Part 37 (1/2)
”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.”