Punishment

by Linden MacIntyre

  There was no immediate response from inside and I felt my poise begin to wobble from the incongruity of standing on my own doorstep waiting for admission. I had a goddamned key in my pocket. What was preventing me from using it, as I had ten thousand times before? Then I heard that subtle shift in the internal ambience of the house that told me someone was stirring inside and, yes, a heel-strike on the brief expanse of wooden floor between Persian rugs I could imagine clearly. Then the click behind the door.

  “Why are you knocking?” Anna asked, pale and puzzled, when she opened up.

  Then she turned, and walked briskly down the hallway.

  Her visitor was a woman, sitting sideways on the edge of the chesterfield, thighs pressed close together. She was in the act of tugging her tight skirt over her knees. She was attractive, a tumult of auburn hair to her shoulders, a face that might be pleasant in other circumstances. She was smiling but with that cold professional appraisal that conveys tactical interest without the normal human elements of curiosity or self-consciousness. Another lawyer, I thought. She stood and said to Anna, “I’ll run along, but you know where I’ll be.”

  “Yes,” said Anna. They embraced, sealing my feeling of exclusion. The stranger nodded in my direction and left without another word.

  “There’s one cold individual. I’d have worn a winter coat if I’d known that she was here,” I said, when the door had closed behind her.

  “What do you expect?” said Anna, picking up two coffee cups and disappearing into the kitchen. Then she was back. “I’m sure you’ve heard me mention her. Rita Morgan, from the office.”

  “Aha,” I said. “The specialist in family law.”

  “She’s my friend, that’s all,” Anna said. “It isn’t what you think.”

  “And what do I think?”

  She studied me, readjusting her advantages. “God knows,”she said. “I don’t anymore. I thought I knew you. Now I realize I probably never did.”

  I sighed. “You’re reading a lot into a very simple situation.”

  “Is it really so simple, Tony?”

  I sat, stared at my hands. “Do you mind if I have a drink?”

  “You know where it is.”

  I took a chance. “Can I get one for you?”

  She hesitated. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t think so.”

  There are details that at the time seemed important but they’ve grown vague. I had three drinks, the last one stronger than it should have been but by then I didn’t care—not about my self-control, my rationality, health, or the consequences of saying the wrong thing in such circumstances.

  “That poem,” Anna said. “I think I know it off by heart.” Outside the day was darkening.

  “I already told you she didn’t …”

  She stood, waved a dismissive hand. “Of course she didn’t. I know that. If she could write like that I wouldn’t expect to find her in …” and she abandoned the thought with another wave of the hand.

  “It’s profound, though,” she said. “A warning, as I read it, about the peril of deep emotional involvement when your options are already circumscribed.”

  “Whatever the hell that means.”

  “You know exactly what I mean, Tony. You let it get out of control when you should have frigging known there was no place to go with it. That’s what surprises me. You were putting a lot at risk. Never mind us. She has a family. You were also risking an important professional relationship. Friendship. Where was your head?”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I stood. “I just want to gather up some stuff for now. We can continue this another time. Or not.”

  “No, wait,” she said. “Just sit. Here let me get you another little drink.”

  “I’m driving.”

  “We’ll call a cab.”

  “I should …”

  “Tony, I love you. Just hear me out. I deserve that.”

  I was stunned to silence by the force of her sudden declaration. Then she was beside me on the couch, hand under my jacket massaging my chest. “Hear me out, please. We can get past this.”

  The details of what she had to say would be interesting if that had really been the start of a happily-ever-after kind of resolution. I don’t think I’m ruining the story by disclosing that it wasn’t. Far from it. Obviously if that had been the case I wouldn’t be where I am now. She was stalling, using age-old tactics. Before long she was undoing buttons, her own as well as mine.

  Anna had always been a rather quiet lover, but that afternoon, in wild disarray on the couch, the floor, and later in the bedroom, she became a choir, an orchestra of carnal vocables. I felt like a giant, but later realized that I was really Samson getting a haircut.

  That evening over wine and pizza, though, I was a very happy man. The sordid past had been resolved, I thought, my future spread in front of me enriched by a priceless lesson learned. It was a reconciliation that lasted just about a month.

  I had warned Anna to leave Sophie out of it. She didn’t deserve to have her life infected by a single lapse that was 99 percent my fault. Read that poem again, I told her. It is a reflection of the truth—the relationship was, except for one mistake, platonic. Anna only laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. But still I did and on the Monday I went to Sophie’s office.

  “Close the door,” Sophie said.

  “How are you?” I asked. She didn’t answer.

  Then she said quietly, “I know something’s happened.” And when I didn’t immediately respond, I saw the colour rising in her face.

  I told her simply. The poem had become the catalyst for a confrontation but the crisis had come and gone, like a summer storm. There had been a very brief separation but now the difficult process of reconciliation was underway and a crucial part of it was a promise to start anew. I was good at crisis management, containing conflict, I said. She had nothing to worry about.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked.

  I hesitated before I answered, but said, “Yes.” Then: “I think so. I think that I should try.”

  She smiled and the smile told me that she’d read the hesitation for what it really was, a brief moment of doubt before dishonesty that was essentially benign.

  She caught my hands, leaned forward and kissed both cheeks.

  “You should go,” she said quietly. She repeated it, kindly. “You should go. Be good to yourself, Tony.”

  It was only after I left her office that I felt the full weight of the loss.

  It was another Friday—September 7, nearing the one-month anniversary of the grand reconciliation. I actually had hoped to celebrate with a dinner out, wine and romance. It had been a busy month with little of the passionate abandon of that surprising Saturday when she so aggressively and unequivocally inaugurated our physical, emotional renewal. I almost laugh aloud now, thinking back. But in the moment I accepted it for what it was, renaissance and reformation: early to rise, early out the door; long productive days at work; if not passion in the evenings, at least mature collegiality.

  I would find her in bed late at night, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, duvet littered with briefs and affidavits. Cheek peck, hand squeeze, “night night,” shallow, restless slumber. Then morning, and repeat.

  I had decided on that Friday, September 7, that it was time for an initiative on my part—a pre-emptive charm attack. I was about to order flowers. At noon she left a message on the answering machine at home. I recall standing there that evening listening, disappointment welling, a bouquet in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. The message was brief. “Gotta go to Warkworth, hon. The old kids are acting up again. Need mediation. Call you later.” There was a kissing sound.

  I suppose I might have wondered why she didn’t ask me to go along. After all, I had been part of the Moroz family drama for more than ten years. But I also knew that I really didn’t have much to contribute. On the few occasions when I was present for a crisis, it all unfolded in a blizzard of jitterbugging P
olish, flying Js and Zs and bitterness. When I’d ask Anna for a précis of what was going on she’d simply roll her eyes. “You really don’t want to know.”

  September 11 was a sunny day. I got out of bed and stood naked for a moment, studying the silent street, suffused by a sense of peace. I hadn’t heard from Anna since the Friday. Obviously another crisis in the Moroz household. I wasn’t worried about the silence.

  I walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower. There was a radio on a shelf above the sink. I pressed a thumb to the power button. A newscast was ending. Then a note of anxiety in the announcer’s voice “… a report just in … an airplane has crashed on one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. I repeat …”

  I left the voice behind me and when I emerged from the shower there was music. But my curiosity compelled me to turn on the TV in the bedroom. It was preset to an all-news channel. I saw a blue sky, a towering building with smoke billowing, crowd voices urgent, excited, people pointing, people running. And then the doorbell rang. I looked out the bedroom window and I recognized the small red car.

  Rita Morgan was pale and clearly uncomfortable standing there. I assumed it was from surprise at seeing me in the doorway in a bathrobe, and I was about to tell her Anna wasn’t home but she spoke first, as she extracted a thick envelope from a red shoulder bag.

  “Tony,” she said stiffly, “this is from Anna.” She seemed to be waiting for some reaction from me. My mind was blank. Then she turned and walked toward her car. After fishing her keys from the shoulder bag, she turned back to me and said, “It’s a legal notice, Tony. You’re going to need a lawyer.”

  I shouted after her, “Hey Rita, you’re behind the times. Didn’t Anna tell you …” but she was gone.

  I think I stood and watched her drive away. I’m not quite sure. I became aware that even though it was a warm day I was cold. So I must have been standing there for a while, the package in my hand. I phoned in sick, then went back to bed and watched the horrors unfolding on television all day, the thousands dead. I was haunted by the thought of thousands and thousands of other people walking around at that moment feeling blessed that they weren’t in the towers, or in the Pentagon or on the airplanes—but who were nonetheless doomed by what had happened. Thousands and thousands and thousands. People of all ages and ethnicities, linked by a single awful fate that was determined on that day. Nine-eleven was just the beginning.

  I phoned in sick again September 12. I was sure that I would hear from Anna. I had no idea where she was. I phoned her parents’ place in Warkworth every hour, it seemed. I faxed her father’s office. No response. It was as if the world was emptied out.

  The phone rang early Friday morning. I had it before the second ring. “Anna, for Chrissake …” But it wasn’t Anna. It was Arnold, my boss, the assistant warden. He’d heard I wasn’t feeling well, but could I drag myself in that day at noon for a meeting? Arnold was a friendly guy, though I would never have considered him a friend. We had a lot of history. We’d shared many laughs, saw eye to eye on most professional issues. When I was called in for a meeting with him, I never really gave a lot of thought to what might be on the agenda. Some new program, a problem with an inmate, maybe some adverse publicity because of someone on my caseload. Problems aren’t unusual when you have dozens of troubled, complicated people in your care. Some of the most screwed up and screwed over people in society and I’m supposed to be a counsellor, big brother. You know everything about them and nothing because you don’t have time or the emotional reserves to really care about them. There might be one or two exceptions but, for the most part, they are files.

  But I knew right away when I walked into Arnold’s office three days after nine-eleven that this was different. He was with two others and they were standing, engaged in a conversation that ended abruptly when I walked through the door. They all turned to face me, Arnold and the two IPSOs who had been asking questions about Dewolf. Arnold said, “I don’t think I have to introduce you guys.” He went behind his desk and sat. They sat off to one side while I took the chair directly in front of Arnold. The room was silent for a while.

  Arnold frowned into a file, reading glasses down his nose. Then he pushed the glasses up to the top of his bald head. “Tony,” he said, “I’ve been catching up on this business about Wentworth and Dewolf. What do you think?”

  “I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought,” I said. “I thought it had been dealt with.”

  He closed the file and shoved it away as if it had suddenly become irrelevant. I peered at the cover for a name. Breau, A. D. I had to think for a moment—Anthony Duncan. Right.

  “I’m going to be straight with you,” Arnold said. The eye contact was intense, unblinking. “I consider you a colleague and a peer and I have too much respect for your intelligence to try to bullshit you. How old are you, Tony?”

  “Fifty-four,” I said, surprised.

  “And I’m looking at you turning fifty-five,” and he retrieved the file and pushed his glasses back down to his nose, “… next February 11.”

  I decided to say nothing.

  “And you’ve been in the service for thirty years now. Jesus Christ, where does the time go?” He removed the glasses and chewed an arm thoughtfully.

  “This thing with Dewolf is, like you say, in and of itself, nothing. But viewed in the context of other things … I’m worried about you, Tony. These guys are worried about you.”

  “Worried about what?”

  “Your safety, Tony …”

  “My safety …?”

  “Tony, we’re in a rough environment. An awful lot depends on solidarity, watching each other’s backsides. There’s a considerable amount of concern about your safety, Tony. That if push came to shove, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Goddammit, I’ll be the first to say it isn’t your fault, but the fact of the matter is that your vulnerability has become a matter of institutional concern. Obviously we can’t penalize you for having done the right thing in the Pittman business, but the fact remains. I want you to give it some thought. Okay?”

  He stood. We all stood. The two IPSOs turned toward the door. Arnold said, “Tony, wait. A word in private.” The others left and I sat again.

  He offered coffee. I declined. There was a long period of silence. He was staring away from me, through a window. I followed his sightline to the high limestone wall, the rolling razor wire along the top, discreet electronic sensors, the corner of a tower. “In many ways you’re a lucky guy, Tony. This thing could be a blessing in disguise, you know. Your warrant expiry, so to speak.” He smiled at me.

  “How so, Arnold?” It was amazing to me how calm I felt.

  He pointed toward the window. “That wall … when you think about it, we’ve spent more time inside than any convict here. We’re prisoners, too, Tony. I’m just talking man to man here. What’s said here stays in the room.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding reassurance.

  “In a few months you’re gonna hit the magic number, freedom fifty-five.”

  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “No? I think about it all the time. This job wears you down. You come in here thinking you can accomplish something the old-timers couldn’t—never even tried actually. And then before you know it you’re an old-timer yourself. Me … I’ve got five more years. Got the date circled on the calendar at home. June 30, ’06. Can’t come soon enough.”

  “Retirement is a big step, a big adjustment,” I said. “Things are kind of … busy … in my life right now. I’m not sure I’m ready.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me. “Tony, this Wentworth bullshit is your ticket out. I’ve already had some feedback from above. They agree: there is a credible threat. You can get a pretty nice package. Lump sum, full pension. A nice send-off: reception, dinner, speeches. The timing is perfect.”

  “I don’t really feel ready for it,” I tried again.

  “Let’s talk, man to man,” he said.

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nbsp; But it took a long time for him to get to the point. I’ve discovered most bureaucrats are like that. Beating around the bush becomes an art and Arnold was really good at it. With each trip around the bush he got closer to the point, which was: he knew that I was going through a personal crisis and that a workplace relationship was part of it. I think I stood up then, but he waved me down. I recall he stood, walked around the desk, and put a hand on my shoulder, all sympathy and collegiality. Man to man.

  “We’re all human, Tony. Who among us hasn’t made a slip one time or another? But these things don’t go down well with senior management. Bad for morale. Did you know she’s applied for a position in Ottawa?”

  “Who?”

  He laughed. “You know who. Sophie MacKinnon.”

  “I fail to see …”

  “She wants to move to Ottawa. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. She asked the warden for a letter of support.”

  “So that should take care of the problem, if there is one,” I said.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The thing is, Tony. We don’t want to lose her.”

  Sophie and I had our last lunch where we had the first one, in a hotel dining room that overlooks the lake. She was hesitant when I called and asked her to meet me there.

  I tried to sound casual when she joined me at the table. “I have an update.”

  “Oh?” she said.

  “A glass of wine?” She shook her head.

  “By the way, I heard about Ottawa.”

  She looked downward, face flushed. “I was going to tell you …”

  “No explanation necessary.”

  “It’s best, Tony. A bit of distance. Plus I need a break from this …”

  “I understand completely.”

  It was unusually quiet for midday on a Thursday. She reached across and squeezed my hand. It’s an instinct women have, the hand squeezing, for reassurance or breaking ground for something big.