by William Bell
At High Park we walked to the grassy slopes beside Grenadier Pond. It was a perfect day, the clear sky a blue dome above, the breeze off the lake soft and cool, the beds of flowers a riot of colour against the green lawns. Ninon, in her T-shirt and shorts and leather sandals, looked summery and beautiful. Very kissable. But her flu was making her suffer with puffy eyes and cheeks glowing with fever. Periodically, coughs shook from deep in her chest. I should have postponed the picnic.
We spread our blanket beside a flower bed with a view of the pond and unwrapped the sandwiches. Ninon tried to eat, but each bout of coughing seemed to tear something loose inside her. She rummaged in her backpack and came up with a bottle of cough syrup. That helped a bit. I ate sandwiches guiltily while we talked, but Ninon had no appetite.
“Do you mind if I ask you something?” I said.
“How can I say if I’d mind until I hear the question?”
“So …”
“So ask.”
“I’ve always wondered why you didn’t want me to know where you live. You said it’s a hostel, but that’s all.”
Ninon looked away, as if something on the far shore of the pond had suddenly attracted her attention. I waited. Finally she replied.
“I never told you because I’m ashamed.”
A second later there were tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It used to be that I lived in a big sunny flat with my parents and I had my own room with a view over the quai to the big school across the way. My maman was a respected seamstress with her own business. My papa was a chef. Now they’re dead and I’m in a foreign country and I’m poor—no, not poor. Destitute. I live in a mission, sleep in a dorm with other women. I beg on street corners. And I steal!”
That word released a flood of emotion she had held back for a long time. I pushed her satchel aside and put my arm around her. After a while she calmed. I knelt in front of her and wiped away her tears with my shirt-tail.
“Not very romantic,” I said. “I should have brought a hanky.”
I wanted to ask Ninon to move into my apartment. There was lots of room. She’d be off the streets and she could look for work in the neighbourhood. But I couldn’t say anything or raise her hopes until I was sure. Lately my place wasn’t safe, and it wouldn’t be until whatever was going on stopped going on. And when would that be?
Her eyes, still pooled with tears, were so sorrowful I felt my throat swell.
“Julian,” she whispered. “You’re the only one who cares about me.”
I felt water gather in my own eyes. She scrambled to her knees and put her arms around me and we held each other.
“I love you,” I said.
She squeezed me tighter. “Me too.”
“Things will get better,” I soothed. “We can work together. You’re not alone anymore.”
Then Ninon whispered in the playful voice I wished I could hear more often, “You and me. Team Orphan.”
I laughed. “Team Orphan.”
It seemed a good time to kiss, so we did.
“You’ll catch my cold,” she said, coughing.
We lay back on the blanket, holding hands and talking, shielding our eyes from the blue intensity above us. The “here and there” job Ninon had pretended to have turned out to be begging. I couldn’t criticize. It was what you did when you ran out of choices. Maybe I could ask Bai if he could find her a job. But it seemed the wrong time to approach him, when I was up in the air about him. For all I knew I could be on my own too, soon. I might be a step away from begging myself.
We walked around the park a bit, but as time passed, Ninon’s flu seemed to get worse.
“You should go to a clinic,” I suggested.
“I’ll shake it off in a few days.”
“St. Joseph’s hospital is nearby. We could go there.”
She shook her head.
“What did the doctor say?”
Confused, she asked, “What doctor?”
“The one at the, er, place you stay. He took some blood?”
Ninon was made breathless by a coughing fit. When it cleared she said, “I didn’t hear anything. I think he forgot about me.”
“Well, you ought to follow up on that. I’m worried about you. You should be in bed. Let’s go.”
On the way back, the swaying of the streetcar lulled Ninon to sleep. I didn’t wake her until we got to the stop near the mission. I helped her down the streetcar’s steps and put my arm around her.
“I’ll be okay now,” she said.
She didn’t want me to walk with her to the mission, even though I could see the white sign from there.
“Alright. Call me if you need anything.”
Slipping her satchel strap over her shoulder, she nodded.
“Promise,” I said.
Ninon smiled. “Promise.”
She walked down the deserted street, her head down, her slender back bent slightly to take the weight of her carryall. When she disappeared into the building I turned and, deciding to go part of the way home on foot, headed north, strolling along by myself toward an empty apartment, wondering if I looked as lost as Ninon did.
TWENTY-FIVE
WHEN I GOT TO MY STREET I noticed the watcher right away.
I stopped and stared at the car. After my short break with Ninon the mysteries rushed back, taunting me, telling me I was just a bystander in a game whose rules I couldn’t even figure out, much less follow. Suddenly I was fed up. What was the point of making a new life for myself when I was allowing it to be ruined even before it got properly underway? I wasn’t the painter anymore; I was the canvas.
I turned onto my footpath as usual, but I dropped my pack on the verandah and grabbed the folded lawn chair that was leaning against the railing. Whether it was fuelled by worry over Ninon’s worsening health or frustration with the irritating state of ignorance I constantly found myself in, a rush of adrenaline propelled me down the road. Eyes glued to the watcher’s windshield, I banged the chair onto the sidewalk directly across the street from him, sat down and stared at him through the car window.
He glanced my way, then snapped his head back around, eyes front, pretending not to notice me. I kept my eyes on him, my breathing fast and shallow, my blood boiling. He fished a road map out of his glove compartment, unfolded it and pretended to consult it as if it held directions to buried treasure. His incompetence only goaded my anger.
While he studied his map I got up and circled the car, stopping a few paces in front of the hood. I pulled out my cell and took a photo of the license plate and a few pictures of the watcher. That seemed to rattle him. I returned to my chair and resumed staring. Eventually he folded his map, started the car and drove sedately up the street. What a clown!
The whole episode had lasted no more than a few minutes. When I got back to my apartment, my hands were shaking.
As if things weren’t confusing enough, a new guest arrived that night. He was no underfed, scared young woman destined for a restaurant kitchen. He was confident enough to break the most sacred of Chang’s rules, leaving his room the next morning to knock on my door just as I was getting ready to go to work. Dressed in a rumpled blue three-piece, stocky, with wire-framed glasses perched on a broad fleshy nose, he looked like some kind of professional who had seen better days. He also stank of cigarette smoke.
“I from downstairs,” he announced in broken English.
“Oh,” I replied, shocked to see him out of his room. None of the other guests had voluntarily shown their faces. It was strictly against Chang’s regulations.
“Er, come in.”
He took a step inside the apartment, his face pinched with anxiety. A man out of his element.
“They not to give me xiang yan.”
“Oh,” I said again.
“Cigarette,” he explained, holding up his hand and forming a V with the first two fingers. “You have?”
I shook
my head. “But I can bring you some, I guess. I work in a store.”
Behind the glasses his eyes slid to the side as he processed the words.
“Thank-a-you. Now?”
“No, I can’t. After lunch.”
“Mmm, long time.”
Where did he get off, being so demanding?
“Best I can do.”
The man nodded and left, thumping not at all secretively down the stairs. A moment later I heard his door open and close. I locked up and headed off to work.
Soon after I got home, a cough told me the smoker was back on my doorstep.
He followed me into the kitchen, where I had begun to make lunch—a few samosas heated up in the micro and a pot of tea. He eyed my backpack, scratching his ear with nicotine-stained fingers. I plugged in the kettle, then pulled out two packs of “tax-free”—smuggled—cigarettes and put them on the table.
“Here you are.”
He picked up one pack and broke the seal. I stopped him.
“Sorry, no. Not in here. Outside or in your room.”
I handed him the second pack.
“Come back and have some tea.”
“Yes, yes. I will back. Thank-a-you.”
Half an hour later we were sitting at the table, crumb-strewn plates and a second mug of tea before us, stumbling through a halting conversation about not very much. He never gave me his name and I didn’t ask. More Chang-inspired hush-hush. I wondered what had brought him to this country. He was different from the others, who were, from what I could tell, anonymous and frightened. This man was uneasy—I could see that in his face and gestures—but underneath were signs of confidence. He was apparently not interested in spending all of his time under a blanket in his room.
“I sorry my poor English,” he said. “I am, mmm, rusty. That is the word?”
“Yeah. It’ll do.”
For the first time he seemed to relax a bit. He sat back and looked around the kitchen and living room. “You have many books,” he observed, looking at the full shelf in the living room.
“Would you like to borrow a few?”
The next thing I knew he was on his knees, pulling paperbacks from the shelf.
“No offence, but can you read them alright?”
“Yes, yes,” he replied. “I read well. Speaking very …”
“Rusty.”
“Dui! Yes.”
He got to his feet, smiling, clutching a half-dozen mysteries. He had nothing to do in his room all day except smoke and wait and worry until Chang sent someone to whisk him away some night. There was no TV or radio in either downstairs room. The boredom must be driving him nuts.
“Would you like me to bring you a newspaper?” I asked.
“You can get English? Chinese?”
“I’ll try.”
I could ask Mama Zhu what Chinese papers to buy.
“Can you tell me your name?” I asked on impulse, thinking maybe he’d break this rule too.
“Lao Chang say not.”
“Well then, what should I call you?”
His eyes rolled up as he thought. “I choose an English name … um, Charr.”
This is an English name? “Did you say Charr?”
“Yes. You know Charr Dicken? Famous English writer? I very like his books. I borrow his name.”
“Okay, Charr it is. I’m Julian.”
He nodded. “Jurian.”
“Close enough,” I said.
After Charr had thumped back down to his room with his books, I looked up the number of the mission and, perched on the edge of my window chair with my eye on the street outside, punched the number into my work cell.
“Guiding Light.”
A male voice, ageless and uninviting.
“I’d like to speak to Ninon Bisset if she’s there.”
“Staff only.”
“Pardon me?”
“You can only talk to someone on our staff. We don’t give out the name of anyone who may or may not be a guest at the mission.”
“But she’s a regular. If you could just tell her—”
“And we certainly don’t take messages.”
“Will you at least let me know—”
“Have a nice day.”
And he ended the call.
I stabbed the OFF button on the cell. I hadn’t really expected to be able to talk to Ninon, but I was hoping. Should I go over there? I wondered. I probably wouldn’t get past the doorbell. Some of the people who made use of the mission would be, like Ninon and me, on the run—hiding—and regardless, as the man had grumpily told me, the mission wasn’t there to act as a message service. But images of Ninon shuddering from a coughing fit and burning up with fever wouldn’t leave me alone. I pulled on my running togs and, although the mission was a long way off, I included it in my route for the day.
No luck. She may have been there. Or on the moon, for all I was able to discover. I jogged off, wishing she’d call and let me know how she was doing.
After supper I was out front, cultivating the flower beds that skirted the verandah, when a cab deposited Rawlins and his travel bag and four instrument cases on the sidewalk. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, propped the cultivator against the porch railing and went to help him with his baggage.
“You have an extra guitar,” I said in greeting, picking up two of the cases.
Despite the heat, Rawlins was sporting a long-sleeved, snap-button shirt with pointy pocket flaps, faded denims and dusty cowboy boots.
“Hey, Julian. Yeah, bought the new one in Kentucky. Come on in and take a look.”
A few minutes later, after throwing open every window in his stuffy apartment, Rawlins flipped the latches on the case and, with a wide grin on his weathered face, held up the instrument for my inspection. It was a six-string, all black, polished smooth as glass, with gold tuning pegs and an inlaid pearl Q on the head.
“Wow.”
“Brand new. Handmade. Ordered it two years ago from the artisan; he’s a slow worker but worth the wait. Solid top, sides and back—the guitar, not the craftsman. Want to hear it?”
“Yeah.”
While Rawlins tuned the guitar I pushed aside a stack of sheet music and sat on the couch looking around, wondering where Chang’s techie had discovered the bugs—something I wouldn’t be telling Rawlins about. He began to play, using a flat pick and his fingers. A piece he called “The Drummers of England” flowed out of the instrument, the beat steady and brisk, but not military or aggressive like the title suggested. I wished I knew something about music. The tune was beautiful. I liked it, but I didn’t know why I liked it. I wondered how long it took to be as good as Rawlins.
When he finished, I asked, “Did you make up the tune?”
“Wish I had. No, that’s a Barenberg piece.”
“Well, the new guitar sounds fantastic.”
As if he’d tuned in on my thinking, Rawlins added, “You know, Julian, I could have you making music—not concert grade, but a beginning—in a month, if you want.”
I was tempted, but with all the confusion in my life right then, I couldn’t see my way clear.
“Maybe one of these days,” I replied.
As the dark came on, the breeze dropped, leaving the air velvety and close. Sitting in my chair by the window, I heard guitar music downstairs. I could also detect cigarette smoke floating on the sultry air coming through my window screen. I guessed that Charr was on the verandah. He wasn’t even supposed to be out of his room, never mind outside the house.
I found him sitting on a lawn chair, eyes closed, head back, a cigarette burning between his fingers. Enjoying the music, I supposed. Who could blame him? His room would be roasting, the air stiff and stale. The clap of the screen door as I came out broke his reverie.
“Ah, Jurian. Thank you for newspaper.”
I had popped into a shop near home at the end of my run and picked up a couple of dailies for him.
“That’s okay,” I replied, sitting on the verandah sw
ing. “Hey, I never asked. Do you have enough food?”
“Chang give me.”
I nodded. Maybe it was the peaceful night, the mood created by the music, but I thought Charr might open up a little.
“You come from China,” I began.
Charr nodded. I waited but nothing more came.
“What part of China?” I asked, as if his reply would make a dent in my total ignorance of the place.
He tapped another smoke from the almost empty pack and lit up.
“North part,” he replied vaguely.
Okay, he wouldn’t play. Might as well go for broke.
“I guess Mr. Bai helped you get to this country,” I said casually, studying his face.
He tried not to show a reaction, but, behind his glasses his eyes narrowed for a split second.
“I not know this person.”
I gave up and changed the subject. “It sure is a nice night.”
He restricted himself to a nod.
We sat back and let Rawlins’s guitar serenade us with a slow ballad. I recognized the tune but couldn’t name it. I let my mind float with the music, wondering what Charr’s story was. It couldn’t have been easy, uprooting his life, leaving home, wherever that was, and sneaking into a strange country, almost certainly illegally. You didn’t have to be an outlaw to understand that wrenching yourself away from everything familiar and trying to find a footing in an alien place was harder than people thought. Ninon hadn’t managed it. Not really. I wasn’t sure I had either—even though I’d had lots of practice, and I had been born here.
Thinking about Ninon got me worrying again. I wished she’d call. I wished I could think of a way she could get out of the dead-end life she was in.
Out on the street a car rolled slowly by.
Too slowly.
It drifted past the house, the purr of the engine hanging in the still air. A black car. Two Asian men inside, the one riding shotgun boldly studying us through his open window.
As nonchalantly as I could I told Charr, “I think we’d better go inside.”
TWENTY-SIX
THE NEXT DAY WAS HOT, and the thick air stalled over the city was heavy with moisture. I came straight home from work, a couple of newspapers for Charr tucked under my arm, their pages limp with humidity. I had promised Fiona that morning that I’d babysit Roger for an hour while Trish took her own kid to the doctor. When I turned the corner onto my street I dropped the papers and began to run.