Living well…
“Vuhn mohment, plis.”
The voice came from the back room, deep but sing-songy through the strips of coloured vinyl. She recognised it immediately. With a shock.
It was a hot day and the front door to the store was open. The air smelled of meat and traffic. Flies crowded each other at a spot on the glass-fronted display case, contesting for something only they could see.
“Plis?” He was in front of her now, behind the counter.
Lena was looking at the flies. She heard a smile in his voice. Servile.
Through the glass, she could see the front of his coat. There was a light pink and grey stain where he had wiped the blood from his hands. A belly. Buttons beginning to strain.
She looked up.
His face was fuller than she remembered, with the beginnings of jowls. His hair was still short but now it was cut in an American style, tight to the sides, flat on top. And much greyer. His hair was much greyer. Thinner, too, she thought. More skin at the temples. A higher forehead.
“Ken I get chu somethink?” he asked in his heavy accent.
His hands, huge, rested on the case. There was a bowl of candy on the counter, for the young mothers and their children. And a bell. For customers to use to summon him when he was in the back.
The sleeves of his smock were rolled back slightly, revealing his forearms. They were bigger than she remembered. Meatier. He was becoming fat.
Lena touched her own forearm, involuntarily. Her sleeve was rolled down and buttoned at the wrist. As always. She never showed her forearm.
It was strange hearing him speak English. The great leveller in this new land. The last time she heard him, he had no accent. He was elegant. Educated. Polite. In charge. A man born to command.
Now he was a type. An Immigrant. A Displaced Person. A Refugee. A Shopkeeper. “Vuhn mohment pliss.” Like in one of those television shows her son Kevin would watch on Saturday mornings. “Nohthink! I zee nohthink!” the German Sergeant would say to the clever Americans. “I hear nohthink!”
Lena tried to remember the character’s name.
Schultz! She thought after a moment. That was it! Sergeant Schultz. The fat prison guard on the TV show. With the funny accent.
Lena felt a sudden wave of pride. Her English was much better than his.
“I would like one pound of beer sausage,” she began, enunciating carefully. Showing off.
This is how you speak English! she thought.
“Vuhn punt” he repeated politely, starting to reach down.
She paused, waiting until he looked back up at her. After he had got the sausage.
“And those three pieces of veal.”
She paused again, making him wait.
“The ones over there,” she added primly, pointing further down the counter.
Lena watched him as he walked down towards the veal, his fat haunches swaying back and forth. Mitzy and her husband were coming to visit this evening and Lena was buying for dinner. Wienerschnitzel, potatoes, and yellow beans. Sausage and cheese to begin. Wine. Schnapps. A celebration.
It had been fifteen years since they’d come to Canada. They met on the ship: Mitzy and her husband Franz, already a couple; Lena on her own. They landed in Montreal and took the train to Toronto, finding an apartment together in a crowded old house on Brunswick Avenue, among the other refugees.
The three of them, together in a single room. A bed, a couch, a table and three chairs. And a camp stove. Bought cheap at Honest Eds.
To avoid scandal, Franz told the landlord that Lena was his sister. They hung bedsheets to divide the room and the three of them lived happily for one year, until Franz got a job in Sarnia and, of course, Mitzy went with him. Lena moved to a smaller apartment of her own above a store on Bloor Street and then, after she was married, to a bungalow — how she loved that word, “bungalow” — near Coxwell.
He finished wrapping the meat and sausage. He placed it on the counter top and asked her if there was anything else he could do.
“No. Thank you,” Lena said, precisely. She was aware of every syllable. “You have been very kind.”
“Dree dollars und faif und zwanzig cints,” he said in his cartoon accent. Lena almost laughed. She opened her purse and counted out some money. A two dollar bill and two ones. She reached up and put them in his hand.
His fat hand.
He opened the drawer on the cash register and started to sort the bills into their slots. Lena picked up the packages and turned for the door. She heard the coins rattle.
“Madam,” he began.
“Keep the change,” she said over her shoulder.
“I don’t need it, anymore.”
