Heroes And we were young, untried voices, silent, contemplative, crisp peaches, fresh summer songs touch of a rose at dawn, innocence, royalty effusing each of us having a universe in our hand like a marble and they armed us and took us to the borders; they bestowed death unto our scopes with the accuracy of surgeon and what could we do with such instruments and with targets standing at the edge of the plain laughing and scolding us? We started shooting against anything moving with such a strange joy that even now after all these years I can’t explain and having taught us how to kill they euphemized us by ultimately calling us heroes
There is a deep hunger to have the sunshine of their former homes, and of their great-grandparents’ former homes. There are these stories that persist about how wonderful life was, and how sunny it was, and how warm it was. But, with the exception of this little coastal strip, this is a very cold country. You’re trying to give paintings of vast, distant places that are freezing cold, to Canadians. Why would anyone, with the psyche I’ve described, even think of buying one? They won’t even come out to look at them.” “Well, Jesus!” “Go ahead – break my argument.” “What else about these paintings then? “One word – pretty. The Canadian art scene is almost non-existent, but what passes for imagery in the public mind at large is pretty. Doreen! Doreen! Bring some magazines!” Fraser grabbed the top one, from the stack Doreen delivered, and opened it at random. He turned two pages and pointed. “Look – here’s an ad – it’s perfect. Isn’t that a pretty photograph? Do you notice that it has a white, sandy beach, a scantily clad couple, and palm trees? People work very, very hard to make money, so they can save some up and go to that place – and it’s very pretty. That’s what is in their minds. You and I are the children and grandchildren of peasants, and we have their tastes.” Fraser reached into his pack of cigarettes, pulled out a fresh one, and lit it from the butt that had almost burned down to his fingertips. “It’s taken Europe an eon to get to its appreciation of art. You’re expecting too much, too quickly.” “But, if we don’t push we won’t get anywhere,” Ken said. “It’s not just a matter of pushing the public. We have to find individuals who will get behind this. It’s not just good old Alex and Ken who are going to go and foist this on the country. It’s a much bigger story.” Ken left the gallery deep in thought. Yes, there was truth in what Fraser had said but it wasn’t the whole truth. Canada was ready for his paintings. The Group of Seven was proof. Fraser thought they were rubbish too. If he wanted to tell his story through his paintings, it wouldn’t be with Alex Fraser by his side. Unexpectedly, Ken received a letter from his Aunt Vicki in Madrid. She had taken the photographs he had sent her, of his latest paintings, and shown them to a popular gallery owner who wanted to exhibit them. He tapped the note against his desk, read it again, and picked up a pen. He wrote a letter to Mr. McEachern, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, describing his good fortune in coming to Canada, and telling him how he had arrived in this country. He wrote about his art and said that he wished to go back to Europe for an exhibition in Madrid.
Two doors opened off this part of the landing. One led to Caitlin’s room. The other had led to Nora’s room, but Nora was married now and had a home of her own in the village. Caitlin and Nora, night and day, his sisters in all but blood. The priest turned sharply to the right and followed the landing alongside the stairwell to the front of the house. The old, brown wood of a large cupboard glowed in the lamplight. The door of the bedroom to the right of the cupboard stood half-open, and heavy, catarrhal breathing rasped in the dark interior. Old Finn has feasted well and sleeps like a king, thought the tired priest. Better not disturb him. The priest turned to the door of the bedroom to the left of the cupboard. His old room. The room in which he had lived as a boy, laboured over his books with the patient Caitlin, grew to be a man, a young, raw man, dedicated to God. Was the room the same as when he had left it? Yes, it would be. Nothing ever changed here. Tonight, or what was left of the night, he would sleep again in the old iron bed with the patchwork quilt. Nostalgic remembrance pierced the priest’s heart. The blood drained out into his belly and down into his loins. The hot blood chilled and made him shiver. The hair rose on the nape of his neck. Seven years ago last September. Seven momentous years. Seven long strides from aspiring youth to zealous priest. He turned the handle, and the door opened without a sound. He stepped inside, pushed the door shut behind him, and walked with silent tread across the polished wooden floor to the bed. He set the lamp down on the dresser. “Caitlin,” he said in involuntary surprise. She lay in a cloud of eiderdown. Gleaming even in the dark, her black hair trailed across the pillow, across the shoulder of her green-flowered nightgown. Her arm lay outside the shiny green covers. The priest leaned forward and touched the cool back of her hand. The body turned. The black cirrus stirred on the pillow. Caitlin, the priest thought. My God, what a beautiful woman you are. He had come unwittingly to the wrong room. Caitlin had given up her own old room and moved in here for some reason. Yet little beyond the bedclothes had changed from the way he remembered it. Caitlin had changed, though. She looked more mature and even more beautiful. Having seen her, he felt he had to talk to her. “Caitlin,” he whispered.
“Oh, no,” she said and covered her mouth with her free hand. Anton pulled her close to his body and held her tightly when at that moment the laundry door was opened and Sister Gladys made her appearance saying, “Oh my, oh my…what have we here, lovebirds?” Anton let go of Mary who pulled a little away, “it’s not what it looks, we were talking of Mr. Kelly,” Mary said to Gladys. “Oh, don’t mind me, sweet Mary and you Mr. Jonas, your secret, or whatever it is you two have, is safe with me…only,” she left her phrase unfinished. “What do you mean, Sister Gladys?” Mary asked. “Only one thing for you, sweet secretary…shut your door from now on don’t let anyone come in…not anyone, ok?” Mary lowered her head as Anton looked at her, dumbfounded, and though without her saying it a whisper came out of her lips, “I never invited anyone, nor have I ever provoked anyone.” “You could be stronger,” Sister Gladys insisted. “I know,” Mary admitted and her head was lowered even more than before. “Okay then, what of Mr. Kelly? What should I report to Father Jerome?” Anton told her in a few sentences the news about Dylan after which Sister Gladys left them. Mary still stood away from Anton with her lowered head and tears coming down her eyes. Anton neared her, took her hand again, raised her head with his other hand and kissed her lips softly. “Don’t be afraid, don’t be concerned, let it be, Mary, let it be,” he whispered and hugged her tightly. Time passed like a flood of sunlight flashing on them, light was there, at the end of the tunnel Mary and Anton had passed, and now they were out in the open, out in the beautiful summer August day.
That idea began to grow within him. He wanted to try being Montreal Paul. Maybe it wasn’t too late. In Canada, he could also study Russian, he thought. By that time it was 1963—the Berlin Wall had been constructed two years earlier, and the fear of Communists had driven many Russian speakers to deny their heritage. Yvonne’s home, on the other hand, had become a safe haven for Russian emigres, a place where they could speak freely, down brandy, and discourse on Russian art without being accused of being bolsheviks. “Surely this is the time to be learning the language of our enemies—not being afraid of it,” he announced to Yvonne, with the earnestness of a 17-year-old. Although he truly believed his own words, he was also restless. He wanted to get out on his own and see Canada again so he kept at this theme as a possible reason for why he must attend university there. It worked. Yvonne had put aside a trust fund for his university studies, and she turned it over to him on his eighteenth birthday. At the same time she also told him that she would leave the bulk of her estate to him on her death. He was selected for the University of Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, far from Montreal but not so much of a culture shock for a kid raised in California. For seven years, he lived in Vancouver and was convinced that the Russian language department was all he wanted. He was torn from his academic shell by the news that grandmother Yvonne had died suddenly of a heart attack. At age 75, she had taken a new young lover who, it was whispered at the memorial service, had exhausted her. The gossip was malicious, Paul thought, but if only half of it were true, he couldn’t help but admire Yvonne’s love of life and her ability to take emotional risks even into her seventies. Why couldn’t he find a woman who exhausted him? Most of the women he met were not serious students so there was no meaningful conversation. They knew how to have a good time, kind of like the old days at Shakey’s Pizza, and he badly wanted to bed one of them—it didn’t matter which one—but it seemed dishonest because he knew it was purely to alleviate his own carnal desires. Now, on this warm summer evening in the heart of the Soviet Union, some latent urge was manifesting itself. Unscholarly thoughts filled his mind: ice cold beer in the university pub, a woman’s browned skin in a white summer top. Sensual things, hands-on things. Music moved him.
Pungent Emotions Autumnal smells full of pungent emotions, sweat on the cloth seat twelve hours a day driving along narrow laneways, wide congested streets and during the full moon vaguely seen by eyes unfamiliar to bright sunshine when he drives customer to the airport, a good run the taxi driver ponders on today’s take, a slow shift, perhaps in the afternoon when the offices close he might get a little boost, needs to go over one hundred dollars to call it a fair day’s earnings, enough for his tight budget; the customer in the back seat smokes an aromatic cigarette, he asks the name of the cigarettes, the customer offers him one which he takes brings to his nose, yes, aromatic indeed, a jasmine scent, special cigarette shop in Gastown carries such delights, his customer says, taxi driver chooses to light his special smoke after his supper a smile appearing on his face, the world can be beautiful even when one drives a cab for a half-decent living.
And thus I, the smiling anchorite, the destroyer who blasphemes in the sulfuric heat of our lands, feel the freshness of belief inside of me and I dreamed of living among them though even them cried out: go gypsy, go. Let them exile me. I revere them I the speaker of beautiful truth none of the demagogue revenge guides me and for this I stand before you so you can hear me chiming my slow, funereal bell.
Deliverance Diaphanous or foggy because of your angst your eyes were overflowing with your emotional upheaval as you put on your nightgown and walked out to the fresh daybreak justification for your night-long ambivalence between your wish for divine inspiration and your deliverance from earthly eroticism
to the tiny chapel and monks’ refectory above the monastery ruins. Finten, with the girth but not the disposition of a jolly monk, puffed and panted to keep up with the abbot. Shortly after sunrise, Father Finten hurried down to the beach, his tan cassock of sheep’s wool blowing above his knees. A shock of unruly reddish-yellow hair blew from behind the stubble of his shaved St. John’s tonsure, and his scraggly beard groped about his face like strands of frayed hemp. Unless I can get these dawdling Brothers out to sea before ebb tide, we’ll spend another day and night on this rock-strewn island. Father Finten cupped his mouth to shout above the wind. “Brothers, Brothers. Hurry. We must be away.” Brother Lorcan, a midget of a lad, stood high on the cliff as a lookout above the harbour. Gazing out to sea, he seemed not to hear. Come on, Brother Lorcan. Dear Lord, can he not hear me? … Ring the bell. Lord. No. We must go silently. Father Finten mumbled under his breath. Finten was twenty- six, much younger than many priests of the order, but older than the teenaged Brothers he travelled with. A shrieking pair of gulls swooped down to squabble over a dead crab at the water line. More gulls arrived and soon there was a battle royal. Finten covered his ears. Screams of terror from a terrible time seized his mind. Twenty years earlier, his mother and three older sisters had been torn apart by Viking monsters. He had crawled beneath a pile of kitchen rags, afraid to breathe. When he peeked out at the blood spattered walls, his baby sister Ossia ‘Little Deer’ hung over the shoulder of a Norseman. Finten’s elder brother Senan rushed in to tackle six huge men. As Senan was brutally knocked out, a hairy hand seized Finten by the hair and pulled him from his hiding place. Brother Ailan, the cook, trying to carry too much at once, pulled Finten back to the present. The bucket Ailan dropped splashed water onto the path as it rolled several yards to crash against a large rock. Father Finten shook his head and muttered through tears “Clumsy oaf”. Finten still felt the whips, hunger, and pain. In his mind, he saw Senan, chained to a bench and pulling on the big oar, while he, far too young to row, carried the water bucket from slave to slave. The filled pail was heavy. Water slopped over the edge. From somewhere above he felt a slap and a kick, then more slaps, kicks, and laughter, as the pail slipped from his grasp and rattled, empty, down the sloping deck. A young Brother hurried down the path carrying sleeping gear and a basket of fresh-baked bread. He stopped and balanced his load to pick up the empty water bucket, which he handed to the smiling Brother Ailan. “Are you not awake yet, Brother? Did you not have a good night?” “Thank you, Brother Rordan. I slept.” Finten remembered the countless terrible nights when he learned to dread the dark. Norsemen did unspeakable things to boy slaves in the dark. Brother Rordan paused as he passed the troubled priest. “Are you all right, Father?” “Thank you, Brother. Get on with you now.” Finten’s rebellious brother, Senan, had been torn from him and sold to Danelaw pig farmers.
“He’s making a snowman with Ronald and Freddy out back,” Rachael said. “I wanted to go outside, too, but I have work to do.” Tyne frowned. “What kind of work?” Rachael started to answer but Lyssa interrupted in a loud voice. “Nothing much, she’s just sayin’ that. Mom gets her to tidy the kitchen, and she thinks she’s working hard.” For a moment Rachael stared at her cousin, then she turned away. “Goodbye, Aunt … Mrs. Cresswell. Thanks for bringing the presents.” She disappeared into the kitchen. Tyne said hasty goodbyes to the two Harrison girls, then hurried outside before they could see her tears. Wiping her eyes on a tissue, she picked her way through the snow to the backyard where she could hear excited young voices and peals of laughter. At the corner of the house she stopped and watched. Bobby was rolling a ball of snow along the ground as it grew larger, while Ronald and Freddy lifted another ball onto the rounded base of the proposed snowman. “Whoa, stop Bobby,” Ronald called, “or his head will be bigger than his bottom.” Bobby stopped rolling, plopped himself down in the snow and giggled. “That’s funny, Ronnie. Nobody has a bigger head than a bottom.” Ronnie laughed. “You would if I rolled your head in the snow.” Bobby giggled again, obviously enjoying his cousin’s teasing. But when Tyne stepped forward out of the shadows, his laughter stopped abruptly and he scrambled to his feet. “Auntie Tyne,” he squealed, launching himself at her. She caught him in a bear hug and lifted him off the ground. “Bobby, honey, how are you? It’s so good to see you.” He wiggled out of her arms far enough to look into her face. “Have you come to take me home? Is Uncle Morley here? Can we go see the animals now?” With a tug at her heart Tyne realized that by home he meant the farm, not his father’s house in town. How could she say no and watch the smile disappear from that sweet face? “Bobby,” she said gently, lowering him to the ground…
Manolis Aligizakis 