Concetta Principe is a sessional professor of English literature and creative writing at Trent University, and is an award-winning author of five books of poetry, creative non-fiction, and fiction. Her most recent collection of poetry, Disorder, has come out with Gordon Hill Press. She lives with a disability.

ENVY:  PARADOX

It was a moment of envy that imprinted itself on me, an 11-year-old girl, walking the sun-bleached streets of Forest Hill on a Saturday in summer. It must have been morning when everyone was at synagogue, because there was no one on the street but my mother and me. Absolutely no one.

I had my stash of NDP leaflets and I saw the path of my work: the west side of the street. My mother had her stash of flyers for the east side of the street. We’d move along together, on our sides, dropping a flyer at every house, and meet when the block ended.

I was terrified someone would confront me. What are you doing on my property? Just dropping off flyers. But these were not innocent flyers selling off “two-for-one pizzas” or psychic readings. These were NDP flyers we were distributing on the day before the election. Does that make sense? On the weekend before the election. In a neighbourhood that was a conservative stronghold. We had no expectations of making a difference.

Raised in a socialist home, I knew riches were bad; I also knew that no one in this neighbourhood would honestly consider our message. I knew that the candidate we were rooting for, though I was not old enough to vote, would lose. He did. At least, I don’t recall an NDP making it into power in this neighbourhood. Was it liberal or conservative who won? I didn’t know. But the NDP were too radical for those who lived here.

That’s what terrified me: I was distributing the message of radical politics. That was the tension that I carried with me on approaching every house.

I have walked up some impressive stone steps in my life, having visited Italy and France in my childhood, and these steps of this house in this neighbour had the grace of an almost royal ascent: the tread was wide stone, the riser was at a low incline, and the whole curved towards the house, all drenched in sunlight. Beside the stairs were low bushes, and some bright coloured flowers. I don’t know what kind of flowers. There may have been marigolds, or there may have been magnolias. I didn’t know anything about flowers at the time, so I recorded nothing but this kind of garden grace: not a weed in sight.  

I approached the house very quietly, as if I were a thief. I came to the door looking for the mail slot and found it about six inches above the ground, two inches below a full glass panel covered in an intricate wrought iron. It was beautiful.

As I straightened, I looked up and through the wrought iron and glass and encountered my envy: one I still feel. The “I wish I were living there” feeling.

I could see a hallway filled with light coming from the right, maybe caused by a bank of windows, or doors that opened onto an inner courtyard. The corridor ran deep into the dark interior of the house. It was as if there was a hole in the house the way I imagined they made homes in places like California. Or we were at some Italian villa. But this was Canada. It was a revelation to see that this kind of house could be found anywhere where we have a frigid winter season.

I can still smell the summer flowers and dirt in the still, morning light. Someone must have watered the plants.

Inside I could see a few leaves on the hallway floor, evidence of a tree, or a bush, something growing, green and wonderful. Maybe they had blown in from the courtyard.

The house was a shell for paradise.  

There was no evidence of rooms, nor furniture, or anything that would signify a place where people lived. It was a palace with an endless hall that receded into a darkness of some inner sanctuary. My heart entered that house, lingered, and settled as if I were just another leaf, just basking in the beauty of all the inner garden. Then I was just me, a person standing there afraid that someone would see me and call the cops. But no one came. There was no living soul in this house.

For some minutes, the house was mine.

At one point I knew I could not justify standing there much longer so I turned away to my right, to retrace the stone steps that would lead me down to the sidewalk, carrying with me this inner world of my dreams. I swear, I have not forgotten this place, but I would not know where to find it again. It was my Shangri la. My Eden. My obscene avarice despite my Marxist message. Can heaven really be just a capitalist project? That was the paradox of my envy.