With My Back to the World

Chapter 4-2

Rudie’s throat opened and pulsed as she remembered the dust in the hills north of Port-au-Prince. Over the March break of grade twelve, her class had travelled to Haiti to help build a school. She doubted she’d contributed much during that short week of hauling cinder blocks. What stayed with her was a day trip to Mirebalais and the waterfall on Saut D’Eau, where the black Madonna was said to have appeared in a palm tree. A boy guided her by the hand so she wouldn’t slip while crossing the rocks.

Leo and Rudie had been in the car, driving home from Toronto, when they first decided to adopt. She’d blurted out, “Haiti.”

“Why not a child from Hamilton?” Leo had said. “There’s such a risk of fraud with international adoption.”

“I get that. And it’s expensive,” she’d said. “But I can’t shake it. I think it’s a calling.”

“Are you sure? Because you haven’t mentioned it before and taking on a child from another culture might be harder than anything else.” He held her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back, absorbing his misgivings. She searched herself.

“There is every reason not to do it,” she said, letting go. “But I still want to.”

He rubbed her thigh. “Right. Let’s get started.”

Rudie loved so much about Leo – how, despite his doubts, he took the risk and committed everything. She took the photo off the fridge, stroked the image of the plump cheek. I can’t believe I get to meet you tonight.

She had mixed feelings about Roselore’s dress in the photo. So unlike the cotton pyjamas and T-shirts children wore on websites promoting international adoption. Surely someone donated it out of kindness or concern, even duty. Roselore must love it. Yet Rudie wouldn’t have chosen it. She yearned to dress her girl in the funky chartreuse, fuchsia and turquoise prints she favoured. She slipped Roselore’s photo into her wallet. Today she wanted her daughter close.

Rudie leaned lightly on the bundle buggy as she peered into the Armoury’s open archway. She went over her list for the day, written in her Moleskine even though she had it memorized:

Meet Dylan for breakfast

Shop for supplies

Check in w. Dad about reno

Meet H.A.S.P. folks at café

Get to airport for 5:30 p.m.

Before she left the house, she’d packed her bag and placed it near the front door. No matter what else happened, she was ready to get on that plane.

She marvelled at the men and women in fatigues and uniforms. What prompted people to choose service, knowing they could, likely would, get sent to Afghanistan? Despite having a successful painting career in New York City, the subject of Rudie’s documentary, Agnes Martin, had withdrawn from everything but the self. Military personnel did the opposite – withdrew from the self and put the body and mind into service of the group. Some people believed adoptive parents were selfless, too. Rudie didn’t feel altruistic. Her mother called her selfish. Friends in the know said she was a saint. Rudie just wanted a child, this child.

In a few days, she’d push the stroller she had yet to buy along this street. How would people react? Usually people walked past her, like this couple, whose pupils were pinpoints, their eyes glassy even at this early hour. They laughed when they got to the Armoury, making loose gestures. Two men in fatigues and flak jackets loaded stuffed duffel bags onto a truck. Their arms swung with the precision of machines. The couple loped off down the street.

She unzipped her coat and scratched under her collar. Her neck was sticky with perspiration. She raced over the list, hoping the bundle buggy would hold it all. Just the basics, she and Leo had agreed. Bedding, sleepers, bottles, dishes, clothes – who knew what to get for a two-year-old? Did Roselore use a cup? Could she hold a fork? Rudie had forgotten to ask Ann. Haitian children experienced delays in crawling and walking because their mothers kept them off the dirt floors. Did they have eating delays, too? Who decided they were delayed? she wondered. Probably some Ivy League child psychologist comparing them to American children in daycares. Would Roselore fit in a sling? Rudie could only find lists for setting up a newborn. Parents of two-year-olds were supposed to have these details worked out.

She’d have coffee with Dylan first, his idea. She hadn’t seen him in five years. They’d had a brief email exchange and were meeting at Swick’s on King Street so she could have a fast breakfast before the stores opened.

After Dylan, she’d load up the bundle buggy at Rexall, then go home and get the car for the big items. She wanted Leo here, not in Antigonish. The agency should have given them more notice. Someone must have known before today that the children were coming. What had they told Roselore? Ann said the children had received photographs of their new parents as soon as the agency had matched them. So Roselore would have been looking at Rudie and Leo for over a month if the photo had survived the earthquake. But what would the picture of the pale woman and the grinning man with the wavy red hair mean to a two-year-old? Where was Roselore right now? What was she feeling?

Rudie shivered and clenched her biceps, waiting at the traffic light as cars sped along Cannon Street’s four lanes. Snowflakes swirled like blown dandelion spores. She detoured over to John Street so she could pass Stewart Memorial Church, the nearest church with a black congregation. The adoption training course had advised Leo and Rudie to keep Roselore in touch with her culture. Rudie followed black hair care blogs, scouted out black dolls and picture books about black children, and kept a list of Caribbean associations in the city. Leo had suggested church. Since they weren’t Catholic like Roselore, Stewart seemed like a safe compromise. As she passed the red brick church with its windows set into lancet arches, Rudie pictured the three of them walking up the steps on a Sunday morning.

A haven for those who’d escaped s*****y through the Underground Railway, Stewart Memorial made Rudie’s shoulders tense with yearning and fear. The people who worshipped here might provide a beautiful community for Roselore. They also might reject Leo and Rudie. It would take a lot of nerve to bring Roselore to Stewart or to events put on by the Afro Canadian Caribbean Association. She scrunched up and then widened her eyes, feeling awkward and visible, though the streets were empty.

She walked back to James Street, faster now, vowing to wear more colour for Roselore’s sake. She crossed Wilson’s wind tunnel, then continued south. The buildings here were taller, the sidewalk cast in shadow from Jackson Square’s bulk. Rudie paused at the window of the Trundle Bundle Gallery to stare at a blow-up doll sporting a work sock monkey hat and fairy wings. Any community college dropout who threw together kitschy objects with some loose thematic connection could mount an art show on this street. Yet there were exceptions like Taran Yang’s cupcakes. Taran made each cupcake more elaborate than the next, bringing beauty and its concurrent destruction into the world, as art could, and should.

Last night, Rudie had edited footage of Agnes Martin sitting in front of her poster of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Iris. Look at art the way you look at the ocean, just look, Agnes had said. Look and look and look. Now, Rudie did. The work sock monkey hat covered the blow-up doll’s face. Knapsack straps fixed the knitted wings to her back. The artist had looped fishing line around the doll’s ankles and neck, raising her feet higher than her head so she seemed to plummet. Rudie stuffed her hands in her pockets. The artist wasn’t defacing beauty. Blow-up dolls weren’t beautiful. What was the point of this piece of “art”? Was it glorifying toys? The work sock monkey wore a manic grin. The doll’s teacup breasts puckered at the seams. There were far more sophisticated Real Dolls available now. The blow-up variety was as outmoded as pubic hair and flesh breasts. Was the artist saying something about nostalgia?

She folded back her glove to check the time. Almost eight o’clock. Swick’s was a five-minute walk. She wanted to arrive early. Dylan used to make cracks about her weaknesses. As if Dylan knew her now.

Loud chatter reached her, yelling, some screeching, energetic not fearful. A pack – there must be a more effective collective noun: a snarl? an outbreak? a whiff – of teenagers rounded the corner. A boy in a buffalo plaid shirt and jean jacket jumped on the tree planter and swung his body around, one hand cupping the thin tree trunk. Two boys shook the trees in the other planters. Three girls in short, puffy jackets, hoodies and skinny jeans, shrieked, “Stop!” through veils of cigarette smoke.

The boys clustered in front of the blow-up fairy, knees bent, necks craned.

“Sad titties,” said one through teeth gripping a cigarette.

“I’d f**k ’em,” said another.

Two of the girls walked away. A third lingered, a girl stuffed into a thick hoodie and blotchy, pink vest, standing in the middle of the group, her jokes as filthy as the boys’. Her gaze darted over their faces as she avoided looking directly at the doll. Rudie remembered her from the Rocket Theatre Co-op program where, as a favour, Rudie had stage-managed Into the Woods last winter. Her name was Hannah Merriweather and she’d played the witch.

The others Rudie recognized from the g**g who lounged outside Shawn’s Place, the youth drop-in centre around the corner, kids who put up with Shawn’s praying and goal-setting in exchange for fried eggs and a cold shower.

Rudie caught the eye of the new one, a beanpole with a greasy bang, drainpipe jeans held just above his crotch and a skeleton-patterned hoodie. The beanpole stood beside Hannah, jumping away each time she slapped his shoulder then returning to her side.

“Bomb scare,” the boy told Rudie. “Shawn wants a lockdown, but there’s no locks. He can’t make us stay.”

“We’re supposed to sit on the floor with our heads on our knees,” said Hannah, her glossy hair at odds with her stained clothes and spotty face, her dark, sunken eyes opaque. Rudie caught a trace of patchouli. After the show’s run, Hannah’s witch cape had reeked of the aromatic oil. Not even dry cleaning could remove the sweet, funky smell.

“So we split,” Hannah said.

Hannah talked like a spokesperson. The other boys were now spitting on their hands and smearing the glass. Rudie resisted the urge to say, Shouldn’t you be in school? Hannah had been in grade ten last year and delivered a passionate, if scene-chewing, performance. Her smoky alto voice had infused the witch with a vital, menacing power.

“They evacuated Jackson Square last month,” Rudie said. “La Senza had a bomb threat.”

“Who’d want to blow up Hamilton?”

“Blow-up doll. Blow up city. Blow blow blow,” the boy said.

“Rude.” Hannah indicated Rudie with her thumb. Her smile revealed a shiny set of fuschia braces. She winked, acknowledging Rudie.

“Rudie.”

Rudie checked her watch. Ten minutes. Dylan might already be at Swick’s. He was driving into town for an appointment. They’d meet as friends. Rudie would update him on her Agnes Martin film. Rudie stepped backward, about to walk away. Hannah pointed at a newspaper box. The headline read PRAY FOR HAITI.

“Look! It’s got the same letters as Hamilton. First there’s the HA and the I. Letters are powerful. They make words. And words, well, forget about it.”