What Is Left the Daughter (5 page)

"A fine line between—?"

"Between both slogans I hear are posted all over Halifax: 'Keep a smile on your face, hopes alive' and 'Loose lips sink ships.' You've got to feel for the man, though. Knowing what secrets he knows, he can't be but a light sleeper."

"Yeah, I bet his telephone rings in the middle of the night," I said.

"I bet every night it does."

As my uncle stared at the newspaper headlines on the shed wall, I could almost see his sympathy for H. B. Jefferson draining like color from his cheeks. "But I don't need H. B. Jefferson's secret information to know that things are getting worse by the hour," he said. "Wars always get worse by the hour. That's their nature. Then they end. And the average person's stunned shitless when a war ends. Why? Because up to the last minute things are still getting worse."

Just before supper there was a knock on the shed door. What happened next, to my mind, went hand in hand with my uncle's brief lecture on war. He opened the door, stepped back and said, "Lenore, what brings you so far from the house?"

Lenore held up a piece of paper. "I used my stenography and took down a bulletin from the radio a short while ago, Donald," she said. "An auxiliary Navy vessel called
Lady Quintanna
was sunk. Yesterday, November 19. Thirty-seven people lost."

My uncle sat right down on the floor. "Isn't there one living, breathing soul—where's Adolf Hitler live? It's in Berlin, isn't it?" he said. "Isn't there one person in all of goddamn Berlin, Germany, with enough goddamn sense and gumption to shoot Hitler in the head?"

Lenore looked pensive. "My father," she said, "when I was about five, he put a bullet into our dog because the veterinarian said our dog had a fever in the brain. Not curable."

"Point well taken," my uncle said. "All right, then, Wyatt, let's close up shop for the day. We're in for supper. Probably you're eating with us, Lenore."

"I've been invited, yes," Lenore said.

She shut the door. My uncle and I tidied things up a bit and went into the house. When we washed our hands in the sink and sat at the kitchen table, my aunt said, "I've put the radio in the bedroom, Donald. I don't want to listen to it while we eat."

"I'll tune in after supper," my uncle said. "Immediately after."

Aunt Constance served us chicken and potatoes. The conversation hopped subject to subject, and that was good, because it kept things lively, though the lack of continuity in conversations often put my aunt on edge, and she'd say, "Can we please keep the needle in the groove,
please?
" But this time she left well enough alone. When Tilda had cleared the dishes, Uncle Donald took from his shirt pocket the radio bulletin Lenore had copied out in shorthand, and said, "Lenore, would you kindly translate this into English for me?"

"Mr. Hillyer," Lenore said, "it's common knowledge I'm training to be a
professional
stenographer."

"Of course," my uncle said. "Well, once you've completed the task, make out a receipt and I'll be happy to sign it and pay you on the spot."

"May I use your parlor?" Lenore said.

"Yes, Lenore, use the parlor," Tilda said.

Lenore took about half an hour. She then wrote out a receipt on a page torn from her notebook. My uncle read it. "This amount's being professional, all right," he said. "It's steep, but so be it." He went ahead and signed it. He then handed Lenore three dollars and the receipt.

"Should we have tea in the parlor or at the table?" my aunt asked.

"At the table," Tilda said.

But first my uncle sat in the parlor and read what Lenore had translated. He then came to the kitchen table and started reading all five pages, about the sinking of the
Lady Somers,
out loud. My aunt and Lenore were sitting at the table. I was standing at the counter. Tilda was in the doorway to the bedrooms. Tea hadn't been served yet. When my uncle finished reading, you could hear a pin drop.

"Now, Lenore," he finally said, "are you sure you took down what the radio said word for word?"

Lenore looked confident. "I'm satisfied that I did," she said.

My uncle said, "Then this bulletin isn't your average keepsake."

B
Y THE SPRING OF
1942, my uncle had delegated to me five new customers, all in Quebec province. I wrote them letters and three of them agreed to let me build their toboggans, whereas two said they'd prefer Donald's work, and who could blame them? They'd said it nicely. Of course, my uncle and I continued to work together as well.

Tilda was often on my mind. Or I might better say, she rarely was not. Yet I felt I still knew very little about her. So every new discovery, every fact of her upbringing and nature, was a revelation. For instance, on August 25, 1942, Tilda kept an appointment with a mesmerist, Dr. Everett Sewell, of 27 Ingus Street in Halifax. Donald and Constance hoped that Dr. Sewell, using the techniques of hypnotism, might get Tilda to "talk in her waking sleep," as Donald put it, and reveal why she hardly thought of much else but mourning the deaths of people she'd never met, some of whose names she found in the obituary pages of Halifax newspapers. Up until this time, I had only a general understanding of this. I knew that she could recite certain obituaries like Scripture, a practice begun when she was fifteen. By age seventeen she'd invented her own obituaries, which she'd write down. Fictions. Eventually she let me read some. On page after page I recognized Tilda's writerly talents. I don't know how the wider world would've judged this, but to my mind Tilda wrote like a dream. She didn't scrimp on imagination, I thought. Anyone would be honored to have her write their obituary. It's an art if a true artist is at work.

Yet when Tilda announced her intention of being a professional mourner (in Nova Scotia, only two other people were legally registered as such), Donald and Constance were thrown into a tizzy. I was present, but Tilda wasn't, when Reverend Witt, of Bayside Methodist Church of Middle Economy, took tea in our kitchen and suggested that Tilda see a mesmerist. Witt was acquainted with Dr. Sewell and provided Tilda a letter of introduction. "It's not that her wanting to be a mourner is on the whole undignified," Witt said. "Families estranged from the deceased person, say. Or say a person's ostracized from society for some moral trespass. Or say the deceased simply outlived anyone who knew him. There's any number of possibilities for why a person has nobody to mourn for him. Indeed, a mourner provides a useful service, perhaps even a spiritual one."

"So what's the problem, then?" my uncle said.

"It's just that the other day," Reverend Witt said, "when I'd officiated graveside at Great Village Cemetery over Mary Albright's internment—and I know you didn't know the Albrights—I happened to look over and see your Tilda throwing herself on the ground in front of a gravestone near the picket fence. Tilda was wailing, too. The sound carried."

"Are you saying my daughter shouldn't have a trade?" my uncle asked.

"No, that'd be independent of her, and that's pride and that's good," Reverend Witt said. "From what you've told me, she's not for university. True, there's a tradition—professional mourners have been in Nova Scotia a long time. But since you asked for advice, I'm merely saying that it's a somewhat morbid choice for such a beautiful young woman, so alive, so full of the appetite for life, as anyone can see. What's more, I understand she's sewn two black dresses in advance of starting this employment."

"She's a fine seamstress," my aunt said. "I take responsibility for that."

My uncle picked up Reverend Witt's teacup before he'd finished his tea. Looking out the window over the sink, my uncle said, "If Tilda chooses to publicly demonstrate she's got that much additional sadness to give away—plus there's the wages, however modest. I have to trust what you saw in Great Village was Tilda practicing her craft, so to speak. So to speak, and right while you were practicing yours, by the way, on Mary Albright's behalf."

"But seeing this Dr. Sewell probably can't hurt," my aunt said.

"It can hurt twenty-five dollars," my uncle said. "The appointment costs twenty-five dollars, according to Reverend Witt here."

After Reverend Witt left our house, my aunt said, "Wyatt, what do you think?"

Well, I secretly loved Tilda so much, I could only answer as if she was in the room, as if she was right there judging me. "Why not just put it directly to Tilda?"

"Fair enough," my uncle said. He scrubbed out Reverend Witt's teacup.

That evening at supper, Donald broached the subject. He quoted Reverend Witt at length. Tilda was all serious ears, and she nodded thoughtfully throughout. When my uncle finished talking, he looked to my aunt, indicating it was her turn, but she deferred to Tilda.

"First, as for my carrying on in Great Village," Tilda said, "and what Reverend Witt saw? I'd say I was in top form that day. And as for this Dr. Sewell, I'm steamed at you for suggesting that my thoughts have become all higgledy-piggledy—isn't that how Cornelia Tell refers to a mind being muddled? So steamed, in fact, I'm going to pack my bags, get on the Acadian Line bus and see to it that you spend hard-earned dollars for me to get hypnotized. I'm interested in getting hypnotized, actually. I imagine I'll be the first in Middle Economy to do so. I haven't been to Halifax in two years anyway. You know how much I like it there. The bus out and back, the stop for sandwiches in Truro. All the sights along the way, thank you very much."

"I hope you're not too angry at us," my aunt said. "We only had your best interests at heart."

"My heart's my best interest, Mom," Tilda said. "And it tells me I've got a good opportunity here. Plus, think of the practicalities, eh? Let's say I'm asked to mourn somebody in Kentville, or all the way up to Prince Edward Island. I could come back and finally be able to contribute to my room and board, until I move away."

"She's got a point there," my uncle said.

"Know what?" Tilda said. "Just now I've lost my appetite. But before I go to my room, let me tell you something. Mother, Father—you too, Wyatt. I like mourning and I've got a natural talent for it. And I can hardly wait until I get my first commission. In fact, when in Halifax, I'll stay at the Baptist Spa there, which is just a block from the office where I submit my application. And I expect, and you should expect, that it will be approved."

My aunt had asked me to meet Tilda's return bus. So at about six o'clock in the evening, August 27, I was waiting in front of the Esso station in Great Village. That was the stop nearest Middle Economy. I sat in my car for ten or so minutes, then saw the bus in the rearview mirror. The blue-and-white Acadian Line had silver panels on the sides, a sloped rear end and straight-down vertical front, two wide front windows with windshield wipers fixed below each window, and a wide curved silver front bumper. As it approached, I doused my Chesterfield in a cup of coffee, mostly dregs. I had expected Tilda to get off the bus on her own. But she was followed out by Hans Mohring. (Of course, I didn't know his name yet.) They were chatting away, and Tilda was not—rare sight—carrying her Dutch book satchel, Hans Mohring was. Well, there's something, I thought.

I took in Hans Mohring. My best estimation, he looked to be a couple years older than Tilda and me. I made another comparison: he was taller than me (I am five feet nine inches in bare feet). He had on brown corduroy trousers, held up by a belt that didn't pass through the trouser loops but was just fastened around his waist. I had seen this only once before, on a drunken piss-pants fellow on Barrington Street in Halifax, but Hans Mohring definitely hadn't fixed his belt absent-mindedly. And he wore a white shirt buttoned at the neck, very formal for a bus ride, and a black raincoat, for warmth, obviously, as it was a clear evening.

When Tilda steered Hans Mohring in my direction, I saw that he had a somewhat narrow, handsome face, pronounced crow's-feet at his eyes. He had thick brown hair, collar-length in back, neatly combed and parted neither left nor right, more slightly disheveled or windblown, not vainly. And he had a very open, in fact a wonderful smile (this irked me, as I had pronouncedly crooked front teeth, and had from about age five developed a tight-lipped smile to try and hide them), and whatever they had been laughing about, they continued to laugh about as the bus left Great Village.

When they got to the car, Tilda said, "Wyatt, this is Hans Mohring. I met him on the bus. He's from Germany and he's a student at Dalhousie. He's studying to be a philologist."

"Oh, a philologist," I said.

He could no doubt tell I had no idea what a philologist was. He offered his hand and I shook it.

"Yes, yes, philology," he said. "I can explain it to you later, philology, if you wish. Tilda comprehended everything about philology immediately, but not everyone can." His accent was more than noticeable; the word that came to mind to describe his English pronunciation was "punctual." I realized right away I meant "punctuated." Something in his tone got me to imagine that he was capable of saying very unfriendly things in a companionable way, obviously just an uneducated guess. One thing for sure, I could see Tilda and Hans liked each other, and I didn't like that. In fact, I said something next that put Tilda's teeth on edge and made her corkscrew her thumbs in her ears, as if she couldn't possibly have heard what she had clearly heard. It was her gesture of high annoyance.

"I don't make wishes," I said. "So I won't
wish
for you to tell me about philology."

"All right, maybe later you'd like me to explain it to you," Hans said.

"Where were you heading on the bus, anyway?" I said.

"I wanted to take in the sights," Hans said, "that's all. I was feeling—
cooped up.
At Dalhousie. In my room. I simply went to the station and bought a ticket. I have a map. I thought I'd go all the way around Nova Scotia. But now it seems Tilda was meant to be my destination."

"Is that how you see it?" I said to Tilda.

"I see Hans and I talked and talked on the bus," she said. "And when he suggested he stop here, I didn't say no. Those two things are how I see it. No more, no less. Is that okay with you, Detective Hillyer?"