This All Happened(99)
Lydia: You are weak alone.
I’ve never liked being alone, it’s true.
17 When you describe an experience, what you are recounting is your memory of the act, not the act itself. Experiencing a moment is an inarticulate act. There are no words. It is in the sensory world. To recall it and to put words to it is to illustrate how one remembers the past, rather than actually experiencing the past. Keep this in mind as you read the words of others as they remember an incident.
18 Catholics rehearse their stories. They tell stories over and over. The same story, torquing it a little, realizing a certain detail is not working, adding stuff. I’ve heard the same two dozen stories out of Lydia about thirty times. And then there are the daily stories. Events that happen that she recounts. She’ll tell me, and then she’ll call Daphne, and then her brother phones and she tells her brother. The thing I find interesting about this story-telling is that if you heard only one of these stories, you’d think she was telling it for the first time. The enthusiasm behind it. That’s definitely a Catholic thing. Protestants tell a story once and it’s over with. They feel self-conscious to tell the story again. They are aware of who has already heard the story. Protestants tell a story best the first time; Catholics, the last time.
This follows through into making up after arguments. Lydia wanted to list every point in the argument, make sure it was fleshed out, whereas I was happy enough to say, Okay, let’s apologize and get on with it. It’s as if there is some pleasure in recounting each moment of the fight, who said what when, and admitting to each wrong turn taken. Usually, of course, I had taken the wrong turns. I’m not sure if this is Catholic or not, but Lydia was convinced she knew my true motives, and I would be a bigger man if I could only admit to them. But by that time the entire fight would have evaporated into a mist with no detail or shape to me any more, and to admit to wrong-doing would be a lie. I admitted to nothing. I can be stubborn in this.
19 I watch ships coasting into harbour with bulk. Or are they empty. So slow. Ships seem arduous. Yet if you take your eye off one, it has instantly docked or left harbour again.
I bought a crate of tangerines. This is the only export I have seen from Morocco.
Helmut has come for Christmas. He says, We should put candles on the tree.
Five months of sailing has made him thinner and ropey. He is like a coil of rope. He has tremendous strength in his grip.
He makes candle holders out of copper wire. He places twenty-six candles on the tree. We turn off the lamps as he touches the candles with a match. The candles offer light from below The tinsel lifts in the updraft. It’s a soft, uplifting light.
I watch Helmut in the kitchen, sharpening a knife on the back of a plate.
He gives me a stainless-steel spatula made in Sweden. It’s wrapped and looks exactly like a spatula.
20 Wilf says his father used to sniff out fat fires. There was a man at bingo when his house burned down. They couldnt find any evidence of arson. It was a new house, properly inspected. So they gave him the insurance.
A couple of months later the police got a letter from the man with a cheque for the full amount, plus interest, and a confession to arson. The man had just found out he had terminal cancer.
People were visiting him and saying what an honest man he’d been all his life. He couldnt live with the guilt. Or better, die with it. Even his wife didnt know.
This is what he did: He crumpled newspapers and shoved them under the couch cushions and chairs. He doused a couch with a forty-ouncer of gin. He lit the paper and went to bingo. If you want to commit arson, use alcohol. It leaves no residue.
The man had burned down his house so he could build a new one down by his daughter’s place. He wanted to be close to his daughter and he knew he wouldnt be able to sell his house for what it was worth.