by Pasha Malla
‘Okay!’ Sherene’s voice severed Ash’s rant like a blade. ‘We’re done here.’
A click. The line went dead. The On-Air light extinguished. Ash panted, breathless.
‘What the hell,’ said Sherene, ‘was that?’
‘He wrote a bullshit book!’
‘Did you not read my notes? Or anything about this guy? He lost his wife and child, Ash. In a car crash. He was driving.’
‘What.’
Ash stared at The Behemoth’s author photo: that look in the eyes he’d mistaken for machismo struck him now as melancholy. Ash felt suffocated. And then the feeling flared into rage. He swung his legs up from under the desk and kicked the computer screen. There was a cracking sound; it buckled, the display went scrambled and wild.
Ash met Sherene’s eyes through the glass. ‘What?’
She stared back with a look of not shock or anger, but dismay.
A bodily, almost cellular fatigue rose up from within him then. Something profound from some place beyond sleeplessness. The computer screen, sagging, buzzed and flickered. Ash removed the cans from his ears. Closed his eyes. Bowed his head.
What had he done?
—
THE COBBLESTONE STREETS and stone buildings of the Old Port looked like a film set. As Matt drove them past the cathedral, what was supposed to be the most authentic part of the city struck Ash as contrived. Here the past seemed artificially preserved, and time prevented its natural rot and decay.
Even so, he stared out the window. Immediately upon getting in the truck, Ash had noticed that the knuckles on Matt’s right hand, gripping the steering wheel, were split and bloody. Whether from a wall or door or someone’s face, he couldn’t say. And still hadn’t asked. Neither of them had yet to speak.
A ramp sloped down into the tunnel. Driving into it, with the neon lights rising up and strobing past, seemed less like locomotion than time travel—back to the future, thought Ash. Or at least to the here and now, such as it was.
And then they were bursting out the other end into the light again.
‘Straight to the hotel?’ said Matt. (Sir, he seemed to imply.)
Ash told him yes.
The rest of the ride continued in tense silence, heightened by Matt’s atypically careful driving: full stops and shoulder-checks and the speed limit met like a pact. By the time they reached the airport hotel, jumbo jets screaming by above, Ash realized what was going on. There was no conversation to be had. Matt had been wronged and had likely enacted some disproportionate wrong of his own. And now he was leaving.
Forgoing the parking lot, he drove up to the lobby doors.
‘Not coming in?’
‘Nah.’ Matt stared through the windshield. ‘I should get back.’
‘What about your finger?’
‘Not to BC. Home. To London. Be good to see some people.’
‘The people you moved out west to escape, you mean.’
‘They’re still my friends, Ash.’ Matt reached for his one-hitter from the cup-holder—and resisted. ‘Feel free to take a toot for the road if you want,’ he said, gesturing.
‘I’m good.’
‘Cool.’
The engine was running, the truck still in drive.
‘Is this it, then?’ said Ash. ‘When do I see you next?’
‘I’ll be around. Always am.’
‘Making memories?’
‘Something like that.’
No joke followed. Ash looked out the window: in the hotel’s lobby, someone wheeled past waxing the floors. He turned back and attempted a final salvo: ‘Listen, if you’re going to stick around Ontario for a while, you should come by the Toronto studios. Get you a tour, whatever you want. Sit in the big desk, even?’
Matt flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. The blood was scabbing darkly over his knuckles. ‘Sounds awesome, bro.’
‘Really sorry about earlier—’
‘Honestly?’ Matt’s voice was a growl. ‘Just shut up, for once. Okay?’
Ash went still. Every so often, the guy could still scare him.
But then Matt’s demeanour changed completely: his shoulders slackened, he put the truck in park, killed the engine. And turned to face his friend. ‘What I mean is, be quiet for a sec. There’s something I remembered I wanted to tell you, before I go.’ Ash nodded, wary of the impending revelation. Something horrific, surely, with a preamble such as this.
‘So, here it is. The last appointment I had with your dad in London, he told me this story about you when you were a kid. But he got angry telling it, like it was happening all over again.’
A little blast of air escaped Ash’s nostrils, a reluctant laugh. Brij could never just tell a story. He had to relive it.
‘Do you remember this? You guys went to India together. You were ten, I think. When you left Canada your dad had a big beard—it’s funny, I remember afterward not recognizing him when you guys came home.’
‘That trip was right around the time he and my mom split.’
‘And I last heard from my dad. Grade five.’
‘So, yeah, I would have been ten.’
Matt nodded. ‘I guess it was real hot in India, too hot to have a beard. So after a few days he was just like, “Gotta shave this thing off.” And I can totally picture your pops in a rage, all sweaty and swearing and hacking it off with like a steak knife or something.’ This is exactly how Ash imagined it too: the itch, the complaints, the blistering irritation that would have burst in drastic, panicked action. Yet the other person in the story, that ten-year-old version of himself—he couldn’t see that person at all.
‘You guys have been there like a week, visiting family, and he’s shaved off his beard, and now you have to fly from one place to…Kashmir, maybe?’
‘Doubt it. This would have been right around when things were getting really dicey. And I haven’t been to Kashmir since I was tiny.’
‘Well, wherever you were going, you didn’t get there.’ Matt grinned. ‘Because, get this. You’re in line with your dad at the airport, you get to the counter and the security dude asks to see your passports. Except in your dad’s picture he’s got this massive beard. Buddy looks at the picture, at your dad, and goes, “Kashmiri?” And Brij goes, “Canadian.” And the guy goes, “No, Dhar. Kashmiri.” Remember what happened next?’
Ash did not. But this story was loosening something. Not a memory. He couldn’t shake the image of Brij and Matt, together, rehashing a past that had escaped him.
‘This is the point where you—you little poop-disturber—pipe up and scream, “He’s not my dad, he’s a terrorist.” ’
‘No!’
‘Honestly. As you can imagine the security people all go on high alert and snatch up your pops and take him off for interrogation. Full strip-and-cavity search, latex gloves and probes up the pooper and everything.’
‘He told you this?’
Matt laughed. ‘Nah, but you of all people should appreciate a little artistic licence.’
‘What about the rest of this story? Are you sure it’s true?’
‘Just telling you what your dad told me, bro. Anyhow, so he has to show all these documents proving who he is, and they call the consulate and it’s hours later before he sees you again, so you miss your flight, and he is royally pissed at you, but of course he has to act like he’s your loving dad because the security people are still watching.’
‘That’s funny in itself.’
‘Once you leave the airport he asks you why you would have done something so stupid. Like, were you mad at him, were you trying to get back at him? He was really honest with me in this part.’
‘Just sitting there in his office?’
‘Uh-huh. He talked about how he and your mom were divorcing, and he’d taken you to India to connect with that side of your family, and him too, I guess, in a way. So you selling him out felt like a real kick in the nards.’
‘Where was all this when I was writing his fucking eulogy?’
/>
‘Honestly? Seemed like he was only telling me this so I’d tell you.’
‘Then why didn’t you!’
‘I am, bro. I’m telling you now.’
Ash looked out the window: the hotel lobby was empty. Back at Matt. Whose eyebrows vaulted nearly clear off his forehead.
‘Dhar, listen.’ It sounded like a plea. ‘What you told him? When he asked why you’d said that? You weren’t mad. It wasn’t revenge or you punishing him or anything. Get this: all you said was, “I wanted to make something happen.” ’
‘I said that?’
‘One hundred percent. Right away I was like, “Yeah, I feel you, Doc, he was a maniac when we were kids too! Always stirring up stuff, causing trouble.” You and me, Dhar. Making memories.’ Matt’s expression shifted from wistful to sombre. He leaned into the space between their seats, his bald head looming like a rising moon. ‘What I’m wondering, though, bro? Is what made you stop?’
5
WHENEVER HE’D GONE AWAY AS A KID, upon returning home Ash was always surprised by a strange and foreign smell in the house. Since this was usually after a few weeks’ vacation (visiting cousins out east, off in India with his dad) in which the family home had sat empty, he’d assumed it was the olfactory result of closed windows and undisturbed space, a gradual putrefaction that set in as the air turned stagnant and stale. And as his family stirred the place back to life, the odour faded. But it was something he noticed in other people’s houses too. Each one had its own smell.
‘Why does your apartment smell like ketchup?’ he’d asked Matt in grade six. Which it did: that sugary red aroma clogged every room.
‘Take it back,’ said Matt, and put Ash in a chokehold until he admitted otherwise.
It wasn’t until adulthood that Ash recognized that he was simply smelling the particular scent of families. Out in the world everyone’s smells were loose, melding into the generic odours of civilization, of community. But your house trapped you with yourself: your pores and breath and farts released, and the walls soaked it up. Like a sudden long hard look in the mirror, returning home offered self-revelation—until you acclimated again, and your smell simply became the air you lived in and made.
So why wasn’t this the case, now, with his condo? Ash stood sniffing in the doorway, but nothing came back: not cookery nor body odour nor laundry nor garbage nor even some fecal reek lingering in the pipes. The air wasn’t even sterile. Instead this was pure absence. The place smelled of nothing. Ash had worried since moving in that the building, a converted factory, was a nothing sort of place, its past reduced to aesthetic flourishes: exposed brick and plumbing and lofty ceilings from which dangled chrome light fixtures with affectations of industry.
Carved from the long open main room were a kitchenette and, up four steps, a curtained-off bedroom; clustered by the bank of windows at the far end was some staid Nordic furniture. And books, of course, were everywhere: filling the shelves, piled on the coffee table, stacked by his bedside. But that was it. Ash’s previous apartments (often shared, always rented) had been adorned wall-to-wall with cheaply framed posters and photos tacked right to the wallpaper, every spare space cluttered with thrift store oddities. All of that stuff was in storage; it didn’t befit the sleek angles and marble countertops of fancy downtown digs. This was adult living and it demanded commensurate decoration, not the dorm-room kitsch with which he’d long adorned his life.
He got a beer from the fridge, sat down on the couch, peeled off his socks and checked his phone: a dozen unanswered messages from Sherene.
Ash called his mom.
Right away she launched into Christmas—was he coming? Mona and Harj were coming. Ash should come! It had been years! Rick was asking specially!
He needed something else from her now. So he derailed her requests with the news.
‘What do you mean,’ she said, ‘a leave?’
‘A month. Maybe two.’
‘They didn’t specify?’
‘Bereavement, they said.’
‘That’s a long time for bereavement, Ashy.’
The pet-name made him a little sad—for her, for himself. He switched the phone to his other ear.
‘Did something else happen?’
‘I likely won’t take the full two months,’ he said. ‘But some time off might be good.’
‘It will. You work so hard. Too hard, I’ve always said. Haven’t I told you that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So. What will you do?’
‘Not go to India.’
‘Were you thinking of going?’
‘Matt has some crazy idea that we’ll travel there together to scatter Brij’s ashes or something similarly inane. A pilgrimage, finding ourselves. All that lost boy bullshit. Keep in mind the guy is nearly forty. Did Mona tell you that he just showed up in Quebec and stayed the whole weekend? Drove all the way from BC.’
‘He drove all that way? Just to see you? What a good friend. You’re so lucky to have someone like him in your life.’
Ash considered this.
‘If you and Matt go to India together you should do a radio project about it. Wouldn’t that be fun?’
‘No, no it would not. Matt’s out of his mind. He can go solo, if he wants, though I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to find over there. He’ll probably end up in jail for defiling an idol or something.’
‘So if you stay in Toronto what will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Write?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Doctor Litke is always asking me, “When’s your Ash going to publish another novel?” ’
‘So I should write a book to satisfy your colleagues.’
‘You could work here, in London. There’s still a desk in your old room. No one will bother you. Just remember to thank me in the acknowledgements!’
‘I just got back. I haven’t really thought about it.’ Ash thought about it. ‘Maybe.’
‘Think how much quieter it will be here at home than in Toronto—to write, I mean!’
‘Mother, Toronto is my home. I haven’t lived in London for nearly twenty years.’
A pause. Then: ‘You’re not mad at me, are you? For missing the funeral?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be silly.’
‘I just—Ashy, please don’t think it was an easy decision not to come. In the end though I really didn’t feel comfortable intruding like that. The old ex-wife from another lifetime, lurking in the back? No thanks. And obviously Rick couldn’t go. So, what, drive all the way alone to Montreal? You know how my back’s been lately.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘Was your sister disappointed?’
‘Mona?’ Ash had no idea how she felt—about their mother’s absence, about anything. ‘You’ll have to ask her,’ he said. And added hurriedly, ‘But I really don’t think so.’
‘So when will we see you? Christmas Eve? Before? How long will you stay?’
‘Listen, this whole business, this leave of absence or whatever they’re calling it, wasn’t my choice. They seem to think I’m losing my marbles, but what do they expect when they foist these awful people on me?’
‘You had a bad conversation with a writer?’
Ash pictured his mother holding the phone with two hands, listening greedily. ‘Yes.’
‘Was she rude to you?’
‘He.’
‘He. You were rude to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Ashy. Why?’
‘Because…I don’t know. No good reason, I guess.’
‘Who was it? Anyone I know?’
Ash told her.
‘Oh, my, he’s so famous! Ashy, that’s very impressive.’ He waited while she listed The Behemoth’s various awards and accolades. ‘But, sorry, dear. It didn’t go well?’
Ash’s phone flashed: another message from Sherene. ‘Whatever,’ he said.
‘How are you doing, my love? This business with your fath
er, it was so sudden, wasn’t it? Did you have any time with him…before?’
‘Not really.’ Ash’s voice was very quiet.
‘There are things you didn’t get to say.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ He could sense his mother panicking a bit: she’d led him down this path, but she was no better at navigating emotion than he was. ‘Like what?’
Ash choked back a sob. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is there anything I can tell you? Obviously I haven’t spent much time with him in years, but I was married to the man for a decade. I’m not sure what you’d want to know…’
She trailed off. He cried quietly into the silence.
‘We had our issues,’ she continued, finally, her voice gentle. ‘Long before we split. Especially when he drank. Not that he was violent, nothing like that. He would just drink and get distant. Maybe with the purpose of getting distant. But before he got there, after a few glasses of wine—no, what am I saying! Never wine back then. Beer. And scotch. Like a real Indian! At any rate, before he’d get past his limit, he’d tell such wonderful stories about Kashmir. You know how much he missed it there, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Ash. Half word, half gasp for air.
‘And when we went! Just once, before you were born. I was terrified in India, Ashy—you know this. Delhi was just too much. But Srinagar was different. Maybe because your dad became so much more natural there. He certainly didn’t seem even remotely comfortable anywhere else in India. And then in Kashmir he was like a kid, showing me the sights, introducing me to everyone we met with this gleam in his eyes. He seemed so happy and proud—of the place, but of me, too. So pleased to share us with each other. This was before ’73, keep in mind. Things hadn’t blown up yet.’
Ash wiped his eyes, blew his nose, waited for more.
‘When we came back, your dad was so nostalgic, always telling stories about home. His voice would go soft, he’d get this faraway happy look in his eyes. But over the years that faded. The memories got too distant, like he was chasing after them. Meanwhile things turned so bad he couldn’t even visit anymore. He’d start to tell a story but abandon it and go all grumpy and sullen. And that’s when he started drinking seriously.’ She paused. ‘Sorry, Ash. Is this too much information?’