of Canada Bouquet. She opened her eyes and saw Father. Another time, Bompa Jack stood over her.
There’s still a good leg on the cook. He would find a new husband for his sister Martha. Everyone was laughing
. But no, Great-Aunt Martha was gone. Died in the spring. A year ago? Two? Bompa Jack walked to the door, paused, looked back. Was the bedroom door open or closed? Grania saw a flash of metal before he disappeared.

What she could not know was that, downstairs, a fourteen-inch Quarantine card had been fastened to the parlour window for the past three weeks. Nor could she know that the hotel had been closed and that passengers had not been allowed to detrain or disembark in the town. From her bed Grania could not see the black crêpe nailed to the front door below. Nor could she read in the town paper:
“All that was mortal of this beloved mother, mother-in-law and grandmother was laid to rest in Deseronto cemetery. The attendance at the funeral as well as the floral offerings indicate the esteem of a large number of citizens.”

Mamo’s illness and death had been swift.
Unfortunate victim of the Influenza epidemic
. Her grave had been dug through brown and brittle grass and hardening earth. The surrounding trees were bare of leaves. “Loved and loved us dearly” had been carved on a dull flat stone that had been erected only two days before. The grave, as she requested, was on the side of the hill, high above the grey-green waters of the bay that for half her lifetime had reminded her of a soft shore in the beautiful land called Ireland.

Grania woke with no more energy than she’d had the day before. Day? Week? She could smell kerosene that had been poured into the drains of the house and though the odour made her gag, she recognized what it was. She tried to pull herself to a sitting position but ended up rolling onto her side, looking helplessly towards the door. One arm hung over the mattress.

Someone will come
.

She stared at the door as if her will alone could force a body to enter. She looked at her dangling hand, which, of its own accord, flipped over, palm up, and made the sign for
die
. Well, then, there it was. Her hand had done this without any help from her.

Fragments of a dream burst through her consciousness. She and Jim had been standing together on the ice of a pond. Death was with them, but was waiting in dark water below. Jim tried to help Grania to shore, but each time they moved, the ice cracked underfoot. She managed a step but the ice shivered and dissolved and she felt herself slip under. She opened her eyes to darkness and held her breath, and stayed down where it was deep. The water pressed on her from above.

Someone was reaching for her, pulling her up, and she clung to the bank, half in and half out of water. When she looked back she saw that Jim’s legs, body and shoulders had disappeared. His face, above water, showed confusion, helplessness. He scrambled to get a finger-hold in drifting ice and pulled himself forward and tried to flip his body up and over the edge. He tried again. Grania, now safe on the bank, willed him to her side. She willed him to safety.

The family believed that she was out of danger. She read this on their faces when they came to the room. They no longer wore masks. Mother, Mildred, Tress came and went, holding fluid to her lips and changing her sheets and gown. She barely saw who was there. She knew that no one else saw Death, that she was the only one aware of its presence, lurking close.

Death was waiting for her to break, she knew that. Beneath the
covers, one of her fists snapped downward and made half the sign for
break
, for
broken
. A picture of Bridie, at school, came into her head. Young Bridie with the heart-shaped face, the irrepressible grin. The rapid hands that refused to be interrupted.
Don’t break my talk
, she used to say to the other girls.
When I make story, don’t break my talk
.

Tress walked into the room and Grania lurched into the present, distancing herself from the figure that hovered boldly at the end of the bed. Tress looked as if she had just faced punishing cold; her cheeks were red from the walk along Main. She rubbed her hands together and warmed them before helping Grania to wash and change into a clean gown. She handed Grania a cup of juice. While her sister’s back was turned, Grania looked at the cup and then over to Death. Memory bubbled up, the
Sunday
book close to the surface.
Here, said the Mexican. Drink this
. Grania could kill Death. She could put poison in her cup and offer to share.

Tress faced her again.
Sorrows of her own
. Everyone who came into the room carried sorrow. Tress’s cupped hands pulled down through air, the sign for
now
. Her lips said, “I want you to walk to the chair.”

Grania turned her head away and refused to read Tress’s hands or her lips. She did not want to be encompassed by Tress’s energy or her sorrow.

But Tress would not be put off. She fluttered her hand in front of Grania’s face to get her attention. “Mildred said you have to get up every day from now on. Dr. Clark said so, too.” She added this as if to give weight to the order. She pointed to the empty rocker.

Grania’s legs trembled as she leaned into her sister and took uncertain steps. Death turned a shoulder in disdain as they passed. She dropped into the chair and tried to catch her breath. Surely her breathing was loud enough to be heard. If so, Tress was not letting on.

Grania cast a sideways glance and shuddered. If Tress would stay in the room, she might not sink back. But Kenan needed Tress at
home. She couldn’t ask. She deliberately turned her attention to her sister, forcing herself to speak. Her voice was jagged in her throat.

“Tell me what month it is.”

Tress nodded. Her lips and one hand formed
November
. She flicked a finger from the back of her wrist to show time. “I was up before five. Kenan still has trouble sleeping. When he gets up, I get up too.” Two fingers popped off the opposite palm—
get up
. She slipped a strip of sheeting under Grania’s arms and knotted it behind the chair to keep her upright while she made the bed. Even so, Grania slumped uncomfortably.

“Kenan?”

But Tress did not want to talk about Kenan. Was there still anger inside her sorrow? Grania saw no trace of it. Well, then, what about Bompa Jack? She wanted to ask if he’d been in the room.

What is real and what is not? asked Dulcie
.

“Bompa Jack,” she said. “Was he here? When I was sick?”

Unexpectedly, a quick grin across Tress’s face. “You saw him? You saw the gun?”

Had she misunderstood? Had she missed a word? No, she couldn’t have, because Tress was miming a rifle held, a trigger pulled.

“Gun?”

“He came to town when he learned how sick you were. He brought the rifle from the farm—the one he used when he shot the wolf. He laid the rifle on the floor under your bed—it had to be lengthwise.” Tress drew a finger up the length of one arm. “He insisted that the steel of the barrel would draw out the fever. No one was allowed to argue. He brought eggs, too. He wanted to mix them raw with homemade whisky for you to drink, but Father said no. Mother shouted when he came with the gun. Maybe she thought he would shoot you.”

Grania laughed for the first time since before she had sunk to her knees in the woods. At the sound, Death recoiled in the corner.

“What else?”

“Uncle Am sneaked up one afternoon and stuck an ace of diamonds in your shoe. Left shoe. He said it wouldn’t work in the right.”

“Shoe?” Thumbs rose and fell. Arms weak.
Which?

“Black, two-strap. From the closet. He put the shoe under your bed, beside the gun.”

Grania nodded and glanced towards the closet door. She was creating pictures.

“The enamel plates? Did I dream those?”

“They were brought up from the warming oven in the kitchen when you were clapped—chest and back. Mamo did that…”
A flicker. Something. Tress’s face
. She continued. “Everyone had a remedy.”

“Mamo?”

A pause. “Has a cold. Won’t come to the room while you’re recovering.” Tress stepped behind her quickly, to adjust the sheeting.

“The mirror. Why is it gone?” Grania pointed to the oval shadow on the wall, the cross that hung in its place. Someone had prayed.

Tress, in front of her again.

Something to hide, something to tell
. Once more, Tress turned away.

“Tell.” The childhood demand.
Tell me at once, said Dulcie
.

“Your hair, Graw.” Tress came back, and leaned over her.

Grania raised a hand to her scalp.

So much effort to lift an arm
.

How could she not have known? Her scalp was soft and bare. There was no hair, none at all. Her fingers ran back and forth over her head until her arm tired, and she lowered her hand to her lap.

“Bring the mirror. The one you gave me when I went to school. It’s in the top drawer.”

She was too weak to hold it, but Tress propped it up while Grania stared at a thin face and bloodshot eyes and the bony outlines of a scalp.

“It will grow back.” Tress’s lips were insistent. “Everyone says so. Mildred. Even Dr. Clark.”

Grania lay back against the pillows and stared at the rectangle of window above Tress’s old bed. The curtains had been fastened back now that she was able to bear the light. Except for Death at its post, Grania was completely alone.

She remembered Mother coming in and sitting on the bed and telling her she’d been talking to herself and could be heard through the wall at night. Although Grania was surprised, she didn’t care. I hardly ever sleep, she thought. I lie in bed and dead men march through my dreams. Dead men who will never come back. I think of Grew, and Kay, and wives and babies and fathers and mothers who are left to grieve. I think of all of these.

She dared to think of Jim. She had forbidden the family to write to him to say that she’d been ill. He must not know. She did not want him to worry. He had to stay focussed and keep himself alive. She brazenly brought the picture of him into her mind. His leanness, his earnest face under the brown hair, his muscular back, his long arms, his slender fingers and hands. During her illness she had not had to fight off the daily fear that the boy from the telegraph office might come to the front door. Before that, every time she walked through the hall she tried not to look in the direction of the street in case a silhouette could be seen on the other side of the glass. When the boy did come, she hadn’t been there to see. Tress had received the telegram about Kenan and had read it before Grania even knew it had been delivered.

She thought about the nights she had lain in the dormitory at school during her first year away from home. The countless times her lips raced through the chants:
Don’t let me live here forever. Don’t let me be an orphan. Let me go home again
. Father told her to name her fears boldly in the dark.

Don’t let Chim die
.

She had not seen her husband for three years. If he were here now, she would have something new to tell him about being deaf. Something she had not known before. That when she had been so sick, her body had been deaf all over. He would want to know about that.

Through the upper part of the window she looked at the flat line of sky, more white than blue. She was sorry that from here she could not see the bay. The branches of the single tree outside were bare and motionless. She had forgotten what month it was; she would have to ask again. As she lay in her bed and stared at the tree, a hawk dropped like a miracle from the sky and rested on the branch closest to the window. She held her breath. The long tail, the grey markings were inches away from the glass. For a moment, she and the hawk were still. Then, in a flick, it was gone.

She turned her head and made an attempt to pull in deep breaths. She coughed and tried to exercise her lungs. Orders from Mildred.
Expand your lungs. This is the most important thing to do
. She thought of Jim and vowed to gather, bargain, summon whatever was needed to get well. She did not glance in Death’s direction. She willed herself to cough again. She expanded her lungs, and expanded them again. She tried to cough some more.

Chapter 21

I am lost without him. I sincerely hope it ends soon for me…I feel I would just as soon be pushing up daisies as living like a gopher in this place, with all my dear friends gone
.

Letter from the Front

Never before had he talked to the dead. Now, the only real conversations he had were with Irish. With the living, he was silent. The replacement had arrived, his new partner, a decent boy who’d come directly from training in England. His name was Hirtle, and he was from Nova Scotia. He tried to tell Jim about his girl in England, his friends who had joined up and where they were and what had happened to them all. But Jim did not want these bursts of intimacy. He did not want to be unfriendly; he did not want to get to know anyone new, exchange stories or backgrounds. The promotion was offered again and, this time, Jim accepted.