Come, Thou Tortoise

by Jessica Grant

Audrey says again that maybe he won’t be on this flight.

  Judd says that the plane is shining a brighter green than usual, and this bodes well.

  What Judd doesn’t know, but what I know, is that for a few cruel weeks in March, when Air Canada briefly resumed its direct service between London and St. John’s, Audrey went out to the airport every Wednesday at midnight to meet the overseas flight. Just in case.

  And came home alone. And slept with the door unlocked so that it could be Northwest Shoved open.

  Actually maybe Judd does know this. I have learned not to underestimate the power of Judd. When he is around she lights up like a Christmas tree.

  Sometimes she looks into my new castle, which is 360 degrees of glass—a glass palace—she looks into my palace and her eyes seem very large and sad. But this might be a distorting effect of the glass. Then she looks into the castle next to mine, which contains a mouse.

  The mouse is usually asleep during the day. At sunset he wakes and before long he is aboard his wheel. His wheel faces my palace, so that he seems to be forever running towards me with his arms open. Come, thou mouse. For one who moves so fast it must be frustrating to never arrive.

  Apparently not long ago he disappeared, prompting an international search. Only to be discovered in the middle of the living room eating a Licorice Allsort when Verlaine came by to check the house. Cheeky souris. She put him back in his palace and locked the gate. Meanwhile Audrey was in England making an idiot of herself looking for him.

  The mouse has an exponent on his ear. But it is a small exponent compared to mine.

  Across the room is a mirror and in that mirror I can see many tortoises. Sixty, maybe more, receding in a tunnel of glass palaces. Come, thou tortoise!60

  I laughed at first at the mouse’s exponent. And he laughed at me when I tried to eat the fly painted on the rim of my new water dish. I knew the fly was not real, but sometimes a bead of water would settle over it and the fly would seem to rise up off the rim, three-dimensional, and I could not resist trying to eat it once more.

  As I say, I laughed at his exponent, until one evening when we were watching the sunset together and I saw his ear lit up from behind: The 18 became 81.

  Shit.

  We are not exactly friends, but we have reached an understanding. Our sleeping schedules are reversed, and between us we maintain 24/7 surveillance of the living room, which resembles a Druid timepiece. We cover the day between us and provide company to those who come and flop. This is usually Audrey and Judd, and sometimes a neighbour, or Verlaine.

  There are countries that have both a president and a prime minister, and it is difficult to remember which office holds the real power. I like to think we are one of those countries.

  Do I miss old Papier Mâché. Well, sometimes. But the purple prose had become a bit tiresome, truth be told. Besides it was a fire hazard.

  It should come as no surprise that I looked up one night and saw the crenellated edge start to shine like an orange sun. It would have been beautiful except that it wasn’t. There was smoke and a crisp sound. I put my head out the window and dropped a piece of lettuce. Kelp, kelp.

  Cliff was asleep on the futon. Passed out on the futon. Lucky for me Audrey had outfitted the flat with three fire alarms. One for curtain fires. One for ice cream fires. One for castle fires. There were three fire extinguishers to match. The castle fire alarm had a fresh nine-volt as of November. It could have woken the dead. And it did. Cliff jumped up and smacked his head on the overhang. I winced. By now the west wing of my castle was alight. Oh shit shit shit, said Cliff, and he actually ran in circles for a moment. I thought only cartoons did that. Finally he got his shit together and grabbed the extinguisher (the one for curtains, but nevermind) and fired the thing at my ramparts.

  I withdrew my head in the nick of time, because the force of the spray could have decapitated a tortoise.

  When it was all over, Cliff held me to his chest and walked with me around the flat. He didn’t bother to mop up the kitchen. Around and around the indoor mountain we went. I was feeling dizzy to begin with. Smoke inhalation, you know.

  Finally he sat down on the futon and we had a heart to heart. I noticed he had a wet tortoise print on his chest. Yeah, he said. This isn’t going to work, is it.

  I blinked up. He blinked down.

  God Iris, I mean Winnifred, I’m so sorry.

  It’s okay.

  The next day he brought home a louvred crate filled with straw.

  A few days after I arrived in Canada Verlaine came by a with a newspaper and announced that she had found le belge. His name was not Lionel de Tigrel.

  No kidding.

  His name is Gunter de Sitter, she said. He is the new president of the university and, of all things, a Swiss allemand.

  That’s him, Audrey said, sitting down with the paper. The lion from the funeral.

  Bien sûr it is him.

  It says he’s refuting allegations of a C. difficile outbreak on campus.

  Yes, said Verlaine. I am caught in the middle of that. They are blaming the lab animals.

  How funny.

  It is not at all funny. Oh, is that the tortue. She approached the mantel. Ça va bien in your new home.

  Perfectly bien, thank you.

  She was in short sleeves, even though it was winter, and her arms looked like they had mown a few lawns.

  How could you not have recognized a compatriot, Audrey said.

  A Swiss allemand is not a compatriot.

  Verlaine walked through the arch into the kitchen. She stared at the pond with no bottom. Your politician is out for his constitutional, she said.

  For several days I had watched the politician through the arch, circling the pond, deep in thought. The swans put their heads underwater whenever he passed, prompting me to climb into my dish and do the same. Then one day he dropped by to say he was leaving. He was sad to go, he said, but this was what he had burned the midnight oil for.

  To go to Ottawa.

  Yes girl.

  Byrne Doyle approached the mantel and marvelled at the mouse.

  He was in the house all along, Audrey said.

  Well, I’ll be. And doesn’t the tortoise look cute in her sweater.

  It’s actually a cosy. Judd knitted it.

  Nice of him. Keep her insulated.

  She has no heat to insulate. But don’t tell Judd that.

  What. This was news to me.

  You’re not hurt that I’m driving a Clint’s cab, are you.

  He winked. No girl. I know you didn’t vote for him.

  Audrey turns onto the airport road. Immediately it is foggy. Shit, she says.

  Fifty minutes, says Judd, consulting the readout.

  We pull into short-term parking. There are very few cars. For a moment we just sit there, the car idling. Audrey studies the readout. You really think the plane is glowing brighter than usual.

  I really do.

  Or is it just darker outside.

  Across the parking lot the short-term parking man is a blurry shape behind fogged glass. Audrey says he’s been trapped in there for months.

  Judd adjusts my cosy. Ready, he says.

  So yes, I have warmed to Judd. Despite what Audrey says about my having no warmth to warm, I have warmed to him.

  The adjustment was difficult at first. Because Judd is not Cliff. He is the anti-Cliff. Quiet, out of shape. When we were first introduced he called me a turtle and Audrey pointed out that I have claws not fins. She is not a mermaid, she said. Right, Judd said. And shook my claw. Then, when she told him the importance of keeping me warm, he promptly said he would knit me a tortoise cosy.

  After he was gone, I dropped a piece of lettuce. What the hell is a tortoise cosy.

  Judd likes to knit things, she said. And make Christmas lights.

  The cosy materialized a week later. It was bright blue. Judd had taken careful measurements, bless him, and it fit snugly over my shell.

  No swimming
with the cosy on, he said.

  Right.

  I now wear the cosy on cold days and whenever we leave the house. Which is often, because I like to ride the dashboard of the cab, and more than once I have ridden the dashboard of Judd’s van.

  If I am scheduled to take a ride in Judd’s van, he will leave it idling for half an hour so that it is warm enough for me (shocking, but thoughtful). Not long ago the three of us went up to Seagull Hill in Judd’s van and watched the signals fly. The wind was so strong that the left tires came off the ground.

  Look, Win. The ocean.

  It looked like no ocean I had ever seen. It looked bloody cold.

  Cars have been thrown out of this parking lot, she said.

  Judd said, I had a montage last night that Winnifred was driving my van.

  I looked over my shoulder. Yes, that happens.

  But the real turning point for Judd and me was the night of the Grand Unveiling. I didn’t know what was to be grandly unveiled, and when I dropped a piece of lettuce, Audrey would only say to hold my horses. She put on my cosy and off we went to Judd’s Christmatech workshop, stopping en route to pick up Swiss Chalet.

  At Swiss Chalet she left me in the car while she ran inside. A silver semi pulled up. It was the kind of truck that used to pass us on the highway in the desert. The surface was clear as a mirror and outlined in orange lights. I could see the cab with CLINT WON’T COST you A MINT spelled backwards, and I could even see myself and the bowl of mints on the dashboard. When Audrey got back in the car, I gestured at the truck. Look. Why drive a cab when you can drive something like that. Imagine carrying that on your back. We’re a good driver. Something to think about.

  We arrived at the Christmatech workshop and were greeted at the top of the steps by Judd, who was even more flushed than usual. Judd has red hair and brown eyes and no freckles. He is, I admit, lovely. He is what is called an Autumn. Audrey is what is called a Winter.

  He kissed her, and for a moment I was perched on his shoulder like an exponent. Then we proceeded inside.

  The workshop was tidy. The only furniture was a table with a single lamp that made a white moon on its black surface. The lights of St. John’s sparkled through a small rectangular window.

  I was put down on the table with a clink, my cosy removed. Thank you, it is quite warm in here.

  The smell of Swiss Chalet filled the room.

  Now for the Grand Unveiling, Judd said.

  I looked around. There was nothing to be unveiled that I could see—besides me, and my cosy was already off.

  Are you ready, he said.

  Ready, she said.

  The moon on the table went out. The room went black. And then, in a single dizzying instant, the universe burst into being under my feet.

  Imagine standing atop the universe and having no piece of lettuce to drop.

  The Coma Cluster, Judd said, pointing. The Tadpole Galaxy. The Tortoise Constellation.

  There is more to Judd than Christmas electronics and wool, went through my mind.

  Come hither, she said.

  We all stood absolutely stock still for, perhaps, ever.

  We do not get stuck in the revolving doors. We arrive in plenty of time. There is a yellow Lab in a black vest patrolling the floor. When Audrey tries to pat him she is told by the handler that the dog is working, the dog is on duty, and could she please respect that.

  The vest says SNIFFER DOG in white letters. The dog sniffs in my direction. I am under Judd’s arm. My smell is apparently not on the dog’s list of smells to worry about.

  We proceed to the food court. Nothing is open. We sit at a table anyway.

  I still feel hopeful, she says.

  Good, says Judd.

  There have been phone calls. And he has promised he will be on this flight. He has said he is ready to come home. And Audrey has spent two days in the basement, making it different from the way it used to be so that he will find it less painful to descend the steps into it. The cockpit remains. As do the airplane seats. But the seats are no longer in audience formation. Now they face each other like seats on a train. Also, his bed is against a different wall. This, she hopes, will be enough. She wants him to remember, but she doesn’t want the remembering to hurt him, and how do you achieve this. How do you achieve this when you find yourself crying in the cockpit, remembering.

  I can hear the plane, she says and stands up, though how this is possible, I don’t know. The plane is at least twenty minutes away according to the Arrivals screen. But Judd gets up and tucks me under his arm and follows her out to the escalator. The escalator is steep and empty.

  I have a sinking feeling, she says.

  Come away from the escalator, says Judd.

  You don’t know how many times I’ve come out here, she says.

  Yes I do, he says.

  And he’s never on the flight.

  I know. But this time he will be.

  Why this time.

  Because this time he said he would be.

  Yes but he has said that before.

  Judd looks at his watch.

  Please let it land safely, she says. Please oh please oh please. I should be out on the runway.

  You’re fine.

  Waving him in. Saying come hither Airbus 320.

  The flight is announced. It has landed. Judd holds me up in the palm of his hand so I can see.

  We watch the escalator.

  How will I recognize him, I wonder. Will I know him by his arm alone.

  The first passengers appear at the top and begin their descent. They are from first class and they are all symmetrical. They carry coats draped over regular-sized arms. They are not him.

  Will I know him by his asymmetrical outline. Will I know him by the orange gloves.

  No. I will know him by the way Audrey is right now running towards the escalator. The way she is flying up a sinking staircase. And by the way the man at the top says her name. Oddly.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you x 106 to the following people for all their help and support:

  My editors at Knopf Canada, Angelika Glover for her wisdom and enthusiasm and Diane Martin for not saying no to a tortoise; Kelly Hill for the super artwork; my agent Anne McDermid, with special thanks to Vanessa Matthews; Aritha van Herk for her invaluable comments on early drafts, her generosity, and her humour; the University of Calgary for the gift of time to write; the Burning Rock crowd—especially Ramona Dearing, who nudged the book along its way.

  Big thanks also to Aubrey de Grey, Helen Buss, Jeanne Perreault, Suzette Mayr, Rosemary Sullivan, and Henderikus Stam.

  Thank you x 10100 to my parents for bolstering me when the novel was no longer novel, for reading and rereading, for telling me I knew what I was doing, for making me laugh, for finding me punny, for being the audience I write for.

  Jessica Grant’s first collection of short stories, Making Light of Tragedy, includes a story that won both the Western Magazine Award for Fiction and the Journey Prize. She lives in St. John’s.

  VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2010

  Copyright © 2009 Jessica Grant

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2010. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2009. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Vintage Canada with colophon is a registered trademark.

  www.randomhouse.ca

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Grant, Jessica, 1972–

  Come, thou tortoise / Jessica Grant.

  Issued also i
n electronic format.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-37392-2

  I. Title.

  PS8613.R365C65 2010 C813′.6 C2009-905325-X

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