Everything went dark.
When I came to, I felt like I’d swallowed a lump of sand.
I cleared my throat.
A man was standing in front of a lamp. I could only see his silhouette as he spoke to Ariane.
“Don’t worry, she’s waking up gradually. Everything looks good. We had to intubate her briefly, but she’s okay now.”
In a corner of my brain, neurons received and processed this information. I’d been intubated. That explained the sore throat.
“Is there any permanent damage?”
“It’s too early to say for sure, but I don’t think so. She may be a little confused or even incoherent for the first few hours.”
“I understand. Can you take off the straps?”
“Yes. She’s calm now. I’ll send someone to take care of it.”
I wasn’t quadriplegic! I’d been placed in restraints. But why?
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ariane said.
“You’re welcome.”
What were they talking about? What was going on? Water! Someone please bring me some water!
Everything went dark again.
• • •
Warm breath on my cheek.
Like a half-melted wax mask, Ariane’s face was hovering a few centimetres above my own.
“Her eyes are open. Can she hear me?”
“I think so,” the nurse said.
“Simone, it’s me, Ariane. Can you hear me?”
I tried to answer, but my throat refused to produce any sound.
“Oh, sweetie, you gave me such a scare.”
“Thhh … thhh … thirsty.”
“What’s she saying?”
“I think she’s thirsty. I’ll go get some ice chips.”
Yes, that was definitely a nurse. I couldn’t see her, but the tone of voice clearly marked her as a medical professional. I knew from experience.
“Wh … where’s … Mi-iles?”
“What?”
“Mi … le … Miles.”
I was still pretty woozy, but I could see the puzzlement on Ariane’s face.
“Miles?”
The nurse spoke.
“A little confusion is normal.”
“Dr. Pouliot mentioned that.”
Ariane stroked my cheek with the back of her hand.
“Try to rest, honey.”
I only half listened to their babbling. My thoughts were taken up by a single question.
What had happened to Miles?
------------------------
Snake’s gaze took in the flat grey sky, the parallel rows of parked cars, the buildings that stretched down the street. He buttoned his jacket and set out on foot. The BMW was parked at the corner of Saint-Joseph, but he preferred to walk along Mont-Royal.
He enjoyed strolling through this artsy neighbourhood, rubbing elbows with the colourful residents of the Plateau, walking past the trendy boutiques and the little bistros crowded with regulars. He was a familiar customer at a few second-hand bookstores, where he had a knack for unearthing rare editions of comic books. He also spent long hours rummaging through their stacks of used CDs in search of musical treasures.
As he walked back in the direction of the car, he passed a man holding a sleeping child in his arms. Seeing the man, Snake was reminded of his father, but he quickly chased the thought out of his mind. There was nothing to be gained from false hopes. His youth wasn’t like a once-cherished CD rediscovered on a shelf. It couldn’t be replayed.
Jimbo and Snake had established a schedule that never varied. They started work at 7:00 a.m. each day, breaking off at noon when the streets became busy and things got too risky. Their second shift began around 5:00 p.m. and sometimes continued late into the night.
Between the two shifts, Snake would often go home for a nap. But he had to be careful. A month ago his mother, thinking he was at work, had come home unexpectedly. He’d had to pretend he was sick so as not to raise suspicions.
This morning, there had been another confrontation.
He had come downstairs in his underwear around 5:45 a.m. and found her struggling agitatedly with the toaster, which was spewing billows of greyish smoke.
Defiantly, he had opened the fridge and taken a swig of orange juice straight from the carton, a practice he knew she detested.
“Morning, Mom.”
Still busily poking at the toaster’s innards with a knife, she hadn’t turned around.
“What time did you get in last night?”
“I can’t remember.”
She had finally succeeded in extricating a charred crust of bread from the appliance.
“I went to bed at midnight and there was no sign of you.”
In her indignation, her voice had gone up an octave. “I’m not putting up with this! I don’t have time to discuss it now, because I have to get your sister to school. But you and I are going to have a talk tonight, young man!”
Arguing was pointless when she was in angry-mom mode. Now that she thought he was employed in a garage, he had a little more latitude. But he still had to figure out a way of taking afternoon naps without getting discovered.
Anyway, with the money he was saving, it wouldn’t be long before he could leave town and open that skateboard shop.
He had given his mother an obedient nod that would have made Ferris Bueller proud.
“Yes, Mom.”
And he had stepped out into the cool morning in fine spirits.
The day was shaping up to be a good one.
He and Jimbo had stolen three cars this morning. They could expect to get three more tonight. With a little luck, they’d pull in over a thousand dollars.
He parked the BMW on Pie-IX, near the iconic structure of the Olympic Stadium, the widely disliked colossal half shell that had been built for the 1976 Games.
It had a seating capacity of over seventy thousand.
Like many Montrealers, Snake thought the stadium was ugly, elegant, and glorious, all at the same time.
His grandfather, while he was alive, had been fond of saying that the stadium’s designer, Roger Taillibert, was either a genius or a nutcase. But as Snake beheld the looming concrete bowl, he couldn’t help thinking that the French architect was clearly both: a genius and a nutcase.
A memory came back to him.
He and his father had taken the funicular to the observatory at the top of the stadium tower, where they’d been able to gaze out at the city and surrounding suburbs. On a clear day, you could see nearly eighty kilometres out.
He shook himself out of the reverie.
His father was nothing but a hypocrite, a lousy traitor.
Holding a bag that contained two bagels, he rang the doorbell and entered the apartment without waiting for an answer.
An old lady’s voice came up the hallway.
“Is that you, my boy?”
“Yes, Mrs. Espinosa. I brought you something to eat.”
A very elderly woman approached along the linoleum floor, moving spryly. Bluish veins were visible under her papery skin.
She patted him on the shoulder.
“You’re a fine boy. A fine boy.”
Six months previously, Snake had snatched Mrs. Espinosa’s purse in a metro station. In his haste to flee, he had jostled her. The old woman had fallen.
The next day, overcome by guilt, he had found her address in the purse and returned it to her. She hadn’t been injured, but he’d gone back the next day anyway.
Since that time, they’d developed a ritual. Snake would drop in three times a week. Occasionally, if she had errands to run, he’d drive her. Like his mother, she believed that he worked in a garage.
Nobody knew about these visits, not even Jimbo. Snake had often asked himself why he kept going back. Maybe it was because the old lady was happy with what he had to offer.
“Would you like me to take you for a ride, Mrs. Espinosa? I just finished repairing a BMW. We could drive around the city, maybe stop in at Sai
nt Joseph’s Oratory. What do you say?”
“Good heavens, my boy, you can’t be serious!” The old lady liked to be persuaded.
------------------------
I heard footsteps and a clink of metal on metal.
“Ms. Fortin, can you hear me? I’m Dr. Pouliot. You’re in the intensive care unit of the Montreal General Hospital. Can you tell me what day it is?”
I tried to speak, but nothing came out of my mouth.
“It’s April 1st, 2005. Do you understand what I’m saying, Ms. Fortin?”
I nodded.
“You were brought in by an ambulance around eleven o’clock this morning. You’d been hit by a car in front of your office building. Do you remember?”
Unable to speak, I nodded again.
“You have a sprained right ankle and some contusions. You may be experiencing soreness or discomfort. Are you in any pain right now? I can give you something for that.”
I wasn’t in pain.
The doctor paused, as though catching his breath. Then he continued hesitantly.
“Ms. Fortin, you’ve also sustained a head trauma. We’re going to keep you under observation for a while. You were unconscious for several hours, and we want to be sure you’re okay. A nurse will stop by regularly to check your vital signs and neurological condition. You may have some difficulty remembering what day it is or where you are. You may even briefly have trouble recognizing loved ones. But don’t worry. With time, everything should gradually get back to normal.”
I didn’t react. I was in a state of shock.
• • •
An immense orderly with a long ponytail was pushing my hospital bed down a corridor, blazing a trail among the gurneys that lined the walls. I saw a toothless man lying on his side, spitting blood into a bowl, his emaciated body visible through his open hospital gown. Another man was shuffling along, step by tiny step, grimacing with effort as he dragged his IV pole behind him like a ball and chain. A woman lay on her back, her face a mask of pain as she filled the hallway with terrifying screams.
But I paid scant attention to the landscape of human misery through which I was travelling. Something the doctor had said was troubling me.
You were unconscious for several hours.
What was I supposed to think?
I knew that short-term memory could be affected by head trauma. Patients sometimes became confused, describing events that seemed plausible to friends and family, but turned out to be false. Was that my situation? Was I confused?
I knew very well that the brain was a complex mechanism. Even so, when I considered the matter from every angle, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Miles was simply a figment of my imagination.
Could I really be so incoherent that I had dreamed up the whole thing?
The orderly rolled my bed into room 222. Ariane was already there, putting a bouquet of flowers in a vase.
“How are you feeling?” she asked when we were alone.
I swallowed painfully.
“I feel like a brick was jammed down my throat. Have you been here long?”
“About an hour. You had me in a total panic.”
“Sorry,” I said with a weak smile.
“What happened?”
“I was crossing the street, and then … bam. It’s a total blank.”
“The doctor says that’s normal. Your short-term memory will come back little by little.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to worry Ariane. But my memory hadn’t been affected all. I remembered exactly what had happened. I hadn’t spent the day unconscious on a bed. I had spent it with Miles.
If only he were here to back me up.
7
Having resolved to fetch ice chips despite my sworn assurance that I didn’t need them, Ariane was raising hell in the corridor, bellowing like a madwoman.
Despite the racket, I was feeling better.
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the bland green walls reminding me that I was in a hospital, I could almost have denied reality and pretended that nothing had happened at all, that I had dreamed the whole thing.
But I knew that wasn’t the case.
Something had indeed happened. Something I couldn’t explain.
It may seem stupid, but when an inconceivable event takes place, we tend to fall back on concrete considerations. In anguish, I wondered whether there was a history of mental illness in my family — a history my parents had hidden from me. Maybe I was simply in the early stages of degenerative psychosis.
But, as Cyrano de Bergerac famously observed to Christian, “You’re not a fool if you’re aware of being one.” Did a similar logic apply in my case? Can a person really be crazy if she’s sane enough to wonder about her sanity?
Another kind of person might have sought explanations in mysticism or paranormal phenomena, but I didn’t believe in ghosts, or reincarnation, or out-of-body experiences. And I certainly had no faith in God. If there was a God, he’d missed out on some fine opportunities to reveal himself. As for the devil, I’d have happily offered him sexual favours in return for a timely intervention, but Lucifer, too, had been a no-show.
And, just for completeness’s sake, I was only too happy to mock anyone who believed in astrology. My attitude on the subject was so absolute that it bordered on pedantry.
Without knowing why, I found myself remembering a young man I had once ridiculed at a party after he suggested shyly that if the moon could influence ocean tides, then perhaps the stars were capable of affecting our lives. I felt guilty now as I recalled the flush in his cheeks when I made fun of him. What had become of that young man? I couldn’t help wondering whether I had inadvertently played a decisive role in his life by inflicting permanent damage on his self-confidence.
But these vague regrets had no effect on my convictions. I was certain that there was a rational explanation for what I’d been through. And I would find it.
There’s a logical reason for everything.
Ariane swaggered in like a conquering heroine, holding a bucket of ice chips and a plastic water pitcher that hardly inspired confidence.
“Here you go, sweetie. Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Thank you,” I said politely, as she poured out a glass that I would never drink.
I hesitated.
Even if Ariane was one of the few people in the world I could rely on, I wasn’t sure whether I should tell her about my encounter with Miles. If I was having trouble making sense of my own experience, what was she liable to think?
“You okay, sweetie?” she asked, as though picking up on my indecision. “You seem preoccupied.”
What choice did I have?
I took a deep breath, conscious of the possibility that I was about to make myself look ridiculous, or worse, unhinged. I imagined Ariane fleeing down the corridor in terror and coming back with Max von Sydow in his priest outfit from The Exorcist, ready to banish the demonic spirit that had possessed me.
“Can I trust you?” I asked.
“What kind of question is that?” she demanded indignantly.
“There’s something I need to tell you. You’re going to think I’ve lost my mind.”
With that, I began telling her the story of my twenty-four hours with Miles.
------------------------
Humming Charles Trenet’s classic song “La Mer,” he pressed the elevator button.
The doors opened on the sixth floor, where the administrative offices were located.
His hair was dyed black. He was wearing a charcoal pinstripe suit and steel-rimmed glasses and carrying a fine leather briefcase. He looked like a banker.
I am a chameleon.
He straightens up to make a mental note of the spot where the animal entered the forest. Suddenly, he hears a growl. He turns. A large black bear is glaring at him. One of the old man’s favourite pieces of advice comes back to him: “Melt into the environment like a chameleon.” The animal approaches to within a few centimetres
, sniffing his hands like a dog. He forces himself to hold still and stifles the scream rising in his throat. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t have time to raise his weapon and fire. The bear swats him hard with one paw, its claws lacerating his back. When he turns around, he sees that the animal has made off with his knapsack. Despite himself, he starts to cry.
• • •
Securing an appointment with the executive director of the Montreal General Hospital had turned out to be child’s play.
He had called Jacques Mongeau’s office.
Giving a false name, he had told Mongeau’s secretary that he represented a private trust that was interested in donating money to the hospital foundation. If the executive director had a few minutes to spare this afternoon, he’d like to meet him and discuss the matter.
After being informed that Mongeau couldn’t fit him in today, he had insinuated that the planned donation was substantial, and that the trust was having second thoughts about giving it to the hospital. The secretary had put him on hold.
Jacques Mongeau himself had come on the line a few seconds later and proposed that they meet at 2:30 p.m.
If everything went as planned, he would eliminate the man in the afternoon and arrive at the lodge in Mont-Laurier with his captive that night. His scheme for abducting Simone Fortin was audacious, but he felt like fortune was on his side.
------------------------
I left nothing out.
From Miles’s providential rescue to our walk through the cemetery, from Jamal’s improvised concert to my waking up in the hospital, I told Ariane the entire story.
But I made no mention of Étienne Beauregard-Delorme or the dark secrets of my past. It wasn’t easy to speak of things I’d worked so hard to conceal for so many years. I didn’t have the strength.
Not now.
Ariane’s face was full of compassion. “What a fabulous story. So romantic.”
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“Of course! Your unconscious was probably churning the whole time.”
“Ariane, I’m not talking about my unconscious. I was there!”
“Sweetie, Dr. Pouliot says it’s normal to —”
“What? Be confused? Incoherent?”
“You were in a coma.”
“Ariane, please. You think I’m delusional?”
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