David's body
ached as he looked out at the hazy skyline and thought of how
the seasons were changing. It was early April and the gentle breeze
that came in from the balcony had a troubling quality, making
him think of the countless things that he had to do. In particular,
there was a call he needed to make, but deep down he knew that
he should just let it go. And he knew that if he went down to
the street to enjoy the good weather, he'd still have this feeling.
He'd see people -- some of them half mad -- shuffling along, squinting
into the haze. If he looked down as he walked, he'd see the gray
chunks of partly melted snow, the puddles, the grass covered in
dog shit. And if he went down to the river he'd see other things
that were troubling -- huge chunks of ice that had been pushed
right out of the river onto the banks.
As he drove across the city, he
thought of the words of his parents -- "We're moving in the
springtime." He had mixed feelings when he heard them say
this. On the one hand, they were selling the house where he'd
grown up; on the other, they were leaving a place that they were
no longer able to take care of, and moving to something more manageable.
And today he was going to go and help them, a task he didn't entirely
look forward to. He didn't want to see the stacks of cardboard
boxes, the bare walls,the belongings that suddenly had no place.
It reminded him too much of a move that had happened in his own
life recently.
As he walked up his old street, he saw his father
come out of the house carrying a box. His hair was almost completely
gray now, but he hadn't lost any of it. He winced with some effort
as he carried the box.
Walter put the box down heavily. "That
was a heavy son-of-a-bitch."
"Don't carry it if it's too heavy. I'll
do it."
Actually, Walter was as strong as a bull, but
David hadn't inherited his physique.
"At least we haven't broken anything yet.
Knock on wood."
Even though David saw his parents every couple
of weeks, he always noticed that they had got older. Someone --
he couldn't remember who -- once said that as you grow older you
look more like yourself. Looking at Walter, he wasn't sure if
it was true. It occurred to him that he'd look more like Walter
as he grew older. His eyes would stay mild, but he'd have more
wrinkles around them, he'd start to grow white hairs in his eyebrows,
he'd grow a paunch.
In the house, he found his mother in the kitchen
packing away glasses. When she saw him she came into the hallway
and gave him a hug. Again, he wondered if the comment about looking
more like yourself was true. She too looked older, but he couldn't
say that she looked more like herself. She looked more tired,
less disposed to put up with nonsense.
"It's so nice of you to come and help us
today," she said.
Actually, it wasn't just a desire to help that
compelled him, but a desire to see this house one last time.
She continued wrapping wine glasses in newspaper
and placing them in a box, showing a skill with fragile objects
that David never had. If he tried to help her now, they'd have
an accident. She was in that mode where she seemed to be the epitome
of efficiency and at the same time in need of help. Walter whistled
as he moved around in the living-room, in contrast to Karen's
deft work. "I should have done all this by now," she
said, and then went towards the doorway. "Walter, did you
clean those mirrors before you put them away?"
"No, I don't think so."
She shook her head and came
back into the kitchen. "This is totally disorganized. I'm
embarrassed."Pointing at some boxes, she said, "Everything
from here is fragile."
David reached for the food processor that
was on the counter, intending to take it down to the truck. When
he tried to pick it up by the handle and the opposite side, it
instantly came apart, almost falling out of his hands. His mother
gasped and moved towards him. "It's okay, I've got it!"
he said.
Karen continued putting away kitchen things,
and David and Walter carried boxes down to the truck. David thought
to himself, I know that you can't pick up a food processor by
the handle.
The new place was a condo on the seventh
floor of a building. When they entered, David was struck by the
smell of paint and by the echo created by the emptiness. He looked
around the living room, went to the window and looked out at the
street. "Nice view, lots of light." Walter showed him
around the rest of the place. Indeed, this was a simplification
of their lives.
Later, as they were unloading things,
they had a slight disagreement. They couldn't agree on how to
carry a particularly awkward piece of furniture. David said that
they'd have to up-end it and Walter insisted that there was enough
space to bring it through as it was. They stood in the doorway
and argued, each straining to hold up his end. "We'll push
it through on a forty-five degree angle," Walter said. "Trust
me."
"Right," David said, "let's
walk down and fuck all the cows."
"What's that?"
"Nothing. It's a joke about these
two bulls standing at the top of a hill and . . .never mind."
They managed to get it through, but only
with a great effort. Walter ended up straining his back. He unfolded
a lawn chair and winced as he sat down, and then lay on his back
on the living room floor. "I just need to stay like this
for a minute."
"Take as long as you like."
David stood in the doorway and watched as his father closed his
eyes and breathed deeply. "I'll do the rest of the load.
Just tell me where to put things."
"That's okay, I'll be with you in
a minute."
David carried in a few more things, and
as he passed the living room he glanced in and saw Walter lying
calmly on the floor. He came in and sat down on the box that he'd
been carrying.
"Dad, don't you think you'll miss
the old house just a bit?"
"I suppose I will, but the neighborhood
has changed a lot. Everybody has left."
"Yes, I know." He thought to
himself, nothing is disappearing, nothing is being lost, it's
just being transplanted. "Are you still relieved about all
this...relieved that it's over with?"
"Of course we're relieved."
"Are you sure this is what you wanted?"
"Yes, of course..."
"I mean, are you sure this is what
you wanted?"
"Yes, it is. Why do you sound so
concerned?"
"It's something that's been on my
mind...knowing what you really want, not being afraid to go after
it. It's easy to get side-tracked from all that, isn't it?"
As they were driving back to the house
David saw Sarah walking by on the street. He stuck his head out
of the window to make sure it was her but she was already out
of view.
"Dave, are you there?"
"Sorry?"
"I just asked if you were getting
hungry."
David was somewhere else altogether. He
remembered going through books and deciding which belonged to
whom, Sarah coming with a friend and taking away boxes, remembered
later opening the closet and finding a sweater that she'd forgotten.
". . . so the guy asks them what kind of TV they want and
they say, 'Colour, definitely'." Walter was describing a
conversation he'd overheard in a store. David listened and tried
to cheer himself up by imagining the weird couple who didn't know
that all TV sets are now in colour.
"Any news from Japan?"
"I'm not sure if I'm going."
Walter looked at him and paused for a
moment. "I thought you were all keyed up to go."
David shrugged. "I have a couple
of weeks to confirm with them. I just started hearing more and
more bad things about it -- how crazy it is, how xenophobic people
are. There are also some rumors about this company."
"Well, you know what you're doing.
Anyway, I'm sure your Mom will be pleased to hear about this."
He looked at David and gave him an ironic smile.
David looked away and said nothing.
"Tokyo," Walter said in a tone that
was close to anger. "I thought you were all excited about
seeing Tokyo."
"I told you, I can see it another time.
And no, it wasn't Tokyo I wanted to see. People even told me to
avoid it. It was Kyoto."
"Oh, I see," Karen said, looking somewhat
confused.
"I just have to think about it some more."
Obviously, she didn't want to say the wrong
thing at this point.
They had finished lunch, the empty pizza box
and empty Coke bottle sitting on the table in front of them. Before
asking them if they were ready to continue working, he started
clearing the table.
"Maybe it isn't such a great idea after
all," Walter said. "It would've been an adventure but
you'd probably end up being unhappy. I've also heard about working
in Japan. Most people say it's just a nightmare."
It was good of Walter to say that. It saved
them from an awkward silence, or even worse, a situation in which
David would be seen throwing in the towel and his mother applauding
him for it.
Amidst all this, the image of Sarah walking
along the street came to him again. I'm going. You can come with
me or you can stay, but I'm going. He remembered telling Sarah
about his decision, and remembered everything that followed. It
wasn't what led to their break-up, though; it was something that
happened along the way.
Watching his father drive, he was reminded of
the countless times he had sat next to him in the passenger seat.
He remembered the road trips, the countless hours of looking out
at the landscape. He remembered the cars he had owned -- the Volkswagen,
the Datsun. Walter said, "Remember, when you're about to
cut into traffic, you have to lean forward and look crazy. That's
how you get other drivers to let you in. I learned that when I
was driving a taxi." He now gave a demonstration, hanging
tightly onto the steering wheel, quickly looking both ways, his
eyes wide open. Sure enough, the approaching car slowed down and
let him in.
He watched his father drive and suddenly felt
the urge to talk to him. He wanted to know if he'd done the right
thing, if he was doing the right thing.
"Do you remember when they came and towed
away the Datsun?" David found himself saying. "It was
that summer we spent near Woodbridge."
"Yes, they took it away to be repaired.
I remember that you were upset. You thought they were taking it
away forever."
"It's because I didn't know how we were
going to get home. I thought we were stranded."
Walter laughed. "It's funny how little
kids get all worked up over things like that. They end up worrying
more than grown-ups. It's like when we renovated the house We
tore down the walls and part of the ceiling on the ground floor.
You got all quiet at some point, you thought it was going to stay
like that forever. You thought the piles of rubble were going
to stay there."
"Well, it did take a long time. I remember
the place was covered in plastic sheets for I don't know how long."
When they got back to
the house they found Karen looking at photographs in family albums.
David came over and looked over her shoulder. The pictures on
that particular page were taken in the house that he and Walter
had been talking about in the van. David in the backyard with
the dog. Walter in the kitchen looking surprisedly at the camera.
The family sitting around the Christmas tree. The family, together
with aunts and uncles, at Thanksgiving. By the time all these
pictures had been taken, the piles of plaster and the plastic
sheets were gone and the walls had been painted. Of course, there
were things in the pictures that had long since disappeared from
their lives -- posters, chairs, bookshelves that they had got
rid of long ago. David looked closely at one of the pictures and
even noticed books that had disappeared from his parents' shelves.
Karen turned the page and they looked at other pictures. She didn't
say what David knew she was thinking -- that these were pictures
of the house where they should have stayed.
She finally put down that album and picked
up another. Walter didn't join them but busied himself with other
things. This album contained pictures from her childhood and youth
in Prague. "On this street there was a girl who I made friends
with. Her father was an accountant before the war . . ."
He had heard the story before. "I saw her again years later
but she didn't remember me. That was in '68, just before the Soviets
invaded."
And the story would grow from there, sometimes
to the delight of those around her, sometimes to their displeasure.
Actually, he now didn't mind hearing it. He was tired from carrying
boxes and he didn't mind hearing about the morning she woke up
to find Russian tanks in the streets, her fleeing to Switzerland,
her eventual arrival in Canada.
"The Prague Spring . . . that was
such an amazing time. People here can't possibly know what that
was like."
"I'm not so sure about that."
"Well, it's true. Do you think people
in Canada, in Toronto, could know what that's like? Do you think
they could know what it's like to have their country disappear
overnight?"
"It didn't disappear, Mom."
She made a gesture of 'stop' to show that
she didn't want to enter an argument. "Anyway, it doesn't
matter now because Havel is selling off the country by the kilo."
A few minutes later, she said, "I
remember when I was a teenager reading a little book on Canada.
I remember thinking to myself, 'God, I hope I never end up living
there.' It looked like there was nothing but mines and wheat fields.
As for the cities . .." She shrugged.
"That book was written a while ago,"
David said.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm living
on another planet. You'll probably never know what that's like."
"You're getting all . . . bleak."
"I knew you were going to say that,
but that's okay. I'm not getting bleak, I'm just saying how I
feel. Is there anything wrong with that? I'd like to live some
place else . . . Europe."
The image of Sarah, in her black sweater,
her eyes red from tears, passed through his mind. He went over
to the window, looked out, and in order to do something with his
hands, set about trying to raise the blind and then take it out
of its bracket. As soon as he raised it and tugged on the cord
to make it stay in place, it came back down again.
"I wonder how our apple trees are
doing," she said wistfully, referring to the small orchard
they used to have outside Prague.
David let go of the cord. "The apple
trees? The apple orchard is gone. It's a fucking parking lot!"
When he got home he
sat on the couch and felt a breeze -- not as troubling as before
-- come in from the balcony. He sat for a long time, enjoying
the stillness, and then felt a renewal of energy. The spirit was
upon him to clean up. He shook out the carpets on the balcony,
vacuumed the whole apartment, mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned
the bathroom. When he was finished he sat down on the couch again.
Hundreds of little worries seemed to crowd in on him at once,
each framed by a question... "What if...?" He picked
up the phone and dialed the number to hear the voice that he needed
to hear. After three rings, it came.
"Hello?" After a pause, she
said, "David, is that you?"