Howard Norman - Devotion

There was about a thirty-second pause, during which David stared at the tape, still turning on its spool. Then Maggie continued:

One more thing for now. Remember the strange woman on Islay, driving by with the swan in her back seat? She’s settled in my mind a certain way. I know full well that on Islay she might be considered some old crazy. What did our waitress say? “She thinks that swan’s her dear departed husband”—warn’t that it? But my own personal conclusion is that I envy that old woman. To love someone so deeply and with such devotion you obviously have no choice in the matter but to keep seeing him in one form or another. I would like that for myself. To be married to a man I’d eventually feel that way about.

IT WAS 6 A.M. and David lay in bed listening to the radio: “…the possibility of showers late in the day, especially in Cape Breton and…”

He dozed off, woke again around 8:15, to Around the Province, a show out of Truro whose host, Jeffrey Paine, took calls from listeners on this or that topic. “The words ‘November’ and ‘heat wave’ make for strange bedfellows here in Adantic Canada,” Paine said. “Yes, sir, we have children still in short sleeves lined up for the school bus. My air conditioner’s acting so cool toward me, I don’t even know what I did to hurt its feelings! This heat’s affecting everybody So let’s hear from you. Whether your garden’s still producing summer squash, or you fear it’s due to a hole in the ozone layer, or whatnot, ad infinitum. The lines are open. I’m Jeffrey Paine and this is Around the Province for November 6, 1986, from the very center — the epicenter — the center of the center of the province, Truh-oh! ” Paine’s agenda was fairly staid, but he used to have a rock ’n’ roll show and on occasion still lapsed into deejay chatter, referred to himself as “Jeffrey P,” offered the odd pop-culture reference (“Well, allow me to quote one of the Canadian gods, Mr. Leonard Cohen”) and so on.

Maggie had been living in the main house for nearly a week. David knew that all considerations were focused on Stefania Field, officially due in three days. William had left a letter from Stefania Tecosky on his kitchen table, which in part read, We will arrive on November 6, hoping to be on time for the birth of Margaret and David’s daughter. ”

William picked up Stefania and Isador at Halifax Airport at 7 A.M. David knew they’d be at the estate any moment now. He should rouse himself, get his camera ready on the porch to chronicle their arrival, and he did sit at the edge of the bed, rubbing his face, thinking of coffee so intensely he could almost smell it brewing, though he hadn’t even ground his usual morning’s three cups yet. But then a call came in to Around the Province that caught his attention, and he sat there listening to it.

“Jeffrey,” the caller said, “this is Carter Dorson in Truro.”

“What’s on your mind today, Carter?” Paine said.

“Well, if you read your Scripture, you might interpret a drought like we’re having as a warning. We’ve got to change our ways. Course, no original Bible story took place in Atlantic Canada, you don’t have to tell me that, but if you simply replace the names Sodom and Gomorrah with the name Halifax — what I’m saying is, something’s put the temperature way out of whack, and how people live down there might be why we’re all being punished—”

“Slow down, there, Carter,” Paine said. “The fair city of Halifax?”

Then David heard William’s truck. He switched off the radio, threw on his trousers, grabbed his camera, stepped onto the porch, quickly adjusted the lens and started to take photographs. William got out of the truck, reached in back and took down two suitcases, which he carried toward the house. Maggie came out smiling and embraced Stefania, then Isador, then stepped back and let them look at her recent shapeliness. Stefania kissed Maggie again. To David, Stefania and Isador looked a bit the worse for wear: it was a long journey for people their age, and according to what he’d observed on his honeymoon, the Tecoskys were already in declining health. Isador especially moved slowly. Yet they both looked tremendously pleased to be at the estate.

Through the telephoto from his porch, David photographed Isador as he kissed his own fingers, reached up and touched the mezuzah, the ancient talisman nailed to the doorframe. Then Stefania touched it, and everyone went into the house.

David sat on a porch swing for an hour or so, facing the main house, hoping for a glimpse of someone or something going on, an observer. Now I understand John Pallismore, he thought. But this was more: how would he get back into a life he never learned to fully occupy to begin with?

Inside the main house, Maggie prepared a lunch of roasted chicken and garlic green beans, light on the garlic. When Maggie complained that the kitchen was too stuffy, William brought in a fan. “If I feel faint,” she said, “I’ll drink some water and lie down. But just now I’m fine, Dad. And I’m so happy. I can hardly believe Stefania and Izzy are here!”

“Want to ask David over yet?”

“No, I do not, thank you.”

This was said while Stefania and Isador were freshening up in the downstairs guest bathroom. William had brought both of their suitcases to the master bedroom upstairs.

“I never thought I’d be saying this in November,” William said at lunch, “but it’s warm enough to take a swim before dinner.”

“That would be nice,” Maggie said. “The baby’s kicking up a storm. When I’m in the water, I can almost feel her relax.”

Maggie on the living room sofa, Stefania and Isador upstairs, William in the guest room, each took a nap after lunch. David slept on the porch swing. At 5:30 William put on swim trunks and stepped out onto the lawn, where he found Stefania and Isador waiting, wearing their own swim outfits retrieved from a bureau drawer. Stefania’s was dark blue with a frilly skirt, which William recognized as prewar vintage. Her wrinkled, small body, white hair bobby-pinned without design. Isador had on a black suit that looked at least two sizes too big. The shoulder straps loose on his bony shoulders. Maggie then appeared, stepping down from the porch in her one-piece. “A fine afternoon for a swim,” she said, and the four of them set out for the pond.

“Where’s David?” Isador said.

“He’ll be back soon,” Maggie said.

David heard voices, woke with a start, went inside and photographed Isador, Stefania, Maggie and William through the kitchen window as they passed by. Mist had begun rising in wispy, wavering columns from the water. “The bank is slippery, so be careful now,” Maggie said.

“Margaret says the bank is slippery,” Isador said into Stefania’s better ear. Then, speechlessly, they all held hands in a daisy chain and slowly entered the water, keeping each other in balance. Observing all of this, David thought, I’ll have to invite myself. He went into his bedroom, put on his Dalhousie University gym shorts. Everyone of importance to him was already in the pond.

Yet invited or not, David hesitated at the screen door. He listened to their drifting voices. On no evening did the entire pond mist over evenly, and now he saw the cattails at the north end had almost completely disappeared. He waited another fifteen minutes or so, then walked down. He couldn’t see anyone. “Fog registered its ghostly imprimatur over the mortal life.” That, a sentence from Anatole France — he knew that much, yet couldn’t recall from which novel. The swans were silent, wherever they were.