David hurried to the guesthouse, pressed the Play button on the tape recorder, sat at the table and listened to Maggie’s voice:
David: First off, apparently I didn’t mean enough to you that you would ever drive to my apartment here in Halifax and simply pound on my door until I answered or even wait out front of my building. Nor could you burden yourself to follow me to London or Amsterdam or anywhere else, once you’d found out which city the ensemble traveled to, which I know you did now and then because my faithful assistant Carol Emery told me. What sort of husband sorry for his actions would not do those things? What sort of husband? These are questions I’ve been asking myself. Have you asked them of yourself? Playing nursemaid to my father all these months — well, I’m sure it’s kept you busy. And I know he’s appreciated it, in his own way. In fact, I was glad you were there. But he’s been able to take care of himself for some time now, hasn’t he, and still you haven’t once been to Halifax exclusively to see me. You drove down to see a movie and a play with Naomi Bloor but not to see your own wife. Anyway, since you did whatever you did or didn’t do with whomever she was in your hotel room in London the very same day I departed our honeymoon for Halifax, I’ve gotten along. But I keep asking, lord in heaven, who is David Kozol to me now? My husband still on paper. Months back I actually listed the reasons I fell in love with you. One, I’d imagined you’d be capable of conversations always — you know, as we went through time together. Two, the bedroom was nice, got nicer in Islay, according to my lights, at least, so I imagined that into the future, too. Three, your understanding of how deep love could go, when you responded to that waitress on Islay. That was after our marriage, of course. But most important, I felt like myself. Comfortable with myself with you. None of this completed the whole picture, naturally, but that was my list, which I tossed out after writing it. Things like that are memorized in your heart anyway — you don’t need a piece of paper. Possibly we got married before we really knew each other well enough. But I never honestly felt that, and I still don’t. I certainly felt we knew each other very well on Islay on our honeymoon. Very well indeed. And I think now we have to begin a second marriage within the first one, which ended pretty fast thanks to you — but also, I admit, thanks to me not considering forgiveness. But I’ve been fuming. I simply refuse to hold my ignorance about you to blame. I read a Jewish proverb a few months ago, in Stefania and Izzy’s library, in a book of proverbs from all over the world. It said, “I’ll forgive and forget, but I’ll remember.” Maybe it originally pertained to some family grudge from biblical times, but I immediately applied it to us. Me toward you, I mean. Much just doesn’t matter anymore. Who what where when and why doesn’t matter so much anymore. I refer to the hotel room in London. What does matter is two decisions I’ve made. The first is, I’m naming the baby Stefania Field, and I am not soliciting your opinion. The name is not meant to slight my mother, and I’ve told my decision to my father already and he approved. Secondly, if we decide to stay married, if that’s in the cards, we have to live separately. To put it bluntly, I’d like you nearby but not in the same house as Stefania Field and me for the three months I get off with pay from, the Dalhousie Ensemble. And I might ask for longer, though that’d be without pay. Plus, I’m not sure the DE could get along much longer than that without me. By the by, I asked Naomi Bloor in person if she ever slept with you. She’s an honest person. My father has invited me to stay in the main house. Stefania Field can have the same room I had as a child. You may stay in the guesthouse. I always find it peaceful at the estate. My mother, as you know, is buried by the stone wall. And naturally you should spend as much time with Stefania as possible, for her sake. It would be an accurate understanding of the situation to consider yourself a guest. My husband, a guest living in the guesthouse. Oddly enough, these last months I’ve had more or less a fairly normal time of it, nights crying myself to sleep included, I’m not ashamed to say. I’ve been to European capitals. You’ve been to Parrsboro and back umpteen times, I understand. What you did was so disappointing, there’s times it unnerves me. But I’m disappointing in all this too. But do you know what? We’re no more disappointing, I suppose, than life itself is sometimes. I realize just now that’s a sentiment I heard Stefania Tecosky express a long time ago. But no matter, I also believe it. When thinking of you causes me pain, I just think of Stefania Field about to be born. Just yesterday I wrote to Stefania and Izzy overseas and told them our daughter’s name. I’m going to the doctor today. Just a regular checkup. On my own, except not really, because no pregnant woman is really on her own, is she, if you take my meaning. Anyway, David, give a second marriage some thought. As will I.
There was about a thirty-second pause, during which David stared at the tape, still turning on its spool. Then Maggie continued:
One more thing for now. Remember the strange woman on Islay, driving by with the swan in her back seat? She’s settled in my mind a certain way. I know full well that on Islay she might be considered some old crazy. What did our waitress say? “She thinks that swan’s her dear departed husband”—warn’t that it? But my own personal conclusion is that I envy that old woman. To love someone so deeply and with such devotion you obviously have no choice in the matter but to keep seeing him in one form or another. I would like that for myself. To be married to a man I’d eventually feel that way about.
A Phrase Favored by Her Mother
IT WAS 6 A.M. and David lay in bed listening to the radio: “…the possibility of showers late in the day, especially in Cape Breton and…”
He dozed off, woke again around 8:15, to Around the Province, a show out of Truro whose host, Jeffrey Paine, took calls from listeners on this or that topic. “The words ‘November’ and ‘heat wave’ make for strange bedfellows here in Adantic Canada,” Paine said. “Yes, sir, we have children still in short sleeves lined up for the school bus. My air conditioner’s acting so cool toward me, I don’t even know what I did to hurt its feelings! This heat’s affecting everybody So let’s hear from you. Whether your garden’s still producing summer squash, or you fear it’s due to a hole in the ozone layer, or whatnot, ad infinitum. The lines are open. I’m Jeffrey Paine and this is Around the Province for November 6, 1986, from the very center — the epicenter — the center of the center of the province, Truh-oh!” Paine’s agenda was fairly staid, but he used to have a rock ’n’ roll show and on occasion still lapsed into deejay chatter, referred to himself as “Jeffrey P,” offered the odd pop-culture reference (“Well, allow me to quote one of the Canadian gods, Mr. Leonard Cohen”) and so on.
Maggie had been living in the main house for nearly a week. David knew that all considerations were focused on Stefania Field, officially due in three days. William had left a letter from Stefania Tecosky on his kitchen table, which in part read, We will arrive on November 6, hoping to be on time for the birth of Margaret and David’s daughter.”
William picked up Stefania and Isador at Halifax Airport at 7 A.M. David knew they’d be at the estate any moment now. He should rouse himself, get his camera ready on the porch to chronicle their arrival, and he did sit at the edge of the bed, rubbing his face, thinking of coffee so intensely he could almost smell it brewing, though he hadn’t even ground his usual morning’s three cups yet. But then a call came in to Around the Province that caught his attention, and he sat there listening to it.