The Knife Sharpener's Bell (6 page)

That evening Avram is out on the back porch. Spratt comes quietly out. “I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Gershon? Annette's asleep?”

“Sit yourself down, Mr. Spratt. It's cooler out here. We were having a little talk but I put her to bed a minute ago.”

Spratt laughs. “She's quite the conversationalist.”

“She's shy, usually, Mr. Spratt. But with you she's a little chatterbox. With strangers she hardly says a word. Family is different. Me she has to ask about everything. Why hasn't Mrs. Andrychuk come to the store with the new baby. Why won't Ben let her ride his bicycle. How come Momma wouldn't let her friend Cassie stay for dinner. She got herself worked up into quite a state, wouldn't eat her food, because Cassie couldn't come. Tired her right out.”

“I see Mrs. Gershon has a candle lit,” Spratt says. “Is that for the Sabbath?”

“We don't light candles on Friday, Mr. Spratt,” Avram tells him.

“I thought it was a Jewish tradition.”

“It is for a lot of families. Annette's friend Cassie, they light candles every Friday night, say the blessing on them in Hebrew, the whole
schlimazel
. That one's a
yohrzheit
candle, in memory of Mrs. Gershon's mother's death. It has to burn all day and all night on the anniversary; you can't blow it out. Anya puts it in the sink overnight so the house shouldn't burn down.”

“So you observe this tradition but you don't observe the Sabbath?”

“We just try to make ourselves comfortable without belief. Call it ‘kitchen Judaism.'”

“Then you have dietary restrictions. I see Mrs. Gershon shops at the kosher butcher.”

“Waldman's is the best butcher in town. We wouldn't eat pork chops, but we don't keep kosher, not according to anyone who's orthodox, that's for sure! All kinds of
different Jews in this town, Mr. Spratt. And one half isn't talking to the other half because of it!” They laugh.

“I should check on Annette in a minute or so. I was telling her a story.
Tell me a story.
Every night I have to tell for her a story.
Tell me about the Old Country
, she says. And I have to tell her again about how my cousin was struck by lightning and for three days we had him buried in the ground till he came round. And I have to tell her again how after my father died they found for me a job with a shopkeeper, how I slept under the counter in the store . . . Everything for her is a story. . . ”

“– I wonder sometimes what stories they'll tell about these times . . .”

Avram runs a hand over his bald pate. “Are you having any luck, Mr. Spratt?” he asks.

Spratt swallows. “I don't know if luck has anything to do with it, Mr. Gershon.”

“You're right, Mr. Spratt. It's the government. Those people in Ottawa, the big shots, they don't care about the ordinary working man. And the bosses, the bosses only care about their profits . . .”

“You think so?”

“The breadlines, the soup kitchens – it's the govern-ment's fault. And the capitalists.”

“Sometimes I think . . . I think it's just a question of character. A question of giving up or not giving up . . .”

“You've got a point there, Mr. Spratt. We have to keep trying, right?”

“I suppose we do.”

“A bit cooler now that the sun's gone down, d'you think?”

“Not much of a breeze. I think I'll try a stroll down Main Street.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Spratt.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Gershon.”

It's too hot to sleep, though Anne is fast asleep in her bed, exhausted. The bedroom is tense with heat. Avram tries not to toss and turn too much. It must be three o'clock in the morning when he hears someone walking quietly up the stairs. “Spratt?” he whispers.

“It's all right,” Spratt whispers back. “It's just me.” His footsteps go softly up to the third floor.

Next morning Avram's at the counter, wrapping up a package of corned beef for Mrs. Andrychuk. A man not from Selkirk Avenue walks into the delicatessen.

“A Mr. Spratt live here?” he asks, a powerful man, a wrestler's shoulders, the French accent strong in this throat: St. Boniface.

“Upstairs,” Avram says. “Third floor.”

“I leave this for him,” the man answers, putting a crumpled suit jacket, dark grey, on the counter, and walking out.

Avram takes the jacket upstairs. “Mr. Spratt,” he calls softly. “Mr. Spratt? A man left this for you.”

The room is dark, but Avram sees a figure on the bed. The heat is already pushing down on the building, the third floor unbearable. Spratt seems to take a deep breath, then sits up as though the whole weight of the heat, the day, bore down on him. He gets up, walks to the door in shirt sleeves, in stocking feet. The first time Avram has seen him without the dark grey suit jacket, black shoes.

“Thank you, Mr. Gershon. I'm sorry to trouble you.”

Avram hands him the jacket, doesn't leave.

He looks at Avram, and smiles, a thin smile. “I must have left it on shore. I went for a swim.” He smiles again.

Andrychuk comes in. Avram looks up, smiles quietly. They must owe him close to $40.00.

“Mr. Andrychuk, how are you?”

“Mr. Gershon, I've been working two weeks now in Eaton's warehouse.”

“That's good to hear, Mr. Andrychuk. It was three months you were looking, no?”

“Almost four. This is permanent. I got paid today. I'd like to settle something on my account.”

“There's no hurry. Your credit is good.”

“Please, Mr. Gershon.” He puts two five-dollar bills down on the counter. Avram gets out the ledger. Andrychuk settles the cap on his head, adjusts his trousers.

“Can I get you anything?”

“The wife'll be in later in the week.”

“Well, this is good news. It's good to hear good news.”

“Mr. Gershon.” The bell above the door jangles as he leaves.

Avram puts the two fives into the till. Almost everyone is paying on credit; business is thin. It's too hot to move. He can hear the children's voices upstairs in the bedroom, arguing and playing. They have to stay indoors. Anne won't let them outside in the heat. Today he will telephone Joseph. He won't let it wait any longer. Avram hears Spratt's gentle tones. The man has such patience for children. . . Maybe Ben can take everyone to Pritchard Pool. It'll be cooler beside the water. Such a shame Spratt doesn't have his own family, children.

Avram makes himself a salami sandwich, slices the rye thick. Heaps coleslaw into an oval dish. He hates to get the bread soggy with dressing. For dessert he'll have a taste of Anne's raspberry cordial. Nothing like it. He sits himself down on the red stool and opens the paper out on the
counter, sets the funnies aside for the children. Ben loves
Buck Rogers. Two Dead, Scores Hurt in Political Riots in Berlin. Chinese Dies of Injuries in Traffic Mishap. Man Is Rescued After Jumping Into River.

William Spratt, 390 Main Street, jumped from the Provencher Bridge. He was seen to strip off his coat and then jump by two bystanders who paddled out to save him. It was only after a struggle that they succeeded in bringing him to shore. Spratt was taken to the General Hospital by police ambulance
.

Avram sets the paper down, runs back up both sets of stairs like a much younger man. “Spratt?” he calls. “Mr. Spratt?” The children are playing on the stairs, but he runs right past.

William Spratt is bent over a piece of paper, creasing it into intricate folds. Somehow, his suit jacket has been pressed. Dark grey suit, white shirt, black shoes. Spratt looks up, shows Avram a little paper object folded like a sailor hat bent double.

“Annette asked me to make her and little Cassie one of these paper fortune tellers, Mr. Gershon.” He slips his fingers into the folds, flips it idly back and forth.

“Thank you, Mr. Spratt; I'll give it to them. Mr. Spratt, maybe you would like to join us for dinner?” He's trying to look William Spratt in the eye, but Spratt's bent over another sheet of paper.

“Thank you,” he says, head down, “but I've already got an invitation.”

Avram jams his fists in his pockets, looks down at his shoes and then up again. “Are you sure?”

Spratt looks up from the paper, looks directly into Avram's face.

“Thank you so much. Perhaps tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow would be fine.”

Avram stands in the doorway for a minute, then goes downstairs.

The next day Spratt is gone.

“You're worrying for nothing,” Anne says. “He's hiding somewhere. It was in the papers; he was ashamed.”

“Nobody knew him but us!” Avram answers. “Why should he be ashamed? He said he was coming for dinner . . .”

“He owed rent on the room,” Anne says. “Our landlady told me. Almost two months already. She was going to throw him out, but he's such a nice quiet type. He kept trying to pay, a dollar here, a dollar there.” She touches Avram's shoulder. “He was ashamed; he owed money. He ran away. Tomorrow's Sunday. Take the children to the beach for the afternoon. You need a rest. I'll mind the store. I'm not interested in swimming. Go. Take the Moonlight Special home. Listen to me.”

“I'm going to visit Joseph,” Avram says. “I'm going to spend tomorrow with Joseph.”

She stands up and walks to the bedroom.

When Avram comes home Sunday evening, Anne won't talk to him. Monday it's busy. The Relief money is in and customers come into the delicatessen to pay something of what they owe. Anne still isn't talking; she keeps herself busy in the kitchen.

Avram puts two cheese blintzes on a plate and takes it out back, where he might be able to catch a breeze. He opens the paper.
Lux soap, 7¢ a bar. Jobless Conference Held in Edmonton. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.

Unidentified Man Found Floating in Red River. Approximately forty years old, 130 pounds, five feet, ten inches. Dark grey suit, white shirt, black shoes
.

He puts the paper down, picks it up. Farmers' Army Gathers in Ottawa. Flit Kills Mosquitoes. Whose Problem Is It? Demoralizing dole-supported idleness. And the Society page: Printed Voile Frocks. White Softee Hats. Paris Falls for Five O'Clock Teas. Society. He puts his head down on the paper, the cool newsprint against his cheek, the words pressing into him, the lies.

Hard times, hard winter. But walking down the street in Winnipeg, I don't think,
Winnipeg
, don't set myself in a particular place because in my life there is only one place,
here
. Five o'clock and it's already dark, the sky gone from royal blue to a velvety purple to black and the snow so white it seems to glow. Yesterday there was just a bit of snow and the snowbanks are still white, new with it. No wind tonight, so there's an extra stillness added onto the layer of stillness the snow seems to give.

A car is hunched at the traffic light and someone's inside, the person inside thinking his own thoughts just the way I'm thinking mine. We're each alone, looking out from behind our faces, seeing just the edges of cheek, nose, ridge of skin around the eyes, a kind of wavering shadow if I try to look down at my own face, but I don't like doing that, it's too scary. Though I do sometimes like the feeling of being alone, especially outside like this on the dark, familiar streets, the cold air against my face so that I feel the edges of myself, my skin, know where I end.

Winnipeg.
Are there really other places? In the middle of
winter, in Winnipeg, it doesn't seem there are even other seasons. In school I've learned about the tropics – Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn – but they sound frightening, not real: beasts, diseases. My school books say that in other places there is no winter.
No winter.
They can't put that one over on me. It can't be true. Nobody gets away without winter. The snow just comes and goes there, the cold not quite as cold. The snow, heavier, warmer, bends the feathery leaves of the palm trees till they almost touch the frozen sand. I like drawing palm trees, the sawtooth leaves, crisscross of the trunks. Miss MacLeod says I'm the best drawer in the class.

It must get so cold in those thin grass huts. Here we have wooden houses, solid walls. I don't like the story about the three little pigs because nobody here uses brick for their houses. And wooden houses don't fall down, not in Winnipeg, no matter how hard the wind blows. Though lots of people are cold, even inside. And what about animals? I'm still not sure how animals get by in winter. Well, Nature takes care of everything, the balance of nature, Miss MacLeod called it. Mother Nature takes care of everything. Or maybe God. But Poppa and my mother don't believe in God.
Superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
It's Mother Nature who looks after the animals. Mother Nature and Poppa.

Poppa doesn't cut the bread under his arm, sawing away and letting the crumbs fall onto the kitchen floor, like my mother does. He sets the loaves on the counter and slices carefully. Then with the stiff flat edge of his hand he sweeps every single crumb into his other hand and then from his hand into a chipped bowl he keeps beside the sink. And when the bowl gets full enough, I'll wake up one morning and he'll be in his robe and slippers on the back porch,
standing still as anything, his palms turned out and up, like a kind of a prayer. I wait without breathing, and then they come, the sparrows, and land on his shoulders, fingers, his head. They're not scared. What would it be like to be a sparrow? Or Poppa, who's nothing but good?
Make a wish.
I wish there was no stubborn knot of meanness to twist inside me. I wish I could be like Poppa.

Most days after school I go skating, even though it's dark by the time I get to the rink, and cold. My mother tells me how crazy I am to go skating in this cold but I want to; I don't listen. Fine, she says and she says I can't blame her if I get frostbite. I have to get out, so I sling my hand-me-down white figure skates over my shoulder by the laces. They're all scratched and a bit bulgy-looking at the ankles, but they fit if I wear two pairs of socks. When it's forty below, you can't even sit down in a snowbank to put on your skates – the snow pulls the heat right out of you. You have to keep skating, move. It doesn't matter how tired you get. If you stop, it won't take long for the cold to get you. The cold will climb inside you and then you won't be yourself any more. What will you be?
Something rich and strange.
Joseph read me the poem. Something rich and strange. No, you'd be dead. Dead, not yourself. That's the way it is. Even the air can be dangerous; not much between you and what wants to end you. Nothing's easy, not even dying.