The Bodice Ripper

by Byron Rempel

  Tomorrow she would fly home, but now she walked through the Tuileries and vowed that next time—next time? —she would heed advice and wear heels, since nothing worked without them. She looked up and the sky above Paris was golden and aglow, as if in the heart of every man a city burned.

  3. Gothic Revival

  A cold wind squealed around the corner, and an autumn rain chased it down the street. Anna spun on a sensible heel. A taxi horn admonished an out-of-province license plate. Someone yelled off a balcony, something about Schopenhauer. The sidewalk traffic pulled their collars up, pulled down their hats. A cat bolted for cover from the weather. In front of Dépanneur Victoire Sanjay a homeless guy in a ratty fur coat and cap swayed with the gusts of wind.

  Anna’s house across the street was shuttered and solid against the season too, and one side abutted on a stone frat house. On her windows the blinds were thick, curtains dense. Except for that one dormer on the top floor with its flimsy lace.

  Despite the rain on her neck, Anna stood fixed between her house and the corner store. She needed Sunlight soap. She’d left dirty dishes in her panic to fly to Paris. She never left dishes, but then she’d never flown to Paris before either. She didn’t move from the sidewalk. Did she really want to clean as soon as she came home? But the idea was a blanket, and she wanted to snuggle up in it, and think about how clean and orderly her life would be after getting the Sunlight. And then she wondered if maybe she’d left the dishes dirty on purpose as a weird comfort, and if so then she’d known it wouldn’t work out in Paris, so why hadn’t she stayed home in the first place.

  She’d have to walk by the homeless Sasquatch with a cigarette in its mouth. He bounced in place. The sparks from the cigarette singed the facial hair. Anna was sure she could smell wet fur from here.

  She took another step towards the dépanneur.

  The fur coat continued to bounce with an alien rhythm, partnered with furry flop ears. Yellow eyes glowed among the hair.

  She took another step. The eyes turned out to be discoloured aviator glasses. They studied her house. Anna believed it all well and good that homeless schizophrenics could find shelter under the eaves of dépanneurs. But today wasn’t a good day to be robbed. She thought herself a fine frozen target on the corner of the street, her curls sprung and makeup on the loose.

  It was better to appear decisive. Anna began to rummage through what she now used as her purse, her father’s satchel. But an open bag was worse. The Sasquatch began what sounded like a religious chant. Anna clutched at a found coin, held it in her fist as a fetish.

  Peace and order could be bought.

  She walked up the steps with her fist in front of her, but the man stepped towards the door. He flipped up one of his fur ears and withdrew a white bean from it. Anna could now hear music shout from his brain. Headphones.

  “Excusez-moi,” Anna said, her eyes on the ground.

  “Radiohead,” it said. A thundercloud of breath blew from

  his mouth.

  “Anna Hill,” she responded. She reached for the door.

  “Professor Hill?” He held out his hand.

  She dropped the coin into it, but the money rolled off and bounced down the steps. Then a bell chimed as she strode into Sanjay’s Victorious Dépanneur.

  “Small Sunlight,” Sanjay said. “The dishes again.”

  Thank god for simple habits. Anna smiled. But there was no Sunlight on the shelves. How could there be no Sunlight? She looked outside. The homeless guy now beat the air with invisible drumsticks.

  “We keep it special,” Sanjay said, and waved a bottle of the soap from behind the counter.

  “Wow. You’re remarkable.” Anna wished she could stay inside the store and let Sanjay organize her life.

  “The customer comes first.” He looked behind him at the curtained doorway.

  “Sanjay,” she said, “there’s a Captain Podhead outside your door. So you know.”

  “Oh yes,” Sanjay said. “He wears the pilot cap. Waits for someone. He has bought the farm.”

  Anna didn’t question the phrase. Sanjay tested colloquialisms on her, unsure of their usage. Anna guessed he didn’t let the homeless guy inside the store because of his wife’s orders. Previous incidents of loans and reduced prices.

  Anna heard Sanjay’s wife now, her mumbled directives in the back room behind the curtain. “She corrects me,” the storeowner said. “My favourite editor.” He jiggled a pen between his fingers, balanced it on his knuckles, stuck it in his mouth.

  Anna checked the front steps again. The beast was gone.

  “Your novel?” she asked. She dropped her change into the bag.

  Sanjay looked confused for a moment. “Right. The novel is more a screenplay now.” He leaned forward. “A romantic comedy. I would like that woman from that film to be in it. I cannot remember her name, but she was in Hollywood too. Perplexingly beautiful. Unfortunately, cannot act her way out of a samosa.”

  “A screenplay might be easier.” But then she followed Sanjay’s glance outside, and saw the fur coat waddle across the street towards her house. The thing stopped in the middle of the road, bent over, turned around a few times.

  “Yes. Less words.”

  “More money.”

  “It is funny how it works.”

  “Sanjay.”

  “Yes, Professor Hill.”

  Anna rummaged in her bag for her keys. “Could you…”

  She couldn’t find anything. With an abruptness that surprised her more than Sanjay, Anna dumped the satchel out onto

  the counter.

  “Could you tell me the name of your screenplay?”

  It was small change that rolled onto the wet hardwood floor, along with one pen, a plastic tampon case and some lip balm. What stayed on the counter were a glasses case, a lipstick, hair elastics, Kleenex, lipstick liner, decaf tea bag, keys! —but for her mom’s house—Rescue Remedy, makeup mirror, cell phone, Band-Aid, business cards, breath strips, reading glasses out of their case, a flyer for salsa classes, a large bottle of hand cream, her chequebook, throat lozenges, and no house keys.

  “It is called…The Mango Tree Trick,” Sanjay said.

  “I’m so sorry. They’re here somewhere.”

  “Or Small Mangos by the River House. I’m not sure. A working progress. The story involves fakirs, you see. But mangos are there, definitely.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Anna looked up. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is the wrong house.”

  “Your screenplay title?”

  “Oh no, your friend. He goes in the house.”

  The vagrant stood at a front door, atop the outdoor steps.

  “No no,” Sanjay said through the window, “this is not your beautiful house.” He waved his hand to the side.

  “He’s going in someone’s house? Poor them.”

  “He has chosen wrongly.”

  “More than a few bad choices, I’d say. He’ll go away.”

  “I don’t think so. He is at your door.”

  Anna grabbed Sanjay’s shoulders.

  “Miss Anna,” he said.

  The beast turned and saw her in the window. He smiled and stretched out his fur arms, his bare palms towards them. He clapped once, then looked up in the air.

  “Please call the police Sanjay.” Anna fidgeted to get behind a beer ad. “He’s nobody’s friend.”

  The man caught something that fell out of the sky, held it up in a theatrical gesture.

  “What’s that,” Sanjay said. “Something shiny.”

  “Oh god he’s got a gun. Get down Sanjay.” Anna could see her name in the paper the next day. A once peaceful neighbourhood shattered by a mythical beast. No one suspected that Parc du Mont-Royal had harboured the evolutionary mistake all these years. And n
ow he’d ventured into the city to abduct a mate and destroy anyone who tried to stop him.

  Sanjay looked at Anna on her knees on the wet floor. “I am sorry Professor, it is not clean. This weather makes it impossible. I will call my wife. Roopa.”

  “Get down.” Anna pulled at his pant leg until Sanjay crouched beside her.

  “It needs to be cleaned back here too. Are these your keys?”

  “My mom’s.”

  “Roopa!”

  Sanjay’s wife came out of back room with her broom. Her husband and the professor were crouched on the floor. It was not the first time she’d seen the professor in inexplicable positions, but it was the first time she’d seen her implicate Sanjay. Roopa hit Sanjay a few times around the legs with her broom, then began to sweep around them.

  “But there’s a beast,” Anna said.

  “Yes. He wants you to look.” Roopa moved an oversized beer ad out of the way.

  The fur man waved again. Then he turned to Anna’s door and opened it.

  “Abracadabra,” said Sanjay. “I think we have found your keys.”

  [

  That coin that fell on the stairs outside, that was part of a confidence trick. She knew that too well. As a child she watched the magic her dad claimed he learned in a bunker. And her mother: “Honey, give it up. You didn’t fool me with those tricks the first time either. Why don’t you conjure up a paycheque? That’d be a good trick, Mr. Birdman.”

  “Make a pony appear,” Anna said.

  “How about a porker,” said Dotty. “We could use the bacon.”

  Edward reached to Anna’s ear and pulled out a nickel. Again she grimaced with delight. She caught his hand and made him do it again. The sound of coins slid through her daddy’s fingers all evening long.

  [

  The madman didn’t have a gun. Otherwise Anna would never have pushed Sanjay out the door and used him as a human shield, with verbal prods from Roopa and musical accompaniment from Sanjay’s doorbell.

  What else could she do? In a proper époque the street person would be arrested, whipped and put in stocks. A man who wandered and hunted innocent game was sin in motion. She knew her stuff about beggars and vagabonds in medieval Europe, and without exception they met grotesque ordeals by fire and water. Theft too: if he dared pocket anything from her house, his right hand would be gone forever. Or he’d be branded—a fiery V on his forehead. The primary sources didn’t flinch at the cruelty they meted out on the vagrant, the drifter, the outsider. Mobility brought disease and conspirations to overthrow the social order. They had to be stopped.

  Torch-lit paranoia drove the Other from among them. They were scared for their children, their houses, their tenuous grasp on order. The vagrant cast curses on their miserly ways until a nobleman was roused from his manor, equipped with warhorse and sword and right. Able to mete out instant verdicts, he made tremble not only the vagrant but the mob that followed him, with his eyes on fire, his shoulders forward, his moustache… his moustache neatly combed.

  This was justice from horseback and sword. They would fight to the death, the loser guilty. The vagrant was thrown a stick, a pole from market awnings, and between the church and bakery he faced his mismatched destiny with dread. A swing of that pole only broke it in two; another swing caught the nobleman’s slice not only through the pole but also through the impudent’s arm. A great bell rang across the village.

  “Gothic Revival,” the furry man said.

  Anna pushed Sanjay’s back again. “My keys,” she implored.

  The man said, “It looks like a castle. But it isn’t.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Anna said. “But those are my keys.”

  “Yours maybe looks more French château. This one next to it is Scottish manor. Both have advantages under attack.”

  Anna took a few short breaths before she reached the bottom of her lungs and formed a vapour cloud above her head. Then she stood behind Sanjay and gripped his shoulders, and said, “It’s Queen Anne.” She squinted at the roof line. She couldn’t stop herself. “Not that the Queen would have recognized it as anything she knew. And the other is Gothic Revival.”

  “That would explain the kids under the turret with dark trench coats, the heavy eye makeup. I will build one.”

  “A turret?”

  “A castle.”

  “Good night.” Anna guided Sanjay as she strode behind him up the slippery steps.

  “It is a magical night. Oh, forgot to tell you,” the vagrant said, and jangled a ring of cold metal. “I found your keys on the road. When you dug in your purse at the crossroads, I guess.”

  “I will go then,” said Sanjay.

  “How do you know this is my house?” She held her palm open.

  “I have sources.”

  “I believe Roopa calls me. I will be back in the store.”

  “Though you know,” the man said, “you don’t even need keys to get into something like this. Old doors.” He locked the door, pointed to a half-ton truck parked across the street with ZAP RENO painted on its door. Then he began to unbutton his fur coat and spread it wide before Anna.

  An antique tool belt hung from his hips.

  “It’s you,” Anna said.

  “Always is,” Zap Reno said.

  “Jesus. The carpenter.”

  “And licensed locksmith.” He plucked a tool from his belt and within ten seconds Anna’s door was open again. “If you ever do lose your keys. Miracles extra.”

  Anna backed away from him. Rain gusted sideways. She looked at his renovation truck. Her breath formed cumulus clouds. Anna put her Rescue Remedy back in her purse, grabbed her keys from the man, and stepped through the door.

  There was no duel, no ordeals for the drifter. But now at least she was inside and safe and all vagrant Sasquatches would disappear.

  A wet cat snuck in her open door. “Hey!”

  Zap grabbed for it, but it was already upstairs. He brushed against Anna in her doorway, smelled of wet fur and sawdust. “Hey,” she said again, with as much result.

  “He likes you,” Zap said on the way out, the cat flopped over his shoulder. “Good thing. He’ll come and visit.” Before Anna could close the door completely he said, “We’re next door. We bought the Gothic.”

  4. Woman in Jeopardy

  There was a memo marked urgent on her desk when Anna got back. While You Were Out, it read, Dmitri had come to her office, wanted to see her. The history department secretary clung to the nostalgia of paper memos. Aside from the distinct spice of pepper, the entire floor reeked of irony.

  Anna went to see the Chair.

  “Right, Anna. A matter with your class.”

  “Okay.”

  “Paris was helpful?”

  I want a refund on Paris, she wanted to say, but didn’t. She wanted to say, Next time she’d opt for an on-line conference.

  “I won’t lie,” Anna said, “I made a fabulous entry.”

  “I can imagine. Your assistant, meanwhile.”

  “I was…Audrey?”

  “Is full of energy. Always organizes.”

  “I get dizzy,” said Anna.

  “Yes well. You had better sit down. She organized while you were out.”

  “That’s what she’s paid for. Though not much.”

  “So we hear.” Dmitri directed her again to a chair full of books. Anna picked them up and put them on her lap with the care of a Shih Tzu trainer.

  “It began with a door,” Dmitri said.

  “As these things do.”

  [

  Everything was cool until Audrey reached the classroom door, but things quickly deteriorated when her bag of books and uncooperative scarf blocked her view.

  “Let me get that,” a student said.

  “Pardon?” Audrey said.

  The boy
reached in front of her and turned the doorknob. He pushed it open.

  Audrey couldn’t move.

  “After you,” the boy said.

  “I can open a door I think,” she said.

  “I take all your classes.”

  “Please close the door.”

  “Do you get nervous in front of a crowd?”

  “You should be nervous right now.”

  “I imagine everyone in their underwear.”

  Audrey threw up her hands. Several books fell across the hallway.

  “I mean not like that,” he said.

  [

  “It was from that point,” Dmitri said, “that your assistant refused to enter the room, and began to teach the class from the hallway.”

  “Always resourceful.”

  “This attracted some attention.”

  “I can assure you Dmitri,” Anna started.

  “…as the theme of the lesson that afternoon was the long-awaited death of chivalry.”

  “So forty years ago.”

  “Or six centuries. A truffle occurred.”