The Kashmir Trap

by Mario Bolduc

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  Kavanagh had six stitches in his face where Gilbert had hit him with a nail-puller. From the police station, he’d called Philippe in Vancouver instead of a lawyer, and Kavanagh declined to file charges, so Gilbert was able to join his sons at the hotel by evening — motel, actually. A pretty grubby one, too, in a slummy neighbourhood. The windows hadn’t been opened in weeks, due to the cold, and the room hadn’t been cleaned ever, except maybe a superficial once-over. All three slept in the same big bed, three world-weary musketeers chewed up and spat out by fate. Gilbert turned on the light in the middle of the night. He had to talk, confess, get it off his chest. He was washed up. Kavanagh hadn’t kept his word and had let his superiors take a piece out of the king of Roxboro. The vultures had swooped down on his business and torn it to pieces. It was the saddest night in Max’s short life: a filthy little bulb overhead, worn-out furniture, and the hum of traffic in the distance.

  “Why us? Why?” Gilbert couldn’t get over it. He never did. After the nervous breakdown, he wound up in the woodworking section at Castor Bricoleur, where he coasted along. He’d come home with his hands full of splinters and never even bother to pull them out. All desire to make an honest living or even “make an effort” deserted Max, too, which resulted in petty crimes to round out the month’s expenses, a borrowed car to impress a girl his age in the neighbourhood, some vandalism, a few misdemeanours here and there: nothing original, just run-of-the-mill impulses. Then one day, he took off after Kavanagh to give him a taste of their calamity. Another dose of the old nail-puller. But the banker had pulled up stakes. Aw, the hell with him. Max had to get on with his life, and he wasn’t about to let anyone get in his way, not like his dad. Little crimes led to bigger ones, bolder, riskier. Max was bound to end up in jail sooner or later.

  Then along came Mimi.

  Before her, Montreal had always spelled misery and hard times for Max.

  The first time he got out of the Bordeaux prison in 1972 — it seemed like only yesterday — there was no one but the bus driver. Gilbert hadn’t passed the news along, so Philippe didn’t know Max was out. No sign of his father in the little apartment on Bagg Street, either. That’s what Max thought at first, because of the drawn curtains and locked door. A neighbour came and let him in. There was Gilbert, sitting in the shadows with a cat on his lap. He’d never liked animals before.

  “I don’t want you here, Max. I put all your stuff in that box. Take it and go.”

  It was only a shoebox of souvenirs he didn’t want anyway, and he tossed it in the first garbage bin he came across on his way to Mimi’s place — an ex-cellmate had given him the address.

  Mimi was the eldest of the three and stood in as mother for the other two: Antoine, who was Max’s age, with his nose buried in Popular Mechanics, was the intellectual in the family; Pascale was secretive and melancholic, looking at him that day through wide teenage eyes, more curious than frightened. The tenants were the collateral damage of the justice system, and Mimi had seen plenty already, so what was one more or one less? And what did these bewildered black sheep live on? Max had an idea, but he wasn’t about to ask. To each his own. They barely said “hi,” then one day they disappeared. A halfway house to crime is what it was. That’s the way Max was headed, too, inevitably. Mimi, though, liked nothing better than to exercise her maternal instinct.

  She was taken with Max, and she stood behind him unobtrusively. A slight glance or a word or two once in a while, nothing more. She was cautious as if she were afraid he’d panic.

  One morning, she found out what he was up to — a gas-station holdup, just one more dumb move — and she took him out to a restaurant to explain a few hard realities, as she called them. Not just any restaurant … the Château Champlain, swarming with waiters decked out in formalwear. Max had never eaten in a place like this before. He had trouble believing Mimi could manage such luxury. Okay, she had money, but not that much.

  “What’s the matter, Max? I’ve never been here before either.”

  She’d chosen a table at the far end near two businessmen in suits and ties whose discussion involved airy sweeps of their pens. Mimi at once struck up a conversation with them. They were only too glad of a pretext for getting off business matters, and she was especially charming: a smile here, a burst of laughter there, and her timing was perfect. Max twiddled his thumbs until they ordered … the same thing as the two business types, who were now back in the thick of their number-columns. After dessert, and feeling stuffed, Max was still wondering what this life lesson was that she wanted to teach him. Till now, they’d just talked about trivial stuff, as though intimidated by their surroundings, nothing heart-to-heart. Max was confused. Mimi had brought him here to talk him out of a burglary, but they were surrounded by things only money could buy — lots of money. Max figured after the burglary he’d invite her out for a life lesson, too.

  When they’d finished eating, Mimi caught the attention of the businessmen once more. On the ground was a leather wallet one of them had probably dropped.

  “Is that yours?”

  Intrigued, one of the men scooped it toward him with his foot, but it wasn’t his or his colleague’s. Mimi took it from him and said, “I’ll give it to the waiter. He’ll want to know which table it was under. If he looks this way, signal him, would you?”

  Baffled, Max followed her to the counter where the overworked waiter was trying to juggle three different orders.

  “Our boss is getting the bill, so just give it to him.”

  “Your boss, where?”

  Mimi pointed to the two businessmen, and one of them, as expected, waved to them. The waiter nodded and went on about his task.

  Once out on the sidewalk, Mimi walked Max away, but not too quickly. Bewildered by what he’d just seen, Max didn’t dare ask any questions, though he was dying to.

  Then she said, “There’s more than one way into a life of crime, Max. Some ways are smarter than others.”

  Over the following months, there was a change in the program — a new career, new things to learn under a new teacher. Mimi taught him the ABCs of the con game with great patience. Gradually, he gained confidence, inventing his own swindles and updating the old ones. He threw himself into the pigeon hunt with the energy and enthusiasm of a neophyte. Soon, the world of grifters kept no secrets from him. He joined a network of fraud artists and plunged himself into all kinds of schemes, playing more and more key parts as his experience grew and his talents gained recognition. He stole smart, without violence or intimidation. Mostly from businesses or those they profited, and that set his conscience at rest. Max didn’t lead just one life, but ten, twenty, fifty … lives that overlapped constantly, so he had to look in the mirror to remember who he was.

  Now he was coming home to Mimi for the first time in years. She’d started renting rooms to students from the Université du Québec nearby, the area a little more respectable than the hoods of the old days. Noisier too, though. As soon as they hugged and took a good look at one another, and told one another they hadn’t aged a day — actually, she had, but he didn’t mention it — students came running down the stairs. Mimi rolled her eyes in exasperation, then smiled, a dimple in her right cheek. Despite the wrinkles, really nothing had changed. Some women can retain that “little girl” look forever, and she was living proof.

  “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you! They told me you were in New York.”

  “New York and other places.”

  She smiled. Again the dimple. He stroked her cheek. He was happy to see her as happy and steady on her feet as always. Antoine, too. A little stooped maybe, and wearing slippers, but still with his head full of projects that worried Mimi. She’d moved on, but not Antoine. He’d turned the basement into a print shop. He still worked at Dorval Airport, but on weekends he made fake documents: passports, social insurance cards, travellers’ c
heques, the way other people had fun with stamp collections or building the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks. Who for? Illegal immigrants “fresh off the boat,” sort of, who needed that kind of thing. The middle of the room was occupied by a Xerox 3275, HoloText 283 that even embedded holograms right in the photo, and a TypoFlair 2220 — the very latest in plastic lamination — plus other machines whose purpose Max didn’t know.

  “See, this is where I come to unwind,” Antoine said with all the pride of a weekend artist. He and Max had been partners a long time. Under contract for Air France in the 1970s, Antoine had developed European contacts in Montreal and all over Canada. Some worked for French companies, and he let them in on unbelievable investment opportunities, blue-chip stocks in corporations that didn’t exist — especially in Asia — or bold and inventive ways to keep the French tax authorities from getting their hands on hard-won travel allowances. Max and Antoine’s victims weren’t really victims, strictly speaking, since their losses were handed on to their employers, who probably profited from similar schemes in the peace and quiet of their Paris offices. Later on, Pascale had joined in with her own special roles to play: the Monaco socialite who would do anything to protect her husband, Count Whatever, from financial ruin; the elegant Brazilian with a fortune from South African diamond mines; or the young charity-fund manager hounded by the Austrian government and ready to entrust her holdings to someone reliable but enterprising who, naturally, had the welfare of the tropical rainforest at heart, especially at a return of 28 percent.

  Pascale, Pascale, Pascale.

  Mimi’s brother raised his head from the HoloText machine, his face bathed in pale blue light. “Is David going to make it?”

  Max had no way of knowing. All he could do was repeat what it said in the papers.

  Antoine placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. That was his way, and it was worth all the condolences on earth. In a voice close to a whisper, he asked, “Do you still think about her?”

  Max pretended not to hear so he could keep up a front. But he couldn’t pull it off with Antoine. “Pascale? Sure, all the time. You?”

  “Always.”

  The love of Max’s life, Pascale and he had married in 1974 on a whim. Or was it love at first sight? They adored each other and couldn’t imagine living apart. They couldn’t even go twenty-four hours without seeing, touching each other and leaping into bed. Then suddenly she was gone, just like that. Then dead in India. Max never got over it. Ever.

  8

  Doctor Dohmann was a frail man, an ex-smoker, and it showed. His hand was forever sliding into his right jacket pocket searching for that phantom pack. Highly respected, but a victim like all of us, thought Juliette, with his little tics left over from the past. With his pen, he pointed to a detail on the MRI on the computer screen: dark, amorphous stains that Juliette refused to connect with David’s brain.

  “See here? A subdural hematoma from violent trauma. The explosion probably blew him against the door. There are other lesions from the shockwave, but the first is more serious. That accounts for his present condition.”

  She wondered if the Indian police would receive this information. The RCMP would insist on seeing it first, of course. Still, what did it change? David was in a coma just the same.

  “Will he survive?”

  The doctor’s hand returned to the jacket pocket, then to his face. He removed his glasses, gently, but it cost him great effort.

  “I don’t wish to give you any false hope. He’s stable for now, and he’s recovered from the operation nicely, and fortunately, despite the cerebral edema, the intracranial pressure is diminished. Still, there’s no guarantee he’ll come through it. Not yet, anyway.”

  “And if he does, he will be … I mean, will he be …?”

  Dohmann understood perfectly well. “The David you know and love? I hope so, of course, but it isn’t very likely.”

  “Diminished, then?”

  “Yes. We’ll just have to see how much. Memory loss, unbearable migraine, personality changes, apathy, indifference, mood swings. This would be the optimum result. Or …”

  “A vegetable?”

  “It’s too soon to say. First he has to get through this, and it’s not yet certain.”

  Juliette looked away. Being in the room had suddenly become unbearable. She was mentally preparing to leave when Dohmann added, “There’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  Dohmann seemed ill at ease. “I don’t know if the police have mentioned this.”

  “Mentioned what?”

  “Not all the marks on his body were from the explosion.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lesions on his neck and chest … and the joints of his fingers, too …” He cleared his throat: “They’re from before the car bomb went off, and completely different in nature.”

  Juliette was speechless.

  “In other words,” Dohmann went on, “when the car blew up, your husband was already in bad shape.”

  “Beaten?”

  “Possibly.”

  “And Luiz, the driver?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the autopsy report. In any event, the body was blown to bits.”

  David beaten? Tortured? What on earth for? For what purpose? Revolted, Juliette left the office. She so wanted to share her distress and horror with someone, Béatrice, for example, even Patterson. But she was alone at the hospital. She also desperately needed to sleep, but knew she wouldn’t. From now on, she couldn’t afford to feel tired. She had to be alert, for both of them. In the common room at the end of the corridor, the vending machine spat out the over-sweetened American chocolates that gave her heartburn. Even Toblerone, the one exception, was getting to be too much for her. Dr. Rangarajan said something about sweets, didn’t he? What was it? She couldn’t remember. She slipped the money into the slot and got mint chocolate for a change, the only type she hadn’t yet tasted. She was distracted, and it was no surprise she didn’t notice the man sitting in a high-backed armchair facing away from the door. When she realized it was Max O’Brien, she gave a start.

  He got up and smiled: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” It was a sad smile that showed the fatigue in his face. She noticed the bags under his eyes. He gestured to the chocolate. “I was sure I’d find you here.” She was about to mumble some banality when he added, “I’m sorry I left in a hurry yesterday.”

  “Is it true what you said about getting to the bottom of this?”

  “What do you know about me?”

  “Practically nothing. The black sheep of the family, a repeat criminal. The man of many faces. Béatrice mentioned some horrible things about you. If you’ve done even half the things she says …”

  “What about David? What does he say?”

  Nothing. Max didn’t exist. In the lead-up to the wedding, his name hadn’t come up once. Worse than dead. At least the dead get mentioned, remembered, but Max? Nothing at all.

  “I sent him several emails at the High Commission, but he never answered.”

  This was news to her: “What about?”

  “Oh, nothing special. I wrote to Béatrice, too. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t to get back into the family; I just wanted to connect. Tell them I was still around. I thought maybe time would win out over the past.” He seemed pained by this. “Just before Philippe went to El Salvador, he made me promise to look out for David. It was stupid. There was no way I could do it, and even if I could, David would never allow it.” He looked away. “When I heard about the bombing, it came back to me. I felt I’d let Philippe down; not taken him seriously. I was wrong. David was all that was most precious to Philippe, even more than Béatrice. Entrusting him to me was Philippe’s way of helping me redeem myself. Do you see what I mean?”

  She didn’t really, but let him go on.

  “It was an emergency exit.
He was showing me a hidden passage, a way back in, unnoticed in the wall and papered over, and all I had to do was open it. I didn’t.”

  Juliette was still in a fog, so he went on.

  “The explosion is another door, a way out, one more chance, and this time I’m not going to miss it.”

  Juliette listened to him soliloquize, his head slightly tilted, till finally he looked up at her. “I’m leaving for New Delhi tonight.”

  He expected her to give a start and wade in against him, like Béatrice, for instance (if he dared tell her), but Juliette seemed to go along with it. He realized she was at a loss, that she didn’t trust either Béatrice or Patterson, much less the RCMP or the CBI.

  “I want to catch them, too,” she said, finally.

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Tell me.”

  With the police, everything had been dragged out of her painfully and oh-so-slowly, but with Max, it just poured out naturally: first the High Commission and the past frantic days before the Montreal conference at the end of the month, involving government officials and some private companies. The prime goal was to stimulate economic activity between the two countries. Forget about the poor, the lepers, overpopulation, and the caste system. Think economic development, the middle class, and skilled labour.

  “Who’s taking part?”

  “Every Canadian business already working in India, or those who want to be: information technology, recycling, pharma … then there was Béatrice’s lightning descent.”

  “To do what?”

  “See her son and empty all the shops in Connaught Place. We took her to the airport two days before the attack. What else? Mrs. Fothergill dropped in uninvited just as we were about to have supper. That persistent Japanese diplomat looking for a squash partner. Didier, the librarian at l’Alliance Française was in a panic …”

  “And before Béatrice got there?”

  Juliette clammed up. Should she tell him? Was it even relevant?