I gently placed my hand on Moon’s flank, feeling the motion of her breathing, then heard a soft harrumph followed by a purr that sounded like a distant motorcycle. Cats have over a hundred vocal sounds, according to Céleste, while dogs have only ten.
From the Telefunken upstairs came a carol sung divinely by a boys’ choir:
’Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim
And wandering hunters heard the hymn …
“The Huron Carol,” which I hadn’t heard since I was a boy, since … I put my head back and listened. Images of a school in France, a brick prison six hundred kilometres from the Seine, circa ’74 …
“What a divine carol! Written by Jean de Brébeuf, the patron saint of Canada, as I’m sure you all know. What you may not know is that Brébeuf’s bones are buried not far from Midland, Ontario, at the Martyrs’ Shrine. He was tortured to death, I shudder to relate—stoning, slashing with knives, a collar of red-hot tomahawks, a baptism of scalding water, and finally burning at the stake. Because he was so brave and showed no signs of pain, his heart was eaten by the Iroquois. Okay. Our next song, our final carol of the evening, was requested by …”
The radiohead’s words unleashed a chain of images inside me—of red knives and tomahawks and hearts—so the next song didn’t register until halfway in. It too was sung by a boys’ choir, perhaps the same young angels, and it too took me back, this time to the Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College Chapel:
… But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousands years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing …
“It Came upon a Midnight Clear.” Which the phone in the kitchen savagely interrupted. Moon lazily raised her head, her eyes like wet shiny pennies. I let it ring at least twenty times before displacing cat and book.
“Please accept without obligation, express or implied,” said a thuggish baritone, “my best wishes for a socially responsible, non-addictive and environmentally safe celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practised within the traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practise religious or secular traditions, and furthermore for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uneventful New Year, viz. the generally accepted calendar year, including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of other cultures. The aforesaid wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.”
This was law-school stuff, which Volpe reeled off annually in the cause of high wit. “Same to you.”
“You freezing your ass up there? Do they have central heating in Quebec?”
I paused to listen to his radio, to “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms.
“No, not yet,” I replied. “It was so cold yesterday I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.”
Count to five. “Does that sort of thing pass for wit up in Canada? That could be the lowest lawyer joke ever told.”
“Yeah, it’s … my brain really isn’t—”
“I bring you glad tidings.”
“My ex is dropping all charges.”
“Uh, well, no. Not that good. But still good. You ready?”
“I am.”
“The French novelist and publisher have withdrawn their lawsuit.”
As if I cared. “And why is that?”
“You really don’t know?”
I had a pretty good idea. The book was bad enough, tawdry enough, to make it to the pharmacy racks. “I saw the book at Walmart.”
“A Vacation to Die For is number six on The New York Times bestseller list! Doubleday has bought paperback rights. Doubleday! And one of the Coen brothers has asked about film rights. You say they owe you a percentage of sales?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen percent stateside. Twenty world.”
“Nile, you’re a goddamn genius. Send me the contract. I’ll make sure you get what’s owed. Every last cent.” His words were suddenly indistinct amid sudden whuffling sounds, as though he’d just clamped the receiver between jaw and shoulder.
“What’d you just say?” I asked.
“I’ll make sure you get every last cent.”
“No, before that.”
“Send me the contract.”
“Before that.”
“I said you’re a goddamn genius.”
“Say it again.”
“You’re a goddamn genius. A chip off the old block. God, how your father bragged about you. God, how he loved you.”
I stopped walking circles around the garbage can, paused for one, two, three heartbeats. “He what?”
“Got another call.”
PART THREE
POST-CHRISTMAS
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer …
XXIV
The days after the twelve days of Christmas have always been a dreary and dismal time for me, so it was no surprise when some dreary and dismal things began to happen, here in the Quebec woods, on the thirteenth day of Christmas.
It came upon a midnight clear, with loud engine noises coming from the direction of the cemetery. I peered out the grandmother’s window. A phalanx of high-powered snowmobiles had formed, five of them in a line, all shiny black, revving their engines. One by one, as in a military show, they peeled off the line and roared through the cemetery, tossing up snow and noise and diesel fumes, weaving single-file through the tombstones. The last one, with two riders and a provincial logo on the side, was dragging something white, hard to distinguish because of the snow, no bigger than a hat.
Two of the vehicles left the formation and zoomed around the perimeter of the pond, in opposite directions, on what looked like a collision course. No such luck. They slowed and stopped a few feet away from each other, then turned abruptly, accelerating across the pond, back toward their comrades. This surprised me. The marsh and pond were frozen, but how frozen? Would it hold all that weight? It did.
After a while the revellers abandoned their steeplechase and congregated in a five-star circle. My hope was that they were planning to go back wherever they came from, but they shut down their engines and dismounted. The brief silence was followed by music, if that’s the right word: bottom-heavy Quebec goth. Do snowmobiles have sound systems? A bonfire soon lit up the sky.
With my surplus Russian nightscope I tried to see what they had been dragging. The first object I focused on was a silver blaster stuffed with D batteries, and the second a white-tuqued man twenty feet beyond. He pulled down his pants next to a gravestone, to the applause and laughter of his friends, and sprayed an angel with urine. The sound of a chainsaw was next. I didn’t need night vision to see what the man was about to cut down: a rare white pine born before his grandparents.
“Céleste! Céleste!”
Her bedroom door opened. “I see them,” she said calmly.
“Get in the attic. Now. And stay there. Take the pistol, take the Taser.”
“Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Don’t, Nile. That’s what they want you to do. They’ll kill you if you go out there, say it was a hunting accident.”
I flew down the stairway four steps a leap and picked up the phone. Dialled 122 then hung up. That was the emergency number in France. My mind was not working right. Dialled 911 but there was no dial tone. Wires snipped? I hurled myself back up the stairs, to my b
edroom closet, grabbed a certain article from its hanger. Hesitated. Put it on. Should I take the rifle? I don’t even know how to use it. I took the rifle. And a flashlight.
Back downstairs and into the kitchen, hyperventilating. I paused to compose myself, counted slowly to eleven. Took two stiff belts of Christmas absinthe.
“Turn the music off!” I shouted in English. Then in French, twice, three times. To no effect. « Now! » I pointed the Winchester at the boom-box guy. « I said turn the music off! » I shone my light in his eyes. He was Asian, perhaps Chinese, with a patchy spade beard, greased-back hair and a face like a potato that had been in the ground too long. came into my head: nánkàn, ill-favoured, literally hard to look at. “Guān bi yīn lè!” I tried. He turned the music off.
With the rifle slung nuzzle-down from my shoulder, attempting to look rangerly, I strode toward the pine killer. As the others, with their helmets on, sniggered and yelped and pranced around the fire, I wondered if some base part of their brains was recalling ten-thousand-year-old rituals, if I was seeing the genetic wheel going backward.
I stepped through the powdery snow, my parka making small rustling noises like a battery-operated toy. From five or six feet away, I aimed my light at the woodcutter’s head. All I could see was stainless steel and a white tuque. « Turn that off! Now! And lay it on the ground! »
The man waved the saw in the air, gunning it for good measure. He either didn’t hear me or didn’t feel like laying it down. I didn’t ask which. I took my rifle by the barrel and swung it like a baseball bat, reflexively stepping into it, rotating my hips and shoulders, extending my arms and pulling the rifle through the strike zone. The way my uncle taught me.
He raised the roaring saw to protect himself and there were sparks as metal hit metal. The chainsaw kicked back on him and he howled, holding his forearm. I swung again, this time with an upper-cut swing, hitting him square under the jaw. His head snapped back and his tuque flew off, snagged in branches. His knees buckled and he staggered like a drunk before falling head-first into the trunk of the tree he was trying to cut down. The saw lay on the ground beside him, in snow, inert.
My hands were stinging, throbbing, as if thrust inside a hornet’s nest, and blood was roaring in my ears. I was breathing not air but an inflammable gas: my head was on fire. I had to get away from this guy before I did something worse. Three strikes and you’re out. In my mind I saw his eye dangling out of its socket on the greyish pink string of the optic nerve. I blinked hard, and blinked again, trying to chase the image. I slung the rifle back over my shoulder and headed back toward the others, my pulse pounding like a racehorse’s. All I could think of to hold off this show of madness was to keep walking, keep moving. Let the voices and images die.
By the bonfire the three Stone Agers watched me, without retreating, without fear. Why should they be afraid? An attacking force, a history teacher once told me, should be three times the size of the defending force.
« Well I’ll be dipped in shit, » said the tallest one. « If it ain’t the Lone Ranger. »
I strained to see a billy-goat beard behind the tinted visor, but even after flashlighting it I couldn’t be sure. But I recognized the nasal twang. And the smell of beer and sweat and animal blood trapped inside his clothes.
« The butt stuffer with the prissy Parisian accent who eats micro-veggies. I knew you were a leaf-eater, moment I laid eyes on you. » He let out a hoggish grunt.
The man beside him, who didn’t join in the ensuing brays of laughter, said, « Gervais, you didn’t say nothin’ about no game warden. » He was staring at my parka. I shone my flashlight through his smoked visor. It was Darche, the hockey player with the Ferrari. Slung across his back was a bow and a quiver of arrows. « If this hits the papers … »
I saw movement in my peripheral vision. The chainsawer was making his way toward me, zigzaggedly, clutching his wrist. I threw my beam in his face. Like Gervais, he had a currentless, flatlined look in his eyes. Eyes that were still in their sockets, thank Christ. His head was hairless, and his nose beaked sharply. A fierce overbite made him look like a snapping turtle.
He unleashed a phrase I didn’t understand, what I’m guessing is the direst oath in the Québécois canon, followed by an arc of puke, luminous over the fire. He removed his snowmobile glove and wiped the blood and vomit from his mouth with his bare hand, flicking it into the flames. « Thanks for your help, Gervais, » he spluttered. « You yellow-bellied sapsucker. I’m outta here. I ain’t goin’ back to jail, and I ain’t doin’ no community service neither. I didn’t know he was the goddamn law. »
« Don’t be a hole, » said Gervais. « You crybaby whiny ass. You scared of a uniform? »
The man held his jaw, groaned. « I feel like fuck on fire. »
Gervais smiled, turned to me. « You ought a be wearin’ orange, Mr. Forest Ranger. Mr. Ecoholic. Get yourself shot in that getup. »
« No one said anything about a ranger, » said hockey player Darche. « I thought he was some sort of churchman. A pushover, you said. Who we were just going to intimidate. But it doesn’t look like we succeeded, does it. »
Oh yeah, you’ve succeeded, I thought. I’m intimidated—terrorized in fact. But the terror and danger fascinated me somehow, and I stepped back from it to get a better look.
« He ain’t no ranger, skunk dump, » said Gervais. « How many times do I have to tell you? He’s here to get the bishop. And protect that fat four-eyed mole. Dickless Tracy. I know who you are, squaw lover, and you’re not from France. You’re from the States, am I right? »
This is not what I wanted to hear. Where was he getting this information? From the four-eyed mole? From Earl? I said nothing. I shoved my hands deep in the pockets of my parka, to prevent him from seeing how much they were shaking.
« What’s the matter, rifleman? » said Gervais, watching me closely. « Got the shakes? »
I stretched both hands out in front of him, angrily, relieved to see that although I seemed to feel them trembling there was no sign of it. Anger chases fear.
Gervais removed his helmet and wiped his sweating dome. « The feds send you, fuckweed, or you a goddamn bounty hunter? »
I waited for the words to unsilt themselves, strained to grasp Gervais’s meaning. Had Bazinet run afoul of American law? Lines from the book I translated, A Vacation to Die For, came back to me. « All you need to know, pond slime, is that I’m takin’ him back, dead or alive. As soon as he walks. And you know why. »
« That uniform don’t fool me. ’Cause I know who it belongs to. Who you really workin’ for? Yourself? »
I didn’t know what to say. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police? I cleared my throat, took a deep breath. « Snowmobiles on private land, let me remind you— »
« This is public land. »
« Snowmobiles on public land, let me remind you, must be registered and display a decal. And snowmobilers riding on public roads must have a driver’s licence and … possess a snowmobile safety certificate. »
Gervais brushed away this smoke with a laugh, but it seemed to impress the Chinaman, who began to apologize in Mandarin. The only law he was breaking, I told him, was a Chinese one: wearing more than three colours at once.
« Who you workin’ for? » Gervais interrupted.
I glanced back at the rectory, toward the attic window, wishing Céleste were here to prompt me. It was a mistake, a rookie mistake. Gervais followed my gaze to the window, from which a nightscope protruded.
« I’m with the … » I was about to say the Department of the Interior but he seemed to know that was untrue. « The World Justice Bureau, » I said. The World Justice Bureau?
« The what? »
I took another deep breath, steadied my voice. « Wildlife Detachment. Unit commander. »
« What the hell is— »
« So listen up, plowboy. I don’t want to see you anywhere near this church again. Not in your plow, not on your Ski-Doo. If I catch you or any of your peckerwood
pals within ten yards of Céleste Jonquères, I’ll kill you. You’ve already had one crack at her. You won’t get another. »
« The fuck’re you talkin’ about? I never laid a hand on her. Who said anything about harmin’ the girl? If you think it was me who cut her, it wasn’t. »
« Who said anything about cutting her? »
No reply, at least nothing intelligible. As he grunted and snorted I remembered other lines from the book.
« You go near her again, you can count your remaining minutes on one hand—and you’ll still have some fingers left over when you’re done. So get lost. Piss off. Now. » I unslung my bloodied rifle but didn’t cock it or anything because I didn’t know how.
For a few elongated seconds, Gervais stood stock-still. He said nothing until the Chinaman began talking to me, politely, something about a wù jiě, misunderstanding. « Shut your trap, rice rat! » said Gervais, spittle flying from his lips.
In a low murmur of grumbles, following Gervais’s lead, everyone began packing up their things. They gunned their engines, one by one, before roaring off, leaving me finger salutes and foul exhaust. The last salute, which dripped blood, looked strangely familiar. Its owner had made the gesture twice before, I suddenly remembered, from a yellow Hummer.
Are these the homicidal inbreds, the freelance psychopaths, that slashed and dumped Céleste? But weren’t there five sleds? Where was the fifth, the one with two riders?
I kicked snow on the fire before returning to the scene of the chainsaw massacre. The damage to the old pine was minimal. The moron was cutting not the trunk, but a large branch. A few feet away I spotted the long rope I had seen through the nightscope, which had been cut loose from the snowmobile. I followed it with my flashlight until discovering what was at the end of it. I closed my eyes. It was a small animal. With white fur and a red collar.
The Extinction Club Page 23
