2004 short list:
The Perpetual Ending
by Kristen den Hartog
Knopf Canada
The Perpetual Ending
Jane and Eugenie Ingrams are mirror-image twins, two halves of a perfect whole, each understanding her world through the other. Their parents, however, are not as evenly matched, and Lucy, the twins' mother, moves away from Deep River, Ontario, with her daughters, leaving her heartbroken husband behind.
In Toronto, Eugenie thrives in the jumble of urban life, but Jane is revolted by its underbelly: the lost souls who live on the streets, the garbage that litters the sidewalks,the noise that drowns out her thoughts. When their father eventually seeks the twins out and urges them to come back to Deep River – without their mother – Jane is easily swayed. Eugenie is reluctant, and returns only for the sake of her beloved sister. This is a soon-to-be-disastrous concession, with tragic consequences that reach far into Jane's adulthood.
Years later, Jane is a successful writer, working with her lover Simon, a gifted illustrator, in Vancouver. Estranged from her parents and haunted by her past, she takes solace in the rich, fabulist tales she and Simon create together. The tales are populated by extraordinary characters: a girl who trades her musical laughter for cobweb hair; a child with parched skin and unquenchable thirst; a girl born with horns covering her body; an orphan both blessed and cursed by her ability to divine the future. Deep within the stories are clues to Jane's past, of which Simon knows nothing.
Kristen den Hartog
Kristen den Hartog is the author of the acclaimed novel Water Wings, which was launched in the Knopf Canada New Face of Fiction program in 2001. Kristen's writing has also appeared in numerous magazines, journals and anthologies. She is currently working on her third novel, and divides her time between Toronto and the Ottawa Valley.
Photo by Sara Angelucci
Excerpt from The Perpetual Ending
Every morning I look out into the street through the tiny window. Here there are no chipmunks. There are a million big black squirrels and precious few small red ones. The pigeons step right into our path on the sidewalk, jutting purple-blue velvet heads. Their red feet frightening like an organ exposed. Pigeons make up most of the birds here, whereas at home there are grosbeaks, blue jays, chickadees, whippoorwills, woodpeckers, swallows, and hummingbirds, the tiniest of all. This is what's missing here—the birds and the butterflies. Perhaps there is no room for them, for truly it seems that every space is occupied by someone or something. Uncle William would be glum to know it. Everywhere Lucy takes us I look for them, but they are few and far between. On the wide sidewalk of Yonge Street I look to the pavement for caterpillars and find crushed cigarettes. Dirt settles into the foam of our flip-flops.
“This is the longest street in the world,” Lucy tells us.
She squeezes my shoulder.
It's something, to be the longest, I can hear it in her voice. At home, next to Townline Road, which has only trees and creeks with tadpoles, the longest street is Ridge Road. It runs right through downtown, past the Whistle Stop, past the bank and the chip truck, and up the hill to the highway, which cuts across its top. Yonge Street, old street, goes on forever, no street stops it. Stores scream loud music and flash neon signs and people push by or stand in the way in impenetrable groups. I hear pieces of conversations—“grab a coffee” and “hilarious!” and “no point crying”—and I try to string them together, sing them into something. Foreign speech like music jingles in my ears. Rolling Italian, xylophone Chinese. Here people come from everywhere. In shades of pink and brown, some so black there is purple in them. At home, with the odd exotic exception, people come in white only. Peachy pink, the colour of me, of you, of paper dolls. Our Hallowe'en twins were almost that colour, formed from papier mâché. Those twins were at home still, in the closet. Some of our clothes there too, maybe ripped up, maybe just waiting to be on us again.
I look down at my greying flip-flops. The streets are dirty. There are garbage cans on every corner, but there is garbage in between too, sometimes lifted by wind and flying. When I say so, complaining, Lucy calls me crazy.
“Toronto might just be the cleanest city in the world,” she says.
From the Perpetual Ending by Kristen den Hartog. Published by Knopf Canada. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
