A History of Forgetting (17 page)

Mr. Stavros was already at the table, staring from under his feeler-like eyebrows at the crochet-covered pillow in front of him. At the other end was a tiny man in a wheelchair, doubly afflicted with Parkinsonian tremors. Next to him was an old lady, Buddha-like in her tranquillity and obesity, the likely owner of the incontinence pants.

An aide came over with a bib.
‘Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?
Denis hissed
.
'

‘You are so
beau,
Denis,' she cooed.
‘Beau.'
She pinched his beautiful cheek to distract him. He knocked her hand away, but by then she had skilfully pressed closed the Velcro tab and got the bib on without his noticing.

Malcolm led his lady admirers over to the table and seated Mrs. Mikaluk next to Mr. Stavros. He unpried himself from Midge's scaly grip.

Mrs. Paxton and Mrs. Ross were talking nearby. ‘I don't give a fig,' said Mrs. Ross, who was heavily wattled. ‘I'm leaving anyway.'

‘But what about the boys?' asked the much slighter Mrs. Paxton, Laurel to Mrs. Ross' Hardy. ‘Aren't you going to see them off?'

‘Sit down,' Malcolm told Denis.

‘Pourquoi?
Let's
get out of here.
Allons-y.
Take me home.'

‘You're home,' said Malcolm.

‘I'm not. I only stopped here for the night.'

‘Where's here?' asked Malcolm, curious.

‘L
'
enfer, bien sûr!'

As if on cue, Nurse Hygiene came silently into the room on crepe soles, a sheaf of sheet music under her arm, booming hello. ‘Who's the fat cow?' Denis asked as she sat down at the piano. Malcolm felt grateful that this was a ward in
Babel.

‘Silent Night.' At once everyone began to sing. In whatever language they remembered, they sang—even Denis. The slow and the stuporous, the tremoring and inert, their lips began to move, their voices stirred. Midge raised her sore face heavenward and sang gorgeously.
‘All is calm, all is bright .
. .' One by one, the staff trickled in, the orderlies and the aides, the other nurse on duty, adding to the choir.

In the middle of ‘Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem' they heard the elevator bell, then the tinkling of the dinner carts
as they were wheeled down the hall. This was the moment Malcolm had been dreading since the Christmas decorations went up: when they would have to sit down together in a spirit of peace and love. But listening to their soaring voices, voices that seemed independent of the lost souls who were singing, he thought that maybe it would be all right. He sat down with Denis on his left and Mrs. Paxton on his right. Nurse Hygiene stood at the head of the table and, once the trays were distributed, raised her glass of apple juice. ‘Merry Christmas, everyone.'

It was the traditional Christmas dinner, cranberry sauce spooned out thick over their plates like a fresh kill. Denis demanded his pudding right away. ‘That's dessert,' Malcolm told him and Denis slammed a fist on the table.

‘What does he want?' asked Nurse Hygiene.

‘His pudding.'

‘Oh, let him have it,' she laughed. ‘It's Christmas.' Malcolm cut up the rubbery turkey; when the orderly had passed him the pudding, he doused the turkey with it.

Surprising how many could feed themselves. Midge worked the knife and fork with dainty gestures, keeping her elbows close to her sides. They gave Mrs. Mikaluk a spoon, which she could raise, but not always get in her mouth the first time. Even Mr. Stavros recalled the motions. Denis was among the worst, plunging his thumb and forefinger into the cold pudding and feeling around for a piece of meat. He popped it in his mouth, sucked noisily, then ejected it clean through puckered lips.

Mrs. Ross, across from Denis, wasn't eating. ‘I thought I was going home,' she said, pushing the tray away.

‘Aren't you staying for dinner?' Nurse Hygiene asked her.

‘No. I'm going to make a call.' The Indian aide followed as Mrs. Ross stood to her full height and wandered off.

Tiny Mrs. Paxton turned to Malcolm, ‘And where are you from, dear?'

‘Vancouver.'

‘Vancouver! You must be homesick! Are you coming to see the boys off, too?'

There must have been an army base close to where Mrs. Paxton had lived. ‘I'll be there,' he sighed. That damned war. He wished it had never happened.

Mrs. Ross came back, led by the Indian carrying the phone book. She settled Mrs. Ross in her chair and set the phone book in her lap. ‘Why is that man looking at me like that?' Mrs. Ross asked.

She meant Denis, who was shooting daggers at her as he gingerly placed a sucked morsel of meat on the edge of his plate.

‘Never mind him, dear,' Malcolm said, growing alarmed himself.

She opened the phone book at random and, looking over the top of her glasses, used a finger to scan a column.

‘Who are you going to phone?' asked Nurse Hygiene.

‘My mother. She's going to come and pick me up.'

‘Tell me the truth,' Denis piped up. ‘She's a Jew.'

‘She's not,' said Malcolm curtly, hoping to cut him off. He pressed his eyes and would not look at Denis. ‘Definitely not.'

‘Ha! For all I know, you could be one, too.'

He suspected everyone now. The man who owned the café on the corner—that is, their corner in Paris. Politicians. Their clients and neighbours, the man who sharpened their scissors—well, he
was
a Jew. All these people he still met daily and when Malcolm visited, Denis would at some point detail their common offence: they were Jewish
and Malcolm knew what that meant.
This from a man who, for the previous thirty years, had not uttered a word against anyone within Malcolm's hearing.

Malcolm said he had no problem whatsoever with Jews.

‘You are astonishingly naive.'

‘Naive!' the delighted Malcolm would exclaim. ‘How
refreshing!'

‘They're everywhere,' Denis declared now.

Malcolm raised a finger, concurring. ‘Particularly in the synagogues and delicatessens.'

‘Why is he looking at me?' shrilled Mrs. Ross. Her wattle swayed and the phone book slid out of her lap. As it thudded on the floor, everyone looked up with a start. Mrs. Ross stood up again.

‘What is he saying?' Nurse Hygiene asked Malcolm.

‘He's wishing you all a Merry Christmas.'

Mrs. Ross began to scream. So much fear and confusion in her voice, the other patients panicked, too. Mr. Stavros swept his tray onto the floor, startling Midge who put both hands to her face and began to rock. ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear! It's a broken coop!' When an aide got her to her feet in their sorry mismatched shoes, Malcolm saw she'd wet herself.

Mr. Stavros bellowed. His arms swam as he roared. With all the orderlies trying to subdue him, Mrs. Ross was left standing in the middle of the room, Denis pointing his finger at her.

‘You're one, too!'

She stared in horror. She had no idea what he was saying, but anyone could understand his tone.

Nurse Hygiene sat down at the piano and struck up ‘Hark, the Herald Angels' just as reinforcements arrived via the elevator. Mr. Stavros was led away flailing.
Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la!
They took Denis, too, but Malcolm did not assist, or even look up to watch him go.

Within five minutes only he and diminutive Mrs. Paxton were left, and Nurse Hygiene still hammering the piano keys. Mrs. Paxton daubed at the corners of her mouth with her bib. Calmly, she rose to her feet and turned to Malcolm. ‘I'd better do some packing myself, by the sounds of it.'

 

 

10

 

That Christmas, Alison and Billy had agreed not to exchange presents so that they could save their money and maybe take a real trip next year, not just to Vancouver Island, but to Mexico or the Caribbean. But on Christmas Eve, which they spent with Billy's parents, he surprised her with a gift.

‘William,' said his mother, leaning forward in her chair. ‘That looks like a ring box!'

‘Maybe you'd like to open it, Mom.'

‘No, no,' she said. ‘Let Ali.'

All Billy's mother wanted was for them to get married, that or for them to stop living in sin. Alison thought she'd
probably prefer the latter. Though she seemed to like Alison, and was certainly nice to her, she continually made reference to Billy's having an MSc and how he would surely go on to get his Ph.D. Nothing so important as education! But if they were determined, at least they should marry and save themselves and Billy's mother from disgrace, especially at parish
functions.

Alison tore off the paper; inside, a blue velvet box. The hinges creaked as she opened it.

‘Let me see!' said his mother. ‘Let me see!'

‘Do you like it?' Billy asked. ‘It's
zircon.
I got it off the TV.'

‘You did not,' said Alison. ‘It's glass.' A chunk of beach glass rendered opaque by sand and waves, it looked like rock salt mounted by crude steel claws on a steel ring. Billy got down on one knee and, slipping it on her finger, asked, ‘Will you continue to shack up with me?'

‘Only if you start vacuuming.'

He held her hand out for his mother to see. ‘What do you think, Ma?'

She fell back flustered in her chair. ‘Oh, you are a brat,
Billy.'

Christmas Day they celebrated with Alison's family. Before she stuffed the turkey, Alison took off the ring, dropped it in an empty jar by the sink where it looked like some kind of geological specimen. ‘He wanted his mom to think we were engaged,' she explained.

Her mother asked, ‘Are you then?'

‘Engaged?' Alison laughed. ‘No. But I like the ring. It's
cool. It's made of completely recycled materials.'

‘I suppose my sweaters aren't cool in a hair salon,' her
mother sighed. ‘I'll try to think of something else next year.'

Billy always said Alison didn't have a closet problem, but a shoe problem. Not a drawer-space problem, but a sweater problem. Billy said that unravelled and tied end to end, her sweaters would stretch, a multicoloured acrylic lifeline, all the way to Hope. In her parents' living room the electric fire crackled, and the Christmas tree in the corner was adangle with its mortifying ornaments of nostalgia—egg-carton angels and pipe-cleaner stars made by Alison and Jeffy as long ago as kindergarten. To walk anywhere near it was to porcupine your socks with dry dead needles. This year, like every other year, they all got matching sweaters.

Alison looked at her mother and for the first time in ages didn't think to nag her about her provisional-looking hair. For her part, her mother hadn't mentioned nursing once, so despite all Alison's fears Christmas seemed to be working out.

‘Oh, Mommy,' she said, ‘I love your sweaters.'

‘Mommy? You haven't called me Mommy for years.' Smiling, she took another handful of stuffing from the bowl. ‘Do you remember what you used to call Santa?'

‘No.'

‘Santa Because.'

In the living room, her father and Billy were watching
A Christmas Carol
on TV. Alison joined them when she and her mother had finished with the turkey.

‘Where's Jeffy?'

‘In his room,' said her father. ‘He's not feeling too good.'

That earlier dinner came to mind, the one in the fall when she'd walked in on Jeffy and that boy—what was his name? But she'd seen her brother since, several times. Christmas cards lined the mantel and the sideboard in the dining room. She went around reading them. ‘I don't know what I'd do without you, Ruth.' ‘Thanks tons, Ruthie.'

‘Come on in, sport,' her father said, and Alison turned and saw Jeffy in the doorway.

‘What happened?'

He dived onto the floor, their father hurling him a cushion which Jeffy slipped under his chest, propping himself up on his elbows too close to the TV. At the back of his head, a twist of hair stood up on the pivot point of his scalp, but it was his eye that had made her cry out, the stain of the bruise.

‘Jeffy?' She was going to ask again, but Billy signalled to her and shook his head.

Her mother appeared and said, ‘I'm ready.'

Every year she took some contribution down to the Mission. This year it was dinner rolls. They drove off, Alison waiting for her mother to volunteer the story. She had to keep wiping a circle on the window to see the Christmas lights on the houses, their breath condensing on the cold glass. The closer they got to downtown, the fewer lights there were.

‘Why don't they put lights up at the Mission?'