Loddy-Dah Read online

  “Neikas. Nothing. Nothing happen.”

  “I saw a photograph in your purse, the one you brought with you from Germany. It’s in your bedroom closet.”

  “You go in closet?”

  “Bettina showed me. Is he my father?”

  “Ach, there is no love in the world,” said Alma.

  Something broke inside of Loddy and she surrendered with an explosion of screams. Her spirit collapsed under the weight of her exasperation.

  “Tikras Tievas.”

  “No.” Loddy fought back. “I am not like him. And he is not my father. Stop saying that.”

  “Ah, Loddy, Loddy. You have his temper.”

  Alma rolled up a sleeve and showed her the abstract pattern of black and blue bruises, a snake tattoo slithering along her arm. “I no sign paper. He hit me and say he break my arm. He slap my face, but Sukey stop him. I no sign paper. I married him, šhudas, shit, and I never divorce him. He want to marry that curva then he marry when I dead.”

  There was nothing more to say as Alma resumed her knitting, her fingers taking on a life of their own.

  Loddy pulled herself together. “Okay, Maw. Okay.”

  “We go see Bettina soon?”

  “Sure Maw, I’ll call the hospital and see how she’s doing.”

  Alma kept the phone by her bedside in case of emergencies. Loddy began to dial, noticed the closet and, with quiet deliberation, put the receiver back in its cradle. She couldn’t resist. The temptation of Loddy-Dah. The scent of gardenias overwhelmed her first, and then she noted the orderly arrangement of clothes. She filtered through the garments, checking for any hanging bags, rummaged through the overhead shelves and then on her knees, she combed the boxes on the floor, digging deeper and deeper in back of the closet until she located the brown purse.

  Loddy sifted through legal documents: immigration papers, Bettina’s birth certificate, citizenship card, marriage certificate, a photo of the ship that carried them to Canada, a photo of Loddy ... there ... there she was, pre-Bettina, a keepsake in a sepia frame, a toddler on a high stool, standing ramrod like a soldier before the camera and Alma, a young mother, beaming with the rapture of youth. In the photo, Loddy clutched the purse by the handle, an oversized oval jewel in amber, which dug into the palm of her tiny hand. Here was the same purse in her adult hand now, and Loddy stroked the brown leather as though that act alone would capture the essence of a happier time.

  Her birth certificate was not among the official papers, and she couldn’t help etching in her mind that her birthday preceded the date on the marriage certificate. Loddy reeled from the possibility she was right. The man Alma had married in Germany was not her father. No further pictures. She was prepared to close the purse when she lifted an envelope, yellow and brittle with age, and, from within its fold of tissue, spilt a dried-out cutting of an unidentified flower and a photograph.

  Loddy studied the face of this unattractive man in the passport-size photo, a stocky, heavy-set young man dressed in a military uniform, fine blond hair slicked down and parted in the middle, clear eyes full of energy and a mouth of bad teeth. There were no markings on the back to indicate a name, date, or place. Blank. She pocketed the photo and, when she returned to the living room, Alma had not budged from her knitting position. Loddy planted herself in Bettina’s corner on the couch and studied Alma and her concentrated absorption in her task at hand.

  “They said to come see Bettina tomorrow. She’s still sleeping.”

  “Yah, we see her tomorrow.”

  Loddy felt mentally exhausted. A lethargy that said: “Come, do whatever to me. This is a good time. I’m too tired to fight.” She no longer could keep her eyes open and fell asleep to the lullaby of Alma’s knitting needles — knit, purl, knit, purl, click, click — until it was night and the voices of the children playing hockey in the street below were gone.

  When Loddy woke up the next morning, she made herself an orderly breakfast of orange juice and toast.

  SCENE 9:

  The Robust Form

  Spring 1968

  Bettina was a rebellious outpatient at Verdun’s Douglas Hospital (aka The Dougie). She balked at the notion of keeping appointments in a building associated with mental illness. When they were children, Loddy and Bettina would dart past the ominous-looking gated grounds, both singing at the top of their lungs: “They’re Coming to take Me Away, Ha Ha. They’re Coming to Take Me Away.” Bettina was gradually gaining weight, looking healthier and Alma lit candles to the Blessed Virgin Mary in gratitude.

  Loddy’s life, in the meantime, had shifted into neutral. At Samuel’s insistence, she resumed dance classes with Marvel who taught a combination of Ballet Jazz, Modern and Afro-Cuban with a sprinkle of Oriental movements thrown into the mix — a recipe for an excruciating experience — on par with a tooth extraction without Novocain.

  She drilled her students like a sergeant and finished the class with a hundred jumping jacks, everyone in a final tumble to the floor, clutching knees, huffing and puffing. The classes became routine, three times a week. Loddy would crawl to the flank of the stage, collapse, and lie there, immobile, tears melding with the sweat, and every part of her being — every nerve, every bone, every blood vessel, every muscle, even her eyelashes — hurt.

  Instead of walking home, she would sometimes spoil herself and take the bus, clenching her teeth, ignoring her burning thighs as she bunny-hopped onto the steps sideways, one foot at a time, while the driver and passengers, strangers all, empathized with her wretched agony. After six weeks of torture, however, she felt rejuvenated, re-energized even, and the fire in her thighs subsided to a dull ache, but Marvel pushed her even harder. It was all about discipline, a dancer’s discipline Loddy hoped would transfer into other facets of her life.

  xxx

  On this sunny April afternoon, Loddy splayed her legs out on Ulu’s living room floor among a dizzying array of shimmering fabrics. Every few minutes she’d extend her arms forward and try to touch her toes, torso parallel to the floor like a tabletop. She wore black tights under her ample red tunic top, a new style of comfort she had discovered in one of the less expensive boutiques in Place Ville Marie. On Marvel’s advice, she had graduated into a red and black wardrobe.

  In the throes of sewing costumes for Ulu’s new act, Loddy was slipstitching gold lamé over a bra while Ulu, who could barely thread a needle, wrestled with a chiffon skirt. Without warning, Loddy would pummel her thighs against the wooden floor in a continuous motion of slaps, like a runaway train, faster faster, chug chug chug, harder harder, until Ulu would deadpan: “Must you.” Or in between stitches, she’d knead the fat on her thighs, manipulating the lumps of cellulite, like bread dough.

  “I cannot do this!” Ulu hurled the skirt towards Loddy.

  “Leave it. I’ll fix it.”

  The Garage Theatre troupe shared duties when not performing and tackled a number of jobs including painting sets, lighting, sound, and box office. Loddy had discovered a knack for designing and sewing costumes, and it wasn’t unusual for her to be called on a moment’s notice to mend an undone hem, or a split seam before an actor’s entrance on stage.

  Samuel’s mantra: “Learn to think on your dancing feet, kiddies. Life is an improvisation.”

  Everyone hustled for other types of employment to pay rent and fill their rumbling stomachs since Samuel compensated his performers with coffee beans and promises. “Kiddies, next year, we’re taking the company on tour across Canada, all expenses paid and you all get contracts — with raises.”

  For a while, they were giddy with the possibilities that a tour would create; however, there was always a hurdle to surmount, funding that never arrived and, eventually, they stopped hoping. Their excitement shrunk to a nod especially when their regular cheques began to bounce.So Danny dabbled as a fashion model, Percy did voice-overs for commercials and corporate instructional f
ilms, and Aretha and Stanley worked in the hospitality trade where the tips and sandwiches were easy to pocket. Loddy supplemented her income with part-time typing assignments and for a time subsisted on unemployment benefits. When that ran out just before Christmas, thoughts of applying for a secretarial job at a temp agency once again crossed her mind, but she didn’t fancy being subjected to Marvel’s ridicule.

  “Sweetie, make up your mind. Do you want to be a typist or a performer?” And she would swagger and laugh in that haughty condescending manner that defined her.

  Alma, on the other hand, would want her to stay the course and play the part of a bookkeeper or secretary. After all, she had withdrawn part of her retirement savings so Loddy could attend the best secretarial school in Canada — the Motherhouse on Atwater Street, the palatial convent inhabited by the nuns of the Congregation of Notre Dame. For a cleaning lady, Alma believed the height of success for children of immigrants was to work in an office instead of cleaning one. Loddy, therefore, felt obligated, always one foot mired in quick-drying cement, a solid life filled with responsibilities and security; the other foot kicking sand, a dissipated life filled with creative freedom and imagination. The foot in cement always reined her in. Obligation always won out. She would find herself in front of a typewriter.

  As for Ulu, if she wasn’t performing at The Garage Theatre or any of the variety shows Samuel choreographed at the CBC, she was working towards a degree in Women’s Studies. After reading Betty Friedan’s, The Feminine Mystique, she became immersed in the women’s movement. Ulu had no qualms about dancing on stage half-naked while at the same time participating in pro-abortion rallies.

  “You do what you have to do to survive in this world as a woman. We just have more choices now,” she told Loddy the day they took the bus with a group of angry young female students from Sir George Williams University to a vacant downtown parking lot chanting: Let’s Judge Ourselves as People. Loddy stationed herself on the periphery and absorbed the furore as bras, girdles and nylons were hurled into the “freedom trash can.” Ulu tossed a lit sheet of newspaper into the heap, and the pile of lingerie combusted into flames amid shrieks and whistles of approval. Liberated breasts swung freely under t-shirts and blouses; brave breasts exposed themselves to television cameras and lechers.

  Alma inadvertently caught Ulu’s naked chest on the evening news that night and cautioned Loddy never to associate with that girl again. “What happening to world?”

  Loddy’s answer: “Maybe it’s because there’s no love.”

  xxx

  Now here she was, disobeying Alma, sewing glass beads on Ulu’s 36DD cups so Ulu could pay her university tuition. Loddy threw herself into another series of thigh slaps.

  “Do your thighs a favour, Loddy, and don’t be so loud. I can’t hear the radio.”

  “Like, can’t we tune into something more upbeat? I mean Black Day in July?”

  “The song’s banned in the States and Gordon Lightfoot’s going to be interviewed. I want to know what he thinks about that.”

  “Well, like, I really think the song’s a downer.” Loddy draped the sequined bra across her ample chest to model the creation. “So what do you think?”

  “Not bad. Not bad.” Dewey hurried through the door, a manila envelope pursed under his arm. He sat down and snuggled next to Ulu on the beanbag. “Got the prints! You look fabulous, hon!”

  Ulu flipped through the stack of glossies like she was rushing through someone’s boring vacation photos and was just being polite.

  “So what can I say, Dewey? They are luscious, but is Montreal ready?”

  “Gimme, gimme, gimme.” Loddy was tearing at the seams with excitement and curiosity, a child on Christmas Eve impatient to open her gift. She yanked the photos from Ulu’s hands.

  “Wow! Like, like, like ... I’m speechless.”

  “Dewey’s having a show at the opening of this new art gallery on Greene Avenue in Westmount. Some old guy, Mr. Dormer, at the Robbie Rabbit cast party wanted to see his work and liked it.”

  Because of Samuel’s chaotic finances and unreliable pay cheques, Dewey, with furious objections from Rita and Marvel, had abandoned The Garage Theatre and landed a contract with The Montreal Star as a photojournalist.

  “If you need me, just call,” he told Samuel who bore him no animosity. Marvel, on the other hand, sulked at his departure. When he wasn’t on assignment, Dewey devoted his leisure time to experimenting with his camera and used Ulu as his subject. He was acquiring a notable reputation for his lethal images of urban life, and an eye for the unusual.

  “Kind of provocative, isn’t it Dewey?”

  “This is art, Loddy. Hey, speaking of art, anyone want to make some extra moola?”

  “Not me. With my club gigs and classes, I’ll have to pass this time.” Ulu was now shuffling the photos as though she were lining up her cards for a full flush in a game of poker.

  “I need money,” Loddy raised her hand.

  “Hey, Loddy-Dah.” Dewey eyeballed her, up and down, sideways and around. “You’d be just perfect. I have a friend teaching life drawing at Sir George Williams and he’s looking for a model, someone full-figured, round and robust.”

  “You mean like in naked figure drawing?”

  “Is there any other kind?” Dewey said, chuckling.

  “But, like, I’m gross! Fat and ugly.”

  “In my friend’s words: ‘I’m tired of models who look like they haven’t eaten since The Great Depression.’ He asked specifically for someone Rubenesque. You know Rubens, Loddy?”

  “Never met him.”

  “He’s the master of the robust form. His models were plump, well-fleshed, with hollows, swells and curves. He thought, shall we say, a voluptuous woman was more of a challenge to paint and quite beautiful.”

  “Are you, like, talking about fat and cellulite, Dewey?” Loddy, busy with threading another bead through the flimsy fabric, kept her head down.

  “Rubens always painted fascinating women of substance and that’s you.”

  “Oh sure.”

  “Sixty dollars for three hours of posing with breaks every twenty minutes. Easy money.”

  “Listen. Listen up,” Ulu said, beside herself with excitement. “It’s Gordie Lightfoot. Quiet.”

  “Let me think about it.” Loddy stabbed her thumb with the point of the needle as she looked up.

  xxx

  The next morning, she raced to the library to learn more about this seventeenth century Flemish artist, Peter Paul Rubens, who had a fascination for painting corpulent women.

  “Ah, there you are.” She caressed the photos of his paintings, studied the poses of his models — cherubs in The Feast of Venus with wrinkled buttocks and thighs, three nudes in The Three Graces with folded waistlines and dimpled knees and arms. Rubens’ models were indeed voluptuous, evoking a celebration of beauty at a time when plumpness was revered.

  “I was born in the wrong century,” Loddy lamented. “I would have been considered gorgeous.”

  A senior sitting across from her, lowered his eyeglasses, arched his eyebrow, studied her for a second then returned to his reading. Loddy lingered over the images, page-by-page, and also examined work by Rubens’ contemporaries and their models.

  “Wow, like that pose is almost pornographic. You can see everything.”

  “Excuse me. Shall I move?” the old man rustled his papers.

  “Oh, sorry, sir. Like, I’m finished already” — and she checked the book out of the library for further research.

  xxx

  Loddy paced in the ladies’ room, located across the hall from Art 102, prerequisite Art 101, Basic Sketching. Seized by fear, she obsessed with the silky red kimono that refused to hide her protruding belly. The petite sales clerk in Chinatown had sold her the garment in their largest size, but Asian large was medium on Loddy. A shuf
fle of feet and then a rap, rap rap, she gripped the edges of the robe, drew the garment over her chest and pelvis in an effort to keep the slippery fabric from falling open whenever she moved.

  “Loddy, you ready?”

  She poked her head out the door and met Dewey face-to-face: “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

  “It’s too late now, Loddy. The class is waiting. Don’t let me down.”

  “I can’t.” Her whispered protests seemed to echo against the tiled walls.

  Dewey let himself into the ladies’ room.

  “Being naked is a natural thing. You know they don’t care; not one of them. Those kids in there are trying to learn to paint the human form, Loddy. To them, you’re just an object, a study in shape, texture and shadow they have to get on canvas to pass the course. Think of yourself as a vase, an inanimate still life. Got it?”

  “A vase?”

  “Better yet, pretend you’re one of Rubens’ models. Take yourself into that time. You’re on stage in full costume and then you disrobe and play the part of an artist’s model. Remember what Samuel said about life being an improvisation? Well, that’s what you’re doing right here — improvising. In three hours the show will be over.”

  “Three hours?”

  With Dewey’s hand guiding and coaxing, they walked towards the class in torturous steps reminiscent of axe murderers heading for the electric chair.

  “Just a minute.” Loddy pulled back her hair and ensured her breasts weren’t exposed, and then Dewey turned the doorknob.

  Nobody noticed them. The students were preoccupied with all things arty — adjusting their easels, brushes and paints, preparing their canvases. And then he swung around — the dark-haired one, the one with the busy beard and moustache, the one with the stature of the Eiffel Tower, the one wearing tight black denim jeans and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

  He walked towards them in long strides of familiarity. Loddy veered towards the exit but Dewey blocked her.