The Peerless Four Page 9

  His face wasn’t classically handsome, but his complicated character came through, attracting her. She decided that men reveal beauty through character in their physical appearance, whereas women’s beauty and attractiveness depend on surface physical traits. What is beneath does not count for women as it does for men.

  When he took the hat off, the sun shone on his face, revealing his eyes, and that was when she was permanently undone. Deep brown and marked with a golden shifting of emotions, big and open and sensitive, and ringed by eyelashes more typical on a girl.

  When he put his eyes fully to hers, she blushed and her mouth went dry. She swallowed three times, summoned Grandma Onata, and found her tongue. “I fear you,” she said.

  After a long and strained pause, with all her willpower, she informed him that she was due at home.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ve taken enough of your time.”

  The next few months passed without incident, and she gathered information about Edward, careful not to attract suspicion. Born to Irish parents, he married his childhood sweetheart at sixteen. Their home on Toronto Island had been swept by a storm, washing ashore several miles from his father’s hotel where he worked. He began sculling the difference from work and home, several kilometers each day, developing his skill, which led him to register in his first regatta. He finished third to last, and the newspaper claimed that he didn’t possess the drive of a competitor, but had the deportment of a daydreamer.

  The following month at another dinner party, Onata happened upon Edward and his wife, Mary, outside near the garden.

  Edward introduced the women and then excused himself to get a drink, leaving Mary and Onata alone. Small and pretty, with fair hair and dark eyes, Mary commented on the evening, and they agreed that it was pleasant.

  More small talk, and then Mary excused herself, perhaps noticing a remote coldness that kept Onata from thinking of Mary as a person—a flesh-and-blood woman.

  Onata would look back on their strange exchange as a moral failure on her part, the first of many.

  As soon as Mary left, Edward came from behind a tree, as if he’d been hiding and waiting. He looked pale and sick, and when she asked him if he needed to sit or if she should get him a glass of water, he said harshly, “It’s not water that I need!”

  He took her elbow and guided her further from the party, to the edge near a gate. The lights from the house shimmered, and laughter and music carried. A full moon made the night visible, and near a tree was another couple in an embrace.

  He led her to the gate’s opening, and soon they were hidden in the woods. He breathed heavily beside her, and all at once he said, “What is this? What are you doing to me?”

  She worried that she’d offended him without knowing how or why, and she stood in confusion, her breathing irregular, and her heart racing within her bosom.

  He took her elbows, encouraged her to a kneel. Then he was kneeling and his head was in her hair, filling his nostrils with her. She was incredulous, and soon they were in a violent passion, his face pressed against her breast.

  He paused, took a breath, unbuttoned his shirt, and guided her hand across him, so that she felt his muscular form. He looked as if he would cry, and he said, “I’m a sinner!” and her heart flooded with tenderness. “Who are you?” he asked, so close she tasted his breath, salty and sour and, “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she said.

  “Don’t stop,” he urged, guiding her hand, “don’t stop, don’t stop, please.”

  In the midst of their passion, Onata had an intimation that she would come to need him terribly, and that this would lead to a terrible outcome.

  So began Edward’s subsequent winning streak, connected to Onata, sprung from carnal greed. The following morning, he competed and crossed the finish bow by bow with his rival’s boat, but he raised his fist in clear celebration of his victory, so that ultimately the judges agreed.

  Onata wore a face of innocence and became practiced at deception. Alert and inventive, they carried on their liaisons undetected, meeting in a shack at the pier where Edward kept his boat. He created a bed out of blankets, and there was an iron woodstove to keep them warm.

  An old widower who lived close by saw them, but he didn’t care about Onata and gave a winking approval to Edward.

  After they exhausted their bodies in vice, they talked strategy. Onata helped Edward develop his rowing technique: thrusting his legs and balancing on his sliding seat, so that his height and weight wouldn’t hamper him against larger opponents. He got his stroke perfected not by the angle of his oars but by his body angle and stride, the power coming from his legs.

  When he competed, she did all the worrying for him.

  She had him squat and jump, squat and jump, squat and jump, building his thighs even larger, and she counted and encouraged. They did arm and leg exercises and calisthenics.

  She loved to lie with their bodies’ sweat mingling and their muscles tight, delirious in their physical strain and pleasures.

  Once, Mary had Onata to lunch, and Onata taught the two youngest children hopscotch. She went not from curiosity, but to stifle suspicion. She was large and not beautiful, so that once Mary got a good look at her, she felt that Mary would never suspect. Lemon cake was served, the same color as Mary’s hair. It seemed that Onata chewed pieces of rubber.

  Mary smiled and smiled, her face ordinary and jolly, and Onata’s soul shrank. Their conversation was awkward and brief, and Onata was not asked back again.

  When Mary and the children went to visit Mary’s parents for two weeks, Onata and Edward rejoiced, unabashedly taking over the house as their personal quarters for pleasure. Nary a space went untainted, in full daylight, no less, on floor and on table, in corners and closets. It didn’t matter, they were helpless, and this included the wedding bed and the children’s beds.

  They rationalized their eagerness, convinced that by fully engaging their desires, they would extinguish them and finally leave their impropriety behind. But their appetites grew larger, beyond anything they could have controlled or predicted.

  There was no denying that their lovemaking, along with Onata’s coaching, improved Edward’s confidence, to the point that he became convinced that he was undefeatable.

  He traveled to compete, leaving his family and Onata to pine, and he became known as a ruthless competitor, humiliating his challengers.

  Before races, as his opponents watched, he blew kisses to their wives, girlfriends, and mothers.

  After crossing the finish lines, he rowed back to his rivals, and crossed again, beating them twice. He pretended to sleep, head bowed, and when his opponents approached, he awoke with a dramatic flair and won easily. He rowed zigzags, his rivals struggling in mortification in their straight lines.

  At times, Onata wondered if she’d created a monster. He would do anything to win, and then delight in his adversaries’ defeat.

  You don’t really know a person, Onata concluded, until you see how that person responds to winning.

  One afternoon, George confronted Onata. “You’re a mistress to a scoundrel!”

  She denied it.

  “You’re my sister!” he said. “You think I wouldn’t know?”

  He threatened to obliterate Edward’s manhood with a well-aimed rifle shot.

  “You don’t love him,” he said, and she said, “How would you know?’”

  She was frustrated that she couldn’t quit Edward, and she suffered bouts of guilt.

  Yet there was only a moment of regret as they engaged in the physical act, a vast sadness, and then all would become a tidal wave of euphoria that rendered her an amnesiac, temporarily sweeping aside all practicality, conscience, and negative thoughts.

  Edward left to compete in England and while he was gone, one night, Mary came to the farm after supper.

  From the window, George noticed her approaching, and he sent Onata to the door, telling her in a reprimanding whisper, “Keep
it outdoors, as far away as possible. There are children here.”

  Onata’s terror was met with more terror when she saw Mary at the doorway. “Hello,” Onata said, attempting casualness, but her face strained and her voice sounded hollow. It seemed in bad manners not to smile, so she forced one.

  Mary was quiet and stared at her. Remembering George’s request, Onata suggested they leave, and Mary followed her down the pathway.

  They walked for a long time in silence, and then, under a full moon, Mary stopped. “This,” she said, screwing her lips and twisting her wedding band from her finger, “my dear prostitute, belongs to you.”

  Onata wanted to deny but her face wouldn’t obey. Everything in her life was obliterated in a heavy shame, as if a giant hand came down from the sky and clubbed her.

  Onata wouldn’t take the ring, and Mary kept thrusting it at her, pushing at her chest. “I loved you,” she said, “trusted you,” perhaps confusing Onata with Edward, and the whole time she kept weeping and shoving and thrusting.

  Then she made a giant swing, flinging the ring into the grass, and with her other hand, striking Onata across the mouth so that she tasted blood.

  “No, no, no!” Mary cried, and she ran in the direction that she threw, landing at her knees in a frantic search.

  Onata went to a crawl beside her, hunting in the dark, swallowing her blood. “Sorry, sorry,” she said.

  Mary told Onata to shut her mouth, and she did.

  Onata wept silently for it seemed unfair to cry with Mary.

  They searched, and then Mary rose, her dress and face muddied. She stared down at Onata. Onata couldn’t bear her eyes and turned her face.

  After Mary left, Onata looked until George made her come inside. She looked the next day, and the next, and she found the ring and sent it to Mary by post.

  Edward returned from his victory in England to his failure at home. Months passed, and Onata and Edward stayed away from each other. Onata helped Ida tend to the children, and she worked in the garden and cooked and cleaned. She took up sewing and knitting and other hobbies that she had previously scorned. Her stubborn and rebellious nature had transformed to compliant, submissive, and helpful. Internally full of turmoil, she wore a placid appearance and tried to be of use.

  Edward suffered one defeat after another, losing to weaker opponents. During one race, he had a near-collision with a chartered steamer. After another defeat, he claimed that a foul had been perpetrated against him and filed a complaint, only for the referee to side against him, terming him a poor loser.

  Late one afternoon, in a state of high agitation, Edward came to Onata. She wouldn’t let him inside, and he stood at the doorway. The sun was low and the wind had picked up. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it against his reddened nostrils. “I need you,” he said.

  She told him, “You need me to win,” and he looked down.

  He admitted that their passion and his victories were connected. Without her, he said, winning was impossible, like trying to exhale and inhale at the same time.

  Onata was exhausted, angry, guilty, and in pain. She barely slept. “You,” she said, “are a horrible man. I wish I’d never met you,” and that finally got Edward to leave.

  Thus began the second explosion in her soul. There was no denying that she had sinned against Mary and her children. She couldn’t justify her behavior, and she couldn’t bear to live with what she’d done.

  But it was not only sin, for in truth she’d lived with sin before. It was not only the betrayal. It was that she’d been winning alongside Edward, tasting his victories.

  Onata wasn’t allowed to participate in athletics, but she’d found her way to competition through Edward. She, like Edward, would do anything to win.

  She was unnerved by how giddy his victories made her feel. It shouldn’t matter that much. It shouldn’t feel that good. Waves of emotion washed over her each time. Relief and elation and a hysterical serenity, because she believed that she’d earned those victories through him.

  She was supposed to be a different person, a better person, not a person who believed winning was everything. What kind of woman was she?

  When they declared Edward the victor, internally she took her position beside him, a champion. She lived for success.

  Their sin and perfidy had wrought a beast that fed on victory. Discovered and shamed, they lost, and losing was awful compared with winning, and endured.

  Losing, it turned out, was imperative, and she needed to fit it inside her and live with its constancy.

  Onata trained with a midwife, became an assistant. For the next eight years, she traveled and aided in the delivery of babies. She also became an advocate of contraception, delivering pamphlets that outlined various birth control techniques.

  A pamphlet was included in the file, containing radical opinions, penned by Onata:

  1.Women are not procreative serfs.

  2.Motherhood does not make a woman happy.

  3.Sexual intercourse need not be solely for procreation.

  When the midwife passed away, Onata took on her duties, having been cultivated for this purpose. She found an assistant, began training her as she’d been trained. She read the Bible, prayed, devoted herself to others.

  Civic-minded and well liked, she nevertheless kept to herself. Men attempted to court her, but she was unresponsive to flattery and attention, having decided that she’d abused and worn out that portion of her life long before.

  Mary did not utilize Onata’s midwifery services for the birth of her baby, and another, and a third and final, making seven children total, instead relying on family members. But with each birth, she took her scissors to the local newspaper’s announcements, and posted and mailed the clippings to Onata, with her initials scribbled over the type to ensure the recipient of their sender.

  Edward’s regatta days ended after a trail of bitter losses, and he tended bar at his father’s hotel. He retained his popularity. The crowds had loved his crazy antics, though his opponents had not. The bar was covered with photographs of his earlier victories, ever reminding him that he’d once been a champion.

  No matter how old he became, no matter what he did with his life, whether he lived or died, whether he was happily married or divorced, whether he was a good father or not, the photos acted as a shrine.

  Yet he became known for an adage: “No matter how much you win,” he would tell his customers, “if you don’t win the last one, you’re a loser.”

  Edward sent Onata a letter on fine onionskin paper, undated. She saved it in the file, and folded Mary’s birth announcements within, as a statement and reminder.

  My dearest Onata,

  I cannot hope that you would begin to understand my forwardness and bad manners in writing to you, after your specific demand that I disappear from your life. I would rather die having tried than having not. I must tell you my feelings and the only way to do so is abruptly and without too much thought.

  I pray to Our Lord and Savior that you forgive my impropriety and read with an open heart, for HE forgives me and knows all, and loves me for the sake of what I have to say.

  My heart and soul are yours. I lost them to you the instant you looked at me across the table at the dinner party long ago. That was my fate! I did not request it! You talk of winning and losing. I lost everything to you. You have stolen me.

  I see your face and hear your voice. I watch you every night in my sleep. We belong together and always have and you know it in your heart! Our bodies belong as one.

  If it were not for my own cowardice, I would come take you right now. Your brother be damned! I would tell you these things in person! I ache for you. I only know sorrow.

  This is a matter of life or death. For you see you have taken my heart with you, and there is nothing left for me. I am pretending through life. I am a shadow. I continue to breathe though I am only a ghost.

  Please take me back into your arms. I want to live there. I remain forever l
ost, and sustain myself only through memories.

  You believe that my love for you is based on victories. But that was a benefit and a sign of the power. It was not the love itself but the outcome. It was our shared victory, shared fears, shared trust, and shared bodies.

  You torture me by brutally exposing me to your love and trust, and then stealing it from me, as if you cared nothing for me at all.

  I would leave Mary and the children if you asked. I would do anything for you.

  Please don’t ask me to live without you. I cannot feel life without you.

  Without you, all is dead.

  Have compassion.

  Yours eternally,

  E.N.

  In the spring of 1886, Onata was in a crowded Metropolitan Street Railway, on her way home from a visit with a patient. She looked out the window and wondered what she would do if she saw Edward. She decided that he would be lost by the time she could make her way through the car with her medical bag.

  Upon her arrival, she walked across the street to a beauty shop, deciding to treat herself. She was in the chair, and she watched the hands of the clock on the wall inch along. Three thirty-three, three thirty-four, three thirty-five. An icy coldness went through her for no discernible reason. Her pulse quickened, and she asked for a glass of water. She felt as though thousands of ants were crawling on her and through her, inside her mouth, everywhere.

  She drank the water, but the sensation wouldn’t leave. She paid and left, her hair half-finished. That was Saturday afternoon.

  Monday morning she received word that Edward had been killed while working at the bar.

  A local disgruntled drunk reached inside his jacket and drew out a pistol, aimed it at Edward’s chest. According to witnesses, Edward said, “Do it, do it, do it,” and the drunk finally complied, pulling the trigger. An ongoing argument, a witness said, existed between the men, concerning Edward’s cutoff limit.

  But at that same trial, Edward’s life insurance company proposed a scheme on Edward’s part: he paid the drunk to shoot, rained the drunk in alcohol to steel his nerves. But still at that critical point, the drunk faltered, and thus Edward’s reminder: do it, do it, do it.