Julian

by William Bell

  I boarded the car behind hers and took up a position by the door. At the Dundas Street station she got off, took the stairs to the surface and strolled west, more slowly now, turning north on McCaul, striding along in the shade of the trees. She turned into a boutique restaurant—some kind of upscale Middle Eastern place, with a menu displayed in a glass-fronted box on a post outside. I walked past, realizing right away I couldn’t follow her in. The place was so small there would be no dark corner where I could sit and observe her secretly. Besides, I probably couldn’t afford even a glass of water in there. So I jaywalked across the street and stood beside a flower stall, in the shadows, leaning against the alley wall. I took out the cell and snapped a picture of the restaurant.

  She had entered the place alone. If she was meeting a friend, they’d probably leave together. I could get a shot of the two of them. All I had to do was wait. So I pulled a paperback from my pocket and tried to read, glancing across the road every few minutes. Captain Alatriste was chasing the Pirates of the Levant—which was a funny coincidence, because the restaurant was called Foods of the Levant. The book told an old-fashioned story, part of a series that took place mostly in Spain a long time ago, with lots of adventure and sword fights and beautiful women and tough, brave men who would draw a sword or dagger in a flash to defend their honour, or the honour of one of the beautiful women. As I read I was conscious of people passing, drifting into the edge of my vision, momentarily blocking my view of the restaurant, then slipping out of sight. It happened dozens of times. Then someone stopped. I paid no attention. Until I heard a voice I recognized.

  “Well, well. A literary loiterer.”

  She stood there blocking my sightline to the restaurant, hands on her hips, the sun behind her. She had rolled up her camo jacket and tied it around her waist. The military pants and boots were the same—and so was the blue beret, worn at a rakish angle. But it wasn’t her clothing that made everything around her seem to disappear.

  At the Van Gogh exhibit I had glimpsed her eyes only briefly, and in dim lighting. Now she stood—in my way—drenched in early afternoon sunlight that set her thick auburn hair blazing, highlighting her amazing green eyes. She was about shoulder-height on me, slender, with a faint spray of freckles under her eyes and a mischievous look on her face.

  I closed my book self-consciously and jammed it into my pocket.

  “Remember me?” she smirked.

  “Sort of.”

  Which was an understatement. I had thought more than once about her, the mysterious thief with the French accent who had sneaked into the gallery and stolen at least one wallet from unwitting women before she disappeared. She had been the brightest part of a day that was—to say the least—eventful.

  I took a step sideways to keep the restaurant door in sight.

  “A month ago, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “More like two. It snowed.”

  “Not in the gallery.”

  I forced a laugh at the lame joke. How could I get her to stay? I rummaged around in my brain for conversational ploys.

  “I was on a field trip,” I explained. “Art. Well, obviously.” I felt the blush rising into my face.

  Her look was full of challenge. Come on, it seemed to say, impress me. Give me a reason not to move on. Or was I misjudging her? After all, it was she who had stopped to talk. She could have breezed right on by and, intent on my book and my stakeout, I wouldn’t have noticed. I made myself try again.

  “Anyway,” I began.

  “I owe you one,” she interrupted.

  “Er—”

  “For warning me. At the gallery. About the guard watching me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  “So how about I buy you a coffee or something?”

  “Sure. Yeah, good,” I stumbled. “I’d like that. You can tell me more about the sky in Provence.”

  She smiled again. The girl who had asked a few minutes ago if I remembered her. How could I forget?

  “Well, let’s go. I know a place near here.”

  Just then the subject came through the door of the restaurant. With a man, who held his hand in the small of her back, as if guiding her to the street. They turned south, walking side by side.

  Dammit. Now what to do? Break off the trail and go with the girl? I could tell Curtis the subject hadn’t shown at one o’clock, that I’d hung around for a half-hour, as he instructed me. But he’d demand to know why I hadn’t called him. Or I could say I had lost her—and he’d never hire an incompetent like me again. While I wavered, the man and woman continued along, moving farther and farther away. In a few minutes I really would lose them.

  “You coming?” the girl asked.

  “Er, I just need to make a quick call first.”

  I took out the cell, pretended to key in a number. “It’s me,” I said to the silent phone. “Now? Can’t it wait? Alright, yeah.”

  I shoved the phone back into my pocket.

  “Sorry, I gotta go. Maybe—”

  Her face clouded. Her eyes hardened. “I get it. Some other time.”

  “I mean it,” I blurted. “I want to.”

  But she had already begun to walk away.

  “Where can I find you?” I called out.

  “The park behind the art gallery,” she replied over her shoulder. “Sometimes.” And she turned up a side street and was gone.

  Cursing my luck, I dashed across the street and hurried to catch up to the woman and her friend—or lover, or colleague, or brother, or whatever he was. In the distance I caught sight of them as they turned onto Dundas Street in the direction of University Avenue. Once they were out of sight I ran to catch up, slowing as I turned the corner. They were ambling along, as if stretching out their time together. At the subway entrance, they stopped. And kissed.

  Mystery solved. Not a brother or colleague. I had time to get three pictures. It was a long kiss.

  I tailed her back to the office, snapped one last shot as she pushed through the office building door, then called Curtis. He said to come straight back. I logged my time and expenses into a small notebook I had bought at the QuickMart that morning. On my way to Curtis’s office I detoured to the park where the girl said I might find her. She wasn’t there.

  Curtis was happy with my work when I recounted the woman’s lunch date and showed him the pictures. He hooked the cell up to a little printer and ran off a couple of copies of each photo. After examining them, especially the kiss, he beamed. His grin confirmed that the assignment hadn’t been personal; it was for a client.

  “Great work,” he said. “I have all I need. You won’t need to follow her again.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, if I need you for another job, are you up for it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Good. Now, I have a lot of work to do, so if there’s nothing else …”

  I fished out my notebook. “Yeah, there is. You owe me for two and a half hours and two subway tokens.”

  NINE

  THAT EVENING, I climbed the narrow stairs to the attic apartment. On the way up I whispered, “Julian,” to myself a few times. That morning Gulun had called me to the cash register and for a minute or so I kept stacking the shelves by the coffee machine and didn’t answer. I had thought my new name was second nature by then. I’d have to be careful.

  I knocked softly on the door. From within I could hear a television, a baby crying, a woman’s soothing voice. It was my first go-round on rent collection, part of my job as caretaker of the house—not a hard task, I thought, since there were only three tenants and one of them was me.

  Fiona yanked open the door and stood red-faced and flustered, her toddler balanced on one hip, a steaming mug on the table behind her. A large plaque on the wall read, I’M NOT THE GREATEST MOM IN THE WORLD BUT I’M TRYING.

  “Oh!” Fiona said. “Julian. Um, come in.”

  Despite the open window over the sink the cramped two-room apartment smelled of fried sausages and dirt
y diapers. There were recently used dishes on the kitchen table and the high-chair tray was smeared with blobs of dark green something-or-other. Fiona lowered the baby into a mesh-sided playpen in front of the TV, used the remote to switch from news to a cartoon channel, then shoved a clothes rack draped with baby clothes against the wall, out of the baby’s reach.

  “Come and sit down,” she invited, gathering the dishes and piling them in the sink. “We were just finishing supper and I haven’t had my well-earned break yet. Your timing is perfect. Cuppa tea?”

  I took a chair. “I guess so. Thanks.”

  Fiona was a small woman—in height—plump, with jet-black hair worn short and straight. A florid complexion and a button nose over a small mouth gave her a no-nonsense expression. She filled a mug with tea the colour of chocolate, topped up her own and shoved the milk jug and sugar bowl across the table to me.

  “Settled in alright, are you?” she asked. When she spoke she rolled her Rs and cut off her Ts.

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Grand. It’s a bonny place to live, this house. Quiet neighbourhood, decent landlord, and enough heat in the bloody winter, not like my old place. And between you and me, the rent is fair.”

  The baby was standing in the playpen, gripping the frame in both hands and shaking it as if attempting to tear it apart, giving out a stream of gurgles and chirps.

  “What’s his—her—name?” I asked.

  “Roger. He’s two. My wee man, but a handful, I can tell you.”

  “He seems to like the cartoons.”

  “Aye. I hate to plop him in front of the tube like that, but it gives me a bit of a breather.”

  Both of us stared at Roger for a moment, then I said, “Um, I’m supposed to collect your rent. Is that okay?”

  “Aye, I guessed as much. Won’t be a tick.”

  She bustled into the other room and came back with an envelope, which she placed in front of me. She sat down and took a sip of tea.

  “So, Julian, are you working these days?”

  I told her about the convenience store, but not Curtis.

  “Going to school?” she asked. “University? College?”

  “No. I’m done with school, for now anyway.” And glad of it, I thought.

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly, inviting more information, but I said nothing. She smiled.

  “Alright. Understood. Enough said. A man who keeps his counsel, I see. I’m a nurse at East General, up Coxwell there. And as you’ve probably noticed from my comings and goings, I work shifts. I’ve only been there a few years, so my seniority is low and I get pushed about on the roster at times. Roger’s daycare is with a woman down the street. God, I was lucky to find her. She’s a treasure.”

  “Well, I guess I better—”

  “Oh, stop awhile and have another cup of tea,” she cut in, jumping up and filling the kettle before I could put in a word. She chatted on about her job, the doctors and patients and other nurses, and I came to the conclusion she was lonely. Maybe the job and the kid filled her life. One look at the apartment told me a nurse didn’t make much money. I knew she didn’t have a car. After she wound down a bit I made another try.

  “Well, thanks for the tea,” I said, picking up the envelope with her rent in it. “I better get going.”

  “Not at all, Julian. Drop in any time.”

  The contrast between Fiona’s little apartment and the one on the main floor couldn’t have been more dramatic. Thad Rawlins insisted I call him “Just Rawlins—everybody does” as he shook my hand at his front door. He invited me into a spacious room flooded with evening light from the two bay windows, a room that looked like a cross between a bookshop and a music store. A keyboard flanked by tall loudspeakers stood by one window, an open laptop and other electronic components I couldn’t identify lined up along the headboard above the keys. By the other window an array of instruments—two guitars, a banjo and a mandolin—stood in their stands like benched athletes ready to be sent into the game. Stacks of books and magazines and sheet music hid the top of a wide coffee table in front of a leather couch. And every inch of available wall space was covered with full bookshelves.

  Dressed in denims and a long-sleeved collarless shirt under a leather vest, Rawlins himself was tall and lanky and loose-boned. Everything about him—his face, his limbs, his fingers—was long. His voice was deep and scratchy and resonant.

  “Come on in,” he insisted when I told him my mission. “Take a load off. I’ll go get the tribute.”

  I didn’t know what tribute meant but I didn’t say so. I lowered myself onto the couch. Rawlins came back into the room, his slippers brushing the threadbare rug, a wad of cash in his hand.

  “Good thing you caught me today,” he said. “Had a gig last night and I haven’t had a chance to blow all my coin on used books or fast women.”

  I jammed the money into the envelope Fiona had given me.

  “Sorry about the small bills,” he said, smiling. His teeth were long, too. “That’s what happens when you get paid out of the bar receipts.”

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  Rawlins sat down and crossed his ankles. “So, how do you like it here?” he inquired.

  “It’s okay.”

  A chuckle rumbled. “You’re pretty easy to please, Julian.”

  “No, really. I like it.”

  “Little Roger’s bawling doesn’t get on your nerves and keep you awake?”

  “I can hardly hear him. It’s not a problem.”

  I didn’t add that I liked the muted sounds that came from upstairs: the baby fussing at night, Fiona’s footsteps overhead, her voice as she soothed her baby.

  “Nice girl, Fiona.”

  “Yeah, I think so too.”

  “Ever hear people out there in the downstairs hall? Or the spare rooms?”

  “Not so far, and if I do I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

  “Falls into the Mind Your Own Business category, right?”

  I nodded.

  “What about my music students murdering Appalachian ballads on the mandolin or guitar?” he continued. “The only thing worse than a baby screaming is someone missing the frets.”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” I replied truthfully.

  “You like the mandolin?”

  “I guess so. Well, not really, if I’m honest. It’s a bit plinky-plunky for me.”

  This time Rawlins laughed outright. “ ‘Plinky-plunky!’ I’ll have to remember that. Sure you don’t mean the ukulele?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard one.”

  Rawlins leapt to his feet, fetched the mandolin from its stand, rummaged around in a vest pocket and came up with a pick, and took his seat. He whipped the instrument’s strap over his head.

  “This is sort of like a uke,” he explained, playing a snatch of a tune I didn’t recognize, making the mandolin sound, well, plinky-plunky. “Sound familiar?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “That’s a badly played mandolin. I shouldn’t say ‘badly.’ My students are learning the fundamentals. Here’s what it should sound like.”

  This time the sound was full and rich on the deep notes, clear and ringing on higher notes.

  “Okay,” I said. “Definitely not plinky-plunky.”

  Rawlins chuckled again, returning the instrument to its stand. “Kinda music do you like?” he asked. “Rock? Alternative? Folk?”

  “I don’t know anything about music. I hardly ever listen to it.”

  “I think you may be the first person your age I’ve ever met who didn’t listen to music. You don’t even have a favourite band?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, you and me are going to have a lot to talk about next time you visit. And if you ever want a lesson …” He let the thought hang.

  “Yeah, er, maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  Smiling, he replied, “Try to harness your enthusiasm.”

  “Okay,” I said, getting up and mo
ving toward the door.

  “See you, Julian,” he said.

  TEN

  THE NEXT DAY I planned to deliver the rent money to the address Chang had given me, thinking I might as well drop it off during my daily run; it would give me a destination to head for. At home in my kitchen after work I spread a city map across the table and used the index to find the street I wanted. It connected to Spadina, near Mr. Bai’s office above the restaurant with the dragons.

  I had learned nothing new about the old man, but Chang had told me he was a property owner. I assumed Mr. Bai owned the restaurant and the house where I lived and the store where Mr. and Mrs. Altan presided over the potato chips and pirated DVDs.

  I gave my attention to the approximate route I would take across the city, making sure to include the park behind the art gallery, which the map told me was called Grange Park. I pored over the grid of streets as if reading a book. I preferred paper maps to online versions. My fascination with rivers, and all the projects I had researched, had led me to a love of maps too. I liked the idea that I was looking at a piece of the world in two dimensions. I’d study a map, with its mountain ranges, cities, coastlines, and I’d imagine what it was like to live there.

  The city I was looking at now had a few sizeable streams—the Humber, Don, Rouge and, farther out, the Etobicoke and Credit. What was it like back in time, I wondered, before there was a city here? One thing was for sure—those rivers were different now.

  I changed into shorts and a tank top, slipped the rent money into the small, teardrop-shaped backpack I used for running, and left the apartment.

  The sky was overcast, the air hot and clammy and still. Thunderstorm weather. But I decided to go anyway. My hopes rose with every step I took toward Grange Park. Would she be there? Would she be angry at me for what she must have thought was a brush-off on McCaul St. that day? I slowed as I came down Beverley, passed the gallery and jogged into the park. The threatening sky hadn’t scared off many people. A pickup soccer game was underway on the grass. Most of the benches were occupied by street people grabbing a nap, or men and women reading books and drinking from paper cups, or kids just hanging out.