The Lemon Tree Read online

  After the letter was written, Wallace Helena went over to the fireside, to pick up her knitting again. Tom and Joe were in the barn dealing with a mare which was having difficulty in dropping its foal.

  ‘Mama, how is it that you can avoid having children? Agnes says children simply come, whether you like it or not.’

  Her mother was mending a rent in one of Tom’s jackets. She broke the thread with her teeth, as she considered the question. ‘It is a delicate matter. You have to watch the moon and your monthly show of blood – and you have to find an acceptable excuse to give your husband for not lying with him on certain days.’

  Wallace Helena picked out another ball of the coarsely spun knitting wool with which she was making socks. ‘The moon, Mama?’ she asked, a little incredulously, a suspicion of laughter in her voice.

  ‘Yes. The moon. I’m not teasing you. It’s a system usually used to help women conceive – if they’ve had no luck in becoming pregnant. But it can be used in reverse, to avoid children.’ And she went on to share with Wallace Helena the observations of generations of women, that there appeared to be certain days in the monthly cycle when a child might be conceived – and that these days were limited. By watching the moon’s twenty-eight-day cycle or by consulting a calendar, one could relate a woman’s twenty-eight-day cycle to it – and thus know that at the rising of the moon, say, one should try for a child – or avoid those days if you did not want one.

  Wallace Helena sat spellbound. ‘What do you tell Tom, to avoid him on the wrong days?’

  ‘I tell him I have certain religious days when I must make special prayers each month,’ she replied placidly. ‘And he humours me.’

  Wallace Helena had always understood the relationship between man and wife; there was little privacy in the crowded busy homes of Beirut, and women talked and complained endlessly about their menfolk. Now, however, finding the young woman was interested, Leila began to instruct her in how to please a man. ‘When you are older, you will marry,’ she said, ‘and you’ll keep a man faithful, if you give him pleasure.’

  ‘Do women get pleasure?’

  ‘Certainly, my dear. But sometimes men are stupid and ignorant – and then you have to teach them what pleases you.’

  ‘Humph.’ Wallace Helena found it impossible to relate what her mother said directly to Tom; it was as if the faded, knowledgeable woman was a teacher, not her mother, and the man about whom she spoke was not Tom, but some abstract man conjured up to use as an example.

  When Leila fell silent, Wallace Helena did not know what to say. Her mother had opened up a weird world which she had always known existed but had never really considered; it made her feel very uneasy.

  Finally, she said lightly, ‘It’s easier to make moccasins than to knit this awful wool.’ She flung down her needles irritably.

  Leila agreed, and no more was said about the art of sex. Wallace Helena began to look at men with new eyes, however. Black, white or brown, were they all the same? She began to speculate whether women were as powerless as they often appeared; her mother seemed to believe that men could, through sex, be easily manipulated.

  She got up briskly from her chair, and said, ‘I’ll go over to the barn.’ Then she paused, and asked idly, ‘Mama, do you feel it has been worthwhile – leaving Chicago, I mean?’

  The unexpected question startled Leila. She looked puzzled for a moment, and then said slowly, ‘I don’t think about it very much. When I first came I thought I was going to die, and I wished I had sent you, at least, to your Uncle James.’

  Wallace Helena bent to kiss her mother lightly on the top of her head. ‘I’d never leave you, Mama.’

  ‘Bless you, child,’ Leila responded absently, and then reverted to Wallace Helena’s question. ‘Once I was here, I was sure I could never face the return journey – or any similar journey – so I have made the best of it. And Tom is very dear to me,’ she added defensively. ‘I didn’t make any mistake about him. He works like a devil for our sake.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ admitted Wallace Helena. She sighed. ‘We all work very hard.’

  Her mother spread her hands on her knees and looked at the broken nails, the ingrained soot and their redness. ‘Yes, dear,’ she agreed, and then her usual optimism reasserted itself, and she said, ‘Tom’s saving to get us a proper iron cooking stove.’

  ‘Good heavens! Where would he get that from?’

  ‘He’s trying to find out – and see if he can get one sent overland, now the trail is better.’ She got up from her chair and shook out the jacket she had been mending. ‘Up to now, he’s had to collect farm implements – tools of every kind. Now it’s my turn to have something, he says.’

  ‘Great,’ responded Wallace Helena, with enthusiasm. ‘A stove will be a godsend.’ She took her shawl from a hook and wrapped it round herself. ‘I’ll go over to see if the foal’s born yet.’

  Ice crunched under her moccasins as she walked across the yard to the barn. Her mother had not really answered her question regarding her inner feelings about living in such a primitive place. Did she find the small world of the homestead and its six inhabitants satisfying? Was the battle to survive each year perhaps a challenge that she enjoyed meeting? Yet, she had cried when she saw the tattered anthology of Arab poems which Uncle James had sent.

  She stood in the yard for a moment, looking up at a peerless night sky where every star seemed to twinkle with the clarity of a view of them from a desert. It was uncannily quiet, except for the muffled sound of the men’s voices in the barn. The wind was chilly and she began to shiver as she gazed at the cold silver of the rising moon. Living in the Territories was as lonely as living on the moon, she thought. There was nothing comfortable in the thousands of miles of unexplored forest and prairie that surrounded her. The untouched land sat there like a mountain lion waiting for prey – and it could spring nasty surprises on you just as quickly, she thought bitterly. And no matter what happened, there was no extended family to call on for help; no community. Nothing. Just nothing. Did Adam and Eve feel like she did, when they were cast out of Eden to face just such a world?

  She began to shake with helpless fear, just as she had when she first arrived. Perspiration rolled down her face, and she wanted to turn and run. But there was nowhere to run, except into the very land which scared her so much.

  The side door of the barn opened and Joe was silhouetted against the light of the lantern inside. He was wiping his hands and arms with some straw. He did not see her at first, but when he did, he asked, in surprise, ‘Hi, hon, what are you doing out there?’

  She turned. Her blanched face gleamed in the lantern light. She looked at Joe for a moment as if she did not recognize him. Her mouth tightened and she seemed much older than her seventeen years, as she sought to control her terror. She said shakily, ‘I came to see if the foal was born.’

  Joe threw away the dirty straw, and grinned. ‘Sure. He’s fine. And Queen’ll be all right.’

  She tried to smile, but there was no rejoicing in her; Uncle James’s little lemon flower felt as bitter as a lemon fruit.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Leila was not the only one marked by the remorseless round of work on a homestead: Agnes Black was feeling her years. After talking the matter over with Joe and Simon Wounded, she suggested to Tom and Leila that they might take in an orphan girl from amongst those cared for by the Grey Nuns in St Albert, a small Metis and Cree community founded by an Oblate priest, Father Lacombe, about ten miles away.

  ‘The girl could help in the house – and I’d teach her,’ she promised. ‘We wouldn’t have to pay her anything for a while.’

  They debated the problem of another mouth to feed, but, though the harvest that year had been good, the men were uneasy; some years they felt as if they had their backs to the wall. Another person was another responsibility. Leila, however, jumped at the idea, particularly since the girl would not be coming straight from her tribe, but would have been taught by the famou
s Grey Nuns. She had never met the nuns; they tended to stay close to their work in St Albert, but she had heard from Jeanette that they were white and were educated, and might even know what a Lebanese Maronite was.

  So, speechless and terrified, Emily, aged ten, was added to the motley family. She clung to Agnes like a small brown ghost.

  At first, Wallace Helena did not take much notice of her. She herself worked with the men outside; Emily would work with Leila. Then she noticed casually that the child never smiled and did not seem to grow much, though she ate with the family and consumed a fair amount of food. When spoken to, the girl slid behind Agnes, who often answered for her. This bothered Wallace Helena and she mentioned it to Joe, while they sat on the fence having their usual evening smoke.

  Joe carefully crumbed up some tobacco in the pink palm of his hand, before he answered. ‘Maybe she don’t understand anything but Cree,’ he suggested. ‘What do you talk to her in?’

  ‘English. She must know English. I tried French one day, but she just looked at me as if I were insane. I took it for granted that being with the nuns all her life, she didn’t know Cree.’

  ‘Try Cree – slowly.’

  Wallace Helena followed his advice, though her own Cree often made a gleam of amusement rise in the eyes of Indian visitors. And slowly she began to unravel the small, grubby, miserable person that was Emily.

  She was startled to find a mirror image of herself, when she first came to Fort Edmonton, a child uprooted, its origins and forebears either ignored or disparaged. In addition, she was parentless. Agnes Black, though not unkind, was often short with her because, as Emily told Wallace Helena, ‘I’m slow, because I don’t know anything. And Mrs Harding – I can’t understand what she says. So she gets cross.’ She did not cry; she avoided looking directly at her questioner, her face expressionless.

  Wallace Helena nodded, her own face suddenly grim. Poor Mama had declared that knowing three languages was enough – she was not about to start on Cree; she spoke English to Agnes.

  Emily slept in the bunk in the living-room where Wallace Helena had herself wept through her first weeks in the homestead; Tom and Joe had since built on a little room for her which backed on to the living-room fireplace and was warmed by it. She sighed, and looked again at the child before her. It was late, and Agnes, Joe and Simon had long since gone to their shack. There was a faint murmur of voices from her parents’ room, as they, too, prepared for bed. With a sudden surge of pity, Wallace Helena took both the youngster’s hands in hers. ‘I think I understand how you feel,’ she said. ‘It happened to me once, when I couldn’t speak any English.’

  Emily’s eyes opened wide and, for the first time, she stared directly at Wallace Helena.

  Wallace Helena continued. ‘I’ll explain to Mrs Harding, and she will ask Agnes to translate for you. And you can speak Cree to Joe, Mr Harding and Simon Wounded.’

  At the men’s names the girl looked frightened.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Wallace Helena.

  ‘The Reverend Mother said we must never, ever, speak to men; it’s dangerous for us.’

  Wallace Helena leaned back in the old wooden chair and laughed. Emily looked totally discomfited at her sudden mirth.

  ‘I don’t think any of the men here will hurt you; they are more likely to protect you from other men. If any one of them does touch you in a way you don’t like, tell me immediately. I’ll take care of you.’

  The girl squirmed, and then smiled slightly. Wallace Helena got up and suggested cheerfully, ‘Let’s have some hot milk before we go to bed. And tomorrow I’ll teach you how to milk a cow.’

  The next morning, she rode out with Joe to look for a missing steer; their herd was small and any absence was noted almost immediately. Unlike further south, where cattle ranged on the hills, Tom kept his in fenced pasture land, which he had taken a lot of trouble to improve.

  Joe’s handsome, high-cheekboned face creased up with laughter when she told him of little Emily’s woes and mentioned the Reverend Mother’s warning. His black eyes flashed, as he rose in his saddle to squint across the country in search of the lost animal.

  ‘Tell your ma about her; she’ll spoil her to death, once she understands what’s the matter.’

  His assumption was correct, and Emily became another little daughter to train, always a quiet shadow in the house, but devoted to Wallace Helena and Leila.

  They found enough remains of the steer to indicate that someone had slaughtered it and taken almost all of it away with them.

  ‘Must’ve been a party of ’em, blast them,’ he muttered. ‘I sometimes think we were crazy to bring cattle up here. Nobody else did for a while. I guess we lost this one to Indians last night – but if it isn’t them, it’s cougars – or they go eat something they shouldn’t and make themselves sick; they haven’t got the brains of mice. I’ll never forget the time I had bringing the first three up from Fort Benton.’ He bridled as he continued, ‘I got them here, though – a bull and two cows, as scrawny as they could be and still stand on their feet.’ He chuckled again. ‘The fellows down at the Fort laughed their heads off and said it was a lot cheaper to hunt; but we nursed ’em along and we got calves and had meat when they didn’t.’

  As they went back to the cabin, laughing and making jokes about the chickens he had also bought, on another occasion, from American settlers further south, Agnes Black looked up from the barrel in which she was doing some washing, outside the door, and she sighed. Again, that night, she suggested cautiously to Joe that he should take a Cree wife.

  He told her dryly that he and Tom had enough mouths to feed, without his adding to them. ‘Tom looked as black as Old Nick when I told him about the steer this morning,’ he added, as if to confirm the difficulty of feeding everyone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Over the years, Tom and Joe struggled on, through good harvests and bad ones. They increased their holding and the cattle on it by not asking anyone’s permission to clear land; they felled trees and then ploughed, and argued afterwards with the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Company’s Chief Factor finally gave up and decided to ignore them.

  Then, in 1879, came the smallpox, sweeping through the west like the Black Death once swept through Europe.

  Tom was the first to catch the disease, probably from a family of Crees he had met casually on the trail, who were subsequently wiped out by it. Leila and Agnes Black nursed the stricken man and both of them became infected; regardless of contagion, Leila held her husband in her arms when his pain was greatest, whispering to him to hold on and that he would soon be better. Inwardly, she was torn with anguish, as she watched his well-loved features almost obliterated by the huge pustules the disease produced; they blocked his nasal passages and his mouth so that he could not swallow the sedatives that Agnes brought. He died in a wild delirium, held down by both women, so that he would not roll off the bed.

  As his poor racked body relaxed in death, the elderly Indian woman and the suddenly bereft wife stared blankly at each other across the bed as if stupefied. Then Leila screamed and flung herself across Tom, beating his pillow with her fists.

  Agnes hastened round the bed to lift her away, calling at the same time for Joe to come to help her. He heard her and came immediately from the yard. Together, they half-carried the frantic woman into the living-room. She fought them off, continuing to scream and then to tear her clothes in mourning.

  ‘Stay with her,’ Agnes ordered. ‘I’ll get Wallace Helena – and something to soothe her.’

  Not attempting to stop her rending her garments, Joe spoke softly to her and gradually persuaded her to sit down. Wallace Helena came running from the vegetable garden, where she had gone for a few minutes to get vegetables to make a soup for the invalid, a soup he would not now need. She knelt by her mother and wept with her. Then she persuaded Leila to sip the cordial Agnes brought for her and this helped to calm her.

  When symptoms suggested that Leila herself had ca
ught the disease, she shuddered inwardly and quailed at the thought of the suffering she must undergo. Secure in the belief that Tom would be waiting for her, she was not afraid of dying; without her husband, she felt she had no reason to live. While her mind was clear, however, she gathered up her courage; Wallace Helena was a woman now, but she needed to be able to continue on the land that sustained them. She sent Joe post-haste to bring a priest to her.

  Two Oblate Fathers came from a nearby Cree encampment, where they had been tending the sick as best they could. They were surprised to find a woman who did not want to confess or receive extreme unction; she wanted them to write a Will for her and witness her signature.

  ‘I may die, Father. I want to make sure that everything that belongs to me – including anything my beloved husband has left me …’ Her voice broke as she struggled through her increasing pain to convey her sense of urgency to the priests. ‘He wrote a Will when we were married – I haven’t had the heart to look at it yet – but it’s probably in his cash box.’ She stopped, to gather what strength she had, and then continued, ‘Everything to go to my darling daughter, Helena – Wallace Helena.’

  It was arranged before the disease engulfed her completely. The priests did not stay; they returned hurriedly to the stricken encampment, only to die of the same disease themselves a short time later.

  As Wallace Helena tended her mother, she wept openly for her well-loved stepfather, and she faced, with terror, the prospect of losing Leila as well.

  Joe dug Tom’s grave, near that of his old friend’s first wife, and himself carried the body wrapped in a blanket down to it, and laid him in it. After throwing the rich, black earth back over him, he stood alone in the starlight, grieving for his boon companion of so many years, while in the cabin his mother and Wallace Helena strove to alleviate the death pangs of Tom’s second wife.