I Don't Want to Know Anyone Too Well, and Other Stories Read online

  “You know what I feel like after a meal like that? How about we all go to the theatre?”

  “But it’s half past nine,” Constance said.

  “How time goes when you’re enjoying yourself,” Mendel said. Then he glanced at his wrist. “I think we’ll still catch it.”

  He walked to the far cupboard and turned on a radio. A Strauss waltz was being played. It stopped, and a commercial came on. A sepulchral voice boomed, “Rubin’s.” And then “bins . . . bins . . .” echoed down long corridors. Then another voice spoke rapidly in French. And again, “Rubin’s” and the echoing bins . . .

  He switched the radio off.

  “I have a store in Lower Town. We carry quality goods and some cheap lines. Sometime I’ll show you around, Jimmy. But what can we do now?”

  “Mummy can play the piano,” Constance said. “She plays very well.”

  “I don’t,” Frieda protested.

  “Play us something,” Mendel said.

  Frieda went to the piano and played “Für Elise” and some Chopin, while we drank brandy and coffee and smoked cigars.

  At eleven he was driving me back to the children’s school.

  “Do you know the one about the two Anglican ministers?”

  “No,” I said.

  “There were these two Anglican ministers,” Mendel said. “One had seven children. The other had none. The one with the seven children asked the other, ‘How do you do it?”’

  “‘I use the safe period,’ the other minister said.

  “‘What is that?’

  “‘When you go out of the house—I come in. It’s safe then.’” And Mendel laughed.

  “Here’s another one. There was this Jewish tailor. He had an audience with the Pope. When he got back to Montreal they asked him—’How was the Pope?’

  “‘A nice-looking man,’ the Jewish tailor said. ‘Thirty-six chest, 32 waist, 28 inside leg . . .’

  “Are you taking out Constance tomorrow night?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I took her to a movie. We got on fine. On Sunday we went out in the country to ski. We skied for miles. We both seemed to have so much energy. We came to a hill. I went down first. She followed and fell at the bottom. I picked her up and we kissed.

  “My father is worried that I’ll be an old maid,” she said, laughing.

  I didn’t think he needed to have any worries about that.

  “He only lets me go out with Jewish boys.”

  We kissed again.

  “Am I going to have a baby?”

  “You don’t have babies that way,” I said.

  “I know. But I have a girlfriend in Montreal. She told me that if you let a boy kiss you like that you can become pregnant.”

  Although I was being thrown together with Constance (we went out often for meals; saw movies; had romantic night rides in a sleigh, wrapped in fur skins, behind the swaying rump of a horse) and Mendel took me to several hockey games, it was Frieda who interested me. But so far I didn’t have a chance to be alone with her. If Mendel was there, he didn’t let anyone else talk. If Constance was there, I was expected to be with her.

  I managed to get away from the children’s school early one Wednesday and drove up to the house to find that Mendel and Constance had driven to his branch store in Three Rivers.

  “I was just reading,” Frieda said when I came into the living room.

  She got me a drink. We stood by the glass wall looking out. It’s a nice time, in winter, just before it gets dark. When the snow on the ground has some blue in it, so has the sky. She told me she came from Saint John, New Brunswick. Her father was a doctor. At seventeen her parents sent her to Montreal. “Just the way we worry about Constance.” She met Mendel. He was working for his father, who founded Rubin’s Department Store in Quebec. She was eighteen when they married and Constance came along when she was nineteen.

  “After she grew up I found I had nothing to do with my time. And when I tried things—I found that I can’t do anything well. That’s my trouble.”

  “You had Constance,” I said.

  “Anybody can do that,” she said contemptuously.

  “I tried to paint—I have all these nice pictures in my head—but look how they come out. I tried writing—but it was the same. Sometimes when I’m walking through the streets or in a restaurant I see something. It excites me. But what can I do with it? There’s no one I can even tell it to. I hardly go out of the house now. I feel trapped.”

  “Can’t you leave Quebec City,” I asked, “for a short—”

  “I don’t mean by this place,” she interrupted. “I mean by life.”

  This conversation was out of my depth. I didn’t know what she wanted. But her presence excited me far more than did Constance’s.

  “I taught myself French,” she said, “so I could read Colette in the original. And I have my flowers. Do you like flowers?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I like the colours.”

  She led me to her conservatory. It was full of orchids: yellows, purples, oranges, pinks, browns. There were other exotic flowers. I didn’t know their names. There were several creepers overhead. And a smell of jasmine from the one in a corner. But it was mostly orchids, and in different stages. Some were only beginning to grow. They seemed to be growing out of stuck-together clusters of grotesque gooseberries. While outside the glass of the conservatory, the thick snow had a frozen crust. It glittered underneath the street light.

  She showed me a striped orchid on the table in the hall. Yellow with delicate brown stripes. It was open and curved in such a way that you could see deep inside the flower.

  “Do you know how Colette describes an orchid?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Like a female genital organ—I have shocked you,” she said with a smile. “I would be promiscuous if I was a man. I know it. I wouldn’t be like my husband. He’s so old-fashioned—telling jokes. But I can’t do anything like that here. If I step out of line—”

  She broke off again. She would talk, follow a thought, then, unable to see it through, break into something else.

  “Poor Mendel. He desperately gets in touch with every Jewish officer who comes to Quebec. Throws them together with Constance as much as he can. Then they go overseas. They promise to write. But they never do.”

  I heard a car drive up. Mendel and Constance came through the door.

  “Hello Jimmy,” he said. “Boy, it’s a cold night.”

  The other officers complained about the deadness of the place. They thought I was lucky. Some met girls through a church dance or YMCA do. A few could speak French. Most tried to pick something up.

  Tucker and Fleming got into trouble, accused of raping a waitress. But nothing came of the charge, except they were confined for three days to a make-believe cell in the children’s school.

  I tried to get Frieda alone again. The only time I did

  she was upset. The boiler for the conservatory had broken down.

  “You must get a plumber,” she appealed to me. “If I can’t get a plumber the orchids will die.”

  I got a taxi into Lower Town. Half an hour later I came back with a French-Canadian plumber.

  Our time was up. To see how we finally passed, the Air Force organized a ball at the Château Frontenac, and all the eligible debutantes from Quebec and district were invited to be escorted by the officers. I took Constance. She looked very nice in a long white gown. We danced, made small talk, ate, passed the carafe of wine around. The dance band played.

  To you he might be just another guy

  To me he means a million other things.

  An ordinary fellow with his heart up in the sky,

  He wears a pair of silver wings.

  Air marshals made speeches calling us “Knights of the Air,” “Captains of the Clou
ds.”

  At half past two we left the Château Frontenac. In the taxi, driving back, she pressed against my side.

  “Don’t you love me a bit, Jimmy?” she said softly.

  “I’ll be gone in a few days,” I said.

  She took my hand.

  “Would you like to come up to my room? You’ll have to be very quiet going up the stairs. I’ll set the alarm for six. You’ll have to be out by then.”

  I wondered how many times this had happened before.

  “Is this the first time?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “There have been other officers passing through.” She squeezed my hand. “I didn’t like them as much as you.”

  “How many others?”

  “Four. This will be my fifth time.”

  She spoke too soon. After we went up the stairs, closed the door of her room, undressed, got into bed, turned out the light. I found I couldn’t do a thing. And she didn’t know how to help things along.

  “Let’s have a cigarette,” I said, “and relax for a while.”

  I lit one for her and one for me. We lay on our backs, the cigarette ends glowing in the dark.

  I was wondering what to do when I heard a door open. Then footsteps. Someone was walking in the corridor. The footsteps stopped by the door.

  “Con, are you awake?”

  It was Frieda on the other side.

  We both stopped breathing. I was aware of Constance’s body becoming tense with fear.

  “Con—you awake?”

  She was lying beside me, not moving, breathing deeply and rapidly.

  I waited for the steps to go away, the sound of a far door closing. I put out our cigarettes. And took her easily.

  “That was the best yet,” she said softly. “Goodnight darling. Wake me before you go.”

  She lay on her side, away from me, asleep. And I lay on my back, wide awake. I listened to the ticking clock, her regular breathing, and thought of Frieda.

  Just after five I got out of bed, dressed, disconnected the alarm, straightened the covers on Constance, and went out of the room, down the stairs, and out.

  It was snowing. Everything was white and quiet. It felt marvellous walking, flakes slant, very fine. I didn’t feel at all tired. I heard a church bell strike and somewhere further the sound of a train whistle, the two notes like the bass part of a mouth organ. The light changed to the dull grey of early morning and the darker shapes of a church, a convent, came in and out of the falling snow.

  Next day we were confined to barracks and told to pack. That afternoon we boarded a train for Halifax. And at Halifax we walked from the train onto the waiting troopship. Two weeks later we docked at Liverpool.

  Those first few months in England were exciting. I moved around a lot. A week in Bournemouth in the Majestic Hotel. Ten days’ leave in London. Then a small station, in Scotland, for advanced flying on Ansons. Then operational training near Leamington on Wellingtons. Before I was posted to a Lancaster squadron in Yorkshire.

  Perhaps it was this moving around? Perhaps it was being twenty, away from Canada for the first time, spring, meeting new people, new situations? The uniform was open sesame to all sorts of places. And there were plenty of girls around. I had forgotten about the Rubins except to send them a postcard from London.

  In the middle of May I had an air-letter, redirected twice, from Constance.

  Dear Jimmy,

  I hope this will reach you soon. Probably you are having all kinds of exciting things happen to you . . . meeting new people . . . doing things . . . and you have long forgotten me and the time we had together. I hope not.

  Now my news. We’re just getting over winter. It’s been a long one, cold and lots of snow. The next lot of officers after you was a complete washout. But the one now has three Jewish officers. Shatsky and Dworkin from Montreal. And Lubell from Winnipeg. None of them are as nice as you . . . but I like Shatsky best . . . he’s fun.

  Don’t forget to write when you can and take care. Mummy and Daddy send their regards. We all miss you.

  Love,

  Constance.

  Two months later I received a carton of Macdonald cigarettes from Mendel. I bet he sent them to all the boys he had up at the house.

  When the war was over I went back to Ottawa and to the job I had in the government with the construction department. In my absence I was promoted. Now I’m assistant to the Head.

  I have not married. Nor had I been to Quebec City, until this winter when I had to go to New Brunswick to see about a proposed dam that the federal government was thinking of putting some money in. The plane stopped at Quebec longer than the usual stop to let off and pick up passengers. A blizzard was blowing. Flying was off. A limousine brought us from the snow fields of the airport to the Château Frontenac. We were told the next weather inspection would take place at three.

  I took a taxi to Lower Town. Down St. Jean. Down the slope. Past the cheap stores, the narrow pokey side streets, horses pulling milk sleighs, the bargain clothes hung out, the drab restaurants. An alligator of schoolgirls went by along the sidewalk with two nuns behind. Even with the snow falling men doffed their hats to priests.

  I found Mendel standing in the furniture department. He looked much older and fatter in the face, the skin under the jaw sagged, and the small neat waves of hair were thin and grey.

  “Hullo Mendel,” I said.

  He didn’t recognize me.

  “I’m Jimmy Ross,” I said. “Remember during the war?”

  “Of course,” he said becoming animated. “When did you get in?”

  “Just now. The plane couldn’t go on to Fredericton because of the snowstorm.”

  “Let’s go and have some coffee next door,” he said. “It’s been snowing like this all morning.”

  We went to the Honey Dew and had coffee. The piped-in music played old tunes. And bundled-up people with faces down went by the plate-glass window.

  “I wish Constance were here,” he said. “I know she would be glad to see you.”

  “How is Constance?”

  “She’s living in Detroit. Married. He came over from Germany after the war. His name is Freddie. He’s an accountant. They’re doing well. They have four kids. And she’s expecting another. How about you?”

  I told him briefly what I had done.

  “There were some good times during the war—” he said.

  “How is Frieda?”

  “She died a year and a half ago. I married again. Why don’t you come up to the house and meet Dorothy.”

  “I’d like to,” I said. “But I don’t want to miss the plane.”

  “They won’t take off in this weather,” he said. “But here I am telling you about airplanes.”

  “That was twenty-two years ago,” I said. “I couldn’t fly the airplanes today.”

  We got into his black Cadillac with black leather seats. He drove through all-white streets, the windshield wipers going steadily, to the house.

  Dorothy was the same size as Mendel, plump, a widow, very cheerful.

  “This is Jimmy Ross,” Mendel said. “He was a young Air Force officer here during the war. He used to be much handsomer.” He went to the far cupboard to get some drinks.

  The oil paintings, the creepers, the flowers were gone. A rubber plant stood by the plate-glass wall, its bottom leaves shrivelled and brown.

  “Would you like some sponge cake?” Dorothy asked.

  “She makes an excellent sponge,” Mendel assured me.

  “I had lunch on the plane,” I said. “I can’t stay very long.”

  It had almost stopped snowing. Only the wind in gusts blew the loose snow up from the ground and down from the roofs.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Ross?” Dorothy asked.

  “Ottawa,” I said.

 
I felt awkward. It was a mistake to have come.

  Mendel drove me to the Château Frontenac.

  “Don’t forget,” he said. “Next time you’re here let me know in advance. We’ll have you up for dinner.”

  “You used to tell me jokes, Mendel,” I said. “Where did they come from?”

  “From the commercial travellers. They come to see me all the time. All of them have jokes. I had one in this morning. What is at the bottom of the sea and shakes?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “A nervous wreck,” he said and smiled. “Here is another. Why do cows wear bells around their necks?”

  I said nothing.

  “Because their horns don’t work.”

  He stopped the car outside the entrance of the Château Frontenac.

  “When I write to Constance I’ll tell her I saw you—”

  An hour later I was back in the Viscount taking off from a windswept runway.

  A SMALL PIECE OF BLUE

  On thursday morning the train arrived at Sault Ste. Marie. Leaving my bag in the left luggage, I asked the way to the office of the Algoma Ore Properties. The man in the company’s office was tall and wore a loose-fitting summer suit. He had the appearance of an athlete turned salesman. Straight blond hair combed back without a parting, a well-fed face. But there was something deceptive about the way he talked. For his mouth, when open, seemed unnatural in that position, as in those films where animals are made to speak like human beings. I showed him my letter from the mine manager. He read it, said I was lucky, for I would be able to get a train out tomorrow.

  “There are only two trains that go up a week, Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  He walked to a large map on the wall. It hung there framed. The bottom had a large blue area marked “Lake Superior.” Smaller pieces of blue were scattered all over the map.

  “The only other way is by seaplane.” He tapped a spot in the far right-hand corner. “There won’t be a plane till Saturday, and if the weather’s bad there won’t be a plane.”

  He enjoyed what he had said, for he walked away from the map to his desk and offered me a cigarette.

  “It’ll cost you twenty more dollars to fly in.”