Archibald Full Frontal, page 29
We lean over the balcony. I watch a few Thai girls in the alley outside, which is otherwise deserted. Dressed in bright skirts and high heels, they laugh amongst themselves as they wait for customers. I inhale musty open earth, dirty concrete, and something feral wafting from the open sewers. The sky is a muted black, and the humidity still clings to me. I hold Archibald’s bag in my hands, contemplating the gritty remains.
“We found a million beautiful places in Vietnam,” Elspeth says, leaning beside me. “Like the waterfall.”
“I know,” I say. We had hiked for hours up a winding dusty trail, over lush green-tiered rice paddies, past farmers with water buffalo, to a waterfall we had been promised was breathtaking. And it was. I had carried him with me, determined to deposit Archibald in the foaming Asian waters. And then I had changed my mind.
“It’s not right,” I had said. I had known the garden was a good idea. But a waterfall?
“It was just too … natural,” I say. “Archibald was really a city man at heart.”
“Well, then, how about here? We can find a Thai pagoda. It’s an obvious choice. He was Buddhist, yes?”
“Sort of,” I say to the Archibald ash. He is so heavy in my hands.
Just then, there is a scream of sirens from around the corner. I jump; the bag rips in my hands, worn from all this time, and Archibald, in a great paroxysm, spills forth. I cannot prevent the dusty wave from pouring out and cascading below. Some of the dust flies up and encircles us in a cloud. We avert our heads, coughing, and then lean down watching him disappear, fascinated. His final resting place is a dubious alley in a Thai city notorious for its prostitution trade, among other things. The girls on the street below pay us no attention. One is leaning into a car, the other yawns. They look no older than fifteen.
Elspeth shrugs. “Problem solved.”
In Mandalay, Burma, we rent a car. We drive past the lip of a winding river and expanses of brown grass. The sun is a ball of red in the sky, and the dust is red too. It reminds me of a strange, exotic Mars. We have come to see caves recommended to us by a couple of British tourists; apparently, they are covered in ancient pictures and writings, an underground maze connected to an old monastery. I smile to myself to think that now that he is gone, ashes scattered, I finally make it to a monastery. We wait at the opening gate of the caves with our guide. They are kept locked to prevent acts of vandalism, and the local monks are in charge of the keys. I glance around at the dusty earth, the bonsai and bamboo, the long grasses, the simple, low wooden buildings of the monastery, and notice a winding staircase set in a hillside. I ask our guide about it. He tells me it leads to a hillside pagoda. “Most beautiful,” he says.
“Coming?” I say to Elspeth, hoping to escape the stifling heat and catch a breeze at the top of the hill.
“No, I’ll rest,” she says from her position on the ground beside the gate. I wipe my forehead, glistening with sweat. The afternoon is sizzling. I begin up the narrow, winding path of stairs.
A gaping, open aperture for a door and equally open windows greet me. I wade into the cool dimness; a gold-leaf Buddha takes up the corner, softly shimmering. Beneath his feet sits a floral offering, wispy, wilting white flowers that smell like honeysuckle but look like orchids. I peer through the hollowed-out windows. Far below, I see the brown winding river, and beyond that farmers’ fields. The sky is a faded blue and the scarlet sun oozes before my eyes.
I pull his book from my bag. I had brought it with me all this way, as it contained the lives of so many people I knew and didn’t know. Now I place it at the foot of the Buddha, on the cracked stone floor of this old, weathered stupa, built with peasant labour, maintained by monks, with a view of the river of tears. It is the river where the English guidebook said slaughtered bodies were thrown during the most recent revolution, which turned Burma into a military dictatorship, into Myanmar, as it is now called. Even I feel the stark sombreness of this place. It is a place with a history, not mine, not Archibald’s, but I know he would approve. He might be mulch in West Van and simmering stew in the sewers of Hat Yai, but I can give him a proper farewell. And I do. I make a wish for an end to suffering, Archibald’s, my grandmother’s, my mother’s, mine, and the Burmese people. I look around at the countryside, stark and arid, and I know that my journey is over.
“It is time to go home,” I say to the river, to the Buddha, to Archibald’s last book, to the souls of the dead.
Sam
I sit at a corner table in the campus coffee shop, pressing the mug between my hands. I stare out at all the whiteness. The snow falls steadily and is blown through the open, frosty air. The sun glistens, liquid amber, from its remote point in the sky, a faintly beating heart penetrating layers of chilly, windswept sky. A Saskatchewan autumn, hard to believe after the heat of Asia. I hold my breath as he swings open the door and stomps his snowy feet on a mat, entering the food lineup. He fishes through his pockets for loose change and smiles apologetically at the cashier as he pulls a handful from his jeans and sorts it by the register. His hair is still longish and unkempt. His clothes look like they have been washed one too many times. He hasn’t changed a bit, I think.
He looks around and finds me. He smiles, full on, grabs his coffee mug, and moves towards me quickly. And in a matter of seconds we stand before each other.
“Maggie,” he says, and then again, “Maggie.” He is still standing. So am I. He puts his cup down, reaches out, and takes my hands. We hesitate as though it has been years and not months. There is so much I want to say, but it is as though there is an invisible wall between us, Saskatchewan ice. Then he puts his long arms around me and it thaws. I press my face into his chest, feel the soft sweater, his hair partly tucked into his turtleneck.
“It’s good to see you,” I say into his sweater.
“It’s great to see you.” He rests his cheek on the top of my head, then steps back and peers into my face, appraising me with a familiar carefulness. “You are so brown.”
“All that eastern sun,” I say and offer him what I hope is my most winsome smile as we sit across from each other.
“Your trip sounds incredible.” He glances at his cup. “I am so sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport.”
“That’s okay. I didn’t give you much warning. I flew home, and it was so lonely. So, I thought I would come by and check things out for myself. And see you, of course.”
“I have always liked it here. It’s unpretentious, and, hey, I don’t have to fix anyone’s toilet ever.” He chuckles.
“Just your own.”
“So far so good on that front.”
“I thought I might check out the art education program. Do they bother with art here?” I ask.
“I heard a rumour they might,” he says, stirring his coffee.
“I missed you,” I say, trying not to gush.
Just his eyes move, a quick flickering, the rest of him is still. “Me too. Me too.” And there is a pause, long enough for things to fall into. “Come on. Let me show you around campus.”
Outside, we are easier with each other. There is all the space the prairies offer and a wind that carries away my doubt. It has stopped snowing and the sky has turned a sapphire blue. The snow sparkles brilliantly. The campus is almost empty on this late, chilly afternoon. My face feels the briskness of a cold, snapping wind. I wrap my scarf around my neck. He takes my bag.
“How long are you thinking of staying?” he asks. I stop abruptly. He continues on a few more steps before realizing that I am not with him. He turns, and I see him clearly. There is something else on his mind, a shadow that hovers over him on this bright day. It is not just the effects of time on a halted intimacy.
How long would you like me to stay? I think. But I see it is already too late. He has something to tell me. So, instead, I swallow and ask, “How is Carolina?”
His guilty expression confirms my fears. His eyes are weights, too sombre for his face. “I wanted to tell you,” he says. “I just didn’t know … how.”
I stare at him, waiting for — wanting — more, and when he says nothing else, my heart unhinges, a shutter opening and closing inside my chest. I regret all the time I have been away from him, because it has opened a door for her. For Carolina.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Maggie, please,” he pleads. “I hadn’t planned to see her, we just … When I got the job here of all places. It was my last choice, but it was my only offer. And when I arrived, it was like … coming home. And then I bumped into her last month, and … it all just fit.”
“That’s funny. It felt like home to me in Vancouver with you.” My throat convulses, and I choke down cold air.
“Maggie, don’t,” he urges, coming closer and gripping my elbows as if to hold me there, as if to make me see. “You were … you were such a big part of the past few years … When we were together, you were all I ever wanted.”
“You were all I ever wanted. Period.” I tremble, biting my lip to smother a sob. If I start, I will not be able to stop. I squeeze my eyes together, attempting to cement the tears. “I am so stupid.” Archibald had warned me. The fucker had been right again.
“No, Maggie. Don’t ever think that,” he begs. “I have let you down. I thought of you so much while you were gone. This has been weighing on me! Just — just pressing on me! When I saw Carolina again — we grew up together, and somehow, it may sound ridiculous, but as hard as I try, I just can’t imagine growing old without her. I can’t fight against it. It’s like swimming against a current.”
He waits, always patient, even now.
“So, this is what you want?” I can only manage a whisper. It is so quiet, I wonder if I have spoken. “Did you ever love me at all?”
“I love you. I love you still.” The wind lifts his hair, and I watch as it teases his face beneath his toque. The colour rises in his cheeks, two rose splotches. “I never loved anyone more than you. Never. Can you understand that?”
I open and close my mouth in shock. “What does that mean? You love me the most. What is that? A consolation prize?”
“Maggie…”
“So, if you love me the most, then that means you are staying with her out of — out of what? Loyalty?” I shoot bitterly.
“No — Yes! Maybe.” He writhes back and forth, mittened hands on his head, boots twisting in the snow as if seized with excruciating pain. “Is that so terrible?”
“Yes!” I shout. “No!” His loyalty is one of the things I love most about him.
“And she asked. I never expected her to. But she asked, Maggie. And you were … gone.”
“So, if I had never left, if you had stayed in Vancouver, or if I had convinced you to come with me, things would be different? You are telling me it all comes down to something as insignificant as timing?”
“Timing is everything, Maggie.”
“That is just ridiculously simple,” I counter.
“But so incredibly hard.”
“How did I know you would say that? You, the prodigal fucking philosophy professor with a maxim for every occasion. You spend all your time searching for answers but you get further and further away from the truth.” I taste the power of my cruelty. “And when you finally come up with something, it’s that everything is predestined? That’s your cop-out? It’s fate? Well, fuck fate and fuck you too!”
But he had already cast all of the arguments, weighed them, and reached his conclusion. His face told me that.
“And I was never supposed to happen!”
“But you did happen,” he says with a tenderness that makes my heart ache and suddenly his face is so close.
“You are too good for me, is that it?” My throat catches.
“Maggie, you always put me on a pedestal. But I am just an average messed up guy. I read too much. I think too much. I was always going to disappoint you. You always had it backwards, you are too good for me.”
I stand for a few seconds. I want to wipe the tears that pool at the edges of his eyes. But I resist. I face the harshness of my awakening. His kindly meant words are not enough. Archibald’s voice intrudes: Idealists make the biggest messes. I shove his voice away. I told you so is the last thing I need.
“I am not so different from the guy in Archibald’s book, after all,” he says wistfully.
I open my mouth, but the momentum of my former anger is broken. “No. Sam, I always knew. Everything you told me. You never, not once, lied to me.” I look at him, the angled cheeks, the eyes that haunt my sleep, that warmed me in my most bitter moments. My love for him is simple, complication-free. It makes me willing to sacrifice, to do the impossible. I can be disappointed, heartbroken even, but not cruel. It’s what separates me from Archibald. I square my shoulders and attempt to still my trembling chin. I stretch my neck, as I have seen my mother do when faced with an insurmountable wall of despair.
He shakes his head. “How do you do that? Make me forget everything and everyone? You make me lose myself and find myself in the same moment. If you asked me now, I would go with you. I would go with you and never look back.”
But I had asked him once before, the night I lay beside him in the darkened room after Archibald had done his worst, when I asked him to act on his love. And, then, I finally understand. The realization is a weight that will never leave me. It was never about the place. “She’s your home.”
His eyes meet and hold mine. And his silence confirms the worst.
When I speak next, my voice is someone else’s; for the briefest seconds it is Archibald’s: “Give a girl a lift to the airport?”
He pulls up to the curb on his bike, plants his boot down to steady it. I climb off gingerly, unhook my helmet, and step onto the slick sidewalk.
“Careful,” I hear him say.
He is beside me with my bag. His arm jostles mine. I keep my eyes straight ahead until we reach the sliding doors. You have to do this, I say to myself, just keep going. I turn to him and take my bag.
We stare at each other. I open my mouth to say something sardonic to diffuse the moment. But nothing comes, instead love blooms around us. And then he steps forward and folds me in his arms and kisses me one last time. We grip each other beneath the layers of coats and scarves.
And when he speaks, his voice comes in gasps, but I understand him. What he says surprises me. “I need you to know. Carolina may be my home but you are something different, you are my heart, Maggie Underwood. And I am so grateful for the time we spent together. And I am so grateful for Archibald.”
And then he is on his bike, twisting the handle bars and manoeuvering it down the cold, empty road. Snow flies from beneath the wheels, and I hear the old bike’s motor resisting and then settling into a familiar, hard-edged purr. I watch him go. I cannot help myself. He pauses at a stop sign and disappears into the whiteness.
Sam and Carolina are married almost six months after I see Sam that last day in Saskatchewan. They send me an invitation, which is so like them: classy, always. I do not go to the wedding, but I imagine it. It is simple, held in a small church. Carolina wears a white dress. The white offsets her dark hair and I cannot deny that she glows. Sam looks uncomfortable in a suit, nervous but excited, regrets his tie and loosens it seconds after they kiss. Dan has travelled from Toronto to be his best man, as only he could be. They make a beautiful couple and everyone says so. The party is a blast, held at a local Greek restaurant. There is drinking and laughing, a celebration that conjures up a joy that bubbles up and spills over. And when they, the newly married couple, take the dance floor for the first dance, they look at each other in a way that makes the guests stop and watch and wish.
As for me, I force myself to take the steps I need to get on with life. I buy a little house on the North Shore with the money left over from my picture sales and Archibald’s legacy. He always outspent his income, and what I can afford is a modest two-bedroom bungalow. Anyone who sees it calls it cozy, but what they really mean is small. It has a view of the harbour, though. At night, I climb up on the roof and watch the illuminated ships moving through the obsidian water, so black it absorbs my disappointment and comforts me.
I plod through my education degree. I hike the mountain trails for exercise. I make a few friends, other aspiring teachers, hikers, loners. I have stopped painting, but it does not worry me. I stay active. I adopt a dog from the local pound, a middle-aged mutt with halitosis. I miss Sam, but somehow the thought of him with Carolina, happy, is bearable, just. I even miss Archibald from time to time, especially when I sit on the roof and toast to absent friends. I have put his apartment on the market, but cannot bring myself to go through with the sale. His last words in the will, “You will know what to do with it,” perplex me still.
It is just over a year since I last saw Sam. I am standing outside, locking the front door, on my way to class, when I hear the phone’s familiar trill from inside the house. I hesitate, and even though I am late for an exam, I rush inside and manage to pick it up on the last ring. I recognize the voice on the other side of the line right away. It is Dan. It has been ages.
“Dan, I am just on my way out the door…”
“Maggie, I have news,” he says, quietly. It’s his voice, but different.
“What kind of news?” I ask.
“Pedal.” That he uses my old nickname after so long worries me the most. “I can’t tell you. It’s the worst kind.”
His name leaps from my mouth: “Sam?”
He died in an accident. He was riding his bike as he always did, a little too fast. It was a cold November morning. He had been going to the corner store to pick up eggs for breakfast. The highway was quiet that time of day. The pavement was slick but not quite icy. It had been unseasonably warm that year. There was a large pothole in the road, which had been there for a while, but, perhaps, he had forgotten about it. Perhaps his mind was elsewhere, working through a lecture he was preparing or planning for the future. Whatever he was thinking, the bike skidded out of control and hit a tree. He died, instantly, of massive internal injuries. Carolina was asleep in bed when it took place.
