Aaron. What did you do?
I want to ask him directly. But I am a professor. I probe with questions about the book, expecting him to stay crouched beneath the subtext. I do not expect him to detonate my office with the testimonial equivalent of an improvised explosive device.
“You shouldn’t leave anyone by themselves,” Aaron says. “If you don’t stand up for someone … if you make the situation worse …” He is glowering at the floor. He is calling me on inaction, he is saying the word criminal. Is he a criminal? Is Caravaggio? Is Ondaatje? Am I? The sparks of his fury, shame, and regret are incendiary. The paper tower is on fire. Hardcovers burst into flame. I hold on to my tenure with both hands until it burns. Then I think of my mother and am overwhelmed with guilt.
Aaron. What have you done?
He stops talking. The smoke subsides, the floor stops trembling. We sit in silence until my phone vibrates off the window ledge and clatters to the floor. We both turn and look out the window.
Sondra: 12:32 p.m. I don’t know what to do.
Freeways terrify me.
The monstrous green signs for the 401 appear. There’s no room for mistakes. You can’t edit while driving, and I like to revise. I am boxed in by a moving truck, a taxi, and a van. I accelerate as vehicles merge and scatter across five lanes. Across the meridian are four more lanes travelling in the same direction. A long stretch of metallic roofs reflect sunlight. Traffic is all glare and no glitter. All pollution and propulsion.
My Wordsworth heart leaps up when I behold a massive rainbow-painted refrigerator truck passing me on the right. Up ahead a green sports car swerves between lanes without signalling.
Driver of the blue car to my left: are you sweating and swearing under your breath like me? Is your gastrointestinal system bubbling with road rage, fear, rejection, agony, defeat, and anxiety?
My phone beeps. A text message I can’t check. I am ten o’clock and two o’clock and eyes ahead, not blinking.
“To everything there is a season,” I recite. “A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” And a time to drive? No. Sweat crawls down my temple, an insect-like arch. This trip is necessary but horrible. I blame Aaron.
I wanted to be the professor-priestess, granting Aaron communion and absolution after his confession. But I dropped my role. There was guilt. There were angry text messages from my sister. And now I am taking unscheduled time off to drive to Ottawa.
Guilt was there all along, of course. Aaron let it out. He’s my version of Poe’s raven. At home I tried Sleepytime tea and aromatherapy bubble bath. But my mother’s face appeared on the pillow next to me as I slept, and stared at me in my dreams. I woke up to see her upstaging everything, from shadow to spotlight, bit part to starring role.
This morning I jabbed contact lenses into stinging eyes, made a Thermos of extra-strong coffee, and cancelled the day’s appointments. I got into my car, revved the engine, shifted into reverse. But I couldn’t bring myself to text my sister.
I see skid marks, the black rubber remnants of a blown tire, and cringe. Once when I was an undergraduate I saw a psychotherapist — briefly — for stress and anxiety. It’s not like I needed therapy. Not like my sister. When exams ended, so did the panic attacks. The only thing I really remember about therapy is that when you’re feeling anxious, you’re supposed to list your anxieties. Like this:
Driving, traffic, high-speed collisions, multi-car pile-ups.
My mother’s rapid decline.
Running into my sister in Ottawa.
Having to talk to my sister.
Bugs splatter the windshield, sacrificing sentence-fragment lives. Everything is progressing to an end. The apex of guilt is the exact moment you realize your time — for excuses and forgiveness — has run out.
Traffic begins to thin somewhere past Belleville. I’ll spend the rest of the drive to Ottawa passing cavalcades of trucks, watching bright autumn trees scream by. I try to keep my eyes on the road as I shove my hand into the glove compartment. I grab a CD, struggle to open the case. My book-on-disc version of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano reverberates. I sigh like an eruption.
Four hours later I pull up to ARC The.Hotel, where I like to stay in Ottawa despite the absurd punctuation liberties marketers have taken with its name. It’s downtown on Slater Street. Close to everything enjoyable and nowhere near my sister’s house in Kanata. I hand the valet the keys to my Toyota. It’s a relief to feel my feet on solid sidewalk. I shoulder my laptop bag while my carry-on-sized suitcase is whisked into the foyer ahead of me. Check-in is a credit card flash and signature for an expressionless youth in a navy suit. I take the shiny, mirrored elevator up to my floor and fumble with my key card in the dimly lit hallway. The door clicks open to reveal a room so compact the bed seems enormous. A single green apple rests on a heaping pile of fat white pillows.
Mom can wait a few more minutes, I think. It’s only midafternoon and visiting hours run until early evening. Besides, Sondra might still be there. I set my bags down, kick my shoes off, and sit on the spongy bed, my laptop balanced on my knees. I fiddle and click until I figure out the hotel’s Wi-Fi. I think about how my mother goes to sleep early. I type the URL for the National Arts Centre website and am surprised to see the evening’s performance by a Montreal modern dance company is not yet sold out. Filling in the ticket purchase form feels like a daring form of procrastination. The apple topples from the pillow and rolls down the surface of the white comforter. I grab it, recline on the pillows, take a few bites, and fall asleep.
I wake up confused to strange lights twinkling through the window. I stand and look for clues. The lights are from a cluster of criminally austere concrete office towers. Double buses roar past. Ottawa at night. It’s too late to go see Mom now. I turn away from the uninspiring view and lift my suitcase onto the dark wood dresser.
Mother can wait until tomorrow. I pull out the dark brown wool suit I’d packed for our visit. She doesn’t know I’m here anyway. Still, I avoid making eye contact with myself in the mirror.
The NAC is only a few blocks from the hotel. I walk, my wool pants draping comfortably, even in the city’s continuous wind. A man in a wrinkled white shirt and tie, obviously worn all day at the office, holds the door open for me. I mill around the lobby among the small crowd of conservatively dressed middle-aged bureaucrats and unkempt students. Ottawa is a two-university town. Being back makes me feel plain and less expressive. Tired. I imagine who I’d be had I stayed. An NAC subscriber. A professor at Carleton, the more liberal of the two campuses. I would have malingered over publishable papers and research grant applications. I left because I needed to be bigger than my hometown. I was ambitious. My father understood. My mother kept asking when I was going to get married and have children, like perfect Sondra, as though that would cure me of my career.
The lights dim and I hurry to find my seat. I’m a dozen rows back from stage left. I squeeze past an elderly couple and sit down next to a large bald man in dark jeans and Converse high-tops. Laces undone. The man’s arms occupy both armrests. He belongs in a tattoo parlour. His sizeable legs splay to either side and push right up against the seats in front of us. He breathes heavily, tosses his program on the floor, and taps his foot without a discernible rhythm. I lean toward the seniors on my right. They’re reading their programs.
“Make sure you try to understand what it’s about this time,” the elderly woman says. She gives her partner an elbow nudge. “I don’t want another interrogation on the drive home.”
“Bah,” the man says. He shakes his grey-haired head. “That last one was strange, but I think this one will be nicer. We saw them last year, remember?”
I glance at my program. The names of the performers are like class attendance: Terrance Cho, Alexandre Chouinard, Jennifer Alleyn. I immediately forget them.
The house lights go down and the deep, slow notes of a stand-up bass and piano rumble from the orches
tra pit. There’s a tension-building pause that feels interminable in the dark. Then the curtains glide open to reveal an empty stage lit in deep twilight blue. A thin man in black pants, white T-shirt, and bare feet walks slowly onto the stage, moving back and forth in large, wistful movements. Soon, like a shadow, the other male dancer begins dancing behind him. The large man seated beside me edges forward when the female dancer appears. I think I hear him sigh. He smells pungent and dank like a basement. The aged couple to my right is small and silent, obliterated by the dark except for the blue-tinged reflections that bounce off their glasses. When I glance in their direction I catch the slightest fragrant whiff of maple syrup.
The couple onstage begins a complicated pas de deux with lots of lifts, but the female dancer keeps gazing at the man in front, who begins spinning in a series of spectacular turns. Her story seems obvious. She can’t keep her eyes on the partner who dances for her, supporting her at every lift and turn. He is desperately in love. He reminds me of Mitchell, my former fiancé. Mitchell used to make me coffee and breakfast every morning, ask me how things were going at school, keep our shared condo clean.
I gaze at the young woman. She is fragile, compact, and absolutely stunning. A mystical muse to enrapture poets and cause men to obsess. The kind of dangerous beauty I never possessed. She circles the lavish, turning, twisting man, becoming transfixed, while the other male dancer retreats downstage. I wait for her to jump, like I did, for the magical intellect of the linguistics professor I’d once admired. Except I leapt into his arms and he dropped me. My face flushes, even now, hidden in the dark.
But the young woman dancer instead launches out on her own, dancing solo as the two male dancers disappear into the wings. She flicks her long dark hair in every direction and extends each limb at impossible angles, filling the entire stage with movement. The large man next to me fidgets nervously as he watches the dancer whirl across the floor. She makes no mistakes. I am awed, jealous. It took me a long time to be able to perform in my field with this level of skill and authority.
The piano and bass music crests toward a crescendo. The backlights turn crimson. The dancer leaps. Her back arcs and legs extend in a tremendous grand jeté, like flying. But upon descent her ankle seems to give way. Instead of landing she crashes onto the stage, collapsing to the floor in shudders and violent trembles. The large man beside me gasps and stands. The music stops. The curtain closes. The man pushes past me and the aged couple, shoving knees and elbows to reach the aisle. He jogs toward the exit closest to the stage, making wheezy huffing noises. The audience sits in silence as the house lights come up. A smattering of applause infiltrates the confusion.
“What just happened?” the woman next to me asks.
“I think she’s injured,” I say, “I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to go.”
“Oh dear,” the woman says. “The poor thing. What are they going to do now?”
The audience burbles with whispers. I am restless. I can’t decide whether the performance is over, or if this is only a forced, impromptu intermission. A loudspeaker crackles.
“Due to injury, the role played by Jennifer Alleyn will now be danced by her understudy, Maria Verados,” a man’s voice announces.
The house lights go down again. The curtains open, the music begins pulsating and a new soloist walks onstage to restrained applause. As she stretches her legs and arms I decide she is neither as riveting, nor as beautiful. The two male dancers slip onstage and swoop around the understudy, but their new triangles are cautious and tepid.
“Well, that was different,” the elderly man says to his wife when the show finally ends. “It was obviously an allegory. A political power struggle. Brought me back to the old days on the Hill. Too bad about the soloist, though.”
“So unfortunate,” the woman says. “That poor dear. Probably the end of her career.”
The audience swarms up the stairs into the foyer. Couples stop to chat in groups of fours and sixes. I head for the doors. Outside the air is cool and humid. I take the steep staircase down to the public boardwalk along the canal and stand for a moment at the edge to watch the bulbous lights reflect on the oily shimmer of water. The performance was supposed to be a luscious escape. Instead, it was a series of unnecessary reminders culminating in a snapped Achilles tendon.
For a moment I wonder how the lummox seated beside me could possibly be connected to the ethereal dancer, but I’m too worn out for conjecture. I look around for something to distract me. It’s very dark where I’m standing. The orbs of light are too dim. What did my professor idol say to me before he left? I close my eyes, but can’t remember. My mind used to be so muscular. I wish I had someone to help archive my memories. Like my father did for so many years for my mother.
The dancer is broken, mangled, career over. The brightness of my mind is fading, and there’s still so much work I want to accomplish. Yet I’d rather be embroiled in any modicum of intellectual struggle than endure a normal life. Be a wife. Drive through the suburbs. Walk the dog. Look after my mother.
Someone sputters and coughs nearby. A disgusting clearing of phlegm and the revolting sound of spit hitting concrete. I whirl around. The large, awful man is wheezing and stumbling down the stairs toward the boardwalk. I step back, out of the light. I look around for joggers, strolling couples, smokers, but there is no one. Fear bubbles. I clutch my purse tighter. If I move he’ll see me. I watch as the man strides toward the canal, waiting for him to reach the railing, gaze out at the water so I can slip away.
I hear a shout. Something tall, thin, and fast bolts out of the shadows, hurtling itself at the large man. The figure collides with the large man with such wild intensity it seems supernatural. It’s not until the man and the figure scuffle under the light that I see it’s a young person. I think for a moment that he looks like that student of mine, Aaron. But then he throws off his jacket and I can see his dark clothes are worn and shabby. The large man grabs hold of the kid’s shirt and tears it. Retaliation is a dirty hand reaching up and scratching at the large man’s face. This is not a student fight on campus. It’s sordid. Malevolent. A duel. The young man is vicious. But his opponent is twice his size and grasping for something in his pocket. Weaponry. My legs wobble. I bolt, running as fast as I can up the grassy embankment. This is not the Ottawa I remember, nor the one I want to experience.
I try to block out the shouting. What if the large man has a gun? Or a knife? And what will the younger man do with those monstrous hands? I don’t want to hear. Or know. The two men are swearing. Yelling. Something that sounds like “Jennifer.” Or “Vancouver.” Or “Remember.” Rage. Cries of pain. A splash.
Then silence.
I keep running. The streetlights on Elgin are bright beacons. I look in desperation for a cab, but there are never cabs when you want them in this city. I get turned around, lose my sense of direction. I’m not sure where I am until I see an intersection, street signs. Laurier. How did I get here? In my panic I’ve overshot the hotel. I stop on the sidewalk, smooth my hair, slow down to a walk.
I look for my cellphone in my purse, press nine then one on the keypad. My hand shakes. What did I see? It was dark. I was right to stay out of it, run away. Protect myself. The splash was nothing. My imagination, or, at worst, someone’s shoe hurtling over the railing. The man’s laces were undone. No need to panic, call the police, embarrass myself. Become involved. Must be some kind of horrible business. No — I don’t want to know. I have my own worries and problems. I can’t take any more on. I’m full up on drama. My brain won’t process any more of it. And by now the two men are probably gone, anyway. By the time the police arrive there won’t be any sign of them, and I’ll look like the fool. Best to forget this ever happened. To use forgetfulness in my favour.
I stumble back to the hotel, holding my phone in my hand. On the elevator I think about the splash. It was a quiet splash. Something small. An object. I’m sure of it. Nothing to worry about, nothing human. In my
room, two nightstand lamps emit a warm glow. I kick off my shoes, sit down on the big bed, and pick up a pillow, pressing my hands, then face against its softness. But it’s not comforting. And I am not at all sleepy.
The red L.E.D. numbers on the clock bleed, reflecting onto the surface of the shiny nightstand. 11:11. 11:12. 11:13.
Anxieties of the moment:
Intellectual decline.
The loneliness of endings.
The splash on the water.
Sondra: 11:21 p.m. We’re making her comfortable.
I turn my cellphone off. I focus on the minutiae of my evening routine. I floss and brush my teeth. Wash my face, apply moisturizer, expensive eye cream, hand lotion. I fold my suit, put on my pajamas, click the lamps off, too. Then I lie in the soft bed, unable to sleep. My thoughts keep going, swirling in a wide circle around my mother. I analyze the meaning of the word comfortable. Its etymology. I can’t think of a single brilliant quote with the word in it. It’s not very poetic. I think of the lyrics to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” How inappropriate they are for the moment. How comfort does not necessitate joy.
Sondra: 8:12 a.m. Some breathing problems in the night.
Sondra: 8:14 a.m. Am going to talk to the doctor again.
I sleep fitfully, climb out of bed after checking my messages, then shower and dress quickly. Today I have one task to complete. Only one.
The morning wind feels harsher than the airy swirls of the night before. I stroll along Elgin Street, avoiding the canal. The city has lost its lustre. The blocks feel short, the storefronts are drab and cluttered. I take the long route, buy a cup of coffee and sip it slowly, but I’m still unprepared when I arrive at the steel-edged glass doors. They slide apart automatically as I step through. I ring the buzzer in the lobby and a nurse in blue scrubs opens the interior door with a smile.
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