A Drop of Rain (10 page)

I am looking forward to spending Saturday evening with Joe. I need to talk to him. I adore him. He is my rock.

A weekend to myself, except for an evening with Eva on Saturday. Eva showed me some of the handwritten notes she has found among Hanna's effects. She asked me if I thought Hanna was mentally ill.

I had to say, yes, at some point Hanna lost her sanity. Latterly, in Montreal, Hanna did crack. But I reminded Eva of the old dictum, “In much madness, sense.”

I said that Hanna had shown “impressive courage” in her life choices.

I also said that I think Hanna is quite sane now.
“Love has restored her,” I said. And Eva started crying.

I told Eva that she herself needed a few days of complete rest. Then we watched some videos Eva wanted to see: two French Canadian films called
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
, and
Jesus of Montreal
. They had English subtitles.

Eva and I agreed that the films validate some of Hanna's criticisms of Quebec society, and North American society.

Before I took Eva home, I brewed her a pot of herbal tea to help her get a good night's sleep.

I drove aimlessly around the countryside Sunday afternoon, missing Eva, who spent a much needed day in bed. The boys have gone with Jill to visit her parents. I got some decent shots of a front moving through.

Sunday evening I went through my unread book collection and spent a few hours with Joseph Campbell's
Hero with a Thousand Faces
. Marked assignments Monday.

Saturday, October 16, 1999

I have been mopping this floor endlessly. I have mopped the entire area around the key desk, the entrance in front of the main reception desk, and the halls between. The mop is enormous. The bucket is enormous. My arms are hurting. My back is hurting. I'm almost finished mopping. Suddenly some kids from my school thunder past like a herd of retro Mickey Mouse Club rejects, tramping mud on my clean floor.

“Didn't you see the sign?” I say.

“What sign?” says Melony Price.

“Wet Floor,” I say.

“So sorry, darling,” Melony says, “but we have to walk somewhere. Now don't go and tell Mr. Dunlop on me.”

I don't say anything. I just gape.

Melony brays to the herd: “She's an incredible brown noser! You should see the way she sucks up to our history teacher! The poor thing is in love with an old man!”

When they enter the women's locker room, I leave the mop and bucket in the middle of the floor and run to the staff room. Mary is there. When she looks at me, I start to cry.

I sit on the sofa and cry for a long time. Mary sits beside me in a chair waiting silently and watching me with her all-seeing, dark-grey eyes. Then I tell her about the past four years, about Hanna going crazy and my mother always being like a teacher with me and like a panicking kid with Hanna. Mary listens carefully, and when I finish she makes me a mug of hot chocolate and tells me she will visit our house.

Mary thinks maybe she knows my mother and Hanna from a long time ago in Poland. Anyway, she'd like to talk to somebody besides me and her landlady. Mary didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving last weekend. I feel awful that I didn't ask her to come to our house for dinner on Saturday. But she probably wouldn't have come anyway. She had dinner by herself, and then she went to church. She couldn't go to church on Sunday morning, because she was working.

Mary came for dinner this evening. I knew it was okay to invite her without letting Mom know ahead of time. On Saturday, Mom always tidies our place and cooks a special meal for Joe and me. I'm always allowed to invite someone to join us, but I usually don't. I thought about inviting Sarah, but I didn't want her to see how crowded our house is, or how strange Hanna is. Sarah wouldn't understand. She would be shocked if she saw
how our living room is filled with boxes of documents from Hanna's room in Montreal.

The documents are reports, pamphlets and newspaper clippings. They are also Hanna's notes from meetings of the Civil Liberties Association, Native rights groups, students' rights groups, gay and lesbian rights' groups, AIDS victim groups, unemployed groups and anti-poverty groups. The boxes aren't labelled; Mom has not organized them yet. There are also some placards. They are leaning against the living room walls. Here is a sample, translated by me from French: “WE, THE UNEMPLOYED, ARE DEMONSTRATING IN GREAT NUMBERS. WE ARE PROTESTING AGAINST CUTS TO UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE! IT IS NECESSARY TO FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT, NOT THE VICTIMS OF UNEMPLOYMENT!”

The woman was obsessed! The only thing Hanna didn't protest about was Quebec separating from the rest of Canada. Mom says that shows Hanna's “independence of thought”, because Hanna didn't think about what everybody else was thinking about. I myself think about global warming sometimes, but I know it's inevitable. It's just going to happen. I can't do anything about it.

Mary and I finished work at four-thirty p.m. Then Mary went home, had a shower and changed into a pretty, sky-blue dress. Then, on her way to my house, she bought a bouquet of red and white carnations for Hanna (red and white are Poland's colours), and a box of chocolates for Mom. Mary shook hands with Hanna, Mom and Joe. Then she chatted cheerfully in her awful English. Soon everyone was chatting cheerfully and even laughing.

Mary knows how to make people relax. Also, by amazing coincidence, Hanna was a patient of Mary's long ago. They remembered each other well.

At the dinner table, Mary, Mom, Joe and I talked about all kinds of topics like the weather, teaching, truck driving, cleaning, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last spring, the Kosovar refugees coming to Canada, the Pope's (fourth? fifth?) visit to Poland last June, Mary's children and grandchildren, and Anne Murray's daughter getting anorexia but recovering. We even discussed the fact that in the nineteenth century there used to be a stop on the Underground Railway right here in Mapleville, and local people hid runaway slaves.

Mary, Mom, Joe and I did all this talking at the kitchen table. This is our only table, because our house is too small for a dining room. Then Mary visited with Hanna, while I did the dishes, and Mom and Joe went to a “long, relaxing” movie. Would you believe
Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace?
I thought that was for kids! Mom said the movie was too “violent,” but otherwise “fun.”

Hanna was amazingly talkative while Mary was with her. I could hardly believe how much Hanna said to Mary. And I am sure Hanna had a really nice evening. Mary didn't talk about anything medical or depressing with Hanna, she just treated her like a normal person and told her stories about her own life now and back in Poland, as she always does.

Mom's doctor just barged in last Wednesday, unannounced, in the middle of our dinner, about two weeks after the nurse asked him to come. He just
marched in and started talking to Hanna about euthanasia.

“Theoretically, you can end your life any time by swallowing a bottle of morphine tablets,” the doctor said. “But I can't authorize that. I understand your philosophy, but the law is the law.” The doctor spoke English too quickly for Hanna to understand. Then he got impatient when he felt that Mom took too long translating what he had said into French. He left after only about ten minutes. Mom was furious with him.

Got a job at a supermarket to earn money for a car. Dad said on the phone that he will help if I earn half myself.

So far, Steve is still staying away from us, and Mom is still depressed. It's good that Mom and I are so busy right now. We can avoid each other.

No time to draw or paint this weekend. No time for anything except work and school. Dad didn't have much time to talk on the phone. He's got a big new contract.

Some of the guys who work at the supermarket are morons. All they talk about is how much they drank, how many times they've had sex, and how fast they drove their car.

Luckily, I am an excellent liar.

Life sucks.

Mr. Speers said I should try to do well in my academic subjects, not just barely pass. He says he thinks I might be able get a scholarship for art college.

Sketched stuffed birds last weekend. On Saturday, it was raining by the time I got almost as far as the
park on my bike, so I went into the museum. By the time I finished, the sun had come out again. A lot of species from around this area are already extinct. I did a pretty good passenger pigeon.

Started a cartoon strip called, “Nothing.”

In the story nothing happens, so I draw nothing.

The cartoon strip is hilarious.

Hardy-har-har.

One evening during the war there comes a quiet tap, tap, tap on our door. To open your door after dark is dangerous. Many people never do. But Mommy opens the door.

“Can you hide us in your house?” whispers a shadow.

“Come in quickly,” says Mommy, wiping her hands on her apron.

Six men. Jews! We know them by the yellow stars on their shirts. Nazi soldiers are rounding them up like cattle, shooting them, or sending them to death camps. These Jews are good people. They are our neighbours. When I was a little kid, I went to school with their little kids.

Some Catholic kids said matzo bread is made of gentile flesh rolled around in barrels with nails sticking through, so all the blood runs out. But Mommy said matzo bread is just dry flat bread, so I tried it, and it tasted good. In religion class I visited the synagogue once. It was interesting.

Anyway, it isn't only the Jews they are sending away. It is Christians like us, too. Everybody the Nazis want to get rid of. Priests, teachers. Anybody who can fight them.

“I'll hide you in the water closet,” says Mommy. “Maybe the soldiers won't look there.”

The Jews follow Mommy to the very farthest, far back part of the house. One moment, and those six grown men all squeeze somehow into the water closet.

A water closet is a tiny room with just a toilet. No bathtub. Not even a sink to wash your hands. Really like a closet or a phone booth. It is small even to me alone, and I am just one little girl.

“Not a sound. Not a movement,” says Mommy to the poor frightened men. “If the soldiers find you, they will shoot us too.”

“We know,” say the Jews. “God bless you.”

Mommy shuts the door of the water closet. Then she leads us children back to the living room where we have been playing.

She kisses Johnny and me and tells us to go on playing. (My sister Elizabeth is not home. She has gone with Grandpa to do something.)

“Say nothing about this,” Mommy warns us. “Act as though nothing has happened.”

“We understand,” say Johnny and I.

I go on playing with the big doll my aunt brought me from Krakow long ago, before the war. I cut her open to see what is inside, and then I sew her up, like Mommy sews up wounded people. Johnny opens up the old clock that doesn't work any more, and then he puts it back together again. He is like Grandpa and
Daddy, my brother. He knows how to fix machines.

Soon there comes a bang, bang, bang on our door. Mommy opens the door, and Nazi soldiers barge into the house. Big blonde men in grey uniforms, with guns and dirty boots.

Johnny and I do not move or speak.

“Where are the Jews?” demand the soldiers, rushing into the house. “Where have you hidden them?”

“There are no Jews here,” says Mommy. “I am making supper, and my children are playing quietly. We are alone here. See for yourself.”

The enemy soldiers begin to search from room to room. They step on our rugs in their dirty boots. They yank open our doors and drawers. They throw down or knock over our things. Crash! Crash!

Will they look in the water closet?

Mommy stands icy-still under the picture of the Virgin Mary. Even though she isn't moving her lips, I know she is praying

I go on sewing my doll. My brother goes on fixing the clock. Johnny and I are very careful. We put things back the way we find them. We like everything to be just so.

The Nazi soldiers are not careful. They overturn furniture and don't put it back. They empty cupboards and leave our clothes lying in messy heaps. They leave dirt on Mommy's nice clean floors.

It seems like the soldiers are searching for hours.

They search every room in our house. They search everywhere.

Except the water closet.

Then, finally, the soldiers are gone. And they haven't found the Jews!

The soldiers have left the front door open. Johnny gets up and closes it quietly. Mommy kneels in front of the Virgin Mary. Now she is praying out loud. I run to the door of the water closet.

“The soldiers are gone,” I whisper. “But don't come out yet, because they might come back.”

When Grandpa and Elizabeth return after dark, Grandpa tells my brother to fetch some of Daddy's clean white shirts.