Sunday 7 July 2019

Working Together (Short Fiction)




 

Working Together


     Alex took a moment's break from packing the remains of the harvest, along with some tools and other belongings into a large trailer, and took a drink from his canteen in the cooling autumn air. He looked out across the field at his journeyman, hoe in hand, making some finishing touches in the garden before they left for the season. A wiry, middle-aged man with a thick dark beard, wearing a wide straw sun-hat, and dressed in a billowy white work-shirt, a long kilt that he'd sewn for himself from cotton broadcloth, as well as a pair of homemade tire sandals. He did not exactly accord with the image of fashion that Alex was used to at least aspiring to approximate.
     Alex had made the trip back to the city twice since the late summer, to transport into town the vegetables and grains that he had helped produce, for the most part to be preserved for the winter by those few who remained in the city for the summer months. He was glad his boss let him make the trip instead of taking it for himself and leaving Alex with a set of chores on the farm. His journeyman, Phillip Ducharme, seemed to him a bit odd, unconcerned with the months of isolation, and welcoming the three days of solitude that these delivery trips would afford him. Alex would have preferred some more time in the city as, aside from these trips, there were only two local dances out in the country to break up the hot summer months. After delivering the produce and arranging for their preservation, and spending a night at his mother's house, he was obliged to make his way back out to the Central Maintenance Union farms. Harvest would be over soon enough though, and he would have time on his own to enjoy some of the return parties in the city, to play some music and meet up with his friends before winter set in and a new season of work began.


     One of those who remained in the city for the summer was the chef at a lunch counter next to the law courts. Between orders, Rose was getting two young teenagers set up at a long wooden cutting block next to some baskets of vegetables. Her own cutting block was adjacent to the two hammered-steel woks she cooked at, set back a little from the counter where her customers ate, or at which they could pick up their orders to eat at the tables. From her station she could keep an eye on everything in the restaurant, as well as deliveries being brought down to the cellar.
     A regular pushed through the screened door and made his way to a stool at the counter, a bundle of papers under arm, wearing thick round glasses, a loose linen dress shirt, khaki pants and some leather sandals.
     “Chicken soup?” Rose asked him. He pulled his lips to one side and gestured with his face “Why not?”, while setting out his papers in front of him. “And a light beer.”
     Rose slid a lever beneath the woks over with her knee, opening the gas valve, and the burners fired with a whoosh while she flicked a spoon of lard into the wok. Once it melted and shimmered, she tossed in a handful of sliced onions, bell peppers, and celery root, and then a few chicken pieces. She tilted the pan, and pushed them up along cooler back slope of the wok to make space for another little pool of fat, into which she added some ginger, garlic, and dried lime peel. Chicken bones and necks were slowly simmering in the other wok, with a few aromatics and chilies swimming around at the surface. She took a few ladles of broth to add to the vegetables. It came to a quick boil as she added a scoop of cooked rice and a pinch of green herbs. She ladled the mix into a deep clay bowl and brought it to the counter, then pulled a cork stopper from a jug of cool-ish beer to pour him a glass.   
     “Thank you Rose,” he said, only just barely pulling his eyes from his long sheets of handwritten notes. She smiled at him, and moved back to scrub the wok and get ready for the next order.
     Rose was deft and quick in every movement she made. Years of kitchen work, the constant activity, slinging around the cast iron cookware, the sacks of grains and the crates of vegetables had made her healthy, fit and strong for her slight frame. Working in a food business helped as well, as there was always nutritious meals to be had from what wasn't sold in the day, which she cooked up to eat with her sister and her helpers.
     Their restaurant had been set up by her mother when Rose was young. After Rose's father passed, her mother took over his restaurant supply business, which imported goods that weren't grown locally, various grains, legumes, coffee, spices, an so on, mainly for the few restaurants in the city, as well as for some inns and institutional kitchens. It was successful enough, but grew harder to manage as time went on: demand in the city was always diminishing, and there were continual disruptions in supply. Certain orders would just stop arriving, and their suppliers never heard from again, though Rose's mother, Natalia, would write letters, left to wonder what had happened to her connections.
     Natalia kept her ears open for an opportunity to open an establishment of her own, to augment and to diversify away from her import business. She was offered a chance to go in on a roast house that was opening on Wellington Avenue, a wealthier neighbourhood in the city, but instead she took a commission to run a cafeteria in the city centre, right beside the law courts and near city hall and the hospital. It was a good decision. The high-level staff that worked there were a captive clientele of professionals requiring a meeting place that offered interesting meals, which added a steadier income stream to Natalia's family.
     And compared to the outdoor ovens at the roast house, her fuel costs were minimal. She had decided on installing the wok stations, as good quality Chinese pans and tools were available from her northern supplier, and the wide pans could be heated quickly for a stir fry as the order came in, and then turned off as quickly again. This helped keep the kitchen from heating up excessively. (In cooler weather, they would sometimes set up an iron grate over charcoal for a change of pace.) The commission came with the ability to buy city bio-gas at a decent rate, as a supply line had already been piped over from the central physical plant across the street.
     It was an economical way of cooking. They could use shavings of whatever meat was available (pork, poultry, rabbit, goat, beef, bison) to serve over whatever dried grains or legumes that they had in dry stock (rice, millet, wheat, sorghum, lentils, beans.) To these proteins and carbohydrates they could add whatever vegetables might make sense, incorporating fresh produce from city garden beds, or the onions, cabbages, beets, Brussels sprouts, carrots, garlic and ginger that were stored in the root cellar. Next to some canvas cots along the cool walls of their basement, sauerkraut, kimchi and mushroom mixes fermented in large ceramic crocks. Thin strips of meat could be quickly fried in the woks, or they could steam tougher cuts in bamboo baskets, couching them in garlic, ginger and lemongrass, to be sliced on top of a bed of grains and doused in a flavourful sauce.
     With the seasonings and sauces made possible by the imports that Natalia was able to arrange, it amounted to a versatile culinary style. Over the years, Rose had developed a sense of how to combine the varying inputs into one or two coherent dishes to offer per day. Her cooking style was based on traditions her mother had passed on to her, as well as her intuitions on how various regions might have composed flavours and arranged meals. She had a small shelf of old cookbooks near her bed that her sister had slowly collected for her, with faded glossy pictures of restaurants and dishes from early in the century. Over time, groups of immigrants had introduced plants better adapted to the new patterns of temperature and rainfall than some of the traditional crops. The elements of what people ate and of how they cooked it were also settling into new patterns, formed under increasing limitations on available ingredients and cooking fuel, edited by shortages of all kinds.
     After her regular had finished his lunch and bundled up his papers on his way out, Rose collected the bowl and the pint glass that was sitting on top of some bills and coins. On her way back to the dish pit, out of the sight of customers, she dropped the money into a slot in a cast iron chute that dropped down into a safe in the cellar. City centre was a relatively well-policed area, and some of their clients who were in a position to do so made sure that the security of the restaurant was given special attention. Still, Natalia had taken whatever precautions she could think of to make her businesses as unattractive as possible to anyone contemplating a break-in or a robbery. She had learned from the economic crises and periods of chaos that had she had seen come and go, and planned her operations accordingly.

     In the early morning Alex rolled up their bed clothes and bug nets, and loaded them into the trailer along with their generator and their pump. He checked the air pressure on the tires, harnessed their two mules to the trailer's makeshift hitch, and with that they were ready to go. Philip climbed into the open cab, dressed today not in his gardening wear but instead in his city work uniform, a dark collared shirt, dark denim pants, cuffs rolled up, and some leather shoes. His hair had grown out about a quarter-inch from when he had recently shaved it. No socks though, for whatever reason, Alex noted. The younger apprentice had put on some nicer clothes for the journey himself, wearing a newer red plaid shirt and some blue jeans. He had shaved his deeply tanned face, though he barely needed to. His blonde hair was nearly down to his jawline at this point, and he planned to a haircut once he got back into the city.
     Not tending the reins on this trip, and his journeyman morose and silent as usual, Alex had plenty of time to reflect on his first summer out on the union farms, which could have been the first of many. He did not relish the thought. It wasn't that he minded the work, and it was pleasant to be out in the country over the hot summer months, when the heat was especially oppressive in the city. It felt dead in town over the summer anyways, as so many people closed up business for the season and headed out to work on the land and grow food, in various arrangements. Alex doubted though that many in either the city or the country had to endure the spans of deadly quiet that he did that summer, assisting his journeyman, who had no wife or family to bring out with him to help their camp feel more like a home.
     They rolled slowly down the highway. Alex watched the ruined houses, clustered together every so often not too far from the highway. In a few places though along the path leading into Winnipeg, there were a few homes that were maintained year round. Some family had obviously stayed in place over the decades of disruptions, to patch, paint, caulk or tarp as needed to keep the elements out.
     “How long since most of these houses were put up?”
     “Hmm. I'd say about eighty years for most. Sixty maybe for the last ones.”
     And silence again for a while between them. They approached another camp, about eight people working in the field. Alex didn't know these people's affiliation, but he did feel a touch of longing at the idea of working in a group like that. He noticed too that, like the camp Philip and Alex had just closed down for the season, they were making use of some of the poured concrete basements that had been left intact beneath these collapsing chipboard structures. If a basement could be found that wasn't too big, and where the house had been built on higher ground where drainage wouldn't be a constant problem, these could be covered and used as in-ground shelter. Retreating frequently into the cool ground was pretty much the only option to pass through the summers devastating heat.
     At the site they had stayed at in the Maintenance Union's grounds, some large timber wood had been pulled across the top of such a concrete dugout. Moss had been pounded into the crevices where the logs came together, and on top of that were some loosely-filled sandbags that had been arranged into a A-shaped roof, aiming to move standing water away from their shelter. Some fence boards and brushwood had been woven together over the sandbags. They had a piece of corrugated tin, weighed down with cinder blocks on three corners, to cover over the hatch at the front where they climbed down into their quarters. And though the original houses that had been built on these concrete foundations were gone, the original well casings were often in good shape, pipes of about six inches in diameter that had been drilled many feet deep into the earth to access water in the ground. The Maintenance Union used jet pumps and portable generators to draw water from these wells, filling large clay vessels they had commissioned from the city's Clayworkers Union.
     Watching this group in the field, a few men and a few women, Alex wondered how they arranged their sleeping spaces, and how they spent their downtime. Alex and Philip had gotten up early nearly every day of the summer, working from the cooler hours of the morning until about noon, when the heat would become unbearable. They would take a break on their cots for a few hours. If he didn't sleep, Alex would practice quietly on his mandolin, writing down lyrics and chords in his notebook when a new song was coming together. He didn't ask if Philip minded, and Philip never mentioned it, so he worked on his songs throughout the summer, but kept it muted nonetheless. A row of clay cisterns separated their sleeping areas somewhat, and kept the air around them a bit cooler over a radius of a few feet.
     The summer was behind him now. Next year, maybe he could have more time working in some of the other, larger camps of the Maintenance Union's? For seeding, harvest, and for a little bit of building, Alex had helped out some others for a few days over the summer. As he got to know Philip more, and so long as he put in his work on Philip's plots, maybe he could spend more time living in another camp? Alex didn't think his journeyman would mind the time alone.
     Overall he liked working for Philip, and was actually quite grateful to have been taken on at all. A lot of his fellow apprentices had harsher work conditions than his. He managed to get along with Philip for the most part, but it was a hard transition into the working world from how he had been living. His parents had allowed him, a little unusually, to follow his own interests late into his adolescence. His father, Bill Roche, was well off, having worked as an official in the upper ranks of the city's bureaucracy. He was a competent man, and had carved out a place for himself organizing various essential services and dealing with the unions that were supposed to provide them, along the wealthy families whose interests where also always involved. He was a good negotiator. He managed his connections and his influence with skill, and balanced his own security with the demands of the city and of the unions, well aware that these were all connected. The long hours that he put in, the constant dealing and the precarious obligations that he struggled to fulfill, inclined him to let his son move along a different path. So Alex had finished the tenth grade and focused on music, making some money with a band of friends, playing the coffee houses and pubs around Osborne street and any other occasion they managed to get hired to perform.
     Those coffee houses all sold several local newspapers along with a few books, and often had a rack of pamphlets and zines on offer for a few cents each, covering everything from art and poetry to politics and religion. These venues had developed an atmosphere discussion and debate, and so as well as playing shows, Alex had taken an interest in politics. He met frequently with a group that was heavy into political discussion, and a well as occasional actions and agitations. They picked apart and debated proposals and essays written by thinkers of various persuasions, focusing especially on distributist, communtarian, and syndicalist tracts.
     Alex hadn't at all mastered the details of the common positions held in this group, but he enjoyed immersing himself in this scene, and all philosophy and history that was being introduced to him. To some extent the ideas being discussed aligned with his father's politics. Various schemes were entertained, but in general the idea was to somehow limit the role of money in the economy, with the most essential, locally produced goods and services to be portioned out to the unions and workplaces of the city, according to the number of their members and what they provided to the economy. Maybe a council with representatives from the city's many workplace unions could meet to arrange how these essential goods would be apportioned.
     Recurring depressions and a lack of coordination between local and regional governments had given rise to periods of economic chaos, where the money supply and credit could never seem to cover local requirements. People were left scrambling to find ways to earn enough to get by, and were looking for security in meeting their basic needs. Wealthy families often had the savings and the food stores to weather these periods with ease, but a lot of ordinary people were wondering if there wasn't a way for an essential economy of things like food, housing and medicine to continue locally and uninterrupted even when the national economy was out of order. At the same time, the wealthy families of the city were not keen to see the idea of distribution based on labour rather than ownership take root.
     When Alex's father had fallen ill and eventually had to leave his position, it seemed to mark the end of Alex's youth. His parents didn't press the issue of him finding a more stable means of income, but when some protests had descended into rioting, and Alex had gotten in some trouble with the police, it was clear even to Alex that his family's circumstances were requiring him make changes and take on more responsibility. His father didn't live to see Alex begin as an apprentice in the Maintenance Union, but Alex felt he would've been proud to see him work his way into the ranks of one of the organizations his father had worked with for so much of his own career.
     Even without regretting his new line of work, he did miss all the late smokey evenings in the village creating music, with all the culture and the characters he'd gotten to know. It seemed distant to Alex at the moment, but he was looking forward to a taste of it again, and to some respite during this short gap between summer and fall, when the city as a whole paused and celebrated for a moment before changing gears for the colder seasons.
     He turned to Philip, “Do you think we'll ever build out here again?”
     Philip took a moment, and looked up and off in the distance, turning the question over. “Yeah, I think so. Once all the troubles die down, I could see people building out here again. If the wars died down, and we could get supplies easier, I could see it.”
     A noisy pickup truck with some sort of hand-painted company logo on the passenger-side door overtook their trailer on the highway, and then moved slowly on ahead.


     A pair of surgeons were finishing up a large meal at a corner table, eating their way through some bowls of meat and vegetables, with some small dishes of sauce, a sambal and a mayonnaise dip, and a platter of thin flatbread. They're celebrating something, Rose thought, or maybe indulging after a difficult ordeal at the hospital. She had sent the food out on a new set of dishes she had bought from the nearby potter's gallery, all with a mottled deep-blue glaze.
     “Hey Rose!” one of them called out across the restaurant, a little overly loud. Rose looked up from her cutting block. “I love these bowls! What do you say we take them with us?”
     She raised her cleaver from the into their sight-line and bobbed it in the air. “What do you say I take a few knuckles?” She paused and then gave them a slight smile. They grinned, as did an administrator who was eating at the counter, a woman wearing an elegant long dress, with a thin, light grey fabric that she wrapped around her shoulders.
     “Alright, they stay here!” Rose returned to her work.
      Rose was a definite favourite among those who had business in the city centre, as her mother had been. She was a beautiful woman with a commanding presence, not hesitant to speak her mind. She ran the business with intelligence, and was attentive to the needs of people she dealt with, the restaurant's customers and all the others that she purchased from or supplied. She had long dark hair, that she usually had her sister braid and tie up, to sit behind a black baker's cap. Her daily uniform was a black t-shirt, loose checkered kitchen pants, a long black apron tied with some cloths at the waist, and a pair of rubberized clogs on her bare feet. In her appearance and personality, as well as in her capabilities, she was a radiant figure to those who knew her.
     Her mother had passed earlier in the summer. Though Rose didn't show it, talking with doctors made her uneasy, she had mixed feelings and held some resentment towards them. As helpful as they had been with her mother, they had scheduled her surgery for the winter, after the hospital resumed full operations and they starting working through their back-list of non-urgent procedures. She had no way of knowing, but of course she had to wonder if her mother would have survived with more timely attention.
     Her mother had been in poor health for awhile, so Rose was used to running the restaurant and the import supply on her own, along with overseeing her sister's small side-business. When their mother had passed, the burden on Rose was lessened somewhat, not having to care for her on top of the long days at work. But she she couldn't help feeling weight of responsibility increase on her, particularly for her sister, and for the network of relatives and cousins that often looked to her mother for help for help. The city was always falling into periods of desperation in recent years, especially as industry and the government began to focus more to the north. A lot of things were being neglected, and Rose felt the strain of keeping things together in lean times.
     Katerina was at her usual table off to the side of the restaurant, as her morning duties in the kitchen and the store room were finished, and the small animals in the building's courtyard had been fed. She bussed tables as needed in the afternoon, while Rose usually took care of the counter, while she caught up on paperwork, among other things. Rose never exactly knew what Katerina was working on. Her sister was a much quieter person than herself, and a bit secretive, you had to pry if you wanted details from her. Looking over at her table, three or four books beside a notebook and some papers clipped together, it was clear she was busy with something.
     Katerina had kept the books for their businesses for years now. She had been pulled from school to work a little less early than Rose had been, but her mother knew Katerina was not going to take to physical work as readily as her sister had. She was reading whenever she had a chance, she was shy and lived in her head a lot more than she focused on the details of daily life. As a younger teenager, Katerina mentioned some vague ideas of wanting to work in the city's office complex, as a secretary perhaps, so her mother got her a subscription to Modern Professional, a small quarterly publication that catered to these sorts of aspirations, aimed mainly at young women, with articles about making it into, and succeeding in, the professional classes. It was mostly a vehicle for selling correspondence courses, of which her mother purchased a few to further Katerina's education: bookkeeping, penmanship and various scripts, applied math, short-hand, basic legal studies.
     Katerina devoured these courses, receiving the lesson materials by mail, and usually sending back the tests and assignments far before they were due. Natalia was pleased with the system she'd set up for her younger daughter: she could put in some work with basic chores and attend to her courses later in the day. She gave over to Katerina more of the administrative work, writing letters to suppliers, paying taxes, and so forth, and Katerina talked less about wanting to get a job in the government or industry. This pleased Natalia too, as while she wanted her daughter to be happy, she was averse to the idea of working for wages, and liked to keep her family working together.
     Over time, an idea came to Natalia of a business for Katerina. Constantly interacting with the various professions and government officials at the restaurant, from time to time they asked Natalia if she could maybe source a certain book from her contacts in Chicago or Minneapolis, with some sort of technical information they were needing, regarding things like medicine, geography, or engineering. Sometimes she was successful, and bringing the books in along with some other supplies, and she wondered if maybe she could start up a small bookstore beside the restaurant that Kat could manage. The space she had in mind was more an alcove than a full shop, it had been once been the front desk and lobby for some offices there. But it could fit a few bookshelves, and they could build some stock slowly. There was a need for information that was getting harder to access these days, maybe she could carve a niche for her daughter in supplying that gap.
     Mind was another magazine that Katerina had a subscription to, a lot more fun than the professional journal, which was filled with logic puzzles, crosswords, and a diverse array of articles on topics like code breaking, mnemonic systems, Latin etymology, and speed reading. It was an amusement, but it helped immensely in dealing with the requests that the professionals grew accustomed to placing with her. A lot of the specifics they mentioned were alien to her, but she could make an image with her mnemonic system to keep a track of it quickly, even if she was busy. She couldn't always arrange for a book to be ordered, but she developed some work-arounds: sometimes materials could be loaned, and she could write up a neat manuscript for her client, an article could be sent, or she could even arrange a long-distance phone call, and take notes dictated by a specialist. Her short-hand and her practice with mnemonics made that possible.
     Katerina would sometimes practice her short-hand and her concentration from her table in the restaurant, eavesdropping on conversations, singling them out through the noise of a lunchtime service. No one noticed, and even if they did, no one would be able to read her personalized notation of what they had said. She was good at working from the sidelines, and didn't mind letting her sister take centre-stage.
     “Hey Kat!” Rose called from behind the woks. Kat looked up from her book. Rose gestured to the dishes on two tables in the corner that had been vacant for awhile.
     “Oh yes, thanks,” Kat replied, marking her place and getting up. She had known they were there, but had tried to finish up her chapter first.

     Moving towards Winnipeg from the east, Philip and Alex took a short detour off the highway when they could see off to their right the tops of the lime kilns rising above the prairie horizon, smoke rising from several spots in the vicinity. As they moved towards them, their road passed through the open quarry, and Alex looked out over the men down in the rocky pit, working with hammers and shovels, filling carts with the blasted stone. Though they were heading into autumn, the direct sun coming down on field of white rock beneath the cliffs was intense. As much as he had struggled over the past year, he saw clearly how much harder some lines of work were compared to his own.
     A sign on the path read 'Manitoba Limeworks and Colliers Union', leading into the complex of kilns, the central plant and the workers' barracks. And as hard as the work in the quarry must be, Alex couldn't imagine adding to the summer heat with the continual fires that were burning here, roasting the limestone and producing charcoal from the massive piles of chopped timber stacked in the field beyond. There were men in gloves and long-sleeved shirts, with goggles and scarves over their faces, raking the the quicklime from the bases of the kilns, and others, blackened with soot, collecting the charred wood into large sacks tied onto wooden pallets. Maybe they worked mainly night shifts during the heat spells? There were lamp posts set up throughout the grounds. Alex couldn't imagine any other way.
     Their trailer was more than half-way full at this point, but there was room to carry in some of these building supplies that their Union used in such large quantities. Philip would be reimbursed for materials when he dropped them off and credited for the delivery. Every little payment helped to make ends meet. They pulled up alongside a loading dock, and arranged for a worker to cart out four kegs of quicklime and three larger sacks of crushed charcoal, which he helped Alex load into the trailer while Philip went into the office to pay.
     There were two other vehicles at the dock doing the same as them, making building supplies a part of their cargo on their way into the city. Leaning up against the trailer, Alex couldn't help but eavesdrop while they conversed with another worker about city news. His heart sank at what he heard. The two councillors who had been working in networks related to the political circles he'd been a part of last year had been arrested. The charges were unclear, but Alex was sure that it would be something entirely unrelated to the fact that the ideas which these politicians were promoting were gaining popularity in the city. He had no idea if these two might in fact be involved in corruption or something like that, but whatever the case, it wasn't good news for the movement that he realized now he still had some hopes for. After the months out in the country, overhearing this conversation about the murky intersection between politics, the legal system and the industrialists left Alex feeling somewhat glad that he had left his involvement in all that behind when he started his apprenticeship.
     “I think we'll stop here for the day,” Philip said, interrupting Alex's thoughts as he passed around the mules, heading toward the trailer's cab. “They said it's alright to camp in the grounds over there. We'll eat, and have a good sleep, and make it back into the city later tomorrow.”
     They drove the trailer to a site beyond the workers' barracks, with a few fire pits spaced out around a well with an iron hand pump. Alex wanted to take a look at the kilns, so he said he'd take a walk and pick some firewood from the lot they'd seen on their way in. He reached over behind the lime kegs to grab some cloth to use as a sling to carry the wood. Philip started putting up their two canvas pup tents, and set out some hay and water for the mules.
     It must have been dinner time for the kiln workers, as the lot was empty and quiet, except for the crackling of fires in various kilns. The lime kilns were towers made themselves out of limestone, while the charcoal units were made of thick steel, painted black, in which logs were stacked behind heavy metal doors. The charcoal units were paired with the lime kilns, with pipes directing the gases let off by the charring wood into the fires of the lime kilns.
     Alex had heard that the Limeworks had been built in the twenties and thirties, during the drawdown efforts undertaken back then. He had no idea if those old projects, with all those countries working together, might still be in operation, but whatever the case it was good they had invested in all this, through his work this last year he had seen how useful it had proven to be. Philip was nominally a member of plumbing division of the Maintenance Union, though more often than not they were removing people's plumbing systems instead of installing them, capping off connections between buildings and the sewer system. The treatment plants had become unreliable, and especially in the heavy rains, basements were continually underwater.     Alex's main task was usually taking a sledge hammer to the concrete floor above a building's main drain, so that he could dig down to cut the main sewer line, and plug the pipe with a mix of sand, gravel and lime mortar. Cement was unusual these days, and to replace the hole they'd broken in the floor, they made a mix of quicklime, clay and char to cover it back over. The lime and char also worked well for repairing leaks in the old foundation walls made from river stone, they could chisel out the old mortar and replace it.
     The old concrete though was harder to replace. Cracks could be tarred over for a while, but eventually, when the steel rebar swelled and turned to powered rust in the centre of the concrete walls, structural strength was lost, and the buildings had to be abandoned and taken down. They would salvage all the rusted rebar they could, collecting into sacks all the pieces or reddish flakes they could gather together, to sell to the Metal Workers, who would melt it down to solid iron products once again. The pieces of concrete would be carted away and crushed down to be used as filler in other projects like road repairs.
     The city would cover some of the cost of the plumbing maintenance work if the building's bathrooms were set up for the collection of wastes by the night-soil men. This was a common project for Philip and Alex, building compartments to house the receptacles that would replace toilets and hold cover materials like sawdust and charcoal pellets. In wealthier households they sometimes installed systems where small amounts of water moved the bathroom wastes down the maintenance room for collection, for more discreet removal by the workers of the city's main powerhouse.
     Another legacy of the sustainability measures of the twenties and thirties were some giant anaerobic digesters that were constructed in the city's core, as well as a number of facilities that recovered heat from the composting process. Food scraps, garden wastes, night soil, shredded brushwood, and livestock bedding were all collected and used to provide energy for the city: the digesters produced bio-gas for space heaters, cooking facilities, and electrical production, while the compost systems provided base heat to certain dormitories and industrial buildings, the heated water circulating into iron radiators, reducing the need for fuel in the colder months. Both systems created fertilizer for the city's gardens and the surrounding farms, and both incorporated crushed charcoal from the Collier's Union. Adding char to the soils over time helped with both the drainage of the heavy spring rains, and also to retain moisture in the ground over the drier months of late summer.
     Touring through the kilns had Alex loosely contemplating the connections between the parts of the city and the country that he'd been to exposed to over the last year, the farms, the households he'd worked in, the larger industrial plants. When he got to the piles of logs and straw and branches, restless from the day of driving, he ambled around in the stacks, thinking, balancing on some high points, taking some precarious leaps from one point to another. By the time he'd collected up their firewood and headed back to the campsite, the kiln workers were coming back onto the site. Alex steered wide around them. Even from a distance some of them looked rough and unfriendly. The sight of this haggard crew and their isolation out at this camp once again made Alex feel grateful for position he'd secured.
    As the evening light faded, Alex started the fire. They pierced some pieces of sweet potato on metal prongs to roast, to eat along with a bit of beef jerky and pickled eggs and beets.

     Rose slowly climbed the stairs in the courtyard up to the landing outside their family's second floor apartment, and took a moment to look out at the sky. The evening sun was casting dark pink hues up on the heavy clouds resting on the city's skyline. Kat heard her unlock the deadbolt, and looked up from the kitchen table at Rose coming through the door. Rose paused when she saw her, and something in Rose's eyes made Kat nervous right away.
     Rose slipped off her black clogs onto the mat and came over to the table. She seemed like she was going to say something, and then paused again. “We need to talk for a minute.”
     “Sure.”
     Rose took a seat on the chair, angled a little away from facing Katerina directly. “That position they were talking about, up north, they awarded it to me.” She looked up. “They want me to move up there, this week.”
     Kat was silent. A friend of Rose's hearing the news would've at least tried to put on show of being glad for her getting this commission, and to cover over their sadness to see her go. But the sisters, close as they were, especially after losing their mother recently, were both overwhelmed with trying to process the implications.
     Rose started again, “We're going to have to leave the restaurant to you, at least for a bit.”
     Kat wiped a tear from her face, Rose's eyes started to well up. “Why do they want you so soon?”
     “Ah,” Rose began to reply, trying to steady her shaking voice, “I guess it's the same up there as it is down here, their city's starting up again in full for the fall. There are big dinners planned, politicians from Asia are coming in to stay in the consulate. I have to get up there to organize everything, the supplies, the menus, and train people in the kitchen there. You know how it is with staffing, people get sick or go missing last minute, things turn on a dime.” She leaned on to the table and rested her chin on her hand. “It's a really good opportunity for us though.”
     Kat's eyes had dried a little, she was trying to think everything through. “It's going to be busy next week here, with everyone coming back into the city, the parties and all. You know I don't do the work that you do Rose.”
     “I know, Kat. But you have seen it all so many times, and you don't have to do it just like I do, you can make the things that you want to. If people don't like it, too bad.” She paused for a moment. They both knew that Kat wouldn't take well the complaints she was bound to receive. “You've got the helpers, and you can hire more if you need. You don't have to open every day right way either, I'm going to be bringing in plenty of money up north, we can afford it. And with the return parties and everything next week, people are going to be out of their routines anyway.”

     Kat stared down at the table. There were so many details left out of these directions that they both knew there wouldn't be time to work out before Rose left. Kat would just have to figure things out as she went. She looked at Rose again, “Are you going to come back?”
     “Not for a bit, Kat. I don't know how this is going to go. I'd really hate to lose this restaurant and our other accounts unless I knew for sure that things will be good up there, but if things turn out, we could give this place up, or have someone else in the family take this over, and you could come up with me. Maybe I could come back to train someone, and get things in order.”
     “But what about the bookstore?”
     “I don't know. Maybe you could do something like that up there.”
     Kat's took a deep breath, her head was spinning. She got up and put her arms around Rose, and leaned her head into Rose's shoulder. “I'm going to miss you.”

     Philip had circled the trailer around the edge of the city to the nearby town of Charleswood to drop Alex off at his mothers' house. Philip paid his respects, and they made some vague plans to meet in about ten days to start up their winter maintenance work, before he left to head into Winnipeg.
     He had considered having Alex help him unload the trailer in the city before dropping taking him home, but he sensed his apprentice's patience wearing thin over the last stretch of the summer, and felt his restlessness growing the closer they got to the city. Best that he let loose for a bit, then calm down again. Overall, Alex had done well over the summer, he was glad to give him the time before they set to work again.

     On his way out of Charleswood, Philip stopped at a store to buy a little tobacco, and dug out a from a bag of his in the trailer. He hadn't smoked anything all summer. His habit was to use the move out to the farm in the spring to shed whatever vices he'd fallen into over the winter. There was a period of withdrawal anyways switching from city life to the quiet of the country, it worked to mask the withdrawals from any other indulgences that had crept into his life. Indulging with his pipe today though he allowed himself, marking the changing of the seasons.
     Philip himself really wasn't that excited to get back into the city, though a change of pace from working on the farm plot was welcome. It wasn't his aim to isolate himself over the summers, but he'd found the gatherings on the union farms a little too close and open and intimate for his liking. Ironically, there was a bit more space between people in the city, and that touch of formality suited him. Watching Alex happy to join up with other crews for a few days at a time, Philip felt a little ashamed. Maybe he should try to be more outgoing? He was resigned to the idea that this wasn't likely. Once your habits and your reputation have reinforced the faults in your nature, it's hard to make a change.
     Looking ahead at another winter in the city, headaches seemed to line up one after the next. It was getting harder to function in his trade. Not that there weren't a lot of repairs and a little construction for them to do, but finding a way to pay for these was getting harder. People were doing without, or abandoning their buildings altogether to move elsewhere. Proper parts could be hard to come by, and patches and impromptu fixes were not the way he liked to work. He didn't always have a lot of choice. Keeping an apprentice was another expense, even just one was a struggle for many in the union to afford . He saw promise in Alex, he wanted to keep him on: when Philip took on an apprentice, he did his best to see them through learning the trade, when they'd be recognized and could take on jobs and apprentices of their own. It was not only his work, but the general violence and the theft in the city that had been weighing on him for the last few years. Desperation had introduced a sense of lawlessness into daily life, and not just among the poor, it was at all levels. At what point would he decide to give it up and try for a better opportunity?
     Philip exhaled deeply, pulled back his shoulders tightly for a moment, and tried to release all this worry. He'd be alright. As long as he worked hard, and stayed vigilant, and made himself useful, there would be a way to make a living. It was a matter of managing problems as they arose, and that was done moment by moment, when the time came.
     When he got into Winnipeg proper, he pulled the trailer over, hitched the mules, and bought a bottle of soda. He sat in the cab for a moment and watched the people in the street. Two women were leaving a hair salon together. That is one business that will never fail, Philip thought, when it comes to people's looks they'll always find a way to come up with the money. In a studio to the right, some grunting and slamming could be heard from the open windows out on the street below. One large young man was working out combinations on a canvas heavy bag, a few others were on the mats practising some catch-wrestling. Henderson's Fight Club. From further down the street Philip could hear a church choir in an afternoon rehearsal. Always a lot of noise and activity to acclimate to in the city.

     As Philip made his way to city centre, a little further north than the old rail-yards, just after passing the law-courts he came across a woman leaning up against the post of a fence, her face buried in the sleeve of her long white dress. There was bit of blood splattered across her apron. He noticed her light-brown hair tied up loosely, resting on the stiff white collar of her dress. A cleaver dangled from her hand, on his side of the fence. He pulled back on the reins, and brought the cart to a stop.
     “Ma'am, is everything alright?”
     Katerina sniffled, and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, moving her fingers across her closed eyes to clear away the tears. She looked up at the stranger, not knowing how to answer. “I... can't.... I don't like doing this,” she said as started to cry again. Philip looked at her again, and then through the fence to further in the yard, and saw a chicken's body dangling from a thin rope, it's head cut off. There was also a goat chained to the fence.
     He took a moment, and sat there while she collected herself . “Well, if you don't like to do it, do you have to? You couldn't bring them to the butcher's maybe?” he said, thinking aloud.
     She turned her head slightly and looked askance into the yard. She hadn't thought of that, Rose had always done it herself, but maybe that was an idea?
     She didn't quite meet his gaze. “It's only that... The restaurant there, nothing's set up, I can't get the burners to work right...” She looked up at him, “Just not a good day.”
     He wasn't sure how to respond. She wasn't quite asking for help, but she wasn't indicating that he should move along either. “What kind of burners?” he asked.
     “Oh, um, they're under the wok pans we cook with.”
     “Well, I could take a look at them if you like. I work in the maintenance union, with that sort of thing.”
     She looked up at him again, scanning his face to see if she felt she could trust him to let him into the closed restaurant alone. Rose's two helpers were kept late today working at the back table, but they were still fairly young, they probably wouldn't be a lot of help if he was to rob them.
     “Um, sure,” she said, thinking it over, “you can pull your trailer in here.” She walked over and unlocked the long gate they opened for delivery carts.
     She stepped up on the back dock, and hung up the bloodied apron and the cleaver as well, fitting the hole in the corner of the steel blade over a thick nail in the wall. She washed up over the outdoor sink, and took a cloth from her pocket and wiped it by her reddened eyes, trying to get a hold of her emotions and deal with this day. “Just a moment,” she said as he paused by the back steps. “Ok, right in here.”
     “I didn't get your name yet, ma'am.”
     “Oh, Katerina. Chovnyk.” She held out her hand to shake.

     “Philip Ducharme. Nice to meet you,” he said, giving a slight nod with his head.
     Two young faces looked up at him blankly as they came through the back end of the kitchen, halting the conversation they were having while slicing some onions and cabbage. The air was pretty smoky, the wok on the right had a fair amount of suet rendering and spitting out bits of oil or water. Philip didn't know much about cooking, but this looked way too hot, and dangerous. Katerina walked up to the pan, tilting it carefully away to try to avoid being hit with splatter. “This pedal here, it seemed pretty stuck this morning,” leaning down to the gas lever at knee height, “I forced it to come on but it doesn't seem to work anymore.”
     He bent over to move the lever back and forth, it was very loose. It looked like the shaft had snapped off inside the valve, you couldn't regulate the bio-gas with it anymore. Philip stood up to take a look at which direction the steel pipe was running from. Just as worrisome were the hood vents above the woks, they didn't seem to be taking up the exhaust very quickly. Not such a danger today, with the breeze from the open windows and the iron grate doors, but with colder weather that would be a problem.
     “Do you need these on for the rest of the day?” he said, gesturing to the woks.
     “We'll be here for a while, but we're not opening 'til tomorrow morning. I guess they just need to be on to finish this.”
     “Ok, good, well if you want... I'm just getting back into the city today, I'm not really set up for this at the moment. But if you want, I could come back in the morning and probably get this lever working. For today...” He trailed off, moving over to look behind some shelves at the gas piping.
    
“Ah, yes” he said, as he bent down near the far wall, throttling the gas supply with a shut-off valve on a pipe coming up through the floor. The flames beneath the pan with the suet dropped down towards the burner nozzles, heating the woks far more gently. “I'll leave this bar here mostly down like that, and when you're done, move the bar right down towards the floor, and make sure those flames go out.”
     Katerina took a look in behind the shelf to see the valve. She hadn't ever paid much attention to the details of the restaurant, that was always Rose's domain. She was realizing today how much she ignored the daily operations of their businesses, focusing only her limited tasks so that she could attend to her own interests. Maybe she should have taken more notice of how things were done over the years: with her mother gone and Rose moved away, it was so much to take on this abruptly. There was no way that Rose could've prepared her in so short a time.
     “I'm hoping too that there's access to the roof around here,” Philip continued, “I'm thinking there is something not right with these hood vents. You should probably have those looked at before the weather gets colder outside.”
     Katerina looked at him, feeling overwhelmed with him piling on these issues. “Can you do that?”
     “Oh yeah, sure. No problem. I'll try to make up something for that lever tonight, and like I said, I can be back in the morning.” The pedal was a specialty device that had come with the unit that those woks were sitting on, probably a long time ago, but Philip was thinking of ways he might attach it to a regular gas valve with something he could find in the union shop.
     “Ok, then, do we pay you, or the Maintenance Union, tomorrow then, or do you need something today? We're ok for the money,” Katerina said to reassure him. “I don't normally deal with these things.”
     Philip looked at her, and thought a moment. “You know what? I'm just coming in from the country today, I've got a lot of vegetables in that trailer, and more I had brought in a few weeks ago. I'm thinking maybe I could do the repair, and the cleaning, no need for pay, and your restaurant could buy some of the food I've got stored from the summer?”
     He really should not have offered that. The food was really more the union's than his own. Those who spent the summers in the country were credited for what they produced, but what was produced on the farm was more for the security of all the union's workers, not just those that grew it. He might be able to buy some of this back, in order to sell it, pointless as that would be. Philip's mind was racing through some ideas as to how he might make good on this strange deal he had proposed. Nonetheless, on this day, coming back into the city after months of isolation, and not expecting to be taking on his role as maintenance worker yet, his impulse was not to make this repair a transaction for pay, but rather to strike up some relationship with this woman and her restaurant. He'd worry about providing the vegetables later.

     “Well, we might be able to do that. We do run a food supply business here too, it's not hard for us to make use of extra food,” she said, with a slight smile, pleased to be able to offer something other than wages in return herself.
     “Great. Ok then, I'll be back tomorrow, first thing.” He smiled and nodded, and started for the back door. “Oh,” he said, and looked back, “that chicken – I'll to be passing a butcher's on my way, would you like me to drop it off and bring the meat back tomorrow?”
     Katerina's heart dropped a little, being reminded of the stress of dealing with the animals, at the same time as she was touched by his attention to detail and his helpfulness.
     “Please. Thank you.”

     Philip had parked the trailer in the Union compound for the night, and slept the night in a dorm room there, to get up early to deal with the contents of the trailer, and to gather a few parts and tools to complete the repairs at the restaurant. It was no hardship, he was used to getting up very early over the summer, trying to get some work done before the heat became overwhelming. Katerina had been on his mind, lightly, over the night. Something about her and the atmosphere of the restaurant had caught his interest. He didn't feel like hanging around the union hall today. He felt a call to get involved with something new, and wondered if there was any way for that to happen.
     The trailer and the mules were left in the compound. After a light breakfast of rough-cut oats, Philip borrowed a worksman tricycle with a deep cargo bin, and packed it with a basic tool kit, some varied lengths of threaded steel pipe and rod, some pipe wrenches, and some brushes for cleaning out the vents. An energizing cool autumn breeze met him as he set out below the garage door and headed towards the butcher's shop.
     When he arrived at the restaurant, he tapped on the metal window screening to be let in. One of the helpers he'd seen yesterday, the younger sister of the pair, came to let him in. On the dock, some charcoal was heating up an iron grate.
     “All cut up,” Philip said to Katerina, placing the packages of chicken, neatly wrapped in brown butcher's paper, on the back counter.
     “Thank you so much. Did you find what you needed to get the wok going?”
     “Yep, I think so. I'll get to that first, I'm sure you'll be needing it soon.”
     “Yes! Thank you.”
     Philip carried the tool kit to the woks and started to work. He watched Katerina move about in the kitchen, somewhat frantic and lost, bringing things up and down from the cellar, working with the helpers on the large cutting blocks. The older boy, maybe fourteen years old or so, was offering his advice, and helped her out with a large pot of water to the charcoal stove.
     By the time he'd installed the new valve and turned the bio-gas back on to the woks, a few customers had already been let in and had taken seats at the counter, reading newspapers, conversing and drinking some tea. Katerina was trying to set herself up at the woks as Philip was gathering his tools. He went up on the roof to check on the vents while she started making a few of the dishes she'd planned for the day.
     By the time Philip had carried his tools back down off the roof, they restaurant had gotten pretty busy. He tried to make himself scarce as he tested the hood vents, twisting up a sheet of newsprint, and reaching in beside Katerina to light it from the flames beneath the wok. He blew it out, so it would issue a little stream of smoke near the hood vents, to see if it would be quickly drawn up and out through the vents.
     Despite trying to be unobtrusive, he could sense that Katerina was stressed by the cooking, and was a little irritated by the interruption, though she tried not to let on. Once he was sure the vents were working, he stepped off to this side, taking a look at the customers at the tables, and back at the two helpers working at the cutting block and minding the stove out back.
     “Katerina,” he started, and hesitated.
     “Yes?”
     “Is it possible I could help out in the kitchen?”
     She looked at him with questioning eyes. Was he wanting a job? Was this part of what he'd mentioned yesterday, about buying the vegetables? She was getting confused about what she was owing him at this point. “Alright, um – were you wanting to be paid separate from the repairs, or..?”

      He took a moment. “You know, I'm not too worried about pay right at the moment.” He was thinking how he could phrase this, and raised his eyes to meet hers. “I've just got back into town yesterday, and I've got some time off for the end of the season. I'm just interested in the restaurant, I've never really seen in a place like this, how it works. And the kind of food you make.”
     She looked back at him, and her face softened. “Yeah, alright. That's fine.” She looked at his hands and clothes, marked with soot and dust and grease. “You should probably wash up, the sink's out back.” She smiled. “There's an apron on the hook back there.” She didn't know what to make of the offer, but she supposed it couldn't hurt and she didn't have a lot of time to consider it, being currently swarmed with orders during her first lunch service.
     After he got cleaned up, they set Philip up with a chef's knife where the young man had been working, while he went up to the woks to help Katerina and to deal with the customers. He moved back and forth to get Philip organized when he had a moment. The younger helper, the young man's sister, even started to give some pointers on how to hold his knife, on how thick to slice the various vegetables, or how fine to dice them, passing on some of the instructions she'd been taught by Rose.
     Over the afternoon, all of them had a little fun taking on unfamiliar tasks. The lunch service was right on the edge of falling apart, but they were being creative, and made to relate to each other differently than their normal roles dictated. For the first time since Rose had left earlier in the week the gloom had lifted in the kitchen. Philip didn't say a lot, and focused on the various jobs he was given, but he was glad to have a place in the restaurant for the day. Katerina appreciated his help and his presence, especially that he was able to quietly blend in with them unobtrusively, strange as the circumstances were having him working in the kitchen out of the blue.
     Over the next few days, while getting settled back in his apartment and dealing with belongings and equipment he'd brought back from the farm, stowing them away for the winter at the union compound back, Philip kept coming by the restaurant for a few hours at time, helping out with the various crises as they arose, in the restaurant, or with their stores and the supply business. He was interested in how the restaurant operated. He'd been involved in growing food for quite a few years now, but his own knowledge of cooking was very basic. He enjoyed seeing how they processed all the meats and vegetables and other foodstuffs. The little adjoining bookshop, and the professionals who were regulars at the counter gave the restaurant an atmosphere that Philip found interesting, it was a world outside his usual routine.

     Questions of pay fell into the background. Possibly they were working under the pretense he was coming by the kitchen to secure the sale of the vegetables he'd grown. With the preparations underway for the return parties coming up, and in the wake of the shock of Rose leaving so abruptly, Katerina and her helpers were in a holiday mood, the addition of Philip's presence in their operations sort of blended in with all the other changes of the week.
     That Friday in the late afternoon, when the helpers were washing up outside, Philip approached Katerina before leaving for the day.
     “Hey Kat, I was wondering if you'd want to go the return party on Osborne street tomorrow, together. I didn't know if you were going or not.”
     She was taken aback. She hadn't really thought of the weekend yet, or expected to go to the festivities at all, it wasn't something she normally would normally do. This was the first weekend since Rose had left, it occurred to her, and now that he had brought it up, it would be good not to spend it entirely alone.
     “Sure, that would be really nice. Thanks for asking,” she said, smiling.


     Katerina took an extra hour of sleep the next morning, and then planned to care of all the tasks she hadn't managed to get to over the week. Deliveries were stacked up out of order, they had fallen behind on their own shipments, and a pile of paperwork was building on the apartment's kitchen table. She hadn't even opened the lock on the bookstore since Rose had left. Exhausted, aching, and a little depressed, she was unsure how she could continue with this. She was keeping the restaurant closed today on account of the return parties, and they nearly always took Sunday off, so she was glad to have the weekend to catch her balance. Before she got to work, she took a seat downstairs in the restaurant with a cup of black tea that she'd added some dried citrus peel into, enjoying the quiet morning and the sun spilling in through the shuttered windows.
     Later in the afternoon she laid out some clothes on her bed that she was considering for the evening. She was quite nervous. Just for this moment she was glad that Rose was away and she had the apartment to herself to think, she would've been quite embarrassed by all the comments that Rose would've no doubt sent her way. She hadn't been out with anyone for a very long time, not since she was a teenager anyways. Rose had the occasional suitor, but it had been hard for her to match with someone who wouldn't be a disturbance in their lives.
     Katerina was reserved by nature, and she'd always found it easy to keep herself more than busy with the studies she was constantly taking up. It had been easy to fall into a routine, especially with her mother falling sick and needing so much care this year. Somehow though, her death and Rose's sudden move had shifted her own perspective quickly. Things were not seeming the way they did a few short months ago, and though she hadn't put words or definite thoughts to anything yet, a sense of questioning had come over her. It was strange that Philip had shown up right when he did.
    She decided on a loose, flowing red dress, with white, black and green worked into floral designs throughout the fabric, along with some nearly-flat brown leather shoes, with a slight heel, a closed toe and a strap reaching over to a buckle. After she did her hair, she sat on the bed with a thick hardcover book on her lap, though she did get to reading it, being lost in thought. She was happy to have had Philip at the restaurant over the week, it was good to have his help, and his thoughts on the all the problems that came up. He didn't know anything about restaurants, but he had a viewpoint coming from his own range of experiences that she found interesting.
     He was probably more quiet than her. She could tell he was enjoying having a small role in the restaurant, learning their methods and techniques, joking a little with the two young assistants. It wasn't his business and he was on a break from his work, so he could afford to be more easy going than Katerina, but it had lightened the mood and made the first week without Rose bearable. She had no idea what she owed him at this point, she hadn't settled up for the repairs, and she guessed they were still working under the pretense that he was just around because he was interested in restaurants.      She didn't have the social skills to try to clarify the odd situation either. She didn't want to offer to pay him again, sensing that a transfer of money might be insulting and maybe bring to an end whatever was developing between them, dispersing the spell that had come over the restaurant that week. She was glad that he had asked her to join him at the return festival, him expressing interest in her directly brought a little clarity into the situation.
     Philip rapped on the window below, and Katerina came around back to the dock. She looked at Philip on the sidewalk through the fence. He had cleaned up nicely, he must have given the deeply tanned skin on his face, his hands and forearms a hard scrubbing. His beard had was trimmed, and he was wearing a new navy denim collared work-shirt, the sleeves rolled up into light-coloured cuffs just below his elbows, with some dark denim pants and black leather shoes. She came through the gate and joined him, and they took off walking towards Osborne Street.
     Over the evening, they really didn't discuss anything from the previous week, and just let themselves have fun at the various attractions that had been had been set up along the the avenue, lit by the wavering flames of torches posted along the way. They sat and listened to some country music, and got some kettle corn and some roasted and spiced peanuts. They stopped at a bench to watch a play that was being performed several times over the evening. It was short, and the focus seemed to be more on the artistry of the costumes and the brilliantly coloured paper-mache masks than on the plot, a comedy about a greedy figure who tries manipulate all the characters around him, whose house of lies comes down around him in spectacular fashion.
     Late in the evening, Philip walked Katerina back to the restaurant, and after they unlocked and opened the gate, she leaned over and placed a kiss on his cheek. He pulled the gate closed again and clicked the lock closed again, before heading back to his apartment, entirely elated.

     The feeling remained as Philip made the walk over to the union compound in the early morning. He hadn't been sleeping much since he'd come back to the city, only a few days ago: he was full of energy, his perspective was overturned, all of the sudden everything seemed new again. His mind was streaming with plans of how his life might work together with hers, though he hadn't mentioned any of this to Katerina, and was trying to suppress these thoughts somewhat, afraid of being disappointed.      Light poured down from the high windows in the old brick building that had been retrofitted to house the union's shops and storerooms. Philip saw a broad wooden cart and wheeled back to get his crates of tools and equipment out of his storage locker. The restaurant being closed today, he thought he'd at least spend the morning in the shops, it was probably best to give Katerina a little space, though he was debating if he should stop by later in the day, once she'd be finished her preparations for the upcoming week. For a few hours though anyway, Philip wanted to get ready for his own upcoming work, it was only a few days until the union was to meet to make arrangements for the fall schedule. The morning after the first return parties, the union buildings were likely to be fairly empty and quiet.
     Philip stopped his cart at the storerooms related to his work, and looked through the piles of cast iron and steel pipe, the bins of threaded fittings, the bricks of plumbers' lead, the bags of mortar, clay and crushed char. Only a few in each division of the union, usually the most well-established members and their helpers, stayed in the city for the summer, to watch over the union compound and take care of urgent jobs. Some were fairly conscientious, and others not so much, but if they were overwhelmed at all Philip knew that their storerooms wouldn't be in the best order. He figured that after the union meeting, and after Alex and himself had time to get setup at whatever job he took on, they'd probably be back to work in around fifteen days. If there was any glaring deficiencies in their stock, he wanted to get an order placed soon, so that when work resumed, the supplies could at least be loaded and on their way, possibly, by boat or by train.
     The Maintenance Union took care of the purchasing and storing materials for the members, who paid the union back for what they used from what they earned on their jobs. Constant disruptions of supplies and the near impossibility of getting credit had made this model, where the members pooled their resources to maintain the stock they drew from, pretty much essential for anyone who wanted to work in the various trades. The Central Maintenance Union had slowly evolved out of frequent and repeating cycles of economic dislocation. Carbon rations and then fuel shortages began to limit how far crews were being sent to jobsites, and firms began to limit the areas they worked within, even more as suburbs began to break away from the city, forming their own municipalities.
     Depressions and bankruptcies pushed many owners and suppliers out of business, and sometimes workers would group together to buy what was left of these companies, to keep themselves working in times where there were few jobs to be had. As times got even worse, and workers in city departments had not been paid for months, the city negotiated an arrangement with the Maintenance Union where the city workers would be taken on as full union members. The union would acquire a lot of city assets, buildings and machinery, in return for providing the city with certain services. When the city's finances improved, the union would again be paid for the contracts they had with the city.
     So while the Central Maintenance Union was an independent organization, owned and controlled by its members, it was closely connected to the city government and was subject to the council's legislation. The union also dealt closely with the city's few industrialists, who employed it for larger commercial and industrial projects, though there were definite tensions between the independent tradespeople who formed the whole of the membership, and these wealthy and demanding patrons. The members were closely knit and insular group, and though they were responsible for their own jobs and incomes, they also formed a mutual aid society, collecting dues to provide for illnesses and injuries, storing food to provide the members at least basic rations and regular community meals.
     Philip emptied the crates on to the long table in the machine shop, mostly keeping the groupings he'd used when he put them away in the spring. Hammers and mallets, chisels, screwdrivers, pipe wrenches, trowels, a hand saw, a hacksaw, a torch, a pipe cutter and a pipe threader were among the tools he laid out to inspect, sharpen, oil, and repair as needed. As he worked his way down the line, taking a break to brew a small pot of tea to bring back to the shop, his thoughts drifted between his work and Katerina. Once the stretches of long days resumed, he wouldn't have the time to stop by the restaurant for anything like he'd been this unusual harvest week. Whatever it was that was developing with Katerina, could he keep that going or was that going to fade away as his old routine took over his days? He poured another cup and leaned back on the stool to look out at the sky through the high windows.
     When the tools and materials were ready to be packed, Philip got up to get his trailer from the other side of the compound, emptied of the food and gardening tools they'd brought back from the farm. Passing through the hallway, a voice called him over to the offices. He took a detour over to and up a staircase to Andrews, a union representative, who was getting up from his desk.
     “Yeah?”
     “Ah, have you heard what happened to Alex?”
     “No,” he said, growing worried, “what is it?”
     “He was arrested, a bunch of them, a crackdown from those councillors from the rich districts. I'm not sure of the charges, or even if they were caught really doing anything.”
     “It's political stuff?” Philip asked. “He hasn't been involved with any of that since he's been working with me, I'm sure.”
     “Well, it's gotten more serious recently,” Andrews replied. “They're pushing back against all the complaints and the unrest, they're making a statement before the upcoming session. They've got to have some judges and who knows who else on their side, I think the mayor is pretty much with them too. Anyways, I just thought I'd let you know, if you didn't already.”
      “Alright, thank you,” Philip said, reeling. He walked over to an empty dorm and sat on the cot, trying to collect his thoughts. He really had no idea how to deal with this, but he felt responsible. He had never dealt with the legal system, his father's advice for staying out of trouble was always to be useful to his union and to steer clear of the law. Defending yourself wasn't easy if you wound up dealing with a corrupt officer or judge, best to stay out of their sight entirely. If Alex's father was still alive, Philip would've let him handle with the case, but from what he knew of Alex's mother, she wasn't the person to deal with this competently.
     He thought matter over, at a loss for what to do, while he distractedly loaded the trailer. Once he pulled it back again into the garage, he packed a bag of clothes and a little bit of food into the cargo tricycle, and headed off for the house of Alex's family.

     Katerina had spent her second day off getting the restaurant ready for the second week that she would operate it. She was still buzzing from the evening before, she hadn't had a carefree evening like that for as long as she could remember. She was uneasy at moments throughout the day, when Philip didn't stop by, she wanted some sort of confirmation that he'd felt the same way about the evening. But, she thought, they hadn't made any plans, and the restaurant was closed today, maybe he was thinking of coming by tomorrow like he had been last week? Well, she hadn't even known him the last time the restaurant was closed, how could she know what the routine might be? She smiled at the absurdity of it.
     She was looking over a book by a candle at her kitchen table in the early evening, when she heard knocking at the restaurant window coverings below. She looked out her second floor window, and saw Philip below, an his cargo bike in the middle of the street.
     “Hey Philip,” she called down, waving. “Did you want to come in?”
     “Yeah, please.”
     She carried the candle down, and set it on the docks when she went to unlock the gate for him. He looked distraught, and she wasn't sure why he was here.
     “Is something the matter?”
     “Yeah, it's my apprentice, that I had mentioned, he's in some trouble.”
     She tried to catch his down-turned eyes. “Hey, come sit down. I'll get some tea.” He paced a bit on the dock while she went back up to the apartment for the kettle, and came back down with it and two small cups in the other hand. “Hey, come sit down,” she said, setting the kettle down by the candle on the ledge. “What happened?”

     He relayed what he had gathered of the details. “I'm not sure what to do. We can't afford a lawyer, and I'm not sure that would help anyway. We're supposed to be starting back at work later in the week, he's supposed to be working with me for the winter. And it's not that so much, it's more that I'm kind of responsible for him, he's living by me, he's under my watch, to some degree anyways.”
     “Do you know what he did?”
     “You know, I'm not sure he did anything, but he was part of some political actions last year, on the side of those councillors that got arrested. I think it's that, but maybe he did get involved something over the last week in town, I really don't know. ”
     He paused. “As I'm thinking on it, I'm wondering if him getting in trouble with those political types last year, then joining a union right away, if that didn't set off an alarm in somebody's head. That he'd be spreading politics in the Maintenance Union.”
     Katerina was aware of the politicians he was probably referring to. She read the daily papers closely, and she'd seen a lot of politicians and government officials in the restaurant over the years. They sat in thought for a moment, looking in the directions of the nearby law courts. The jail cells where Alex likely was being detained were in a building just beyond that.
     Katerina reached her arm around his back, and placed her other hand on his shoulder, giving it a rub.
     “Hey, we'll figure something out, we will.”

     David Rencit was sitting at his desk, reading through some letters, when he came on envelope with a typewritten address, from a Kyle Chulnak, Attorney at Law. The return address was a post-office box in Charleswood. He didn't think he'd come across this lawyer before, which was a little unusual.

“Dear Mr. Rencit, I'm writing to you on behalf of my client, Alex Roche, who you may be aware is currently in detention, possibly in relation to some political agitation he was believed to be party to.

“First, I want to assure you with all sincerity, that the details of this letter have been shared with no one, and have been kept in confidence between myself and my client.

“That said, my client does have information related to some plans of yours, that may be of interest to you. He knows about the plans for the union mergers, the changes to the ownership legislation for union projects, as well as the names of specific firms and individuals who have a stake in these plans.”

     The letter laid out a list of names and the details of their alleged business and political plans. It was not entirely accurate, and there didn't seem to be an evidence behind these claims, but it was close enough to get Rencit's heart pounding. How would anyone have known about this? Alex Roche – this was a relative of Bill Roche? Hadn't he been gone for over a year now, and how would anyone in his old office have known about any of this anyways? Whenever Rencit had met with anyone to discuss this in public, and even at home for that matter, he'd always made sure to be vague and to speak pretty much in code. He didn't think they had left any sort of paper trail either, it had all been face-to-face meetings, away from their offices.


“I want to stress that my client has no interest in releasing any of this information, or in having any further involvement in political action. He has been employed learning a trade for almost a year now, and would like to continue along that path. Your help in securing his release, so that he could continue his work in his union would be greatly appreciated.”

     David folded the letter. This wasn't the only leak he was trying to contain, and once all the deals were made, they'd be on safer ground. The danger was in being derailed by the public before the arrangements were completed. He sighed. It was so much trouble to manage all this, but in the end, this had to be how the city was going to stay afloat. It was about investment and not about playing with new distribution schemes. The best the communal types could hope for was getting fair shares from a disappearing pie. Without opening some new industries, all the activity was going move up north. Times were changing, and the city had to find some new niches in which to compete.

     David calmed himself and considered the letter. Maybe it wasn't that bad, they did not seem eager to go to the papers with this. He appreciated the tone, their deference and their tact.

     In mid-December, on the edges of a crowd gathering at the markets, shipping yards and docks where the Red River and the Assiniboine met, Alex and Katerina were setting up a concession stand. It had become a ritual in the city for people to see off the last shipping boat of the season, before the rivers froze over for the winter. Things quieted down a little after that, with far less people and goods coming and going from the city. After the solstice, people and their families tended to turn inwards for a time, keeping to indoor work, focusing on keeping their buildings warm for the cold spells. 
     Katerina and Alex attached some metal legs to an iron channel, which they filled with pieces of charcoal and then set to light. They rested skewers across the channel, over the hot charcoal, a few pieces of meat alternating with vegetables, onto which they sprinkled some minced preserved lemon, some chili flakes and salt. Their younger helper got their booth ready to take orders and payment, and folded some newspaper sheets to hand out to their customers with the skewers, to catch any wayward pieces. After helping their older assistant carry over the crates of skewers, a layer of ice at the base of each, Philip took a seat on a nearby short brick wall that held a hill back from the pathway, watching the people in the crowds.
     Since his release, Philip had kept Alex's name off of union paperwork as a precaution, and Alex made himself scarce at the union compound. He'd been spending some time working at restaurant, learning all the prep tasks and how to cook at the woks. Philip wasn't sure of the wisdom of this, as Alex would be seen by many more politicians and officials than he ever would working in the union. But he also didn't think that anyone was that likely to make the connection here, if anyone was still interested in Alex's case at all. For the most part, it seemed like people assumed that Alex was some relative of Katerina, come in to help out after Rose's sudden departure. And, if there were going to be more reprisals, it was going to be something to do with unrest in the unions and the new laws and regulations being put through by city council.
     Alex still came out to work sites as needed, Philip still planned on seeing Alex through his apprenticeship, whatever the difficulties. Philip had started to organize a shop in one of the vacant spaces in the buildings surrounding the restaurant's courtyard, coming and going through the gate that the deliveries were made and received. He'd started making some of the deliveries himself, and himself and Alex working at the restaurant, he was able to be more discerning with the maintenance jobs he took on, which were growing a little scarce anyways. He was also thinking of asking the boy helping in the kitchen if he'd like to start helping out with maintenance work as well, that way Alex could stay in the kitchen if needed, they would all have more options to handle whatever jobs they were able to get.
     This also let Katerina resumed something more like her old schedule, watching over their accounts and the correspondences with suppliers from her table at the side of the restaurant, and dealing with the bookstore and the requests of her clients. Philip was thinking, if Alex could learn enough of the restaurant by spring, maybe he wouldn't have to spend the whole summer out at the union farm, perhaps he could spend some of the time in the country with Katerina and leave Alex to manage the restaurant for stretches? It could give Alex more of a chance to stay connected to his band and his friends.
     The uncertain mood in the city had Philip thinking over all manner of ideas for how they might make ends meet, maybe setting up a repair shop, or starting to deal in scrap metal. And if none of it worked out, maybe they'd all leave together and try their luck up north, under Rose's wing.
The young girl unpacked some tongs, a long fork and some clean rags, and hung them from the hooks on the grooved brackets jutting out from the side of the channel, into which Alex was fitting a oiled wooden plank to use as a cutting block and working surface for the afternoon. Katerina left Alex to deal with the cooking and the crowd, and in the light winter snowfall, went to sit beside Philip. She leaned on to his shoulder, he placed a kiss on her head.

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Biochar Woks, Cooking, Collapse

I came back to my home city about ten years ago, after having lived for a few years up north in the Yukon. I took a culinary arts course ...