The Storyteller

          Death can bring solace to the suffering—from the pain of a body expiring, but for the fortunate few it can mark the peaceful end of a remarkable journey. My grandfather seemed destined for the former—he was quite ill for years, but through his interminable desire to entertain, he attained the latter.

          Since his death eight years ago, I have tried to continue the family tradition, to emulate his skill at captivating an audience with a story, but I cannot. He was unique. I eventually discovered why.

           There must have been a hundred stories over the years—at least the ones I can remember. How many were told to friends, work acquaintances—he was a carpenter after the war, and the assorted strangers he came across. I heard him tell one of his favourite “fish” stories to a mailman on the street, and it wasn’t even his mailman. Any ear was an available ear.

         For us, members of his family, a holiday tradition was established. He would sit in his favourite chair, the burgundy wingback antique in my living room—we hosted all family gatherings—and narrate his latest story to whomever was present. He had two favourites; for the children he would read from the pocket-sized paperback of The Tale of Peter Rabbit his mother had read to him. He believed the story encapsulated the impulses of childhood and allowed him to moralize how children should listen to their mothers. He insisted if we were going to maintain any sense of decorum in our society that the story must be heard by all future generations.

        I remember his face wrinkling with delight watching the widening of the children’s eyes as the troublesome rabbit ran into the garden, ignoring a mother’s cautionary tale of a father being caught and put into a pie by Mr. McGregor. And I remember his blue eyes sparkling when describing the dangers children can encounter if they don’t listen to their mother. I tried on numerous occasions to read the story to my twin boys but, despite my best efforts, they would howl like I was a bad stage performer telling cheap jokes. There was only one person, they believed, who could give the rendering its necessary colour. I stood outside their bedroom door one night to listen. My boys were right; while I read, he performed.

        Later, with the children in bed, the adults would listen to his intricately detailed version, complete with images of pain and death, of the night he nearly died in “The Big War.” I could never understand why a story that so vividly captured the horrors of war elicited such pleasure in him—and he refused to answer whenever I asked, simply stating “one day you’ll understand.” He was right. I realized that each rendering breathed life into his fellow soldiers. They came alive for him as he spoke.           

           I don’t remember him being anything other than social and convivial, but my mother described a different man after my grandmother died. He would sit alone in his house all day, ignoring phone calls and being dragged to family functions where he would sit alone, unwilling to engage even when prompted. She said it was like watching the life slowly leave his body with every exhale. One day she had an idea—she liked the word epiphany. She asked him to read Peter Rabbit to her then four-year son who had not yet heard the story. She hoped a pleasant childhood memory might shock the storyteller to life. She said his smile returned that night, and that smile grew broader with each reading. It grew broader still when my sister was born two years later.

          Good stories need an audience’s undivided attention, he would say, and should not be told at the table while eating. There were nights when he would show up at our door unannounced. It was apparent that he wanted our company but he would decline our initial offer to enter—he didn’t want to impose. It was the same old dance. He needed to be convinced that our offer was sincere. I don’t know if he ever realized how much we enjoyed his company, and I don’t remember if I ever told him. After dinner, he would go upstairs to my sons’ room and read Peter Rabbit to them. Then he would come downstairs and settle into my chair. I’d make his favourite drink—a Rye Manhattan with one ice cube served in a square glass, and we would sit and listen. to his latest story. I must have told him. When his body started go, his mind went as well.

          Fortunately, he was lucid at a time when my wife and I were having marital issues—it was shortly after the boys were born. He sat us down and recounted the time he and his wife were also struggling. They were shopping together one afternoon and somehow got separated—this was long before cell phones so he could not contact her. He searched the entire neighbourhood and finally found her in a saloon, drinking beer and laughing with the local barflies. Her explanation was simple—she needed to get away, if only for a short while. He contained his anger, made sure she had cab fare and drove home. She came home later that night, kissed him on the cheek, thanked him for being so understanding, apologized for her impetuousness and promised never to worry him like that again. Everyone needs to get away he said, if only for a short while. 

           I felt justified in prohibiting my sons from hearing the war story. I remember announcing to my mother and grandfather that, as a nine-year old, I was too old for Peter Rabbit and I was mature enough to hear the adult story. Mostly I was tired of being sent out of the room like a child. My grandfather was hesitant. The story could not be tempered to shield an innocent child. I assured them both that I was ready—but I was wrong. I learned a lesson that night. I learned that the chasm between the innocence of a vegetable garden and the cruelty of war should not be hurdled in a single bound. It was three years before I felt ready to hear the story again. I doubt I missed another telling. I wanted my boys to wait until they were twelve as well, but my wife insisted our ten-year old boys were mentally and emotionally prepared. She also described their deep frustration at being sent out of the room each night like children. The irony was purposefully effective. She was right of course. They listened with rapt attention, asked pertinent questions at its conclusion and went to bed afterward without complaint.  

          From the moment my sons joined the audience, the story—which had always been told with fervent strictness, began to change. The enemy barrage was more pronounced, his injuries more debilitating, the bodies were now dismembered and strewn across the field, the truck he was riding in wasn’t tipped over but was now sent hurtling through the air by the explosion. Flames swarmed the vehicle like an inferno after it crashed. The story structure was the same, but the details were suddenly embellished—a storyteller’s prerogative I guess, but it triggered some doubt in me. Had I taken the story’s authenticity for granted all these years? I felt guilty, like I was betraying his trust, but I had to investigate. I needed to know for certain.       

          The details are sketchy. A British division, with Canadian volunteers, had indeed marched into Belgium from France and, after crossing the border, had been attacked from the rear by enemy forces. The number of deaths and the damage inflicted were unknown but the division did reach Brussels and did help liberate the nation. I felt relief. The story was based on true events. I still felt like I deceived him.

          He never knew of my betrayal; if he did, he never showed it. Then again, I only remember him raising his voice once—to protest our decision to name our boys after him. We wanted his name to carry through the generations of our family and we didn’t think it fair to reward one and slight the other, so we decided to use it as their second names. He was unconvinced. Each person should chart their own path he said, without the burden of someone else’s history to carry. It wasn’t a burden I insisted, it was their lucky charm.

           The only story I every told him that he liked was a true story. My boys attended an elementary school at a sufficient distance to warrant taking the bus, so I would drop them at the bus stop in the morning and then drive to my teaching job at a local high school. One day, after I had dropped them off and driven away, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a blue lunch bag wedged between the seat and the rear passenger-side door. I immediately turned around and went back. The kids were still waiting for the bus but my boys were nowhere to be seen. I took a deep breath in an attempt to stem the rising panic, lowered my window and asked where my boys had gone. A number of arms pointed down the street, toward the school. I was livid. I quickly caught up to them, ordered them inside the car and scolded them as I drove to their school. They apologized and vowed that they meant no harm. They were simply playing a game. They were running away from Mr. McGregor, just like Peter Rabbit, so they wouldn’t be put in a pie. I remember my grandfather’s chest puffed out and he laughed with great pride. To him they were each Peter Rabbit from that day onward.

          The rabbits are grown now and have long since hopped away from home. One joined the military and the other is studying to be a doctor—we’re proud of both. Family gatherings are rare these days. My wife has been urging me to travel but I am such a homebody. I had a dream a few weeks ago. My grandfather was standing on the edge of a lettuce patch beside a fully grown Peter Rabbit, like Harvey, and they were laughing at me and calling me names. We leave for a six-week tour of Europe, once the school year ends.

         On this. the anniversary of his death, as I do each year, I sit in my wingback chair—a Rye Manhattan in a square rocks glass with one ice cube on the coffee table alongside his distinguished service medal, and I flip though the pages of our family album. The photos remind me of his many stories, but mostly I remember his featured tale of the night he nearly died in the War.

          It was late summer of 1944. Allied forces were marching into Belgium from the French border, intent on liberating the Belgian capital. He was a young soldier with the second Canadian Division stationed nearby and volunteered to join the mainly British Division on the one-hundred-kilometre march to Brussels. Shortly after crossing the French border the division was attacked from behind by the residue of a battered enemy army fresh off their surrender at the Battle of Normandy.

          The division’s march echoed through the night until a shell exploded on the road beside the truck in which he was riding. It was his good fortune he said, to have been seated in the rear, as the truck was struck at the front. He was thrown from the vehicle and onto the dirt road. He lay unconscious until being shocked awake by a burning piece of metal that flew off the truck and stuck in his neck. At this moment, he would stand and lower his shirt collar to display the scar on his neck.

          He continued with the story. A bone was sticking out of his right leg, his right arm was smouldering below the elbow, there were deep wounds across his chest and his head rang like a Sunday morning church bell. Shells exploded and the sound of gunfire pierced the night as he watched the fire swarm the truck, incinerating those trapped inside. The screams still reverberate in his mind.

          He rolled off the road into a field of long grass and crawled past the dead bodies until he reached the forest where he found safety inside a thick cluster of bushes. He lay quietly and ultimately lost consciousness. When the bright morning sun awakened him, it was quiet. Everyone had vanished. He must have gone undetected in the darkness by friend and foe. He was certain the division would have radioed back to the base but he couldn’t wait for the cavalry; he would bleed to death before help arrived. He staggered down the road toward the border, dragging his broken leg and poking at the bloody cavities in his body to stimulate pain whenever he felt faint. Ten, twenty, thirty kilometres—the distance expanded over the years. If he stopped, he said, he would surely die.

          At this moment he would stand, roll up his pant legs, show the scars on his legs and the discrepancy in his calves—his right calf was perhaps half the size of his left. When the cavalry finally arrived, he collapsed into their arms and again lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was lying in a French military hospital, in post-operative recovery. A few days later, he was transferred to a British medical unit where he spent the better part of a month. When he was physically capable, he boarded a plane and came home to his wife.           

            He always concluded the narration with remembrances of his wife, describing the townhouse they bought after he returned, and the house they purchased five years later—the same home in which she died and, years later, in which he died. He refused all of our requests to move him into a care facility—he wanted to die at home, and he did, three months shy of his ninetieth birthday.

          I still have that pocket-sized paperback copy of Peter Rabbit and I keep it inside the plastic sleeve of the album’s back page. In his memory I read the story out loud, performing with his customary flare to an invisible, and non-judgemental, audience. Then I read the passage he wrote for the children on the inside of the back cover. I conclude my tribute by raising my glass and toasting the great storyteller. 

          If you are good and listen to your mother and your father, you will have bread and milk and blackberries for dinner. But if you don’t, like Peter, you will have none.