“Jeffrey,” the caller said, “this is Carter Dorson in Truro.”
“What’s on your mind today, Carter?” Paine said.
“Well, if you read your Scripture, you might interpret a drought like we’re having as a warning. We’ve got to change our ways. Course, no original Bible story took place in Atlantic Canada, you don’t have to tell me that, but if you simply replace the names Sodom and Gomorrah with the name Halifax — what I’m saying is, something’s put the temperature way out of whack, and how people live down there might be why we’re all being punished—”
“Slow down, there, Carter,” Paine said. “The fair city of Halifax?”
Then David heard William’s truck. He switched off the radio, threw on his trousers, grabbed his camera, stepped onto the porch, quickly adjusted the lens and started to take photographs. William got out of the truck, reached in back and took down two suitcases, which he carried toward the house. Maggie came out smiling and embraced Stefania, then Isador, then stepped back and let them look at her recent shapeliness. Stefania kissed Maggie again. To David, Stefania and Isador looked a bit the worse for wear: it was a long journey for people their age, and according to what he’d observed on his honeymoon, the Tecoskys were already in declining health. Isador especially moved slowly. Yet they both looked tremendously pleased to be at the estate.
Through the telephoto from his porch, David photographed Isador as he kissed his own fingers, reached up and touched the mezuzah, the ancient talisman nailed to the doorframe. Then Stefania touched it, and everyone went into the house.
David sat on a porch swing for an hour or so, facing the main house, hoping for a glimpse of someone or something going on, an observer. Now I understand John Pallismore, he thought. But this was more: how would he get back into a life he never learned to fully occupy to begin with?
Inside the main house, Maggie prepared a lunch of roasted chicken and garlic green beans, light on the garlic. When Maggie complained that the kitchen was too stuffy, William brought in a fan. “If I feel faint,” she said, “I’ll drink some water and lie down. But just now I’m fine, Dad. And I’m so happy. I can hardly believe Stefania and Izzy are here!”
“Want to ask David over yet?”
“No, I do not, thank you.”
This was said while Stefania and Isador were freshening up in the downstairs guest bathroom. William had brought both of their suitcases to the master bedroom upstairs.
“I never thought I’d be saying this in November,” William said at lunch, “but it’s warm enough to take a swim before dinner.”
“That would be nice,” Maggie said. “The baby’s kicking up a storm. When I’m in the water, I can almost feel her relax.”
Maggie on the living room sofa, Stefania and Isador upstairs, William in the guest room, each took a nap after lunch. David slept on the porch swing. At 5:30 William put on swim trunks and stepped out onto the lawn, where he found Stefania and Isador waiting, wearing their own swim outfits retrieved from a bureau drawer. Stefania’s was dark blue with a frilly skirt, which William recognized as prewar vintage. Her wrinkled, small body, white hair bobby-pinned without design. Isador had on a black suit that looked at least two sizes too big. The shoulder straps loose on his bony shoulders. Maggie then appeared, stepping down from the porch in her one-piece. “A fine afternoon for a swim,” she said, and the four of them set out for the pond.
“Where’s David?” Isador said.
“He’ll be back soon,” Maggie said.
David heard voices, woke with a start, went inside and photographed Isador, Stefania, Maggie and William through the kitchen window as they passed by. Mist had begun rising in wispy, wavering columns from the water. “The bank is slippery, so be careful now,” Maggie said.
“Margaret says the bank is slippery,” Isador said into Stefania’s better ear. Then, speechlessly, they all held hands in a daisy chain and slowly entered the water, keeping each other in balance. Observing all of this, David thought, I’ll have to invite myself. He went into his bedroom, put on his Dalhousie University gym shorts. Everyone of importance to him was already in the pond.
Yet invited or not, David hesitated at the screen door. He listened to their drifting voices. On no evening did the entire pond mist over evenly, and now he saw the cattails at the north end had almost completely disappeared. He waited another fifteen minutes or so, then walked down. He couldn’t see anyone. “Fog registered its ghostly imprimatur over the mortal life.” That, a sentence from Anatole France — he knew that much, yet couldn’t recall from which novel. The swans were silent, wherever they were.
David made his way into the water. Through thickening mist he heard William’s voice: “…Naomi Bloor telephoned. Someone’s brought in a gun-shot swan. She’s got it eating, but one wing is useless. Naturally she wanted to know if we’d take it in.”
“How can we not?” Isador said. “Of course. Yes.”
“I’ll let her know, then,” William said.
Silence, light splashing, then Isador said, “Stefania, I confess, on the hottest days, when you were off in Parrsboro, I’d swim in this pond without you. I hope you can forgive me.”
“But Isador, certainly you kept your suit on,” Stefania said. “You’ve always been too modest that way.”
“And when I went into Parrsboro?” Isador said. “On the hottest days?”
“Oh, certainly, Izzy. Of course I swam without you. But I was less modest.”
Laughter; silence; and then Maggie said in a tone of excited alarm, “I have to go to the hospital now.”
David said from his invisible place, “I’m here too!” But he was not heard; he might better have shouted. William helped Maggie gain dry ground, followed by Isador and Stefania. David clambered out last, but he’d been farthest out in the pond. Maggie saw him and said, “She’s arriving three days early, David. That’s probably my mother’s impatience with things”—thinking in terms of inheritances. Maggie, William, Stefania and Isador walked to the main house. David ran to the guesthouse, put on trousers and a long-sleeve white shirt and loafers, ran out and stood by Maggie’s car, which was parked next to the truck.
In a short while William emerged from the house carrying Maggie’s overnight case. Maggie came out next, followed by Stefania and Isador, who shut the door behind him. Wet hair; dry, clean clothes; Maggie and her beloved entourage, not a thought in their heads except for her and Stefania Field’s well-being. As things should have been. In Maggie’s room, the baby quilt, in the crib made by Ezra Murry, was turned down. Maggie then crouched with a moan and slightly pained laughter into the back seat of her car. Stefania got in next to Maggie, and Isador sat in the front seat, passenger side. William looked across the hood at David, who took a step forward, then stopped. “All of us will go on ahead,” William said. “You take the truck. Maybe get your camera, David. Why not take some pictures? For the album, remember?”
Maggie heard this through the open window; she approved, then felt a contraction. “We really need to go now, Dad,” she said. “I mean right now.”
“Right,” William said, getting in behind the wheel and starting up the car. They drove off. David lit out for the guesthouse, got his camera, and by the time he looked again, Maggie’s car was out of sight. David knew William would drive forthrightly.
David set the camera on the front seat of the truck, turned the ignition, drove to Route 2, where William stood next to Maggie’s car near the mailbox. He held his right hand outstretched and began to push downward in rapid motions, gesturing David to stop the truck. David parked where the drive met Route 2, switched off the ignition, grabbed his camera and got out. He stood next to the truck. “There’s room in the back seat,” Maggie said through the open window.