Focusing Again, and always the selection and the contest are hard. We stood on the stone terrace for a while listening to the vertical silence of the trees occasionally interrupted by the minimal exclamation of a finch. The faraway mountains are lighter blue than the unreachable. What can you look at? He asked, what can you avoid, what can you remember? We hid the holed undershirt with the small monogram between two pillows. The hole was passed onto the body and the wall, while the three blind men held their violins underarm, raising their heads slowly to look straight at you.
And they said to one another: Who’s the one with the violin who isn’t pleasing our hearts and inflames the surprise and anger in our viscera? Who’s conniving with his unwise hand awakening this violin which talks of what we watch it doesn’t see and what we hold it doesn’t keep and in all festivities and joys the anguish stands before us like the traitor of our kin and killer of our joy? No other bow has ever played such ugly, novice and imperfect music on any gypsy violin like the music of this foolish one. And only the young children oh the beloved children filled my serene loneliness turning it into my main fun since my violin always surprised and attracted them and they run around me with their big and bright eyes into which they always had hidden a tiny secret and they made of all their surprise and awe a great silence and joy from my violin, the cursed violin as if my own race, from the far future time.
indeed Mr. Wilson was there with an Indian girl who he violated sexually in front of their eyes. What could they do with such a secret? Marcus shook his head. “We could tell the teachers about this…you know,” Marcus said to Lucas then he added, “no we’d better let know George; yes, he’s the one we should let know, no one else. You promise? No one else for now…” he added and Lucas nodded yes. With an undoubted ache filling their hearts they took the piece of wood they went to the wood working shop for and as silently as they could they returned to their beds. Marcus hid the wood under his mattress hoping to give it to a relative next time he might visit his tribe and ask him to create a totem out of it. Next day the clock struck seven thirty as if someone had struck it with a strap when Marcus and Lucas got up. The Kamloops sky was full of leaden clouds which spread moist over the houses with their green yards and the slanting roofs and on the hearts of the people. Marcus and Lucas and three other kids were peeling potatoes for George when Marcus got his chance to talk to the Cretan cook about the event they witnessed. George freaked out when he heard the detail description of what Mr. Wilson did the night before. So angry he was that he left the kitchen and ran down to Anton’s domain where he related to him what he learned from the boys. Anton’s face darkened, his eyes turned fiery red, his lips tightened as did his fists; he could strike anyone at this moment, so angry he felt, though the guilty person wasn’t around to take the punches. He looked at George and his voice sounded as if coming from the darkness where his heart was now. He gazed at the window facing east while the horizon at the far distance told of the presence of forests, which stood opposite the beastly human behaviour, and valleys with rivers…
…about his belief that there were two St Patricks. He has historical evidence that he says supports his theory. He won’t be home till tomorrow evening.’ Joe turned his head away from her in indecision and stared into the red-hot heart of the fire in the range. ‘Joe, I want to have your baby.’ His head jerked round, and he looked at her with confused incredulity in his eyes, unsure of himself. ‘Nora, think of Liam, your husband.’ ‘Why must you be always so considerate of others, Joe?’ Nora asked. ‘Think of me now. I love you. I want to have your baby. I want something that is yours to hold on to and to cherish for the rest of my life, something that is part of you and part of me that will be a living memorial of our love. Please, Joe. I need this.’ He placed an open palm on each side of her face and looked into her deep, dark eyes where tears glimmered like raindrops on a leaf. He knew that what she was asking him to do was sinful, and part of him recoiled from it. But his moral reluctance was brushed aside by the strong, sexual urges of a twenty-nine- year-old male, more especially of a male who spent most of his time at sea. ‘All right, I’ll stay,’ he said quietly and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll put Owen Joe in his cot and wet a pot of tea,’ Nora said. ‘You can sample the barmbrack I baked this afternoon. We even have home-churned butter to put on it. A gift from Janet’s mother.’ They sat quietly by the fire, Joe in the rocking chair, Nora at his feet, her back against his legs, a book open in her hands. Upstairs the baby slept in the cot at the foot of Nora and Liam’s bed. Outside, the sky was still bright, the setting of the sun delayed by the manipulation of the British war-time summer clock. The limpid blue of the daytime sky was gently suffused with a pale golden glow that spread from the west. A couple of early stars glittered in the east, and Venus shone with a steady gleam in the wake of the lowering sun. ‘You’re going to read me a bedtime story, are you?’ Joe gently stroked Nora’s soft black hair. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want you to read to me.’ ‘You do, do you?’ Joe said lightly. ‘What have you got there?’ He took the open book that Nora reached to him and flicked the cover over. ‘J.M. Synge.’ ‘Yes. Poor Synge,’ Nora said sadly. ‘He was thirty-five when he fell in love with a girl of nineteen, an actress called Molly All good, the daughter of a “Dour Orangeman” who objected to his children’s being brought up…
When she recovered from her grief over Danny, Sarah accepted a teaching post at Corkum in the northern part of the province. But her tenure there was short lived. In the spring of 1942, Mrs. Roberts suffered a stroke. Sarah applied for a leave-of-absence to take care of her mother during her convalescence. But Mrs. Roberts never did convalesce satisfactorily, and Sarah was forced to admit that her mother had won. For five years Sarah found herself tied to the neat brick house in Tillsonburg – nursing, cooking, cleaning, gardening and doing everything except that for which she had been trained. Apart from trips to the store to purchase their meagre supplies, Sarah went nowhere. She saw no one except Margaret and Elizabeth and, since the former was preoccupied with wedding plans and the latter was nursing in a hospital in Toronto, she didn’t even see much of them. Visitors to the Roberts’ home were few because it hadn’t taken Mrs. Roberts long after her husband’s death to alienate almost all of their friends. There was no hope of meeting a man. The veterans began to drift back to town when the war ended, some with brides, some to the sweethearts they had left behind. But even the unattached ones seemed to have forgotten that Sarah existed, or maybe they still regarded her as Danny’s girl. Soon, almost all of the young men had married or had drifted off again to more promising venues. When her mother died Sarah applied for teaching posts but the school year had already started and a shortage of teachers was a thing of the past. She had been out of the profession for more than five years, as had most of the teachers who were now returning to it. But ex-servicemen and women were, naturally, given preference over someone who had been caring for a sick parent. On a grey, cold day in October, three weeks after her mother’s death, Sarah sat dumbfounded in the office of Roger Corbett, her parents’ lawyer. She was trying to understand what he had just said but she felt too numb to take it in. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” Mr. Corbett continued, “I wish there was something I could do. Twice during the past year I went to see her, as you know. And I went specifically to suggest that she change her will. But she acted as if she didn’t understand what I was talking about.”
THURSDAY I saw her die many times sometimes crying in my arms sometimes in a stranger’s arms sometimes alone, naked; in this way, she lived with me. Now I know, at last, that nothing exists further and I wait. If I grieve, it is my personal matter like the feelings for simple things as these and as they say we have gone beyond them; and yet I’m still sorry because I too never became (who I wished I would) like the grass that I heard sprouting near a pine tree at night; because I didn’t follow the sea another night when the water receded gently drinking its own bitterness and I never understood, when I groped the damp seaweed, how much honour remains in the man’s hands All these went by, slowly and conclusively like the barges with their faded names HELEN OF SPARTA, TYRANNOS, GLORIA MUNDI they went by under the bridges beyond the chimneys with two stooping men at the prow and the stern naked to the waist they went by, I can’t discern anything, in the morning fog the sheep curled and ruminating were hardly visible neither does the moon, over the river that waits; just seven spears plunged in the water stagnant and without blood and sometimes on the flagstones solemnly lit under the cross-eyed tower painted with red and yellow pencil the Nazarene showing his wound. ‘Don’t throw your hearts to the dogs. Don’t throw your hearts to the dogs.’ Her voice sinks with the stroke of the clock; your will, I sought your will.
The Lure of the Sea The unnerving lure of the sea abducting the mind of old fisher on the quay where he mends his nets passing thread through openings which fish use to escape his trap, the inexplicable attraction of waves, undulating like breasts of nubile, waves he battled year after year when young and in his mind he sings for the salinity rusting his bones, for his wrinkles the sea has graced him with and the beauty of the earth for which he sang. while now, ready and content he smiles as he mends his net not that he’ll go out fishing again, not this old fisherman doesn’t go fishing anymore he only wishes to go out there and to welcome Thanatos alone when the fisher’s time comes; he too has traveled along the peninsula, such short was the rope allotted to him, such a short distance he was allowed to traverse to worlds familiar and not imaginary, he too dreamt of faraway foreign lands that Fate didn’t let him visit, and now, alone under the conflagrating merciless sun, he mends his net thinking that Fate granted him the dream and his capable hands which mend his net while the attraction of the sea intoxicated him with sounds of birds and sounds of watery beasts and the lone tear he now sheds for the unjust destiny which left him to be remembered as number 38 in the long list of the island mortuary
is this illusion…you and I can go for a walk wherever you choose and I challenge you to show me where money grows. It is a man-made convenience, but we have turned it into God and the almighty banks into the churches. Money in itself is a nonentity, a paper mirage. But if you understand how it functions you realise currency can be artificially created— MasterCard and Visa are good examples. It no longer needs to be printed by the Mint. I wish people would realise it is only a tool, to be used like any other implement, and no more mysterious. As the two men worked, Harris proposed assorted schemes to make money. These were discussed, dissected and for one reason or another, discarded at the end of the workday. Perhaps, like crossword puzzles or Sudoku, they served to keep the workers’ mental juices flowing. ~~ Ken Kirkby is a particularly fine cook and, having been raised in Francisco’s kitchen, can turn the simplest ingredients into a dish to be savoured and praised. As his circle of friends expanded, he resurrected his long-dormant culinary skills. Portuguese meals would not be complete without a bottle of fullbodied red or crisp white on the table. When Ken left Portugal, he had been selective as to what he took with him, but one of his prized possessions then and now, is the family wine recipe dating back several centuries. He continually has a batch on the go although he is a moderate drinker himself. It was likely a day or so after a well-spiced supper of clams, shrimp and prawns cooked in Kirkby’s special fish stock prepared from flounder, too small in themselves to eat. While spreading topsoil for the eventual seeding of the lawn, Harris says, “You know, Kenny, that’s a damn fine wine you make. You could probably make a pile of money if you set yourself up to produce and sell it.” “Probably,” says Kirkby. Harris does some mental calculations. “How much do you think you could make?” “Money, or wine?” Kirkby quips. “You’ve got a few racks there—how much do you usually make?”
I started walking, away from the fence. After about fifty yards, I came to an apron of freshly cut grass that bordered a wide road and a neighbourhood of the largest, most beautiful houses I had ever seen. Brick and fieldstone, white clapboard and freshly oiled cedar, some of them three and four storeys high, with ample porches and verandas and sprawling lawns. I limped a bit, but managed to make some progress along the wide, grassy median in the centre of the street I immediately thought of as a thoroughfare. What is this place, I wondered, and who lives here? They were oddly dressed. The boy wore a striped tee shirt, a white cap which I later learned was a Polo hat, and knickers that were tucked into black stockings just below the knees. Two of the girls wore summer dresses in soft pastels, yellow and sky blue, with puffed shoulders, matching socks, and matching bows in their hair. They had white shoes with ankle straps, not sandals, exactly, but something like, and the third, taller girl wore white court shoes, white shorts with a white leather belt, and a vee necked tee shirt. Her honey blond pony tail hung half way to her waist and was tied with a white band. I was astonished, but drawn toward them as if by a huge magnet. They seemed like sky children, but were so recognizably earth-bound I wanted to talk with them, to know what their lives were like. Especially her, with the startling eyes. I stood very still until they became aware that I was watching them. They stared back, then they looked at each other. They seemed puzzled. I crossed back to the sidewalk and started up the lawn that sloped down from their slate grey house. They seemed hypnotized, or stilled by bewilderment, alarmed, but unable to break the spell of my dirty, sweat streaked face, torn jeans and bloody shirt. Except for her. She looked straight at me, so directly and with such an open stare it stopped me in my tracks. I felt something I’d never felt before. It seeped into my chest and throat from a place I never knew was in me. It was as if I had seen her before, or known her all my life. Her face – the smooth skin, deeply tanned like her arms and legs, the full mouth, high cheekbones, and green, green eyes – burned itself into my memory and what I read there was not fear, but curiosity, because I was strange to her, and concern, because it was clear that I was hurt. There was something else too, and it made my heart accelerate.
Tyne felt her heart sink to the top of her loafers. “So what’s to be done?” She heard Millie sigh. “We’ll do the best we can, that’s all. I’ll be there whenever they need me, you can rest assured of that. And Jeff Milligan won’t get away with any of his nonsense when I’m around.” Hearing the old feistiness in her aunt’s voice, Tyne almost laughed. But she sobered quickly. She knew what had to be done. Why had she asked? A fleeting vision of the future made her weak in the knees as she saw herself, a few years down the road, as another Miss Stevenson. Nevertheless, her voice was clear and firm. “I’m coming home to stay, Aunt Millie. I’ll be on the bus tomorrow afternoon.”
Manolis Aligizakis 