And the Birds Rained Down

by Jocelyne Saucier

  It was time for taking stock and reflecting. The evening was quickly turning to black night. The air was growing thicker with each person’s reflections, and nobody wanted to pull away from this warm intimacy.

  The photographer was still trying to answer Steve’s question. What was she going to do if she couldn’t find Angie Polson again?

  I should have taken her picture when I had the chance, she admonished herself. She remembered the sparkle of pink light, her desire to capture that light, and then the conversation that followed, the Matheson Fire, the birds dropping out of the sky like flies – and then it was too late. The old lady had left, taking her one hundred and two years and her mischievous smile with her.

  She needed a picture of Angie Polson to accompany the series Young Girls with Long Hair.

  She had hoped that the lady at the museum would tell her how to find her, but the old maid had not seen her for over twenty years. The last time was in November 1972 at her mother’s funeral. Miss Sullivan remembered it well. Everybody in Matheson remembered old Mrs. Polson’s funeral and her daughter Angie arriving in a Cadillac with an elegant younger man. No one ever found out whether he was her husband, her son or her chauffeur, because she had not introduced him to anyone, and he stayed in the background during the service. More elegant and more capricious than ever, Angie wore a black silk dress that absorbed all the light and all the attention. Too beautiful for her age, that’s what was said afterward in Matheson. At seventy years old, you don’t walk about in a dress that dances on your legs, with a man who could be your lover.

  Miss Sullivan recorded the fact in her notebook. Shortly afterward, she heard a rumour that Ted Boychuck had retreated into the forest. She recorded the rumour. But she had nothing else to offer. Nothing about the identity of the man at the funeral, nothing that could have led the photo­grapher to Angie Polson’s door to ask her to pose.

  That’s where she was in her thinking. Night had fallen, a black velvet humming in every direction, and in this muffled softness, her endeavour seemed to be cumbersome and complicated. Going from gallery to gallery, explaining the concept, convincing them, and everything that would follow, negotiating a contract, the opening, not to mention Angie Polson, whom she had not given up on finding – it all seemed very far away from the person who was enjoying the fresh air in the forest in the company of her friends, hermits of these woods.

  She was leaving the next day with her cargo of paintings. Bruno would transport the remaining paintings in his truck. He had volunteered his help. Steve would never have made such an offer. In all his years managing a ghost hotel, he had never left his realm except for the two hundred kilometres to and from the next town.

  So all of Ted’s paintings found themselves in a warehouse in Toronto. Not a single one was left at the hideaway. It was an easy decision to make. They all agreed that the paintings would be much better off in a warehouse, dry and safe, than in Ted’s cabin.

  It was probably the idea of seeing the paintings leave the next morning that made the night so nostalgic and them so aware of the passage of time. Once the paintings were gone, it was as if nothing would remain of Ted, nothing of the summer they had spent together trying to understand what Ted had been trying to say in the canvasses.

  A wolf howled in the night, and their attention focused on its call, coming to them from far off in the hills. The howl of the wolf can’t help but move you. Even the most hardened of hearts, those who have heard it night after night for years, feel its pull. The fear of the wolf is an ancient one. The powers of the forest awaken in the night, and the insignificance of your humanity curls into a tight fist in the pit of your stomach.

  The dogs started to howl in turn.

  ‘It won’t last long,’ Tom said, ‘just long enough for them to acknowledge each other’s territory.’

  The comment was meant to comfort Marie-Desneige. The wolves terrified her. A year spent in the forest had managed to calm many of her fears, but not that one. When a wolf howled, and they were gathered around a fire, they forgot about the ball knotted in their stomachs and turned toward Marie-Desneige.

  Tom could see nothing. The night was too deep, but he could feel the sharp points of fear take hold of Marie-Desneige. Beside her, Charlie said not a word, made no move, but his constant attention, all of his being, was absorbed by Marie-Desneige and her fight against panic and terror.

  And in the dark of the night, something happened that did not escape Tom’s attention. Charlie’s hand left his thigh and went to lie on Marie-Desneige’s thigh, where her hand was clenched in a tight fist, which Charlie unfolded and brought back to his own thigh, a gesture that Tom followed in the dark and that moved him deeply. The two hands interlaced on Charlie’s thigh was the image of a happiness he had never known. A couple, a real couple, united in a moment that belonged to them alone and that was enough for them.

  The howling stopped, the dogs went back to sleep, the night was exuding comfort, and Tom wanted to know: ‘Tell me, Marie-Desneige, are you completely happy?’

  It was a strange question, and it took everyone by surprise. Marie-Desneige’s answer, after a moment of hesitation, was an even greater surprise.

  ‘I have everything I need. I could never have hoped for more, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a car go by from time to time.’

  And she explained that her greatest pleasure in that other life to which she would never ever return was that moment during the day or the evening, no matter, when she sat in front of the window and watched cars go by.

  ‘Watching cars go by is very pleasant. There’s always movement, it never stops. It empties your mind, and without you realizing it, you’re somewhere else. It’s very pleasant.’

  Marie-Desneige behind a window in the asylum or on the steps in a Toronto suburb, letting herself be lulled by a parade of cars until she was somewhere else may have been a pleasant image for everyone on the veranda, but not for Charlie, who had just discovered that Marie-Desneige’s happiness in the forest was not complete.

  They paddled in silence, Tom in the front, Charlie in the back, Marie-Desneige in the middle with the dogs swimming behind them.

  They have been there for a day and a night and they are waiting.

  They are waiting for things to settle down on the other side of the bay.

  No panic, no alarm, they are safe. They just have to wait.

  The day had started like any other. A reticent sun, a jay that came to greet them, a hare speeding by: fall was in fine form.

  They ate a breakfast of corned beef and peaches in syrup. No tea. They didn’t want to light the stove. The smoke would give them away.

  They are in front of the summer camp listening for noises coming from the hideaway.

  It’s dead calm. All that can be heard is the gentle wind in the cedars and the lapping of the water.

  ‘I think it’s over.’

  ‘Yep, they’re gone.’

  ‘That’s something to celebrate.’

  Tom pulls a bottle out from his bag. Scotch. A bottle he had with him when he arrived at the hideaway and that he always refused to open out of fear that the desire to keep going would send him back to cavernous hotels and a social worker.

  He lifts the bottle to gaze at the amber liquid in the sun, but the bottle is too dirty to let light through.

  ‘Cheers!’

  He pours himself a glass, offers one to Charlie and to Marie-Desneige, who decline, and knocks it back in one shot.

  ‘I’ve never forgotten the taste.’

  He pours another glass that he holds on to and swirls to watch the liquid turn in the hollow of his hand. The pleasure is intense. He closes his eyes to savour it.

  ‘It’s as good as it used to be. All that’s missing is the clinking of ice cubes.’

  Marie-Desneige searches at her feet and finds three round pebbles that she places in Tom’s glass.

  This time, he savours small swigs, making the ice cubes tinkle, attentive to his pleasure. He lets the a
mber liquid do its work.

  At the third glass, he has reached a state of slowness that satisfies him. Slowly, very slowly, he gets up and, using the shovel that awaits him against the wall of the cabin, he lifts a first scoop of earth.

  TWO GRAVES

  The photographer had scoured Queen Street for three weeks for a gallery owner willing to show Ted’s paintings. But each gallery had its specialty, and none fit with Ted’s work, so she returned to the hideaway with a bitter sense of failure.

  She knew immediately that something had happened. No quad in front of the hotel, no Steve or Darling to greet her, and in front of the main door left wide open, deep grooves in the earth, an army of vehicles that had left their tracks. She hurried to the great hall and what she saw confirmed what she already knew. The police had been there. Furniture overturned and torn open, strips of floorboards torn up – they hadn’t exactly been wearing kid gloves. Even the Lebanese owner’s animal collection had been taken down from the walls.

  The scenario of a police raid had been studied time and time again. The photographer was familiar with all the details. Steve could recognize a member of the narcotics squad at a glance, and if one ever showed his face at the hotel, he would send Darling to warn Charlie. It had never happened, but they had planned for it.

  So she went to Charlie’s camp – empty, just as she expected. Marie-Desneige’s house as well. On the shore of Ted’s camp, she breathed a sigh of relief. The canoe was gone. They had hidden out at the summer camp. They had followed the plan to the letter.

  She was relieved, but perplexed. What should she do now?

  She went to Tom’s and then to the plantation. Everything had been ripped up; there was nothing left. Thousands of beautiful mature marijuana plants vanished into an unholy mess. Here again, they hadn’t pulled any punches. She thought of Steve, no doubt in jail by now, and Bruno, who, if he had had the good luck not to be there when the raid went down, would not be back anytime soon. Would she ever see them again? She felt cheated, abandoned by friendships that couldn’t even be bothered to exchange addresses. Bruno who? Steve who? She didn’t know their full names. What if, she thought, it’s Marc and Daniel, not Bruno and Steve, and I got to know them under false names? The reality had an oppressive fuzziness to it. She felt as though she were walking through the smoke and gas of a disaster, the meaning of which escaped her.

  Once again she found herself in front of Ted’s camp. The lake was calm, windless; not a ripple disturbed the stillness. She stayed on the shore a long time searching the point of land behind which lay her friends’ bay.

  She would have to cross the lake. It was obvious, but impossible without a canoe.

  So she got to work. She went from cabin to cabin, found tools, beams, bits of board and plywood and set about building a raft. Not very long, not very wide, just enough to hold her weight during the crossing.

  She wondered what state she would find them in, Marie-Desneige in particular, so fragile and so powerless. The summer camp did not have all the comforts of her little house. Had she brought the things she needed? The nights were starting to get cold. Did she have time to grab warm clothes in the rush to get away?

  She left her work and went to Marie-Desneige’s house. The disorder didn’t upset her; she had already seen it all. What interested her were the clothes thrown in a pile on the floor. She knew Marie-Desneige’s entire wardrobe. She looked for what was missing.

  What was missing were her black pants, her orange sweatshirt and her plaid shirt – no doubt what she was wearing at the time, which reassured the photographer, because the plaid shirt was incredibly warm. But what really surprised her, because you wouldn’t expect an old woman who has just found out that she has to make a run for it to take such a useless item of clothing with her, was that her nightgown was missing. But then maybe it wasn’t surprising, the nightgown being the most feminine and precious thing in Marie-Desneige’s wardrobe.

  Something else was missing that did not immediately attract her attention. She was searching through the mess in the house looking for Marie-Desneige’s winter parka, when she felt something brush up against her leg. Monseigneur, she thought. It was only a dish towel that had fallen limply at her feet, but the sensation of the fabric against her leg reminded her that she hadn’t seen or heard Marie-Desneige’s cat since arriving at the hideaway.

  She found the parka under the bed but not the cat. She went to Charlie’s, still no cat – it wasn’t until she was closing the door to Charlie’s cabin that an image emerged — very clear, impossible to dispel — and forced her to backtrack. The image had burned itself into her brain and showed what, in her haste or in the depths of her unconscious, she hadn’t registered or wanted to see. She returned to the cabin, already knowing what awaited her, and forced herself to look. There was no tinplate box on the shelf above the bed.

  The brain has its ways of protecting against emotional overload, and the photographer’s brain jammed all of a sudden; it refused to budge. The photographer stood in front of the shelf, not moving, her eyes fixed, busy thinking of nothing. Before her, two images were trying to connect: the one that her brain had recorded without her knowing and the one that her eyes were showing her now. The two images were identical, but not yet completely in focus, and once they were, once the two images were perfectly superimposed, one melting into the other, she discovered alongside the absence of the tinplate box the absence of another box, the cardboard box in which Charlie kept his papers, the real ones and the fake ones.

  It was only later, paddling on the lake, that the questions, the answers and the anxiety over what was awaiting her came.

  Because she got back to work. Sawing, assembling, nailing. She still had another hour before the raft would be satisfactorily assembled, when something inside her told her to go check whether the tinplate box was in Tom’s cabin.

  It wasn’t there.

  She had to check one more thing, at Ted’s cabin this time. Amid the paint cans scattered about during the police search, she found the box intact and unopened; once she was out on the lake and her brain activity resumed, it confirmed the most dreadful hypothesis. Tom and Charlie had to have brought their boxes of strychnine with them; after all, the police hadn’t been interested in Ted’s, so why would they have been interested in the other two? She paddled with rage. Could she ever forgive them?

  The crossing was made in anger and desperation. She was in a rage, which didn’t help her progress. What she needed was more calculation, more rational paddling – a raft is not as easy to manoeuvre as a canoe. It goes every which way if you aren’t paying attention to its direction with each stroke of the paddle, and aside from the fact that the photographer had only a crude plank, her thoughts were too consuming for her to manoeuvre so temperamental a watercraft. The point of land she was rowing toward remained remote in spite of all the energy she was putting into it.

  She was overwrought, carried by a furious momentum that wasn’t subsiding. She was angry with them for having brought Marie-Desneige with them. They had no choice, she realized; she could still understand well enough to see that they couldn’t have left Marie-Desneige alone at the hideaway, but did Marie-Desneige have a choice if they decided to short-circuit their brains with strychnine?

  The admiration she had had for their pride in their morgue of woodland beasts, their way of defying death, their haughtiness, like a great overlord who decides which is more desirable, life or death – all of what she had admired, envied and even wanted for herself, it was all tarnished in her eyes by the image of Marie-Desneige dying in horrible convulsions.

  ‘They had no right,’ she cried out to the vastness of the lake. Her cry came back as an echo. She was halfway there, the point of land still waiting for her, wreathed in the pink sun that was turning the horizon crimson, and behind the postcard landscape, her friends’ bay.

  ‘They had no right,’ she said, for her own benefit this time. Her inner voice joined with that of Marie-Desneige, nearby
, quavering, who had told her, ‘I always knew I would have a life.’

  The photographer paddled even more furiously. She was kneeling on Marie-Desneige’s parka in the centre of the raft. She had brought the parka thinking of the cold nights at the summer camp. She would also have brought Monseigneur for Marie-Desneige to cuddle in the evenings, but she hadn’t found the cat, and she paddled and paddled and paddled. Off in the distance, behind the point of land, was a tiny person who had just come to life; she had very few years ahead of her, and her life was being threatened by a tinplate box.

  Her back hurt. The pain ran from her shoulders to her shoulder blades and her lower back, at the curve of her spine – it was intolerable, a sharp burning sensation that spread to her buttocks, but she didn’t consider changing position or letting up the pace.

  Night was falling, its purples and golds scattered in the sky, when a woman absolutely unaware of how exhausted she was landed on the shores of the bay.

  She arrived worn out, emptied, her muscles still aching from the effort, legs stiff under her weight and her heart beating like a young girl on a first date. And what if they were waiting for her at the summer camp? What if they were just playing cards and revelling in having escaped the law once again? You can’t keep the heart from hoping, and she started down the path that led to the camp with this wild hope, not without noticing the absence of the canoe along the way. They would have stashed it somewhere else along the shore, she thought, unworried.

  The camp was empty, emptier than it ever had been. The food stores had run dry. Aside from some tinned peaches, there wasn’t a single can left on the kitchen shelves. The camp had been lived in. For quite a while, the photographer’s glance judged, long enough to deplete the stores of food and make basic necessities disappear, such as candles, pots and, on closer inspection, furs, an axe that was kept inside to make kindling, and, surprisingly enough, a deck of cards. But no damage, no broken windows or door torn from its hinges. Everything was in perfect order. No bears had visited; it had definitely been occupied by humans. Marie-Desneige, Tom and Charlie had stayed here and had left no trace of their stay, aside from the emptiness that only she could recognize and study, out of her mind with worry.