Rebecca pulled her Jaguar coupe out of the staff parking garage behind Mount Sinai Hospital. She could do this route with her eyes closed. The night-like chill from the covered garage gave way to the sudden warmth of day on Murray Street. The patients she had just visited that morning were doing fine. Two had had troublesome organs removed (one gall bladder, one appendix), one was recovering from a mild stroke, and one had delivered a baby. Everything was fine.
Natalka would be her first appointment of the day. She had scheduled forty-five minutes for her so she could do a thorough examination. Rebecca wasn’t looking forward to it. She had seen her share of terminal illness and preferred treatable diseases. Something she could prescribe a drug for: high blood pressure, bronchitis, an overactive thyroid. She was grateful that the rest of her day would be taken up with sore throats and stomach upsets and scripts for birth control pills. That would do nicely. Iris would have everything organized for her, bless her. Only first she had to examine Natalka and hope that her condition was still in the early stages. Thank heavens a specialist would take over her treatment.
She drove south down University Avenue, the showcase of Toronto, its six lanes of traffic divided by sculpted stone monuments planted with impatiens and marigold. She turned right onto Dundas. On the outer edge of Chinatown people were already threading their way through stalls of fruit and vegetables and souvenir T-shirts that spilled onto sidewalks. The crowds and the splash of primary colours always cheered her.
A traffic report came on the radio: “Avoid Bay Street at Wellington if you can. Motorists are slowing down to take a look at the strikers carrying signs…”
She switched stations. A man’s voice shouted over the din. “For the first time in history a wildcat strike has shut down the uranium mine at Bear Lake. These men have come down in their work clothes — some are at the Legislature hoping to get the attention of Premier Bill Davis, and some are here, in front of the offices of Baron Mines. The strikers are slowly marching around in a circle, carrying handmade signs. Here’s one that says, ‘We want fresh air.’ Another one: ‘Baron Mines Death Trap.’ I’m going to wade in and speak to this fellow. What is your name, sir?”
“Bill Roberts.”
“Mr. Roberts, you’re the union rep, could you tell our listeners, what does this sign mean, ‘We want fresh air’?”
Some static crackled. “We work in Baron’s uranium mines in conditions you wouldn’t want for your dog. The ore’s filled with silica dust and gives off these radioactive gases. It’s poison. Our men are dying of lung cancer and what they call silicosis. We think it’s the conditions in the mines, but the company won’t talk to us. We want some straight answers. We’ve got the right to know if our work is killing us.”
“Why do you think they won’t meet with you?”
“John Baron’s only interested in his profits. We dynamite the ore down there — that gives off tons of poison silica dust — and we do it in the same shaft we breathe in. Other companies build hard rock mines with two shafts, one for bringing up the ore, the other for ventilation so people can breathe. John Baron only built one shaft ’cause he didn’t give a damn if we could breathe or not.” The man’s voice cracked with emotion. “He didn’t want to spend the bucks, and what with the radiation down there, we’re dying of cancer at four times the average.”
“What do you want Baron Mines to do?” asked the interviewer.
“They got to dig down that other shaft, give us proper air while we’re down there working — we’re bringing up the ore that’s making them rich.”
Rebecca drove up Beverley Street then turned left on D’Arcy. In spite of the morning sun warming her through the window, she shivered as she pulled into the small lot behind the medical building. John Baron had appeared only crude and selfish during their brief meeting; now it seemed he was also avaricious and cruel.
Iris sat at her desk behind the counter in the waiting room, checking over lab and x-ray reports that had come that morning. She looked up at Rebecca over her spectacles. “Good morning, love.”
Iris was elegant, as usual, in a grey silk suit despite the large curves of size-twenty breasts and hips. Her short hair swept up from her neck in blond wings. What a comfort she was. Rebecca would be lost without her.
The phone rang. Iris answered, “Dr. Temple’s office.”
Rebecca took up her usual position behind the counter, in a chair off to the side where she could look at reports.
“No, that’s all right, Mrs. Mullins,” Iris said into the phone while handing Rebecca some lab results. “I know you’re concerned for the baby. Come in at one o’clock.”
After Iris had hung up, Rebecca raised an eyebrow at her.
“She’s got a sore throat,” Iris said, “but she doesn’t want to take antibiotics because of the baby.”
“I’ll wait for a culture before putting her on anything,” Rebecca said. “But she’s in her third trimester. She can take some penicillin if she needs to.”
They worked quietly for a few minutes.
“Is Nesha coming for Rosh Hoshanah?” Iris asked. Rebecca didn’t look up from the report she was reading. “No,” she said. “His son has a new girlfriend and they’re invited to her parents.”
Rebecca continued to check over the blood tests and consult reports in front of her. Nesha had been flying in from his home in San Francisco once a month since they had met in the spring. Though she looked forward to Nesha’s visits, this month would be different. This month she would light a yahrzeit candle to mark the first anniversary of David’s death.
Nesha knew all about death, having witnessed the destruction of most of his family in the war. But she couldn’t share this with him. She couldn’t share it with anyone, not even Sarah, her mother-in-law, who yearned to share it with her, who would have to mourn alone. She loved Sarah in her own way and felt guilty for neglecting her, but it was all Rebecca could do to force herself to call on Sundays and pretend she’d like to talk to her more often but had no time.
The phone rang and Iris began a dialogue with a drug rep. She wheeled her chair off to the side cabinet where they stored the little boxes and tubes of medication samples the salesmen dropped off. She unlocked the cabinet door. Which samples did they want this month? More sulpha? More diuretics? More birth control pills? Yes, yes, and yes.
With Iris’s attention engaged elsewhere, Rebecca opened the drawer of the desk and felt deep inside with her hand. She had given Iris instructions to remove all photos of David from the office. His artwork had gone first. All his paintings and sketches had been replaced by reproductions of Van Gogh, Monet, and Pisarro. But Rebecca still kept the small, framed photo of them taken by a stranger in the Tuilleries garden. It was 1976 and they were in Paris on a pilgrimage for David’s art. Three years ago. Rebecca prodded the picture to the edge of the drawer and sneaked a look.
It had been taken shortly before they’d discovered the diabetes, before her world had fallen apart. They’d been married for five years then; were thinking of having children. Their arms were wound around each other’s shoulders as they grinned into the camera. They looked so young then, so happy. She hardly recognized herself. Not that she had changed so much, physically. Still the same dark bushy hair, the prominent cheekbones. But the expression of joy on her face — that was something she could only recognize from the distance.
“Try around lunchtime,” Iris said to the drug rep on the phone. “She may have a few minutes then.”
Rebecca quietly closed the drawer. She didn’t mind talking to the men who came round with their oversized cases filled with sample goodies. It was an easy way to find out about new drugs. And her patients benefitted from the free medication supplied by the supposed largesse of the drug companies. A working symbiosis.
Iris stepped over to the wall of colour-coded files and began to retrieve the folders of patients who had appointments that morning.
“My kids have put in their order for Rosh Hashanah,” she said, continuing to work. “They’re tired of turkey, so I’m going to make a brisket. Oh, and you won’t believe this: Martha’s bringing a friend. A man. It must be serious if she’s bringing him for the holiday.”
“You must be pleased,” Rebecca said.
“I’m terrified. What if he hates my cooking? What if he hates my house? I could be starting off on the wrong foot with my future son-in-law.”
Rebecca smiled.
“You’re lucky with Sarah,” Iris said. “She’s a good mother-in-law. She doesn’t push herself on you, and she’s an exceptional woman.”
Iris and Sarah had gotten to know each other during David’s illness. Each spoke glowingly of the other.
“Still, it’s nice you’re doing her this favour.”
Rebecca winced with guilt. She could hardly have refused. Yet now that she had met Natalka, she was eager to help in any way she could. Halina had called Sarah out of the blue after a very spare correspondence of not more than four letters over thirty-five years. She was desperate to get treatment for her daughter’s illness and hoped Sarah could help her. She knew Sarah’s daughter-in-law was a physician and had asked her whether Rebecca could examine Natalka and recommend a specialist to see her. Natalka seemed to have chronic leukemia, better than the acute kind, but not by much. In both cases the bone marrow produced too many white blood cells, a process that devastated the body rather quickly in the acute disease, but took a bit more time to wreak its havoc in the chronic version. With standard medical treatment she might survive three years. Her Polish doctor had told her he could do nothing more for her, but her chances would be better if she could get to the West, where they were experimenting with new drugs and treatment.
Rebecca remembered Janek’s disinterest in Natalka. Perhaps it wasn’t disinterest. Perhaps it was anger. Her illness was going to cost him a fortune. Rebecca, herself, was happy to examine Natalka without payment. And under the circumstances, the surgeon might waive his usual fee for services. But the lion’s share of the cost was hospital-related. Operating room expenses, including anaesthetic and the specialist who would administer it, lab tests, radiation, chemotherapy, hospital stay, nurses, and on and on. None of it would be covered under the province’s socialized medical insurance since they were foreign visitors.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs leading to the second floor office. Rebecca heard low voices on the landing. Sarah stepped through the doorway first, followed by Natalka and Halina.
Iris immediately came around the counter into the waiting room and warmly embraced Sarah. Rebecca followed two steps behind, noting the outlandish difference in the size of the two women: Iris, tall and broad in her grey suit, Sarah just five feet two and slender, a blue-patterned blouse tucked into a matching skirt.
“It’s so nice to see you again!” Iris said, beaming at Sarah.
Rebecca pressed her cheek to Sarah’s in greeting. She looked tired, Rebecca thought. Probably still agitated about the break-in.
Sarah introduced the other two women to Iris. After inquiring about their stay in Toronto, Iris engaged Halina and Sarah in conversation. Meanwhile, Rebecca detached Natalka from the group and ushered her into an examining room. Natalka wore a loose mauve shift dress that barely disguised the protrusion of her abdomen when she moved.
Rebecca spent twenty minutes asking her questions to get a complete medical history. She had been in good health until four months earlier, when she had begun to feel excessively tired. The only time she had ever been hospitalized was when she had delivered her daughter, Anya, fifteen years before. Rebecca underlined “fifteen,” glad that the daughter was old enough to be a candidate for a tissue match if Natalka needed a bone marrow transplant.
Rebecca was listening to Natalka’s answers, writing short notes in her file, when the woman’s voice shifted from matter-of-fact to personal.
“I am very embarrassed, I must tell you something. Mama did not tell even Sarah.” She paused, swallowed, then continued. “Doctor in Poland — he was not sure about the leukemia. Blood tests not clear. He said it could be, but it could be something else. He does not know what. He only knows I can die from it. He wrote letter that I have leukemia so I can leave Poland for treatment. Mama helped one from his relatives with visa.”
Rebecca was taken aback at first, but realized that nothing much would change in the way of her examination or the tests she ordered. Their methods were questionable, this mother and daughter, but what would she have done in the same circumstances?
Rebecca continued her questions. There was no cancer, kidney disease, or lung disease in her family. Halina’s father had died of heart disease, her mother, old age. Rebecca found nothing in her patient’s background that connected her to leukemia, no exposure to radiation or to the chemical benzol. Her only symptoms, apart from the extreme fatigue, were anemia and a dull ache on her left side that wouldn’t go away. And nosebleeds. Spontaneous nosebleeds that were hard to stop.
Rebecca took her temperature and looked into her eyes to see if there were any hemorrhages in the retina. Both were normal. An encouraging sign. She had Natalka sit on a chair while she stood behind and gently moved her fingertips over her entire throat, checking the lymph nodes.
“Tilt your head to the right, please,” she said. She felt for the cervical nodes beneath the relaxed neck muscle. “Now to the left.”
She pressed her fingers delicately around the lymph nodes, feeling whether they moved freely or were fixed to one spot.
“Is it tender here?” she asked.
“No.”
The nodes were firm and slightly enlarged, but discrete. They weren’t fused together like they would be in Hodgkin’s disease. Rebecca knew enlargement was slow to develop in leukemia.
She patted the examining table. “Please lift up your dress and lie down. I’m going to check your abdomen.”
Natalka lifted the mauve cotton fabric, draped it across her chest, and lay down, her head on a small pillow.
As Rebecca had already noted, the left side of the woman’s abdomen was swollen.
“Put your arms at your sides” Rebecca said, “and bend your knees up. It relaxes your stomach muscles.”
Rebecca rubbed her hands together briskly. “I don’t want to touch you with cold hands.”
At first, Rebecca moved one hand very lightly over the area to get a general picture of her abdomen.
“Now breathe deeply.”
She slid her hand an inch at a time from one quadrant to another. Natalka lay without a sound until Rebecca moved her fingers to the bloated left side below her ribcage. Then she winced.
“It’s tender there?” Rebecca asked.
The patient nodded.
There were many reasons why her spleen might be enlarged, ranging from infection to metabolic disorders. And then there was leukemia. The out-of-whack bone marrow filled the spleen with white blood cells, making the area ache, a common complaint of leukemia patients. The Polish doctor had given Natalka the opportunity of knowledge. Western doctors could get to the bottom of her illness. Whether the prognosis would change depended entirely on the nature of her affliction.
Rebecca continued her examination. To palpate the liver and kidneys she tilted her hand slightly with her fingers depressing the abdominal wall further to the right so that she could feel the edges of the organs. Both were the right shape and size and where they were supposed to be. It was a little tricky feeling the liver around the spleen, but at least Natalka was slender. Rebecca had several obese patients whose liver and kidneys were well hidden beneath a layer of fat and refused to reveal themselves under her hand.
Unlike the liver and kidneys, the spleen could not be outlined unless it was diseased or abnormally enlarged.
“Could you please place your left arm under your lower back?” she said.
Natalka obliged. This position helped lift and displace the spleen forward. Rebecca reached over and placed her right hand under Natalka’s left side, forcing the spleen forward even further, while the fingers of her left hand gently pressed down, searching for an edge.
Natalka groaned quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said. “Almost done. Another deep breath.”
Rebecca moved her fingers along the edge of the largest spleen she had ever felt — all the way down to the pelvic brim and over to the right side of the abdomen. Her hopes diminished. She refused to be optimistic and then face the worst. The world was a strange and terrible place. She had already found that out the hard way. Why did she keep hoping for better?
After Natalka left, Rebecca stepped into the little corner of the office where they collected blood and urine samples. A cupboard above the counter was filled with large glass jars that held dipsticks, gauze pads, disposable lancets, disposable gloves, sterile sample bottles. On one side of the counter stood a microscope and glass slides.
Rebecca used a dropper to remove a droplet of blood from the sample she had taken from Natalka. She touched the bead of blood to a glass slide, then took another slide and, angling it against the first one, moved it slowly along the glass to draw the blood flat across it. She let it dry, then fixed it with a stain. After diluting it with water and letting it dry again, she examined it under the microscope. She didn’t often go through this procedure, mostly when an immediate decision had to be made about treatment and she needed information before lab results would come back.
This was different. She doubted there was anything she could do that would dramatically alter the course of Natalka’s illness. She could call it scientific curiosity, but she knew better. She had gotten involved, and that was always dangerous emotionally.
She squinted into the microscope. She understood the confusion of Natalka’s Polish doctor. Among the red and white blood cells and platelets there were none of the blast cells associated with leukemia. And when she put another drop of blood into the counting slide, she found Natalka’s white blood cells were below normal. Not the astronomical count usually found in leukemia. That didn’t rule out the diagnosis, however. She knew better than to hope for that. Before her next patient, she looked up “Splenomegaly” in her pathology textbook.
That evening over dinner, his blue eyes smiling, her father said, “I can’t believe you’re abandoning us for a count. And not even Jewish.” He was a tall, wiry man with a nose that was too long for his face. “How do you know he’s a real count?”
“Sha!” her mother said, passing potatoes to Uncle Henry, who was always invited for Friday night dinner.
“Well, us hoi polloi usually want to see documents before we scrape and bow. Don’t you think, Henry?” He waved a chicken-laden fork at Rebecca’s uncle, a small man with the same light brown, wavy hair as Flo.
“I’d be happy with a family tree,” Henry said.
“You always were the fussy one,” said her father. Then to Rebecca, “I’m sure your uncle has a book where you can look up the count.”
Henry was a high school history teacher with encyclopaedic interests and an extensive home library. “I’m flattered by your confidence in me, Mitch, but the count, himself, is the only one who might have such a book. Unless he comes from a very illustrious family.”
“I’ll bet the count’s heard this one,” her father said. “How can you tell a Polish airline?”
She gazed at her father, wondering whether telling jokes could be classified as an addiction. “How?”
“It’s the only one with hair under its wing.”
Her mother changed the subject. “Have you heard from Nesha?” she asked, helping herself to some green beans.
“He’s got a client who’s keeping him busy,” Rebecca said.
Her mother gave her the look that said, So, what does it all mean? Rebecca shrugged. Because she didn’t know. There was something about Michael, some European charm she hadn’t encountered before. She was impressed by the title. And the novel he was working on. Maybe she was attracted to artists, what could she say?
Later on, Rebecca found a parking spot on a quiet street lined with duplexes a few blocks north of St. Clair Avenue. Night had just fallen; the heat of the day was dissipating into the dark. A fresher air cooled her arms, lifting sweat from the back of her neck. It was still warm enough for her olive green cotton pants and little black top. She walked along the brightly lit sidewalk of Lawton Boulevard, past pretty lawns where end-of-summer geraniums, impatiens, and alyssum slept in the shadows. She could see Yonge Street up ahead.
She jaywalked across Yonge, threading her way through some cars slowing down for the light at St. Clair. She headed toward the red neon sign.
Fran’s was a throwback to the fifties, with its high-backed padded booths, jukeboxes, and arborite tables. The waitresses tended to be dumpy, middle-aged women with bad perms and friendly dispositions.
Only a half-dozen tables were occupied when Rebecca stepped inside. Michael stood up from a booth partway down the restaurant, a confident arm raised in the air. She smiled and walked toward him. He looked out of place there, with his elegant taupe blazer and tanned skin. Too continental for Fran’s, escargot to their chicken potpie. He was nursing a glass of white wine. She would never have thought of ordering wine at Fran’s.
“I’m so glad you could come,” he said, waiting for her to sit down opposite him in the booth.
He lifted an index finger and raised his head imperiously. A waitress appeared in a flash. Her round eyes fixed coquettishly on Michael, her dentures ajar, waiting for his word. He nodded slightly at Rebecca.
“I’ll have an iced tea,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the waitress said, managing another look at Michael before turning around and heading for the kitchen.
When the waitress had gone, he said, “You saw Natalka today. How was she?”
She didn’t want to be rude and mention patient confidentiality, so she said, “She’s holding her own. She’s very brave.”
He nodded absently. “Poles are known for their bravery. They often have nothing else. Will she be all right?”
The question was not new to her. Only this time she was stumped for an answer. She wasn’t usually personally involved. “I don’t know.”
He seemed to wait for more, nodded again. “I’m sorry. It’s not my business.” He sipped his wine and studied her face, a smile playing on his lips. “You know, there’s something about your face that looks Polish.”
“Is that good?”
“Polish women are the most beautiful in Europe. Jewish women — they are the dark beauties of Poland.”
Wildly flattered, but embarrassed, she said, “My mother was born in Warsaw but came here when she was a little girl.”
“I knew it. I can see it in the cheekbones, the almond shape of your eyes.”
He was still observing her when the waitress placed a tall glass of iced tea in front of her.
“Do you have children?” he asked.
“I have a son who looks like me. For this I’m both exhilarated and dismayed. Exhilarated because he will become me when I am gone. Dismayed because he didn’t inherit his mother’s nose.”
“And where is his mother?”
“She remarried and moved to upstate New York.”
She looked at the steady blue eyes and strong pointed chin. “I’m sure he must be very handsome.” She felt swept up in a cross-cultural trance. She would never have said such a thing to a native Canadian. She was also not going to mention his hands, one of which was draped loosely around his wine glass.
“Does he live with you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Edward’s studying journalism in Ottawa. He’s a very smart boy. Very talented. I don’t say this just because I’m his father.” He gave a sour little smile. “I miss him very much. Do you want to have children?”
The question caught her off guard. “I’d like to someday, yes.”
“Was that question too personal? I’m sorry.”
She politely dismissed the suggestion with a tiny wave of her hand.
“I find Canadians very shy. Poles are very frank with one other. We meet someone for the first time and in an hour we know everything about each other.”
She grinned at him, charmed by his openness.
“I would certainly have been asked about my hands by now.”
She sighed. “All right. You have remarkable hands. I’ve never seen hexadactyly outside a textbook. May I see?” She put her hand on the table palm up.
He placed his hand in hers, stretching out his six fingers with cool assurance. “It runs in the family.”
“You have six toes too?”
Her other hand moved his fingers gently apart to check the spaces between. “What’s unusual is that they’re symmetrical. Often, hexadactyly — or poly-dactyly — means an extra thumb or an extra pinky finger. They usually look like an afterthought. Often they’re surgically removed at birth. But you have the extra one in the middle so it’s hard to tell unless you count. It looks completely normal. You must have a devilish time trying to find gloves.”
“Shoes are worse.”
She smiled, his warm hand still in hers. “Did you ever consider surgery on your feet?”
“No, Doctor. Luckily I can afford expensive shoes.”
He bent forward over the table and turned his hand so that his fingers curled loosely around hers. “So why did you become a doctor?”
She sighed, choosing her words with care. “I was idealistic when I was young. I thought I could make a difference.”
“And now?”
“I’m no longer young. And now I have to satisfy myself with small contributions. Delivering a baby. Discovering the root of someone’s pain.”
“Those are not small. If I could do what you do, I would very satisfied with my life. You belong to the most honourable profession.”
“I’m not — Thank you,” she said, trying to accept the compliment graciously. “And you? You aren’t satisfied with your life? Writing is also an honourable profession.”
“I write to try to resurrect my family. Poles have long memories. They live in the past, and I’m no exception. I’ve never gotten over the death of my parents, and with this novel, I try to find the secrets of my father’s family.
“I didn’t know you were writing about your family. Did your parents die in the war?”
“Surprisingly, they managed to survive the war. They died six months later. One of their own people betrayed them.”
“What happened?” she said.
“Do you really want to hear?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
He took a breath. “Before the war, my parents, more my mother really, managed an estate for a very wealthy family — they’re called magnates in Poland. My parents lived very well in a beautiful large house in exchange for managing the estate, which was really a huge farm. My Aunt Klara and her family also lived with us. It was like a feudal system. So — magnates on top, then my parents, then beneath them, some other families who were in charge of the peasants working in the fields. Halina’s parents were one of those families. This is how I know her.”
“Her parents worked for your parents.”
“They all worked for the magnate, but it was a hierarchy. Then the war came. My parents suffered, but they managed to survive. Aunt Klara was taken away in a transport — she had the bad luck to be in town on market day when the Nazis arrived to deport people. She came back after the war, but her husband and two sons had died in a camp. Meanwhile, I’d spent five years in the forests fighting with the partisans. Only half the estate was still standing, the land ravaged, but my parents were lucky. Until the Soviets took over.
“The winter after the war, we had nothing. A few vegetables — seed potatoes mostly — and we barely lived off those. People were getting typhus from the water. I was twenty. Skinny as a rake from constant starvation. But I was happy just to be home with my family.” He stopped suddenly. “But you don’t want to hear all this.”
“I’m very interested. Please go on.”
“One day, a Soviet delegation arrived at our estate and arrested us for collaborating with the Nazis. I’d spent every day for five years risking my life fighting the Nazis. The charges were absurd, but it was no use. Someone had denounced us. I didn’t know who. That was all it took in those days. For someone to say we were anti-Communist. They even said we’d given out anti-government leaflets. Completely false. But it didn’t matter. Of course, with us gone, it was easier to nationalize the estate.” His gaze drifted away.
“And then?” she asked.
“Then they forced us into a boxcar on a train filled with people they were trying to get rid of. Men who had fought with the Armia Krajowa, especially. People who owned land, workers who complained, anyone who had been denounced by a neighbour. The train was unheated and the winter was unbearably cold. It was mid-February and we travelled east for three weeks in an unheated train. Many people died during the journey. I’ll never forget how cold it was. When we got to the camp —” He shook his head. “I can’t describe it… it was hell on earth. My parents were dead within a year.”
He finally let go of her hand and picked up his glass, gulping down his wine. Raised his finger for the waitress again.
“They took you to Siberia?”
He nodded. “It took me five years to escape. I was barely alive when I came back. Aunt Klara nursed me back to health. And I saw Halina again. She was visiting her parents for the summer with her little girl. She’d been very fond of my father.”
“Did you ever find out who denounced you?”
He finished another glass of wine. “I was in hiding. If I went around asking questions, the secret police would’ve found me. Not a day goes by that I don’t curse him. But life goes on.” The lines around his mouth hardened and he looked more his age.
“How did you end up in Canada?”
He leaned his elbows on the table and made a steeple with his fingers. “Halina told me that Janek had made a lot of money in Canada. She wrote to him and told him I was coming and that it was his patriotic duty to give me a job. She remembered my parents — especially my father. She was working for Orbis by then, so it wasn’t hard for her to get me the papers I needed to leave the country. I had nothing to stay for. If Janek welcomed me, fine. If not, I had survived worse.”
“So Halina, a card-carrying Communist, helped you escape the Communist regime.”
“Politics are a farce in Poland. She’s a Communist for convenience, not ideology.”
“So what do you do for Janek?” she said, avoiding the subject of the strike.
He smiled. “I’m his social secretary. I make sure his meetings go smoothly. That nobody leaves mad.”
“I’ll bet that’s not easy.”
He shrugged. “I’ve learned a lot about business from him over the years. He’s a hard man; not many people could do what he does.”
“Maybe they have more scruples.” She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’ve been listening to the radio. The strikers are very angry.”
“They have a valid point of view,” he said, sipping his wine. “But they wouldn’t have jobs if he didn’t create the company. They’ve been making good wages, supporting their families for years on the money he paid them.” He rubbed his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. He was too anxious to get his company off the ground. Some things were overlooked. Safety issues. Things will have to change. I wouldn’t want to be in his position.”
Enough about Janek. “How do find time to write?” she said.
His steady blue eyes watched her. “I make time. I stopped bringing my work home with me. Janek’s not so happy about that, but he likes the idea of the book so he stays off my back. Now it’s like a drug for me. When I’m writing my book, it takes me very far away. I go back more than two hundred years: 1750 is just yesterday. The people I’m writing about are historical characters; they actually existed. The one I’m most interested in is the last king of Poland, Stanislaw Poniatowski. My mother always told me that our family line goes back to him. His mother was a Czartoryski — one of the leading Polish families — and they will all have a role in the book. They are more real to me than most of the people I meet. I don’t usually tell people this,” he leaned over the table, “but there’s a secret at the heart of the story, a wonderful, terrible secret. What’s important is that it contradicts written history, and my publisher is excited about that.”
“Contradicts written history?”
“I’ve discovered something quite extraordinary. Rather by accident while I was doing research on the king. He was a sensitive artistic man who loved women. And they loved him back. He had a host of mistresses, and that was my problem. They all had children by him. I knew one of them was my ancestor. So I got the list of them and checked them until I was blue in the face, but they were all accounted for. None of them was my great-great-great-grandmother. So I developed a theory. More than a theory. I believe it’s true.” He smiled sheepishly.
“It’s not important to the world. Just to me. And the scholars who’ll have to rewrite the textbooks. That’s what I started off with. To shed light on my family, shake the family tree and find some royal apples. But after all my reading, I’ve found something different, a new world. It’s their innocence that appeals to me. Despite the wars, the corruption, their world was blameless compared to ours. They could never imagine what the world has become. In 1750 there was still hope. That’s what we’ve lost. Hope.”
She hardly knew what to say to such pessimism. He had certainly seen too much.
“Surely there’s always hope.”
He gave a small, tired smile. “Yes, of course. There must always be hope. We tell ourselves that in desperation because how else could we go on. But two hundred years ago, people were just waking up. Imagine a child entering puberty: he looks around and everything is changed. Suddenly he begins to understand things. This was the Enlightenment. Our modern sensibilities were born then, the idea that everyone has the right to life and happiness.”
“That sounds very democratic for a count,” she said, teasing him with a smile.
“Janek is the one who tells people I’m a count. It’s good for business. He wants to impress the people on Bay Street with my name on the board of directors. It gives him a certain cachet.”
He needs it, she thought.
“He’s quite anxious for me to finish the book. I’m working on the last chapter. Once it’s published he’ll revel in the publicity. He’s very conscious of how people see him, and he wants to show all the snobs in the financial world he’s just as good as they are. Better.”
No, she thought, I won’t tell him I detest the man. Instead, she said, “Is your publisher waiting for it too?”
“Yes, but before he gives me a contract, he insists I show him proof of my version of history. Halina’s brought something from Poland that’ll give me crucial information.”
He gave her a cagey smile. “A gift that Poniatowski gave to my great-great-great-grandmother. I’ll be happy to show it to you when Halina gives it to me.”
After leaving Fran’s they strolled along St. Clair toward Yonge Street.
“Where did you park?” he asked.
“On the other side,” she peered across Yonge, “a few streets over.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Where did you park?” She suspected he had parked in one of the nearby lots.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said.
He took her elbow in his hand as if they were crossing an elegant ballroom and guided her across the street on the green light. She felt curiously underdressed beside him in her cotton pants and top, even with the lacy black sweater she’d thrown over her shoulders. He had let go of her elbow and every now and then as they walked along the side street his arm bumped softly against hers.
“Do you mind if I ask you — how did your husband die?”
She glanced sideways at him. Perhaps she had overrated openness. “He was diabetic. His kidneys failed.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “When?”
“A year ago. In two weeks it’ll be a year.”
“Was he a lot older?”
“He was thirty-three.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“What was he like?”
“He was an artist. He had a very good eye.”
“He painted?”
“He used oils mostly. He was starting to work with acrylics — they dry instantly and you’ve got to be fast with them. He knew he was running out of time.”
“You still miss him. A year is very little. A year is no time at all.”
“People expect me to have moved on. They think a year is enough.”
He took her arm and looped it through his as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “People who haven’t gone through it don’t understand. This kind of pain doesn’t go away.”
She stopped and turned to him, her breath suddenly ragged. “It has to go away. I can’t live like this.”
The blue of his eyes had turned navy, the ends of his mouth stiffened. He lifted his hand and stroked her hair. “Time will help. Time will dull the pain. And Sarah. You’re lucky you have Sarah to help you through it.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. Idiotic tears. “I can’t talk to her about it. I think she blames me. I didn’t catch it in time. The diabetes.” She swiped viciously at a tear sliding down her cheek.
The same hand that had stroked her hair now touched her back and tentatively pressed her forward into an embrace. A cautious, unaccustomed movement, as if it had been a long time since he’d held a woman. In the middle of the dark sidewalk, his arms stretched around hers, uncertain and protective at the same time.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”