Read Online The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan - Free Book Online Page B

woman look much younger than she undoubtedly was. She had shrewd, vaguely blue eyes, her mouth filled with crooked teeth. She was so fat that even her smile looked like an immense effort under all that skin.
    The man, for all his age, looked athletic. Less muscular than simply well built, his broad, heavily veined forearms ended in pink, delicate wrists. Despite his brawn there was something of the intellectual about him; a low-sitting pair of wire-rimmed glasses obscured his pupils, giving him an almost affected erudition. His speech seemed deliberately unadorned, as though he were used to giving others time to catch up with his ideas.
    “Call the Guinness Book —we made it here in less than a month,” laughed the man.
    His wife glanced at him, then tapped the glass at Samuel’s eye level, so that he was obliged to take a backward step. He opened the storm door.
    “Raymond Frank,” said the man, fingering the lid of a silver lighter in his fist. He gestured to his wife. “Eudora and Ray Frank. As second to the mayor on Aster’s town council, I’d like to welcome you to the town. We thought we’d come and get a good look at you.” Laughing, he thrust his substantial hand into Samuel’s, all the while winking at his wife. “So far so good, eh?”
    “Don’t badger the poor man,” said Eudora with a straight face, though Samuel sensed an undercurrent of comedy between them. “Will you look at this house?” Eudora glanced past Samuel, then brought her piercing eyes to rest on him. She shoved a foil-covered dish at him.
    Eudora was a feminist, though her resulting behaviour was more questionable than when she simply called herself a woman. She agreed with a woman’s right to vote, but believed this the extent to which women should be involved in politics. She maintained that all women should have access to higher education, but if pressed enough she would admit it was unnatural. She believed that a marriage without children was no more than a pact between a rake and a hussy, yet she herself was barren. She was vice-president of Aster’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Women (NAAW), and yet she knew a woman’s true duty was to her home. As a laywoman, she volunteered in homes for the mentally handicapped, helped to found Aster’s first soup kitchen and could be persuaded on occasion to make one of her devastating custards for a good cause. At the helm of NAAW she wrote petitions to the municipalities of Calgary, Edmonton and even Aster to establish a special education course so that the “poor challenged dears” would be prevented from “compromising normal students.” She proved herself a woman before her time by suggesting social awareness programs to crack down on prenatal alcoholism; but her reasons?—to stop filling cradles with “feeble-minded babies.” In her crusader state of mind, the motives differed.
    “Thank you kindly,” said Samuel, taking the dish.
    “It’s a desert,” she said, “but don’t worry, I took out all the sand. No, really, it’s a dessert torte, and by the dinner sounds in there I’d say our timing’s just right.” She looked beyond his shoulder.
    “We have almost finished.” Samuel smiled; a few seconds passed before her hint occurred to him. “Oh, will you not come and meet my family?”
    The Franks shared a laugh between them, and Samuel stared, unable to discern the joke. Eudora reached for the pan in his hands and said, “I’ll do the cutting.”
    In the kitchen, the meal had come to an end. Today, as on other occasions, Samuel noticed that the twins seemed to distrust their food in front of strangers. They set down their forks. Samuel laughed to distract attention from them and gestured to Maud, who, startled at the sudden company, tried to swallow as quickly as possible with a shy smile on her face. Before she could say anything, Eudora leaned between Ama and Yvette, as though her presence were the most natural thing in the