Miriam Toews - Irma Voth

I slammed the door in his face and listened. Nothing. I thought he must be walking back to his house. Then I heard some Bible verses being quoted and realized that he was still there.

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, he said. And then louder, a practised crescendo I’d heard a million times.

And he said unto him, Lord I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death!

I wondered if I should make some coffee or go back to bed.

And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me!

I couldn’t find my canister of coffee. I let a cupboard slam by accident and swore. I didn’t want Aggie waking up.

Then he demanded that I let him into the house. I didn’t say anything. He started yelling and Aggie eventually came out of the bedroom and together we stared at the door.

It’s Julius Voth, I said.

Don’t let him in, she said.

Then we heard another voice.

Who’s that? said Aggie.

I think it’s Diego, I said.

Our father asked him what he was doing there and Diego told him that he’d been outside staring at the sky, looking for signs of rain, and had heard yelling coming from my yard and then had started to wonder what was going on and if I was all right.

Well, now you can leave, said my father, and stay out of our business.

I will, said Diego, but why don’t you go home also.

You will not tell me what to do on my own property, said my father.

Aggie and I sat silently at the table waiting for it all to end. It took a while. Arguments between two visionaries are lengthy, I learned. One of these men will be dead soon, I thought. While they argued Aggie made shapes on the table with flour. Tiny words, then bigger, like an eye chart. And hearts and clouds and cacti and planets. I went far away in my head, back to Canada, to snow, to forts, to ammunition that could melt, to red wrists from sleeves on parkas that were too short, to eyes frozen shut with ice.

MARIJKE HAS TO DIE TODAY. It’s a little bit out of sequence but Diego is in a hurry to finish the shots that require the co-operation of the Mennonites. The other ones, the ones of nature or whatever, he can do elsewhere, somewhere down the road. My father has put a bounty on Diego’s head, according to Diego. That if he doesn’t take his filthy pornography-producing crew who live like pigs and rape his daughters and leave immediately he will end up with a bullet in his brain. Diego has also threatened my father with swift justice if he does anything to prevent him from finishing his movie. I don’t know if I believe it.

I asked Diego when I’d be paid for my work and he said tomorrow. He said first he had to pay the cops to let Carlito go.

Carlito Wiebe? I said. Diego said yeah, Carlito Wiebe. Diego had hired him to play Alfredo’s friend but Carlito was busted at Campo 4 for some kind of drug thing and was in jail at the moment. How much will it cost? I asked him.

Four thousand pesos, he said. Plus the cop wants a part in the movie.

Diego told me not to worry. He asked me if my father was insane and I said oh, do you mean Julius Voth? And he said yeah. Then he apologized for talking that way about my father. I told him Aggie and I had to get out of the house, that my father had sold it to somebody. Diego told me that Aggie and I can live in the house with the crew. He said Marijke would like it and the presence of females might keep her from wigging out.

On the way to the death scene location we stopped to quickly film a scene where Alfredo and Marijke talk in the car. Alfredo is supposed to tell Marijke that he just can’t stop loving that other woman or whatever, and Marijke is supposed to ask him why he doesn’t want to be with her, Marijke, anymore. I leaned into the passenger side window of the car and told Marijke that this time she’d be looking right at the camera. She wasn’t really talking to Alfredo but it was supposed to look like she was. Alfredo wasn’t there. She was talking to a camera that was on top of Miguel’s stomach. Miguel was lying down, sort of, driving the car with the camera on top of him. He could barely see over the dashboard. Elias and Sebastian and Diego sat in the back seat.

Tell her to look right into that spot just above the lens, said Diego. To count in her head to ten and then to talk to it as though it were the love of her life.

I told Marijke in German to count silently to ten and then to ask the spot just above the lens why he doesn’t want to be with her anymore. Marijke nodded.

And then, I said, ask is it because my vagina is so big after having all these babies?

This time I had gone too far. Marijke smiled and said I must be joking. Diego wouldn’t have written that. Was it for real? Okay, well, no, I said, but it’s more interesting and don’t you think it’s kind of the truth?

We can’t wreck his movie with things like that, said Marijke.

Nobody seeing the movie will understand, I said. So what difference does it make?

It’s not true to my character, said Marijke. I mean her character.

What character? I said. She’s a prop for Alfredo’s dark night of the soul. For his excruciating existential dilemma. She’s barely breathing.

Did Wilson say that to you? said Marijke.

Yeah, I said. Don’t let Diego take your soul.

What are you talking about?

Oh, I don’t know, I said.

Suddenly I was exhausted. Diego told us to hurry. He asked me if Marijke was sure of her line and I said yes.

Then let’s roll, he said.

Miguel began to drive the car, haphazardly, down the road. It was obvious that he couldn’t see where he was going. I stood and watched them leave. I counted silently to ten and then saw Marijke turn her head to the camera, her husband, to speak to him with a broken heart. I watched them disappear into dust. Then they came back and left again and came back and left again and kept doing that for a while until Diego had his shot. He and all the others huddled around the little viewing thing that showed them what they had on film and nodded in approval. Beautiful. Perfect. Wilson would take the rushes today and fly them to Mexico City before they could be destroyed by my father.

Are you coming back? I asked him.

Yes, he said.

We were tearing to the house so that Diego could talk to Alfredo again. The death scene was postponed because my father had told everyone in church that if they co-operated with Diego they might as well book themselves a window seat to hell and enjoy the ride. He told them that Diego was stealing their women and perverting the will of God. He’d also made his position clear in more tangible ways, according to Diego.

What does that mean? I asked him.

Nobody in the area will do business with the agents of Satan, he said. Alfredo had radioed Diego to tell him that he had gone into the store to buy cigarettes and had had to pay twice as much as he normally would. Same with his vampiros. And the Wayfarer’s Inn wouldn’t serve him at all. Alfredo told Diego he was done. He couldn’t take the pressure anymore. This really was it for him. Diego told him to meet him at the house. He sent Sebastian off to the businesses with some more money and a heartfelt plea to allow him to make his art. He told Sebastian to tell as many people as he could that the premiere of the film would be held in Campo 6.5 and everyone would be welcome, young and old, and it would be beautiful and sacred and true to the gentle and forgiving character of the Mennonite people.

It sounds like a war, said Aggie.

That’s exactly what it is, said Diego.

When we got to the house Alfredo was standing in the middle of the yard with his wife and my father. Diego jumped out of the truck and walked quickly over to them.