Canada 150
Then and Now
The Sun peers in her window, squeezing through the negative space created by a lattice of branches and powerlines. She doesn’t mind the glaring presence, for its warmth offers her comfort. Yawning, insisting, the suitcase at her feet implies questions for which she has yet to form answers. The girl straightens abruptly and breaking from her task, she wanders to the windowsill. Some meters beneath her, the grass and foliage are reacquainting themselves with the soil, now rid of it wintery coat, and a breeze as fragile as a memory tumbles through the trees.
It is in the apex of vitality that she will be leaving her native land.
The Sun peers also upon the lad as he enters his house, but at a time when, by our insignificant reckoning, she was younger—but not brighter. No, never brighter. The boy races upstairs, barreling past his reverend father on his way in the door. His younger sisters shout his name the moment they learn of his presence, but their aunt reserves her voice in a powerful murmur which halts his progress up the stairs. In grabbing hold of the bannister, he crumples the pages in his hand upon which the intangible has been ossified by way of poetry and ink. He is told that dinner will be at six.
With a glance to his brother’s likeness on the wall, he hurries to his room where a newly issued rucksack awaits him. The sun cannot enter the room at this time of day, try as she might. (It is not long before he will take up the fight just as his brother did the year previous.) He is not yet nineteen.
It is in the apex of vitality that he will be leaving his native land.
She is nervous boarding the plane, but the passengers around her seem calm, so she pretends her apprehension is excitement despite the churning in her stomach. Once in her seat, she tries to forge a conversation with the woman next to her, but her questions are met only with unintelligible murmurs. Her companion is showing symptoms of the same anxiety the girl has been able to hide. Instinctually, the girl sets a hand on the woman’s so that they share the armrest between them. The gesture is like turning a tap, for the moment she feels the girl’s support, the woman’s words flow freely.
Afraid of heights, she tells the girl, afraid of flights. But she bears such dread for a loved one who lies ill far across the water.
Divulged secrets often put the mind at ease, except for those few who are entrusted with them, left to contemplate them, for their burden is increased twofold.
Long after the unsettling tremors of take-off have finished resonating in her bones, the girl slips out a notebook and sets the inky nib of her pen against the page. The woman beside her has found serenity in slumber, but no matter; when the girl divulges her secrets, the act shall be victimless. She manages to keep a smile on her troubled face as she writes and thinks of what is to come. Then she wills the courage that she knows exists somewhere within her to make itself known.
She will require this resolution later in her journey.
The lad waves his father goodbye, but the gesture is cut short when he is propelled brusquely forward by the swell of soldiers boarding the ship behind him. The crowd that has enveloped him displays no sense of unease, so he pretends his apprehension is excitement, despite the tragic verses forming in his mind.
When shown his quarters, he clasps hands with the man who has claimed the mattress above his own. He is older, a man no longer in his prime, and there is something solemn in the curve of his lip, something broken in the glint of his eye. An encouraging clap on the man’s shoulder is enough to shake loose his sentiments.
Afraid of the water, he tells the lad, afraid of never again seeing his daughter. But it is for her safety that he makes this voyage, leaving his loved ones far across the water.
Divulged secrets often put the mind at ease, except for those few who are entrusted with them, left to contemplate them, for their burden is increased twofold.
Long after the intoxication of brotherly bonding has faded into the cold of the night, the boy draws ink across a crumpled page. The dim, flickering flame, provides poor guidance as he defines his verses and stanzas. To divulge one’s sentiments so that they issue comfort rather than pain— this seems a meagre reparation for the victims lurking in his future. Slowly, he lets sleep take him, for sleep offers a solace that the forcing of a smile never could. Then as he passes over the threshold of consciousness, he wills the courage that he knows exists somewhere within him to make itself known.
He will require this resolution in his journey. His journey has already begun.
The girl marvels at the island upon which she finds herself. So small a track of terrain when compared to the expanses of her native country. This is the land whose governors once held dominion over the affairs of her country?
She follows the swarm of tourists through the cobbled streets. They speak different languages, sport different fashions, these people from away; to them she is one of the same, a foreigner. They try to guess where she has come from, but she utters not a word to aid their pursuit. Then it is spotted, the red and white emblem attached to her suitcase, the one that whispers to the wandering eye that she is a polite traveller, one who apologizes too often and calls Canada home. They tell her in broken English that they never would have known. She wonders why they ever thought they could.
The girl follows the route which had been designated to her until she arrives at a building older than anything she has ever observed. Here she will stay. Here she will live. Here she will learn and fulfill the purpose for which she came.
The lad has no time to gape at the scenery about him, for like many others, duty is foremost in his mind. He spares only a moment to remark that this nation seems a duller, miniature of his homeland. This is the nation whose decision of war assumed the assistance of his countrymen?
He follows his fellow soldiers through the cobbled streets. He hears the contrasting cadences of unfamiliar languages, sees the minute contrasts each nation’s uniform offers, these nations now at war. In the regulated chaos of it all, he is made one of the same, a soldier fighting for patriotism and pride. Others look at him and know from where he hails, and he utters not a word to deny the statements. His uniform tells them all they need to know; he is an extension of the British force. In exotic accents, they tell him it is not hard to derive the answer. He wonders is they thought it would be.
The lad obeys the string of orders issued to him and his comrades until they have arrived at the makeshift encampment that holds no trace of home, of familiarity. For now, here he will stay. For now, here he will live. For now, here he will learn until the day, ready or not, he is called to fulfill the purpose for which he came.
England. The rough landscape of the island taunts the girl with adventure as it cuts jagged shapes into the muted sky at each sunrise. When she is not occupied by her studies, she treats her wanderlust with a stroll through the coarse countryside.
Today, like many of the days before, the ground is wet with a coat of rain that the clouds have dragged across the fields like the gentle sweeping of a bride’s train. Lost in thought, she does not notice how the worn dirt path has spotted with patches of mud. Her feet sink in and the moistened earth stains the light fabric of her shoes. But it is harmless, she tells herself, so she continues her promenade.
Extending her arms for balance, the girl takes to treading along the edge of a crude rock-form, which juts out of the hillside. The worn stone glistens with a darker hue of gray on account of the showers. There is a loud sound by the road and she turns to meet… but her shoes, slippery with a coat of mud, cannot negotiate any traction with the wet rock and she falls.
She tumbles down the hill, knowing that though the brush pokes her torso and tangles her hair, it is the acute tingling under her left eye that will of greatest inconvenience. Finally, her momentum slows and, feeling battered, she sits up and sets her fingertips against the tissue of her cheekbone.
She winces. Blood trickles down her face.
England. The landscape of the country has never seemed welcoming before today; for now the lad is far away on French soil, holed up in the French trenches, coated in French mud. To explore France seemed an opportunity, but growing idle below the nation’s ground was not the equivalent of exploring. No, all he knew of France were the gunshots and the fatal cries and an insistent muse that only sung him songs of tragedy.
Today, the bitterness of the rain on the boy’s lips tastes even more acrid than the days before. He staggers over the sodden boards intended to combat the mud; for these planks of wood, it is a losing battle; for the boy’s countrymen slumped against the slippery banks, such an outcome is yet to be determined. Thick mud smears the exterior of the lad’s boots, but there is already enough inside them that it makes little difference. The inescapable state of moisture is far from harmless, but after weeks of the same, the damage has already been done.
The boy presses his back up against the mix of rock and root which holds the trench’s walls in place. Then there is a sudden cry from allies down the way and without hesitation, he attends to the commotion… It is a sudden hail of shrapnel that rewards his prompt arrival.
He reels backward, plagued by the agonized pleas of familiar voices. Not having been at the centre of the blast, he knows he has not incurred the worst of it; for indeed those voices which find themselves stopped by Death’s condolences, these are in the meanest state—or perhaps the kindest.
The boy screams for he cannot see nor feel much else than the torment of an unquenchable pain. Hands seize his biceps and haul him backward, but during this time, no poetry manages to enter his anguished mind. He does not possess the power to allow it.
Half-dazed, the lad reaches up to touch his forehead and cries out. Blood flows into his eyes and the world is cast in a sanguine shadow.
The girl clenches her jaw at the bite of antiseptic. She is told the gash will heal, but for now, she must endure the discomfort of facial stitches as if she were a tattered ragdoll. She thanks the doctor and fills out the necessary papers, thinking offhandedly about how much easier the ordeal would have been back home.
Before she walks out the door, she hears her name. A young man rushes over to her, his arm encased in plaster. She recognizes him only when he grins; he had been in the hospital room across the hall. After a moment’s hesitation, he hands her the ring which she’d believed to be safe in her pocket.
“It fell when you walked out the door,” he explains in a soft lilting accent. “I wanted to get it back to you… and ask you how you were keeping.”
She resists the impulse to touch her cheek. “As well as you are, it would seem.”
They share a smile, for more can be communicated in a silent moment than in an hour of pleasantries.
The boy sits up and grimaces before delicate hands usher his shoulders back to the mattress. White cloth stained with blood hangs down in his line of vision. Moaning, mangled men fill the rows of cots in the tent, each one of them calling out for a nurse like the one who attends to him now, but her sights are fixed on him.
“Shrapnel wound to the head,” she states. “You need rest, but you’ll recover.”
“I hate the trenches,” he murmurs, restlessly. “I’ve decided that I’m going to fly.”
“Don’t think on it now. You need rest.”
“You don’t believe me,” says the lad.
“Do you have any experience?” the young nurse asks.
“I’ll get some and then you’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will,” she replies coyly.
The first kind glance he has seen in weeks and it belongs to no other than an angel in white. As she re-bandages his head, the poetry comes back to him, shaking off the shackles imposed upon it by the ghastly trenches.
“Where did you say you were from?”
“Canada,” replies the girl, staring back at the boy seated at her desk. Their infirmities have proved a catalyst for friendship; the stitches in her face have been removed, but he must brandish a clumsy cast for a while longer. “But you already know that—I told you.”
“Yeah, but looking around your room, I wouldn’t be able to tell. It’s strange.”
“Why?”
“Everything you’ve brought with you— none of it is Canadian.”
“It was brought from Canada, wasn’t it?” she counters.
“But not all Canadians can relate to the Irish ring on your finger or the wooden fan from Barcelona sitting on your shelf or that French trinket from Québec that you keep by your bed.”
“No, but I can relate to them,” she replies.
“Not all Canadians look like you then.”
“I should think not,” she says.
“And not all speak the same language.”
“How boring it would be if we did,” she jested.
“So all that makes someone Canadian is being born in the country?”
She laughs. “Not at all.”
“How do you mean?”
“All it takes to be Canadian is to have established a sense of home there. You can be born there, move there, flee there, even leave there. As long as the word ‘Canadian’ holds meaning in your identity, you are Canadian. Irish-Canadians, Brazilian-Canadians, Native-Canadians… They are equally that—Canadian.”
The boy fixes her with a marvelous grin.
“Do you understand?” Indicating the piece of luggage in the corner of the room, she continues. “Any Canadian might carry that suitcase through the airport, like I did on my way here; however, you will never be able to foresee the variety of things they have packed inside or even who will be hauling it around. The only commonality is that suitcase, the one with the tag in the form of a Canadian flag.”
“You’re telling me that your national identity is a suitcase?” he asks in an Irish incredulity that she finds enchanting.
The girl nods and sits on his lap. “It’s a vacant identity to fill it as one sees fit.”
“Don’t tell me you've been injured again.”
The lad offers the nurse a good-natured smile. “You remember me then?”
“You’re one of the Canadians I treated,” she replies with detachment. The lad figures that she has just finished her shift, for she is still in her uniform.
“Not only a Canadian,” he tells her. “Now I am a Canadian Second Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force.”
Her eyes widen. “You made it to the sky after all?”
“And you didn’t believe I would.”
“I never doubted you would.” To the young man’s delight, the young woman’s eyes have relinquished their stolidness.
“Then come to dinner with me, so I can thank you properly.”
The impending threat of death could not tarnish his joy when she places a hand on his arm and says to meet her at six.
Over dinner they talk of work, they talk of war, they talk of moments of tragedy and poetry.
“I knew from the start that you were Canadian, you know,” she tells him.
“I shouldn’t think it a difficult detail to uncover,” he states. “But please, go on.”
“I noticed your uniform first,” she admits. “Then I knew from the items in your bag; each country issues certain items that are distinct from other countries. Your accent helped me as well, but yours particularly resembles that of the Americans.”
“And what a horrible disservice you do me in saying so.”
She ignores him. “These things only confirmed my suspicions, however. You Canadians don’t all look or speak the same, but there is something about you, an insuperable spirit that you’ve seemed to have inherited from that vast country of yours. I saw it in your eyes when you were injured and I see it now.”
“Now?”
“More than ever.”
The girl is jostled against the train’s metal frame as it rattles through the countryside. Her bags are stowed away and her farewells have long since left her lips. Pressing a hand to the foggy window, she stretches to see the signs passing by in quick succession. She has almost arrived.
The next day she will be on a flight directed to Toronto, but she banishes this thought into the murky non-existent of tomorrow. For now, today is all she owns.
At long last, she reaches her destination and waves for the taxi driver to wait for her a moment in the parking lot. Treading softly on the new, feathery grass, the girl makes her way to the back of the enclosed area. The property is surely privately owned, but she holds no fear of reprimand, for she wields a bouquet of crocuses and daisies to ward off ill-wishers. With graceful, languid steps, she finds the faction of white stones which match her flowers and sinks to her knees despite the damp terrain.
The stone before her has been broken in two, but the name upon it remains intact. Long ago, she had been told “they were not here”; but now she was not held by Canadian soil.
“When I visited that stone, you were not there. So now I’ve travelled here to say that here we are, two countrymen on foreign soil. May God grant you rest.”
She lays the flowers down and realizes that with this action, her journey has truly attained completion.
The lad is jostled against the metal frame of the airplane as it rattles through the air. Below on the ground, his belongings have been packed away and the hardest goodbyes have been met with the appropriate sorrow. Pressing a hand to the window, he marvels at the view as he descends and triumphant verses bound through his mind in quick succession.
It is almost time for him to land.
The next day he would be leaving for France, but he banishes this thought into the murky non-existent of tomorrow. Today is all he owns.
The sunlight slants into the aircraft, warming the lad’s face and but distracting his gaze. He is able to regain his bearings, but not quickly enough to react. Today, he is not the only man in the sky.
The aircrafts collide mid-air, sending streams of fire down to the damp terrain.
Years later, his younger sisters imagine the scene, retelling the ambiguities with a bolstering certitude.
He dies upon impact, they say, with a poem forming in his eyes and a prayer balanced upon his lips. The end comes so swiftly that there is no time to feel pain, only relief at the light which comes to greet him. The sisters falter. He dies in the sky, so there goes his spirit from him, never being entrapped by the wreckage which hurtles to the ground. When they inter his body far away from where his family can grieve, his spirit does not lie with it, for it has found a peace not present on our earthly soil. He is twenty-two years old.
It is in the apex of vitality that he returns to his native land.
“Horace Edgar Kingsmill Bray.” The girl has read the name many times before, but this time she feels the need to say it aloud, to create a continuity between this grave and the memorial stone in Canada which claims his name, but not his presence.
She can bring herself to say nothing more to the soldier whose age her own would soon surpass, despite the hundred years betwixt them.
The taxi driver takes note of the tears slipping down the girl’s face as she directs him where to go, but because she is trying to conceal them, he pretends they are not there.
The next day, the girl feels no apprehension while boarding the plane and she wonders if the soldier ever felt this sense of security. The flight is peaceful and so is the sky outside, free of artillery shells and gun smoke. On her lap is balanced her now tired journal with but a page remaining for her thoughts. She sets her pen to the page and starts.
Yesterday, I met with the past…
And with the past months left behind her in England, she steps off the plane to plan a future here, in the country of her home.
The Sun peers in her window, squeezing through the negative space created by a lattice of branches and powerlines. She doesn’t mind the glaring presence, for its warmth offers her comfort. While she unpacks her things, the yawning, insisting suitcase at her feet implies questions for which she has begun to form answers, about who she is and what belongs inside the case. The girl straightens abruptly and breaking from her task, she wanders to the windowsill. Some meters beneath her, the grass and foliage wear an emerald green that only Spring, in her gentleness, could fashion and a breeze as fragile as a memory tumbles through the trees.
100 years Betwixt
By Maggie Graham
