Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Maud gave her husband a warning look, surrendering the conversation to Eudora, who obviously wanted to talk.

“And where are your Three Wise Men?” Eudora said.

“Wisely staying out of trouble, I hope,” said Maud. “They wanted to stay home, and I decided they were getting to a trustworthy age.”

Eudora made an incredulous face. “At twelve years old? My parents didn’t ever leave me home alone until I was almost nineteen. Even then they were pretty scared, more scared, even — I was quite a looker, you know.” She winked.

Maud smiled nervously, aware her judgement was being criticized. “All I know is that when I was growing up, I was left alone from earlier than I can remember. And not just left alone — left alone to take care of children even younger than myself.” When she laughed, there was a great deal of breath in it.

“Different strokes for different folks,” said Ray.

Maud made a dour face. She’d begun to find it rather imperious of the Franks, a childless couple, to comment on her parenting. “Anyways, it’s been so long since the twins have gotten along that I thought this might help things.”

“Squabblers are they?” said Ray.

“Oh, in the worst sense,” said Eudora, turning to him with sudden excitement. “A week ago one cut up the other’s clothes. Brand new, they were, and not even a scrap left to dust with!”

“Devils!” said Ray, sipping his beer. He had refused even a drop of the blood-coloured wine, insisting that he couldn’t betray his fifty-year relationship with malt brew for some cheap runner-up. Everyone had laughed, Eudora blushing furiously. So what the Franks were serving was little richer than vinegar. Maud quietly absorbed the insult; she was determined to enjoy herself.

“Don’t worry, though,” continued Ray. “You two are so model , your girls are bound to work themselves out. And Ama seems like good company. And”—Ray winked—“now they got—”

“What an angel she is,” said Eudora, fiddling with a button at her chest that had somehow come undone.

Ray continued as though his wife hadn’t spoken. “Now they got old Oliver Orange watching over them.”

“Oliver Orange?” said Maud. She looked from Eudora to Ray with amused confusion on her face.

“You gave them Oliver Orange?” said Eudora in admonishment. “He was my favourite. Oh, well, I guess. Oh, well. I suppose those girls need the comfort of a pet more than I do.”

Maud looked questioningly at Samuel, whose face tried to accomplish a look that would appease everybody. “The cat,” he said, a curious waver in his voice. “Oliver Orange the cat. By now, though, he has possibly run away. The twins have never been good guardians for pets. Is it not so, Maud?”

Maud gave a gruff nod.

Samuel laughed nervously. “It is possible he has even escaped to Mr. Porter’s yard, and possibly beyond it.” His laugh grew dry. “First stop, Aster. Next stop, the world,” he joked.

Ray broke the silence good-naturedly.

“Oliver Orange was always less a pet than a citizen of the world, it’s true. And if he only got as far as Saul Porter’s house, well, then, there are more than enough kids there to enjoy him. Hey, speak of the devil, I hear you just met the old codger the other day, Sam. You give him my message?”

“I told you — that was just Maud and me,” said Eudora.

Now it was Samuel’s turn to look incredulously at Maud. And here transpired one more of life’s ironies: Maud was guilty of the very crime she’d suspected her husband of. With a dignity that surprised Maud, Samuel reached indifferently for his drink.

“But she’s a piece of work,” said Eudora. “The Middle-Aged Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. How’s it go? Got so many children …? Really, it was like being surrounded — oh, got to check on the roast.”

Ray scrutinized his wife’s hips, drinking his beer. “I tell you, we’ve got a policy to change in this country if we don’t want to see another depression. Year after year, rules of entry just get laxer, and if we keep on like this, we don’t risk just our culture, but bankrupting ourselves. What happened with ranching turn of last century could happen to any other cornerstone of our culture. People come over, need land, so the government sells off what it’s been leasing to ranchers. All went to new farms.”

“Aren’t you a farmer?” said Maud. “How can you complain?”

“I know where my heart’s at. And what happened to ranching could happen to farming, easy. Cities are growing like a cancer, and they have to, what with newcomers’ demands, but pretty soon the whole of Alberta will be one big city. Sam was right to leave the city, he was right in helping to fend off the inevitable. I only hope there’ll be more to turn the tide.”

Maud frowned. Eudora returned and sat. “We eat in five minutes,” she said. There was a second of silence. “Why so serious, everyone?”

“Look,” said Ray, straining up in his seat, his glasses halfway down his nose so that the frames dissected his eyes. “I may not have a diploma to qualify my knowledge, but I read like no one I’ve seen, and I know my history. You get the Chinese who came up for the railroad last century, and God bless them for their excellent work, Mormons came in droves from Utah, bringing five, ten wives and who knows how many children. Russians, Hungarians, French Catholics, Jews — did nothing but starve once they got here. And you get ex-slaves — Porter himself. Now, tell me, where is there to put all these people? And don’t mistake me. I’m talking from a perfectly practical standpoint.”

“There was obviously space if all these people are still here,” said Maud. She gave Samuel an uncertain look, but with Ray’s eyes on him, Samuel only smiled.

Ray asked Eudora for another beer, licking the rim of the one he’d just finished. “I didn’t mean to get you on the defence,” said Ray in his soft voice. With his spectacles sloped to the end of his nose, he looked rather professorial. “It’s not my intent to say these people shouldn’t be here, or even don’t have the right to be here. That’s not for me to choose. I only mean to point out that if they’re going to be here, they’ve got to accept not only the benefits but the responsibilities of being Canadian. A country’s not just a piece of land. What makes a nation a nation is when a group of like-minded people decide to work towards common causes, common goals.” He paused to ruminate on his empty bottle. “People who aren’t interested in the concerns of language, religion, politics, all that, can’t rightly call themselves active citizens. Really, now, think about it.”

“You mean us,” said Maud dryly.

“I don’t mean you,” said Ray. “I didn’t say that at all.” He took a sweating bottle from Eudora and thumbed off the cap.

“Hate to interrupt,” said Eudora, “but won’t you all move to the dining room? I’ve spread out a feast you wouldn’t believe.”

She hadn’t lied. The low-ceilinged dining room, with its winking chandelier, was set with a buffet that would have depressed a glutton by the impossibility of eating it all. The meal consisted of a side of glazed ham with pineapples, a wizened duck and a roast that so strained its ropes that Samuel looked instinctively at Eudora in her dress. Bowls of rice, steaming vegetables and casks of wine also graced the table. The room smelled of cloves.

But the company had barely tasted the first dish when Ray resumed his conversation.

“Look at the Depression,” he said. “Part of the reason North America fell off its feet was it was trying to support the new rush of people. Fact is, newcomers weigh hard on our social system. And I don’t mean you — you two are model . But look at someone like Porter. No steady job, a wife who doesn’t work, and look at his brood. She’s barely off the boat before she pops out ten kids. And mark me when I say that twenty per cent of people in Canada are foreigners — well, those that declare themselves anyway, but fifty per cent of our convicts are foreign-born, and no doubt others are the kids of foreigners.”