Grief, Memory, Three O'Clock in the Morning: My Mavis Gallant Centennial Diary, August 4

In that case, what is the question?

3.03 a.m. Golly. First time back since — when? August 1. Thought I’d have posted before now, had meant to. Intended to wrap up the story of Heinz Thaufelder, as much as I’ve been able to glean, but a few too many pieces to assemble just now. Tomorrow, I hope. No good excuse except the same old, same old. Energies dwindle. Spirits ebb. Flirting with not exactly a dark night of the soul, something more crepuscular. It will pass. A consequence of tiredness, almost certainly. Worst thing about getting run down, for me, is the shedding of civility. I speak intemperately, then regret it. Yesterday, stepped onto the balcony — remember when we all took to our promontories at 7 of an evening and beat pots with ladles to celebrate the brave front line workers? — and had a curt exchange with the man who’d set up his workshop outside in the narrow passage — an echo chamber — between this building and the one adjacent and who had EVERY RIGHT to be cutting tiles at 1.37 of a Wednesday afternoon when I was desperate to sleep after a horrible day at work that involved hours of trying to match product codes with those I’d been given on a sheet printed out in a typeface so micrographic my old eyes couldn’t decipher it. Bad enough the task was dull, clerical, and needless; the insult of it being also impossible was too much. The tile cutter had no way of knowing that my foul mood, my impatience, had been piqued in the drinks aisle — so much water in so many bottles, have these people never heard of a tap? — as I confronted the certainty that something had changed, that I’d come to the end of a road I’d been driving happily along but which proved to have a terminus, a full stop, no option for left, for right, for detour. What now? Nor could he know, nor was there any way of telling him, that his was the second unhappy cutting of the day, for I’d made the mistake of stopping at the barber en route home. The fellow I count on seeing, a jolly Iranian, was at lunch. Minding the shop was his occasional colleague, also Iranian, but a long way from jolly. She has cause. About her history, about the circumstances of her landing here, I have no idea. I know only she works a graveyard shift in a warehouse, Amazon I think — note that she’s not much younger than I — and then comes to deal with the hair of strangers. About her situation — which is grievous — she is very sharing.

“All night I work, all night, because I have to pay my rent. I cannot pay my rent with what I earn here. Look at you. You are a senior. You will pay me ten dollars. You know it’s cash only, yes? You have money with you? Some people, they say they will come back with money but then they don’t. They are thieves. They are stupid, too. Stupid. Like the people I work with, some of them. Young. Also stupid. Ten dollars. What can I do with ten dollars? You think with ten dollars I can pay my rent? You think? You must have trouble hearing, yes? Because I am talking, talking, talking, and you are saying nothing, nothing, nothing.”

I didn’t have the heart or nerve to inquire if she knew the idiom “get a word in edgewise,” and the tile cutter had no way of knowing that I was worn down not only by a morning of squinting, but by a hard half hour in a swivelling chair where I was made to realize that my problems were nothing and also had cause to worry that the one of us who had access to razors and scissors would be driven made by exhaustion, would go postal and all I wanted was a little trim around the edges. (I paid her twenty, btw, as I always have, an hour of my labour for 12 minutes of hers, but lord knows she deserves — and needs — it more.) Anyway, Mr. Tileman, the point is that I’m sorry. You were only doing your job, and it looked like meticulous work, too. I shouldn’t have let my bad day get the best of me.

Moving over to the sunny side, I’m happy to say things are coming together for the Compline service for Mavis Gallant (MG) at St. James’ Anglican Church, 303 E. Cordova, August 10, 7 P.M. In addition to the participation of Father Kevin Hunt, who’ll be the officiant, and who has been so incredibly patient and accommodating, and a couple of fine singers from the church choir — there’s a very strong music tradition there — and the organist, P J Janson, I’ve secured the gracious co-operation of Shefa Siegel, an excellent writer who happens also to be a talented singer and an excellent cantor, also a friend; and the amazingly gifted Veda Hille who, like MG, was born on August 11. Veda is, like MG was, a genius. I recommend watching this, which, as palliatives go, is specific to all ills. It’s from her latest album, Beach Practice.

Veda is going to set and perform a text I assembled which is based, loosely, on a random catalogue I’ve been keeping of posers — some serious, some rhetorical, some ironic — that appear in MG’s stories. (Leading the list in this far from rigorous study is “What does it mean?,” which I’ve found on 8 separate occasions.) I’m calling the piece “In that case, what is the question?” which is a nod in the direction of Gertrude Stein. Famously, as she was dying, she asked Alice B. Toklas “What is the answer?” When Alice demurred, Gertrude said, “In that case, what is the question?” This sounds apocryphal — like Oscar Wilde and his witty goodbye remark about the wallpaper — but it’s a great story. And one of MG’s favourite books, the one she recommended to people who wanted to read just one thing about Paris, was Gertrude Stein’s charming and quirky Paris, France. (Someone, somewhere must know if MG ever met Alice B. Toklas. She must have done so, perhaps via Janet Flanner. It would surely be noted in her diaries.)

Anyway, here’s a slapdash selection of 100 interrogatives for MG’s 100th birthday. After all these months of reading and thinking about her, I’m left with many more questions than answers. I think that’s as it should be. I think that’s what writing gives us. I think that’s what reading should do. And, as always, thanks for reading, xo, B

In That Case, What is the Question?

1. Are the butchers on strike?

2. Why do you beg?

3. When shall the swallows have flown away?

4. Who wants to be called Edna Mae, anyway?

5. Who the bloody hell are we talking about?

6. What’s the appeal of cats?

7. Were they typical Spaniards?

8. What did we want?

9. Who sends you to do this?

10. Was there a reason?

11. Why does she bring certain people the first strawberries of the season?

12. Who wants the last strawberry tart?

13. Are mountains asked to have an opinion?

14. What can you teach children?

15. We’re like children, aren’t we?

16. Do children where you come from cry at night?

17. Surely there’s more to art than this transatlantic blight?

18. Who are the three greatest magicians of all time?

19. Do you ever think that nothing passes unobserved?

20. Can filth be art?

21. What is wrong with the time?

22. Why is she leaving me?

23. What’s in the glass?

24. Has the world gone crazy?

25. How long can this last?

26. Why was she nearly thirty, and in a foreign place, and everything a mess?

27. There’s no explanation, is there?

28. Was I entirely, or partly, or not at all the same as before?

29. What if it isn’t real?

30. What if I made it up?

31. What was the worst thing that could happen?

32. Now I am free, was my first thought what did I mean?

33. What does it mean?

34. What does it mean?

35. What does it mean?

36. What does it mean?

37. Is there a horror in a memory if it was only a dream?

38. What does it mean?

39. What does it mean?

40. Do you know what any of it means?

41. What have I said now to startle you?

42. Why is everyone afraid of the truth?

43. Is it important if one-tenth of a lie is true?

44. How would you like to do some really important work for us?

45. Had she been working without a permit?

46. But would you do just one last Christian act?

47. What was wrong with the Hitler youth?

48. Is it a form of justice or injustice?

49. Have you ever wanted to be a ballet dancer?

50. Once you’ve seen Swan Lake a hundred times, what is there to do here?

51.What of the man in the street, too modest and confused to mention his cravings?

52. How can they act like this in front of me and in such a dirty room?

53. Do you like old coins?

54. What good is money except to give it away?

55. Why don’t you act like other people?

56. When does the brain start to work?

57. Don’t they know there’s a revolution on?

58. What can you mean by, “Not exactly?”

59. Could her passport be a forgery?

60. Could it be in Winnipeg?

61.How do I know you won’t leave me?

62. Don’t you understand I can’t leave you?

63. Does it look like a one-way?

64. Why do you think one piece is all of everything?

65. What about my nosebleeds?

66. What if I made it all up?

67. Why do they always tell us about what happens in Clermont-Ferrand?

68. Was it a tumour?

69. Aren’t we lucky?

70. Did anyone dare say this was a waste of time?

71. What about your cook in the kitchen, with frightened eyes?

72. Who gave you the gold chain and the twenty-four karat crucifix for your First Communion?

73. Have you no religious feelings at all?

74. Une merveilleuse abstraction?

75. What is there where we can’t see?

76. Which secret, which one?

77. D’you know that your father knew my father?

78. Who will look after her during the long last illness every emigre dreads?

79. Why should I care?

80. Do you want to go to your grave with nothing but this behind you?

81. How do you stand if you stand upon zero?

82. What will the passage be like between zero and one?

83. And what will happen at One?

84. Yes, what will happen?

85. Why is that door open?

86. What will happen next?

87. What did you hope would happen?

88. I said, “Does she die?”

89. Shouldn’t I say goodbye?

90. What happens now?

91. Could we go soon, please?

92. I am free, but what of it?

93. Why should this be home?

94. Who wants to be alone in the universe?

95. What if it isn’t real?

96. What shall I do if you feel remorseful?

97. Why are you crying?

98. Have you got a handkerchief?

99. What could I do, she asked her ghosts, but let my arms be held, my steps be guided?

100. Grief and memory, yes, she said to herself, but what about three o’clock in the morning?