The Disinherited (33 page)

Erik turned the diary over, his eyes and back sore from reading on the bed, in the half-light of the setting sun. Looking east out of the girl’s window he could see the glow that was now given to the houses. In this neighbourhood they had all been adorned with aluminum siding: pink and blue and white and red. The houses were lined up in long receding rows, looking like toys with their doll-house colours and their aluminum windows which shone brightest of all, reflecting long chrome streaks into the pools of water that lay on the gravel roofs of the garages that separated one row of houses from the next and were themselves garishly painted, each one marked with its own red sign lettered in solid black capitals: PARKING SPACE FOR RENT, NO TRESPASSING, BEWARE OF THE DOG; each one lettered according to the fancy of the owner and the limitations of the single
Bloor Street Hardware Store which supplied these announcements, three for a dollar, along with signs to rent any conceivable proportion of the houses which had been chopped up and redivided with plasterboard and plywood to yield the requisite visual privacies so that each might live out his own metropolitan fantasy, restricted only by the limits of imagination and the infinite surface of the city which shone now at this hour in absolute imitation of the revolving neon lights which would soon replace the sun and reveal the city as it was intended; but for these few moments there was at least a series of objects: the gravel roofs of the garages and their pools of water which anticipated the bright rows of houses and now, the sun having moved lower, their new grey concrete chimneys, and behind them the trees which masked but did not hide the encroaching downtown which was visible in the shape of two office buildings towering high, even in their miles-away-perspective, above the houses — their vertical rows of window turned pink and shiny by the sun as if they were not steel and sand and portland cement, but a new kind of flesh, babyish and hesitant, that required love and compassion like a rare and delicate desert flower with its exquisite brief petals and quick poison.

Now it is the first day of September, five days since the death of Richard Thomas, and the time since the funeral is still whole to Erik, unbroken and continuous with his dreams unlocked and vivid every night dealing out the past and the scene at the cemetery, Brian springing at him with a broken bottle and then the two of them rolling on the grass, down the hill and away from everyone, back where the railroad tracks had rusted and died but near enough the grave so Erik could sense his father’s presence, still there in his body only forty-eight hours dead and still live to the touch and look, coffin open, dead man looking up seeing all with eyes closed, Katherine Malone the old woman now in her black coat with a Persian collar she got in anticipation of her own funeral, bending over the body and kissing Richard on the lips before he was lowered into the grave, kissing him on the lips and turning to Miranda as if to say, “there, now I’ve done it and I dare you to undo it.” His father’s presence was still alive in
these mourners — who knew what had died with him, knew it in their bodies that had bent and been broken by machines which already lay rusting and obsolete — who had tested and made their muscles, fighting against the weight of a horse dragging a plough through ground so rocky that the wrenches of metal against stone were not occasional but rhythmic and unceasing, marking the beginning of the morning and carrying the muscles past exhaustion, arms that had swung scythes now sold as curiosities at country auctions; but it had taken a family a day to cut a field a man could now mow on his tractor in a couple of hours, a day to cut it and then it needed to be turned and dried, piled and tied into stooks until finally it was dragged on wagons to the barn where it was swung into baskets which were pulled, block and tackle, up to the long metal track that ran under the peak of the barn roof; they mourned him — the women fat from the endless winters of potatoes and bread, and the men, some of them fat too, but others skinny like Pat Frank, young and thin looking from the front in their baggy dark suits but from behind, looking like turkeys, with their stringy necks wrinkled and wattled from the sun and their hands always turned out, the muscles of the forearms continuously enlarged now and the hands too, all of them frozen and broken and pounded into huge floppy masses of calluses and scars and half-fused bones that had settled into some intermediate territory between their owners, cows’ teats and machinery. They mourned him without particular grief or feeling but as a necessary marking of their own passing and stood shuffling their feet and gossiping while the minister droned out his sermon in his young and unconvinced voice that had lost interest in these old people who attended their church with such dull regularity and forced him to drive especially to them, every Sunday, from his other, better parishes, and recite the exact same sermons and lead them in the exact same hymns that they were used to. And when he was finished what he had to say, he gave his signal and the coffin was closed and the two men who were employed by the cemetery and the monument works began to throw shovelfulls of dirt into the grave, the earth sounds being absorbed by the wood and the occasional stone bouncing off the iron trim that went around
the coffin — two bands, top and bottom. The minister left first, saying something to Miranda and then walking quickly to the car. The others were slower, stopping at the graves of their relatives on their way to the road, still gossiping, comparing this funeral to others and asking each other what there would be to eat at the Thomas house. The men automatically segregated themselves from the women and children. A bottle was passed around. Erik stayed standing by the grave, watching it being filled. He saw his mother surrounded by women, they closed about her, Katherine Malone right at her side, her arm hooked in Miranda’s, gradually walking her to the road. They would be with her all day, always by her in the kitchen and the living-room, knowing she would do the same for them, helping her serve the food they had all made, do the dishes; and, without being asked, someone would stay with her in the house, all next week when Erik was gone. The men stayed near the grave, waiting for Erik. He saw them but didn’t know what to say, how to receive their offer. They were men from the town, nearby farms, Peter Malone who was his godfather and Leslie White the lawyer he had met yesterday; some of them he had hardly spoken to in his life, the others he hadn’t seen for years, since he went to college, encountering them only briefly when he was on vacation, shopping in town for Christmas presents. “Still going to college?” they would say, slap him on the arm, ask after Richard. Or, later, they would only nod, wish him a good Christmas. When the grave was finally filled, they patted the earth down on top with the backs of their shovels, inserted a small wooden cross at the head of the grave for a marker. In a year there would be a tombstone to be unveiled, with Richard’s name blasted into the marble veneer. Now they raked the earth smooth, threw grass seed on top. All this was done without talking, the two gravediggers clearly resenting Erik standing there, watching them, as if they somehow still held something of value to do with the man they were burying. With Erik there they had to be careful not to step on the grave, work quickly and with their faces turned away. When they were finished, they took their shovels and ropes and threw them in the back of the truck that was parked near the grave. As they drove away Erik could see the
mourners starting to move away too. The men had given up on him. But they still hesitated, not wanting to leave without him. Erik lit another cigarette, turned his back firmly on these black-coated mourners who only made him feel uncomfortable. His throat hurt from the cigarettes and his own inability to cry. The will had been long and complicated. Now Miranda owned the farm. Brian could live there and work it as long as he wanted. It was a victory of sorts; when the lawyer had explained what this meant Brian had not been able to keep from smiling. Afterwards Nancy had announced that now it would be possible for them to have children, as if Erik’s existence had previously rendered them sterile.

Except for the lawyer and the preacher, both of whom owned city leather shoes, the men all wore thick black shoes that were heavily coated with polish and bulged with creases. Even the Frank brothers had shoes like these, bought decades ago, shoes for going to church and funerals and the hospital. “You want a drink?” In his black suit and starched white shirt Pat Frank looked like he should have been the minister, tall and burned, the minister or the undertaker; the other men had moved away so Erik took the bottle and drank some, for no reason except to wet his throat against the hot afternoon and the cigarettes. “They say you’re leaving tomorrow,” Pat Frank said.

“On the train.”

“Well,” Pat Frank said. “Come over and have a drink with your brother.” He put his hand on Erik’s arm and turned him so he could see Brian, sitting and waiting for him on a stone at the corner of the cemetery, talking to Mark Frank, a long brown paper bag in his hand. “You don’t have to,” Pat Frank said.

“It’s all right.” They walked over to Brian and sat down on the grass beside him. The stone was the last in that section of the cemetery. Beside it was a hill that sloped down to the railway tracks, now torn up and rusted, the cinder bed still half-visible through the weeds and grass. “I hear they’re thinking of using the railway again,” Erik said. “For tourists.”

“Come up from Brockville like it used to,” Mark Frank said. Brian had his tie undone. He laughed when Mark Frank spoke, tipped the bottle back again.

“Fucking tourists,” Brian said. “Couldn’t move their arse from the chair to the shithouse.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Erik said, reaching towards Brian to take the paper-wrapped bottle from him, to have a drink, but Brian pulled it away sharply, his arm swinging behind him, shattering the bottle on the gravestone and then bringing it forward all in one motion, jagged neck and paper with wine still dripping from it. Closer and he saw Brian wasn’t going to stop, Erik ducked and could feel the glass pushing and tearing against his suit jacket, then it was through and digging into his back and shoulder like giant cat’s claws. Rolled away, from Brian, down the hill, and Brian was trying to stay on top of him, free the bottle from his coat so he could swing it again. Stopped at the bottom and somehow he was on top, legs straddling Brian and his hands around his throat, squeezing, didn’t know what to do and saw the two Frank brothers walking slowly down the hill towards them, pausing when they saw him look, saying nothing. Brian wasn’t resisting at all; his arms were flapped out at his sides, motionless, the bottle gone and his hands empty. Erik let go of Brian’s neck, saw the red marks where his fingers and thumbs had pressed into the skin, his hands now feeling cold and weak, useless. Brian’s eyes were closed. The scar on his cheek formed a smooth dull triangle. He was smiling. Erik stood up and took his coat off. It was torn in the back, there was some blood on it. One of the knees of his pants was torn out too, both legs grass-stained.

“Take off your shirt,” Pat Frank said. He ripped a length from the bottom and soaked it in wine, wiping Erik’s cuts with it. Mark Frank and Brian stood in front of Erik, watching him undress and be cleaned. Mark Frank took out a package of cigarettes, offered them to Erik and Brian, lit matches for them. Brian’s neck was fading to its normal colour. It had felt strong and muscular, invulnerable to anything Erik might do. Brian coughed and turned his head to spit. “All right,” Pat Frank said, “you’re not bleeding too bad.” Erik put on his shirt again. The back was bloody and there was a piece missing from the bottom; but from the front it looked normal. He put on his jacket too and started walking up the hill. He thought he could feel
the bleeding begin again with the effort of climbing. Everyone else was gone. He walked over to his father’s grave and stood above the wooden marker. The lump in his throat was gone but he still hadn’t cried. The grass would grow where they had thrown the seed and the mound would settle flat with time and rain. One day he would take his own children to see this grave and they would wonder how someone related to them had come to be buried here, whether this meant it was true that their father had been born on a farm.

The next morning he woke up and felt sore and swollen; his eyes were closed and tired and didn’t want to open. He went to move the blankets and when he tried to lift his arms he could feel the cuts along his back and shoulders, see where the skin had been turned away from itself, like riverbanks, peeling away and thickening at the edges, leaving new unprotected snakes of blood. The house was absolutely still. The sounds he could hear were wind and birds. He opened his eyes and it was warm and blue, the sky soft like a May morning, an invisible haze that melted and absorbed the clouds at their edges. The click of a cup and saucer from the kitchen and then the sound of a chair being pushed back, scraping along the floor. He looked out the window and saw the trees’ shadows had foreshortened; it was almost noon. When these leaves turned they didn’t go red but gold, wide lime-golden sprays of leaves that hung above the ground and fluttered tenuously, like aspen leaves, like courtiers; the cuts he could see weren’t so bad, smeared over with patches of yellow disinfectant. Water pouring from the kitchen taps. A kettle being set on top of the stove. Clothes to wear back to the city. “They’ll think you’re a hippie,” Rose Garnett told him later, standing outside at the train station. His suitcase had pushed him from the garden to the city; now in his jeans and sandals he looked like a student coming back from his summer in the country, tanned and long-haired, clean, saying good-bye to a woman in a sports car.

First they went to the hospital to see Mr. Zeller. He was in the lounge, in his blue gown, staring out at the lake. When he was introduced to Rose Garnett he bent briefly over her hand, as if he were about to kiss it, then straightened up again and
turned back to the window. The lake held the sun in a wide yellow saucer, tipped it up with the waves so they were blinded, turned it into millions of white drops and then released it. “My wife is out there,” Mr. Zeller said. “She said she’d be sailing in front of the hospital today.” It was impossible to see anything in this light. Norman Zeller was hunched forward, his eyes squinted, wrinkles curving out gently from the corners of his eyes. He was smoking his pipe and had his walking stick hooked over the ledge. The hair on his head was completely white now. His eyebrows were beginning to turn too, the tips first, like cat’s fur. “Well,” Mr. Zeller said, not looking at Erik, “soon you will make up your mind.”