Mary Cyr was determined not to let anyone in on her secret. It was a secret plan to solve her problem. She did not want Perley to come down and take her place. And then she began to have dreams about her youth. Some of those dreams—some of them were so glorious—she had been so full of joy with her mom and dad.
But she had a vision now and again, of a dancing bear. The bear she and Perley had seen when they were children. She could tell the dancing bear had tried to put on a happy face, but it was all for naught. That was the month after her mom had left for Europe. She knew the bear’s happy face hid so much sadness about its world.
A few weeks after Lent started she began to have a fever, and her dreams became intensely bright. There was a road, and it had snowed, and what—there was wind in the willows. She would run to the waves, but when they came crashing in, she would laugh and rush back into her father’s arms. No, it did not take a lot, to be filled with joy—a few wisps of sweet air and a melancholy wave against the shore, that’s all there had to be.
And then there was Denise Albert, standing so clearly before her, and Denise said:
“Well, Mary Cyr, ho hum to all that—I am expecting a hug.”
And that filled her with joy too. And then there was Bobby. How sadly he looked at her when he realized he was not the same. How ashamed, and how she would give a hundred lifetimes to see him again. But then he smiled and shook his head playfully, and said:
“You must not worry about me—Mommy. And please no more fretting about the dancing bear—its name is Hobs and it is here with me. Safe and sound.”
Well then—there you go. But then there were dark dreams too, one filled with soft dark waves, and endless clouds. And she heard her mother crying in a room, and she couldn’t get the door opened—it was supposed to roll on wheels and the wheels were stuck. And they remained stuck.
But then her mother said suddenly at the end of that dream:
“Ah, my sad girl—I am right behind you—see, turn around.”
Then she remembered how the years passed away and she became an obstacle to everyone, and also to herself.
She woke almost always in the middle of the night. She was so weak—well, what would it matter? She had not eaten in four weeks. All during Lent. They thought she was fasting. She thought to herself—a poem she had learned after Mr. Cruise went away. Yes, she had loved him deeply for a time. She recited it again today, slowly, almost silently:
“Darkling I listen and for many a time
Have been half in love with easeful death
Called it sweet names in many a mused rhyme
To take upon the evening my quiet breath
Now more than ever seems it rich to die
To cease upon the midnight with no pain.”
That is, there was another side to Mary Cyr, a modestly unobtrusive side, a kind of darkish side that was not a fashion statement—that had been a part of her for years—something that most others did not see, but a side she exhibited during her piano recital, or her fights with the tyrannical girlfriends, a side that embraced death. And now this side had blossomed in a cruel holding cell in the small resort town of Oathoa.
Here is what she thought of:
One early evening she was sitting on a bench near Saint James Park—or was it in the park—or just near it. It was after her second marriage, and in the autumn, she thought, and she had managed to go away. It was either that, or tell everyone about it, about Mr. Cruise—and she couldn’t. People came and went. There was commotion over something, but she didn’t notice. As she was sitting there trying to sketch the tree in front of her, she looked up and a woman, surrounded by people, was looking over her shoulder.
“Ah,” the woman said. “That is really quite fine—”
“It’s a little bit fine,” Mary Cyr said.
“Well, your accent—not American—why, you’re Canadian?”
“Yes, and you are British—I could tell in an instant.”
“Yes, my name is Diana—”
“I could tell that in an instant as well.”
Diana laughed. Mary Cyr did as well. Perhaps it was a laugh that said both of them were cursed. But they seemed to like each other off the bat. Diana moved away, and then suddenly turned, strolled back, looked at her, and said:
“Are you up for a little visit with me?”
She wrote in her diary that Diana was wonderful—it was simply a paragraph three-quarters of the way along:
Diana invited her to a concert, and they partied with Sir Elton John. Diana became her friend, before she died. That is what she wrote in Lucien’s logbook on the night when the waves lapped against the starboard side of the boat. The night she pretended she was not on the River of the Broken-hearted. And then there was this in the diary:
“Di was kind to me—she sent a car around to bring me to her. She introduced me to Elton John, and of course many others too. But I did not tell her what I knew. I could not tell her that the royal family was fascinated with how the United States manufactured fame and notoriety. That two hundred years after the revolution they had been adopted simply as cutsie-pie celebrities by the United States—a role they played to perfection. That the remnants of the British Empire were barking mad. That they had a grand palace with many rooms and in each one sat the remnants of a bad choice, India and the Irish. That they had done in the Irish in a miserable way. And yes the Acadians as well. I could not tell her because though we only knew each other for a year, I loved her too much. Besides, besides she already knew.”
And then this entry, the last one about her friend:
“Oh, but why did she die on me—why did she have to go away too.”
9.
SHE DID NOT KNOW WHEN SHE DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS TIME TO go. Maybe after her friend Diana died—maybe a long time before then. But when Perley said he was going to come down to save her, she realized she was a burden to everyone who she had ever loved. So she devised a plan—and a very good one.
She had placed the copies of those newspapers that had insulted her integrity for weeks, around her body, to look as if she wasn’t wasting away. She walked back and forth in her cell, or sat on her bunk with her feet size five not quite touching the dirt floor, and looked an average a hundred and ten pounds. And under her loose top and underneath her ballooning pants that still made her look so young:
“Mary Cyr es puta—diabla—asesina” written large.
Pages and pages of “Mudered no sólo los amantes sino su hijo.”
Murdered not only lovers but her son.
Photos of her tossing the gold charm bracelet over Niagara Falls.
And pages of photos of her in chains.
Pictures of her estate in New Brunswick.
Pictures of the farm in Dénia, Spain.
Pictures of her husband and her mother’s lover, Doc Swain, who turned up naked in SCREW magazine.
There were pictures of her sitting on Lord Beaverbrook’s knee, a picture of her half naked walking into the sea.
“Me wa amante—era salvaje y insashabe puta.” EL
I was her lover—she was a wild and crazy bitch. EL
She had placed them around her body, layer by layer, until you got to the picture of little Denise Albert, which was placed next her heart.
They had given her the means with which to say goodbye. The little guard was kind enough to allow her to shower in private, at the resort. So she came and went to the shower with a robe around her body.
Under all of it she was skin and bones, and sores were breaking on her flesh. Sometimes—well, she could be so stubborn it was like arguing with a brick wall. And once she decided something—she did decide!
So there you go, ho de ho ho ho!
Even when she got a secret note from someone close to the prosecutor’s office that told her if she pleaded guilty, she would be back in Canada in eighteen months.
“What is in Canada for me now?” she said. Yes, she sounded spiteful—and she was sorry—for decorum was t
he thing.
No—she had done what she had done, and she would now go away.
They just did not know it yet.
Debby Dormey’s mother had taught her the secret without ever meeting her once.
For when you do go, you do not have to say goodbye. If you are brave enough, you just have to someday walk away.
Years ago the Miramichi writer who she liked but who she could never read told her that they both were the kind of people who did not belong. He said you couldn’t fight that—ever, for they will not allow us safe passage to the end of the night.
Which meant, and he smiled: “That you and I will leave them—so suddenly that it will take a while for them to catch their breath and realize we are no longer here—”
Every time she closed her eyes, the world got farther and farther away. When she breathed, she was racked with pain.
“Señora, ¿puedes darme algo de dinero?” she heard softly.
Can I have some money?
“Ah, claro. Dame un minuto y lo conseguiré para ti.”
Just give me a minute and I will get it for you.
“¿Nos amas? Mary Cyr.”
Do you love us, Mary Cyr?
“Sí—toto—muchas mas.”
And they would giggle at her accent and her choice of words.
And then they would talk about the love affair going on between two women in the cell at the end of the corridor and say:
“La de da da da.”
She did not know what she handed over—it was almost fifty dollars. The woman looked at her, astonished. She nodded and said:
“I am sorry.”
And her eyes closed slightly. She felt as if she might fall. The day was warm and mucky, and the donkey was lying down.
“¿Estás enferma, mi señora?” the young woman asked.
“No—no—no—” Mary Cyr said. “Toto bien—toto bien—”
10.
PERLEY WAS ON THE PHONE TEN OR TWELVE TIMES A DAY, TO people in Mexico City, telling them to act—and telling them that if anything happened to her, when she was proven innocent, it would come down on the heads of those who had put her in chains. A week or so ago he was put through to a man named Alfonso Bara. He spoke and Bara said:
“Yes—of course—well, what comes of it comes of it. Things may turn out if you are patient—now is the time to be patient.”
Bara was interested in advancing his own career—and this had a lot to do with freeing Mary Cyr. But only at the right time. And he had much to weigh as well. For the idea was formed, over the past month or so—that the worse she was treated in backward Oathoa, the better it was for him in Mexico City when he freed her from those chains. Bara had learned something two months before from his own investigators, who were actually investigating Hernández and his relationship to a woman name Sonya “Little Boots” Baron. All of this had taken time, as it does anywhere—but Alfonso knew that the money given to Amigo to do upgrades was stolen, and that almost four million of it went to this woman, who ran drugs just north of Acapulco. So he knew very well, before Tallagonga had ever seen Mary Cyr, that the back-door way into the corruption of Little Boots was through Señor DeRolfo and his wife, Gidgit, and their illicit connection to Hulk Hernández.
And why did he first suspect corruption?
Because Carlos DeRolfo had built his wife a chapel in 2002.
“Quien construye una capilla podría estar esconde un pecado.”
Anyone who builds a chapel is hiding a sin.
So he had spoken to his wife’s father, a man who was always optimistically energetic, the man in the white suit jacket who had walked by the cell carrying the outboard motor the first day John had arrived. The man worked at the garage, and had the best pair of hands as a mechanic that there was. He worked on Hulk Hernández’s SUV and his imported cars. It was easy enough for him to plant small microphones in both Hernández’s SUV and Carlos DeRolfo’s Mercedes.
The information they received over the next nine months was fantastic.
People in his office asked him near the New Year if they should inform Tallagonga.
“No, no—no es importante.”
He was going to seek warrants from a certain judge.
So all of this was proceeding when the bump at the mine happened.
Then something completely bizarre occurred, with a woman named Mary Cyr.
“Bizzaro,” Bara said, after the name of the popular American cartoon. He could not believe it. He did believe the initial story; that is, that she had come down with money (he suspected a drug buy but changed his mind), and had harmed a young boy.
Everything in his case was put on the back burner.
It looked very good for Tallagonga for a moment—and Bara with his plodding and his clandestine campaigns seemed to be overshadowed.
But after a while things came together; the coal dust, as it were, settled. He had one man working in Oathoa, who he could trust, and he relied upon that man—and that man was Constable Jorge Fey.
But you see, for his own political advantage he did not want Fey to stop the case, or produce evidence to contradict Tallagonga right away—the more headlines he saw, the more damning it was. That is, if he had not played this game, Mary Cyr would have been released in four or five days after her arrest. John Delano would not even have had to fly down.
But Bara also had to be certain that Mary Cyr was innocent, for she seemed so culpable.
“You want me to keep her here?” Fey had asked.
“Just for a little while,” Bara had said.
So it put Fey in a terrible spot and made him play the role he detested. He had to say it was arsenic when he knew it was ludicrous. And he had to deflect the investigation by the Canadian officer, who was getting closer to the truth every day.
Also, the man in Oathoa—not Jorge Fey, but the military colonel sent there the day after the mine disaster—the man who had eight soldiers with him to guard the mine—to make sure that an investigation Bara was planning would not be corrupted, and who reported only to Bara—told him the morning after Mary Cyr was arrested that she was not the one who killed the child—or as he said, the children.
“Who is it?” Bara asked.
“We are not sure. But we think it might be Señora and Señor DeRolfo,” the colonel said.
Even Bara was amazed at this. “Are you certain?” he finally said.
“No, no, señor—not positive. But we think so.”
But again Bara asked them to wait.
“I have them, Hernández, Dr. DeRolfo, and yes—her, Boots Baron—only I need a few more hours—just a few more.”
But then, just when things were going to be resolved—Mary Cyr freed, the embezzled money revealed—something like an act of God happened, and the communication to the town was interrupted and no one could get a message in or out. It was the tormenta de Oathoa (storm of Oathoa) that had come two months early. The harshest storm since, people said, the asesinato de John F. Kennedy.
This storm destroyed what they had all intended. That toppled two transmission towers so even the cell phones could not ping off of them.
And when that happened, Lucretia Rapone decided it was time to be the mother she was, and to kill Mary Cyr. Or she did not decide it; her new best friend, Gidgit DeRolfo, decided it for her. It was the only way Gidgit and her husband could escape, while letting Lucretia grab the attention. They would escape everyone, and Little Boots Baron said she had a place reserved for them.
As for Lucretia, who wanted a reward:
“No, you will get no reward,” Mary Cry had told her, emphatically. “You have had your reward already.”
And how strange this reward would reveal itself to be.
11.
THE NIGHT AFTER MARY’S COURT APPEARANCE, ÁNGEL HAD SET out to go to the gym. The old gym, a gym that had produced fifteen good Mexican boxers in the past thirty-two years—though no good heavyweights—was up off the farther end of the Calle Republica, in a nondescript building
hidden away at a turn in the road. Only a simple sign marked it: a small pair of faded boxing gloves on a board that read To Box.
Ángel took a shortcut and walked by the jail. He saw the woman in the cell looking out at him. He walked toward her, staring at her, wondering what he could say to make her tell the truth. Moonlight came down on the white dust, the world was quiet—no one was around. He stared at her for a minute or more. It unnerved him and he looked away. He had never looked away from anyone in fear before. But now he had—why? She was beautiful, but that was not why. Or was it? The moon came down on her soft hair, her look was like a haunted little girl—but that was not why. He wanted to be angry with her and he could not be—her dirty fingers clutching the bars of the jail—her tiny hands told him she was not the asesina everyone said. Though how could he be sure? There was talk of people who were going to haul her out of the cell and kill her. Of course that was just talk he was sure. No good man or woman would let that happen. But it was even discussed on the local radio station here, the station that prided itself on being at the forefront of political disclosures, always telling the people of Oathoa who had and who did not have their best interests in mind. This radio station, the standard in socialist patronizing, told them of the Cyr dynasty, worth billions; told them of the pipeline in Canada that destroyed First Nations houses, and the destruction of great forests too. Angel had listened to all of this on the radio for days, his arms folded, shaking his head and tapping his feet, self-righteously condemning this woman, just as everyone did.
And this woman, this sad little creature, was supposedly the heart and soul of the Cyr dynasty.
The woman on the radio station interviewing Sharon DeRolfo had asked her about the mine, and the implosion and who bore the responsibility.
“Ah—the Cyrs as much as anyone,” Sharon had said.
“Mary Cyr also?”
“Sí.”
Suddenly, however, Mary smiled at him, a wan, imploring and elusive smile, delicate and unashamed, blameless in its intangibility, and strangely he in turn smiled back.
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