Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Outside, he assessed the weathervane from every angle, astonished so small a thing could make such noise. Craning up at it, he was suddenly struck by an odd feeling and turned to look at the house in the distance. He still hadn’t seen Saul Porter; Maud had badgered him so badly about it that he’d made a point of putting it off. Now, he decided to go and ask about a ladder.

Wading through grass cold as lake water, Samuel studied the house. It looked derelict, with dirty shingles and a monumental roof that almost dwarfed it. The only hint that someone lived there was in the length of the grass, shorn by an exacting hand. With every footstep Samuel felt his trespass, and this made him nervous.

He knocked on the door. The yard was tidy, but quite impoverished, with rusty bicycle parts piled by the entranceway, and that pervasive smell of mothballs that also characterized the Tyne house. The porch had recently been swept, and from the eaves hung a quaint attempt at beauty: a handmade bird feeder. Knocking again, Samuel listened for sounds inside. Despite the stillness, he sensed someone was home. Sighing, he pulled a receipt from his pocket to make a note, but found he had no pen. He resolved to return later.

Samuel was drinking water in the kitchen, trying to decide what to do with his day, when he heard his family returning. Checking his watch, he walked to the door but didn’t find anyone on the stoop. He opened the storm door and was about to return inside when something caught his eye.

A tall silver ladder leaned against the house. Samuel checked it for a note and found nothing. In the road were the same people he always saw, always with their distrustful looks, as if he might divulge their unemployment to their wives. He nodded and carried the ladder around to the backyard. Catching his breath, he squinted across at Porter’s house; all he could see was that heaving roof, with its clicking shingles. How had Porter known he’d needed a ladder? He must have been watching Samuel all this time, but why hadn’t he answered his door, or even bothered to ring Samuel’s doorbell when bringing the ladder over? Feeling confused and affronted, Samuel lengthened the ladder, propping it against the house before going to find more tools. Besides the screwdrivers and the machete, the best he could do was an ice pick, a steel peg and a kitchen knife. By the time he returned outside, the wind had tipped the ladder into the grass, and stubbornly he knelt to pick it up with the screwdrivers and knife still in his mouth, the machete pinched between his knees. He knew he was tempting fate, but his luck held. He even managed to climb to the roof without nicking himself.

Up close, the weathervane was a pompous-looking thing, a peacock with a flaring tail of knives. Samuel didn’t know where to begin; there seemed to be no strategy for how to handle it. When he held the head, the body swung away from him with a hellish squeal.

“Mother of God …” he muttered, pressing a palm to his ear to shut out the noise.

When he attempted to hold any other part, he came away with cuts so deep he feared for his agile hands. He began to sweat, feeling the wind would push him over, trying to overcome his sudden vertigo whenever he looked down. He damned himself for climbing up in the first place, reasoning that because he’d placed himself in harm’s way, he should at least finish the job. He beat the steel with the machete, futile blows that sounded like a bell tolling. When he tried to unscrew it, it began to shriek in little fits. He grabbed it, poked it, even tried to break it off by hanging all his weight off the stem, but it wouldn’t move. Admitting defeat, Samuel descended the ladder and went inside.

His hands bled, but he was too tired to bandage them. Searching the study’s dark cabinets, he discovered a cask of palm wine among Jacob’s empty bottles and, pouring himself a glass, sat to drink at the kitchen table.

When the women returned, they found Samuel in a state. Never in Maud’s life had she seen him so drunk; even after cutting his hands on the glass he’d kept drinking.

Samuel belched against his fist, turning his weary face to them, as though challenging them to say something.

“Go upstairs, girls,” Maud said. Hearing the strain in her voice, they fled without speaking.

Eudora wore that ruthless look Maud remembered from her friendship with Ella Bjornson. They did that, these women; pretended to console you while gathering enough facts to humiliate you at a Sunday luncheon.

“How dare you drink when there are children in the house? And midday, no less, and a Sunday?”

Samuel wasn’t drunk, but had had enough to give his emotions an edge. His anger was so quick that he followed a tread behind it, and this lapse of feeling gave him the sense of not quite being in his skin. “Do not dare needle me , woman. These gashes were inflicted by your weathervane.” He looked contemptuously from his wife to Eudora. “Look,” he said, placing the glass on the table to show them his palms. “Look, look at this. I look like the stigmata.”

“Samuel!” said Maud.

“What, eih?” he demanded, picking up his glass to resume drinking.

Mortified, Maud couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. The weathervane business had been her fault, as she’d complained bitterly for the last two weeks. She looked hesitantly at Eudora.

Eudora was a transformed woman. After the initial delight at finding a new topic to gossip about, she set her hat on the table and approached Samuel as if approaching something feral.

“Maud, I need a candle, a sewing needle, some gauze, if you have it, utility thread and bandages,” she commanded.

Eudora cupped Samuel’s hands in her own. “Looks pretty bad, Sammy.” As she made to touch the wounds, Samuel retracted his hands (though not without some embarrassment). Obviously shocked that he could defy her in any way, Eudora quickly recovered herself and rose to wash her hands at the sink.

Maud returned with everything but the gauze, and seeing her husband’s reticence, she explained that Eudora had done some nursing during the war. “You’re in good hands.”

“The best,” said Eudora, pulling her chair across from him, suppressing the creak it made under her weight by fanning her skirt. She rolled back her sleeves to reveal plump, hairless arms so pale the veins were visible. “We’ll have you all fixed up in no time, don’t worry.” Her breath had an acrid smell, presumably from going too long without talking, thought Samuel. Eudora winked at him. “I know you’ve got to start setting up.”

“‘Setting up,’” Maud repeated in a cautious voice.

Curing the needle in the flame, Eudora said, “Ray said the shop’s a beaut. Congratulations.” She winked again.

Samuel flinched, and Eudora paused, thinking she was hurting him. “You all right?”

“Shop, yes, Samuel’s little shop,” said Maud. Though she had a staid, even flippant look on her face, Samuel knew she was furious.

Eudora laughed. “Oh, right. What do you guys call it — bay, right? A bay .” Faking an indefinable accent, she made a demure face and said, “Congratulations, Samuel, on having obtained your bay .” She laughed as though she’d told the world’s funniest joke. “And watch, giving up that Calgary house will be the best decision you ever made. Why keep up rent at a place no one lives in any more? At least with us we own both the farm and the house, so there’s no money hassle.” After a period in which no one spoke, Eudora patted Samuel’s hand with pleasure. “You’re a new man, Sam.”

“He certainly is,” said Maud. Avoiding Samuel’s eye, she rose to see her guest out. Samuel heard Maud ascend the stairs, after pausing in the kitchen doorway to look at him.