by Thomas King
If she has a name, I don’t know it.
The cat is mostly a night cat. Every so often, when I get up to go to the bathroom, I’ll hear her on the prowl in a downstairs classroom, her claws clicking on the wood floor. Or I’ll catch a glimpse of her outside in the graveyard in the moonlight, gliding through the pale crosses like heavy smoke.
Normally, we only see each other first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Shift work, if you will. But today, as I put the groceries away, there she is, sitting on the windowsill, staring at me with an intensity that could burn through plate steel.
I check the bowls. She has enough food and water, so that’s not it.
The cat jumps down off the chair and brushes up against my leg. This is the first time she’s done this. Perhaps she’s decided that a little affection wouldn’t be a bad thing. A long leisurely scratch, perhaps. A tummy rub? A warm lap to sit on?
The knock at the door is sharp and unkind, someone with little regard for old wood. I stand in the kitchen with the cat and try to think of who might be foolish enough to risk my porch. I turn back to ask the cat if this is why she has made an appearance, to warn me about the complications of community, but she’s disappeared.
The second knock is louder and more forceful than the first. I consider leaving whoever is standing on my porch to remain there until they tire of knocking and go away.
Still, curiosity is a powerful emotion.
It would be handy if the heavy door had a peephole. But it doesn’t. I take a deep breath, in case I’m able to smell who is on the other side.
And then I open the door.
The knocker is a cashmere overcoat, wire-rim glasses, and a dark grey homburg, the hat made famous by Edward VII.
“Lovely to see you again.”
There’s nothing lovely about finding Oliver Flood on my porch. He’s not happy to see me. I’m not happy to see him.
“I’m hoping we might have a word.”
There is nothing exceptional about Flood. He is, in most ways, ordinary, an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all corporate assassin. Except for his eyes. They’re amber brown with specks of gold. The eyes of a wolf.
“Is it true that you don’t have an email account or a phone of any sort?” Flood makes a puffing sound with his lips.
I don’t have a television, either.
“How is that possible?”
The black SUV from the plaza sits in the shadow of the trees. Up close, I can see that it’s a Tesla. The X model. The one percent’s answer to global warming. Master of Nordschleife, zero to sixty in 2.7 seconds.
“And so, we’ve come in person.”
Two men stand by the vehicle. A matched pair of hunting dogs, sprung and silent. Flood makes a small gesture with his hand, and one of the men opens the trunk, takes out two folding chairs, and arranges them in the dirt at the entrance to the graveyard.
Oliver Flood. Majordomo of the Locken Group. An international conglomerate with strong interests in biochemistry, marine biology, molecular biology, genetics, biophysics. Speciality in military technologies.
Flood steps off the porch and walks to the chairs. “Join me.”
Oliver Flood. Ex-military. Stanford MBA. Director of Difficulty Resolution. Vice-President of Persuasion.
“What is it Mr. Locken used to call you?” asks Flood.
Thomas Locken. The seventh generation of Lockens. Heir to an empire of immeasurable wealth and power.
“Forecaster? That’s correct isn’t it?”
Flood sits down in one chair. I sit in the other.
“I’ve come to tell you that Thomas Locken has died.”
Thomas Locken died months ago. Oliver Flood didn’t come all this way to tell me this. Flood waits. A moment of mourning. In case I care.
“As you can imagine, his death has caused ripples in the Realm.”
Ripples that will dissipate quickly. Equilibrium before the end of the third quarter.
“And it has been decided that the Realm has need of your skills.” Flood stands and straightens his coat. “I have already informed the powers that be that you will say no. But they believe you can be persuaded.”
I glance up at the second-floor windows to see if the cat is watching from the shadows.
“To that end, your presence would be appreciated.” Flood slips into the back of the SUV. “This evening. The Plaza Hotel. 8:30. I will meet you in the lobby.”
This is not a request.
The car is remarkably quiet. I don’t even realize the engine is running until the vehicle pulls away. And because I have nothing better to do, I sit there in the folding chair, the school at my back, the graveyard at my shoulder, and watch my past drive away into the cool, spring day.
4
Forecaster.
A name I haven’t heard in years. Not since I left the city and the corporate world behind.
The cat sits on the chair with her feet curled up beneath her to let me know that she’s comfortable and not to be disturbed.
I take a handful of kitty treats and drop them on the floor. This is our game. If the cat is on the chair, I put the treats on the floor. If she’s on the floor, I put them on the chair.
The cat stays where she is, pretends she has no interest in the lumps of flour and egg and salmon flavouring done up to look like little fish. That’s what I like about the animal. She doesn’t need to talk to me, and I don’t need to talk to her.
The sound is faint, but it’s enough. The cat explodes off the chair and is gone. It’s just the mail arriving. I have removed the mailbox in an effort to discourage the postal folks, to suggest that the school might be deserted.
But it hasn’t worked, and now the mail just gets dumped on the porch.
Most days it’s flyers, and today is no exception. There’s a special on chainsaws. An offer from a roofing company, with no payments and no interest for two months. A gym membership that comes with four free tanning sessions. A tri-fold flyer from a car dealership promising a car wash when you come in for a test drive.
Buy two pizzas, get one free.
There’s also a brochure from Elections Canada on how to vote. Which might be useful if there was anyone on the ballot worth the effort.
I carry the remains of a perfectly good tree directly to the garbage.
Outside, the crows have gathered in the branches on the far side of the graveyard. They sit in a row, eyes on the old school, as though they’ve been hired to keep the place under surveillance.
The Locken Group. They could afford a crow reconnaissance.
Not that crows would have taken the job.
One of the crows in the tree begins bobbing its head, shuffling from side to side, and caw-cawing out a song. One by one, the other crows join in, and together they form a conga line of dancing, singing birds.
I head upstairs to my bedroom. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that I need naps, and now that I have time to take a nap, I do. I lie on the bed, stuff one of the pillows under my stomach, and wrap myself up in the quilt.
Outside, the crows are still singing and dancing. I want to believe that they’re trying to cheer me up, but they’re probably just excited by what they can see on the horizon.
I DON’T REMEMBER going to sleep, and now it’s late afternoon. How did that happen?
I sit up. The crows have disappeared, and the tree is bare. The cat is nowhere to be seen. At some point, I’ll have to conjure up a meal. Not that I’m hungry right now, but Oliver Flood’s visit has made me restless and apprehensive.
Given my history with the Locken Group, there is only one thing that they could want.
THE SCHOOL HAS its own graveyard. Seventy-seven graves. Each marked with a wood cross. Originally, the crosses were white, but now the wood is grey and weathered, the graves all but forgotten.
Still, at the end of the day, when the shadows stretch out and bring the land into sharp relief, you can see the neat rows of indentations hammered into the earth.
I put on my boots, my jacket, my oilskin hat, grab my chisels. I’ve been pulling up the wood crosses and replacing them with limestone slabs that I pry out of the dry riverbed in the belief that the children buried here deserve better than having their graves marked with the talisman of the cult that killed them.
I dig up a stone, carry it to the graveyard, bury it flush with the ground. And chisel the child’s name into the rock. None of the crosses have names, but Father Hinch kept excellent records, went so far as to create a hand-drawn map of the cemetery with each grave noted.
I think of my efforts as a reconciliation project, even though I don’t believe in reconciliation any more than I believe in religion. Mind you, removing the crosses has caused no small amount of alarm and anger. There have been complaints of sacrilege and disrespect, talk of indictments and hangings.
Each time I pull up a cross, I set it to one side in a pile. And when I have enough crosses, I plan to burn them.
When I first started, I wasn’t very good with the chisels. But I’ve gotten better. And quicker. Even so, I’ve only replaced about a dozen crosses, and now Maribelle Wegman wants to save the rest, has gone so far as to create an ad hoc group to have the crosses and the graveyard declared a heritage site.
She also chairs the committee that is trying to get the reserve moved. Another place. Not here.
TODAY, I’M FINISHING UP Agnes Makwa’s name, trying to get the legs on the W the same length. My hands have finally gotten used to the work, the blisters all but healed. The trick is to keep the tools sharp, but that’s the trick to most everything.
I lean in to blow the dust off the stone, and that’s when I see the girl. And in a blink, Agnes Makwa stands in the middle of the graveyard among the crosses. In a blink, I see the child who is buried here.
It’s not the first time this has happened. Not the first time my imagination has stretched reality.
But it still brings me up short, and I have to sit back, wait for the moment to pass.
Enough for today.
I gather my tools. The late sun comes in low and bright. It flares off the windows of the old school and sets fire to the crosses. And, as I start back, I imagine I’m walking into an inferno.
5
Travel Night at the Piggy is a monthly event that tries to make up for the disparity between those who can afford to explore the world and those who cannot.
In the time that Florence has been hosting the event, neither Bob Loomis nor Maribelle Wegman has ever attended. Swannie Gagnon is a regular. Iku Takahashi is not. Dino Kiazzie and his wife, Giulia, never miss a tour. They sit at the back, in the darkest part of the room, with their Chianti concealed in a Save the Planet reusable water bottle.
Maidie Matthews, who owns the hardware store on the plaza, shows up depending on the evening’s destination. Maidie likes France and Italy, dislikes Mexico and Peru. Likes Norway and Scotland, but wouldn’t be caught dead in India or Africa.
The Three Bears always come early to help set up the chairs. Louis Bear, his daughter, Enola, and his nephew Wapi make sure that Nutty Moosonee and Ada Stillday have seats in the front row. So Nutty can see the screen without having to squint.
I STAND OUTSIDE in the shadows of the cedar grove and watch everyone file into the café. This is as close as I need to get. From here, I can see the people and the video through the window. I’ve been to Venice any number of times, so I know all about the Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal, about the Doge’s Palace and the Rialto Bridge, about the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute and Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta.
Venice is one of my favourite cities. To be sure, the tourists who invade it each summer and the ocean liners that steam through the lagoon are a problem. But Venice is also one of a handful of cities in the world where cars are not allowed, where you can escape the blaring of horns and the stink of exhaust and walk the streets in peace and quiet and safety.
Of course, there’s the water.
The last time I was in Venice, the acqua alta had come hard and fast, the high water trapping a group of girls on the wrong side of the piazza. But as little is denied to youth, the young women simply took off their shoes, lifted their dresses up their thighs, and splashed barefoot through the flood to the opposite shore, laughing, delighted with their fearlessness and derring-do.
Tonight, the video on Venice has a short segment on MOSE, an unfinished $6.5-billion seawall that is supposed to protect the city from high tides. Sadly, the project is a giant scam. The wall remains unfinished and will, in all probability, never be put into service. However, in terms of enriching politicians, criminals, and construction companies, it has been an unmitigated success.
None of which will help Venice. The Adriatic will come. The city will sink. The patterns are clear. All you have to do is look.
I stay in the trees long enough to watch the tourists in the video stumble along on the raised platforms that the city erects in front of Saint Mark’s Basilica each time the sea tides up and floods the piazza.
There is a moment when I’m tempted to slip into the Piggy and join the community. But instead, I stay in the trees and wait for the moment to pass.
Then I turn back to town.
THE SQUARE IS DESERTED, the bandstand empty. The Neighbours are gone, as are the motorcycles in front of the Bent Nail. But they’ll be back. They have nowhere else to go.
I sit on one of the benches that faces the Plaza Hotel and try to guess in which room Mayor Bob and the widow Wegman are discussing the ins and outs of historical preservation. They would have a room at the back, overlooking the alley. They would not be concerned with the view.
The woman who steps out the front door of the hotel is elegant and completely out of place in Gleaming. She is quickly joined by two men who take up positions behind her and on either side.
The hunting dogs.
The woman stands in the night, looks into the sky to make sure that the stars are still there.
I look as well.
The door to the hotel opens, and a third man comes out.
Oliver Flood. He stands beside the woman, inside the perimeter created by the two men, and says something that makes her smile.
She turns back to the hotel, and Flood follows. Spot and Rover stay put. They stand on either side of the front door like stone lions guarding the approach to a drawbridge over a moat.
I check the sky once more to make sure nothing has gone missing.
“Hey, you missed the show.”
The Three Bears.
“Another successful Travel Night,” says Enola. “Florence really knows her history stuff.”
“The video was pretty good,” says Louis. “Wouldn’t mind going. If we could afford it.”
“Way things are,” says Enola, “we can hardly afford to go home.”
“Home,” says Wapi.
Louis Bear is the current chief of the Cradle River reserve. His daughter works in the band office. Wapi is Louis’s brother’s son.
Enola is smiling. “I liked it when everything flooded, and you had to wade through the water with plastic bags on your feet.”
“Bags,” says Wapi.
Wapi holds up his tablet. It’s covered with stickers. The plastic case is falling apart. There’s a crack in one corner of the screen.
“Feet,” says Wapi.
Louis’s brother Sam and Sam’s wife, Angie, were killed in a car accident. Wapi survived.
“Beats getting your shoes wet,” says Louis.
The three of them stand in front of me and block my view of the hotel.
“We’re going to South Island, New Zealand, next,” says Louis. “Always wanted to go there.”
“New Zealand’s got Maoris,” says Enola. “Sort of like Indians, only tougher.”
“Hey,” says Louis, “I’m tough.”
“Then how come I can beat you up.”
Enola puts her shoulder into her father with about as much effect as if she had tried to push a large mountain
up a hill.
“You ever been to Venice?” asks Louis.
Both Enola and Wapi have a go at Louis. Enola takes him from behind. Wapi attacks his legs. With no better result.
“Or New Zealand?”
“Jeremiah doesn’t go anywhere.” Enola bends over, her hands on her knees. “He just hides out in that old school.”
“School,” says Wapi.
“I think Mr. Camp is lucky.” Louis ruffles his nephew’s hair. “Having a place to himself. Somewhere peaceful and quiet.”
“Travel broadens the mind,” says Enola. “Travel makes us more tolerant of difference.”
This is a popular axiom that has never been proven. If you were to correlate the amount of travel we do with the level of intolerance manifested in our politics and social interaction, you might come to the opposite conclusion.
“Wapi needs a new tablet,” says Enola. “He lives on the internet.”
“Tablet,” says Wapi.
“I don’t know about that internet,” says Louis. “Some of the stuff you see.”
“You mean like that movie star who made a candle that smells like her—”
“Enola!”
“Come on, Dad. That’s old news. No big deal.”
“No big deal.” Wapi swipes a finger across the screen. One of the corners of the tablet is dented.
Louis takes off his Blue Jays cap and puts it on Wapi’s head. “Kids.”
“Parents,” says Enola.
Louis grabs Enola in a bear hug. “Guess the internet is like that genie. Once it gets out, there’s no way to put it back in the bottle.”
Louis has been around long enough to know better. There is no genie. There is no bottle. It’s just one of the excuses we use to explain the consequences of expediencies and bad decisions.
Enola breaks away from her father. “Did you know that Mr. Camp doesn’t have a computer?”
“Good for him.”
“And he doesn’t have a cellphone.”
“Wish to hell I didn’t have one,” says Louis.
“Dinosaurs,” says Enola.
“Dinosaurs,” says Wapi.
“Come on,” says Louis, “we need to check the generators before we call it a night.”