Moments of Joy

Cecelia Frey

• Publisher: Inanna Poetry and Fiction Series
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781771331975
• eBook ISBN: 9781771331982
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Manfred Weiszl who lies dying of cancer in an upper room of a grand old Toronto house. The action of the novel is precipitated when Manfred wishes to see Rupert his son before he dies and Rupert refuses to cooperate. However, Moments of Joy, is a novel of character rather than plot. The intrigue and narrative is around how these characters, and in particular the three women central to Manfred's life, interact with each other, play off each other, and how an intervening fate operates in their lives as they discover that through (or in spite of ) the incredible antics of mankind, life can be salvaged, can be joyful and magical.

PART I: THE FAMILY

1.

WITH ENOUGH VELCRO and duct tape you can do anything.

While that’s the word from one astronaut in outer space, the official word from NASA is that no human has yet scored in orbit.

“Sex?” Pauline’s face flickered blue, green, and yellowish orange with the changing scenes on the television screen. She leaned closer to the bed. She was not sure that she had heard him correctly. “Sex?” she repeated.

The word had found him. It had found him as he lay defenseless on his deathbed. Words did not abide by rules of social decorum. They entered uninvited when there was no guard at the gate. They came too late, when the party was over.

Manfred’s mind meandered on. Since you become the words that set up house in you, you should be careful what you let in. He did not want to let in sex. Sex was the big joke on mankind. It took hold of you, controlled you, forced you into ridiculous and undignified situations, made you act in a ridiculous manner. Some men became despondent when it was done with them. He had been bloody glad of it.

But Paulie was insisting. He knew it was Paulie. He’d know that voice anywhere – inflected, dramatic, emphatic. “Did you say sex?”

Other words directed and controlled you, too, drove you crazy unless you did something about them. But with some words that was good. You could accomplish something with them. Work was like that. Of course, the word itself was impartial. All words were. All words were precise, tidy entities. He had been lucky to discover early in childhood the joy of words.

Beside him, Pauline waited for a sign that her words had got through her brother’s drug-induced mental fog. His eyes were closed so she was able to stare at his face, trying to find a clue that might tell her where his mind was travelling. The grey skin hung in blotchy folds from bones that had become prominent. The skull was visible through lank strands of greyish-white hair. Either side his nose, which appeared progressively larger with each of her visits, were bruised pits from his eyeglasses, abandoned now on his night table alongside the photo of Rupert and the pile of books that had to be there. Without them, he would be lost, a soul wandering a desert waste of bedlam and babel.

She could see that he was collapsing into himself. He was being consumed by the mound on his abdomen which, when she had first come into the room, had caused her to gasp and avert her eyes. He, too, had turned his eyes away. She felt remorse. Poor Manny, that he should feel shame, with her of all people. But he had never acknowledged the personal or the physical. Public display of such was forbidden.

“Sex is one of the main reasons young men commit suicide,” she tried, although she was still not sure of the word. His speech seemed to come through a layer of cotton batting, slowly, so different from his former quick, light manner. Perhaps it was the morphine that caused the uncertainty in word choice. But he could still put words together in linear order. He was still lucid. She constantly felt anxiety about what she should do if that were to change. Without the power of speech, not only would the essence of Manfred Weiszl as he appeared to others be obliterated, but he would not consider himself a human being.

“What makes you think it was sex?” She sat back, no longer expecting a response. She was not even sure he was still talking about Eric. They had not spoken of Eric for years. He had happened so long ago. When they mentioned their brother’s death – what’s it been now, forty years, fifty years, can you believe it? – it was always a matter of fact, as though they were discussing a novel manuscript submitted to their publishing house.

She decided that Eric was an item on Manfred’s list, to be checked off in the case of impending death. Although she did not see much point in the discussion, she wanted to keep him talking. “He did have a girlfriend in high school,” she contributed.

Certainly, the work we’re doing in the space station has the potential to contribute to future advances … muscle loss … changes in bone density … physiological effects of prolonged weightlessnesss … studying these effects is crucial for future exploration and space travel….

The words came to Manfred as though they had travelled a long distance through space. The speaker might be in another galaxy, might have ceased to exist hundreds, thousands, of years ago, but the words were just now arriving.

“I was only eight,” Pauline said. “I didn’t pay much attention.”

Manfred’s hands, shapeless swollen puffs of flesh, were resting on top of the blanket which was pulled up under his armpits and tucked in firmly both sides of the mattress, the way he liked it. Pauline wondered who had done that for him. Surely not Aubrey. His nurturing instincts were off the bottom of the chart. Surely not the housekeeper, who was more intent on entertaining her boyfriend than on considering the special needs of the sick. Megan might have, but she wasn’t home from classes yet. And she should be home, her classes ended at three on Friday. Pauline hoped she wasn’t in somebody’s dingy room smoking dope or worse, although she had been better lately. How could her younger daughter be such a disaster while Bonnie was so perfect?

Pauline caught herself. She would not think about Megan. She had enough to deal with. Manfred had picked an awkward time to die, what with the spring catalogue and the galleys for the new list, which must be corrected by the end of next week.

She straightened her shoulders. After an hour tensed behind the wheel of her car, making her way through rush hour traffic on the 401, it felt good to flatten her spine against the straight chair back. She rolled her head on the stem of her neck. She closed her eyes and felt the room and its furnishings close around her – heavy drapes, varnished oak wainscotting, elaborate embossed wallpaper. When she was growing up in this house, this had been her parents’ room. When their mother died, their father had moved to the smaller room across the hall, insisting that Manfred and Gertrude take over the master bedroom. Manfred had been its sole occupant for thirteen years, since Gertrude’s death, and how many before that? Pauline did not know when Gertrude moved to her own room. She would not have known about the move except for Gertrude’s dropped remarks. Manny would certainly never mention anything so intimate. But by then Gertrude had started drinking and had become loose at the mouth.

Pauline had been happy to let her brother have the house. She and Aubrey had a modern house in Oakville, full of glass and chrome, spun aluminum, teak and marble. Unlike some of their theatre friends, she had been very happy, thank you, to get out of downtown Toronto, where they’d had a flat during their early free-flying years. She did not know how she would put up with living here for the next while. Already, she wanted to claw her way out of the jungle of close air and clutter. She supposed she could start throwing things out, selling the good pieces. He would never know, he would never leave this room now. But she was reluctant to do that while he was still alive.

The massive Queen Anne bureau and bed, the brocade wing chair, she supposed someone might want them. As her eyes surveyed the room, they passed with disinterest the television screen where four men sat around an interview table receiving messages from astronauts at the space station, interspersing such communications with their own opinions and with photographs from space.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now talking with John Uri, a NASA station ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• MOMENTS OF JOY
• ALSO BY CECELIA FREY
• PART I: THE FAMILY
• PART II: THE ANGELS
• PART III: AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD
• PART IV: MANFRED’S DREAM
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR