Copyright © 2020 Johann Tienhaara
Let us catch up.
You've been seeing this woman. Tell me about her. You say you don't know her name? Well, her name is Tove. What does she do? You're not sure? Well, why are you seeing her? What do you mean, you can't see her? She's right there. You are behaving strangely today, my old friend. Were you out late last night? Didn't sleep well? Anyway, she's right there. Right in front of you. Is she beautiful, do you think? Why do you ask me, how should I know what beauty means to you? All I see is a woman, about whom I know nothing. Well, I suppose I know one thing. She is bent over the table, focused completely on a pad of paper. Scribbling furiously, she doesn't seem to realize where she is, or who is watching her. Is she a writer, my old friend? You don't know? You've been seeing her all this time and I've heard all these stories about your adventures together -- and misadventures! -- yet you continue to insist you know nothing of her. Well, let me see, there are so many... There was the time you and she were accosted by the large black man. "Hey!" he shouted at you. He was tall, and built. Sitting on the step outside his house. "I say, I say. Hey!" She reached for your forearm and gave it a squeeze as she stepped closer to you. It was dusk on Amundsen St., a sketchy part of town, all the white folk say. Sketchy is 21st century code for black and poor. You were on the sidewalk, on your way home from the Bohemian cafe where you'd been together, separate. She scribbling on her pad of paper, you sipping lukewarm chai latte from a white cup, watching her intently. What was she writing? Who was she writing to -- or for? She had been writing the first time you met. She'd been sitting cross-legged on a flannel shirt spread out on the grass at the top of North Hill Park, overlooking the Square with the Bohemian cafe and the do-it-yourself pewter sculpting workshop and the junk shop selling "Power Tools and Gutars [sic]". The sun had taken its toll on your scalp, because you'd forgotten your chapeau again -- you know, the one that I say makes you look like a newspaper boy from the 20s -- yes, the checkered flat cap with the button -- so you'd decided to slump down against a spindly silver maple offering a gauze of shade, and maybe catch up on your reading. What'd you been reading at that point, I can't remember? Ah, yes, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller. No, I haven't read it. Did you enjoy it? You can't remember? Well, I'll tell you, you had been enjoying it up until that moment. But just as you'd reached into your napsack for the book, she -- Tove, the woman sitting on the flannel shirt scribbling on her notepad, a couple metres away from your diaphanous shade -- had turned to you and whispered just above the wind: "Can you keep a secret?" What had you thought, that moment, I wonder? She was beautiful, I must confess, in her eccentric way. Too thin, if I might be judgmental. But the sun had met her complexion to negotiate some deep, unfathomably deep orange glow, like all the heat of the day had been radiating out from her. Her eyes had been uninteresting; later you couldn't even remember what colour they were; but her dark glinting gaze had kicked down the front door of your soul to shout her introduction. You hadn't even been able to remember what she had said. She'd then seen something in you, and smirked a little, submerged freckles and slight dimples betraying the passage of decades. "I said can you keep a secret?" You'd looked down at your book, realizing that you'd lost the page you'd been about to read, and that had annoyed you slightly, because you'd known then that searching for the right spot would be impossible. How can anyone find their place in a deliberately misprinted novel? You'd been annoyed, suddenly, at the whole world, for making you too hot, too sunburnt on your scalp, for making you forget your chapeau, and for somehow impelling you to read this non-contiguous nonsense that sent your brain spinning without any proper denouement or resolution, but, above all, for introducing to you this beautiful woman asking you impudent questions that you couldn't see the point of. "Yes, of course I can keep a secret!" you'd said with somewhat more vigour than you'd considered to be reasonable once the words had escaped and they danced around you with the motes among the rays cast through the maple shift. Without breaking from her gaze, you'd wiped your brow and reached for your book. Something was crawling on it; you'd flinched, still without looking away from her, from Tove. "So can I," she'd said and returned to her furious scribbling, the smile wiped away. A robin had hopped between you then. And you'd sat and tried to find your place in the disjointed novel with ants on the cover and you hadn't even noticed when she'd slipped away. How, then, did you see her again? I've heard the stories, but in between, what happened? You were in the cafe, watching her write on her notepad, while you sipped your chai latte, but how did you get there from North Hill Park overlooking the Square? You must have met another time, in between? But no, you say you don't remember. Well, all I know is you were walking home from the cafe together, and she clung to your arm, and you tensed, and you deliberately tensed a little bit extra in the arm, wanting her, this Tove woman of yours, to feel the flex. It felt good, powerful, rippling your sinewy little muscles under her firm two-handed grip. Even though you were nervous, because this was a sketchy part of town, after all, and here was a 6'4" black man shouting "Hey!" at you. What did he want? It was dusk, not cool, but not sweltering like it had been in the park. You felt moisture under your arms, and the muscles that expel poisons tightened. The black man stood from the doorstep and walked toward you and Tove. He swung his arms with the carelessness of one who fears nothing, and he swaggered just a little. At the other side of the little painted fence, he stopped. His eyes glinted and the muscles in his cheeks all stood to attention as he grinned and leaned down and in toward you. His breath was all salty olives. "Can you keep a secret?" he said. A streamer broke free and raced down your forehead, salt in your eye. Tove's grip was unbreakable, both her hands clenching your forearm. You could feel her breathing on your exposed arm, beneath the T-shirt sleeve, hot and moist and quick. The black man's smile was fading. His cheek muscles submerged. "No," you said. A dog was barking and scrabbling at the window of a nearby house. A car drove by and turned down Northpark Road. A grey and white cat stalked through the overgrown grass in a neighbour's lawn. The big black man grinned a toothy grin, clapped his hand on your left shoulder, making you flinch and your sphincter spasm. He laughed a slow, inverted laugh. "Ah, ah, ah," he said. He lifted his hand from your shoulder and patted it twice more. He turned, returned to his seat on the porch step. Where did you go next? Did you take Tove home? Did you make love? Or was that not your fate? Did you escort her to the Mental Health facility on Agnes St., sign her back in, and say your goodbyes until tomorrow? Did you bring her to the pub where she works, and drop her off there, and hang on to her notepad for her? What was written on her notepad? You must be able to see. Don't look at me like that, I only know your stories, not the in-between bits. What happens in between? Why won't you tell me, my old friend? I feel like you're chasing me. But I have no way forward. Take me with you, please. I want to see what you see. I want to share your secrets, now that you have taken all of mine from me. You lead the way, now. I will follow. I will chase you. I will catch up.