A Widow's Awakening

  I turn to see a teenage girl with long dark hair.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I was just wondering why you wrote the word wolf?” she asks, holding up the wolf pendant on her necklace. “Because that’s my favourite animal.”

  “Oh, well I was just thinking about the characteristics that wolves have.”

  She smiles.

  “What would you say?” I ask.

  “Let’s see…they’re loyal, beautiful and courageous. And they’re excellent leaders…”

  Then from her other side, the girl’s mom leans forward, adding: “And they’re also very calm and wise…almost as if they have an inner spirit. Yet they’re also very opportunistic.”

  “But very family-oriented and devoted,” replies the girl. Then she turns to me again. “They mate for life, you know.”

  Thinking I just may have found the symbol for Sam’s memorial fund, I ask the girl if she’d mind sketching the wolf on her necklace in my notebook. She does so and when she’s finished, she hands it back. But when I go to put the book in my knapsack, her necklace falls out.

  I hand it back to her. “You forgot this.”

  She shakes her head. “Oh no…that’s yours now. I want you to have it.”

  Was Sam’s spirit just returned to me?

  “SPAIN EH, Adri?” asks my friend’s father, over a pre-dinner glass of Chardonnay.

  “Yup.”

  “Then you’ll have to go to Morocco as well.”

  I laugh. “Why?”

  “For a camel trek in the Sahara, of course,” he says, as if no trip to Spain is complete without a sojourn south.

  “Dad’s an armchair traveler,” my friend explains. “He’s kept hundreds of clippings from the travel section of the newspaper.”

  Sure enough, after dinner he pulls out the Morocco file and hands it to me. I read the articles in bed and drift off to sleep, envisioning myself draped in a flowing robe and matching headscarf while traipsing into the Sahara Desert on a camel.

  HOME AGAIN, I run the Morocco idea by Tamara. She emails me back in the affirmative but asks me to bring a Moroccan guidebook with me when we meet in Spain.

  Then I call Charlie and run the wolf idea by him as a possible symbol for the memorial fund.

  “I like it,” he says.

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Sure.”

  I tell him about my encounter with the teenager and her mom on the plane. “And they totally described Sam while talking about the characteristics of a wolf.”

  “Cool.”

  “You don’t think I’m a total nutbar?”

  “No. I just think you’re more open to that kinda stuff than most people.”

  The next call is from Dawson, telling me about a dream he’d had about Sam. “I was in the den at your place and I could hear Sam talking, so I turned my head and there he was, on TV.”

  “What—like on a show, you mean?”

  “Kinda. I mean, he was on TV, but he was talking directly to me.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “That it’s really important I look out for his best interests.”

  “Which is?” I ask.

  “You, Adri.”

  AT THE end of May, my mom takes me to the airport for me to catch my flight to Spain via London. We have dinner at the same airport restaurant that she, Sam and I ate at before our California vacation.

  “Hi,” our waitress says, writing her name upside down on the paper tablecloth.

  “That’s an unusual name,” I say. “Is that short for Adrienne?”

  “Nope, just Adri. My mom liked the name.”

  So do I. Although rather unique for an undercover name, it’s not as traditional as say…Maryanne.

  At security, my mother hugs me. “I wish you weren’t heading off alone.”

  “Mom, I’m gonna be on my own for maybe twenty-four hours.”

  “Just be careful, OK?” She hugs me again. “And please call.”

  On the plane, I find my seat, sit down, lean back and close my eyes.

  “Adri?”

  I open my eyes. One of Sam’s cousins and her husband are standing in the aisle.

  “Hi,” I say, giving them the wave.

  “You’re going to Spain, right?” she asks.

  “How did ya know?”

  “Sam’s mom told us. I’d say you’re being watched pretty carefully these days.”

  I ask them if they’re going Spain, too.

  “No, no…we’re going to Greece,” replies her husband. “We just happen to be on the same flight to London.”

  Is it my imagination or are the powers that be making damn sure I’m not alone?

  IT IS in the resort town of Nerja, Spain where I meet up with Tamara. It’s also where I make a genuine attempt to finally stop running. But all the hurt, sorrow, confusion, anxiety and guilt that have been following behind for the past eight months come crashing into me. So, I start drinking.

  Tamara finds me at the beach bar in the late afternoon, staring out to sea.

  “I think I figured out how the spirit world works,” I say.

  She smiles and pours herself a glass of sangria from my pitcher. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Maybe there was no God that made all this. Maybe it all just started with the Big Bang, then evolution kicked in and somewhere in there, we developed souls and now they’re evolving, as well.”

  “How much sangria have you had?”

  “A pitcher. So as our souls become stronger, see, we’re able to survive after the death of our bodies and can therefore communicate with the living.”

  “How?”

  “Two ways,” I say, waving my wineglass. “Directly and indirectly. Indirectly is through conduits, operators, mediums, hosts…whatever you want to call it when a departed soul temporarily appears in a living person to communicate a message.”

  “And directly?”

  “That’s when the departed soul actually does something on its own—like move a picture, light a candle, push a button on the computer or whatever.”

  Tamara pours the remaining sangria into her glass. “But why would they bother?”

  “To help guide us,” I reply, spearing a wine-soaked bit of apple with my straw.

  “And how would they know how best to do that?”

  “Because they can see the bigger picture…the future. I don’t think they experience time the same way we do. We move chronologically from one moment to the next, but I think they jump all over the place, from the present to the past to the future to the present again. And if that’s the case, then they can see where we’re headed.”

  She puts her glass down on the table. “Shit, you think a lot.”

  “It’s a family curse,” I say, pushing my chair back. “At any rate, I feel like I’m in The Truman Show…my every move is being watched. Ya ready for dinner?”

  Tamara laughs. “What, am I busy?”

  AFTER PAELLA and more sangria, Tamara and I return to our hotel where I promptly pass out on my side of the bed.

  A few minutes later, I awaken to: “We got it!”

  I turn to Tamara. “We got what?”

  She sits up and stares at me, as if I’m the weird one. “What happened?” she asks.

  “You tell me,” I say. “You’re the one who yelled.”

  She brings the palm of her hand up to her nose. “There was a man’s face, right up close to mine.”

  “Were you dreaming?”

  “No! I was just dozing off.”

  “Are you hassling me because of our conversation today?”

  She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t do that, Adri. Not about Sam.”

  “What are we supposed to get?” I ask.

  “I dunno. But it sure seemed important.”

  With a sigh, I get out of bed and walk toward the bathroom.

  “I invited him,” she says softly.

  I stop and turn to face her. “What?”

  “I asked Sam i
f there was a message he wanted me to give to you.”

  I throw up my hands. “And yet you forgot the message.”

  “He came too close! It freaked me out.”

  I guess he’s still sorting out the spatial issues. I turn back toward the bathroom.

  “Maybe if the poor guy was invited to visit a little more often,” she says, “he wouldn’t get so fired up and come so damn close.”

  “I can’t believe we’re arguing about this,” I say, shutting the door behind me.

  “I saw a little red light, too,” she calls out.

  I open the door again.

  “Up there,” Tamara says, squinting as she points to the ceiling above my head. “But I guess it was just the smoke detector…”

  I look to where she’s pointing. There’s no smoke detector.

  THE NEXT two days are spent drinking, swimming, staring at the ocean and, unfortunately, writing toward my June 29th deadline. Many pitchers of sangria and twenty very disoriented pages later, we head to the port town of Algeciras to catch a ferry to Morocco. First, however, is a pub dinner in Gibraltar.

  “I still don’t know why you didn’t bring a Moroccan guidebook with you,” Tamara says, sipping her Chardonnay.

  “It was forty-five bucks! Besides, it’ll be more adventurous just to wing it.”

  “We could probably find one here,” she says.

  I give her a wave of my hand. “Nah.”

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself.” Then she nods toward the TV above my head. “Hey, check it out—it’s The Truman Show.”

  I crank my head around to look. Oh boy.

  ON THE ferry to Morocco, we don our headscarves—she in a giraffe motif; I in the leopard print last worn in the convertible with Sam. We arrive in Tangiers in the late afternoon and, after purchasing jelabahs, the long, loose-fitting robe worn by Muslims, catch the night train south to Marrakech.

  Prancing through the streets in our new outfits, we hear, “Bonjour, gazelles!” repeatedly called out to us. Over mint tea in our fifth carpet showroom, we get the scoop. The carpet salesman, wearing an off-white jelabah remarkably similar to ours, explains that gazelle is a term of endearment for western women. “But I’m curious,” he says, “as to why you two are wearing men’s jelabahs?”

  “There’s a difference?” I ask, which is akin to a Moroccan asking a Canadian if men’s suits and women’s dresses are the same.

  “Oui. Women tend to wear brighter jelabahs—more cheerful colors.”

  “A man,” Tamara says, “sold us these.”

  He laughs. “A little Moroccan humour for our western visitors.”

  WAITING FOR the bus on day four, I’m drenched in sweat by 9:00 a.m.

  “Gazelle,” I say, as we’ve now taken to calling each other this as well, “is it my imagination or is it getting a tad warm?”

  “Adri, are you sure you want to go to the Sahara?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you hate the heat.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Then why are we going?” she asks.

  “Because I want to ride a fucking camel into the sunset,” I snap.

  “Bullshit.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugs.

  I pour half a bottle of water over my head then look at my watch. “Where’s the goddamn bus?”

  “We can still go to Casablanca instead—you’re way nicer by the ocean.”

  “That’s because I was drunk. I’ll be fine once I’m on the bus.”

  Up goes one eyebrow.

  “It’ll be air-conditioned,” I say as a decrepit old clunker of a bus, windows open, chugs up in a cloud of smoke.

  Tamara smiles. “Last chance to go to the sea…”

  I walk to the door and the bus driver asks me where we’re going.

  “Ourzazate,” I say.

  “And then?”

  “Tinerhir.”

  “Then?”

  “The Sahara.”

  He shakes his head. “June is too hot to visit the desert.”

  I haul myself up the two steps. “So I’m gathering.”

  Tamara takes the seat across from me. “The guidebook would’ve mentioned that.”

  “Why aren’t you broiling?” I ask.

  “Because I don’t have a thyroid. I don’t feel the heat like you do.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  DURING THE excruciatingly hot and winding ten-hour drive through the Atlas Mountains with a traveling companion who does not share my pain, I repeatedly pour water over my head in an attempt to keep from overheating. When we’re finally on flat ground again, I see a cluster of red sandstone buildings in suspiciously good condition. I point them out to Tamara.

  “Looks like an old film set,” she says.

  Half an hour later, we pull into dusty Ourzazate. I’m first off the bus.

  “Bonjour, gazelle,” says a man in a military uniform, standing on the platform.

  “Bonjour,” I reply.

  “Are you from Canada?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Tamara joins us.

  “I’m reading a book by a Canadian author,” the man continues, in perfect English, “by the name of Northrop Frye.”

  I’ve heard of Northrop Frye but have never read anything by him. And if I’m thinking of the correct writer, he’s not exactly light reading.

  “The book is called The Anatomy of Criticism,” the man says.

  I smile politely. “That’s nice.”

  “It’s about earth, fire, water and hmmm…” He snaps his fingers. “What’s the fourth element?”

  “Wind,” I say.

  He breaks into a grin. “Right! Well, you’ll have to read the book.”

  Tamara suggests I show him the Suzuki book, so I reach into my backpack, pull out The Sacred Balance and hand it to him.

  “David Suzuki is another Canadian author,” she explains, “and a well-respected environmentalist. That book’s all about earth, wind, fire and water too.”

  The man flips through it then hands it back. “You need to read Northrop Frye.”

  Then he turns and walks away.

  “That was strange,” says Tamara.

  We find a hotel down the street from the bus station. No one is at reception, so we take off our packs and are waiting in the lobby when I notice, on the wall, a framed photo of a familiar-looking group of sandstone buildings. I lean in closer.

  “Gladiator,” says a male voice over my shoulder.

  I turn around to see a young guy, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, standing behind me.

  I tilt my head. “Pardon me?”

  “The movie Gladiator was filmed here,” he says proudly. “That’s the set.”

  Hmm…I guess I am supposed to watch that movie.

  IN OUR room, I grab my notebook and scribble madly about the military man, Northrup Frye and the Gladiator film set. I add in a Suzuki comment about western thought leading us to our alienation from nature, then resume writing about Sam’s funeral—all in the same paragraph. I am creating a literary stew. I don’t know how to write a book any more than I know how to grieve. But since Sam is clearly watching, I’d best be writing something.

  ON THE road to Tinerhir the next morning, we pass through the town of Boumaine.

  “We have to come back here,” says Tamara.

  I look out the window at an even drier, dustier town than Ourzazate. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. We just do.”

  In Tinerhir, we meet up with a guide who takes us on a sunset tour. The following day, we’re on a bus back to Boumaine.

  “Now what?” I ask Tamara on the empty main street, watching our bus pull away.

  “Let’s see what there is to see,” she says. “That’s kinda the point of traveling.”

  We wander into the nearest café and order mint tea. Two white-robed Muslim men in their mid-twenti
es are seated at an adjacent table.

  “Bonjour, gazelles,” says one as I’m putting my knapsack on the floor.

  “Bonjour,” I reply.

  “You are from Canada?” asks the other.

  “Oui.”

  “May we join you?” asks the first as he pulls his chair over to our table.

  He’s a university student in Marrakech, back home in Boumaine for the summer. His English is excellent, so he speaks to me. The other man speaks French to Tamara.

  “What do you think of globalism?” my guy asks me.

  “Um…I guess it’s a good thing,” I say, thinking it is way too hot for an intellectual discussion.

  “Why?”

  “Because the world is becoming more and more connected and it makes sense that we’re getting closer to creating a world economy.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t agree. For a developing country such as Morocco, it is not in our best interest to participate in a world economy.”

  “How come?”

  “Because a global economy will only benefit nations that are already wealthy.”

  What I’d learned in university about economic development and world trade seem so distant now, as if my education has been sitting in a box for years, gathering dust. That my head feels like a fried egg isn’t helping my ability to think.

  He tilts his head slightly. “You haven’t read Chomsky?”

  “Noam Chomsky?” I say.

  “That’s the only Chomsky I know of.”

  “I’ve read him,” I say. “Although it’s been awhile.”

  “Time to read him again,” he says with a wink.

  I nod slowly. I’m starting to get the sense there is more going on here than meets the eye. In fact, it feels rather like I am experiencing what the shepherd boy did while pursuing his Personal Legend in Paulo Coelho’s brilliant book, The Alchemist. Not only did many of the people he crossed paths with have something integral to contribute to his journey, it also seemed that a certain someone kept appearing in different people to help guide him when he needed it most.

  “What about existentialism,” the philosopher asks.