A Question of Return

by Robert Carr

  * * *

  Two policemen arrived a few minutes before the ambulance. Almost pushing Laukhin aside, they rushed upstairs. They asked him what happened, and, as he began to explain, the paramedics showed up.

  In the ambulance, as he sat holding her hand, she came around. She looked about her, or tried to, confused. Then she saw Laukhin at her side, and she focused on him, with some effort, as if telling herself, “Well, he seems a familiar face, I’ll keep staring at him until I figure out what’s going on.” After a while she whispered his name. She seemed startled by her feat. When he told her that he had found her on the floor in his bedroom, and that she had fallen and had knocked herself out, she looked puzzled. Laukhin thought he heard a very soft “Yes” from her, but wasn’t entirely sure. She was pale. He asked whether he should call her mother in Montreal and let her know, but she didn’t answer. She looked puzzled again, or, maybe, just undecided. The paramedic sitting with them said that talking would be tiring for her and that it would be better if he said nothing. He was an older man, short and bald, and he didn’t say it with much conviction.

  After a while, she whispered, “You found me on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t remember getting up. My head hurts.”

  “You have a concussion.”

  “What happened?”

  “You fell. You got up, probably to get a drink, or to go to the washroom, and you fell. Stumbled and fell. I found you near my worktable. I think you hurt your head as you fell.”

  “I don’t remember a thing.”

  “You don’t remember anything from last night?”

  The paramedic looked disapprovingly at Laukhin. “I don’t think she should talk now.”

  “I’m fine,” Audrey said, trying to smile. “I don’t remember anything from last night.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I proposed to you.”

  She looked at him baffled, “You what?”

  “I proposed to you.”

  She considered this for a while. “What did I say?”

  “That I’d had too much wine.”

  “Ah.”

  The paramedic shook his head and chuckled.

  “You said you found me. Where were you?”

  “I went out to get Paul.”

  “Paul?”

  “Paul Karman, my student. He was stuck in a pub.”

  They arrived at the hospital. The paramedic said, “She’s going to be in intensive care for a while, under observation. Not for long, if she’s fine, and I think she’ll be fine. You can’t go in with her, sir.”

  Laukhin said to Audrey, “I’ll stay while they’re doing the papers. I’ll be back by midday. Give me a call if you leave intensive care earlier.”

  “She’ll likely be sedated,” the paramedic said as the ambulance doors opened. “I wouldn’t come back before two this afternoon.”

  * * *

  He stood on the sidewalk outside the Toronto General Hospital, dazed, unable to think of what to do next.

  It was almost dawn. He crossed College, and then walked along the crescent to Bloor. The subway was not running yet, so he took a cab home. He wondered whether he should try to do some work, but dismissed the thought. He went upstairs, took his shoes off and fell onto his bed. It had been quite a scare. The image of Audrey lying on the floor, her head under the table, came back to him, an Audrey almost naked, seemingly at peace.

  Eventually he fell asleep, but was awakened a few hours later by Ivor’s lawnmower. He glanced at his watch, and the events of the night returned to him. Nine o’clock—he had slept more than four hours. He got up, brushed his teeth and went downstairs. He was filling the kettle with water when Paul called. He wanted to explain what happened, but Laukhin cut him short. “Not now, Paul. Tell me later. I’ve had an emergency here, and I can’t talk now. Yes, I’m fine.”

  He put the kettle on. He had no desire to sit down at his desk and work, but he had to. He had lost half of the morning. He wished it took longer to bring water to a boil.

  The phone rang again as he was about to climb back upstiars. It was Ben. Paul had told him what happened last night and they concluded that their professor was not fine.

  Laukhin sighed. “I’m all right, Ben. Thanks. Audrey spent last night here—¬”

  “Audrey? Lezzard’s assistant?”

  “Yes, Ben, who else?”

  “Sorry.”

  “When I got back home last night, after I rescued Paul, I found her unconscious, on the floor. They took her to the hospital. It was quite a scare, but she’ll be fine. She came to in the ambulance. She’s still at the hospital, and I’ll go back there this afternoon. They’ll keep her under observation for a while.”

  “Did you talk to a doctor?”

  “No, not yet. The paramedic told me they’d keep her in intensive care probably until two this afternoon.”

  He stayed under the shower for a long time. For some reason his shoulders hurt. He towelled, dressed and went to the kitchen to make himself another cup of tea. The telephone rang again. It was Helen, who had heard from Ben what happened. She said she’d given her husband hell for not waking her up, and that he, Laukhin, should talk to a doctor at the hospital. He took a long deep breath and told Helen that Audrey was all right. Why was he was irritated by his students’ concern?

  Audrey would be all right, he repeated to himself after he hang up. She had regained consciousness in the ambulance. A concussion, nothing more.

  He went back upstairs, made the bed, tidied the room, opened the window, and stood there wondering what exactly had happened to Audrey and what his future with her would be. Despite last night, things were definitely looking up. He could not have asked for a better weekend—Audrey had spent two nights with him. Two nights in three days. The story of her dinner with Martha filled him with hope. “I may hang around here for a while,” she’d told Martha. Also, “I like the look of him.” And yet, as far as he knew, she still planned to go back to London. Shouldn’t this weekend have changed her plans? Shouldn’t she have said to him she was reconsidering her return to London, and not just for a while? Why hadn’t she left a small note on his worktable? “Art, darling, maybe I should give Toronto a longer try, much longer,” or something like that. One of those short, gravity-defying billets-doux only women can write.

  Maybe she had wanted to tell him this, once they woke up, but then she had this accident and …

  He knew he should eat something, but he wasn’t hungry. He went back downstairs, aware that he was looking for any excuse to avoid working. In the kitchen he opened a can of sprats, squirted some lemon juice over them, and cut a slice of bread. It wasn’t hearty, flavourful black bread, but that wasn’t that easy to find.

  Climbing back upstairs, he wondered whether he should go to the hospital before sitting down to work, but it was too early. Audrey was probably still sedated, and he wanted to talk to her too, not just with the doctor. What would the doctor tell him anyway—except that she had a concussion?

  It was while he was picturing himself entering Audrey’s hospital room with a bouquet of flowers that he realized that the green folder with the Tsvetayeva bundle in it was not on his worktable. He took a cursory glance around without seeing it. Audrey must have taken the folder to read the bundle again while he was away—that would explain why she’d been near the table when she tripped. But where was it? Would Audrey have hidden the folder, as some sort of a joke? He couldn’t see her doing that. He searched the bedroom again, this time slowly, methodically. No folder. Maybe Audrey had gone downstairs, taking the green folder with her to read in the den, and left it there. That would explain the light being on in the landing. He broke into a cold sweat as he went downstairs.

  He spent half an hour looking for the green folder. It was nowhere in the house.

  * * *

  He went back to the hospital at tw
o o’clock. Audrey had been moved out of intensive care into a private room. At the nurses station near her room, he talked to a doctor who told him that head injuries were difficult to predict, but concussions, which were mild head injuries, end up all right fairly quickly. Most of them.

  “That’s what she has, a concussion?”

  “She has a bit of a dent on her skull. A minor skull fracture. I understand she fell and hit a table. Well, she must have hit the edge or a corner of it. It’s a small fracture, but it complicates things. We’re not sure it’s just a mild head injury. That’s why we’d like to keep her here for a while. A neurosurgeon will see her tomorrow morning. If she starts to bleed inside her skull it could put pressure on her brain. But we think she’s progressing quite well.”

  “She doesn’t know what happened to her.”

  “Post-traumatic amnesia is common. It usually doesn’t last long.”

  “You mean, she’ll remember what happened to her?”

  “Probably.”

  “When?”

  The doctor raised his narrow shoulders.

  “When are you likely to release her?”

  “She still has a headache, but that’s fairly common too. More worrisome is that the sizes of her pupils are unequal and her speech is still a bit slurred. We’d like to keep her under observation a while longer. Another day or two. It should all clear up by then.”

  Audrey was happy to see him, but she was pale and said she had a bad headache. She had talked to Martha—she had to call her because she had no health-care insurance. Martha had insisted on a private room.

  They played the what-does-Audrey-remember game.

  “Do you remember Thursday?”

  “The opening party? Yes, I do.”

  “Do you remember spending Thursday night with me?”

  She smiled, “Of course.”

  “Do you remember the following morning?”

  “I do. I bumped into you in front of the gallery. We went in together and found Lezzard there, in a foul mood.”

  “Earlier than that. What did you do Friday morning when you got up?”

  “When I got up?”

  “Yes. You left my bed and …?”

  “I went back to Martha’s apartment.”

  “Before that. You sat at my worktable and …?”

  “I did?”

  “You read something—for a couple of hours.”

  “Yes, of course, I read about Tsvetayeva.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “Oh … I remember having a fight with Martha.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday? I’m not sure. What day is it?”

  “Sunday. Do you remember calling me on Saturday evening—yesterday—asking to come over?”

  “I … I think so.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “I had dinner with Martha.”

  “When?”

  Audrey thought for a while. “Friday?”

  “Do you remember where it was? What you ate? What you talked about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good. What do you remember of Saturday?”

  She frowned. “I took a cab to your house. In the evening.”

  “And?”

  “We had dinner and went to bed.”

  “Go on.”

  “And then?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you remember how you fell?”

  She sighed. “I don’t.”

  “Don’t worry. The doctor is sure it will all come back to you. Do you remember anything you did after I left.”

  “After you left?”

  “Yes. Anything at all.”

  She shook her head and sighed again. “No.”

  “You don’t remember picking up the green folder, the one with Tsvetayeva’s story in it, the folder you read on Friday morning?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.”

  She covered her mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” Laukhin asked.

  “I think I might throw up?”

  “It’s my fault,” he said. “I should let you rest.”

  “I want to remember what happened. I think if I go through what happened earlier on, it will help bring back what happened last night.”

  She covered her mouth again.

  “Would you like some water?”

  He stayed with her until he was chased away by a nurse who said Audrey needed to rest. As he got up to leave, Audrey said, “I had hoped Martha wouldn’t come to Toronto, you know. When she called on Tuesday to tell me she was coming, I reminded her that I was planning to travel to Montreal to see her before flying back to the UK. But she said she had other things to do in Toronto, and that she was coming anyway on Wednesday. A day before the vernissage—what timing! It ruled out any chance of a romantic night with you.”

  Laukhin took her hand.

  She went on. “I knew I was not brave or modern enough to invite myself to your place, and I was afraid you’d given up on me after I’d turned you down so many times. I’m glad you haven’t.”

  * * *

  “It takes me a while to get moving these days,” Helen said pointing to her belly, as they all sat down. in the small den at the back of the house.

  As soon as he got home, he had a sip from a vodka bottle and phoned his students to say he needed to see them urgently at his house that evening. He couldn’t reach Paul, but Helen picked up Ben at his residence and drove him to Laukhin’s house.

  “Where is Paul?” he asked.

  “Haven’t seen him since noon,” Ben said. “He’ll show up sooner or later. Why this urgent summon?”

  Laukhin told them briefly what had happened the night before. At the end, after he said that Audrey was still under observation in the hospital, but fine, and that he had seen and talked to her that afternoon, he added, “Late this morning I found out something—well, didn’t find, actually.” He stopped.

  “Well?” Helen said.

  “I can’t find the folder with the Tsvetayeva bundle.”

  His students stared at him, uncertain of what to make of what he’d just said.

  “It’s lost, gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Ben asked.

  “I brought the folder with the entire Tsvetayeva-bundle in it home on Thursday afternoon and worked on it over the weekend. I was on schedule to have everything ready by Monday morning. But now I can’t find it.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Ben said.

  “It disappeared. I had the whole bundle on my worktable, in a green folder, and this morning … well, this morning it wasn’t there anymore.”

  Followed by a perplexed silence, he went into the kitchen and picked up three glasses and the bottle he had a sip from earlier. He returened to the den, poured himself a drink, and signaled the other two to do the same. Helen declined with indignation.

  “How long have you been involved with her … with Audrey?” she asked.

  “A few days.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I mean, I’ve been sort of seeing her for some time. Since May, when Ben discovered she was working for Lezzard. About three months, but without, you know … without much success. She was friendly, but …”

  “And then she fell for you all of a sudden?” Helen said.

  He frowned. “It only appears that way. We were to have dinner here, my cooking, a month or so ago, but she began to have doubts. There were things she’d read about me.”

  “Yet she dismissed her doubts. When did that happen?”

  “Thursday evening. There was an opening night at Lezzard’s gallery.”

  “And she was very nice to you Thursday evening.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thursday night the two of you slept together for the first time.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Was Thursday night the first time the two of you slept together?”


  “Yes.”

  “And she saw the Tsvetayeva bundle, there, on your worktable.”

  “Yes. I found her the next morning reading it. She found it fascinating, couldn’t put it down.”

  “And two days later she comes and spends the night with you again.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the green folder disappears.”

  “Yes.”

  “How well do you know her?” Helen asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is she what she claims to be?”

  “Oh, come on, of course she is. She’s English. You can’t fake that accent—not between the sheets anyway. An English woman, from London, with marital problems, a sick father, and a rich mother here in Canada. Her parents divorced many years ago, and her father brought her up.”

  “When exactly did the folder disappear?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t aware it was not there until around eleven this morning. The last time I worked on the excerpts was yesterday evening, just before Audrey arrived. They were spread all over the worktable in the bedroom, and I gathered them and put them all back in the green folder.”

  “And afterward you never glanced at your table at all—for, what, twelve, thirteen hours?”

  “Well, I was busy, had other things on my mind. Audrey came over and then, in the middle of the night there was the call from Paul, and when I got back, it was awful, with Audrey on the floor, unconscious, barely breathing. I went to the hospital with her. I was tired afterward and slept. Yes, only this morning, around eleven.”

  Laukhin got up and began to pace. Helen’s legs were swollen. She was wearing a loose sleeveless dress with faintly coloured sunflowers, and was sprawled across the blue leather sofa, under the threatening Mayakovsky. The face of the stern poet asked Laukhin where his proletarian vigilance had been.

  “She has them, then,” Helen said.

  “That’s silly. She doesn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She left in an ambulance, on a stretcher. All she had on her was a thin nightgown. I stuffed all her things in her night bag and took it in the ambulance too. There was no folder in there, I’m quite sure.”

  “She hid it somewhere.”

  “Why would she do that? Anyway, I checked everywhere.”