“Our hired man,” she says. “George Ray.” Tentatively, the priest waves back. “He’s Jamaican,” she adds, not quite knowing why. The priest raises an eyebrow, whether at the fact or at the oddness of her mentioning it, she can’t tell.
“Of course,” he says. “Hired man is very welcome too.”
The rectory is a small bungalow clad in aluminum siding and sufficiently tucked away behind the church that all the times Maggie has driven past she’s never noticed it. Now, arriving at the front door, she stands with George Ray on the little concrete stoop, she in her nicest dress, he with a bottle of wine in hand. There’s only a moment of panic that the whole thing is a mistake before Lenka answers, carefully made up and wearing a necklace of thick wooden beads. She greets Maggie with a kiss on the cheek, and then, as she leans in to kiss George Ray, he chooses the same moment to thrust forward the wine. She hops back in surprise and laughs.
The priest acts pleased to see them too. The sweater he’s wearing seems meant to draw attention from his priestliness, but his collar serves as a reminder that he’s still not quite one of them. Behind him on the wall is an oleograph of Jesus prying open his chest to reveal his flaming heart.
While Lenka disappears into the kitchen, the priest leads them on a tour of the rooms. There are two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a small dining area, its table laid and waiting. As Maggie takes in the place, she realizes it’s the first dwelling other than the farmhouse she’s entered since the spring. She finds herself admiring the spotlessness of it all. Nowhere are there gouges on the wall or haphazard furniture with torn upholstery. The kitchen gleams as though nothing has ever been spilled or burnt. The effect is heightened by the priest’s obvious pride in the place. He explains that Lenka’s bedroom was a study when they arrived, and that the rectory is usually for one person but for them an exception was made. This is all the two of them need, he says. It’s bigger than their parents’ apartment in Prague.
At dinner, George Ray sits next to Maggie, and Lenka serves them all a noodle soup, which is consumed with obligatory compliments to the chef but without any conversation, only noisy slurping by the priest. Then, after Lenka has brought the sirloin and dumplings to the table, suddenly she begins to talk, as if it’s a Czech custom to withhold discussion until the appearance of the entree. While she speaks, the priest watches her as he might watch a child playing a violin piece he has taught her.
“We come four years ago, yes? Is not by choice. Josef and I are sheep, we keep opinions to ourselves, we hide in flock.” Her brother murmurs as though she has hit a wrong note, but Lenka shushes him. “After parents are arrested, is dangerous to stay. People say Canada is good for Czechs. We joke it is Siberia but colder.” George Ray gives a sympathetic laugh, and Lenka beams. “Now, in one more year, we are citizens. When we arrive, we talk no English. Today we are not too bad, yes?” Maggie and George Ray agree they are not too bad.
“What about your parents?” asks Maggie.
Lenka adjusts the napkin on her lap. “Some gulag,” she says. Maggie expects the priest to offer a word of commiseration, but he only sits gazing at his plate.
“You ever think of going back?” she asks.
“Back?” Lenka repeats it as if the possibility would never occur to any reasonable person. “No, there is no back. We come here, Josef puts heart into church. We pretend we are in paradise and not in exile.” The priest makes a face to suggest he’s familiar with this viewpoint but not approving. “Is hard on priest here—not many Catholics. There are Mennonites everywhere, you notice? Women in the black dresses, men with the buggies. People think they are nice. Josef hates them.” At this, the priest speaks sharply to Lenka in Czech, and she responds with equal severity before resuming in English. “He denies it, but I fear he is on path to becoming—jaded? Is that right? Yes, jaded. Once he has great hopes for life in America. Canada is always letting him down.”
“Is not true,” says the priest sulkily, but he offers no further rebuttal.
“What about for you?” Maggie asks Lenka. “What’s it like here?”
“In Czechoslovakia I train as legal secretary. Here, degree is worthless. Cousin in Toronto, she promises to find me a nice Czech man to marry, but I tell her I am old, I will settle for a Canadian. If I have too high standard, I will spend all my life cooking for Josef.” She smiles at the priest, who’s still sullen.
“Did you have a boyfriend in Czechoslovakia?” asks Maggie. As she does, she recognizes something too personal in the question, but it’s too late. The priest lowers his head, and Lenka gives him a glance that he doesn’t return.
“Long time ago,” says Lenka. Then she gets up to fetch something from the kitchen.
Maggie wonders what George Ray must think, listening to all this. He’s already finished his meal, unhampered by speech because no one has asked him a thing. Should she try to draw him into the conversation? No, it’s better not to expose him like that. When Lenka returns, though, it seems she’s had a similar thought, because the first thing she does is to ask him what part of Jamaica he’s from. The question is puzzling. Why does Lenka care? For a moment he doesn’t respond, and Maggie feels a nervousness on his behalf. There’s a compulsion to rush in and reply for him, though she doesn’t know the answer.
“Little place called Newcross,” he says. “Up in the mountains, not more than twenty houses, mostly farms. There’s a dry goods store and a church. Anglican,” he adds apologetically, directing this information to the priest. Josef shrugs as if to say it can’t be helped.
“You spend all the summers working in this country?” asks Lenka, and George Ray nods.
“Each time I go back, my children say I sound like a Canadian, all speaky-spokey.”
“You have children!” Lenka exclaims. “But is so long away from them! If I am prime minister, I make rule, I do not let fathers come.”
“The Canadians like fathers best,” George Ray replies. “They’re more likely to go back when the contract is finished.”
“But is hard work, no? And pay is not so good?”
Again some time passes before he responds, as if he’s weighing up how much to tell her. “Most places it’s minimum wage, ten-hour days. Rain or shine outdoors. You sleep eight or nine to a room. I don’t complain, though. Do that and the boss sends your backside home. Plenty more in Jamaica to take your place.” He speaks with a wry, amused tone that loses some of its humour as he goes. Then he turns to Maggie and sees her look of horror. “It’s not so bad where I am now.”
She tries to smile at him but can’t. She should have asked him about such things a long time ago. Perhaps she was afraid of what he’d tell her.
“Soon you will be home?” Lenka asks.
“Five weeks,” he says, and again Maggie’s taken aback. Only five? Yes, of course. He must be counting the days, eager to see his family. Perhaps next year he should come for less time. But less time is less money; surely he wants more of that. And by then Maggie could have a baby. They’ll need George Ray to look after the farm.
Now Lenka’s asking him about his wife. It’s another thing Maggie hasn’t discussed with him. She starts to feel an irritation with the questions, as if they’re meant to make both her and George Ray uncomfortable, but he seems not to mind. He says his wife’s name is Velma, and Lenka asks what it’s like for the two of them to be apart so long.
“Oh, Velma is a jealous woman,” he replies with a grin. “She says no messing with the white girls. Black girls neither. I tell her there aren’t any black girls in Canada. She says don’t sound so sad about it.”