Anne-Marie’s return from parental leave had changed the texture of my weeks. I looked forward to the days when we nibbled on sandwiches and chatted freely. There was one unspoken rule – no talking shop – so for me it was mostly being carried off into the world of Anne-Marie’s normality. What a boisterous household she had! Four children, a dog, two cats, many babysitters, a husband running for city council. With all that you’d think she would be brutalized by a lack of rest and have nerves steadily unravelling. But no. Anne-Marie absorbed the cacophony around her, dampened it and created tranquility. She also had a knack for unshackling people, drawing them out and letting them be themselves – at least, that’s how it was for me. Time spent with her was time spent being less ingrown and whenever the hour was up, in saying Thanks for the company, Anne-Marie. I enjoyed it. I was superficially stating that, for a while, I had experienced real bliss.
This time too she had deadpan stories of domesticity out of control. I laughed. I could feel the chaos. She inquired into my weekends, wanting to know if I was still out on the cross-country ski trails. Oh yes. The spring conditions were the best in years. As I described perfect, blue skies merging with brilliant white snow, and while she sipped her tea, I sensed she was looking past me towards the area where the styrofoam flowers were gathering. The impromptu cross was having an impact on her, because her expression darkened. “Can I ask you something, Carson?” Anne-Marie put down her tea cup. “This report on the virus which everyone thinks is so funny, it says the guy who did it was Romanian.”
“I read that too.”
“Do you know anything more? I mean, behind the scenes, has this plague stuff come up?”
I squeezed my lips and shook my head. Denial. Always denial. A reflex. Another day and one more reason for self-contempt. Anne-Marie was a friend; she had a right to honesty from me, yet I was incapable of it.
She read something. “The spook world, right? Sworn to secrecy.” I stared blankly. “The reason I ask, Carson, is that this virus – coming from Romania – it made me think of Rachel.”
“It happened in Vienna,” I said quickly. “It’s in the report. That’s where the immigration visa was denied. That was the cause. Bucharest isn’t mentioned”
“Are you sure? The last thing she needs is the inquisition creeps crawling all over her embassy.”
“They’ll concentrate on Vienna. No place else makes sense. Where the virus was sent from isn’t important. It could have been done anywhere. Why it was done, that’s what they’ll concentrate on, and the cause of the grudge is in Vienna. Anyway, the guy who did it is dead now, so there isn’t much to go after in Vienna either. Nowhere really. They’ll probably soon drop the whole thing.”
“I hope they leave Rachel alone. She’s not well. I can sense it. I don’t think she could cope with an investigation. Even with ambassadors those guys get ugly.”
When I insisted that she needn’t worry, she shrugged. I then asked, “How do you mean Rachel isn’t well?”
Anne-Marie’s eyes locked on mine, searching for something. What might she be seeing? Hypocrisy? Mendacity? She took her time, then she said softly, “Rachel is not herself. She hasn’t been for a long time. Something’s hanging over her. I called her a few days ago. She sounded moody, but wouldn’t say why.”
Rachel was running her embassy competently. The finances were in order. Her management of the programs was exemplary. And she was busy with diplomacy: calls on important Romanians, lectures at universities, formal openings of cultural events, lunches and receptions, big dinners in her residence for high-ranking visitors. Why would she be dispirited? I doubted it was her assignment in Romania. I thought of her photo in the papers. The change came before she was named ambassador. What could have happened? I wasn’t sure. But Anne-Marie was Rachel’s confidante. She would have insights from which I was barred. “How long do you think it’s been this way?” I inquired.
“I’d say it began after you went to see her in Berlin.” A sadness tinged Anne-Marie’s voice. “I wondered at the time, I still do, whether something happened there that neither of you wants to recognize.”
“Anne-Marie!” My thoughts began spinning. “Nothing happened in Berlin. It was no different there than ten years ago here. Rachel and I had wonderful conversations. She told me about her work. We talked about you and your lovely family. We did sightseeing together.”
“Maybe that was the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Carson.”
What could she be alluding to? The three days with Rachel in Berlin came not long after she ended her affair with Nikko Krause. The liaison with Abou-Ghazi began some months later. An in-between time for her. A unique experience for me. Long walks through a city more fascinating than I had thought possible. Under her direction my senses zeroed in on special places. She pointed out where the history of our times swept through Berlin and remains on view today, suspended from the façades of buildings. I felt stimulated there. Was it Berlin? Was it Rachel? Or both together, one enlivening the other? Whatever the reason, the experience was precious. Afterwards, whenever I thought back, those three days lived on in me and left me longing. In the evenings, alone in my apartment, needing reassurance that Berlin really did happen, I often opened the envelope containing the photo – a tourist snapshot of Rachel and me on the gangplank of a cruise ship on one of Berlin’s waterways. Rachel had been radiant and even I had managed some form of a smile. In Berlin we had dedicated unstructured time to each other. But nothing happened, not between us. It had to be that way. How else could the future with Rachel remain open?
“No,” I said firmly to Anne-Marie. “There wasn’t a problem. Rachel was kind to me in Berlin. She was generous with her time. She was understanding. But she has other interests. I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe you misjudge her.”
“I don’t believe so. Rachel needs space. She needs freedom. She needs nothing from me. There’s nothing I can give her.”
“Rachel is like all of us, Carson. She’s changing. She’s no longer the young recruit arranging to run into you in the hallways by chance to tease you.”
“I…Sorry, Anne-Marie…what are you driving at?”
“When we talk she always asks how you are.”
“She’s being kind,” I countered. Since Rachel was assigned abroad I had seen her three times in ten years – once for a half day of skiing, once for dinner at Anne-Marie’s house, and not too long ago for the three days in Berlin. I’d been through this with Anne-Marie before. Rachel and I were cordial there, as colleagues are. “If her mood has swung, if something is bothering her,” I concluded, “there’s another reason. Maybe her family. An illness. Something like that.”
Anne-Marie shook her head. “If it was about Oak Lake, she’d say so. She’s long past that anyway.”
Again I was puzzled. “Past what?”
Anne-Marie didn’t answer. Her pose of disbelief seemed to be saying that it couldn’t be true that I had never asked Rachel to tell me about herself, not even during three days of non-stop talking in Berlin.
“Maybe I should know,” I said, “but I don’t. Past what? What do you mean?”
Anne-Marie studied her tea mug. Slowly she lifted it to her lips and sipped. “All right,” she said and for the next ten minutes I listened.
It wasn’t such an unusual story, but it was special because it was Rachel’s. I couldn’t count the hours I had spent over the years tracking Rachel’s movements, yet I had no understanding of obvious things, of her upbringing, for example, and how she triumphed over it. During the few times I was with Rachel I found it impossible to ask her about herself. I feared she would look upon it as an attempt at intrusion and, as when others did this, I would promptly be consigned to her bygone days. I had come to believe that by staying distant I had a chance to remain constant. And so I knew nothing about her passive father, overbearing mother and three much-older brothers.
According to Anne-Ma
rie, the family mirrored the community in which it lived. Harry Dunn ran his farm machinery dealership. Rachel’s brothers, from the eldest to the youngest, ended up as insurance broker, construction contractor, and grain elevator operator. Rising above the men was Nellie, wife and mother, a dominating figure, the family provider, not of money, but of standards, customs and morals.
Nellie had nearly finished raising her three boys when Rachel was born and her late-life, same-sex child, fourth generation Oak Lake (in the female line), came in the nick of time. The baby would allow the tradition of a matriarchal value-system to be kept alive. Rachel grew up in an atmosphere of precisely planned days, fixed habits and strict attitudes. Every Christian prairie virtue was drilled into the girl to mould her future with care. Rachel would study to become a teacher and then work locally. Her existence was to be a reproduction of her mother’s, as her mother’s had been a copy of her mother. This succession of sameness began with Grace, a pioneer from Scotland who had created the torch that was handed from daughter to daughter to daughter.
As a child Rachel already felt the ancestral force. She saw its grip on her mother and understood it was being injected into her. How could she escape it? Once she hinted: If my great-grandmother could be a pioneer, why can’t I go somewhere to be one too? Why do I have to stay here? Rachel imagined a future that consisted mostly of questions, not answers.
Rachel left for Winnipeg to study. Once there, she dropped out of teacher training without much fanfare, but downplayed it. International relations is better, Mummy. It’s got history and geography in it. Good topics for kids to know.
Three years later she announced she planned to join the foreign service.
That is not wise! the mother erupted. You belong here. Grandmother decided to come west. You can’t go east. She went through hardship to get the family started.
Great-grandmother went west because she was looking for change. I want that too.
You don’t understand. Grandmother left the east for a better life. If you go back, that’s the same as saying the east is better. You’ll stay here, Rachel, and be a teacher. A good one too.
I’m not saying that one place is better or worse than any other. It’s just that…I’ll be happier not always living in the same one.
The discussion lasted the weekend. It raged, died down, spread beneath the surface, found fresh fuel, and flared up again.
Anne-Marie paused. I was leaning forward, hanging on every word. “It’s a marvel that Rachel held her own, that she didn’t buckle,” Anne-Marie continued. “What a contest of wills. Think about it. Growing up in a family straitjacket and standing up against three generations. That’s what she was doing. Rachel wrote her final exams and left directly for the east. Her conscience bothered her for years, a mortgage from her foremothers.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. I thought back to the day I first met Rachel when already then she had that sovereign look. “Rachel gave the impression that everything was easy, that her whole upbringing was a rich preparation. With what she went through, how did she turn out so accomplished? I’ve never known anyone so much further ahead than everyone and yet so natural and immediately liked.”
Anne-Marie thought about this. “Perhaps Rachel is like Grace. Perhaps she is becoming what Grace would have been if family survival hadn’t been all consuming.”
“And her elegance?” I asked, hungry for more insight. “What accounts for that?”
Anne-Marie thought about this too. In that quiet moment Rachel seemed to be with us, as in the early days. She was reaching through time and distance to join Anne-Marie and me in our little psychic bubble. Now, just as then, it shut out the cafeteria clatter. This bubble, for all I could tell, might have floated up and carried us away, so intense was the concentration on Rachel. Anne-Marie took her time and her expression shifted. Looking into her tea mug, staring at the leaves, she seemed to want to see the future. Finally she said: “What accounts for her elegance? Next time you see Rachel, Carson, ask her yourself.”
“Next time?” I shook my head. “Sorry. No chance. I’m sure it will be a long time before I see her again. Anyway, I’m not at ease asking her questions like that.”
“What’s so difficult about picking up the phone?”
“She would misinterpret it.”
“Oh Carson, you’re a block of ice. Warm up. Why is talking about private matters so difficult for you? I know you were married once. Have you ever told anyone what being married was like, why it started, why it ended? Have you told Rachel?”
“I…this…it’s very personal.”
“Ten years ago you impressed Rachel with what you knew. Five years ago you won her respect when you showed her friendship. Some months ago you disappointed her because for three days you were correct, but distant.”
“In Berlin?”
“Yes, in Berlin. You’ve known Rachel for more than a decade and how far have you got? Are you planning to start living after you turn ninety?”
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say. Do. Make something happen.”
I recall, what Anne-Marie said confused me and I had difficulty absorbing it. When she then placed her hand on mine and squeezed, I shrugged as if to indicate I would try. The psychic bubble burst then. She got up and took her tray and I followed her out the cafeteria. Wordlessly we slipped past St. Radu’s little shrine. Then, just before Anne-Marie parted for her tower, she touched my elbow. “Think about it, Carson. Let’s talk some more. Next week?” Still dazed I nodded.
Through the foyer throng I headed for my cell. It may have seemed that I had purpose in my stride, but really I was fleeing from my thoughts. They came at me haphazardly. Why was Rachel unhappy? And why did Anne-Marie nudge me so consistently into her direction? But mostly, why was all this so ambiguous? Suppose I took her advice and called Rachel – to tell her about myself. Suppose I found the courage to be honest about what, over the years, I had done. Surely she would react with disgust. Thoughts such as these were arriving, fragmenting, receding, leading nowhere and creating discord in my head.
Behind the sliding doors in the common area the watchers were ending their lunch. I picked up bits of their banter. It sounded agreeable enough, mostly about the fine spring day and the promise of good times to come: weekends at lakeside cottages, wilderness camping, canoeing on the untamed rivers to the north. But my severity – my fear dressed up as bitterness – was at odds with the warm weather leisure they were planning. I didn’t want to spoil their party mood and, anyway, they ignored me too. Behind the locked door of my cell I took time to collect myself, to digest Anne-Marie’s hints and sift through the implications. Anne-Marie’s advice – Pick up the phone and call her! – suggested Rachel was willing to hear from me. It was a ray of light and pointed at a potential, yet perversely for years I had been creating conditions which – were they to be known – would instantly obliterate that potential. A grotesque irony. How was it that I was always engaged in the destruction of the very thing I so urgently desired? I buried my face in my hands and for perhaps a quarter of an hour agonised…
…until relief seeped in. It always did. The familiar energy welled up and I gave in. Every addict knows the compulsive reach for the narcotic, the erasure of the obsession by yielding to it.
And so I pushed the button that booted my computer. Logged in, morally numb, hurrying, eager for information, I raced straight for the great global databases (neglecting in my haste to take certain precautions). Pre-set search procedures for Rachel’s comings and goings were activated with one click. Strange how that world of weird omniscience always provided a nearness to Rachel without posing a threat.
The computer whirred and pinged and it wasn’t long before I saw she was travelling again. She’d left Bucharest for Egypt. It excited me and spurred a need to know still more. I became more methodical now, following the minutiae of secure access to Hugh-S’s collection of recorded electronic communications. I punched in a few do
zen search strings and sent them into the query queue. This would take time. Next, entirely rational now, and determined too, I initiated a detailed sifting through the sources of telemetric data that would reveal whether Morsi Abou-Ghazi’s yacht, in sync with Rachel’s arrival, was steaming towards Alexandria.
The compilation of this data would take some hours and I attended to my normal work, reviewing updates on ongoing files, one dealing with shipments of Russian-made arms to the Tamil Tigers, financed by certain Sri Lankans in Toronto with good access to laundered money. The circumstantial evidence was promising and I set out to deepen it, digging through layers of depravity spread over three continents. It had a settling down effect. Late that afternoon I looked in on my bigger search. Transcripts of telephone conversations continued to be lifted and details of Abou-Ghazi’s yacht’s movements were forming…
It is easy now to look back to that day and see clearly what had happened. I had been emotionally drained after lunch and wasn’t myself when I logged on, at least that became my excuse. At the time, I suspected nothing. I was ignorant that the slips I made set distant wheels in motion and was unaware when I logged out that Jaime in her lab had been observing a good part of what I did that afternoon. I immediately suspected something had happened when Zadokite Port flashed briefly on my screen, but for weeks was unable to figure out what it was. In the end, Jaime herself, for her own reasons, confided everything to me. She told me that the day before, just after the High Council session, Heywood had come to her and issued an order. Henceforth all her computing might was to be focussed solely on me.
A scorpion, Jaime, that’s what he is. Flush him out so that once and for all time I can squash the beast.
11 CHAPTER ELEVEN
Actually, the previous day when Heywood knocked on Jaime’s door with news of his High Council victory (and triggered off the chain reaction which drove me on the run), scorpion was not his first descriptive. There was that other poisonous creature that had tried to sting him.
Borderless Deceit Page 14