Miriam Toews - All My Puny Sorrows

Nora had texted me from Toronto: A guy in a suit knocked on the door and asked me if I was all right. He said he was your friend. Are you a Jehovah’s Witness now? How’s Elf?

We drove down Corydon Avenue towards my mother’s apartment. How are you doing? she asked me. Fine, fine, I said. I wanted to tell her that I felt I was dying from rage and that I felt guilty about everything and that when I was a kid I woke up every morning singing, that I couldn’t wait to leap out of bed and rush out of the house into the magical kingdom that was my world, that dust made visible in sunbeams gave me real authentic joy, that my sparkly golden banana-seated bike with the very high sissy bar took my breath away, the majesty of it, that it was mine, that there was no freer soul in the world than me at age nine, and that now I woke up every morning reminding myself that control is an illusion, taking deep breaths and counting to ten trying to ward off panic attacks and hoping that my own hands hadn’t managed to strangle me while I slept. Nora texted: We have carpenter ants now . I texted back: Good. Put them to work rebuilding the broken door .

My mother patted my leg, don’t text and drive honey, she said. I remained silent, she said something like this too shall pass and I wanted to swerve into oncoming traffic. What will you say next! I asked her. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?

Well, she laughed, I know you’re ideologically opposed to clichés, but yes, that one is apt, no?

No, I said. Everything will be all right in the end and if it’s not all right then it’s not the end.

Is that one of those? she asked.

Yeah, it’s one of those, but I don’t think I said it right. And what do you mean, ideologically opposed? Being original isn’t an ideology.

Okay, she said, but believing in originality is though, right?

I guess so. Do you know that people are happier when they stop trying to be happy? That’s some study they did.

Well, I could have told you that, said my mom.

My phone was buzzing away, texts from men wanting divorces and children wanting me to condone underage sex and kill insects from three thousand kilometres away.

So what happens to Rhonda the Rodeo Girl this time? asked my mother. Is she still … what was she, fourteen?

No, this is my book book, my real book.

Oh right! Of course. What’s it about again?

Oh, I don’t know, I said. You don’t have to make a fake effort to show interest — you’re exhausted.

No, Yoli, she said, I do want to know and if anything it will help me to take my mind off things for a minute or two.

It’s about a harbourmaster.

What? A what? said my mom. I thought it was about sisters.

Yeah, that too, but initially a harbourmaster. He’s the guy, or woman I guess — but in my story he’s a guy — who steers the big ships out of the harbour and then climbs down a little rope ladder when the ship is safely out at sea, and into a little boat that’s been driving along beside the ship, and then he goes back home. But in my story the weather is too bad for him to climb down onto the little boat, the captain won’t let him, the ladder is too flimsy and it’s way too dangerous, they misjudged the storm that they thought was still two days away, so the harbourmaster has to go all the way to Rotterdam with the ship because that’s the first port of call.

Oh, said my mom. Well, that’s fascinating.

Okay, well it’s not fascinating, I said. I just wanted to write a book that didn’t end with a rodeo competition, you know?

Oh, but they’re so exciting.

Well, not this time, mom. I’ve got all the excitement up front.

So then what happens once he’s left the harbour?

He misses this crucial meeting he had planned for that evening and everything goes wrong.

But can’t he call whomever he’s supposed to meet and reschedule?

Well, I’m not sure but yeah, right, that’s a bit of a credibility problem I’m having because he should be able to but then there’d be no crisis, no book.

Right, said my mom. Perhaps he’s forgotten his cellphone?

Well no, because there would be an entire crew on the ship and communication technology and all that, that he could use.

Okay, but, said my mom, maybe he does call the person he’s supposed to be meeting but he or she doesn’t get the message on time? You know, they miss each other in some way.

Yeah, that makes more sense I think. But I just like the idea of this guy not being able to get off this ship and not being at all prepared for a journey to Rotterdam.

Right, hmmm, said my mom. And then the sisters part? Does he meet sisters on the boat?

No, I said, the sisters part is in his imagination as he sits on the deck staring at the sea.

Oh! Okay … memories of sisters.

Sort of, yeah, he just has thoughts— Hey, do you hear that?

What?

That clanking. Hang on.

I pulled the car into the parking lot of an “ice crematorium” called the Marble Slab (Jesus Christ!) and turned off the engine. I got out and walked around the car, staring and unsure, like I was looking at the latest Damien Hirst installation. I got back into the car and tried to start it again. Nothing. The engine wasn’t turning over. That’s odd, said my mom. Don’t worry, I said. I thought of Anatole France angrily telling his amour that he would bite his fists until they bled. I tried again. And again. Nothing.

The car’s dead, I said.

My mother shook her head and grinned. She started to laugh. I looked at her. I took her hand and plopped the useless key into her palm. I smiled and she kept on laughing for a while.

Oh boy, she said. Her body shook. This is getting really funny.

She suggested that we get out of the car and walk to Kristina’s, the Greek restaurant next to Fresh. Yeah, I said, good idea, especially the walking part.

At the restaurant we had a surprisingly upbeat conversation about men and sex and guilt and children. Is there anything else? We drank an entire bottle of red wine. We also talked about Nic. Do you think he’s okay? I asked my mom. Well, that depends on what you mean by okay, she said. He’s holding up.

I guess he is, I said. I just don’t know how.

How? said my mom. How are you holding up?

I guess, I said again. How are you holding up?

We laughed at ourselves, then stopped. Breath, energy, emotion, self-control, all too valuable right now to squander. My cellphone rang and my mom picked it up and said questions without answers, how may we help you? (She may have been a little drunk.) It was Jason, her mechanic at River City Auto, and he said he’d have the car towed to the garage and figure out what was wrong.

We walked back to my mom’s apartment hand in hand. She taught me the military way of synchronizing our strides. It’s a little skip, see? she said. She showed me. Then when we’re out of sync, you do it again. She made me try it. When we got back to her apartment she talked to people on the phone about Elf and Tina (Yes, they’re both in the hospital. The same hospital, yes) while I researched Nembutal online. If you “erase history” does that mean the police can’t see it?

Jason called me back on my cell and said the transmission was fatally compromised and that there was no point in saving the car, it wasn’t worth it. He suggested that an organization of “youth at risk” teens be allowed to pick up the car to use as a guinea pig in their classroom at a school that tried to help them pick a career other than petty criminal. They’d pay fifty bucks for the car and haul it away for good. I told him to hang on for a sec and asked my mom if she was prepared to say goodbye to her car forever. She was on the phone and nodded and shrugged yeah, whatever. I told Jason fine, let them keep the cash. He asked me to come and get the stuff that was in the car before he called up the troubled teens.