A Hard Witching (18 page)

Perpetua rose slowly and went back to the window, but both
Joe and the woman (she could not, no matter how she tried, think of her as Myra) had disappeared. Perpetua felt a small quiver of panic before she realized that Joe had no doubt invited her into his workshop. They were probably standing right now beneath all those neat rows of jars he’d glued by their lids to the low ceiling, to hold nails and screws and bolts; she was probably smelling wood shavings and pretending to admire (or genuinely admiring) his carvings: tiny cowboy boots and miniature horses, trains and racing cars and semi trucks (these latter mostly for children around town, and now their children). She would ask politely if he’d done the enormous, elaborately carved slab of varnished cedar out front that announced
Dunworkin,
and below that, in smaller letters,
Joseph and Perpetua Resch.
He could keep her there for hours, pointing out the intricacies of detail in a boot or a wheel or a horse’s mane, the character of each different wood—the soft, cheap convenience of knotty pine or the hard, red richness of cherry (bloodwood, he called it), so rare and expensive out west—the grain, the weight, the variations in colour and texture, the shine that could be brought to any piece through sanding. How one could make even the softest wood gleam like marble. He could keep her there all night. But just as Perpetua was deciding whether or not to go out to them (she rarely left the house now, not much at all since the surgery), they both appeared at the doorway to the workshop. Joe pointed toward the kitchen, and the woman looked up, shading her eyes. Perpetua stepped back from the window, even though they probably could not see her. She knew what Joe had said as he pointed: “Your Auntie Pet’s up at the house there. Go on up. She’ll be real glad you’re here.”

So Perpetua busied herself around the kitchen, wiping the already spotless counters, moving canisters a fraction of an
inch into alignment, her hands shaking, and all the time thinking, Magda, Magda.

And then the doorbell.

“Come in,” she called pleasantly, as if half-surprised.

When the woman opened the screen door and stepped into the air-conditioned kitchen on a wave of hot, dry heat, with all that sunlight still streaming in ribbons from her yellow hat, Perpetua came slowly toward her, trying as much as possible to hide the limp from the surgery, trying to swallow that terrible lump in her throat. She took a breath and tried to smile, holding her hands out. “Well, well, look at this,” she began to say, but before she had finished, the woman turned away and covered her face with her big red hands. Magda’s hands.

Perpetua took her in an awkward embrace. The woman held the tips of her fingers pressed to her eyes. “What is it, dear?” Perpetua asked (she could not say Myra). “Tell me. What’s wrong?”

The woman shook her head, still half-turned away, returned Perpetua’s embrace with one fumbling, fleshy arm that smelled faintly of geraniums. The woman shook her head, lifted her crumpled face as though in a tremendous effort to stop her tears. She shook her head again and said something that Perpetua could not hear, and in spite of the fact that she hated to do it, Perpetua said, “What? What’s that?” and the woman repeated herself. Perpetua thought it was either “Glad to come back” or “Sad to come back.” Impossible to ask again.

The woman was embarrassed, Perpetua could see, so she said, “Come in,” and walked her slow, rolling walk to the table, knowing it would give the woman a moment to pull herself together before she followed. Perpetua sat down first, folding her hands in her lap to still the trembling, then looked across the table as the woman pulled out a chair for herself, planted
the heavy straw bag with great care at her feet and adjusted the waistband of her skirt. She removed her hat, lifting it too daintily for her hands, with two fingers at each side of the brim, and finally raised her face, gave that same crumpled smile. And it was Magda’s face, streaky red and swollen from the tears and the heat—Magda, who had never been beautiful but who could look at you with a kind of light in her eyes that would set your very bones gently humming. Perpetua stared at the woman, so hungry for that feeling, just one small glimmer, that she almost reached across the table and grasped her by the shoulders to bring her closer. Perpetua looked, and she saw no light there. And then the woman was not Magda, but only Myra, with the red and swollen and lightless eyes. Perpetua felt her heart spill over again, not for Magda now, but finally, after all this time, for Myra. This woman. How could it be?

“So,” Myra was saying, her voice soft and trembling, “it’s been a long time.”

Perpetua could barely catch the words. These last years, her hearing had been growing gradually worse, was so bad now that all conversation had a strange, dreamy quality. She leaned forward a little, working her hands in her lap, forcing the awful clenching of her heart to subside.

“How are you?” Myra asked. “What’s going on with you these days?”

And before Perpetua could stop herself, she said, surprised at the sudden feebleness of her voice, “Nothing good. Joe had a heart attack last summer”—she thought Myra said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know”—“and I had surgery on my leg, and they put a pin in that’s giving me a lot of trouble, it’s painful, I don’t sleep much anymore.” And then she thought, Why did I say that? I didn’t mean to say that. How terrible I must sound to her.

Myra said, “I’m sorry,” again, and then, “Uncle Joe looks good. How is he?”

“What?” Perpetua said. “Joe?”

Myra raised her voice a little, leaned forward also. “Yes, how is he? He looks good.”

“Yes.” Perpetua nodded. “He’s good. He’s the same.”

“He keeps busy out there, I guess.”

“Yes,” Perpetua said, “he keeps busy.”

She thought of Joe in his workshop, every day now since he’d retired, puttering around, sawing and sanding and patiently scraping. He wouldn’t admit it, but his eyes were going. He wasn’t as good anymore with the fine detail.

“He didn’t know me,” Myra said, pushing out a little laugh. “I guess he wouldn’t. He thought I was selling something.”

Perpetua smiled and nodded. “Yes, they come around sometimes. Always selling something.” She shrugged. “We never buy. Just from the Hutterites.”

The woman nodded, leaned her elbows on the table, took them off again. “And how,” she said, “how is Joe’s family? He has a sister, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Perpetua said, thinking how strange it was that Myra should remember that. “In Medicine Hat. We don’t see her much now. She’s busy. With the grandchildren.”

“Oh,” Myra said, “she has grandchildren?”

“What?”

“She has grandchildren?”

“Yes. Great-grandchildren now. Two of them. Joe has pictures up,” she said, rising slowly and leading Myra into the living room. Her hands had stopped trembling, but she was so conscious of the nearness of Myra’s breath and her arms behind her that she still felt a little flutter of her heart. She wanted to touch her again, but it would seem strange. Myra would wonder. So instead, she pointed to where the pictures stood on a little shelf, all of them, in their brassy frames.

“There’s more,” she said, “out in the shop, all their school
pictures. Joe probably showed you. Don’t ask me their names. There’s too many now.”

Myra looked at the pictures, each in turn, making polite comments Perpetua did not always hear. She wished Myra would remember to speak up. She didn’t like to keep asking her to repeat. Myra paused over a big black and white one in a wooden frame.

“That one,” Perpetua said, “is me. And Joe. Our wedding picture.” Stupid. Of course it was their wedding, Myra could see that.

Myra picked it up. “You were lovely.”

“Oh,” Perpetua said, shrugging. She knew she was not.

Myra placed the photograph gently on its doily, then picked up a small blurry snapshot of Magda and Martin sitting on one of their father’s horses—Shotgun, Perpetua thought, though she couldn’t really remember.

“This is Mother, isn’t it,” Myra said, pausing.

Perpetua wondered if she saw herself in that face. Surely she must, she must have pictures of her own. Wouldn’t she?

“And Uncle Martin,” Myra said. “How is he?”

Perpetua was about to say, Not good, but instead she said, “The same,” and wiped a bit of dust away from the frame with her thumb.

“I’d like to see him,” Myra said. “Is he still on the farm?”

Perpetua looked up in surprise. “No,” she said, “he’s in the home. For years now.”

“Oh,” Myra said, and put the picture down on the shelf.

She is ashamed, Perpetua thought, she thinks she should know these things. How could she know? She had been lost to them all for years, to Magda even. To Magda most of all.

“Your father,” Perpetua asked then, because she felt she should, “how is he?”

“Fine. In Brandon still. With Lois. They’re fine.”

The stepmother, Perpetua remembered. The one who’d sent Magda Christmas cards faithfully, each year, with a brief letter and a picture of Myra standing posed in front of their upright piano, always the same pose, to show how much she’d grown. Lois, a stranger, who knew more about Magda’s daughter than Magda herself did. It was too sad. Perpetua would not let herself think about it any longer.

“Where do you live now? Brandon?”

“Nipawin.”

“Where?”

Myra raised her voice. “Nipawin. I teach there. Two and three.”

Perpetua nodded. She watched Myra pick up pictures, set them back down, the same ones she’d already looked at.

“What, are you on a holiday?”

“Yes. Sort of. It’s summer vacation.” She smiled a little. “I guess that’s my holiday.”

“Out here?”

Myra turned away.

Perpetua straightened a couple of the frames. “You picked the worst time, July. You have air conditioning in your car?”

“Yes,” Myra said without turning back. “It’s hot, all right.”

“I was never one for the heat,” Perpetua said. “Everyone complains about winter. Not me. Joe neither. Nothing bothers him.”

Then, finally, she asked, “Are you married?”

“Yes,” Myra said, replacing the photograph she was looking at. “Robert Russell. We met at the university. His family is from around Kindersley. The Malcolm Russells. His grandparents are Aida and Clemens Russell …?”

She trailed off.

Perpetua frowned. “Where is he? Working?”

“Yes,” she said, “he had to work.”

“You have children?”

“No.”

Perpetua gave Myra’s wrist a little squeeze and, though she was reluctant to let go, went slowly to sit in the armchair by the window. She made a motion for Myra to take a seat on the chesterfield.

“You want coffee?” she asked.

“No. Thank you.”

“Juice? Water?”

“No, I’m good, thanks.”

Perpetua folded her hands in her lap. The clock ticked out from the mantel, softly. Beyond the yellowed blinds, a car rolled past on the gravel road. She tried not to stare at Myra, though she felt as if she could swallow her whole with her eyes. That face. When she thought of it, her throat ached, and so she thought instead about Joe, working steadily out in the shop, listened for the sound of his radio or the high whine of the saw. But all was quiet.

“I guess,” Myra said finally, fiddling with the hem of her white skirt, her eyes glistening in the yellow light, “I guess you and mother were pretty close.”

Oh, Perpetua thought, oh, my dear child. And she wanted more than anything to pull that sad body to her, hold her close against her chest. Poor unlovely child. Child of my heart. My sister’s child. Perpetua hid her hands beneath her apron.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “there was just the three of us. We had no close neighbours. Just us.”

Myra nodded. She wiped the tip of her awkward nose, stared up at a basket of silk flowers, then a brass cat, then a framed sampler Perpetua had been given years ago, decades, as a gift:
Act and suffer in silence.
She couldn’t remember now who had given it to her, only that she had hated it always. She watched
as Myra looked about the room. Finally, she could stand it no longer.

“You want to know about your mother?” she asked. “What do you want to know?”

Myra stared back at her.

“She was a good singer,” Perpetua began. “She liked all animals. On the farm, she liked to be with the animals. Except mice, which she was afraid of. I don’t know why; she wasn’t afraid of anything else. She liked the horses, her and Martin both. I was always too scared. She liked the garden. She worked hard. We all did. She wasn’t much of a one for housework.” She smiled. “She got in trouble with Mum all the time for not doing this right, not doing that right. She baked an apple pie once, Mum left all the directions, but Magda used salt instead of sugar. Martin tried to feed it to the dogs so Mum wouldn’t find out, but they wouldn’t eat it. She got in trouble for that. She liked to sing.” She lifted her hands. “I don’t know. My memory is getting worse. If you ask questions, maybe I’ll remember.”

But Perpetua felt like a fraud, looking across at that unhappy face. This was not what Myra wanted to know. Not really. She leaned forward over her knees, as close as she could get without rising, and said slowly, clearly, “She was my sister. And I loved her. Just as I loved Martin. And my mother and my father. It was all we had. Do you understand? We didn’t know anything but each other.” She stopped here, hoping Myra
would
understand. “Our family, it was everything. More than that, I can’t tell you.”

Myra stared at the carpet, unblinking.

Perpetua rose and seated herself on the chesterfield next to her. She put one arm around her shoulders and thought, This is what we’ve all come to, then, all that love. How could she explain it?

“The truth is …” she began.

She looked up then to see Joe standing in the doorway, holding a small carved horse, a red one, gleaming with all the light of new marble. She could tell by the way he turned the figure slowly in his hands that he’d been standing there for some time. The horse, she knew, was for Myra. Though his carvings fetched quite a price in the city, he’d always given away far more than he’d sold. It was his way. He lifted the horse slightly, as if he would say something. But he did not. She stared back at him, with Myra between them, her face in her hands. They listened to the clock tick. And then, still looking at Joe, Perpetua said, “That’s enough now.” And she smoothed a hand across the back of Myra’s hair. “That’s enough.”