Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Samuel hated being the bearer of bad news. Shuffling into Maud’s room, he was pained by the smile she greeted him with.

And yet, as soon as Samuel smiled back, she seemed to see something in it and herself stopped smiling. Suddenly, she looked withered and vulnerable on the white bed, and when he took her hand he was surprised to see how wrinkled it looked. Maud looked incurably old and, to her credit, wary.

“Maud,” Samuel began.

“They tell you something they didn’t tell me?” she said. “Using the husband to break it to me gently. Just give me the news. Did I rupture something?”

“Maud, your father is very ill. They say he is on his deathbed.”

Maud looked perplexed.

“A telegram has come from one of his wives. They say he is on his deathbed and they want you to come. Or to send money.”

There was a vague smile on Maud’s face. “When?”

Samuel hesitated. “The telegram was for today, but it has been several weeks since he fell sick.”

Maud nodded, as though it all seemed sensible to her. The vacant smile remained on her face. “Tell them I’m ready for my cast.”

“Maud,” said Samuel. He knew that despite her father’s cruelty she grieved for him, but, for some reason, refused to share it. “What kind of talk is this?” he said.

“Tell them I’m ready,” she said, sinking back into the pillows. She began to contemplate the ceiling.

Samuel stood in the doorway, waiting for anything, a gesture, that would let him share her anguish. After a minute of silence, he left to find the orderly.

Who knows through what channels the town heard of the accident. People poured into Samuel’s shop to offer condolences. The most memorably sincere person was a woman called Tara Chodzicki.

Samuel was impressed by her tact and wit. She brought butter cookies in tinfoil, opening the package with her agile, ringed fingers. “Give Maud my love. And tell her I’ve still got my eye on Chloe’s hands.”

Samuel smiled. “I give up. Why her hands?”

She tapped Samuel’s wrist playfully. “She’ll know what I mean.” Winking, she left the store.

Samuel laughed, marvelling at how everyone was winking at him lately.

When he brought the cookies and the message home to Maud, she rolled her eyes. “Never mind, Samuel, it’s all nonsense.” She was still too disgruntled by the spectacle of Chloe’s playing to discuss it, least of all with Samuel, from whom she felt increasingly estranged. But she ate a few cookies, chewing thoughtfully.

Talk of Maud’s misfortune somehow spurred rumours of the twins’ possible hand in Ama’s river accident. Ray did his best to curb the rumours, using his status as a representative of the town council as leverage. Samuel was grateful, though he suspected the gossip originated with Eudora.

“Dora?” Ray shook his head. “Naw. She’s too busy knitting sweaters for Vietnamese kids — it’s the new thing with the National Association for the Advancement of Women. Apparently, if the kids wear darker colours, they’re harder for the snipers to see.”

It’s a little late for her to think of protecting children, thought Samuel. Though for all his criticism, even he had trouble facing the twins these days, viewing them with a new critical eye. The twins repelled him, and he couldn’t help speaking distantly to them, feigning preoccupation. It was as though he had condemned them in his heart. Whenever they caught him drawing on his socks in the hallway, or muttering proverbs to himself as he left the bathroom, he felt all the warmth leave his features. He would pretend he hadn’t seen them, or nod and keep going. He felt ashamed, but he couldn’t stop himself. His neglect provoked little tricks from them: his best shoes filled with talcum powder, his favourite radio laryngitic with cut wires, the slow, sad unravelling of everything he took pleasure in. Again, he pretended not to notice. The vandalism soon stopped.

Samuel’s disregard of his daughters held a strange pleasure for Maud. On those afternoons she was strong enough to get out of bed, she made a circuit of the house on her crutches, surveying the blindness that now passed for family love in her convalescence. She felt selfishly alive in their silence, though she admonished both parties for behaving like babies. The love lost between them seemed to heap more upon her, and she got along better with everyone now that they rarely spoke to each other. Not without feelings of guilt, she put off reconciling the three for the sake of her own elevation in their eyes. And in the wake of her father’s sickness, which she refused to discuss, she needed more attention than ever. Her accident couldn’t have been more compassionately timed. She felt how precarious the balance in the house was, and feared that a minor shift could change things at any minute. And so, she was greatly annoyed one afternoon to hear the doorbell ring.

Samuel reached the door first, and, intuiting more bad news, Maud tried to nudge him aside with one of her crutches.

Samuel was put off by how familiar the man seemed, though he was certain they had never met. Ignoring the woman at the man’s side altogether, he stood studying him.

Maud limped forward, an anxious smile on her face. “Good to see you again,” she said, trying to balance on one crutch so she could shake hands.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said the man, glancing around the hallway. He looked hunched, deflated, but with hale, broad shoulders, like someone who’d prevailed through years of backbreaking labour only to be compromised by old age. At first it seemed that his eyes wandered out of some desire to be tactful, but it soon became obvious there was something calculated in it. His face was so dark it had the hue of an eggplant, and his refusal to meet eyes solidified Samuel’s unease.

The man looked at him but quickly averted his eyes. “Mr. Samuel Tyne,” he said in a hybrid accent, “Tyne Electronics.” He closed his eyes as though ruminating upon something. “Six candles, two doves and a watch,” he said.

Samuel flinched. “The peddler.”

“Samuel!” said Maud.

“The peddler,” Samuel repeated. Of course, the mongrel peddler.

The man’s laugh sounded like a clearing of the throat. “I keep my peddling to the early days of the week, if you please, and the rest I spend trying to trick people into believing I’m a respectable man by dressing like one. Is it working, do you think?” Laughing at his own joke, he offered his hand, which Samuel rushed to catch as though a ball had been thrown at him. “Saul Porter. This is Akosua. She’s Ghanaian, like you two. She’s real sorry you all got off to a bad start the other day.” Roused by his sideways glance, Akosua gave them a startled smile. When her husband persisted in looking at her, she started as though remembering something.

“Everywhere in the street your misfortune is spoken of. We have come to condole with you,” she said in a rehearsed tone. She held out a foil-covered tray, which the Tynes instinctively regarded with suspicion. “Plantain and spinach stew,” she said.

Porter shook his head. “For such a thing to’ve happened with my ladder.”

“How is it you know it was your ladder?” said Samuel. Maud gave him an exasperated look.

Porter raised a hand in appeal. “I heard a ladder, and so I thought …”

“We’re so rude!” said Maud, pained at her lack of social grace. “Let’s all go into the kitchen.” Maud took the lead, while Samuel, still recovering from his surprise, pressed against the hallway wall for the others to pass.

Akosua was an average-sized woman, sap-coloured, with dainty, forgettable features. But Samuel couldn’t wrap his head around Porter. He couldn’t believe it was him, this small boar of a man who left letters in his mailbox and had hidden himself until now. This was him. Samuel felt unsettled, but also a little disappointed. Porter had undone the very different image Samuel had of him in his mind.