by Anne Simpson
It’s not –
I should have gone after him. I should have made it right. God, I wasn’t there for him. Once, you know, I said something to him. I said that he should do it in the middle of the night, because they’d slap a fine on him otherwise. I told him that. He must have got the idea from me.
Do what in the middle of the night? asked Rieker.
He was going to toss his sister’s ashes in the river. I never imagined he was thinking of anything like this.
Would you say he seemed depressed?
No, he was angry. He was angry with his cousin. He was angry with all of us. Not so much depressed as erratic, capable of anything. Poor Ingrid, he added.
The boy’s mother?
Yes.
It reminded Rieker of the time his grandmother had died, and how his father had told him, carefully, as if there was a way to say the words without making them hurt. But it had hurt. He’d run upstairs, away from his father, and cried in the bathroom with the door locked, lying on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, looking up at the round, shiny underside of the sink.
What could Rieker have done? He wasn’t the kind who had ever reached out and held another man, but something about this man’s crying made him want to.
Oh Lord, cried the blind man, rocking back and forth. Oh, Damian.
We don’t know anything yet. We’re just conducting an investigation.
But he took the kayak and –
The man couldn’t finish. He pressed his hands to his forehead, drawing them down his face so that Rieker could see the inside of his lower lip for a moment. It was ruby red.
No one at the Control Dam saw him? he asked.
No. A jogger, a female, said she saw a kayak going toward the Falls – it was above Table Rock. But she was looking through the trees and it wasn’t completely light.
Will you tell me as soon as they find the boat? As soon as they find anything at all?
Yes, sir, we’ll let you know just as soon as we know anything more. We’ll certainly let you know.
What surprised Rieker, and also made him feel foolish, was that the man cried tears. They ran down his face until his cheeks were wet. The man was blind, yet he cried tears, just like anyone else. For some reason he found this unexpected, like the time he had seen a thin slash across his dog’s paw, made by glass, and the beads of bright red blood that sprang from it. He’d been stupidly surprised by the red blood, which was so like his own.
After the two policemen left the big house on River Road, they went and got themselves a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons. It was only ten o’clock, but it seemed as though they’d put in a long day already. Rieker drank his doubledouble, but he had a headache. He knew he had to look as if this kind of thing was all in a day’s work, because Warren, who looked like he was still hanging on to his mother’s apron strings, was watching his every move. At some point, this kid would have to do what Rieker had done, and he’d have to do it well, but he’d also have to make it seem as if he’d done it many times before.
Rieker rolled up the rim of the paper cup to see if he’d won anything, got up with a sigh, and tossed the cup in the trash. They’d go back and do up the paperwork. He’d eat his sandwich with light cream cheese and turkey that Moira had made for him. But this business of the boy had made a black hole in his day. Jasmine circled around the kitchen aimlessly, tears running down her face. She turned to the wall, leaning her forehead against it.
Oh fuck.
She struggled to think of what to do next. Her thoughts were very slow. She sat down at the table, looking at the steaming brown liquid in the blue cup. Tarah had made coffee for her. Jasmine could hear, distantly, the sound of a shower in the bathroom, and she concentrated on the sound.
Tarah had held Jasmine and talked soothingly to her. But finally, she said she had to go to work, because she was two hours late already. Would Jasmine be all right? And Jasmine had nodded.
Milk. She needed milk for the coffee. When she got up and reached for the handle of the refrigerator door to get the milk, she saw Damian standing in the doorway, tall and loose and sleepy. She closed her eyes and when she opened them, he was gone.
They’d got it wrong. Those policemen. The jogger.
Yet she could see a yellow boat, bright as a bird, tipping over the edge. It tipped and was gone.
She splashed cold water from the kitchen sink on her face and stood alone in the dim room. She picked up the phone and dialed. Her mother answered, and Jasmine imagined her on the brown sofa with the handmade blue-and-chocolate-brown quilt folded neatly over the back. She spoke softly, in that breathy voice that was so familiar.
Hello, Mum, said Jasmine, putting her hand to her eyes to stop the tears.
Sandra, said her mother. It’s so early in the morning. Only Esther Pavlovich phones so early. The rates are better after six in the evening.
I know.
What time is it there?
I don’t know.
Well, it’s not yet nine here. Do you want to call again after six in the evening?
No, Mum. I just wanted to hear your voice.
Oh, said her mother. Well, here it is. My voice, I mean. If you hadn’t gone off to God-knows-where you’d be able to hear my voice more often.
Mum –
Do you need money?
No – no, I’m fine for money. Jasmine was staring at the clock. Was it ten o’clock or two o’clock? She couldn’t figure it out.
Sandra? Are you all right? It sounds like you’ve been crying.
No, I – How are you and Dad?
We’re fine. This cat of yours has been acting strangely. Didn’t you say you were going to take it?
Yes. I’ll take her the next time I come home.
Well, that’ll be Christmas, said her mother. I don’t know if I can wait that long. Some days I think it’s that cat or me, and both of us won’t fit in the same house. She’s ruining the curtains.
The curtains, repeated Jasmine.
The new ones from Sears. Are you all right, Sandra? You don’t sound all right.
I’m –
You’re still working? asked her mother. Are you taking your vitamin C every day? You are? Well, are you pregnant? You’re not phoning to say you’re pregnant, are you?
No, I’m not pregnant.
Well, you’re probably low on iron, because girls always are. And you have to be careful there. It’s not like here. People take advantage of you in places like that. It’s really no place for you to be –
You’ve said that, said Jasmine.
You could come back here. There’s always your room here – we haven’t changed a thing, except that I made a new valance for your window. It’s pink and white, like the bedspread.
Is Dad all right?
Other than being cross with you, he’s as fine as a person can be who’s on blood thinners.
Tell him I called. Jasmine leaned her head back; she closed her eyes.
I’ll tell him. Remember to take care of yourself, will you?
I love you, Mum.
Yes, dear, I love you too. Next time call after six in the evening, all right?
Yes, Mum.
She put the receiver down slowly, thinking about the cat. She saw Spats, the grey cat with the white paws, and her father’s large hand holding it by the scruff of its neck. Spats had peed on the living room rug. She remembered how he’d chucked the cat out the door, but it righted itself even as it fell, so it landed perfectly. And then she’d run outside to comfort it. That was what she wanted now, she thought, to hold her cat in her arms and feel it purring. She wanted her old dog too, but Queenie was gone.
She still had her hand on the phone. Then she picked up the receiver again and dialed a number.
Roger? Oh, Roger – I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I can’t talk.
Jasmine.
I can’t talk.
Wait –
It was several days before the policemen returned to the house on Stanley Street.
Jasmine was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling when she heard the knock at the door. She hadn’t been able to sleep for two nights, and now she was exhausted. But the knocking at the door persisted and after a while she got up, buttoning her jeans, and went down the hall.
May we come in?
She opened the door wider and the two officers stepped inside the house.
Miss Blakeney, said Constable Rieker, the kayak has been recovered. It was pulled out on the American side. It’s been identified as the one belonging –
Don’t, she said, putting a hand up to her forehead. Please don’t.
Rieker looked down at his shoes.
It’s only the kayak they’ve found, he said.
She couldn’t take in what he was saying.
It’s just the kayak, he repeated.
She couldn’t speak. She’d been thinking about it for days, and now he was saying it.
Was it a yellow kayak? asked Jasmine.
Yes. The mother – Damian MacKenzie’s mother – identified the boat. Both the car and the kayak were released into her possession.
But have they found –
Have they found the boy? He spoke gently. No.
But –
It’s been three days. What you should know, and what I’ve told the boy’s mother, is that if indeed he went over the Falls, and he may not have done that, but if he did, you should know that the body may not be recovered.
Not recovered? She could hear her voice quavering.
If he was in that kayak, chances are his body was caught behind the Falls in the plunge pool. That’s why I say it might not be recovered.
Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, she said, as if she could hardly get the breath to say it.
But we haven’t closed the books on this, you can rest assured. We’ll let you know as things unfold.
She stared at him.
Will you be all right? he asked.
She made a gesture, as if to ward them off, and closed the door behind them when they went away. She leaned against it.
She slid down the door onto the brown carpet.
His body in the plunge pool. His beautiful body. His long hair, released from its braid, like the hair of angels. She could see it fanning around his head as he was swept up by the water in the plunge pool, swept down. Around and around went the body, pale and almost translucent in the water. How was it possible?
No, it didn’t mean that he was dead. He might still be alive, walking around, breathing in and out.
The water would peel the flesh from his bones, like a glove from a hand. How long would it take? Eventually the bones would ride that circuit, up and down, over and over. His ribs and spine, his skull, the bones of his arms and legs and feet. How long would it take a body to decompose? How long before he was nothing but bone?
But nothing had been confirmed. Nothing was certain.
Yet the darkness came over her, bearing down hard, pressing the air from her lungs. She put her hands to her face as she cried, for a long time, hardly making a sound.
Daredevil’s Kayak
Found in Whirlpool
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. – A daredevil’s kayak (upper right) was recovered from the Niagara River yesterday afternoon. Jay Adonis, a visitor from Egypt, New York, was the first to spot the boat.
Initially, it was not clear whether the kayak could be retrieved, since it was caught in the Whirlpool. But several hours after it was sighted, a jet boat roared out to pick it up when it came within 150 feet of shore. It was then handed over to Canadian authorities.
A jogger caught sight of the kayak just as it went over the Falls at about 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday, August 3rd. “I saw a flash of something yellow out of the corner of my eye and I realized it was a boat. I don’t know what that poor guy was thinking when he did it,” said Melissa MacLean, of Niagara Falls, Ontario.
To date, a body has not been found. But a man from Nova Scotia, Damian MacKenzie, disappeared on August 3rd, abandoning a car near the Hydro Control Dam above the Horseshoe Falls. It is feared that he made a rash decision to brave the Falls.
“Going over the Falls in a boat of this type is the equivalent of crashing into a brick wall at 100 miles an hour,” remarked Capt. Jim Rossi of the Niagara County Sheriff’s Marine Unit. He responds to calls like this more than a dozen times a year, but summer is the peak period. “Some people jump off the bridges, but more often they’re hypnotized by the Falls, and throw themselves over,” he explained. “A great many are suicides, of course, but a few think they can defy death. And there’s just no way they can survive.”
“From what we understand,” Rossi commented, “this particular individual went over the Canadian Falls without being detected by Niagara Parks Police.”
Ten million people descend on Niagara Falls each summer, and most are content to photograph their families or friends in front of the picturesque backdrop. But a small number of sightseers are lured to their deaths by the siren call of the Falls.
“As far as I know, this guy was a drifter,” states Gordon Samson, proprietor of the Ornamental Hand Tattoo Arts. “He came in here once or twice, but he seemed kind of down in the dumps.”
Samson also believes that MacKenzie was in possession of small quantities of marijuana, and that he may have been under the influence when he embarked on his fateful trip over the Falls.
THE MAN FINISHED WIPING his telescope. He was afraid there was moisture inside the lens, but as he finished polishing it with a soft, dry cloth, he saw none. The next day he’d spray the tripod with WD-40. He took the telescope outside on the deck, but instead of looking through it, he sat down on one of the deck chairs and gazed up at the night sky. There wasn’t really a need for a telescope on a night like this. He could see Cassiopeia with its zigzag of diamond points; he always looked for it at this time of year. When he leaned back with his arms behind his head he could see the whole panoply of constellations. How far away they were, and yet how close, giving off light from thousands of years, or millions of years, before, a light that came from enormous distances. These thoughts gave him pleasure, though he couldn’t have said why.
The dog came and put his heavy head on the man’s knee. He wondered what he’d do without this dog, but he didn’t think he would get another because he’d never have one that loved him the way Max did. He reached forward and stroked the dog’s head, and Max wagged his tail so it thumped against the other chair.
The man got up and walked to the far side of the deck, where his running shoes had been drying in the sun during the day. As he picked them up he glanced at Heinrich’s place at the top of the hill. There was a light on. He said he’d check on the house while Heinrich made a trip to Stuttgart, but Heinrich wasn’t due back for another couple of weeks.
He stood for a while thinking about it, slapping the shoes together to get rid of the sand. It could be a break and enter. It could be teenagers up there shooting heroin, or it could be someone starting a fire in the living room. This last thought goaded him into action, because he thought of the time Heinrich had spent working on the hardwood floors. He put the shoes on a deck chair and opened the sliding door to get the flashlight that hung on a hook just inside.
Come, Max.
It was very dark on the beach, but he found a ridged track that he followed until it curved away, and then he clambered onto the rocks. Holding Max by the collar, he climbed the steeply inclined hill and by the time he got to a cluster of birch trees near the house, he was out of breath. Heinrich had made a bench here for his second wife, Jutta, so she could look out at the ocean, but she’d never used it. She was a good dozen years younger than he was, and she’d never really taken to Nova Scotia; she preferred their house in Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. So it was local kids who sat on the bench sometimes, swinging their heels.
He stood with one hand against the smooth, papery bark of one of the birches. When he swept the flashlight back and forth, he could see battered beer cans under the seat,
and he reminded himself to collect them in the daytime. Somehow the thought of Heinrich building this seat for his wife, and his wife never using it, struck him as sad. He went up the hill toward the house. It had the best view for miles around, and many times he had sat with Heinrich on the deck, not talking much, but simply gazing at the slate-blue ocean.
The dog went on ahead, perhaps drawn by the smell of an animal, and the man came to the top of the rise where he could see the light in the living room. Whoever was inside was enjoying that light. He went forward, and at first he simply saw the bulky shapes of the furniture, the red leather couch with the woven throw that Jutta had bought in Thailand. He remembered how he’d visited once, when the red leather couch had been new, and how happy Jutta had been, spreading out the throw that she’d bought in Bangkok to show him how well the colours matched. Near the couch were the bookshelves, full of books written in German, and the table and chairs, hand-carved in Togo.
He went up onto the deck, moving as softly as he could. Although he was much closer now, so he could see the tassels of the throw from Thailand, the glittery threads in the pillows at either end of the couch, and the polished hardwood floor, he could not tell who was inside, if indeed anyone was there. But then there was a small movement that caught his eye. On the other side of the couch, close to the fireplace, someone was lying on the floor. He waited, and Max followed him onto the deck, claws clicking on the wood. The man reached out as the dog came close; he gave the dog a firm tap and Max sat down obediently, quietly.
Finally the intruder got up, moving lazily, nonchalantly, as if he owned the place. His blond hair was pulled back into a braid, and it was this that made the man start a little. He’d seen him before. He’d seen tears on this face. How could he forget that moment? Yes, of course, it was the same boy, though his boyishness was nearly gone. But what was he doing here? The man moved back so that he was hidden by shadow. There was the low noise, the beginning of a throaty growl, from the dog. He patted the thick fur at the dog’s neck to calm him.