Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Eudora almost lost her composure. “Will you look at the two of you,” she said, her voice full of breath. “Only one year older and wearing it like it’s twenty. Ray, will you look at them?”

Ray smiled, blind to the change. “Finer girls Aster has not seen.” With his characteristic way of addressing the ghost above Samuel’s shoulder, he looked apologetic, and said, “Yes.” Though Samuel was uncertain how to read that gesture, he was happy to see in it an attempt to make amends, and reassured Ray with a smile. Ray nodded back. There was something endearing about that vulnerable nod, about the shaky, wire glasses that magnified Ray’s eyes, giving him the look of a learned turtle.

But only on Maud’s terms could wounds truly be mended. When she entered, in a black dress too funereal to be festive, the verdict of the party hung on her, and she knew it. She sat at the head of the table, making a spectacle of her annoyance, and Samuel thought he saw one of the twins roll her eyes.

Eudora ordered Samuel to find a good radio station as she unstacked the guestware from the high cupboard. Ama arranged the presents, hoping, perhaps, that the Franks had thought to bring a little something for her, and Maud lit the chessboard cake, its tiny black and white candles cast in the mould of game pieces.

“Where the devil did you get such a cake?” said Maud.

Ray nodded towards his wife. “Dora’s hands. I knew they had to have some purpose beyond dialling the phone.” He smiled, but looked preoccupied, touching his breast pocket.

“Oh, shush,” said Eudora. “At least mine are active. But then I guess by keeping yours down your shorts you always know where to find them in case of emergency.”

“Just the opposite — they’re lost in there and I like it that way.”

Eudora frowned. “Children, Ray.”

Maud seated the twins at the head opposite her, and placed Ama and Samuel to their left and their right, facing each other. To spare them Samuel’s conversation, Maud seated the Franks nearer her end.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Maud, when Eudora started to lower herself into the seat beside Samuel. “You keep me company over here.”

This also kept them from the twins, who surely dreaded the attention. But the twins sat in such silent, strained rigidity that it became impossible to look elsewhere. Maud kept trying to attract the company with loud, witless remarks, and watching her fail at this led Samuel to see how much she blamed herself for her girls’ behaviour. That Maud would risk ridicule to save her children from their natural speech; that she would play the town ass to dissuade outsiders from seeing the very obvious truth; that her own self-respect meant less to her than the loss of her daughters’ good names in Aster: all of this gave Samuel a sort of detached shame.

His bad mood passed as talk turned to politics — if the Farmers League would ever regain its foot in Albertan politics, the delusion of the women’s movement, whether provincial-level reform of the penal system was needed to properly punish the arsonist once they caught the bastard. Lately, penal reform had been hotly debated in the Frank house, leading to three hoarse quarrels, a slapped face, constant name-calling and five painful nights on a couch no lusher than padding. The Franks had finally agreed never to mention their wretched views again. But Eudora broached it once more, aware all the while of her husband’s benevolent smile weighing on her. She’d recently interned at a facility in Edmonton.

“It’s where they send the in-betweens, meaning people who committed some crime but are given a break based on mental instability. And, you know, the longer I volunteer, the less convinced I am in the value of rehabilitation.” She began to cut the cake. “It’s true some can’t help it. This one woman, Mary — ha, woman —child, more like it. An epileptic. She took up with an older man who supposedly told her that”—Eudora dropped her voice—“laying down with men for money would cure her seizures. Simple as a cat, I tell you. Just as vicious, too, sometimes. Anyway, she’s more like a transient to the house — a travelling salesman, as Ray calls her.” Eudora winked at her husband, a gesture that gave more weight to his wit than it deserved.

“It would appear that prostitution has some hard penalties,” said Samuel.

Eudora admonished Samuel with her eyes for daring such a word in the company of young ears. He grew reticent, and stifled the nervous laugh he knew made him seem foolish.

“Day after day I go there, believing or trying to believe that these facilities are a good thing. We shall reform, I think. It can be done. But when I sit here, and really think about it, I just can’t stand the thought, can’t bear it, that someone like this Aster Arsonist, who might even be an Asterian—”

“An Asterisk,” said Samuel, with a hesitant laugh.

“An Asterian”—Eudora raised her voice—“going about his regular life in his regular clothes, has the power to take away our homes, to take away our businesses, maybe even to take away our lives, and that his only punishment might be to spend a few hours a week with me for a decade, and then get back all his privileges as though nothing’s happened. That’s not right.”

“I don’t know, Dora,” said Ray. “A few hours a week with you …”

“There was a saying in my house,” said Samuel, clearing his throat. “There was a saying, when this similar thing happened in my village: One who sets outward fires is burning within. Meaning that what that man likely needs is aid, though he should also be punished. And they found, when they caught that joker, that after a beating and some imprisonment, they could then begin his reformation. Now, I don’t believe he should necessarily be beaten, but there is greater room in a man’s heart for change than even he can be aware of.”

“There was a saying in my house in Ontario, too, Samuel. Real men don’t talk like jesters.” Ray smiled, but his eyes were cold. His comment subdued the room.

“Go smoke, Ray, if you have to,” said Eudora, flustered. “Going without makes you mean.”

Ray rose as though the reprieve was late in coming. He left without speaking, disappointing Samuel by giving no sign they should meet outside. Samuel refused, once again, to believe Ray meant offence. Ray’s era was less language-conscious, his learning unguided, his politics small-minded, even prejudiced. When more than common speech was required of him, he grew uneasy; and he had the autodidact’s lack of humility when giving advice. But despite these faults, Ray had more of the human good in him than all the best-tempered men of Samuel’s memory. Of this Samuel was convinced. The risking of his own life for Ama’s could not be forgotten, wanting no gratitude for the act, even masking it from the public eye for the sake of the Tynes’ reputation. This reason alone filled Samuel with tolerance; and besides, only a small man couldn’t laugh at his own cultural quirks. Moreover, Ray’s comments seemed more insecure than mean-spirited. As a backwater, Ray felt challenged by Samuel’s accomplishments — a sad position for anyone, so that Samuel resolved to set his pride aside.

He rose, motioning for the party to go on without him, as though such trifles weren’t worth his time. Leaving, he recognized fully for the first time that the confidence he’d sought these last months was finally his. He was certainly still timid, with an empathy that doubled his own suffering in the world, but he had overcome his terror of being judged. And success, he felt, was close, absolute and irrefutable.

From the crumbling patio in the backyard, Samuel squinted around, nearsighted from years of detailed work. A quick glance around the yard revealed nothing but Porter’s distant house, its brown shingles applauding in the wind. A few feet before it, a short, angular boy pushed a wheelbarrow, his baseball cap hesitating on his head like a bubble on water. He cut a sharp figure against the soft bulk of his house, and there was a funny sullenness in the way he jerked the empty barrow. Something in his black mood hinted at family anger, and, vaguely, Samuel began to walk towards him. It was a while before Porter’s son noticed Samuel, but he halted when he did, folding his fists into his pockets and turning uncertainly towards the eaves of his house.