Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Porter chinned towards his house. “See that? For years that house and this one owned Aster. When they were both just log cabins with off-kitchens. Not one thing was decided without permission from one of these houses. This was before the others came and split it into districts and what have you. Aster was run by us and for us.”

“You can find no greater admirer of the early Aster than myself. Never mind this nonsense about districts. I moved here because I thought nothing would have changed. Maud said to me, she said, ‘One should not dream when he is awake,’ but I brought them anyway.” Samuel looked at Porter for approval.

Porter sucked on his pipe without the least sign of having heard. “These houses were the heart of Aster life, and my father built mine, Jeff Snick the other. Weren’t much to look at back then, but look at them now. Snick was more of a handyman than Daddy, and so yours has the more attachments. But they’re both good homes, and it broke my heart to see yours fall to pieces at the hands of bums. Sickening, stupid lodgers who didn’t treat the house no better than if it were a way station on the way to a better slum. It was even a brothel, once, run by some harlot widow. I was damn glad when Jacob turned up — he looked just the man to right things, you know? And he was, he really was.” The wonder in Porter’s voice was genuine. He overturned his pipe and looked Samuel in the eye. “Your uncle was the best kind of man there was.”

Samuel gave a hesitant laugh. Porter appraised him.

“Life’s a low-down shame shouldn’t happen to a dog. And your uncle’s life ended worse than that. I was here, caring for him after the first stroke happened, then I cleaned his house some after the second stroke took him away.”

Samuel started at his words. He wasn’t aware Jacob had endured a first stroke that hadn’t killed him, that there had been a window in which to make amends. He turned coldly to Porter. “So.”

With provoking slowness, Porter thumbed the mouth of his pipe to crush out the last embers. He gave it a vigorous shake and returned it to the appropriate pocket. Only when Samuel reached the edge of his rage was Porter prompted to say something. “Did you get the quote I sent you for the property? A little low, I know, but your house ain’t in the best shape, and now’s a good time to sell.”

“Eh! Do not fool with me.” Samuel’s voice cracked with suppressed anger. He resisted the urge to point a finger in Porter’s face. “It’s you who needs to give me land. You think you can stand here and make an ass of me? I have seen the records. Oh, I have seen them, brother. How dare you demand what you’ve already stolen?” Samuel walked a few steps away, then returned, shaking his finger. “Watch yourself, eh? You are my elder, but you watch yourself.” Samuel began to walk away again when he was arrested by Porter’s voice.

“Hear me out.”

Brought almost to tears by his anger, Samuel walked back to Porter. He finally abandoned his vague notion that Porter was irreproachable, the naïve idea that people who’ve endured hardships are cured from causing harm themselves.

“Your uncle left me that land in his will.” Porter spoke as though it was an irrefutable fact. “When I called you about your inheritance, I was referring to the house and the few acres around it.”

“Is that so?” said Samuel, mockery in his voice. “Where is this so-called will?”

“I handed it over to the town officials. And, I know you ain’t going to believe this, but when I requested to have it back so you and I could mull over it together, they told me they misplaced it among paperwork, and why don’t I come back in a few days time. Well, I went back, but they still couldn’t find it. Never tried again. But you don’t believe me, do you?”

Samuel made an incredulous sound with his lips. Did this man think he was an imbecile? He brushed a fly from his cheek.

“Listen, that will kept them from turning your place into a heritage site. I turned it in for you. I did it because Jacob had so much integrity that it’s a rare man who wouldn’t die to bring about his last wishes.”

Samuel felt this last phrase was calculated to sting him, he who had refused to view the body and dispensed with the forty days’ ceremony. “So then why are you now trying to take the land and the house from me, if Jacob willed it so?”

Porter pursed his lips. “You have to admit you ain’t done the soundest job of keeping up the place.” He paused. “You’ll be well compensated. You surprise me, Samuel. Your uncle had such integrity. Go to the authorities if you don’t buy my story about the will. Or don’t, what do I care? But to call me a thief? To call a thief the man who cared for your uncle as he died?”

“A man who had no right, no right , who didn’t even call me after the first stroke, if indeed he hasn’t made the whole thing up—”

“It’s on your conscience, Tyne. It’s on your conscience. That’s all I got to say.” Walking away, Porter paused. “But think about the quote. I’ll by no means be as generous later.”

Samuel restrained himself from calling the old man names. Watching Porter return to the house, Samuel’s house, to continue the afternoon as though nothing had happened, Samuel grew furious. Twiddling the bowler in his hands, he set his jaw. But trying to suppress his anger only worsened it, and he looked blindly around him for something to break. The sheets on the laundry line buckled in the wind, and in a lapse of feeling, as if watching another man act, he ripped down every single one. The thrumming sound of them falling pacified him a little, but it was only when he’d yanked down the line itself that he felt better.

But his relief didn’t last long. Seeing the destruction he’d caused, Samuel felt astonished he could so lose control of himself. It also dawned on him how Maud would react, and this time her anger would be justified. The thought of quarrelling with her made him anxious, and, in truth, he had no defence for actions he himself felt ashamed of. Gathering up the muddy sheets and the line, Samuel crept to the cellar and stuffed them behind a pile of old suitcases. He would deal with it later.

It didn’t take long for Maud to notice Samuel’s new blindness to life. He seemed to navigate the days with indifference, and if tricked into showing emotion, he would catch himself and become withdrawn again. Maud began to ignore him, and found in this way she was able to tolerate him. She felt he unfairly blamed the twins for her accident. One minute she’d been standing on the shaky ladder, dusting, the next minute she was on the floor with her daughters looking over her, too afraid to touch her. But she would swear on the Bible her daughters had not pushed her, and wondered what kind of a man Samuel could be not to believe this.

Maud knew the twins felt his neglect, and she resolved to make up for his lack of interest. She kept an eye on them, and when she discovered them drafting a letter to Ama, she offered to type them on the antique machine exhumed from the attic. The girls were guarded at first, but they accepted. Maud glowed with pleasure; taking after Eudora, Maud had been running herself ragged in the need to be useful to other people. Besides helping the twins, Maud’s greatest coup was doing for Akosua Porter what she wished someone had done for her upon her arrival in Canada. Every day Maud could be found talking to Akosua in the Tyne kitchen, pontificating on the workings of Western society. Despite its rocky start, a lukewarm friendship had begun to develop between them. The alliance transpired less from a mutual regard than from their shared lot as exiles, and on Maud’s side it was even bolstered by a little pity. But they got on well enough. Maud told Akosua what to shop for, and donated some of her best clothes to the Porter cause, leaving herself a monk’s wardrobe. When she attempted to raid the twins’ closet so that the smallest Porters wouldn’t go without, she was so badly rebuked that she went away guilty. She now offered to type their letter with such enthusiasm that it couldn’t help but compensate for her earlier blunder.