proclaimed by a homemade sign taped to the desk, with the inked and unexpected words: OFFICE AND TEA ROOM.
I pay cash in advance to a heavily bearded man, and an image arises:
I utter a silent prayer that this specimen of manhood is not involved in food production. His mouth is closed, the sound of his nasal breathing like water rattling through pipes. He nods, grunts, has no words to spare, and I wonder if he’s verbally challenged or if shredded wheat is lodged in his vocal cords, as well. He disappears into a back room and I go out to the car, grab a flashlight and a few things I’ll need for the night, and take them to the cabin. I feed Basil a bowl of dog meal on the braided rug by the door and mix in a tin of meat to make up for the surrounds. He gobbles this in seconds, gulps half a bowl of water, lifts his hairy face and crosses the room, dripping a trail of water that I don’t bother to wipe up. I pick up the book of letters I’ve brought to read, lock the door— which doesn’t fit the jamb—and bring Basil with me to the tea room. If I leave him alone in an isolated cabin under the trees, he’ll moan and bark and fling his body at the door. Or worse, tear the rug to shreds and have us evicted.
Surprisingly, we are not the only ones in the tea room. A young woman with a single golden braid down her back is chatting with another the same age, maybe early twenties. Both, I’m relieved to see, are clean. No shredded wheat in sight. They are sitting at the table nearest the entrance and nod as we come in, more to Basil than to me. The second young woman is bony and angular, with long brown hair. One of her eyes is half-closed, which gives the odd impression of imbalance. On the wall behind the cash register, a hand-printed sign has been pinned to a corkboard with an open safety pin: ANITA WILL READ YOUR TEA LEAVES.
There are only four tables in this spacious room, which must have been a dining room in grander times. The lodge windows look down over the hill I’ve just driven up. There are woods on both sides of the gravel road. Woods the thickness of the ones Henry and I used to prowl with homemade bows and arrows around the camp when we were children, pretending to stalk bear and cougar. Two of the tables here offer a view of a creek below and a walking path that approaches from another angle. The creek looks wide enough to be a small river. I’ll check the map later, maybe hike down in the morning and give Basil some exercise. I take a seat by the window and face the setting sun, only to be met by another unlikely sight. Two women are climbing the path. Given the shrinking light, they’re in silhouette but definitely heading upwards. Basil coils himself at my feet and closes his eyes as if he wants no part of the experience. Rapunzel and her friend don’t seem to be bothered by the overheated room. I sling my jacket over the back of my chair, and I’m still too warm.
The menu is handwritten and the hours of the place, which doesn’t have a name, are printed across the bottom:
Rapunzel is suddenly standing beside my table, her attitude suggesting that I’ve interrupted her conversation. From two choices on the menu, I order a large bowl of chili and a cup of coffee. She disappears behind a painted door and I hear older female laughter in the kitchen.
Uneven light is sparkling up from the creek. I wonder about the place; it must have a history, a story, many stories. If Lena were with me, she’d amuse me by inventing her own. The women who were climbing the trail now enter the room somewhat flushed, greet me—Basil raises his head momentarily and gives a low moan—and sit at the window table in front of mine. They might be in their forties or fifties—I can’t guess ages anymore, not with accuracy, though I don’t know when I lost the ability. They order small bowls of chili and a large pot of tea. The tea is wanted before the meal. It’s impossible not to hear every word, though they’re trying to keep their voices low. It’s obvious that they’re staying in the other cabin for the night and were out for exercise and fresh air. The van must belong to them. From their mutterings, it sounds as if they are not pleased with the state of their cabin.
I’d like to enjoy my own silence, but it’s difficult to focus on the page in front of me. Okuma-san used to talk about the more famous of Beethoven’s letters that he had come across when he was a young student in Europe. Many of the letters, Okuma-san read in German; some were read in translation. When a complete set was published in English in the sixties, I ordered the set for his birthday. The three volumes came back to me after his death in 1967, along with his other sparse belongings.
But I find myself reading the same lines over and over. The letter is addressed to a child and makes a case for the true artist having no pride, only a blurry sort of awareness of how far he is from reaching his goal. I can identify with the part about the goal, but I’m unable to block out the conversation at the next table, and look up.
The women are wearing bulky cardigans, obviously knit by the same person, in tones of beige and faded cocoa. Eagles have been knitted into the design, but these once regal birds are adorned with long, limp beaks that droop like useless appendages. If I were to give the sweaters a title it would be
I can only guess at her companion’s response to the disconcerting eye movements, because the second woman has her back to me. I look down at the page again and wonder if Beethoven was being honest when he expressed the belief that he had no pride. He did not, I know, have the love of a woman. Though he spoke hopefully and frequently of love, especially in letters he wrote during his thirties.
Basil, full-bellied Basil, stirs beneath the table when the woman facing me says to her companion, “We could have our tea leaves read. Did you see the sign at the entrance when we came in?”
“I don’t think so,” says the other quietly. “I don’t tamper with that sort of thing.”
“What do you mean—that sort of thing? What harm can be done? Come on, it might turn out to be fun.”
The young woman seated with Rapunzel turns out to be Anita, the tea-leaf reader. No surprise there. She moves to the table of the two women as if tugged by a magnet, her brown hair swinging, one eye remaining half- closed, as if that is requisite for a seer. She pulls up a chair between the two.
I give up on the book of letters because a bowl the size of a mixing bowl, filled with muddy-looking chili, has been set in front of me. I feel I should have a scoop to shovel it in. I scan the bowl for remnants of shredded wheat, see none and think,
At the table ahead I hear something about a fork in the road. A decision could go either way. And I think,
I look towards the creek, or river, whatever it is. In the final rays of light, last year’s grasses on the cleared part of the slope have taken on a touch of gold all the way down to the water. If I could create that colour, if I could mix that colour of gold …
Anita’s voice breaks through again. “This could go on for a long time.”
“Very long?” The woman speaks with a tremor. Her head dips forward.
“It seems so,” says Anita, with flat indifference.
“Maybe it means your research,” says the cheery friend. “Your research never ends, and don’t we both know it.”
This is followed by a murmur of assent.
And then, I hear the most astonishing prediction. Anita, the fortune teller, declares in a semi-tragic voice, “Oh!” As if she has witnessed the inferno itself. She stares into the cup. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Like, I have to tell you. It’s as clear as can be.” She pauses, for effect, no doubt. “You aren’t going to live a long life.”
Two small bowls of chili arrive at this moment and are set at the women’s table. My body pulls up taller in my chair.
“Will she at least live happily?” This has been blurted out by the woman with the fluttering lids.
Anita shrugs—who knows?—tucks her five-dollar bill into her pocket and returns to sit with Rapunzel.
“Don’t pay any attention,” the woman tells her friend. “It’s all nonsense, you know it is. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
But the recipient of the news has stilled. She is staring out the window at what I am also seeing: the path she has just climbed; the narrow rays of disappearing light; darkness closing in; a small river that is no more than a murky blur as it curves around the base of a hill of shadows.
