To Die in Spring
To Jerry, with love
In memory of my father, Ludwig Maultash
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the following people: my husband, Jerry Warsh, for answering my interminable medical questions; my mother, Gena Maultash, for sharing with me her experiences during World War II; my children, Nathaniel and Jessica, for their help according to their talents; my writing groups for their continuing constructive criticism and support through many drafts; my editor, Marc Côté, for his faith in the book.
TO DIE IN
SPRING
Sylvia Maultash Warsh
A Castle Street Mystery
Copyright © Sylvia Maultash Warsh 2000
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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Editor: Marc Côté
Copy Editor: Don McLeod
Design: Jennifer Scott
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Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Warsh, Sylvia Maultash
To die in spring
ISBN 0-88882-216-2
I. Title
PS8595.A7855T6 2000 C813’.54 C00-930046-5 PR9199.3.W367T6 2000
1 2 3 4 5 04 03 02 01 00
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One little goat, one little goat That Father bought for two zuzim. One little goat, one little goat.
chapter one
Rebecca
Tuesday, March 27, 1979
Every time Rebecca drove to the office that first week back she saw David’s face in the rear-view mirror. At first it alarmed her, seeing a dead person’s face. But then she realized it wasn’t his face at all. It was the reflection of his face in her own eyes she was seeing. An image she carried around with her like other people carry photos in their wallets.
The sun floated pale in the sky after the long winter as she drove David’s Jaguar coupe to the medical building. Spring was ironic this year. What good was the stirring of buds on maple branches to her, or the pointed daffodil shoots reaching through the soil? David would not come back this spring. She would have to stop looking in the rear-view mirror.
She turned down Beverley Street, luminous and still, in a haze of Victorian manor-houses built in the 1870s. Immigrant semi-detached homes had sprung up in between. She always felt like she was coming home when she turned down this street. She’d spent her happiest years as an undergrad at the University of Toronto barely two blocks away. In her second year she’d met David in an art history course she’d chosen as a breadth requirement for science students. Lanky and red-haired then, he attracted her notice with his irreverent ongoing commentary about the slides of famous paintings the professor was projecting on the screen. It wasn’t till he graduated that he took his art seriously. By then she was in medical school. Their lives had stretched before them then like a landscape — she thought of the muted colours, the Impressionist attention to light in his early work. If only she’d been paying attention. Maybe he would be alive. If only she’d noticed the change in his palette, it would’ve been a clue.
Through her windshield she could see Beverley Mansions, a series of pale brick double-houses, once grand, now renovated by the city into flats. Second Empire they were called, trying to make an impression. Their sculptured ornamental style captured the air of optimism and ambition for money in the time following Confederation. The cladding was cream yellow brick topped with mansard roofs.
The sun warmed her through the window as she pulled into the little parking lot behind the building. April was the month that bred lilacs out of the dead land. It should’ve been a time to re-invent herself, like the season; they had both gone through a death. The earth was accustomed to rising from the debris of winter; she didn’t know if she had the strength.
In February, the Eglinton Avenue building that housed her former office had been evacuated for extensive renovations. Instead of relocating to a temporary office where she could continue to see her patients, she closed up shop altogether. It was a sudden decision that surprised everyone — including her. She had always put on a strong face, didn’t show her pain, often denying it herself. But she knew she had come to the end of her rope. Her stamina and concentration were gone and she worried about making a mistake. She wouldn’t jeopardize the welfare of her patients. She would have to concede that she, too, was human and couldn’t always cope.
She found the vacancy on Beverley Street with her last ounce of energy, then retreated into herself, leaving Iris to set up the new office. Rebecca had never been good at that sort of thing; she’d always let David worry about colours and design. She knew she could trust Iris, who was more than an office assistant; a friend. She’d left Iris few instructions apart from some aesthetic comments about her deep loathing of the colour orange and the flat industrial paintings of Fernand Léger. Other than that Iris had had a free hand, and she’d done well.
During that first week in the new office, the languid smell of paint, the surprise at the high ceilings and wood mouldings had faded comfortably into a suggestion of fresh beginnings, perhaps a wary hope. She had the whole second floor of the building. The waiting-room, decorated in designer shades of mauve and grey, never held more than a few patients. People had probably found other doctors in her two-month absence. Iris had spent the last few weeks sending out notices of Rebecca’s imminent return to practice, but her former patients were not knocking down her door. That was fine. Rebecca needed to ease into real life again. The eight weeks she had given herself seemed like eight months.