Silent Time (14 page)

They put ashore against a wharf and Dulcie and the Dan-box were lifted from the boat. All hands got aboard a wagon, drawn by a horse like Dan, except that Dan had now turned into a tiny, tiny faraway horse on the other side of the river. They climbed a hill that was long, but not nearly as hard to climb as the one home. There was a building at the top with a wooden platform along the front of it. Dulcie noticed the strangest road, silver-topped rails running side by side over thick tarry strips of wood, disappearing into the trees in either direction. Moments later, her eyes opened with amazement when a great black house on wheels came out of the trees, rolling along the silver rails with a column of black chimney smoke trailing against the sky.

The toothless man put the Dan-box aboard this thing and Mother and Dulcie walked up iron stairs into the huge rolling house. Inside, there were smooth shiny seats alongside all the windows. They climbed into a seat and Mother passed some papers to a man who wore a clever hat.

The house on wheels started to move away and was soon gently rocking as the trees slipped past the windows.

Dulcie felt her eyelids getting heavy.

It was getting dark when the train pulled alongside the canopied platform of the St. John's West End Station. William led Leona and Dulcie out of the train station into a muddy parking lot swept by headlights and storm lanterns as cars and wagons looked for arriving passengers. A uniformed taxi man held a door open for them and they piled into the back seat.

“I've got a room for you at the Brownsdale Hotel,” William said to Leona. “It's not fancy but there's a double bed and you should be comfortable. I'll join you there for breakfast. I've reserved a wagon for our shopping spree tomorrow, but we'll have to hurry. Dulcie leaves on the
Portia
at three o'clock.” He held up the cheque for the estimated expenses approved by the Colonial Office and signed by Arthur Duke.

“I told you there'd be no problems,” he said.

William noticed that Leona was unusually quiet, even for her. Hardly a word passed between them right up to the moment she closed the hotel room door and left him standing in the corridor.

In the morning, after breakfast, William led the horse and wagon out of a stable at the rear of the hotel. It was a nice little buggy with a compartment in the rear for storing packages. The water-truck had just made a pass so Gower Street was not too dusty. William headed first to the west end of Water Street. He turned to catch the surprised look on Dulcie's face when the iron-banded wheels first hit the cobblestones. She jumped to her feet at the thrill of vibration and all three laughed, William realized, for the first time together.

Leona and Dulcie were both quickly caught up in the flow of the winding street; horse-drawn carriages tussled for room with automobiles; there were sidewalk pedestrians, women with parasols and fancy hats, others with sombre faces and folded arms who wore long aprons and tightly-wound hair, like Leona's; men in soiled work clothes and gentlemen in suits; boys with brooms sweeping at intersections, others waving newspapers in the air, still others shining shoes. There were huge store windows blocked with towers of tin cans and, here and there, a brace of rabbits dangled above a doorway. Dulcie pointed at the colourful shop signs: an oversized boot, a giant book, a large wooden shotgun pointing into the air. She raised her nose to the mingled smell of coal smoke, tar and salted fish. Above it all, a low brown dust cloud coloured the air.

In the interests of time, William thought it would be best to get everything they needed in two shops. The first was the Royal Stores where Dulcie tried on several pairs of shoes. She walked about waving her thumb for
good
or her little finger for
bad
until four new pairs went into boxes and aboard the wagon. Then it was on to Miss Sticks, a popular millinery and clothing shop in the East End near Prescott Street. Another hour of fittings and Dulcie had the required dresses, coats, blouses, hose and undergarments, plus an umbrella, to get her through the school year ahead without needless shame. William made her a special gift of a string of fake pearls.

Then they hurried back to the hotel for lunch and to get Dulcie dressed for the trip.

The scale of repetition in St. John's amazed Dulcie. One time in Knock Harbour, she carried beach rocks, carefully chosen for their similarity in size and colour, and laid them out one after the other on a patch of grass.
It was the longest line of rocks she'd ever seen. She stood back with her hands on her hips and admired the repetition and uniformity that she'd created all by herself.

Dulcie loved little hints of things that could go on forever. At home, she saw them mostly on a tiny scale: in the rings of sawed wood, inside a flower petal or on an insect wing. She had never seen them on the grand scale of the city. When they arrived at night, for example, the lights skipped off into the darkness like flat stones across water, except on and on and on, as far as her eyes could see. The next day she saw forever in the patterned cobblestones, in the lampposts and telegraph poles that lined the unending streets, in the tall silver columns of tin cans that filled shop windows, in rows and rows of boxes on shelves, even in the seemingly endless pairs of shiny shoes that they contained.

In one place, she saw more horses and gigs together than ever before – eating hay, drinking from troughs, stamping and pooping on the ground. The smell of sawdust and manure brought her back to Dan's shadowy room in the stable in Knock Harbour and she felt the stirring in her stomach again.

Long black strands drooped everywhere above her head attached to the buildings and poles. Dulcie had never seen anything in the air before that wasn't entirely free.

On the harbour there were boats, so many of them, and so big. Her eye trailed the arc of their breasts and she recalled proud seabirds at home cresting the waves. The sailboats circled each other on the water like the white birds wheeling about the sky at home, where Dulcie liked to watch them from a steep green hill near the Back Cove.

Dulcie had no idea that so many people could come together to create so much confusion. They were running around like the tiny black creatures that came pouring out the holes when she stamped her foot on the grassy mound in the meadow in Knock Harbour.

She wished she was big enough to stamp her foot right now and watch as all these people scurried about faster and faster like those creatures.

William swelled with pride when Dulcie came downstairs in her bright green coat, looking like a young fir tree. He noticed she was wearing the necklace.

“She made me put it on her,” Leona said, as she buttoned up the coat and tied the new felt hat with its dark blue ribbon under Dulcie's chin. William had been worried about Leona, but he detected no sign of
wavering. He decided her reticence was brought on by the unfamiliarity of the city. As for Dulcie, she seemed to be enjoying herself. But the big test for both of them would take place in a few minutes at the waterfront. They climbed aboard the waiting taxi.

As they pulled up, William spotted George Crawford, a nephew of Sir John Crawford who attended Dalhousie University in Halifax, and who, William knew, had lately volunteered to chaperone the deaf children on the crossing. He was busy gathering a group of a dozen or so children and guiding them one by one up the gangplank. William called to the young fellow and, after an inquiry about Sir John that met with an obscure reply, introduced Leona and Dulcie.

“Ah, one of the new recruits, I understand,” said George, with a toothy smile. “I know this will be difficult, Mrs. Merrigan,” he said, “so just let me know when you're ready and I'll come to lend a hand.” He stepped aside to escort another child aboard.

The time had come. Leona stooped and held Dulcie to her for a long time. Finally, she looked into the child's eyes and said, “You.” She pointed to the boat and said it again, “You.” This time she added, as gently as she could with a motion of her hand along the gangplank, “Go.” Then, she said the word that she had spent the last weeks and months repeating so that Dulcie might somehow understand, at this moment, that the journey ahead was a necessary one.

“School.”

Dulcie's eyes followed the pointing finger up the gangplank and back to Leona's eyes several times, as if carefully weighing all this out in her mind. Then, to William's amazement, she turned, and walked up by herself to join the children standing at the rail.

“You, good girl,” Leona called, holding up her thumb. “Good girl.”

As the ship moved from the wharf, Dulcie raised her arm, opened and closed her hand in an awkward goodbye. Leona and William waved, too, as the steamer slowly slipped away from the dock and made its way toward the harbour entrance. Leona and Dulcie looked and looked and looked at each other for as long as the distance would allow.

The ship had navigated through the Narrows and was disappearing on the open sea when William cautiously pressed his hand into Leona's shoulder. She betrayed no reaction to the gesture and merely nodded when he suggested they walk back to the hotel where Leona needed to collect her few things and make ready to go home on the evening train. He could only imagine the feelings that swept through her, knowing full well that she would not express them. He wrestled with his own mixed
feelings of sadness and satisfaction but, above all, he found himself savagely moved by the fact that, throughout the event, neither the mother nor the daughter had shed a single tear.

Dulcie watched from the deck as Mother slowly disappeared into the buildings that tumbled down the big hill toward the water. She stood at the guard rail as the boat brushed past the tall cliffs and sought some hidden road in the sea. A man laid his arm on her and tried to move her to come inside, but she refused. She didn't move or adjust her gaze from the spot where Mother stood until the land faded into a thin, thin line, like the one in the distance far away from Knock Harbour Beach. The sea surrounded her, then, on all sides, wider than anything she had ever imagined or dreamed.

Finally, she let the man take her by the hand and he led her down into the belly of the ship. She took her place among a group of well-dressed children who were busy sending their thoughts with fingers, arms, hands and faces. But the thoughts darted about so fast that Dulcie couldn't catch them. The quick gestures weren't tied to anything she knew. Still, the children looked at her with calm, friendly faces. A pretty girl approached and touched the string of beads around Dulcie's neck. The girl turned to the others and made a motion with her hand as if tracing the small white beads along her own throat. She pointed to Dulcie. The children all smiled and, repeating the motion, pointed at Dulcie, too. Dulcie wasn't sure, but she thought they were giving her a name.

It seemed a very long time before the children climbed out the belly of the boat and stepped into a silver-grey morning to see another gigantic knot of buildings flowing down the land to the water's edge. From the deck of the ship, Dulcie once again saw horses and machines and people moving madly about under clouds of dust and columns of smoke. Roads hidden in the sea must begin and end with places like this.

The boat touched land and the children walked down a small bridge to the wharf. A woman prettier than any Dulcie had ever seen smiled and waved excitedly, hugging each child in turn as he or she stepped ashore. The woman gave Dulcie a warm hug, too, and gently squeezed her hand.
In the mad flurry of activity around her Dulcie saw a man loading her Dan-box aboard a wagon. She ran to claim it. The man laughed and, after sending thoughts with his mouth to the woman, made room for Dulcie on the seat. She clambered aboard the wagon loaded with trunks. She wasn't worried for the horses since they were much bigger than Dan and there were two instead of one. Behind her, the rest of the children piled into three other carriages. In a moment, she and her driver led them all into the flow of horses, machines and people.

They came to a stop outside a brick building with so many different windows and doorways that Dulcie was reminded a little of the magical building in Knock Harbour. But that was so much smaller. One room. This building of arches, domes, towers and pyramids, wide doors and elegant stone steps, of iron ladders angled down its sides, would take a lifetime to explore.

But she also recalled her hands held flat upon a table and, again, something crept across the inside of her stomach.

Older boys and men were waiting on the stone steps when the wagon arrived. They unloaded the trunks, first for the girls and then for the boys, who gathered on another set of steps at the far end of the building. Dulcie followed her driver, who had the Dan-box in his arms, through the wide doors of the entranceway. Inside there were more sweeping stairs to climb. The girls were led to the largest room Dulcie had ever seen. There were rows of tidy beds along each wall. The man placed her Dan-box at the foot of one bed. He pointed to the bed and at Dulcie. He opened the door of a big metal box that stood beside the bed and pretended to take off his coat. Dulcie took off her coat, the man put it on a wooden hanger, hung it inside the box and closed the door.

Then they all went downstairs to another very large room where a group of boys and girls of all ages were seated before a man in a beautiful brown suit. He had fine hair, a thick moustache tinged with grey, and collars so white they seemed to glow. The man was sending thoughts, sometimes with his hands, sometimes with his mouth, and sometimes, it seemed, by white marks left by a fat white stick he swiped against a shiny black board. Again, Dulcie couldn't help but recall the building with the enchanted windows, the unfriendly gust of air upon her face.

But this man was not cross. He seemed delighted to see them all. He waved them into seats at the front and, glancing at a piece of paper, made white marks in two columns down the board. When the man pointed to a set of markings, a child raised his or her hand, then went
and stood in front of the others. The faces in the assembly stared back and smiled, heads nodding agreeably. The man wrote again and there was a long pause as everyone looked around the room. Dulcie felt a hand on her arm. The pretty woman was behind her and motioned her to stand. Dulcie stood and turned to the faces. The man pointed to the marks on the board, then, after moving his fingers into several different positions while moving his mouth, pointed at her.