The Fruitful City by Helena Moncrieff

Author:Helena Moncrieff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ECW Press
Published: 2018-03-13T04:00:00+00:00

Down the stairs in the dining room, Pastor Steve is in full flight. He’s recapping the story of Jacob and how he was tricked into marrying Rachel’s sister Leah. From behind a music-stand pulpit, he tosses out questions to the crowd. “Can you believe it? Imagine being married to your sister-in-law! The veils. Whaddaya think that means?” Lindsay waves as I come in. Like an auctioneer on a sitcom, Steve takes her gesture to mean she has an answer. More laughter. I’ve missed the story but not the enthusiasm. The room is energized and fully engaged. Steve slips into grace, thanking the Lord for good food. “Women first,” he calls out. “No, wait, there is a child,” a voice calls back. “He’s upstairs,” says another. The line has already formed. Women load their paper plates with salad, rolls and pasta smothered in vegetables.

I take off my damp coat and ask Steve how the fruit was received. He thinks Gena took the apples home to make sauce. It hasn’t come back yet.

I recognize some of the dinner guests from the street. One is often in front of the liquor store carrying, it seems, all of his belongings. Seeing these people in a different setting changes my view. No longer a reminder of our inadequate support systems, at a table with a community in a safe place, they are diners and friends and the people who will pass the salt, if you need it.

Moving on to Lindsay, in my hunt for the fate of those ugly apples we brought, I ask if she knows if people liked them. Lindsay tells me they were a hard sell to the clients who came through the food bank last week. I feel a bit rejected. She can see it. “I told them they were OK to eat,” she says, watching my face for reaction. Some were taken by a group of Spanish-speaking women and a Polish couple. They planned to make pies. They’re not here tonight, so I’ll come back next week to see if I can catch them. I added some of my share of the apples to a pan of pork medallions earlier tonight. Caramelized in the juices, they were a good addition to our meal.

It takes several visits over several more weeks before I find someone who tried the rusty apples. A tall man in pressed black pants and a dark dress shirt catches me as I’m working my way through the room. Alexandre Lupse came to Canada 12 years ago from Romania. The Sharing Place helped him as he got his feet on the ground. He found work in an auto glass shop and then a bakery. A workplace fall left him with two broken vertebrae in his back. As he reaches for his coffee cup, I see tremors in one arm. It may be Parkinson’s disease, he tells me, maybe something else. He comes to the Sharing Place to volunteer, he says, doing whatever is needed — cleaning, vacuuming, fixing anything electrical.

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