Radio Belly (10 page)

He made it halfway down the block before they caught up. It took eight men to bring him down. A dog pile of cops and neighbours. Stefan at the bottom, shrieking and laughing in sock feet, his blue-black moustache smudged.

He was committed. Not exactly schizophrenia, the doctors said this time, although closely related. Not quite a mood disorder, although Stefan's moods were certainly disordered. Not quite autism, but not unlike it in presentation. Not quite psychosis, although he would need to take antipsychotics for the rest of his life. Not brain injury
per se,
although areas of the brain were affected. They ran tests and tinkered with his medicine for weeks—medicine chasing the side effects of medicine in a great loop. By the time she was finally allowed to visit, what he resembled most was a zoo animal, caged and asleep in the back corner of himself.

At the hearing they read aloud the things Mary had said at Stefan's intake. Dr. Wong was there to comment on Mary's suitability as a caretaker. They read the police report, letters from neighbours, and then they sent Mary and Stefan home under strict probation: he would take his meds and attend outpatient therapy, she would begin therapy herself and attend a three-month “caregiver workgroup.” It felt like divorce—a combination of private fear and public shame. She had shared too much and now she was being punished. Now she had to take this strange man home, this whale of a man who had swallowed her son whole, and learn how to love him. It was humiliating. It was tits and a beard—more than she could bear.

Now this. Arson. Possibly murder. She thinks of all those someday mothers back at the resort, of the staff, of the man who rented them the boat—all barbecued now. And here she is, just one more stupid fool who thought,
Not my boy,
right up until the last minute.

“My fire,” Stefan says and he is up, heading for his kayak. It's only once he's walked away that she remembers that doctor—not even a doctor, a male nurse—who had stopped her in the hospital lobby about a week after Stefan had been admitted. “I know your boy,” he'd said. Mary had started to back away, but he wouldn't let her go. He held her by the wrist and did what no other doctor or nurse has since. He asked how she was taking it all, if there was anything she needed. He spoke to her like an old friend, like it was her turn to talk, he would wait.

“I just wish I knew what he's feeling,” she finally said. “I want to understand.”

His answer: “Imagine your guilt is a city and you are lost in it. Everywhere you go, every bad thing you see, it's all your fault and you can't find your way home.” He flung his arm to take in the room, the city outside the hospital doors. “Imagine feeling responsible for all of this, all the time.”

It's only once she remembers Stefan's city of guilt, his sprawling sense of responsibility, that she realizes he didn't start the fire, couldn't have. She stumbles down the beach after him, but by the time she can catch up he has already pushed off into the night, into the water whose features she cannot read. Forever his accomplice, she gets into her boat and follows.

SHE REMEMBERS THE sea as a landscape—mountains piggy-backing mountains, valleys steep and narrow. She remembers how the wind ripped the paddle from her hands and set her spinning like a toothpick in a drain, then tipping into the cold water and her limbs struck dumb.
If we get out of this.
She doesn't remember a thing after that, until she was hauled up into the light.

Now she is blanketed, with a cup of something so hot it feels cold. Her vision is blurred but she can see she's on a boat within boats, that they're all tied together and people are climbing up from the different holes. She keeps trying to put her cup down and stand, but every time a man with an eye patch pushes her down, puts the cup back in her hands.
Drink,
he says.
Keep warm.

She looks around, takes in all the hats and patches and hooks and headscarves and understands—they've been rescued by pirates. Her stomach curls up, dies a little. They're holding Stefan captive somewhere, or worse. She thinks of the terrible things that must happen on high seas—drunken rituals, human sacrifice.

The pirates keep asking her the same questions—her name, the date, where, why, over and over—but she can't answer. In the distance she hears people screaming, the wet thud of bodies hitting water.
The plank,
she thinks, and then she calls out for Stefan.

They crowd around, talking about her as if she's not there. Soon they'll ask for her wallet. After that, who knows?
Cubbyshock, cubbyshock,
they keep saying. She doesn't trust her ears. Everything is stuttering. She closes her eyes tight and when she opens them again, Stefan is beside her.
Could be shock. Give her some space.
He hugs her, holds her hand. He is smiling—she doesn't understand why he's smiling—and his skin and hair are sparkling, greenish-white.
We're okay, Mom. You're in shock, but we're okay.

The pirate approaches with another hot drink. She jumps. Stefan understands then: it's that old game, “What am I?” She is Fear.

It's just costumes,
he says.
Halloween early, for the kids.
She looks around then and sees not just pirates, but mermaids, cats, bearded ladies. Children too—little ghosts, mice, princesses. And strange gourds carved into jack-o'-lanterns. Sails up and not for sailing. Just because. Lights, music. A bunch of hippies having a party. Not pirates.

The man who brought the drink lifts his eye patch—two kind blue eyes—and sits next to Stefan. Soon they are talking about solar heating, and vegetable gardens. Other people join in.
Off-grid,
the pirate keeps saying. They live out here, off-grid, all year round. They go to shore a few times a year to get everything they need. Some people have cabins tucked away on these small islands, some have gardens or greenhouses.

A few of us haven't stepped on land since the Vietnam War,
the pirate says proudly.

Can't touch the ground,
Stefan says.

Exactly.
The pirate laughs. Everyone laughs.
That's exactly what!

Then it's Stefan's turn. He talks about life on land, about Walmart, Starbucks, the cops, then he starts in on his usual rant:
Ever notice how moustaches aren't the same as they used to be? Used to be you could tell what kind of man, but now...

Everything in Mary pauses. This could be it, Stefan's moment of spectacle.

On one of the other boats a piñata bursts. Hard candy rain.

She pulls on Stefan's sleeve to lead him away—if there was a plank she would walk it—but she has no strength.

Yeah! Yeah, I did notice that,
the pirate answers.
I keep seeing all these young guys with these old-guy moustaches.
He pats Stefan on the back and cackles.
That's right!

Someone else joins in.
I got one. Ever notice how dogs aren't how they used to be? I mean, who's really in control, the dogs or the owners?

And another:
Did you hear the
CIA
invented Facebook to keep track of everyone after 9/11?

They circle around, talking about radio waves and cities and government surveillance. Stefan has popped the lid on something, given them all permission to vent. He stands at the centre of it all, looking proud and perfectly at home here, among these pirates and mermaids and conspiracy theorists.

She drops her hand from his sleeve and notices her own skin sparkling blue-green. She wants to ask someone about it but she's tongue-tied, too tired to find the words. Then it occurs to her, maybe no one else can see these sparkles, maybe they've been secretly winking out at her these past months, her own private Morse code, showing her the way.

The pirate sees her looking and leans in.
Phosphorescence,
he says. And when that doesn't register:
Organisms in the water. Amazing little guys. They collect sunlight all day long and glow all night.
He leans over the edge of the boat and scoops up some water.
See.
The water flashes in his hands, shy glitter.

On the next boat, kids are suddenly tearing off their costumes. They can't get them off fast enough. Everyone stands to watch as the kids jump into the water—one-two-three-four—all on top of each other. An explosion of neon light where they land, a solar system of bright bubbles rising all around them.

Mary shivers. It wasn't long ago she was gulping that water.

They'll be all right,
the pirate says at her side.
There's a warm current here, comes all the way from Japan. The only reason you two are still alive.

The kids are putting on a show now. They look like electric frogs with their arms and legs lit up green. Even the water running down their hair and into their eyes is glowing.

Stefan laughs loud with his mouth hanging open, eyes flashing in amazement. It's a look she hasn't seen in years. Finally the world was behaving as it should. Glow-in-the-dark water. Tropical currents. Here at last was a little bit of magic.

She sits down, closes her eyes, and next thing the pirate is carrying her down into the belly of the boat. Someone is playing a mandolin in the corner. The place smells of chili and cornbread. She is tucked into a narrow bed and the people are bringing blankets, hot water bottles. Above her, a homemade mobile turns slowly—beach glass, feathers, driftwood, bones. Something about that mobile tells her that risking everything these past months was worth it. The omens were good. A million secret little lights were leading her all along, to this.

Just before she drifts off she remembers the bargain she made, out there in the water, her final offer to a disease that has never played by the rules.
If we make it through this, I'll be the sick one.
Now, lying in this soft pirate's bed, mute and strange even to herself, she knows the bargain has been accepted. And she knows that tomorrow she will go back on land long enough to buy the first sailboat she sees. Then she'll sail out here and tie on with the rest of the pirates. Yes, tomorrow it begins: Can't Touch the Ground for as long as it will last.

T
HE LAST TIME Lena's mother calls, everything seems normal. Normalish. Normal enough.

Lena is standing in the Shark Museum at the time, looking into the mouth of a huge taxidermy shark. Mr. Kapp, the proprietor, lost his arm to this very shark decades ago, but now, it seems, they cohabit peacefully. The shark's head takes up most of the living room but acts as a kind of coffee table.

“And where do you call from now?” Ama yells in her thick Slavic accent. Already she forgets she's the one who dialled.

“New Brunswick,” Lena answers. Best to leave the shark out of it. It's the little things that confuse Ama these days.

“New Bruns-
who
?” Ama shouts. This isn't forgetfulness, Lena reminds herself, but Ama's brand of humour. All across Canada it's been the same: Mani-
who
-ba, On-
who
-io,
Who
-bec. She waits a beat and sure enough Ama gives her signature “Ha!” to indicate she's joking. “And how is the museum?” she asks next.

Lately, Ama seems to have forgotten Lena promotes museums in general, rather than working at, say, the gift shop of one in particular. Lena doesn't correct her. She's decided not to give too much negative attention to these little slip-ups. Besides, her career has recently tanked and she doesn't want to get into it.

“It's fine,” she says, following a group of adults into Mr. Kapp's dining room. Looking at the hole Mr. Kapp cut into the wall to make way for the shark's midsection, seeing how the drywall is shredded, not unlike a shark bite, a small sadness blooms in her stomach. This is the kind of thing she would have been able to share with Ama once. Once they would have laughed about it, but now it would just disorient her.

“Your brother, Yakov, likes old things too,” Ama says in a faraway voice.

Lena pauses. She doesn't have a brother or know anyone named Yakov.

People back home have warned her this might happen. They say Ama has been calling everyone old-world names lately and asking them to fetch water from the well, but Lena is pretty sure most people just don't get Ama's humour.

“Funny!” Lena says, laughing loud, “but, seriously, how is the fortune-telling?” Ama has been reading palms out of her home since Lena was young.

“Is fine,” Ama says, snapping back to the moment. “So tell me, how you find husband when always you are running? Why you don't come home and have me my grandkids?” Lena can feel her heart beating in her ears. Before the abortion, this used to be Ama's rally cry—“Come home, find man, make baby”—but it's been years since she's heard it. She never told Ama what she'd done, of course, but she always suspected Ama knew.

At this point in the conversation Lena would usually change the subject, reminding Ama that she is the “Museum Lady,” that one-point-five museums close their doors every week, and if she isn't travelling the country documenting their collections, all that history will be scattered in junk shops across the nation. But it's been a bizarre week. On Monday—the high point of her career—she received the news that she had been declared a “Great Canadian” by the Heritage Canada Foundation. Then, on Friday—the end of her career—she found out her Canada Council for the Arts funding has been cut and her publisher isn't interested in any more museum books.

Lena wants to say “There is no more ‘Museum Lady.'” She wants to tell Ama the story of her week, to confess about the abortion and explain that it just wasn't the right time, but it would only overwhelm her. “Someday, Ama,” she says instead, “maybe someday.” She's distracted. Some of the adults have recognized her from a spot she did on the local news several weeks back. Plus, Ama is having one of her coughing fits. It sounds tubercular, like empty boxes falling down a flight of stairs.

Looking for the nearest exit, Lena notices another ragged hole cut into the back of the house where the shark's tail continues into the yard. She slips out the back door just in time to spot a teenager carving his initials into the tail fin with a Bic pen. “Hey,” she shouts, marching over to grab the pen out of his hand. She says a hurried goodbye to Ama, promising to call next Sunday, gives the kid a short lecture on the sanctity of historical artifacts—even shark tails—and then—purely for showmanship—snaps the pen in half.

BACK IN HER CAR, wiping ink and plastic splinters off her hands, Lena is willing to admit she's been feeling a little out of sorts.

“You're grieving,” her friends say. “Your mom has dementia, possibly Alzheimer's. It's normal to be sad.”

Dementia, Alzheimer's, grief: lately people have been dropping these words like casual bombs on her life.

“This isn't about Ama,” Lena insists. “Ama is fine.”

Lena knows Ama is less than sharp these days, but then she always was a little too sharp. She's probably just mellowing in her old age. The neighbours say Ama's grasp on the present has grown slippery, that each time she goes for a long walk in her nightgown, a little less of her comes back, but Lena still doesn't see any reason for alarm. Ama can be a little vague from time to time, but she can also be perfectly lucid. Perfectly charming. Perfectly herself.

“Ama is a psychic and a refugee,” she tells her friends. “She's spent her whole life ignoring the past or lost in the future. No wonder she gets confused!”

“Mmmhmm,” her friends say. “Denial. It's part of the grieving process.”

Lena hasn't been herself lately, it's true. Yes, she's been making eyes at men in bars, in cars, in her rearview mirror during rush hour. True, she's been following her GPS to pubs in the middle of the day where she drinks too much and accidentally dances into the arms of strangers. And, yes, she did wake up in her car one morning this week, wearing men's socks, with matted hair and metallic breath, something like chicken bones sucked clean at her feet, and no memory whatsoever of how she got there. But she wouldn't call it grief exactly. More like spiritual vertigo. More like the soul's black ice, the long, drawn out skid before the crash.

THE CRASH COMES later that same week when Ama's neighbour, Mrs. Winnow, calls to say Ama is gone.

Lena is standing in Burt's Burl Museum at the time, surrounded by burl clocks, burl ashtrays, burl tables and chairs. Burt recently succumbed to a rare disease in which he was overtaken by burl-like tumours, inside and out, so his widow, Sandy, has been giving Lena the tour.

Lena gestures that she has to take the call and ducks out of the room. “What do you mean,
gone
?” she says. “Gone where?”

“Missing,” Mrs. Winnow says, sounding guilty. She's the one who assured Lena the neighbours would keep an eye on Ama until Lena could return.

“Did you check the grocery store?” Lena asks. “And the mall?” She now stands before a memorial wall documenting Burt's struggle with his disease. It seems he was in and out of hospital for years, having one tumour after another removed.

“Well, that's the thing,” Mrs. Winnow says. “It's been a couple of days.”

“A couple of
days
!” Lena has become a louder, more startled echo. “It's winter! She could be frozen in a ditch somewhere! Did you call the hospitals, the homeless shelters?”

“We've checked everywhere,” Mrs. Winnow says, “absolutely everywhere. It's like she's vanished into thin air.”

“Vanished? Into thin air? That's your best guess?” But looking at the pictures of Burt in various hospital beds, hooked up to various tubes, she wonders if vanishing isn't the better option.

Mrs. Winnow explains that Ama has been acting funny lately, that she's been running errands and talking about going back to the old country.

Lena starts to hyperventilate. Ama doesn't run errands. In the past thirty years she's barely left the house.

Mrs. Winnow goes on to explain that Ama left a note.

“What does it say?” Lena asks.

“‘Gone home.'”

“That's all?”

“And ‘Love, Ama.' It says that, too.”

Lena leans against the wall to steady herself. “So what are you saying?”

“I'm saying, do you think it's possible she went back?”

“No,” Lena snaps, “there is no
back
.” These are Ama's words, not her own. Words she's heard all her life, along with “Past is past” and “Never mind before.”

“Ama would
never
go back,” Lena reiterates. “Let's just keep looking for her here, in
this
country. I'm on my way home.”

LENA DRIVES THROUGH the night listening to a tribute show for a maritime folk legend on the CBC. Normally she wouldn't tolerate this sort of thing but she's trying to behave like a Great Canadian. Plus, all these ballads about lonely lighthouses and widows left ashore seem appropriate somehow. She too feels shipwrecked and motherless. Come to think of it, she feels downright seasick—nauseous and woozy in the knees.

Interspersed with the songs are interviews.
Oh, but he sure did know a song for every occasion,
the man's friends say. They sound almost Irish with their swollen vowels and pointy
T
s.
Oh, but there wasn't time to write 'em all down, he was gone so fast.

This idea of missed moments and lost songs seems to Lena like the saddest thing in the world and soon she is having one of those good, hearty CBC cries—the kind of cry that doesn't really count because it's wholesome and patriotic, and besides she's in her car where no one can see. She changes the station again and then again, but because of Canadian Content Rules, it seems they're all playing Neil Young at this late hour: sad songs about Northern Ontario, about low moons and the endless search for a heart of gold. She knows it's dangerous to think about one's mother while driving down the highway listening to Neil Young, so she snaps the radio off. But in that special silence that comes after Neil Young, she can't stop thinking that she too has lived her whole life in pursuit—not of golden hearts, but of the old country, her own lost song.

Lena has only ever been able to remember the past as a kind of fever dream—a smear of heat and colour at the outer edges of thought. She knows they escaped a war and were chased through the mountains. She remembers trudging through the night and fear as a feeling in the knees, but as soon as she tries to latch onto facts—who was chasing them and why—her memory yawns, dark and wide.

Lena longed for the old country the way any child would long for something half remembered. She spent years begging Ama to talk about it, but there was only one story she was ever willing to share. Even then, it wasn't really intended for Lena, but was a kind of performance piece Ama liked to put on for her Canadian friends.

“My Lena was born in a cave, in mountains, in middle of war,” Ama would begin.

Lena was born fist-first and all at once, the story went, and when she landed on the cave floor she opened her eyes and smiled. The women in the cave crowded around, declaring her a “perfect April potato,” which in that part of the world was the highest compliment for both people and potatoes. But then, a moment later, Lena roared and the women had to reinterpret the signs.

“Two things they saw,” Ama would say, holding up her fingers for effect. “One: she would be stubborn, always. And two: we would live through war.” Here her friends would nod—
Yes, yes, Lena the stubborn. Lena the potato.

“She was perfect war baby,” Ama would continue, “but heavy like bowling ball.” According to the story, she'd had to venture down into the nearest town to get a special carrier made by a man who normally made horse saddles. She'd had to give two eggs, a lump of bread and her last scrap of decency for that carrier but it was worth it because it meant she could walk through the night with Lena sleeping on her back.

“We walked straight out of war,” Ama would finish up cheerfully, “and into brand new life.”

At this point whoever Ama was telling the story to would sigh and fold their hands in their lap. Canadians loved stories of distant wars and narrow escapes. But Lena was never satisfied.

“You missed the best part,” she would interrupt. “How long did we walk for? And to where? And
why
was I so heavy?” She imagined the worst—milk heavy with mercury, shrapnel-laden potatoes, herself as an infant teething on rocks.

“Stubborn, no?” Ama would say to her friends and then they'd laugh and move off to another part of the house.

CROSSING INTO QUEBEC at dawn, Lena feels queasy and hungry at once. Is this grief, she wonders, or denial? Her tires
tha-wump, tha-wump
over the rutted highway. Good old Quebec, she thinks, Canada's collective dream of another time and place. Here was a part of Canada that longed for the old world, a place that didn't fix its roads and wasn't afraid to look back. The province's motto,
Je me souviens
, stares out at her from every licence plate. It occurs to her that Quebec is the mother she always wanted: one foot in the future, one foot in the past. Not like Ama. If Ama had a motto it would be
Forget, Forget, Forget.

Old world, new world: it was a constant source of tension between Lena and Ama. As a kid, when Lena brought home war documentaries and maps of Eastern Europe, when she asked where they were from and why they had left and who they had left behind, Ama would say, “Never mind old country.” She would clench her fists and turn red in the face. Then, like a switch being flipped, she would glom onto the future. “Tell me, when is senior prom?” she would say, brightly. “What will you wear?”

“This is Canada,” Lena would explain. “We don't do prom here.”

“But how do the girls meet the boys?” Ama would ask. “You must have Canadian cheerleading? You must have Canadian frat party?” Everything Ama knew about Canadian life, she'd learned from American TV.