Chapter 23: THE TAXMAN
by Shireen Jeejeebhoy
The next day, Aban stops on the last stair, her T-shirt proclaiming “Be Present in the Now,” her right hand on the newel post, not feeling the peeling painted surface of it. Instead Aban is staring at the mail on the worn wooden floor. Funny, she hadn’t thought of this place as getting letters. El sees people in person, and bills aren’t a part of his life, or so she had assumed. After all, she hasn’t seen him handle money, other than the Metropass for the TTC. Yet here the mail is, lying on the floor, just like at home. She steps down onto the old floorboards and stoops to pick up the letters. As she straightens, she sees the mail slot in the door. She blinks at it. Was it always there? She finishes straightening up and riffles through the mail.
All of it is for her.
Who would write her? They all have her name typed on them, kind of like the ones her parents get. She wonders what she’s supposed to do with these letters. She looks around for a place to toss them until she feels like opening them.
El pokes his head out his living room door, “What do you have there Aban?”
“Mail.”
“Just mail?”
“What do you mean?”
His head retreats. She stands there for a bit, then sighs. She huffs her way back upstairs and into her kitchen where she drops the mail on the tiny kitchen table as she swivels on her foot to retrace her steps. But the letters bore a hole into her back. Sighing, she returns to the table, sits down, and begins to slit them open roughly with her thumb.
One’s a letter from Bell, on glossy paper, telling her about some new service. She has a phone. She must. Every house has a phone. It never rings. What else does she need? She tosses it to the side. She opens another one. This one’s from Rogers selling her cable. What does she want that for? Mom didn’t believe in TV, and she doesn't neither. She’d gotten used to not knowing what the other kids were talking about at school and not caring about it. And it doesn’t matter now. She tosses that one towards the first one, not noticing how it almost slides off the Bell ad letter and skitters to the edge of the table. She scans the rest. Are they all going to be like that: stupid crap? She sighs and picks up another one. She opens it. Again from Bell. She’s about to throw it toward the first one when she realises it looks different. It has numbers on it. She reads it and gasps. So much money for a phone that never rings? She’d rather send that to Greenpeace. She goes to throw it toward the other discarded ones when the thought that maybe she should pay it halts her hand. But how? She stares at it for awhile, thinking it might reveal the how. But it doesn’t. She sets it carefully down to her left and picks up the next letter. It’s from the City of Toronto, reminding her about Water and Solid Waste Management. She has to pay for water? Who pays for water? You turn on the tap, and water comes out. This is stupid. And what is solid...she squints at the top of the bill again...solid waste management? It must be a scam or something. But she sets it down on top of the Bell bill. She’s not sure if she wants to pick up the next one; it kind of looks like the one she’d just opened. It too is from the City of Toronto, with lots of different folded pieces of paper in it. Some in languages she doesn’t understand. Don’t people speak English in this city? What is she supposed to do with all these? The bill falls out of the pile as she’s flipping through them. She picks it up and sees that the city wants taxes, something about a final property tax bill. She flips the multi-folded bill around and around to figure out what it’s about. The back is a busy page of numbers and dates. When she realises the numbers are what she owes, she gasps. She can’t pay that. She’s never had that kind of money before. What has Grandma left her? How does she even pay that? She slaps the tax bill on top of the other bills and shoves the rest of the letters and inserts away from her.
Standing up, Aban goes to the fridge and reaches in for the new carton of orange juice. It reminds her of how after the storm yesterday, after she'd eaten breakfast, El had taken Aban for a walk around their neighbourhood helping to clear up the littered gardens and listening to people’s stories as they tried to make sense of what had whirled through their lives. She’d kind of liked it at first; she’d gotten to meet her neighbours through El. But then he’d kept going and going, as if he’d never stop, and the stories were all the same. And her T-shirt and pants were drenched. She swore it got even hotter after that fierce storm. There was a limit. Of course, with money, you gave as much as you could afford, but as Mom said everyone’s busy, everyone has their own worries, that’s why you pay charities to take care of people. Enough was enough. Besides, didn’t Mom always say your taxes are supposed to pay for stuff like, like after a big storm and things? And listening to the same stories over and over...God.
But El had ignored her hints that it was time to go home – he’d actually seemed interested in all their stories. Finally, he had finished, but instead of going home, he’d taken her to a grocery store. The air conditioning was a relief – she could get used to its coldness – but all she wanted to do was lie down while El was determined to lead her up and down the aisles, pointing out the kinds of things she should buy to feed herself and insisting that she did. Laden down with groceries in bags she had bought at the store – she liked how they were saving the environment – he had taken her to another kind of store to buy some dishes. They only had one pattern: plain white for the china, clear glass for the glasses. What a relief. She had no idea what she liked, and she was too tired to make decisions. But though she had grumbled all the way, she was secretly glad he had taken her there. Her one-dish set was annoying her.
She takes out the carton of orange juice, unscrews the cap, pulls off the plastic tab, throws the tab away, and pours the cold, mandarin-coloured juice into one of her new glasses, the cold of it condensing the water in the air on the sides of the glass. El had admonished her to wash all the glasses first, but she had been tired last night, and she can’t be bothered this morning. The juice tastes funny. She makes a face and puts it down. She picks up the carton to look at the label again; it’s the same one as Mom buys at home. They must sell weird stuff in Toronto and keep the good stuff for everyone else. Torontonians will eat anything; she saw that in the store yesterday.
The bills are staring at her again. She hunches her shoulders and tries to leave the kitchen. But it’s like the bills have some sort of fishing line on her.
“Oh, all right,” she grouses to herself. She sweeps them up and takes them downstairs. “What am I supposed to do with these?” she asks El as she tosses the letters angrily on his coffee table.
“What have I to do with bills?” El replies, not looking up from the sofa corner, where he’s reading a thick book.
“Can’t you help me?”
El doesn’t reply.
Aban grabs the letters, crumpling them in her hot-sticky hands, and stomps out. Now what is she supposed to do? She returns to her kitchen, throws them onto the table, slams into her chair, puts her elbows on the table, leans her head on her hands, and glares at them. Tears form and drip down her face. Grandma couldn’t have known how hard it would be, leaving her all this. Or maybe she did, that’s why she left it to her. Mom had said Grandma liked to upset her. But Mom was wrong, wasn’t she? Grandma must’ve known what would happen. How do people do this? Why didn’t she leave her money? She has no cash left. That stupid letter; it’s too bad it had found her. She shouldn’t’ve have gone to that lawyer. It’s all his fault, giving her the keys, showing her the video, making her want to see this house. And then that banker...
She sits up. The banker. That lady. She had said to call if she needed help. Yeah, that’s right, she had said she’d help her figure it out. And she does have money. She remembers now – the lady had opened an account for her and put money in it. She wipes one cheek and then arrests her hand. How does she call her? She doesn’t know her name or nothing.
The business card. She had given her a business card.
Where’d she put it? Maybe her wallet? She stretches her right leg out to reach in and pull out her wallet. She opens it and sees an unfamiliar glossy plastic card. She frowns and then her face clears as she remembers this card gets her money from that machine the lady showed her. But then confusion clouds her face again: how does she get it from that machine to these bills demanding money? The lady. She’ll tell her. She yanks out the plastic card and out falls a business card. It flitters to the floor. She leans over and picks it up. Taking a deep breath, Aban reaches for the phone sitting on the far side of the table, dials, and hears a life-saving voice.
“Um, yeah, hi, this is Aban.”
“Oh yes. Hello Aban. How are you doing? Are you settling in?”
“Yeah. Um, I have these bills and stuff.”
“Of course. Why don’t you come in, and I’ll help you sort them out. Did you receive the cheques?”
“Cheques?”
“Yes. They’ll have come in a fat envelope or small package.”
Aban looks at the pile. “Um, just a sec.” So many letters in that pile; she reaches a hand forward to flip the letters over one by one until she gets to a fat envelope. “Yes, there’s one here.”
“Why don’t you open it. I’ll wait.”
Aban drops the phone on the table and wrenches open the envelope. Out slides a pile of cheques, with her name and address on them and everything. She hurriedly picks up the phone. “Yeah. They came.”
“That’s great. Bring those with you along with your bills. And we’ll get it all done. Don’t you worry Aban. You’ll be a whiz at this in no time. Now, let’s see. Why don’t we say next week, July twenty-second?”
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Aban scrambles around for a pen.
“I’ll call you the day before to confirm, just in case your schedule changes. I know how busy we all are.”
“Yeah, sure. Great. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I look forward to seeing you next week Aban.”
Click. Aban slowly takes the phone from her ear and presses End.
“She’s gonna help me,” she informs El as she enters his living room later.
“That’s what she’s there for. Find the help you need from the right people, Aban, and you will do well.” El returns to his reading.
Aban glares at him and is about to open her mouth when a knock on the door halts her words. “Are you getting that?” she demands of El.
“It’s your house.”
“Yeah, but they’re always here for you.”
El doesn’t reply but continues reading.
Aban stomps out and down the hallway. She yanks the door open, and a young woman smiles at her, holding out a box with a slot on top and letters on the side: “The Feast of Madeleine.”
“Hello. I’m here for the annual Madeleine donation drive,” she says as if Aban will know what she’s talking about.
“The what?”
“The Madeleine donation drive. It’s to help provide Madeleines for the poor and needy.”
“What the hell are Madeleines?”
“Madeleines are little cakes named in honour of Madeleine and to celebrate her inspiration.”
“Her?”
“Oh. Uh. Madeleine was a woman who was cast out by her family, shunned by her friends, and afflicted by strange illnesses. Whoever came into contact with her was repelled, and they called her many names and accused her of being lazy, a hypocrite, a thief, and a liar. One day, she met a man who accepted her and in accepting her recalled to herself who she really was. He redeemed her. She turned her life around and became an inspiration to women everywhere. She gave comfort to the poor and needy; she taught the illiterate; she made powerful men uncomfortable until they changed and began to help the vulnerable; she empowered women and raised them to be on equal footing with their husbands through her own example and her teachings. Every city has a hospital dedicated to healing women’s diseases because of her. A famous chef in the sixteenth century created these little cakes in her honour. At first, only the rich could afford them because they’re hard to make, but they’re so light and have this sweet orange flavour. One day, an upper class Lady said we should not be the only ones to eat these cakes. She said Madeleine lived for those who couldn’t afford luxuries like these. Let us make enough for everyone on Madeleine's day, and on that day we will all feast, rich and poor alike, on Madeleines and remember her. Since then every year we celebrate her memory and example by handing out these cakes to as many people as we can on the streets and at subway stations. Every city around the world celebrates on the same day.”
“That’s a waste of money.”
The young woman rallies back, “Maybe, but it brings a tiny bit of joy to everyone, even the people who have it bad, and reminds us we are all human, together.”
“I got no money, and anyway as I said, it’s a waste. You should be collecting worthwhile stuff, things the homeless really need, like clothes and stuff. Not cakes.”
Aban feels a presence looming up behind her. She turns sharply and sees El, the dark depth of his eyes inscrutable.
“I will donate,” he says as he slots coins into the young woman’s box. “Everyone needs a touch of sweetness in their life. And before you go, let me say a blessing to you for the joy you will spread next week. For even in the midst of suffering, we must feast and celebrate.”
Aban spills contempt out her mouth and slams her feet on the stairs as she returns to her kitchen. She doesn’t get El. Why waste money on something so stupid? Cakes. It’s like that...that Queen in France who told the poor to eat cake. They killed her for that. Those people knew what they needed. Real food. Cakes don’t fill their stomachs or help them with the things that really count. Why would El support something like that? Stupid.