Death Du Jour tb-2

by Reichs, Kathy

  “I mean, rock and roll in French. That is too cool.”

  “Yeah.” The front wheels caught pavement, and I joined the flow of traffic.

  Harry listened to the lyrics as we wound our way west toward Centre-Ville.

  “Is she singing about a cowboy? Mon cowboy?”

  “Yes,” I said, turning onto Viger. “I think she likes the guy.”

  We lost Mitsou when we entered the Ville-Marie Tunnel.

  Ten minutes later I unlocked the door to my condo. I showed Harry the extra bedroom and went to the kitchen to check my food stock. Since I’d planned to hit the Atwater Market over the weekend, there wasn’t much. When Harry joined me I was rummaging in the tiny closet I call a pantry.

  “I’m taking you out to dinner, Tempe.”

  “You are?”

  “Actually, Inner Life Empowerment is taking you to dinner. I told you. They’re paying all my expenses. Well, at least up to twenty dollars for dinner tonight. Howie’s Diners Club card will pick up the rest.”

  Howie was her second husband, and probably the source of whatever had been in the Nieman Marcus bags.

  “Why is Inner Life whatever paying for this trip?”

  “Because I did so well. Actually, it’s a special deal.” She gave an exaggerated wink, opening her mouth and scrunching the right side of her face. “They don’t usually do that, but they really want me to go on with this.”

  “Well, if you’re sure. What do you feel like?”

  “Action!”

  “I meant food.”

  “Anything but barbecue.”

  I thought a minute. “Indian?”

  “Shawnee or Paiute?”

  Harry hooted. She always loved her own jokes.

  “The Etoile des Indes is just a few blocks from here. They make a great khorma.”

  “Yippee. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten an Indian. And I know I’ve never eaten a French Indian. Anyway, I don’t think you can eat karma.”

  I could only shake my head.

  “I look like forty miles of bad road,” said Harry, singling out several long strands for inspection. “I’m going to do a few repairs.”

  I went to my bedroom, changed into jeans, then got pen and paper and propped myself against the pillows on my bed. I opened the first ledger and noted the date of the earliest entry: January 1, 1844. Selecting one of the library books, I flipped to the section on Élisabeth Nicolet and checked the day of her birth. January 18, 1846. Her uncle had begun this volume two years before she was born.

  Though Louis-Philippe Bélanger wrote with a strong hand, time had faded his entries. The ink was a dull brown, and at places the words were too blurry to read. In addition, the French was antiquated and replete with unfamiliar terms. After thirty minutes my head was pounding and I’d taken few notes.

  I lay back and closed my eyes. I could still hear water running in the bathroom. I was tired and discouraged and pessimistic. I’d never get through this in two days. I’d do better to spend a few hours at the copy machine, then work through the ledgers at my leisure. Jeannotte hadn’t said anything about not copying the material. And it was probably safer for the originals, I reasoned.

  And I didn’t have to find the answer right away. After all, my report didn’t require an explanation. I saw what I saw in the bones. I would report my findings, and let the good sisters come to me with theorizations. Or questions.

  Perhaps they wouldn’t understand. Perhaps they wouldn’t believe me. They probably wouldn’t welcome the news. Or would they? Would it affect their application to the Vatican? I couldn’t help that. I was certain I was right about Élisabeth. I just couldn’t imagine what it meant.

  11

  TWO HOURS LATER HARRY SHOOK ME AWAKE. SHE HAD FINISHED bathing, blow drying, and whatever else the repair process required. We bundled up and headed out, winding our way to rue Ste-Catherine. The snow had stopped, but a layer blanketed everything, slightly muffling the city clamor. Signs, trees, mailboxes, and parked cars wore fluffy caps of white.

  The restaurant was not crowded and we were seated immediately. When we’d ordered, I asked about her workshop.

  “It’s awesome. I’ve learned whole new ways of thinking and being. I don’t mean some kinda Eastern mysticism cow flop. And I’m not talking about potions or crystals or that astral projection shit. I mean I am learning how to take control of my life.”

  “How?”

  “How?”

  “How.”

  “I’m learning self-identity, I’m undergoing empowerment through spiritual awakening. I’m gaining internal peace through holistic health and healing.”

  “Spiritual awakening?”

  “Now don’t get me wrong, Tempe. This isn’t some rebirthing thing like the damn evangelists preach down home. There’s none of that repenting, and making a joyful noise unto the Lord, and the righteous walking through flames and all.”

  “How is it different?”

  “That all has to do with damnation, and guilt, and accepting your lot as a sinner, and turning yourself over to the Lord so He’ll take care of you. I didn’t buy that agenda from the nuns, and thirty-eight years of living haven’t changed my mind.”

  Harry and I had spent our early days in Catholic schools.

  “This has to do with me taking care of myself.” She stabbed a manicured finger at her chest.

  “How?”

  “Tempe, are you trying to ridicule me?”

  “No. I’d like to know how one does this.”

  “It’s a matter of interpreting your own mind and body, then purifying yourself.”

  “Harry, you’re just giving me jargon. How do you do this?”

  “Well, you eat right and you breathe right and—did you notice that I passed up the beer? That’s part of purifying.”

  “Did you pay a lot of money for this seminar?”

  “I told you. They waived my fees and they flat out gave me the plane ticket.”

  “What about in Houston?”

  “Well, yeah, of course I paid some fees. They have to charge something. These are very prominent people.”

  Just then our food arrived. I’d ordered lamb khorma. Harry had vegetable curry and rice.

  “See?” She pointed to her dish. “No more dead carcasses for me. I am getting clear.”

  “Where did you find this course?”

  “At the North Harris County Community College.”

  That sounded legit.

  “When do you start here?”

  “Tomorrow. The seminar goes for five days. I’ll tell you all about, it, really I will. I’ll come home every night and fill you in on exactly what we did. It’s O.K. if I stay with you, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. I truly am glad to see you, Harry. And I’m very curious about what you’re doing. But I’m leaving for Charlotte on Monday.” I rummaged in the back pocket of my purse for the emergency keys I keep there, and handed them to her. “You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you need the place.”

  “No wild parties,” she said, leaning forward and pointing a stern finger at me. “I have a lady watching the house.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I answered. The fictitious house watcher was perhaps our oldest family joke.

  She gave me a brilliant Harry smile and slid the keys into her jeans pocket.

  “Thanks. Now, enough about me, let me tell you what Kit’s up to.”

  For the next half-hour we talked about my nephew’s latest scheme. Christopher “Kit” Howard had resulted from her second marriage. He’d just turned eighteen, and come into a sizable sum of money from his father. Kit had bought, and was renovating, a forty-eight-foot sailboat. Harry was unsure as to why.

  “Tell me again how Howie got his name?” I knew the story, but loved to hear her tell it.

  “Howie’s mama took off right after he was born, and his daddy had left well before then. She left Howie on the steps of an orphanage in Basic, Texas, with a note pinned to his blanket. It said she’d be back, a
nd that the baby’s name was Howard. The folks at the orphanage weren’t sure if Mama meant his first name or his family name, so they took no chances. They baptized him Howard Howard.”

  “What’s Howie doing now?”

  “Still bringing in gushers and chasing every skirt in West Texas. But he’s generous to me and Kit.”

  When we’d finished, the waiter cleared the dishes and I ordered coffee. Harry passed, because stimulants interfered with her purification process.

  We sat in silence awhile, then,

  “So where’s this cowboy want you to meet him?”

  I stopped stirring, and my mind scanned for a connection. Cowboy?

  “The cop with the great ass.”

  “Ryan. He’s going to a place called Hurley’s. Today is St. Pat—”

  “Hell, yes.” Her face went serious. “I feel we owe it to our heri-tage to join in the recognition of a truly great patron saint, in whatever small way we can.”

  “Harry, I’ve had a long—”

  “Tempe, but for St. Pat snakes would have eaten our ancestors and we would never have been.”

  “I’m not suggesting—”

  “And right now, at a time when the Irish people are in such turmoil—”

  “That’s not the point and you know it.”

  “How far is Hurley’s from here?”

  “A few blocks.”

  “No-brainer.” She spread her hands, palms up. “We go over, we listen to a few songs, we leave. We’re not committing to a night at the opera.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “No. I promise. As soon as you’re ready, we’re outta there. Hey, I’ve got an early morning, too.”

  That argument did not impress me. Harry is one of those people who can go days with no sleep.

  “Tempe. You’ve got to make some effort at a social life.”

  That argument did.

  “All right. But—”

  “Hee. Haw. May the saints preserve ye, ye rascal.”

  As she waved for the check, I was already feeling the knot below my sternum. There was a time I loved Irish pubs. Pubs of any kind. I didn’t want to open that scrapbook, and had no intention of making new entries.

  Lighten up, Brennan. What are you afraid of? You’ve been to Hurley’s and you didn’t drown yourself in beer. True. So why the trepidation?

  Harry chatted amiably as we walked back up Ste-Catherine to Crescent. At nine-thirty the sidewalk crowd was already thick, the couples and cruisers mingling with the last of the shoppers and sightseers. Everyone wore heavy coats with hats and mufflers. People looked thick and bulky, like shrubbery wrapped and tied for winter.

  The portion of Crescent above Ste-Catherine is the Anglo “Street of Dreams,” lined on both sides with singles bars and trendy restaurants. The Hard Rock Café. Thursdays. Sir Winston Churchill’s. In summer, the balconies are filled with spectators sipping drinks and watching the dance of romance below. In winter, the action moves inside.

  Few but the Hurley’s regulars frequent Crescent below Ste-Catherine. Except on St. Patrick’s Day. When we arrived, the line from the entrance stretched up the steps and halfway to the corner.

  “Oh hell, Harry. I don’t want to stand out here freezing my butt.” I didn’t want to mention Ryan’s offer.

  “Don’t you know anyone who works here?”

  “I’m not a regular.”

  We joined the queue and stood in silence, shifting our feet to keep warm. The movement reminded me of the nuns at Lac Memphrémagog, which made me think of the unfinished Nicolet report. And the ledgers on my bedside table. And the report on the dead babies. And the classes I had to teach in Charlotte next week. And a paper I planned to present at the Physical Anthropology meeting. I felt my face grow numb from the cold. How did I let Harry talk me into these things?

  There is little patron exodus from pubs at 10 P.M. After fifteen minutes we’d advanced about two feet.

  “I feel like one of those flash-frozen deserts,” said Harry. “Are you sure you don’t know someone inside?”

  “Ryan did say I could use his name if there was a wait.” My egalitarian principles were being sorely tested by encroaching hypothermia.

  “Big sister, what are you thinking?” Harry had no qualms about exploiting any available advantage.

  She shot up the sidewalk and disappeared into the head of the line. Moments later I saw her at a side door, flanked by a particularly large representative of the Irish National Football Club. They were both gesturing to me. Avoiding eye contact with those remaining in line, I scurried down the steps and slipped inside.

  I followed Harry and her guardian through the labyrinth of rooms that make up Hurley’s Irish Pub. Every chair, ledge, table, bar stool, and square inch of floor was filled with green-clad patrons. Signs and mirrors advertised Bass, Guinness, and Kilkenny Cream Ale. The place smelled of beer, and the smoke was thick enough to rest your elbows on.

  We wormed our way along stone walls, between tables, leather armchairs, and kegs, and eventually around an oak and brass bar. The sound level exceeded that permitted on airport runways.

  As we rounded the main bar I could see Ryan seated on a tall wooden stool outside a back room. He had his back to a brick wall, one heel hooked on the stool’s bottom rung. The other leg stretched across the seats of two empty stools to his right. His head was framed by a square opening in the brick bordered with carved green wood.

  Through the opening I could see a trio playing fiddle, flute, and mandolin. Tables ringed the room’s perimeter, and five dancers cavorted in an impossibly small space in the middle. Three women did passable jigs, but the young men just hopped from foot to foot, sloshing beer on anything within a five-foot radius. No one seemed to care.

  Harry hugged the footballer, and he melted back into the crowd. I wondered how Ryan had managed to keep two stools free. And why. I couldn’t decide whether his confidence annoyed or pleased me.

  “Well, bless my heart,” said Ryan when he spotted us. “Glad you could make it, podnas. Sit down and rest a spell.” He had to yell to be heard.

  Ryan hooked his free foot around one of the empty stools, pulled it out, and patted the cushion. Without hesitation Harry slipped off her jacket, draped it across the seat, and settled herself.

  “On one condition,” I yelled back.

  He raised his eyebrows and focused the blues on me.

  “Lose the wrangler routine.”

  “That’s about as kind as gravel in peanut butter.” Ryan spoke so loud the veins stood out in his neck.

  “I mean it, Ryan.” I’d never be able to keep up this volume.

  “O.K. O.K. Sit down.”

  I moved toward the end stool.

  “And I’ll buy you a soda pop, ma’am.”

  Harry hooted.

  I felt my mouth open, then Ryan was up and unzipping my jacket. He laid it on the stool and I sat.

  Ryan flagged a waitress, ordered Guinness for himself and a Diet Coke for me. Again, I felt pique. Was I that predictable?

  He looked at Harry.

  “I’ll have the same.”

  “Diet Coke?”

  “No. The other.”

  The waitress disappeared.

  “What about the purification?” I bellowed in Harry’s ear.

  “What?”

  “The purification?”

  “One beer won’t poison me, Tempe. I’m not a zealot.”

  Since conversation required screaming, I focused on the band. I grew up with Irish music, and the old songs always summon childhood memories. My grandmother’s house. Old ladies, brogue, canasta. The roll-away bed. Danny Kaye on the black-and-white TV. Falling asleep to John Gary L.P.’s. I suspected these musicians were a bit loud for Gran’s taste. Too much amplification.

  The lead singer began a ballad about a wild rover. I knew the song and braced myself. At the chorus hands slammed in a five-strike staccato. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The waitress arrived at the last pounding.
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  Harry and Ryan chatted, their words lost to the din. I sipped my drink and looked around. High on the wall I could see a row of carved wooden shields, totems of the old-line families. Or were they clans? I looked for one named Brennan, but it was too dark and smoky to read most of them. Crone? No.

  The group began a tune Gran would have liked. It was about a young woman who wore her hair tied up with a black velvet band.

  I studied a series of photographs in oblong oval frames, close-up portraits of men and women in their Sunday best. When had they been taken—1890? 1910? These faces looked as grim as those in Birks Hall. Maybe the high collars were uncomfortable.

  Two schoolhouse clocks gave the time in Dublin and Montreal. Ten-thirty. I checked my watch. Yip.

  Several songs later Harry got my attention by waving both arms. She looked like a referee signaling an incomplete pass. Ryan was holding up his empty mug.

  I shook my head. He spoke to Harry, then raised two fingers above his head.

  Here we go, I thought.

  As the band began a reel, I noticed Ryan pointing in the direction from which we’d entered. Harry slid off her stool and disappeared into the mass of bodies. The price of tight jeans. I didn’t want to think about how long her wait would be. Just another gender inequality.

  Ryan lifted Harry’s jacket, slid onto her stool, and placed the jacket where he’d been sitting. He leaned close and shouted in my ear.

  “Are you sure you two have the same mother?”

  “And father.” Ryan smelled of something like rum and talcum powder.

  “How long has she lived in Texas?”

  “Since Moses led the Exodus.”

  “Moses Malone?”

  “Nineteen years.” I swirled and stared at the ice in my Coke. Ryan had every right to talk to Harry. Conversation was impossible anyway, so why was I pissed off?

  “Who is this Anna Goyette?”

  “What?”

  “Who is Anna Goyette?”

  The band stopped in midsentence, and the name boomed out in the relative quiet.

  “Jesus, Ryan, why don’t you take out an ad?”

  “We’re a little jumpy tonight. Too much caffeine?” He grinned.

  I glared at him.