“Ignore him,” said Vera.
Then they were in open countryside, pasture and poplar bluffs. Vera pointed to a prominent rise about a mile distant. “That’s it. That’s the Protestant Cemetery.”
Despite the earliness of the hour, Daniel could sense the heat building insistently. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He was thirsty. He squinted at the rise. It seemed an awfully long hot walk there and back. Nor was it any piece of cake hauling the scythe. It was nearly as tall as he was.
“Your grandmother would have expected her grave to be kept clean and neat. She was a lady that demanded respect, and in my books the dead are owed every bit as much respect as the living. It’s not too big of a sacrifice to spend a little time tidying on a Sunday morning, is it? And God knows the last time that happened.”
Daniel fell farther behind his mother and the sound of her voice. He was dawdling, swatting the heads off Canada thistle with the scythe. The keen blade went through weeds and the tough prairie grass like a hot knife through butter. Roadside and ditches were spotted with colour. Purple clover, wild blue flax, yellow goat’s beard, white yarrow, and cow parsnip were sprinkled everywhere. Over the bright flowers bees hovered and droned and brighter butterflies flitted. The air was electric with a crackling and buzzing and thrumming of insects hidden in the undergrowth. Daniel felt as if he were moving in an atmosphere charged with static, walking on legs that the heat was draining of energy, turning water-muscled, draggy, listless.
His mother, on the other hand, seemed to be stepping out more and more briskly; the head of her hoe was bobbing and jerking smartly up and down over her shoulder. She kept up a running commentary on his snail’s pace, tossing out remarks. “It’s surprising how soft city boys get and afraid of work. Take my advice, Daniel, and leave off whacking the weeds in the ditches and save your strength for the ones up top. Anyways, weeds on the road allowances are a municipal responsibility. They’re no concern of yours.”
He adopted the wisest course, gave it up, slitted his eyes, propped the scythe on his shoulder, and shambled along in the dust a little more quickly.
They began to encounter traffic; farmers from south of town headed for church. First came Catholics bound for ten-thirty Mass; a little later, worshippers at the United Church. Both denominations were equally and impartially cursed by Vera, even though they reduced speed to avoid spraying Daniel and her with gravel and to gain themselves a look. Vera described it as “a slow-motion gawk.” Car after car and truck after truck went by at a crawl, passengers unabashedly crowding forward behind the glare on the windshield to gaze curiously at the curious pair. Even though they were never recognized and identified, this did not prevent the man behind the wheel in his Sunday best from waving. Country manners demanded a salute even to strangers, although apparently women and children were under no obligation to offer this courtesy, only the driver. As the automobiles slid by, churning up clouds of fine, shifting yellow dust, the man of the house raised a hand in greeting as the others gaped and craned their necks. Vera nodded curtly back while she muttered ill-naturedly under her breath, “Fill your eyes. Two clowns minus the circus, but it’s free – which is the price a farmer likes.”
Finally the parade of cars dwindled away to nothing and they were once more alone on an empty road. A hawk sat on the crossbar of a telephone pole next to a blue-green glass insulator, high-stepping it from one foot to another, opening and spreading its wings, folding and refolding them. When they were twenty yards off it took flight, casually, without alarm. In back of them the church bells of Connaught began to peaclass="underline" the Catholics’ real bell, tolled by the church janitor, then the United Church’s up-to-date summons to worship, recorded bells played over a loudspeaker. By now the graveyard was near at hand. Vera led them off the main road and on to a narrow trail which crept up the cemetery slope, a trail just wide enough to accommodate the one-way traffic of bereavement. Although the hill was not very high, it was steep, and both Vera and Daniel found themselves leaning into it, their eyes on their feet and the fine, floury dust which rose about their ankles with the impact of each plodding footfall. At last Vera was beginning to show the effects of the heat and the climb. Her arms, bare in a sleeveless blouse, shone with a film of sweat and Daniel could plainly hear the sawing of her breath.
“God,” she said, “a stroll up this bugger makes you feel ready for the permanent lie-down up top.”
Up top, however, it felt a little cooler; the air was moving. Vera cast her eyes about her as she recovered her breath. “It’s a little iron cross,” she explained to Daniel. “The grave was on the edges somewhere. She was pretty much off by herself.”
They began a search. “Look carefully,” said Vera. “It was only a little iron cross. It may have fallen over, or been choked with growth.” She was striking at tussocks of dry grass with the hoe, hoping to hear the sound of metal striking metal. “Somewhere on the edges,” she repeated. But after two complete circuits around the graveyard they still hadn’t discovered what they were looking for.
Daniel had a thought. “A lot of people die in twenty years,” he said. “She wouldn’t be on the edges anymore. I mean she’s likely surrounded by now. Dead people all around her.”
They drifted farther in, amid the crowd of headstones. “It’s a little iron cross,” his mother kept saying, “and if he painted it every year, it could be white.”
Daniel suddenly called and beckoned her. “Hey, Mom, was Grandma’s first name Martha?”
Vera hurried over to where he stood. Where he stood was not before a little iron cross but a five-foot-high slab of white marble, blazing ferociously white in the sun. It was something to which the word monument could fairly be applied, at least in Connaught. Twelve months ago it had provided Alec Monkman with a topic for proud discussion with Mr. Stutz. “Now they’re making a special delivery from Regina in a covered truck, Stutz. I don’t understand the principle of that – a covered truck – it’s going to get rained on sooner or later, isn’t it? But the fellow who sold it to me was most specific on it being delivered in a covered truck, mentioned it more than once. The best. Real guaranteed Pennsylvania marble. I don’t know how they intend to unload it, weighing what it’s got to, but that’s up to them. They’re the experts. Just as long as they don’t chip or crack it.”
There it was, rearing up from the earth, wide as a double door, thick and deep as a bookcase. Sprays of lilies and woolly lambs were carved in relief. Chiselled into its bone-white face were the words,
Martha Serena Monkman
1895-1939
Loving Mother and Wife
The grass on the plot showed evidence of recent cutting and the weeds had been pulled. There was even a jar of flowers. It was true these were brown and dry but in such arid heat flowers would wither and curl in a day, mummify in a week. Vera reached down, picked up the jar, and shook the dead petals and stalks out at her feet. She handed the jar to Daniel. “Go get some more,” she said tersely. She didn’t look at him. Her eyes remained fixed on the grave and the block of marble.
“Some more flowers?”
“Yes. Some more flowers.”
He did as he was told, without arguing. There was something about her face. Going out the gate, he glanced back. His mother’s spine was slumped and her arms hanging loosely at her sides.