Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Ray nodded. “I take your point. But it can’t look good for you to go throwing away good jobs just like that. Think about it — you’re an example. A role model. These highfalutin office jobs are hard for any man to come by.” Glancing at Samuel’s shocked face, Ray grew embarrassed. “But I admire you.” He parked in an alley lined with blue trash bins. “We’re on Glover, few down from Stone Road. We’ll start here and make our way back to proper. What time you need to be back?”

“Before my wife discovers me missing.” Samuel knew the joke wouldn’t be lost on this man.

Ray wasn’t listening. “If we’re late enough, you might meet Clarish Clarke — he’s my caretaker back at the farm. He comes in around this time sometimes — call him Jarvis, though. He’s got a preacher’s name, and it couldn’t suit him less.” Ray chuckled.

“Jarvis?”

“Who knows?” Ray jumped from the cab. “That’s what he likes.”

For two hours they toured every blank-faced shop within ten blocks of where they parked. Aster’s layout was like a maze, with streets that changed into each other and few identifiable landmarks. Ray advised against Peahorn Street, but Samuel insisted on at least seeing it, so they wandered towards it. Derelict buildings lined the curbs, their windows blinded with rain-stained paper the colour of moths. The few months of poverty Samuel had had to endure during his last school years in Gold Coast didn’t assuage his discomfort at the desolate sight. Occasionally a man emerged from what looked to be an abandoned building.

Samuel and Ray returned to Glover Street. To lighten their spirits, Ray suggested they take lunch at the English diner, where bangers and mash were cheap. Eating seemed to relax them, and soon they made a game of naming the few strangers that passed by. Samuel asked Ray about his family, and Ray explained they were easterners who’d come west on the promise of work. “Most of them went straight back,” Ray laughed. “Shit work is shit work whether you’re east or west.” Eudora had been the fiancée of an older cousin already living in Alberta whose father had died in the Great War when the Union government had gone back on its promise not to draft farmers’ sons. “After five days I ended up with her and he ended up with my return fare to Ontario,” said Ray. “You could say he lost all there was to lose in life.” By default Ray had even managed to claim the age-old family farm. He’d toughed it out with Eudora, and now ran a parts business out of his garage part-time, though his true efforts went to upholding both the state of his farm and his stature in civic politics. Samuel spoke timidly of his own origins, which he sensed lacked the wholesomeness of Ray’s beginnings. He hated to justify himself, holding back anything dubious, so that his story ended up being the one he’d often told the twins when they’d cared enough to ask about his life.

Trying for nonchalance, Samuel asked Ray about Jacob. “Exactly what sort of man did he become?”

“In these last years, a sighting of Jacob Tyne was as rare as a sunny month.”

Samuel later came to believe that stopping for this lunch was what brought him his luck. Leaving the diner, they ran into one of Ray’s long-time customers who knew of a little nook just down Glover Street, a choice property whose sudden availability had surprised everyone. He gave them directions, and as they walked there Samuel felt himself nearing the crux of all these hopeful months.

Not only clean and sizeable, the space was priced so low as to be suspicious. They called on the landlord, a stodgy, unlearned man, who led them through the musty space explaining that the price was the result of a dry low season. By then, Samuel had stopped listening. He might have been alone in that whitewashed haven, the home of his possible dream. “I’ll take it,” he said, killing the casual banter between Ray and the landlord.

“Oh, it’s you who’s looking?” The landlord looked skeptically at them. He motioned to Ray. “Thought you were taking it.”

“I’ve got space enough between my ears without having to pay for it. This one’s for Mr. Tyne.” Ray smiled at the frowning man, and with their opposing looks they neutralized each other.

“Is there a problem?” said Samuel.

The landlord continued to look at Ray, then turned weary eyes on Samuel. “No, no. Follow me to my place and we’ll sign the papers.”

And so within minutes the dream had been bought. Ignore the questionable landlord, the distance from home, the fact that his wife was in utter darkness about this goal: Samuel Tyne had signed the lease on his own little piece of the world. After this, there could be no more doubts.

Ama lay on her cot, prostrated with asthma. She looked from the window to the room, its charmless furniture barely distinct in the shadows. She knew the twins disliked this bedroom, the four ascetic beds pushed against each wall, but its austerity pleased Ama, especially on asthmatic days when she retired here and imagined herself a saint, her crucifix necklace resting coldly against her chest, looking to the window as if in the throes of divine enlightenment. What cleaning was to Maud, or secrets were to Samuel, this ritual was to Ama: a shameful, pleasurable vice.

Her parents had only called from France once. For a week she’d stored up complaints to tell them, but the happiness in their voices kept her from speaking. Instead, she agreed when her father said she sounded like she was having a good time, and retreated to her room to cry into her pillow. The goose down brought on an asthma attack. She turned on her back to look out the window.

The twins came in. They threw a lumpy burlap sack onto the floor.

Ama sat up, nervous. The filthy bag was covered with hairs and dead insects, and Ama thought she saw a live one crawl away. “What’s in there?”

The twins behaved as though she hadn’t spoken. Their stockings looked bizarre on their slender legs; obviously intended for larger, fairer women, they looked like sausage encasings that had boiled loose.

Dropping her arms to her sides, Chloe declared in a falsetto, “A crime has been committed in this house.”

“We decree,” said Yvette, “that no one should leave until such time as the case has been solved.” Squinting and pursing her full lips, she suddenly dropped to her knees beside Ama’s bed. “Are you sick, dearie?” she said in a high, twangy voice. Bewildered, Ama let Yvette push her back onto the bed, accepting the bedside cup of water Yvette held to her lips. “Aw, look at me, I’m sweet Florence Nightingale.”

Ama was genuinely touched. Since the day of their arrival, when Yvette had suddenly taken Ama by the hand, she’d suspected tender feelings towards her. Yvette was merely too awkward, too shy, too afraid to express them in open company. Ama gave her an encouraging smile.

A dark emotion crossed Chloe’s face, and in a second she, too, was on her knees, grabbing the cup from Yvette to have her turn. “You’re farther from being Florence Nightingale than Ama is from being a genius. You’re three-point-six inches too short and far too dark to come remotely close.”

When Ama flinched and refused the cup, Chloe gloated. “Are you mad now?” she said. Craning her face alarmingly close, so that Ama could smell her gardenia pomade, she said, “Short of breath, but long on faith. A girl can’t have everything, I guess.” She rose to fetch a book on her bed. “We’re out of the Bible, but here’s something for you.”

She handed the book to Ama, who took it from her, flinching. Ama read the title: The Devils .

Pacing the room in a goose step, Chloe recited, “Dostoevsky, Dickens, Disraeli.” She gave Yvette a stern look.