by André Alexis
Where was the right way in all that?
Tancred had hoped his accord with Colby would make his life easier. It did not. He now had to hide things from Colby. He could not tell him about von Würfel, for instance, without endangering von Würfel himself. Nor could he tell Colby that the theft of the final two objects was, perhaps, unnecessary. He could not even tell him about the belief of Willow’s siblings that they had solved their father’s puzzle, because he could not risk Colby’s disbelief. In effect, Tancred was forced to be more careful, more diligent, more devious.
But how strange that secrecy should be disturbing. Had he not lived by stealth? Silence is to thieves as water to fish, no? Why should this duplicity now make him suffer? It would not have troubled his younger self. He had changed. He was perhaps changing still.
As if it were a correlative to Tancred’s emotions, the building from which they’d have to steal Michael Azarian’s bottle of aquavit was itself complex, bewildering and (worse) reputedly impenetrable.
The Chateau Rose Suites, more commonly known as the Hidden Castle or the Hidden Suites or Castle Rose, was an experimental condominium at the foot of Bay Street overlooking the lake. It was ‘experimental’ in that it was designed by an artist named Yves Rokeby, whose only instructions were that the building be both aesthetically pleasing and safe. At the time it was commissioned – that is, in 2009 – ‘safe’ was generally taken to mean impregnable to crooks or madmen. Rokeby, inspired by the drawings of M. C. Escher, created a building that was both beautiful and safe.
To deal with appearances first: Castle Rose was a perfectly square building. It was twenty-five storeys high. Its exterior was white marble interspersed with squares of reddish-pink granite, which formed a twenty-five-storey-high red C on the building’s north side, an R on its west side and an S on the side facing the lake. On Castle Rose’s east side, the squares of granite formed an immense spiral that was meant to represent a rose.
In the building’s forecourt, there was a fountain whose white-marble base was like a version of the building behind it: perfectly square, five feet by five feet by five feet. At night, a thick jet of froth-topped water rose, every few minutes, like a blue tree, lit from beneath by blue lights in the fountain.
The forecourt itself led to the only part of the building accessible to the public: a twenty-four-hour Lebanese restaurant on the ground floor called Café el-Bugat, which served what was advertised as the best chicken shawarma in the city. On its walls were half a dozen platinum-framed photographs of a crying woman in a hijab.
As ‘el-Bugat’ is also the name of a ‘festival of weeping women’ held yearly in Aleppo, Syria, it was sometimes assumed by those who knew Arabic that either the café’s name had suggested the photos or that the photos had suggested the name. But the café’s owner, Nadim al-Hafez, was a third-generation Lebanese-Canadian who hadn’t known the name’s significance. He’d taken ‘el-Bugat’ from the Cerveceria el-Bugat, a tavern he’d visited in Seville. The photographs, meanwhile, were of his mother, Rafqa, a well-known actress who’d translated A Streetcar Named Desire into Arabic and had played Blanche DuBois half a dozen times. Each of the photos was of Rafqa al-Hafez in Streetcar’s final scene as she movingly depends on the kindness of strangers. This odd disjunction between the café’s name and the photos that hung on its walls was entirely appropriate for a business in Castle Rose because …
The simple beauty of the building’s exterior was, in a sense, betrayed by its interior. To begin with, every floor of Castle Rose was identical to every other. Though there were two sets of elevators – one accessible from the north, one from the south – the view, once one left an elevator, was the same, northern and southern prospects indistinguishable from one another. In part, this was accomplished with ‘mirrors’ – that is, the walls, ceilings and floors of the elevators’ landings were of a polished silver that reflected as well as if they had actually been mirrors. Then, too, on the landings, there were no doors, doorways, doorknobs or easily distinguished recesses. On reaching a floor of Castle Rose, one had the impression of geometric near-infinity, and it was not uncommon for any who stayed too long by the elevators to become physically ill.
From the elevator, a resident had to push on a hidden panel to reach a hallway, one with proper doors, doorknobs and door frames. Not that this hallway was less bewildering. Here, there were mahogany doors and polished maple floors. None of the doors had any mark or number to distinguish it from the others – just above each of the doors was a small indigo triangle that lit up at the approach of that condominium’s owner. A number of the doors, however, were decoys. Some led directly back to the mirrored landing, locking behind the intruder and setting off an alarm. Others led to single rooms whose doors slammed shut unless held open, locking in any who entered and setting off an alarm.
As if this programmatic bewilderment weren’t enough, there were a number of further features meant to keep the dweller safe:
1. There were hidden cameras at unpredictable intervals on each floor.
2. Entire floors – two or three, apparently – served as decoys and, once accessed, held intruders until security released them.
3. The elevators looked normal. That is, their panels had numbers on them to indicate specific floors. But an elevator, while indicating it was on its way to, say, the fourth floor, in fact deposited the traveller to a floor whose number was unknowable by residents or intruders. As each landing was unnumbered, to travel in an elevator in Castle Rose was to arrive nowhere certain.
No doubt, there was something nightmarish about Castle Rose. But, for the dweller, the nightmare was countered by a pleasing efficiency. To begin with, a microchip assigned to each condo owner, embedded wherever the owner wished, freed him or her from thought. At the presence of a chip, the elevators went to the appropriate floor, a white circle appeared in a silvery wall identifying the proper panel to push and the indigo triangles above the true doors lit up as soon as a dweller was in the hall that led to his or her condominium.
Then, of course, there were the condominiums themselves. They were glorious, especially those overlooking the lake. One felt, in Castle Rose’s tall-ceilinged and broad-windowed rooms, as if one were in the midst of precious things: the distant, low-lying green of the islands, small aircraft gliding like paper planes as they sank onto Billy Bishop’s tarred runway, boats scudding on the grey-green waters. With one’s back to the concrete off-ramps, with one’s back to the curtain of steel and glass that crept ever closer to the lake, year after year, as if to sever land from water – that is, here, with one’s back to the careless and vulgar surge of the city – it was possible to imagine Toronto beautiful.
Of course, to do this imagining from Castle Rose, one had to be extremely wealthy and relatively young. Extremely wealthy because, in 2010, when the condominiums went on sale, each unit, lake-facing or not, sold for two million dollars with one hundred thousand dollars a year in condo fees. Relatively young because Castle Rose did not sell to buyers older than sixty, however wealthy, and contractually obligated owners to sell their homes once they’d passed the age of retirement. Though this age limit was, on the surface, harsh, its origin was humane. The microchip issued to each owner was expensive: ten thousand dollars for the chip and ten thousand for a replacement in the event the original was lost. Thereafter, the price doubled, tripled, quadrupled and so on. The company selling the condos believed that the elderly, being naturally forgetful, were more likely to lose their chips and, so, cost their families money or, worse, compromise Castle Rose’s security. Then, too, even with the microchips, the look and feel of the landings and halls could at times bewilder younger owners; many felt it would be cruel to subject the elderly to what was sometimes called by the Hidden Castle’s administrators an approximation of dementia. So, from an excess of caution – and some condescension – the condominiums were sold to wealthy and childless people between the ages of twenty-one and sixty.
But, as the Scottish say,
the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley. An exception to the age limit was made for Colonel Randall ‘Ran’ Morrissey. Morrissey, an honorary colonel who’d served three years in the Canadian military, was a braggart and a bully. A white-haired man with jowls like a Boxer (Canis lupus familiaris), his chief virtues were monetary. That is, he was a man who’d inherited millions and had, thanks to inspired investing by his money managers, made millions more. Colonel Morrissey was unmarried. He had no dependants. His only flaw – with regard to the Chateau Rose Suites – was that he was seventy years old at the time he decided to buy a condominium. However, he extravagantly bribed every member of the selection committee, after which the committee discovered in itself a largesse that allowed it to make an exception for him.
In his first year at Castle Rose, Ran Morrissey lost two microchips. The first was embedded in the cap of an eighteen-carat-gold Omas ‘Pushkin’ pen. The idea, which came from Morrissey’s minder, was that the Colonel would pay attention to the whereabouts of a pen that cost fifteen thousand dollars. Not so. Morrissey was worth north of half a billion, so he did not consider the pen expensive or exquisite or any such thing. In fact, one day, needing a ballpoint but having only the Pushkin with him, he threw the pen into the lake in frustration. He then fired his minder, blaming the man for the loss of twenty-five thousand dollars.
The second chip was meant to be embedded in an antique belt buckle. The buckle in question was from the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals: brass from the year of his birth (1940), and at its centre a silvery Hermes stepping on planet earth as if it were a stone in a riverbed. Colonel Morrissey wore the buckle (and leather belt) every day, unfailingly, sometimes even wearing belt and buckle to bed, ever mindful that, should he die in his sleep, it be known that he had been a military man and a patriot. The problem here was that Colonel Morrissey was loath to have anyone tamper with the buckle. His minder’s son soldered the chip to the back of the buckle and although it was not noticeable, neither was it secure. After three months, both solder and chip fell off somewhere by the lake.
So, the minder was fired and a third chip was embedded in Ran Morrissey’s titanium leg.
3 Colonel Morrissey’s Leg
To build an ‘impregnable’ building is, like it or not, to issue a challenge. So, it’s no surprise that, over the years, a number of thieves had tried their luck with Castle Rose. Each and every one of them failed, and every failure added to the building’s mystique. There were countless rumours and exaggerations, from the credible (‘The place is under constant surveillance’) to the fantastic (‘No one lives in Castle Rose, it’s a trap for thieves, devised by right-wing fanatics’).
Despite all this, and a few frustrations besides, Michael Azarian’s bottle of aquavit was – thanks to what amounted to luck (or destiny) – the easiest of the Azarian mementos to steal.
Frustrations first.
Errol Colby now took it for given that his opinions were crucial. He’d never been much of a thief but his newfound faith in himself seemed to make his own views irresistible to him. He listened to Tancred’s account of Castle Rose but he couldn’t help expressing skepticism.
– I’ve heard all the stories you have, he said. But there’s no such thing as a place you can’t steal from.
– I say that we just walk in and see what happens, said Freud.
– That’s what I say, too, said Colby.
It was mid-afternoon on a weekday. Colby, Freud and Tancred were in the apartment where Tancred kept the mementos he’d got. The November light was unsoftened by leaves or clouds or smog. Nor was it intensified by snow, there being little. The light was what one might call raw, and it seemed somehow meaningful to Tancred, as if the sun were trying to suggest something.
– So, one of you is just going to walk in? asked Tancred.
– I’ll do it, said Freud, since you’re such a pussy.
Freud’s effort was pitiful. He followed a well-dressed woman into Castle Rose and was immediately found out when, in the elevator, the woman was politely asked (over the intercom) if the one with her was her guest. When the woman said he was not, the elevator rose to a floor where it was met by security (two tall young men in light-blue uniforms), who respectfully accompanied Freud out of the building while politely suggesting he get lost or there would be serious consequences.
A fiasco, but a predictable fiasco. Tancred had left Freud and Colby to break in on their own. He’d gone, instead, to meet with von Würfel, gone to explain to von Würfel why he’d been avoiding him (because of Colby), why he was determined to steal the bottle of aquavit (to fulfill his promise, yes, but also to keep Freud and Colby close) and why he was now unsure of himself (Castle Rose was intimidating even for one who loved a challenge).
– You mean Chateau Rose at the harbourfront? asked von Würfel. That’s a hell of a place, I can tell you. I think I’ve been there more than anyone who doesn’t actually live in it.
– Why? asked Tancred.
– Business, said von Würfel. Business, business, business. It sometimes feels like I’ve preserved a pet for everyone in the place. Cats, mostly. The Chateau Rose is like a mortuary for cats! But you know the rich, Tancred. They are different from us. It isn’t just that they have more money. It’s that they’ve got less imagination. When one of them does something, the rest feel obliged to do the same thing. They all collect cars, boats, buildings, paintings …
– But what about the place? asked Tancred. How can I get in?
– I think it’s going to be difficult, said von Würfel. I knew the man who designed the Chateau Rose. We were close friends, and I’m pretty sure that if Yves designed the place so thieves can’t get in, then thieves can’t get in.
Von Würfel looked out at Dundas, at the cars passing by, at a light November flurry – a scant dusting that made you think of eyelashes. The two were quiet until, suddenly, von Würfel began to laugh.
– What is it? asked Tancred.
– I just remembered the Colonel, said von Würfel.
How strange the things that stick in a mind! Von Würfel had got in the habit, after delivering one of his preserved pets to a tenant in Castle Rose, of having Lebanese coffee and a slice of aish el-saraya, an exquisite bread pudding with pistachios for garnish, at Café el-Bugat. For a time, it seemed as if he was in el-Bugat every few days. Naturally, he began to recognize the regular patrons. And, of those, ‘the Colonel’ was hardest to miss. This was largely because the Colonel was white-haired and strikingly thin. He walked slowly, with a limp, and he was inevitably followed by someone younger. And whenever the Colonel entered Café el-Bugat, he called out
– Can’t a veteran get a tea in this place?
as if daring someone to deny him.
Von Würfel assumed the café’s owner and the two young women in hijab who worked there must have dreaded these entrances. But he himself found the Colonel amusing. The man had immediately struck him as a fairground version of a soldier, something you’d see if you were watching Punch and Judy. His monologues – which one couldn’t help overhearing, as he tended to shout – were mostly about his exploits against ‘the enemy,’ the ‘enemy’ sometimes shifting from continent to continent, country to country, but ever a force for wickedness. At times, the Colonel seemed preoccupied by the Middle East: Iraqis, Iranians, Saudi Arabians. At others, it was Asia that bothered him: the Vietnamese, the Indonesians, the Chinese. All of this was as one might have expected. The Colonel was like a man cursing whichever group happened to be in the day’s headlines. But one afternoon, von Würfel heard him lay into the Welsh.
– Lying bastards! I wouldn’t trust a Welshman as far as I could throw him! Bunch of singing pansies! By God, there isn’t a Welshman born that’s fit to clean my stinking shorts!
Despite himself, von Würfel was curious. In North America, there are, after all, very few occasions on which to hear the Welsh vilified. Not that he sought these occasions out, you understand, but after finishing his aish el-s
araya and coffee, he introduced himself to the Colonel. And, well, one thing you could say about the man: he was neither discreet nor delicate. The heart of the story – matter-of-factly related – was of one evening in Cardiff when the Colonel had picked up a lovely Welsh streetwalker (in a fashionable district, mind you!) who, at the business end of the evening, turned out to be the possessor of a penis. Having gallantly (but now regrettably) paid in advance for his night’s entertainment, the Colonel was damned if he wasn’t going to fuck the Welshman. And you can be sure he got his money’s worth. But thereafter, he resented what he took to be a general Welsh tendency to deceptiveness.
– Fair enough, von Würfel had said
because he could think of nothing else to say. But after that the two had often spoken.
Whenever they were in el-Bugat at the same time, Ran Morrissey called him over to sit with him. Von Würfel assumed Morrissey would make a tedious companion. But if you could get over the shouting and the fact that he was a bully who liked to lord it over his minder and that he did not like to listen, Ran was entertaining. And he was generous. After their second or third coffee together, von Würfel understood exactly why the Colonel was welcome at el-Bugat. He saw Morrissey leave a hundred-dollar tip on a bill for two coffees and a shot of arak.
Morrissey was generous – or forthcoming – in other ways as well. It was he who’d explained the security system at Castle Rose to von Würfel, as proudly as if he’d conceived it himself. Just as proudly, he’d shown von Würfel his prosthetic leg, with its embedded microchip.
– He showed you the leg? asked Tancred.
– He did, answered von Würfel. It was titanium, strong as hell, made by the Swiss. You’re not going to steal it, are you? I’d feel terrible if you did. Ran Morrissey’s a good man. I mean, he’s capable of good. That’s about as much as I need from anyone.
– Have you met many who’re incapable of good?