Canada: Brave New World

BABES IN THE WOOD

By Gwynn Scheltema

Cold burrows deep into my bones. Catches in my throat. Settles in my heart. From the eighth-floor apartment I look for the forests and lakes reflecting blue brilliance of sky. Look for the Canada of the brochures, of the postcards, of the paintings in the embassy. But everywhere bare-bone branches wail arms against the sky, stamp their feet in grey earth. This is not what I wanted to come to. Today’s sky stretches thin blue like vein beneath skin.

Perhaps I’ve left my capacity for joy on that African airport runway on the other side of the world. Even now my body reverberates with the muddle of hope and sorrow as the plane took off. I remember shivering, teeth clattering in my mouth, head stiffening against thought.

“Ma’am? Are you alright? Can I get you water? A doctor? Are you ill?”

But I wasn’t ill. Couldn’t they see the spilling of tensions about me, discarded on the floor, slipping down the aisle? False accusations. Frantic phone calls. Armed escorts. And wakeful nights throwing things in suitcases. All being expunged; relief flooding through every pore to fill the vacuum. “No, I’m not ill. I’m safe.”

I still guard my words in this new place. Who can I trust, and with what? Just yesterday the bank teller spoke through a sunny smile, “Yes, the foreign transfer has come through. Do you want it in cash?”

“Shhh,” I said out loud, looking to see who may have overheard. Then the realization. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, head down, voice low. “It’s just that…. Never mind.” A weak smile. Embarrassment. “You wouldn’t understand.”

These apartment windows open only at the top. These walls close in. I need air. I’ve never lived in an apartment before. Never been on the eighth floor of anything. I want to open my door and step into a garden, to smell jasmine and hear the call of the louries. I want the warmth of the sun on my face. Far below just at the corner of the building there’s a scrap of green in a group of trees. A footpath leading in. It calls me.

I open the apartment door and step into the hallway. Turn to leave and remember. Catch the door just before it closes, and return inside. I grab my coat and keys and try again.

When I step out of the elevator a young woman my age is fussing with a toddler. I cannot tell if the child is a boy or a girl in the cocoon of clothes. The woman smiles. “Isn’t it great? Spring’s finally here,” she says. “The creek’s running something fierce. All the snow melt, eh?”

What to say? What is snow melt? I’ve never seen real snow. Only pictures in my childhood books from long ago. Mounds of white with sleighs and happy children and colourful scarves. Perfect round snowmen with black hats and carrot noses. But there is no snow outside. The woman looks straight at me, waits for a response.

“Trees all budding now,” she tries again, “and the sun is just glorious.”

I can’t find words to answer, so she pulls her coat tighter about her, makes for the lobby door. But when I step outside, this northern sun doesn’t feel “glorious.” It’s too weak, too cool. And the wind cuts like a whip.

People walk differently here. They watch where they step, heads down, necks turtled in scarves and coat collars. They walk with their eyes only, not with their ears and their noses. I know the sound of a snake comes to you long before you see it on the path; the smell of stinging ants reaches you before you find their trail in the grass.

To be safe, you must walk in the world, not on it.

In the playground, children creak the metal chains on swings and mothers chat at the fence, blow on their fingers. There is no fear in their eyes. One day I may be part of those conversations, but right now I don’t fit here, and there is a greater need to be filled—I must find a place to feel the earth, to reconnect.

A few steps more and I reach the edge of the trees. The footpath leads down into them and away out of sight. In the distance water’s running. The path calls to me, but every sense tells me not to proceed. The trees are thick here. They have no leaves but old dead branches and knotted vines block out the light. I wonder if this is a forest or a wood or a copse or a thicket? I remember these words from books, but I don’t know how they are different. I close my eyes, tilt my head back and breathe. I struggle to remember the illustrations from those childhood fairy tales, the dark woods. They had tangled vines and dead branches too.

Dampness rises from the ground with the unmistakable smell of mud and frogs. At last, something is familiar. For a while I stand, let it all soak in, but voices break into my thoughts.

“Sorry, can we just get by?”

I step aside. Tuck my hands under my armpits. The young girls skip past me, ponytails swinging, ears wired with earphones. I want to shout, “No, don’t go in there! It’s not safe.” But I don’t. Again the realization. The inner embarrassment. This is Canada.

There are no landmines; there are no venomous snakes. Be brave. If I can do this one thing, I can do the next thing, and the next and the next, and finally— anything. One step. Another. I move down into the trees.

The heavy air chokes me. A few steps more and I can no longer see where I came in. I press my lips together, taste cold sweat. Breathe! Just breathe. I remember the fairy story of Babes in the Wood and understand their fear.

At my feet the curled beginnings of ferns poke through damp leaves now rotted to lace. A sprig of green hope. I breathe again. And ahead, more green carpets the rocks. I hurry to touch it. Hesitate at the coarse wiry mass. Reach out just one finger…

And beneath my touch—softness. Moss. This is what moss feels like. Soft, cushiony, welcoming. And I laugh out loud, feel muscles in my body relax one by one. The page to my childhood stories has opened and this time it makes sense. This is what those Babes slept on; this was their forest bed. All these years I’d thought what silly children to lie on the ground at night among the snakes and the ants. Why did they not climb the highest tree, pray that leopards were not close.

But now I know. And I’m not one of the Babes in the Wood. In this place, in Canada, the choices are different. I can leave old worries on that far away airport runway and reclaim my capacity for joy. I break off a small piece of moss, cradle it in cupped hands.

Back in the apartment, I place it on damp tissue on a saucer in the window. I smile. Through the window the warm sun bathes my face.