Someone like you

Someone like you

By

Raymond Paltoo

Life was perfect, he reflected, watching the two children playing in the sandbox. There were other children in the playground of course, but for him, there existed only the two who belonged to him. The boy was four and the girl had just turned three. At the moment they were completely absorbed in their tasks. His daughter’s face was a study in concentration as she made her sand pies. His son was revving up his toy trucks with all his force up and down the little sand hills he had constructed, enjoying the havoc he created. The young man exulting in his fatherhood basked in the warmth of the summer’s sun, a joy to be savored in the harsh Canadian climate of Montreal. He was living a dream and his mind trailed off to follow the dream.

It was his final year of residency and after fourteen years of university life, he was finally seeing an end to this part of his journey. Already offers had come in and job placements were proposed. He would leave it up to his wife to decide where they went because most of the job offers were very attractive. He knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to return to the Caribbean to start a department of Urology for the country of his birth! He sat lost in thought, absently keeping an eye on the children so he was surprised when he heard a hauntingly-familiar honeyed voice from the past saying, “May I join you?”

Before he could reply she had slid smoothly onto the park bench beside him. She was always smooth. It seemed that everything she did, she always did with grace. He stood up; confused, not sure of what to say. She said to him laughingly, “Oh! Sit down! I just wanted to talk with you.” Sometimes, she thought he could be such a stuffed shirt. Part of the many reasons she had loved him. He was and had been very different from the Canadian boys she had known and dated.

“I hear you’re married now,” she said with a forced brightness that fooled neither. “Yes, for the last seven years. Where have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been to Israel where I lived in a Kibbutz, backpacked through Europe, went out west and now I am working in Ottawa at a bank.”

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“Visiting my parents,” she answered, “they don’t live too far from here.”

She did not tell him of the numerous phone calls to friends at the Jewish General Hospital and the many trips past the homes on his street several times a day since her return

“Are those your kids?” she asked. “Well, they’re the only brown ones here and I’m the only brown man sitting in the playground!” and he laughed that infectious laughter that felt like tropical sunshine.

“You married, or kids?” and noting her bare fingers, instantly regretted the question. “No, but I have had some offers you know. Had to get my head cleared for a while,” And they both knew what she meant.

“Why not me?” she blurted out the question abruptly. She just had to know.

He looked across the park bench and shifted position to look at her.

How do I tell her, he thought, that I could not take her away from this comfortable life to a strange place; where she would not be understood and would not be able to understand the natives? Even now I have trouble understanding their speech and I was born there! How do I explain the fact that there would be no synagogues or Shul for her children? How can I convey the misery of the heat, the flies and dirt, the racism of the black rulers towards people who looked and spoke differently from them? We are different, you and I, in many ways. I am serious and perhaps dull and you love excitement and fun. Your parents were rich so you never knew what it’s like to be poor. In a few months or years, you would be screaming at me and hating me for the life I had given you.

All he said to her was, “we are too different. You would not have been happy.”

She absent-mindedly tucked a stray red-gold curl behind her ear as was her wont and said, “At least you could have asked me!”

“Perhaps I was too scared." He looked at her intently, searching her blue eyes. We were very young and I was too poor. Your parents would have had a fit!” And he smiled at the thought.

She looked at him up and down as if measuring him and went on accusingly, “It’s not fair. You are as skinny as ever and I can feel my Jewish thighs getting heavy already!” He laughed because she looked very well. Obviously, Life in the Kibbutz had been good for her.

His daughter had been regarding her with suspicion for a while and left her tricycle in the pathway, planted her hands on her hips in unconscious imitation of her mother, looked her up and down, and firmly and loudly stated, “That’s my daddy!” It was a declaration of territorial possession and they both smiled. She introduced herself to the child and said gravely, “I knew your dad when we went to school!” Satisfied that her dad was safe the girl returned to her bike. She looked at the child and she felt her eyes smart, thinking this could have been her life to live.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them and then she got up abruptly. “I must go. Just came to say goodbye. My mother told me you were very popular with the Jewish women’s auxiliary at the hospital.” He smiled and said to her, “I believe that a delegation came to see my wife recently while I was working. A big difference from when we first moved in!”

“I am moving back to the Caribbean, you know. I guess I won’t be seeing you anytime soon. Goodbye and good luck! It was wonderful to see you again, though unexpected. Hope you have a great life.”

“I hope to meet someone like you again,” she replied, with a sheen of unshed tears starting in her eyes. “You will,” he said, “bigger and better than me.” She smiled, “Bigger for sure! It’ll be a big Canadian with a beer belly who will probably suffocate me!” They had a good-natured laugh, he received a quick hug, a peck on the cheek and she walked away and this time the tears came.

As she walked away, she heard the little girl say to her dad, “Why is your friend crying, dad? Is she hurt?” He was quiet and then answered, “Nothing that won’t get better, love. Let’s go home!”

A brief passing cloud obliterated the sun.

He gathered up their toys and they rode on their little tricycles the two blocks to their little Duplex home just like every other home on the block. The kids were chatting excitedly and he strolled in deep thought with the warmth of memories and the pain of a loss he could not comprehend or perhaps would not!

As he opened the door, the odor of freshly baked cookies wafted outwards and the children rushed in with shrieks of joy. He smiled at his wife and looked at the family tableau. It was all he wanted; his haven against the world! He would keep his memories as they would make and keep theirs.

Life is not always perfect he knew that now. Some win and some lose and sometimes the winners may think that they have lost! I suppose nature balances everything out in the end.