We all enter the van. Liv covers Bahadur and Firuzeh with a blanket and looks at me, ready to tuck me into hiding yet again. Before I join them, I look back one more time at Hanna, choking on tears.
Beck places his jacket over the back of the driver’s seat and makes his way to his mother. They stand about six feet apart. Hanna wrings her hands together in a continuous circle trying to make sense of this final exchange.
“Mom . . .”
Hanna goes towards her son, her arms outstretched. “Please don’t—”
“Hanna!” Peter shouts from the front door. He does not make eye contact with Beck. “Let them all go. They made a choice. They all made a choice. Let them do it.”
“Beck.”
“Hanna! Get inside the house. Now.” Peter makes his way into the house and closes the screen door. A gesture. A symbol. A line. A border.
“Beck?”
Beck sobs. “Yes, Mom.”
“Beck. Beck.” Hanna feels the word in her mouth. Lets the word lift from her lips into the air. An experiment. “This is who you are.”
“Hanna! Will you get inside?!” Hanna turns to Peter with the look of the devil in her. Her face is red.
“Shut up!” Peter’s mouth twists, and he moves inside, away from the door and out of sight. She turns back to Beck. Wipes her face. Starts again. Love. “Beck. My son. My beautiful son. I love you. I love you. My beautiful Beck. I love you. Just the way you are. Just the way you are now. I love you. And I hope whatever shape you are in, whoever you turn out to be, one day you can love me back.”
Beck’s shoulders are pumping up and down. Hanna reaches out and holds him. Maybe even holds him up, he is shaking so hard. It is a full-body hug. She laces her fingers into his hair and covers his forehead with kisses as he whispers into her ear something that makes her release a single, vocal sob. It comes from deep in her belly, a place so deep, a place she hasn’t touched since her first cry into this wicked world. Then she looks at him straight in the eyes and says, “Okay. You go and fight.”
We drive. The dusty road is bumpy and unforgiving. It jostles about our silence like it jostles our supplies in the van. Before I go under the blankets with Bahadur and Firuzeh, I see Liv considering whether to say something comforting. Instead, she holds her concern in her throat and between her eyebrows. Liv turns on the radio and scans for a station. Country music. Static. Soft rock. Static. A vague signal of a news program. Static. She gives up and shuts off the radio.
We drive. The sound of the squeaking shocks is replaced by the constant hum of rocky asphalt. With the blanket covering only my legs, I lie back and run through our plans in my head the way I used to run through choreography before a performance. Thumbs, one above the other, in a snug embrace. Line up the point in the front end of the gun with the open square on the back end of the gun. Slowly squeeze the trigger. I catch myself imagining the paper target Beck created for us on the farm transforming into a Boot. A leather jacket. The zippers. His rifle pointed straight at me. A decision moving from my brain down the length of my arm into the tip of my finger, to kill or be killed. My bullet flying out of my weapon and piercing the surface of his chest. I shake my head to douse the image burning in my mind. I wipe my face of the imagined blood sprayed from the Boot’s wound. Your imagined touch on my arm calms me, and I exhale. Evan. My beautiful Evan.
“Kay. The traffic is getting heavier. You need to get under the blanket before a truck sees you,” says Liv.
I lift the blanket enough to see that beside me, Firuzeh is spooning Bahadur, who is shaking like a leaf. I break our silence.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” I motion to remove the blanket. Bahadur stops me, as much as their shaking will allow. They try to spit words out, but I cannot understand. “Do you need help? Do we need to stop?” Firuzeh is behind them trying to stifle their shakes.
“I . . . I can’t! I can’t! Please . . .”
“Shhhhh . . . Shhhhhh.” I hold their hands together, two hands in a fisted prayer. Their knuckles are white in their tight grasp. Sweat. Drool. Tears. “Breathe, Bahadur. Come on. Breathe with me.” They take a breath, then another, then another. They finally slow down enough to speak, but every now and then they hiccup on their own tears.
“I . . . don’t know if I can do this, Firuzeh. I am not a fighter like you. I’m a runner. I run. I know how to hide. I know how to make myself as small as possible so that no one can see me, harm me. I know how to freeze and go somewhere else, go outside my body when bad things are happening to me. But I don’t know how to fight.”
“I saw you, Bahadur,” Firuzeh says, tenderly. “You can fight. We all have learned how to fight. We’re capable.”
“No. No. I can’t!” Sweat. Drool. Tears. Firuzeh tries to will them to breathe again. I can see that she is working hard to contain Bahadur in her loving arms.
“Is everything okay back there?” I hear Liv call out from the passenger seat. Bahadur suddenly emerges from the blanket cover and unlocks the van door. Beck is forced to pull over on the country road as Bahadur tumbles out of the van. They collapse on the side of the road. We all huddle around them as they scream.
“What’s going on?! We can’t be out here. Everyone back into the van!” Beck demands in a stage whisper. He looks around frantically. The van is a black rectangle in a vast stretch of open field. Rows of corn stand low and green to the right of our vehicle. Rolling hills undulate softly in the distance. At the top of one knoll, a farmhouse sits beside a droopy willow tree, its windows framing the scene we are creating.
“Just wait!” Firuzeh says to Beck before she crouches down to Bahadur’s reddened face. “Bahadur! Look at me. Look at me!” Firuzeh attempts to touch them, but Bahadur flinches.
Bahadur starts spitfire monologuing. “Firuzeh. What if this were a movie? What if we were all in a movie right now and all of us were characters? We would be as we are in real life: the first ones to get killed. The first ones to become invisible. Silenced. Disappeared. We’re the ones. We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die!”
“SHHHHH!” Beck spits at us. I look out at the farmhouse Beck has been eyeing, and we both see the curious homeowner open the front door.
A middle-aged man with a red golf shirt shifts right and left, wondering what’s going on behind our black minivan. He waves and says something inaudible. I hide. Firuzeh hides. Bahadur shakes. Their sobs transform into hysterical choking, as if fluid has gone down the wrong pipe. Their tongue hangs just outside their lips. Their face is beet red.
“You need a boost, young man?” the man repeats to Beck. Liv quickly emerges from the side of the van, pretending to wipe the front of her pants.
“Just a couple of sick kids, sir.” Liv poses in pretend irritation and laughs.
“Boy, do I miss those long drives with kids!” the man says sarcastically. He gives a dismissive wave and goes back inside. The distant sound of a screen door closing.
Beck waves, then focuses on us with an alarmed glare. “Get in the car!”
“We’re gonna die!”
Firuzeh holds Bahadur’s face in her hands.
“No. Not today. Look at me, Bahadur! Not today!” Firuzeh screams, loud enough that my ears are ringing. Everyone is silent, including Bahadur. Everyone is surprised by the sound of her voice. “Look at me. Look at me!” Bahadur obeys, their breathing still laboured, spit gathering in the corners of their mouth. Then quietly, calmly, “You will not die today. You are not that character. This is not that movie. You are not invisible. You will not be silenced. You will not disappear. You will not die. You will not die. You will not die. You will not die.” She says it again and again until I, too, believe it. Until she has little breath in her body. Firuzeh models deep inhales and exhales until Bahadur’s face slowly returns to its normal colour and their breath slows. We all crowd around Bahadur, silent in the wake of Firuzeh’s words until Beck finally, solemnly, speaks up.
“We need to get into the van before somebody sees you.�
�
We drive again. The sound of the rocky asphalt becomes the sound of city potholes. Under our blanket cover, Firuzeh continues to spoon Bahadur, who faces me, speaking prayers into our six intertwined hands as we enter Toronto.
I close my eyes and consider all those who have come before me, who have prayed over the barrel of their own gun, before fighting for their own survival. What objects did they touch in the corners of their pockets to steady the beat of their hearts? What pictures did they kiss to remind them of their reason to fight? I touch two fingers to my own mouth, imagining you kissing me good luck.
I close my eyes and remember that dreaded day I was exorcised. At dawn, after my mother’s church folk released me, I walked, Evan. I walked for as long as my legs would allow me, my head unevenly shorn. In the light of dawn, I walked north on Parliament Street, away from my neighbourhood of St. James Town, away from my mother, away from those who prayed over me. A store owner cranked his awning open and shuddered at the sight of my humiliation. Seeing me in my soiled pyjamas, a woman walking her dog avoided me and crossed the street. I kept walking. I descended a steep hill under a bridge into a ravine, hoping for quiet, away from the sound of the city and the repetition of scripture. I walked until there were no longer sidewalks, until the only people who passed me were joggers who assumed I, too, was on my morning run. I walked until I saw a white bridge towering above me and underneath it an old cemetery. I approached the weathered headstones, each leaning in different directions, each one moist with the morning dew. I felt nothing. I, too, was dead. Perhaps if I sat down among them, I would have something in common with someone else. Maybe I would belong. I ran my raw and newly clipped nails along the surface of the epitaphs. 1850–1911. 1872–1895. 1922–1963. I found one that read “Lord, we give you our littlest angel,” for someone by the name of Beatrice Annabel Anderson who had lived and died in the year 1937. It was a humble, flat marker. I lay my head down on its cold surface, outstretched my arms and legs, closed my eyes and prayed to join her.
That’s when I felt the sensation of being watched. I jolted upright and searched the forest and bridge for yet another person about to attack me. The crack of a branch breaking startled me again. From the grouping of headstones I saw a majestic doe. Her neck peeked out from the grass she was eating and she looked me in the eyes. She chewed for a while and then swallowed, the grass going down her graceful throat. The fearful pounding of my heart slowed in the presence of her. As minutes (hours? lifetimes?) passed, the glow of the morning sun warmed the surface of her golden fur as it warmed the surface of my weeping face. What did she transmit through her gaze that day? What message did she have for me from beyond? I still cannot put into words what was communicated. Only images. In the reflections of her eyes I saw myself as a young child again, listening to the magic of a piano playing. Me spinning about the room as an LP turned on its table. Dancing like birds just about to take flight. Dancing like eyes slowly opening in the morning. Dancing like the fog dissipating in the warmth of the sun.
I knew then, being my true self now more than ever, I was a child of God. I stood, walked towards school and never returned home.
12
Do you know how to use this?” A sound technician holds a body microphone between his thumb and forefinger. Adea and Amana nod in unison. The technician wears a Boot uniform, albeit sadly. One can tell by its ill fit that underneath the leather jacket he is just a ninety-pound geek who serves the regime with his expertise but not his heart.
“Do you need me to wire it up for you?” His voice cracks. Adea and Amana look at each other knowingly, then look back at the technician, who is quizzically inspecting their enormous skirts, bridged together as if they are conjoined twins in golden sparkles and pink tulle.
“No. We’re good,” they say in semi-convincing rounds.
“You sure?”
Rather than look at the diminutive technician to assert her authority, Liv looks into the bulb-framed mirror and removes a smudge of lipstick from her two front teeth. She interjects from her lounge chair in the dressing room.
“They said they were good. Now leave.” Liv shifts from one bum cheek to the other to deliver a sly grin at the technician, her black pantsuit in drastic contrast to the twins’ skirts. “I want to have a conversation with these two young ladies before we start.”
The technician looks at Adea and Amana, then leaves reluctantly, assuming that Liv will discipline them. The door shuts.
Liv hears static on her walkie-talkie, and she picks it up. “Liv here.”
“What’s your ETA? The delegates are already in place and are waiting.”
“We’re just putting mics on the twins and then I’m escorting them out. Give me five.”
“Five it is. Over.” Static. Liv shuts off her walkie-talkie.
The twins each quickly pinch a body mic onto their respective bone corsets and expertly thread the wire along the inside of its seams, then connect the wire to a receiver. They help each other clip the receiver to the back of their corsets, barely moving the parade float of a costume.
“Are the body mics off?” The twins check each other’s receivers and nod at Liv. “Good. Everyone is in place. When I give you the signal, we will begin.” They all hug as much as the skirts will allow, foreheads touching. The twins’ faces have healed from the cigar burns, and their heads are evenly shaved now to appear intentional, fashionable, and not an act of humiliation. Just in time for this internationally observed event. Breathing heavily, their heads all meet in the centre of this circle and their arms intertwine in a last embrace. Liv releases herself from the circle to meet eyes with the twins. She holds their hands in hers, the corners of her eyes gathering water. They embrace one more time. Looks of fear. Of ending. Everything final. Liv turns on the twins’ mic receivers and places her forefinger to her mouth to alert the twins that people may be listening. The twins nod.
Liv walks to the double doors of the dressing room and opens them. They continue through a darkened theatre, slowly walking past marble walls, empty box office windows and dusty chandeliers towards the sound of a raucous crowd. Two Boots stand at the doors of the theatre and open them for the procession.
Liv speaks into her walkie-talkie.
“This is Liv. We’re about to exit the theatre. Over.”
“Copy that.”
Liv leads Adea and Amana out into the hustle and bustle of the Summit of Nations. Cameras. Reporters. Microphones. The twins squint their eyes against the dazzlingly bright sunshine.
A tall brunette woman, wearing a pantsuit and a headset, approaches Liv.
“Hi, Liv. I’m Joan. Is everyone ready?”
“Yup. They’ll stay right behind me.”
Joan rushes to the front of the procession, where a marching band awaits in their crisp red-and-white uniforms, and gives a signal. A team of baton twirlers in maple-leaf-printed track suits waits patiently behind the marching band. A whistle is heard. A rhythmic percussive intro starts a rollicking rendition of “O Canada.” The twins begin to step forward and Joan rushes to intervene.
“Not yet,” she says with her arm blocking them, looking at the marching band’s progress down the street. “I don’t want any bottlenecking. I want it to be nice and smooth.” Joan talks into her headset, then another signal. “Baton twirlers . . . Go!” The team obliges by dancing in the direction of the marching band. Joan lifts her arm. “Okay. Twins. Go!”
Amidst the noise, Amana looks at her sister and sends her a silent message through her eyes and the tight grasp of her hand. Adea looks back, her breath shaky and her eyes clear, confirming that the message is received. The twins gracefully step forward. Joan signals for three Boots to clear the path for Liv and the twins as they make their way from Victoria Street to Yonge Street, then to Yonge-Dundas Square. Joan waves goodbye and says, “Have fun!”
“And we’re off to the races!” says one of two commentators sitting in an elevated platform overlooking the procession, their image bro
adcast on the giant screen in the square. One commentator with blond ringlets flashes a lipstick smile at the camera, and the other’s bushy moustache hovers over his handheld microphone. Both of them sport Canadian flag T-shirts and white straw hats.
“Well, Kelly, it looks like thousands of proud Canadians are gathering here today to kick off the Summit of Nations. Why, people are so rowdy, you’d think this was the Santa Claus Parade!” says Moustache, buoyant and cheerful.
Kelly giggles and waves at the crowds. “Well, Paul. It’s not Santa Claus, but we certainly celebrate our esteemed delegates from afar . . .”
The international media representatives do not don the same smiles. Instead, they each wear a face of determination. A reporter in the crowd squeezes between several spectators holding Canadian flags to reach the twins. “Adea and Amana! What does your presence say to the world about the Renovation?” she asks in an Australian accent.
Other international reporters materialize and chime in.
“Are you being held captive?”
“Are all Others like you safe?”
“Do you believe the Renovation was beneficial to you?”
The media scrum that has appeared on the parade route is tight. Another reporter manages to elbow her way between two cameramen. “Adea and Amana! Delegates from New Zealand and Ireland refused to attend today’s summit after expressing concern that the Renovation is a sign of the rise of a fascist regime here in Canada. Do you agree?”
They move slowly in their immense skirts, observing the banners celebrating the Summit of Nations and Canada’s birthday. Yonge Street is a sea of spectators wearing white straw hats with red bands, all fighting for a better view. Once they gain access to the front of the barriers, they gawk at the twins walking freely on the street and tainting the city. Some eyes are wide at the sight of them. Some laugh. Some take pictures. Some spit at them.
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