Excerpt
Mary Goldberg, just twenty-five years old, who had graduated
from the McGill University of Toronto, daughter of a very
affluent Toronto family with Jewish roots, after a disappointing
erotic relationship with a young man of Jewish roots too, and
against the wishes of her parents, and against the wishes of her
best friend Rosalyn, had decided to travel across the country
and after she spent a few months on the road, and after she lived
temporarily in a few Canadian cities, she ended up in this Indian
Residential School, in Kamloops BC, where she was hired as an
administrator assistant; Mary, who stood almost six feet high
with long black hair that fell on her back almost to her waist,
was a clever eyed young woman with fair attitude; her characteristics
were complimented by her hazel eyes and full lips, an
aesthetically shaped nose and a very shapely body.
This body, hidden under the tight outfits, which Mary
liked to wear was easily discerned by the piercing eyes of Father
Jerome, who never missed noticing such things especially since
he was appointed the head of this facility in Kamloops BC,
here, where no one would ever come to check what was going on
and how the Indian Residential School was run. He knew
of course that he had some guidance from the church and the
Federal Canadian Minister on issues pertaining to education
and curricula, yet the rest of the details were up to him and him
alone, which placed him at the top of a heap he would never ever
step down from. And he made sure all members of the teaching
personnel as well as everybody else, from the British Columbia
Provincial Legislators to the Mayor of Kamloops, to the rest of
the citizens knew who he was and what his goals were; therefore
no one could ever interfere with his decisions regarding the daily
affairs in the running of the school, and the savage kids he was
meant to educate, come hell or high water.
“I wish you peaceful days and nights, Anton,” Mary said,
and her lips showed a faint tremble.
Excerpt
Rachael giggled. “You’re silly,” she said as she hurried to the chair that Tyne indicated.
Five minutes later, Rachael ran over to where Bobby sat on the floor plowing an imaginary furrow with his new tractor. “Look, Bobby, look at my new shoes. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Bobby glanced up with a puzzled frown. “They’re just shoes.”
Tyne laughed as she lifted the boy to his feet. “Come on, you two, we have to pay for all these things.”
While the clerk, a young married woman whom Tyne knew only as Doreen, sorted out the purchases and rang the prices into the till, Tyne tried to ride herd on Bobby. But Rachael stood at the counter, gazing at the new shoes, making sure that Doreen didn’t overlook them.
From a few feet away Tyne heard the door open, followed by a female voice demanding, “Rachael, what are you doing here?”
Tyne swung around to see Ruby Harrison bearing down on the startled child at the cash register. Then Rachael squealed and launched herself at her aunt. “Auntie Ruby.”
Ruby bent to give Rachael a brief hug, then straightened her back and looked at Tyne who now held the hand of a recalcitrant Bobby.
“Hello, Ruby. How are you?”
Ruby ignored her, focusing instead on the clothes and toys that the clerk was placing in brown paper bags on the counter. Her eyebrows raised, she looked at Tyne. “New clothes?”
Tyne nodded. “Yes, they both need play clothes and Rachael has to have something decent for school.”
“I’m sure my sister had plenty of clothes for them at home, if you’d bothered to look.” She walked to the counter and fingered a pink wool sweater. “These look expensive. Who’s paying for them?”
Two immediate responses sprang to Tyne’s mind. It isn’t any of your business, and I defy you to find anything expensive in this store. But she forced herself to say quietly, “Morley and I are buying them for the children.”
Ruby lifted her chin. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I spoke to Corky, and he’s going to sign over custody to me and Bill.
Excerpt
They sneered like rival dogs and bared their teeth. She could not catch their mumbled conversation. Abruptly the current was broken. Volodya leaned back in his chair, innocent, fresh-faced. The newcomer looked over his shoulder repeatedly as if someone might see him in this den of decadence.
“Dance with him,” Volodya ordered her.
Surprised, she stared. The stranger’s fingers were already on her wrist. He opened his mouth in a grin, revealing several black teeth and a large gap in his smile. His breath smelled like sour milk. Dance. Just a two step. One-two, one-two, and back again. Twirl. He pulled her around the dance floor, breathing heavily, then closer, tighter, until his belt buckle pressed uncomfortably in her abdomen. She pretended not to understand his language when he spoke to her. “Krasavitsa, beautiful woman,” he said.
Just smile and twirl, she thought.
When the music ended, he returned her to the table. Volodya’s eyes were on her. Thank you, they told her. The man sat with them, uninvited. There was more vodka, toasts to Soviet-Canadian friendship—this from Black-Teeth. A toast to Jennifer, the beautiful, amazing woman from Canada! This wish was from Volodya and a slobbering drunk from the next table who smiled an elastic grin. More dancing. This time with Volodya. Black-Teeth left without saying goodbye.
Then someone was suggesting a toast to the cosmonauts, another was toasting his mother, another cheered a black-eyed seductress called Masha, who was not present to hear her toast.
Someone passed a bottle of vodka up to the band. The musicians handed it around, took swigs, became more animated. The ugly bass player took four steps to the front of the stage, four steps back and the piano player flashed spasmodic smiles in between frowns of concentration. The band broke loose on a popular modern song; the crowd roared approval. Only the waiters were unsmiling, weary.
In a brief, lucid moment between drinks, Jennifer looked around her in surprise. She had been in the Soviet Union what?—eight, nine days? “It’s all part of the Russian experience,” she murmured. Then there were more stomach-turning toasts, the pungent sweat of bodies that shared bathrooms, the rigid motions of the jazz band. Volodya and Jennifer laughed, danced. By the time they left, bursting into the street, it was empty of people. His arm rested lightly on the back of her waist. She knew they would make love that night.
Excerpt
Emily Roberts is still in bed this Monday morning, although it’s late for her. Usually,
she’s up at dawn but not today. Her mind is busily trying to organize Matthew’s
birthday party for Saturday. She has invited about thirty people: friends,
some of his co-workers, even the boss, Bevan Longhorn. She has taken a chance
and invited him, but isn’t sure whether he’ll show up.
They have lived in a beautiful house in the northern part of Los Angeles for
about eight years, and she finds it very difficult to think of living anywhere else.
She wonders what is going to happen when Matthew retires, because he has
mentioned before that he doesn’t want to stay in the same house afterward
especially once Jennifer is gone.
Emily feels lonely this morning. She doesn’t want to get up. She misses
Matthew. Her mind takes her back to their early days as teenagers and to all the
beautiful things they used to do together. Her thoughts mesmerize her and cause
her to feel excited; she tosses and turns in bed.
Emily is a gorgeous forty-seven-year-old blonde who knows she looks as
baeutiful as most girls in the fashion magazines. She feels proud when looking at
herself in the mirror. There have been times when she wished she had the
courage to go out and be with someone, anyone, just for the sexual satisfaction
she misses so much.
Matthew has been away from her almost all the time because of devotion
to his career. Sometimes, she misses even the weekend quickies, although
those sessions only serve his satisfaction. Emily hardly ever comes to the
point of climax with his two- or three-minute efforts. But this morning is
different; she needs to be satisfied. She resorts to her small bottle of oil; she
leans over to the nightstand and takes the lubricant from the drawer. Two,
maybe three, drops are usually enough. She applies the oil and feels the
smoothness that always excites her. After a slow, methodical rubbing, her
body relaxes. Two or three more minutes, and her orgasm is dynamic as
always.
The nextminute she jumps out of bed and runs to the shower,where thewarm
water flows over her and relaxes her as her mind turns to all that she has to do
today. She needs to do so many things—to arrange for the food with the caterers
and to order the flowers. She needs to find a gift for Matt and she needs to organize
the house cleaners. The list of things to do seems endless. She completes her
shower and is rushing out when she hears the phone ring.
“Hi, Mom, what’s up?”
“Nothing, honey, how is your day going so far?”
“Okay, Mom. Listen, do you want to go out for lunch with me? It will give us
a chance to go over your list of things for Saturday.”
She would have preferred to be on her own today to meet with her good
friend Cathy, however, she agrees to meet Jennifer at Mario’s at one o’clock.
She puts the phone down and her mind flies free like a bird in the morning,
and her sexual hunger re-emerges from the depth of her being, as if something
special will happen today, but what? She tries to put the feeling out of her mind.
Short Composition
This group of small houses, harmoniously written on
the sky-lobe and onto the sea, with its beautiful analogies
of lines and colours, doesn’t allow any suspicion about
the big differences among the inhabitants, their competitions
about one woman who breaks the glasses in her kitchen
and pokes the broken pieces of glass in her wrist, while
the other, naked and with a water pitcher on her shoulder,
gazes at the mirror, and the third woman empties on the table,
off a pink nylon net, nine big, dead birds, a gift from the horse
rider. Outside, the neighbourhood women gather, watch
suspiciously, each other’s elbow. The men have gone hunting
since dawn.
Questions
The beggar always stood
at the corner as if to
oversee two streets
double pain single delusion
the woman was already undressed
as she waited for her first john
though the traffic was an issue
that night and God, the Overseer,
down in the wine cellar,
lost among the barrels,
had forgotten her. Autumn
leaves blown over fences
and I waited for the server to
produce the bill for our dinner.
Where is an exit from this travesty
where is the elusive answer?
Excerpt
Tyne fought back a wave of anger. “Thank you,” she said stiffly.
Her mother’s voice followed her up the stairs. “He said he’d call back
after supper.’’
In her bedroom, Tyne threw off her damp clothes, grabbed a light
dressing gown and headed for the bathroom. That boy, she muttered
under her breath. That Cresswell boy. Her mother was beginning to
sound just like her dad. At twenty-four Morley was hardly a boy.
That boy, indeed.
She bent to turn on the bathtub faucet, and jumped when her
mother suddenly appeared in the doorway. A small woman, Emily
had mousy blonde hair pulled back severely into a bun at the nape of
her neck. Tyne often thought that her mother must have been pretty
as a young woman, but the years had taken their toll. Deep frown lines
creased her forehead, but no soft laugh lines appeared around her
mouth and eyes as there should have been in a fifty-year-old woman.
“If you persist in seeing this boy, Tyne,” Emily said, “you know
what it will lead to, don’t you?”
Tyne straightened her back. “Yes, Mom, it already has. Morley and
I are planning to marry.”
As soon as she said the words she wished she could take them
back. She had not meant to drop such a bombshell in this way, especially
to her timid, anxious mother.
Emily’s hand flew to her mouth, too late to hide the trembling of
her lips.
When she spoke Tyne could barely hear her over the running bath water.
“Oh, Tyne, how could you bring disgrace to our family like this?”
“Disgrace? Disgrace? Is that your word, or Dad’s?”
Emily’s face tightened. “Be careful, Tyne.”
“I only mean … Mom, I can’t believe you would think that by marrying
a good Christian man like Morley I’ll bring disgrace on the
family.”
“He’s not our kind of Christian, Tyne. You haven’t been raised that way.”
“What way? Are we so special? Why should this be an issue between
us? Morley is a good man and a fine Christian. There is no
issue.”
Emily’s voice rose. “I won’t stand here and listen to this. You’re not
my daughter anymore. You’ve changed. That boy has changed you
already.”
Excerpt
Maybe it was more fun trying to guess. All they knew was
they were blessed to have him. From the time he locked up his
one room classroom and left town at the start of summer until he
returned a day or so before the start of the next school year, there
always was plenty of speculation on where he went every summer
and whether or not this very strange and very private man
would return.
Joel had developed his own theory about why no one asked Mr.
Johansson why he was doing what he was doing when he could
obviously be employed in some more prestigious task. The way
Joel had it figured, the teacher was on the run. On the run from
who knows what. Maybe himself. Maybe the law. Maybe his
family. And people in the community didn’t ask for fear of chasing
away the man that had become recognized as the best teacher
this part of the country ever had. What they didn’t know was that
Mr. Johansson was actually Dr. Johansson, PhD, and yes, he was
on the run. On the run from an east coast college and his appetite
for eighteen-year-old freshmen girls.
Mr. Johansson had provided a great start for young Joel. Right
from the tenth grade, when the teacher first arrived in Willow
Springs, he had given Joel some very special attention. Not one to
comment on anything other than those of scientific or mathematical
significance, the teacher did mention to Joel toward the end of
his final year in high school that he had been an excellent student
and would do very well in university. When Joel indicated that
university probably wasn’t in the cards for him, with the cost of it
being what it was, Mr. Johansson made a point of phoning the
ranch and asking to meet his parents. Both his mother and father
were amazed when Mr. Johansson visited their home and suggested,
very strongly, that it would be a crime if Joel did not go to
university. The money issue raised its head and the meeting took
a bad turn when the teacher suggested to Joel’s dad that if he
couldn’t afford to send Joel to university then he would most likely
be able to get some help from the government or some kind of a
special foundation for talented, underprivileged children.
Manolis Aligizakis 