Or made in factories.” He had heard the story of Richard’s return to the farm dozens of times. The story had evolved and lengthened with the years, but was always climaxed with a romantic epiphany on a streetcar. The exact place had never been stated, but after he moved to Toronto Erik had decided that the streetcar had been moving west along Queen Street. The sun had been setting between the rows of tenements and shops, and the red glow of the sunset had been caught by the rails and reflected down the long corridor of the streetcar like a brief scene from an old movie thathad been burnt at the edges. “I was on my way to visit Miranda,” Richard would say, “to ask her to marry me. I was wearing my suit and my shoes were shined. It came upon me suddenly. I felt out of place in those crazy clothes, sitting in a metal machine running down a piece of pavement. We were being shuttled along like cardboard boxes.…” The image of his father, young and dressed in a suit, always overwhelmed the rest. “In a few years this kind of farm won’t even exist,” Erik said again. “Less families live here than did ten years ago.”
“You sound like one of those government experts,” Miranda said. “I bet you don’t even remember how to milk a cow.”
“Everything’s run down here. You should be spending more on the farm. I’m surprised the barn is still standing.”
“You can fix it tomorrow.” She crossed the room and took one of Erik’s cigarettes. He was still surprised at how easily she had absorbed this death, forgiven it before it had happened. It was impossible to believe in illumination by streetcar. Richard had also once told him that if he stared into the lake long enough it would turn into a fish. Their first central heating was a wood furnace; maple burned the best but they mostly used elm. It never lasted all night and sometimes, if someone was sick, Richard Thomas would stumble downstairs in the middle of the night to keep the fire going. By February, it seemed that winter had existed forever, that it was always late at night, already dark for hours and twenty below zero. And even in March the nights were still cold and frozen. That was the month he learned to tap the trees, pushing the brace with his chest and turning out long spiral worms of white maple. As it grew warmer, the black and grey bark took on shades of green and brown, soaking in the rain that turned the fields and hills into sheets of ice and, later, the roads a foot deep with mud and impassable. Even after the tops of the hills were bare and dried there was still snow three feet deep in the bush. Soft snow with a porous ice crust that broke easily and slid in cold fragments between boot and pantleg. In the spring too the creeks swelled with the melting snow and were triple their summer width, rushing down miniature waterfalls and fallen logs on the way to the lake, with cold still pockets where suckers and pickerel bred. At first with Richard and lateralone they would come to the creek at night with an old potato sack, spears and a flashlight. They would stand for a while in the late twilight, watching the colours of the sun through the boughs of the cedar and still bare elm trees. That was the part Erik liked best, that and the feeling of the water tugging at his boots, in the promise, he used to think, that if he could just find the hidden code he would be carried down the stream into the lake, and along the length of the lake to the sandy narrows where it was joined to another bigger lake that in turn was joined to a system of lakes and canals that could finally lead him to the St. Lawrence River and then to the Atlantic Ocean. But it was Brian who caught the most fish, spearing them quickly and tearing them, flapping and gleaming blood, off the barbed hook and depositing them first into the potato sack and later, when the sack was full, just piling them along the banks of the creek, sometimes not even bothering to snap their spines.
“You sound like one of those government experts,” Miranda said. “I bet you don’t even remember how to milk a cow.”
“Everything’s run down here. You should be spending more on the farm. I’m surprised the barn is still standing.”
“You can fix it tomorrow.” She crossed the room and took one of Erik’s cigarettes. He was still surprised at how easily she had absorbed this death, forgiven it before it had happened. It was impossible to believe in illumination by streetcar. Richard had also once told him that if he stared into the lake long enough it would turn into a fish. Their first central heating was a wood furnace; maple burned the best but they mostly used elm. It never lasted all night and sometimes, if someone was sick, Richard Thomas would stumble downstairs in the middle of the night to keep the fire going. By February, it seemed that winter had existed forever, that it was always late at night, already dark for hours and twenty below zero. And even in March the nights were still cold and frozen. That was the month he learned to tap the trees, pushing the brace with his chest and turning out long spiral worms of white maple. As it grew warmer, the black and grey bark took on shades of green and brown, soaking in the rain that turned the fields and hills into sheets of ice and, later, the roads a foot deep with mud and impassable. Even after the tops of the hills were bare and dried there was still snow three feet deep in the bush. Soft snow with a porous ice crust that broke easily and slid in cold fragments between boot and pantleg. In the spring too the creeks swelled with the melting snow and were triple their summer width, rushing down miniature waterfalls and fallen logs on the way to the lake, with cold still pockets where suckers and pickerel bred. At first with Richard and lateralone they would come to the creek at night with an old potato sack, spears and a flashlight. They would stand for a while in the late twilight, watching the colours of the sun through the boughs of the cedar and still bare elm trees. That was the part Erik liked best, that and the feeling of the water tugging at his boots, in the promise, he used to think, that if he could just find the hidden code he would be carried down the stream into the lake, and along the length of the lake to the sandy narrows where it was joined to another bigger lake that in turn was joined to a system of lakes and canals that could finally lead him to the St. Lawrence River and then to the Atlantic Ocean. But it was Brian who caught the most fish, spearing them quickly and tearing them, flapping and gleaming blood, off the barbed hook and depositing them first into the potato sack and later, when the sack was full, just piling them along the banks of the creek, sometimes not even bothering to snap their spines.
Similar Books
