We ate in silence until Chokichi put his cards on the table.
“So… Saké said you’d let me rent a room for a while.”
They discussed the rent and how long he’d be staying while I stuffed myself with sea bream and almond tuiles. I drank a few glasses of wine and suddenly felt exhausted. A cramp tore through my chest. Saké noticed. She stood and made up an excuse to leave, saying she had something to do early the next day. I followed her to the front door. We all kissed each other goodbye like close friends, and I left Chokichi with Rajani and Arnaud. Saké and I caught a bus home. It was 4 a.m. Night was already fading into day; it looked like this would be yet another sunny, intensely hot day. I felt worn out. I looked out the window all through the five-minute ride home. I dragged my feet upstairs and Saké was kind enough not to comment. We wished each other goodnight and I locked myself in my room without even going to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I put a Joni Mitchell album, For the Roses, on the old record player and set the needle down on the first groove of You Turn Me On I’m a Radio. I fell asleep midway through the next song, Blonde in the Bleachers. I hadn’t gone to sleep so fast in a very long time.
Hollywood
Underground poem #12
my body shrouded in mist
and I will dwell in a period film
for here I stand, in black and white, on a road never taken
After the sandman
they remain standing for some time before the hole in the window, watching the meteor shower. They say nothing. They both believe that, at this rate, the sky will eventually burn out. Then Hollywood shouts:
“It’s cold in here!”
“But it isn’t snowing. It’s stopped.”
Xavier
I felt like dancing. And that seemed both beautiful and silly. I’d always looked down on people whose moods vary with the weather. This time, though, I couldn’t resist. The sun was shining and I felt like dancing.
Antony agreed to come with me to the hospital, partly because he didn’t believe my story and partly because we had nothing to do all day. Pullman had booked us plane tickets in business class, but we’d have to wait until the following night because the sky was too crowded: it seemed everyone wanted to go back to America at the same time, and now that air traffic had resumed all flights were bursting at the seams.
We stopped at the hotel to change into more comfortable clothes, then called a cab. Barely five minutes later, we pulled up at the hospital. I bought a bouquet from the florist on the first floor, and we headed to Gia’s room.
It was empty. I flagged down a nurse in the hallway, who explained that Gia had left that morning; these days new mothers aren’t kept long at the hospital if their babies are healthy. I asked if Gia had left a phone number where I could reach her. Estos datos son confidenciales, I was told with a sigh of exasperation, first in Spanish, then in English and finally in French. The nurse escorted Antony and me to the hospital’s main entrance and planted herself at the door, waiting to make sure we left.
“Bitch!” I shouted, sitting down on the sidewalk. “She could have at least given me her phone number… I wasn’t looking for her address or social insurance number.”
“Well, if this was a soap opera or a TV drama, I would sneak in the back and steal her address and phone number from the nurse’s desk,” Antony observed. “Veux-tu que j’essaie?”
“No, that’s OK.” I sighed.
Antony offered me a cigarette and put his arm around my shoulders. I smoked in silence, and then we got up. I threw the flowers in the nearest trash can. We walked back to the hotel, where we parted ways; Antony felt like going out, so we said goodnight.
I climbed onto the bed with the Telepizza menu I’d found on the nightstand and ordered two pizzas, fries, a few sandwiches, two bottles of Coke and a chocolate tart. I’d have enough to survive until the next day. I asked reception to send up the food as soon as it came; in the meantime, I felt like grabbing a short workout in the hotel gym and trying the Turkish baths they’d told us about when we checked in.
I jumped on a stationary bike for a few minutes, but quickly tired of it. The Turkish bath reeked of eucalyptus, giving me a wave of nausea. I walked past the pool and had a sudden urge to swim, but I hadn’t brought my bathing suit and had no desire to go back to my room to get it. I made sure there was nobody changing in the locker room—not the men’s, not the women’s—and stripped down; I plunged into the water completely naked. And of course, after only three laps, a family of four walked in. I swam even faster: if I kept moving, they might not notice I was naked as a jaybird. The mother sat down on a chair with her book and the father splashed around with his two young children. I waited until no one was looking before hopping out of the water and making a beeline for the locker room. I dried off and went back down to my room, towel around my waist, my clothes rolled up into a ball.
A mountain of food was waiting for me on the desk. I put on some underwear, opened a box of pizza and ordered a movie: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I emptied a small bottle of Cuban rum into a tall glass, then filled it to the brim with Coke. I drank at least ten of these while I watched the movie and finished off the pizza. I was pissed off with life again, but I can’t resist Audrey Hepburn so I couldn’t help feeling a little sentimental. Those big brown eyes, her hats and sunglasses, her funny accent, those ridiculously posh gloves, the jewellery and Givenchy dresses, her eyelashes and her smile, the long cigarette holder—I’m mesmerized every time. I even managed to forgive how much tamer the movie is compared to the Capote novel, not to mention Mickey Rooney’s godawful performance, and I sang along to Moon River, my mouth full of cheese and tomato sauce. I may not be the society doll that Holly Golightly is, half birdbrain, half call girl, but in a fit of narcissism I found myself identifying with her character, enough to catch myself dreaming of love stories of my own while the credits rolled. Any story would do. Anything but my own.
∷
“What are you taking to sleep?” Antony asked.
“Same as you.”
He slipped two pills into my hand. I ordered a scotch on ice from the flight attendant. I was asleep twenty minutes later.
We landed in Toronto just in time: the snow had started up again. The second area of low pressure Paloma had mentioned on France 2 had moved from the Great Lakes up to the Golden Horseshoe.
Since Antony lives in Cabbagetown and I live in West Queen West, we shared a taxi back; two hours later it dropped me off in front of my apartment building before continuing on with Antony. I went up and threw my suitcases onto the living room floor. I looked out at the snow falling in the park across the street. Then I closed the curtains and lay down on the bed without bothering to take off my coat or shoes. It’s a habit of mine, and whenever I’m in the mood for a little tragedy I just switch off like that—somehow it seems to suit my lousy existence.
I woke up in the middle of the night, at 3:37 a.m. I boiled water and made myself an enormous mug of mandarin orange green tea. I turned on a few lamps here and there and chose a DVD at random from my collection: Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. I rummaged around in the fridge, but I’d been gone so long everything had either grown mould or dried up. I threw out salmon, a few tomatoes, the leftover cottage cheese, a couple of lemons, a batch of vegetable broth, a bunch of celery stalks, chicken and a carton of milk. I took a few cans and a box of pasta from the pantry and whipped up macaroni with tomato and yellow beans, which I sprinkled with Parmesan and fresh-ground black pepper. I ate straight from the pot to save on clean-up, sitting on the floor in front of the TV. When it became clear that Bonnie and Clyde were done for, I opened my suitcase and started emptying its contents onto the floor. I made piles: clean clothes, dirty clothes, toiletries, passport and other ID, receipts to keep, ones to throw away, etc. Then, at the very bottom, I found a little pouch of potpourri that I didn’t remember packing. A
ctually, I was sure I hadn’t put it there myself because I hate potpourri; the smell gives me such a headache it takes ages to go away. I got up to throw it in the trash. I untied the ribbon that held the net together and poured the contents over the food I’d just thrown away. A piece of white paper fell out, together with a cinnamon stick and a glazed apple peel. I picked it out of the garbage and stared. A phone number had been scribbled on it: 514.103.3390. I was sure it was Gia.
There was no answer, so I left a message. I gave her both my home and my cell numbers and decided not to leave the house until she called. If she’d given me her Montreal number it must mean she’d be back soon.
Since I still hadn’t heard from her the next day, I did some research on the Internet and read that you usually had to wait about three weeks before flying with a newborn. Unless Gia had taken a boat back to America—unlikely—I’d have to wait a bit longer for her to return my call. So I left a new message explaining what I’d just found out and offering to visit her in Montreal when she arrived. I gave her my email address before hanging up.
I was supposed to meet Pullman the Monday after I got back, which was the next day. I was sick of eating macaroni and yellow beans, so I walked to the grocery store. It normally takes fifteen minutes, but it took me thirty-five with all the snow and wind. A streetcar had gotten stuck at the corner of King and Strachan, and a team of TTC employees was trying to clear the track. The snow was piling up almost as quickly as they were ploughing it away.
I took a cab back since I’d just bought nearly two hundred dollars’ worth of groceries, enough food to last until Gia decided to call me back. Antony had left a message while I was out, asking if I was up for drinks at the Park Hyatt after the meeting. I politely declined: I’d rather stay home. I’m expecting an important call, but you can come over if you want.
∷
I asked Pullman for two months off and was shocked when he agreed. You made two big sales, you deserve it. I was all ready to negotiate, to accept unpaid leave for the last-minute vacation, but I didn’t bat an eyelash when he offered me pay at fifty percent. He handed me four big binders to study while I was gone, new products the company was adding to its catalogue. Antony, meanwhile, was given a hefty bonus provided he left again soon. Pullman wanted him to represent the company at a conference in Aruba, which was right up his alley.
We took the 501 Queen streetcar back to my place, but decided to get off a block early. Antony wanted to grab pierogies from Czehoski’s.
“They stuff ’em with sweet potato and smoked gouda, man. They’re the best I’ve ever had!”
We sat at the bar and I ordered a beer and a plate of oysters. We ate, drank our fill and then walked back to my place.
“Nothing much gets me going other than food, booze and DVDs,” I sighed, collapsing onto the couch. “Sometimes I wish I could be more like you.”
“What do you mean, be more like me?”
“I don’t know… stop questioning everything and just live my life like everyone else.”
“So you think I’m just a happy-go-lucky moron?”
“No, you know that’s not what I mean. But you’re happy with what you have and what you do. And I can’t be like that.”
“Man, I hope these two months off will do you good, ’cause now you’re kind of a bummer to talk to. T’es peut-être fatigué, non?”
“Yeah, that must be it…”
I wanted to change the subject instead of embarking on a conversation neither of us wanted to have. Antony picked out Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train from my collection, and we watched it and drank mulled wine. He dozed off before the end and I let him sleep on the couch. I went to lie down in my bed, but couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to take sleeping pills, so I turned on the TV on my dresser and watched a documentary about Jupiter until I fell asleep from exhaustion.
Xavier
Journal entry XXIII
When he told me he was moving to San Francisco it seemed like he was worried I’d be disappointed or angry. I don’t think it will change anything about our nighttime encounters, I replied. And that gave me an idea: I’m going to make a change, too. I’ll sell my apartment and move to Montreal.
Be a little more proactive—like the people in the movies, or even in real life, who ditch everything for someone they’ve just met. Even if most of the time it doesn’t end well.
He said it’s been summer for almost a year in Montreal. I told him it’s been snowing out west for weeks. Then we both brought up the same stories, the same news reports, the ones we knew about despite our mutual lack of interest in the world around us.
By day, I skate circles. In every sense.
Hollywood
Ever since i decided to leave, everything’s been getting on my nerves. I suppose it’s normal. Still, I really want to get the hell out of here as soon as I can. I asked for a bunch of extra shifts at the graveyard so that I can save up more quickly. And I dropped out of school. I won’t be graduating at the end of the semester anyway, so there’s no point in studying, handing in projects or going to class if I can rake the grounds and plant beans at the graveyard, read astronomy books while listening to music until dawn and then sleep until noon and rake the grounds and plant beans at the graveyard, read astronomy books and so on.
“Did you know that more than sixty forest fires are burning right now in Quebec? In February!”
I took a bite of bread.
“No wonder, with that heat. What puzzles me, though, is that no one is even surprised anymore. It’s thirty degrees out! On February 27!”
“Do you think it can last much longer?” asked Saké.
“How should I know? I don’t have a clue.”
Saké took one last sip of orange juice. She had the morning off. She’d gotten up shortly before me, around noon, and made breakfast for the both of us.
“It won’t be as hot in San Francisco,” she said.
I nodded, mumbling with my mouth full. Sure, it probably won’t be as hot over there. And there will be fog.
Saké picked up a pile of papers lying on the counter.
“I found this in your room last night. I was looking for a book, or a magazine, or whatever, and this is what I came across.”
She tossed the papers on the table.
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry! That’s just perfect!”
I was too intrigued by her comment to even think about bristling at the violation of my privacy.
“It’s perfect? What do you mean it’s perfect?”
“For San Francisco…”
“Huh?”
“There’s a bunch of poets over there. You could make a living out of it, publishing your poems.”
“Nobody writes poetry to earn a living.”
“Why then?”
“Er… I don’t know. Because some things can’t be said any other way.”
She looked confused, but it seemed pretty straightforward to me.
“Anyway, I don’t want to publish those poems. Plus I wrote them in French: nobody will want to read them.”
I got up and put my plate in the sink.
“Are you going to wash the dishes?” I asked.
“No way! I made breakfast! You clean up!”
I put on a record in my room and cranked the volume to the max. I left the door open to hear the music better from the kitchen. Saké had decided to work out in the living room; we’d picked the album together. Something that would help her go all out jazzercising, and allow my thoughts to wander while I washed the dishes. I suggested Joni Mitchell; Saké wanted something with a stronger beat, better suited for a workout: Wild Cherry it was. Play That Funky Music.
As I was scrubbing a pan Saké had used for goodness knows what, my heart suddenly felt like it had just beaten. I knew that was impossible since I don’t have a heart anymore, but that’s what
it felt like: a strange pulse in my chest, nothing like the cramps I get from time to time. I was so startled I lost my balance and had to cling to the counter so that I wouldn’t fall. I breathed in deeply and checked my pulse or whatever; everything seemed normal. Maybe the little machine they’d put inside of me had started up for a moment, making up for a drop in blood pressure or something? I waited for a few minutes, first for the song to end, then to make sure that I wasn’t about to die. Only then did I go on scrubbing the pan. Too late: I’d lost touch with reality. I was aware that I was washing the dishes, that Saké was dancing in the living room and that Don’t Go Near the Water was belting out through the speakers in my bedroom. But none of it made sense. It was as if nothing, in itself, truly existed: the objects around me, the things I was still doing, the music… It all looked and felt a certain way because of how my brain perceived it. If I ceased to exist, if I stopped breathing, what would become of it all?
I tried to shake off the thought. It made me dizzy. I sat down on the floor, with my back against the cupboards, and closed my eyes.
“Er… What are you doing on the floor?”
I opened my eyes. Saké was standing at my feet, sweating, panting. I lifted myself up on my elbows and smiled.
“Nothing.”
Then I got up and went back to scrubbing the pan.
“Would you please tell me what you burnt here?” I asked, waving the pan.
“I wanted to make eggs Benedict. First I messed up the eggs, then I forgot about the hollandaise on the stove while I was trying to fry the ham. I dumped it all.”
Hollywood
Underground poem #13
I cannot see
the sea from my bed
back to being a ghost
Listening for Jupiter Page 6
