All My Puny Sorrows (34 page)

Elf and I were on a plane. We were choosing chicken or beef, we’d forgotten to pre-order a vegetarian meal for Elf, and we were drinking wine out of little bottles and reading our horoscopes to each other from an old issue of
People
. She was wearing a striped raincoat, I think it was a Marc Jacobs, and high black boots. I wore Converse high-tops and a new short poncho. When I put the poncho on to show Elf she said farewell to arms. Well, we’d taken our jackets and ponchos off for the flight and put them in the overhead bin. Elf wore jeans that were oxblood, so the label said, a really dark red. And mine were ordinary blue and a little bit faded. Elf was tired and put her head on my shoulder
and slept for most of the flight and I read. I didn’t really read but I tried to. It felt good to have Elf’s head on my shoulder. It was heavy. Her hair smelled like a grapefruit. The book I was reading or trying to read was a self-published genealogy of a Russian family from the Odessa region. When the plane landed we were in Zurich.

Elf woke up and smiled sleepily and I said we’re here. She asked me how the book had been and I said well, detailed and full of names that only she would know how to pronounce. We took a cab to our hotel and put our stuff into the room and then walked a few blocks to a really nice restaurant that the woman at the front desk of the hotel had recommended. Before we went into the restaurant we took pictures of each other standing on a bridge. We asked a man walking past if he would take one of us together and he took three or four just to make sure we’d have a good one. He asked us if we were there on a holiday. We told him we were sisters.

At dinner Elf told me stories about her trips to Europe, when she was a young prodigy. I told her some of mine. At first we laughed a lot, sort of nervously, but eventually we both relaxed and only laughed when things were funny. I ate a lot. I kept ordering new dishes. Elf didn’t eat as much but she liked the warm bread they kept bringing to us in a wooden basket. I remember apologizing to her for having dirty fingernails and she said it was no problem and besides I’d been working really hard lately. When she said that I cried a bit and she came around from her side of the table and gave me a hug. Some people in the restaurant looked at us hugging and smiled.

I ordered another dessert and coffee. Eventually they told us the restaurant was closing. We walked slowly back to the
hotel arm in arm like old-fashioned girls and lay down together in the huge white bed.

Remember when we watched that solar eclipse? I asked her. You came to my school and dragged me out of Gunner’s English class to watch it with you.

Yes, she said. It was so cold.

Well, it was winter and we were lying in snow. In a field.

Wearing welding helmets, she said, weren’t we?

Yeah. Where did you get them from?

I can’t remember. I guess some guy I knew in town.

Wasn’t it amazing? I asked her.

The eclipse? It really was, she said. The path of totality.

What? I said. Is that what it’s called?

Yeah, remember what dad said? She dropped her voice. The path of totality passed over Manitoba in the early afternoon.

Oh right, you mean when he said it in that super serious tone?

It was so funny. She laughed.

The next one’s not supposed to be for another fifteen hundred years or something like that, I said.

Then I guess I’ll miss it, said Elf.

Yeah, I guess I will too.

Maybe not, said Elf. Who knows?

There was a skylight over our bed and we could see stars. Elfie took my hand. She put it on her heart and I felt its strong and steady beat. We had an early appointment the next morning. Elf said it was like getting married or writing an exam.

It’s torture to have to wait all day, she said. Let’s just get up, shower, and go.

END

With regards to the writing of
AMPS
, I’m deeply grateful to my agent, Sarah Chalfant, and to my editor, Louise Dennys: serious pros. Whoah. To my oldest friends, Carol Loewen and Jacque Baskier, who continue to save my life and who will find this “acknowledgement” ridiculous. (And to Winnipeg, city of my dreams.) To my Toronto friends for rolling out the welcome mat. To the Rutherfords for their collective embrace! To my kids (you all know who you are—there aren’t any others, don’t worry, ha) who simply will not stop calling me on my bullshit. To my mother, Elvira Toews, Life Force! To Erik Rutherford for his sharp pencil, countless readings, and especially for his blind love. And finally, to my beautiful sister, Marjorie Anne Toews: comic genius, badly missed.