by Byron Rempel
Her breasts moist from wine or fear. Her body looks ready for emergency, at the least. He licks her shoulder. Her temperature rises three degrees.
Her phone has buzzed the whole time she’s been here. Dmitri again, or her mother. She hopes they will all go away.
“I’m starving,” she says.
He produces a bottle of two-year-old Muscadet, neutral as Switzerland. Christophe empties the white over the stain, the only method he uses. Never too expensive. Not Champagne. Wine comes in at the mouth. When his hands touch her he watches. He watches her skin flinch, blood rise to colour flesh. Love comes in at the eye. And when his fingers glide through her hair again he senses her short sharp breath come back. Hiccups. That’s all we shall know for truth. He pushes her hips against the sink on that drenched silk. Before we grow old and die.
Anna’s mind flips. Her head pulled to him. Her scalp burns. The title of her book shimmers in a marquee above the sink: THE FALCONMOOR. The cold blues of reality turn to the yellows of sepia. Christophe without all the costume of that first party, naked of beard or turban. How can she even think of her book when… still those kisses at the shoulder. The book falls away for an instant. She grabs at it—the Moor would kiss the nun’s shoulder, and… dance, music, merrymaking… instruments on the divan of love.
What he wants. What every man wants. Moor or Christian. Well she wouldn’t give him that, not like that. Not after all that waiting of hers, those washouts in Paris and Montreal and the stark plains of the Kingdom of León… all she wants is more of that on her collarbones. She shakes her head. Her hair tumbles into lips, and she grabs back at the Moor’s hair. No, Christophe’s hair. The transgression. The love of light. His words now, French and low, a prayer of longing.
She wants to laugh now. Not politely, she wants to impregnate him with laughter. Even as his hand traces a half moon. She has drunk the potion of Pomerol, and its heat and tickle have found her nerves. Her phone buzzes again, imitating her synapses.
“You have to know something,” she says.
“Le temps des discours est terminé.”
It’s true. She shouldn’t lecture. Something about his need to limit her frees her. She will let go and live this moment, imagined and sculpted for years. His pale skin, fingerprints on her lips. Rougher than she remembers. The dry of winter, and too many pages turned, and a man’s aversion to hand cream. Are her hands rough like that too, cracking in the cold? And the wooden arm of this sofa is cold as well of course, he is French, he doesn’t understand central heating. And her without a top on stainless steel sink and drenched in crushed grapes. His chin scratches too. She feels every whisker in her pores. On his tongue the lees of that same Pomerol brings her back to Dotty’s basement and the first stolen sips with a pimply boyfriend. Anna shivers too long, and Christophe scratches his nails down her spine until she growls at him. She should say something. They should get under covers. She should leave.
We trembled in each other’s arms. The shocking desert night, its inability to retain heat. He had kidnapped me, stolen me from my hiding place in the orange groves. But when he saw the roundness of my breasts his face turned a burgundy colour that climbed from his breastbone to his chin. I was the corrupter in that deserted castle that night. I unveiled the eyes of the FalconMoor.
A deserted castle. Her turret. The tree.
“I have to go.”
And when his hands only hold her tighter as her clothes fall, she doesn’t resist, she wants to dive into that orange grove. Or at least wake to offered orange juice in the morning. Even as he grasps her throat and her head snaps back into his chest, as she hears that cheap lingerie tear. Even when her breaths shorten, even when she struggles to stand upright and he pushes her down, even when on the side of her head she feels his hand hit her in an unforgiving slap.
Danger in the desert. They were never alone. As he found her heart, an assassin leapt from behind an olive tree and grabbed her. A Christian, a heretic, come to think he’d save her, and the nun screaming as she’s torn from her love….
“Wait, wait.” Her voice hoarse. This is not imagination. But his hands leave her throat. The room pulses as she fills her lungs. She is over his knee. Her lingerie is ruined. He wears all his clothes but he is naked and she reaches for him, and her clothes on the floor buzz. Her telephone has no mercy or shame. She would let the bells chime, resound with alarm.
“Answer your putain de téléphone. Or I will.” He reaches to the floor.
“Leave it.” She is in no position to argue, but it is her training.
“Everyone wants you. Dmitri. That neighbour. Your mother.” He kicks at her clothes and the phone slides across the room. “Stop.” Anna gathers herself among the mohair blanket. All those people in the room with them now. She scoops up the clothes and the phone and locks the bathroom door behind her, props her back against it. She holds the phone so tight in one hand it cramps, and the other hand’s fingers curl into her palms. When she loosens her grip the rest of her body relaxes too, and a wave of warmth descends from her belly again. She squeezes her legs together. Her skin still shivers without a touch. How could she let… it’s the new millennium goddammit, a woman doesn’t… she had to pee. Her panties are ripped. She pulls them off and buries them under tissue in the garbage can. How much did they cost? Do they refund for things like this? The phone buzzes beside the sink. What if it’s the police. One bra strap is gone too. What if it’s an emergency? Of course it’s an emergency. A tree is in her turret. She digs the panties out of the garbage and stuffs them in a pocket. Or someone is hurt. Bleeding. Naked.
She puts herself together and shivers when the cold stained silk shirt sticks to her shoulder. No sound comes from outside the door. She will freeze but will go to her university office and regroup. And what will he do if she says something, to someone. What will he strangle? What can he deny, what can he ruin, what tenure track can he derail?
“Are you all right?”
The inquiry of a harmless scholar.
“Do you have bad news? You suddenly ran away when you checked your phone.”
“You hurt me.”
“You hurt yourself. The phone message. I am worried about you.”
Had she checked the message first? Hadn’t she run from it? Or from Christophe.
“I can’t read my phone. My head is spinning.”
“You head is spinning because of the message. Let me in.”
Anna says nothing. Did she read the message? She knew a little about trauma. Events got mixed up. Yet she is sure her phone is still in her purse. She is sure Christophe assaulted her.
“I never did,” he says. “You would know.”
She digs out her phone. The text says: Your family has disappeared.
15. Elopement Protocol
(or, A Thousand Suns)
This was the lesson Jackson Zaporzan learned from his family, his father renovator of swank Westmount homes, who learned it from his father before him in the Old Country where he built prefab Khrushyovkas, who learned it from his father before him who built dachas on the shores of the Black Sea, and so on back to the Cossacks and the Golden Horde and Scythians who all built and renovated their histories, this was the lesson: Beware free borscht. He could not spend all day on volunteer work in Anna’s turret. His mobile had the day fully booked, and reminded him with chirps and gurgles of imminent doom.
His scheduled tour of historic architecture in the Coleridge Park ghetto had already been canceled. Attendance was notoriously sparse for the city’s cruelest months. Didn’t bother him, though. Got his best ideas in the snow without nuts around.
Instead, as part of his community service (a chance to “return the compliment” to the neighbourhood after a forgettable misdemeanor) he scheduled an impromptu tour outside the strictures of the Coleridge Park Architectural Preservative Society, to parts beyond the student ghetto. In a blizzard
. Wasn’t what he called a blizzard though. This was snowfall. You’d know it when you were in a Montreal blizzard. You’d know when it smacked you. So there they were, he and a friend who was delighted with his proposal, well protected for the occasion and in the snow-diffracted lights of a truck, looking at architecture. His friend said something and Zap agreed, but truth was he hadn’t understood one mumble. Her layers of scarves and furry hoods conspired against it. You could only see a slit for eyes, but they were delighted.
[
“She’s disappeared,” Dotty said. “She is your family. We have such a small family. Will you find her?”
“Wandering is an expression of a real desire,” the Director at La Falaise Manor for Assisted Living said. Anna was on her phone, in a taxi headed there. “We all have fundamental needs that aren’t always met.”
“I’d say the fundamental need is to keep her out of this blizzard.”
“I understand that. We try to keep exit-seeking to a minimum, by keeping things interesting inside the building. Her primary need is companionship. We encourage the family to visit.”
Did everyone try to put the blame on her? “Obviously our
elopement protocol is to do everything we can. Rooms have been searched. Hospitals called. Police notified.”
Where would Pearl wander, lost in her mind, frozen to her toes? She hadn’t lived in Montreal for decades. When she found Pearl, Anna would take her out of there. She would be more caring too, and she would listen to her. They would be friends. Christophe would see that Anna had a maternal instinct, that… There was a bustle of noise beyond the Director.
“There she is! All bundled up and warm. Bonjour Madame Perle!”
The Director said she looked fine, all smiles and nonsense as usual. Apparently a family member had come by to provide companionship. Your husband! He was already gone, such a caring and humble man.
Anna said La Falaise knew best how to take care of her aunt, and after she redirected the taxi home she said she’d try to come by later that evening if she could cancel a few things, work out a schedule with her husband.
He was parking his truck in front of his house when she jumped out of the taxi and informed Zap he was lucky she didn’t press abduction charges, and that the police were notified all the same, and who did he think he was anyway, kidnapping her aunt. And Zap said it was time she was back home taking care of her house and her loved ones. And wondered why nothing distracted her from whatever was so important at the French professor’s house.
Then Anna asked him why he knew so much about her life and aunt and what was he inferring.
So Zap said he inferred about Anna more than almost anything else in the world. And he’d found the name and number in her Fleshy Empire Cannibal Romance book. And Rochester told him to pursue his instinct.
Then no one spoke for a long time.
Zap said he and Pearl had talked about Anna, like about how you had to love yourself before anyone else did. You’ve got altogether too much to say, Anna said. Then she regretted saying that. And Zap said that if she didn’t stop putting her foot in her mouth soon she’d swallow everything that was told her. Then Anna started to say something about his anatomical logic and if he kept talking there was a likelihood of her foot in his mouth. Then she breathed in, and said that maybe sometimes she did explain too much but it was an occupational hazard, and if he didn’t want to learn something he should shut up. And Zap said he already learned enough for one day, especially about her atomic logic bombs.
The phone rang and Anna stopped herself from throwing it into the snowbank.
“I’m calling to see if everything goes well. You left so quickly. I so hope it wasn’t bad news.”
Who is this, she wanted to say. Who are you?
“Your aroma is still all over me.”
Anna shivered, could still feel the red and white wines on her blouse. She smelled like a French village in September.
“Come back. We’ll go see your house together. We’ll make sure you’re safe. I worry about you. Your behavior. Erratic.”
Did he mean erotic? “I worry about me.” It was time she thought about herself.
“I need you.”
I don’t need to spend much time with my aunt, Anna thought. Maybe regular phone calls. Those end-of-term papers would pile up soon.
Zap, who stood beside her the whole time in his furry ear cap, now touched her head. “That’s a fresh red bruise,” he said. “You want me to put some ice on that.” He started scooping up a snowball.
“Ice is the problem,” Anna said. “I slipped.”
Anna dismissed Zap without thanks, watched him skip up the stairs to Sanjay’s to perform ritual male greetings with their secret handshakes and clown banter. But she craved her own rituals, alone with the magic of black-and-white channels and extravagant socks over tender toes. She groaned when she saw her door encircled by a tangle of branches. Her broken house and Zap’s intervention were no longer deniable.
A cat in her window reminded her that avoidance was futile. She did not own a cat. Since a certain Prozac dachshund incident, she’d sworn off pets altogether. In the same way she now swore off all visiting professors, every inferring carpenter, and the gamut of quaint grannies. But the cat didn’t move from its nest of curtain and branch. He taunted her, challenged her to enter the breached fortress.
The precarious maple had disappeared with its shadow. The house felt empty, like after a roommate skips out on the rent. The only clue, golden sawdust outside. The worst way to end a day already too full of action and denouement.
The cat leapt from window to frayed Moroccan rug, dagger claws and a sabre tail. He’d probably scaled the trunk assault tower, and found a fissure through the tree hole. And what other treacherous beasts stormed with it? In a great sigh, the cat rolled on its back and began an orange and rotund purr.
“Hello?”
Her umbrella stand overflowed with fresh cut maple branches in water. Behind the cat was a construction of green limbs fashioned into a doll’s wood cabin, or maybe a hasty pile of firewood. Tiny enough for a professor (assistant) to manipulate. If a professor had a proper fireplace to burn it in.
Everywhere branches and twigs entwined her doorways and windows, sprung from containers, graced arches. She felt a tail hook her ankle, nudged it away while it rubbed back harder. Anna opened the front door, shooed it out, but instead it bolted upstairs for her turret. She understood. She wanted that too: a shredded sweater and those socks and wait for the winter’s siege to deplete its ammunition. Never rise again till thaw. Only she knew upstairs there was a disaster and a feral animal lost among it.
Anna’s education evaded biology when possible, but even so she knew to worry about all that defrosted wood in the middle of winter. From a sick tree, felled by a tender blizzard, peopled by battalions of bugs and beetles on the march, and a flea-infested stray who caressed it all. A Plague waiting to happen. She wound up the stairs, danced by the vases and jars of twigs. One lay on its side already, felled by the cat. She tracked the wet footprints.
Raw wood enveloped her on the second floor, along with a fresh draft of February air. Sweet and acrid, it launched her sneezes. The first one flushed the cat from the bathroom. With the second it tore into her turret office. The breeze came from there. She nudged the door with her fingertips and sneezed a last time. In front of the turret window one pane gone, covered with tight plastic. Above it, quick-fixed patches of plywood on the roof. But around the window a string of patio lights twinkled in the dim room, and on either side of the bench under the window, piles of logs rose halfway up the wall. Books knocked out of her crushed shelves lined the room too, multi-coloured watchtowers of history that guarded against future attack. What remained of her desk cowered among the logs and in its place wobbled an unfamiliar wooden table and chair, bare of all paper and technology. The corpse of her computer la
y shattered in a box, a note taped to the top: RIP. But still on the wall in its rightful place her father’s satchel bulged with romance. She stood in a rustic cabin, a lumberjack’s retreat, jury-rigged with aromas and random patches.
The cat hooked her ankle. This time she curled down and wrapped him up in her arms. Anna held him long enough to read the medallion: a phone number, and the words Feed Me.
She glided to the new table and let the cat pour off her forearms, land without fanfare on its front paws and stay there, a gypsy saltimbanco. The table rocked as he lay down. Anna pulled out the chair. The cat offered his belly and they talked that way for a long time, of bellies and fur, of atomic secrets hung on walls, of the need to divulge an ache so deep that she could imagine a carpenter touching her pages, her thousand suns, uncovering her love more than she ever could. Anna never did find her sweater her socks her black-and-white, but instead went to bed with a constant purr on her breast. The payoff from a quick side trip to the kitchen for Feed Me. And almost forgot about the tree that lay in her turret or the lips that fell to her mouth, or the purpling bruise on her temple.
16. Sympathetic and Contagious Magic
The weekend arrived in her treehouse; in a treehouse, it was always the weekend. This was not always desirable, because while the front ends of weekends were glorious and free, the back ends tended towards nostalgia and dread. Halfway through their short lives, they turned and ate their own tails. Anna was at the magic hour now, one minute before midnight on a Saturday and still nestled in the novelty of exploring her transformed house. She found enough stability to sit herself down and face some truths. Unfortunately, by the time she unveiled the first truth, time flipped by midnight and began its descent to the darker side.
The singular truth grew from the colour purple that blossomed on her temple, amplified by her makeup mirror. The bruise kept her dizzy and unable to concentrate on her work. She did not need more distractions than she already had on the road to tenure. The dizziness was not the result of suffering a bump on the head, but on her not being sure what or who caused it.