Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction

by Nalo Hopkinson

  One fall afternoon, Marielle had invited over Jean Baptise — who she liked to tease by calling John the Baptist — the old fellow with the cane down the hall, to come and share some extra Kraft Dinner they’d given out that week at the food bank. She mixed in margarine, and a bit of the two percent milk she’d bought — she did enjoy milk in her tea.

  Jean noticed the Virgin right away. “I see her before,” he said. “She come from Québec. Me, I come from there. I see her.”

  “You seen her clones in Québec City,” Marielle said. “Church has a million of these Mary’s. They put ‘em along the stations of the cross.” Being from New Brunswick, Marielle had a logical side, while she saw Jean as fanciful, maybe too much so sometimes, still, she liked the old fellow.

  “I see her before,” Jean insisted, as if saying it twice would make it so.

  Marielle didn’t argue. What was the point with such a senior dude, twelve years more than her. Half the time he didn’t know what he was saying, and the other half he was drunk on the cheap cough syrup they sold at the depanneurs that had plenty of alcohol in it and didn’t cost what beer did. Anyway, he was company, since the only other friend she’d had in the building — “Sophia” — had been hit by a car a couple months ago when the government decided the moron drivers who couldn’t drive as it was should get the right to turn right on a red light. Oh, there was that young mother from Haiti and her three kids down the hall. She was nice enough, sweet really, but a girl barely twenty has her own concerns.

  Jean stood with difficulty, using the cane in one hand and holding the arm of the couch to brace himself. He hobbled the few steps to the window and picked up the statue. Marielle joined him, staying close, afraid he’d accidentally drop the Virgin on her holy head, him not being as steady as they come and all. But he just turned her over, examining Mary’s hollow innards.

  “Le Cirage, they adore la Madonne noir.”

  “Really? They got black Madonnas in Poland?” She wasn’t sure if she believed him.

  “Oui! Ma soeur, she send me a card to pray.”

  He examined the Madonna in minute detail. “Why do you not light her?” Jean asked a little belligerently.

  “She’s not that way,” Marielle said. “No cords or anything.”

  Jean shook his head sagely and replaced the Virgin on her windowsill of honour. “Tomorrow, I go to One Dollar store and buy cord and I rewire for you.”

  “I’m not sure she’s meant for light,” Marielle started a protest, but Jean le Baptiste was a hard one to argue with when he got an idea into his head, and hard of hearing when it suited him, and on top of that he didn’t forget much. He sat down again and leaned over the plate of Kraft Dinner, scooping up the last of the macaroni noodles with his spoon. Apparently the Madonna would be wired for light, though Marielle wasn’t sure about this, and maybe she liked her the way she was, and it was unlikely the light would shine through a painted surface anyway.

  She glanced at the Virgin. From this angle it looked like the corners of the mouth seemed to be turned up a little more, and Marielle laughed to herself that either Mary liked Jean, liked the idea of being wired for light, or else she was just cosmically pleased for no good reason, as most deities seemed to be now and again.

  The following afternoon, Marielle had just put her feet up because that right knee joint hurt more today maybe due to the humidity outside that tended to hang inside the room like a pall. Still she had to get up to answer the knock at the door. Jean stood on the other side with a white plastic bag clutched in one hand, the ever-present cane in his other, a hopeful look on his face. He came in without asking, which is how he did a lot of things, but Marielle was used to his ways, since they’d known one another for about five years now, and you had to put up with friends in this life or you’d have none, and sometimes they come in handy.

  “I give her light,” he said, pulling a slot head screwdriver and a thin box cutter from his pant pocket. He grabbed the Madonna around the neck, took two steps, and collapsed onto the end of the couch. Marielle shook her head and sighed. She figured she’d better make him some tea, even though he didn’t like tea much — but she had no coffee or hot chocolate in the house. Maybe she could put some ice cubes in it and he wouldn’t notice.

  “How about some thé glacée?” she asked, but he ignored her as he did when preoccupied, already busy unscrewing screws on the plug.

  She made the tea, wondering the whole time if it was sacrilegious to light up a Virgin that had been painted — although that was probably sacrilegious too — and one that’d never had light before, and she was pretty sure this one hadn’t. There was no groove for any wire to slip into, so she had no idea how Jean was gonna make this illumination happen, and really she didn’t want to know. If the Madonna was destined for a miracle, so be it. You couldn’t stand in the way of mysticism.

  Somehow it seemed that all her life people had been changing things she wasn’t too interested in changing but then she had to live with the results whether she liked them or not.

  Moreso since Louis had the stroke a dozen years ago this winter. That was the first of the big changes she’d had no control over. Then Thomas got married and moved way up to Baie-Comeau. And they’d had that big stupid argument. She’d tried to keep the house, but it seemed better to sell it, but that was before the boom so she didn’t get much and the money went fast and Thomas was even angrier at her. Change might be as good as a rest but neither one worked on a regular basis.

  She watched Jean work. It wasn’t that she thought Jean had some sinister motive — his heart was in the right place, she was pretty sure of that — but then the road to hell was paved with all kinds of wondrous intentions that ended up screwing somebody.

  Jean turned out to be a silent worker. She’d seen him do odd jobs before and knew he liked to concentrate but this job took long enough that she could study his method. No point interrupting, not that he’d notice anyway. She placed the tea in front of him, and a glass at the opposite end of the couch for herself, then turned on the portable TV Thomas had given her the last time she saw him, maybe five years ago, when they’d had the big blow-out about Marielle wanting to live on her own and Thomas saying that was stupid and wanting her to come live with him and his family, or else go into one of those places where old people go to die if she preferred and he’d pay for it. For once Marielle put her foot down and did it her own way and stayed on her own and look what happened, she hadn’t heard from Thomas since, except at Christmas when a card would come in the mail likely sent by her daughter-in-law, with a family photo saying things were fine, the kids were happy, another baby almost every other year, so that made three now, but she’d only seen the oldest one in the flesh. They were her grandkids, so for a while she felt she had to send them something: a sweater still in good condition she picked up at the Armée du Salut store for the girl Marielle, named for her; some toys found at Village de Valeur for the younger two boys. Hell, the postage cost more than the presents! She never even got a thank you, so she didn’t know if the stuff arrived or not, and this year she was thinking about not sending anything since it probably wasn’t appreciated anyway, and what was the good of family anyhow? Better to be on her own, where she could keep control of her miserable life herself!

  The afternoon shows were on, that nearly bald Dr. Phil giving advice to people who might or might not take it, although Marielle always figure’d most of them were plants anyhow because nobody could be so stubborn. She’d already put her feet back on the coffee table and didn’t feel like getting up to change the channel, so she’d tolerate him as long as she could, then maybe switch to another station and watch reruns or soaps. Suddenly she noticed the little prayer card on the table. Jean must have put it there when she was making the tea. She glanced his way but Jean seemed spellbound by the red and black wires. She leaned forward and picked it up. A black Madonna holding a chil
d! Well, she’d never seen anything like this before, but then she wasn’t exactly religious.

  That’s about when the vision started. It turned cold, snowy, despite the fact that Marielle knew that outside the leaves were still falling. As the TV chatter dimmed and the picture faded to white, sheets of ice coated her vision the way the window looked when it was minus twenty, and she would have been afraid, but she heard a familiar sound. Mon Ange! She’d know her anywhere! She could picture her now, the little black and blue songbird, full of energy and happiness. Marielle saw her blurry at first through the ice but twittering, cute little head tilted to one side, and watched her own little-girl finger reach between the bars of the cage and My Angel hop on and perch. She felt the feather weight of the light creature as it clung to her with its tiny feet, and then it sang its heart out, only for Marielle, the way Mon Ange always had.

  “You got some match?” Jean asked.

  Marielle turned. The black Madonna sat precariously on his boney knees, his big hand wrapped protectively around her shoulders to keep her from falling. From behind, a white tail draped down to the floor, with a plug dangling at the end.

  In the kitchen drawer she found a book of matches and brought them to him. He pulled off the matches and folded the empty cover a few times until it was about the size of a nickle but square, then he wedged it inside her, under the metal bar he’d inserted, so the cord would lie flat, or close enough. Jean started to rise and Marielle held back from helping him, but with difficulty. He struggled to get the muscles in his legs to do what he wanted them to do, muttering in French about the pointlessness of owning such a low couch. Meanwhile, she kept her hands at the ready to snatch Mary if his balance gave out totally. Finally, around the fifth try, he managed to stand, banging the Madonna on the arm of the sofa accidentally, but the Virgin Mother held herself together.

  Jean tottered to the windowsill and placed Mary back in her niche. He took the cord and squinted at the baseboard until he saw the socket, then tried to stoop down to plug it in but he was dragging the Madonna across the sill with him, so Marielle intervened. “Lemme do that.”

  She bent to plug in the Virgin then straightened her legs, her knees creaking.

  Now Mary was off centre, to the left a foot, but it didn’t matter at all. The bulb inside her did not shine through the painted plaster of course but the light seemed to spring out of the bottom and rise up all around, illuminating her all over. Marielle was surprised by this change. Somehow the light made the Virgin seem to smile more, if that could be, those pious lips turned way up at the corners.

  “You like?” Jean asked.

  Marielle said, “Yes. Very much. Jean le Baptiste, you did good. Thank you.”

  “De rien,” he said, patting her on the shoulder before he sat down again to finally drink his iced tea.

  The Madonna stayed lighted from sunset to sunrise. Marielle had to replace the little bulb twice, once in November when she’d tried a red one but found it too lewd, and again in early December. She didn’t mind the expense. Somehow, having the Virgin around offered a comfort she hadn’t expected, and the statue resurrected in her emotional memories of her youth, when she had embraced a belief in all things spiritual, but this time it wasn’t connected to anything organized or rigid, just a kind of overall sense of a bigger picture, and a universe that holds you up instead of crushing you down. And now that the cold weather had set in and the clocks were turned back, Marielle was glad of both the company and the illumination because it got dark so early.

  She found the Virgin sometimes spoke to her, not in words exactly, more in kind of emotional thoughts that made pictures in Marielle’s head. She invested in cheap coloured pencils and artwork paper and tried to capture the images, but could never figure out how to make them look like what was inside her, and mostly what came out onto the page were circles, round faces with huge eyes that kind of pierced you like a laser so you didn’t feel it on the surface but did deeper, as if you’d been microwaved. Sometimes the faces were split straight down the middle, other times the cut was jagged and mostly off centre, but then the raw edges were good for two profiles facing each other. She coloured one half dark and one light, and not necessarily going to happy and sad or anything easy like that. But always the faces had a kind of light to them, the type of light the Virgin herself emitted, and even if they weren’t perfect or anything close, the drawings suited Marielle.

  Then one day near Christmas Marielle woke with a start before dawn, from what the clock said, her heart pounding too hard. She’d had a dream she couldn’t remember at all, just the feeling of urgency. The room would have been totally dark if it wasn’t for the Madonna’s light. Something made Marielle get up off the sofa-bed she’d started opening at night again and go to the window. She peered at The Virgin, who not only smiled, but now her lips were parted, and the bottom edge of her upper front teeth showed! Marielle was amazed, but didn’t Mary keep changing with the times, and maybe a change was in order, or so she figured, else why was she woken up so early?

  She parted the curtains and looked out the window. It had snowed the night before and the streets were alight because of it, though the sun seemed far from rising. A brilliant crystal snow, pure, covered her known universe, untainted by people or cars, just a nice white blanket that glittered like the stars had fallen out of the sky. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered, and then she heard the Madonna say, Take me home.

  Marielle jolted, her heart racing again. She didn’t know what to make of that. Did she hear it or imagine it? She listened, but there was just the refrigerator humming, and the clock clicking. But she told herself she shouldn’t worry. After all, the Virgin talked before, but not in real words, and where was home anyway? Wasn’t home here, where they both lived?

  Home, where I belong.

  Marielle didn’t know where that would be exactly, but somehow she knew it was not here, in this tiny room with four walls like a closed box, the air stale and smelly. Home was outdoors for Mary, like it had been for Marielle in her childhood. In the country. Out in the dry cold. Out in the virgin snow.

  There was nothing to think about or debate. She dressed warm, as many layers as made sense, and pulled on the boots the girl down the hall’d given her because they didn’t fit. Once she had the wool hat on her head and her hands gloved, she headed to the Madonna again and unplugged her. The Virgin’s light stayed on. Marielle held the cord in her hand and looked at it like a fool, wondering. Maybe Mary was plugged into a bigger power source, for all Marielle knew. She slid the Madonna carefully into her large fabric shopping bag, slipped the wide strap over her head, and headed out.

  She could not remember the streets ever being this quiet, not here in this part of the city where students and drug dealers were up all hours. The sky above was so clear and crisp, with stars and that half moon — she couldn’t get over its light! — and she spent at least a block looking up. Not a soul wandering, and her footprints were the first on the sidewalk, although a car or two had driven up the main street. Everywhere the world looked new, unclotted, free of all the debris produced by human beings and the machines they manufactured. Finally there was, for a few moments, peace, something akin to what heaven might be like, or at least limbo, a sense that time had stopped dead and there was nowhere to be, nothing to do, and the limitations of the flesh faded to bliss. She didn’t even mind the cold, at least for a while.

  Marielle walked instinctively, sometimes glancing into her bag and asking the Madonna, “Is this right? Am I goin’ the right way?”

  The Virgin said nothing more, but she still glowed, and Marielle figured that meant everything was as it should be, or at least there was nothing the Mother of Christ had to complain about.

  She walked to Avenue Mont Royal then entered the park that led up the mountain, and climbed. The higher she got, the better the city looked. Below, only the occasional car, but once sh
e’d made it halfway to the top, even the streets disappeared from her sight.

  Amazingly her legs weren’t tired and her joints didn’t ache, and she figured the Sorrowful Mother had given her some kind of supernatural strength or something, so she could perform this task, not that she was a saint or anything, just one of the minions doing Her bidding, or so it seemed. Biting cold caught her cheeks, though, the only part of her body exposed, and Marielle pulled the toque she wore as low as she could. Her breath burst out of her in pale clouds, faster now that she was ascending. Way at the top of the mountain stood that huge illuminated cross, which could have guided her, but Marielle had been here many times and really had no need of such divine intervention. The Madonna knew where she was going. Marielle knew how to get her there, more or less.

  She followed the winding road up the side of the mountain and finally reached a secondary entrance to the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges — Our Lady of the Snows — the cemetery named for the Madonna. Here in this section the graves were newer, ordered stones, in neat rows, each with a mound of snow atop it. Marielle looked in the bag again and noticed the Madonna had dimmed slightly, so she figured this wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be. Maybe higher, near those enormous crypts at the top of the hill that had overlooked these grounds for a hundred and fifty years, some more. Crypts that held generations of remains of wealthy families, not that Marielle knew any of them, except maybe the family that made beer, but they were on the other side of the fence in the smaller cemetery anyway. Here there were some nuns, a few politicians nobody remembered anymore, and that poor poet guy Émile Nelligan who went nuts and could only write about the ice crystals that coated his window so bad he couldn’t see outside, which was probably symbolic too.

  The snow lit the path but now the sky was starting to lighten on its own, so Marielle had no trouble climbing higher, though her boots and pant legs felt icy soaked. Still, if this was what the Virgin wanted, there wasn’t much use arguing about it.