The Only Café

by Linden MacIntyre

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I figured. You have a good day.”

  Ari was in his usual place at the café but suggested that they retreat to the back patio where there was privacy and the privilege of smoking. It was early evening, mid-week, and the patio was practically deserted. The act of standing up and sitting down seemed like work for Ari. He seemed heavier.

  “So you went east. A trip I must make some day, I’ve heard so much about the coast. It must have been quite a moment to see the place at last. It was your first time?”

  “Yes. First time. So you’ve never been?”

  “Never east of Quebec City.” Ari’s face was blank. He patted his pockets, removed a pack of cigarettes, found matches, lit one. He blew out the match, dropped it in a flowerpot.

  Cyril was no longer sure why he was there. He realized what he was really feeling: a loss of confidence. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. Maybe gullibility. What if what you’re hearing is someone’s best approximation of reality, of truth? Is everyone a liar? What if Ari really was his father’s friend, a confidant?

  Then he remembered something Nader told him: Empathy is admirable, important, but in certain lines of work it isn’t always helpful. Where was Nader anyway? And who is Nader?

  What if this man was what he seemed to be? A pathetic human being. Angus Beaton saw someone who was fat. So what? Cyril had seen a hundred seriously fat people in his travels, in the airports, in the pub in Mabou. He’d seen a fisherman on a boat in the harbour and he, too, was broad as he was long. Nicholson was right, not much to go on—fat.

  “We should have something,” Ari said. He began the struggle to stand.

  “Let me get it,” Cyril said quickly and was on his feet. “Beer?”

  “Why not. Something dark.”

  Paying for the beer, Cyril found a slip of paper in his wallet, a page torn from someone’s notebook, folded. Waiting for his change he spread the scrap of paper on the bar. The note was indecipherable and then he realized: the Hebrew note. How could he have forgotten? He folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket where he could reach it easily. He felt the revival of something that resembled clarity, and with it a trace of fear.

  “So what did you find out on your haj?” Ari was smiling, now relaxed.

  “Haj?”

  “Your trip east. I’ve heard it called the transplanted Maritimers’ mecca.”

  Cyril laughed. “I met some people who remembered Dad and saw where my mom had spent quite a bit of her childhood. Had some memories of being there as a kid, when my parents were still together. It was interesting.”

  “You were their only child?”

  “Yes.” Then he thought: why not. “Though I have a half-brother. My father and his second wife, they had a little boy. Born after my dad was gone, though. Dad never saw the little guy.”

  Ari studied the beer glass. “I’m glad to hear that. I recall it was something that was important to them. Another child.” He drank deeply, sighed. Lit another cigarette. “I hope the smoke doesn’t bother you. You never smoked?”

  “Not tobacco.”

  Ari laughed. “Yes, of course. Something on my—what is it called—my bucket list, to ‘smoke grass,’ we used to call it. I never did.”

  “I never took to pot or cigarettes,” Cyril said. “The inhaling. Made me feel congested. I think my dad was once a smoker.”

  “I suppose,” Ari said. “In a war, most people smoke. The fatalism.”

  “I don’t know much about my father’s war. As you know.”

  “What’s admirable is your effort to find out. If more young people understood the reality…” He shrugged. “The movies. The videos. The games they play at. I worry, the impressions they take away.”

  “I agree.”

  “Which is why I’d like to help you. I admire your effort to find out. I’ll keep trying to remember things.”

  Cyril patted his shirt pocket, then removed the folded note. “Maybe you can help me with this. It’s probably nothing. I found it among my father’s things.” He placed the note on the table, unfolded it, smoothed it. “Someone said it’s Hebrew.”

  Ari reached for the note. He picked it up and held it at arm’s-length, squinting. Then he patted various pockets on his jacket until he found reading glasses. He slowly unfolded the glasses, installed them. Frowned.

  “My, my,” he said, smiling. “Your father was a pack rat. Where did you find this?”

  “Dad kept diaries. This was taped to a page in one of them.”

  “Do you know what this is?” He was carefully removing his reading glasses, folding them.

  “No.”

  “An interesting document. You might want a translation.”

  “Please.”

  “It’s what you’d call a ‘safe conduct.’ Permitting someone—your father I presume—and some other people, to pass through a military checkpoint. It’s interesting because of the date on which it was written, and where, and because of who wrote and signed it.”

  “What was the date?”

  “September eighteenth, 1982. In Beirut.”

  “And the signature?”

  “Mine.”

  Ari unfolded the reading glasses and put them on again, held the note up. “Charon.” He laughed, shook his head and repeated: “Charon, my, my.”

  Cyril struggled to keep the shock from showing in his face.

  “Sharon? Like the prime minister?”

  “No. Charon with a ‘C.’ In my former occupation, a name is like a politician’s shirt. You wear it for a while, it gets soiled, it starts to smell. People notice. So you change it. Sometimes more than once a day.” He shrugged. “What was it that Shakespeare said? So I’ve had many names. Charon was one of them. It’s not so unusual.”

  “And the date?”

  “Yes. The date. Quite significant.” He removed his glasses, folded them, returned them to a pocket. Then he carefully folded the note and put it in his pocket with the glasses.

  “Actually,” Cyril said, “I’d like to have that back…”

  Ari raised a hand, palm toward Cyril: “Don’t worry. You’ll get it back. But you must understand that I should check this out, for both of us. I’ll take very good care of it. It is important. To both of us.”

  “No, let me have it, I’m sure there’s a photocopier here, I could…”

  Ari laughed. “Such a worrier. We must have more faith in one another.”

  “You should understand I—” he produced his BlackBerry. “Here, just for a second, I’ll take a picture with the phone.”

  “There is no need for pictures with phones. It is yours. You will have it back. Here’s the problem, Cyril. All I’m asking for is just a few hours. This note raises important questions. And I should remember but I don’t: one, where was I that day and what was my authority, to write such an instruction. You see, it was not an ordinary day, September eighteenth, 1982. And number two, and perhaps most important, from your point of view—why did Pierre need such a note on such a day, to enter such a place?”

  “What place?”

  “The camps. September 1982. The time has come for explanations. But I need to clarify my memory, Cyril. You will find as you grow older that memory is not to be entirely trusted. I have notes and certain documents from the time. When we speak again, I’ll know my facts.” He gulped his remaining beer, put the glass down, suppressed a belch. “You mentioned diaries.”

  “Yes.”

  “Also interesting.”

  “I’ve started studying them. But they’re cryptic.”

  “Yes, of course. Something else we can compare. Maybe I can help you fill in certain blanks. There is a diary for 1982?”

  Cyril hesitated, mind racing. “I’ll check. It would be in Arabic.”

  “If you find it, bring it. I read Arabic. All very interesting, Cyril, as you will see in due course. Now I must leave.”

  He stood, reached for Cyril’s hand. They shook.

  Cyril watc
hed him go. The shoulders were slumped, he thought, the whole body slack, no longer the strength that Nader had noticed, the strength of a weightlifter. Just another fat old man. Cyril retrieved his BlackBerry, saw there was a text waiting.

  It was from Nader: Imperative. Stay away from TOC and A. Important. Will explain soon.

  38.

  Hughes was late to work the next morning. When he arrived, Cyril followed him into his office and shut the door behind him. Hughes looked annoyed, stood behind his desk, waiting.

  “Is everything okay?” Cyril asked. “Maybe I should come back?”

  Hughes sat. “Is that why you trailed me in here? To find out if I’m okay? Well, if you must know…”

  “I’ve met Charon.”

  Hughes stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “I met Charon.”

  “How the hell do you know that? He just walked up and introduced himself?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Cyril. Get out of here. I don’t have time…”

  “He admitted who he was and that he wrote that note. The Hebrew note that allowed my father to enter the Shatila camp.”

  “Let me guess…”

  “Yes. Ari at the Only Café. Also I’m glad you’re sitting down. I think I have a witness who can place him in Mabou Coal Mines at the time my father died.”

  “Mabou Coal Mines?”

  “Where it happened.”

  Hughes leaned back, scratched his head, studied the ceiling. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I’ve heard from Nader.”

  “No shit!”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Okay, where the fuck is Nader? It’s a matter of some urgency…”

  “He didn’t say. But he told me that he’d be in touch again. But look, I might have made a serious mistake.”

  Hughes was nodding. “Now, finally, something that I can believe. Let me have it.”

  “I gave the Hebrew note to Ari and he kept it.”

  “You didn’t make a copy?”

  “No.”

  “It never crossed your mind to make a back-up copy?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t think to use your fucking smartphone?”

  “I did. But he wouldn’t give it back.”

  “I see.”

  “He said he only needed it for a few hours, he wanted to check something.”

  “Sure he did.”

  “Look. I’ve been thinking. Why would he spontaneously admit that he was Charon and that he wrote that note if he had something to hide from us.”

  “That’s a valid point. But you should lay low just the same and, for sure, avoid him for a while.”

  “But I need to get the note back.”

  “Well, think about it. If he gives the note back, maybe you’re right. He’s nobody. But if he is who you think he is, you are never going to get that note back. Trust me.”

  “He thinks I still have something that he wants. So I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing him.”

  “He thinks you have what?”

  “A diary for 1982.”

  Hughes leaned back, laughed. “Very good. For a moment I thought you were a total idiot.”

  Cyril stood to leave but Hughes said, “Sit for a second. We should talk.”

  He sat.

  “I’ve had some strange inquiries about our Nader.” Hughes’s unblinking stare, the cold appraisal, was something new. “You wouldn’t be holding out on me?”

  “Inquiries from where?”

  Hughes stared off into the distance. “It seems he was bonking some young one at the Star. Revealed some things to her. Now the Star is trying to track him down. You know anything about this?”

  “Bonking? I doubt very much. But I do know he met an intern there and was helping her adjust—”

  “Okay. I’m going to assume you’re on the level here. According to a source I have over at the Star this intern bailed on Nader because she found some of his religious attitudes and political views to be, her word, scary. This ring a bell?”

  “No. I’m surprised that anybody is going to take seriously a nineteen-year-old out to make an impression on her bosses.”

  “Agreed. But Suzanne has had a call from someone in RCMP security. And they’re trying to find our guy too. So, if he surfaces, you’ll let me know. Okay?”

  “So what about Charon?”

  “What about him?”

  “What if this is all about discrediting Nader…”

  “We still don’t have a story. Even if your man Ari admits he’s Charon. Okay? Them’s the facts.”

  “What if he really did kill my father.”

  “We don’t know that. And, more important, even if he did, we don’t know why. And I think we can be pretty sure there are people who don’t ever want us to know why.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to seem cold, Cyril. I know what you’re going through. Somebody killed my father and I spent a long time trying to find out who and why. I never did. Eventually I admitted to myself that, in the big picture, it didn’t really matter to anyone but me. That was my first journalism lesson.”

  Cyril stood up to leave. “Then you’ll understand that it might be a while before I let go of this. Story or no story.”

  “I understand. Always listen to your gut. But don’t expect anybody else to.”

  Cyril’s phone was ringing when he got back to his desk. Ari seemed to be out of breath, as if he were walking as he talked on his cellphone. “I promised I’d get back to you about that note.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “We must get together. It is very, very interesting, what I’ve been able to dig up. Your dad, my friend, was a very interesting man. There are things you should know. Important things.”

  “I could meet you anytime.”

  “How about tonight. But Cyril, we shouldn’t meet at the usual place. I have this feeling that I’m being watched, followed even. Maybe I’m paranoid. But maybe it’s a little dividend from all my years of following and being followed. You develop certain instincts.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you heard of Cherry Beach?”

  Cyril laughed. “Yes. But isn’t that a bit—”

  “I agree, but we’ll be safe from prying eyes. The only people who go there in the evening are lovers and addicts. And, of course, cops at the end of their shifts. But we don’t have to worry about them. It will be much too early for the regulars. This won’t take long. So nine o’clock. I’ll have interesting documents to show you. What will you be driving?”

  “A black Mustang.”

  “A Mustang? Nice. I’ll be watching for it. And you’ll bring that diary? For 1982?”

  “And you’ll return that note?”

  “Of course. As I promised.”

  Cyril had very little experience with fear. This is not to say that he had never been afraid. As a child he was plagued for many years by sleeplessness and anxiety and was prescribed medication for a brief spell. His doctor assured his parents that the boy would grow out of what was just a phase. To everyone’s relief, he did.

  And yet, the feeling that he regarded as anxiety never entirely went away. Now, preparing to head off to Cherry Beach, he wondered about the slightly nauseous sensation in his stomach, an unfamiliar weakness in his legs and arms, a lightness in the head. It was like somewhere in his system there was a circuit breaker that kept tripping, bringing movement, physical and mental, to a standstill. This was new, beyond anxiety.

  Imperative. Stay away from TOC and A. Important. Will explain soon. But Nader had gone silent again, hadn’t explained why Cyril should stay away from the Only Café, stay away from Ari.

  There was a section of their basement where he and Aggie had stored what became known to them as “Daddy’s stuff.” There were banker’s boxes full of documents, large cartons full of clothing, winter tires for a long-gone car, items of furniture and a disused set of golf clubs. Cyril selected a nine-iron, hefted it briefly, and then carried it t
o the car, placed it by his side in the front car seat—feeling somewhat silly as he did so. Afraid of some old fat guy, for God’s sake?

  He deliberately arrived early. The parking area at Cherry Beach was as deserted as Ari had predicted. The configuration of the harbourfront gave him the impression of being on an island. The glittering city rose before him as if thrust up from nowhere on the edge of Lake Ontario. His nerves settled. He reminded himself of the logic he had presented to Hughes. Ari had admitted he was Charon, that he wrote a note that revealed he was a person of authority near the scene of what had been a war crime for which nobody had ever been held criminally accountable.

  Why would he have done that if he was dangerous?

  Cyril replayed in his head his last conversation with Ari. The ease of his acknowledgement. He was Charon. He wrote that note. End of mystery. Ari had volunteered to review his records. He wanted to be helpful. We’re both in this together, he seemed to say. He wanted to deliver context. Cyril remembered a feeling that was close to empathy, maybe even pity, watching Ari walk away, all traces of his past identity as soldier, spy, provocateur, commando, killer, whatever, lost within an unimaginable burden of lard, laziness and redundancy. What was there to be afraid of?

  His phone rang.

  “Where are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Come on, man. You know who this is. Where are you?”

  “Jesus H. Christ. You’re asking me where I am?”

  “Goddamn stop playing games. Where are you?”

  Silence.

  “I’m at Cherry Beach.”

  “Cherry Beach. What for?”

  “I’m meeting someone.”

  “Leave now.”

  “You know what? Fuck you.”

  “Cyril. I know what you’re up to. Leave. Now. Come and talk to me.”

  “And where might you be?”

  “Figure it out. Drive anywhere. Now.”

  Cyril saw headlights. The approaching car drove by the entrance to the parking lot. But then he saw the brake lights. Fucking Nader. Why am I listening. He started the engine. He left his headlights off until he thought he was close to the exit, then turned them on. The two cars passed each other on the narrow roadway. Cyril looked resolutely straight ahead, and then he tramped on the accelerator. The Mustang howled and fishtailed.