Colours in Her Hands, page 22
Not like Iris who acted nice and did things for her, but was always looking. Her eyes were too hungry, her hands too greedy. But Iris brought her thread and now she gave her $35 every Tuesday and Friday. $35 and $35 was $70. With Bruno’s $20 that was $90! She’d put the tens and the twenties and the fives on the table and counted them again and again, and every time she got $90. She was rich like people on TV and Bruno didn’t even know!
The tail of her thread was short now and she needed another colour. She stared at the colours to see which wanted to come next — when her eye caught a movement on the wall. A spider! She stuck her needle in the pincushion and slid off the sofa fast-fast but already the spider was moving up the wall. She knew what to do, crashing to the kitchen no matter what she knocked over because she had to get that spider! Broom in the air swiping back and forth and back — and bang! Mama’s angel flew, cracked against the other wall, and —
Mina gaped in shock. The angel lay on the floor against the wall. The curled flip of its golden wing broken off. Grief stabbed her chest. “Mama!” she bawled. “M-m-maaa-m-m-ma!”
She fumbled for the phone and dialled.
“Allô.”
“Mama’s a-a-a-angel!” she sobbed.
“What about the angel?”
“S-s-s-s —” She stopped. “Broken!”
“The angel is broken?”
“Mama!”
“Isn’t it on the wall?”
“No!”
“I can’t believe it. Mina, what the —”
“Brisé! C’est brisé! C’est b-b-b-b —”
“Okay, okay, stop crying. I’m coming.”
6
The river was high, the water churned and brown, the footpath muddy. After squishing around one yawning puddle and then another, Iris climbed the slope to the bike path again. She wasn’t in a meandering mood. She needed to walk. Walk fast.
She’d made a list of art galleries and marked the ones most likely to exhibit fibre and/or outsider art. She prepared a few sentences of introduction and would have called Jenny to rehearse them, but Jenny wouldn’t stop being such a pain about Bruno. Bruno was going to be delighted. He always said people didn’t do Mina justice. Well, wait till he heard that Iris had arranged for Mina to have an art show!
This morning, with her agenda open before her, Iris called the first gallery on the list. Aim high, she told herself. Think positive! The woman who answered the phone listened for a moment, then said she wasn’t familiar with Philomena Corneau’s work. Where had she exhibited? Iris said she hadn’t yet. The woman said they might be interested at some point in the future, but at the moment they were booked two years in advance and weren’t considering any new portfolios. Iris had persisted. The woman was firm. Thank you, no.
Iris called the next number. Then the next. Each time she was asked where the artist had exhibited, followed by the same pat, uncompromising response.
She’d thought the challenge had been getting her hands on Mina’s embroideries. From there, she’d assumed she could get them into the world. She hadn’t expected the world to be so hedged with obstacles. Ridiculous obstacles too. Wasn’t the art world supposed to want innovative, cutting-edge material? She would never have been successful in her business if her first clients hadn’t been willing to give her a try.
She sat at her table, tapping her pencil so hard that the tip broke. She swung off the stool and grabbed her raincoat.
Walk! She needed to walk. Face grim, step after step, until the fresh air cooled her cheeks. A red-winged blackbird twanged from the trees. Sumac cones, still soft and delicate, were pointing from among the spray of leaves.
What had she done to start her business — when all she had was her determination and her sewing machine at the kitchen table of her apartment? She hadn’t been polite and shy. She hadn’t asked permission. She’d shown people what she could do. She went to meetings with bank loan officers wearing a suit she’d designed and sewn herself. Those who knew suits could see the Milanese buttonholes and the pic stitching. She, the loan applicant, was dressed more elegantly than they were. She’d made Jenny’s mom a dress to wear to a luncheon at the Mount Royal Tennis Club. The dress showed off the flattering drape of the bias cut design, the loop closings, the smooth edge of the round neckline.
Still stomping along, Iris imagined walking into an art gallery like an ordinary nobody. She would look at the work on the walls. Suss out the space. Then: unzip her portfolio bag and whip out the book of Mina’s embroideries. Before anyone could drone on about previous exhibits or being booked years in advance, the gorgeous evidence of Mina’s vibrant colours would hook them.
Except — oh! Why had she started with the top three choices on her list? She should have made a trial run with just any gallery to find out what the routine was. Or she should have talked with Jenny’s uncle. In exasperation she swung up her arms. Now she’d already exhausted her best chances. Although . . . would those galleries remember her phone call? She’d got the impression they hadn’t really been listening so much as waiting for her to finish speaking so they could say no.
That was it! She had the goods. She only had to make people see. She’d marched to where she could see the white line of the rapids. Closer to shore a heron stood on a rock. The sky was low, the under-bellies of the clouds like tarnished silver. She felt the spatters of rain starting up again but didn’t turn back, striding with a renewed sense of purpose.
* * *
Gabriela was walking past the brick row houses where she’d lived for five years. She’d wondered if returning to the Pointe would make her sad, reminding her of what she’d lost, but what did that matter now? The upswing of emotion she felt for Daniel was a tonic coursing through her veins. She’d told him she wanted a baby, and although he was taken aback, he hadn’t said absolutely no and he hadn’t run away. That alone, that openness — whether or not it came to pass — made her feel she could love this man.
Yesterday was her birthday and Mina had insisted on seeing her. It didn’t have to be on the very day, but close to the day, definitely. For Mina, a person’s birthday was the most important day of the year. Gabriela remembered how she used to call Bruno on their parents’ birthdays, even though both had been dead for many years. Bruno said Mina knew they were dead. She’d grieved and wept, kissed their mother’s urn and said goodbye. But being dead did not preclude continuing to have birthdays.
Mina was already waiting on the sidewalk. They were going to the little café close by that didn’t have muffins, but the owner had always let Gabriela bring a muffin for Mina. Since they’d last come, though, the café had changed ownership. The new barista said that Gabriela couldn’t bring baked goods from outside. Gabriela began to explain when Mina interrupted loudly to say this was a birthday! And she could only eat muffins because she was dibète! People at the other tables were watching and the barista relented.
Mina had brought Gabriela a cadeau, a long, floppy package, and once she finished her muffin and tea, she said Gabriela could open it. She must have used half a roll of tape and swathes of wrapping paper. She groaned happily, watching Gabriela wrestle with the layers. There was a glimpse of brilliant colour. Something made with yarn. Gabriela finally managed to tear enough of a hole to pull it out. Mina had knit orange, pink, and lavender squares that she’d stitched into a patchwork with thick blue yarn. She’d sewn the patchwork into a . . . knit sausage? Ah, a cushion.
“The colours are so you, Mina. I love it.”
“T’es ma belle-coeur!”
“And you, my dear, are mine. And you know what? I think this cushion is going to be just what my new armchair needs to make it comfortable.”
When they left the café, Mina tucked her hand inside Gabriela’s arm and so they walked, Gabriela adjusting her steps to Mina’s light-footed sway.
The cushion was the perfect fit for the armchair too, but it was lumpy, probably because Mina hadn’t known how to stuff it. Gabriela bought a bag of polyester fibrefill and set about snipping through the tight coil of thick blue yarn that closed the end of the cushion. It wasn’t easy. What Mina stitched together was meant to stay together. Gabriela had to be careful not to cut the loops of knitting that made up the outside of the cushion.
From inside she pulled out long, torn strips of thick flowered cotton. Pink roses on a cream background. Where had she seen this before? She and Bruno had taken Mina to choose fabric for curtains. Mina didn’t understand how a bolt of fabric could become curtains that would hang in her windows. She told Bruno she didn’t want cloth, she wanted curtains. Gabriela finally suggested they get a fabric that Mina liked that was also suitable for curtains.
Now, with a heap of strips on her carpet, she supposed these were the leftover bits.
* * *
Bruno was driving Mina home. He would drop her off, return the car, then come back to install her blinds. “Remember,” he said, “you don’t touch the boxes. You leave them alone.”
She didn’t answer. She was looking out the side window, hand fiddling with the strap on her bag. What was wrong now? She should be happy. She’d gotten the blinds she wanted.
“What is it?”
She muttered as if fed up with having to tolerate an incompetent vassal.
“Spit it out.”
“Mama’s angel.”
“I told you it would take a while. I can’t use crazy glue on a four-hundred-year-old carving. I’ll have to go to an antique shop or a museum.” Or send it to Austria, he thought. Dear Family Who Do Church Restoration! Can you please repair and return? Your Forgotten Relative in Canada. Oh, right, his mother had stolen the angel. Probably not a good idea.
“When?” Mina asked.
“I don’t know. Do you want me to hang mine in your apartment till yours is fixed?”
She gaped at him, her expression matched by the orange googly-eyed button on the baseball cap she wore today. The button next to it was the Volkswagen logo.
“Does that mean you do or you don’t want it?” he asked.
“I want m-m-mine!”
“So you have to wait for yours to be fixed.”
He parked in front of her building and slid the long boxes from the back seat. Mina hoisted herself up the steps and held the door for him. Inside her apartment, as he looked for space to lean the boxes, he wondered why her bedroom door was closed. It was always open so that she could hear the second TV. Then he noticed that there was no doorknob.
“What happened to your doorknob?”
She tossed her baseball cap on the sofa. “Don’t know.”
“How can you not know? You’re the only one who lives here.”
He felt with his fingers inside the hole for the lever that worked the latch and pushed the door open. The bedroom looked as it always did. The bed heaped with clothes, pillows, and stuffed animals. The TV in the corner. The walls were such a mirage of photos, posters of Céline Dion, Elvis, and Walt Disney princesses that he didn’t at first see the crater the size of a dinner plate smashed through to the concrete. On the floor lay a hammer and chunks of drywall.
“What the fuck, Mina! What are you doing in here?”
She had pushed herself up onto the sofa but refused to look at him. Her mouth trembled with injury. Yelling always made her clam up. He knew that but couldn’t stop himself. “Can you give me one good reason why you made a hole? Is it for a drug stash? Is that where you stuffed the curtains? What are you thinking, wrecking the walls? What is the matter with you? You know you can’t do that kind of thing! You know it’s wrong!”
He needed to pace but there was no room in this small apartment that was jam-packed with junk. “I don’t even know if I can fix that. If Faiza sees it, she’ll have to report it.” He wheeled an exasperated hand in the air. “I’ve told you and I’ve told you. If you don’t behave responsibly, you’re going to lose your apartment.”
“It’s mine!” She glared at him.
“So why are you making holes in the wall? Can you explain that?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and wiped his hand down his face. “I have to return the car. And you know what? I’m not coming back to install your blinds, because to be honest, at this moment, I don’t want to do anything for you. I don’t care who looks in your windows. If that bothers you so much, you should have left your curtains up.”
He turned to go, remembered the hammer, and went to the bedroom to snatch it from the floor. Without saying goodbye, he left, closing the door firmly behind him.
* * *
Now that Bruno was gone, Mina let out the hurt that was shuddering up her throat, clotting into sobs. He wasn’t supposed to shout at her! Mama had told him! It hurt too much when he shouted and his face turned into the wolf, the evil witch, the angry stone head, the bad man in the forest!
Why did he go in the bedroom? He knew that was the rule: you do not open closed doors. If it wasn’t your door, stay out! But he always did what he wanted. Always telling her to do this and not that — except he did everything he wanted! He was so mean to her! It wasn’t her fault, it was his! If he hadn’t opened the door, he wouldn’t have seen the hole and the hammer. He wasn’t supposed to go in her bedroom when the door was closed.
And he’d said he was going to put up her blinds today! If he didn’t . . . She would drag those boxes down to the garbage. Huh! That would serve him right.
It felt good thinking about it, seeing herself doing it in her head and feeling in her hands and arms how she would get rid of the blinds. Except she knew he was going to come back and put them up. He had to. Maybe not today, but tomorrow or the next day. He’d promised Mama he would always help her. That meant he had to.
And then: she had a really good idea — a better idea! So good that it made her stop crying. Because she’d already found out that the hammer didn’t work. There was something inside the wall that wouldn’t break.
She would have to go to the dollar store for her new idea. It was too late now but she would go tomorrow. She knew exactly which aisle.
* * *
Bruno had called Iris to ask if she could find out why Mina had made a hole in her wall. Iris thought it was a joke. What do you mean, a hole? A hole, he said, like a hole. In her bedroom wall. Big enough to put two fists through. Okay, don’t shout at me, she said. He apologized. He said his patience had just about run out. He was doing some deliveries for one of his antique dealers in Verdun tomorrow and would stop by Iris’s studio afterward. She said she’d find out.
The next day, one look at him in her doorway and she said a walk by the river would do him good.
“Did you find out?” he asked.
“Let’s walk. I’ll tell you.”
“Because —” he began.
“How about we walk for a while. Nothing’s going to change in the next fifteen minutes.”
The footpath by the shore wasn’t always wide enough to walk side by side, so they stayed on the bike path, overlooking the water. A light breeze rustled in the poplars.
Iris wondered if he could see the river as she did. “The river looks blue to you, right?”
“More or less, yes.”
“Do you see the brown shadows? The current makes them ripple and it looks like otters swimming just under the surface.”
After a moment he said, “Otters, yeah.”
“I love the river. It’s my favourite place to come.”
“I’m embarrassed by how many years I’ve lived only a half-hour walk away and I never come.”
“Anytime.” She bumped her elbow against him. “Let me know. I’m always up for a walk.”
“Okay,” he said. “You might as well tell me what Mina’s up to.”
“To start, she doesn’t think she did anything wrong.”
“She never does.”
“She seems to blame you because you weren’t supposed to see the hole. It’s not the hole that’s the problem but that you went into her bedroom.”
“Of course, big bad me. What else is new? But why did she do it?”
“She wanted to break through to the neighbour’s apartment —”
“What?” He stopped walking.
“— so she could shout at her.”
Bruno tilted his head to the sky and let out a long groan. “What is it between those two?”
“You know that woman wants her out.”
“Forget the neighbour. At this point, the way Mina is behaving, she’s going to get herself kicked out all on her own. I can’t even say she didn’t mean to do it. She didn’t just grab a hammer and attack the wall. She asked you to get her one. She must have asked someone else too. Think about it, if it was murder, that’s proof of premeditation.”
“A hole in the wall isn’t murder, Bruno.”
“If the neighbour was standing in front of her and Mina had a hammer?”
“Come on, you don’t seriously think —”
“There’s no telling what she’ll do — or what she’ll dream up next.” He lifted both arms and dropped them. “She always did sneaky things, but this stunt with the hammer is beyond anything she’s ever done.”
Iris didn’t like the way he was making Mina sound conniving or potentially dangerous. A little eccentric, okay, she was an artist. It came with the territory. But not vicious. It was because he was angry and he was exaggerating.
“You know,” she said, “I’m amazed she got the doorknob apart. I wouldn’t know how to do that.”
“She would have needed a screwdriver — so she had to get that too.”
“She’s smart, Bruno. And determined.”
“Yeah, well, I wish she would apply it differently. She’s never as clever as when she wants to do something she isn’t supposed to do.” He blew out air. “I don’t have any choice. I’m going to have to withhold her spending money. It’s the only leverage I have. Except that, like every other time, she’s not going to see why I’m doing it. She’ll just be angry with me.”
