Fall on Your Knees

  James stays put, his face shiny with impatience and anxiety, his stomach half turned by the past hour of grotesque huffing and straining on the tiny stage. Sister Saint Cecilia places a hand on his sleeve, but he doesn’t notice. She rises and rustles off for a cuppa, thinking it’s too bad and even a little odd that the girl’s mother can’t be here tonight — she had looked forward to meeting Mrs Piper at last, and congratulating her on such a talented daughter. James is feeling badly in need of air but he’s frozen in his seat. He has no wish to mingle and hear the effusions of the benighted throng. Kathleen is on after the intermission.

  Unseen by James, a dark little round woman with a grey bun slips into the back of the hall with a tall young black woman. Mrs Mahmoud is here because Benny made a delivery this morning. All these years, she has been able to resist waiting outside Holy Angels to get a look at Kathleen. She has managed never to send a note or a word via Benny to her daughter. But Mrs Mahmoud has come here tonight because she needs to hear her granddaughter sing. And Teresa, her maid, was happy to accompany her, enjoying as she does, refined entertainment.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats for the second act.” The audience rhubarbs back in — the upper crust of Sydney plus quite a few music lovers. The Sydney Symphonette tunes up. The house lights come down. The stage manager puts a taper to the footlights. The curtain rises. A courtyard. A midnight moon. A fountain. Ivy and climbing roses. A cardboard cat with eyes that open and shut, and one working paw — James is irritated, we’re here for the music, not cheap theatrics. A man with a hump and a jester’s hat of bells limps importantly onto the stage. The blood recedes from James’s hands as he waits, every sinew in his body rapt and wrought like the strings on the first violin.

  The orchestra sees her first. Then she appears from behind the painted jet of water. Incandescent. Kathleen. In a flowing white gown, her undone hair a halo of fire. James sits forward slightly — stop, stop, stop everyone and just look. Before you listen. You up there in the jingling hat, be still.

  Rigoletto cries, “Figlia!” She flies into his arms; “Mio padre!” Father and daughter embrace. They weep, pledge their love, she asks what his real name is — “I am your father, let that suffice.”

  She asks who her mother was and what became of her.

  (Con effusione) “She died.”

  “Oh Father, what great sorrow — quanto dolor — can cause such bitter tears?” But he can’t tell her anything, he loves her too much. So much that he keeps her locked up here —

  “You must never go out.”

  “I go out only to church.”

  “Good.”

  — so much that he’ll put her in a bag and stab her by mistake (Orror!) — but that comes later. For now:

  “Quanto affetto! Quali cure!

  che temete, padre mio?

  Lassù in cielo presso Dio,

  veglia un angiol protettor….”

  With the first notes a frisson runs through the house; hairs spring to attention on napes of necks; erectile tissues stir unbidden beneath pearl-studded shirt fronts and matronly bodices, and within the farthest folds of nuns’ habits. Two things can inspire such a shiver: a beautiful voice, and someone walking on your grave. But only the former can allow you to share the shiver with a packed house.

  As the song takes wing, the Lyceum disappears and the heat melts away. James cannot suppress his tears. At first he’s self-conscious, then he notices other people are wiping their eyes. It’s nothing to do with the words, which are in a foreign language, or the story, which most people don’t know. It’s because a real and beautiful voice delicately rends the chest, discovers the heart, and holds it beating against a stainless edge until you long to be pierced utterly. For the voice is everything you do not remember. Everything you should not be able to live without and yet, tragically, do.

  “… Da noi toglie le sventure

  di mia madre il priego santo;

  non fia mai divelto o franto

  questo a voi diletto fior.”

  The cavatina comes to an end, a simple song. There is a silence in the hall, full of the peace that can follow music and allow you to forget for a moment your mortal enemies, flesh and time.

  The curtain falls. Applause. James releases Sister Saint Cecilia’s hand. “I’m sorry, sister.”

  She smiles, testing discreetly the harmony of twenty-seven compressed bones.

  The baritone in the hunchback suit waddles out and bows deeply with all the humility of haute ham but James pays him no mind — here she comes! The applause soars. “Brava!” cries the crowd, “Bravissima!” “Atta girl!” The audience rises to its feet. She curtsies, poised, dignified. James has never been so proud. For all his boyhood ambitions he never could have dreamt of this, of her, a gift of such magnificence. She belongs to the world, she’s almost gone, he knows that and does not begrudge it, he applauds with the rest. The baritone takes her hand, kisses it — foolish lardass, get out of the way — any second the stagehand will bring out the roses James has arranged, he can’t wait to see her face — she’s being pelted with daisies — James swivels in his chair, intending to spot the culprit, and instead looks straight into the eyes of his estranged mother-in-law. Teresa, the maid, sees the avid white face with the boy-blue eyes and bird-of-prey bones and wonders, who is he to be staring at Mrs Mahmoud?

  Meantime, the boy who fired the daisies is running towards the stage, a black haired scallywag barely out of knickerbockers. The house is still applauding. James turns to the front to see the boy vault onto the stage and kiss his daughter on the cheek. An uproar, a laugh, more applause; the youth turns pink, drops to his knees, laughing, worshipping. She knights him with a daisy, James is on his way down the aisle, going to put a stop to this, when “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your urgent attention, please!”

  Clanging a handbell at the back of the hall, it’s grey Mr Foss, head of the Orpheus Society. James stops in his tracks halfway through the brass section. The roar of the crowd dies. All eyes are on Foss, who clears his narrow throat and, with a reedy dignity befitting hope and glory, announces, “The offices of The Sydney Post have just received a cable from the provincial parliament in Halifax. Today, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Canada will heed the call of the Mother Country in her hour of need. Ladies and gentlemen. We are at war.”

  Two minutes of silence will come four years later, but for now it’s a dotted-quarter-note rest broken by the boy on stage, who springs to his feet con spirito, hurls three cheers into the air followed by a handful of petals. The Sydney Symphonette strikes up “God Save The King”. The audience sings. James reaches for the lip of the stage to steady it, for it’s suddenly gone a little lopsided.

  Late that night, twelve hours into The War, Kathleen sits at her vanity, brushing her hair before the big oval looking-glass. She is not sleepy, how could she be? Tonight she sang. The world will never be the same.

  Who is that in the glass? She sees herself for the first time. She doesn’t require soft light, not at her age, not with her looks, so the effect of three candles is excessively ravishing. Her hair sparks at every brush stroke. The candlelight carves a grotto in the gloom around her. The mirror is a sacred pool, in it she sees the future: her lips swollen with kissing, eyes caressing, come with me to my home beneath the sea and I will love you.

  She unbuttons her nightgown. My beautiful throat. Bares a white shoulder, ohh. Parts the fabric to reveal her breasts, sailor take warning. Her image floating just beneath the twilight surface, tempting herself overboard.

  She hovers her hand above a nipple that gathers and pleats to a point seeking heat. Kisses her palm with one eye on the mirror. Again, this time with her tongue. Experiments with the creation of cleavage. Arranges her hair: Gibson girl, milkmaid, madwoman, dryad. And leaves it there, spilling over her shoulders.

  It’s a self-portrait and the artist is in love.

  Her mother has warned her against gazing too long into a mirror. If y
ou like too well what you see there, the devil will appear behind you. This has always worried Kathleen in spite of the fact she knows it to be nonsense, so she has never lingered. But tonight she feels brazen. Prepared to test the theory.

  She smiles at herself. And gets stuck. Can’t move. Can’t look away or break the smile tightening to a grin on her face until she seems to be mocking herself. That’s when she sees him. Pete. In the shadows behind her. His smooth stuffed head. His hat. His no ears. His no face. She whimpers. Pete watches, Hello there. She can’t find her voice, is this a dream? In a wistful tone, Hello little girl. His no mouth, Hello.

  She explodes from the sateen stool with a cry, flies blindly through the room, through Pete for all she knows, crashes out her door, across the hall, screaming like an incoming shell to the room where her father sleeps alone. She lands heavily on his bed sobbing, “I want to sleep with you tonight!”

  He’s bolt upright, prepared to kill an intruder, but his fists turn to hands just in time to seize her shoulders. She’s shaking.

  “Shshsh,” he says.

  Carefully, through the darkness, he strokes her face. His thumb grazes her lips. “Hush now.” His hand slips round the warm back of her neck, “Hush my darling.” He kisses her cheek, the warm scent of her — he gets out of bed. Takes her briskly by the hand, “Come on, me old son,” quick march down to the kitchen, on with the electric light. In her cot, Materia is already awake. “A bad dream, that’s all, go back to sleep, missus.” Hot milk with honey, “That’ll fix you up, old buddy.”

  Kathleen sips and calms down while he reads the paper and Materia stares at the yellowing linoleum. She’ll strip the wax tomorrow.

  Back upstairs, he drags her mattress into the nursery room, where Frances and Mercedes sleep curled in their crib. Kathleen looks down at her sisters and feels her first rush of love for them, sweet bundles of babies’ breath and milky dreams. She leans down to kiss them. When she rises, a lock of her hair is twined in Frances’s fist. Gently she opens the tiny hand and tucks it under the covers.

  Kathleen snuggles into her own bed on the floor and says to her father, “Don’t go.”

  James says, “I’ll be right here,” and places his chair near the door, where he watches her till she falls asleep. Then he goes back to his own room and locks the door.

  The next day, James outsmarts the demon for the second time. He enlists.

  When James tells Materia that he has enlisted, she makes the sign of the cross. Oh no, he thinks, and tells her firmly, “It’s no good asking me not to go, I’ve already joined up.” She goes straight to church. James shakes his head. She might as well pray to the Kaiser for all the good it’ll do. He’s going, it’s done.

  Materia arrives at Mount Carmel and hurries over to Mary’s grotto. There she prostrates herself as best she can, what with her unborn cargo, and gives thanks to Our Lady for sending The War.

  Moving Picture

  James decides it can’t do any harm to carry a photo of Kathleen with him to the war. He gets one of Wheeler’s boys to come out to New Waterford. He wants to remember her in her own home setting, not in a corpse-like tableau against a backdrop of faux antiquity. Lifelike. Like her.

  After school on August 7, Wheeler’s assistant arrives with his contraption piled in Leo Taylor’s buggy, between himself and Kathleen.

  “Set ’er up out here,” says James, “in front of the house, it’s such a beautiful day.”

  The photographer peers through the circle of his thumb and forefinger at Kathleen standing motionless on the veranda with her hands folded and her feet in fifth position.

  “That’s lovely, Miss Piper, just lovely.”

  As Taylor unloads the buggy, James comes up and tells him quietly, “From now on, Taylor, any male passengers ride up front with you.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Taylor carries the boxy camera across the yard, its long hood trailing “like the severed head of a nun,” thinks Kathleen, pleased with her own ghoulishness. The photographer arcs around her, finding just the right angle, as Taylor follows with the equipment. Kathleen is still in her Holy Angels uniform. James has told her not to bother changing.

  “Beautiful, now just hold that pose, Miss Piper.”

  The photographer spears the tripod into the earth and disappears under the camera skirts. Taylor tilts a large black card above the lens. Everyone waits. Kathleen doesn’t move a muscle until snap.

  “Miss Piper, I’m afraid I must ask you to remain still.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t know you were going to take it.”

  “Do you need to stretch again?”

  “No.”

  Kathleen folds her hands once more and smiles. The photographer cranks the lens for what seems like for ever. Kathleen mutters out the corner of her mouth, “Take the picture,” just as snap —

  “Miss Piper, please.”

  “Sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t move this time.”

  Demure smile, eyes turning glassy, an eternity passes; her mind wanders, she pictures the geography teacher, Sister Saint Monica, without her veil, is she bald underneath? Do nuns go to the toilet? Kathleen scratches her nose just as snap.

  The photographer pops his head out from under the hood, “It’s not a motion camera, Miss Piper.”

  James catches Kathleen’s eye and winks. She grins. The photographer huddles once more behind the camera, “That’s nice, Miss Piper, that’s lovely, one … two … three….”

  James sneaks up behind the camera and pulls a cross-eyed face at Kathleen. She flops forward, hands on her knees, laughing into the camera, “Daddy!” — while at the same instant Materia appears in the window behind her and waves — snap. Through the lens, Materia’s hand fractures into light, framing Kathleen’s blur of hair. Materia must be holding something shiny.

  “I give up!” The photographer collapses his tripod. “You don’t have to pay me, Mr Piper, except for the fillum, I got exactly nothing.”

  “Print up the last one, b’y, I’ll pay you.”

  Leo Taylor packs the equipment back into his buggy. He’s a bit surprised. He has never seen Mr Piper anything but stern. Leo has always sensed something about Mr Piper — the thing you sense about certain dogs. Best to avoid their eye, don’t make them nervous with sudden moves. And yet here’s Mr Piper, high-jinksing with his daughter just as though he were her brother or her beau.

  James and Kathleen are still laughing as the buggy rolls off in a cloud of sepia and Materia raps on the window with the scissors.

  “Supper,” says James.

  “What’re we having?” Kathleen asks.

  “Steak and kidney pie.”

  “Yuck.”

  He ruffles her head and they go inside.

  Limbo

  The child was not right from the start. First of all, it hardly cried. Made a sound like a little wet kitten. So maybe it was just as well. The tragic part was that neither Materia nor James nor even Mrs Luvovitz knew to baptize it in time; how could they? There was nothing out and out wrong with it, it was even a big child. Full term, born the day after Kathleen got her picture taken. Did Materia weaken it when she prostrated herself at the plaster feet of Mary a few days ago? Seems fanciful to think so. And a tad blasphemous. No, it was a big child with a good strong heartbeat and it lived three days, then died, no one knows why. Crib death. It just happens, children stop, why? It’s a mystery. As though they arrive, look around with their little blind eyes and decide not to stay.

  Materia had called it Lily but it can’t be said to have been truly named; it was unbaptized and therefore no one, and therefore incinerated. James took it, wrapped in a sheet inside an orange crate — he was a little dazed — to the double company house on King Street that served as a hospital.

  Burial was not an option. Mourning was not an option. This was the other Lily, before the Lily who would live to be twice baptized, as though to make up for the first. Other Lily.

  What you do after a baby like this is get ove
r it. Don’t mope, it wasn’t meant to be. Don’t pray, prayers don’t reach limbo. Have faith, God had a reason. To test you, most likely. God never sends us more than we can bear. Offer it up. Keep in mind it was another girl.

  Materia gets on with it. Cleans the house in the night, bumping and scouring from pool to pool of kerosene light till the dawn reeks of lye and she begins to bake and bake and bake. Who’s going to eat all this? She takes it over to the Luvovitzes; Abe and Rudy are teenagers now, big boys with bottomless stomachs. Materia loves to watch them eat — beautiful healthy boys, winking at their mother, towering over her, devoted to her. Good sons.

  Mercedes and Frances are disappointed. Bewildered. Their new sister was there and then she wasn’t. Kathleen is angry; babies shouldn’t die.

  “Well, what was wrong with it?”

  “We don’t know,” says James.

  “That’s a stupid rotten answer.”

  “Life is sometimes rotten and stupid.” James prides himself on always telling her the truth.

  “Not for me it won’t be.”

  “No, not for you.”

  What upsets Kathleen most is the blank face on her mother. A baby factory. Insensate. My life will not be like that.

  James doesn’t dwell on it. He feels sorry for the thing, but it’s just as well not to have another mouth to feed. And Materia has bounced back remarkably. Like a heifer. He tries not to think it. Trouble is, she still looks pregnant. She’ll be slim again by the time I get back from the war.

  But Materia will look pregnant from now on. People will always assume she’s six or seven months. This will come in handy.

  James joins the 94th Victoria Regiment Argyll Highlanders. His captain speaks Gaelic, as does eighty per cent of the unit. James volunteers immediately for overseas duty, glad of any training that gets him away from home. Bayonet fighting at the Wellington Barracks in Halifax: rushing at bags bleeding sand, “under and up, ladies, under and up! You’re caught in his ribcage!” A British sergeant teaches them how to dig immaculate trenches, neatly sandbagged: “Not too deep, lads, we ain’t stopping long!” — just long enough for a bit of a kip, then it’s over the top with the Hun on the run. James is among the older men there. He doesn’t fraternize, he doesn’t care about King George nor does he have anything against the Kaiser. He counts the days till he’s overseas. “Under and up, ladies, under and up!”