Dear Life

enchantment.
    “Where you heading?” the meat woman called to me. “Visiting hours over at three.”
    “I’m not a visitor,” I said. “I’m the teacher.”
    “Well they won’t let you in the front door anyway,” said the woman with some satisfaction. “You better head along with me. Didn’t you bring a suitcase?”
    “The stationmaster said he’d bring it later.”
    “The way you were just standing there looked like you were lost.”
    I said that I had stopped because it was so beautiful.
    “Some might think so. Less they were too sick or too busy.”
    Nothing more was said until we entered the kitchen at one end of the building. Already I was in need of its warmth. I did not get a chance to look around me because attention was drawn to my boots.
    “You better get those off before they track the floor.”
    I wrestled off the boots—there was no chair to sit down on—and set them on the mat where the woman had put hers.
    “Pick them up and bring them with you, I don’t know where they’ll be putting you. You better keep your coat on, too, there’s no heating in the cloakroom.”
    No heat, no light, except what came through a little window I could not reach. It was like being punished at school. Sent-to-the-cloakroom. Yes. The same smell of winter clothing that never really dried out, of boots soaked through to dirty socks, unwashed feet.
    I climbed up on a bench but still could not see out. On the shelf where caps and scarves were thrown I found a bag with some figs and dates in it. Somebody must have stolenthem and stashed them here to take home. All of a sudden I was hungry. Nothing to eat since morning, except for a dry cheese sandwich on the Ontario Northland. I considered the ethics of stealing from a thief. But the figs would catch in my teeth, to betray me.
    I got myself down just in time. Somebody was entering the cloakroom. Not any of the kitchen help but a schoolgirl in a bulky winter coat, with a scarf over her hair. She came in with a rush—books thrown on the bench so they scattered on the floor, scarf snatched so her hair sprung out in a bush and at the same time, it seemed, boots kicked loose one after the other and sent skittering across the cloakroom floor. Nobody had got hold of her, apparently, to make her take them off at the kitchen door.
    “Hey, I wasn’t trying to hit you,” the girl said. “It’s so dark in here after outside you don’t know what you’re doing. Aren’t you freezing? Are you waiting for somebody to get off work?”
    “I’m waiting to see Dr. Fox.”
    “Well you won’t have to wait long, I just rode from town with him. You’re not sick, are you? If you’re sick you can’t come here, you have to see him in town.”
    “I’m the teacher.”
    “Are you? Are you from Toronto?”
    “Yes.”
    There was a certain pause, perhaps of respect.
    But no. An examination of my coat.
    “That’s really nice. What’s that fur on the collar?”
    “Persian lamb. Actually it’s imitation.”
    “Could have fooled me. I don’t know what they put you in here for, it’ll freeze your butt off. Excuse me. You want to see the doctor, I can show you. I know where everything is,I’ve lived here practically since I was born. My mother runs the kitchen. My name is Mary. What’s yours?”
    “Vivi. Vivien.”
    “If you are a teacher shouldn’t it be Miss? Miss what?”
    “Miss Hyde.”
    “Tan your hide,” she said. “Sorry, I just thought that up. I’d like if you could be my teacher but I have to go to school in town. It’s the stupid rules. Because I have not got TB.”
    She was leading me while she talked, through the door at the far end of the cloakroom, then along a regular hospital corridor. Waxed linoleum. Dull green paint, an antiseptic smell.
    “Now you’re here maybe I’ll get Reddy to let me switch.”
    “Who is Reddy?”
    “Reddy Fox. It’s out of a book. Me and Anabel just started calling him that.”
    “Who is Anabel?”
    “Nobody now. She’s dead.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “Not your fault. It happens around here. I’m in high school this year. Anabel never really got to go to school at all. When I was just in public school Reddy got the town teacher to let me stay home a lot, so I could keep her company.”
    She stopped at a half-opened door and whistled.
    “Hey. I brought the teacher.”
    A man’s voice said, “Okay Mary. Enough out of you for one day.”
    “Okay. I heard you.”
    She sauntered away and left me facing