girl who was sending gifts ofchocolate and perfume to another? How to uncover a barracks room thief? There were sleepless nights enough. And then there was the final worry. With every day that passed it was becoming clearer the war was drawing to a close. There were pictures in the newspapers of Russian and American troops shaking hands and posing as comrades beside the wide, slaty waters of the Elbe.
Still, no one yet dared to think of it as finished, not with Japan holding out. On the radio sonorous voices reminded them all of the terrible price in blood which must still be paid. It was difficult to think of life outside the Army as anything but far distant. Then, very soon, Vera had to imagine it. Two bombs dropped, two unearthly flashes of light, two storms of heat and dust and it was over.
This sudden peace took her unprepared. The Army began to melt away around her. It was like waking from a dream. A week never passed that Vera wasn’t down at the train station to see another of her discharged girls off home. She pressed cigarettes and bags of peppermints on them, brusquely shook their hands, and called them by their surnames before they climbed aboard. The shuddering, panting locomotives jerked forward, the carriage couplings rang, and Vera was left feeling like autumn, like those stark days when the leaves have fallen but the snow has not.
Then in 1946 it was Vera’s turn. She was out on civvy street, her winter uniform carefully wrapped in brown paper, tied up in string, and laid in the bottom of a drawer in a rooming-house in Toronto. There was only one thing clear in her mind. She was not going home.
Vera would have preferred to remain in the Army if that was a thing women did, but women didn’t.
7
E very night after supper Daniel walked and figured. It was his best chance to be absolutely alone because everybody else in Connaught was still indoors eating, he had the streets to himself. In Alec Monkman’s household supper was served earlier than in other households because he refused to eat at six o’clock when everyone else in Connaught did. In other houses it was the custom to seat yourself for the evening meal when the “supper siren” blew at the Town Hall. Three times a day a siren sounded from one end of Connaught to the other: at noon, at six, and at nine in the evening when it reminded children that there was a curfew for kids under sixteen years of age. Daniel had never heard of anything so weird, so backward. His grandfather had strong opinions about the siren, too. He said that eating at exactly the same time as eight hundred other people made him feel just like one more pig at the trough. All that snuffling and chewing, he could hear it. It put him off his own feed, he claimed. That was why at their house they ate at five.
Daniel had a route he followed on his figuring walks. Down his grandfather’s street and past the RCMP detachment he went, the sun settling at his back, his shadow long and spidery-legged. In the evening calm the red ensign draped limply around the policeflagpole. Mr. Stutz had been eager to tell him all about the police headquarters, had acted as if it had something directly to do with him. Daniel knew there were two cells in the basement, one of which had actually held a wife-murderer for several days before he was transferred to jail in Regina. He knew that every other month up on the second floor a judge tried minor offences, meted out fines and punishments. Whenever court was in session Mr. Stutz took a day off work and occupied a folding chair in the makeshift courtroom with its picture of the Queen on the wall and the simple desk which saw duty as a judge’s bench. Mr. Stutz had told Daniel that, if he cared to, he could accompany him to court next sitting.
One of the things that Daniel tried to figure as he walked was what he and his mother were doing in Connaught. There had been no warning of a move. All of a sudden she announced they were going, the
Still, no one yet dared to think of it as finished, not with Japan holding out. On the radio sonorous voices reminded them all of the terrible price in blood which must still be paid. It was difficult to think of life outside the Army as anything but far distant. Then, very soon, Vera had to imagine it. Two bombs dropped, two unearthly flashes of light, two storms of heat and dust and it was over.
This sudden peace took her unprepared. The Army began to melt away around her. It was like waking from a dream. A week never passed that Vera wasn’t down at the train station to see another of her discharged girls off home. She pressed cigarettes and bags of peppermints on them, brusquely shook their hands, and called them by their surnames before they climbed aboard. The shuddering, panting locomotives jerked forward, the carriage couplings rang, and Vera was left feeling like autumn, like those stark days when the leaves have fallen but the snow has not.
Then in 1946 it was Vera’s turn. She was out on civvy street, her winter uniform carefully wrapped in brown paper, tied up in string, and laid in the bottom of a drawer in a rooming-house in Toronto. There was only one thing clear in her mind. She was not going home.
Vera would have preferred to remain in the Army if that was a thing women did, but women didn’t.
7
E very night after supper Daniel walked and figured. It was his best chance to be absolutely alone because everybody else in Connaught was still indoors eating, he had the streets to himself. In Alec Monkman’s household supper was served earlier than in other households because he refused to eat at six o’clock when everyone else in Connaught did. In other houses it was the custom to seat yourself for the evening meal when the “supper siren” blew at the Town Hall. Three times a day a siren sounded from one end of Connaught to the other: at noon, at six, and at nine in the evening when it reminded children that there was a curfew for kids under sixteen years of age. Daniel had never heard of anything so weird, so backward. His grandfather had strong opinions about the siren, too. He said that eating at exactly the same time as eight hundred other people made him feel just like one more pig at the trough. All that snuffling and chewing, he could hear it. It put him off his own feed, he claimed. That was why at their house they ate at five.
Daniel had a route he followed on his figuring walks. Down his grandfather’s street and past the RCMP detachment he went, the sun settling at his back, his shadow long and spidery-legged. In the evening calm the red ensign draped limply around the policeflagpole. Mr. Stutz had been eager to tell him all about the police headquarters, had acted as if it had something directly to do with him. Daniel knew there were two cells in the basement, one of which had actually held a wife-murderer for several days before he was transferred to jail in Regina. He knew that every other month up on the second floor a judge tried minor offences, meted out fines and punishments. Whenever court was in session Mr. Stutz took a day off work and occupied a folding chair in the makeshift courtroom with its picture of the Queen on the wall and the simple desk which saw duty as a judge’s bench. Mr. Stutz had told Daniel that, if he cared to, he could accompany him to court next sitting.
One of the things that Daniel tried to figure as he walked was what he and his mother were doing in Connaught. There had been no warning of a move. All of a sudden she announced they were going, the
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