The Garneau Block Part 37

"That's great."

"Independent of each other, we were struck by the story on CBC the other night. And then the newspaper."

"They weren't supposed to show the crying part. I could take legal action."

"Mr. Weiss, we were all so touched." The woman in purple adjusted the old teddy bear in her arm and placed her right hand upon her heart. "Thank you."

Before him, the women applauded again.

"But they weren't supposed to"

"We decided, in our small way, we had to help you poor people."

"Actually, the university's giving us ten per cent above market value for the house and prices are already at a historic high, so I don't know if poor is the right..."

A camera flashed. And another. While he was speaking to the woman in purple, the crowd had grown. Men had arrived. The photographers seemed like professionals, with khaki vests and bland looks on their faces.

Across the street, Rajinder stood on his porch in bare feet. David shrugged at him and said to the woman in purple, "What are you doing here?"

89.

mob rule Madison was making her thirteenth batch of mulled wine when Jeanne Perlitz arrived with flowers. The CBC story had outed Madison as pregnant, and Jeanne wanted to congratulate her. She also wanted to understand what was happening to the neighbourhood and why Rajinder had left nine messages on her answering machine that afternoon. Strangers were packed into the four inhabited houses of the Garneau Block, their collected voices a roar within the walls, and more arrived every minute.

"Who are all these people?" Jeanne had to scream. "What is this?"

Abby took over at the stove so Madison could lead Jeanne into the only empty part of the househer suite downstairs. Edmontonians in parkas high-fived them on the way. Next door, in Jonas's backyard, upwards of fifty people gathered around the fire. The local urban radio station had set up speakers in the alley, and played a slow R&B song about rumps, a ruckus, and, of course, making love to you, girl.

In her tiny living room, Madison caught her breath. "Where's Katie?"

"With my sister. What's going on?"

"They watched the doc.u.mentary and read the paper. They're here to help."

"Looks and smells to me like they're here to get hammered."

Madison had to sit. In three hours she had cooked ten litres of mulled wine and accepted over two hundred congratulations. Folksy wisdom and cliches abounded. Strangers a.s.sured Madison she would be a terrific mom, and smiled coyly as they said having a child would "totally change her life."

The house creaked. On the old couch, Madison wondered if the floors could give out. Jeanne looked up and bit the tip of her pinky finger, evidently wondering the same thing.

"The university says your house doesn't count as a cultural site."

Jeanne sipped the plastic cup of mulled wine Abby had forced upon her. "They're right about that. It's the house where a man died, and that's about all it is."

Madison lay on her side, with a pillow between her legs. "Sorry. I'm just really sore from standing."

"I understand, believe me. Katie was over nine pounds."

"Vive la France!"

"Don't buy it when people tell you it's magical. Get the epidural early." Jeanne inspected the photos on Madison's mantel. Two were of Katie. Something happened upstairs that inspired applause. "This is all quite nice but I don't see what any of it has to do with my house."

"A small group of women, in a book club, bought the professor's argument about mythic power."

"Uh-huh."

"So they decided to bring over things that, to them, held mythic power."

"I don't understand what that means."

Jeanne picked up a piece of petrified wood Madison had found on the sh.o.r.e of the North Saskatchewan River when she was a kid. Madison pointed at it. "Like that."

"Wood."

"Wood's just an example."

"I still don't understand."

"The university says they'd build the Ernie Isley Centre somewhere else if the buffalo head was already on your property. There's no time for that, so these people want to make your house into a cultural site now. Today. So that the university might reconsider."

Upstairs, someone started singing "Jingle Bells." Soon it was thunderously loud, and not only in the Weiss house. The entire block reverberated with "Jingle Bells," and when the song stopped it started again.

"All these people brought something?"

"Yep."

"How did they know?"

"Word spread. It was on the six-o'clock news, every channel."

Jeanne sat down again and sighed. "So what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. You can either open your house and let these people leave their..."

"Wood."

"Or you can say, 'forget it,' and go back home. Take the university's money, move to Buenos Aires, and forget this ever happened."

"I can't forget this ever happened. That's my problem, Madison."

"So stop trying. Let the rest of the city help you. Let your house be, I don't know, something."

"It's a bad place."

"Make it a good place again. I remember when it was a good place."

Jeanne slapped her gla.s.s of wine on the coffee table. "This is insane." She started up the stairs. "I've told you people I won't do it. And I won't do it!"

The door slammed at the top of the stairs and Madison eased herself up. If she hadn't been pregnant and somewhat queasy from the mulling of wine, she might have chased Jeanne. She might have begged or enlisted her father to squeak out a few tears.

She drew a gla.s.s of cold water and peeled a banana. Through every one of her windows, all she could see were feet and legs. Hiking and snow boots. Madison finished her banana and started upstairs to find her father. Outside her door, bodies flowed down the icy concrete walking pad toward the street. Madison stood behind her door, unable to open it.

Finally, as the crowd thinned, she snuck outside. There was Jeanne, on her front porch, surrounded by people, opening the door. Jeanne turned and saw Madison over the sea of heads and she paused. On the verge of a smile, Jeanne turned the key and walked inside. The people followed.

A teenage girl, in a knit toque and puffy down jacket, started past Madison. As she did, the girl opened the lid on her white wooden music box. A tiny ballerina spun to The Blue Danube Waltz.

90.

mythic furniture Rajinder piloted the rented moving truck into a strip mall on Gateway Boulevard. It was an unusually warm December day, with a sweet-smelling wind blowing in from the distant western hills, so Jonas had the window open in the pa.s.senger seat. High in the cab of the truck, which came with a CB labelled "Don't Touch," Jonas pretended his can of root beer wasn't diet. He pretended he cussed regularly and had trouble with his little lady back home. Darlene.

When Rajinder pulled the key out of the ignition, Jonas hopped out and pretended he was pot-bellied and bowlegged. He cussed quietly about Darlene, who never did the d.a.m.n dishes.

"Did you hurt yourself?" Rajinder stopped at the entrance to Shangri-La Exotic Home Decor. "And who are you speaking with?"

Jonas walked normally. "It's a political exercise I've invented. Over the course of the election campaign, I want to inhabit the voters."

"What does that mean?"

"I've never been a handyman, a mover, a roofer, a digger, a roughneck. I've never been a secretary or an accountant or a housewife. But I have to appeal to all of them."

Rajinder did not seem to know how to respond. He opened the door to Shangri-La and allowed Jonas to lead him to the bookshelves and cabinets. To fully express Edmonton's diversity, they wanted to display the small objects of mythic power on furnishings from around the world. Nordic, yes, but African and Indonesian, too.

This was their fourth trip in the rented moving truck in as many days, as 10 Garneau was to be completed by the weekend. Rajinder and Jonas had moved the Perlitz belongings into storage. Then they had bought lumber, paint, and other building supplies for the volunteer carpenters and designers. Now, Rajinder and Jonas were driving all over the city to buy tables, counters, shelves, and hanging baskets.

The owner of Shangri-La offered them tea, coffee, or hot chocolate while they browsed. But they didn't have time to browse. Jonas chose two cabinets and Rajinder picked two matching bookshelves. They parked at the back of the strip mall and stuffed new items in with other shelves, tables, 1930s stereo boxes, and extended gla.s.s display cases.

Back in the van, Rajinder reached out and squeezed Jonas's arm. "Are you Jonas or are you inhabiting a garbage man or somesuch? At this moment?"

"At this moment, Jonas."

"Good. Now, since you are Madison's best friend, this may feel like an imposition or a betrayal of her trust. But please. Tell me. How does she feel about traditions like marriage?"

Rajinder turned out on to the street. Jonas leaned into the pa.s.senger door and smiled. "You're blushing, Raj."

"No, I am not."

"You are."

"Remember, I am brown. If I were to blush, it would be invisible to the eyes of a white man. Please, do me the favour of answering the question without drawing undue attention to it."

Jonas crossed his legs and said, "Hmm." It pleased him to torture Rajinder. "Let me see now. Madison, Madison. Marriage, marriage. I know she wanted me to get married after the bill pa.s.sed in the summer, but of course I had no one to marry. Still don't. Never will, most likely. It's hard for someone like me because I'm picky. I don't want to be with a funboy or a h.o.m.ophobe or a German. I can't explain why, but I have an aversion to Germans. And the town of Blackfalds. It's not a word I like to say: Blackfalds. Now Granum, however, is another thing altogether. I like saying Granum. Say it with me, Raj: Granum."

"No. Answer my question."

"Granum, Raj."

"We have a saying in Punjabi: thusi kalay kuthay kahn."

"No. Granum."

"Here you go then: Granum. Please enjoy it."

The sun broke through the clouds and reflected off puddles, concrete, cars and trucks, old hotels, discarded Tim Hortons cups. Both men gasped and reached for sungla.s.ses. "Madison is all for marriage. If the right person asked, she would even convert to Sikhism."

Rajinder smiled. Driving north on 109th Street, past the big church on the right, he shook his head. "That would be unnecessary."

"How are you feeling, Raj, about the pregnant thing? She's getting huge. Every time I see her now, all I can think is, Wow. Girl, you definitely had s.e.x."

"The physicality of it is extraordinary. I cannot imagine going through this myself. Men are so very lucky. Our burdens are light."

"Unless you're born fruity."

"Indeed, fruitiness is a heavy thing to carry."

Rajinder pulled into the Garneau Block and, to Jonas's delight, backed on to the sidewalk in front of the Perlitz house. "Beep, beep, beep," said Jonas, in time with the truck. Workers stripping the vinyl siding from the house and donors standing in line with small objects of mythic power parted to make room.

"h.e.l.lo, good-looking people," said Jonas, to the crowd in front of 10 Garneau.

The good-looking people greeted him. A small group of men hurried across the yard to help carry the furniture inside. Jonas didn't want to lift another heavy item as he had to go door-to-door in the morning with his new red pamphlets. A strained lower back would make him one grumpy Liberal.

Instead of lifting half a table or a bookshelf, Jonas jumped inside the back of the truck and pretended to be a manager. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked at his watch, said, "G.o.d d.a.m.n it," and made disdainful remarks about the volunteers. To the bald man who prepared to lift one of the Shangri-La cabinets with Rajinder, he said, "Come on, come on. I'm not paying you to pick your nose here."

The man opened his mouth in apparent horror. "Pick my...pardon?"

"Please ignore him," said Rajinder. "He is pretending to be a nuisance."

"Oh."

Jonas followed Rajinder down the ramp. "So are you gonna ask Madison toyou knowhave a monsoon wedding?"

"Go get a table."

"Well, answer this. Do you know how to build IKEA things?"

Rajinder opened his nostrils.

"It looks easy, Raj, but it's really hard."