Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

Samuel recovered quickly, not feeling too guilty. In putting away his daughters he’d performed the greatest evil of which he was capable; all other indecencies paled in comparison. He returned to his work clear-minded, tended his cocoa yam plant; his desire for Akosua defused. Like everything else in his life, he soon suppressed the urge for sex, and was able to meet her in all parts of the house without feeling anything. He grew fascinated by his own lack of feeling, to the point that he imagined killing a man wouldn’t faze him. Then he’d remember his daughters. He’d repress his thoughts and get back to work.

The day Saul removed the weathervane from the roof, Maud got a telegram that knocked the last of her wits from her. The Tynes had grown so insensate to the vane’s screeching that the excruciating silence left by its absence startled them. The telegram, a bad omen as only telegrams are, was nervously unsealed. Maud’s father had died in Gold Coast two weeks before, and they needed her to come home and bring two thousand dollars for his burial. She suffocated with the news. She cried in Samuel’s arms.

“Will the money drop from the sky?” she said. “We can’t even afford to put gum in the holes in our shoes.”

Samuel began to cry, too. Maud sat in surprised silence.

“Not one nail to hang our boots on,” said Samuel composing himself. “No daughter to care for us in old age.”

“Who mentioned them?” Taking her head from his lap, Maud prostrated herself on the bed and wept. Samuel left her to exhaust herself.

There were other voices in the house. Samuel was curious, for the Porters never had guests and he himself met his clients elsewhere, both families only too aware of their embarrassing living arrangements. Samuel stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. There at his table, without shame, amiable even, sat Ray and Eudora Frank talking to Akosua, who was recounting the story of her parents’ goat, whose penchant for walking backwards after being lamed in a fire had brought brief fame to her home. Eudora’s laugh was soft, distracted, but Ray responded in his robust way, interrupting with jokes.

After all of the pain the Franks had caused the Tynes, after all of the secrecy, the false intimacy, they were spiteful enough to return to a house of ruin and belittle what remained of its dignity. Samuel was so stricken by the sight of them that he stood a full minute without hearing what they said.

Ray stood, a sad smile on his face. “We heard about Maud’s father, Samuel. We come with condolences.”

Samuel shot a sharp look at Porter, who crossed his broad arms. Akosua looked away.

“We brought a dessert torte,” said Eudora, a little too eager. “Rhubarb and Saskatoon berry. They’re at their best this time of year.”

Samuel wanted to hit her. Not speaking, he turned to leave.

“Samuel.” Eudora clutched the back of a chair for support, the magnitude of her weight making it groan. She looked half-dead, her skin the pallor of teeth, a green hue to the grey of her hair. She breathed audibly, and though her eyes were still sharp, they had lost their edge of criticism and instead looked desperate, nervous.

“Samuel,” she said again, and a strange emotion crossed her face too fast for Samuel to understand it. “Tell Maud I’m sorry.”

Samuel stared at her. He left without reply.

After checking on Maud, Samuel retreated to his study. He ignited his soldering iron to tinker with Wainright’s old toaster. The job didn’t pay money, but went towards closing his debt to that impatient businessman, who kept a tally of Samuel’s finished jobs like a child’s game on a cardboard slat in his office. Sometimes Samuel marvelled, with a kind of detachment, that he was again at the mercy of two bureaucratic men: Elliot was like Dombey, Wainright like Son. But most of the time he tried not to think of this.

As Samuel worked, waiting for the Franks to leave, it finally struck him. The house was no longer his. And as boarders, he and Maud had no control over who entered. He extinguished his soldering iron and sat staring at the wall.

Late afternoon found him in one of his best suits, driving up the road to the gates of the Facility. He parked and keyed in the code. The path was on an incline, and by the time he reached the grounds he was out of breath. He did not know exactly what he had come to do, only that he felt he should do something. Though he tried to suppress it, Samuel couldn’t help but feel he’d been a painful failure as a parent, worse than a failure — that he had damaged his children in some preventable way. He picked a few marigolds and entered the building, greeting the desk attendant with a tense smile.

“These aren’t visiting hours,” was her surly response. She was a short, stocky woman who’d adorned her plain face with rhinestone glasses. “Besides, we can only hold so many people at once on the wards. Takes about a week’s advance booking to see anyone.”

Samuel giggled. “With that kind of wait one might think I have come to see the queen.” He tried his hand at a joke. “I hope at least they are receiving royal treatment.”

The woman looked harassed. “Name and number and I’ll book you for next week.”

She was immovable. Samuel gave his name and with a schoolgirl’s deliberation she penned it into her schedule. But when he next returned, this time with Maud, who was talked into coming by the promise it would ease her nerves, they were denied admittance. An altogether different attendant eyed them.

“Eh,” said Samuel, “last time I came here I signed up. Check your calendar.”

The tiny woman’s voice trembled. “Sir, you didn’t sign up with me. We all keep our own schedule.” When he began a tirade, she summoned her boss, a man of metal temper with a single thick eyebrow like a hyphen above disarmingly generous eyes. He made little noises of awe as he sought their names in the girl’s new register, then, frowning, transcribed something in his own notebook and, promising nothing, saw them to their car.

Samuel tried three more times to see his daughters. Upon each visit he was thwarted by a different attendant with a different schedule, none of which corresponded. The doctor responded to Samuel’s concerns by restating the visiting days and promising to clarify things with the front counter so that the situation would not be repeated. And Samuel would return the next week only to be denied again.

He couldn’t believe the absurdity of this bureaucracy. He considered involving the authorities, and was disheartened when a lawyer, whom he couldn’t afford anyway, told him that if he’d signed any paper making his children wards of the state he’d killed the case at the roots. Samuel couldn’t remember what he’d signed. For days he searched his study for the contracts. It took time for him to realize that, though upset, he felt relieved each day the papers remained unfound. What would he do if he found them — force them to grant him visits he didn’t know if he could stand? He realized with a kind of detachment that he fought mostly from a hatred of bureaucracy, rather than from a stinging need to see his children. In truth, his search had weakened his courage to see them. And so, Samuel stopped fighting. He found that he could bear it. Life continued as it was, and he waited for the coming of winter, for that simple change.

In early November the foliage bloomed in a final gasp, the leaves rusting and falling. The trees grew angular. In a rare calm mood, Maud sat on the front stoop, her legs tucked under her like a schoolgirl, watching the steam rise over the fields in the distance. Samuel stood behind her in the doorway. Seeing Maud like that, he felt a growing tenderness. He walked quietly to the kitchen to brew some tea, and with a steaming mug in each hand, stepped out to join her on the stoop.