Come Back (25 page)

“But only Luke says one supported Jesus, he didn’t revile him.”

“Yes.”

“So what did Gabe think?”

“I’d never noticed the Gospels there were different—Gabe asked the question.”

“Why, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it … I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t, but what do you think?”

Miriam’s laugh, “Dad! You old prof!”

“No no, I’m trying to be a
histor
, a wise Greek who gathers stories—”

“Like Luke? Are you gathering stories about Gabriel? To write down?”

“No … yes … not write. Think. Stories, so I can think his life, over. I haven’t talked to anyone for so long about him, just you now—” Dennis’s phone call flashed across his mind, but no, leave that for the moment—“nothing about him for so long, and now you just told me a story I’ve never heard! Twenty-five years after. Look, all of a sudden I want to know his stories, for myself … those he left us, to think …”

But Miriam’s continued silence pressured him into more: “His written words are often so much the same, just a movie name, or a bit of music, or book read—but more his one-track obsessions too, and anger, rage, it’s despair, endless, obsessive despair.”

“About Ailsa.”

She had said it, so he could respond.

“All the way through, yes, that’s the—that’s one big one. At least whenever he wrote—but he had so much other life, I know that! There are glimpses of it—and I remember the last summer how often he came home, after NFT he had no steady job but then he got Unemployment Insurance and he was looking for jobs, he applied—jobs were really tough in ’85, but there was a picture-framing job he thought—and he’d come for supper and Yo and he and I we talked, and I remember he
yelled a lot, out of the blue, anything, I can’t remember exactly why—but we talked and he had quite a few friends, not church much but NFT and university and you and Leo came back from Ecuador and we were planning your wedding at the cabin, he too, and he always saw his philosophy friend Oleg …”

“But he writes about Ailsa?”

“Yes. One strand, all the way through, of his sadness
is
always Ailsa, but at the end, in the last two months it seems like it’s not much her anymore either, he doesn’t even write the goddamn initial of her name, he’s just one black hole of anger and overwhelming despair!”

Into his burst of rage Miriam spoke quietly, “There was more, to his life, lots more, but he could live that part out with us. The writing was secret. He was always so controlled, polite, but it was often a ‘don’t bother me’ polite that—”

“Evasion—”

“Yeah, but more secrets, you know, we all have them! Maybe Gabe, alone with that notebook, then he could write the stuff he never could say, to anyone. His depression.”

“I hate that word, it’s so fucking small!”

“Yeah. Like ‘ash’ is so fucking small for the tree outside your window.”

Her sudden curse echoing his shattered his rage.

“I’m sorry.”

After a time she said, “Listen, we did discuss the two thieves, Gabe and I, ideas flying all over—about the oral eyewitness stories written down years later, memories
changing as you keep telling them to different people—”

“That’s why I’m reading what he wrote, what he’s thinking that minute he wrote it …”

“Yeah, exactly, and how some people at the crucifixion would have heard just voices yelling from the two crosses, in horrible pain or cursing, who could understand what—and how loud was it? Doctors say when you’re crucified you have terrible difficulty breathing, hanging like that you can only breathe at the top of your lungs and you actually choke to death, on air you can’t get out—”

“So who knows how loud or clear they were yelling at each other?”

“Sure. Some heard reviling, some rebuttal, prayer, and then someone heard and understood Jesus’s really quiet promise—all four versions could have eyewitnesses.”

Eyewitnesses! He had seen the Orange Downfill. He should tell—no, the weight for Miriam now, how could he confess to her the disaster he had started: she could do nothing from Vancouver and he who could had done nothing—he flipped into facetiousness:

“Eyewitness … the Bible is ‘The Word of God,’ every syllable true!”

And Miriam did laugh a little at the old joke. “I know, especially in English translation—no, only in holy Luther, right? Well, they could all be true, four little bits of The Big True. As they say, God only knows … four bits of ‘true’ isn’t so bad.”

Only one flitting pass of orange is worse.

“Dad? There is something wrong.”

“I … tell me, what did Gabe say about Luke. You remember?”

“He liked the second thief in Luke, he liked him.”

“Not ‘If you’re God’s Son, you get us off here’?”

“No no, the other one.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why! I can’t actually remember, exactly, what he said. I’ve thought about that so often, and maybe … maybe I just want him …”

Hal said it: “ ‘Jesus, remember me.’ ”

Perhaps Miriam was crying. Hal could never quite tell, on the telephone; she had practiced that as a teenager, he had sometimes noticed the phone at her ear and tears running down her cheeks but her voice steady, steady—but he could hear it, yes. He was tormenting his only daughter.

“Mir, forgive me. I’m being stupid, too much … stuff here … look, if I can find Gabe’s Bible, I haven’t yet, maybe he marked that story—sweetheart, it’s marvellous you told me this, and I’m sorry. Please.”

“You could come to Vancouver, Dad, a few days? Away from so long alone.”

“Well …”

“You promise but don’t come, Leo was saying just yesterday. Not since Mom. It’s so good to talk but there’s a lot we never say on the phone. And we haven’t remembered this together.”

“Never dared,” he said, evading again.

“That’s the word, ‘dare.’ If we sat face to face and deliberately …”

“It’s been long.”

“Yes. Twenty-five years long enough.”

“What about Denn?”

“With him too, of course, but even just us two starting with Gabe, starting—and Leo. He has memories too, a lot.”

“I will come,” Hal said quickly, momentarily meaning it and feeling good. “Soon, real soon. I’ll call in two days, this time, at most three. I promise.”

“I want to tell you,” Miriam said, “I pray that, every night.”

Every life is lived in secret. “ ‘Jesus, remember me.’ ”

“Yes.”

“Pray it for me too?”

“I will. Sorry to talk so late—goodnight, beloved Dad.”

“Goodnight, darling daughter.”

Dial tone.
Kyrie. Kyrie eleison
.

Nearly midnight of an unending day. But he had to search for it, he could not think to stop, not the first GABRIEL box, not the second, the third box on the shelf, below bundles of cards and sympathy letters, below some photocopied pages there lay the blue Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version.

Hal did not remember how unbelievably used it looked. The blue cloth cover a maze of grey rubbing tracks, every edge worn down and open, raw to the glued press of tan cardboard, every inch of both front and back covers, their corners worn round, blue cloth curling back bare off the worn cardboard. And the spines double-taped in wide black binding tape, both the outside spines and the inside line of the front flyleaf; the flyleaf where small Gabe had practiced writing his full name in cursive, twice, as if taking full possession above the

TO
: Gabriel Wiens, from his mother and father, Jan. 28, 1968

His seventh birthday, already half through Grade 2 … Seventeen-and-a-half years of reading, wearing the cover raw, down into layered, separating cardboard. The stack of pale-blue-edged pages soft as old cloth.

And dog-eared, tiny tears from much fingering, colour pictures—“Jerusalem from Mt. of Olives,” “In The Wilderness”—and many pencil marks as he riffled; a grey square around 1 Samuel 3: “Now the boy Samuel was ministering …”; Jeremiah 10: “They are both stupid and …” not heavy marks, brief underlines, dozens of them; Habakkuk 3: “The mountains saw thee, and writhed …”; and then a thick pencil line under Matthew 4: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he”—no Luke, the thief on the cross, Luke—he was riffling swiftly, the pages years ago fingered so soft they still fell open quick and flat: chapter 23, verse … 39: “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him …”;

But there was not a pencil nor pen mark, not anywhere in the entire paragraph. Not anywhere on the two crowded pages, nothing—but then he saw something … possibly … in verse 42. He lifted the book, angled it up at the ceiling light … there. A faint, almost invisible pencil stroke between two small words:

And then Hal noticed: the paperclipped pages under which Gabriel’s blue Bible had been lying. The pages were covered with Hal’s own handwriting. From that unbearable September, scribbled tight, words twisted: photocopied sheets of Hal’s personal 1985 Daily Appointments book.

Photocopied? He had never … had Yo made them? Had she read his cryptic notations, and then copied and deliberately placed them in Gabriel’s boxes as well? Hal knew he never—who else could have? Here they were: all his 1985 diary words. O Yo, stone facts.

Monday September 9

awoke 2:30 a.m., read diaries, papers till 6 when Yo woke Oh why didn’t I see—clothes for coffin / funer. arrangements and cremat. details / plan funeral     talked of obit—started working on it—all relatives both sides arrive, Yo’s mom, all my bro.+ sist. even ancient David. Talk/talk/people everywhere—I’m trying to quote my beloved son: he has left/given me too much to condense: make it clean, true / some grace, grace / first U Eng Lit class: evening, George will go, cancel

Tuesday September 10

His frozen face   hands   only the coffin body suit / shirt / tie   white satin lid open in lobby, shut in church—some grace for him at funeral. Ps. 51—also Allegri’s
Miserere Mei, 3
min. on intercom / choir: Children of … / obit just possible to hear Herbert read / after in church hall a wash of sorrow: who was I crying with? Church, university, business, people of a lifetime. Yo beside me but soon
separated: hundreds crying, everyone crying with/for/over Clara dreamed G dead the night before he was found   Wanda’s praying hand on my head   Mike’s contorted face   Joan holding and holding me, “He was so beautiful when he was vulnerable” you should know—seemed hrs.   and evening useless talk, house full of bro. and sis. and sudden crying and

Wednesday September 11

Drove to crematorium with Herbert: “you’re not going there alone” 9 a.m. Same closed coffin on dolly / last frozen look, then screwed tight. Older man explained calcination—6 hrs. at 1800 degrees, flames in oven like Dachau we saw ‘76 / he shoved it in on rollers, clamped door, pulled switch, roar / in parking lot we watched black smoke from chimney boil into blue sky / does hell smoke / all relatives except Yo’s mom left: really tough for them too how to behave, how (not) to think where (they think) he certainly is now. After funeral last night one explosion, me at bro David’s old preacher-death platitudes, “Shut up, you understand nothing, not one goddamn thing!” Walked ravine with Yo / worried when Miriam didn’t come back for hours / Whitemud Ravine alone. Drove Denn to HSch today noon, got him p.m.

Thursday, September 12

Yo took her mom with car to airport, me Denn in pickup to HSch, then to U—tried to work for 2 hrs but couldn’t, had to walk home 1 1/2 hrs. Talked with Yo got pickup from U she drove it     3:30 to downtown chapel, small
container of “remains” + to fun. home for clothes G wore in pickup. Drove car to Aspen cabin / walked where he parked    snow gone, began to rain, small birch all around, close, mud tracks where Dave plowed out. Made a circle in cabin   Yo, Dennis, Ailsa, Colin, Grant, Miriam, Leo, Rick and Lorrine, Holda and Dave, Big Ed, Joan, me / little Rick crying, grdma. Holda carried him / couldn’t sing but some talk of happy Gabe, how he worked, built so much of cabin, read “Einsamkeit” and “Beatitudes”    Dave and Yo prayed all walked down path into valley. Cold rain, Yo holding jar, I holding onto her. Chunky ash calcified: all took turns, poured them in rapids below beaver dam / some sank grey as gravel, some drifted away toward N Sask River, ocean. Back to Edm. / at Grant and Joan’s / listened to Bach / what? Wake up soon, horrible dream   who said that

Friday September 13

Drove Denn to HSch, then univ, tried to work on lectures, George came, then Shirley, always with her own long depression     such good colleagues, only a few dare come and talk, most avoid you in the hall.   BK phoned from Calgary, he’s so caring, understands so well tho nothing actually helps   in class mostly useless   wrote snatches of things about G’s death   try to think clear and logical, why         there is far too much too far beyond thinking / immoveable

Saturday September 14

Apparently Dave went to Aspen Creek, all day alone / we have to get rid of pickup, can’t stand being in it, seeing
that canopy parked by our house.   To G’s neat apt. all his familiar stuff, lifetime of gifts   On neat bed, quilt-blanket Grandma sewed him       cutlery so careful in drawers, kitchen—o—Fred helps carry furniture out to pickup, tells Yo it’s okay, he’ll clean up, he’s already moved out, not staying there / cried / hauled away / reading more G papers—too many     Evening with Yo/Denn to Jubilee Aud. Tickets to Mendelsohn’s
Elijah
/ intermission and there’s John in lobby crowd, his young wife brutal cancer, curled tight in stomach “like a baby” he says making a fist, maybe one more week     beauty of music rips you apart, especially Widow’s dead son / If with all your heart ye truly seek / Then,
then
shall the righteous shine as the sun

Sunday September 15

To church, no talk, away quick. p.m. walk river valley woods along NSask. with Joan and Grant and kids   beautiful fall colours, turning cold in sunlight     Dennis and Colin clowning, yelling a bit on the river path, Ailsa too. Yo nor I can look at her   never she at us         what does she think   can she ever have a clue   please God never