No Margins

No Margins

writing canadian fiction in lesbian

edited by

Catherine Lake and Nairne Holtz

INSOMNIAC PRESS

Collection copyright © 2006 by Catherine Lake and Nairne Holtz

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the

prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other

reprographic copying, a license from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite

1900, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5E 1E5.

Edited by Catherine Lake and Nairne Holtz

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

No margins : writing Canadian fiction in lesbian / edited by Catherine

Lake, Nairne Holtz.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-897178-15-8

1. Lesbians--Fiction. 2. Lesbians' writings, Canadian (English). 3. Short

stories, Canadian (English)--Women authors. 4. Canadian fiction (English)-

- 21st century. I. Lake, Catherine, 1964- II. Holtz, Nairne, 1967-

PS8323.L47N6 2006 C813'.01083526643 C2006-901075-7

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council,

the Ontario Arts Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage through

the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

Printed and bound in Canada

Insomniac Press, 192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 403

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 2C2

www.insomniacpress.com

Contents

Introduction by Susan Knutson

7

Editor Notes

13

Luanne Armstrong, A’thyraa

15

Dionne Brand, excerpt from

In Another Place, Not Here

33

Nicole Brossard, excerpt from

Baroque At Dawn

47

Emma Donoghue, Here and Now

61

Marion Douglas, Dance Hall

85

Anne Fleming, The Pear

101

Jane Eaton Hamilton, Wart’s Ugly

121

Lydia Kwa, Soft Shell

145

Larissa Lai, The Sewing Box

153

Ann-Marie MacDonald, excerpt from

Fall On Your Knees

173

Daphne Marlatt, Update

193

Shani Mootoo, The Upside-downness of

the World as it Unfolds

203

Elizabeth Ruth, tiny insurmountable hills

221

Karen X. Tulchinsky, Ruined by Love

239

Marnie Woodrow, Body Doubles

265

Bibliographer Notes

279

Selective Annotated Bibliography of Canadian

Literature with Lesbian Content

281

Biographies of Lise Beaudry, Nairne Holtz,

Susan Knutson, and Catherine Lake

313

Acknowledgements

315

Introduction

Susan Knutson

Today, recent fiction by Canadian lesbian writers is being read

in airports, living rooms, schools, and universities around the

world, for it is a fact that a good many of Canada’s finest and

most celebrated writers are women who love other women.

Do we need proof? Among the contributors to this anthology

(and so, setting aside the achievements of Marie-Claire Blais

and Jane Rule), we find three winners of Canada’s highest

award for literary achievement, the Governor General’s

Literary Awards: Dionne Brand (1997), Ann-Marie

MacDonald (1990), and Nicole Brossard, who has won it twice

(1974 and 1984). Anne Fleming was nominated in 1999.

Remembering that awards can reflect dominant values and

sometimes are very late in coming, it seems safe to conclude

that Canadian lesbian fiction is read and respected, and that

our country, which is one of four in the world to legalize the

marriages of same-sex couples, is justifiably proud of its les-

bian writers.

How curious, then, that this anthology, put together by

Catherine Lake and Nairne Holtz, is the first of its kind—the

first anthology to gather together and showcase, as such,

Canadian lesbian literary fiction. 1

The side by side placement of these texts invites analysis:

what do they have in common, and what are their differences?

Luanne Armstrong’s “A’thyraa” differs from the others in that

it is speculative fiction, along the lines of Jean Auel’s The Clan

of the Cave Bear, or Monique Wittig’s Les guérillères. Daphne

Marlatt’s “Update” is unique in that it is an intertextual fic-

tion: as she says, “part fiction and part reading” of Ethel

Wilson’s “Till Death Us Do Part.” Writing back to the earlier

Vancouver writer, Marlatt traces a ghostly lesbian line through

literary history and proposes positive changes in (lesbian)

women’s lives. The majority of pieces in this collection, how-

ever, are representational, bearing witness to lesbian lives in all

8

their wide variety of experience and expression. The pica-

—

resque camp of Karen X. Tulchinsky’s “Ruined by Love” is a

world away from Dionne Brand’s passionate, decolonizing, “In

argins M

Another Place, Not Here.” The playful, thoughtful portrai-

o

ture of Larissa Lai’s “The Sewing Box” and Shani Mootoo’s

N

“The Upside-downness of the World as it Unfolds” comple-

ments the psychological drama of Lydia Kwa’s “Soft Shell,”

and some of the issues posed by these three texts come up

again in Emma Donaghue’s “Here and Now,” Jane Eaton

Hamilton’s “Wart’s Ugly,” and Marnie Woodrow’s “Body

Doubles.” All of the stories are linked by an interest in sexual-

ity, pregnancy, cultural and class histories, choices and privi-

leges (or lack thereof ), gender ambiguity, and identifications:

butch, dyke, and femme.

Sexual attraction and awakening is a powerful and recur-

rent theme; as Nicole Brossard explains: “we need to hear

about the origin, the founding moment in which we can

retrace the illumination, the moment of passage when we sud-

denly found our self on the other side of the mirror, of the

world, in a universe where surprised, stunned and relieved, we

could observe our self drifting away from Adam’s coast.” Ann-

Marie MacDonald’s Kathleen Piper describes this moment: “I

was a ghost until I tasted you, never understood the spoken

word until I found your tongue. I’ve been a sleep-walker, sad

somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that

could waken me to life at last. I have only ever stood here

under this lamp, against your body, I’ve missed you all my life.”

Dionne Brand’s Elizete likewise recounts her initiation into

love as a coming to awareness of her own identity and destiny:

I see Verl coming, like a shower of rain coming that

could just wash me cool and that was sufficient and if

God spite me for this, is so things is. I abandon every-

thing for Verlia. I sink in Verlia and let she flesh swal-

low me up. I devour she. She open me up like any

morning. Limp, limp and rain light, soft to the mar-

row. She make me wet. She tongue scorching like hot

9

sun. I love that shudder between her legs, love the

—

plain wash and sea of her, the swell and bloom of her

Introduction

softness. And is all. And if is all I could do on the

earth, is all.

This passage, which could stand beside any in world liter-

ature, also demonstrates the literary capacity of Caribbean

dialectal English, and so reminds us of the multiple dimen-

sions of meaning folded into lesbian fiction, which is never

only lesbian fiction, but is human fiction, with all of the com-

plexities that there are.

Gender identifications are explored in a number of sto-

ries: lightheartedly, as Shani Mootoo’s narrator and the (some-

times) boyish Meghan face off wearing their signature blends

of men’s and women’s scents, and grammatically, as in Ann-

Marie MacDonald’s nice sentence: “she is a slim young man.”

Marion Douglas kicks it up a notch in “Dance Hall,” showing

us how the “boyishness” of a girl in small town Ontario is per-

ceived as something “weird,” on a par with eating frogs, or

“having a reputation”: “Cora’s sister, Maddy, was a girl-boy, or

a boy-girl and the hero of the basketball team.” The surprise

ending of this story points up the enormous divide between

the thoughtlessly cruel narrator and Maddy herself, who is

aware that as a “boy-girl,” she may not have the choice of stay-

ing in her hometown, and that the narrator’s clever, urbane

weariness with the milieu is a luxury she does not enjoy.

Contradictions of gender and choice are taken up again in

Anne Fleming’s “The Pear,” with its loveable but bitter beard-

ed woman and the green-eyed girl who teases her scared,

bruised heart into fantasies of love.

When it comes to choices, we do not all get the same

ones, and that point is made again by Elizabeth Ruth’s “tiny

insurmountable hills,” which explicitly juxtaposes the (non)

choices of an addicted, destitute, homeless mother with those

of a middle-class white lesbian couple who are trying to con-

ceive. This story offers one of two portraits in this book of

artificial or alternate insemination. Lisa, the lesbian who is

10

trying to conceive, is hardly a picture of privilege as she suf-

—

fers the anguish of a miscarriage, but she is nonetheless stark-

ly contrasted with the out-of-doors woman who gives birth

argins

and abandons her baby on the steps of Toronto City Hall.

Mo

Curiously, this story shares with others, including Lai’s “The

N

Sewing Box” and Fleming’s “The Pear,” a small repertoire of

fertility images: plums, pears, seeds, fishes, foetuses, and

homunculi. The purple plums that Lisa eats because her

grandmother claimed they were good for fertility contrast

with the baby born in the street, who “slid onto that dirty

pink blanket on the concrete like a shiny red plum slipping

from its skin.”

Nicole Brossard specifies that she does not see herself as

witness to her own life or to that of others: “I see myself as an

explorer in language who is trying to discover new territories.

I work with language hoping that it will enable me to produce

and offer sequences of emotions and thoughts which, without

the written word, would not exist.” Appropriately, Brossard’s

selection from Baroque at Dawn closes with a little-used word

that may now be used to talk about lesbian fiction: “The dark

fish throw a shadow over the pinks and whites of the coral,

Cybil Noland thinks before riding off again, a deep-sea wan-

derer aboard great incunabula.” In my Oxford English Reference

Dictionary, I read: Incunabulum (pl. incunabula): 1. a book

printed at an early date, esp. before 1501. 2. (in pl.) the early

stages of the development of a thing. [Latin incunabula swad-

dling clothes, cradle). This word, then, captures in its folds

several of the meanings associated with the publishing of this

first anthology of Canadian lesbian literary fiction: a book,

printed at an early date in the history of Canadian lesbian fic-

tion; and a cradle. As well, given the metaphoric framework in

which Brossard places the word, we have the hotel bed upon

which Cybil Noland, a global citizen in a world of signs, has

made love, and upon which she now rides away towards the

future prophesied in her name.

Lesbian choices, in lives and in books, have not always

existed, and it still takes imagination and courage to discover

11

and communicate them, as Dionne Brand’s Elizete also notes:

—

“I was sure of what anybody would be sure of. Spite, hunger,

Introduction

rain. But Verl is sure of what she make in her own mind and

what she make didn’t always exist. … I like it how she leap.

Run in the air without moving.” Lesbian literature is new, as

genres go, and has not yet attracted a great deal of scholarship,

but there is more work being done all the time. L. Chris Fox,

for example, at the University of Victoria, is currently writing

a doctoral dissertation that argues for the existence of what

she calls “nodes” in Canadian lesbian / queer women’s writing:

“At certain times and in certain places, an interaction with

prevailing social actions and reactions seems to result in a

‘queer outburst,’ a concentration of publications, which may

even share some rhetorical features.” Fox’s research focuses on

a “particularly wonderful outburst of CanAsian queer women’s

writing in Vancouver in the 1990s,” which includes several of

the writers in this collection. Since publication is difficult for

all writers, but especially so for non-hegemonic authors, Fox

argues that it is important to explore the material conditions

that encouraged this cultural bounty.

Finally, then, let us consider that the timely publication of

this incunabulum— No Margins: writing canadian fiction in les-

bian—may contribute to another “queer outburst” in our

Canadian culture, and that as such, it may also help to lead us

collectively towards the goals of social justice and better

choices for all.

1. Nothing , of course, comes from nowhere, and the editors wish

to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of Toronto’s Lesbian

Writing and Publishing Collective, which produced Dykeversions:

lesbian short fiction (1986) and Dykewords: an anthology of lesbian

writings (1990), both published by Women’s Press; and of Lee

Fleming, editor of Tide Lines: Stories of Change by Lesbians (1991)

and By Word of Mouth: Lesbians write the erotic (1989), both pub-

lished by Gynergy Books, in Charlottetown, PEI.

Editor Notes

The impetus for No Margins: writing canadian fiction in lesbian

came from a conversation with a bookstore owner. I had

observed that the CanLit establishment has become more

inclusive in recognizing, publishing, and promoting so many

authors who are lesbian. He responded that inclusivity was

not the issue, but rather, Canadian fiction is currently being

defined by our lesbian writers. We discussed the wealth of

authors who are open about their sexuality and it occurred to

me to create an intentional gathering of our contemporary

greats into one collection. Enter Nairne Holtz with her ready

research on the array of lesbian writers throughout Canada.

We drew up our list and the work began.

When approaching authors, I was often asked for the

“theme” of the project. I decided to re-ask them: are there

recurring themes born from a lesbian identity and a Canadian

geography?

We sent them a list of questions ranging from the influ-

ence of place, nationality, and sexual identity on their work to

their ideas on audience, queer lit, challenging traditional nar-

ratives, and the creative process. Some authors chose to

respond to all the questions, others chose one, and others

made their own statement about their work and the creative

process that engages them. The results of their comments are

the Writer Notes that preface each work and which speak to

our intersecting and layered identities.

What is critical and marvellous about this collection is

that all these writers are out as lesbians. No longer content

with misnomers and buried subtext, we celebrate ourselves

with fervour. Visibility, particularly through the past fifteen

years, has moved mountains. And as we have come out, so

have our authors. Their assertive lives, their writing, themes,

and content, all echo Canada’s reshaping of the social and

14

political status quo. And just as their personas and artistry

—

have influenced our communities, so have our open lives nur-

tured their visibility. It is and continues to be a symbiotic rela-

argins

tionship—reader and writer, and with much at stake societal-

Mo

ly. We are not only a readership but also a community that

N

thrives on the words, images, and creativity of our writers.

Though we share them with Canada and the world, in our

hearts we feel that they belong first to us, and we to them.

Catherine Lake

15

—

Luanne Armstrong

Luanne

Writer Notes

Armstrong

Is the geography of where you live important to your writing?

How does living in Canada inform your work?

I am a writer who identifies very strongly with a particu-

lar place and much of my writing focuses on this region, the

Kootenay area in southeastern British Columbia. I am also

interested in the contradictory spaces formed by my multiple

identities as rural, queer, academic, social activist, mother, and

grandmother. I am also a product of a politically active, piv-

otal period in Canadian history and I am very concerned that

the issues, ideas, and visions shared by social justice move-

ments of the last thirty years not be lost in our current social

and historical turmoil.

I have been active in the lesbian community but I now

feel I find multiple ways to identify and be a part of the many

communities I belong to. Nor do I think there is a specific les-

bian perspective in my work other than it is my work and

therefore informed by all that I am. My perspective as an

artist includes all facets of my identity, so although I often

write about lesbian characters, I also write about men and

children and animals. I would hope, therefore, to engage a

wide audience of people interested in ideas, in the future, and

in social issues.

I have seen a huge change in Canadian literature in the

last thirty years. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact

that we have come from a place where Canadian literature was

once dominated by white male writers, to a place where it now

at least attempts to be broadly inclusive. However, I have

often been disappointed by the conventionality of much of

what is labelled queer writing. I think writing from a particu-

lar perspective is not the point. The point for me is to write

from the perspective of all that I am and to include as honest-

ly as possible the ideas and the perspectives I believe are

important.

17

Luanne Armstrong

— Luanne

A’thyraa

Armstrong

I lay in my black tent, contented. In those days, I was mostly

contented. I could hear the horses tearing at the grass outside

and the soft thud of their hooves, their determined munching.

I lay on my bed, warm and soft in every bone, and thought

about what I might do with this new day. I might go hunting.

I might work on training the new colts. I might go swimming

in the afternoon. I might simply lie in my tent. I turned and

nuzzled gently into the back of the woman sleeping by my

side. For a moment, I couldn’t actually remember who she

was, but then my head cleared and I recalled the night before,

the drums, dancing, laughter over the fire, catching her eye,

the tendrils of heat and tenderness rising up and spinning the

threads between us. And then the hours of kissing, soft croon-

ing, moans; delight rising from my toes up to my crotch, my

belly, spreading fire through my chest, up through the top of

my head.

This morning, she would go back to her tent. Such was our

way. Such was my way. Some women joined and partnered for

weeks, months, years, even for lifetimes, though such were

rare. I had never met anyone I wanted to share my tent with

for long and doubted that I would. But at the gathers, I never

lacked for partners. Fucking was such joy, such an endless

delight and pleasure. I was quite sure the Goddess came to

slide between us at times to take her share.

I had always loved to share nights of energetic lust but I

also looked forward to the moments when I woke alone early

in the grey dawn and slipped outside. I’d trot down to the

river, slide into the cold and silky water and lie in its embrace

while the sun sent slithery gold fingers down through the

leaves to dance along the water ripples.

Sometimes I left the camp to ride alone among the high

peaks. I wandered for days, looking into lonely valleys and

18

over cliff edges. I tethered my pony and climbed for the sheer

—

joy of testing myself against rocks and cliffs and handholds

until I found myself in the high mountain gardens, full of tiny

argins

Goddess-arranged delights—minuscule flowers, satin streams,

Mo

moss-covered gravel spills.

N

I lived as I pleased. I took my place among the other

women when it came time for hunting, riding, herding, or

trading. Most of the other women had children. When the

time came, they would go to the men’s camp and remain as

long they chose. Most came back; some remained with the

men for several seasons. But all returned home during the

time when the child was to come into this place. A child was

always born to a tent full of mothers and grandmothers wel-

coming it with singing and wonder.

I had never felt the urge for a child and so, though I

played with the children and taught them riding and hunting,

I left them to the tenderness of the other women. What I

liked best was to wonder at the mystery I saw around me, its

endless complexity. I spent hours lying on my back staring at

the patterns the birds wove. I turned over on my stomach and

watched the intricate insect life that went on below the car-

pet of grass. I decorated my tent with lichen-layered rocks,

bits of wind-polished wood or dried grass. I marvelled and

played, and a child, even a child beloved by many women,

would take time away from this.

We didn’t always stay in this place; sometimes we jour-

neyed over the plains to other camps and occasionally to the

city, which was three days slow riding or one day’s fast. We

went to the city for amusement and to look. We traded with

them, but more for their pleasure than ours. There was little

we needed that we couldn’t make ourselves but the city peo-

ple liked our drums, our hides, our weaving and pottery. So we

traded with them. It was an excuse to visit, to drink, which we

seldom did on our own, to go to the temple and listen to the

goddess speaking, look at art, listen to music, and hear the

gossip, which mostly struck us as funny or incomprehensible.

19

But sometimes it was serious. Lately, there had been news

—

of fighting in the north. Fighting had never come to the plains

Luanne

in our memory and we were not sure what such a thing could

mean. The people in the city seemed very concerned so we lis-

Armstrong

tened too.

I didn’t often go to the city but when I did I got very

excited by new ideas I heard in the market. Although I would

have liked to have added my voice to the discussions and argu-

ments, I remained silent. But I was a plains person and I could

not speak if I didn’t know that I would be heard. Our people

learned to listen carefully but city people rudely interrupted

each other and didn’t seem to listen much at all. Sometimes I

got too excited and had to ride away to calm down. I liked to

think, talk, and play with words. It was a game, a bit like hunt-

ing except nothing died. But I would not have wanted to do it

all the time like the city people seemed to do.

I went to the city one day with a group of women, some

from my band, some not. We always dressed up for it in our

bits of decoration, and rode easy on our curly-haired black

ponies. We joked and gossiped about who we might meet this

trip, the ways of city women, city men, and what they might

be like in bed. We lied hugely about our experiences and

laughed at our own lies. My own horse was one I raised as a

colt. He knew my ways as I knew his. On my last trip to the

city, I had traded for a red blanket for him. On this trip, I

braided hawk feathers in his mane and blue beads into my

own hair. I rode most of the trip sitting backwards, partly to

show off and partly for ease in talking.

When we came in sight of the city, our talking and laugh-

ing quieted. Though none of us admitted it, we felt the differ-

ences in the glances that city people gave us, the differences

between our plains finery and their smooth hair, immaculate

clothes, and soft hands. We insisted to each other that we did-

n’t feel any less than them, but it was clear that they thought

they were more than us and they let us know. We had no way

to understand or withstand such differences, since in our daily

life, such behaviour was unknown to us. We were unused to

20—

the feeling of being shut in, of not being able to see the hori-

zon, of being surrounded by people we did not know. Time in

argins

the city was time spent enduring these feelings.

Mo

When we entered the city we crowded together and I

N

rode frontways on my horse, looking straight ahead. When we

got to the market, we unloaded the pack ponies and laid out

our trading things and braced ourselves for the people who

would come. We had learned to give each other rest from the

strain of meeting strange eyes and strange voices. So while

some were trading, others were free to wander and to look.

This day, I rode through the streets to the gardens by the

river. These gardens always fascinated me by their orderliness.

They were like the high meadows in the mountains, but one is

made by the Creator Goddess and one is made by the city

people. I tied my horse and looked at the patterns of colour

and order. Another woman was also there, but not looking at

the flowers. She was staring at the paper in her hands. Not

wishing to disturb her, I wandered from flower bed to flower

bed as quietly as I could.

She looked up and smiled a greeting. Awkwardly, I nodded

my head. I did not know this woman, but now that she had

greeted me, courtesy and ritual said that I should also greet

her. I waited. Again she looked up and smiled. This time there

was a frown in the smile, that I should still be standing before

her not knowing what to do next.

I waited. Since it was her place I had come into, it was her

place to speak, and finally she did.

“This is a beautiful garden,” she said, “and a beautiful day

to enjoy it. Have you come here before?” Her voice was clear

and throaty. She wore a plain white dress. Her hair was golden

and braided. She had blue eyes.

“Yes,” I said, “we have nothing quite like this on the

plains. And it is peaceful, after the market.”

“Ah,” she replied, smiling kindly, “you have come to trade

then.”

21

“Yes,” I agreed. After that there seemed little more to say.

—

She went back to her papers and I went back to the flowers

Luanne

and then back to my pony. I didn’t want her to be there and I

left before I wanted to.

Armstrong

I went back to the market, to take my turn at trading. A

crowd was beginning to gather in the square. Something was

going to happen.

After a while, I saw her come from the park, mount the

steps beside the square and make a speech to which everyone

listened carefully, sometimes interrupting to applaud.

It was a good speech, I thought. She was warning them to

prepare for fighting and to pay attention to what was going on

in the world outside this small, safe city. I didn’t really under-

stand all of what she said. I wanted to ask her questions but

there was a crowd of people around her. I listened and

watched her from a distance and when it was over, I went

back to trading.

Soon she came by the row of blankets where we were. She

was still surrounded by a crowd of people chattering and

laughing, some touching her to get her attention. She was

talking back, lively, her arms and hands and eyes flashing.

People quieted when she spoke. They listened to every word.

I bent my head over the blanket. I did not want that flash-

ing attention turned my way. So when she stopped in front of

me, I saw only her feet in sandals and then was forced to look

up to meet her smile.

“This is beautiful pottery,” she said. “Did you make it?”

I shook my head, for making things is not what I do.

Fucking and riding horses, hunting and travelling alone in high

places is what I do. But I said nothing. She picked up several

bowls, frowned over them, put them back and finally chose

one. She handed me some city money, which I took without

looking at it.

Then she went on and the light went out of the day and I

snarled at the other customers until my sisters told me to

leave. I sat and thought for a while. I jumped on my horse and

22

rode through the city in the direction I had seen her take. I

—

had to ask directions several times but people seemed to know

who I meant, and though they were startled by my question,

argins

they gave me the answer I wanted.

Mo

When I came to her house, I stopped. Her house was big-

N

ger than many of the others around it. Flowers grew every-

where. Water trickled into a pond full of white flowers floating

like clouds. I rode into the yard, over stones laid flat, then

stopped, unable to decide what do next. On the plains, if a door

is open, one enters and if a door is closed, one does not. Her

door was closed, and yet I thought that perhaps here, it meant

nothing. Maybe it was a barrier I could pass through by asking.

I waited and someone came to the door to ask my busi-

ness. I said I had a question to ask of the woman inside, and

the young man disappeared. Soon she came to the door smil-

ing, but I did not smile back.

She asked me to come inside and I did, leaving my horse

in the yard to eat the flowers if he so chose. I took a deep

breath and stepped inside. The walls closed around me. It was

much bigger inside than I had supposed. The walls went up to

a high ceiling and light came in from above. Rugs covered the

stone floor and the walls were painted with pictures of birds

and women and cattle and horses. Some of the pictures were

of the plains, my plains, and I felt a flash of anger that anyone

should presume to paint what they could never really know.

She took me to a place beside the fireplace and motioned

for me to sit down. She left and came back with tea and some-

thing sweet on a platter.

“What is your question?” she asked when I had drunk the

tea and eaten whatever was on the platter.

I looked away at the pictures on the wall, of women danc-

ing with flowers and each other.

“How is it,” I said finally, careful with my words and my

tone, “that one who makes a speech about opening up walls

and learning about other things outside the city, does not

know the people who live on the plains outside these walls?”

23

She looked at me in surprise and then she laughed. Her

—

laugh was like the river water, chuckling in the reeds.

Luanne

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know much about your

people. But I always thought that was by your choice. We in

Armstrong

the city think of you as wild, proud, looking down on those of

us who live within walls, not wanting to talk to us. Although

we live side by side and are one people, we hardly know about

one another.”

I laughed a little. “When have you given us a chance?” I

said. “You see our rough ways and you look away, you talk to

each other, or you walk on.”

“Tell me then,” she said, “for I would like to hear. I have

always wondered and wanted to know about your people. I

used to come by the market and marvel at the horses for their

beauty and the easy way you ride.”

“I will,” I said “but you must tell me in return how to grow

such flowers, why your houses are so large, how you can stand

to live within walls with so many strangers, what it is you read,

and what your papers say.”

We talked and talked. People came in, lit the lamps,

brought food, more tea and still we talked. Finally I went out

to check on my horse and found him fed and brushed,

enclosed and not very happy about it, in a small house

attached to the big one.

I went back. It was getting late and my sisters would be

wondering. They had seen the direction I took when I left so

they would not wonder too much, but would wait for me to

return and tell them the story.

A silence had fallen between us. I looked at the flickering

candles, at her hands, lying in her lap where they had fallen

among the folds of the white dress. I hesitated. It was she who

moved first, taking my rough hands in her smooth ones and

rubbing her thumb, over the rough places and the little hollow

of the palm and between fingers. I felt my cunt loosen and

shivers ran up my back. I could not look at her.

When I did, I looked at her eyes and her lips. I leaned to

kiss her. Her lips were dry and warm. I placed my hand onto

24—

the softness of her breast. I felt her move. I felt the heat grow

between us and we kissed and kissed, each of us wondering

argins

when the other would speak. Finally she leaned away.

Mo

“I do have a bed,” she said, “and you are welcome to share

N

it, if you would like.”

I laughed. “Yes,” I said.

She led me to her room where she took off her white dress

while I took off my leather and my blue beads. We lay on the

bed together in the light of the lamps.

Her breasts were beautiful and the nipples rose to my

tongue as she fell back on the bed in need and desire. I took

my time, exploring the lift of her belly, the curved ivory of her

thighs and the small spaces in the hollow of her neck. I want-

ed to know all of her, all the secret warm places and the taste

and smells of apricots, honey, and hot summer days and the

sound of her sighing when my fingers slid between her legs

searching for the folded hidden warmth there. When I moved

down and put my tongue where she wanted me to put it, her

fingers grabbed my hair and I heard her singing. I felt it in my

own body, the tension and excitement growing until her cunt

convulsed. I held her there with my tongue and my fingers

until, sweaty and exhausted, she pulled me up, kissed my wet

face. I waited, content with whatever was to happen next. She

put her hands on me, and finally in me so deep that I lost all

sense of where and who I was. I only remember the Goddess

singing in my blood and knew that I was lost in this woman,

that between her and me there was no division. When my

body cooled, I lay in her arms and wept.

At that, she was alarmed, for nothing we had done called

for weeping. How could I tell her of my fear, I who feared

nothing, and of my sense I had both lost and gained some-

thing indescribable? When I touched her body, it felt like my

own and she said as much to me, in wonder. We were both

silent, struck by the newness of something so familiar.

Finally we slept.

25

When I awoke in the morning, she was there and we spent

—

the morning talking and lying flesh against flesh, until we felt

Luanne

the singing begin again in our blood. When I held her this

time, I shivered and the bed whirled and I went deeper and

Armstrong

deeper into myself, to where I could hear the grandmothers

talking, to where the Goddess herself spread her wings like an

infinite, iridescent blue butterfly. I sprawled, open and singing

and moaning on the bed while she went after me and when I

said, no more, she said, no, come on, more, just a little and I

came and came and something in me that had been clenched

and protected, let go, melted, and was gone.

After that, we got up, dressed, went out of that room and

down to the kitchen for food. The woman who had brought

food before was nowhere in sight but the food was there. All

the time, we talked and talked, such talking as I had always

longed for. Words and ideas spilled from me and her. We

laughed and could hardly wait for one to say something before

the other completed it. It was a glorious day, and finally, we

went back to bed, exhausted.

I stayed with her for seven days. I sent a message to my

sisters to go home without me. Each day was more wonderful

and complete than any other, but also each day the walls

closed in tighter and the sense of strangeness grew. After all,

despite the time we spent in bed and spent talking, I didn’t

know her. Her ways were strange; her house was strange.

People came and went. Food appeared and disappeared. The

house had a whole life I wasn’t part of. She went out, twice, to

go to meetings and though she courteously asked me if I

would like to come, I didn’t think she wanted me to, so I

didn’t.

I went to bed one night, closed my eyes and thought

myself back onto the plain. It was so clear that pain stuck in

my heart like a fierce arrow. I awoke and didn’t know where I

was. In the morning I told her I was leaving. She said nothing,

but closed her eyes.

“Yes,” she said, and turned away. I went to the little house

26

and got my horse, who was kicking and so fretful with loneli-

—

ness for the others of his tribe that I was sorry for him. When

I came back into the courtyard, she came and stood beside

argins

me. I put my arms around her and held her, and in our bodies

Mo

I could feel the seal, the joining we had made, slowly ripping

N

apart, like flesh tearing.

“I’ll come back,” I said. “Please know that I’ll come back.”

I laughed a little, both with joy and sorrow, and not knowing

how to live with this new feeling. “I have no choice. You are

part of me and I am part of you. I am not sure how this hap-

pened or if I chose it, or even if I want it, but it is so.”

She looked at me, this proud woman of the city, who made

speeches, read books, and had others to do her bidding. “I will

wait,” she said, “I will wait here and I will have my life, but part

of me will ride out onto those plains where I have never gone.”

“You could come with me,” I said, pleading, but she only

said, “I will wait.”

So I got on my black horse and came back to the plains,

where everything was both the same and utterly changed. All

the way home, I felt that perhaps I was a finer and better per-

son than I had guessed, to love and be so loved, by her.

I was teased of course. And questioned. Gently. I sat at

the fire that night, smiling with happiness and remembering.

It was only as the days began to lengthen in number that the

foolishness of what I had done began to come into me. Our

elders teach us that each person is a circle connected in all

directions to the world around us. I know this is so, for I have

stood on the plains and seen the joining, the rays of light, go

out from me to all that I loved. But now there was a torn place

in me and to fill it, I would have to leave all that I love and all

that makes me who I am. I waited. I slept with other women.

I went riding and climbed the mountains to my favourite val-

ley until one day, I slid onto my black horse and made the jour-

ney, riding faster than I normally would, back into the city.

At first, we were shy with each other. When I first saw her,

she looked like so unfamiliar. I thought, there, now I can go

27

back to the plains and be free. I wondered why I had ridden

—

this long way to be with someone I hardly knew. She asked me

Luanne

in and had the other people bring food. When they went away,

she asked me questions about my life and what I had been

Armstrong

doing on the plains. I told her and asked her questions in turn.

She took my hand, turned it over, stroked the softness there

and said nothing more but only continued, stroking my hand

and holding it. My heart turned over. I knew that I loved her.

I saw the light begin to weave between us.

I took her hand as well. I was relearning her body, the

smell of her flesh, the smooth texture along her inner arms,

the soft down on her cheek, the feel of her hair, as soft and

fine as a child’s. Our bodies met and greeted each other with

delight, toes meeting toes, hands stroking, breasts touching

breasts.

We lay together on the rug by the fire for a long time,

healing what had been torn. Peace came into me and whole-

ness. I knew that I had missed her and would always miss her

until we were like this again. She found pillows and blankets

and we slept there, in front of the fire like two tired children.

In the night, I touched her, she touched me back and we held

hands until we slept again.

After that, I divided my time between the plains and the

city, but I was never easy in either place. When I asked her to

come out to camp even for a few days, she always had some

reason, some business in the city, which prevented her. Very

quickly, I stopped asking. So the travelling, the division in my

life, was mine. When I left, she wept and I carried the mem-

ory of her weeping face home with me. When I left home, my

sisters wept and said I was out of balance and needed to go the

healers. So I went back and forth, pulled in two directions,

never able to settle in either.

I tried to live the life of the city. After a while I went with

her to meet her friends, to listen to her speak. Everyone was

friendly, pleased to meet me and seemed to greet our coming

together with gladness. Only I saw the fear in their eyes and

28

heard the strain in their voices when they asked me questions.

—

It was what they didn’t say, what they didn’t do, that left

me out. At dinner, when all were speaking about something

argins

ordinary, the weather, or gardening and I would venture some-

Mo

thing about the plains, there would be the briefest, the tiniest

N

of pauses, while everyone looked at me and then the talk went

on as before, as if I had not spoken.

Or what they took for granted—astonishing amounts of

food, servants who were well and kindly treated, but still, ser-

vants. Being among strangers and the courtesies of behaviour

among strangers was new to me. The sense of being endlessly

shut in, among walls and streets and more streets, made it

hard to breath. The more I got used to it and accustomed to

it, the more I hated it. And though I tried to tell her my feel-

ings, it was like a fish trying to tell a bird about the water. We

had no language to share for these things.

But in the evenings, as she sat on the floor, looking into

the fire, I would sit and watch her. She would know I was

looking. Sometimes I lay with my head in her lap, while she

stroked my hair, took out my long braids and put beads in

them. I knew this woman was now my heart’s blood. Without

her, I would be lost.

After a several trips, it settled into a routine. I would

spend time with her until my longing for the plains grew too

much. On the plains, I would stay until I missed her too much

to bear. So I went back and forth, like some demented toy on

a piece of string while the seasons wore themselves away.

We came together, each time, shy, and waiting to feel each

other’s presence in our bodies. We left each time, parting like

souls being ripped apart. The pain would lessen and we would

go back to our lives until it was time to do it over.

Finally, she came to visit, once. She said she felt left out of

my life on the plains. She said each time I left her I disap-

peared into the midst of my sisters and lovers and friends and

people.

“Come and see,” I had said. “They will make you wel-

29

come.” And then I wondered if I’d lied. What would my sis-

—

ters do? They felt I spent too much time away already.

Luanne

She came but she did not come alone, nor was I alone and

in the end, it was more like a diplomatic mission than a visit. A

Armstrong

useful mission perhaps, but not what I had imagined. The

whole time she was with us, she was charming and asked ques-

tions designed to get my sisters to open up and talk. They

thought she was wonderful. Only I, who knew her well, saw the

mask and the fear and it made me sad and furious. At night, I

lay awake beside her in the tent while she slept. When she left,

I went alone to the river and wept. I didn’t know what I was

weeping for. I ached for the touch of her hands and yet I

delayed visiting her in the city. After all, if I did not come, what

difference would it make to her, with her busy life, her busy

friends, her house, her garden, and the people around who

served and loved her. I didn’t go. I waited while summer passed

into autumn and my sisters asked no questions. Still I waited.

Then one morning, I awoke from a dream of her weeping

in fear, and I left before the camp was even awake, riding

through the dawn-wet grass. She did not weep when I came

into her house, only later, lying beside the fire. She turned

away from my hands.

“I’m afraid,” she wept. “I’m afraid.” I was bitter because I

thought she was afraid of me. I went out into the night, away

from her. I was saddling my horse to leave when she came to

me. We held each other for a long time. After all, there was

nothing to be done. Our lives were the way we had made

them. I came back into her house, with the candles lit and

shining, her bed warm and inviting. I knew that as long as she

wanted me there and as long as I could, I would come to her.

It was morning and we were lying in bed when we heard

the rumbling. The earth shook, the wall across from her bed

suddenly cracked and we could hear screaming from the city.

It was the mountain to the north, the mountain I had so

often climbed and loved to play on. A long, expanding finger

of smoke extended from its peak towards us and the sky dark-

ened even as we watched. A hot wind slapped our faces. A

30—

fine, white, burning ash started falling on the city.

“My sisters!” I said. They were much closer to the moun-

argins

tain than we were. I ran out, ran to the stable for my horse. He

Mo

was frantic with fear and the ash sparks burning his shining

N

hide. I rode like an insane person to the gates of the city.

People were fleeing everywhere; there was panic and scream-

ing. Even as I watched, people were getting trampled. There

was nothing I could do. It would take me a day to reach my

sisters and if they were alive, they would be coming here,

towards the city, towards the boats, towards the sea. The

boats, the harbour, I thought, there might be a chance to leave

that way. I stood in frantic indecision, knowing my place, my

duty, my training, turned me towards my sisters.

But my love for her turned me, turned me back. The sky

was darker now, almost black, except in the direction of the

mountain, where it glowed orange and scarlet. I rode like a

fury back towards her, back towards my love in her white

dress. She was standing on the wall of her house, straining to

see me, to reach out her arms towards me and even as I rode,

I heard the noise, the groaning, the earth shrieking in the pain

of birth and grieving and death. Fire came from the mountain

covering the land.

We were lucky, my love and I. I reached her in time, gasp-

ing from burnt lungs in the hot, ash-choked air. She slid up

behind me, and we rode with death behind us, rode for the

harbour and the boats rocking there.

The harbour was pandemonium but I was of the plains,

fierce and swift, born to run and climb. I stopped for one

moment to give my horse, the friend of my youth, my willing

partner for so many years, a gift of mercy. I cut his throat and

left him there dying. I fought my way through the masses of

crazed people with her at my back. By some miracle, we got

onto a boat that was just pulling away. It was covered with

people. Some were even in the water, clinging to the sides and

these we helped to pull aboard.

31

The boat raised a sail and we flew away, over the black

—

water, away from the burning city and I held her hand, my

Luanne

love’s hand and felt the land, my mother, and my sisters die.

And then we were alone.

Armstrong

32

Luanne Armstrong

—

Luanne Armstrong is an award-winning writer and scholar.

argins

She teaches Creative Writing at Langara College in Vancouver

Mo

and other places. She has published novels, poetry, and chil-

N

dren’s books. Her most recent children’s book Jeanie and the

Gentle Giants was nominated for the Sheila Egoff BC Book

Prize; the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year; the

Ontario Library Association Silver Birch Award; and for the

Red Cedar Award in British Columbia. Jeanie and the Gentle

Giants was also named by McNally Robinson Booksellers in

Winnipeg as one of their top ten all-time best children’s

books. Her most recent novel, The Bone House, was shortlisted

for the Canadian Sunburst Award for Science Fiction and the

Relit Prize for Fiction.

33

Dionne Brand

— Dionne

Writer Notes

Brand

I’ve always wanted to write about the emergent city. And I’ve

always wanted to write about interactions among people in

that city, how it works, what happens. I think the city is a

source of incredible energy. I’m not saying that it’s always pos-

itive energy but I love that and I want to describe it. And I

think that it has a kind of movement of its own, and just to

observe it is interesting.

You’re in the moments of choosing many things and time

is full and long, even as you want to do everything. And that’s

who I see in the city and that’s who I wanted to write about.

Everything changes my writing. You live. I move as the

world moves as I move in it. I try to keep change as a thing I

must do—so you don’t step into comfortableness about your

work or the world.

—from an interview with Jennifer O’Connor published in

Xtra! May 12, 2005

35

Dionne Brand

— Dionne

excerpted from In Another Place, Not Here

Brand

Grace. Is grace, yes. And I take it, quiet, quiet, like thiefing

sugar. From the word she speak to me and the sweat running

down she in that sun, one afternoon as I look up saying to

myself, how many more days these poor feet of mine can take

this field, these blades of cane like razor, this sun like coal pot.

Long as you have to eat, girl. I look up. That woman like a

drink of cool water. The four o’clock light thinning she dress,

she back good and strong, the sweat raining off in that

moment when I look and she snap she head around, that wide

mouth blowing a wave of tiredness away, pulling in one big

breath of air, them big white teeth, she, falling to the work

again, she, falling into the four o’clock sunlight. I see she. Hot,

cool and wet. I sink the machete in my foot, careless, blood

blooming in the stalks of cane, a sweet ripe smell wash me

faint. With pain. Wash the field, spinning green mile after

green mile around she. See she sweat, sweet like sugar.

I never wanted nothing big from the world. Who is me to

want anything big or small. Who is me to think I is some-

thing. I born to clean Isaiah’ house and work cane since I was

a child and say what you want Isaiah feed me and all I have to

do is lay down under him in the night and work the cane in the

day. It have plenty woman waiting their whole blessed life for

that and what make me turn woman and leave it I don’t know,

but it come. Bad spirit they say, bad spirit or blessed, it come,

what make me notice Verlia’ face spraying sweat in the four

o’clock heat.

Because you see I know I was going to lose something,

because Verl was surer than anything I see before, surer than

the day I get born, because nothing ever happen to me until

Verl come along and when Verl come along I see my chance

out of what ordinary, out of the plenty day when all it have for

a woman to do is lie down and let a man beat against she body,

36

and work cane and chop up she foot and make children and

—

choke on the dryness in she chest and have only one road in

and the same road out and know that she tied to the ground

argins

and can never lift up. And it wasn’t nothing Verl do or say or

Mo

even what Verl was or what Verl wanted because even now I

N

can’t swear but is just that I see Verl coming, like a shower of

rain coming that could just wash me cool and that was suffi-

cient and if God spite me for this, is so things is.

I abandon everything for Verlia. I sink in Verlia and let she

flesh swallow me up. I devour she. She open me up like any

morning. Limp, limp and rain light, soft to the marrow. She

make me wet. She tongue scorching like hot sun. I love that

shudder between her legs, love the plain wash and sea of her,

the swell and bloom of her softness. And is all. And if is all I

could do on the earth, is all.

She would say, “Open your eyes, I want to see what you’re

feeling.” I don’t know what she see in my eyes but she stare

into me until I break. Her look say, “Elizete, you is bigger than

me by millennia and you can hold me between your legs like

rock hold water. You are wearing me away like years and I

wonder if you can see me beyond rock and beyond water as

something human that need to eat and can die, even as you

dive into me today like a fish and want nothing or so you say.”

Something say to me, Elizete, you is not big enough for noth-

ing you done live and Verlia is your grace.

Isaiah gone mad catching me lying underneath Verlia, and

even the sure killing in him couldn’t sweep me away from the

sweetness of her. I didn’t even raise my head. I finished loving

Verlia taking she face and she skin black as water in my hand

so I was to remember what I lose something for. I never see

him after that. They say he sit under a fishing net in Las

Cuevas now and he talk to himself, they say he don’t remem-

ber me but call out the name of the Venezuelan woman what

first was his wife and what make him carry she fishing one

night and when day break she was not there. They say he is

like a jumbie, and is best for me and he to leave that way for

37

it have too much between we, and is vindication what make

—

him open the door. Isaiah was a hard man, a hard man down

Dionne

to his skin. Is best I didn’t kill him as I plan, is best I didn’t

pour the milk of buttercups in his eyes and blind him, is best

Brand

I didn’t sling his neck off, is best I didn’t rub his head with

killing root. Is best I see this woman when I raise up in my

swing, when the sweat was falling like rain from she. I say is

grace the way it happen and is grace.

He and me story done right there, one time. It have noth-

ing to say else about it.

Everything make sense from then the way flesh make

sense settling into blood. I think to myself how I must be was

sleeping all this time. I must be was in a trance because it was

as if Verl wake me up to say, “Girl, put on your clothes. Let we

go now.” It have ways of trancing people and turning them

against they very self and I suspect Isaiah now with his prayer

book and his plait hair but I have no time with him. I suspect

the woman I grow with and she hands that can’t stop growing

things. I suspect the cane. I suspect Moriah. I suspect my life.

I suspect the moon. Everything. What don’t meet you don’t

pass you.

Verl was sure. Sure of everything. And sure like that was

not something in my life. I was sure that I would wake up each

day, I was sure that I had to work cane, I was sure that the

man they give me to was Isaiah Ferdinand. I was sure that he

would illtreat me. I was sure that each night I would dream of

miles of cane waving. Things like this. I was sure iguana would

be thirsty enough to cross the road if the dry season was too

long, I was sure birds would fly across the house in the morn-

ing. I was sure of what anybody would be sure of. Spite,

hunger, rain. But Verl is sure of what she make in her own

mind and what she make didn’t always exist.

I like it how she leap. Run in the air without moving. I

watch she make she way around we as if she was from here, all

the time moving faster than the last thing she say. It come so

I know where she standing in the field without looking for

38

she. Because she moving, moving, moving all the time without

—

moving. If I didn’t like it she would frighten me.

There is a heat that looks like glass waving if you make

argins

your eyes look far. Everybody didn’t like that moving but

Mo

everybody eyes was on she the first time she come. She was

N

walking in that heat and we was all in the shed eating. Some

was laying down for the while and she reach and start busy

busy giving out papers. She look like the transport drop she by

the junction and she walk in. People get up and start going but

the old ones listen to she. I know why they listen. Is not often

that some young one with soft hands and skin smelling of the

kind of sweat they make in the town come talking to them.

They touch up she clothes and she hands and she face and say,

“Who child is you?” They play with she and kiss she up. And

it give them a softness like how they might have been if they

live in town and if they had money and if their life was differ-

ent. They give she water and they give she fry fish. They tell

she don’t drink fast. They love it when she just eat as if she

don’t scorn them but they laugh when she say what she want.

They laugh long. And then they hush.

Nobody here can remember when they wasn’t here. I come

here with Isaiah. He show me the room and he show me the

washtub and he show me the fire and he show me the road. He

tell me never let him catch me at the junction. I didn’t believe

him but I find out soon when I catch the end of his whip. That

was long time now. No need to remember. I don’t even remem-

ber when I stop trying to run away, stop trying to make that

junction. It was long. He would always be at that junction when

I get there. I tried for a long time. I think to myself one day he

is going to miss, one day. One day when he think I train, he is

going to miss. But I stop. He get his way. When I see that it

was his play, I resign. He stop watching me but then I could not

remember why I was trying to get there. Didn’t have no place

to go anyway when I think of it. Trying to get to the junction

39

so much I forget where I was going. I know every track lead-

—

ing to it but when I get there and see Isaiah, it come like he was

Dionne

the end of it. I used to have some place in mind I know but…

One time, I plotting my way through the mangle, one of these

Brand

old ones I never expect ask me “Where you running running

so all the time?” The spite of the thing hit me and it take me

by surprise, and I suppose I didn’t have nowhere in mind

except not here. Cold water just run in my feet then. You trust

old people to know better. Why they wouldn’t want good for

me? If you can’t see a way for yourself, see it for somebody else

nah? So all of that is how I wear away.

Not a bone in she like that. Verlia. Hatred and anger, but

not spite. Spite is loving to see people suffer. She say to me

that you could get used to suffering. She say is what curve we

back to the cane. Is all we know. Hatred you could out and out

deal with, and anger, but not spite. It was her speed though,

the way she could make the junction still standing in front of

you, the way she could move fast in she head. People say this

is not people to trust, people who know what you saying

before you say it, people hurrying you up to move, them kinda

people busy busy going someplace soon but I was ready for

Verlia. She get send for me.

She was burning. You could see she burning bright. Before

you know it they making sweet bread for she, before you

know it washtub full of ice cream done plan. Before you know

it she invite for Sunday. I suppose not only me see rescue

when she reach.

I used to wonder who she went home to; watch she walk

to the junction in the evening half dead and wonder if her

quickness fall away on the transport, wondered if she was the

same in town, what she kitchen smell like, and if she plant

okra and what she think. Soon I was only wondering about

she. I watch she disappear up the junction and I wait for she

to break it in the mornings. Is nothing that draw me to she

but that and the way she want nothing from me and the way

she brand new and come from another life.

After the woman I lived with die on me I was given to Isaiah.

40—

She passed on when I was not yet a young lady. It seem to me

that one day I wake up under Isaiah. Isaiah ride me every

argins

night. I was a horse for his jumbie. His face was like the dead

M

over me on the floor when he cry out for the woman who

o N

leave him as he ride me to hell. Each night I hear him say

these words as if I should pity him. “When I meet that

Venezuelan woman it was the last day of my life. She sail me

like a ship. That woman could tell stories. It was through one

of her tales that I arrived at this sandpit with my back break-

ing and my eyes burning with this sweat, with her fine clothes

and fine ideas; I laid every brick on that stone house where

she take man in front of me. My hair turn red and I never

scream in this place yet.” With that he ride me again. These

times I wander, I turn my head to the wall and travel in the

dust tunnels of wood lice. I cover my self in their fine, fine

sand, I slide through the tunnel and I see all where I have to

go, and I try to reach where they live and I try to be like them

because try as I did when I was little I never see one of them

yet only the rifts on the walls. Is so they work in secret and in

their own company. Is so I travel the walls of this room catch-

ing hell and Isaiah’ advantage till morning. I dream every day

to break a shovel over his head which he plait in braids for he

read in the Bible that he should not cut his hair. Every evening

when they was in season he would climb the land above the

quarry to pick cashew fruit and nuts. I would stand at the bot-

tom looking at him hoping that the bitter juice from the fruit

burn him to death for I know that it is poison. I carried a

mountain inside of me. The thought of him and his hardness

cut at the red stone in me from sun-up to sundown. I went in

the evenings after work to the sand quarry while he sleep. The

salmon dank sides rise up around me and I was silent there. It

was a place where I had peace, or I wouldn’t call it peace but

calm, and I shovelled, the sweat drizzling from my body as I

think and think of escaping him. I did not sympathize with

him, no matter what he said that red woman do to him. What

41

she make him eat, how she tie his mind. It could not compen-

—

sate for what he do to me. There in the damp, it make me

Dionne

calm, calm, calm and hollow inside me. If I dig enough it cool

me and take my mind off the junction. I feel my body full up

Brand

and burst. All my skin split. Until I was so tired I could not

run. I dream of running though, to Aruba or Maracaibo. I

hear about these place. Yes, Maracaibo. I love the sound of it

yet I have never seen it. I dream of taking his neck with a cut-

lass and running to Maracaibo, yes. I imagine it as a place with

thick and dense vine and alive like veins under my feet. I

dream the vine, green and plump, blood running through it

and me too running running, spilling blood. Vine like rope

under my feet, vine strapping my legs and opening when I

walk. Is like nowhere else. I destroying anything in my way. I

want it to be peaceful there. The air behind me close thick as

mist whenever I move and Maracaibo open rough and green

and dense again. I dream I spit milk each time my mouth

open. My stomach will swell and vines will burst out. I dream

it is a place where a woman can live after she done take the

neck of a man. Fearless. I dream my eyes, black and steady in

my black face and never close. I will wear a black skirt, shape-

ly like a wing and down to my toes. I will fly to Maracaibo in

it and you will see nothing of me but my black eyes in my

black face and my black skirt swirling over thick living vine. I

dream of flying in my skirt to Maracaibo. I want to go to

Maracaibo if it is the last thing I do. This black skirt will melt

like soot if it get touched. And my face too. One day I will do

it, for Isaiah don’t know my mind in this. He too busy in his

own mind now. He make his heart too hard to know anyone

else. One day I will done calculate him.

The time in between as I say I don’t remember but it must

have been there because by the time I recognize myself I was

a big woman and the devil was riding me. How I reach here is

one skill I learn hard. The skill of forgetfulness. So I shovel in

this pit from morning till night, cut cane when it in season and

lie under this man at night until one day I see this woman talk-

ing, talking like she know what she is saying and everybody

42—

around listening. I walk past because I have no time for no

woman talking. It don’t mean nothing. It don’t matter what

argins

woman say in the world, take it from me. This woman with

Mo

her mouth flying…cheups. I hear something about co-opera-

N

tive. Black people could ever co-operate? This little girl too

fast again. Her mouth too fast, she tongue flying ahead of she-

self. Face plain as day, mouth like a ripe mango and teeth,

teeth like a horse. I en’t talk to she then. They tell me she is

for the revo, that she is for taking all the land and giving it to

people who work it all their life. Revolution, my ass. Let fool-

ish old people believe she. Is only them have time to sit down

and get wrap up in her mouth and think Oliviere and them

will let go any land. Is only one thing will fix Oliviere and them

and is the devil because them is the devil’ son self. I pass by

her going my way and didn’t that woman skin she big teeth for

me and look at me so clear is as if she see all my mind clear

through to Maracaibo. Her look say, “I know you. I know you

plan to sling off a man’ neck and go to Maracaibo.” I brazen

she look and I pass she straight. Smelling vetiver and salt,

fresh ironed clothes I pass she. Nobody from no town coming

to look me in my face so. Nobody coming here to tell me what

I done know. Anything she do could help me? Who she think

she is come preaching here? Revolution, my backside. Then,

she say “Sister.” And I could not tell if it was a breeze passing

in that heat-still day or if I hear the word. “Sister.” I know I

hear it, murmuring just enough to seem as if it was said but

not something that only have sense in saying. I know I hear it

silver, silver clinking like bracelets when a woman lift her arm

to comb hair. Silvery, silvery the wind take it. It hum low and

touch everything on the road. Things in me. I feel it cuff my

back. I have to take air. A spirit in the road. It make a silence.

It feel like rum going through my throat, warm and violent so

the breath of her mouth brush my ear. Sweet sweet, my

tongue sweet to answer she and it surprise me how I want to

touch she teeth and hold she mouth on that word. I keep

43

walking. I don’t answer. But I regret every minute until I see

—

she next.

Dionne

The next time she come playing she trying to swing cut-

lass with she mouth moving as fast as you please about strike.

Brand

Strike and demand a share in the estate. Well, look at bold

face. We navel string bury here, she say, and we mother and we

father and everybody before them. Oliviere use it up like

manure for the cane, and what we get, one barrack room and

credit in he store until we owe he more than he owe we, and

is thief he thief this place in the first place. The people listen

to she and smile because they know she make sense but she

don’t know what a hard people these Oliviere is. Is not just

people navel string bury here is their shame and their body.

They churn that up in the soil here too. It have people they

just shoot and leave for corbeau to eat them. What left make

the cane fat and juicy. She come from town and God knows

where light, light and easy so. She not ready yet. One for she,

she work hard. She body en’t make for this, well who body

make for it, but she do it.

She break my swing. It was the quiet. When I get used to she

talking as I bend into the cane, when I done add she up for

the swing so I wouldn’t miss doing how much I need to do to

make the quota, when I make she voice count in the stroke, I

don’t hear she no more. I swing up. What she doing now, like

she tired talk at last. Good Lord! I say to myself, God wasn’t

joking when he make you girl. She was in front of me, staring

my way, sweating as if she come out of a river. She was bril-

liant. I could see she head running ahead of we, she eyes done

cut all the cane, she is not here, she dreaming of things we

don’t dream. I wanted to touch the shine of her, to dry off she

whole body and say “Don’t work it so hard,” show she how to

swing, how to tie up she waist so that she back would last,

shield she legs so that the sheaf wouldn’t cut. That is the first

time I feel like licking she neck. She looked like the young in

me, the not beaten down and bruised, the not pounded

44—

between my legs, the not lost my mother, the not raped, the

not blooded, the not tired. She looked like me fresh, fresh,

argins

searching for good luck tea, leave my house broom, come by

Mo

here weed. It ease me. It sweet sweet. A woman can be a

N

bridge, limber and living, breathless, because she don’t know

where the bridge might lead, she don’t need no assurance

except that it would lead out with certainty, no assurance

except the arch and disappearance. At the end it might be the

uptake of air, the chasm of what she don’t know, the sweep

and soar of sheself unhandled, making sheself a way to cross

over. A woman can be a bridge from these bodies whipping

cane. A way to cross over. I see in she face how she believe.

She glance quick as if unimportant things was in she way, like

Oliviere, like fright. She eyes move as if she was busy going

somewhere, busy seeing something and all this cane all this

whipping and lashing was a hindrance. Then like a purposeful

accident she eyes rest on me, and she face open, them big

teeth push out to laugh for me, sweat flying, she fall again to

the cutlass.

45

Dionne Brand

— Dionne

Dionne Brand is a poet, novelist, and essayist living in

Toronto. Her latest novel, What We All Long For, was published

Brand

in 2005 to great acclaim in Canada. Her fiction includes the

novel In AnotherPlace, Not Here—a 1998 New York Times notable

book—and Sans Souci and Other Stories. Her second title, At

the Full and Change of the Moon is a novel spanning six genera-

tions, two wars, and the violence of the late twentieth centu-

ry. The Village Voice included her in its 1999 Writers on the

Verge Literary supplement. At the Full and Change of the Moon

was a Los Angeles Times Notable Book of the Year, 1999.

Dionne Brand’s eight volumes of poetry include Land to

Light On, which won the Governor General’s Award for

Poetry and the Trillium Award for Literature in 1997. Brand’s

most recent volume is called thirsty. In 2003 it was nominated

for the Trillium Prize for Literature and the Griffin Poetry

Prize. It won the Pat Lowther Award for Poetry.

Her works of non-fiction include Bread Out of Stone, a

book of essays for which Adrienne Rich called her “a cultural

critic of uncompromising courage, an artist in language and

ideas, an intellectual conscience for her country.” Brand’s 2002

book, A Map to the Door of No Return, is a meditation on black-

ness in the diaspora.

47

Nicole Brossard

— N

Writer Notes

icole

A State of Mind in the Garden

Brossard

C’est la moindre des choses que de ne pas avoir à faire

tous les jours la preuve qu’on existe. C’est la moindre

des choses quoique je connaisse des millions de

femmes qui chaque jour doivent en faire la preuve.

Certaines crient, d’autres grimacent, d’autres se tor-

dent de rire, d’autres se frottent les mains comme

pour en faire jaillir le feu, d’autres pensent qu’une exis-

tence remplie de mots c’est comme un trou noir dans

le cosmos; d’autres disent qu’exister c’est parler dans

la matière ou encore qu’exister c’est tracer un chemin

avec sa bouche et son souffle dans l’infini recommencé

de la matière.

1.

Cultures come and go. A great number of languages and

species have died, others are disappearing at an incredible

speed. War goes on non-stop around the world. A new civiliza-

tion has started to change our notion of time, of space; is

shaping differently our use of memory, of knowledge; is mod-

ifying the way humans, animals, and vegetation reproduce; is

altering our certitudes about nature and the future. Yet most

of the women living on this earth are enduring a non-human

condition because they do not qualify as hu man. Life goes on,

you travel, you make love, your mother dies, old friends pass

away. One day you are asked to write about the self, yourself,

your lesbianself and what writing can do for you. Suddenly you

realize that more than anything else you are into life as others

are into business.

2.

48—

The world is changing. From memory to plain information,

from depth to surface, from the reign of symbols to the reign

argins

of signs. The world is changing. Water is becoming rare and

Mo

rarer. Yet I am sitting in the garden writing an article, still

N

tracing letters with ink and pen, enjoying le chant des cigales,

wondering if I will write about love, sex, memory, or real life.

But I know that I can only write about one thing: how strong-

ly I feel l’immensité in my chest and how this feeling is related

to the virtuality of language. A virtuality which I cannot help

associating with the idea of making sense. Making sense of life,

of l’immensité in us, encountering the electrifying pleasure that

sex, love, art, and nature offer us as well as making sense of

death, no matter whatever its course in our life.

3.

Playing with words, enjoying them, craving them, or searching

desperately for the appropriate ones to translate “un believ-

able” experiences are situations in which I have found myself

throughout my writing life. As I have often said, I do not see

myself as a witness of my life or that of others. I see myself as

an explorer in language who is trying to discover new territo-

ries. I work with language hoping that it will enable me to pro-

duce and offer sequences of emotions and thoughts which,

without the written word, would not exist.

4.

I do not write to indulge myself, to attenuate pain, anger, or a

sense of injustice. Of course, anything that is painful in my life

will affect my writing. Even though it might orient my

thoughts toward new themes, pain will not produce in me a

desire to give in to anecdotes. Mostly it will affect the energy

I am usually relying on or using in my exploration of meaning.

Pain and pleasure are known to affect our breath when

encountered in a vital way in life and they certainly transform

the rhythm of my texts. Anything vividly experienced by the

body shapes our writing and the meaning we give to life.

49

5.

—

Being a poet, a novelist, and an essayist allows me to acknowl-

N

edge and process differently emotions and events traversing

icole

my life. Here, I think of the cycle: Lovhers (poetry), Picture

Brossard

Theory (novel), and The Aerial Letter (essays). Processing the

raw material of desire and of sexual attraction into metaphors

and the language of symbols is what poetry often does. In that

sense it is very different from revisiting emotions still alive in

the inner landscape of the self, hoping (as we do in prose) that

they will engender a narrative voice rich with what imagina-

tion and reality are able to produce when they have altered

each other to converge into fiction. Processing emotions and

facts into ideas or theory also calls for another posture.

Expanding the meaning of your story into the realm of social

values and ideology requires that you understand where and

why your story does not fit into the system and standard val-

ues. By doing so, you are forced to reevaluate the dominant

forces that prevent your story from existing loudly and clear-

ly in the public forum.

6.

Of course, it is not that simple: and in my case, genres are

blurred because strong emotions in me always bring up the

need to understand their source, their patterns, and their

mechanics. Understanding is, therefore, a keyword in my work

and this is how, for example, in the seventies and earlier eight-

ies, while I was writing on utopia and ecstatic lesbian relation-

ships, I was at the same time trying to figure out the tricky

patriarchal logic which has been and is still so damaging to

women, hoping that, once understood, it could free women at

least from guilt and the double-bind.

7.

In the book She Would Be the First Sentence of My Next Novel

(Mercury Press, 1998), I talk about my resistance to anecdote,

diary, autobiography, while acknowledging the role those

forms of writing have played in women’s lives, be they writers

or readers. I say that my reserve when it comes to writing

50—

down my life constitutes my reserve of images, of hope, and of

energy. I also say that my resistance to writing down my lived

argins

experience is a way to reserve myself for the essential, the intu-

Mo

ited matter that would take the form of what I would later call

N

theoretical fiction.

8.

I am fascinated by the fact that no matter what our politics

and our solidarities are, or our obvious belongings (gender,

race, culture), one’s real identity and motivations are activated

by a much more complex and profound scenario than those

we use for political purposes.

9.

One is first lesbian because of the pleasure shaping the intel-

ligence and the recognition that the other woman, she makes

sense. Lesbian desire must remain free, open, and nomadic,

for it is by exploring that desire that our power to interact in

the symbolic field takes effect.

10.

In the middle of our ideological discussions, isn’t each of us eager

to ask two questions of the other lesbian: when and how was it

the first time? As if we need to hear about the origin, the

founding moment in which we can retrace the illumination,

the moment of passage when we suddenly found ourself on

the other side of the mirror, of the world, in a universe where

surprised, stunned, and relieved, we could observe our self

drifting away from Adam’s coast. Questions starting with

where and how are questions that resemble those often asked

of writers. When did you start writing? Why do you write?

What is autobiographical in your books? As if being a lesbian

is associated with something as mysterious, desirable, and cre-

ative as writing is.

51

11.

—

On the Lesbian, women and dykes can project what they don’t

Nic

know yet about themselves as well as what they already know.

ole

The Lesbian is a proposition and her proposition is sexual.

Brossard

Because that proposition is sexual, it astonishes and questions

the good sense and the usual rationale. Her proposition ques-

tions sexual grammar, blurs the points of reference in sexual

fantasies, and invites au voyage. It is because the lesbian’s

proposition is sexual that she has a symbolic effect that it is

illuminating.

12.

There will always be a risk that a text written by a lesbian

might not be a lesbian text. While the lesbian text is linguis-

tically constructed around a sexual proposition, opening the

space for other propositions to exist, the text written by a les-

bian mostly relies on what she projects of her self. Her text

becomes a lesbian text only if it alters the reader’s sense of

imagination.

“Demain ne me demandez pas ce que fut, ce que sera

ma vie. Demain, il y a mon effroyable prétention à la

lucidité.”

—previously printed in the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Volume

4, Number 4 2000.

53

Nicole Brossard

— Nic

excerpt from Baroque at Dawn

ole

Brossard

First the dawn. Then the woman came.

In Room 43 at the Hotel Rafale, in the heart of a North

American city armed to the teeth, in the heart of a civilization

of gangs, artists, dreams, and computers, in darkness so com-

plete it swallowed all countries, Cybil Noland lay between the

legs of a woman she had met just a few hours before. For a

time which seemed a coon’s age and very nocturnal, the

woman had repeated, “Devastate me, eat me up.” Cybil

Noland had plied her tongue with redoubled ardour and final-

ly heard, “Day, vastate me, heat me up.” The woman’s thighs

trembled slightly and then her body orbited the planet as if

the pleasure in her had transformed to a stupendous aerial life

reflex.

Cybil Noland had felt the sea enter her thoughts like a

rhyme, a kind of sonnet which briefly brought her close to

Louise Labé, then drew away to pound elsewhere, wave sounds

in present tense. The sea had penetrated her while whispering

livable phrases in her ear, drawn-out laments, a lifelong habit

with its thousand double exposures of light. Later, thoughts of

the sea cast her against a boundless wall of questions.

§

In the room, the air conditioner is making an infernal noise.

Dawn has given signs of life. Cybil can now make out the fur-

niture shapes and see, reflected in the mirror on the half-open

bathroom door, a chair on which are draped a blue T-shirt, a

pair of jeans, and a black leather jacket. On the rug, a pair of

sandals one beside the other.

The woman puts a hand on Cybil Noland’s hair, the other

touching a shoulder. The stranger at rest is terribly alive,

anonymous with her thousand identities in repose. Cybil

54

Noland turns so as to rest her cheek comfortably in the curve

—

of the other’s crotch. Neither thinks to move, much less to

talk. Each is from somewhere else, each is elsewhere in her life

argins

of elsewhere, as if living some life from the past.

Mo N

§

Cybil Noland had travelled a lot, to cities with light-filled

curves shimmering with headlights and neon signs. She loved

suspense, the kind of risk that might now take as simple a

guise as strolling about among the buildings of big cities. She

had always declined to stay in the mountains or the country or

beside a lake, even for a few days. Her past life had unfolded

at a city pace, in the presence of many accents, traffic sounds

and speed, all of which sharpen the senses. Over the years she

had come to love sunsets reddened by carbon dioxide. It had

been so long since she had seen the stars that the names of the

constellations had long ago vanished into her memory’s

recesses. Cybil Noland lived at information’s pace.

Information was her firmament, her inner sea, her Everest,

her cosmos. She loved the electric sensation she felt at the

speed of passing images. Each image was easy. It was easy for

her to forget what it was that had excited her a moment

before. Sometimes she thought she ought to resist this frenet-

ic consumption of words, catastrophes, speed, rumours, fears,

and screens, but too late, her intoxication seemed irreversible.

Between fifteen and thirty years of age she had studied histo-

ry, literature, and the curious laws that govern life’s instinct

for continuation. Thus she had learned to navigate among

beliefs and dreams dispersed over generations and centuries.

But today all that seemed far away, ill-suited to the speed with

which reality was spinning out her anxiety with its sequences

of happiness and violence, its fiction grafted like a science to

the heart of instinct. As a child she had learned several lan-

guages, enabling her today to consume twice the information,

commentary, tragedy, minor mishaps and prognostications.

55

Thus she had unwittingly acquired a taste for glib words and

—

fleeting images. All she had learned in her youth finally came

Nic

to seem merely muddleheaded, anachronistic, and obsolete.

ole

On this July night that was drawing to a close in a small

Brossard

hotel in a city armed to the teeth, Cybil Noland had felt the

sea rise up and swallow her. Something had spilled over, creat-

ing a vivid horizontal effect, but simultaneously a barrier of

questions. The sky, the stars, and the sea had synthesized an

entire civilization of cities in her when the woman came.

There between the stranger’s legs, questions arose, insis-

tent, intrusive questions, snooping questions, basic questions

seeking alternately to confirm and deny the world and its rai-

son d’être. Borne on this current of questions, Cybil Noland

vowed to renounce glib pronouncements without, however,

willingly foregoing the dangerous euphoria elicited by the fast,

frenzied images of her century.

§

The light was now diffused throughout the room, a yellow

morning light which, in movies of yesteryear, gave the dia-

logue a hopeful turn, for the simple reason that mornings in

those days were slow with the natural slowness that suited the

movements made by heroines when, upon awakening, they

gracefully stretched their arms, raising arches of carnal tri-

umph in the air.

The woman has moved her legs to change position, per-

haps to leave the bed. Cybil Noland has raised her head then

her body in such fashion as to hoist herself up to the level of

the woman’s face. The mattress is uncomfortable, with hol-

lows and soft spots one’s elbows and knees sink into.

Since meeting, the two have barely exchanged three sen-

tences. The woman is a musician and young. “But I’m not six-

teen,” she said with a smile in the elevator. Cybil Noland there-

upon nicknamed her “La Sixtine.” On arrival in the room, they

undressed and the woman ordered, “Eat me.”

56

Now that Cybil Noland has the woman’s living face at eye

—

level, her belly swells again rich with desire like a tempestuous

wind. Kiss me, kiss m’again.1 With fire and festivity in her eyes,

argins

the woman looks Cybil over, caresses her, then thrusts her

Mo

tongue between her lips. It might have been just a kiss, but

N

what a way she has of breathing, of pearling each lip, tracing

abc inside Cybil’s mouth with the tiniest movements, impossi-

ble to separate the letters abc, to stop, demon delirium abc a

constellation of flavours in her mouth. Then the wind surges,

sweeping eyelashes, drying the perspiration about the neck,

smoothing silken cheeks, closing eyelids, imprinting the out-

lines of faces deep in the pillow. The five sibyls of the Sixtine

Chapel orbit the planet and the questions return. Cybil

Noland opens her eyes. There are still traces of mascara on

the woman’s eyelashes. She too unseals her eyes. The look

they give is laughing, languid, offering an intimacy glimpsable

only in the strictest anonymity. Like a love-crazed thing all of

a sudden, Cybil is aburn for this anonymous woman who had

caught her eye in the bar of the Hotel Rafale. Something is

exciting her, something about the anonymity of this woman

encountered in the middle of a huge city, something that says,

I don’t know your name but I recognize the smooth curva-

ceous shape your body takes when navigating to the open sea.

Soon I shall know where your tears, your savage words and

anxious gestures hide, the things that will lead me to divine

everything about you at one fell swoop. Thus does imagina-

tion take us beyond the visible, propelling us toward new faces

that will set the wind asurge despite the barrier formed by ver-

tical cities, despite the speed of life that drains our thoughts

and leaves them indolent. The priceless eyes of desire are right

to succumb to seduction so that one’s familiar, everyday body

may find joy in the thousands of anonymous others encoun-

tered along the way, bodies pursuing their destinies in cities

saturated with feelings and emotions.

§

57

The stranger gives off a scent of complex life which coils

—

about Cybil Noland. City smells clinging to her hair like a

Nic

social ego; fragrant, singularizing sandalwood, a trace of navel

ole

salt, the milky taste of her breasts. Everywhere an infiltration

Brossard

of life, aromatic, while the child in one does the rounds of all

the smells, anonymously like a grown-up in a hurry to get

thinking.

The air conditioner has stopped. There’s silence. A surpris-

ing silence like the heady smell of lilac when the month of May

reaches us at the exits of great, sense-deadening cages of glass

and concrete. The silence draws out, palpable and appealing

like La Sixtine’s body. The alarm-clock dial on the bedside table

is blinking. A power failure. Which means unbearable heat in

exchange for a silence rare and more precious than gold and

caviar. The silence is now diffused throughout the room.

Surprising, devastating. An unreal silence that’s terribly alive,

as if imposing a kind of fiction by turning the eyes of the heart

toward an unfathomable inner life.

The women lie side by side, legs entwined and each with

an arm under the other’s neck like sleepy reflex arcs. Suddenly

Cybil Noland can stand no more of this new silence that has

come and imposed itself on top of the first, which had been a

silence tacitly agreed between them like a stylized modesty, an

elegant discretion, a kind of meditative state capable of shut-

ting out the sounds of civilization and creating a fictional time

favourable to the appearance of each one’s essential face.

§

Cybil Noland had brought the woman up to her room think-

ing of what she called each woman’s essential face in her own

destiny. Each time she had sex with a woman, this was what

put heart into her desire. She was ready for anything, any kind

of caress, any and all sexual scenarios, aware that you can

never foresee exactly when, or for how long, an orgasm will

recompose the lines of the mouth and chin, make the eyelids

58

droop, dilate the pupils or keep the eyes shining. Most often

—

the face would describe its own aura of ecstasy, beginning with

the light filtering through the enigmatic slit between the eye-

argins

lids when they hover half-closed halfway between life and

Mo

pleasure. Then would come the split second that changed the

N

iris into the shape of a crescent moon, before the white of the

eye, whiter than the soul, proliferated multiples of the word

imagery deep in her thoughts. This was how a woman who

moments earlier had been a total stranger became a loved one

capable of changing the course of time for the better.

All, thought Cybil Noland, so that the essential face that

shows what women are really capable of may be seen, vulner-

able and radiant, infinitely human, desperately disturbing. But

for this to happen, the whole sea would have to flood into her

mouth, and the wind flatten her hair to her skull, and fire

ignite from fire, and she would have to consider everything

very carefully at the speed of life and wait for the woman to

possess her own silence, out of breath and beyond words in

the midst of her present. In the well of her pleasure the

woman would have to find her own space, a place of choice.

So when the air conditioner stopped, Cybil Noland felt

she had been robbed of the rare and singular silence that had

brought her so close to La Sixtine. As if she had suddenly real-

ized that while the words heat me vast2 were ringing with their

thousand possibilities and her delicate tongue was separating

the lips of La Sixtine’s sex, civilization had nevertheless con-

tinued its headlong course.

Now the new silence is crowding the silence that accom-

panies one’s most private thoughts. While groping for a com-

parison to explain this new silence, suddenly Cybil Noland can

stand no more of it and wants to speak, will speak, but the

woman comes close and reclines on top of her and with her

warm belly and hair tickling Cybil’s nose, and breasts brushing

over Cybil’s mouth, seems determined to turn Cybil’s body

into an object of pure erotic pleasure.

You’d say she was going. To say. Yes, she murmurs inartic-

59

ulate sounds in Cybil’s ear, rhythms, senseless words, catches

—

her breath, plays on it momentarily, “That good?” she

Nic

breathes. “That better?” Then over Cybil’s body strews images

ole

and succulent words that burst in the mouth like berries. Now

Brossard

her sounds caress like violins. The names of constellations

come suddenly to Cybil’s mind: Draco the Dragon, Coma

Berenices, Cassiopaeia, and Lyra for the Northern

Hemisphere; Sculptor, Tucana, Apus the Bird of Paradise, Ara

the Altar for the Southern. Then the whole sea spreads

through her and La Sixtine relaxes her hold.

§

You’d say she was going to tell a story. Something with the

word joyous in the sentence to go with her nakedness there in

the middle of the room. Once she’s in the shower the water

runs hard. She sings. When she lifts her tongue the sounds

crowd up from under, full of vim. Joyously her voice spews

out, zigzags from one word to another, cheerily penetrating

Cybil Noland’s consciousness as she lies half asleep in the spa-

cious bed.

“I’ll tell you a story,” La Sixtine said, opening the window

before getting in the shower. The window opens onto a fire

escape. The curtain moves gently. Cybil Noland watches the

movements of the fish, seaweed, and coral in the curtain’s

design. Life is a backdrop against which thoughts and memo-

ries overlap. Life moves ever so slightly, goes through static

stages, skews off, brings its humanism to the midst of armed

cities like a provocation, a paradox that makes you smile. In

spite of yourself. The dark fish throw a shadow over the pinks

and whites of the coral, Cybil Noland thinks before riding off

again, a deep-sea wanderer aboard great incunabula.

1 Louise Labé: Baise-moi, baise m’encore.

2 Nicole Brossard: m’ange moi vaste.

60

Nicole Brossard

—

Born in Montreal. Poet, novelist, and essayist, twice Governor

argins

General’s Award recipient for her poetry, Nicole Brossard has

Mo

published more than thirty books since 1965. Many among

N

those books have been translated into English: Mauve Desert,

The Aerial Letter, Picture Theory, Lovhers, Baroque at Dawn, The

Blue Books, Installations, Museum of Bone and Water and She Would

Be the First Sentence of My Next Novel. She has co-founded and

co-directed the literary magazine La Barre du Jour (1965-1975),

has co-directed the film Some American Feminists (1976), and co-

edited the acclaimed Anthologie de la poésie des femmes au Québec,

first published in 1991, then in 2003 .

She has won le Grand Prix de Poésie du Festival

International de Trois-Rivières in 1989 and in 1999. In 1991,

she was awarded le Prix Athanase-David (the highest literary

recognition in Québec). She won the W.O. Mitchell 2003

Prize, and she is a member of l’Académie des Lettres du

Québec.

Nicole Brossard’s work has been widely translated into

English and Spanish and is also available in German, Italian,

Japanese, Slovenian, Romanian, Catalan, and other languages.

Guernica Editions published a book of essays on her work

(edited by Louise Forsyth). Her most recent books published

in English are Intimate Journal and Yesterday, at the Hotel

Clarendon.

Nicole Brossard writes and lives in Montreal.

61

Emma Donoghue

— Emma

Writer Notes

Donoghue

“Write what you know,” the cliché has it, but over the course

of six books of fiction I have wrung just as much delight from

writing what I don’t know—or rather, what I know not from

personal experience but from research and imagination. And

of course the worlds of the familiar and the invented often

overlap. My novel Hood, for instance, is closely based on my

memories of convent school in Ireland in the 1980s, but is all

about bereavement, something I haven’t yet had to suffer.

Conversely, my novel Slammerkin is about a prostitute cum

maidservant in eighteenth-century England, but the character

of the employer she murders is inspired by my mother.

I am a lesbian writer, a woman writer, an Irish writer, a

Canadian writer (living here since 1998), and all these identi-

ties inform my work—without setting rules for it. I have

written some stories with no lesbians in them, or no women,

or no mention of Ireland or Canada, and these trips away from

my daily reality have given me a peculiar pleasure. But my

first two novels were set in contemporary Dublin and most of

my work has been about women’s lives over the last four cen-

turies. And all my books have included lesbian themes except

Slammerkin which turned out to be my bestseller—a sign, I

fear, that the mainstream fiction audience is still nervous of

lesbian content.

Time Zone Tango, the novel from which “Here and Now” is

taken, is extremely autobiographical in that it is about an

Irishwoman falling for a Canadian woman and moving to

Canada. It deals with culture clash, long-distance relation-

ships, emigration, and other topics that have mattered to me

over the last ten years. It is my first attempt to write about

the social world, landscape, and startling climate of south-

western Ontario. But I am not an Indo-Irish flight attendant

and my lover is not a small-town archivist with an inconven-

62

ient husband. So a novel like this one offers a writer yet

—

another strange pleasure, that of using other actors to restage

her own dramas.

argins Mo N

63

Emma Donoghue

— Emma

Here and Now

Donoghue

Walking through a strange airport always made Síle feel like

she was in the opening scene of Jackie Brown, which was one

of her all-time favourites. (There weren’t many films that

starred gorgeous, clever, dark-skinned flight attendants who’d

never see thirty-five again.) She walked smartly, relishing the

chance to stretch, aware of the movement of her hips in her

purple knee-length skirt. Her red leather carry-on glided

along behind her. She’d put her long sheets of hair up in a

French twist and applied a lipstick called Bruised Fruit.

Outside the walls of glass, she could see nothing but spiralling

whiteness. Síle had spent half her life in airports, but today,

Toronto Pearson—for all its dull bilingual signs and grey car-

pets—seemed a fairyland.

At Immigration she handed over her well-worn Irish pass-

port. “I’m a flight attendant, but I’m not on duty,” she

explained.

“Visiting friends, family?”

“Mm,” she said, slightly breathless. On New Year’s Eve I

met a girl called Jude Turner at thirty thousand feet over the

Atlantic, and I haven’t been the same since, she thought.

“Which?”

“A friend. She’s an archivist. She lives in Ireland, Ontario,”

Síle added weakly. Was it true? Did two months of letters,

emails, phone calls amount to friendship? If you’d only met

once, was it ludicrous to use the word love? But her passport

was scanned and stamped (one more mark on its tattered

pages) and she was waved on.

The door slid open and she sailed through, thinking, don’t

stop me, if there’s another minute of delay I’m going to

burst…

There, behind the barrier, a narrow head on top of a huge

down jacket. Síle paused, blinking. Jude didn’t shout a greet-

64

ing; she just raised her fingers and walked towards the gap in

—

the barrier. She’d had a haircut; very short, very soft. Síle went

stiff. She’d planned to kiss Jude boldly, with lips and tongue in

argins

the middle of the airport throng, but now the moment was

Mo

come she felt barely capable of shaking hands.

N

Jude hugged her. Síle was engulfed in Jude’s down jacket.

It was like being embraced by a duvet. But on her back she

could feel the hard grip of Jude’s hands, and a second’s hot

breath on her neck. They were blocking the stream of passen-

gers emerging from the baggage hall. “Hey,” said Síle, stepping

sideways. “Hey you.”

“Hey.”

“Oh dear, I’ve got lipstick on your jaw.”

“Have you?” said Jude, grinning, not wiping it off, and Síle

remembered what it was all about, why she’d come all this way.

Her heart drummed. “Here you are. I can’t believe it. Two

feet away!”

“Less,” said Jude, stepping closer.

“So.” Síle cleared her throat. “I thought you said spring

would have come by April?”

Jude’s face got serious all at once. “Where’s your coat?

And boots?”

“Oh, I’ll be fine, this is warmer than it looks,” said Síle,

zipping up her long raincoat.

Jude cast a doubtful glance at Síle’s high heels. “It’s pretty

nasty out there. We could always stay the night at the Holiday

Inn,” she added after a second.

Síle’s mouth pursed. Spending their first night together at

the Holiday Inn… “How long is the drive to Little Ireland?”

She imagined how nice the village would look under a sheet of

white snow.

“Usually an hour and a half—but the roads are getting

worse, and they haven’t been salted yet.”

Síle had no idea what that meant. She took Jude’s slim,

warm wrist and murmured, “I’d trust your driving.”

65

“You don’t know anything about my driving,” Jude point-

—

ed out.

Emma

“I can guess,” said Síle, smiling back at her.

Jude picked up Síle’s case, and stumbled.

Donoghue

“Mind, it’s heavy.”

“You can say that again.”

“It’s got wheels, look.” Síle followed her through the

crowd, trying to remember where she’d stowed her little kid-

skin gloves. Jude was still carrying the suitcase instead of

wheeling it; lord, Síle thought with a mixture of dread and

excitement, I didn’t know she was that butch.

As she stepped through the sliding doors, a blast of icy

wind nearly knocked her off her heels. She staggered, and felt

snow like a cloud of needles against her face, in her ears, in her

eyes. Where had Jude got to? This was ludicrous. Síle couldn’t

be expected to walk through this. The evening air was like

broken glass; she couldn’t breathe it. Her hands were hurting.

The moaning wind flattened her lined raincoat against her;

she might just have well have been naked. Turn it off! she

thought. Make it stop!

A tug on her shoulder. Jude, small-faced inside a huge fur-

edged hood. “Where were you?”

“Where were you?” replied Síle childishly.

“Don’t you have a hat?”

Síle set her back to the wind and bawled, “Listen, let’s go

back inside the terminal till this dies down.”

Jude shook her head. “It won’t.” And turned away, no dis-

cussion.

So Síle had to follow, picking her way across the road to

the car park through several inches of snow.

Jude’s car turned out to be an Oldsmobile, nibbled by rust

along all its edges. The heating made a desperate whirr. “Sorry

about this,” Jude muttered, “but at least it’s a stick-shift, so I

can usually find my way out of trouble.”

As they pulled slowly out of Toronto Airport, Síle sat cup-

ping her sore ears in her hands. Her ankles were wet with

melting snow. “I’m just not bred for this cold,” she remarked

66—

with a self-mocking shudder.

Jude didn’t answer. She was hunched over the wheel, peer-

argins

ing past the headlights at the spot-lit direction signs. ALL

Mo

ROADS LEAD TO BRAMPTON.

N

The girl was more taciturn than Síle remembered from

the one morning they’d spent together at Heathrow Airport.

Was this what Jude was really like in the flesh, then, or was it

only a mood brought on by the howling blizzard? But then,

what were any of us except a random sequence of moods?

“This climate is rather a thrill,” said Síle, as merrily as she

could manage. “I might have died back there outside the ter-

minal, mightn’t I, if I’d turned the wrong way in the snow and

tripped over something, or just stood there waiting for you for

too long? Whereas in my Ireland— Big Ireland!—you could lie

in a ditch for a fortnight and end up with nothing worse than

a runny nose.”

She was working for a laugh, but Jude’s eyes were on the

dim tail lights of the jeep in front. There was no other sign

that they were on a road, Síle realized. They must have turned

off the motorway a while back. The signs were all matted with

snow, illegible.

“Actually, this isn’t really cold,” Jude murmured. “When it’s

really cold, snow can’t fall.”

Síle absorbed that cheering information. Already she’d

counted four cars off the road, one of them upside down. She

craned to see whether all the passengers had got out safely, but

all she glimpsed was snow and blackness. The narrow file of

cars crept forward. Síle suddenly wondered whether there was

a road under them at all, or whether the lead car might have

veered off across some desolate field, with the rest of them

following like slow lemmings.

Jude turned on the radio, searching for a weather report

and for the next half hour she switched between crackling sta-

tions offering soul, opera, a panel discussion on gang culture,

and Christian rock. Síle hadn’t seen her have a cigarette yet.

67

Maybe she never smoked while she was driving, or not in dif-

—

ficult conditions like this. “How are your legs?” Jude asked

Emma

suddenly.

“Numb to the knee, actually.”

Donoghue

She fiddled with the heating controls. “That better?”

“Not really.”

Jude turned and pulled a blanket off the back seat.

Síle tried to feel grateful for that bit of gallantry, as she

wrapped the scratchy damp thing around her legs. At one

point she gave her gizmo a surreptitious squeeze to light up

the little screen. Eight thirty-nine somewhere in the snow-

bound, godless wilderness that Southwestern Ontario seemed

to be . Distance from Home City 3285 Miles. Nearly two in the

morning back in Dublin, where she could have been tucked up

in her copper-pipe bed on her Egyptian cotton sheets. She

wondered why she hadn’t gone somewhere else for the week-

end, somewhere like Tahiti.

Síle chewed her lip in frustration. Her Bruised Fruit lip-

stick had worn off. She hadn’t noticed the jeep ahead turn off

the road, but it was nowhere to be seen. The draughty

Oldsmobile was alone now. There was nothing ahead of them

but the menacing whiteness under their headlights and the

speckle of falling snow.

“Not long now.”

And that was it for small-talk for another quarter of an

hour. Why, Síle asked herself, did I ever start corresponding

with this immature, small-town Canadian who has nothing to

say for herself and nothing to say to me?

They drew to a halt just beyond a bare crossroads, under a

lone streetlight. “What is it?” asked Síle. “Don’t say we’re out

of petrol?”

“What? No, we’re home,” said Jude, stepping out into the

night.

She slammed the door behind her, and Síle was suddenly

alone, the skin of her throat, wrists, and knees contracting in

the icy air. Home? Ireland, Ontario, wasn’t even a village, as

far as she could tell; it wasn’t anything. They’d taken the best

68—

part of three hours to reach the arse end of nowhere.

Jude opened the door again to say “Sorry, I can’t pull into

argins

the driveway till it’s shovelled.”

Mo

When Síle stepped out, the snow came up to her knees. It

N

was astonishing wet and cold through her ten-denier tights.

She staggered and lurched after Jude’s dark bulk. Snowflakes

spiked on her eyelashes. At one point she almost lost one of

her shoes in a pile of snow, but she reminded herself grimly,

Gucci, 369 Euro, and clenched it on.

Jude was waiting for her outside a New-England style

wooden house, hands tucked under her arms. “Soon be warm,”

she said encouragingly. Síle’s teeth were clamped shut.

In the upstairs bathroom, shuddering as she rubbed some

life back into her bare legs with a stiff towel, she reviewed her

contingency plans. First thing tomorrow morning—if she

lived through the night—she would find someone who owned

a proper car in this wretched little homestead, and pay them

to drive her back to Toronto Airport.

Slow steps on the stairs. Jude stood in the doorway of the

bathroom. “You hate me,” she said, with no preamble.

“That’s right,” said Síle, feeling ever so slightly better. She

kept on chafing her legs, aware of Jude’s eyes on them.

“What you need is a hot bath.”

“Oh, I always take showers,” said Síle, “they’re so much

faster.”

There it was, Jude’s crooked little smile, the one Síle had

been trying to call up in her memory, all these months.

“What’s the rush?” Jude ran the bath till it was very deep—

checking the temperature every so often, while Síle sat there

on the toilet seat and watched her, suddenly aware of being

drop-dead tired. Finally Jude opened a box and threw what

looked like a handful of dust into the water.

“What’s that?” asked Síle.

“Oatmeal,” said Jude briefly, and turned off the taps.

Oatmeal? I’ve gone back in time. I’ve joined the fucking

69

Amish, thought Síle dizzily.

—

Alone in the bathroom, she immersed herself in the silky,

Emma

clouded water and sank down and down till it covered her

stomach, her nipples, her chin. The heat made her limbs

Donoghue

throb. She felt as if she were drowning.

When she emerged in her towel, she looked around. Lots

of wood. Warm air puffed through old wrought iron grilles at

floor level. The door to a bedroom was wide open and her bag

was standing there, incongruously executive-style beside the

rocking chair on the rag-rug. She’d brought her silk night-shirt

with her, of course, but folded on the bed were a pair of blue

striped cotton pyjamas that made her think of Christopher

Robin and Winnie the Pooh. So she put them on and crawled

under the huge lumpy duvet.

She wondered where Jude was. Off having a fag at last,

maybe.

Síle’s eyelids were beginning to droop by the time Jude

appeared in the doorway with a vast steaming mug.

“Camomile tea.”

“Sorry,” said Síle guiltily, “but I can’t stand the stuff.”

Jude looked as if she might go away again, but instead she

set the mug down on the table and sat on the very edge of the

bed. “How’re you doing?”

“Better,” said Síle.

Jude took a sip of the camomile.

The silence was getting a little awkward, so Síle said “I

brought you a little something from Dublin Airport,” pointing

to the Duty Free bag on the table.

Jude pulled out the box of 400 Camels.

“It’s meant as an apology for telling you off at Heathrow,”

Síle explained. “I’ve always refused to buy cigarettes for my

friends, but this time I decided to make the grand gesture.”

Jude let out a creaky little laugh.

“What?” asked Síle. “Did I get the brand wrong?”

Jude leaned over and kissed her with precise and strong

lips.

Síle stared up at her, startled. “You don’t taste like a smok-

70—

er,” she said eventually.

“Exactly.”

argins

“You didn’t!” said Síle.

Mo

“I did. I gave them up at midnight yesterday, and I’ve been

N

brushing my teeth a lot since then, for something to do.”

“For me?” asked Síle, marvelling. “You gave up smoking

for me?”

Jude shrugged. “You were just… the occasion.”

Síle smiled as sleek as a cat. “That’s why you’ve been such

a glump this evening. You’re in withdrawal!”

“A glump?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Riding along in stony

silence like some prison escort…”

“I was concentrating on the road. It was tough driving.”

Jude’s voice was stern but her face was twisted with laughter.

“And as for you, turning up in a blizzard in stilettos and a

slinky raincoat—”

“Whose are the pyjamas?” asked Síle, changing the sub-

ject.

“Mine,” said Jude, looking at her with those peculiar hazel

eyes that were almost yellow, like a cat’s.

“They’re very soft. Are you coming in?” asked Síle at last,

patting the duvet.

Jude stood up jerkily. “I dunno, I can sleep next door if—”

“Bollocks,” said Síle reaching out and tucking a finger over

the edge of Jude’s jean pocket. “I’ve only got two nights and I

didn’t come all this way for next door.”

Jude snapped the light off before undressing. “Puritan

blood, you know,” she murmured.

Síle was too tired to protest. She listened to the soft little

sounds of clothes coming off, being piled on a chair. Then the

bed creaked as Jude climbed in. Síle wriggled backwards till

her back reached Jude’s hot chest. The girl was completely

naked; not such a Puritan as all that, then. It was odd, Síle

thought; they’d only hugged once in their lives before, at

71

Toronto airport—they didn’t know each other’s curves and

—

angles—and yet here they were, slotted together like this was

Emma

the only way to be, like this was the only possible place to lie

on a wintry April night.

Donoghue

Must take off these pyjamas, she thought sleepily. First

times are crucial. Mustn’t be wearing pyjamas. Must ravish her

in some memorable way. “Lordy,” she murmured at last, “cold

really makes you appreciate a human body.”

“There’s a bit in the Bible about that,” mentioned

Jude.

“Isn’t there always?” she groaned.

Jude quoted it in her ear : “If two lie together, then they have

heat, but how can one be warm alone? ”

Síle lay very still, planning a witty response to that.

But the next thing she knew, it was morning, and gaudy

yellow sun was setting their bed on fire.

Sun in their eyes, in the crooks of their knees and elbows.

It was easy, laughably so. Jude shouldn’t have worried. Pretty

soon she even forgot she was dying for a cigarette. She and Síle

knew what to do as if the information had been waiting in

their genes. Everything fit. There was startled breathing and

laughter and even some roaring into pillows. It was a lucky

dip, a ten-course banquet, a fruit machine where— ching,

ching! — the coins kept spilling from the slot.

Síle’s breasts lay like basking seals on Jude’s hot ribs. Jude’s

knee cut between Síle’s thighs like a river carving out its bed.

Their fingers slotted together. They got so tangled up in Síle’s

hip-length dark hair, she had to shake it back over the head-

board.

Jude played with the delicate gold chain around Síle’s

waist.

“Feels strange,” Síle said; “nobody’s touched it in a long

time. It was my mother’s, it’s called an Aranjanam.”

Jude repeated the syllables, Síle correcting her till she’d

got it right. “Didn’t Kathleen touch it?” she asked. There were

72

always ghosts around a bed, you might as well invite them in,

—

start trying to make peace with them.

Síle looked her in the eye. “Not in a few years.”

argins

Excellent! But Jude only said that in her head, and she man-

Mo

aged to keep her face straight. She thought of saying some-

N

thing like That’s terrible, but it would be tacky to triumph over

her fallen foe. “Do you ever take it off?”

Síle shook her head. “Though if I carry on my love affair

with Belgian pralines I may have to have it lengthened! The

times I’ve been to Kerala, my relations tell me I look like my

Amma reincarnated,” she went on more seriously, “but I still

feel like such an outsider. If she’d lived to raise me and Orla I

suppose we’d be cultural hybrids, but as it is we’re just brown

Irish. I’ve never even slept with anyone who wasn’t white as

paper. Have you?”

“Well, Rizla’s half Mohawk—”

“Of course. I forget to count guys,” said Síle with a self-

mocking grin.

Things got sweaty and noisy again, and Jude forgot how

much she’d been wanting a cigarette.

Much later, Jude felt sudden wet on the side of her neck,

and thought for a moment she’d burst a blood vessel. But then

Síle’s face lifted, and it was blotted with tears. “What is it?”

said Jude, appalled. “What’s wrong?”

Síle sobbed. “Nothing. Nothing at all is wrong.” She licked

her own salt water off Jude’s collar-bone.

“Just so long as I know.”

“Did you never have anyone weep all over you in bed

before?”

Jude shook her head.

“You realize this is doomed?” said Síle in an indecently

hopeful voice.

“What, you mean the living five thousand kilometres

apart?”

“Oh dear, that sounds even worse than three thousand

miles.”

73

“I thought Ireland was metric.”

—

“Well, in theory, but we still talk in miles and pints,” Síle

Emma

explained. “But yes, the distance, and also the little matter of

fourteen years…”

Donoghue

“That needn’t matter,” said Jude. “People are always telling

me I’ve got an old head on young shoulders.”

Síle grinned. “It’s two generations, musically and demo-

graphically: I’m a tail-end Boomer and you’re Gen Y.”

“I’d like to say in my defence that I can play ‘Scarborough

Fair.’ Couldn’t we just pretend I was born in the Sixties?”

“Play it on what?”

“Guitar. What could be more Sixties than that?”

Síle let out an exasperated breath. “How could you not

have mentioned that you play the guitar?”

“I’m not that good.”

“You’re good enough to play ‘Scarborough Fair,’ which

makes it a big fat lie of omission.” She reached for Jude’s fin-

gertips and rubbed them. “Calluses, of course, I should have

guessed,” she said under her breath.

“Sorry, did they—”

“I like them,” Síle told her. “So what else don’t I know

about you?”

“A quarter-century’s worth, at least,” said Jude, grinning.

Later, when Síle was in the shower, Jude stretched out and

let her head dangle off the mattress. She was woozy; she was

high as a kite. She had a little headache, from withdrawal, she

supposed, but nothing she couldn’t handle. Gwen had suggest-

ed Nicorette patches, but Jude preferred to do this cold

turkey. She rolled onto her stomach and looked under the bed.

There were dust balls, and a pencil, and a pair of delicate high-

heeled suede shoes with salt marks on them. Jude pulled on

her towelling robe and went downstairs for the desalting fluid.

She’d dabbed the worst of the marks off with desalting

fluid by the time Síle emerged in a tiny towel.

They stared at each other. “Are you fondling my Gucci’s?”

“Just getting the salt off before it stains.”

For a moment, Síle looked as if she might burst into tears

74—

again. “That’s so… so nice of you.” The towel began to fall.

“Whoops.”

argins

“For future reference, the bath towels are in the cupboard

Mo

below the basin,” Jude observed, kissing her ribs one at a time.

N

While Síle was dressing—wool trousers and a silk knit

jumper, which still looked pretty thin to Jude for this weath-

er—Jude peered into the Aladdin’s cave of the suitcase. She

saw a toiletries bag in red quilted satin, a jewellery box, a

Feminique Sonic Razor, a clip-on reading light, a lint shaver, a

set of voltage adaptors, earplugs, a fur-lined, gel-filled eye

mask, a silk Sleep Sack, an inflatable travel pillow, a pair of

what claimed to be Anti-Noise Earphones… “You come pre-

pared,” said Jude, picking up object after object. “Especially

considering you’re only here till tomorrow afternoon.”

“Don’t think about my going home yet,” commanded Síle.

“Anyway, this is just my standard travel bag; it’s simpler to

keep it packed.”

“On the rare occasions I go anywhere,” said Jude, “pretty

much all I need is my toothbrush.”

“This saves you all the work,” said Síle, plucking an

Electric Tooth Wand out of the jumble.

“The work?”

“Every 30 seconds it beeps to remind you to move on to

the next quadrant of your mouth.” Síle was very deadpan.

Jude couldn’t stop grinning. “What’re the binoculars for?”

she asked, resting the compact case in her palm.

“Well, I thought maybe wildlife,” said Síle doubtfully. “I

didn’t realize there’d be all this snow.”

“Well, we’ll keep an eye out for a sasquatch. And this…

Watchman?” she asked, reading the name. “Seems a bit cum-

bersome for a watch.”

“It’s a TV,” said Síle eagerly, putting down her hairbrush

for a minute to show her Homer Simpson lumbering across

the screen. “It’s got a 2.2 passive matrix LCD.”

“There you go, speaking Martian again. What’s this?”

75

“A massage thimble, my sister Orla gave it to me in my

—

Christmas stocking. The little bumps on it stimulate your acu-

Emma

pressure points.”

“Seems a bit low-tech,” murmured Jude, pressing it into

Donoghue

her wrist and wondering if it would help with cigarette crav-

ings. “You sure do like things.”

“Which translates as, materialistic and shallow?”

“No,” said Jude, “I just mean you get a kick out of gadgets.

Things that stand between you and the real world.”

Síle’s tapered eyebrows soared as she wrestled her hair

into a plait. “The real world?”

Jude struggled for words. “Nature, I guess.”

“But it’s all real, darlin’. The birds and the bees, and the

earplugs and lint shavers too.” Her smile was very wry and

thirty-eight.

“I still can’t believe this is real.”

“I can,” said Síle, her hands decisive on Jude’s hips, pulling

her close. “You’re no figment. I’ve never met anyone so here

and now.”

The kiss lasted long enough that Jude thought she might

fall down.

That evening, Jude felt ridiculously nervous as they crunched

up Main Street hand in hand, towards the solitary streetlight

at the crossroads.

There were about a dozen drinkers in the Dive.

“How are my mother’s snow boots?”

“Well, they do the trick,” said Síle grudgingly, “but next

time I’m buying more elegant ones. It must be possible to

keep warm without quite so much padding.”

Next time, thought Jude with a flash of bliss.

Rizla was there at the bar, sucking on his ginger ale, like

most other evenings; it was warmer than his trailer, after all. It

occurred to Jude for the first time that he looked like some-

one who’d done time. His bushy eyebrows shot up to his hair-

76

line, and he boomed “Jeez, the honeymooners managed to get

—

out of bed!”

Jude said in his ear, “Remember I promised you could

argins

meet her if you promised not to be a jerk?”

Mo

Already Rizla had enclosed Síle’s hand in his own beefy

N

one. He helped her off with her coat, and insisted she take his

stool. “Go right ahead, my fat ass’s had enough sitting

around.”

Síle crossed her legs sexily, despite the borrowed snow

boots, and smiled up at him. In her bright skirt and beaded

Rajasthani jacket, she stood out against the comfortable casu-

als the locals were wearing, quite apart from being the only

South Asian face in the village.

“Dave,” said Rizla, “may I present Síle O’Shaughnessy

from Dublin, Ireland?”

The bartender wore a wary smile. “Whatever you say, Riz.

Now, what can I get you all? Sleeman’s, Upper Canada…”

“Actually, Dave,” said Síle, her accent strengthening as she

leaned over the bar, “I’m not too fond of the old beer, to be

honest. What I’d love is a chocolate martini, if it wouldn’t be

too much trouble.”

Dave blinked at her. Rizla stroked his moustache smugly.

“A chocolate martini?”

“Made with crème de cacao, you know?”

“I’ll have a look in the back,” Dave said abstractedly.

In his absence, Jude told Síle that she might have to settle

for an ale. “You’re not in Big Ireland now.”

Síle widened her eyes. “Place your trust in the global econ-

omy.”

And indeed, ten minutes later, Dave came in brandishing

a dusty bottle of crème de cacao. Rizla and Síle applauded.

Jude stared at it, and thought , This woman is a magic wand.

Dave rested on his elbows and examined the visitor more

closely. “That sure is a nice accent you’ve got. I thought Rizla

here must be pulling my leg, because you don’t look Irish.”

Jude stiffened, but Síle beamed back at him. “And the

77

funny thing is, Dave, I’ve been told I don’t look like a lesbian

—

either.”

Emma

He took a second to register that. “Well, pleasure to meet

you,” he said, swabbing randomly at the counter with his cloth

Donoghue

before heading into the back.

Rizla pounded the bar in silent mirth. “Two-nil to the

Fighting Irish! You shut that dickhead up.”

“Poor Dave,” Síle murmured repentantly, “and after he

made me a perfect chocolate martini…”

Jude felt all the strings in her body loosen.

“Yeah, this whole area was Mohawk hunting grounds,”

Rizla was telling Síle when Jude tuned in again, ’till we sold it

to the Crown in the early eighteenth century.”

“You mean early 1800s,” Jude reminded him.

He ignored that. “I’m not actually Status, though,” he

went on.

“Sorry, you’ve lost me,” said Síle.

“My mom married a Dutchman, that’s how come my sur-

name’s Vandeloo, so she wasn’t a Status Indian anymore, she

had to go off-reservation; that was the law back then. She

raised nine of us in a farmhouse, up north a ways. Big breed-

ers,” he commented, “like the Irish, I guess!”

“There’s only two of us in my family, me and my sister,”

remarked Síle.

Rizla’s eyebrows went up. “What happened? Your parents

got bored of doing the old bump ’n grind? Took a vow of absti-

nence?”

“My mother died when I was two.”

Rizla’s face went stiff.

She grinned at him. “Now don’t you feel like a crass bas-

tard?”

“Not for the first time nor the last,” he said, and insisted

on buying the next round. “You’ve got great triceps for a girly

gal, Síle,” he said suddenly, gripping her arm.

She tensed it for him.

“You work out?”

78

“No, she lifts steel trays at 10,000 metres,” Jude reminded

—

him.

“Oh, that’s right, you’re a trolley dolly. I’m Síle, Fly Me!” he

argins

said in a lewd falsetto.

Mo

Jude glared at him. Did he have to be obnoxious, tonight

N

of all nights, when she needed him to show his true colours?

“That’s right,” Síle said, deadpan, “the real money’s in the

sex. We only get a basic salary for all that waitressing and First

Aid stuff, but it’s fifty Euro for every hand job and a hundred

for a fuck in the toilet.”

Rizla blinked at her, and then released such an enormous

laugh that two guys from the chicken factory looked up from

their backgammon to see what was going on. “Good one,” he

said, licking his finger and chalking one on the air for Síle.

“Speaking of washrooms, I gotta go shake the dew off the lily.

Excuse me, ladies.”

As soon as he was gone, Síle murmured in Jude’s ear. “He’s

rather fab. Is he an alcoholic?”

“No,” said Jude, startled, “he doesn’t drink at all.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Síle. “Everyone I know in

Ireland who doesn’t drink is a recovering drunk. Except for a

few Jesus freaks who took the Pledge when they were eleven.”

Jude shrugged uncomfortably, wondering whether anyone

could overhear their gossip. “He drank when I first knew him,

but he wasn’t that much of a drinker; not like some guys I

knew in school. At some point he just stopped, said he could-

n’t afford it anymore.”

And here came Rizla, hitching up his belt as he slouched

over to the bar, like some grizzly dressed up in men’s clothes.

They had a game of pool. “I taught Jude here all she

knows,” Rizla explained.

“So how come I beat you nine times out of ten?” asked

Jude, racking them up.

Síle kept messing up her shots. “Everything’s the wrong

size here, I’m getting vertigo,” she complained, laughing. “The

table’s too low, the balls are too big, and spotted instead of red

79

or yellow…”

—

“If you stayed a week you’d get the hang of it,” Rizla told

Emma

her, “in fact I could give you a crash course in being a Canuck.”

“I already fell off a sled twice today.”

Donoghue

“That’s a start, but you gotta skate and skidoo, you gotta

shoot things—”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Jude.

“—and above all, you gotta tell Newfie jokes.”

“Newfie as in Newfoundland?” Síle guessed.

“Newfound land,” he said, correcting the stress. “You hear

about the Newfie was so lazy he married a pregnant woman?”

Jude grimaced.

“I know that one,” Síle protested, “but it’s about a

Kerryman.”

“Yeah,” Jude put in, “and the Belgians probably say it

about the Luxembourgers. Enough already!”

Rizla ignored her. “This Newfie goes to the hospital in St

John’s and says I want to be castrated You sure about that?

says the doctor. Yeah yeah boy, says the Newfie, I’m telling

you I want to be castrated. So after the op, he wakes up in a

room with another patient. He says, Hey you boy, what oper-

ation you got done? The other guy says he’s been circumcised.

Damnit to hell, dat’s de word I was looking for!”

Jude groaned, but Síle and Rizla were raucous with mirth.

Soon the repartee was flying so fast, she could barely keep up.

Rizla and Síle were testing each other out, she realized—not

in a nasty way, just each of them trying to figure out whether

the other was worthy of their place in Jude’s life. She breathed

in the stale air and thought, forty-seven smokeless hours

down, only a lifetime to go. She wasn’t a smoker anymore. She

had a lover. Anything was possible.

But coming back from the washroom (where, as happened

every couple of months, some stranger had given Jude’s short

hair a startled look as if to say, This is the Ladies! ), she got the

impression that the atmosphere had cooled. Síle covered her

mouth to yawn, and checked the time display on her gizmo.

“Will we head home?” Jude asked.

80—

“Fine,” said Síle.

“Another quick one?” said Rizla.

argins

“I don’t think so,” said Síle, before Jude could.

Mo

On the street outside, Rizla gave them both crushing hugs

N

and strolled off in the direction of his trailer.

The night was clear and starry. “You have a good time?”

asked Jude, a little uneasy.

No answer. Síle was looking down at her borrowed boots

as they squeaked on the flattened snow. “Rizla was saying you

must be really mad about me, to give up smoking.”

“Mm,” said Jude. Where was this going?

“He said, and I quote, She’s a closet romantic, is my wife.”

Bastard, thought Jude. Had he been planning this master-

stroke all evening? All that broke the silence was the creak of

their footsteps. “Rizla can be such a wise guy,” she began

weakly.

“So it’s just his little nickname for you? Wife?”

“Well,” said Jude, her chest tight, “I mean it’s technically

true—”

“Technically?” Síle pulled up short and almost slipped on

the ice.

Jude put a hand out to steady her. “I left him nearly seven

years ago.”

“You’re telling me you two were married?”

“Only for a year, really,” said Jude, her voice shaking

absurdly.

“Why the fuck,” articulated Síle, “didn’t I hear about this

before?”

Jude shrugged. “There’s a lot of details you and I haven’t

got around to swapping yet.”

“Details?” roared Síle.

“Getting married at eighteen was an embarrassing mis-

take. I hadn’t even reached legal drinking age. I prefer to for-

get it.”

“Still, you could have told me. My jaw fell into my lap,

81

back there, I felt like a complete feckin’ eejit.”

—

“I’m sorry.”

Emma

Síle started walking again, slapping her gloves together to

warm her hands, and Jude thought maybe the conversation

Donoghue

was over, which was fine by her.

“Sure I know loads of Irish dykes who used to be married,”

said Síle, her tone softening into exasperation. “So you got

divorced, what, when you were nineteen?”

“Well, that’s when I moved out.” Jude made herself add,

“We haven’t actually got around to finalising the paperwork

yet, because Rizla’s always broke, and I wasn’t going to pay for

it all myself.”

Síle’s turned, her tawny eyes hawk-like in the streetlight.

Cheapskate, Jude thought; I should have borrowed from the

bank. I should have got around to it. “You didn’t ask much

about him,” she said, going on the defensive, “you don’t seem

to count guys.”

A tense pause. “Well, it’s true that’s my blind spot.”

Moving warily, Jude tucked her arm into Síle’s and headed

down Main Street.

After a minute, Síle said “OK, sorry to harp on, but just to

clarify—you’re still legally married, but you haven’t been

involved in over six years.”

Jude tried to swallow. Involved, what did that mean? One cig-

arette, that’s all she needed. “Right, we haven’t been a couple.”

But of course Síle heard the equivocation, and her eyes

turned on Jude like a searchlight. “The last time you slept with

him,” she said, spelling it out as if to a child, “it was more than

six years ago?”

Messy, messy. “Well, no,” said Jude, letting out a long plume

of steam.

Síle had dropped her arm. “When was it?”

“Beginning of March.”

“Which March?”

“This one just gone.”

“Last month?” Síle stood and stared up at the cavernous

82

sky, breathing in and out like a horse. “Then what the fuck am

—

I doing here?”

She was one of those women who looked superb when

argins

angry, Jude thought; her hair stood out like a crackling halo.

Mo

Jude was waiting for the right words to turn up in her mouth,

N

but—

“What exactly was the point of this mad trip to the frozen

arsehole of the world?” asked Síle, breaking away to the other

side of the street. “You let me believe you were single.”

“Because I am. Was, till now, I mean,” she corrected her-

self miserably. “You don’t understand.”

“Understand what? The erotic appeal of a not-quite-ex-

husband with oil under his nails? Who are you?”

Jude caught her by the sleeve. “Shut up for a second.”

“Oh, now you want to do the talking,” Síle almost

screamed. “Go ahead, delight me with some more little details.

Next you’ll be telling me there’s a kid! I can’t believe I left

Kathleen for you.”

Now that was low. “It was your decision.”

“Decision?” Síle repeated, sardonic. “It was a leap in the

fucking dark!”

Jude took a breath. “Why are you doing this, Síle?”

“What? What am I doing?”

“Making some big old volcano out of a molehill,” said

Jude. “There’s no kid. There’s no sinister conspiracy. So I

wound up in bed with my ex once in a while, haven’t you ever

done that?”

“I’ve never been that desperate,” said Síle.

“We weren’t desperate,” insisted Jude. “It only happened a

couple of times a year. It was about… company. Comfort.” She

had a hunch all these words were getting her nowhere. Her

newfound happiness was teetering like an icicle in a thaw. She

took a step nearer to Síle. “So the last time it happened to

happen was at the beginning of March, and I told Riz that was

it, over and done with, because it felt wrong, because all I

could think about was you.”

83

Síle’s blew into her gloved hands. “You still don’t get it, do

—

you?” she asked, gravelly. “This isn’t about sex. I don’t care

Emma

who you slept with last month, though from this weekend on

I care very much. What I can’t stand is being fooled.”

Donoghue

“I—”

“Talk about a lie of omission! You should have told me

what I was walking into and you know it. I’m a stranger in this

peculiar little world of yours, remember.” A ragged breath.

“I’ve gutted my whole life like a fish because you said you

loved me.”

“I do,” Jude groaned.

“I don’t just want to fuck you, I want to know you.”

“I was always going to tell you the whole story of me and

Riz,” Jude said weakly. “There’s things that are hard to explain

in writing or over the phone. Sometimes it’s better to wait for

the right moment.”

“What, like this one?” asked Síle, waving at the deserted

street, the black speckled sky.

Jude almost laughed. “C’mon home before we freeze,” she

said.

There was a moment’s pause, when it could have gone

either way, and then Síle went with her.

84

Emma Donoghue

—

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is a novelist, play-

argins

wright, and historian who lives in London, Ontario, with her

Mo

lover and son. Her books include the historical fiction Life

N

Mask, Slammerkin, and The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits;

contemporary novels Stirfry and Hood; and the fairy tale col-

lection Kissing the Witch. She has won the Ferro-Grumley

Award for Lesbian Fiction, the American Library

Association’s Gay and Lesbian Literary Award, and is a five-

times finalist in the Lambda Awards. For further information

go to www.emmadonoghue.com.

85

Marion Douglas

— M

Writer Notes

arion

Dougla

My contribution is taken from a novel, Dance Hall Road, which

I have recently finished. It is set in small town southern

s

Ontario, which is already on the literary map. I suppose some-

day I might like to write about southern Alberta, where I live,

because it is so bare-bones beautiful. Step out of your car any-

where north or south of Medicine Hat and you might see only

one line, the horizon. This can practically cause a person to go

into a type of swoon, but I guess it takes a long time and

numerous swoons before a landscape enters the bloodstream

because I’m not yet totally compelled to write about Alberta.

When you’re from southern Ontario it’s hard to escape,

even living 3000 kilometres away. Geographically, it’s almost

an island, surrounded as it is by five miniature oceans that cre-

ate systems of oppressive weather; humidity in the summer

and impassable snow drifts in the winter. Culturally, there is

this legacy of unbridled Protestantism; the pronoun I is

strongly discouraged. The first time I visited a Hutterite

colony in Alberta, I felt right at home and I realized: this

place feels like southern Ontario. Lots of explicit rules but

even more of the implicit type, and all emotions suppressed

right down to the level of the water table. It’s a bit like a club

or a sect that you keep thinking you really should leave.

87

Marion Douglas

— M

Dance Hall

arion

Dougla

Just take the bike and go. A flat and lifeless Wednesday after-

noon, sky the colour of white weather that isn’t about to

s

change, and her—redundant! Fired from the dentist’s office by

her very own old man. So why not go out of town on the bike?

She had her license, could take the little Vega whenever she

wanted, but cars were no good for stealth. You still had to ask,

or at least make an announcement, explain yourself. And even

with the windows down, 100 kilometres an hour, departure

roaring past your ears, that car was contaminated. Owned by

one Flaxian after another, passed down from Limb to Limb to

Drury; the thing was full of Flax. Caked, Rose had told Adrian

more than once: the car was caked with the town of Flax.

Emerge from the blue interior and behold the crumbs as they

fall from your lap. Could be in Mesmer with Adrian, could be

in Kitchener-Waterloo with Anastasia—didn’t matter. Flax

was stuffed between your ears like old cake.

Away she went. Even at this age, seventeen, and on a fat-

tired girl’s bike, taking off without telling Dad was as good as

truancy. Not that Rose was often, or even ever, truant and if

she were to be, excuses would most certainly be made, her his-

tory clattering like a printing press behind her back, publish-

ing counterfeit notes of permission. If you looked, you could

almost see the grey ink of explanation on everyone’s fingers.

Yes, Rose Drury, such a lovely girl despite everything, her

mother and all, so long ago now, nine years, but no doubt she

remembers, and a girl needs a mother, such a help to her

father and that brother.

Downhill was the only realistic direction, entering humid-

ity like the locker room at school, insects wanting up your

nose more than the smell of sweaty girls changing. Rose had

never taken this or any gravel road out of town, her best friend

Anastasia living on the Mesmer Highway, the Number 4.

88

Though this was hardly gravel, all of the loose stones having

—

been nudged to the edges by country tires, leaving a surface as

smooth as the sweat band in Adrian’s cap. Rose sped up, faster

argins

than the bugs and the time of day. Nobody else in sight, the

Mo

quiet of summer heat in her ears, always suggestive—some-

N

thing or other might happen—and growing toward her from

both ditches, dusty grasses. They reminded Rose of old peo-

ple, thousands of them, stooped, greying, maybe looking for

some company. Why don’t you stop, girly, they seemed to be

muttering. Why don’t you stop?

No reason.

Here now the road became flatter with curves, grass giv-

ing way to coniferous trees and swamp. Rose kept an eye out

for the mud-loving forms of life, hopping things that took off

on water and popped like grapes if driven over. She didn’t want

to spoil her record. For more than two months now, since

Skokie’d gone to sleep, she hadn’t killed a single creature, not

an insect or, she hoped, a blade of grass. Mosquitoes, she

shooed away. Houseflies were encouraged to use the door.

Yeah, well what about single-celled organisms, Anastasia had

asked, finding her friend’s new vigilance a little far-fetched;

what about, for example, a tiny bit of mould you might wipe

up and swoosh down the drain? It’s anaerobic you know, can’t

survive without oxygen.

“I can’t control everything.”

“That’s right,” said Anastasia.

Anastasia liked to undermine the good intentions of oth-

ers. No big deal; Rose was used to it. She pedalled faster, then

braked, coming to a complete stop beneath the overhanging

trees. Look at this: bulrushes. She walked her bike closer to

the ditch. Might there be a baby Moses abandoned in the

reeds? She wasn’t kidding. One secret she never told

Anastasia: Rose was often on the lookout for abandoned

babies. Stranger things were known to happen. But not today.

No crying that she could hear, still no traffic, nothing. Even

the frogs shushed as she approached and so she stood perfect-

89

ly still, wanting to experiment, waiting for them to think she

—

was gone or an unusual species of tree.

M

Ha! They fell for it, one or two choirmasters clearing their

arion

throats and the others joining, freakishly in unison as if some-

Dougla

one were conducting.

“Ahem,” said Rose and they stopped again, all at once,

apparently under the influence of one collective frog worry.

s

Maybe they couldn’t see her, but the inhabitants of these

ditches were listening with their tiny flap-ears. She’d seen

them in biology, during the dissections she’d never do again.

The school allowed for conscientious objection, and Rose was

prepared for the scoffing of Anastasia, could even predict her

response. You know, nature’s not all sweetness and light. Remember

that plant somebody brought into biology class last year? That pitcher

plant? Doesn’t that prove to you that nature isn’t as nice as you might

think? Nature is made up of carnivorous little throats with spiny

slanting hairs that drag flies or spiders to their doom. Slowly and with

malice aforethought, Rose Drury.

Rose would admit that this road was a little like the mouth

of the pitcher plant. She couldn’t seem to turn around, there

was no going back, and the smell was amphibian, like breath

held under water for long periods of time. And here she was

with nothing but a bike, no money, not even any identifica-

tion, nothing but too much Anastasia on the brain. Rose

looked over her shoulder. If a farmer were to drive by, would

he shoot her? Such malfeasance occurred in the country, there

being such a chronic lack of witnesses. Why, any outsider

might be shot for target practice, left to fall into the ditch,

spouting a tie-dyed bloodstain into the lonely murk. Eye-to-

dying-eye with bullfrogs as big as dinner plates. A banquet for

mosquitoes although you had to wonder: did they like dead

people? Perhaps the freshly dead. Ask your brother; Adrian

would probably know. I’m pretty sure they would not like

blood blended with swamp water. That they would not go for.

My guess is you would lie there forever, Rose, decomposing

until you were just a few bones, unrecognizable even as a

skeleton. More like pick-up sticks. What are you doing, going

90—

out there on your bike anyway?

Rose pushed off and rode further to a break in the trees,

argins

past a field of yellow grain and a green road sign. East Flax. Oh

M

yes. Rose’s knowledge of East Flax was a View-Master set of

o N

images and sensations, a dentist’s daughter’s three-dimension-

al impressions of poor teeth and disregard for higher educa-

tion. But that wasn’t all there was to East Flax. Don’t forget

the lake. Rose had been to Minnow Lake twice—for the

eighth grade picnic and once on an outing with her mom, long

ago, before she was even in school. By then her mother would

have had the cancer but not known, or known and not told

anyone, so that the day’s events stood back and watched the

way they did when you were keeping a secret.

They were supposed to have a good time, just the two of

them, Adrian stayed home with Dad, but some man talked her

mother into water-skiing, tried to convince her to go over the

jump, wouldn’t take no for an answer, he said. Don’t be crazy,

her mother had said, laughing. It was all in fun but seemed a

little dangerous. Dragged by a boat over a piece of wood in the

middle of a lake? She remembered how the ski jump angled

out of the water like her one loose tooth and she made a deal:

pull out the tooth and the ski jump will sink. But she couldn’t;

the rags of skin anchoring it to her gum were tough as old

meat. And her mom didn’t go anyway. Just as well, Rose said.

Even now, eleven years later, her relief was incongruous. She

supposed fun and sinister tended to overlap where adults were

involved, at least from the point of view of kids.

Maybe she’d go and take a look at the ski jump: it was still

there, and Adrian made frequent reference to both it and

Randy Farrell. More than he liked to admit, Adrian was in

East Flax, part of his secret life, along with Cheryl Decker. If

only there were underground tunnels, he was always saying,

instead of roads. Get up, have breakfast and disappear into a

maze of passageways. No one knows where you are, no one

knows where you’re going.

91

“Why,” Rose asked., “Why do you care if they know?”

—

“I’d just rather they didn’t.”

M

“Well, I’d just rather they did.”

arion

“Know what I’m doing or what you’re doing?”

Dougla

“Never mind.”

Rose cycled past the dance hall road. Still no traffic.

Where were all the people? Even on the sleepiest Sunday in

s

Flax you would hear lawn mowers, screen doors or one of the

Limb kids practicing the piano. Apparently, on a business day

in the outskirts of East Flax, people were told to keep it down.

Dogs were muzzled. Shhh. As if Minnow Lake were some big

sleeping baby that might be wakened.

Now Rose could see the lake and smell it. Not a bad smell,

but also not the good smell of Lake Huron with its vast capac-

ity for washing and dissolving and rubbing things smooth.

Minnow Lake was so shallow and warm, it smelled more like

something cooking, the water table rising up and offering a

mud casserole. And some people said not all residents of East

Flax had septic systems, so who knew where their toilets

flushed to. Rose did remember at the eighth grade picnic, the

feel of the lake bottom curled up between your toes like wet

diapers or worse. Nobody had wanted to come to Minnow

Lake, but there were already three schools booked at Blue

Lake, so that was that. Since they’d built the pavilion and boat

ramp and restaurant at Blue Lake, everybody went there. And

you could see why. Rose let her bike clatter into the tall weeds

at the edge of the gravelly beach. Beach? Hardly. The owner of

Blue Lake resort had hauled in loads of sand and strung buoys

in the water to define the swimming area. If you went past

them and drowned, it would be your own fault.

East Flax had definitely seen better times and so had

Minnow Lake. One slanted dock and an old rowboat under

three inches of water. And there stood the ski jump floating

on its unsinkable oil drums, a hollow-brained tribute to the

laws of physics. And up there, the dance hall, clearly visible on

its so-called escarpment, watching the lake from its row of

92

windows. Rose knew there was a store, the Farrells’ rickety

—

enterprise, but would it be open? Most places closed on

Wednesday afternoon, but this was East Flax, birthplace of

argins

unlikelihood, home of the beautiful and intelligent Cora

Mo

Farrell. No one for a minute thought she would be chosen

N

school queen. Anastasia said, simply by entering the competi-

tion Cora had taken the Farrell chromosomes as far as they

had ever been selected to go, that Cora was born to be a run-

ner-up. But she beat Lillian Gee and Connie Laine.

The entire Farrell clan was weird, what with Randy and his

habits, his need to have the inside of his locker just so, and

that time he asked Adrian not to go in the shop wing door

because he hadn’t gone out the shop wing door. Their father,

Frog Farrell, had swallowed a frog and their mother, Angel,

had a reputation. And Cora’s sister, Maddy, was a girl-boy, or a

boy-girl and the hero of the basketball team, so had done

some chromosome-hauling herself.

But most improbable of all was the Farrells’ store. Who on

earth would shop there? It would seem the road was closed to

cars. Maybe in these parts people walked, in which case,

would they ever arrive or would they fall asleep en route? Fall

asleep in a dusty ditch, sprout little roots from the soles of

their feet and, upon awakening, find they had grown leaves.

No need for the Farrells’ store now, honey, we’ve got photo-

synthesis. Cancel our account.

Rose was thirsty and a drink would be nice. She didn’t

have a cent but maybe she could finagle one with her Flaxified

charms. Worth a try. Rose rode back along the weed-rimmed

lake access, turned right past a mailbox in a milk can, a long

laneway ending at a metal clad house by the lake, a garage of

sorts with its single Out of Order pump. More weeds, foxtail

and milkweed and goldenrod crowding up to everything,

green and wavy bodies intent on pushing past and under and

into the relics of the human. Finally! A car, driver waving in

slow motion, driving in slow motion, lifting a spectacular

cloud of dust, a spawn of billows. Rose licked the grit off her

93

teeth. No wonder frogs jumped to the nearest bog. Skin-

—

breathers could be asphyxiated with each passing vehicle.

M

There was the store, plate glass windows dark as night

arion

beneath the overhanging balcony. Looked like someplace out

Dougla

of Gunsmoke, Miss Kitty’s sister’s place perhaps. Empty, no

doubt, closed for the afternoon. Everybody out hunting

varmints or settling feuds. But to Rose’s surprise the Drink

s

Pepsi door opened into an unlit habitat, the nocturnals’ exhib-

it at the zoo. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Where she

anticipated wombats and opossums, were three old men in

chairs, hillbillies she presumed, and at the till, the beautiful

Cora Farrell.

“Hi, Cora,” Rose said, six night vision eyes of the old men

fixing on her, Geiger counters divining her history, DNA, pur-

pose in this store and on this earth.

Cora was not bothered by the unexpected; Rose Drury

shopping at her parents’ store probably made as much sense as

she herself working there.

“If you’re looking for Maddy,” Cora said, “she’s up at the

dance hall.”

Of course. She should be looking for Maddy. Maddy was

her contemporary, also heading into grade twelve whereas

Cora was finished, a graduate and a queen. Rose wouldn’t be

here to inquire about her plans. And she couldn’t very well

claim to be visiting for sociological reasons, or would they be

anthropological? Yes, I’m conducting some research for the

University of Mesmer, and I’ve been wanting to interview Maddy

Farrell for quite some time now. It’s about that ridiculous orange hat

she wears in the winter. She’s so tall and well, what both I and

Anastasia Van Epp would like to know, as well as the public in gener-

al, I’m sure: Does she think she’s a character in a Dr. Seuss book? Does

she think she’s living on Mulberry Street?

“Well, in fact, I was just out for a bicycle ride, finding

myself unemployed because my father, the dentist, George

Drury—maybe you know him, maybe you wish you didn’t

know him—anyway, he decided he doesn’t really need me

working in his office and so I thought, why not go to East

94—

Flax? Maddy might be around.” Rose saw her voice landing on

the shelves of dry goods and from there, watching the action

argins

wonderingly. “I’d buy a drink but I didn’t bring any money.

Mo

Not a single dime.”

N

“Dentist’s daughter should have a dime,” said one of the

men from his old and mud-coloured armchair. Alfred Beel,

Rose now saw, an occasional patient. The other two, opposite

him, sat on wooden chairs, mute and slouchy, soft-spined in

appearance, creatures who had just yesterday made the switch

from water to land and weren’t quite sure what to make of the

move.

“Yes, she should. That is true enough.”

“Well, have a drink,” Cora offered. “My treat. What do

you want? Orange? Root beer? Cream Soda?”

Was this place even wired for electricity? No lights. But

behind Alfred, the glass-fronted cooler emitted fluorescence.

Designed for cuts of meat, most likely salvaged from an old

butcher shop, here in East Flax it contained single bottles of

pop arranged in rows and off to one side, packages of wieners

and Velveeta cheese stacked in, Rose had to admit, rather dec-

orative pyramids. That would be the renowned work of Randy

Farrell.

“So what’ll it be?” Cora was behind the cooler, sliding the

door open.

“Cream soda.”

“Good choice.” And Cora, moving her arm like a mechan-

ical device to the head of the cream soda row, withdrew the

lead bottle, edged the others forward a spot, and said “Here.

You likely know Randy likes to organize. If we don’t keep the

pop in rows and the other stuff in stacks, he gets a little fidg-

ety or something. Anyway, the opener’s on the counter. See

that string? If we don’t tie it down, it grows legs.” She was busy

finding a replacement cream soda from a carton behind the

cooler. Apparently, the bottles on display were required to line

up and take turns.

95

Having engineered the free drink, Rose was ready to

—

spend some time with Maddy. Could be educational and she

M

didn’t want these four mouths speaking unkindly of her when

arion

she left, in particular the two mushy-looking men on the

Dougla

wooden chairs, didn’t want them hissing and bubbling judg-

ments through their gills.

“I guess I’ll go find Maddy now.”

s

“Sure. You know where the dance hall is?”

“Yes. Oh yes. Everybody knows where the dance hall is,”

and she left, the door slamming shut behind her, its rusty

spring unsoftened by years of sunlight and use.

Hard to believe that out here, even in East Flax, arrangements

had been made. Rose had not thought the vast trellises of

Flax, able to support the monstervine of familiarity would

have made their way to the inhospitable climate of East Flax,

but they had. Apparently, uncluttered movement through

uncluttered time was not possible. Now she would have to see

Maddy Farrell because later today Cora would ask, “Did that

Drury girl come to see you at the dance hall? She dropped by

the store looking for you.” Maddy shrugging, saying no. But

weeks later at school, still wondering, watching Rose from her

position below the trellis, not far from where the stalk met

the mud, yet never daring to ask: Why were you in East Flax?

Did you come to laugh at my orange hat?

Tall, weird Maddy would have to be seen.

Dance Hall Road. Here it was already, complete with the

steepest hill for miles and such a case of washboard bumps,

Rose had to push the bike. You’d think the place would be

quiet but yahoos were forever driving out here to spin their

tires to the top of the hill, stretch their white arms out the

windows, and hurl empties over the roof and at the trees as

hard as possible. A type of sport, Rose had heard, called bot-

tle darts. And in the winter cars made a habit of sliding into

the snowy ditch, trees looking a little ashamed in the head-

lights, possibly embarrassed for the drivers. Nothing happen-

96—

ing today, though, unless you were to count the panting of

Rose and the wind in the trees.

argins

At the crest of the hill Rose stopped, to breathe and

Mo

reconsider. Funny that the dance hall still felt like the dance

N

hall, even in broad daylight. She guessed the place had memo-

ries, as did this very parking lot, home to seventy years, at

least, of dance anticipation. Even Rose was experienced

enough to know it wasn’t so much the event or even the hall

as the stepping out of the car or roadster or buggy and into the

plans, the thinking: maybe I’ll see someone, or better, maybe

I’ll be seen. The shadows of the leaves could in reality be what

remained of the secret criss-crossings of a thousand hearts.

You never knew. Rose gave a little shudder. Seven or eight

weeks until the September dance, always the best of the year.

All right. She had come this far, too late to turn back now.

What was the protocol? Did one knock at a dance hall? Better

do. To walk in might give Maddy a scare. But how would she

hear above all that thumping? To open the door and call

Maddy would be a ridiculous intimacy, like opening the door

to Dr. Graham Rochon’s mental health office and calling,

Graham? Graham? Are you in? I have some new confessions

for you.

She knocked again. Knock, knock, knock. And again,

louder. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. An ominous silence

and then the door swung open.

“You have a guest,” said Rose.

At a rumoured height of six feet, one-and-a-half inches,

Maddy Farrell was taller than most boys at Flax Composite

High. Everything about her was long and narrow, including her

face, which she lengthened and narrowed by tying back her

frizzy, paper-bag coloured hair with a paper-bag coloured elas-

tic. She looked puzzled right now, but that was normal. Even at

predictable events such as the lunch bell or assemblies, Maddy

conveyed puzzlement, as if each event she saw had somehow

been snipped from its short little history and its inconsequen-

97

tial little future and was free-floating, without context.

—

“Do you know who I am?” asked Rose, inflecting towards

M

neutral, veering into arrogant.

arion

“Yeah,” a little defensive. “You’re Rose Drury, the dentist’s

Dougla

daughter and Adrian’s sister. My brother knows Adrian.”

“Yes, they’re friends. Or at least they seem to spend time

on the ski jump. Anywho, I was riding my bike and wound up

s

in East Flax and went to the store and your sister said you

were up here, so I thought I’d come and see you.”

“Oh.” The puzzled look, appropriate in this case since

there was no context. “Well, come in. It’s not exactly my

house as you can see, it’s not really set up for hospitality, it’s a

dance hall. But it’s not really set up for basketball either and

yet, here I am shooting baskets. Quelle surprise,” she said, her

voice flat and unsurprised. “We could play some one on one if

you want.”

“No thanks. I’m no good at basketball. Half-good at vol-

leyball except last time I played, my wrist turned purple,” said

Rose, extending a tanned and healthy wrist for emphasis,

showing off, well, why shouldn’t she?

“Oh.”

Now what? “Can I look around the dance hall?”

“Sure.” And Maddy lead Rose through the place like a real-

tor would a prospective buyer. “Here’s the kitchen. And the

cupboards. As you can see, dishes for five thousand. Ever seen

that many identical cups and saucers?”

“Nope.”

“It’s almost like art, maybe, or something really symmetrical

or in a giant pattern. Or it could be Randy’s been out here put-

ting things in place. I don’t really know what I’m talking about.”

Art? Anastasia would have something to say about this.

“So the Women’s Institute holds meetings here, and some-

times they all come together in a passel, my dad says. A passel

of women. It’s kind of funny,” Maddy said, watching Rose’s

smiling, unlaughing face, “or maybe not. I mean, like a herd of

cows or a pride of lions. It’s actually my dad’s sense of humour,

not mine. And these are the eight mysterious roasting pans.

98—

Only two ovens, that’s the mystery. Want to see the men’s

washroom? It’s really the best part.”

argins

“Definitely.”

Mo

They walked to the wrong side of the darkened basement,

N

pushed open the scraping men’s door, and there were three

urinals backed against the wall, respectful, ghostly. “Welcome

to the stand-up world of men,” Maddy said.

“My friend Anastasia would love this tour.”

“Oh. Her.” Two conflicting opinions of Anastasia Van Epp

clattering against one another in the pause. “Do you want to

see the stage? There’s a microphone.”

Rose would be honest. This was not the sort of girl she

had expected. Where were the misconjugations, possibly gap-

toothed for emphasis? The basketball prodigy with no knowl-

edge of sound equipment? But seconds later, squeal, “Testing,

one, two three,” Maddy’s voice, important as the mayor or

someone who might tell a joke or two.

“Well, without further ado,” Rose said, grabbing the mike,

determined to extemporize more and better than Maddy

Farrell. “I’ve brought you here today to ask you the following.

Okay. How many of you, given the chance, would move away

from Flax?” More squeal of feedback.

“I’m from East Flax,” said Maddy, seated now on the edge

of the stage, long legs bare and crossed.

“Oh right, right. Let me rephrase this. How many of you,

given the chance, would move away from Flax proper tomor-

row?” And Rose returned the microphone to its cradle,

jumped to the dance floor, faced Maddy, raised her hand—“I

would”—then leapt, not as nimbly as she had hoped, back

onto the stage.

“Now. How many of you,” taking a deep breath, “given the

same opportunity, would move away from East Flax?”

Craning herself around to look at Rose, Maddy answered,

“Realistically? I’d probably stay.”

99

Marion Douglas

— Marion

Marion Douglas was born in Walkerton, Ontario, and grew up

on a farm not far from there. In 1981, she moved to Calgary

Dougla

and stayed. Marion Douglas started writing short stories in

1985 and published several in literary journals, then began

s

writing novels: The Doubtful Guests, Bending at the Bow, and

Magic Eight Ball. “Dance Hall” is an excerpt from her almost-

finished fourth novel, Dance Hall Road.

101

Anne Fleming

— Anne

Writer Notes

Fleming

It was understood, in 1983 and ’84 and ’85, which is when I was

coming out, that with a few notable exceptions, lesbian writ-

ing was bad. My friends and I passed books around amongst

ourselves. We read them. We laughed at them (“Wait, wait, lis-

ten to this. They’re having sex. ‘It was like stirring soup.’ Oh,

yeah. Stir my soup, baby.”) We bemoaned the dearth of any-

thing better. Once you’d read Colette and Jane Rule and one

Rita Mae Brown, what was left? (Lots, I know. You don’t need

to make a list; just grant me my snappy if not literally true sen-

tence, okay?)

Around the same time, I began to write. I didn’t set out to

correct the lack of good lesbian stories but neither did I have

any clear idea what I wanted to write about. The result? More

bad lesbian writing.

There is an odour about the deliberately lesbian story as

there is an odour about the deliberately anything story. One

wrinkles one’s nose. At the same time, it seems to me many

straight people mistake a story by a lesbian with any lesbians

in it at all with the deliberately lesbian story. (“When she’s not

on her little lesbian soapbox,” my mother reports her friends

saying, though I suspect it is what she herself thinks, “she’s

really quite good.”)

All of this frightens me off now, when I hope I have a

greater subject than the little lesbian smiles we used to give

one another when recognizing a stranger’s dykeness on the

street (yes, the subject of one of my first (thankfully unpub-

lished) stories, called, inventively, “Little Dyke Smiles”).

Doesn’t stop me writing about lesbians altogether, but it

makes me self-conscious about how it will be received. I wish

this were not so. I would like to write equally self-consciously

or unselfconsciously about all my characters and storylines. If

there is an upside, it is that I am forced to be as honest as I

can possibly be.

102

I doubt it’s all due to the legacy of bad lesbian writing that

—

lesbians are now writing non-lesbian stories as often as not.

argins

Nor is it the greater chance of finding book-world respectabil-

M

ity and literary regard. It’s that the world is so big and has so

o N

many people in it and some of them are queer and some of

them are not and there is an ‘isness’ about certain characters:

they come to you whole. They are what they are and you can-

not make them something they are not. A sort of character-

creation essentialism, maybe. I don’t know.

What I do know is that twenty-some years after my com-

ing out, fiction can be lesbian fiction and can also be stunning-

ly, heartbreakingly good. There’s a freedom that wasn’t there

before. Then, “serious” writers tended not to write lesbian

books, and lesbian books tended to be written by amateurs.

This is why Jane Rule means so much to me. She was out

and she was good. Is out, is good, yes, but the past tense is

important here. Desert of the Heart was published in 1964, the

year I was born. I didn’t know about its existence until I was

nineteen and my first lover stole Lesbian Images from the pub-

lic library and we tracked down and devoured every book in it.

Good lesbian writing was out there. The whole time. Saying do

it, do it. It can be done.

103

Anne Fleming

— Anne

The Pear

Fleming

One way to begin is to describe the pear, grapefruit-shaped

and golden, rough to the touch, hefty in the palm, its weight

surprising for its size, promising succulence. Liquid is heavy. I

am mostly liquid, too, and also heavy. There are one hundred

and fifty-six pounds of me in this world. Is that not a strange

thought? Not that we weigh a certain amount, but that we

contain mass, a more or less fixed supply of matter, and this

mass, particularly arranged as it is, is us. Nothing beyond that

mass is us; everything beyond it is not-us; and yet, that’s not

the way it feels. It feels as if... well, there is no good way to

describe it, but it feels as if my consciousness is as large as all

I can see and hear and taste and smell—not that I need to go

through all of the senses, although, duh, there’s only one

more, so okay: touch. But if my consciousness is as large as all

that, and contained within myself, a mere one hundred and

fifty-six pounds on the planet’s surface, well, there’s clearly a

disjunction there, isn’t there? Everything in one person’s

purview; a body maybe a tenth of a cubic metre in volume and

one hundred and fifty-six pounds in mass. It doesn’t fit.

I will eat the pear she gave me. Its mass will join my mass.

I will encompass it, though I will not become it; it will be

gone, and I will persist. I will try to live the life the pear would

have wanted for itself.

No. Wait. Scratch that.

What life would a pear want? To ripen and fall to earth, to

be nibbled by ants, pecked by crows, phaged by phages, to rot

nicely in the soil around its life-encasing pips, osmosing its

best organic wishes to its small, nutty hopes for propagation?

Hey.

Maybe I will try to live the life the pear would have want-

ed for itself.

I will eat the pear. With each bite, I will tell you how it

was, our meeting, our time together, our parting. That’s how

104

to tell stories like ours, isn’t it? Though that order is not nec-

—

essary, I suppose.

All right. Bite one: my teeth slide bluntly over the flat

argins M

curve of finely pebbled skin, denting and bruising it to a dark-

o N

er brown before catching and slicing through to the pearly

flesh. After stopping suddenly in mid-conversation on Keefer,

she darted into a store, leaving me jawing to blank-faced shop-

pers rifling the produce stalls. We were talking about extreme

sports and then I asked her a question about something else,

but she had already taken two pears cashierward and I never

got my answer.

Befuddled, abandoned on the sidewalk, I wanted to

explain myself. This has always been my fault, to want to

explain myself. Here I am, explaining myself to you and I have

done nothing wrong.

A woman squeezed in front of me to examine the lychees,

giving my badly placed self a clucking look. Sara emerged from

the store. She had heard my question.

Here. Have a pear, she said.

What she meant was, Sometimes it’s better to eat fruit

than to talk about things we mean. I had become expert at

that point at deciphering what she meant. We had known one

another precisely one week.

Bite two: the pear fills its promise of succulence with a

surge of juice bursting forth from the broken walls of its cells.

We met on the train. She didn’t know where she would stay,

buoyed with confidence the world would take care of her. I

was tempted to let some other soul offer to share a room, but

I did think I’d like to see her face again with its quick eyes and

faint freckles, its red, red lips. She liked to think she was a free

spirit. I liked to think she was a free spirit. I’m not sure she

was. Reader, I invited her to share my room.

Bite three: My intentions were chaste.

Can you say that? That intentions are chaste or unchaste?

You are chaste or you are unchaste. Intentions be damned.

105

No, my intentions were chaste. My intentions have ever

—

been chaste. It’s the intentions of others that have kept me

Anne

from a life of chastity. Oren, the hired hand. Helmut, the

greenhouse supervisor. Gwendy, in that strange arrangement

Fleming

that worked so secretly and so long.

The night before I left home when we talked the whole

night through, my sister told me she and Rona Friesen had

agreed I was asexual. Until Gwendy, I thought they were right.

It was a comfort to think so. Afterwards, I reverted best I

could.

With Sara, I did not wish for some sort of barter arrange-

ment, that was never my plan. I imagined she’d, in the lingo of

youth, crash here only, that I’d give her a key and she’d come

and go on her own schedule. I imagined she’d be out day and

night, a bebackpacked youth meeting other bebackpacked

youth. And so she did.

Bite four: time is getting out of whack here. On the same

day that she gave me the pear I savour, she took sixty dollars

from my pockets and caught a ferry, caught a VW van full of

lean young bodies full of love, leaned her full young body into

all of theirs. They spoke a vague, wistful language.

From a gulf island farm, she writes: Your rooms were too

small and there were no geese. I want to live as if timelessly. I

know you loved me and I’m sorry.

She knows I loved her?

I held the postcard as if to rip it in half, then did not.

Did I love her? There was no reason to love her. No, that’s

not true, I don’t know why I said that. You could love her just

for those freckles, just for those green eyes, just for the green

apple she was eating when I got on the train at Winnipeg after

visiting my sister and her new baby, my first niece, the contin-

uation of our family that had for so long seemed threatened

with extinction after the two of us. (Pear juice drips down my

chin.) She said hi first, giving me a glance then going back to

the window and digging her incisors into the fruit. After a

cool greeting, I dug my book out of my bag, not just because

I wanted to read, though I did, but because I wanted to

106

demonstrate I was not going to be a hassling seat-mate, nor

—

did I want to be seated next to same.

We pulled out of Winnipeg into prairie—what else?—and

argins M

she nibbled her apple down to thread and cartilage, peeling

o N

the flesh off the translucent carapace with her small teeth.

She folded the seeds up in her hand and asked what I was

reading. I showed her the cover of the book. Is it any good?

she asked.

Yes. I think so.

It’s about cod?

Yes. Codfish.

That never made sense to me, she said. Codfish. Tunafish.

We don’t say robinbird, we don’t say chickenbird. Why

tunafish?

Bluebird? I said. Mockingbird, mynah bird, hummingbird.

I knew there were more but I was running out of them, those

were all I could think of. Even as I spoke, the rebuttal to my

argument was obvious and I blushed with embarrassment.

Except for mynah, perhaps, which I would have to look up,

they were all adjective-birds, whereas tunaness was not a par-

ticular attribute of a fish. Or was it? From whence did tuna

stem? This, too, I would have to look up. (And now I do:

Latin, thunnus. Mynah is from Hindi. No meaning given.

They are just names.)

If she noticed my shoddy logic she certainly didn’t care.

She had made her point. She had moved on. So tell me about

codfish, she said. Are you from Newfoundland?

No.

Okay. Tell me about codfish.

Would it make a difference if I was?

I’m just wondering why you’d be interested in codfish.

Isn’t everyone? Aren’t you?

I am now, she said.

So I told her what the book had told me, about cod wars

and ghost nets, nets separated from their ships that rise with

107

their bloated, useless catch and fall, rise and fall.

—

Have you ever caught a codfish? she asked. I shook my

Anne

head.

We should go cod-fishing when we get to the coast.

Fleming

My first thought was that Pacific cod are a garbage fish,

that you wouldn’t want to catch one, but I didn’t say that. I

said, Okay.

How did she know I was going to the coast? I might have

been going to Medicine Hat.

In the observation car, she befriended others, introduced

me to them. She got us to play Murder, a card game in which

the person who gets the queen of spades must kill the other

players by winking at them. It was the unlikeliest thing, this

crowd of fat American tourists and well-heeled Japanese

tourists and a bright, white-haired Saskatchewan farm wife

whose husband had died and who was going to visit her daugh-

ter in Vancouver, and two young white dudes from rich

Ontario families going out tree planting. They kept trying to

hit on my friend. To my pleasure, she quite obviously pre-

ferred the white-haired farm lady to the two boys, and quite

possibly me to the white-haired farm lady.

Back in our seats trying to settle down for the night, I

read more about cod and she read a novel. Then she asked me

what I’d been doing in Winnipeg and I told her. She asked if I

got along with my sister and I said yes, anyone would get along

with my sister, she was wonderful. I asked if she had any sib-

lings, and she said yes, three sisters and two half-brothers.

Their allegiances were constantly shifting; lately they were all

off on her, but that was all right because she didn’t really like

any of them either. She guessed she was running away.

I couldn’t tell what kind of family she might come from.

She might be the child of a carpenter and a nurse in a small

Ottawa Valley town, of a wealthy anglo banker with a French-

Canadian wife from Montréal, or a wealthy francophone

banker with an anglophone wife. She might be an orphan from

Nova Scotia, a dental hygienist’s daughter from Fredericton, a

professor’s daughter from Guelph, a mill worker’s daughter

108

from Sudbury. When I asked where she was from, she said

—

she’d lived a lot of places. Military, I thought.

As we rode the train together, I was—I realize in retro-

argins M

spect—careful where my arm rested, which way my head

o N

flopped as I dozed in the rocking of the train. You’re too old

for her, intimated the furtive, wordless homunculus lodged in

the crypt of my inner mind. You’re the wrong sex. I think. (The

homunculus and I have ever been foggy on such matters.)

I assumed, as I am wont to do, that she couldn’t possibly

be interested in me. This had so often happened to be true

that I had long given up its ever being otherwise. I was like

Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot. I was very like Jack Lemmon

in Some Like it Hot.

And so I took the sympathetic looks, the seeking out of

my eyes, my understanding, the resting of her forearm next to

mine, of her cheek on my shoulder, as carelessness.

The pear, actually, to tell the truth, is a bit mealy. I don’t

know how to tell a love story. There is so very little to it. Two

days on a train. Five days in Vancouver. We were supposed to

go fishing the next day. I had us booked. I put it on my cred-

it card.

I’ve let it sit too long, the pear.

We arrived in Vancouver late Friday afternoon and took a

taxi to my house. It was early summer and my horticulturally-

inclined downstairs neighbours Burt and Val were out putting

in new grasses in their ever-evolving garden.

They asked how the baby was, how my sister was. They

pretended to take the presence of my companion in stride.

You must be Val and Burt, she said, before I could answer.

Nice to meet you.

I blushed. This is Sara, I said. Sara’s going to stay with me

a few days.

Great, said Val, raising her eyebrows at me.

Hey, said Burt to Sara, raising his eyebrows at Val.

The baby’s marvellous, I said. A wonder. Her little hands,

109

her little eyebrows. You could count the hairs. Verna is over

—

the moon.

Anne

Sara clutched my arm. Your sister’s name is Verna? she

said. I am the biggest idiot. Why didn’t you say something?

Fleming

Why didn’t you punch me?

Burt and Val raised their eyebrows at each other. I knew

what they meant. There was a falseness to this intimacy. Sara

didn’t know me but was acting like she did. Despite being

embarrassing, this gave me pleasure.

Inside, she examined my apartment, peering at the book-

shelves, the CDs, the pictures on the wall, the pictures on the

fridge (exhausted-looking sister with newborn; Gwendy at the

bird sanctuary, holding Bob’s arm and smiling), the contents of

the fridge (scant). She was finding out all about me in the way

that two kinds of people do—– people who are curious about

everyone and want to know everything about how other peo-

ple live (she was one of these people) and people who would-

n’t normally do this but want to eat everything up about this

person they’ve just met. She might have been one of those

people, too.

On the train she’d asked what I worked at.

I am a parasitologist.

I didn’t ask what you are, I asked what you work at.

There is not really any difference. I work at studying par-

asites.

Why do you have to have an -ologist to define yourself? If

you lost your job, say, and no longer worked at that thing, what

would the I am mean then? You are more than your job, the

wholeness of you.

I would be an unemployed parasitologist.

She was quiet and I thought she was sulking, but after a

moment she said, You just like saying the word, don’t you?

Parasitologist.

No.

I lifted my book to my face and read for what in conver-

sational terms was a long time, twenty seconds maybe. Then I

said, wrapping my tongue lovingly around the word,

110—

Parasitologist. Parasitologist.

It was our first big laugh together. My first big laugh in a

argins

long time. She took it up, too, parasitologist, and for the next

M

few days we’d say it out loud, reverently, as if to ourselves,

o N

when the other was not expecting it.

Do you study parasites in cod? Codfish?

No. Fish, fish aren’t my thing.

What is your thing?

Animal parasites, domestic animals, farm animals. These

days, poultry.

Poultry? Chickens?

Turkeys. Ducks. Geese.

I want to keep a flock of geese.

Okay, I said.

And what sort of parasites do poultry have?

The usual sort. Worms. Bugs.

We were quiet. We fell asleep. When I awoke I felt her

eyes on me. Her accusing eyes.

You work for the poultry industry, don’t you?

I work for the university.

But who funds you?

There is some poultry money, yes.

Do you eat chicken?

I do.

You know how they are treated.

Free-range. I eat free-range chicken.

You’ll take their money, but won’t eat their chickens?

I shrugged. I grew up on a farm. After a pause, I went on.

Actually, free-range chickens are more apt to have parasites

than wire-grown chickens. It’s the contact with the ground.

That’s one of the things I’ve been studying: how do you con-

trol parasites in organic flocks?

Really? Her face just beamed. And? How do you?

I think she was genuinely interested. I really do.

Why don’t you live on a farm now? she asked.

111

I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.

—

Oh, come on. You could live on a farm somewhere, could-

Anne

n’t you?

I’d rather not.

Fleming

Why not? I’d love to live on a farm. You grow food, you

eat it. What could be more beautiful than that?

Many answers ran through my head: A painting? A sym-

phony? A good book? That is the most simplistic thing I’ve

ever heard. You have no idea, do you?

Nothing. Nothing, I said. That’s the thing. But she was

not interested in subtleties.

Why don’t you want to live on a farm?

And the next string ran through my head. The responsi-

bility. The bank. The stress. Rats. The hired man. (When Dad

had his stroke and had to move into the nursing home, I fired

him.) The way it never stopped. Failure. I couldn’t save the

farm. I tried. It burns me to this day, the memory of selling it,

the thought of who I sold it to.

I’ve never found anyone to live on a farm with, I heard

myself saying.

I’ll live on a farm with you, she said.

Of course, she was being glib. I knew that. She was joking.

Parasitologist. We had only just met. But if I am to be truthful

in my recollection, I must register that her words caused a

sensation in my abdomen, a tightening, a shimmering, noted

not so much by my conscious mind as by the part of my brain

that dealt with low-level daily idiocies of feeling that as a fool-

ish and unloved person I experienced. (Not the homunculus.

A blob next to it.) Down, Rover, down, that part of the brain

would have been saying if it could ever rouse itself to speech.

Okay, I said. Next stop, let’s get off, buy us a farm.

I’ll need a farm name, she said.

Not me, I’ve already got one. I laughed, but this kind of

joking was like a knife. Elmers and Velmas, the town kids

called us. Oh, Jesus, would you look at the Velmas.

Call me Verna, she said.

My eyes stung. But I laughed. I did. I laughed. Already she

112—

had me. Already I’d given up part of myself.

I want you to show me hidden Vancouver, she said that

argins

night. I didn’t know hidden Vancouver. When my sister or

M

cousins came to visit, I took them to an assortment of: the

o N

aquarium, Stanley Park, the Museum of Anthropology, the

Cypress lookout, a sushi restaurant on Cambie, Granville

Island, the Endowment Lands, Second Beach, Denman Street,

Robson Street, Van Dusen Gardens, Gastown. In short, all the

tourist places.

So she said, all right, we’ll find it together. We clinked

glasses and I got her sheets and blankets for the chesterfield

and both of us made up the bed she would lie in.

Thanks, she said. You’re a sweetheart. The universe will

repay you for your kindness.

Sure.

It will. Her eyes were green and clear as a tropical lagoon.

I place all my faith in the universe, I said. Good night.

It’s just the weekend, I thought. She knows I won’t be

working on the weekend and wants to use her tour guide while

she has one.

You’ve got a beard, she said the next morning as I poured cof-

fee. She reached out to stroke it where it had grown since the

day before. I tilted my head away. Do you shave it every day?

I nodded.

You’re a bearded lady.

Yes. Thank-you.

Sorry.

There are more of us than you’d think. Seriously. Start

looking. You’d be surprised. This is true. Bearded ladies—and

mustachioed ladies, let’s not forget them—are everywhere.

We are successful. We are down at heel. We have boyfriends,

girlfriends, husbands. We are tall and short, fat and thin,

Italian and Greek. Sorry, bad joke and not true either. Look at

113

me, German by descent. Look at the other bearded women I

—

know: Scandinavian, Punjabi, Iranian, Welsh. My bad joke

Anne

endangers my point, which is that we are—as members of

minority groups often say—just like everyone else.

Fleming

Have you ever thought of growing it?

Ask me next if I’ve thought of joining the circus.

Have you?

I gave her a look.

You asked me to ask you.

Though what bearded lady hadn’t? There were times I

longed for the old days when I could’ve made a living at it

instead of being a freak in no ways but one and having no tal-

ent for it.

A woman I worked with wanted me to grow it, I said. In

the eighties. She had just come out—one of those come-out-

screaming lesbian-feminists. She was convinced it was only a

matter of time before I did too. How I would screw the patri-

archy by growing a beard was beyond me. I went for electrol-

ysis instead.

Was it?

Was it what?

Just a matter of time.

No.

Her green eyes focused on me like an owl’s on its prey.

Later, on the skytrain out to Surrey (her idea—Nobody ever

shows you the suburbs, why is that?) she asked, If you went for

electrolysis, how come you still have—and instead of saying

beard again, she reached out and stroked that stretch of jaw-

line. A ludicrous pounding erupted in my chest.

Infection, I said with a rush of shame at not only having a

beard, but not being able to get rid of it properly. I pulled my

face away, though I longed to do the opposite, lean it into her

long, tree-froggy hand.

In the afternoon, I showed her the UBC farm, introduced

her to Chris, my grad student, showed her our chickens.

114—

This, she said, looking around, this is hidden Vancouver. I

could live here. She wanted to stay all afternoon. She wanted

argins

to help with the chores.

M

Awesome, said Chris, taking her to meet the other enthu-

o N

siastic scrubbed young things who ran the market garden. She

said she’d make her own way home.

That’s it, I thought, she’s gone. Youth has won her. This

struck me as beautiful, the idea of youth winning youth, the

idea of me as a conduit, delivering her to them, them to her.

Tears of recognition of the sublime ran down my face as I

walked to my office, where I stayed until nine.

My home was dark as I approached. Yes. Gone, I thought,

opening the door. Then my nostrils twitched: a baked some-

thing with garlic and cheese. I flicked on the lights.

Where’ve you been? Sara squinted from the chesterfield. I

made eggplant parmigiana for us.

At dinner she told me she’d decided to stay and volunteer

at the farm for a while. I don’t have to stay here. I could move

to the youth hostel if—

No, no, no—unless you’d—

No, I’d—

Cause if you—

I’d rather stay with you. She grinned in a particular way

then that made me hop up and clear the table.

Every day for the next week, we rode the bus together to

UBC, she spending her days at the farm, I starting off there,

then going to my office and crunching data.

Late Wednesday afternoon, I went back to the farm under

the pretence of straightening out data discrepancies with

Chris only to discover that he and Sara had gone to Wreck

Beach. Knowing he’d have to be back to coop the chickens for

the night, I left a message. He called at eight. Sara was not

with him. Nor was she, as on eggplant parmigiana night, at

115

home.

—

At 3:45, I heard the door click. Although I relaxed, I could

Anne

not fall back to sleep. Once I realized I wouldn’t sleep, I want-

ed to read, but was afraid if I turned my light on, Sara would

Fleming

interpret it as a) a veiled admonition for coming home late and

waking me, or b) evidence I’d been worried about her like a

waiting-up parent. I lay in the dark, telling myself she was act-

ing exactly as I had thought she would initially, and that this

was as it should be.

In the morning she was up at seven as usual. What was I

doing that night? she asked. Someone she’d met was doing a

fire dance for the summer solstice on Granville Island. We

went. The dancers were beautiful, as naked as they could get,

with their skin painted. Both men and women were muscular

and graceful, like panthers or snakes. Sara danced with leap-

ing, long-skirted, dyed-haired, nose-pierced types while the

drummers drummed and the rest of us bobbed in place and

the fire-dancers swung fire around their heads and behind

their backs and around their fronts and under their feet, and

the jugglers juggled fire and ate fire and we all felt the beat of

the drums and the heat of the fire and knew instinctively that

this was what civilization was all about, that primitivism and

civilization were the same thing, and this was it: sun, earth,

humans, drums, fire.

As we were leaving, we passed a VW van with the side

door open and three people playing hacky sack outside it, two

girls with army shorts and spaghetti-strap T-shirts, scarves

wound through their hair, and a boy in India cotton draw-

string pants. They blew kisses at Sara and called out some god-

dess greeting or other, Kali, Inanna, I don’t know.

The next morning, before she had a chance to allude to plans

she might have had, I suggested breakfast at the Ovaltine.

What’s the Ovaltine?

A diner. I wonder if they serve Ovaltine. My mother used

to drink Ovaltine.

116—

Ovaltine?

Kind of a cross between hot chocolate and coffee and

argins

malted milk.

M

Ovaltine.

o N

Parasitologist.

Can we get a newspaper? I love going out for breakfast

with a newspaper.

I grabbed a fold of The Vancouver Sun and draped it over

my head. Off we go, I said.

How come nobody’s snapped you up?

My heart stopped. I don’t know, I said. They just haven’t.

Ugly, is what I thought. Big teeth, big jaw, eyebrows like old

toothbrushes used to clean silver. Beard.

Off we went to the Ovaltine. A drunk with a husky on a

rope stopped us to ask for a light and oh yeah, how bout a

loonie, how bout your life savings, what the hell, come on,

how about yer ar-ar-ess-peeees, how bout you leave me in yer

will and die tomorrow, har har har, coughing fit, no, no, I’m

kiddin’ ya, no, I’m unna die first I’ll bet you that, you’re all

right, you two, you’re all right, thanks, me and my cur we

thank you, you have a nice day now.

After breakfast we walked down to Crabbe Park, another

place I’d never been, though I knew it was there, don’t know

how. My stomach felt all loopy. We stopped by the stone for

the women who’d died in the Downtown Eastside and she

leaned against my shoulder, folding herself into my side. Such

a beautiful place and then this, she said, hushed, clinging to

me. My hands hung at the ends of my arms, my arms hung out

of my shoulders. What was going on here? What was going

on?

She changed topics. Doesn’t it make you want to go for a

swim, just seeing the water?

No.

Come on. She took my hand. Let’s strip off all our clothes

and go for a swim.

117

She was touching me. She was touching me a lot. She was

—

holding my hand. She was taking my arm. She was taking me

Anne

back to Chinatown and we were talking about extreme sports

because we didn’t want to talk about prostitution and drugs

Fleming

and poverty and cultural genocide. I thought extreme sports

were evidence of a decadent culture and she thought they

were the perfect expression of human nature, the urge to test

ourselves, the urge to go beyond, the urge to be in our bodies,

the urge to compete, the urge to folly. And I said, Sara? What’s

going on? It was the bravest thing I’d said in about eight years,

but she didn’t answer and instead bought me the pear, a

Japanese pear shaped like an apple, flecked and golden-russet-

coloured and now half-eaten, discarded. I spit the last bite

out; close to the core it’s like eating a still-wet but drying

sponge.

I’ll save it for later, I said about the pear, putting it in my

pocket.

Come on, let’s go home, she said, grabbing my hand.

Home. That was the word she used.

At the bus stop she stood in front of me, right in front, her

back touched my front. She drew my arms around her waist.

On the bus she leaned her elbow on my shoulder to look out

the window.

You tell me. Was this a romance or wasn’t it?

We got home and played Scrabble. I booked the fishing

charter. In the late afternoon, I had a bath. I thought... I

thought she might join me. Instead, I was leaning back with a

washcloth over my eyes when she called my name and said she

was going out. I became aware of a rumbling from the street,

a characteristic rumbling. A Volkswagen rumbling. I waited

for and heard what came next, a low zhoosh as the van door

opened, zhoosh, shut. The shift from idle into gear.

That night I did wait up.

118—

The next day I heard from Chris that the van people knew

about a farm on Saltspring where you could stay as long as you

argins

liked provided you helped out.

M

And today I got a postcard: Dear Edna, Your rooms were

o N

too small and there were no geese. I want to live as if timeless-

ly. I know you loved me and I’m sorry.

This is to say: Sara, don’t flatter yourself. I would have

loved anybody.

119

Anne Fleming

— Anne

Anne Fleming’s most recent book is Anomaly, a novel. Her

first book, Pool-Hopping and Other Stories, was shortlisted for

Fleming

the Governor General’s Award, the Ethel Wilson Fiction

Prize, and the Danuta Gleed award. Anne Fleming lives in

Kelowna, BC, and teaches creative writing at the University of

British Columbia Okanagan.

121

Jane Eaton Hamilton

— Jane

Writer Notes

Eat

on

“ Wart’s Ugly ” came about when I was thinking about children

H

and sexual identity, children and enforced heterosexuality. As

amilt

a society, we are invested in funnelling children into gender

roles that are meant to cement and last a lifetime, and the

on

intransigent—the tomboys, in the case of some lesbians—are

to some greater or lesser degree shunned. They are given the

message that they don’t measure up. The slights—names like

Wart, teasing, ostracism—go in deep, and last a lifetime.

What happens when a little girl falls in love with another lit-

tle girl, and no one notices?

123

Jane Eaton Hamilton

— Jane

Wart’s Ugly

Eat

The children were not allowed to leave the property, but the

on

H

property at thirteen acres was large enough for injury. Both of

amilt

the older children and many of their friends had fetched up

wounded over the years. Casey had broken his ankle jumping

on

out of the hayloft onto a hill of straw, and had also had a flap

of flesh from the tip of his thumb consumed by a snapping

turtle. They had all of them been stung by bees, wasps, hor-

nets. A man in a trench coat had exposed himself to Wart

while she crouched on her knees nursing a flap-winged

killdeer. Another man had touched Wart when, topless, she

had manned a corn-on-the-cob and lemonade stand with

Casey at the end of the driveway. It had been August; it was

hot; even the dog had been panting and dragging (that’s why

they were called dog days, Wart’s father said). Casey was bare-

chested, so why couldn’t she be? She didn’t have boobies,

knockers, bazooms. Her chest looked exactly the same as

Casey’s, only littler.

“You a girlie?”

Wart had stubbed her thongs on the grass, had looked up

at him with thinned eyes. He was just a regular man. When

she’d admitted, surly, that sure she was—who wanted to

know?—the man reached out a thick, stubby index finger and

rubbed its end over her left nipple, causing it to pucker. Wart

knocked his hand away. When he got back into his

Oldsmobile, she threw his nickel after him. It rolled on edge

down Porcupine Hill before guttering out.

Casey’s friend, who was also named Casey, had whopped

Wart’s brother with a maple branch and slashed open his

cheek so it needed stitches. Wart had fallen off her bike so

many times she didn’t know what scabless knees looked like.

Wart had tried to balance across the paddock fence and had

taken a tumble, spraining her wrist. Wart was thrown off hors-

es and suffered cut lips and bloody noses; sometimes at night

124—

she picked her nose, and things commenced to bleeding until

she could tease out ropes like red licorice from where they had

argins

coiled somewhere inside her—veins, she figured.

M

Wart’s best friend Wendy had cut herself on glass when

o N

Wart smashed out one of the little multiple panes on the

locked tack house windows so she could slip her hand in and

unlock the window latch, then swing herself over the sill and

pull Wendy up behind her. (They had to buy the replacement

windows for twenty-five cents apiece at the hardware store

and putty them back in themselves. That was always the

penalty Wart’s father meted out.) Wart had taken Wendy’s

wrist in her hand and sucked off the blood, then chased

Wendy around the tack house hooting like a vampire. Wendy

said Wart should cut herself too, so Wart did, and they

mashed their wrists together as blood sisters. Wart’s other sis-

ter was baby Delora. Wart had stolen her baby-bottle warmer

and used it to boil a pocket full of rhubarb stalks she mixed

with sugar. Being able to make her own rhubarb stew and dole

it out on a twisted kitchen spoon mouthful by mouthful to

Wendy satisfied her. There were built-in bunks in the tack

house, and Wart and Wendy curled up tight reading Archie

comics. They tugged off the horsehair mattress and slats

below so they could crawl under the built-in table that joined

the bunks—their fort—before teasing the mattress back on

top to be pitched into blackness. Wendy was scared and

always had to cuddle into Wart for protection, but Wart had

matches for light and pretzels to smoke, the ends of which

reluctantly began to smolder with enough porosity for an imi-

tation of draw. They were eight years old, but they imagined

they were sixteen.

Casey, Wendy’s brother, broke his finger in one of the stall

doors. Wendy bashed her ear falling against the workbench.

Casey and Wendy were big brother and little sister, but even

though the boys had the same name, and Wendy and Wart

had the same first initial, they were not the same family. The

125

name thing was just coincidental, a word Wart’s wordsmith

—

father shared and that Wart was fond of.

Jane

The children were allowed to get injured in all manner of

ways. It was expected. The children were only enjoined from

Eat

dying.

on

Hamilt

Before she was pregnant with Delora, Wart’s mother had been

on

in the hospital. Wart’s father had taken her there. It was a spe-

cial hospital for people like your mother. There had been a lot of

screaming and throwing of the Globe and Mail; Wart’s parents

not realizing Casey and Wart were roped around the staircase

spindles, spying. A couple days later, her father led Wart’s

docile, bruised, stumbling mother to the Chevy by her wrist

and pushed her into the back seat as if she were a suitcase.

The housekeeper came to stay with Casey and Wart. Elsie had

a rule that every child must have a bath before bed, and when

she tucked Wart in, she opened her pajama top and spread

Vicks VapoRub on her chest while she talked about Wart’s

mother. “Such pretty lady, but oh, cuckoo. What is cereal?

Fruit Loop. She fruit loop, your mama. You know what is

this?” She lifted a finger thick with Vicks to her temple and

circled it.

Wart thought of the cuckoo clocks that chimed on the

hour. “My mom’s getting better,” she said. “She’s going to

come home.”

“Maybe I always to be look after you.”

“My mom’s coming home,” insisted Wart and twisted away

to face the wall.

As if by magic and wishes, Wart’s mother did reappear,

but she was not the same mother. She was pinched around her

mouth as if by staples, and if it had been hard to ignite her

attention before, it was worse now. Wart’s mother sat at the

kitchen table with her shoulders slumped, crying. Sometimes

she threw coffee cups that broke against the range. Elsie

snorted and packed up her bags and carried them up the road

to the bus stop. Wart’s mother paced and muttered and obses-

126—

sively twirled a finger in her hair. The days and months passed.

She got pregnant; she bore Delora, then jiggled her like a bas-

argins

ketball she was trying to hold aloft.

Mo N

Wart knew her mother just wanted them out of her hair. Her

hair, she often insisted, was a robin’s nest (or a bear’s nest, or

a rabbit’s nest lined with down, depending on her mood).

Where before her hair had never looked the part, after the

hospital it did. She hardly ever washed it. Her twirling finger

caused snags like the clumps of used straw Wart shovelled

from the horse stalls. Wart’s mother maintained that she had

eyes in the back of her head, which allowed sight of her chil-

dren’s misdeeds. Wart was skeptical while in general

awestruck by adults’ superior deductive powers. Her grade

three teacher, for instance, had accepted a note excusing Wart

from gym and had pulled Wart aside. Had Wart’s mother real-

ly written it? Wart had wracked her brain over how Mrs.

Kilmore had seen through her duplicity, and finally realized

that writing the note in pencil had given her away. Wart’s

mother always knew when Wart had eaten an illicit Wagon

Wheel. She knew when Wart was just pretending to sleep. At

night, while they watched Ed Sullivan or Carol Burnett, Wart

cocooned in her baby doll pajamas, Wart finger-combed her

mother’s knotted dreadlocks looking for the fabled pair of

extra eyes. Her mother swatted her hand away and told her to

stop being a bug. She hated having kids in her hair. Wasn’t

Wart smart enough to grasp that? Her mother was busy with

the baby.

After lunch—Wart’s mother was babysitting Casey and

Wendy for the day, which to Wart was having heaven fall in

her lap—their mother had told them to skedaddle, but to

stick close by. “Stay where I can find you,” she said. “You

127

might have to go over to your grandparents’ later.” She eyed

—

them suspiciously. “Stay in the house.”

Jane

Casey grabbed a can of their father’s frog legs (of the order

Anura, Wart’s father had said, lifting one of the slimy things

Eat

to his mouth, winking). Wart ran after her brother chanting,

on

“Casey’s a big old Rana catesbeiana, Casey’s a big old Rana

Hamilt

catesbeiana.” Casey yelled back that Wart was the ugly one.

“Wart’s ugly, Wart’s ugly, Wart’s ugly,” he screamed. “Wart has

on

warts!” Wart felt the short bristles of her near brush cut. Sister

and brother leaped into the basement past the gnawed dog’s

bed and the newspapers Casey claimed would spontaneously

combust (like fat people , he said) to the root cellar with its spi-

der webs and wet dampness, its mouldering shelves, its

exposed light bulb, its dirt floors. The Caseys flipped the latch

behind them and blocked the door so Wart and Wendy could-

n’t leave. They pried open the can of frog legs and tried to

make the girls, who squealed, swallow some. Wart’s mother

yelled down to cut out the racket. The boys puffed their

chests up and held their noses and let the webbed feet of the

frogs slide down their esophaguses. The boys were hoping to

give themselves botulism or ptomaine poisoning, which Casey,

Wart’s brother, insisted was what would happen if the atom

bomb went off. Casey, Wendy’s brother, said they would have

to grab all the frog legs in the cupboard and rush down here

where they would have to live until they were old. Wart stared

at the shelves of dusty preserves.

“Know how you have to get under your desk at school

when the drill goes?”

Wendy nodded.

“You have to stay like that for months.”

“Do not,” said Wart, but she wasn’t positive.

“With your hands over the back of your neck,” added the

other Casey.

After Wart’s mother had come home from the hospital,

Wart’s hair had fallen out. Until then, she had been a little girl

128—

in braided pigtails fastened with tiny plastic pink bows, her

fine hair pulled tight against her skull, but afterwards stray

argins

hairs began to ripple from her hands to the floor. It didn’t

M

alarm her more than the long clots of blood she pulled from

o N

her nose. She was a tomboy. Tomboys had all kinds of weird

things happen.

Wart’s mother got around to grooming her.

“Where do you get this snaggledy mess?” said Wart’s

mother, exasperated as she yanked through a comb. She

looked down at it, then lifted up Wart’s chin to get a better

look. “Your hair is falling out.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Wart.

Wart’s mother snorted. “You haven’t noticed?” Wart’s

mother stroked the child’s hair with her fingers and caused a

rain around Wart’s face. She wearily shook her head, stood up,

and paced as if she didn’t realize where she was. She sighted

Wart again like looking down a telescope. “Genevieve, under-

stand this. Listen to me closely because this is important. I am

the electrical current gone wonky, the spark, the sizzle in the

wires behind the walls.”

“What?”

“The income tax,” said Wart’s mother. “The sales tax. The

audit. I am the ‘F’ in Arithmetic, the mumps and the measles,

the scraped knees.”

Wart had thought only kids could be those things.

“I am the fly in the Campbell’s mushroom soup, the coons

in the trash cans. The stillborn foal in the barn. Your father’s

flat rubber tire. Who did it? It’s a foregone Clue game: me in

the kitchen with a milk bottle.”

Murder? Who did murder? thought Wart.

“You kids spread around Jerseyville like DDT. You’re

weeds, Genevieve, you and your brother.”

“We’re not weeds,” said Wart. Her father killed weeds in

the lawn with a spray can. All the grass around them shrivelled

up and died.

129

“A man and a woman lay a frame of two-by-fours and pour

—

forth a child.” Wart’s mother’s hands exclaimed, fluttering

Jane

around her head like fledgling swallows. She looked into the dis-

tance. Wart looked too, but all she could see was a night-black

Eat

window. “Don’t you get it? If the frame is weak, it breaks and the

on

child gushes out any which way, drying with each passing day

Hamilt

until she is set so hard only a jackhammer can pierce her.”

Wart frowned. She knew about jackhammers. A bubble-

on

head boy had crawled into a pothole on their road and been

crushed by a car; men came and jackhammered the road apart.

(Also, thought Wart, right around there a huge turtle had got-

ten squashed, and its guts had looked like spaghetti noodles.)

“Genevieve, I am the mouse that ate through the base-

board.”

“You’re not a mouse, Mommy,” said Wart. This she knew.

This she could have confidence about. She herself had nur-

tured a shoebox of mice babies, feeding them with an eye-

dropper; she knew everything about mice.

Wart’s mother blinked, then looked at her daughter and

seemed to actually see her, not just as a prop but as someone

real, someone she knew, and she sank onto the edge of the bed

and touched Wart’s cheek. “I’m not? Little you know, oh

spawn-of-mine. Then where’s the mouse?” She snatched up

Wart’s hand too hard, circled her index finger on Wart’s palm.

“Round and round the garden, goes the teddy bear. One

step—” And here her fingers hopped up Wart’s arm. Wart

laughed and screamed. “—Two steps. Tickle you under there.

Three steps, four steps—” She tangled her fingers in Wart’s

hair. “How’d that mouse get in your hair?” When her mother

took her hand away, they both stared at it. It was covered with

a snarly clump that dangled like an oriole’s nest.

Wart’s mother took her to the doctor. Wart sat on the

cold edge of his examining table while he shaved her bald. She

had a paintbrush spatter of freckles over her nose and now

exposed warts on her scalp, too—six warts that looked like

periods on the ends of many missing sentences. Wart’s moth-

er sewed baby bonnets for her in robin’s egg blue corduroy.

130—

They tied under her chin in bows. In school, when Wart felt

her head, the bonnet was moist with leaking medicine.

argins Mo N The children clappered up to the attic. They passed the fat,

doomed flies buzzing around the grimy windows, then rum-

maged through stacks of newspapers about the war and a guy

named Winston Churchill their mother had a crush on, then

through their father’s wartime trunk. When Wart had asked

her father what he’d done in the RAF, her mother had

laughed.

“Did you see action?” Casey had asked.

Her father picked his banjo and looked up at him to smile.

“Sure I did,” he said. “I was stationed in England.”

“The only action your father ever saw,” interrupted their

mother dryly, “was the blade of a moving potato peeler.”

In the trunk were medals, which Wart pinned on Wendy’s

chest over the boys’ objections, and thick socks with holes,

and sepia photographs, and a uniform, and a sharp smell of

mothballs.

Wendy unpinned the medals and threw them at her broth-

er. The boys ran downstairs to make a balsa wood plane.

Wendy said, “Uh? We could play Barbies.” She opened her

Barbie carrying case and showed off a brand new doll with

waterfalling yellow hair that she’d gotten for her birthday.

This Barbie wore a tight skirt that came down below her

knees like the ones Wart’s mother wore for appointments,

along with a sweater set in green, and a chain of tiny pearls. All

Wart’s Barbie dolls had brush cuts Wart had given them, along

with missing limbs, scratches, and discolourations. Wart pre-

ferred them. Most of their accessories were lost. She still had

one tiny pink mule with feathers on the toe and one alligator

handbag, but otherwise the accessories had all gone missing,

tiny high heels and hats vacuumed up into Elsie’s Hoover.

Wendy crooned to her Barbie as if it were a baby with a pull

131

cord who was going to answer. Wart felt stirrings of jealousy.

—

“I know,” said Wart and dug through silver-belled boxes

Jane

that contained her mother’s wedding gown and the dresses

her bridesmaids had worn, which were the same but in blue.

Eat

She threw a dress to Wendy, which surrounded the girl like a

on

dress-up cloud. They weren’t supposed to go near the white

Hamilt

one itself, but the bridesmaids’ gowns were fair game as long

as they were exceedingly careful. (Wart’s father said the word

on

exceedingly, a four-syllable word, was to be used to refer to

excess.) Wendy took her top and shorts off but left on her

undershirt and panties. Wart left all her clothes on. They

struggled into the flounces and swishes of material and point-

ed at each other, giggling maniacally. The dresses were far too

big; the straps hung down past their chests; the waists coddled

the tops of their thighs. They slipped into old, unmatching

high heels that had belonged to Wart’s mother and clunked

around the attic pretending to be society ladies with ciga-

rettes in holders and glasses of champagne.

When that game wasn’t fun anymore, Wendy knelt down

and gathered up her Barbie, roping its hair into a ponytail

between her thumb and index finger, carefully tucking it back

into the carrying case with its Barbie-sized closet. There was

a space for clothes, too, with miniature plastic pink hangers

from which hung ball gowns easily as fancy as the ones the

girls wore.

“How come you don’t have long hair?” Wendy asked.

“’Cause I was bald.”

“I know, but you’re not bald anymore, so how come?”

“Beats me. My mom won’t let me.”

“But short hair is ugly. It’s for boys.”

“Let’s go outside,” said Wart. She could feel heat on the

tips of her ears, knew she was flaming with blush. If Wendy

thought she was ugly, then Wart wanted long hair.

“Your mom won’t let us,” said Wendy looking up.

“Will so. She always does.”

“My mom and dad will be coming to get us.”

“Not till after dinner, Mom said,” said Wart. She couldn’t

132—

bear it when Wendy had to go home; the rest of the night was

like flat Ginger Ale.

argins

“We’re moving,” said Wendy.

M

Wart thought about the word moving. One time, a kid in

o N

school had moved from one house to another house on the

next street over. “No way,” she finally said.

“Yes, way. We are.” Wendy nodded. She was painstakingly

itemizing accessories, organizing hats and purses and a mink

stole the size of a Band-Aid. “That’s where my parents are.

They’re at our new house. They took us last weekend.”

“You never told.”

“We weren’t allowed.” She glanced up at Wart. Wart could

see she was nervous “’Cause it’s in Toronto.”

Toronto was not in their town. Once, a kid in school had

gone to India for a year, but it was more like he was a Casper

the Friendly Ghost who winked gone for a while, and then

winked back. “That’s not true.”

“Is so,” said Wendy. “Wednesday is my last day of school.

We have to move for my dad’s work. I have to go to a new

school. My new teacher’s name is Mrs. Morris.”

Wart had memorized every inch of Wendy. Everyone said

they looked like sisters, except for Wendy had long hair and

darker eyes. Wart knew how Wendy turned her head. She

knew how she looked laughing and crying. She knew which

games she was good at—Double Dutch and Red Rover Come

Over—and which she was bad at—baseball, basketball, volley-

ball. She knew which subjects Wendy liked and that she hated

Wart’s favourite thing, reading, which was why Wart always

read to her instead of the reverse. They had been in the same

class since kindergarten. Wendy had ridden bareback behind

Wart, her sweaty body clinging as they went over jumps

singing It was an itsy, bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikini.

They took swimming lessons together. They took ballet les-

sons together. They took figure skating lessons together. They

spent every free minute together in a way Wart’s father called

133

inseparable (five syllables ). Wart couldn’t talk. She wanted to

—

throw her hands over her ears and scream in her loudest voice.

Jane

She said, “Last one down is a rotten egg,” and yanking the

bridesmaid dress up above her knees, she sprinted for the

Eat

stairs.

on

In Casey’s room as Wart hovered, Wendy bent to smooth

Hamilt

a decal on the boys’ biplane. Wart said she’d forgotten some-

thing and ran back up to the attic. She kept an ear out for

on

Wendy. She opened Wendy’s Barbie case and snapped the

head off Wendy’s new doll. She stuck her hand down the chest

of the dress and stuffed it in her shorts pocket.

A couple nights earlier, Wart had seen her father grab her

mother’s elbow and whisper harshly, “This has to stop.”

“Don’t touch me,” said her mother.

They stood glowering at each other, buzzing like the elec-

tric fence in the field, then he said, “I saw you.”

“Let me go,” said her mother, twisting away, nursing her

elbow.

Wart’s father noticed Wart. “Genevieve, go to your room.”

When she didn’t move, he said, “At once, young lady!” He

looked back at Wart’s mother. “You’re not too big to take over

my lap.”

“I’d like to see you try it.” Her mother’s ribs rode in and

out.

“I will try it, you bitch.”

“Like you’ve ever been a saint,” said Wart’s mother. “Like

you’re a bloody war hero.”

“At least I’m not a lunatic.”

“At least I’m not you,” said Wart’s mother and spat at his

feet.

They looked like they had just finished a relay race. Sweat

was popping above Wart’s father’s upper lip; her mother

looked winded.

The next day, on the back porch, Wart had found her

father’s banjo shattered in pieces like a split apart bale of

134—

straw, bits scattered everywhere. His hard-shelled suitcase was

upright, a thin piece of worn undershirt protruding from its

argins

side. She bumped it over, flattening banjo bits, and tried to

M

open it, but it was locked. A bobby pin worked. Her father’s

o N

clothes—his jodhpurs, his suits, his dirty socks and underwear,

his riding boots and spurs, his ties—were mashed into a big

muddle.

After the kids had played an exuberant game of horse, neigh-

ing and galloping from the den through the kitchen and foyer

and dining room back into the den, chasing each other with

Wart’s father’s spanking paddle (which hung by the telephone:

Show your family you really care, spank them soundly bottoms bare),

shrieking, and had begged for cookies, and milk, and bugged

her for Play-Doh, Wart’s mother’s patience finally wore thin.

It was something like toffee being pulled to its breaking point,

she explained—did they want her to break? “Vamoose,” she

said, jiggling Delora. “Scram. Don’t leave the property. Do not

leave the property. Do not drown.” The children understood

that their mother really meant: Don’t get into any trouble I need

to get you out of, and, Don’t go near the valley.

Water was considered to be the most dangerous of all the

perils awaiting the children. Water could prove fatal and in

fact the prior owners had lost their teenaged son in the pond

when his ankle had become snared by weeds. When Wart had

been nearly two and her inattentive mother had been sun-

bathing, she misplaced Wart. Her mother thought the child

was playing by her feet, but when, sometime later, she woke

up shivering, the sun was behind a cloud and the girl was

nowhere to be found.

“Where’s your sister?” Wart’s mother took off her sun-

glasses and stared at her son. He was only four and shrugged.

His mother took his shoulders and shook. “I said, where is

your sister?”

135

Wart’s mother panicked, frantic—frantic to find the baby,

—

but just as frantic about what people would think. She skit-

Jane

tered across the property searching the tack house, the win-

dow house, the chicken coop, the tool shed, the garage, the

Eat

garbage lean-to. Finally, hoarse from calling, with Casey whin-

on

ing as she tugged him, she bolted into the house to call the fire-

Hamilt

men. They arrived ten minutes later with sirens blaring, their

red trucks taking out low maple boughs as they sped up the

on

driveway. They searched the property fruitlessly, ranging fur-

ther afield with Wart’s mother in tow, finally weaving at the lip

of the murky pond with its reeds and grasses, its unnameable

depths, scanning for a sign of ruffled diaper, Wart diving like a

duck, tail in air. An older man pointed out where the previous

child had gone under. Two others conferred about plans to

dredge; they were sorry, they said, their eyes slipping to where

Wart’s mother’s shirt was undone, her baby blue polka-dotted

bikini top exposed, her hip canted; they were sorry for the

tanned young mother in orange pedal pushers.

It was then a fireman loudspeakered down from the

house—the baby had been found between the front door and

the screen, had rolled into the foyer like an orange off a gro-

cery pile, perfectly round, perfectly unblemished, perfectly

fine.

Even so, Wart’s father had the pond drained.

“You go with Casey,” said Wart’s brother. “Me and Wendy’ll

play.”

Wart grabbed Wendy and clung tight. “Nuh-uh, she’s

mine. That’s the rule. Boys together, girls together.”

“Not for Bum Show Club,” said Wart’s brother.

“They’re babies,” said Wendy’s brother Casey. “Dumb old

babies. Let’s go.” The boys leaped the stream and disappeared

into the aspen forest. The girls were too small to jump, but

down by the mouth of the marsh there were stepping stones.

The marsh was the best place for finding the strings of frog

eggs in long ropes of mucus that looped like nosebleeds, each

136—

egg the size and shape of a cap gun cap on a red paper strip. It

was the best place to fish tadpoles from the water; the best

argins

place to spy warty toads; the best place for sinking in gooey

M

mud to your knees—quicksand, Wart and Wendy always pre-

o N

tended. Wart helped Wendy cross over, and they tracked the

boys. When they found them, the boys were undressed and

jumped around cupping their privates and ordering them to

bugger off. Wart and Wendy retreated to the edge of the

grove, where the light was dappled, and stood around uncer-

tainly. Usually the boys orchestrated the activity, yelled over

what to do. Wart was discombobulated (a really good six sylla-

bles; almost as good as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) and sort

of mad. Mad like the niggle of a knife down her esophagus

(good for its great gutlike sound). When Wendy asked Wart

what they should do, Wart replied, “Well, I dunno. Take your

clothes off, I guess.”

“I don’t want to,” said Wendy and formed an ‘X’ of her

arms over her chest.

“Do it, though.”

“No. I won’t. You can’t make me.” Wendy’s eyes thinned.

“You have to.”

“No way, José.”

Wart stuck out her tongue and turned her back. She sup-

posed Wendy would stomp off, but she was curious to see. She

waited, but instead Wendy touched her shoulder. “Don’t be

mad,” Wendy whispered in a skinny voice. “Wart, come off it.

I’ll do it, okay? I will. I’ll be good.”

“You don’t get to wear anything,” Wart said between grit-

ted teeth. She refused to turn around. “It’s the Bum Show

Club.”

“But I don’t want the boys to see.”

“They don’t care.” Wart planted her arms emphatically

across her chest. “They don’t even know we’re alive.”

She heard a susurration and wheeled. Wendy had stripped

down to her underwear and a second later she was naked.

137

Suddenly, Wart hated everything about Wendy—her shape-

—

less, powerless girl’s body, the planes of her too familiar face,

Jane

the knobbly-knock knees covered with healing scars, the pale

skin where her bathing suit went. She wanted Wendy to move

Eat

away. She heard a muffled scream across the copse and

on

stepped around a tree trunk to look. Her brother was slung

Hamilt

over the crotch of a tree, his bottom tilted into the air, an

unnerving, exposed pink. Wendy’s brother was using the pad-

on

dle. It gave Wart a queasy feeling. She didn’t quite trust boys,

their bigness, their body strength, the way Casey always

dragged her across fresh cut grass until she was stained green

as an inchworm, how he made her kiss his feet before she

could leave the house.

The dress was a blue pool at Wendy’s feet, like a pond she

had just stepped into that was rising to drown her. Wendy

tried to make the bifurcated ‘V’ at her lower torso vanish by

crossing her legs in contorted ways.

“No,” said Wart, “don’t. Just stand.”

Wendy shot a worried look to Wart. Her eyes were as dark

as tarnished silver, subterranean and flashing. But she did it.

She gave in. The fluid lines of her body shifted, her shoulders

straightened, her nothing hips fell into line. This was a new

Wendy, one Wart had never seen—calm, self-possessed, rec-

onciled, challenging. Wart was flummoxed (two syllables, but a

word that sounded harder) and awestruck. She leaned forward

and touched the tiny pink mouse nose of Wendy’s right nip-

ple. She strummed it as her father strummed “Clementine” on

his banjo.

Captivated, she watched her finger, felt the nipple stiffen-

ing beneath it, watched goosebumps break out across Wendy’s

body until the hairs on her arms stood up in the backlighting

of the lowering sun like sparkling frosting. Wendy intook her

breath. Wart strummed “Home on the Range,” then stopped,

looked up. Something turned over inside Wart, a desire she

had been denying harbouring. She wanted to be Wendy’s hus-

band. Wart dropped her finger. Their faces were two inches

apart. Wart took Wendy’s chin between her index finger and

138—

thumb the hard way her mother did it to her to comb her hair

and put her other arm around Wendy’s waist, pulling her close.

argins

She didn’t know what to do after that except kiss her, so that’s

M

what she did; she kissed Wendy’s lips and was surprised at how

o N

soft they felt. Sometimes Wart kissed mirrors or glass to leave

an oily, puckery imprint of her lips, but this was not cold and

hard like that. This was warm and pliable. Wendy started to

kiss her back, her lips parting, but then Wendy’s tongue wig-

gled towards Wart like a snake, surprising her, and something

between them shattered, a spell, and Wart let go suddenly, and

Wendy stumbled backwards, her feet catching in the net of

dress, and she fell backwards, her left hand finding purchase

on the loam of the forest floor. Her legs flung apart and Wart

saw the inside of her privates. Wendy saw her see.

Wendy scrambled up, pushed Wart, grabbed the dress and

ran, sobbing. Wendy was only ten feet away at the edge of the

marsh, when she looked around wildly and found a rock the

size of a baseball, which she heaved overhand like a girl. She

couldn’t throw, she was known as a terrible thrower, but Wart

knew the rock was going to hit its target anyhow. She didn’t

move. She felt its impact on the side of her head at the same

instant that out of the corner of her eye she registered the

boys coming closer and the ball of blue nude that was Wendy

fleeing across the marsh, hopping from stone to stone, the

dress dangling in the water, picking up mud and lily pads. At

the far bank, she scrambled up on hands and knees, then

turned and stared back at Wart, her chest heaving. Wart saw

rather than felt blood splashing on her own dress and skin.

With as much dignity as she could muster, Wendy yanked on

the bridesmaid dress and stomped up the hillside through

long, impeding grasses and gopher holes.

That night when Wart was in bed, the light on, reading a

Nancy Drew book, her mother dropped out of nowhere onto

139

the side of her bed and hovered there like an anxious mosqui-

—

to. She said that Wendy’s mother had called and that Wendy

Jane

was missing her new Barbie doll’s head. Had Wart seen the

goddamned thing?

Eat

“No,” said Wart.

on

“You stole it, didn’t you? That would be so like you.”

Hamilt

Wart’s mother picked at her eyebrows, which were already so

thin from her thinning that she had to draw them in in penci-

on

ly arcs. She also didn’t have any eyelashes left. “Let me check

that scalp.” She picked at the dried blood on the side of Wart’s

head.

Wart twisted away. “No. I didn’t take her dumb old doll

head. Dolls are for sissies.”

“Tell me what happened today. Those dresses are ruined.”

“I told you. I fell. It was an accident.”

Her mother let out a long, mad sigh. Wart wondered if she

was opening the hidden eyes that could see Wart’s crimes. She

narrowed the set Wart could see. “Know something? It doesn’t

matter anyway. Who cares if you took it? The little bitch is

moving. You’re not going to see her again anyway. I never liked

her, and I never appreciated that holier-than-thou mother of

hers making me babysit. Like she never lost track of one of her

goddamned kids. Like the milk in her fridge never went off.”

Wart was scared. She wanted to say Wendy couldn’t move,

that someone had to stop her. She wanted to say that she liked

Wendy plenty, that she always had, that Wendy was her best

friend, her bestest friend and she loved her. Except that she

didn’t. She hated Wendy. “Why’s Dad’s stuff outside?”

Her mother snorted.

“What happened to his banjo?”

Wart’s mother popped up like a jack-in-the-box. She

twisted opened Wart’s closet and swiped dresses and blouses

and Wart’s jodhpurs off hangers and flung them onto Wart’s

floor. She took out Wart’s cardboard suitcase and snapped it

open on the end of Wart’s bed. The mattress barely bounced.

“Genevieve, your asshole fath—”

“What?” said Wart. “What?” Her mother started scooping

140

undershirts and underpants from her dresser, cramming them

—

in the suitcase, sweeping the clothes on the floor into her

arms and adding those. Wart felt a lump of panic forming in

argins M

her chest. She was going out on the porch with her father’s

o N

clothes, she just knew it. She was being vanished. She said, “I

mean it. I didn’t take any stupid doll head, honest. And I’m

sorry we wrecked your dresses. It was an accident.”

Her mother looked at her. “You’re going to stay with your

grandparents, Little Miss Tomboy-too-big-for-her-britches. I

expect you to behave like a big girl. No whining. I will talk to

Mrs. Kilmore and get your homework.”

“I don’t want to. Why do I have to?”

“Well, you are going,” said Wart’s mother, “and your broth-

er too. And Delora. And that’s the end of that.” She threw in

bobby socks and patent leather shoes, a kilt, Wart’s saddle

shoes, play clothes and snapped the suitcase closed. She

brushed her hands together with finality.

Wart didn’t want to cry—tomboys didn’t—but she just hated

her grandparents’ guest room. There were framed Audubon

prints of falcons with yellow eyes and sharp beaks, and the bed

was higher and harder than her own, the pillow fatter. The

feathers in it made her sneeze. She wanted her mother;

nobody would tell her when she was coming to pick them up,

or when Wart’s dad was. “Don’t you worry your little head

about that,” their grandmother had said, ruffling Wart’s

scruffy hair, careful of its bandage. “You let the grown-ups

worry about that. You just concentrate on having fun.”

“Was it because I was bad?”

“Were you bad, sugar? Well, that would be just coincidental,

I’d guess.”

Wart couldn’t have fun; when she woke up in the morning,

she didn’t even know for a minute where she was. It was a

school day, Monday, only she wasn’t going to school. She won-

141

dered what Wendy was doing this exact minute. She tried to

—

think what Toronto would be like and who Wendy’s best

Jane

friend would be, and whether she’d have her own room, or

horses, and whether her teacher would be prettier than Mrs.

Eat

Kilmore.

on

Wart had thought they were bound to get a licking for

Hamilt

ruining the bridesmaids’ dresses, but when she’d gotten back

from the valley, her mother had been screaming on the back

on

porch, wielding scissors, tossing cut bits of Wart’s father’s

clothing into the yard. Wart had trailed around to let herself

in the front door. At first she couldn’t see Wendy, but then she

found her sitting cross-legged, crying silently beside the freez-

er. She had her own clothes on and was holding on to her

Barbie doll case for dear life.

Wart sat down beside her. They could hear Wart’s mother

on the porch. “Never mind my mom. She just gets like this.”

Wendy said, “You’re bleeding.”

“It already dried up,” said Wart. The blood was splashed

down her dress, rusty rain on blue, freckling on a robin’s egg.

“I want my folks to come now.”

“They are.” Wart’s stomach growled. “Soon.”

“My mom says your mom has bats in her belfry.”

This was a new phrase for Wart. She turned it over. A bat

had come down the chimney and she had taken it to Show and

Tell. “What’s a belfry?”

Wendy shrugged. “Does your head hurt?”

Wart shrugged. “Want to go up to my room and wait? I

could read to you.” Wart pushed the bridesmaid’s dress off her

shoulders and stepped out of it, gave Wendy a hand. “Getting

married is dumb anyhow. I hate dresses.” She picked the gown

up and turned to go upstairs. The material overflowed in a

bridal train. A musty smell of moth balls wafted after her.

They lay on Wart’s bed while Wart oozed blood onto her

pillow, Wart reading Mary Poppins Opens the Door. They heard

the boys come in, and finally they heard a car and got up to

look. Wart’s mother was revving across the grass in her green

and white Comet, leaving ruts on the lawn, finally shooting out

142—

the driveway. A while later, Wendy’s parents arrived. Wendy’s

mom exclaimed over Wart’s head, but Wart said not to, it was

argins

just superficial. (Four good syllables. Her mom had said her dad

M

was just superficial. It was something that didn’t mean much.)

o N

Wendy’s mom cleaned it up anyhow, but Wart didn’t know if

there was any gauze anywhere, so Mrs. Farrell left it unban-

daged. Wart stood at the back door in the hail of fallen cloth-

ing and banjo pieces as Wendy’s father carried her away.

“So, bye,” Wart had said waveringly.

“See ya,” Wendy had said, her eyes locking with Wart’s.

At her grandparents’ house, Wart didn’t hear anyone else

up yet, even Delora. She pulled on her clothes from the day

before and crept down the back stairs to the kitchen, looked

through the drawers until she found a spoon, and let herself

out the heavy back door with a vacuumy whoosh. There was

dew on the grass and Wart’s bare feet left prints. Her grand-

parents had a statue of a little boy holding the scales of justice.

Wart stepped over a clipped box hedge and rubbed the boy’s

cold cement cheek and gave him a kiss on his stone lips. But

he didn’t feel like Wendy. Wart took the Barbie doll head from

her pocket and looked at it. She fondled the yellow hair the

way Wendy had, making a ponytail then releasing it to see it

swing out. It felt fake. Wart ran her finger over Barbie’s plas-

tic face, too, her plastic eyes and plastic nose and plastic lips.

They felt fake. Wart tried kissing her, but she didn’t feel like

Wendy, was cold and tiny and pointy. Wart smelled her—she

smelled like chemicals (three syllables). She took the spoon and

dug a hole into the sandy ground, using the handle as a pick-

axe until it torqued. Into the hole, she dropped the Barbie

head. She didn’t need it. She didn’t need anyone.

143

Jane Eaton Hamilton

— Jane

Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of six books, most recent-

Eat

ly the Ferro-Grumley nominated collection of short fiction,

Hunger. She has won numerous awards for her poetry, nonfic-

on

H

tion, and fiction, including first prize in the 2003 CBC

amilt

Canadian Literary Awards and twice, first prize in the Prism

International short fiction award. Her work has recently

on

appeared in the anthologies The Spirit of Writing, Best Lesbian

Love Stories 2005, and The Writer’s Presence.

145

Lydia Kwa

— L

Writer Notes

ydia

Kwa

I have interests in idiosyncrasies of mind and habit. Language

is very musical, even the way people and characters don’t or

can’t utter words close to their deepest truths. There’s the lan-

guor of silences and what’s trapped or embodied in them.

Queerness isn’t fixed. Queerness is more than who sleeps with

whom. Being a foreigner or outsider informs much of my

imagination. In my writing, I like to create—or hint at—such

experiences and locate them in the so-called centre, rather

than at the margin, without explanation or justification. I’m

more interested in not spelling everything out, challenging

readers to complete the narrative with their own projections.

Or perhaps, asking readers to rethink their expectations of

what lesbian narrative is, for instance. Is this a stable form

with clear boundaries? Not for me.

147

Lydia Kwa

— L

Soft Shell

ydia

Kwa

“This is the first time you’ve been detected, so it goes without saying…”

“Without saying?”

“I’m surprised. You can’t possibly believe that you would escape

our detection?”

“No… I suppose not… well, I didn’t even think that far ahead.”

“A problem. Can’t afford to be slack, a dyke of your standing.

What you’ve done is a serious crime. Imagine what a bad influence you

could become on the young ones.”

“What crime?”

“You’ve thought it. The unacceptable.”

“But surely, we’ve gone beyond the dark times of the 21st century?

I mean, hadn’t they done all the important work so that we…”

“That was a mistake.”

I turned towards Cui and shook her shoulder roughly, “Wake

up, you’re having a bad dream.”

She blinked several times and mumbled, “It’s too scary to

be a figment of my imagination.”

“What was it this time?” I asked, unable to conceal the

irritation. How long has it been? Every night for two weeks.

Ever since we arrived in Kyoto.

At Nishiki market, most shops still had their roll-up alu-

minum doors partway up from ground level. A memory of

Cui’s sleep-laden eyes, that half-drowned look, flitted through

my mind. I peered through the gaps and caught sight of legs

in trousers, mostly white or blue cotton, moving about briskly.

It was just after dawn, cool enough to walk the narrow alley

between shops without sweating.

I went to my favorite tofu shop. The woman had figured

out I wasn’t Japanese on my first visit at the beginning of July,

148—

when I only managed a few stuttered words. Today she flashed

me her usual toothy smile. I watched her deft, wrinkled hands

argins

as she used a wooden spatula to scoop the freshly made tofu

M

skins from the inside of a wooden bucket, and fill a plastic con-

o N

tainer full of the steaming strands. Then she filled the contain-

er almost to the brim with soymilk from the same bucket. I

licked my lips eagerly. There are some things I will never tire of.

Further down the alley, I bought some pickled octopus, a

packet of large bonito flakes, and a small flask of Okinawan

saké, Cui’s favorite. I was about to head home when I spotted

the big basin of soft-shell crabs. That would be good for din-

ner, I thought, and bought two medium-sized ones, bound by

rattan twine and wrapped in the previous day’s newspapers.

I wanted to linger at the market, but I knew that if I took

too long, the thickening crowd would become oppressive. I

decided to escape instead to a café to reward myself with a

shot of espresso kohi before heading back.

At the apartment, I placed the container of tofu skins and

the packet of bonito onto the counter, and then tucked the

saké away into the cupboard. Left the crabs in the sink, reluc-

tant to slaughter them just yet. I put on some jazz to help me

focus. Seated in front of my laptop, I tried to concentrate on

the short story I was working on, but found myself wondering

about Cui instead.

The most restless and fretful I had seen her in all our years

together. Was it because of her work at the studio? Or being

stuck with me in this tiny apartment, away from our familiar

surroundings? But we had known only too well, we desperate-

ly needed a change, needed to leave Vancouver and seek

refuge in Kyoto, a place appealing for its mix of ancient and

modern, its shrine and shadow worlds.

Hours later, I was jolted out of writing by the sound of

keys jangling as they landed on the floor. The routine never

deviated, no matter where we lived, the dropping of keys onto

the floor. Yet I still startled that afternoon. I looked up to

149

catch the frown between her eyes.

—

“How’s the sculpture coming along?” I asked, glancing

L

quickly at her then back to my screen. But I was only pretend-

ydia

ing to concentrate on the story, wondering instead why Cui, so

K

far, hasn’t told me a thing about her nightmares.

wa

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not a good idea, trying to build a

giant spider with fibre optic cables and bubble wrap. Would

Louise Bourgeois approve of how I’m quoting her work?”

“Ever thought of trying to contact her and asking?”

“Good idea,” she replied in a disinterested tone.

She peered into the sink and her voice instantly perked

up, “Wow, what a treat. Do you want me to kill them?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved my hand at her, saved the

paragraph I was working on, and got up from the writing desk.

At the stove, I placed a pot of water on high heat. Carefully

placed a rack inside. I poked at one of the crabs, on the top of

its shell. It flinched a little. I retrieved the kitchen scissors,

snipped off the front quarter-inch of that crab behind the

eyes and mouth, flipped it over to expose the pale grey gills

and then cut them off at the base along one side, then the

other. I found the flap at the back of the crab, lifted it with

the scissor blades, and snipped it off. Did the same on the

other side.

“You don’t seem bothered. And you do it so well.”

“Old trick,” I said, and went through the same procedure

swiftly with my other victim.

I threw the two back into the sink, which I filled with

cold water, and cut off the twine around their claws and shells.

The crabs twitched imperceptibly. Good, I thought, as Cui

continued to stare wide-eyed at the crabs.

When the water came to a boil, I placed the crabs onto the

rack in the pot, with scallions, cooking saké, soy sauce, and gin-

ger. Then I grated some ginger and mixed up a sauce to spoon

over the tofu. Whipped up some zarusoba on the side while the

crabs cooked. I didn’t pay much mind to Cui hovering around

me, since I was rather pleasantly engrossed in the cooking.

“We have to excise that tendency from you, I’m sure you know that

150—

already.”

“Why do you say that?”

argins

“What?”

M

“That I know already.”

o N

“Of course you do. You know everything I’m about to say.”

“You’re the one who’s the Thought Police, not me.”

The interrogator laughed and switched off the light. In the dark,

burdened by the encroaching sensation of loneliness, I felt a craving for

steamed crab. Wanted to bite into the soft and yielding insides.

“Well, you can’t have it, that’s just the way it is,” Cui muttered

in her sleep.

I was surprised because she hardly spoke aloud during her

dreams. I drew up to her face and felt the whispering breath

of her words caress my cheek. I moved closer, so close that my

lips were almost touching hers. She continued to sleep, mum-

bling. Another unusual occurrence, I noted, as I drifted back

to sleep, relieved for the reprieve.

“We have to remove the urge from you before it’s too late.”

“It shouldn’t be a crime.”

“Thinking the wrong thing always has been a crime.”

“Imagination can’t be contained. Just because I’m a lover of other

women doesn’t preclude me from fetishizing other bodies.”

“Men’s bodies.”

“Don’t you think it’s hypocritical? I’ve seen you pack a dildo with-

out hesitation day and night. It’s become your fashion accessory. Yet you

condemn me for having lust for cocks?”

She woke me up with her hand stroking my pelvis, her breath-

ing slow and relaxed.

“I’m hungry,” she said, licking my earlobe.

151

She moved her face down and parted my thighs. I had the

—

odd sensation of feeling aroused while slipping back into

L

sleep, at first only vaguely aware of the light strokes of her

ydia

tongue, then jolting awake when her mouth sucked at my cli-

Kwa

toris. I raised myself up on my elbows, and closed my eyes,

fully awake.

Hunger was contagious. I was about to close my mouth

over her breast when she said, “I want you to pry me open.

Imagine ripping apart the soft gills and reaching in for the roe.”

Cui hadn’t been so forthright with me before. I nodded in

the dark, dazed. I stumbled over to the CD player and put on

Tokyo City Lights. With the bamboo blinds thudding lightly

against the windows, the sound of the sax and vibraphones

cruising above the humidity, I returned to Cui. As I entered

her, I closed my eyes tight, to better feel the soft shell break-

ing open in my palms.

The music was somewhere else, fading away into a dream.

We fell asleep quickly, entwined. Just before daybreak, I was

roused by sounds of moaning. At first I wasn’t sure whether it

was pleasure or another nightmare. I sat up and looked down

at her.

She spoke up, her voice husky yet defiant. “You can’t keep

me here any longer. See? I’m walking away.”

She looked so serene saying goodbye, I wondered why.

152

Lydia Kwa

—

Lydia Kwa was born in Singapore but has lived in Canada since

argins

1980. She published The Colours of Heroines, a collection of

Mo

poems, with Toronto’s Women’s Press in 1994. Her first novel

N

This Place Called Absence (Turnstone, 2000) was nominated for

the Amazon.com / Books in Canada First Novel Award and

the Lambda Literary Award. Her third book, The Walking Boy,

is published by Key Porter Books.

153

Larissa Lai

— Larissa

Writer Notes

Lai

I still believe in the importance of claiming lesbian identity

for political reasons, though as I get older and my life

becomes more fluid, I’m sometimes concerned about the

accuracy of making such a claim. Much of this novel-in-

progress, which I’ve been working on since the 1995 publica-

tion of When Fox Is a Thousand, is in fact about trying to

understand the ways in which we inhabit the labels we use to

describe ourselves. The terms we use in a politics of libera-

tion are never sufficient to describe lived lives, and yet, they

are necessary in order to have those lives. In this project I’m

trying to draw a picture of what it was like to be in one’s

twenties in 1990s Vancouver, trying to make sense of commu-

nity, family, race, class, gender, and sexuality. The two main

characters, Lynda and Ilene, share a house and a tenuous,

often volatile friendship.

155

Larissa Lai

— Larissa

The Sewing Box

Lai

The flowers on my mother’s sewing box have faded to ghosts

of what they were. I suppose they are roses, although all that

remains are little flecks of pink, some dark, some light, and

the traces of leaves, like skeletons left behind after winter has

claimed the living parts. There might have been birds there

too, although all you can see is the possibility of a wing here,

a white throat there. Inside the box, all her things lie neatly

just where she placed them before she died. There are wood-

en spools of thread in different colours lined up in a compart-

ment on the side. There is a pair of scissors in black steel, with

wide looping handles and short, sharp blades. There is a cro-

chet hook, a tool for picking seams, and patterns of her own

design cut in ancient yellowing newspaper or brown paper sal-

vaged from supermarket bags. There is an embroidered satin

pincushion in the shape of a star. A variety of pins and needles

stick out of it, all deadly sharp though stained with age.

There are buttons in a little round tin that once held cher-

ry candies. These buttons are the holding pegs of memory—

rhinestone buttons for the splashy red flowered dress she

wore for her fortieth wedding anniversary; big purple plastic

buttons from the coat she made for my first day of school;

smooth shiny gold buttons left from the Sunday jackets she

sewed for my brothers; a few small elegant black buttons for

the silver satiny dress she gave to my elder brother’s wife.

There is one dark button left over from the simple black dress

she hurriedly assembled to wear to my father’s funeral.

The only thing I remember from that day was that I had

to wear a dress with elaborate shirring in front. She had gone

to some trouble to learn how it was done, but the result was

that the dress itched terribly. I complained about the discom-

fort so plaintively and persistently that she finally asked my

youngest brother (who was then in his early thirties) to drive

me home to change. I think, in retrospect, she was more hurt

156—

than angry and I still sometimes get brief pangs of guilt about

my behaviour that day, since it turned out to be the first day

argins

of the last week of her life. There is still a small coil of the

M

elastic she used for the shirring in her sewing box.

o N

I was a miracle baby, born in the late evening of my moth-

er’s life. She was fifty-nine. A lot of people thought it was

scandalous, revolting even, to think of a body so wrinkled and

flabby parading its fertility as though it were forty years

younger. Akin to an elderly lady wearing jeans and a halter top

and smearing her lips a too-sexy red. But personally, I don’t

think there’s anything wrong with it. My brother Wilson’s

wife Abbie thinks the “abnormal” circumstances of my birth

are the source of my bad manners, but I chalk it up to the fact

of having been raised by men. Not that I’m complaining mind

you. I can change a tire faster than any of my friends. I can

clear a plate of steak and potatoes faster than any trucker and

I’m not in the least bit perturbed by cleaning out successful

mousetraps, regardless of the degree of carnage.

Anyway, my mother never was the jeans and halter top

type. She was cool and elegant and reserved and always kept

herself to herself, which is more than I can say about Abbie.

It’s true, though, that I’ve always been a bit of a pain in the

neck. Even I can’t deny it.

How my mother could have become pregnant at fifty-nine I

can’t imagine although I am sure there is something odd about

my family’s biology— something not noted in the official

genealogies, even the most recent entries that record things

like blood type and history of heart disease. Apparently she

had already hit menopause, so my conception was just a jot

short of immaculate, but I’m no Jesus Christ and that’s for

sure. Quite the contrary, actually, although I wouldn’t say the

opposite. I wasn’t all bad you know, only mischievous. There are

worse flaws in a child.

157

To begin with, I turned my mother’s life upside down. She

—

was planning on a quiet retirement. Her sons were more or

Larissa

less grown, although somewhat less in Wilson’s case, but he

was as grown then as he would ever get. It’s true she had

Lai

always wanted a girl, but I was hardly the daughter of her

dreams. I broke dishes and knocked boiling pots from the

stove. I stuck my fingers into electrical outlets. I pinched my

brothers, stole eggs from the fridge, and broke them on the

good living room carpet. I stuck gum in my hair. I ate garden

snails, crunchy shell and all. I taunted dogs on chains, I

dropped kittens into bathtubs, I unlocked doors at night prac-

tically inviting burglars to help themselves.

The most uncanny thing was that I could talk about it,

almost from the very beginning. From the day after my birth,

I spoke in full sentences. The first thing I said was “Forget

her, forget her.” When my brothers asked me about it later, I

couldn’t explain it, although a psychic once told me that the

memory of my previous life had not been properly erased.

I dream more intensely than most people. I can’t explain

this either but I know I do. I dream of a house with a room

where all the walls are red. I dream of a wall behind which I

can hear the sound of water. Sometimes it is a bathroom.

There is a woman sitting in a tub ladling water over her head

so that her hair streams into her face. She squeezes her eyes

shut and breathes out through her nose. She sighs with con-

tentment. Sometimes that water sound is more ominous than

that, as though the ocean itself were behind the red wall and

threatening to spill through like blood at any moment.

My mother might once have wanted a daughter, but at

fifty-nine she had little energy for a child. Besides, she had

already had enough child trouble for one lifetime. My first

brother, David, was born six months after my parents’ wed-

ding, and in the forties this was a scandal of great proportions.

My mother was a lounge singer from America (“worse than an

actress,” said the tut-tutting aunties) and my father was a

grease monkey from South Vancouver. He met her at the

Smiling Buddha supper club off Hastings by sending her, after

158—

a show, flowers he could ill afford.

“White chrysanthemums,” she told him, “are for funerals.”

argins

But she accepted his dinner invitation anyway. He took her to

M

the BC Royal for steak and mashed potatoes and found him-

o N

self in possession of both her heart and her underpants two

weeks later. Six months after that, they were married. This,

unfortunately, was not soon enough to stop the whispers that

hissed through Chinatown. Because by that time, my brother

David was already half-formed and hanging contentedly

upside-down in her womb like a ripe pear waiting to drop.

The aunties were well aware that it takes more than six

months to make a baby. For this, my mother paid dearly in

behind-the-back whispers until the boy was almost five. The

whispers kept her womb from maintaining its grip on any-

thing that grew inside until David was seven. Then out

popped Wilson, nice and respectable-like, and he remains that

way to this very day.

My mother was not the type you would expect to find at

the eye of so much scandal. She was cool, serene, and

reserved—no short red dresses and back-seamed hose for her.

By day she dressed in modest browns and greys with matching

pillbox hats, by night in elegant, not-too-tight evening gowns

that demurely covered her ankles and exposed only the

faintest hint of cleavage. The whispering eventually died

down, and all was forgotten until I came along.

When I look into her sewing box, its obsessive orderli-

ness, I can’t help thinking that there is some kind of secret she

was keeping, a secret carefully disguised through rigorous self-

discipline. When I say so, my brother Wilson laughs and calls

me a dreamer.

I was helping David at his auto repair shop the day I got a let-

ter saying a certain Maureen Mo Ling Wing had died and

willed her house to me.

159

“Get Wilson to take care of it,” said my brother David

—

with a sharpness uncharacteristic of his gentle, slightly nerv-

Larissa

ous nature.

“Strathcona’s an up-and-coming neighbourhood,” said

Lai

Wilson. “I could make you a bundle.” He was going through a

phase as a real estate agent and, as with everything else he

touched, was enjoying a success so instant and unabating that

I said no to him out of pure spite. “I think I’ll move in,” I said,

mostly to see what kind of reaction I could get.

“Please don’t,” said David, his voice dark with horror.

“Why not?” I said. “Who was Maureen Mo Ling Wing?”

“Nobody you want to have anything to do with,” said

David, “alive or dead.”

I looked at Wilson to see if he might be a little more

forthcoming. Wilson shrugged. “It’s a good time to sell. Prices

are high.”

Maureen Mo Ling Wing’s house was not the dusty, cluttered

hovel you might imagine a spinster dying in. She had been

meticulous at keeping the place in good repair and had occa-

sionally renovated with a remarkably tasteful eye, so that the

wood floors were not hidden by nasty shag carpets. The win-

dows let in lots of light and fresh air. In the public areas, the fur-

niture was dark and gentlemanly—a stuffed leather armchair, a

smooth black couch, a deeply stained mahogany coffee table

with space underneath for magazines— Time, Maclean’s, The New

Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, as well as home repair and automobile

magazines, and oddly, the occasional Astronomy Today. So Auntie

Mo was a stargazer! Well, why not? Atop the coffee table sat a

small tray made of dark wood, deftly jointed so that not a nail

was needed to hold it together. Inside lay the reddish curve of a

pipe and a pouch half full of tobacco. The whole house, in fact,

had an underlying tobacco smell, not the acrid stench of ciga-

rette smoke, but the sweet buttery scent of pipe tobacco, like

some bearded old professor’s library.

The bedroom was similarly dark and lush—a Persian car-

160

pet flowered in reds and blues on the floor. There was a chair

—

and a squareish vanity in dark wood. But the bed was roman-

tic. It flowed with white linens like a bride. It was strange to

argins M

think of the old woman dying here.

o N

I opened one of the drawers of the vanity, and that was

where I found her sewing box, similar in design to my moth-

er’s although without the adornment of flowers. Inside lay

spools of thread, scissors, a lemon candy tin full of buttons, as

though this box were the sister of my mother’s and contained

the same memories.

I can be superstitious, and I can be squeamish. But there

was something strangely comfortable about this house, and

this bedroom. I washed the white linens in the machine in the

basement, put them back on the bed, and slept there that

night as soundly as a baby.

“Please reconsider,“ said David, with whom I had, up to that

point, lived all my life since my parents’ deaths.

“Why?” I said. “What’s the big deal?”

“It’s just strange. She’s not a member of our family. It’s

true she didn’t have children of her own to will it to, but she

had nieces and nephews. It will make the old ladies whisper.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know exactly. She was a friend of Mom’s before

Mom married. She came to my school once to see me. Dad

told me and Wilson to stay away from her.”

“But you don’t know why?”

“No. Only that Mom and Dad would turn over in their

graves if they knew about this.”

If David could have one thing in the world, it would be to have

the family living together happily under one roof. He hates it

when we fight and he was irked with me for having been so

161

rude to Wilson when Wilson was only trying to help. David

—

knows that Wilson is a shallow, money-grubbing little so-and-

Larissa

so, but he still wants us to get along. Which is a noble cause,

I suppose, but it annoyed me that he wanted me to accept

Lai

Wilson’s behaviour and, to add insult to injury, have that

acceptance swept under the carpet.

“You could’ve just said ‘no, thank you,’” he said, as I lay

underneath Bill Chow the grocer’s Subaru trying to figure out

what was wrong with the driveshaft. I had been working at

David’s auto repair shop ever since I was fourteen. It paid bet-

ter than Starbucks, although I had to admit I was getting sick

of David’s bossing.

Due to the circumstances of his birth, David was mostly

the meek and mild type, except when it came to me. It was as

though the circumstances of my birth made me the only thing

in the world beneath him, and he ruled his one-child fiefdom

like a petty despot.

“Why don’t you do something to make us proud for once?”

he said.

“Us who? You and Wilson? Since when are you and that

used carpet salesmen in the same league?”

“Don’t you get cheeky with me, missy,” he said. “At least

have some respect for your dead mother.”

“How do you know she wouldn’t have liked it? Maureen

Wing must have willed me the place for a reason. Maybe she

was it.”

“No doubt she was, but you don’t know what kind of rea-

son. You wouldn’t like it if you knew.”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” he said, beginning to get exasperated. “Because

I’m older than you.”

“You’re just bigger,” I said. “Bigger and dumber.”

“Fine,” he said. “Stay there. You’ll see what I mean. Maybe

when you grow up you’ll do something we can all be proud of

like going to med school.”

This, I knew was a jibe at my drawing. I have always want-

ed to be a cartoonist or an illustrator of children’s books and

162—

had been amassing a portfolio ever since junior high, but

Wilson said it was impractical and David agreed. I’d been sav-

argins

ing up for art school for years, since neither of them want to

M

invest in that kind of future for me.

o N

“Med school?” I said. “Give me the money and I’ll go.”

“You don’t have the perseverance.”

“Watch me.”

He looked at me quizzically. “I don’t understand you,” he

said, “but if you’re serious, I’ll talk to Wilson. I’m sure we can

raise the money.”

Wilson the Conqueror, as I called him—mostly to bug David,

since Wilson couldn’t care less—was amassing a small fortune

selling leaky condos to Torontonians and Asian immigrants

sight unseen. He sent them elegantly drawn architectural

drawings with lots of shrubbery to cover up the design flaws,

and outrageous price quotes. Eager to establish homes for

themselves amidst mountains and water, they bought, sacrific-

ing the present for the future. Wilson’s bank account swelled.

It was on this money that I studied bio-chemistry for

three years and then transferred into med school, going for a

specialization in diseases of the ear, nose, and throat. Under

Auntie Maureen Mo Ling Wing’s old brass desk lamp, I stud-

ied cell biology and evolution, drug therapies and bedside

manners, until my eyes were red and my body swelled thick

and flabby from too many Ichiban noodles and Kraft Dinners.

I wasn’t unhappy. I have an analytical mind. The mechanics of

the ear are very interesting.

What I wasn’t prepared for was all the death. I met Meg

on the day of my first human dissection. The body was male

and grey. It reeked of formaldehyde. I could hardly bear to

touch the clammy flesh. Brazen Meg offered to make the first

incision. She cut deftly and neatly without showing the least

sign of distaste. Afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

163

I felt more settled in Auntie Mo’s house after Meg moved

—

in. I dropped med school, much to David’s anger and disap-

Larissa

proval. But Meg finished. Now she runs a family practice in a

nearby medical building and volunteers at a community clinic

Lai

once a week. Resources are well-enough in place that it does-

n’t matter how sporadic my work as an illustrator for chil-

dren’s books is. The mystery of how this house came to me

has faded to a less urgent place, all the more so after we began

to discuss having a baby.

So we’re here at Toby Sushi to discuss the options. Meg wants

to eat teriyaki, which is her business. Personally, I think it’s a

sin to eat cooked food in a Japanese restaurant. Bring on the

raw fish! My favourite is sea urchin with a quail’s egg cracked

over the top—so sweet and slippery and delicious. Still, since

Meg’s conventional tastes in cuisine are her worst fault, I con-

sider myself pretty lucky. She’ll be a great second mother to

my child if I can only figure out a safe and palatable way to get

the damn sperm. Meg and I are not quite desperate, but get-

ting there. We’ve been talking about this for over a year now.

I’m twenty-eight, which is nearly thirty, and this is something

I really want. If I’ve found someone who’s willing to do it with

me, then I figure there’s no time like the present. My health is

still good. But who knows how long it will last? We’d really like

a sweet little girl in our lives. Or a little boy, I guess. That

would be okay too.

Meg says she knows this really nice straight guy who’d like

to help. “He’s not very healthy or good looking—has bad acne,

wears Coke-bottle glasses, and probably couldn’t touch his

toes to save his life, but he’s kind and gentle and caring. Only

worrisome thing is that he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years.”

“No way!” I say. “Those are the kind of guys that turn out

to be child molesters and psychopaths. Or at the very least,

he’ll change his mind halfway through the pregnancy about

wanting to be a benevolent outsider and try to sue for custody

rights or something.”

164

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” says Meg, but then her teriya-

—

ki arrives and so does my sashimi plate and a little wooden

board with the uni sushi artfully placed just off centre and

argins M

decorated with a slice of fake greenery in bright plastic, a lit-

o N

tle heap of pink pickled ginger, and a dollop of wasabi. I stop

talking and slurp the suckers back.

A mental picture of the guy Meg mentioned hovers in my

head. Weird the things life hands you, I think. Though no

weirder than the circumstances of my own birth. What will I

say to David?

As it turns out, the pimply guy with the coke bottle glasses is

Chinese-Canadian. And also, he only has two zits— discreet-

ly positioned just to the side of his nose. His glasses aren’t

exactly paper thin, but I wouldn’t call them Coke-bottle. I think

he’s kind of cute, in a brotherly sort of way.

“You totally exaggerated,” I say to Meg. I also want to say,

Don’t you know it’s really uncool to say things like that about Chinese

guys. But I don’t because I don’t want to get into a long argu-

ment about race politics, and maybe I don’t want to admit to

myself that Meg is less than perfect.

“Yeah well, I thought you’d be less disappointed this way

than if I said he was stunningly gorgeous.”

“And you didn’t say he was Chinese. That makes all the

difference. Chinese guys never turn out to be violent psy-

chopaths.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of Charles Ng?” says Meg.

“Charles Ng is Vietnamese,” I say.

Meg gives me a strange look.

“Well, compared to how many Caucasian psychopaths

there are out there,” I begin, but then let the sentence trail off

to nowhere. This kind of conversation can only get worse.

We had kind of been hoping to find a man who looks at

least a bit like Meg, but as she says, beggars can’t be choosers.

165

So we make plans with Garrett Yee. We spend an afternoon in

—

the park with our dogs.

Larissa

He’s tall and gangly. If you forget about the glasses, he’s

actually not unattractive— he has a kind of pensive, aristo-

Lai

cratic scholar sort of look, if you imagine flowing robes

instead of Levi’s and a blue Vancouver Aquarium sweatshirt

with whales on it. Not that the aristocratic look is what I’m

going for, mind you, only it’s less objectionable than a lot of

things. It turns out Garrett’s pockets are full of dog biscuits.

That’s a good sign.

“So where do you work?” says Meg, sounding just like her

mother.

“Shoppers Drug Mart,” says Garrett. “I’m a pharmacist.”

Sometimes I think it’s funny how fast all your political

ideals go out the window the minute you start to think of

becoming a parent. I mean here I am, rejoicing that the poten-

tial father of my child is a nice, traditional, middle-class man

with a professional job. If my old friend Lewis were here, he’d

probably whap me over the head for being so politically regres-

sive. Yet I’m still obsessing about the psychopath thing. I mean,

what about Charles Ng? And then, on the other hand, I’m real-

ly glad this man is Chinese, although I would never say so to

Meg. I know she wants so badly to make some kind of genetic

contribution to this child, even if it exists only in our imagina-

tions. I think with Garrett she’ll find it a stretch. I know there’s

no such thing as a purebred and I know that such ideas are com-

pletely socially destructive, but it doesn’t stop a secret part of

me from silently rejoicing. That is, if this works out.

“Why do you want to help us?” says Meg.

“Well,” says Garrett turning a really quite endearing beet

red, “I’m twenty-nine years old. I haven’t had a girlfriend since

I was twenty. I’m just afraid the family thing is never going to

happen for me, you know. I mean, it still could and that would

be great, but just in case it doesn’t, I’d just like to know that a

little part of me will go down in posterity. If I was a painter or

a writer or something, I guess that would be another way to

deal with it, but I’m a pretty normal, boring sort of guy, you

166

know what I mean?”

—

Having revealed a potentially very embarrassing kernel

from the depth of his soul, Garrett looks up, not at Meg, but

argins M

at me, with a doggy-eyed plea for approval. Something inside

o N

me cringes at his awkward vulnerability. There’s a kind of sad-

ness behind it. Half of me wants to turn away, pretend he

never said a word. The other half wants to reach out and hug

him.

“That sounds like good logic,” says Meg amicably. For

some reason, I want to punch her.

There is a moment of silence, but then our discomfort

with one another melts away. We start playing Frisbee with

the dogs. At one point, Meg tosses and Garrett and I both run

to catch it. She’s right. He is clumsy. He smacks right into me

and I slip and fall. When I get home, I notice sweet grassy

smelling stains in the knees of my jeans. I try to imagine a

bespectacled little girl with Garrett’s round face. It’s not a

completely horrible image.

Meg and I are at a fundraiser for a new Asian Canadian mag-

azine, organized by Lewis. I’m dressed most smashingly in a

long red velvet dress with a plunging neckline that Meg found

for me at this funky second-hand clothing store. I feel elec-

tric, and not just because of the dress. I’m surprised that

everyone in the room is not staring at me in utter amazement.

I feel voluptuous but also completely transparent as though

people can see right through the dress and right through my

skin and flesh too, can see the little creature swimming inside

me, swelling by the minute into something increasingly

human. “Hey everyone!” I want to yell. “I’m pregnant!”

I would have been willing to sleep with Garrett, if that was

what it was going to take. I didn’t even really think of it as that

gross, but he wasn’t into it, got all awkward and funny. So that

was a relief in a way, although I have to admit, I had this

167

unnerving, gritty curiosity about it. Like a shy, needy dog

—

inside me that was disappointed when it didn’t happen. Meg

Larissa

said she was okay with it, but I suspect she wasn’t. So it is

probably for the best. The syringe was not much fun, but Meg

and I just giggled the whole time and then next thing we knew

Lai

it was done. I know a lot of people have to try hundreds of

times before anything happens. Guess I must be a real egg fac-

tory.

Ilene, Meg’s foundling, Lewis’s on-again-off-again girl-

friend, and now our downstairs tenant shows up at the

fundraiser drunk as a skunk. She comes up to me. “How’s it

goin’?” she says.

How can she not see? I always thought the girl was a bit of

an idiot, but now I really think so. “Fine,” I say. “I’m preg-

nant.”

“Wow. Really?” I can tell she’s not really impressed but is

just trying to be polite. I decide not to tell her about Garrett,

or the turkey baster. Next thing I know she’s launched into

some tirade about a craft fair at the university, at which she

sold three mugs in six days. She didn’t even come close to cov-

ering the cost of the booth, not to mention her time. And if

it counts, she sold a large platter to her mother’s ugly

sinophile white boyfriend, who still holds out hope that she

will talk to him one day. But his purchase of her work, she

thinks, given the circumstances, was completely patronizing.

She charged him full price for the thing. Says she couldn’t look

at it when she handed it over. It was like a child that had

betrayed her.

I never expected to get so worked up about the Charles Ng

thing. Here I am pregnant with the child of some guy I hard-

ly know. I thought he was fine. He seemed pretty normal to

you, right? But no girlfriend for nine years— it could be the

sign of some really sick pathology. Unless he’s had boyfriends

but is totally in the closet. He and Ilene went to high school

together. That’s how Meg found him in the first place. I

168—

should ask her about him. Perhaps it will ease my anxiety.

I go down the rickety basement stairs, step around the wash-

argins

er and dryer, and bang on her door. There is a stumbling noise.

M

I hear something crash to the floor. Ilene curses. She opens

o N

the door. Her hair is a mess. She wears a torn Take Back the

Night T-shirt from some long-ago march, and a pair of ragged

cut-offs. It’s pretty clear she’s been moping.

It might have been a mistake to come here. Ilene is pret-

ty morose. She’s been working at the wheel, if the grey blob of

a ruined pot on the floor is any indication. Guess she hasn’t

got the touch today. She hurries me through the studio into

the bedroom, which I guess, given the set up, doubles as a liv-

ing room.

“Have you thought of a name for the baby?” she asks.

At least she wasn’t completely drunk at the fundraiser

“I don’t know,” I say. “Depends on if it’s a boy or a girl. Can

you think of any good revolutionary heroes?”

Ilene smiles. She can if she puts her mind to it. “Are you

going to give Garrett any say?”

“Well, that was what I wanted to ask you about.”

The phone rings.

“I’m sorry. I have to get it,” says Ilene. “My Dad hasn’t

been well, and he said he would call.”

She gets the phone in the studio, half-closing the door. I

can still sort of hear her side of the conversation, things like,

“I don’t have to do anything you say,” and “What did you tell

her, that I was a raving lunatic?” and “I can’t believe you don’t

have the fucking guts say that in person.” Must be Lewis on

the other end of the line.

When she comes back into the bedroom, Ilene is fuming.

“Lewis is such a control freak. He gets to do whatever he

wants, and I’m the one that’s supposed to be fucked up, go to

therapy, go to China, whatever.”

“Maybe this is a bad time,” I say.

“There’s no such thing as a good time,” she snipes.

169

She’s depressed and unpleasant. I think to myself that I

—

don’t really like her. “Maybe a trip’s not a bad idea,” I offer.

Larissa

“Oh god. If you’re here as a Lewis chorus girl, you can go

now.”

“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me a few things

Lai

about Garrett.”

“Garrett, sure I can. But there’s something else I…”

I cut her off. I can’t take it. “Garrett,” I say. I’m pregnant.

I need someone to take care of me, not the other way around.

Soon, I’ll have a child of my own, so who needs Ilene? But I

need to know about Garrett, because I never even asked him

about his father, or his grandfather, for that matter. What if

he comes from a whole lineage of psychopaths? What if the

family freezer is chocked to the hilt with frozen body parts, a

woman’s head here, a young guy’s torso there, a frozen heart,

a frozen hand, testicles in baggies, breasts frozen in boxes like

chicken strips?

“He’s a bit shy, but he’s a nice person,” she says, blandly. It

isn’t enough.

“That’s it?”

“He’s nice. He’s boring. Listen…”

“No one is so boring that they don’t have a story. And

you’ve known him for seven years.”

“Yeah. Hey, you know that sewing box of yours, the one in

the upstairs foyer?”

“What about it? It was my Auntie Mo Ling Wing’s.”

“Did you know it has a false bottom?”

I didn’t. But I don’t really care right now. I stare at her.

She looks uncomfortable, like she doesn’t know whether

to continue or not. But she continues. “It has a false bottom.

I discovered it by accident. I was just looking for more thread

because I have this yellow shirt that lost a button.”

I give her a does-this-look-like-a-face-that-cares expres-

sion.

She’s squirming now. At least she isn’t going on about her

depression or whatever. “Anyway,” she says, “it has a false bot-

tom. There are letters. I wasn’t going to read them, but…”

170

“You read them.” This is why I don’t like her.

—

“I’m sorry. I know it’s wrong but I couldn’t help myself.

argins

The handwriting is so beautiful, and they’re tied with this

M

brown velvet ribbon. I only read one.” She stops.

o N

I don’t help her.

“You know, because I knew it was wrong.”

“And?”

“Well, it’s a suicide note.”

“What?”

“Your aunt or whatever wrote it. It’s dated August 17,

1943.”

“August 17th...” I muse. “That’s my parent’s anniversary.

And I think that’s the year they were married.” I do a bit of

mental math. “Yes, 1943 seems about right.”

“I remember your brother was visiting last year on that

day. He was very sad. We talked about it. That’s why…”

“That’s why you felt you should tell me.” Maybe she isn’t

as self-absorbed as I thought.

“Yes,” she says. Her lips curl into a shy smile. I realize all

the drama and bluster may just be cover-up for a person who

feels very small. “So there’s a mystery. It’s very intriguing. And

kind of romantic. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I felt

guilty about, you know… well… snooping.”

She should feel guilty, the little minx. But I tell her, “It’s

okay. It is interesting. My mother was a complicated woman.”

I have quite forgotten about Garrett, at least for the moment.

“Don’t you want to know the whole story?” she says. “It would

make such a great movie.”

I laugh. Maybe Ilene isn’t so bad after all. “Yes,” I say. “Yes,

I do.”

171

Larissa Lai

— Larissa

Larissa Lai was born in La Jolla, California, grew up in

Newfoundland, and lived and worked in Vancouver for many

Lai

years as a writer, organizer, and editor. Her first novel, When

Fox Is a Thousand (Press Gang 1995, Arsenal Pulp 2004) was

shortlisted for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel

Award. Her second novel, Salt Fish Girl (Thomas Allen

Publishers 2002) was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, the

Tiptree Award, and the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Award.

She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of

East Anglia in Norwich, England, and is currently completing

a critical PhD at the University of Calgary. She is currently

writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University

173

Ann-Marie MacDonald

— Ann

Writer Notes

-Marie

Would anyone ever even ask another author, “How important

is it for you to create heterosexual characters?”

MacDonald

The first lesbian moment I created was in Goodnight

Desdemona. The lead character, Constance, this academic, goes

into the worlds of Romeo and Juliet and Othello, and while

she’s in the world of Romeo and Juliet, both Romeo and Juliet

fall in love with her, and she has hot little kissing scenes with

both of them. And at first I thought, ‘Well, how is this going

to go down?’ Because that was, what, 1987? And that play

ended up touring, and all kinds of people enjoy that play. So I

thought, ‘okay, it’s some kind of alchemical miracle—it’s not

that they didn’t notice the two women kissing, it’s that it did-

n’t seem to make them too angry.’ That was an early lesson for

me, and an early confirmation of what I’ve always suspected,

which is that the quote-unquote supposedly ordinary people,

out in the burbs or in the hinterlands, are ahead of the curve—

they’re ahead of where a lot of people think they should be.

People are always ready for more than they’re given credit for.

I have respect for audiences in general. I learned that

through theatre, so I have a respect for my readers. But my

credo was, from the very beginning, that I want to take people

to places they might not choose to go because they might find

them offensive, or wrong, or frightening. How can I persuade

them? Obviously, I have to commit myself to making a special

invitation or to making the journey fun, or at least compelling

in some way. Because why should I just come at them with, you

know, a tablespoon of cod liver oil? They never asked me to.

I’m going to invite them to a feast, and if I do my job, they’ll

stay with me. And it was only after I’d finished Fall On Your

Knees that I realized I’d been kind of Machiavellian, in that I

put all the hot lesbian stuff at the end. So it was too late for

anyone to put the book down. If they had come that far, it

meant they really needed to get to the end. I think people are

174—

more open-hearted than they are usually given credit for being.

And it was important for me to create a fully functional,

argins

real-life lesbian, and that was also hard. Madeleine doesn’t

M

have the operatic fate. It’s not the thing that kills her; it’s part

o N

and parcel of who she is and who she has been. I’m of the gen-

eration that had to still really read between the lines to find

lesbian content anywhere. And it became a game. But for me,

I just want to say, ‘well, of course we’re here, and there she is

in the book. This is your principal character’s point of view—

you are actually seeing through the eyes of this lesbian,

whether you ever thought you would or not, Dear Reader.’

—from an interview with Sara Cassidy published in Herizons

Winter 2004

175

Ann-Marie MacDonald

— Ann

excerpted from Fall On Your Knees

-Marie

Before I got to her building I could hear Rose playing. It was

coming from the church window, but church was not in session

MacDonald

and this was definitely not church music, it was pure Rose. So

this is where she practices. In exchange for playing on Sundays,

I guess. I stayed under the window, sheltered by Rose’s music,

but I was soon disturbed by three women seated on kitchen

chairs on the front stoop of her building. They didn’t shoo me

away, they gave me the low-down on Rose! They didn’t know

whether to feel sorry for her or to think she was nuts. I know

the feeling. “Poor little girl,” they were saying, “she bears her

cross.” “We all bear a cross.” I wanted to say, “She’s not a little

girl,” and I had to laugh because they went on, “And practising

twenty-four hour a day, but never can learn a piece of music top

to bottom no matter how hard she try.”

“That’s right, just wandering on the keyboard, lost to the

world.”

“’Cept Sunday, she plays like the angels come Sunday.”

“That’s the Lord’s work.”

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Then one of them prayed that Rose would get some

humility and they made jokes because they considered her too

strange and—of all things—“homely” to get a husband, and

what’s the good of pride in a homely woman? I excused myself

but the women didn’t seem to notice, they just kept chatting

as I picked my way past them up the steps and in through the

front door for the first time.

The entrance has an echoey vaulted stone ceiling with

turquoise and white tile mosaic. Maybe it was once a Turkish

bath. I smelled a delicious stew. I followed a wide brass rail up

marble steps worn to soft curves by a hundred years of foot-

falls, up to the second-floor landing, and was about to enter

the church to surprise Rose when I had a flash. An evil one. I

continued up to the third-floor landing and knocked at the

176—

door of what I knew must be her apartment. For a minute I

thought there was no one home and I was halfway back down

argins

the stairs when a woman’s voice stopped me.

M

“What can I do ya for, honey?”

o N

I turned to the woman and said, “Sorry, wrong apart-

ment.”

“Who you lookin for?”

“Rose Lacroix.”

“Rosie’s downstairs practising.”

“Okay, I’ll just pop down and say hello.”

“She doesn’t like to be disturbed.”

“It’s all right, she knows me.”

The woman smiled in a sly kind of way and said, “You

don’t know her too well though, do you? Come on in and wait,

she’ll be up for dinner in a few minutes.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I was confused. “I don’t want to intrude

on your dinner.”

“You won’t if you join us.”

I followed the woman into the parlour. It was fancy and

shabby at the same time. Like a rich lady who’s slept in her

clothes. Velvet everything. A plushy plum sofa with shiny

patches. Dusty curtains drawn—burgundy with gold tassels.

And a huge gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. The stew smell

mixed with her perfume and made me feel a bit queer.

I said, “I’m Rose’s friend from singing class, Kathleen

Piper.”

“Oh yeah? I didn’t know Rosie had a little friend.”

I felt she was being ironic, not to mention rude, but I

couldn’t figure out why, no more could I figure out who she

was. Although she clearly knew Rose.

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m Rosie’s mother, Jeanne. Do sit

down.”

I guess my chin must’ve dropped a mile but I couldn’t help

it, I was speechless. She lit a cigarette and laughed at me in a

lazy way. She was wearing a full-length evening dress—dull red

177

satin, slim and loose with skinny little straps and a deep V-

—

neck, black sequin flowers. And obviously no underthings. I

Ann

think that shocked me more than the fact that she was white,

-

with straight yellow hair falling anyhow onto her shoulders,

Marie

and thin blue eyes. Tiny lines, she must be close to forty, but

it was so dim in there I couldn’t tell. You could see she used to

MacDonald

be pretty. No face paint, oddly enough. She was enjoying my

amazement. She offered me a cigarette.

“No thank you.”

“Good. Keep your voice clean. Drink?”

“Yes please.”

She smiled that rudely familiar smile again, as if my

accepting a drink made us lowly conspirators, for there was

something low about her and yet she acted like bored royalty.

I don’t go in for drinking but I didn’t want this woman calling

me “Rosie’s little friend” again. She gave me a whiskey and

leaned back in the sofa across from me. Her left strap slipped

down but she didn’t seem to notice.

I said, “Thank you.”

“I know you’re surprised, honey, everybody is at first, my

God you’re pretty.”

I hate myself that I blush so easily. She was making me

madder by the second, I thought, so this is what Rose lives

with, I’d go around like a hornet too if she were my mother.

But I said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

And she laughed at me again. The word “languid” is always

used in books, but I finally found a use for it in real life. Mrs

Lacroix was “languid”.

“Call me Jeanne, baby.”

I’m not your baby, I thought, but I said, “Jeanne.”

And she chuckled again and looked me up and down and

said, “Oh yes. Yes indeedy.”

She made me most uncomfortable, the way she lounged

there scrutinizing me like a bird of prey that’s too full with its

recent meal to be bothered to eat what’s in front of it.

Rose came in. She paused when she saw me. I couldn’t

read her face, she just said, “Hi.”

178—

“Hi.”

Jeanne grinned and said, “Rose, darling, your friend is sim-

argins

ply charming. I insist you stay for dinner, Miss Piper.”

M

“Please call me Kathleen, ma’am—Jeanne.”

o N

She winked at me. I blushed again. I looked at Rose,

expecting her to be scowling at me, but she just said, “Want to

see my room?”

I got up, relieved, although it crossed my mind that maybe

Rose would murder me silently with a pillow once I got in

there.

Her mother stopped us on our way. “Did you get my pre-

scription, Rose?” she asked without turning around.

“Yes, Mother, I got it.”

“Good. We’ll wait till after dinner, I’m actually feeling

quite spry today.”

“Good.”

“You girls have a little gossip, I’ll call you when dinner is

laid.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

This was the strangest thing of all. To find out that Rose

has not a “Mumma” but a “Mother”.

Rose’s room is as different from the rest of the apartment as

it can be. She has a single bed with an absolutely plain white

cotton spread and no headboard. There’s not even a rug on

the floor. A wooden chair, a small desk with a pen and a blank

sheet of paper and, of all things, the Holy Bible open at—but

I didn’t get a chance to see because she flipped it shut the

moment I glanced at it. You’d think I’d caught her reading a

racy novel. It looks like the nuns’ rooms at Holy Angels. (I

know because I snuck into their wing on the last day of

school, hoping to find a long luscious wig in Sister Saint

Monica’s room but no such luck.) The only difference is,

instead of a crucifix on the wall, there’s a picture of

179

Beethoven. And do you believe this? She hasn’t got a mirror!

—

Rose closed her door behind us and said, “So. Want to play

Ann

Chinese checkers?”

“Why didn’t you tell me she’s white?”

-Marie

“Why should I?”

“I told you about my mother.”

MacDonald

“What about her?”

“You said she’s not white.”

“She got a year-round tan, that don’t count for coloured.”

“You said it did the other night.”

“Yeah, well that’s a moot point, isn’t it, considering how

you come out.”

“I can’t win, can I?”

“Oh yes you can, there ain’t nothin stoppin you, girl.”

“You hate me ’cause I’m white.”

“I hate you ’cause you’re so fuckin ignorant.”

“Then enlighten me.”

“Why should I bother?”

“Because I’m your friend.”

“Friends don’t spy.”

“I’m sorry. You give me no alternative.”

“There’s an alternative. Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I like you.”

“Why?”

“You’re the smartest person I know, except for my father.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“And you’re beautiful.”

That shut her up. She looked at me as though I’d told her

she had a year to live. So I added, “But your mother dresses

you funny.”

“It doesn’t matter what I wear.”

“You’re right, you’re so gorgeous it doesn’t matter.”

“Shutup.”

“Come to Mecca with me tonight.”

“I told you I can’t.”

180

“Do you do everything your mother tells you?”

—

She sat down on the bed, folded her hands in her lap and

quoted scripture, “She has my best interests in mind.”

argins M

“Oh really? What are those?”

o N

“Getting out of this dump.”

I sat down next to her, I tried to be delicate. “What’s

wrong with her?”

“Nothing. She does her best.”

“You’re the one who’s ashamed.”

Rose got quiet and looked at me as though she were hold-

ing a puppy and begging me not to hurt it. “You think, because

she lives here, she’s not a fine person. Well it’s only because of

me that she has to live here. Do you know what that’s like for

her? They treat her like trash, they don’t know anything about

her. Ignorant niggers.”

I couldn’t speak. Rose went on, “She’s given up everything

for my sake.”

“She seems pretty satisfied to me.”

“She’s too polite to seem otherwise.”

“I didn’t think she was the slightest bit polite.”

Rose really looked bewildered. How can she know so

much about so many things yet know so little about her own

mother? But I just said, “Where’s your hat?”

I followed her out across the parlour and past the kitchen,

where Jeanne was setting the table. That is, she was standing

there with a fork in her hand, staring into space. Rose took me

into Jeanne’s bedroom—I should say boudoir. A mess of satin

sheets in a huge mahogany bedstead with claw feet. A big oil

painting over the bed of a fat white woman getting out of a

tub. A vanity littered with silver brushes, pots of paint, and

clumps of yellow hair—a crystal cocktail glass with lipstick

smears, an ashtray crammed with red-tipped butts, a jumble of

jewellery, tweezers, and an eyelash curler. Clothes strewn

everywhere, and too many smells for one room. Rose opened

a big wardrobe, rummaged through the top shelf and pulled

181

down the charcoal fedora.

—

“Rosie!”

Ann

It was Jeanne from the kitchen. She sounded like she’d just

-

hurt herself. Rose whipped the hat back onto the shelf and

Marie

shot from the room. I got it down again and put it on, and

went back out to the parlour. Rose’s back was to me. But

MacDonald

Jeanne was looking straight at me from the sofa where she lay.

She looked like she was in pain, but somehow still slightly

amused to see me in the hat. It gave me the creeps. Rose was

reaching into her school bag. I could see the sheet music

inside. She brought out a needle that she filled from a tiny

bottle. Jeanne had her left arm flung out and she was pumping

her fist. The vigour of that action didn’t go with the swoon in

her body. Her face was starting to tighten and go even paler,

she was looking at the ceiling now. Rose injected her and

Jeanne closed her eyes as though she were lost in prayer like

the nuns. Her fist relaxed, she gave a little moan, reached up

and stroked Rose’s face. She murmured something then nod-

ded off. Rose folded Jeanne’s arm across her stomach, stood

up and saw me.

“She suffers a lot of pain.”

I felt embarrassed for Rose having to lie again.

“Did she see you in the hat?” she asked me.

“I think so.”

“Please don’t do that again. It upsets her.”

“I’m sorry.” I handed her the hat. “Do you have a picture

of him?” I asked.

“No.”

“Don’t you have anything besides his hat?”

Rose looked at her mother on the sofa—out cold—and led

me back into the boudoir. And disappeared into the

wardrobe. I had this crazy idea that she might be gone for ever

into another time and place. But she came out a moment later

with a suit of men’s clothes on a hanger.

Black and tan pinstripe trousers. Black waistcoat and tails.

Tan cravat with black polka-dots. Starched white shirt with

diamond studs.

182—

“Goes with the hat,” I said.

And she said, “Yeah.”

argins

And I said, “Try it on.”

M

She didn’t pretend to be shocked, which is how I know

o N

that in her heart of hearts it had occurred to her before. It’s

also how I knew that certain things between us were behind

us now. Thank goodness. She just said, “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It would be like—sacrilege.”

“He wasn’t God, he was just some fella.”

“He was my father!”

“And all he left you were his clothes.”

She hesitated. So I started to undress.

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know, I just pulled my

dress over my head and got to work on my stockings and for

some reason it worked, and she said, “All right, all right.” And

I put my dress back on as she undid the millions of buttons on

hers and said, “Turn around.”

I obliged. She took forever.

“Don’t peek!”

“I’m not peeking.”

Finally she said, “Okay. You can look now.”

I turned around. Oh my.

She is a tall slim young man in a curious suit of black and

tan. There is nothing to beat her leaning against the bricks of

any building ’twixt here and Battery Park.

She said, “How do I look?”

“You’re coming out with me.”

“I—”

“Look at yourself.”

She hesitated so I closed the closet door to expose the

full-length mirror on the outside. I stood behind her as she

looked at the beautiful young man with the fine-cut face

between hat and cravat. She looked at herself for a long time.

183

And finally—“Do you think…?”

—

“Oh yeah.”

Ann

She nodded to herself and turned sideways.

-

I said, “Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you. Much

Marie

less your mother’s friends.”

“Do you have any money on you?”

MacDonald

“Two dollars.”

“I’ve got carfare.”

“Let’s go.”

“No.”

I thought, “Oh brother, she’s got cold feet,” but she

offered me her arm with a smile and said, “Let’s dine first.”

Jeanne had somehow managed to lay the table. It was just

a kitchen table between the sink and the icebox but it was

covered with a snowy lace cloth and set with silverware

engraved with “J.B.” Rose lit the candles. She filled our crystal

goblets with bubbly root beer and heaped the bone china

plates with what we call boiled dinner down home. Potatoes,

carrots, pork hocks (she calls them “pig’s feet”), doughboys,

but instead of cabbage there were green leaves of some kind.

Daddy was right. There has come a time when I think it’s the

most delicious dish in the world. We sat across from each

other and clinked our glasses, “To Mecca.”

“To Mecca.”

And drank. There was a place set for Jeanne too.

“She doesn’t eat much anyhow,” said Rose.

“It’s good luck to set an extra place at table.”

“Why?”

“In case your guardian angel wants to join you.”

“Don’t spook me.”

“They’re not spooky, they look after you.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“Why, what’s your guardian angel ever done for you?”

“Sent me to New York. Made me meet you.”

“Lucky you.”

“We’re going to know each other for the rest of our lives.”

184—

After a moment she said, “I don’t think I have a guardian

angel. I think I’m on my own.”

argins

“You have one as long as I’m around.”

M

She listened and I could tell she wanted to believe me, and

o N

I didn’t think about what I was saying, I just said it, “And if I

die before you, I’ll come back.”

She got tears in her eyes and so did I, it always hap-

pens when you talk about ghosts. I had two helpings of stew.

Would you believe Jeanne cooked it? “She does all the cook-

ing.” So I guess she’s not a completely useless mother after all.

“What does J.B. stand for?”

Rose hesitated, then said, “Julia Burgess.”

“Who’s that?”

“My grandmother.”

“She alive?”

“Yuh.”

“Where’s she at?”

“Long Island.”

“Do you visit her often?”

“I’ve never met her.”

“I’ve never met my grandparents either.”

“To hell with them all.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

We toasted again, then I raised my goblet for the third

time. “Let’s drink to the twentieth century,” I said. “Because

it’s ours.”

“To the twentieth century.”

Do you think it’s possible to get drunk on root beer?

We quickly washed the dishes, then Rose fixed a silver tray

with two glasses, an ice-bucket, a canister of soda and a bottle

of whiskey, and put it on the coffee table next to the sofa

where Jeanne lay. I was nervous that Jeanne would wake up

and catch us but Rose said, “Don’t worry. She won’t wake up

185

till her company comes.” I didn’t ask “What company?”

—

because I didn’t want to make Rose lie to me again. She led me

Ann

to the door and opened it for me, très galante, saying, “Ladies

-

first.” As I stepped through the door, I turned my head to

Marie

smile at Rose and caught sight of Jeanne in the mirror over the

mantelpiece. She was lying perfectly still on the sofa, staring

MacDonald

straight at me.

Do you think there’s such a thing as a ghost who masquer-

ades as a person? Do you believe that there are people whose

bodies are still alive here on earth but whose souls are already

in hell?

I didn’t tell Rose that her mother had seen us.

What a feeling to walk arm in arm with Rose as a fella.

People stared in a whole new way. I guess I’ve found the one

thing that could make me look even more suspicious in this

neighbourhood. It was a breezy evening. Rose had polished

her old black lace-ups to a high shine and I wished like crazy

I had my new dress on. Oh well, next time.

I had to force her through the door of Mecca as though at

gunpoint. The great thing about the Mecca is that there’s all

kinds. I’d never soaked the place up like I did last night with

Rose. I saw it all through her eyes and I was able to point out

the regulars. It’s mostly young coloured men and not that

many women. The fellas are all slick dressers except for the

holes in their pockets where the money’s burnt through.

They’re earning more than miners, building tanks and artillery

for “over there”, I know because I been told by the guy in the

silk tie called Aldridge. I’ve never seen guys preen and present

themselves the way they do. They lean against the bar like

honey-drenched stamens, waiting for the women to buzz

around, and you just know they’re all breaking their mothers’

hearts. They wear secret smiles and chuckle a lot when they

chat with the white guys.

There are a couple of middle-aged men too, a famous

jockey who eats five heads of lettuce a day, and a retired heavy-

186—

weight champion with a bald head from Halifax. They’re the

only ones who bring their wives, two very serious looking

argins

women of a certain age who spend the whole time with their

M

heads glued together, chatting. There’s a group of West Indian

o N

fellas who stick together and wear pencil-thin moustaches.

One of them’s a lawyer and another is my acquaintance Nico,

a little live wire who has made a fortune in real estate and can’t

stop smiling. He calls me “chérie”. There’s a studious young

man who always sits alone and writes in a notebook and there

are two tables pushed together of motley individuals who are

delighted with each other and everything else and who turn

out to be actors. There’s a Chinaman who holds court at the

same table in the far corner every night.

Tonight I notice three or four other white girls sitting with

their coloured boyfriends and I say to Rose that at least we’re

not the only mixed couple in the joint and she says, “Yes we

are.” I say, “They don’t look coloured.” And she says, “Say

Negro.”

As for the white denizens: a handful of tough-looking

Irishmen in fifty-dollar suits with “dames” on their arms. A Jew

who brings his barrel of hats into the club with him—he’s a

very formal older man who closes his eyes and nods slowly to

the music no matter how wild the tune. Tonight there’s also a

high society table out for a low time—girls and boys who have

no idea where they are and think themselves awfully clever for

being there. They probably think the same thing of me.

There are also a few “working girls” of every shade who

arrive alone and leave escorted several times throughout the

evening under the watchful eye of the gamekeeper, who

lounges in the corner consulting his solid gold watch. I some-

times wonder, can it be any harder than washing floors? Or

having seven babies?

Business must be booming because the management has

installed a small stage, footlights, and a sparkly purple curtain

with “MECCA” written à la Araby in gold sequins against a sil-

187

houette of minarets. Ten minutes after we sit down, a man in

—

a tuxedo comes out from behind the curtain and announces,

Ann

“Ladies and gentlemen, Club Mecca proudly presents ‘Ali

Baba and his Forty Follies!’”

-Marie

The curtain parts on a harem. Light-skinned girls and a

very fat dark sultan lounge on striped pillows. The girls dance

MacDonald

the seven veils while he sings a song of illicit lust for one of

them—the lightest one—and the band plays snaky music. The

tent flaps part and handsome Prince Ahmed pokes his tur-

baned head through and kisses the heroine. Then bingo,

you’re in Gay Paree doing the cancan, and then the same

young lovers flee the evil sultan all through the world’s capitals

while the chorus girls quick-change and outdance Ziegfield’s.

We went to Hawaii, Japan, Holland, and Canada, where they

pretended to be Eskimos and Mounties! And although the

girls changed costumes and countries every five seconds, they

never wore more than half a dozen square inches, even when

they were fur-clad in Canada’s frozen wastes.

After the show the band played dance tunes but I could-

n’t for the life of me get Rose up on her feet. She did, howev-

er, graciously nod when other gentle and not so gentle men

requested her permission to dance with me. I danced with the

busted-nose Irishman, built like a tree stump but very light on

his feet, boy. With the Jewish haberdasher, who made a waltz

out of everything. With a lily-white boy from Long Island—I

asked him if he was acquainted with the Burgesses and he

answered importantly that they were his dear friends. I asked

him if he knew Jeanne and he got a blank look—then said

come to think of it there was a daughter years ago who “died

tragically abroad.” I laughed and he didn’t ask for a second

dance—just as well, he was like shifting sticks.

All the while, Rose slouched over her beer in that lovely

suit. She didn’t bat an eye until I danced with my pal Nico. It

bothered her, I could tell, although why it should be any dif-

ferent than with the white fellas I don’t know. Only difference

I can see is, except for the stocky Irishman, the Negro men

are the best on their feet. When I sat back down at the table

188—

while the band took a break, Rose said, “I’ll dance with you if

you teach me.”

argins

It was the first thing she’d said for an hour. I realized I had

M

wanted to make her jealous. It bugged me that we had made it

o N

all the way to this club with her looking so gorgeous but all she

wanted to do was sulk. I asked her how she liked the show.

“Irredeemably puerile.”

“The dancing was great.”

“The outfits are an outrage.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“At least I’m fully clothed.”

I made her take a sip of my whiskey, then I did something

crazy—I kissed her on the lips. Just quickly, you know, but we

both blushed. She didn’t object, she simply raised her hand for

the waiter and demanded two more drinks in a deep voice to

make me laugh, then whispered desperately in my ear, “Do

you have enough money?” I brushed my ear against her lips.

She stayed perfectly still. I kissed her neck between the stiff

white collar and her earlobe. I slipped my hand round the

back of her head below her hat and stroked that gentle dip at

the base of her skull. She turned slightly and kissed my mouth.

So softly. I forgot where we were. That we were anywhere. We

just looked at each other… so that’s who you are.

The drinks came. And Rose looked away, shy again. What

will happen to me if Rose ever ceases to be shy? I will have an

attack of all the shyness I’ve been saving up.

Then something happened that I’d never seen before. The

place flooded and turned overwhelmingly black, men and

women both. I’ll bet if I’d looked hard enough I’d’ve seen the

ladies from Rose’s front steps braving the Devil’s music. The

word must’ve spread since I’d been here. The house lights

dimmed and the footlights shimmered on the minarets of

Mecca. Silence fell over the whole joint and the impresario

stepped up to invoke the Goddess of Blues, “Ladies and gen-

tlemen, the star of our show: The Empress of the Blues.

189

Cleopatra of Jazz. The Lowest, the Highest, the Holiest, the

—

Sweetest, Miss! Jessie! Hogan!”

Ann

Applause and shouts to outdo the bravissimas of a grand

finale though the curtain has yet to open. It parts purple and

-Marie

gold to reveal: pearls and peacock-blue. Fourteen carats wink

at every compass point. She starts off in a spotlight and emits

MacDonald

a single moan. It goes on for minutes—growing, subsiding,

exploding, until you’re not sure if she’s praying or cursing. She

drags her voice over gravel, then soothes it with silk, she cru-

cifies, dies, buries and rises, it will come again to save the liv-

ing and the dead. People spontaneously applaud and shout,

sometimes all together, sometimes singly. La Hogan is

absolutely silent after the opening sacrament while God

descends invisibly to investigate. Then, once He’s split and the

coast is clear, she spurts like a trumpet till the trumpet can’t

take it any more and hits her back—they fight blow for blow

till she raises her arms and calls a truce. She takes a step off

the stage. The audience yelps, the trombone belts a shocked

comment, and she bursts into her song without words,

quadruple time, strutting to the centre of the hall, dancing,

the band following her like obedient treasure-bearers—except

for piano—the drummer beats on every passing surface, peo-

ple start clapping time as The Hogan somehow threads her

stuff between the spindly tables and throngs of faithful. At the

end of that first number she says, “Welcome and good

evening,” just as though she were an ordinary mortal. Sweat

streams from her pearl headband and she flashes her ivory and

gold smile. I guess she must weigh a good two hundred

pounds.

I looked over at Rose. While everyone else in the place

was swaying and rocking and beaming, she sat perfectly seri-

ous, listening and watching.

Afterwards, you know what she said about the music?

“Crude but compelling.”

High praise indeed.

190

Under a smoky street lamp I stood face to face with my

—

beloved and pricked my fingers against the diamond studs of

her immaculate shirt front. Being tall, she slipped her hands

argins M

naturally about my hips and pulled me close. And being bold,

o N

I put my mouth on hers and this time went inside and told her

all the things I’d been longing to. Dark and sweet, the elixir of

love is in her mouth. The more I drink, the more I remember

all the things we’ve never done. I was a ghost until I touched

you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never

understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I’ve

been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to

strike the solid thing that could waken me to life at last. I have

only ever stood here under this lamp, against your body; I’ve

missed you all my life.

She kissed my face like fire. And it happened, I grew shy

and could only give her the top of my head, which she kissed

anyway. She said in a voice I’d never heard before, “I didn’t

think you had a scent, but you do.” Which made me laugh

because what a thing to say! But she explained, “No. Everyone

has a scent and you either like it or you don’t or you’re indif-

ferent. And you had no scent. And I thought that was spooky.”

“You’re easily spooked.”

I love talking with our arms around each other.

“It made you seem not quite human,” she said.

“I’m not—”

“Don’t—”

“Scaredy-cat.”

She kissed me again and we didn’t stop for a long time,

except to lean out of the light when we heard horses coming.

We slipped into an alley and I pulled her shirt out from her

pants. I pressed my centre into her and she sighed. It made me

flood from inside, the sweetest music. We were finally danc-

ing. I slid my hands under and up her smooth sides, I wanted

to be slow to savour but we couldn’t; she gripped me and

moved under me. I felt her nipples under my palms and I

191

think I died. Rose gasped as though I’d stabbed her and I felt

—

like a savage robbing a sacred tree, her thigh between my legs.

Ann

I found her hand and led it to a place I know, I kissed it with

-

the mouth that I keep hidden, then took her inside and

Marie

sucked her like the greedy tide that can’t decide to swallow or

disgorge. I lost track of everything. And even after I finally

MacDonald

could stop, I knew that I would never be finished.

Oh Rose, it’s not enough until I have all of you inside me,

then give you back to the world fresh and new from my belly.

She just said softly, “Oh,” for the longest time.

Imagine, in an alley. It’s not very romantic. But somehow

it was. Terribly.

Crude but compelling.

Ann-Marie MacDonald

192—

Ann-Marie MacDonald is a novelist, playwright, and actor,

argins

and author of the acclaimed play Goodnight Desdemona (Good

Mo

Morning Juliet). Her first novel Fall On Your Knees, became a

N

much-loved international best-seller when it was published in

1996. Winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Best First

Books as well as numerous other literary awards, it also

became a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. Ann-Marie

MacDonald lives in Toronto.

193

Daphne Marlatt

— Daphne

Writer Notes as Interview

Is this a short story? It seems to be part fiction and part reading of

Marlatt

Ethel Wilson’s short story.

Fiction can be transformative, that’s my starting point. It

looks at how hope, dreams, fear, dread, all our various projec-

tions, shape what we live—often on an individual level but also

on a collective level. I think lesbian fiction can offer a partic-

ular kind of transformative vision because it can see through

or past the clichés of dominant culture. Of course it can also

create its own clichés along the way. I’m interested in that in-

between space where the clichés of the dominant can be read

differently to create new possibilities for living within the

larger culture, which is, after all, where we live.

Not entirely.

True, we live within overlapping circles of various commu-

nity cultures—lesbian culture being one of them—all the way

over to regional culture and national culture. History, that

abstraction, constantly impinges on us in very large ways.

Wilson, for instance, was writing in the shadow of WWII and

its aftermath, the Cold War, and I think that shadow can be

read in the blocked relationship her story recounts. Today we

write in the shadow of corporate globalization and the terror-

ist outcome of a second war on Iraq. I’m not sure we fully see

how this imprints on what we create. As a lesbian I stand both

inside and outside my society, both complicit with its First

World agendas and advantages, and, having been “othered”

within it, critical of its endless replication of power-brokered

binaries.

Why did you choose this story of Wilson’s, “Til Death Us Do

Part”?

Its opening phrase caught my ear, “I have a friend... ” Not

that I expect Ethel Wilson to have intended that lesbian res-

194

onance. She was raised in an all-female household in

—

Vancouver’s West End with the Victorian proprieties she

describes so well in The Innocent Traveller. She was a dedicated

argins M

doctor’s wife who could also write a sarcastic story about the

o N

social niceties (read, hypocrisies) of a California medical con-

vention and its gender separations. She wrote a lot about

women and she wrote sensitively about the varied currents of

liking and dislike between them.

But why bring a lesbian reading to her sad and rather convention-

al story about the blocked communication between two girls working

in a wool shop?

I found it a moving depiction of how women complicit

with the social mores of their time allow themselves to be

trapped. Kate wants to hide the fact that she has an alcoholic

mother. She’s bound by the propriety, typical of the 1950s,

that family life is private: you stick with family and you don’t

discuss your difficulties with people outside the family. So she

keeps a solid wall between herself and Muriel, the narrator.

Small-town Muriel has left her family and a lacklustre

boyfriend behind on the Prairies. She’s mystified by Kate’s

remote manner, which she reads as hostile. She alternates

between trying to make friends with Kate and competing with

her, but it’s a stalemate. Finally, she tells Mrs. Physick, the

absent shop-owner, that Kate’s injured hand is badly infected.

Then Mrs. Physick, who seems to know about Kate’s predica-

ment, takes action. Muriel is horrified by what she learns of

Kate’s home life—“My belief is that bitch hit her on the hand with

a bottle”—and she decides that it might be a comfort to marry

the not-very-inspiring boyfriend she’d left behind. Her last

words, what can you do (with no question mark following),

sound the basic motif of the narration. You can so vividly hear

her shrug of resignation.

Shaped as I was by the remarkable openings and intense

debates of the surge of feminism in the 80s and 90s, I felt I

195

had to write against that shrug. I had to transform it. So now

—

we have this “update” with a different ending, an “up date”: El,

Daphne

a neophyte dyke just beginning to discover what she wants,

and Kate—a Kate with hopes and dreams, who, when the

moment comes, opens to it. At a time when so much seems to

Marlatt

be shutting down, it seemed important to have a story about

opening rather than closing.

197

Daphne Marlatt

— Daphne

Update

I have a friend,

Marlatt

it starts with I or she, rarely you. electric current I. or island

I’ll—surrounded by other islands equally unreachable. or else

that one over there (she-cat). right away currents of competi-

tion come into play. even when he no longer owns the shop

(well, he might, or at least the wholesale business, but she sees

it differently). it being her story. as she turns on the tap to

drench the rose-stems. shop-girl (that slight sneer) learning an

art, taking it on

fiction, as if she hadn’t grown up with it. history shadows fic-

tion and she’s grown in its shadow until fairly recently. or at

least a shadowy past dogs her (Kate). that face she wants to

forget, sallow, almost yellow floating up behind the roses she’s

cutting. the sour smell of cheap whiskey. a shabby eastside part of

town. put behind her.

and then there’s Muriel who comes from Portage la Prairie

where the railroads cross, or crossed, where there wasn’t much

for a girl to do except get married (she’s tired of Archie

Edwards and the couplings of that life, already she knows that

getting him will bore her). she’s a long way from My Summer of

Love—but there’s something here, some glimmer that drove

her west to Vancouver’s boomtown edginess.

I have a friend….

a dream, a latch. to keep her company in the anonymous

round of bus, work, bus, home—which isn’t home, not yet.

she ghosts herself, I-ing other young women she passes,

unsure whether their laughter together excludes her. eyeing

the fleshy rise a camisole reveals, or the low-slung line of a

198—

studded belt, blue butterfly surprise in the delicate spinal

cleft. she’s just beginning.

argins M

for Kate, it’s the fragile immediacy of flowers, their colour,

o N

shape. their not lasting. she has dreams, but they don’t involve

anyone real. nightmares do. mother’s a maw to forget. she

concentrates on this sink, this one in the back of an uptown

florist shop, this long table littered with leaves and stems.

buckets of water on concrete with standing blooms, fragrant,

cool, a fiction, almost flagrant in the dead heat of summer.

July 17. July 25. July 29. Muriel doesn’t know much about fic-

tion but the city inspires her. it doesn’t take her long to

explore, now that she’s updated her name to Myrrh, some-

thing cool like that. or maybe just El. in reverse, it’s Kate

who’s aware of all that le could mean—not Elle so much, she’s

perused its pages often enough at the library, determined to

shake the under-smell of poverty, determined to attract some-

one moneyed, like him in the vermouth ad, Venice canal in the

distance. it’s El without the le, El from the grid of a dusty

prairie town who, in this city infiltrated by water, senses

where bridges might lead

I have a friend, well I should say…

someone i know, i mean she works at the shop and she’s sort

of interesting because she never says much, not to me anyhow.

she’s nice enough with the customers, but with me she’s snip-

py or quiet, irritated maybe, or maybe she’s just defensive

about something, i don’t know. the thing is she’s really good-

looking, in that spiky-hair diamond-in-the-navel kind of way.

hey, she has a fabulous body, talk about slim—not that Gloria

would let either of us come to work with what she calls “a bare

midriff ”—i figure Gloria’s about my mom’s age. but Kate, she

wears these cool clothes and when she smiles—well, not to

me... I wish she would respond a bit.

199

you smile, reading the current. thinking how queerly uncon-

—

scious desire wells in this update of a woman’s words half a

Daphne

century ago. now are you reading in? given how history shad-

ows fiction. dykes on bikes, Stonewall, fisting. words that

Ethel Wilson never knew, though she writes about that subtle

M

in-between space women touch in each other. its rapid about-

arlatt

face currents.

how they well up in pseudo-domestic sinks—wool shop with

its tea kettle rituals. flower shop with its coffee runs. (Kate,

i’m going for a latte—want me to get you one?) all those fad-

ing (prim) roses (labial). Kate doesn’t respond and El, new to

the city, is up to her elbows in dreamy water.

it wasn’t warm for Kate, that maternal water she’s trying to

leave behind. crystal meth in the kitchen sink and no Ms.

Physique to pry her gently out of self-contained hate. hands

busy under the tap, Kate’s washing the dirt off.

separate histories. in Ethel’s story of the 50s, they glance off

each other. glance away…

reading/ the writing on the wall/ of a face—how history shad-

ows us in the act. rewrite that story locked in the isolation of

the 50s, that fiction of the private hell of a domesticity it

would never, never do to breach. now that we’re plugged in by

netblog, palmcorder.

El’s staring at the bouquet she’s just made. it needs something,

what do you think, Kate? long moment of assessment. Kate

turning with an abrupt nod, try that—points at white tips of

tails (cattails, thinks El, cat got your tongue?) what is it then?

Gloria calls it Betty. Betty? well, Veronica’s purple (stupid). oh,

i get it, Betty and Veronica. then she takes the plunge: with-

out Archie, yes. let’s just do without Archie for once.

Kate’s rare for-once smile.

200—

El/le

argins M

beginning to write a different end, reverse the current, break

o N

through Muriel’s powerless imagination, but what can you do?

which didn’t or couldn’t knock down walls. it takes (Ms.

Physique) the nerve to just wade in.

they’ve always left the shop in opposite directions. where do

you live? it doesn’t matter. (what doesn’t matter? and why is

she so secretive?)

Gloria’s away and now they’re short-handed. El’s making up

the slack, with worried glances at Kate who seems harried,

impatient. at closing-time, in tension’s rush to be gone, Kate

fumbles the last bucket, skids in its wake. a long crash. Kate

in her cool little mini-skirt crumpled on flower-water on a

concrete floor. El kneeling with her, a welter of breakage,

flowerheads (no bonehead here)... let me help. Kate’s white

face a sudden flood of tears.

i’ll never make it. yes you will.

after Emergency and the cast on her hand. after a long walk to

Robson, trees ruffling heat-breeze through the stilted bits and

pieces of their stories. after Thai noodles that Kate introduces

El to, El urging a beer or two to dull the pain, Kate trusting

enough to agree. they end up at the Lotus, dancing to Abba,

dancing each other’s dream. it’s only the beginning of histo-

ried adjustments that will take them months, perhaps years.

pasts don’t fit together easily. if the fit unravels they will blame

fiction.

201

blame flower buckets and bridges. or you, dear reader, making

—

the connection.

Daphne

Marlatt

Notes:

My Summer of Love. Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2004 film.

Ethel Wilson, 1888-1980. Vancouver fiction writer. this

story is a considerably free reading, a contemporary update

let’s say, of the situation in her story “Till Death Us Do Part”

in her 1961 collection, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories. except

for the title of Pawlikowski’s film, all phrases in italics are

quotes from Wilson’s story. My thanks to Lydia Kwa for her

suggestions, especially the inspired “Ms. Physique” for

Wilson’s “Mrs. Physick.”

Daphne Marlatt

In 2004-05 Daphne Marlatt was Simon Fraser University’s

inaugural Writer-in-Residence in their newly resurrected pro-

gram. She has published two novels ( Taken and Ana Historic), a

collection of essays and letters, and numerous poetry titles

including This Tremor Love Is, Steveston, and Salvage. Her con-

temporary Noh play, The Gull, with music by composer

Richard Emmert, is scheduled for production in May 2006 by

Pangaea Arts (Vancouver) as a bilingual Japan-Canada project.

203

Shani Mootoo

— Shani

Writer Notes

M

How can my point of view not be queer? Harry is the protag-

oot

onist of my most recent novel, He Drown She in the Sea. Even

oo

though Harry’s desire is for a woman, he’s been told his entire

life that this particular desire isn’t normal or valid. This, to

me, reads as very queer.

A book reviewer in the US wrote (of me writing He

Drowns She in the Sea), that “His greatest achievement is the

portrayal of Harry.” It’s interesting that the reviewer assumed

I was a man, and I assume that this was because he could

relate to Harry. In creating Harry, I wanted to paint the pic-

ture of a straight man through this queer person’s eyes, one

whom I would feel comfortable, happy, and safe to be in the

same world with. It’s my way of writing the straight world. My

vision, or hope.

Whether I write a story that has an obviously lesbian or

gay theme, or one that deals with a mainly heterosexual world,

the lens through which these stories are envisioned is a

predominantly queer one, a valuable lens, I think, on worlds,

particularly the heterosexual one, in which we must exist.

205

Shani Mootoo

— Shani

The Upside-downness of the World as it

Unfolds

Moot

oo

1.

I was just about to type the word with which I would launch

into my story, but that word has a way of evoking a memory

of the attack of a slender 18” x 1” length of wood sprung

thwaaaack! Against a thinly covered row of bones, and my

knuckles remember the ache as if the pronouncement had

come down only seconds ago, decommissioning my fingers. A

simple, overused word. Not one, however, that is overused in

my back-home, but overused here, in this country of english-

es (but not so many English folk as they themselves might

like). The first time I used that word was some twenty-five

years ago, in front of Mrs. Dora Ramsey, the ancient retired

British tutor my parents hired to push, no, shove us through

the Common Entrance exam. And ever since that usage, so

many years back, I have had trouble even thinking the word.

Tdrrrrrring! a little bell rings, taking us back into the past.

There it is again: tdrrrrrring! A glass of cow’s milk and a plate

of currant rolls (“dead fly cemetery,” they are called, flaky pas-

try triangles studded with hundreds of dark reddish brown

shrivelled currants) and the unpeeled cheeks of ripe Julie man-

goes sit on a kitchen table. Two girls, my sister Sharda and I,

nine and ten years old, ignore the dead fly cemetery and grab

the mangoes first, each cheek held up to the mouth, teeth

sunk into the golden flesh, yellow creamy juice slipping down

the corner of a mouth and running in a crooked egg-yellow

rivulet down the finger, down the palm, down the arm to drip

off the elbow. Sweet satisfaction and then the two girls grow

sullen, sticky yellow elbows digging defiantly into the table, as

they prop their chins into their sweet-smelling palms. Their

mother snaps, “Stop lahayin and drink up that milk. If you

weren’t such dodo-heads you wouldn’t have to go to private

lessons. And you have no choice. Take that sulk off your face

206

this minute!”

—

“But Mummy….”

“Don’t but with me. You are going if I have to drag you

argins M

there myself!”

o N

She didn’t drag us there herself, Boyie the chauffeur did.

He drove us (our reluctance made the car sluggish) three

blocks and around the corner to a house set far back in a cul-

de-sac where, without our having to announce ourselves, the

tall wrought-iron gates rumbled and parted at their centre

seam. Boyie never crossed the gate; he was afraid that it would

close behind him, trapping him, subjecting him to synonyms,

antonyms, onomatopoeia, and other words he heard us hurl-

ing at each other as if they were ultimate insults.

“You synonym!”

“Do you want to get subjunctived?”

“Onomatopoeia sme-ell, onomatopoeia sme-ell.”

“No they don’t. You do. You smell.”

So Sharda and I walked from the bottom of the driveway,

with our exercise books, vocabulary and usage texts, and finely

sharpened yellow pencils, up a long and winding asphalt path,

whispering encouragement to each other through motionless

lips. We looked hard through the jacaranda and bougainvillea

shrubs scattered missionary-style all over the lawn, trying to

spot the clammy cold white English hand and lordly eyes of the

controller of the gates groaning shut behind us.

We always entered the house through the kitchen.

Widowed Mrs. Ramsey, living out her days and thawing out

her marrow in the colonies, would stand at the top stair wait-

ing by the back door, watching us mount each step as if we

were carrying sacks of mangoes on our backs. She would make

us wipe our shoes on the husk mat at the top stair outside the

kitchen and push us through the kitchen where Rommel, the

Rhodesian Ridgeback, lay on the cool terrazzo with his hind

legs sprawled straight out behind him, guarding his pot of rice,

bones, and leftovers melting down under a bubbling froth to

207

dog-food mush on the stove-top.

—

Following Mrs. Ramsey’s spreading frame, we meandered

Shani

through the house of curios commemorating the coronation

of Queen Elizabeth in 1952. We slid our hands along our

M

upside-down reflections, clear like a still lake’s, on the 200-

oot

year-old colonial-style mahogany dining table and chairs, to

oo

the verandah with purple, yellow, and white hanging orchids,

potted pink anthuriums, and a wall of purple bougainvillaea.

Shading the patio was an S-shaped avocado tree, with S-

shaped branches weighed down by ripe avocadoes hanging

like Mrs. Ramsey’s heavy breasts (which Sharda and I were

always trying to see more of, to know what secrets their

Britishness held), and as big, the length from an elbow to one’s

outstretched middle finger. Nothing in Mrs. Ramsey’s garden

was mongrel, everything was trophy- and certificate-winning,

deeper in colour, bigger, contorted or striped or variegated

hybrids; everything was straightened and tied with plant wire

and trained with trellises. On the edge of all this, in the cool

evening breeze, is where we sat and were taught to behave like

the well-brought-up young ladies in her back-home where she

had once long, long ago been the principal of a private high

school for girls only.

New words were fitted in our mouths and we were taught

how to use them. Word: pagan (pa’g e n), n. 1. one who is not a

Christian, Moslem, or Jew; heathen. 2. one who has no reli-

gion. 3. a non-Christian. Sentence: The pagans of Indian

ancestry pray to images of a dancing Shiva, a blue Krishna, or

the cow.

Top marks.

We recited multiplication tables from the back cover of our

exercise book, and often when time permitted we were given a

complimentary lesson in flower arrangement or table etiquette.

How, with knife and fork, to eat roti and curried châtaigne,

which her Afro-Indo-Trinidadian half-day maid cooked. Soup

and cereal, to tip or not to tip, when and how. And how to eat a

mango correctly. Never ripping with hands and teeth, or slurp-

ing off the edge of a cheek; always cutting with a knife and fork.

208

Slice off cheeks, grid the inside with a knife, then slide knife

—

under the sections and release with fork.

One night Mrs. Ramsey tried to slice up and grid my fam-

argins M

ily. My parents, my sister, and I were invited for supper; Mrs.

o N

Ramsey served plump, perfumed, and runny mangoes for

dessert. My parents ate their cheeks the way mangoes have

always been enjoyed in Trinidad, cupped in one hand and

sucked and slurped, the meat dragged off the skin with happy

grinning teeth. Mrs. Ramsey sat straight-backed as she grid-

ded her mango cheeks and proceeded with knife and fork to

deal with one manageable square at a time. Without a word to

each other, Sharda and I weighed the wisdom of choosing one

mango-eating method over the other and decided to decline

dessert.

That night when our Ahji, Daddy’s mother, came to put us

to bed with her childhood textbook of the Hindi alphabet and

wanted us to learn her mother’s language, we both said that we

didn’t care about India and didn’t want to learn a language that

only old and backward people spoke. That night Ahji gasped

and died a little.

Oh! The word I began this preamble with, or rather with-

out (you see, this is still the preamble, not yet the story!)…

Well, days later, again in the cul-de-sac, I answered some com-

mand or other with the word—are you ready for it?—with the

word okay, and Sharda and I watched Mrs. Ramsey catch a fit,

hopping and squealing.

“I beg your pardon! Did I hear correctly? What was that

you answered me with?”

And I meekly repeated my word, thinking it inoffensive

and not warranting comment: okay. She again hopped,

scowled and made her eyes beady tight, and brought out

Rudyard, the wooden ruler. She let me have it over my knuck-

les until I felt a hot wet ooze slipping out from between my

knotted legs, and then she explained through clenched teeth,

“Okay is slang. Abbreviation of oll korrect—itself a re-spelling

209

(read mis-spelling) of all correct. Slang. Do you understand

—

slang? Look it up!”

Shani

I fumbled through my dog-eared navy blue pocket dic-

tionary and was too confused to read full phrases but several

M

words leapt out from under the heading slang and left an

oot

indelible impression:… nonstandard… subculture… arbitrary…

oo

ephemeral coinages… spontaneity… peculiar… raciness.

And then she squealed, “Okay is not simply slang; above all

it is an Americanism, that history-less upstart, a further

butchering of our Oxford! Never, (pause for emphasis, and

close-up on mouth pursed anus-tight) never let me hear that

… that… that meaningless utterance again!”

On that evening I did not simply learn about slang; a rev-

elation occurred to me, a shift as vivid as when one’s sinuses

suddenly quake and move around behind one’s face as the pas-

sages clear. I realized that White (I assumed that America was

White [from TV and Time Magazine] and I assumed that

England was White [from my first history book, and the sec-

ond, and the third; from Coronation Street, The Avengers,

Women’s Weekly]) … I realized that White is not all the same.

Mrs. Ramsey’s upturned chin and haughty reserve appealed to

my parents, whose propensity to supplicate was well served,

but the American families who were in Trinidad to govern our

oil fields were reviewed as Whites who had gone to seed. They

flaunted their lack of gentility with their leisurely patio barbe-

cues (imagine serving guests on paper plates and with plastic

utensils!) and pot lucks (imagine a hostess expecting her

guests to bring their own food!). It went unchallenged for me

that in the hierarchy of Whites, British was Queen and

American was peasant.

Early in life I already displayed the trait of championing

the underdog, and so much better if the underdog were also

“Other.” India was not “Other” enough for me. India was at

home in Trinidad. Ahji did not bring out her alphabet book

again but she quietly, subversively, and obstinately brought

India into our house by intensifying her wearing of saris,

singing of bhajans, and performing of conspicuous evening

210

poojas by herself. The house filled up every evening with

—

smoke from camphor squares and the radio no longer played

argins

calypsos or the American Top 40, only music from Indian

M

films and Hindu religious music. North America became the

o N

“Other” underdog for me. When it came time for me to go

abroad for further education, this is where I ended up, to the

veritable irritation of my parents.

Tdrrrrrring! Tdrrrrrring! And we (you and I, not the cast

of the preamble; you and I have left them all behind now) find

ourselves feeling cold, hugging our shoulders, and bouncing

from foot to foot, even though we are indoors. Tdrrrrrring!

and we look outside and see tall buildings, low grey sky, a cou-

ple of scraggly pine trees, and some exhaust-greyed flowerless

shrubs here and there. We have arrived in North America,

Canada to be precise, downtown Vancouver to be razor sharp.

And the word okay is no longer italicized, even though there

is a faint ringing in my knuckles still.

2.

Okay! So now that I want to know about India, Ahji has died,

and I can’t afford to go there. And White friends, unlike my

White childhood tutor, no longer want to whiten me but

rather they want to be brown and sugary like me, so much so

that two of them in particular have embarked on a mission to

rub back in the brown that Mrs. Ramsey tried so hard to

bleach out. It was my taste for “Other” music (now that I live

in North America “Otherness” is elsewhere) that bumped me

into those two, whose interest was in “Other” cultures.

Ever since I saw Zahara, my ex-sweetie, walking hand-in-

hand with another woman, I have been crying to the music of

lovesick Sudanese musicians. Of course I debated questions of

exoticization and exploitation by the World Beat craze, but

always I assuaged my conscience with the thought that Zahara

is Muslim and from Zaire, close enough to Sudan, and since I

had bedded with her I had some right to this music as a balm

211

for my sick heart. I was misguided perhaps, but those who are

—

losers in love usually are.

Shani

Ever since she left me I found myself lured daily to the

music store that specializes in World Beat music. With a good

M

dose of contempt curling a sneer in my upper lip, I would, nev-

oot

ertheless, buy up every piece of mournful beseeching coming

oo

out of Muslim Africa. When my mother found out (a story in

itself ) that I preferred the company of women, she said that I

had put a knife in her heart, but when she heard that the

object of this preference was Muslim, she said that I had

shoved the knife deeper and twisted it in her Hindu heart. I

hope that she does not have the opportunity to see, let alone

hear, my CD collection: Nusrat, Hamza, Abdel Aziz, Abdel

Gadir, etc.

The blond, stringy-haired man at the counter was trying

to get me interested in a CD by Mohamed Gubara from

Sudan. With my eyes closed, I leaned against the glass case

that displayed harmonicas and guitar strings, and listened to

the Sudanese musician bleating tabanca songs and strumming

the tambour.

I imagined his face, his eyes shut also, and his tambour

caressed at his chest like a lover he was embracing and singing

to. The chimes above the doorway to the store tinkled under

Mohamed Gubara’s voice and a hint of men’s cologne under-

neath the flowery scent of a woman announced a presence

more arresting than Mohamed Gubara’s music. I opened my

eyes and recognized the shortness of the hair, the breastless-

ness of the shirt, the Birkenstocks and grey socks. I thought

that she recognized similar things in my appearance, but I

learned later that she had had no idea that I might be “fami-

ly.” The reason she stared and smiled and then came over to

talk was that she frequently visited India. Meet Meghan.

—Did I want to go for a cup of chai next door?

—I don’t drink tea.

—A glass of lassi, perhaps?

—I’d prefer a cappuccino.

And so over cappuccinos and an attraction to her, I wig-

212—

gled my way into hinting of my sexual persuasion, which I had

correctly assumed was the same as hers. We exchanged phone

argins

numbers and for the next forty-eight hours I leapt to answer

M

every phone call, hoping that it would be her. Her call came

o N

after seventy-two hours.

—Did I remember her?

—Uh, yes, how was she enjoying her new CDs?

—Oh, they’re just wonderful. How about dinner? At an

Indian restaurant that she frequents?

—Uh, sure, okay. Why not. (Yes! Yes! Yes! Even though a

too-long absence from home has created in me an intense

intolerance of Indian food.)

All but wrapped and tied up with a bow (I cut my own

blend of men’s and women’s scent, blow-dried my hair twice—

the first time I was a little too intense and one side was bouf-

fant-ish and the other not), I arrived at the restaurant to find

that she and another woman were seated waiting for me.

Enter Virginia, her partner for the last five years, of whom she

had not hinted before.

No need to have made my bed and washed the dishes.

3.

Meghan and Virginia turned out to be peace-seekers to a fault.

Quietly, with no heroism whatsoever, they retreated from

everything remotely resembling indulgence. Their desire for

peace, harmony and one big happy world was not, to my relief,

accompanied by incense-burning and patchouli fragrances!

Nor had they fallen into the crystal craze. And one other

thing: they had a good-natured contempt for tissue-thin

Indian skirts with little claustrophobia-inducing mango-seed

paisleys and hemlines with frayed tassels. Thank the powers

that be! They picked a safe, simple lifestyle.

They had, however, made one big-time purchase: a hot-

off-the-press, pristine, four-door Mazda 626. It was a little

expensive, but undeniably a sensible buy—not what one could

213

call excessive (not one of those limited edition types). After

—

all, who expects reliability and safety to come without a price

Shani

tag attached?

In all the time that I have known them I have never once

M

heard either one raise her voice, in vexation or jubilation. So I

oot

can’t really say that I minded when they spoke about Peace

oo

and Oneness with an accent or in the singsong tone of the

fumbling-bumbling Indian stereotype in Peter Sellers’s

movies. They didn’t mean to mock or be malicious. Take my

word for it. In fact, they were both genuine in their desire to

be Indian. Meghan could slide her neck horizontally from

shoulder to shoulder like the small vibrantly coloured paper

mâché Indian dancer that used to sit on our windowsill,

around the corner and down the street from Mrs. Ramsey’s,

its head dangling sideways in the wind. (To my shame, to this

day I am still unable to slide my neck, or give a convincing imi-

tation of an Indian accent.) Sliding her neck, Meghan would

say in an accent thick and syrupy as a jilebi, “All we want is

peace and happiness in this world. I am wishing you these this

very morning!”

Around her neck she wore a little pendant, a brass globe

the size of a “jacks” ball, with the world in bas relief on it,

hanging from a shiny black satin cord. A sadhu she bumped

into in Bangalore, years ago, had given it to her. After giving

her blessings, she would grasp the world and give it a little

shake. The world would tinkle brilliantly, the sound slowly

fading as if it were moving outward into some other con-

sciousness. Tdrrrrrring! And again, Tdrrrrrring!

Meghan and Virginia had been to India travelling around

several times, separately, before they knew each other. In fact,

that is where they met; Meghan was heading south from

Calcutta to Madras, ashram-hopping, and Virginia was making

the opposite trip, from Mysore in the south to Varanasi up

north. They met on a hustle-and-bustle street somewhere in

between, intuitively yanked together like magnets: two white

Canadian women searching, searching, for what they did not

quite know, until, that is, they found each other. Destiny.

214—

Mission. Karma. They realized that they both had Ukrainian

roots (they have since found out that they are distantly relat-

argins

ed), another magnet for them. They quickly discovered that

M

they had much more than that in common, too. On the day

o N

that they met, Meghan did a string of pirouettes, one after the

other, until she faced north, and she headed in that direction,

accompanying Virginia. But that is a story in itself, and they

can tell their own story. I am tired of telling other people’s

romantic stories.

At some point they came back home to Canada, and a

couple of months later left the hustle, bustle, and overall cold-

ness of Toronto to head for Vancouver, which is a lot closer to

India. They say that when they go down to English Bay and

dip their toes in the water they can feel a current of seductive

tassa drumming vibrating all the way from the heart of India,

encircling their feet and rising up in them. Sometimes lying in

bed at night in their North Van home, nestled in the quiet,

forested uplands, they hear chanting from the ashram in

Calcutta.

It is from them that I learned about Varanasi, the river

Ganga, and Calcutta in such grassroots, earthy detail that I

can smell and feel particles of dusty heat collecting in my nos-

trils. They can decode my ancestors’ ceremonies for me, when

what I know of them is mostly from the colourful coffee-table

picture books that are always on sale at the Book Warehouse

for $4.95.

The first time I met them I heard Meghan say “acha” at

some point in our conversation, and I left it go, thinking it

was a Ukrainian expression. Later, when she said “chalo” and

then “nahi,” I had to cock my head sideways and ask if those

were the same Hindi words that I had heard Ahji use. They

came naturally to Meghan. She often exclaimed in longer

Hindi sentences, catching me off guard, making me feel igno-

rant and like a charlatan. Ahji would have been baffled by the

upside-downness of the world as it unfolds.

215

The only Indian words I know are those on the menus of

—

Indian restaurants and in my very own Indian Cookery by Mrs.

Shani

Balbir Singh. From the first day when I arrived in Canada peo-

ple would say, “Oh, great! You can teach me how to cook

M

Indian food, and that tea, what is it called? Masala tea? Chai?

oot

You know, the one with the spices.” But I didn’t know, hadn’t

oo

heard of such a tea until I came up here. Instead of disap-

pointing people before I even got a chance to make any

friends, I went out and bought that cookbook, which has just

about saved my face more than a few times. Mrs. Singh taught

me words like vindaloo, mulligatawny, bhuna, matar, pullao,

and gosht, and of course, roti in some of its varities: chapati,

puri, naan, and so on.

It was inevitable that Meghan and Virginia would one day

invite me to go with them to the Hare Krishna temple out in

Ferrinbridge. “Come learn about your culture!” they suggest-

ed in the jovial manner of those enlightened to such absurdi-

ties of life. Feeling like a cultural orphan, I decided to go. I

was only a little surprised to find out that they were Krishna

followers. You see, it is not that I was surprised that two white

women would belong to that movement. In fact, I was always

under the impression that Hare Krishnas were, indeed, white,

having been introduced to the movement by the Beatles, and

then having seen with my own eyes only white folk chanting

the names of Hindu gods and beating Indian tassa drums at

airports in Miami, New York, and London. It is only recently,

at the Peace March downtown, that I’ve seen among the

Krishna contingency a handful—well, less than that, really—

of browns awkwardly partaking in the clapping, swaying,

chanting, drumming, and tinkling amidst a sea of white men

wearing orange kurtas and white dotis, and white women

wearing thin heaven-white cotton saris, the women so emaci-

ated and long-limbed that their saris, which were tightly

wrapped instead of draped, looked like some type of garment

other than a sari (perhaps a mummy’s outer encasement, with

216—

an ohrni thrown over the head). It made me wonder who came

first, the white followers or the Indian ones. Who converted

argins

whom.

M

What surprised me was that these two women, who were

o N

a lot closer to my living room than the Beatles or fleeting

orange kurtas and nameless chanting faces in airports, these

acquaintances of mine were Krishna followers. These two

very ordinary, well-heeled (suede Birks) and responsible peo-

ple! Well, what I really mean to say is “these good-looking

white dykes!”

I readily decided to swallow my shame that these two were

better Indians than I, and to go ingest some of the sounds,

smells, colours, and tastes (everyone talks of the free vegetari-

an meal after a prayer meeting) of my foreparents’ homeland.

Sunday evening, the evening I was to learn a little about my

culture, the pristine Mazda 626 sidled up to the curb in front

of my apartment building. The inside of the car was ablaze

with colour: Virginia’s grinning face peeped out from under the

cherdo of a brilliant red silk sari, her face framed by a navy blue

border with discriminating flecks of silver paisleys. Meghan’s

cherdo hung around her neck, leaving her sandy-coloured head

hovering in that dangerous place where one cannot pin her

down to being female or male. Boyish one minute, unmistak-

able woman the next. And then boyish again.

Meghan was immensely pleased with herself. Her silk sari

was forest green, with tiny gold paisleys all over and a thick,

heavily-embroidered border of silver and gold. My own plain

white T-shirt, dark blue rayon slacks, Dr. Martens’ brogues,

and white socks (I guessed, correctly, that we would have to

remove our shoes, so I wore a pair of brand-new dressy socks

that I had been saving for a special occasion) made me feel

like a party-pooper going to a costume party. “Wow! You guys

look great!” and other exclamations came out of my mouth,

but the thoughts in my head flipped back and forth between

“God, do I ever feel underdressed, shabby, shown-up as a cul-

217

tural ignoramus” and “What the heck do you want with dress-

—

ing up in saris and praying to Indian gods? What business do

Shani

you have showing me what I have lost? Go check out your

own ancestry!” A string of unprintable thoughts and exple-

M

tives surprised me. Would have turned Mrs. Ramsey blue.

oot

Meghan pulled the car away from the curb and Virginia

oo

turned back to talk to me. When I saw her blue satin blouse I

realized that I had unconsciously harboured the thought that

they would be wearing T-shirts instead of sari blouses. After a

few minutes I became aware that I had overdone the “Gosh!

They’re sooo beautiful” sentiments, and I felt quite awkward.

When we got out of the car I saw their full saris, faultlessly

wrapped. The pleats of the patli were equally spaced, perfectly

placed. I was in the mood to bet that they had had the patli

arranged and then permanently sewn in place.

I was not the only South Asian at the ashram, as I had expect-

ed to be. In fact, a good half of the modest gathering was

brown-skinned. None of the brown men wore the orange and

white of the Krishnas, though. They wore quiet, polite

Western suits. The brown women all wore modest day saris.

Dressed as I was, the only female browny in Western wear, I

understood, as if it were a revelation, Ahji’s panic and distress

at the unravelling of her culture right before her eyes.

Virginia and Meghan, with eyes closed, clapped and

swayed to the chaotic drumming and the tuneless chanting of

the all-white leaders. I stood as stiffly as an old piece of dried

toast, with my hands clasped behind my back. The other

brown folk, on the periphery of the room, not at all central to

the goings-on, clapped discreetly, without their bodies

exhibiting their spiritual jubilance.

In a temple of Krishna and Rama, surrounded by murals

depicting scenes from the Bhagavad Gita, among peace-desir-

ing people full of benevolence, my temperature—temper,

actually—rose. The sermon on a particular chapter of the Gita

was delivered by His Holiness, a white man in orange, with a

218—

head shaved except for a thin tail of hair emanating from the

upper back of his head. He sat on a throne surrounded by his

argins

entourage of white devotees. He had just returned from India

M

full of inspiration and energy and was passing out stories of

o N

the work being done there to complete the building of a city

and centre of Krishna devotion. “Go to India,” he said repeat-

edly, grinning impishly with the privilege of having done so

himself several times.

The men sat closest to him, in front, and the women sat at

the back. The brown women fell into their places at the very

back, against the wall. Midway through the sermon a young

man came to fetch women, who were needed in the kitchen to

serve the food. He crossed over and meandered among the con-

gregation of white women who were nearest to him, heading for

the brown ones. They dutifully rose and followed him into the

kitchen, missing the ending of the sermon.

I wondered what wisdom it was (if that is what it was) that

kept people from committing crimes right there and then. A

familiar burning touched my knuckles, but this time it was

from too tight a fist wanting to impact with history. An urgent

rage buzzed around my head and ears like a swarm of crazed

mosquitoes. I unfisted my hands and flayed them around my

head, brushing away the swarming past and present.

I looked over at my two friends sitting at my side. Meghan

and Virginia, genuine in their desire to find that point where

all division ceases and we unite as one, shone radiantly.

Meghan followed my eyes as I watched the brown women

walking singlefile to the kitchen. In her favourite accent, full

of empathy, she said, “Pretty sexist, eh! That’s a problem for

us too.”

Tdrrrrrring! Oh! There’s my doorbell!

A letter from back home, from my mother. In the unfa-

miliar tone of her written English she writes, “…She gave me

219

her prized potted scorpion orchid just days before she passed

—

away. As if she had a premonition! She had asked your Papa,

Shani

quite some time back, to be the executor of her will. Her wish

was that he contact her stepson, George Arthur Ramsey, in

M

Surrey, England, and have her body flown back to him for bur-

oot

ial among their kin. We did our best for our good friend, to

oo

whom Sharda and you owe thanks for your skills in the

English language. After several telegrams back and forth, Papa

found George living in Philadelphia, U.S.A., with his new

bride, an Indian woman from East Africa. (I automatically

wonder if she is Muslim.) So her body was sent to him there,

where he held a funeral for her. We sincerely hope that this

arrangement was okay….”

Shani Mootoo

220—

Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland and grew up in Trinidad.

argins

She has lived in Canada since the early 1980s. Her acclaimed

M

first novel Cereus Blooms at Night, was published in fourteen

o N

countries and was a finalist for The Giller Prize, the Ethel

Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Amazon/Books in Canada First

Novel Award. Her book of poetry is entitled The Predicament

of Or, and “The Upside-downness of the World as it Unfolds”

comes from her collection of short fiction, Out on Main Street

and Other Stories. An accomplished visual and video artist,

Shani Mootoo’s novel He Drown She in the Sea was published in

2005.

221

Elizabeth Ruth

— Elizabeth

Writer Notes

Writing fiction is really just the elusive, impossible process of

R

chasing one’s soul, catching it for a moment, and then translat-

uth

ing it onto a page. It’s hard for any writer, but perhaps especial-

ly hard for writers who live on the margins where their vantage

point onto the wider world is often discounted or ignored, and

where they may see that little in life is static, fixed, unchang-

ing—including sexual “orientation,” gender, sex itself. Indeed

for writers who don’t sit comfortably within the mainstream, or

worse, those who don’t try to, the soul—that unknowable,

unproven entity—is probably also fluid and in flux. It can’t actu-

ally be caught, and yet we go on trying...

Am I a lesbian writer or a writer who happens to be les-

bian? How, if at all, does my life intersect with my writing? Do

I believe there’s a distinct lesbian literary “voice”? The

answers to these and other questions depend on the day, the

moment, the company I’m keeping, even my mood. The

answers will also depend on you, the reader, on whether you

believe I chose to write, chose to have my most intimate intel-

lectual, emotional, and sexual relations with women, or

whether you believe these things chose me.

Perhaps beginnings are key:

I was born to an unmarried mother in 1968, when there

was still enough stigma around illegitimacy that most women

of the day were coerced or actively pressured into back-alley

abortions or putting their babies up for adoption. I was born

in a Catholic hospital to a Protestant mother who was shamed

and encouraged to give me up for adoption. The birth control

pill was new in Canada and women finally had some degree of

control over their reproductive lives. This meant fewer

unwanted pregnancies, and so fewer babies available for adop-

tion. My mother—brave, defiant woman that she is, kept me.

I was raised without a father. Ontologically speaking—not

merely practically speaking. When people say that they were

222—

raised by a single mother, they usually mean something entire-

ly different. There is no father’s name on my birth certificate,

argins

no photo in my drawer of some man dead or long gone, no

M

child support payments or custody battles, no negative story-

o N

line of rejection for me to hang my hat on. He doesn’t even

know I exist. I didn’t think to ask about my biological father

until I was almost twelve years old when someone in the

schoolyard forced the issue. In our home, the social role of

father and the biological fact of paternity were separate con-

cepts, as they remain for me. My biological father was, in

some ways, like the anonymous sperm donors of today.

My childhood was wonderful chaos and glorious change.

It was creatively stimulating and by most people’s standards,

then and now, dramatic. My mother worked more than full

time, so we always had food and a place to live. She slept in the

living-room and I was given the one bedroom in our many

apartments, or once, the closet of our bachelor apartment.

(My bed just fit and I loved the cosiness and the dark.) I

moved schools almost annually and in one year—grade

three—changed schools three times. People came into my life

and disappeared like phantoms, but from each I learned a new

story. I kept on the outside of social circles; there was no

point in becoming too attached. Psychologists have a field day

with childhoods like mine—and I grew up hearing their pre-

dictions from teachers and guidance counsellors and neigh-

bours about how I would surely end up pregnant at sixteen, a

high school dropout, a drug addict. I would self-destruct. I

suppose, in part, I later studied psychology to prove them

wrong.

We spent two years in Bogotá, Colombia, where I was

educated in Spanish and in the brutal realities of a class sys-

tem that supports the rich by squashing the poor. Living in

South America was the single biggest defining experience of

my young life. It shaped who I would become. It gave me a

different language to love, showing me first-hand how lan-

223

guage creates thought, and how I could be a different person

—

in a different tongue. Life abroad exposed me to places and

Elizabeth

people I’d never known existed, informed my understanding

of systemic violence, oppression, and the need for active,

global resistance.

R

I was never sheltered from my mother’s day-to-day strug-

uth

gle to pay rent and find affordable housing, or taught to be

ashamed of our family, where visiting relatives in psychiatric

facilities and hanging out with relatives between prison stints

was (and is) a fact of life. I was allowed to know gays, lesbians,

and a couple of very sexy transsexual working girls, who pop-

ulated the landscape of my childhood. In short, I was never

prevented from knowing the full, ugly, sublime human experi-

ence. I was encouraged to embrace it.

How could I become any kind of writer other than the

kind for whom people and issues on the margins are the cen-

tral preoccupation? How could I not somehow subvert the

canon and challenge literary convention? Outlaws and out-

siders are my people, those I come from and those I choose to

love, and they interest me in life and in the fictional world of

my imagination. I must write them into being. I must write

the world as I need it to be. To write anything else would be

to write myself out of existence. Does that make me a lesbian

writer or just an honest writer? How, if at all, does my sexual-

ity intersect with my writing? Do I believe there’s a distinct

lesbian literary “voice”? My answer is yes. And no. And maybe.

You decide.

“tiny insurmountable hills” is the title story in a linked col-

lection I’m developing. It deals with moments in our lives that

get minimized—are deemed small and insignificant by our

culture or communities or by ourselves—when they are actu-

ally monumental defining moments that shape us. With this

story I explore the nebulous concept of “free choice” as it

relates to women’s reproduction, and the relative privilege and

powerlessness different women experience in terms of moth-

erhood. “Tiny” was inspired by a news story from 2003 when

a newborn was abandoned on the steps of Toronto’s City Hall.

224

Little information was given about her biological mother,

—

except that she’d been living in a shelter for homeless women.

argins Mo N

225

Elizabeth Ruth

— Elizabeth

tiny insurmountable hills

“Cross me off,” I told that snot-nosed skinny new social work-

R

er at the shelter.

uth

“But it’s winter,” she said, like I couldn’t judge that for

myself. “It’s fifteen below outside.”

I smiled but not a real one. Not the kind I stored for

Momma before she died or my brother Jimmy. No, I flashed

the other kind, all toothy and wide, pulled it up out of the pit

of me, like I was pulling a rabbit from a hat, and sat it on my

face for the professional. It makes them feel good about them-

selves thinking we’re co-operating, thinking we like them.

And when they feel good about themselves, they feel a whole

lot better about helping us.

“Cross me off,” I repeated.

She shook her head.

“I can’t do that, Pauline. Not when you’re so close to final-

ly being housed.” Her cheeks got all spotty like she was a baby

with a face rash. She rolled her chair across the clear plastic

mat and reached into the oak desk drawer where they kept

our meds. She fished through the pile and found a plastic bag

with a strip of yellow masking tape on it. The name “Pauline”

was written in black marker. She thought that was my real

name. She rattled one small pill bottle after another like she

was rattling her granddaddy’s teeth in a jar. When she was sat-

isfied that I hadn’t skipped my meds, she shut the drawer.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re right. You’re all caught up.” She swiv-

elled and rolled over to me in that queen-shit chair. Her tune

changed then, softened like rancid butter. “Why don’t you tell

me what’s really going on. You’ve been on the priority list for

a year and now, when you’re so close, you want off?”

Her words stuck like Elmer’s glue fastened them. I

thought about Christopher, about when he was born all jittery

and crack addicted, how I got to hold him a whole five min-

utes before he started wailing, and the nurse came and took

226

him from me. “Your kind always wants off easy,” that nurse

—

said. “Excuses. Special treatment. If it was up to me, you’d all

argins

be sterilized.” Truth be told, I was relieved to have

M

Christopher gone. You’re not supposed to say that about your

o N

own baby, but I was pretty sure he took one good look at his

sorry excuse for a mother, got a sweet whiff of the crack

sweating up through my skin, and knew enough to register

protest. It was better he be gone to someone else; still I felt

my bones coming apart from their joints, and it hurt bad. No

one to talk to and nothing to say; I held my breath until I

passed out in that clean, white hospital bed.

In the shelter with little Miss BSW staring back at me,

same blue eyes as that nurse long ago, I couldn’t hold the plas-

tic smile any longer. My face went slack and I felt a sickness

coming upon me—through me—from the inside out.

“I’ll take my chances in the streets,” I said.

She stood up, letting the chair roll away behind her.

“I’m sorry, Pauline, I can’t stop you from leaving but I’m

not taking you off the housing list.”

I shoved her. Not hard, mind you, just hard enough that

she’d know what I’d known since long before she was even

born: every sorry son-of-a-bitch has a choice in this life, and

the last thing you want is to be the one who takes it away.

She regained her footing and pressed the button on the

underside of the desk to call for the other staff on shift. The

buzzer rang throughout the house. Big fat Janet-the-planet

came clomping down the front hall in her steel-toed boots,

probably forgot to lock the kitchen door behind her again. My

belly started tumbling like it was full of soft pebbles, and I

should’ve known it was a girl I was carrying this time. No

boulder, all stubborn and fixed like Christopher, but flexible,

resourceful. I’d been polishing them pebbles inside me like lit-

tle pieces of granite, polishing them to fine gemstones. For a

split second I thought I might be different with this baby, I’d

be good and stay clean, but guess what? All the mother-fuck-

227

ing goodwill in the world don’t change shit. Hooked is

—

hooked, baby or no.

Elizabeth

“Fuck you!” I hollered at the staff as Janet waddled into

the office. “Fuck you, you little muffin. What do you know

about me? It’s my life and if I want to live it in the big beauti-

R

ful outdoors, I will. Take me off the list!”

uth

“Pauline!” Janet used her firm voice, the one she reserved

for what staff called “crisis situations.” I turned to her, bal-

looned out like she was, her fingers as yellowed at the tips

from smoking as mine, and I thought how most of the time I

didn’t mind Janet-the-planet. She was my age at least,

fortysomething, and occasionally she’d sneak me a smoke

when I ran out. But she wouldn’t know a real crisis if one fell

at her feet and gave birth to a new moon.

“Janet,” I said in the same tone of voice as she’d used on

me. “This girl here don’t know my situation. You two don’t

even know my real fucking name!”

§ § §

Lisa lay with her feet in stirrups covered in green paisley oven

mitts. A poem that her aunt had pinned to her refrigerator

with a Jesus magnet was stuck on the opposite wall:

“Desiderata.” On the counter, beside the microscope, sat a

beige file folder with her first initial and her surname printed

in thick black ink and next to her name the words “high risk.”

Janet, Lisa’s lover of five years, winked at Lisa while Dr. M.

opened the cap on the sperm vile and, with a long, thin

syringe, extracted a tiny amount. He dripped sperm onto a

microscope slide, switched on the microscope’s light, and

leaned forward to inspect. “Motility is good,” he said. “These

fellas are raring to go. Have a look.”

Janet smiled and moved to see for herself. Some sperm

swam fast, others slow. Some were fatter, had bigger heads,

longer tails, one spun in circles. Another jerked backwards.

For an instant Janet wondered whether they were making the

right decision in using an anonymous donor.

228—

Lisa was glad that she couldn’t see the sperm moving,

alive. The more she knew about the donor, the more real he

argins

became in her mind, and she knew he had to remain a distant,

M

perfunctory moment in time or else the child that resulted

o N

might one day pick up on lingering information and want the

whole story. The secret to raising a healthy child without a

biological father, she had decided, was to teach it that it can-

not miss what it has never known.

Lisa flinched when Dr. M. inserted a cold metal speculum

into her vagina. She took a deep breath and tried to visualize

her open cervix, a wide, pink donut glistening with mucus that

would help the sperm to stay alive. As the doctor drew the rest

of the sperm into his syringe and released it, Lisa played with

the ring she had worn for good luck. It was her grandmother’s

wedding band. Her grandmother had given birth to seven chil-

dren. Lisa closed her eyes and imagined the sperm swimming

hard up to her uterus and her egg rolling down strong to meet

it in the fallopian tubes. She was a tree with ripe fruit, peach-

es, apricots. She was fertile. After Dr. M. left, and despite

reassurance that it would make no difference, she remained

on her back with her legs up in the air for twenty minutes.

Janet was cautious about becoming invested at this

stage—she’d prepared herself for a lengthy process. When

Lisa insisted that she’d conceived immediately, Janet dis-

missed the claim as justifiable, albeit mistaken, enthusiasm

and went about her days nonplussed. They would discover

that Lisa was correct two weeks later when they returned to

the clinic for blood work. The doctor’s confirmation would,

after so many abstract, hypothetical conversations about hav-

ing children, strike Janet as wonderfully concrete. Her chest

would swell and a wish, as fine and untouched as a blank can-

vas, would rise up.

§ § §

229

I packed all my belongings in a single bag and left the shelter.

—

I doubled up my clothes so I was wearing two layers under my

Elizabeth

winter coat, which saved me from carrying too much and left

my arms free—important when you’re wandering the streets

alone. Got to be ready for anything. I used up my daily gov-

R

ernment money to pay for the streetcar; it was too damn cold

uth

to walk. Guess I wouldn’t be buying any smokes.

That day it was colder than any other I could remember.

Colder than when Momma was buried or when Jimmy was sent

up to jail in Penetang. Colder than the first winter I had spent

wondering who was mothering my little Christopher, or if he

survived me. I had the sweats though, water pouring down my

sides, under my arms, like a strange fever had come on. When I

stood at the corner waiting on the streetcar my face was flushed

from heat but my short hair froze to my scalp.

The streetcar turned south on Broadview and ran west

along Queen. I watched Regent Park creak by, my old stomp-

ing ground, and clenched my jaw. They say government hous-

ing is better than no housing, they do, but none of them’s ever

lived in a place anywhere near to that hole. I don’t care what

fancy educated lady wants to tell me different; even when the

drug running and the guns aren’t a problem, opportunities are

cut down like trees. No child growing up in those projects

escapes getting pinned as going nowhere fast. Teachers pin

him. Neighbours pin him. Even the poor little bastard comes

to stain himself with hopelessness. I sat back in my seat,

stretched my cold, swollen feet in my boots, and when we

angled up the road a bit farther and left all that madness

behind, I grinned silly.

I got off at City Hall. Had the idea of marching straight

up the cement walkway, straight on inside to where the squat

little mayor sat, and demand he take me off that goddamned

housing list once and for all. It was a joke; making us wait

three, four, five years for a home we could hardly afford and

didn’t want, and when we did manage it, stacking us like domi-

noes into tiny brick ghettos, jamming us together with all our

crack and booze and hustling, until there’s nothing else and no

230

way to see beyond. Why did I want to be on that list, waiting

—

desperate, when I could cut loose and at least hold my digni-

ty? Was no way I was having my baby in a shelter or in one of

argins M

those infested boxes they called subsidized apartments.

o N

Making the whole thing start over again, making another me.

No thank you.

Children were bundled in their winter coats and hats and

gloves, skating on the rink at Nathan Phillips Square. They

laughed and fell over on wobbly ankles, got up again and

chased each other, inhaling thin needles of ice and loving it, I

could tell. The parents of the youngest ones shouted encour-

agement and waved from the sidelines. A few even laced up

and went skating themselves. I’ve never been on a pair of ice

skates. Can’t imagine I’d be good at balancing, trying to move

without falling over on my ass. No, I don’t imagine I would be

any good at that.

I smelled the strong odour of grease from the hamburger

and french fry truck mixed with the sweet, watery smell of

hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows, and I wanted to

toss my lunch.

§ § §

Nine week Obstetrical Ultrasound.

Lisa and Janet held hands while Dr. M. interpreted the

ultrasound report for them:

Gestational age:

8 weeks.

Gestation:

single, intrauterine.

Yolk sac:

0.78cm

Gestational sac:

1.06cm

Crown Rump Length:

0.2cm

Foetal Heart Beat:

Yes. 109 bpm.

The pregnancy was viable, the technician had registered a

heartbeat, but the embryo appeared to be only eight weeks

231

when it should have been developed to nine. Lisa had a fifty-

—

fifty chance of miscarrying. “There’s nothing to do but wait

Elizabeth

and see,” said Dr. M. marking an X through the report with

his pen. “Women over thirty-five. You know the stats.”

That night Lisa dreamt of death, of Janet’s and of her own.

R

She woke the next morning, after Janet had left for the shelter,

uth

and called in sick to work. Her class would just have to make-

do with a substitute. She returned to bed and lay with her

hands crossed over her belly, trying to visualize the heartbeat,

her second one. She conjured positive words to teach the life

inside that it was wanted. She walked around talking to herself,

to the embryo, though she knew it was only the size of her

longest eyelash. She ate canned plums because her grandmoth-

er had said that plums, with their red fleshy meat, were good

for fertility. Within a week of receiving the ultrasound Lisa had

told the guppy floating inside of her that they each had to pull

their weight, that it was up to them both now. She ran all the

yellow lights along Bloor Street when driving to school, as if

tempting fate was taking back control. You want to defeat me,

she thought. You want what’s mine? Catch me first.

Janet took the phone calls and warned the few friends and

family members they’d prematurely told of the pregnancy. She

chastised herself for not having followed her instinct, which

was to wait until they were clear of the first trimester before

sharing the news with anyone. But it had been exciting and

had simply pressed out of them uncontrollably. If something

did go wrong, Lisa had said, it would be good to have support.

Now, Lisa had begun to spot blood and Janet was sure she was

watching the beginning of the end. She kept this sentiment to

herself.

Janet didn’t understand how Lisa could stand not knowing

whether the baby had ceased growing, whether its heartbeat

was waning. The thought of Lisa carrying death around inside

gave Janet a sinister feeling, and she avoided Lisa at home,

avoided touching her as they squeezed past one another in the

bathroom to brush their teeth before bed and in the kitchen

when making meals. They no longer made love. Janet moved

232—

through those interminable weeks leading up to the second

ultrasound in a slow motion daze. Routine daily life became

argins

absurd, grotesque. Women on the sidewalk with pregnant bel-

M

lies and baby strollers jumped out at her from every corner

o N

like strange advancing and retreating clowns. She felt as

though she were trapped inside the Salvador Dali reproduc-

tion hanging in the office at the shelter. Dr. M’s last words

rang in her ears like funeral bells. “I don’t mean to be grue-

some,” he’d said. “But I want to reassure you. If it happens,

you won’t see body parts.”

§ § §

I sat on a cement bench to gather my thoughts. My ass was

numb. My stomach rolled and complained. I could feel all six

pounds shifting inside my belly—I’d done it again. Got myself

knocked up. Seemed any man so much as even gawked at me

and I was pregnant. Before long people at the rink were pack-

ing up their children, frozen and tired, and workers were fun-

nelling out of City Hall. The rink lights came on, all different

colours. Against the grey-white backdrop of the evening sky

and the pale grey concrete and ice, I must’ve looked to God

like nothing but a tiny speck of dirt.

It was close to ten when I took myself around the side of

the building, searching out somewhere to hide and be safe

while the pains tore through me. I felt like a dog who’d been

hit by a car and was hunting for a quiet place by the side of the

road to curl up and die. I didn’t remember it hurting so bad

with Christopher. I buckled onto my knees on the hard grey

concrete near an empty staircase. Nobody saw or heard. The

concrete was terrible cold. I pulled the only blanket I had, a

pink one I’d nabbed from the shelter’s donations room, and

rolled myself onto it. I loosened my buttons and zippers, and

slid out of my two pairs of pants but not my coat.

I rolled around on the hard ground, breathing and heaving

233

and trying not to push. What in hell I was I gonna do? I could-

—

n’t have the baby; I wasn’t ready. We didn’t have a place to live

Elizabeth

and my money was all gone. Plus, even though I’d known in

some ways—when I could admit it to myself—that I was car-

rying again, in other ways I swear on my own sweet Momma’s

R

grave, I didn’t know it. Couldn’t accept it. Those months lead-

uth

ing up to my leaving the shelter were like a watery vision, a

dream you want to wake from but don’t. At fortysomething, I

was too old for baby-making, wasn’t I? I hadn’t visited any

doctor, unless you count the shrink who prescribed my meds,

and he never asked why I was growing bigger, must’ve thought

I was bloating out on the pills like the others. I guess I figured

that if a doctor don’t see it, and the staff at the shelter don’t

notice it, maybe it simply ain’t there. So, like I said, I knew

but I didn’t, and that’s the way it was, right up until she ripped

out of me and slid onto that dirty pink blanket on the con-

crete like a shiny wet plum slipping from its skin.

She let out a high-pitched wail, but I didn’t touch her,

except for reaching down and digging through the sticky

umbilical cord with my thumbnail until we were separated. I

knew she didn’t want me any more than Christopher had and

touching her would’ve left me imprinted on her skin for good.

Better she make it on her own or not at all. I lay there anoth-

er few minutes, maybe five or ten, I couldn’t say, and pushed

some more until the guts came pouring out of me. Once the

cramps faded I rolled away, stood upright, and stuffed myself

back into all those layers. Blood ran from me like a faucet and

I smelled sour and tangy. When I wiped my nose, my hand

smeared fresh red blood across my cheek. I walked away and

then I ran as fast as I could into the city night, and I gave no

more thought to her. She was done with me. She was clean

clear of me and living on her own now. Lucky her.

§ § §

Lisa walked west along Queen Street looking in decorated

store windows. When her hands and toes grew cold, she

234—

decided to continue on to the Eaton Centre a few blocks away.

She hurried along the slushy sidewalk, past University Avenue

argins

and City Hall, where children were skating. Inside the mall,

M

she tried to distract herself by scanning the sales racks for new

o N

winter clothes. She had made it three more weeks, almost to

the critical twelve week threshold, and each approaching hour

made her more anxious. Time was no longer an intangible

with endless possibilities stretching out ahead, it was some-

thing she dreaded, a unit of measurement she wished she

could reach out and clasp in her fist, like a firefly, and seal

away in a jar. The foetus was fully formed though small.

Lisa soon lost herself in the noise of the crowds and the

dizzying reds and greens and golds of the holiday displays.

When she passed the food court on the bottom level of the

mall she smelled smoked meats and grease, odours that had

begun to render her nauseous. She desperately wanted a can of

pop but instead sat on a bench and ate a single scoop of vanil-

la ice cream, reassured that ice cream counted as one helping

of dairy and dairy was good for the baby. When she was done,

she stood and felt pain rip across her lower abdomen. The

pain was sharp, like teeth biting down. She scanned the mall

for a public washroom.

Lisa leaned forward on the toilet and held her abdomen.

She breathed heavily, but made no noise—others using the

washroom might think she was doing something strange in

the cubicle, like vomiting or masturbating. When she pulled

down her underwear she saw that she’d begun to bleed. She

tried not to be alarmed or jump to conclusions. After all, spot-

ting during early pregnancy wasn’t necessarily a sign of miscar-

riage, and the blood on her white cotton underpants was faint

and brown. She would not allow herself to consider the possi-

bility of loss. She would refuse. If she sat motionless, the baby

would settle and her cramps would cease. Maybe if she prayed,

bargained with a god she was no longer sure she believed in. If

only she could wish it away. But the longer she sat—and she

235

couldn’t rise anymore because the contractions were severe—

—

the heavier and redder the flow became. Finally, she gasped.

Elizabeth

“Excuse me,” said a woman in the adjacent stall. “Are you

all right in there?”

Lisa stared at the bright red blood in the toilet bowl.

R

“I’m fine. Just having bad cramps.”

uth

“Oh, mine are bad too,” said the woman. “Take two Advil,

that always helps.”

“I will. Thank you.”

After a moment the woman flushed her toilet, moved to

run water at the sink, activated the hand dryer, and squished

across the tile floor in wet boots. Lisa was by herself again,

more alone than she’d ever known was possible.

Later, Lisa wished that she could have answered all of

Janet’s questions accurately, described what it had felt like,

and what she’d witnessed laying in the toilet bowl between her

legs. She would’ve liked to say that she’d thought of Janet

because it was their shared experience, a shared loss. But she

could not. This loss was hers alone and she knew it.

What she remembers, she remembers vividly: the blood

streaming down between her legs in a pulsing fashion, paint-

ing the white bowl in a surprisingly beautiful display. The tis-

sue floating, softly as air, and each new fold pushing out to the

rhythm of the cramps, to the contractions of her cervix.

Lisa hadn’t wanted to read about miscarriage in advance

and she hadn’t, believing that the mere thought could provoke

one. But Janet, she knew, had been reading everything she

could lay her hands on, as if the more knowledge she acquired,

the better armed she would be. Once, Janet had left a book

face down on the kitchen table and Lisa had absent-mindedly

turned it over while eating her breakfast. Her eyes had scanned

the page and locked onto a sentence explaining that for many

women miscarriage began and ended fast, but for others the

bleeding continued for days, even weeks, leaving a partially

expelled gestational sac and embryo inside the mother.

In the washroom stall she tried to picture it, the heart-

beat, and that’s when she felt a mass pressing out between her

236—

legs, not very big, not solid like a stone, but firm enough and

heavy enough to push out of her all at once, intact, and to

argins

cause a plopping sound when it hit the water. She gazed down

M

and there it was: purple, black, and deep, deep red, the mem-

o N

brane, diaphanous as chiffon, waving. She tried to discern a

shape and found the loose outline of a miniature alien figure,

more shadow than definition—paddles, head, giant eye sock-

ets. She wanted to touch it, feel what she’d made, almost

made. She forced herself to reach down into the water, afraid

of having the sensation it left permanently stuck to her finger-

tips, and gently poked a flattened plum mass, the tiny insur-

mountable hill. All at once the automatic toilet bowl flushed

and before she could say goodbye, her baby—or the rudimen-

tary parts that would have been her baby—were swept away

for good.

“I wasn’t ready,” Lisa told Janet when she got home and

burst into tears on the couch. Janet had thought she meant

the miscarriage, but Lisa had meant that she wasn’t ready to

be one of those women who are marked as barren or broken,

or simply unnatural. She wasn’t ready to be powerless. If it had

been up to her, she would’ve sat there all afternoon, watched

it, stroked it, tried to get to know it a little and then in her

own good time, let it go.

237

Elizabeth Ruth

— Elizabeth

Elizabeth Ruth’s debut novel, Ten Good Seconds of Silence, was

published in 2001 and named a finalist for the Rogers Writers’

Trust of Canada Fiction Prize, the Amazon.ca/Books in

R

Canada First Novel Award, and the City of Toronto Book

uth

Award. In 2005, her second novel, Smoke, was published to

critical acclaim. Elizabeth Ruth was the founder and curator

of Clit Lit, a monthly queer literary series that ran from 1998

to 2002. Over 400 writers read at the series, and in 2002

Elizabeth compiled and edited some of their most memorable

pieces for an anthology entitled, Bent On Writing: contemporary

queer tales. Elizabeth Ruth teaches creative writing at the

University of Toronto. She may be reached via www.elizabeth

ruth.com.

239

Karen X. Tulchinsky

— K

Writer Notes

aren

X.

Place

T

Everything we experience informs an artist’s work. “Write

ulchinsky

what you know,” we tell emerging writers. What we know is a

mixture of personal and collective experience, history, and col-

lective unconscious. I grew up in Toronto and moved to

Vancouver where I now live. Most of my work has been set in

Toronto and San Francisco, a place I have only visited but

adore. I am most comfortable on the west coast, where I can

smell the salt of the ocean, feel the pull of the tides, and expe-

rience greenery all year round. The rhythms of the place are

slower than in the east. It’s interesting that the place I left,

Toronto, features most prominently (to date) in my writing.

Sometimes it’s easier to evoke a place when you are not actu-

ally living there.

Living in Canada completely informs my work, especially

since much of my work is set in the United States. Whether

we honour our national cultural identity or not, it is crucial to

our well-being to see reflections of our lives in fiction. Canada

is inundated with books, films, and television from the US,

which distorts our identity and is hard for Canadian writers to

compete with. If you walk into a bookstore in the US, I’d

guess that ninety-nine percent of the books on the shelf are

homegrown, whereas if you walk into a Canadian bookstore,

it’s a miracle if ten percent of the books on the shelf are writ-

ten by Canadian authors.

Identity

Being a lesbian and part of the queer community shapes

the content of my writing as much as being a Jew and part of

the Jewish community does, as does my experience in a bira-

cial relationship, as does my identity as a butch dyke. I don’t

know if there is a discernable lesbian voice or perspective.

Certainly, there is a distinct queer point of view—that of the

240—

outsider, because of who we love, which is different than

being an outsider because of your race or heritage. For exam-

argins

ple, as a Jew, I am outside dominant WASP culture (i.e.

M

Christmas and other statutory holidays that are Christian-

o N

based), but this experience doesn’t separate me from my par-

ents or sisters. Being Jewish bonds me more closely to my

family. My outside of the “norm” experience as a lesbian bonds

me to my friends in the queer community but separates me

from my blood family. I write about this—sometimes in all its

tragedy, other times in all its comedy.

Creative Process

It’s more mysterious than we like to think. Although most

of my previous work has been set in the gay and lesbian com-

munity (I’m one of the lesbian writers who writes about gay

men as well as gay women), my latest book , The Five Books of

Moses Lapinsky, is set in the 1930s and 40s in Toronto’s Jewish

community. The main character is a boy who grows up to

become a world champion boxer. In the book, I wrote exten-

sively about boxing, war, and violence amongst men. There are

few female characters in my book, and those who are there are

strong, but in the background. This was not intentional.

Sometimes a book and its characters will lead the way, and

there’s nothing the writer can do but follow. Sonny Lapinsky,

my main character, emerged as a boxer. In early drafts I fought

this idea, simply because I knew nothing about boxing, and

what I did know, I didn’t approve of or enjoy. But my charac-

ter would not back down. He needed to be a boxer no matter

what I thought of it. So I gave in, and conducted extensive

research on boxing and soldiers in the Canadian Armed

Forces during World War II, so that I could write about these

boys and men. It was an amazing experience, both personally

and as an artist, to push myself to explore the world of men.

241

Audience

—

My first audience has been the lesbian, and then gay,

K

bisexual, and trans communities, and our allies. My second

aren

audience has been the Jewish community. With my latest

X.

book, my audience has broadened. All Canadians, except for

T

First Nations people, came here from somewhere else, either

ulchinsky

recently or generations ago. The immigrant experience is vast

in Canada. I have had an amazing response to The Five Books

of Moses Lapinsky from a diverse audience who have gone on to

discover my earlier books set in the queer community. I wish

I could say that lesbian writers are shaping Canadian fiction in

spite of homophobia, but I don’t really think there are very

many out lesbian writers who are writing about the queer

experience. I know that I will continue to write about the life

I see before me, and that other times I will be drawn into

writing about experiences I have not had, and be led by my

story and my characters into territory both known and unfa-

miliar.

243

Karen X. Tulchinsky

— K

Ruined by Love

aren

X.

The sun is desperately trying to burn off a cold, grey fog that

T

settled over the beauty of San Francisco early this morning.

ulchinsky

The sky is pale grey and wet. The usual bright purple, red and

orange of the flowering shrubs are vague and shrouded by the

thick fog. The air is humid and damp. I’m rushing around my

best friend Betty’s one bedroom flat on the top floor of a

modest house in Bernal Heights, madly stuffing the last of my

things into the huge duffle bag I borrowed from another

friend, Chester. This is no ordinary packing job. This is for

real. It’s breaking my heart to say this, but I’m leaving San

Francisco.

At least I’m not getting thrown out, deported by the

immigration department, as I have feared for the last three

years. I’ve somehow managed to elude them, working under

the table at a neighbourhood pub called Patty’s Place, as the

best damned bartender Patty’s ever had. You can’t get a green

card to be a bartender. To legally work in the US you have to

have a skill that nobody who already lives here has. Pretty

much anyone can bartend, as long as you can take the pres-

sure. I got the job because Patty is also an expat Canadian and

she felt a kinship with me when she heard I couldn’t find a job

and wanted to stay. No, it’s not because I got caught working

under the table that I’m going. I’m leaving of my own free

will. I guess you could call it that. I’m leaving for love. And

free will sometimes gets a bit mucked up when love is

involved. That’s been my experience anyway.

“That’s mine,” Betty grabs from my grasp, a small black

comb I got free from the Osento Bathhouse for Women.

“Pretty sure this one is mine,” I counter, snatching it back.

“See?” I show her a broken tooth at one end of the comb.

She studies it closely, then relents, hands it back. Betty is

far too fussy to hang onto a comb with a broken tooth.

Especially a comb you can get free just for having a sauna at

244

Osento. Betty’s been in a bad mood ever since I broke the

—

news to her that I’m returning to Canada. My long distance

lover Julie and I are tired of the distance. We met eighteen

argins M

months ago, when I travelled to Toronto for my mother’s

o N

wedding. Since then, Julie has been in Toronto, where she

works at the Asian Community AIDS Service. I’ve been back

here in San Francisco, tending bar at Patty’s, and having my

usual interesting life the rest of the time, living with Betty.

We’re a pretty interesting combo as roomies—Betty and

I. Originally from Philadelphia, Betty drives a van for

SuperShuttle, but really she’s a poet and (lately) a political

activist. A few years ago she cut off her dreadlocks, shaved her

head right down to the scalp. But recently, she decided to

grow her hair. It looks pretty cute right now—tight little black

curls, close to her scalp—but then, everything looks good on

Betty.

I’m Jewish and Canadian and not nearly as cute if you ask

me—but I have had some good reviews from some of the girls

I’ve dated. I would never shave my head right down to the

scalp. Too scared I’d look like an alien I guess, but my hair is

pretty short. Brown, a quarter inch long. I keep the bangs a bit

longer, but only because I’m insecure. I’m not as butch as

some of my friends, but I do get called “sir” a lot, in stores and

restaurants. I’m not sure what you’d call my style. Maybe

lesbo-hip-hop-retro-punk-butch. Is that a category?

I don’t recommend long distance relationships, like the

one I’m having with Julie. The long distance phone bills alone

will kill you. And if that doesn’t get you, the intensity will. It’s

kind of exciting really—the ups and downs. But the downs can

be a little too low and the ups are sometimes so manic they

fool you. It’s like having a pretend relationship, like you’re for-

ever on a first date, on your best behavior to make a good

impression, but you never get to really relax. It takes a lot

longer for the hard issues to surface. Julie and I only see each

other once every two months for a weekend, or if we’re lucky,

245

a week. Then it’s goodbye and back to the phones for a while.

—

When we’re together, there’s not much point in fighting,

K

because our time together is so precious, why waste any of it

aren

being in a bad space?

X.

It was Julie’s idea to move to Vancouver. We’d gone back

T

and forth, been over every possibility. Should she move to San

ulchinsky

Francisco? Too hard. Then we’d both be illegal aliens. Should

I move to Toronto? Could, but after three years on the west

coast, I’m pretty much set on leaving winter behind. We were

at a stalemate for a while, then she got offered a job in

Vancouver and everything fell suddenly into place.

It was one of those life-changing phone calls that was over

before I had a chance to realize what I’d done. It went some-

thing like this:

“Nomi I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

There was a beat of silence. I think she was smiling a huge

smile. “Well, you’re not going to have to anymore.”

“Really?”

“I’ve been offered a job. Program coordinator for AIDS

Vancouver. Isn’t that great?”

“Wonderful.” I felt so proud of her. Sounded like a big

important job, the kind you have to dress up for, carry a cell-

phone and a laptop, attend board meetings and liaise with the

media; nothing at all like my work—pouring draft and mixing

margaritas, cleaning ashtrays and sweeping peanut shells from

an old hardwood floor. Cashing out at the end of the night and

hoping like hell that everything balances and I’ve made a few

bucks in tips.

“It starts in two weeks,” Julie was saying. “We can stay

with Josh and George. You remember I mentioned them? It’ll

take us a month at least to find a place.”

I just about dropped the phone. Josh and George.

Vancouver. Right. We’d talked about this. Our previous phone

call had been all about how hard it was to be apart. And as

soon as Julie could get a job in Vancouver we’d both move

there and set up house. Why did I feel so taken aback then?

246

Like the air had just been sucked right out of me. My head felt

—

light. I was having trouble breathing.

“Nomi?”

argins M

“Great.” I managed.

o N

Silence.

“What’s wrong Nomi. I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy. Yes. I am. It just, took me by surprise is all. It’s

great.”

“You don’t want to live with me.”

Just what I needed. Femme tricks over the phone. I could

hear a quiver in her voice. Any second now the tears would

flow and I’d end up the bad guy, the evil one, whose sole pur-

pose in life was to hurt Julie. “Of course I want to live with you

baby. We’ve been talking about it.” I just didn’t think it would

be so soon. Was she right? Was I afraid to live with her? Or

just sad to leave San Francisco? “It’s great. It’s really really

great. Great. Great, great, great,” I said over and over. Like a

moron.

It’s been three weeks since that call. Julie flew out to

Vancouver a week ago and set up our temporary home in the

extra bedroom at Josh and George’s place. I was supposed to

be there when Julie arrived, but Patty wasn’t happy about me

quitting so suddenly and kicked up a fuss. Patty’s Place is a

small pub on Cortland Avenue, up in Bernal Heights, a work-

ing-class neighbourhood, residential, with small bungalows,

Irish pubs, single mothers, Asian and black families and les-

bians. Patty is a collector of old memorabilia. She scours

garage sales and flea markets for kitsch, then displays her finds

in the pub. On the walls of Patty’s Place there’s a poster of

Bette Midler when she was in Jinxed, one of Janet Jackson’s

earliest albums, an old wooden toilet seat, a No Parking sign,

a 1988 gay freedom day t-shirt, a poster from Harvey Milk’s

1977 bid for City Supervisor, a birdfeeder, cuckoo clock and

247

her latest find, a boxing glove autographed by Mike Tyson

—

(before he got into all that trouble for biting another boxer’s

K

ear off ).

aren

The clientele at Patty’s place are mostly locals: lesbians,

X.

queens, trannys, bisexuals and straight retro-hippie dudes.

T

There’s an old long oak bar that runs the length, with stools.

ulchinsky

The cash register is from the 1920s. You punch in the amount

and little paper numbers pop up—the height of technology at

the time. It’s beautiful and ornate and timeless. Patty serves

free peanuts in the shell. People toss the shells on the floor as

if this was the wild west and we didn’t know any better. Patty

is old-school butch, in her fifties, with short slicked-back hair,

tough as nails but a total mush ball inside.

“Who the hell else am I going to get on such short

notice?” Patty barked at me when I told her I had to quit.

“Lots of people would work for you Patty,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’d have to pay them more than I pay you,” she

grumbled.

“Thanks a lot.”

“You sure you know what you’re doing Rabinovitch?” She

looked me straight in the eye.

“Course I do,” I insisted, although the truth is, I haven’t a

clue. The last lover I lived with was Sapphire, the girl who

dumped me for a guy, just before I met Julie. With Sapphire,

it was always her way or the highway. I don’t think Julie is like

that. But you never really know until you live with a person.

Especially femmes, who, let’s face it, are generally hysterical.

I’ve gotten kind of used to living with Betty. It’s easy. We hard-

ly ever fight. Neither of us is a neat freak or ridiculously messy.

Our work hours are completely different so we don’t need the

shower at the same time and we both get plenty of time alone

in the apartment. It’s uncomplicated and we’re used to it. I

don’t know what she’s going to do without me.

Betty insisted on driving me at least as far as Sacramento,

where I can catch a bus up the coast to Vancouver. When our

other friends—Chester, a mild-mannered librarian in her mid-

thirties, Patty, my boss, AJ, recently single, Gore-Tex and ,

248

fleece-wearing, nature loving lesbo, and Guido, leather clad

—

motorcycle dyke—heard that Betty was driving me to

Sacramento, they all decided to come for the ride. I have my

argins M

own personal entourage out of the Bay Area. Looks like I’m

o N

going to need it. As much as I want to live with Julie, I’m sad

to leave San Francisco. For the first time in my life I have

community. I have friends. And the city itself has wedged

itself deep in my heart. The bay, the hills, even the fog.

“You leave anything and I’m just going to toss it,” Betty

threatens as I struggle to close the zipper on the duffle bag.

“Why can’t you mail it to me?”

“I’m remodelling after you go,” she says.

“What?”

“A new look. Everything’s going out the door. I’m painting

and only bringing back in the essentials. It’s like a cleansing.

You know what they say Nomi. If you want new things in your

life you gotta get rid of the old.”

“Are you calling me old?” I am offended by her choice of

words, and feel as expendable as an old broom you’d just toss

out when it’s time for a new one.

“Aren’t you ready yet?” She slips into her leather jacket and

waits by the door.

Chester arrives first, as usual. She hugs me, which is not usual.

Then in her habitual manner, she smooths back her salt and

pepper hair with one hand. Lately the salt has been taking

over the pepper, but on Chester it looks good, in a Richard

Gere kind of way. It makes her look distinguished and respon-

sible. Like someone you’d trust with your tax return. Or your

daughter. On the street, two young guys in loose pants, slung

way below their butts, walk by with a huge boom box, blaring

rap. Another man shouts something in Spanish. The fog is

249

beginning to burn off. It might turn out to be a nice day.

—

“Here Nomi, I brought you a present.” Chester hands me

K

a tiny American flag.

aren

“What would I want this for?”

X.

“You can hang it at your new place.”

T

“I’m not so sure an American flag’s gonna go over big in

ulchinsky

Vancouver,” Betty, who is more politically astute, suggests.

Chester looks crushed.

“It’s great,” I lie and jam it in the front pocket of my bag.

“Why wouldn’t it go over big?” Chester is completely

clued out.

Betty snorts. “Because everyone outside of America

knows that George W. Bush is nothing short of a war crimi-

nal. That his pre-emptive strike on Iraq is no more justified

than Hitler’s invasion of Poland, that Homeland Security is a

euphemism for ‘now we can do whatever the fuck we want to

anyone who disagrees with us.’ And if the national export of

Iraq had been broccoli instead of oil, the Republicans could

give a fuck about the oppression of the Iraqi people.”

“Wow,” says Chester, “don’t they eat broccoli in Iraq?”

Betty just stares at Chester. Where would she start?

Betty became political only recently. Last month she

dated Kiesha Valdarez, director of the Bay Area State

Committee on International Human Rights. Betty was so

taken with Kiesha that, at first, she faked her political com-

mitment (just to get her into bed) but the more Betty hung

around Kiesha’s crowd, the more enlightened she became.

Now, they’re just friends, but Betty’s commitment has

remained. Right now, she’s trying to get signatures on a peti-

tion to recall Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There is a horrifying racket outside, sounding like a broken

chainsaw cutting through thick metal. Chester opens the door

and we see Guido ride up on her reconditioned Harley. She

picked it up from the Buy & Sell for a thousand bucks. You can

imagine what terrible shape it’s in—a Harley for that price.

Right now, it’s being held together by paper clips and duct tape

but Guido swears she’s been fixing it up. Guido’s been offering

250

rides, but everyone keeps turning her down, afraid the damn

—

thing’s going to fall apart when she turns a corner. We watch,

as with great butch gusto, she adjusts her leather jacket and

argins M

swings her leg to the pavement, smoothing her leather chaps

o N

into place. Guido’s under five feet tall, but she’s got moxie.

She’s the smallest, toughest butch in town. Rather than come

inside, she stands out on the sidewalk admiring her bike, pol-

ishing the chrome with her red bandana.

A bus stops a block past Betty’s and AJ hops off, out of

breath, her red fleece sweatshirt inside-out.

“Sorry I’m late. I was worried I’d miss you guys.” AJ yells

as she rushes toward us.

“Let’s hit the road,” Betty grabs my duffle bag and walks

down the porch steps to the van. Chester was going to drive

her Honda Civic, but since everyone’s coming, Betty’s taking

her work van. Betty is a SuperShuttle driver, taxiing a ten-seat

passenger van from the airport and back all day long. She’s

supposed to be working right now, but she struck a deal with

the dispatcher to conveniently forget about her for a while, so

she can drive us to Sacramento. Just in case anyone spots us,

she’s wearing her uniform—black pants, crisp white shirt, tie,

and SuperShuttle windbreaker. We’re pretending to be cus-

tomers, asking Betty to carry my bags and for information on

tourist attractions. Betty, of course, is ignoring us.

“Patty’s not here yet,” I point out. Betty’s in the driver’s

seat. I ride shotgun. Guido, AJ, and Chester jump in the back.

“We’re picking her up at the pub.” Betty puts the van in

gear and makes a tight three-point turn, driving up over the

sidewalk, scraping the muffler, with a loud crunching, screech-

ing sound.

Patty’s waiting for us outside. She marches up, opens the

passenger door.

“Get out Rabinovitch. That’s my seat,” Patty barks.

Used to taking orders from her, I obey, I slide out of the

front seat and ducking my head, scoot all the way to the back

251

of the van, beside AJ.

—

Betty points the vehicle in the direction of the Bay Bridge.

K

“Shouldn’t we have a ritual or something? To send Nomi

aren

back to Canada.” AJ asks. Ever since AJ’s long-term lover

X.

Martha broke up with her, AJ’s been clinging to one crutch or

T

another to get through. Right now, she’s joined a coven of

ulchinsky

Wiccans. Those girls have rituals for everything.

“You’re not burning any sage grass in the van,” Betty yells.

“They’ll think I’ve been smoking pot.”

“Maybe we should just tie Nomi up and refuse to let her

leave,” Guido suggests.

“She’ll just escape,” Chester points out.

“I mean a ritual to say goodbye.” AJ says. “We could go

around the room and everyone says a little something to

Nomi.”

“You could stuff your ritual in your sage grass pouch,”

Patty tells AJ. “I ain’t participating in any witchy woo crap.

Besides, we’re in a van, not a room.”

“You don’t have to be unpleasant,” AJ snaps back.

“I’m too old to change,” Patty counters. Patty’s not really

too old to change. She’s fifty-five, maybe fifty-six. There’s still

time to change. She just thinks she’s too old.

Betty turns on the stereo, finds a hip hop station, and

cranks the volume. On the highway with the windows rolled

down, wind rushing in, and the music blaring, no one talks.

Traffic is heavy, drivers are aggressive but Betty drives for a liv-

ing. She could do it in her sleep. She barely notices when the

SUV in front of us slams on his brakes and stops in the mid-

dle of the bridge. Betty just hits the brakes purposefully and

scoots into the next lane, nice and easy, like she was planning

it all along. She ignores it when the guy in the Hummer beside

us gives her the finger.

Driving down Interstate 80, we’re all in our own little bub-

ble, watching the city disappear behind us. On the Bay Bridge,

I turn to look out the back window. My heart sinks. I’m happy

to be embarking on this new adventure in my life, thrilled that

a woman like Julie loves me, but San Francisco gets under your

252—

skin. It’s the beauty of the place: deep red bottlebrush trees

along sidewalks; vibrant purple wisterias climbing up the sides

argins

of Victorian houses, which are painted lovingly in comple-

M

mentary colours; giant white bearded irises; rambling rose

o N

bushes; the scent of seawater and wind. One of the most tol-

erant cities on earth, where a transgendered guy can get a

decent job, gay couples can hold hands in the streets, SM

dykes can stroll down the Castro in full leathers, and diversity

is the norm. My heart is splitting in two at the sight of the city

growing smaller. I wonder when I’ll be back. And know that

when I do come back, nothing will be the same. Everything

will be different. I won’t be a person who lives here anymore.

We get to Sacramento in record time. The temperature is five

degrees hotter, but with the sun blazing down, and being

inland and away from the ocean breeze, it feels thirty degrees

hotter. We all strip down to tank tops. Betty pulls over beside

a pub, “Let’s go get a drink. One for the road. To send Nomi

off properly.”

Inside the pub, Betty orders me a vodka martini.

Everyone else copies her. Not our usual drink. We mostly

drink beer. But this is a special occasion. While we wait for

our drinks, Betty looks around.

“Are we already in Canada?” She seems uneasy.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“No black people. Look around.”

She’s right. Other than Betty, everyone in the pub is white.

“Should we go?” I make a move to get up.

Betty shrugs. “Not like I ain’t been here before. It’s cool.

Just weird.”

“So what the hell are you going to do in Canada,

Rabinovitch?” Patty asks as the waiter returns with our drinks.

“Work in a bar?”

“Could, but I think I’ll try something else.”

253

“What else are you qualified for?” AJ asks.

—

Good question and one that depresses the hell out of me.

K

Not much, is the answer. Before I moved to San Francisco and

aren

got the job at Patty’s, I was a bicycle courier in Toronto. You

X.

can make good money once you get fast enough, and you stay

T

in great shape, but it would be great to work with my mind

ulchinsky

instead of my hands.

“Maybe you should go back to school.” Chester suggests.

She should know. She went back to school part time last year

to upgrade her skills. She’d been a librarian for years. There’s

a limit to how much money a librarian can make. Now she’s

developing education programs for the City, getting paid a

decent buck. She’s always trying to get the rest of us to go

back to school. It’s worked out so well for her.

“Yeah.” I don’t know. I was never really a good student.

“But gotta get a job first. Can’t let Julie support both of us.”

“Yeah,” agrees Guido, “you know what happens if you let

your femme support you.” She shakes her head at the horrify-

ing thought. “No sex.”

“Says who?” AJ doesn’t like this because it’s true. She was

with Martha for twelve years. A chartered accountant, Martha

always made at least twice as much money as AJ and they

hardly ever had sex.

“It’s a rule. Look it up,” Guido insists, taking a big slug of

her martini. “Think I like Scotch better.”

Betty declines, since she’s driving, but everyone else fol-

lows Guido’s lead and tries a Scotch next.

On the way to the washroom, I figure I should call Julie. I

stop by the pay phone.

“Nomi.” She sounds so happy to hear from me. “Where

are you? I miss you.”

“Uh, Sacramento.”

“What? I thought you’d be closer by now.” The disap-

pointment is clear in her voice. “Josh and George are making

dinner. A Welcome to Vancouver Dinner.”

“Tonight? We’ll never make it by tonight. Even if I jumped

right on a bus, from here, by bus it’s about twenty-four hours.”

254—

“You have to get here tonight Nomi. The party’s for you.

I thought you were leaving first thing in the morning.”

argins

“Took a bit longer. Betty and the gang drove me this far,

M

to Sacramento. I’m heading to the bus station after this.”

o N

“Don’t be late Nomi, please. What am I going to tell Josh

and George? They’re being so nice, letting us stay here.”

“Okay, don’t worry. I’ll be there.” What am I nuts? It’s

impossible. But Julie has that effect on me. Anything she

wants is all hers. I’m completely powerless to be sensible when

Julie’s in the picture. We kiss over the phone. I hang up and

return to my table. Someone’s ordered a second round of

Scotch. Betty’s sipping a Saratoga cream soda.

“Let’s go,” I say. “I just promised Julie I’d be in Vancouver

by dinner.”

“Are you crazy!” Betty stares at me like I’m insane. Which

is probably the truth.

“Couldn’t be helped. Come on. You have to drive me fur-

ther. I’ll never make it on the bus. Drink up.” Miraculously,

everyone obeys and downs their drink.

“I gotta get the van back Nom. I can’t be driving you all

the way to fucking Canada.” Betty screams.

“Just to Oregon. I’ll get the bus from there.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Betty says, but she grabs her wallet and

dashes outside anyway and has the van started up by the time

the rest of us pile in.

“Cool,” says Guido, “I didn’t want to go to work tonight

anyway.” Guido’s working as a bouncer at The Lumberjack, a

popular fag bar. You wouldn’t think to look at her five-foot

frame that she’d be much of a bouncer, but Guido is strong

and, more importantly, she’s got the psychology all worked

out. There’s never any problems on her shift, so smooth is she

at talking down the crazies. “It’s military night. Can’t stand

the sight of all those fags in army fatigues.”

“We’ll be back by morning?” Chester took the day off, but

needs to work tomorrow.

255

“Damn right we will,” Betty says, as she squeals out of the

—

parking lot and heads back toward the highway.

K

The drive from Sacramento is reasonably smooth, as we

aren

head north into the mountainous terrain of northern California.

X.

Until we have to stop for gas. Betty pulls up to the self-serve

T

pump. Guido pumps the gas, while the rest of us hit the rest-

ulchinsky

room, five butch dykes from San Francisco, dressed in a combi-

nation of leather, denim and T-shirts, short hair, and shaved

heads. I guess to the store clerk we look like teenage boys, out

for trouble. He grabs a baseball bat and leaps out from behind

the cash to prevent us from entering the ladies room.

“Whoa, down boy.” Betty tries, but you see in the clerk’s

face that he’s a redneck racist and if anyone’s going to feel the

brunt of his bat first, it’s going to be Betty. I step in front of her.

“Can I help you sir?” I ask politely.

He looks a bit confused at the sound of my voice, but I

can see his eye registering something. Maybe he thinks I’m a

younger teenaged boy than he originally thought. “That’s the

ladies room,” he manages.

I lower my voice and lean in. “Sir, we don’t want any trou-

ble. We just need to pee.”

“And we’re not boys,” AJ adds.

The clerk stares at each of us, in turn, trying to decipher

this last bit of information. “You’re girls?”

“Women, actually,” Chester clarifies.

This new information seems to have diffused our foe

enough that, one by one, we slip into the bathroom. I don’t

think it’s a good idea to leave Guido all alone outside, so I wait

with her until the others are back in the van.

“That’s why I never leave the city,” Betty says, back inside the

safety of the van. “You see the look in his eye?”

“It’s even worse in Oregon,” I say. “It’s pretty much a

Bush-loving wasteland from Sacramento all the way to

Portland. If we go much further, we should buy a porta-potty.”

“That’s right Rabinovitch, but we’re dropping you at the

border to Oregon, then we’re going home.”

“Fine by me,” I say, although I’m hoping they’ll take me

256—

further.

argins M

At the Oregon border, Betty pulls over. It’s kind of deserted.

o N

There’s a ranch on one side of the highway, horses grazing on

an open field of brown grass and hydro power lines on the

other. Nothing much else as far as the eye can see except high-

way, cars and fields. I stare at Betty. She’s not really going to

dump me here, is she?

“Well Nom, guess this is it,” Betty says solemnly.

“Yep,” Guido agrees. “That’s the border.”

“About time. I’m getting sick of driving,” Patty complains.

“Getting hungry too,” AJ adds.

I’m a little scared, but it’s what we agreed to. I grab my

duffle bag and hop out. “Well, thanks guys. Guess I’ll be see-

ing you.” I must look completely pathetic. A lone dyke stand-

ing by the side of the road with my duffle bag. I’m hoping

they’ll reconsider, but they just wave and drive off. And I’m

alone. Nothing but cars speeding by, while I stand on the grav-

el shoulder of the Interstate 5.

What a stupid plan, I realize suddenly. Should have at

least gotten a ride to the bus station. Nobody picks up hitch-

hikers these days. Nobody except for serial killers. I can either

walk to Vancouver and get there in about a week. Or stick out

my thumb and end up in a car with a psychopath. He’ll take

me to some deserted shack in the back hills of Oregon and

murder me, after sodomizing me for three days, probably after

first jailing me in a hand-dug cellar with nothing to eat but

water and whatever bugs I can catch. On the walls I’ll see

names scratched into the dirt by fingernails. Candy was raped

here. Or Bobby died here in 98.

No one but Julie will miss me. And she’ll be furious that I

didn’t make my Welcome to Vancouver Dinner party. Then

she’ll swear to break up with me if I ever turn up alive. But

when I haven’t arrived for two days, she’ll call the police. And

257

first my picture will end up on milk cartons: Missing: 30-some-

—

thing butch dyke. Last seen by the side of the road in Oregon. Later

K

my body will be found in a dumpster outside a 7-11 in

aren

Portland, and a whole team of forensic scientists will be sent

X.

out to determine how I died. Betty will go nuts with the guilt

T

and end up in a psychiatric institution. Patty will go on as

ulchinsky

before. She has no shame. Chester will start drinking heavily,

AJ will join a cult, and Guido will be so messed up, she’ll have

a motorcycle accident and end up a quadriplegic. All of our

lives will be in the toilet. These are the thoughts I am having

when I am startled by the sound of a van pulling over behind

me, its horn honking.

“Get in, you fool,” Patty pokes her head out the window.

I have the door open and my body inside the van in seconds.

“You think we’d really leave you in the middle of fucking

nowhere?” Betty asks.

“You have to wonder,” I say, so relieved I just sit on the

floor behind Betty, and lean my head against the seat. “I was

already on milk cartons,” I say.

“See?” says Chester. “Told you it was a cruel joke. She’s

already gone round the bend.”

“We were only gone five minutes,” justifies Guido.

Felt like five hours.

“How far did you say Canada was?” Betty asks, hitting the

accelerator a little bit harder.

“From here? About twelve hours. Ten if you drive real

fast,” I estimate.

“Then we’ll burn rubber.” Betty says and with a flourish,

she steps even harder on the gas.

We make it to the border in just under eleven hours. There’s

a line up.

“Does everyone have ID?” I realize what we are about to

do.

“Does a library card count?” Chester asks.

“Oh boy.” I don’t want to even guess what kind of treat-

258—

ment we are going to get at the border.

Forty-five minutes later, it’s our turn to talk to the cus-

argins

toms official. He leans his head to one side, trying to peer into

M

the dark van. “Citizenship,” he asks Betty, the driver.

o N

“American.” She answers.

“The rest?” he tries to see all of us.

“US, American, Yep, Landed immigrant, Canadian, “ I say.

Our mixture does not sit well with the guard. He gets out

of his booth and peers right inside the car. “Where you

going?” he asks Betty. She looks at me.

“Vancouver,” I answer.

“What for?”

“I’m moving, I live there.” I catch myself.

“Well which is it?”

“I live there.”

“Where?”

Oh shit. I don’t even have an address. The plan was to call

Julie when I get into town. “Main Street,” I try. I know they

have a Main Street.

“Whereabouts?”

“Broadway,” I say, hoping like hell Broadway meets Main.

He seems satisfied. “What about the rest of you?”

“Just giving her a ride, sir.”

He stares hard at Betty. “How long you planning on stay-

ing?”

“Few minutes.” Betty says.

“Hours,” Chester clarifies. “We’ll probably have some din-

ner, then hit the road.”

He thinks about it for a minute. “Please pull in over there

and speak to the officials. “ He hands a card with something

scrawled on it to Betty. “Give them this.”

“Shit,” I say, as Betty pulls into the parking space outside

the Canada Customs building.

“What?” Betty asks.

“This ain’t good,” Patty says. “Knew we shoulda left her in

259

Oregon.” Patty shoots a look at me. Actually the only person

—

who’s done anything illegal is me. I lived in San Francisco for

K

three years as an illegal alien. Everyone else is perfectly clean.

aren

Doesn’t mean they won’t be taken for a ride though. Customs

X.

officials have much more power than they ethically should.

T

Inside the building they question us each in great detail.

ulchinsky

Chester gets off relatively easy. Maybe it’s the grey hair or the

fact that she’s a librarian and special educator for the City of

San Francisco. AJ gets similar treatment, although the officer

doesn’t like the way AJ stutters. He thinks she’s got something

to hide. But really it’s just nerves. They bend over backwards

to be nice to Betty—the officer in charge, a white man, keeps

talking about the diversity training he recently underwent and

how everybody, regardless of race, gets treated the same on his

watch. I bet deep down he’s a complete racist and was forced

to take the training or lose his job. The officer doesn’t like

Patty’s story. She produces her green card, tells him she moved

to San Francisco twenty-five years ago and owns her own

place, a neighbourhood pub.

“You mean a gay bar?” He asks, somewhat antagonistical-

ly.

“Everyone is welcome,” Patty says, very diplomatically for

her.

They save me and Guido for the end, hustling the two of

us into a private room,

“Strip,” they tell Guido.

“Excuse me?”

“We think you might be hiding something. You heard the

officer.”

We stare at them, stunned. I think Guido has just con-

fused them is all. If you didn’t know better you’d swear Guido

was a guy. She’s not transitioning. She’s not on hormones, has

had no gender assignment surgery or anything. It’s more of an

attitude with Guido.

“I think we’d like to talk to a lawyer.” I say. This can’t be

happening. Are they planning to rape us with their batons

after we’ve stripped? Or maybe they’ll toss us in jail, call us ter-

260

rorists and hold us for weeks before giving us access to legal

—

counsel, all in the name of National Security.

“It’s okay,” Guido says. She’s holding it together but I can

argins M

hear the shakiness in her voice. “Let’s just get this over with.”

o N

Then I look at the officers’ uniforms and remember they

are with Canada Customs. Thankfully, Canada hasn’t gone

nuts over national security the way America has. But if not

terrorists, then who do they think we are? I start unbuttoning

my shirt.

“Not you,” the officer says. “We just have some questions

for you.”

Guido quickly strips down to her boxer shorts and t-shirt.

The guards seem fascinated. “You wear men’s underwear?”

“Is that illegal in Canada?” Guido is astonished.

“You can get dressed,” the nicer of the two guards says.

“You.” The meaner one points to me. “Come with us.”

As they lead me off, I make eye contact with Guido. “I

think you better call me a lawyer.”

“You don’t need a lawyer.” The nice guard says.

“Not yet anyway.” The other adds.

They drag me into an interrogation room, make me sit on

a hard plastic chair, that has gum under the seat. They sit

opposite me in similar chairs, around a cheap folding, board

room table. They study my driver’s license and birth certifi-

cate for a long moment. I wait, and worry about what will hap-

pen to me next.

“So you’re moving to Vancouver?” The mean one asks.

“Yes. Well, I live there.”

“Look, which is it?”

“I live there.”

“Yeah, for how long?”

“Recently. I moved from Toronto.” I lie.

“Look we’re Canadians too. We’re not going to turn you

over to the Americans.” The nice guy starts.

“But we could. In fact, we should.” The other guy leans

261

over the table menacingly. “You’ve been living in California,

—

haven’t you? As an illegal.”

K

I say nothing.

aren

“Are you planning to go back there?”

X.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

T

He bangs the table with a fist. “We can just turn you in to

ulchinsky

the Americans. I can guarantee you, they won’t be as kind.”

“I’d like to speak to a lawyer.” I repeat. I figure at this

point, anything I say can and will be used against me in a court

of law. I’ve seen enough cop shows. I know the score. So the

less I say the better. I’m hoping I’m right about the lawyer

thing. I’m thinking that they are required to allow me legal

counsel if requested or their whole case would be thrown out.

I have no idea if I’m right, but it’s the only card I’ve got, so I

keep playing it. “I’d like legal counsel present,” I repeat.

The officers get up and go into the corner where they

whisper to one another. I hear, “let her go,” “not worth it,”

“my lunch break is in ten minutes.” And “you’re too soft on

them.” They stop whispering and return to the table, where

they proceed to stare me down for five full minutes.

“Go on. Get outta here,” the mean guy says.

I scramble to my feet.

“But you better watch your ass crossing the border in

future.” He glances at my ID, “Nomi Rabinovitch.” He tosses

back my ID. I’m outta there before they can change their

minds and inside the van in seconds.

“Go,” I scream to Betty. “Go. Hurry.”

She hits the gas.

“Don’t speed.” I shout, worried now about everything.

It’s when I look through the windshield and see the North

Shore Mountains, illuminated by the ski lights, rising above

Vancouver, that I realize I’m home. It hits me right in the

middle of my belly. I’ve never lived in Vancouver before. San

Francisco’s felt like home for the last few years, and before

that Toronto. I’m not sure if it’s just relief over getting out of

customs alive, or if it’s a deeper spiritual connection to this

new place. Or if I’ve just finally lost my mind from the strain.

262

But the feeling begins in my belly and spreads. I am home.

—

“Okay,” Betty says, “Where’s Julie? We’ll drop you off, and

argins

get the fuck outta Canada. Seems like they don’t want us here

M

anyway.”

o N

“Don’t be crazy,” I say. “You have to spend the night. As

long as you’re here.”

Betty looks around the van at the others who seem to

silently agree.

We pull up to a two-story heritage house with wraparound

porch in the east end of Vancouver, just off Commercial

Drive. Julie’s sitting on the porch. When she sees the van, she

runs out to us. I’m out the door and into her arms in a flash.

“Nomi,” she kisses me all over. “You drove all the way?”

“Yeah. It just kinda happened.” I kiss her back.

My friends wait patiently in the van. They know Julie and

I haven’t seen each other in over five weeks. We have a lot of

kissing to catch up on.

Two men slip out of the house and wait behind Julie. She

stops kissing me and turns to them. “Nomi, this is Josh and

George.” The guys surround me in a hug.

“We’ve heard everything about you. Every little thing.”

“Come on inside. We’ll start with an aperitif. And move

on to the asparagus dip.”

I turn my attention to my buddies. “Come on, you guys.

Dinner.”

They tumble out of the van and introductions are made.

Josh and George gather us up—a motley crew of recently

harassed dykes—and into the safety of their house. The sweet

warmth of brandy slips down my throat, easing the last few

hours, erasing the memory of the customs guards’ unnecessary

harassment. It feels strange to be here, in this new place, sur-

rounded by my lover and my best friends. A deep pain begins

to gnaw at my gut, because I know that in the morning, Betty

and the gang will be hitting the road. It’s only a sixteen-hour

drive from Vancouver to San Francisco and I know I’ll see my

263

friends, but I won’t be living with them. We won’t be sharing

—

our daily lives the way we have for the last few years. I’ll be

K

moving on. And the next time I see them, everything will be

aren

entirely different.

X.

Betty sidles up beside me. “You’re ruined,” she says.

T

“Aren’t you?”

ulchinsky

“Absolutely ruined,” I agree.

“Here’s to love,” she holds her drink high and in the air we

clink glasses.

“To love,” I say to the room. I scan the faces, stop on Julie,

who smiles at me. I’m here. We made it. Julie is a beautiful

woman and she loves me. There is so much love in this room,

it’s almost hard to breathe. But I do. I take a deep breath,

smile at Betty, and start getting ready for whatever happens

next.

Karen X. Tulchinsky

264—

Karen X. Tulchinsky is the award-winning author of The Five

argins

Books of Moses Lapinsky, which was a finalist for the Toronto

M

Book Award and a Lambda Literary Award. B. BookWorld said

o N

of the novel, “Karen X. Tulchinsky does for Toronto what

Mordecai Richler did for Montreal.” Since its release,

Tulchinsky has read from the novel across North America,

and has appeared on Imprint for TV Ontario, CBC Radio’s

Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers, and Writers and

Company with Eleanor Wachtel. Tulchinsky’s screenplay adap-

tation of The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky was recently

optioned by Ocular Productions and is currently in develop-

ment with support from Telefilm Canada.

Tulchinsky is a recent graduate of the prestigious

Canadian Film Centre, where she wrote two feature-length

screenplays and a short film, Straight in the Face, which debuted

at the Toronto International Film Festival. She wrote an

episode of Robson Arms, a new drama series, for CTV and co-

wrote Floored by Love, an episode for Citytv’s anthology series,

Stories About Love.

She is the author of Love Ruins Everything, which was

named one of the top ten books of 1998 by the Bay Area

Reporter, and In her Nature which won the VanCity Book

Prize—BC’s largest literary award. Karen X. Tulchinsky was

born in Toronto, but makes her home in Vancouver, BC.

265

Marnie Woodrow

— M

Writer Notes

arnie

W

Is the geography of where you live important to your writing? Are you

oodrow

interested in conferring literary status on a particular place?

My immediate geography, by which I mean my neighbour-

hood, my home environment, and my proximity to a body of

water, is essential to my work. Places I’ve travelled to influ-

ence me even more.

I’m interested in having Canada recognized as a location

for plot developments that are more exciting than a good

snowstorm or feminist awakening. That said, writers are still

fighting about whether it’s “okay” to use the names of

Canadian towns in fiction because [gasp] American readers

might not recognize the name.

How does living in Canada inform your work?

In terms of what I write and how I express myself publicly,

it frees me. I feel lucky to not live in an oppressive society

where any of my published works and interview responses

would have easily landed me in prison. In geographical terms,

it has little real influence at this time, except that I live in one

of the most expensive cities in the nation.

To what extent does being a lesbian or part of a queer community

shape the content of your writing?

The only way in which I’m truly conscious of it at this

stage in my life is when a young, queer person writes to me

asking for advice about their creative dreams, or for help with

an English assignment, which shows they are advancing the

quality of this world by being themselves, too. That’s when I

know that it’s important for me to continue mentioning that

I identify as lesbian, even if my imagination is, of necessity,

bisexual.

Is there a discernable lesbian voice, style, or perspective?

266

I really don’t think so… unless you count the delayed first

—

kiss technique used by so many of us in our fiction.

argins M

Are there particular queer writers whose work has moved or

o N

influenced you?

The queer writers who influenced my choice to become a

writer were James Baldwin, Timothy Findley, Tennessee

Williams, and Marie-Claire Blais, all of whom addressed queer

themes and concerns in various direct and indirect ways. I’m

a huge fan of Helen Humphreys’s work and remember reading

Leaving Earth and cheering because I was sick of coming out

novels and poorly written lesbian romances. I also think that

a number of writers (gay and straight) who deal with the

themes of loneliness, escape, and yearning, speak to my imag-

ination.

Are there particular works of queer literature to which your

work has responded?

The only one I can think of is Tennessee Williams’s play,

A Streetcar Named Desire, which had an important literal and

metaphorical role in the creation of my novel, Spelling

Mississippi.

Is there an intersection of perspective between being an artist and

identifying as lesbian?

I don’t think so. My whole identity has been formed via

my creativity and what is required to place it first in my life in

spiritual, economic, and temporal terms.

Is there an intersection of perspective between Canadian and les-

bian?

Not that I know of.

Diasporic writers in Canada often place their novels in their cul-

tural origins and create protagonists who speak from those socio-cul-

267

tural experiences. Yet gay male authors often create novels with a het-

—

erosexual female protagonist and it’s not uncommon for lesbian

M

authors to write books with no lesbian content whatsoever. Do you

ar

agree with this observation, and if so, what do you consider to be the

nie

reason for these differences?

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All writers write what they want to write, what comes to

them easily. Today, I don’t think anyone needs to hide behind

a “palatable” character: they write what works for them cre-

atively. Some people work best with a certain kind of sublima-

tion as the driving energy. And subterfuge and observing oth-

ers is second nature to queer writers, so maybe we’re just

interested in writing down all that we’ve watched all along, the

whole pageant, not just what happened at the potluck last

night.

Who do you perceive as your primary audience?

If attendance at events and emails are any indication, I

have a very diverse audience—women, men, gays, straights,

teens, and readers over 65. It’s thrilling and incredibly gratify-

ing to reach so many different readers. I love it.

Are lesbian writers shaping Canadian fiction in spite of homo-

phobia or has Canadian fiction become more inclusive?

I think we have some very open, strong women and men

writing in this country from all angles, and I think the world

is becoming more inclusive.

Do you encounter homophobia when submitting work for publi-

cation?

If I do, it must be the silent variety, which is probably

worse in the long run, because the overt kind can at least be

addressed with an open and insistent nature. I actually think

there’s much more literary prejudice against writing that’s

comical in tone, to be honest. That’s the battle I’m concerned

about.

Lesbian content disrupts and challenges traditional heterosexual

268

narratives but the most popular types of lesbian writing in the United

—

States, namely romances, mysteries, and the coming out novel, are con-

servative in form. Are you interested in writing in a manner that

argins M

challenges these conventional aesthetics?

o N

I think I do this just by writing the characters I write. But

I never sit down to write anything with an awareness of aes-

thetics and expectations or genres or notions of conservative

versus challenging. My partner always laughs because I have

zero interest in what the Joneses of the literary kingdom are

up to. It’s possibly a form of arrogance, or maybe a real need

to stay hibernated creatively so my projects can unfold the

way I like them to. I think it’s for the same reason I never

chose to hide who I am when I began to publish: I don’t hon-

estly care what everyone else is doing or what they think of

me. It might also be why I had to leave university and why I

refuse to weigh myself.

269

Marnie Woodrow

— M

Body Doubles

arnie

Four-thirty comes and they gather. They can’t help it: the

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clock urges them down Sunset to the place that is cool enough

and dark enough to blur the sharp edges of their troubles. It

used to be a real hangout for the Hollywood crowd, the grips

and gaffers, the people whose names you see in the credits if

you stay till the very end of the reel. Now it’s a cool, dark bar

run by the same man, but it is not what it was. He knows it,

but Victor still keeps polishing glasses, shrugging at the whims

of time. As far as he’s concerned, there are bodies in the bar,

it doesn’t matter what they do. Or rather, what they did,

because most of his customers are inclined to place the word

“former” in front of their professional titles. He watches

them, but he doesn’t listen to what they say. Their rants and

sorrows don’t make a difference to Victor’s life; he’s a stoic,

formerly an optimist.

Sheila arrives first. She’s been watching the clock since

noon, wishing she could have a drink. Her doctor told her

never drink at home, never alone, because then she’d have a

real problem. So when the clock hands edge toward four, she

runs to her battered Mustang and puts the pedal to the floor.

the Victory Bar is the one place she’s expected nowadays, and

she isn’t about to worry Nan by failing to show. Nan needs her

and Sheila might even need Nan back. Sheila guns her car and

comes at Sunset from behind, screaming out of her apartment

block, the Virgin Mary air freshener swinging in time with the

gearshift. She has to arrive before Nan because her friend has

an anxiety problem that causes her to eat cocktail napkins to

calm herself. Sheila knows this habit that could lead to serious

digestive problems in a woman of Nan’s age. When she pulls

up in front of the bar, she sees Jack loping toward the door.

He’s one of the men she sees every day at The Victory Bar and

knows the least about. His name and a few details because he

usually sits too far down the bar from her for her to eavesdrop

270

on him. Maybe today I’ll ask him what he was, she thinks.

—

Maybe today I’ll ask everyone what they wanted to be when

they grew up.

argins M

Soon the Victory Bar is full of bodies with glasses in front

o N

of them. Sheila and Nan are at one end of the bar, Jack and

Henry at the other. At a nearby table, Ginger and Lou sit

together, and standing beside the jukebox, looking lost, is

Seth. He’s the only regular at the Victory Bar who hasn’t

found a drinking buddy. He was a food stylist, and when you’ve

spent your life primping lettuce heads and varnishing half-

cooked lobsters, there aren’t many people to talk to. No one

wants to know that the food in cooking magazines isn’t real,

or that when it is real, it’s covered in paint, raw on the inside

and far from edible. Not even the people at the Victory Bar.

Many times he has been brushed off, like someone whispering

prophecies that nobody wants to face. So now he simply stares

at the jukebox, wondering whose job it is to put the records

inside. Some former DJ, he thinks, some guy who was fired

from a radio station for saying controversial things about beef.

Seth knows better than anyone how touchy people are about

food. You can’t tell them the truth about what they eat or they

become hysterical. He rolls his glass of vodka between his

palms and tries to memorize the song titles, knowing that

someday, this jukebox will be obsolete, too. That, instead of

taking quarters, it’ll accept VISA.

Ginger and Lou found each other because of their related

professions. Ginger was a chicken-sexer in Northern

California; Lou a livestock photographer. What are they doing

in LA? Well, what is anyone doing in LA? The whole androg-

yny trend put Ginger out of business, and Lou lost out to dig-

ital cameras—so simple to operate that even a farmer can take

pictures of his own pigs and cows. After a brief stint photo-

graphing pit bulls for a calendar company, Lou retired. Now he

sits and drinks dark rum and quietly sings the lyrics to “Get

Off My Land!” or “Old MacDonald Had A Farm” ’til his lady

271

friend arrives. Ginger keeps his mind off what used to be,

—

what might have been, and all the rest of those torturous

M

phrases that remind a person that he lost his nerve and gave

arnie

up. He finds her former profession mildly erotic and wonders

if they should get married, move to New York where there are

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few painful reminders of Nature. She’s smoking a cigarillo and

explaining the failure-proof techniques she once used to

determine the gender of chickens. She explains it every single

day, yet she has this way of telling it that makes it seem new

and exciting each time. Maybe it’s the way she jerks her hands

violently apart to demonstrate what she’s saying, or the way

her voice deepens when she describes what happens to male

chickens once they’ve been found out. When she’s finished,

she’ll turn to comfort Lou. She’ll insist that photographing

pigs and cows makes him qualified to shoot portraits of actors.

“They’re all, basically, cattle of a kind,” she says, waving for

more drinks. Lou isn’t convinced, but he nods and promises to

call an agent in the morning. He promises this every after-

noon, but by morning he doesn’t remember what he was sup-

posed to do. He’ll look at his telephone and know that there

was someone he was supposed to call but when it doesn’t

come to him, he heads off to the pool and swims away his

hangover.

Nan is especially ragged today, and Sheila buys her a shot

of Jack Daniels to soothe her nerves. There’s no consoling her

some days, though Sheila is probably more equipped than any-

one to manage Nan’s grief. It’s six o’clock and Nan is getting

that look. Her brown, leathery face is puckering, and she’s

staring into her drink and yep, sure enough, she screams, only

today she screams actual words: “For god’s sake, I was Faye

Dunaway’s FUCKING TORSO in Chinatown!” Then she

buries her head in her hands and sobs, oblivious to Sheila’s

cooed words of comfort. You can tell by looking at Nan that

she was a pretty hot number in her youth. In fact, she still is a

pretty hot number, only now she’s busy shattering herself with

liquor and cigarettes. Her face was never much to look at, but

her body reminds you of why she did so well in her profession.

272—

Nan was a body double for twenty-two years, the substitute

corpus for actresses too shy, flabby, or conveniently religious,

argins

to show any skin. Her specialty was stomach-shots, though

M

early on her breasts had been her primary meal ticket. In

o N

those days, actresses were still nervous about nude scenes.

Now they can’t wait to strip down and show it all off, even the

old ones. Every one of them working out at fancy gyms, wax-

ing themselves Brazilian style, and eating low-fat diets; why, it

put Nan right out of commission. Her last role was for the

movie Barfly, and she can’t seem to get over the pain. She was

the “After” girl, and suddenly she was told she was only suit-

able for “Before.”

Sheila asks Victor for a dish of peanuts and waits for Nan

to calm down. Like Nan, Sheila wanted to be an actress. She

came to LA from a small town in Ohio, full of dreams and

hopes. One tampon commercial and it was all over. She’d done

Shakespeare in her home town, for god’s sake, and Ionesco,

and then, presented with what she thought was the golden key

to the door of television stardom, she blew it. Once the tam-

pon ad was in heavy rotation, once she became known for

flogging feminine products, the only offers Sheila got in the

world of TV involved other embarrassing products: deodor-

ants, yeast-infection kits, hemorrhoid creams. The key bent in

the locked door to television stardom, and she became a

receptionist. Even then, people would come into the dental

office where she worked and say, “Hey! Can you still horse-

back ride and swim during your period?” They all thought it

was very funny, but eventually Sheila had a small breakdown.

They got to her. So she knows what Nan is feeling, even

though their stories aren’t exactly the same. She’s a lot luckier

than Nan because her small breakdown was just big enough to

qualify her for a psychiatric pension. She keeps trying to tell

Nan that all she has to do is check herself into a hospital for a

few weeks, but Nan is stubborn, and consequently, broke.

Once Nan is calm, they’ll do what they always do, which is to

273

study a copy of Cosmopolitan and try to guess which models are

—

computer-generated.

M

Jack would be perfect for Nan, but he hasn’t introduced

arnie

himself to her. The only person he talks to is Henry. Yet, when

he hears Nan scream her agony, he considers going over to her

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end of the bar and buying her a drink. He knows the pain she’s

feeling, feels it himself. In some ways Jack’s plight is worse

because every so often someone will recognize him and shout

out “Hey, it’s LONG DONG!” How they manage to recognize

him after all this time is beyond Jack. He underestimated the

devotion of porn-hogs. He’s done everything he can to look

like a whole different person, short of having plastic surgery.

His hair is silver now, and he’s let his belly bloat out in front

of him. He wears baggy, wool pants and long shirts, untucked

so that his crotch is hidden. But there are some fans whose

knowledge of the porn industry is so vast and so sentimental

that Jack is never going to be completely safe from them.

Henry sees his best friend Jack eyeing Nan and begins to

worry. Henry once thought a woman could offer him comfort,

share his grief. Getting tangled up with that one broad taught

him otherwise. Francine was his biggest mistake, next to the

career he chose. She had been a company mascot for Jiffy

peanut butter, toured around the whole country hugging kids

and dancing in supermarkets, dressed in a foam-rubber cos-

tume shaped like a jar. Henry had just been fired from the

Beverly Hills Lawn Bowling Association when he met her.

He’d been a team mascot for twenty-five years, but when he

developed a limp, they replaced him with some young kid.

Henry’s loyalty and dedication to the sport counted for noth-

ing. Yes, Francine got him when he was weak, but like all else

in his life, it didn’t last. One afternoon a guy walked into the

Victory Bar wearing a dolphin suit, just off work at some big

aquarium opening and looking for a drink. Francine was mate-

rialistic; seeing this guy, still employed and possibly well-con-

nected in the world of costumed characters, won her over.

Henry was history, and he didn’t need to feel any worse. Seeing

Jack with his eyes on Nan, Henry feels a cold shiver run

274

through his body.

—

Seth whirls away from his post at the jukebox and shouts,

argins

“I know! Let’s play a game! ‘Who’s The Biggest Loser In This

M

Joint?’ ” He storms over to Nan and slaps her on the back, a

o N

bad idea.

“Hey asshole! Bobby De Niro licked this back!” screams

Nan. She spins around and hauls up a fist to punch Seth right

in the mouth.

Sheila catches Nan’s fist before it lands, then shakes her

head. She can see that Seth is one of those skinny, nervous

men that will litigate at any opportunity. He’s backing off now,

but into the arms of Jack who is twice his size and looks very

unhappy.

“Leave the ladies alone!” he growls, shoving Seth away

with a swipe of one of his giant arms. Sheila is turned on. Nan

is oblivious to the chaos around her. She’s lost in remember-

ing how many takes it took to get De Niro’s tongue to look

“artful” sliding up her spine. It was the only time Nan didn’t

mind staying late at a shoot. She could smell the coffee on his

breath, and she hadn’t wanted to shower afterward, but she

had another gig the next day that necessitated washing up.

“Folks,” Victor is now ambling down the bar. “Free shot

for anyone who can sort this out without drawing blood,

okay?” He jerks his head in Seth’s direction and makes a

motion across his throat that says, “You’re cut off, mister.”

Seth is panting in the corner of the room, checking his spindly

arms for bruises. Lou and Ginger watch with vague interest

while Henry, knowing Jack is done for, checks his wallet for

cab fare. Sheila, still turned on by Jack’s intervention, reap-

plies her lipstick and smiles coyly into her compact mirror.

Nan coughs and shakes her head in her signature half-hys-

terical way. The memory of De Niro’s tongue dissolves, and

she remembers that she was asked to sub in for Katharine

Hepburn’s hands for a made-for-TV movie. She meant to call

her agent back this morning but forgot. Then, out of the cor-

275

ner of her eye, she notices Sheila eye-balling Jack. Actually she

—

sees two of Sheila in this peripheral moment, and so it is twice

M

as enraging.

arnie

“Watch it, sister!” snaps Nan, “We won’t MENTION your

career as a tampon-huckster, will we? I’m sure this man would

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be real interested in your bloody, and I say that with great

emphasis, pathetic career!” Her brows arrow down on her

crooked nose, and she looks a little crazier than usual.

Sheila snaps her compact shut and orders another Sling to

keep from smacking Nan. She makes a mental note to be late

arriving tomorrow: let her eat napkins for all I care.

Jack extends his hand to Nan and says, “I’m Jack. Some

people know me as Long Dong.”

Hearing this, Ginger and Lou break into fits of laughter

while Henry stands up, moving protectively towards Jack. Nan

grins at both versions of Jack, the solid one and the one waver-

ing just to the left of him. Lou whispers loudly about donkeys

with less to offer than Jack and Ginger cackles, punching his

arm to make him stop. But Jack doesn’t care, he has his eyes

pinned to Nan, and he feels his heart beating in a way it has-

n’t in a long time.

“Buy you a drink?” Jack ventures, ignoring Sheila’s tongue-

cluck and everyone else’s manic intrusions. “You’re kind of

lucky nobody can recognize you.”

“Am I?” Nan purrs, perking up and trying to make the two

of Jack become one. She wants to tell him how her calves used

to be the talk of the town, how her breasts were written up in

the Hollywood Reporter once upon a time. Instead, she

accepts his offer of a drink she doesn’t need and motions for

him to move closer.

“Victor, turn that goddamned air conditioner down,

would you?” barks Sheila, rubbing her bare, plump arms. She

can smell Jack’s cologne and while she wants to be happy for

Nan, she can’t find it in her heart after the tampon remark.

She glances over at Henry and sees potential, then changes

her mind and concentrates on her drink.

Observing her unsolicited dismissal, Henry bridles and

276

returns to his original seat. Seth sits down next to him, and

—

Henry groans into his beer.

argins

“It’s a sad day when the outcasts turn on each other,” Seth

M

says, gazing up at the DRINK CUERVO sign that flashes

o N

above the rows of bottles.

Misery loves company, Henry thinks, fiddling with a paper

umbrella.

Was a time when I was the King of The Garnishes, Seth

thinks, but he doesn’t say it aloud because Henry is obviously

one of those arrogant pricks who thinks every queer man in

the world is coming on to him. Please, Seth thinks, don’t you

know who I am? Was a time when the best magazines called

me just to arrange a slice of orange in a supermodel’s drink.

Vogue, Elle, all of them banging down his door, offering easy

money: he should have saved some. Then, one day, somebody

decides women weren’t supposed to be photographed within

twenty feet of food, and Seth was back to sculpting butter into

swans for weddings and commitment ceremonies.

“Downsizing,” Henry mutters. “Think you’re special, then

BLAM. My mother told me, Henry, specialize, narrow your

focus, go with your gift. So what do I do? I drop out of college

and dress up like a goddamned grasshopper, and everything

seems great, right? I’m living large, I’m strutting my stuff in all

the best stadiums. But you can feel it slipping away, and it

always does, nowadays. Nothing sticks, nothing lasts.”

Seth, breathless at the fact that someone has spoken to

him, even near him, is silent in case Henry wants to keep shar-

ing. But Henry remains mute, stroking his beer bottle and

glancing in the direction of Nan and Jack. Seth straightens up

on his stool and elbows Henry gently, making him look at

Ginger and Lou, now deep in conversation, touching hands

and giggling.

“Love does,” says Seth, pointing at Ginger and Lou. “Love

can work out.” Henry looks unconvinced, but now Seth has

gained courage. “You want to go down to the ocean and talk

277

some more?”

—

Henry glares at Seth, but then, for the first time, he

M

notices how gentle this skinny guy looks, how genuinely kind

arnie

and interested he is in what Henry has to say. Hell, he thinks,

why not? Why not go to the ocean? Like most people in LA,

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Henry knows where the ocean is but never goes. He shouldn’t

have sold his car but he had to. Rent money was due, he had-

n’t yet managed to get his job at the car wash where the mem-

ory of his lost Trans Am now haunts him. He shudders, think-

ing of all those beautiful people in their glamorous cars, their

smug faces when they emerge from the tunnel of beating

sponges and spraying water.

“Maybe we should ask Sheila along,” Henry suggests,

adding, “The tampon chick, you know, she looks like she’s

being ignored or something.” Seth nods and hops down from

his chair and goes over to Sheila.

“You know, I really loved your comic timing in that Gyna-

Wipe commercial,” Seth says, placing his hand on Sheila’s

shoulder. “Me and Henry are going down to the beach, you

want to come along? See the moon and the stars, have a bon-

fire?”

Sheila looks over Seth’s shoulder at Henry who is smiling

and waving. She thinks, Maybe I’ll ask him what he used to be.

Maybe, just for once, I’ll ask him what he’d like to do next. To

Seth, she says, “How you getting there?”

“Your car?” Seth asks, hopeful. He hadn’t thought of how

to actually GET to the ocean, only knows that’s where he

wants to be.

In the parking lot outside the bar, Henry feels a new sense

of possibility. He points to the night sky and turns to grin at

his new companions. “I want you two to just remember one

thing: they can never downsize the moon.”

“Amen to that,” says Sheila, unlocking the car. “You should

write greeting cards, Henry. You’d make a killing, baby.”

Marnie Woodrow

278—

Marnie Woodrow is the author of two short fiction collec-

argins

tions and the novel, Spelling Mississippi, short-listed for the

M

Amazon.ca/Books In Canada First Novel Award in 2003. She

o N

is currently at work on a collection of new short fiction and

a novel. A writing instructor at the University of Toronto

School of Continuing Studies, she also works with queer

youth whenever possible.

279

Bibliographer Notes

— Bibliographer

The “Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Literature with

Lesbian Content” arose when James Miller, the Director of

the Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario, invit-

ed me to do some collection development work, which is the

N

process of planning and selecting a balanced collection of

ot

library materials. I was aware that the Canadian Lesbian and

es

Gay Archives did not collect fiction and I noted that the

Pride Library had rather more gay male than lesbian content,

so I proposed to James that the Pride Library should devote

some of its resources to the acquisition of Canadian literature

with lesbian themes. Finding the books, however, turned out

to be a challenge.

Developing a list of non-fiction materials on lesbian and

gay topics was a simple matter of using Library of Congress

Subject Headings to search the Canadian National Library

Catalogue. But literature is often not assigned subject head-

ings, or given quite general ones, or given ones that fail to

acknowledge queer content. For example, in the Canadian

National Library Catalogue entry for Ann-Marie

MacDonald’s The Way the Crow Flies, the subject headings pro-

vided are Girls—Fiction, Cold War—Fiction, Military

Bases—Fiction, and Families of Military Personnel—Fiction.

Reviews of MacDonald’s novels rarely, if ever, mention the les-

bian content despite its socio-cultural importance.

Since I had no readers’ advisory guide to Canadian lesbian

literature, I decided to develop one. In the United States,

most lesbian fiction has been put out by lesbian publishers

while the number of lesbian-themed books put out by main-

stream publishers or even small presses is scant. Of course,

this limits the careers of lesbian authors. However, for read-

ers, buying lesbian-themed books is a straightforward process

of consulting the catalogues of lesbian and gay publishers.

Canada, in contrast, has never had an exclusively lesbian pub-

lishing house, although there have been several lesbian-posi-

tive feminist presses such as Press Gang, Gynergy, Women’s

280

Press, Sister Vision, Second Story, and Polestar. Looking

—

through the books published by these presses led me to a

number of lesbian-themed books, but many of Canada’s liter-

argins M

ary presses have also managed to publish a lesbian title or two.

o N

And in Quebec, the majority of lesbian-themed work has been

put out by literary and mainstream presses, beginning in 1963

with Louise Maheux-Forcier’s Amadou, Canada’s first lesbian

novel.

I initially titled my bibliography “An Annotated

Bibliography of Canadian Lesbian and Bisexual Women

Authors,” but this created several problems. There were

authors who no longer identified as lesbian or bisexual or even

female. There were lesbian authors whose work has never

addressed lesbian themes or included any lesbian content

whatsoever. There were authors who resented being listed on

the bibliography as they considered it an attempt to ghettoize

their books. So I decided to change my focus to lesbian-

themed work. My criterion for inclusion is “significant lesbian

content,” which is necessarily subjective. The personal lives of

authors, however, and their reasons for writing particular

books is neither my interest nor my concern: satisfying the

needs and desires of readers is.

Nairne Holtz

281

Selective Annotated Bibliography of Canadian

—

Literature with Lesbian Content

Bibliography

Nairne Holtz

Alguire, Judith

Iced. Women’s Press, 1995 . In Iced, protagonist Alison

Gutherie, a former hockey star, accepts a position coaching a

Toronto team playing in the premier season of Canada’s first

women’s professional hockey league. She soon learns that

coaching the team to peak performance on the ice is a much

simpler task than helping them cope with issues in their per-

sonal lives. These include stalker ex-husbands, coming out,

drug use, and inter-team romances and rivalries. Another dif-

ficult challenge for Alison is Phil Tweddell, the lacklustre

franchise owner, who regards the team as a mere stepping

stone for his own ambitions. Finally, Alison must deal with her

attractions to both a suave, sexy coach on an opposing team,

and to a troubled member of her own team. As Canada’s first

lesbian hockey novel, Iced is an entertaining sports soap opera

and romance that succeeds beyond its genre. Alguire address-

es issues of gender equality, sexism, and homophobia in sports

with both intelligence and humour.

Armstrong, Luanne

Bordering. Gynergy, 1995. Bordering is a gentle, quiet novel

about place and community written in ordinary language. Set

in rural British Columbia , Bordering tells the story of Louise

McDonald, an unsophisticated farmer from a small town who

is coping with the aftermath of her first affair with a woman.

Paralyzed by her inability to shape her own life, Louise takes

action when her best friend’s daughter is caught smuggling

drugs. As she explores the town’s open but unacknowledged

secrets, Louise begins to create a new life for herself.

Armstrong won the Canadian Children’s Book Centre

Award in 1995-1996.

Banerji, Anurima

282—

Night Artillery. TSAR, 2000. Banerji weaves personal

experience and identity politics with Hindu mythology and

argins

Persian mysticism to create romantic poems grounded in lav-

M

ish, potent imagery. Her poems focus on loss and nostalgia for

o N

people and places. She renders her experiences and feelings

with an attention to detail that is both feminine and South

Asian. In “Raga Malkauns,” Bannerji follows the sequence of

a raga, a classical form of Indian music. She writes, “alap. / her

skin unfurls like a scroll of papyrus / intimately she whispers

her prayers into my skin / inscribing the secrets of sanskrit on

my hips / and there is the calligraphy of her tongue / this

woman’s ink brushed into every pore.” When Bannerji

addresses politics, however, her work has more of a sting. In

“Summer, or, I Want the Rage of Poets to Bleed Guns

Speechless with Words,” she writes, “It has been this way for

a long time, since they put a restraining order against my

breasts and called it a bra.”

Blackbridge, Persimmon

Prozac Highway. Press Gang, 1997. Prozac Highway is a wry,

sad, engrossing novel written in a realist style. The title is a

nod to Elizabeth Wurtzel’s 1994 memoir, Prozac Nation: Young

and Depressed in America, and both works feature a female pro-

tagonist coping with chronic depressive disorder. In Prozac

Highway, a fortysomething lesbian performance artist and

sometime cleaning lady has a destructive affair with a young

academic, retreats from what she calls the “meat” world, and

spends her time online corresponding with other people diag-

nosed with mental illnesses. The engaging and amusing pro-

tagonist is not particularly introspective but in the end allows

people to reach out to her.

Blackbridge won a Ferro-Grumley Award in 1997.

283

Blais, Marie-Claire

—

Nights in the Underground: an exploration of lo ve. Translated

Bibliography

by Ray Ellenwood. Musson, 1979. Translation of: Les nuits de

l’Underground. Stanké, 1978. In one of the first lesbian novels

published in Canada, internationally recognized author

Marie-Claire Blais explores the relationship between art and

love and the dangerous necessity for lesbians to create an open

place for themselves in both their own hearts and in the

world. The season is winter and the setting is the

Underground, a lesbian bar where an eclectic group of women

play out the dramas of their lives. At the centre is Blais’ pro-

tagonist, Geneviève, a sculptor who conflates her lovers with

paintings, her desire with art, and who, in the process of vari-

ous literal and metaphorical journeys, recreates herself. She

travels from Montreal to Paris, from heterosexuality to les-

bianism, and from a sexual obsession with Lali, an alcoholic

doctor who has an immense capacity to both seduce and

wound, to a more mature love with Françoise, an aristocratic,

closeted older woman who proves herself up to the task of

assuming an alarming but essential risk. Blais, a widely

acclaimed Quebeçois writer, has written a darkly humorous

novel in a language both raw and evocative, moving seamless-

ly from the interior mind of an artist to the exterior world of

a wild, noisy bar filled with patrons from all walks of life.

Blais won the Governor General’s Literary Award for fic-

tion in 1996, 1979, and 1969.

Brand, Dionne

In Another Place, Not Here. Vintage Canada, 1997. From the

very first page of this novel, Brand mesmerizes readers with

her provocative and poetic language. Elizete, an uneducated

worker on a sugar cane plantation, falls in love with Verlia, a

Toronto woman who has returned to her Caribbean home to

join the revolution: “The four o’clock light thinning she dress,

she back good and strong, the sweat raining off in that

moment when I look and she snap she head around, that wide

mouth blowing a wave of tiredness away, pulling in one big

284

breath of air, them big white teeth, she, falling to the work

—

again, she, falling into the four o’clock sunlight. I see she. Hot,

cool and wet.” Thus begins a bittersweet romance between

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two women who are both lovers and foils to one another.

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Elizete, who is convinced that Verlia is her grace, conjures a

luxuriant dream world capable of propelling her to and

through Toronto’s mean streets, surviving as an illegal immi-

grant. Verlia, a woman in constant flight from her dreams and

emotions, came to Toronto as a middle-class teenager in the

1970s looking for the Black Power Movement as a place to

redirect her anger into meaningful change. Writing in both

Caribbean dialect and Canadian English, Brand skilfully

explores place, culture, and belonging in relation to race and

sexuality.

Brand won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in

1997.

Brossard, Nicole

Baroque at Dawn. Translated by Patricia Claxton.

McClelland & Stewart, 1997. Translation of Baroque d’aube.

L’Hexagone, 1995. Brossard is a critically acclaimed avant-

garde writer who was part of the first wave of lesbian-feminist

writing that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s in

Canada, mostly from Quebec. Brossard is an innovative for-

malist who typically blends poetry and theory. She uses tech-

niques such as puns and experiments with syntax and gram-

mar as a way of challenging notions of subjectivity and mean-

ing. L’amèr (Quinze, 1977), Le sens apparent (Flammarion, 1980),

and Amantes (Quinze, 1980) each address feminism, sexuality,

and desire, but Brossard’s method of destabilizing narrative

often obscures the lesbian content of these works. Baroque at

Dawn emphasizes character, thus allowing for a more explicit

treatment of lesbianism. The novel is framed throughout with

images of water, as Brossard thematically explores connec-

tions between physical and sensory experiences of immersion,

285

particularly the immersive states of virtual reality, language,

—

and the act of creation. The novel’s protagonist, Cybil

Bibliography

Noland, is a writer whose efforts to write are not always suc-

cessful. The novel begins with Noland immersed in a state of

desire for a young, female stranger who picks her up in a hotel

bar. Following their erotic encounter, Noland is invited by a

female oceanographer, Occident, to come aboard a ship with

a somewhat sinister all-male crew in order to participate in an

unusual creative project. Noland, along with a female photog-

rapher, is to take advantage of virtual reality technology to

experience and later write about life under water. Noland

rejects the virtual reality technology created by the three male

programmers who also use it to incorporate and produce their

fantasies of women. Virtual reality, it seems, replicates a patri-

archal discourse even when experienced by a lesbian feminist.

Brossard then disrupts her own narrative to introduce herself

as a character who has written the book that we find ourselves

reading, and who is assisting the translator with its transla-

tion. She uses these techniques to involve the reader in the act

of creating the text, making Baroque at Dawn create in essence

a virtual reality for her audience

Brossard won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in

1984 and in 1974.

Butler, Audrey (now Alec)

Radical Perversions: Two Dyke Plays. Women’s Press, 1990.

Radical Perversions includes the plays “Black Friday” and

“Claposis.” “Black Friday” is a play about family secrets and

loyalty. Drawing upon her Cape Breton roots, Butler creates a

lesbian protagonist, Terry, who travels back to her hometown

with her black lover, Spike. Terry’s purpose in making the trip

is to come out to her family and to discover the truth about

her father, an alcoholic unionist who may have been unjustly

blamed for the shutdown of the mining company with devas-

tating economic effects on the town. Terry’s mother and aunt

have their own secrets as well, and in the process of revelation

stronger bonds and new definitions of family are created. In

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“Claposis,” Butler writes of three women who become roman-

—

tically involved with one another. Butler opts to tell her story

in reverse chronological order, a device she uses to express the

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shifting nature of love, intimacy, and power in romantic rela-

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tionships. “Claposis” allegedly means “two waves meeting”

and is an apt metaphor for her portrayal of the cyclical emo-

tional dynamics among the women. Although both plays suc-

ceed in engaging the reader with their humour and affection-

ately drawn characters, “Black Friday” is the weightier of the

two works.

Callaghan, Morley, 1903-1990

No Man’s Meat. E. W. Titus, 1931. One of Canada’s best

known and most prolific writers, Callaghan made literary his-

tory when he squared off with Ernest Hemmingway in a box-

ing ring in 1929 and knocked him to the ground. Callaghan

went to Paris in 1929 where he spent a few years hanging out

in the Left Bank with a veritable who’s who of writers that

included F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

One can only speculate whether his encounters with the

famous expatriate community of literary and artistic lesbians

influenced his work in this novel. In No Man’s Meat, the unruf-

fled existence of the Beddoes, wealthy artists living in the idyl-

lic northern Ontario countryside, is disrupted by the arrival of

their friend Jean Allen, a reckless gambler. Like the sun on the

face of the rock that the Beddoes watch each day, Jean brings

colour and excitement to their lives. But when she gambles

away her virtue to Mr. Beddoes in a game of craps, Mrs.

Beddoes responds in an unexpected manner. Callaghan,

known for his tales of men trapped in personal and moral

dilemnas, has written a strange and at times comic tale, rich in

descriptions of Canadian geography.

Callaghan won the City of Toronto Book Award in 1986,

and the Governor General’s Award for fiction in 1951.

287

Dempsey, Shawna

—

Lesbian National Parks and Services Field Guide to North

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America. By Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan. Illustrations

by Daniel Barrow. Pedlar Press, 2002. The fun began as a per-

formance art piece at the Banff Centre for the Arts where

long time collaborators Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan

dressed in uniform as “lesbian rangers” to interact with the

public. This experience was developed into a series of multi-

media projects, including this satirical field guide. Dedicated

with a nod and a wink to Anne Murray, the Lesbian National

Parks and Services Field Guide to North America covers survival

skills, descriptions of flora and fauna, and information on the

ersatz Lesbian National Parks and Services. Much of the

charm of this guide lies in its packaging. Beautifully designed

and illustrated by Daniel Barrow and Zab, this book evokes a

1950s field guide with its hand-drawn illustrations, tan font,

and rounded cover. However, this nostalgia for the past is sub-

verted by the content that satirizes traditional homophobic

attitudes,. Dempsey and Millan appropriate the language and

imagery of scouting and armed forces recruitment ads to cre-

ate the spiffily dressed, well-prepared Junior Lesbian Ranger

whose mandate is the stewardship of the “fragile lesbian

ecosystem.” This association of lesbianism with the natural

world is also a gentle mocking of essentialist lesbian feminist

politics. Using double entendres and tongue-in-cheek earnest-

ness, Dempsey and Millan celebrate sexuality and diversity

while criticizing heterosexist assumptions of so-called natural

sexuality and gender roles, as well as internalized homophobia

within the lesbian community. The book, clocking in at 264

pages, is long for what is basically a joke, and the relentless

faux quotes attributed to their actual friends may annoy any-

one out of the loop. Nonetheless, Dempsey and Millan’s work

is certainly a unique piece of lesbian Canadiana.

Donoghue, Emma

288

Hood. Hamish Hamilton, 1995. Donoghue, an Irish writer

—

now settled in London, Ontario, spins a witty, bittersweet, and

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very accomplished tale of a contemporary Irish school teacher

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mourning the accidental death of her female lover while living

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in a climate in which their relationship was at best, tacitly

acknowledged. Hood is both a meditation on loss and a liter-

ary love story, told by flashback, of the attraction between an

adventurous, unconventional, and not entirely faithful woman

and her more withdrawn and constant lover.

Donoghue won a Ferro-Grumley award in 2002 and the

American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual

Book Award in 1997.

Douglas, Marion

Magic Eight Ball. Polestar, 2000. Calgary writer Marion

Douglas’ strength is her ability to observe the ordinary lives of

her characters with thoughtful detachment and compassion,

expressed in deadpan humour throughout. Magic Eight Ball is

a quirky, delectable literary novel about a young girl growing

up in Southwestern Ontario in the imaginary farming town of

Flax. The story is more an examination of the protagonist’s

anxiety about intimacy than a traditional coming out story. As

an adult, she studies sociology in university, becomes pregnant

after a single, fleeting encounter with a man whose name she

can’t really recall with any accuracy, leaves Ontario for Alberta

to live with an elderly aunt, and finally, painstakingly, falls in

love with another woman. Douglas’ protagonist views the

world with a thoroughly entertaining hyper self-conscious-

ness, including amusing references to how her personal life

would be classified in sociological terms.

Douglas won the Writers Guild of Alberta / George

Bugnet award in 1995.

289

Dunnion, Kristyn

—

Mosh Pit. Red Deer, 2004. Dunnion’s Mosh Pit harkens

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back to “social problem” young adult novels of the 1970s in

which the youth of the protagonist did not compromise the

seriousness of the themes or the grace of the writing.

Dunnion successfully updates the genre with blogging, crack

cocaine, and a heroine who identifies as a lesbian from the

opening page. Simone is a teenage dyke torn between loyalty

to her destructive best friend and her own need to carve out a

different kind of life for herself as she navigates her way

through a grungy urban landscape of punk bars, booze cans,

crack houses, and the sex trade. The plot is far from original,

but Dunnion manages to adroitly twist stock characters and

situations into fresh configurations. She focuses on Simone’s

budding identity as a young butch rather than her coming out

and does not relegate Cherry, the wayward best friend, to

either victim or mean girl status. Instead, Cherry’s irreverent

blogs show her to be simultaneously vulnerable, exploited, and

a frighteningly resourceful criminal. Simone is rescued, natu-

rally, but her support comes from young queer sex workers

and punk musicians. Sexy Carol, the love interest, comes per-

ilously close to the hooker with a heart of gold stereotype but

her refusal to offer Simone an easy ride into the sunset pro-

vides necessary complexity for both the character and the

novel. Mosh Pit is not a short novel but there is enough plot to

sustain interest, and Dunnion effectively captures the sassy

argot of modern teenagers.

Elwin, Rosamund

Asha’s Mums. Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse; illus-

trated by Dawn Lee. Women’s Press, 1990. Asha’s Mums is

written for the four to six year old age group in language that

kids can use and easily understand, and is attractively illustrat-

ed with watercolours. The book tells the story of Asha, a

young black girl who is going on a school trip to the Science

Centre. Asha is afraid she will not be able to go with her class-

mates because her teacher insists that Asha did not fill out the

290

permission form correctly when she listed two mothers as her

—

parents. Asha describes her family during show and tell, and

the children in her class argue about whether a person can

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have two mothers. Fortunately, some children think you can,

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and Asha’s lesbian mothers, both of whom are women of

colour, show up at the school to convince the remaining stu-

dents, not to mention the clueless teacher. This rather low-

key book, which reflects a not uncommon dilemma for same-

sex parents as well as the multiracial demographics of the city

of Toronto, has been the subject of controversy in recent

years. The Surrey, British Columbia, School Board of Trustees

passed a resolution stating that Asha’s Mums and other books

depicting children with same-sex parents are not appropriate

as learning resources for young students. This resolution was

challenged in court and in 2002, the Supreme Court of

Canada ruled against the school board on the grounds that

provincial legislation in British Columbia states that the pub-

lic school system is secular and non-sectarian.

Fleming, Anne

Pool-hopping and Other Stories. Polestar, 1998. Fleming has

written a series of stories capturing pivotal moments when

circumstances compel people to take decisive action to

change the course of their lives in ways dramatic or ordinary,

but always compelling. A child takes her albino sister to show

and tell, a woman musician reveals the betrayal of her lover

and bandmate, teenagers dare each other to plunge into

neighbours’ pools on hot summer nights, and an older man

robs a bank to win the love of his estranged gay son. Fleming’s

characters, be they members of suburban families or urban

lesbians, are well drawn with intelligence and self-deprecating

humour. The characters’ lives are engaging and their personal-

ities tend to linger in the mind of the reader for some time

after the volume has been read and put aside.

291

Franson, Leanne

—

Assume Nothing: Evolution of a Bi-Dyke: Comics. Slab-O-

Bibliography

Concrete, 1997. In what started as an effort to woo a particu-

lar woman, Franson self-published mini comics about her life

as represented by her alter ego, Liliane, and in the process,

developed an underground following. Assume Nothing is a

selection of these comics with stories ranging from the inex-

plicable occurrences of everyday life, such as finding a patch

of skin on a shelf in a new apartment, to the unpredictable ter-

rain of sexual discovery as Lilliane makes the transition from

fag hag to bisexual dyke. In the unlikely event that Franson’s

loose, expressive drawing style fails to beguile, the intelli-

gence, self-deprecating humour, and loving depiction of “la

belle province” will succeed in captivating readers with both

the dramatic and quieter moments in the life of the well-

intentioned protagonist.

Gibb, Camilla

The Petty Details of So-and-So’s Life. Doubleday Canada,

2002. In her second novel, celebrated award-winning author

Camilla Gibb leaves behind her grim humour and experimen-

tal style in favour of a more subdued realism. The Petty Details

of So-and-so’s Life nonetheless triumphs as a subtle, stylishly

written exploration of a dysfunctional family. The burden of

contending with a sadistic, mentally ill father and an alcoholic,

barely capable mother leads siblings Emma and Blue Taylor to

choose aggressively different life paths. Emma seemingly plays

the role of good girl to Blue’s bad boy—she heads off to uni-

versity while he drops out of school. They are both engaged,

however, in the same act of escape. Emma’s ability to day-

dream, to imagine alternate possibilities for herself, leads her

to try on identities as if they are disguises: Russian princess,

academic, archaeologist, ice cream shop worker, straight girl,

and lesbian. Blue, as his name suggests, is a depressive living a

precarious blue collar existence as a drug-dealing skin and ink

artist. Neither Emma nor Blue succeed in leaving their past

behind; their work metaphorically reflects their need to dig

292

beneath surfaces, which in turn leads to their most damaging

—

personal disasters. Gibb rejects therapeutic notions of closure

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in favour of acceptance: acceptance of love, of failure, and of

M

one’s self, thereby offering her characters hope in place of

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anger and culpability.

Gibb won the City of Toronto Book Award in 2000.

Gidlow, Elsa, 1898-1986

Elsa: I Come with My Songs. Booklegger Press, 1986. Elsa

Gidlow may have been the first woman in North America to

publish literature with lesbian content. In 1923, a small

American press published On a Grey Thread, her debut collec-

tion of love poetry addressed to women. Gidlow was then

twenty-five years old and had just moved to New York City

from Quebec. Gidlow never returned to Canada, but her auto-

biography is nonetheless of interest to Canadians because of

her description of her early life as a lesbian poet living in

Montreal.

Gidlow was born in England, but her family moved to a

village on the outskirts of Montreal when she was five. She

grew up with her six brothers and sisters in a three-room

house that did not include plumbing. From a young age,

Gidlow was fascinated with books and had a rich interior life,

but she received little formal education and began doing cler-

ical work in Montreal at the age of sixteen. Around this time,

she met a woman at a business course and fell in love. Their

intense friendship ended when her girlfriend met a man. This

prompted Gidlow to organize a writers’ group as a way to

meet other “outsiders,” which turned out to be wildly success-

ful. Elsa Gidlow became part of a bohemian group of men and

women, some of whom were gay, who introduced her to liter-

ature, aesthetics, theosophy, and pacifism. Inspired by writers

in New York who published their own newspapers and maga-

zines, Gidlow, along with one of the gay men, Roswell Mills,

created Les Mouches Fantastiques, what might now be called a

293

’zine but was then a mimeographed paper. It included poetry,

—

translations of Verlaine, articles on “the intermediate sex,”

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and one-act plays sympathetically depicting same-sex love

along with editorials condemning World War I. Gidlow had a

romantic relationship or two with a few bisexual women but

in 1920, bored with the “provincialism” of Montreal, she

moved to New York to try to earn a living as a writer and to

meet lesbians.

Gidlow never became a successful writer of literature. Her

chap-books of poetry were mostly self-published or published

by the community in which she lived, but she managed to sup-

port herself financially as an editor and freelance journalist for

much of her life. Her writing style and themes were conven-

tional but her engaging autobiography reveals a woman whose

politics were way ahead of her time (in California, she was to

become part of an early back-to-the-land commune). Elsa

Gidlow was a passionate woman who lived her life on her own

terms even at the price of poverty and rejection.

Hamilton, Jane Eaton

Hunger. Oberon, 2002. In Hunger, Hamilton explores

themes of longing and loss in the lives of lesbians, heterosex-

ual men, and women. What would otherwise be rather con-

ventional storylines of infidelity, illness, and children leaving

home are executed in a marvelously idiosyncratic manner.

Hamilton successfully marries humour with pathos in a lean,

accomplished style reminiscent of short stories in the New

Yorker.

Holbrook, Susan

Misled. Red Deer, 1999. Holbrook blends autobiographical

anecdotes, philosophy, and poetry in an exhilarating maze of

word play. She strings together word associations, naughty

puns, twisted clichés, and reworked fairy tales while she

explores the multiple, mistaken, and shifting meanings of lan-

guage and experience. In “Crush,” a searing examination of

her youthful queer crushes, she writes: “Crush. That’s a tame

294

one. That’s a word you can have over for Sunday dinner. A

—

blushing teeny-bopper and a puppy with a leather shoe: Aw,

you say, she’s got a crush. What about all the hearts that have

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been garbage compacted, steel-toe ground, 18-wheeler run

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over; grand piano dropped, record pressed, rockslide into

bloody rubble?” Holbrook pursues forms that challenge her

audience yet her lively sense of humour offers entertainment.

Hopkinson, Nalo

The Salt Roads. Warner Brothers, 2003. In The Salt Roads,

Hopkinson departs from her critically acclaimed science fic-

tion to create a novel that is a hybrid of historical fiction and

magical realism. Politically sophisticated yet stylistically

uneven, Hopkinson’s novel addresses the theme of black

women’s bid for sexual, spiritual, and economic freedom as she

unravels a tale of the lives of three women and a goddess. Mer,

a midwife and healer, is an African slave on a sugar plantation

on Santa Domingue (later known as Haiti). Jeanne Duval is a

bisexual Afro-French dancer and mistress to nineteenth centu-

ry poet Charles Baudelaire who shocked his contemporaries

with his morbidity and explicit sexual poems on lesbians and

vampires. Thais is a Greek-Nubian prostitute living in fourth

century Egypt who makes a pilgrimage to the desert.

When Mer and two other women on the plantation bury

a stillborn child, their prayer unleashes Ezili, a goddess or loa

of love in the voodoo pantheon who moves through time and

space to possess humans in order to interact in the natural

world. As she comes into consciousness by occupying the bod-

ies, passions, and histories of her hosts, Duval, Mer and Thais,

Ezili represents the diasporic history of black women scat-

tered across continents yet bound together by their experi-

ences of grief, labour, and sexuality. Hopkinson sprinkles the

characteristics ascribed to the Haitian goddess among her

female characters who are in turn possessed by the loa. In

matching the women’s dissimilar stories, the author creates a

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brilliant literary conceit of possession in all its facets: sexual,

—

economic, and spiritual. Hopkinson fearlessly honours female

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sexual pleasure and creates strong female characters, but

unfortunately equal attention is not given to the women’s sto-

ries, with the bulk of the story concentrating on Duval and

Baudelaire at the expense of Mer’s romantic relationship with

another woman and her conflicts with Makandal, a shape-

shifting slave who is fomenting a revolution.

Hopkinson won the Sunburst Award in 2003 and the

World Fantasy Award in 2002.

Humphreys, Helen

Afterimage. HarperFlamingo, 2000. Inspired by a series of

works by Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron,

the exquisitely written After Image tells the story of a love tri-

angle between Annie Phelan, an impoverished Irish-born

maid who arrives to work at the estate of Isabelle Dashell, a

single-minded photographer struggling to break into the late

nineteenth century male-dominated art world, and her

dreamy husband Eldon, a cartographer whose health prevents

him from exploring the world he charts. By shifting interior

monologue from the female artist to her muse, from the priv-

ileged man with liberal ideals to his servant, Humphreys

delves into themes of subjectivity, class, the oppression of

women, and the silencing of lesbianism. The reader is left with

the task of distinguishing between that which art merely

objectively records and that which it leaves to the subjective

imagination. Humphreys’ background as an award winning

poet is evident in the seamless manner in which she weaves

metaphor and simile throughout her text, providing the read-

er with a vibrant portrait of Victorian-era England.

Humphreys won the Writer’s Trust of Canada Fiction Award

in 2001 and the Toronto Book Award in 1998.

Jones, Lizard

296

Two Ends of Sleep: A Novel. Press Gang, 1997. Witty, enter-

—

taining, and thoughtful may not seem like the most appropri-

ate words to describe a novel about a downwardly-mobile les-

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bian activist recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, but

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Two Ends of Sleep eschews drama and sentimentality. The effect

of MS on the protagonist, Rusty, is to place her in a perpetu-

ally drowsy state between waking and sleeping. As her sense of

what is real and what is fantasy begins to blur, Jones creates a

similar ambiguity in the text itself. The reader is left to decide

the reality of infidelities and criminal behaviour in this affec-

tionate portrayal of lesbian love, desire, and community.

Jutras, Jeanne-d’Arc, 1927-1992

Délira cannelle. Éditions Québec/Amérique, 1983. Jutras

has written a series of autobiographical novels featuring her

alter-ego, Georgie. In Délira cannelle, Georgie is working as a

grocery store clerk, and her recent public coming out has

caused many of her customers to shun her. One rainy day, she

falls into conversation with one of the last remaining friendly

clients, Mme Lalande, who decides to wait out the storm and

chat. Mme Lalande reveals her own past—the story of a trou-

bled marriage to a gay man and their scandal-ridden split—

and that of her neighbours: Délira Cannelle is an obese

woman obsessed with winning the church bingo and travelling

to the Vatican, and her husband is a grumpy, wheelchair-

bound war vet who spends his time filling in crossword puz-

zles. Georgie herself reminisces about her teenage beer-bottle

runs to pay for dates with her sweetheart, Irène, when they

could escape from Irène’s mother’s watchful eye. The stories

of these three women are only minimally intertwined but each

is facing the realization that life hasn’t turned out as they

would have expected, with the storm serving as a metaphor

for troubled endings and new beginnings. The true pleasure of

reading Délira cannelle arises less from the characters, howev-

er, than from immersing oneself in Jutras’ vibrant and evoca-

297

tive writing style—a perfect rendition of working-class

—

Québécois slang, peppered with colourful expressions and

Bibliography

beautifully misspelled to convey accurate pronunciation.

Partly a rich and meandering triple portrait of la petite vie,

partly a tale of unlikely connection across the heavily drawn

lines of sexual orientation in early ’80s Quebec, Jutras’ simple

story is full of humour and hope. Andrea Zanin.

Kwa, Lydia

This Place Called Absence. Turnstone, 2000. Kwa deftly

explores themes of grief, hope, risk, and desire through the

interwoven voices of four women living in different places and

times. Wu Lan, who lives in Vancouver and grew up in

Singapore, has taken a leave of absence from work to cope

with her father’s suicide and her female lover leaving her for a

male colleague. Mahmee, Wu Lan’s mother, still lives in

Singapore and is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband.

Lee Ah Choi and Chow Chat Mui, young women living harsh

lives in brothels in early twentieth century Singapore, have

found comfort in each other’s arms and in the use of opium.

This Place Called Absence is an engaging, sensuous novel from a

talented author with an original voice.

Lai, Larissa

Salt Fish Girl. Thomas Allen, 2002. In Salt Fish Girl, Lai has

created a sophisticated dystopia by plundering and subverting

creation stories, Chinese cultural lore, Greek mythology, fairy

tales, pop culture, and current events. Crafting a picture of

brooding dysfunction rather than a tale of apocalyptic

prophecy, Lai effectively critiques both the disguised brutali-

ty of post-industrial capitalism and the looming threat posed

by the indiscriminate application of biotechnology in the

name of human progress. The female narrator, by turns a girl,

a woman, and a fish, is the connecting thread weaving togeth-

er two distinct narratives in the novel, one unfolding in nine-

teenth century China and the other set in the twenty-first

298

century in the Pacific Northwest. In China, protagonist Nu

—

Wa’s desires for other women and a life beyond mere subsis-

tence lead her to make violent, criminal choices. In a futuris-

argins

tic British Columbia, the protagonist Miranda is born into a

M

society where corporations govern cities, factory workers are

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genetically engineered, corporate jobs are virtual reality video

games, and people are at risk from an epidemic known as the

dreaming disease, where victims cannot escape the unfiltered

horror of our collective memory of past events. Miranda, an

outcast born with an inexplicable scent about her of durian

fruit, perpetual, sensual, and malodorous, eventually separates

from her family and rebels against her society in ways that

allow her to uncover devastating truths about her own origins

and the world around her. In crafting this paranoid and dark-

ly comic novel, Lai demonstrates that she is both a gifted sto-

ryteller and incisive social critic.

Lee, Sky

Bellydancer: Stories. Press Gang, 1994. The political and

explicitly lesbian Bellydancer: Stories, Lee’s second book , was

barely noticed. It compares well to the work of Angela Carter;

both writers produce incisive, theatrical, tongue-in-cheek

explorations of violence and eroticism. Lee rewrites the world

from the point of view of those rendered exotic and erotic by

mainstream characterizations and caricatures, including belly

dancers, sex workers, single mothers, lesbians of colour, and

not-so-dutiful Chinese daughters. Lee romps across history,

genre, and popular culture to create tales of different women

survivors. In “Nancy Drew Mysteries,” she explores the inter-

section of pleasure, risk, and danger through the memories of

a young Asian woman who survives various brutalities prior to

fleecing her white drug dealer boyfriend and picking up a

woman in a bar. In “Pompei,” Lee makes use of both myth and

allegory to explore the choices made by village girls living in

first century Rome. Veering in style from realism to magical

realism, Lee’s work is complex and enchanting.

Lee won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 1990.

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Levine, Elise

—

Requests & Dedications. McClelland & Stewart, 2003. Set in

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both the artsy core of Toronto and a grimy boarding stable in

an outlying area of the city where farms are being swallowed

by subdivisions, Levine’s book peels back the skin of a family

of sorts whose failed intentions to one another beget dark

consequences. Requests & Dedications is a character-driven

novel with the pacing of a summer storm, a swampy humidity

that implodes in a final crackle. At the center of the story is

Tanis, a young butch dyke in continual conflict with her iron-

ically named mother, Joy. Joy is wedged between her brother,

Walker, and his lover, Mimi, an alcoholic charmer to whom

Joy plays consort. Jena, Walker’s spoiled daughter, is at once

vacuous and the pivot on which events turn. The characters’

love and tenderness are continually thwarted by their tangled

loyalties and empathetically conveyed human failings. Levine’s

emotional logic is flawless and clear, but the structure of the

novel and her style are dense and challenging. The more liter-

ary minded reader will admire her ability to wring originality

and cool from a vernacular that would seem to have been worn

smooth as Levine glides from layered, visceral imagery to a

defensive dialogue that perfectly captures the class back-

ground of her characters.

Luke, Pearl

Burning Ground. HarperFlamingo Canada, 2000. Burning

Ground, a powerfully written debut, is a quintessentially

Canadian novel with sparse poetics, heavy use of landscape as

a metaphor, and themes of isolation and the struggle between

human beings and nature. The title of the novel is a reference

to underground fires, which in this book operates as a

metaphor for hidden desire. The protagonist, Percy Turner,

spends her summers working in an isolated fire tower in north-

ern Alberta scanning for smoke. She spends much of her time

alone reflecting upon her troubled childhood, growing up in a

trailer park, and her relationship with Marlea, her best friend

and sometime lover. For companionship, she relies on an

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intense online correspondence with a man in a nearby tower. In

—

the climax of the book, Percy discovers an underground fire

and sets off to assess its destructive potential. The extensive

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damage appears to represent the danger of Percy’s illicit desire,

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experienced not only in an affair with a married man, but also

in her on-again, off-again lesbian relationship and in her linger-

ing emotional response to her mother’s infidelity.

Luke won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best

First Book (Caribbean and Canada region) in 2001.

MacDonald, Ann-Marie

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). Coach House,

1990. Many Canadians have read Fall On Your Knees, Ann-

Marie MacDonald’s debut novel that managed to be both crit-

ically acclaimed and a best-seller despite the fact that an inter-

racial lesbian relationship is the centrepiece of the story. But

prior to her gripping, brooding novel, MacDonald wrote

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) a frothy and seduc-

tive play that satirizes academia and endows Shakespearean

classics with a queer, feminist sensibility. Constance Leadbelly,

a young, timid academic, is dumped by Professor Night, her

boss whose work she has written for years. She falls into an

alternate universe of the Shakespearean plays Romeo and Juliet

and Othello. Constance attempts to save the heroines by

changing the endings of the plays, which turns out to be quite

challenging when she discovers that Desdemona is a blood-

thirsty adventurer rather than a passive victim, and Juliet, far

from being pure and devoted, is a lively seductress. The

changer becomes the changed, as the Shakespearean female

characters function as archetypes of Constance’s unconscious

mind while the male characters are permutations of Professor

Night. MacDonald not only amuses her audience but also dis-

plays technical skill in setting the Shakespearean characters’

dialogue in blank verse.

MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize

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(Caribbean and Canada region) for Best First Book in 1997

—

and received Oprah’s Book Club Selection #45 in February

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2002. She also won the Governor General’s Award for drama

in 1990.

MacDonald, Ingrid

Catherine, Catherine: Lesbian Short Stories. Women’s Press,

1991. The eight stories in this collection are written in a

deceptively simple style. Three stories, “Catherine

Catherine,” “True Natures,” and “Seven Miracles,” might very

well be Canada’s first works of transgender fiction. They form

the Catherine Trilogy, a compelling series of interlocking sto-

ries, which was adapted into an award-winning stage produc-

tion in Toronto. The trilogy is based upon the life of

Catherina Margaretha Linck, an eighteenth century German

woman who cross-dressed as a man. She was eventually

exposed as a biological female and executed for engaging in

sodomy, among other crimes. These stories are bawdy, witty,

and passionate imaginings of three principal characters: the

rash, hot-headed, cross-dressing Catherine; her lover, also

named Catherine, who both blooms and suffers for her

unquestioning faith in their relationship; and the brutal man

of God who takes their fate into his own hands. The other sto-

ries in the collection are appealing contemporary tales of girls

and women coming into their own as they cope with divorced

parents, the loss of a best friend, and doomed romances.

Maheux-Forcier, Louise

A Forest for Zoe. Translated by David Lobdell. Oberon,

1986. Translation of: Une forêt pour Zoé. Le Cercle du Livre du

France, 1969. Although virtually unknown outside of her

home province, Maheux-Forcier is a well-regarded Quebec lit-

erary figure. Her first novel, Amadou, published in 1963, is

Canada’s first lesbian novel. Her third novel, Une forêt pour Zoé,

is one of Canada’s best lesbian novels. Both novels feature les-

bians in primary relationships with men while longing for

their lost female lovers. Amadou is lesbian pulp fiction: a

302

humourless style is wedded to a kitschy plot filled with mur-

—

der and mayhem that serves to affirm the impossibility for

women to live outside of compulsory heterosexuality. A Forest

argins M

for Zoe, in contrast, is a sophisticated literary novel that

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thrives upon paradox and dissonance. The narrator, Thérèse,

is obsessed with Zoe, her childhood friend whom she experi-

ences as a Doppelganger or ghostly alterego. Zoe, a reckless,

courageous heathen, acts as interrogator and confessor to

Thérèse as she examines the significant relationships in her

life, seeking to understand the unravelling of a relationship

that was once as tightly interwoven as “the strands of a web of

wool.” Maheux-Forcier’s absurd, grimly comic descriptions of

betrayals between adults and children are a sly, devastating cri-

tique of oppression, and of sexism and heterosexism. She ren-

ders the most disturbing of scenes in a splendid poetic style.

The novel is infused with lesbian eroticism but the most

explicit acts are often conveyed by metaphor or double enten-

dre. Thérèse concludes that her husband is “her friend” and

her illicit lover, Isis, her “denouement” but understanding

does not necessarily lead to action. Thérèse appears to tell all

but how reliable is she? Zoe may be real, a version of Thérèse,

or a fantasy of pure, Edenic lesbian love. What is certain is the

timeless appeal of this work, which may gain the recognition

it deserves in translation.

Maheux-Forcier won the Governor General’s Award in

1969.

Marchessault, Jovette

Lesbian Triptych. Translated by Yvonne Klein. Women’s

Press, 1985. Translation of: Tryptique lesbien. Éditions de la

Pleine Lune, 1980. Contents include: A Lesbian Chronicle from

Medieval Quebec, Night Cows and The Angel Makers.

Marchessault was a rising star in the Quebec literary scene

when she outed herself with the publication of Lesbian

Triptych, a dramatic monologue in three parts. In the first

303

part, “A Lesbian Chronicle from Medieval Quebec,” which has

—

the brutal satirical style of Valerie Solanis’ S.C.U.M. Manifesto,

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Marchessault inverts the teachings of the Catholic Church to

denounce the sexual oppression of lesbians. The word

“Medieval” in the title refers not to the historical period of the

Middle Ages but is instead a sarcastic reference to the “back-

wardness” of Quebec prior to the Quiet Revolution of the

1960s when the election of the Liberal Party of Jean Lesage

ushered in a period of liberalisation and a corresponding

decrease in the power of the Catholic Church. Dazzling the

reader with puns and metaphors linking various forms of

oppression, Marchessault takes the reader on a journey

through her Catholic childhood, the love she experiences for

her vivacious country cousin who is made catatonic by hetero-

sexuality, and the constrictions imposed by her family who

reject Marchessault when she comes out. The second part of

the triptych, “Night Cows,” which was later adapted for the

stage, is a utopian celebration of mother love and a myth of

origins wherein women are cows, docile breeders by day that

at night soar freely through the Milky Way entwined in erot-

ic embraces. The final part of the triptych is titled “The

Angel-Makers,” a Québeçois expression for women who per-

form illegal abortions. Marchessault riffs on the meanings of

left, right, knitting, and stitching as the speaker watches her

mother knit to strengthen her hands for the task of taking

foetuses from the womb and returning rights to women.

Marchessault won the Governor General’s Award for

drama in 1990.

Marlatt, Daphne

Touch To My Tongue. Illustrations by Cheryl Sourkes.

Longspoon, 1984. Betsy Warland and Daphne Marlatt have

dedicated their respective books, Open is Broken and Touch to

My Tongue, to each other. Engaged in the task of deconstruct-

ing patriarchal language, both authors have created sensuous

and cerebral collections of poetry. Touch to my Tongue includes

both poetry and an essay, “Musing with Mothertongue.” In the

304

essay, Marlatt examines the relationship between language and

—

meaning in a patriarchal culture and recommends using the

female body and female experiences, such as miscarriage and

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breastfeeding, to create new images, symbols, and meanings.

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Marlatt’s rhythmic poems use images of nature and uninhab-

ited, wild space to explore the dynamics of long-distance rela-

tionships and to invoke the passion of lesbian eroticism. In

“eating,” she writes, “a kiwi at four a.m. among the sheets

green slice of cool going down easy on the tongue extended

with desire for you and you in me it isn’t us we suck those

other lips tongue flesh wet wall that gives and gives whole

fountains inner mountains moving out resistances.”

Mootoo, Shani

Out on Main Street and Other Stories. Press Gang, 1993. Born

in Ireland and raised in Trinidad, Mootoo moved to Canada at

the age of nineteen and began a career as a visual artist and

videographer. In Out on Main Street, her first collection of

short fiction, she draws upon her hybrid identity to examine

feminist, racial, and lesbian issues using a variety of voices and

styles. “Lemon Scent,” is a sensual and elegiac tale exploring

the hidden emotions of a married woman and her lesbian

lover who make love beneath a samaan tree, unobserved by

the woman’s husband. “Out on Main Street,” written in Indo-

Caribbean patois, explores different axes of privilege and dis-

crimination as experienced by a femme/butch couple that

both have East Indian backgrounds.

Mootoo won the Chapters / Robertson Davies First Novel

Award in 1997.

Oliver, Kathleen

Swollen Tongues. Playwrights Canada, 1999. Oliver queers

the plot of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergeac and the con-

ventions of Shakespearean comedy to create a play written for

the most part in heroic couplets and iambic pentameter.

305

While Cyrano is tongue-tied in the presence of Roxanne’s

—

beauty, the heroine of Swollen Tongues is rendered mute by “the

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love that dare not speak its name.” The plot involves a broth-

er and sister, Thomas and Catharine, being tutored by the

enigmatic Dr. Wise in the art of writing poetry. Both Thomas

and Catharine share the same muse and love object, Sonya,

but as Catharine is fearful of revealing her lesbian desire, she

reworks her brother’s dreadful poems using the pseudonym

Overripe. When Thomas discovers he is being plagiarized, Dr.

Wise steps in to propose a duel in the form of a poetry slam.

From there, the plot twists in a series of tricks, disguises, and

cross-dressing as the characters discover the power of poetry

and theatrical gender-bending to unearth unexpected desire.

Oliver seamlessly blends contemporary queer cultural refer-

ences with classic literary language. For example, when

Thomas stumbles into a Sapphic hideaway, he says, “What’s

this decaying floor on which I stand? / What means this sign?

/ This ‘Women only land?’ / Only land where? The thought

seems incomplete. / I know that cats only land on their feet, /

but women…sometimes land in someone’s lap, / or sometimes

they might fall into a trap.” Swollen Tongues is a hilarious mar-

vel written by a terrific wordsmith.

Oliver won a Jessie Richardson Award in 1998.

Rule, Jane

Contract with the World. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.

Rule is best known for her novel Desert of the Heart, which in

1986 was made into the successful lesbian movie, Desert Hearts.

Those familiar with the rest of Rule’s work, however, will

know that Contract with the World is her masterpiece. The

“contract” in the title represents the choices and bargains

individuals make with regards to the intersection of their pub-

lic and private lives. Rule uses this theme to explore such

diverse topics as mental illness, homophobia, intergenera-

tional relationships, outing, class privilege, the myth and real-

ity of being an artist and, perhaps most poignantly, the choic-

es individuals make in terms of personal loyalties. Set in

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Vancouver, Rule’s novel progresses using the voices of six very

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different men and women, gay and straight, whose “agitated”

lives are interconnected in complex ways, both emotionally

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and sexually. Rule’s talent for creating breadth and depth of

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character as demonstrated in Contract with the World is first-

rate. The novel is technically polished and thematically

sophisticated but written in an accessible style with colloqui-

al dialogue and action scaled to the community level.

Rule won the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime

Achievement Award in 2002.

Ruth, Elizabeth

Smoke. Penguin, 2005. When a young man growing up on

a tobacco farm in 1950s Southern Ontario is severely burned

in a fire, his sense of self is as damaged as his face. Buster

McFiddie’s disfigurement in an era of conformity makes him

a social outcast and he is consumed with self-pity. Doc John,

the town doctor, recognizing that Buster needs to be healed

in spirit as well as in body, reaches out to him by recounting

wild takes of infamous Detroit mobsters and bootleggers, the

Purple Gang. The stories gradually guide Buster into a deeper

understanding of risk, responsibility, and who or what is a true

outlaw. In this warm, smart, character-driven novel, Doc John

serves as Busterès foil. While Buster rebuilds his life and pre-

pares for the future, Doc John attempts to reconcile his past

with his present. Doc John and his wife Alice appear to be

perfect upstanding citizens in the village of Smoke, but they

are co-conspirators who hide, even from themselves to some

extent, the reality that Doc John began life as a biological

female. As Doc John “straddles this equator called sex,” Buster

and he other residents of the town address their own conflicts

between their perception and that of their community. Smoke

serves as an apt metaphor for both imminent danger and that

which can be obscured.

307

Salah, Trish

—

Wanting in Arabic: Poems. TSAR, 2002. Salah, a transsexual

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lesbian with a Lebanese immigrant father, blends cultural the-

ory with Urdu poetic traditions and queer experience. Wanting

in Arabic is a compact examination of gender and race identi-

ty. While this sounds serious, her work slides from goofiness

to anger in an instant. She wraps her poems in metaphors of

mythology and pop culture and sprinkles them with parody

and profanity. Her poems tackle exile, demonstrations, and

transitioning as well as larger themes of sex, love, and hate;

throughout, she’s as attentive to rhythm and imagery as she is

to content. In “Where Skin Breaks,” she writes, “your stock-

ings are white lace from Valenciennes / I hitched through

there once / and your garter belt too / that was where I first

thought / ‘you can’t hitch in to love / love is closed / like a sign,

saying “Closed” ’/ but you can hitch in to Valenciennes / into

desire or its hook / & hitching in stockings / can teach a boy

things / & once upon a time I was”

Scott, Gail

Main Brides: Against Ochre Pediment and Aztec Sky. Coach

House Press, 1993.

Although steeped in the haunting residue of the massacre

of fourteen women at Université de Montréal’s École

Polytechnique, Main Brides is also a tribute to the city of

Montreal that lovingly captures its texture and essence. The

novel opens with Lydia, the protagonist, coming upon the

police standing beside a dead female body in the park.

Following this disturbing encounter, Lydia heads to her usual

haunt, a bar on Montreal’s Boulevard St. Laurent, commonly

known as the Main. The novel unfolds over the course of the

day she spends there drinking and fabricating stories about

the lives of the other women in the bar, her “Main Brides.”

These include a young junkie who has left home, a woman

vacationing in Cuba with her sister, two incompatible lesbian

lovers who are like “Canada and Quebec,” a slumming

Anglophone from Toronto who resembles Marilyn Monroe,

308

and a fierce trio of young lesbian artists. The action in Main

—

Brides takes place entirely within the confined consciousness

of Lydia’s fantasies, which may be projections from her own

argins M

life. Their purpose seems to be to help her deal with her fear

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and vulnerability. Details concerning Lydia’s own identity are

never revealed; the reader is provided at most with suggestive

glimpses in the form of Lydia’s dreams of incest and her

attractions to her “Main Brides,” despite her assertion of her

own heterosexuality. Using this technique, Scott leads readers

to question the assumptions, characterizations, and fantasies

they bring to their interpretation of the narrator, thus leading

to a contemplation of the process of creating and writing

female characters.

Silvera, Makeda

The Heart Does Not Bend. Random House Canada, 2002.

The Heart Does Not Bend explores family loyalty and the ties

that bind in the Jamaican born Galloway clan. The novel

begins with the reading of the family matriarch Maria

Galloway’s last will, in which she has bequeathed her entire

estate to a seemingly undeserving great-grandson. Narrator

Molly Galloway is left to contemplate this legacy and her bit-

tersweet relationship with Maria, the grandmother who raised

her. Molly remembers the intense bond she shared with her

grandmother during her childhood in Jamaica, a sensuous par-

adise of food, beauty, and good times socializing with an

extended family that included a gay uncle, her grandmother’s

married gardener boyfriend, and the albino girl next door.

Maria was the center of Molly’s childhood world but is also

the source of her biggest heartbreak as Molly enters adoles-

cence and learns more of her grandmother’s vulnerabilities.

Molly contrives a plan to leave Jamaica and join other family

members in Canada where she is certain life will be better for

both her and her grandmother. Instead, Molly must deal with

the effects of teen pregnancy, alcoholism, domestic violence,

309

familial homophobia and sexism, as well as the longing for

—

one’s homeland. Silvera creates a gracefully written, moving

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portrayal of a loving yet flawed Caribbean family in Canada.

Stephens, Nathalie

Somewhere Running. Advance Edition/Arsenal Pulp, 2000.

In “Somewhere Running,” Stephens examines the gap

between what people see and what they perceive. A pair of les-

bian lovers living in a city are seen by men who understand

they are a threat but think they are “faggots,” fundamentalists

who see them as sinners but miss their joy and laughter, and

an artist who intuitively captures their beauty in a photograph

while refusing to recognize the nature of the relationship. A

concoction of blurred photographs and cerebral prose-poetry,

Somewhere Running examines the nature of reality and differ-

ence, and the way in which urban space offers both danger and

freedom. Stephens unwinds her poems like a yo-yo. She pro-

duces the same taut groupings of words and images with

slightly different inflections, an experimental aesthetic that

will appeal most to students of postmodernism. In “Plate No.

29,” Stephens writes, “they will laugh / laugh at the artist / the

cyclops who sees with limited vision / who takes two women

and renders them mute / in the image / the woman are mute /

they say nothing / only later do they speak and earlier.”

Tulchinsky, Karen X.

Love Ruins Everything. Press Gang, 1998. Love Ruins

Everything is a fast read that skids from one genre to the next:

romantic comedy, family drama, and political thriller. Nomi, a

Canadian lesbian, is working illegally in a bar in San Francisco

when her lover dumps her for a man. Given that Nomi’s expe-

rience as a single lesbian consists of a string of bad dates, she

contemplates buying a gun and ending at all. Fortunately, she

decides instead to return to Toronto to attend her widowed

mother’s upcoming wedding and reunite with her extended

Jewish family. In Toronto, she meets a gorgeous Asian femme

activist and spends time with her gay cousin Henry, who is in

310—

the hospital following a gay bashing that may or may not be

connected to work he has done to uncover a government

argins

AIDS conspiracy. Tulchinsky’s comic dialogue is entertaining,

M

and she is particularly adept at describing the complex and

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bittersweet relationship of her gay characters with their fami-

lies, but the femme love interests are disappointingly one-

dimensional. Nonetheless, Love Ruins Everything is an engag-

ing read that will appeal to a wide audience.

Tulchinsky won the City of Vancouver Book Prize in 1996.

Warland, Betsy

Open is Broken. Longspoon, 1984. Warland dismantles the

rules of syntax, the etymological meanings of words, and the

taboo of expressing lesbian desire in order to reclaim and cel-

ebrate what she characterizes in rather essentialist terms as

“women’s sensual experience.” Although she uses traditional

symbols of femininity such as nature, water, the moon, and

circular shapes, the result is as subversive as it is convention-

al, both in terms of scope and trope. In “Receiving the Seed,”

Warland writes: “I want her evident in me / her seed / ring in

my ring / I have never desired it before / before was not her /

we enter, inter–/ course: ‘intercurrere, to run between’/ ring’s

turning boundary to become / vortex (inner course).”

Webb, Phyllis

The Naked Poems. Periwinkle, 1965. As an early example of

Canadian literature with lesbian content, The Naked Poems cre-

ated controversy when it was published. The Naked Poems is a

slender volume of verse and paradox. Webb’s subject is the

progression and dissolution of a love affair between two

women. Her writing style is cool and philosophical, and the

book ends with a mock interrogation of the poet. Purporting

to be confessional, The Naked Poems is marked by its spareness;

the poems are rarely longer than a haiku. Webb reveals that

the object of her love is a woman while deflecting attention

311

from this fact by avoiding pronouns and using codes such as

—

in this savoury erotic description—“Hieratic sounds emerge /

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from the Priestess of / Motion / a new alphabet / gasps for air.

/ We disappear in the musk of her coming.” Webb uses simple

language in a remarkably subtle and allusive style. She cap-

tures the lover’s absence in a single sentence when she writes,

“The room that held you is still here.” She intimates a reason

for the loss of her lover when she writes, “the way of what fell

/ the lies / like the petals / falling drop / delicately,” but as in all

of her poems, with restraint and reticence, she withholds as

much as she tells.

Webb won the Governor General’s Award for poetry in

1982.

Woodrow, Marnie

Spelling Mississippi. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2002. In

Spelling Mississippi, Woodrow has enriched Canadian lesbian

literature by providing a much-needed lesbian love story that

is both sexy and well written. Woodrow pays loving homage to

the city of New Orleans, which is the setting for this juicy

novel. Cleo, a typically shy Canadian, witnesses a woman

dressed in an evening gown hurl herself into a river. Cleo

stands by, unable to act but equally unable to put the image of

the woman out of her mind. Her obsession eventually unrav-

els in a steamy tale of dysfunctional mothers, forbidden love,

and the will to overcome a deeply ingrained desire for self-

destruction.

Zaremba, Eve

A Reason to Kill. Paperjacks, 1978. A Reason to Kill, the first

of lesbian mystery to be published in Canada, features private

investigator Helen Keremos, a woman Margaret Atwood

described as a cross between Philip Marlowe and Lily Tomlin.

Zaremba writes convincingly about a range of crime and char-

acters. A Reason to Kill, written and set in the 1970s, deals not

unexpectedly with homophobia and coming out, and the clas-

sic reenactment of the crime becomes an exercise in collective

312—

decision-making. Written in a timeless hard-boiled style with

dry, terse dialogue, Zaremba’s work emphasizes plot rather

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than the more typical tropes of lesbian murder mysteries, i.e.,

M

alcoholic detectives dealing with romance and recovery.

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Keremos is much more convincing as a quintessential loner

who likes to travel, drink beer, and enjoy brief sexual encoun-

ters with women.

The full bibliography can be viewed at

www.canadianlesbianliterature.ca I would like to thank

Andrea Zanin for contributing an entry for Jeanne D’Arc

Jutras.

313

Biographies

— Bibliography

Lise Beaudry recently graduated from York University’s

MFA program. Her photographic work has been exhibited in

several Canadian cities, the United States, Romania, and

Arles, France, during Les Rencontres Internationales de la

Photographie. In 2002, her first video: Le tourbillon (Life’s

Whirlpool of Days) won her the Best Upcoming Toronto

Video/Filmmaker at the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay

Film Festival as well as the Audience Award at the Dublin

Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Le tourbillon has now toured to

26 festivals in Canada, US, and Europe. In 2003, she co-found-

ed Alley Jaunt—local art in local garages—a Toronto alterna-

tive annual art event transforming the back alley garages sur-

rounding Trinity Bellwoods Park into venues that showcase

visual art, installations, performance, and film and video.

Nairne Holtz is a Montreal-based writer whose short fiction

has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

She has created the Annotated Bibliography of Canadian

Literature with Lesbian Content, an on-going project that con-

tains reviews of more than one hundred books and reflects her

love of reading and literature. She holds graduate degrees

from McGill University in both literature and library science

and has recently completed her first novel. She doesn’t always

write about lesbians, but she believes that to remove the

effect being a lesbian has had upon her life, and therefore her

creativity, would be akin to pulling a thread on a dress only to

watch the entire garment unravel.

Susan Knutson is Professor of English and Dean of Arts and

Sciences at Université Sainte-Anne, a francophone university

serving the Acadian communities of Nova Scotia. The author

of numerous articles and one book, Narrative in the Feminine:

Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard (Wilfrid Laurier University

Press 2000), now in its third printing, she is currently

researching how and why Canadian authors re-encode canon-

314—

ical literary texts. Recent publications include “Trickster

Shakespeare? Canada and the Bard,” forthcoming in litera-

argins

turecompass, an online journal from Blackwell Publishing;

M

“Feminist Legends of natureculture: Brossard, Haraway,

o N

Science,” in Nicole Brossard: Essays on Her Works, ed. Louise

Forsythe (Guernica, 2005); “Putting Poetry at the Centre:

Three Biotextual Readings of Charles Olson’s ‘In Cold Hell, in

Thicket,’” in Alley Alley Home Free : Open Letter 12, 2 (2004); and

“Canadian Women’s Histories,” in An Historical Companion to

Postcolonial Literatures, eds. Prem Poddar and David Johnson

(University of Edinburgh, 2005).

Catherine Lake is the editor of QPress, an Insomniac Press

imprint focusing on lgbt Canadian literature. She is the editor

for Anthony Bidulka—Lambda Book Award-winning author

of the Russell Quant mystery series. Catherine Lake holds a

Master of Arts in English/Creative Writing. Her previous

anthologies include Rice: Explorations Into Gay Asian Culture +

Politics and ReCREATIONS: Religion and Spirituality in the Lives

of Queer People. A writer and editor residing in Toronto,

Catherine’s poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in liter-

ary journals and anthologies.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following authors and publishers for

permission given to reprint:

Dionne Brand’s excerpt from In Another Place, Not Here

published by Random House Canada, 1997.

Nicole Brossard’s excerpt from Baroque at Dawn, English

Translation by Patricia Claxton, published by McClelland &

Stewart, 1997.

Ann-Marie MacDonald’s excerpt from Fall On Your Knees

published Random House Canada, 1997.

Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Writer Notes excerpted from an

interview with Sara Cassidy published in Herizons, Winter

2004.

Shani Mootoo’s “The Upside-downness of the World as it

Unfolds” from Out on Main Street and Other Stories from

Raincoast Books, originally published by Press Gang in 1993.

A few words of heartfelt thanks to:

the writers who have honoured us by participating in this

stunning project

Nairne, Susan, Lise, and the Insomniac Press crew for

your hard work, commitment, and brilliant contributions

which collectively created this anthology

and to my beloved Karen & Nigel whose support encour-

aged me through this project and whose love gives me joy each

and every day.

—Catherine Lake

Document Outline

- Front cover

- no margins pages

- Contents

- Introduction Susan Knutson

- Editor Notes

- Luanne Armstrong

- Dionne Brand

- Nicole Brossard

- Emma Donoghue

- Marion Douglas

- Anne Fleming

- Jane Eaton Hamilton

- Lydia Kwa

- Larissa Lai

- Ann-Marie MacDonald

- Daphne Marlatt

- Shani Mootoo

- Elizabeth Ruth

- Karen X. Tulchinsky

- Marnie Woodrow

- Bibliographer Notes

- Selective Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Literature with Lesbian Content

- Biographies

- Acknowledgements

- Back cover

Table of Contents

Front cover

no margins pages

Contents

Introduction Susan Knutson

Editor Notes

Luanne Armstrong

Dionne Brand

Nicole Brossard

Emma Donoghue

Marion Douglas

Anne Fleming

Jane Eaton Hamilton

Lydia Kwa

Larissa Lai

Ann-Marie MacDonald

Daphne Marlatt

Shani Mootoo

Elizabeth Ruth

Karen X. Tulchinsky

Marnie Woodrow

Bibliographer Notes

Selective Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Literature with Lesbian Content

Biographies

Acknowledgements

Back cover