Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather

by Pierre Szalowski

  Boris, clearly shaken, had no choice but to relent. Once Igor had summarily relieved Boris of his carrier bags, reducing his stock to only two canisters, just as if he were back at Canada Dépôt, Olga stepped in to show who was in charge in that kitchen.

  ‘You’re not going to let his fish die!’

  Sheepishly, Igor handed Boris a bag with eight canisters, and Boris handed back the ten-dollar bill. Women really had a thing about Boris’s mathematical theory. Olga took two plates and heaped them high.

  Boris and Julie sat at a quiet table off to one side and sampled Olga’s carp, on the house. The onions, prepared by this chef who’d come from the cold, were not as strong as Julie had feared. One thing was for sure: with Boris everything tasted good, and she was never bored. Between two fish bones, she took the plunge.

  ‘Have you got a girlfriend?’

  ‘Not that I know of . . .’

  She wanted to shout, Open your eyes, Boris, you know who she is, she’s sitting right here opposite you!

  But with her mouth full of carp, that would be a perilous venture. Besides, she didn’t feel like shouting while her breath smelled of onions. So she savoured her food, and took her time. Love is like a taxi: if it doesn’t stop when you run after it, then it’s already taken. To catch one you just have to wait in the right spot.

  ‘The power is back on in your place . . .’

  ‘I must have left the light on when the power went out.’

  Boris looked through the window into the lit room. He pursed his lips and turned to Julie.

  ‘I don’t want to inconvenience you any longer,’ he said formally.

  ‘You’re no inconvenience.’

  ‘I know.’

  Boris Bogdanov was not a macho man, he was merely pragmatic. She understood this, and his reply didn’t surprise her. When you want to love, you must know how to do it, but to know how, you have to ask. So Julie threw a fastball straight at the heart of this logical man, this man who seemed to be made of marble.

  ‘My flat is on the same grid as the old people’s home, but yours isn’t. You may have power at your place now, but there’s no telling when it might go out again. Maybe we should wait a little before repatriating your fish?’

  Boris didn’t quite understand. The equation still contained too many unknowns. Julie’s only chance was to try an inside curveball.

  ‘The likelihood . . . uh . . . let’s say the probability that the power will go out is far greater for your place than for mine.’

  Boris immediately rubbed his forehead then started pacing in a circle. He was doing complicated calculations in his head, muttering quotients and square roots in Russian. Then suddenly he fell silent, but not for long.

  ‘Da . . . Da . . . Da . . .’

  ‘I can always ask Michel, my neighbour – he works for the weather office.’

  ‘Do you have something to drink that will warm me up?’

  ‘I have everything you need to warm you up . . .’

  Boris Bogdanov didn’t get it, not at all.

  ‘Davai!’

  No one can understand everything.

  I DIDN’T WANT TO WAIT

  ‘Tonight’s forecast has dealt us a nasty surprise: we’re in for more freezing rain.’

  The sky had heard me. I’d done it, I really had done it! Now there could be no doubt about it.

  ‘We can expect the worst; experts over at Météo Canada are forecasting at least ten millimetres of freezing rain for Montreal and the entire region.’

  What on earth was the sky up to now? I had just asked it to give Alex a hand, but it didn’t have to go so far! Some ice on the building across the street – that would have been more than enough.

  ‘Emergency shelters are expecting thousands of people tonight. Let’s go straight to our report on . . .’

  It gave me a shock to see all those people lying on camp beds, or lining up to go to the showers. It was like pictures from somewhere else, anywhere but Quebec. Normally, human misery is far away. Then I saw this little kid who was crying because he’d lost his parents at the shelter.

  And I started crying with him.

  When they said the little kid had found his mummy and daddy that didn’t stop my tears. The thought that I’d caused this pain to others just caused me even more pain. Especially as I had done what I’d done just so I’d stop feeling pain. I should have stood up to Alex, I should have said no. I choked on my tears.

  Then I felt an arm around me. I opened my eyes. Through my tears I saw my mum. She looked desperate, terrified to see me crying. Apparently, when a child is hurting, his mother starts hurting just the same.

  ‘What’s the matter, sweetie?’

  ‘It’s all my fault!’

  ‘No it isn’t, it’s not your fault!’

  ‘It’s all because of me!’

  ‘You had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I did, I did, I know I did . . .’

  ‘You mustn’t feel guilty, sweetheart . . .’

  ‘You don’t understand—’

  My mum put her hands on my cheeks and squeezed. I couldn’t finish my sentence. In her eyes there were tears, just about to spill.

  ‘Darling, let me tell you again, don’t blame yourself, you had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I’ll never forgive myself.’

  I dried my tears. I took a deep breath. I had to get it off my chest, this terrible thing I’d done.

  ‘Mum, I’m the one who—’

  ‘Stop saying that, you’ll make me cry!’

  Too late: she was already crying. It was the first time I’d ever really seen her cry. In fact, grown-ups cry just the same as kids. I felt awful, it was all my fault.

  ‘Mum, please forgive me for what I did—’

  She had trouble speaking through her tears.

  ‘But I told you, you haven’t done anything wrong! So stop saying that!’

  With her hands on my cheeks, she gave me a little shake. She really wanted me to agree with her.

  ‘That’s the truth! None of it is your fault, not any of it!’

  I pulled free of her hands and looked at the television.

  ‘Hospital emergency services are overwhelmed with victims of the black ice, and are treating a constant succession of sprains, fractures and head injuries. One man is in a deep coma at Sacré-Coeur Hospital after he fell while trying to de-ice the roof of his summer cottage in the Laurentides.’

  I didn’t have to look at my mum for very long to see that she and I were both thinking the same thing.

  ‘Did you talk to him today?’

  ‘No, he didn’t call . . .’

  Suddenly I was really frightened. There are worse things than parents splitting up, and one of them is having no parents at all. My mum closed her eyes. I’m sure she was praying. I don’t believe in God, but I prayed, too.

  Knock-knock!

  We turned to the door. We heard the knock all right.

  ‘Police! Open up!’

  My mum leaped up and looked at me. My dad had often told us the protocol. When it’s an injury, even a serious one, the police call you on the phone. When they knock on your door, it’s to tell you the worst.

  ‘Stay there, honey.’

  She ran to the door, took a deep breath, or maybe I should say gathered her courage. She opened the door. Then she took a step back, and cried out.

  ‘Oh no!’

  The sky fell on my head. I saw all the rest in slow motion. My dad walked in, like a soldier returning from the war, both his arms in a cast and a sling.

  ‘Do you have any idea what a fright you gave us?’

  ‘It was to make sure you’d open up.’

  Police humour is a male thing. My mum didn’t laugh.

  ‘I hope you don’t think we’ve reached that point.’

  My dad was a mess, but I was so relieved. He’d come back. My parents stared at each other for a long time. This was one situation they hadn’t predicted either. Finally Dad turned to me.
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  ‘Are you going to wait until these casts come off to give me a kiss?’

  I didn’t want to wait.

  HE WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT

  ‘Yoo-hoo! I’m in here!’

  ‘Alexis, just give me time to take off my coat and hat and mittens.’

  Simon smiled: his evacuee still needed to talk. He found Michel in the kitchen and went over to give him a gentle slap on the bum.

  ‘What’s this lovely meal you’re preparing?’

  ‘Escalopes Volpini with white wine.’

  ‘The best in town!’

  ‘No, the best is . . .’ Michel turned to face Simon, who held up his mouth, tenderly, ‘. . . the little evening kiss!’

  While Michel was turning the escalopes, Simon stroked his shoulder, and they stayed like that for a moment, close, happy, relieved.

  The evening before, when Simon had joined Michel in bed, he had given him the gist of his conversation with Alexis. A psychoanalyst is not supposed to do this, but since his client was unaware of what was actually going on, Simon was practising in secret and was therefore not bound by the pledge of confidentiality.

  ‘Did you tell him we’re gay?’

  ‘You think he didn’t notice?’

  ‘Then the whole neighbourhood will find out.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And what if the association finds out?’

  ‘So, let the association find out. This ice storm is giving us a chance to come out of hiding.’

  Michel could not help but wipe away a tear. He had always been the more sensitive of the two. He had been waiting for this moment for so long that he’d stopped believing it would ever come. It is a noble thing to want others to accept you, but first you must accept yourself.

  ‘Is that why you offered to take them in?’

  ‘Of course not. I just wanted to help out . . .’

  Michel knew his Simon by heart, and in his heart. He knew he was far too intelligent not to have thought the whole thing through when he first offered to help his neighbours. Welcoming Alex and Alexis to their home would be their way of coming out to the neighbourhood.

  What Simon couldn’t have foreseen, however, was how completely dependent Alexis would become on their improvised sessions of psychoanalysis.

  ‘Yoo-hoo! The bottle is waiting!’

  ‘I’m coming, Alexis, I’m coming!’

  On his way to the couch in the study, Simon caught sight of Alex playing with Pipo.

  ‘Michel said there’s gonna be tons more freezing rain tonight!’

  ‘Tons?’

  ‘We’ve got power back in our house but my dad says it’ll go out again before long.’

  ‘If your dad says so . . .’

  ‘Michel says it’s okay if we stay. And he works at Météo Canada. So he knows what he’s talking about.’

  ‘You’re right. When it comes to the forecast, caution is the best counsellor.’

  Even a psychoanalyst can make others believe he is helping them when actually he is helping himself. He’ll hide his true motivations, unremorsefully.

  ‘I think Pipo would be really sad if you left us.’

  In the sitting room, Simon went over to the stereo. After rifling through the huge collection of records, he chose Carmen. From among the dozen or so different versions he had of Bizet’s opera, he chose the performance by Maria Callas from 1964. It was a historic recording of an opera the diva had never sung in public, and here she sang it with a voice that would make you weep. Then he abruptly changed his mind: perhaps this wasn’t the right time to play such an emotional piece around such a sensitive patient.

  ‘Did you know I made a record, Simon?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Nobody knows . . .’

  ‘Tell me about it, Alexis.’

  Alexis slumped deeper into the couch and stretched out his legs.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘Sure, go ahead.’

  Alexis placed his feet gently on the coffee table, careful not to disturb anything. He closed his eyes, the better to think back to his yéyé years of French pop in the 1960s.

  Rrrring!

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Alexis, Michel will get the door. Just relax . . .’

  Annoyed, Alexis could not keep from tapping his fingers on the armrest. Simon took the precious bottle of Chivas Royal Salute 21 Year Old from its box. With a grimace he filled Alexis’s glass. After a few minutes, Michel came in.

  ‘It was the young lady from next door, asking me for my forecast for the night.’

  ‘I bet you told her there’s going to be tons of freezing rain.’

  ‘You lose. I only said kilos. But I got the impression it made her happy she’d be able to hang on to her Russian tenant.’

  ‘I hope he didn’t have time to go and buy any booze, otherwise we won’t get any sleep.’

  ‘Speaking of booze . . .’

  Simon handed Michel the empty whisky bottle. Alexis chose that moment to empty his glass in one go. At a hundred and fifty-nine dollars a bottle, Michel was right to grimace. But you can’t put a price on a coming-out party, even just a neighbourhood one.

  ‘It’s there to be drunk!’

  Simon waited for Michel to return to his escalopes Volpini, and in lieu of an aperitif he turned back to his patient on the couch.

  ‘So you were saying you made a record?’

  Alexis decided to answer by singing.

  ‘Ils disent qu’on était jeunes et qu’on ne savait pas . . . Ne nous découvrons pas jusqu’à ce qu’on grandisse—’

  Sobs momentarily interrupted the performance. Simon hastily applauded.

  ‘That’s really great!’

  ‘That’s not all! There’s a chorus, it’s coming.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Bébé! . . . Je t’ai, toi, bébé . . . Je t’ai, toi, bébé . . .’

  Alex jumped. That was his song. About his mother and him!

  ‘Je t’ai, toi, pour me prendre la main . . .

  Je t’ai, toi, pour comprendre . . .

  Je t’ai, toi, pour marcher avec moi . . .

  Je t’ai, toi, pour me serrer fort . . .’

  The second time the chorus came round was harder going: Alexis’s sobs made his words incomprehensible. Maybe it was just as well.

  ‘Bé . . . Je . . . bé . . . t’ai . . . bé . . . toi . . . bé . . .’

  Alex blocked his ears. He didn’t want to hear any more. He wasn’t the only one.

  ‘Alexis, I think we can stop there. It’s making Pipo cry.’

  When silence fell, the sound of giggling came clearly from the kitchen; those must have been the funniest escalopes Volpini ever made. But Simon wanted to avoid hurting Alexis’s feelings at all costs. Providential patients like this one must be nurtured.

  ‘It’s a beautiful song. Did you write it?’

  ‘You didn’t recognise it?’

  ‘No . . . Should I have?’

  ‘It’s the French version of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher.’

  ‘That’s odd, I don’t remember it sounding like that.’

  ‘Because this is the disco version!’

  From the study, where Pipo had sprawled out on his lap, Alex heard his dad telling his life story in a way he’d never told it before. And so he found out that his mother and father had made a record together.

  ‘How did it do?’

  ‘Complete fiasco, we didn’t even sell a hundred copies. My basement is full of them.’

  ‘And how did you deal with the lack of success, Alexis?’

  ‘I didn’t deal, it was an ordeal, more like.’

  ‘You have to learn from failure. It can be an opportunity to help you build your future.’

  ‘Well, in my case it destroyed it.’

  ‘Tell me about it, Alexis.’

  There was no more laughter coming from the kitchen. Michel had decided that for once he would not serve the escalopes Volpini medium rare. A true confessi
on is like Greek tragedy: it’s a rare, intense moment that lasts only a certain length of time. And if you miss it, you won’t ever capture it again.

  ‘She was nineteen, full of life, so beautiful. She’d worked really hard to come here from Mexico to study. She was a painter. She hadn’t even been here a month. I was singing in a bar. She walked in, she was so pure, I didn’t want to sing for anyone but her . . .’

  Alex left the study, Pipo following behind. He went into the sitting room and sat down next to his father, not saying a thing. Simon held his breath, observing Alexis’s reaction. Michel poked his head around the door from the kitchen. Even Pipo realised the significance of the moment when a person’s hidden side becomes illuminated, and he stretched out on the floor. Simon lowered his voice to a whisper.

  ‘Go on, Alexis . . .’

  Alex’s heart began to pound. He was about to find out.

  CAN YOU FIX IT FOR ME?

  ‘Do you know why cats always land on their paws?’

  ‘No, Dad.’

  ‘Because they know how!’

  Two days in the cold weather had transformed my dad. I didn’t recognise him. He was even managing to poke fun at himself. That must be one of the virtues of being deep-frozen. Once you thaw out, there’s nothing left but joy. He couldn’t stop waving his wrists around in their casts. He looked like a puppet, but he was real and there were no strings attached any more.

  ‘Want to play Monopoly?’

  When was the last time I played Monopoly with my dad?

  ‘Come on, come and play with us!’

  When was the last time I’d played Monopoly with both of them? Probably never. In my mother’s opinion it wasn’t educational enough.

  ‘It’s just capitalism dressed up as a game! Wouldn’t Trivial Pursuit be better?’

  ‘With my hands in casts Trivial Pursuit isn’t very practical.’

  I could tell my mum was wondering if it was really my dad sitting across from her.

  ‘Yes, Dad’s right, I’d rather play Monopoly. All three of us.’

  I put on my whiny little voice, the one from back when I used to try and charm my mum in order to get my way. Dad gestured towards me with his casts as if I were the bearer of some universal truth. My mum sat down. She’d surrendered. But she still had to have the last word.