Kalila (21 page)

April 2: Patient pronounced dead at 19:48.

 

The flick of a light switch.

Gone.

 

11:02 p.m. She enters the frozen plane. Enters a frozen plain.

Harsh light inside the cockpit.

Glazed windows. Airport lights. Cold stars. No moon.

The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night
.

A life of Braille.

She places this life on top of her life. And now begins forever.

 

And a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachael weeping for her children, and would not be comforted
.

 

He changed her diaper.

He told her a story.

He sang her a lullaby.

A child made it halfway round the sun.

 

There was a baby.

She died.

The sisters arrange a phone fan-out.

She's gone. The baby's gone.

One organizes flowers: wisteria, lily of the valley, sunflower, bird of paradise. Another chooses Scripture readings.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help — And Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto me
.

Hymn books scatter at yet another's feet.

“As a Mother Comforts Her Child”; “Under His Wings”; “My God and I.”

The oldest will fly home from Australia.

They will do special singing. It's been how many years since they've sung together, but they will do this for her.

The man and woman push themselves into the gaudy pink funeral home on Centre Street. No. Cremate her. Fist searing the woman's chest. She wants the baby warm.

Strange sobbing women arrive on her doorstep, letting in streams of pale and frigid light, the dog in a skidding bark each time the doorbell rings. Women laden with cinnamon buns, tuna noodle casseroles, three-bean salads, fresh-baked dinner rolls. The woman leaves these gifts to dry out on the counter. Her sisters bake them, heat them, freeze them, bustle, eat them, put meals on the table.

The April wind sings.

Go outside. It will do you good. Her sisters send her out into the sunny gusts, into the chill of the day, like they used to do when she was little. She walks the Bow River, sightless, slashed by wind. Thinks of Moses bringing down the Ten Commandments. Naming them. Breaking them. Abandoned in the wilderness, wandering for forty years.

The man sits alone in the darkened bedroom and thinks transforming lead to gold.

The woman dresses in her dark green pinstriped suit. Steps into wind and sunlight. The man at the back step, still polishing his shoes. Far out on the horizon, the sky harbours green. They drive, chinook wind chanting, enter the church to Zamfir's flute. The sisters, a circling throng.

One yellow rose blooms on the altar.

An old teacher the woman hasn't seen in years waits in the foyer. Pain-tightened lips, his light rosewater smell. Small feet. Grey beard rough against her cheek.

They walk the aisle, a gauntlet of reaching hands, take their place in the front pew.

The sisters rise to sing.

No. Wait. No. Don't. It's happening so fast. The sisters step in line.

They turn their grief-filled faces, one, features dissolving, the others, stiff and grim, launch into high tenor, soprano, alto, middle-aged women looking foolish, incomplete, the oldest galloping the piano keys. The Watson girls perform.

Our faith is shaken. A reed shattered in the wind. The minister's hand lights on the yellow rose. In the midst of our pain, what is there to sustain us? She moves around the pulpit. Outside melody of wind and landscape. We whistle in the dark when we're afraid. An African woman sings through the pain of childbirth. And the Russians. The Russians have always had a fantastic ear for music.

The man hears her voice through waves of water, bending light.

The Russian army in the First World War had a special position for a chosen soldier: not the lookout, not the bugler, no, the most honoured position was for the one who starts the song. When those Russian soldiers couldn't sing, when suffering choked their voices, they gleaned strength from the one whose job it was to start the song. The minister sets aside her notes. Looks at the couple. Today you cannot sing; the will is gone. But your sisters start the song for you. One day grace will blow through you like the holy spirit's wind, and something of music will be born in you again. Outside wind rushes the grasses, whistling through hollow reeds.

A cousin rises, flute in hand. Music keens, sharp-strung debris:

A shame she couldn't die at birth
.

This will make you a better person
.

I'm holding off on buying a gift until, you know, we're sure
.

Well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away
.

Remember, if this one doesn't — you can always have another
.

You're getting time to recover without two a.m. feedings!

Be careful. Don't get too attached
.

It's not your fault
.

I'm sorry. She's been discharged
.

The dappled flute notes transport them to the sunlit foyer.

The man reaches, wrists aching, holding up the world.

It's hard to understand.

A time of sorrow leads the way to a stronger faith.

The dark today can sometimes lead to light tomorrow.

Mr. Solantz. We're awfully sorry, sir.

You cannot predict where an electron will be in the next second. But when it's measured, its world splits into multiple universes
.

May God comfort you in your loss.

Och, there's so little we can say.

The man reaching in the receiving line holds tight to hands, tries not to disappear.

The church empties. The man and the woman stand pressed together in the windswept churchyard. Are herded downstairs to the funeral luncheon. They fulfill their griefly obligations until the dusk of late afternoon writes itself against the sky, then they move toward the car, the sisters clucking round them, tucking in the woman's scarf, clinging to the man's hand, this walk, this long day ending.

Will you be all right? We froze the food. Don't cook. We'll call. Fingers laced. Tremulous smiles.

They drive away on singing tires to step across their crooked sidewalk. The walk they crossed, joyous, to birth a child six endless months ago. A dog steps out the open door to greet them. This place of stone the night the child came.

Snow is melting on the sidewalk steps. The sky in chaos, birds in swooping song. A ginger butterfly explodes in flight between the poplar branches.

The man thinks, So many quantum leaps.

The pain is like the light. Its waves go on and on.

 

I opened to my beloved, but my beloved was gone. I sought her, but I could not find her. I called her, but she gave me no answer
.

 

The woman steps out into afternoon April sunlight. The neighbour across the street is mowing the lawn while her husband drowses on the porch steps. Spring's flightiness. The husband jolts awake. His gaze follows the woman pushing the lawn mower against the sunlight. Everywhere puddles shine. First week of springlike weather, enough to melt the snow. Vestiges of winter, gone. Life no longer safely frozen.

The street is deserted. Another hour and denim-clad teenagers will stream onto Charleswood Drive, shoving one another, high-stepping through puddles, in love with the crazy sun, with the crazy thrust of summer.

The screen door closes. The man makes his way down the steps. In the woman's hands, a small vase shielded in a mulberry cloth bag. Two cats appear, parade the sidewalk. Tails high, they meander down Charlebois, the drone of the lawn mower reassuring on the pitching breeze.

The woman stops at the sidewalk. The neighbour grins at her. The glare of sunshine shivers new green buds. The woman brushes hair out of her eyes. The slouched husband waves back.