by André Alexis
In any case, the important points were these:
1. that there should be a strong person to carry the painting (Ollie most likely)
2. that the painting’s motion sensor be disabled so The Well-Tempered Clavier would not play
3. that the home’s alarm system be turned off or made irrelevant
Willow’s sister, Simone Azarian-Thomson, was a talker. When Tancred, asking her to sign a petition, had bluffed his way into the house to see where the painting was hung and what the alarm system was like, Mrs. Azarian-Thomson kept him there for half an hour, talking about her life and interests. Without prompting, she had told him how often she was home alone and how rarely she had company during the day. She’d told him so much, he’d felt like both taking notes and warning her to be more discreet.
Tancred was convinced it would take very little to get her talking again.
Ollie agreed to steal the painting on an afternoon he had off and Tancred set out how they’d proceed. Tancred would ring at the front door, remind Mrs. Azarian-Thomson that she’d offered to make a contribution to Toronto Western Hospital. While she was talking and signing a cheque, Ollie would enter from the back of the house, take down the painting, put it in a van they would steal beforehand, then blow the van’s horn to signal that he had it. So, there it was: relatively uncomplicated, a job that could be done by amateurs.
Two days before they were to steal the painting, Tancred stole a van parked off Eglinton not far from Yonge. That night, in a storage garage Tancred rented at Kennedy and Sheppard, he and Ollie used a stencil and black spray paint to put
McCaltex Restoration
on both sides of the grey-blue van, Mr. McCaltex having been their grade-school art teacher.
The following day, with Ollie dressed in dark overalls, because that is what he imagined restorers wore, they set out for the Azarian-Thomson house on Edgar Avenue.
The house itself was impressive: red brick, with two chimneys. It was three storeys high, with a long front walk – precisely cut and laid shale – leading to cement steps. The entrance was through a brick porch over which there was a room with tall transom windows. It was the kind of house you would notice, but it was not ostentatious. It brought to mind old and polite money. If, in his professional capacity, he were going to break and enter anywhere on Edgar Avenue, Tancred would, he imagined, have chosen the grey, mock Tudor monstrosity down the road. Though, these days, he did not often break and enter unless, as now, he was looking for a specific valuable thing.
Though he’d spent time in Rosedale, it still felt to Tancred like walking through a rumour of Toronto. Unreal. How difficult it was, at times, to square these big-roomed places with their walkways and green lawns – no bald patches! – with the reddish-brick warrens where he’d grown up. For most of his life, ‘home’ had meant row houses, one home distinguished from the next only by a satellite dish or a window flower box or the butt end of an air-conditioner hanging from a second-floor window. Down the street or across Dundas: Asian grocery stores and restaurants, endless traffic till late at night, no quiet until three in the morning when the older kids had had enough for the night and would go home, their voices trailing after them.
Tancred parked the van on Roxborough by a modest, well-kept triangle of park space: wooden benches beside sparse plots for flowers, thin trees here and there. They had agreed that Ollie would go to the back of the house fifteen minutes after Tancred had entered it from the front. If the back door was unlocked, Ollie (who knew the layout of the house because Tancred had drawn it for him) would go in and take the painting at once, quietly and carefully, in case Tancred hadn’t been the one to unlock the door. Tancred would, of course, distract whoever was inside.
If the back door was locked, Ollie would wait for Tancred’s signal – a knock at the back window from inside the house. Having got the signal, he was to open the door and go in while Tancred distracted whoever needed distracting. If no knock came and the back door remained locked, he was to leave after twenty minutes without taking anything.
They were clear on what was to be done.
Less clear were Tancred’s feelings. He felt exhilaration and pleasure, the usual. He imagined it was what actors felt going onstage. But beneath the rush of adrenalin, he also felt distress. It was as if they were stealing from Willow, and that idea was disturbing. He’d felt the same when they’d broken into Gretchen’s home. He was not made to steal from friends or to betray a trust. But how strange that he should feel this while honouring Willow’s wishes and keeping his word. For the first time since he was a child, he found the difference between right feeling and right doing difficult to ignore.
Tancred was dressed much as he had been on first calling at the Azarian-Thomsons’ home: navy-blue Canali two-piece, pale chicory-coloured shirt, light-orange tie. He looked, he thought, as those asking for money should look: clean, not desperate. In any case, Willow’s sister had invited him in the first time and offered him a hundred dollars. There was no reason to think she’d be less accommodating now.
– Yes?
– Mrs. Azarian-Thomson? I wonder if you remember me.
She smiled, as if he’d said something ironic.
– How could I forget? she asked. You were collecting money for charity, wasn’t it?
– Yes, said Tancred. And you were kind enough to offer …
– A hundred dollars for a new wing at the Toronto Western! But you wouldn’t take my money. Such an insult! Why shouldn’t I turn you away now?
– I’d be disappointed, said Tancred.
– Well, said Simone, we can’t have that. Come in, Tan. What did you say your name was?
For a moment, Tancred could have sworn she’d called him by name.
– Ben, he said. Ben Connolly.
Again, the enigmatic smile.
– A lovely name, she said
and stood aside so he could enter.
From there, things went almost precisely to plan. But if the chaos of the first theft had been stressful, the precision of this one was unnerving. It felt as if, at any moment, someone with a microphone might pop up and cry out that he was on television.
After fifteen minutes of talk about hospitals, fifteen minutes during which Willow’s sister did most of the talking, he’d asked to use the washroom and she had pointed toward it.
– Through the next room, she’d said
and let him go on his own.
Glenn Gould had come on as he passed the painting. He’d gone through to the kitchen and unlocked the back door after tapping on the kitchen window. On returning through the room with the painting in it, with Bach still sounding and Gould going tra-la-la, he’d taken a small can of hairspray from his jacket pocket and sprayed over the painting’s motion detector, disabling it. Once again in the front room, he tried to pick up the conversation from where they’d left off, but Mrs. Azarian-Thomson seemed to have talked the subject of hospitals out.
– Do you like the painting? she asked.
– It’s unusual, Tancred answered.
She laughed and rose from her chair.
– It reminds me of my father, she said. He was an unusual man.
Then she added
– I wonder if you’d come upstairs with me a moment, Ben.
He could hardly have refused. To take her farther away from the room with the painting was ideal. But spooked by this unsought advantage, he said
– Have I come at a bad time?
– You’ve come at the perfect time, she answered.
She walked toward the stairs and, looking back, nodded. She went up, no doubt assuming that he would follow – which he did, thinking, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ At the top of the stairs, he was disoriented, unsure which room she’d entered, until she called out
– I’m in here
and Tancred entered what was, obviously, the master bedroom: pale wooden floors, darkly stained Mennonite furniture (a bed, a chest of drawers, a cabinet) and a lar
ge Persian rug that looked ancient but still vivid with a crimson border in which Arabic script was woven. The rug, elaborate and beautiful, was in contrast to the rest of the room, which was spare and simple. On top of the chest of drawers, in vials of ivory and coloured glass, unstoppered, there lurked strange, synthetic perfumes.
Mrs. Azarian-Thomson stood on the Persian rug, her back to him.
– I hope you don’t mind? she said. I know it’s a cliché, but I’d like to change into something comfortable.
He was meant to help her undress, it seemed, to pull down the zipper at the back of her dress. This he did, only to discover that she wore no underclothes, a fact of which she seemed blithely indifferent. She kept her back to him as she opened the chest of drawers looking for something. What that might be, Tancred did not know. He’d averted his eyes, paying exaggerated attention to the carpet beneath him.
– I gather the script is from the Koran, she said. ‘O true believers, give alms of that which we have bestowed on you …’ That’s as much as I know. I’m not actually Muslim. I just love the carpet.
– It’s beautiful, said Tancred.
– Is there anything else you find beautiful?
– Yes, said Tancred, but it wouldn’t be polite to say.
Simone began to laugh. Tancred looked up to see that she had put on navy-blue track pants and a grey sweatshirt. She sat on the edge of her bed looking at him.
– Oh, Tancred, she said. My sister was right about you! You are old-fashioned!
– Ben, said Tancred.
– Tancred, said Simone. And I knew it was you the first time I saw you. You’re exactly as Willow described. You didn’t think I’d offer a hundred dollars to just anyone, did you? I don’t throw money around, Tancred. But Willow insisted you were an honourable man. ‘A knight in dirty armour’ is how she put it. So, I wasn’t too worried you’d take my money. My sister didn’t always have the best judgment, but I knew the moment I saw you that she was right. It’s strange but you almost reek of devotion.
She touched the place beside her on the bed.
– Come sit beside me, she said. I’m sorry I put you through all this. Willow told me so much about you, I could have picked you out of a police lineup. But I like to judge people for myself. And I didn’t know exactly what kind of person you are.
Strange behaviour if true, thought Tancred.
Reading his emotion, she said
– Don’t worry. I can defend myself. I have a number of these all around the house. My husband’s a fanatic and he’s American. No home without guns.
She lifted a white pillow on the bed behind her. Beneath it, there was a pearl-handled Derringer, delicate-looking, as if it were a child’s toy. She let the pillow fall back.
– The other thing about my sister, she said, is that she couldn’t keep a secret. If there’s anything about Willow I’d have changed, it would be her big mouth. God keep her soul.
– So, said Tancred, you think she was right about your father’s mementos?
– Yes, I do think so, she answered, even though our father told us there was no so-called treasure.
– I don’t understand, said Tancred. If she was right, why didn’t you help her?
– Tancred, said Simone. Tancred Palmieri. Your father was Italian?
– Yes, but I never knew him.
– Lucky you. My father was Armenian: second-generation, old-school, the kids call it. Willow thought the sun shone out of Dad’s behind, but that’s not true. I remember how he treated our mother. He brought women into our home, right in front of her. I bet Willow never told you any of that. Or that he used to beat the hell out of Mike. For no reason. If Mike even looked at him wrong. My brother was an alcoholic by the time he was fifteen. Did Willow tell you that? I’m not saying my father was evil, but it was better if you stayed on the right side of him. One thing I’ll say for him, though: he never fooled around with money. Money was his religion. I don’t remember a single day in my childhood when he didn’t tell us how important money was. That’s why none of my siblings believed there was anything to Willow’s idea. No one believes he was the kind of man to leave a bundle of it around, hidden somewhere on the off chance his children could solve some silly puzzle. Then there’s the fact that he told us there was nothing to find.
Simone patted Tancred’s knee.
– Something’s not quite right, she said, and I’m not sure what it is.
– But Willow was right about the pieces being clues?
– Oh yes, she was right about that. They’re obvious clues. And they lead to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, to a specific spot in Mount Pleasant Cemetery where the Weidens are buried and where he had a mausoleum built in their honour. But that’s the end of it. That’s the point of the whole charade. My father believed the Weidens were the best kind of family. He’d tell us we should stick together like they did. The kids took care of Mrs. Weiden when she had a stroke and they took care of their father when he had cancer. And even after Mr. and Mrs. Weiden were gone, the kids looked out for each other. They were good people and my father wanted us to be like them. All these clues, the whole business was his way of reminding us about what’s important: family. After money, that was the thing my father talked about most. Do you know Psalm 137, Tancred?
– By the rivers of Babylon …
(Here, Tancred heard the van’s horn sounding.)
– That’s the one. You know what it’s about, don’t you? It’s about being in exile and missing home. When you take Willow’s screen into consideration, I mean really take it into consideration, it points to Willow’s relationship with Father and it points to Psalm 137. And Psalm 137 is the last piece of the puzzle.
Once again, she patted his knee.
– Anyway, she said, that’s what my brothers and my sister Gretchen believe. That everything leads to the Weidens and the Weidens are about family and that Willow needed something to distract her from heroin and to get her to think about her family. All very neat and sensible, but I don’t buy it because I don’t trust my father. I’m just not sure Willow’s wrong. So, I don’t mind you carrying on. Especially now that I know you.
– Thank you, said Tancred.
– You’ve come this far, said Willow’s sister, you might as well keep going. But I’m going to call the police if you steal my painting.
– You don’t believe I’ll return it?
– I’m sure you’ll return it. But I don’t want my siblings or my husband to know that I think Willow might be right or that I’m on your side. I won’t tell them who you are or where to find you, but if you manage to steal it I’ll call the police at once.
– I wonder why Willow didn’t tell me about Mount Pleasant, said Tancred.
– I’m not sure she ever worked it out, and Mike and I never told her. We would have, eventually, but we both thought it was good that she had this puzzle to keep her busy. Mike especially. He was an addict. So he knew what she was going through. This treasure business gave her something to occupy her mind. It’s like Sudoku for addicts. The old Willow, the one you never met, would have worked it out in two shakes, but drugs took everything away from her. We knew she was doing drugs before Dad died, but she kept it under control. It’s only after his funeral that she really went off the rails. She was barely herself in the end.
Simone rose from the bed.
– I’m going to go out for a run now, she said. Is there anything else?
– Yes, said Tancred. There’s one thing. I know it’s personal, but I wonder if you’d tell me what the painting means?
3 A Further Digression (with Glenn Gould)
Despite Simone’s reservations about her father, she’d loved him as deeply as Willow had. Where Willow’s love for her father was unalloyed, however, Simone’s was not. Occasionally, ambivalence (even dislike) crept in. Her father’s cruelty to her favourite brother – Michael – was one reason for it. His infidelity to her dying mother was another.
Although, as to infidelity
… Simone was now older and she was herself married to a man who was infirm. As a result, she could appreciate her father’s frustrations. She did not intend to betray her husband, but she now fully understood the temptations and wondered if she could resist them indefinitely.
She’d said to Tancred that her father had been ‘old-school.’ What she’d meant was that a part of him had been Armenian to the end. He’d been the true child of his parents, one foot metaphorically planted (or metaphorically stuck) in Yerevan. Simone assumed that this was a cross her father had had to bear. But Robert Azarian had also taken strength from his roots. He had inherited wit, determination and money. Beyond all that, however, he had been, in her experience, a sensitive man, one who cried easily and was not ashamed. He’d also been, with her, considerate and loving. The painting he left her was, whatever else it might be, proof of this.
There were, of course, two aspects to the painting, both equally meaningful: sound and image. Sound first: when Simone was seven or eight, her father had been friends with a man named Azriel Burkett: a name she could not forget, in part because it sounded to her younger self like a woman’s name, in part because Mr. Burkett was the first man from Alberta she’d ever met and that fact had seemed exotic and attractive. Then again, Simone remembered the man as being troublingly handsome, the first man she’d been attracted to, though he’d been – what? – thirty? And she seven or eight.
She wondered now if her father hadn’t known about her crush on Mr. Burkett. On a number of occasions, he’d taken her, Willow and Michael with him to Mr. Burkett’s apartment on St. Clair. The most memorable occasion had come one summer evening sometime in the sixties. They had gone to the apartment and, as sometimes happened, they heard piano music. Simone could not remember anyone asking about the music before that night. In fact, though there was no doubt about what happened, there was some dispute amongst the children about who it was who asked about the music. Each of the children remembered being the one to ask, being the one Mr. Burkett had gratified by taking them all to the roof of the building to hear the music more clearly. Simone remembered the night still. The moon above them was white and full – not a crescent, as Michael remembered. There had been wind, a wind that blew Willow’s dress this way and that. There had been the smell of tar and pine. And then, of course, there had been the music itself: each note clear, the piano stopping and starting unpredictably, then going on for long stretches, like magic. Mr. Burkett lived in the same apartment building as Glenn Gould and, from time to time, on a warm night, Mr. Burkett went to the roof to listen to the man play, the music rising from Gould’s apartment whenever he practiced. Years later, Willow would swear she remembered Glenn Gould humming along. But that was impossible. Simone would have remembered it. In fact, she was convinced that Willow did not so much remember the evening as she recalled the innumerable times the three of them – Simone, Michael, Willow – had spoken of it together. The night itself was now as mythic to them as the Children’s Crusade or the Battle of Roncevaux Pass.