Howard Engel: A City Called July

“He’d become very strange in his habits, Mr. Cooperman. He was forgetful and preoccupied in private, although he tried to hide that when we went out. Maybe it didn’t show to anyone but me. I think Sarah-that’s our daughter-sensed something. He just wasn’t the man I married.”

“Did he own property that you know about? Would you object to my having a look at his office?”

“The police have been all over that. I’m not sure whether I could prevent you looking if I wanted to. Anyway, the police have the keys to the office. What’s his name, Deb?”

“Staziak. Staff Sergeant Staziak.”

“Yes, I know him. I think that’s everything. I want to thank you for being so helpful.” I backed out of that plush living-room and found myself lighting a cigarette in my Olds. I’d come to listen, and I’d heard nothing Pete Staziak couldn’t have told me. But I had that feeling about walking over shallow graves. I never liked that feeling.

* * *

Ten minutes later, the Olds was parked beside my father’s rusting Cadillac in front of my parents’ town house off Ontario Street. A coolish breeze off the lake was playing with the flowers in the flower-beds around the side of the house. Pa was digging in the garden in back. When he saw me, he took his foot from the spade and left it standing in the earth.

“Where are the tomatoes?”

“I’ve got them along the south side of the house. They get the heat from the brick wall that way. I’m just turning over the ground here for some late annuals. I’m glad you came, I’m getting short of breath.”

“I hope you’re not overdoing it.” He looked at me with that mocking look that reflected all the terrible things that could be hinted at by shortness of breath. On Judgement Day, whatever else happens, I know he’ll be there with his hair combed. We both sat down at the weather-beaten table that had been abandoned to the elements some years ago. I remember when it was carefully stored in the cellar of the old house. Here the cellar was a small room behind the rec room, and to get things to it you had to drag them through the living-room. The table surface was battered by frost and sun and scarred by neglected cigarettes and peeling paint. Pa pulled at the knees of his old tweed trousers as he sat down on the bench. We talked about the weather for a minute and let that hang out to dry. My health and his joined it there on the line after a short, worried cross-examination about breathlessness. Pa’s retired and I worry about retired people who have only gin rummy to fall back on.

“Pa, you know Larry Geller?”

“Who doesn’t? He’s treasurer of the shul, on the executive at B’nai Brith. I don’t know him well. He doesn’t go to the club any more. I don’t play cards with him. Not at his stakes. But I’ve played golf with him. Your mother knows his wife, Ruth. Her father was a friend of your grandfather. Two sewing-machine jockeys on Spadina Avenue years ago. Morris Kaufman and his two girls. Lives alone in Toronto since his wife, Pearl, died.”

“When was that?”

“It must have been after Ruth and Larry’s first kid was born, because they didn’t name her after Pearl. They named the boy Paul. That was after her.” Pa took a cigar from his pocket. It had been smoked down about a quarter of its length. He looked at it, then neatly trimmed the burnt end with rose shears. He surveyed the job, lit the result and tried it. He was wearing a red wool sweater which showed elbows through vents in the arms. On his head he wore an old yachting cap that made him look like a commodore at the very least. After three or four puffs of the cigar, he held it for a moment at arm’s length then threw it into the garden with an underhand shot that spoke of disdain and slight regard. He pulled an aluminum tube from another pocket and lit a fresh cigar.

“What do you know about the girls?”

“What’s to know? The older one, that’s Debbie, married Sid Geller before she’d finished high school and left him in less than no time. She made a good settlement and she still gets along with Sid’s family.”

“I guess that made things easier, with her sister marrying the other brother?”

“Well, I’m telling you they all got along pretty good. I don’t hear any complaints.”

“Oh, so this is where you’ve got to.” It was my mother coming out the French windows with a wide-brimmed hat on and a pair of gardening shears in her hand. She looked like a leading actress making her first entrance in a Coward play, only there was no applause. “Benny, what are you doing here?” She looked critically at Pa, then began to collect a bunch of irises for the living-room. “Is something wrong, Benny? I’m not used to seeing you without a warning any more. And as for your father, I thought he’d gone to the club.”

“I’m trying to find out about the Gellers. Pa said that Grandpa knew Ruth’s father.”

“Morris? Oh, yes, they were great friends on Spadina before you were born. He was a pallbearer at your grandfather’s funeral.”

“And the girls?’

“They stick together. I’ll say that for them. Debbie’s always looked out for Ruth. And Ruth has always stood up for Debbie even after the divorce. Do you know Sid Geller? He looks like a Mafia hood. I don’t know why she married him in the first place. They say that Larry has left Ruth. Is that why you’re asking? He never seemed to be the type to settle down.”

“Larry’s a lawyer. What does Sid do?”

“You know the new bridge over the canal? Well, his company built that. Bolduc Construction, that’s Sid Geller. You see their signs everywhere. They’re building the new fire hall uptown.”

“Where does Bolduc come into it?”

“Oh, he wasn’t ever in it, was he, Manny?”

“Bolduc was a French Canadian with a wheelbarrow. Sid taught him to call himself a contractor. Soon Sid had the wheelbarrow and a contract to build seventy-five sewers in the north end. That was the beginning. I think Bolduc still hangs around the yard out Facer Street. Drinks all the time. Useless.”

“Are you saying that Sid Geller cheated this guy?”

“He didn’t have a nickel, so what was there to cheat? He had a licence, that’s all. The only thing he knew was how much sand and water go into a cement mix. Sid didn’t even know that much, but he knew the angles and soon he could hire people who knew all about making cement. They left the name, that’s all. At least the old man won’t ever die thirsty, not while Sid’s around. If it weren’t for Sid, Bolduc would have finished in the poorhouse a long time ago.”

“I think I knew his son in school. He played lacrosse and hockey. Alex Bolduc. Sure.”

“I hope you’ve had your lunch, Benny. Your father hasn’t been to the store yet. I’m down to two eggs and I’ve had them since April.”

“I ate in town, Ma, but I’m coming to dinner on Friday night.”

“That’s right. Rain or shine every Friday night,” she said. “And here it is Wednesday already. No sooner do the Friday candles burn down but you have to light them again.” Pa tried to catch me with a subversive glance; I avoided it.

“Tell me, both of you: do you like the Gellers? Are they likeable people?”

“Well, the old man Geller died such a long time ago, I guess the boys went a little wild. Sid was always a hard man in business. Not that I ever had anything to do with him.” Here Pa stopped as though he was thinking over the relevancy of what he had in mind to say next. I tried to encourage him with a look. “One time they were putting asphalt on Hillbrow Avenue and I tried to get Sid to have them run the machine up my driveway. He wouldn’t do it. I would have paid for it.”

“And Larry’s so smooth,” my mother said, “you have to watch your step around him so you don’t slip and fall.”