The farmers gave out salted seeds. I sucked on them, running my hands along the cool, ribbed skin of the melons. I picked up a pumpkin and hugged it. Hold still, it seemed to tell me. Hold still and don’t let go.
I bought a miniature pie and ate it and then I bought one for Theo before making my way onto the property. This farmland in the middle of the city was an anomaly. There was a sci-fi factor about an experimental place for agriculture and livestock. No one could say for sure what testing and studying went on there.
I found Theo leaning against a fence enclosing cows.
Each cow had a small round window in its side, like a window on a ship. Theo said the hole led straight to the cow’s stomach, for scientists to poke into for research purposes.
I wasn’t squeamish, but it was disquieting, watching those cows. “Show me these goats so I can call your bluff,” I told Theo.
He thought this over and guffawed. “That’s very good.” He tipped his hat to me. Under his wool coat today he wore an umber bow tie, attuned to the season.
Theo parted the grass with his cane and I followed him to a barn. The musty, warm air of animals, manure, and hay engulfed us as we entered the Agriculture Museum. The supernatural goats were in the back. I took Theo’s arm so he wouldn’t get knocked over by the roving bands of hyperactive kids.
We walked through a petting zoo of pigs, sheep, horses, rabbits, and turkeys. At the last stall, a label much like the Gallery’s art labels read: Spider (Transgenic) Goats. I ushered some rambunctious boys out of the way so that we could get up close.
They looked like regular little white goats. They bleated and butted and pushed against our hands for food. One balanced on a log while the other tested the fence.
“These are GM goats,” Theo said.
“General Motors?”
“Genetically Modified. They were created with spider DNA in them. Engineered to produce spider silk in their milk.”
“For health and science, the sign says.”
“And for making military-grade textiles. This protein is ten times stronger than steel. There is great profit to be had in bulletproof vests and parachutes. Great profit in warfare.”
I deliberated whether I might be stronger inside if I drank silk milk. Or ate cobwebs. Damien Hirst would pay a lot for such goats.
“I come here when I am trying to make sense of human nature.”
“You visit an unnatural place with unnatural animals to do that?”
“Instead of preserving existing organisms, they try to make new ones.” Theo coughed into his handkerchief.
Sugar and Spice were fighting for my hand, licking it and gearing up to chew. I pulled it back through the bars, wishing I’d brought sanitizer.
“There are tens of millions of living species on this planet.” He turned his back on the goats, despondent. “Most have yet to be catalogued. So many we will not find before they die out.”
“I have the same problem at work. With Avalon.”
He didn’t seem to hear. I could tell he was lamenting his cryptids again. We petted the goats on the head one last time and left the barn.
I led Theo to the greenhouse for tea. We washed our hands and found a table by a bed of cacti. I pulled the small saran-wrapped pie from my purse and got a paper plate and a plastic fork at the concession. Theo feigned pleasure eating his dessert, but his large fingers were stiff today, moving with painstaking slowness.
Drinking his tea, he held his cup with effort. Then he asked after Viv, calling her by name. It meant something to me, that he remembered.
I told him how sick she was. How she had disappeared and there was no news. I admitted that at night I lay awake debating if this was her destiny or a calamity that would pass. Ultimately, my gifted and accomplished sister had been dealt the bad hand, not me, the mediocre and inept one. This twisted fluke devoured me.
Theo observed the people all around us. His response was so delayed I didn’t think he’d say anything. Eventually his eyes rested on a cactus sprouting a tubular flower. I was counting the awl-like needles when he spoke.
“This week I had a light bulb go,” he told me. “Then they all went out, one by one, in different rooms. Some were used much more than others, and there were various kinds—halogen, fluorescent. They all went out within days of one another.”
Many would say he was another old man yammering on. Yet I respected his philosophies and anecdotes. Even if I couldn’t always decipher their meanings, like messages from a fortune teller.
“The question of what is fated, what is chance. You mustn’t waste your youth as I did. Why, why, why. It brought me no repose.”
I asked why there was no point asking why.
“I had a friend who collected turtles. She had no end of tribulations. But the turtles gladdened her.”
“Should I collect silk-spinning goats, do you think?”
“Find what brings you pleasure to monopolize your mind and fill you.” He nodded to the cactus. “Like water sustains that one in dry earth.”
That was what Liam had done. Filled me up. I’d never get that feeling back.
I scolded Theo for comparing me to a barbed plant. “Pumpkins bring me pleasure. I’ll grow pumpkins,” I told him, even though I got what he was saying.
His crinkled lips formed a smile. “Like Cinderella, then. Do what you must to find sleep.”
FORTY-THREE
SIX WEEKS INTO MY sister’s disappearance, Constance came and went like a travelling performer, returning home for a day or two with an hour to spare or less, between finalizing the sale of her condo and packing.
She called for lunch or coffee, waiting for me outside Pierre’s downtown high-rise, the image of a bygone age in her leopard print coat and her turban cap with a brooch fastened to its centre, her shapely legs off to one side and a faraway expression on her painted face. My mother’s canvas of her costumed life: Self-Portrait: Hat, Purse, Gloves.
What I thought was her handbag turned out to be Mira beside her on the bench, in an aviator hat and goggles. The dog rested her head on her paws and didn’t react when I approached.
“She needs a walk before we go to the restaurant,” my mother said.
We made our way toward a park. Mira doddered along on the sidewalk, sniffing her surroundings every few metres. When Con passed me the leash to remove her gloves, she eyed my dry, cracked hands.
“I have some lotion for that skin of yours. Mirabelle’s doctor prescribed it.” She opened her purse and held out a tube of ointment.
“You want me to use dog’s cream?” I looked down at Mira’s patchy coat. The four-pound dog was shivering. My mother scooped her up and tucked her under an arm.
“It’s not for dogs. It’s for udders,” she replied, petting the dishevelled Mira. “I tried to bring you back some oranges,” she continued, “but the customs boy wouldn’t let them through.”
“That’s okay.”
“He said the peels were the problem, not the oranges.” I pulled the gate to the park open so she and Mira could enter.
“I peeled them in front of him with a lineup behind me, and I gave him the bag of peels.”
“Way to show them.”
“Then the oranges leaked all over so we had to eat them.”
My mother unleashed Mira and the dog made her way to a tree. When a breeze came, the maples released a shower of helicopter seeds on us. Mira returned. My mother bent over and snapped her leash back on.
“Aren’t you going to bag that?”
“Bof. Fertilizer,” she said dismissively, heading toward the gate.
Mira ambled in front of us.
“Why’s she limping?”
“Bad hip. You see”—and here she paused for effect—“I don’t think she’ll make it to Florida encore.”
The dog stopped in a puddle, settling down to lick a bald patch on her flank.
“There is a discontinuation in her,” she added.
“You mean her body’s shutting down.�
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“It distresses her to travel.”
“So drive.”
“The climate is problematic there. It affects her bronchitis and her skin.”
“Mom. I have asthma.”
“Mais non, Édith. She is hypoallergenic!” With this proclamation, Mira sat upright, panting at us. My mother pulled a biscuit from her coat pocket.
“Those goggles are ridiculous.”
“They protect her cataracts.” Mira finished her treat and my mother picked her up again.
“She’s mangy. Are you sure she doesn’t have rabies?”
She kissed Mira on the nose and raised a muddy paw, waving it at me. “Feel her footpads, feel them! Feel how soft.”
I poked at the padding with my finger. “She’s not even barking anymore,” I said.
“She has fatigue.”
“So do I.”
“She is loyal and protective. She would be a good friend for you.”
My mother couldn’t bear further witness to Mira’s decline and wanted me to do the dirty work for her. “I’ll think about it,” I said, then, “I still can’t find Viv.”
“She will turn up.”
“It’s different this time.”
“Nonsense, foolish girl.” She dropped Mira, who went ahead with more trot in her step. “How?” she asked, her tone hardening.
“It just is.”
FORTY-FOUR
THEO WAS AT THE viewing room doors a half-hour before I was to open them for the public. He sat on the lone chair by the elevator. In profile he appeared older than ever, smoothing down his wild hair with an unsteady hand. I’d get in trouble if I let him in early, but I could leave; I had nothing else to do.
I suggested a short walk. It was late October and one of the last warm days of autumn, which arrived like a gift between the cold fronts and the rain. I guided Theo up the hill, past One Hundred Foot Line to the open-air amphitheatre. We sat on the stone seats and Theo told me more about his bird.
He was assessing the possible survival of a flightless rail in French Polynesia, in the middle of the Pacific on one of the islands where Gauguin lived. A swamp hen that had outrun islanders and naturalists for close to a hundred years.
“What does it look like?”
“A hen with stumpy wings. It has purplish-blue plumage, a green head, and long yellow legs.”
“What’s it called?”
“The koao.”
“It vanished?”
“After the last one was killed and eaten. But then Gauguin documented the bird in 1902 in The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa—the third-to-last painting he ever made. Are you familiar with it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s of a Marquesan man in a red cape and two women peering out from behind a tree. The koao is in the foreground in the mouth of a hunting dog.”
A flight of geese passed above us in a wishbone formation, preparing for departure. Their loud, insistent calls briefly interrupted Theo. Then he continued, “Nobody knows the source of the model Gauguin used to paint the bird. He could have done it from memory. Or it was a crazed phantasm. The bird is almost the same size as the dog. He was sick by then.”
“The bird’s not extinct?”
“I’ve gone twice there to investigate. If a specimen is living, sooner or later I will find it.”
“And the woodcut?” I nodded in the direction of the glass dome.
“Your print has the motif of the bird in the dog’s mouth. I only found that bird in one other canvas, entitled Nevermore. The scene of a young Polynesian woman lying on her side, nude on a bed.”
“Sounds like most of his paintings.”
“This one is unorthodox. Despite the vivid colours, the mood is solemn. I am most certain the girl is a prostitute. Ill or spurned by her lover. The bird is there by her like an angel of death.”
As we got up to go, Viv entered my mind. The last time I saw her, she was lying in her awful basement bed, nearly lifeless.
“Have I upset you?” Theo asked as we zigzagged down the hill’s pathway.
I smiled and told him no.
When we reached the viewing room and I held the door open for him, I said, “I enjoy our conversations.”
“I do as well. But my work here is finished.”
“You could volunteer.”
“I am not one for organized groups. And I am leaving for the island soon.”
“You’ll be back, though?”
“I am eighty-six, my dear girl. I do not plan ahead.” Then he added, “You are welcome to visit me on Hiva Oa. Mind you, it is not easy to access and my accommodations are far from luxurious.”
“That’s not much of an invitation.”
He chuckled and became serious again. “I want you to see something at the Museum of Nature. Go there and ask for Jonathan Cole. I told him that you would visit. He will show you a phenomenal thing.”
“Sure. I’ll do that.”
Through the afternoon, Theo jotted things down in his notebook and examined his folder of prints with a magnifying glass. He took no interest in the living things surrounding him. He was like Don Quixote in his search for animals whose existence was questionable—dream-creatures arising from conjecture. While peaceful, he didn’t strike me as someone at peace.
Then again, maybe in the end we were all cryptozoologists. Trekking around in our own black forests, getting hopeful on a trick of the light. Hunting down lost species that are always just out of reach.
FORTY-FIVE
WE LOST OUR SPOT on the transplant centre’s list. They reimbursed my deposit and I poured the money back onto the line of credit and the credit cards.
Then I settled up with Bruce. He told me he was moving to Vancouver because business was better there. We met in the Gallery’s charcoal-grey stone enclosure, where rows of deep-plum flowers with spiky leaves were planted like crosses.
“Keep an eye out for my sister.”
“No problem.”
“I’m thinking of submitting a complaint to the police.”
Bruce disagreed. “Not worth the paperwork. That’ll take years to process.”
“What if she was kidnapped or murdered?”
“I didn’t get that impression.”
He’d completed his investigation on Viv in under two weeks. He told me he’d be stealing my money if he kept looking for her. It doesn’t take long to figure out cases like your sister’s, he had said.
“If I volunteered in a soup kitchen, I might find her.”
“You wouldn’t last an hour.”
“I should try.”
“I’d say get on with your life.” There was disappointment in his gruff voice. He closed his notepad, preparing to leave.
“Do you think she went far?”
“Your sister was gone before her physical disappearance,” he told me, offering me one of his toothpicks. “People always think there’ll be a revelation at the end. Most times there isn’t.”
* * *
AFTER MY VIEWING room shift, I locked up and stopped in on The Child’s Dream. From the corridor, I heard a school group. Sprightly children jumped around the vitrine, slapping the glass and pushing each other. The young teacher tried in vain to restore order, then ushered them away.
I wondered at the need to create such a creature out of the unknown. It was hard to believe that sightings of this little horned horse with no skeletal remains had caught the attention of historians, explorers, and scientists for thousands of years.
As for Damien Hirst and his formaldehyde menagerie—the calf, the sheep, the zebra, the shark, and the unicorn, to name a few—what were these but the theatrics of a billionaire terrified of death, as were his diamond-encrusted skulls and his “cabinet series” of cigarette butts and pills.
How maddening it must have been to Hirst that, despite his works of art assembled in factories, despite his industrial units and aircraft hangars manufacturing his creations made by hundreds of staff, despite his three-hundred-room Goth
ic mansion and his line of jeans costing four thousand dollars a pair, he would die and, at best, be preserved in formaldehyde like his beasts.
* * *
I WALKED TO the Coin Shoppe at dawn the next day. Before me, a dull sun rose and washed out the stars, looking like Omar’s pawned medallion in the sky.
From a block away, I saw the For Lease signs plastered on the storefront.
What had I expected, why had I gone back? I thought Omar and his felon friends could track my sister down if I returned what remained of his money.
I stepped up close to the barred door. The store looked as if someone had been through it with a baseball bat. There were holes in the walls and the display cases were smashed and tipped over, their antique legs broken. Serena’s teapot was in pieces on the floor and her dragonfly tin lay upside down and emptied beside it.
Omar had skipped town. Maybe he would outfox whatever chased him. Reinvent himself in a new country, go to university, become successful and rich. Maybe not.
In a way, I was relieved he was gone, especially after our last encounter. What filled me with sorrow, though, was the defaced state of the shop. The place where I’d spent quiet moments as a kid, where stories lay in gold, silver, and bronze beneath layers of grit, was no more.
FORTY-SIX
BY REMEMBRANCE DAY, WE had two feet of snow. The ploughs didn’t come, but I put my boots on and went to Confederation Park anyway, to watch the old war vets receive their honours.
There was a children’s event on at the arts centre. Cutting through the crowds, I saw him standing in line at the ticket booth. Even among hundreds of other identical poppy-adorned uniforms, it was unmistakably him.
“Nick!” I said, in the same instant seeing a child in a brown snowsuit attached to his arm.
He looked at me then at the child and back at me.
The Gallery of Lost Species Page 21