Maski

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Agnostine grinned; ribbons of spit stuck to the corners of her mouth. With the sun setting behind her, her thick, straw-black hair flared out like a curler’s broom. She held a whip in one hand while a rolled cigarette dangled in the other. Brendell couldn’t remember what she’d done. She tried to, thinking back all the way to the morning. But she’d finished her chores on time; the hens were fed, the stable raked out and the water trough filled. And she’d made it to school on time. She hadn’t been mouthy with her teacher. She’d even helped her poppa up from the dirt and back into his hammock in the backyard. Oh, and she hadn’t spoke one word of English after she left the school grounds.

“Stand still, you stupid frog-squaw. I aim to give you the beating of your life,” Agnostine said in Michif.

“But why, mama? What did I do?” Agnostine stepped closer. Brendell inched away.

Agnostine grabbed Brendell’s wrist. The cigarette stubbed into her skin before falling to the ground. Brendell winced, unable to stop herself from crying.

“Stay still. How am I supposed to hit your ass if you won’t stand still? No way I need some snotty social worker bitching at me for missing and hitting your legs. Stand still. I’m not telling you again.”

Her mother’s whip lashed across her legs. Brendell covered her mouth with both hands, screams muffled through her palms. She danced around.

“Hold still,” Agnostine said, and lashed her again, this time burning a streak across her rear.

“Please, mama! What did I do? Please.”

“That does it. Just for being so stupid, you get two added on to the five I promised you, you stupid frog-squaw.”

“I’m so sorry for being a stupid frog-squaw, mama. I’m so sorry. So sorry. I’ll be a good girl. I will—I will. Please stop. Mama—Please!”

* * *

Dull, grey light seeped through the gabardine curtains. I was back in my bedroom and alone in my cabin. Silence echoed through my small rooms. I reached up and pulled back the curtain. Sunlight filtered in.

From the racket outside, I was certain that the open bay was speckled with swans and geese. The geese were so small next to the swans, who resembled tall white sailboats. Elegant.

Free.

I listened to the noise. A volume Zoë claimed would wake The Grateful Dead. She compared the clamouring to the Vancouver Airport. “No, really, Ma. The last time I stayed at Airport Inn, the tarmac sounded just like what’s going on outside. Only those were planes, not a bunch of two-legged, flea-festering...” She had said that in her special mordant voice, but I knew the swans, geese and loons meant as much to Zoë as they did to me. She told me she was buying a bird book to learn what their early morning squabbles meant. “It better not be anything obscene.”

Elegant and free.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. I slumped forward and buried my face in my soft Métis blanket.

Maybe it was a bad dream. I knew it wasn’t.

Sometime in the middle of the night my intruder had disassembled the bed and reassembled it inside the small bedroom. He took away the ropes and clothed me in a clean nightgown. He even changed the bed; the plain white sheets were replaced with my blue flowered sheets.

I lifted the covers and patted my breasts and thighs. The welts where the hose had marked me were still tender, though I did smell Aloe Vera.

I dropped the blankets, fell forward and cried until the wet spot on the bed soaked into my skin. That was the saddest thing of all. It wasn’t a dream. He was real. He said he’d been watching, waiting—I shot upright, ignored the pain in my head. What if he was watching now! He said he would decide whether I had more to learn. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? And how would I show either? What if I needed to learn too much? Would that infuriate him? What if I made a mistake and he hurt my baby?

I had the truck packed in less than an hour. I didn’t rush. I didn’t search to see whether he’d forgotten anything. Instead, I took deliberate steps from the truck to the porch to the inside of my cabin. Each time I took off my shoes so as not to mark up my red carpet. Everything was done. And this time I locked the power saw in the pump house out back. Nothing was forgotten. Still, when I was ready to go, I stood in the middle of the room. My body did a 360-degree turn, eyeing every corner, every wall. Should I forget something to prove I still had more to learn? Or should I remember everything to prove that I was worthy of his mercy and there was no need to punish Zoë for my indiscretions?

Which was it?

On my way out, I locked the front door, then jerked back. Two days ago he had busted down my door. When did he have time to repair it? I leaned closer. The frame around the jamb was new and almost identical to the previous wood. How did he match the stain?

The questions swarming through my brain gave me an instant headache. This man had been stalking me for who knows how long.

On the highway, I activated the cruise control at one hundred kilometres exactly. It took several attempts before the dial landed precisely on one hundred. Ninety-nine wouldn’t do and neither would one hundred and one. Sunday drivers pulled out and passed me. But what if he was one of them?

After a torturous hour, I rolled into my driveway and pointed the remote at the garage door. The space where my car usually sat was still empty. I parked the truck in its spot, furthest from the side door leading into the kitchen. I closed the garage door and unloaded my supplies. The house was still. I set everything down on the floor at the base of my kitchen cupboards and searched the house. Nothing had been touched in the bedroom, spare room, study, front room, or the laundry room. There were no scuffmarks or dirty shoe prints on my glossy wood floors.

The automatic French Vanilla freshener dispenser had done its thing and the rooms smelled like freshly baked cookies.

The house still felt violated.

Back in the kitchen, I found an empty tumbler in the sink. Zoë’s? My heart hurt. I washed and dried the glass and put it back in its spot in the cupboard. I grabbed my tote bag and placed my clean clothes back in the Armoire in my bedroom. The clothes the intruder had removed from my person were disposed of in the bottom of the garbage. In the back yard, I draped my favourite quilt over the clothesline. The hazy grey sky looked like rain was coming.

Apart from the rush of the Nechako River, it was quiet at the neighbours. I spun around and stared back at my home. I searched the eaves for a camera. The birch and cherry trees at both ends of my deck were sprouting blooms. There was no sign of surveillance equipment in either one. My skin crawled. I rubbed my arms and felt raindrops. I grabbed the quilt and rushed inside. I squinted. The house was so bright. So exposed. A fishbowl. Nowhere to hide. I ran to the shutters over the kitchen sink and whipped them closed.

Still not good enough. I started in the spare room and continued through the house until every curtain, every blind, every shutter and every drape was drawn tight. Every window locked, every door bolted. I rummaged through the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the candles. I charged my cellular phone. I retrieved all the flashlights in the garage, then remembered the garbage. I emptied all the baskets and unlocked the back door. I punched the ballooned black garbage bag into the bin by the sidewalk and walked as normally as possible, despite my wonky legs, toward the house. Once inside I locked the door and checked twice to make certain it was secured. Panting, chest aching, the air heavy with foreboding, I stood in the middle of the kitchen. I pressed my palms against my ears to stop the ringing. I needed to think. I couldn’t afford to forget anything.

The laundry vent!

I stuffed it full of hand towels and pressed it up against the back of the dryer, then pushed the machine back as far as it would go. Then I stood back and wondered if that would stop the gas; in case ….

Had I gone mad?

I wouldn’t answer that. Instead, I unpacked and put everything away. I stuffed the empty tote bag back in the linen closet where it belonged. I washed my gumboots in the laundry tub and placed them next to the back door on the rubber mat next to my runners, oxfords and ankle boots. I lined everything up three times before they looked perfect. Then I stood under the shower for thirty minutes and used the scrub brush. The welts on my thighs, stomach and breasts stung.

I dabbed a soft towel over the tender spots, put on a baggy pair of joggers and a white cotton blouse, then walked into the living room. Behind my wingback chair, next to the wall in the living room, around the corner from the entrance to the dining room, was perfect. The hardwood floor was warm and I could lean against either wall, the chair shielding me.

Tires screamed out front. I pressed against the wall.

Faint, inconsequential sounds outside. Children playing on the street, shouting and laughing, their bicycle tires squealing. Vehicles rumbled by as neighbours returned home from who knows where. Evening service. Grandma’s house. I thought of my mother’s lashings, the times she’d burned me with her cigarettes. Had Agnostine’s cruelty prepared me for this? What if she’d hired him? That made no sense. My mother died twenty years ago.

Doors slammed. Dogs barked. And daylight vanished. Automobile tires squeaked. Shadows danced across my ceiling; and I studied their shapes. Why hadn’t I replaced my drapes for those thicker ones I’d always wanted? Could he see through these? I shivered and wrapped my arms across my chest. My favourite quilt was back in my study. Down that hallway. I strained my neck around the living room’s corner wall. The room was so far away. I crawled on my hands and knees, reached the study, grabbed my blanket and crawled into the closet; I was too exhausted to go back to the living room. My body felt as if I’d come off a weekend drunk. My muscles throbbed. My head spun. My stomach gurgled.

Not until the next morning did I budge. I had to pee. I crept out into the gloomy daylight, pulled myself up and limped to the bathroom. My legs felt numb while my face burned.

For the first time in thirty years, I locked the bathroom door.

The cold tile floor beckoned. I flushed the toilet and slipped down onto my knees. I doubted that he would want me going anywhere today. Or any day. We’d both agreed I was a stupid frog-squaw. Better for Zoë’s sake that I stay home.

Forever?

Yes. Stupidity and ugliness should stay hidden.

I gripped the counter’s edge and pulled myself up. I saw a reflection in the mirror and jumped. But it wasn’t the intruder, it was me. He’d picked me because I’d done something wrong. Terribly wrong. What else could it be? I’d screwed up. Messed up. A man doesn’t break into your home, stay with you for the weekend...unless he thinks you deserved it.

In my bedroom, I tested the phone. A dial tone hummed. Was he listening? Should I say something?

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

The line continued humming. I placed the phone back on its cradle. Better to do nothing than to anger him. But I had to check on Zoë. I pressed the code for her home number and let it ring ten times. Fifteen times.

I heard a noise. A car’s engine. I set the phone down. There was a vehicle outside. I held my breath and listened. A door slammed.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear—could I make it to the front door? Run!

I opened the bedroom door and peeked out. Footsteps creaked across the worn planks on my back deck. Keys jingled and suddenly air was sucked from the house. Swoosh. Somebody opened the back door. He was here. He was in my house!

The furnace in my stomach blazed.

Breathe. Breathe. He was checking up on me. He was making sure I could be trusted.

I wiped my face, dropped the quilt and stepped out into the hallway. I dismissed the urge to run, until a thought occurred to me. What if he changed his mind and came back to kill me?

Zoë flew around the corner. We both gasped. “Damn, Ma, you scared the piss out of me!”

I pressed a hand to my breast and peeked behind Zoë. “Are you alone?”

“No, Dennis is outside,” she said in Cree before switching to French. “He followed me over so I could drop off your car. And I even replaced your keys back on that doohickey. Why are your clothes wrinkled?”

I glanced down at my lint-covered joggers and unkempt blouse. “I…slept in them.”

“Kita’hkosin na?”

I nodded at my daughter, impressed that she’d learned a new word. Good for her. “Yes, I am sick.”

“Flu?”

“Just sick, Zoë. It’s no big deal.” I shuffled past and entered the kitchen. Mouth dry, throat drier, I swallowed with difficulty, then gagged on the oily metal taste on my tongue. I filled a glass from the tap and gulped back half of it. “How was the wedding?” I wiped my chin. It was still tender.

“It was beautiful. They were married in the Sikh Temple and then right afterwards in the United Church downtown. They left on their honeymoon an hour after the reception began.” Zoë opened the fridge door, flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder and studied the contents. “Jasmine was a complete mess. Her asshole husband punched her after the rehearsal. I think it had something to do with me telling him to f-off after he called me a typical native.” Without looking back at me, she added, “Don’t ask. The guy’s a jerk and was jealous because Jas was a bridesmaid and he was simply tolerated.” She continued studying the contents of my fridge and shook her head. “It took tons of make-up to hide her bruise. Everybody in the bridal party was upset. We all tried talking to her, but she kept making excuses for Mr. Jerk-face. Can you imagine believing you deserve that? That’d be the day I’d let some bastard break my spirit.” Zoë looked back at me, her perfect sculpted eyebrows raised. “One good nîmihto and he’d be peeing through a tube. What’s that on your chin?”

“Where?” I asked before remembering how my intruder had punched me twice.

Deliberately staying away from the tender spot, I touched my cheek. Part of me wondered whether I should correct Zoë’s misuse of the word nîmihto. It meant to dance in Cree. Unless that was her intent.

Zoë straightened up and touched the bruised skin below my jaw lightly. She’d been biting her fingernails again. “It looks like a contusion.”

“I was splitting wood.”

She glanced from the dining room blinds to the shutters over the sink. “Why’s it like a tomb in here?”

“Oh, uh…my head. I had a bad headache.”

She nodded as if my explanation made perfect sense. She switched her attention back to the refrigerator’s contents, settled on an apple and swung the door closed. Then she gave me a peck on the cheek, took a big bite of the apple and walked to the back door. “I gotta go,” she mumbled, her mouth full. “I’ll stop by tonight and bring you some Boulette soup.”

“‘Mwac!” No yelled in English was bad enough, but in Cree it sounded so harsh.

Zoë peered back at me with furrowed eyebrows and hooded narrow eyes, the look of a mother when her child has misbehaved.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I feel lousy. I just want to sleep. Call me later, okay my apisîs waa-boos.”

Referring to Zoë by her childhood nickname, little rabbit, resulted in a familiar reaction. She rolled her beautiful blue eyes and smirked. “Don’t forget to change your clock,” she said in French.

“What do you mean?”

“Ma, it’s daylight savings.” She smiled and left out the front door.

I listened to Zoë’s footsteps down the short sidewalk to my driveway. A car door slammed and an engine started, no doubt the property of the Grand Panjandrum himself. That whining sound his car made when he backed up followed quickly. Tires reeled on the asphalt in front of my house. Dennis was always in a hurry.

I continued staring at the space where Zoë had stood. The air around me was imbued with the fragrance of apple and ivory soap. My daughter’s scent lingered and so did her words: That’d be the day I’d let some bastard break my spirit.

A sob broke from my throat. Tears poured down my face and my body shuddered. My daughter’s words stung like the weal from the intruder’s whip across my skin. Pressure built inside me, and I imagined an embolus bursting an artery in my brain. Sobs racked my body. I crunched my shoulders forward until finally I was crying like a little girl. One long wail.

That’d be the day I’d let some bastard break my spirit. That’d be the day…

I wept until I hyperventilated. I grabbed a paper bag from the kitchen drawer, strangled the opening and sucked for air. “That’s right!” I gasped between breaths. “That’d be the day I’d let some bastard threaten me or my daughter. Did you hear that, you piece of crap? You’ve messed with the wrong woman!”