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Reminders and RumoursHome | Menu | Reading More | Imagine More
STAN SAUERWEIN | at Imagine Summer, 5 July 2007

Someone Said

Stanley Sauerwein She moved to the end of his desk and gripped the edge as if she was afraid of floating away when she'd freed herself of the secret. "It's unbearable, Peter," she said. "I have to tell you now. Right now."
      His wife usually just prattled, hardly ever prefacing what she was going to say with even a cursory explanation that might give a listener some advance notice to pay attention. That's why he'd stopped and listened to her. Peter had been marking the last batch of the last essays the last students had turned in before Christmas break. To him, the few precious hours he had left that evening were worth more that days of time over the holidays to come. But, because she'd set the stage like that, he was curious. So, he marked a line on the essay he was grading with a light pencil tick, turned the stapled sheaf over, and waited.
      Misha didn't like invading her husband's study at the best of times. He'd never made her feel welcome there. Not once. Except for the soft leather reclining office chair he occupied, there was no other place to sit in the tiny room. In fact, Misha was more than a little anxious about whether she was standing in the right spot. His den was a shrine to minimalism. There were no pictures of family on the walls. There were no mementoes of leisure either. Her tall, bristle-headed husband might just as well have been a stranger when he was in there. He said souveniers of family holidays were no better than the flotsam of undisciplined lives and he refused to have them in his den. "That's a bit of clutter to distract me," he said when she offered a portrait of herself, smiling in perpetual silence, for his desk. "It's emotional sputum," he told her. "No thanks."
      Misha, soft-souled Misha, daughter of Russian immigrants and mother of two, disagreed of course. In secret caches, she kept memory cues of their youthful assignations when he was 'Peter the Student' and 'Peter the Lover' and 'Peter the Friend'. A poem he'd written. A movie stub. She kept postcards she'd bought on their vacations and birthday card hallmarks of their seasonal celebrations in places her husband rarely went. The laundry room. The children's closet. Her underwear drawer. Peter had been so assiduous in his den décor there was actually not the slightest identifiable hint of him in there. Nothing that said: Peter works here. That office could be any office in any building, occupied by anyone. Nonetheless, in spite of the Spartan facelessness of the room, Misha felt like the very air she was breathing was a bit of him. She felt as though with each breath she was being invaded by his blankness. Upstairs wasn't her space either. Not really, but at least, in the rest of the house she was in the clutter of lives she cherished. Her children felt the same way about the office, often only shouting from the end of a dark hall that led to his door if they needed him, and even then with an apologetic kind of whisper. Peter raised them to respect his privacy in that empty place. He treasured the aloofness. He loved the void of his room without a phone or a window.
      Peter opened his palms flat on the expanse of polished oak between them as if he was preparing himself for Misha's momentous news. Perhaps subconsciously, he was. Her state of trauma was obvious but Peter thought with Misha was always in some elevated state of trauma. That was Misha and he lived with it. Tears had dripped across her cheeks and were falling to the desk. He passed her a tissue. When she accepted it and dabbed her eyes, he tugged another from the box and with it erased the wet trace of her that had fallen from flesh to wood between his table lamp and pen stand.
      "What is it Misha? Now that you've destroyed my concentration, what is it?"
      She breathed him in. It was only a short gulp of him though. Just enough to choke her a little. As much as she could handle at that moment.
      "Andrea Clarke called me about it today," she said. "She said it's true. She said it's no longer a rumour."
      "Rumour?"
      "She's talking. In hours everyone else will know the truth too."
      Peter shrugged. His wife's preamble had been no more than a taunt to get his attention afterall.
      "Andrea says someone saw you with another woman."
      His blank, flaccid stare tightened. "What are you talking about?"
      "She says someone said you were seen with Agnes Probiscus, the librarian, cuddling at the Reefer's Reach."
      "I don't go to the Reefer's Reach," he said.
      Misha sucked a shallow breath. "Andrea says that's exactly why the rumor is probably true."
      "That's just preposterous."
      "You kissed. Agnes says someone says they saw tongue." Misha released her grip. She had a definite sensation of weightlessness. "If it's true, I'm leaving you, Peter. I just want you to know that."
      "And you'd be justified," he said.
      Peter watched her float from the desk with an odd smile bending her lips. For a few seconds he contemplated its curl up on one side as if she was being pulled away. "Curious," he finally said under his breath. Then he flipped the waiting essay over and returned to the rumors of meaning waiting for him there.

Stanley Sauerwein was born in Lethbridge, Alberta and first began freelance writing at the age of 13 with a newspaper column in the local newspaper.
      After university study in journalism he worked as a reporter under the tutelage of renowned editor Margaret "Ma" Murray for two years before moving to Vancouver to edit weekly newspapers there. In Vancouver he continued his freelancing for daily newspapers and by writing character profiles on a number of entertainment celebrities for monthly magazines. He then joined a national pr agency to write for newspapers and radio on golf and motor racing events before taking a reporter job with a national newspaper chain.He rose to the position of group publisher but his heart was in the words and not the balance sheet, so in 1990 settled in the vine-draped hills overlooking Okanagan Lake.
      Sauerwein fed his family by the word, churning out thousands of magazine and newspaper articles. His early books relied on his business experience for subject matter. He wrote about the energy industry and the construction industry. He compiled a travel guide and was recognized by the Government of Canada to write a history book as one of that country's Millennium Projects. He also began consulting to a client base that includes an insurance company and firms in the travel, construction, real estate and computing industries. He found he enjoyed writing about the past and in 2000, began historical biographies. Since then, he has written 15 books.
      Now he finally feels ready to "take his lumps" in an effort to write fiction. His website is at http://www.stansauerwein.com.

Copyright © 2007 Stanley Sauerwein. All rights reserved.