Jesse’s two-up, two-down home had a lurching glassed-in porch. Mossy shingles edged the mansard roof where snow had melted, and the front yard measured in arm spans. Tucked in the narrow lot behind was a treasured herb garden, lovingly tended while Jesse’d been away by pensioner Gino Teolis next door.
Wary of the slippery, uneven wooden steps, Belle entered the enclosed porch. Beside a lumpy, plastic-covered sofa, which creaked on rusty rockers, she spotted Jesse’s prized mukluks. She bent to stroke the soft leather, delicate beading and quillwork, the greeting of an old friend.
“Hellooooo,” she called loudly as she entered the compact living room, remembering Jesse’s hearing problems. Behind were the kitchen, bathroom and a work room, the two bedrooms upstairs in “Siberia” with the temperatures of a meat locker thanks to the underpowered and fumy forced-air oil heat. Shelves in the living room were crammed with Jesse’s sculptures. Over twenty clay masks, some decorated with feathers, acorns and leaves, gazed down from the walls. One trio, maiden-mother-crone, had won first prize at the La Cloche Art Show on Manitoulin Island. Piles of boxes testified more to the old woman’s general laissez-faire about neatness than to her recent return. Faded magazines and yellowed newspapers often waited for decades until she delved into them for a timely article.
A moment later, Belle heard a slow pounding on the steps from upstairs, and a huffing heralded Jesse Schoenberg’s arrival. Belle peered in wonderment. Was there such a creature as a Jewish witch? Jesse had shed years abroad in the fruitful desert. The tan helped, as did the dark hair, tightly crimped. At her age, it must be white, but Belle had never noted anything but varying shades from Irish setter to oxblood.
One of the University of Toronto’s first female graduates in physical education, a gym teacher before marriage, Jesse towered over Belle and carried twice her weight. She enveloped her young friend in a massive bear hug, her Norwegian sweater faintly redolent of lilac, the stiff ribs of her “foundation” buttressing her. Then she plucked a giant tissue from her sleeve and blew her large beak with a honk. “I might as well write my obituary, or maybe you can. This Gulag will be the death of me.”
Belle grinned for the first time in days. “You’re a miracle on two legs.”
Over glasses of hot tea sucked through sugar cubes, she told Jesse what had just happened. “And I forgot an appointment.”
“Small wonder, with that goon you described. Ver geharget. May he get himself dead. And you aren’t to grow an ulcer about dear Harold’s business. You can brief me, and we’ll open at the crack of dawn. I’ll hold the fort.”
Soothed by the tone along with the comforting clichés, Belle relaxed in an overstuffed armchair with scratched mahogany trim, its satin arms worn and nubbly, the lacy antimacassar tatted even before Jesse’s birth. The coffee table held a selection of dates and figs from Jaffa, along with a soft alpaca scarf, Belle’s late Christmas present. “And I don’t have anything for you,” she said mournfully, rubbing the soft wool against her cheek. Then she hunted up her coat and probed the breast pocket, retrieving the grouse feather, which she presented. “I wish I could pay you, but Miriam will need . . .”
Jesse tickled Belle’s chin with the feather. “It’s perfect for my Puck mask. Now shush. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Needs, wants. Don’t we have enough? A jackpot could be around the corner. Remember that time at Sudbury Downs when I won . . .”
They laughed together. Instead of buying a new furnace, Jesse had splurged on a trip to Hong Kong, spending a week at a monastery on Lantau Island, eating vegetarian meals and sketching the carved spirits which decorated the roofs.
“Where’s the Bonneville?” Belle asked, tasting a succulent date more from hospitality than hunger.
“Gino’s tuning it. Drained everything and kept it on blocks in his shed while I was gone. What a man. Maybe I should consider a second marriage.” She ran large, knobby fingers over a dusty clutch of five-year-old magazines. “But then I’d have to clean. And nothing has changed since I left, even the Prime Minister.”
“Maybe his wife can convince him to retire. No one else can,” Belle added, her humour reviving as fast as the rose hip tea warmed her bones.
With Jesse in charge of the office that week, resurrecting old friends to review their realty needs, Belle called the hospital and was assured that Miriam could see visitors. On the following Monday morning, she turned left at the double snowflake complex of Science North, passing the new mega-hospital, now seventeen million dollars over budget, then the gleaming metallic buildings of Shield University, all gathered on the shores of Lake Ramsey. Upper level professionals cantilevered their designer homes along the beaches and rocky cliffs, absorbing five-figure tax bills. Very few unimproved lots remained in what once was cottage country, but at one hundred thousand dollars per fifty feet, they were money in the bank for the owners.
Though on her first visit she had merely dropped off the small suitcase, now she had time to survey the old brick sanatorium, its name a relic of the former tuberculosis institution on site. Renamed as the Northeast Mental Health Centre, the hospital sat surrounded by groves of pure white birch, peaceful and still, except for the occasional muffle of an early snowmobile on the newly frozen lake. A C-shaped set of bungalows housed a special First Nations treatment area. In front of the main doors was a weatherproof gazebo with a picnic table where smokers gathered, oblivious to the frigid temperatures.
Across from a small tuck shop called the Dandelion Café, she checked in with a blue-haired, pink-smocked volunteer at reception. Given Miriam’s name, the woman consulted a short list and then asked for identification. “Is Dr. Parr here today?” Belle asked, flashing her driver’s license.
“Take the elevator to the right to the third floor. He’s often in the lounge at this time. Can’t miss him.”
Belle followed her directions, and shortly after, entered a large room with huge windows, homey furniture, and a kitchenette. A fifty-inch television was partitioned off with soundproof panels and several armchairs. In front of a huge aquarium, a Hobbity figure traced a finger along the glass, attracting the wide-eyed attentions of a blue and yellow discus. Except for the white lab coat with a plastic pocket protector, he might have been a seventh grader.
“I used to have fish,” she said by way of introduction. “When they got too big for the tank, I donated them to Science North.”
“Ted Parr,” he said, shaking her hand warmly. “You’re here to visit a patient, I gather.”
Belle nodded, following the trail of a prehistoric plecostemos scouring the glass like a diligent janitor. “Miriam MacDonald.”
He flopped onto a sectional sofa and patted the seat, fixing her with a broad smile. “You’re Belle. Miriam has told me so much about you.”
Joining him in embarrassment, she made the obligatory sounds of humility. On cursory examination, Parr seemed barely thirty, with smooth baby skin, short brown hair, and one discreet gold earring. Yet the wisdom of his jade green eyes creased with laugh lines added years. His voice strong but sensitive, he betrayed no clinical confidences, merely assured her that Miriam would be glad to see her. “Keep the conversation upbeat,” he advised, picking up a clipboard as he looked at his Mickey Mouse watch. “She’s fragile, despite her bravado.”
A door at the end of the lounge opened, and Belle blinked. Miriam seemed to have shrunk, or was it the loose outfit? Institutional food could be a turnoff. She should have hit Tim’s for . . . then hot tears ran down her face as they embraced.
Belle looked into Miriam’s eyes, shadowed but unwavering. “Frail” could never describe her friend, but ten lost pounds had done a number. She shuffled for words, feared that she might stutter. “How are the meals? I’m sorry I haven’t sent . . . didn’t bring . . .”
Miriam passed her a tissue from a handy box on the end table. “Wouldn’t you think of food before anything else? Let’s sit down. I haven’t been walking much.”
They