The Divide

by Robert Charles Wilson

  But the “we” made an odd hollow sound in her head.

  She went to bed alone. Deep, brooding, dreamless sleep, and then she woke up—still alone. Well, that happened sometimes.

  You couldn’t predict with Benjamin. Obviously, he had problems. It was not as if he could entirely control … what he was.

  She forced herself to make the trek to the bathroom, cold these mornings. She looked at herself in the minor, naked and shivering, and she didn’t like what she saw. Small breasts, pinpoint nipples, a mouse-brown thatch of pubic hair. A ratty little body, Amelie thought. Someone, probably Sister Madelaine from the Ecole, had called her that. “Amelie, you are a ratty thing.”

  Ratty little me, Amelie thought.

  She went to work without thinking about Benjamin.

  It was an ordinary day at work, and that was good. She thought maybe she was projecting some kind of aura, because nobody bothered her much. Even her customers were polite—even George was polite. At the door, as she was leaving, he put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Are you okay?”

  “Just a little down,” Amelie said … regretting it instantly; because, in a strange way, saying so seemed to make it true.

  “Some woman thing,” George diagnosed.

  Yeah, she thought, I’m getting my period. George could be such a moron sometimes. But he meant well. “Something like that.”

  “So cheer up,” he said.

  Thank you a whole lot for that terrific advice, Amelie thought.

  She walked home in the cold dark. When she reached the apartment, the note was still attached to the cupboard.

  She looked at it harder this time. Forced her eyes to track it. Blue Bic hieroglyphics. Really, what language was this?

  And at the back of her head, where impossible thoughts were nevertheless sometimes pronounced, she heard:

  I am alone now.

  Oh, no.

  Screw that He’d be home. He would! It was only a matter of time.

  She poked through the dresser drawers looking for something to smoke, something that would soothe her to sleep. This turned out to be a bad move, because she discovered that Benjamin’s clothes had been pretty much cleared out. The vacant space was a signal to her, more comprehensible than the note and more final. This sad empty drawer. She slammed it shut. As it turned out, there was a joint hidden at the bottom of her purse—something she’d bought from Tony Morriseau a while back.

  It got her stoned enough to enjoy a William Powell Thin Man movie coming fuzzily over the border from a network affiliate in Buffalo … but not so stoned that she didn’t leap up from the sofa when the telephone rang. Benjamin, she thought, because it was late now and he must be thinking about her and who the hell else would be calling her at this hour?

  Her hand trembled on the receiver. “Hello?”

  But it wasn’t Benjamin. It was Roch.

  She couldn’t understand him at first. He was speaking thick, muddled, obscene French. He’s drunk, she thought. She said, in English, “What do you want?”

  There was a long pause. “I need a place to stay.”

  “Oh, no … hey, come on, Roch, you know that’s not a good idea.”

  “Oh, it isn’t? Isn’t it?”

  Amelie wished she hadn’t smoked. She felt suddenly feverish and sweaty. She felt her brother’s attention focused on her like a heat-ray through the telephone.

  “They fucking kicked me out of my apartment, Amelie. Nonpayment. Bitch landlady calls me a deadbeat. You know? This …toad, with a dress like a burlap sack. Looks at me like I came out from a crack in the plaster. You are a deadbeat, she says, I’m locking you out. I told her, I have stuff in there. She says, you have trash in there and you can pick it up from the side of the road. I should have fucking killed her.”

  Amelie, who was tired of this, said, “So why didn’t you?”

  “Because she had some goddamnned pit bull or something on a leash beside her. One of those killing dogs.” He emitted a high, drunken laugh. “It even looked like her! But I should have … you know … I should have fucking killed her.”

  So do it sometime. Just do it, and then they’ll lock you up and I won’t have this problem.

  She said, “There must be someplace you can stay.”

  It sounded like pleading.

  “You’re it,” Roch said. “You’re my sister. You owe this to me.” He added, “What’s the problem—that shithead you’re living with? Well, you can just fucking ditch him. This is an emergency. I mean, I’m family, right? So tell him to get the hell out or I’ll kick his ass.”

  You didn’t have much luck last time you tried, Amelie thought—but then she remembered that Benjamin was gone. Maybe because she was stoned and frightened now, his absence became abruptly real. She really was alone here. All by herself in these broken-down rooms.

  She didn’t want to give in to Roch. But if she refused, odds were he’d be over here anyway. He would want a fight; and she couldn’t face that … not now…

  So she told him, “Just tonight. Just until you find something. Okay? Just tonight.”

  He was instantly soothed. “That’s my girl.”

  “I’m not your girl, Roch.”

  “You’re there when I need you. That’s what counts, right? That’s what family is for.”

  “Sure. That’s what family is for.”

  * * *

  In the aftermath of his call, the silence in the room was stunning. She turned down the volume on the TV but she could still hear a high-pitched whine radiating from inside the set. A leaky tap ticked in the kitchen.

  She turned away from the phone, then turned back as a flutter of motion attracted her eye. A slip of paper had been tucked under the phone; now it slipped to the floor. She picked it up and unfolded it.

  A phone number. A name.

  Susan Christopher.

  The woman who had come looking for John Shaw.

  Maybe Susan Christopher knows where Benjamin is, she thought. It was possible. But the Christopher woman might be out of town by now. Probably was. There was a hotel address written under the fold of the paper. Probably she would have checked out. Still—

  No, Amelie instructed herself. Don’t think about it now. Save it.

  She tucked the note into her purse, down deep between her wallet and her make-up case—a safe place. She might want it, she thought. Later.

  10

  Susan stayed an extra month over schedule in Toronto, living frugally on the money Dr. Kyriakides had wired her and waiting for the phone to ring.

  She developed a schedule. Her mornings were her own, and she used them to explore the city, on foot or by public transit. There was always the possibility that John might try to contact her during these hours, but it was a calculated risk: she could not simply sit in her room and wait. So she would wake up, shower, buy breakfast in the hotel coffee shop. She had left standing instructions with the switchboard to take her messages—which must have amused the telephone staff, since there weren’t any messages, ever—and she was careful to get back no later than one o’clock in the afternoon, a stern rule that served to assuage her guilt.

  In time, she developed a few favorite destinations. She liked riding the ferry to Ward’s Island and back, Lake Ontario bleak and pretty in the November weather. She liked Chinatown. She discovered cheap, interesting lunches in the Vietnamese restaurants along Dundas west of University—John would approve, she thought. She shopped for reading material in the second-hand bookstores along the city’s somewhat bohemian Queen Street strip. Afternoons, she would read by the phone. There were days when she spoke to no one except the waiter in the Saigon Maxima and the desk clerk at the hotel. The isolation had become a fact of her life. I am, she thought, like those people who live in caves for months on end. She had begun to lose any real sense of time.

  It was Dr. Kyriakides who reminded her of how much time had truly passed. He phoned at the end of November and said, “I want you to come home now.”

&nb
sp; “But he hasn’t called,” Susan said. “He—”

  “I think at this point we have to admit that it might not happen. When was the last time he contacted you? Almost a month ago, wasn’t it?”

  Approximately that. And it had been Benjamin, not John, and the news had not been encouraging—he was calling from a motel somewhere out west and he believed John was acting out some kind of regression, unwinding his life down the highway toward some unknown destination.

  “But he said he’d try to call again,” Susan protested. “If I leave now he won’t be able to find us!”

  “John can always find us if he wants to. That decision is in his hands. I suppose it always has been. We can’t force our help on him. But my main concern, Susan, is you.”

  “I’m doing all right.” But it sounded petulant, childish.

  “You’re becoming obsessive,” Maxim Kyriakides said.

  “Shouldn’t I be? You’re obsessive about John. You told me so.”

  “I have a legitimate reason. I’m entitled to my guilt, Susan. I’ve earned it.”

  She didn’t want to explore the implications of that. “One more week.”

  “I don’t see any point in prolonging the inevitable.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. One more week, then I fly back—no arguments, no regrets.”

  Dr. Kyriakides was silent for a moment. “You know, you’re not in a position to bargain.”

  “As a favor, then.”

  “Well … then let me make the arrangements. I’ll buy you a flight back to O’Hare. One week from tonight. Precisely.”

  The thought of it was chilling. But he was right, of course; she couldn’t stay here forever. She was living on his money, borrowing time against an academic career she could not postpone indefinitely. “All right,” she said. The offer was generous, really. “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll call back when I have a flight number for you. You can pick up the ticket tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The deadline came quickly. Susan counted off the grey, cold days one by one until they were gone. She confirmed her reservation at a travel agency opposite the hotel, and on the afternoon of the day of her flight, she packed her bags.

  Funny, she thought, how anonymous a hotel room seems when you arrive; and then you occupy it, you make it your own. Now the process was running in reverse. With her clothes folded into her suitcases, the closet empty and the key on the dresser—it was as if she had never moved in. Where had all the time gone? But that was one of those dumb, self-punishing questions.

  Darkness came early these cloudy days. At four o’clock she flicked on the room lamps and began to dress for the flight. A seven-thirty flight, but Susan preferred to arrive early at airports. Dress and maybe catch a snack at the hotel coffee shop, then a cab to the airport. Check in by six or six-thirty … buy a book at the newsstand and camp out in a waiting room until the flight was ready to board.

  She was standing in her slip when the phone rang.

  She scolded herself for a sudden leap of hope. Reprieves did not come at the last minute. Only in the movies, Susan.

  She picked up the receiver and said, “Yes?”

  “Is that—” It was a woman’s voice. “Is that Susan Christopher?”

  Far away and unfamiliar, tremulous and odd. Susan frowned. “Who’s this?”

  “Amelie Desjardins. You remember me?”

  Amelie who had lived with Benjamin. Amelie barefoot in the doorway of a slum apartment, radiating suspicion. “Of course.” Susan wanted to add, How did you get this number? She asked instead, “Is anything wrong?”

  “I have to talk to you.”

  “Well, I—the thing is—I have a plane to catch. I’m leaving tonight.”

  “Oh, shit. Oh! Well—listen—if you could just tell me, you know, where heis—just give me a number or something—just so I could talk to him—”

  Susan said desperately, “I don’t know!”

  “You don’t know? I thought that was why you came here—to take him away!”

  “He left! John, I mean. He got scared and he just, uh, left.” Should she be saying this? “What is it, Amelie, is there a problem?”

  “It’s my fucking brother! I think he wants to kill me.”

  Susan could not frame a response to this.

  “I just thought if I could talk to somebody,” Amelie said. Then she added, “But you mean it, don’t you? You lost him, too.”

  “Yes. Well, I—If you could get here soon, maybe we could talk. I have some time before I absolutely need to leave. Is this connected with John?”

  “Partly. Look, I don’t want to make a problem for you—”

  “No, no!—I mean, I want to talk.”

  “Well, if there’s time—”

  “Can you get here inside the hour?”

  Pause. “Sure. It’s not that far.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” Susan said.

  * * *

  They met in the lobby and then found a booth at the back of the coffee shop.

  Amelie’s eyes were puffy and bloodshot; her hair was down in matted bangs across her forehead. She wore jeans and a T-shirt under an oversized red plaid lumberjack shirt. Susan, sitting across from her, felt instantly helpless.

  “It’s Roch,” Amelie said. “He’s my brother.”

  The girl seemed anxious to talk; Susan listened carefully. She was not accustomed to having people come to her with their problems. It wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to her. She paid close, somber attention as Amelie spoke.

  Amelie had a brother named Roch who had followed her to Toronto from Montreal. “A real son-of-a-bitch. I mean, he has trouble dealing with people. I don’t think he registers people at all, they just don’t exist for him, unless they get in his way or humiliate him—and then his instinct is just to crush them, grind them under his foot. He can be pretty single-minded about it. I learned how to deal with it, you know, how to keep from making him mad. But it isn’t always easy. When we came here—”

  When they came to Toronto they had lived in the streets and Roch had encouraged Amelie into occasional prostitution.

  “But that sounds like—I mean, you have to understand, it was the kind of thing a runaway kid might do. It happened maybe four or five times and it was a question of having money for food, a place to stay. It was a long time ago.”

  Susan nodded.

  Eventually Amelie had found a job and a cheap apartment. Roch had taken a whole string of jobs, mostly lifting and carrying. He was strong, Amelie said, but he didn’t get along with people. He’d been working for the last six months at the Bus Parcel Express depot down at Front Street, but he lost that when he put a choke-hold on his supervisor and almost killed him. Roch was outraged when they fired him. His life, Amelie seemed to imply, was a continuous series of these outrages: he would be provoked, he would respond, he would be punished for it… “Christ knows what the guy said to him. Some kind of insult. So Roch practically breaks the man’s neck, and he’s fired, and it’s business as usual, right? Except that, for Roch, every time this happens it’s like brand-new. Like he’s filing it away on some index card in his head:fucked over again.”

  Amelie had avoided Roch fairly effectively for a few years. But the BPX firing had been a point-of-no-return … now Roch was back, and he had changed, Amelie said; he was closer to the edge than he had ever been before.

  “Like this thing with Benjamin. Suddenly Roch is jealous. For three years he ignores me altogether, then suddenly he resents this guy I’m living with. What makes it worse is that Benjamin—or I guess it was John—did this humiliation thing on him, the fight they had. No real physical damage, but the contempt—you could feel it shooting out of him. And Roch just soaked it up. Charging his battery—you know what I mean? You could say Roch is at a very high voltage right now.”

  Amelie stopped long enough to finish the beer she’d ordered. Susan waited.

  Amelie drained the glass. “Maybe it’s better Benjamin le
ft. I don’t think he could stand up to Roch right now. I don’t think—I’m not sure I can, either.”

  Susan said, “He’s staying with you?”

  “I can’t make him leave.”

  “Is he hurting you?”

  Amelie looked across the table, then reached up and pulled her hair away from her forehead. There was an angry blue bruise underneath.

  Susan drew in her breath. “My God!”

  Amelie shrugged. “I’m just worried he’ll get worse.”

  “You should call the police!”

  She laughed derisively. “Have you ever seen a domestic dispute call? I have. You know what happens? Fuck-all, is what happens. And it would make Roch really mad.”

  “You can leave, though, can’t you?”

  “It’s my apartment!”

  “I mean temporarily,” Susan said. “There must be a women’s shelter in the city. You could have a restraining order put on him—”

  “A restraining order,” Amelie said: the idea was comic. But she added, “Are there really shelters?”

  “Well—we can find out. Let me make a couple of calls.” Susan looked at her watch. “Oh, lord—myplane!”

  “That’s right,” Amelie said. “You gotta go.” She stood up; Susan fumbled out money for the check. Amelie added, “You expect to hear from him again?” Meaning John.

  “I don’t know,” Susan admitted. “Maybe. Maybe you’ll hear from him first. We have to keep in touch. Listen, there are phones in the lobby … let me make a couple of calls for you?”

  Amelie shrugged.

  Susan stopped at the front desk, hunting in her purse for the room key. Check out, locate a shelter in case Amelie needed it, then take a cab to the airport—there was still time for everything, but only just. She tapped the bell and the desk clerk hurried over. “Ms. Christopher—”

  “Yes,” she began. “I—”

  “That call came through,” the clerk said. “I suppose the one you’ve been waiting for? Long distance collect.”