The Big Why (28 page)

Tom Dobie came over and said, There’s always a piece of fog there. Right on the turn.

He had signed up. Him and Charlie Chafe and Tony Loveys. Patrick Fardy had tried, but what can you do with only one leg. Rupert Bartlett an officer.

I didnt think you were old enough.

I’m only one day under.

You feel a loyalty.

No, Tom said. I feel a money.

He rubbed his hands, It’s a jacket colder tonight.

Yes, I said. It’s a keen day.

Could I look after Smoky. Yes. He was worried about Emily. Would I keep an eye on her. Would I help her and her father out. It’s not help, I said. She’s helping us.

Good, he said. That is all good.

Then they left.

We walked Tom Dobie, Charlie Chafe, and Tony Loveys to the train. We’re six weeks, Tom Dobie said, in St John’s under Rupert Bartlett, then we’re shipped to Scotland. We’re only backup.

It is this expectation that is important to write about, as expectations always are. Emily refused to walk with them.

Last I saw of her, Tom said, was this morning. She gave me this letter. I’m not to open it until St John’s.

The three young men were under Rupert’s command. They were forming a Newfoundland battalion.

Charlie, I said, you havent been home a month.

It’s all right. We’ll be back full of money in the spring.

The night before, Bob had thrown a party for them. I’d begged them not to go. No one is forcing you, I said, there is no conscription. But they laughed at me. It was money, they said again. It’s just a stint overseas.

We waved to the flat train windows as they slipped by. Even though I was only fifteen years older than Tom I felt like a father to him. We walked back together without the young men.

Kathleen: Rupert showed me the weigela.

Me: That will have pleased him.

She knew I was kidding. Though she understood I had ambivalent feelings about a man in uniform being touched by my wife.

I had said to Tom, What about Emily.

We’ll marry in the summer, he’d said.

What if the war’s not over.

Then I’ll get leave.

Why not marry her now.

It can wait till the summer.

I did not want Emily Edwards unmarried.

I said, Let’s take the children and go for a swim.

Kathleen: There’s fish guts in the harbour.

We’ll go up towards the naked man. We’ll take Smoky.

There is a small stretch of sand near the naked man. Lying on mats, the sand drifting on the mats. Our children testing the water. It was September, perhaps the last good day to swim. Our feet pushing the mats into the sand. As though the sand was a wet thing. Kathleen’s back to me. The sand on her back. The grit lets me know her back is there.

I was wearing a hat. I lay down, the hat on my face. I put a stone in the crown of my hat. To keep the wind from blowing it.

Kathleen: Youre funny.

Because it’s me?

We read as the children swam. I thought of their surfaces, housing for marrow then muscle and tendon. Then blood and nerve. If we built children from early promise. And had I married wholeheartedly.

I moved my arms and legs to change the shadow, to give parts of my skin rest from the sun. I said, I have to retrieve my arm. Or, I have to have my arm back. Pins and needles. Kathleen moved. Her face was full of colour.

Kathleen: I need to pee.

Me: Go for a swim.

She was still wearing her bandanna. I watched her scrubbing sand off her legs in water up to her arms. You could not tell that she was pregnant. The children rolled in the sand like dogs. Sand printed on their feet and calves. They looked like birthmarks, or tattoos, as though they wore socks made of sand.

She returned, cold and wet and happy. Smoky snapping after her on his three legs.

We must take care of Emily.

Smoky will remind us.

The waves drove in over themselves. They pushed in from the Atlantic. But then that’s not true. The fact is, it’s the same width of water that drives itself to shore over and over. It is the energy of the wave that moves through the water. That pounds itself senseless on the shore. A line of water constantly beaching. It must be different water. The pounding must turn it into something else.

Dear Gerald. What’s good about listening to people who are out of the artistic loop, and who have strong oral skills and are unconscious of it — Tom Dobie — is that they will say original things, things you know arent from books but from their uncles or grandparents. If I write these down they will sound new, and new in print. Originals.

Love, Rockwell.

PS
: Stop beating your wife.

The full moon. Remember that a full moon is only half the moon. I am suspicious of anyone who tells me theyve seen everything. You can only ever see half of a thing — hence the stupidity of abstract art. You see the palm of the hand or you see the back of the hand.

I said this to Jenny Starling in Monhegan: When’s your birthday.

December.

And I thought, Oh good. I won’t have to deal with it. That was the full story of us.

There was worry about salt. The Germans were torpedoing the salt bankers from Cadiz. And sailing crews had thought their worries were only with the half-starved people of Labrador.

One doryload is a ton of salt, Bob Bartlett said.

The fishermen were taking the livers now, and they were out trolling squid for bait. I went out with Marten Edwards for the squid. While hauling in the lines he kneeled over the gunwale to piss. I watched him pass his hands through the stream of urine.

You look like youre doing that on purpose.

It’s to get the sting, he said, of the ink out of my hands.

We hooked into a spot and Marten yelled to Patrick Fardy to come out. He left his fish splitting and rowed out. Marten Edwards: In the first part of the year, the yield of cod oil is not so good. Much more oil during the trap season. August and September is the right time to get a good yield from cod livers. And right now is when the squid usually come in.

It takes three and a half gallons of cod livers to make one gallon of refined oil.

There was quiet with the men gone to war. Less industry by the water. The fishing season was done, the dried fish up to be culled. Bud Chafe had a culler come in for St John’s. The women were not happy. Bim fish, Emily said. There was some choice, but most of the fish had spoiled and was fit only for the Barbados. They would not have enough to pay off their credit at Chafe’s. Never mind, Bud said. Next year will be better.

I painted. I finished touching up the painting of my family. It summed things up for me. I called it, simply,
Nude Family in a Landscape
.
It was innocent, it lacked cynicism. It voiced a domestic heroism. I rolled up the canvas and built a wooden box for it. I brought the painting to George Browiny, the shipping agent. As I walked with it I thought of it under my arm, rolled into itself. It epitomized my love, the direction I wanted to go in. I was happy with the tone of it. I thought, Charles Daniel will see now the reason I left New York.

I passed some of the younger boys, who were piling together wood for a bonfire. One had stolen a barrel used for cod livers. That’ll burn nicely, I said.

I had the painting rolled and wrapped, sitting in its open box. I felt I had something of worth. A painting of joy, a celebration. Something to confirm my decision to be here. I had sent Charles Daniel my
House of Dread
and he had not been impressed. This was the one. I had filled out the customs forms. All I needed was George Browiny’s signature. I opened the box.

George Browiny stared at the sealed tube.

Can you unroll it, please.

It’s a painting.

I’d like to have a look at it.

It wouldnt be something you’d like.

I’m not interested in gawking at its artistic merit.

What tone was that. I can tell you what it is, I said.

I prefer to see things for myself.

Feel it, I said. Weigh it. It’s canvas, it’s a painting.

The content of the picture.

I thought about that. I thought about George Browiny’s reason as a customs agent. His tone wasnt one of aesthetic curiosity. It was aggressive. It made me feel private.

It’s a very beautiful painting, I said. And it’s a delicate thing of a private nature.

Kent, I just have to see if it
is
a painting.

I’m telling you it’s a painting. It’s a roll of canvas. What else could it be?

He did not answer.

I am here, I said, because I’m bound legally to be here to get your signature.

There was a pause. I wanted the pause to make him uncomfortable. But he was unflappable.

So that you can verify, I continued, that I, Rockwell Kent, am signing the customs form. I am signing.

Just let me slit her up the side, Mr Kent.

The man unfolded a pen knife. He began to slice the paper and I pulled the tube away from him. I was furious.

You have no right, I said.

I could have slit his throat.

Very well. That is all very well.

So you’ll confirm the signature.

I will confirm what I suspect.

Which is.

Let’s not get into it, Kent.

I want to know what I’ve confirmed.

He wrote a note in a ledger. And I read it, upside down:
rk
refuses inspection.

What the hell was that. The thing is this. When I left, and I saw the perfidious gutless wonder Jim Hearn go in, I heard George Browiny talk to him. I waited outside the door. I heard him say, In the service of Germany. A war map or something.

A war map!

Kathleen: Just ignore it.

She was so upset by this. She wanted me to back down. To be meek. Meekness made fury rise behind my cheekbones. What enraged me: that my love of German culture should be construed as a love for German political ambition. And what’s more: that my painting should be considered evidence of spy activity.

A war map, I said again.

If you’d shown it to him.

I could not. It would have been a violation. It would have ruined everything.

She was against me. She liked Hearn. He was a good pharmacist and a generous man. She said, You judge people too quickly.

Me: The only judgment going on is your judgment that I judge. And their judgment of me. The only person not judging is me. And now I have to write a letter of complaint to the postmaster in St John’s — about George Browiny. And another to the chief inspector about that constable. It’s intolerable.

As if all I had to do there was write letters.

It’s you again.

Constable: My name is Bishop, sir. May as well call me Bishop. Seems I’ll be here now and again.

What can I help illuminate today.

The notebook. He is flipping to a fresh page.

Is it true you were, earlier this month, enticing men to refuse His Majesty’s service?

I looked at him. I am often enticing men, I said. You will have to be more precise.

You were at the Bartlett house. There were enlisted men.

That was a private party.

I thought about that night, the farewell party for Tom Dobie and the boys. We had been drinking. I expressed my scepticism that a war between the European powers would benefit the working class.

Is it true sir, that you purchased seven tons of coal.

Would you like to buy some? It’s all in that shed.

I already took the liberty of peering into the shed, sir. There seems not much over three tons left, sir.

I do apologize for that, Bishop. I have been recklessly burning it. Also, I said, I plan to use some of it later on in the children’s Christmas stockings.

You will be serving a meat dish.

Pardon?

There is talk of your not eating animals.

Talk to Judge Prowse and you will see to what regard I hold animals.

May I ask, Mr Kent, if this is a religious house?

Do you see a cross in the bell tower?

I see a figurehead above your door. Can you explain that?

This is a house of pagan worship, so yes, mark me down as religious.

I saw him actually write that down.

And you not only sing but can speak in German?

Das ding an sich
.

A fine day to you, Mr Kent.