He stood on the lawn of the Allan Memorial, looking down at Montreal.
Loonies have the best view in town.
Here and there were clusters of people gathered on the expensive grass around wood furniture. It could have been a country club. The nurses gave it away. White and perfect, there was one on the circumference of every group, not quite joining the conversation, but in quiet control, like a moon.
“Good evening, Mr. Breavman,” said the floor nurse. “Your mother will be glad to see you.”
Was that reproach in her smile?
He opened the door. The room was cool and dark. As soon as his mother saw him it began. He sat down. He didn’t bother saying hello this time.
“… I want you to have the house, Lawrence, it’s for you so you’ll have a place for your head, you’ve got to protect yourself, they’ll take everything away, they have no heart, for me it’s the end of the story, what I did for everyone, and now I have to be with the crazy people, lying like a dog, the whole world outside, the whole world, I wouldn’t let a dog lie this way, I should be in a hospital, is this a hospital? do they know about my feet, that I can’t walk? but my son is too busy, oh he’s a great man, too busy for his mother, a poet for the world, for the world …!”
Here she began to shout. Nobody looked in.
“… but for his mother he’s too busy, for his shiksa he’s got plenty of time, for her he doesn’t count minutes, after what they did to our people, I had to hide in the cellar on Easter, they chased us, what I went through, and to see a son, to see my son, a traitor to his people, I have to forget about everything, I have no son….”
She continued for an hour, staring at the ceiling as she ranted. When it was nine o’clock he said, “I’m not supposed to stay any longer, Mother.”
She stopped suddenly and blinked.
“Lawrence?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Are you taking care of yourself?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Are you eating enough?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“What did you eat today?”
He mumbled a few words. He tried to make up a menu she’d approve. He could hardly speak, not that she could hear.
“… never took a cent, it was everything for my son, fifteen years with a sick man, did I ask for diamonds like other women….”
He left her talking.
There was a therapeutic dance going on outside. Nurses held by frightened patients. Recorded pop music, romantic fantasies even more ludicrous in this setting.
When the swallows come back to Capistrano
Behind the circle of soft light in which they moved rose the dark slope of Mount Royal. Below them flashed the whole commercial city.
He watched the dancers and, as we do when confronted with the helpless, he heaped on them all the chaotic love he couldn’t put anywhere else. They lived in terror.
He wished that one of the immaculate white women would walk him down the hill.