As the train started to roll, a woman pushing a stroller sat down in the seat beside him. Her little girl, who was around two years old and had been crying, quieted instantly and smiled coyly up at him.
Hugo smiled back and wiggled his fingers.
The child arched her body and pressed her face into a corner of the stroller so that one eye was hidden from view but the other could keep sight of him. “She likes you.” The mother laughed—the first words addressed to him since he’d left Jean- Louis’s truck. A good omen, if you were into that kind of thing.
At the Lawrence station, he disembarked and followed a crowd of people up the stairs and out onto Yonge Street. The sun was still shining, although it was now starting to sink noticeably toward the horizon. The adrenalin buzz from all the coffee he’d drunk had worn off, leaving him chilled and tired. He wanted to get inside where it was warm, and to eat a decent meal. He had to cross Yonge and walk past a little park to get to his grandparents’ place. That much he remembered. And hopefully, once he did that, he’d remember the rest of the route. But even if he got lost, he knew he’d find it eventually. He’d just hitchhiked five hundred and fifty kilometres. This last bit was the easy part.
The houses in this area of Toronto were enormous, with long strips of lawn hemmed in by geometrically carved hedges. It looked like Westmount, only flat. Hugo tried to rehearse what he’d say once he arrived at his grandparents’ door. He couldn’t exactly tell them about his adventures with Jean-Louis and the eighteen-wheeler, or with Frank. He didn’t want to scare them. And he was guessing his mom hadn’t phoned to tell them he’d gone missing. She wouldn’t have wanted to worry them, and besides, she wasn’t even returning his grandmother’s calls.
The house was just where he’d pictured it, beyond the little park on a quiet street directly across from a high school. Finding it had been no problem. This trip had gone pretty smoothly, all things considered, as if the universe had been waiting for him to step out of his safe little home and start exploring.
His grandfather’s lawn was like the others on his block, huge and almost too green to be true this time of year, with a walkway of shiny flagstones leading to the front door. Hugo paused on the sidewalk and took it all in.
Though the sun was still fairly high in the sky, the blinds in his grandparents’ living room were shut, giving the place a closed-off, unwelcoming look. Hugo took another deep breath. The exhilaration and almost giddy happiness he’d felt in the truck were gone. Cold was seeping in through the bottoms of his sneakers. His feet were numb.
He’d been so caught up with actually getting here that he hadn’t stopped to think about how his grandfather might react. He had been here four times in his life. He’d always pictured the old man being happy to see him, but maybe this was optimistic. There didn’t seem to be any lights on. He wasn’t even sure anyone was home.
He went up the walk to the front door, took the solid brass knocker, and rapped, a little tentatively. What, in the end, did he know about his grandfather? The crabapple tree was, by far, his strongest memory, the reason behind this trip. The incident had left him with an impression of a man who might understand him, who might have faith in him when others, quite plainly, did not. Hugo could picture the chair in the living room where his grandfather liked to sit, listening to Mozart and reading his newspaper. He smoked a pipe. Usually out of doors, because his wife couldn’t stand the smell.
To deal with that smell, Alfred Stern chewed Doublemint gum. That was another thing Hugo remembered. He always had a pack on him and would give Hugo sugar-dusted sticks of it, wrapped in tinfoil. His other memories of Alfred Stern were not so positive. He did his own snow shovelling in winter, creating a precise, geometrical path from street to door. One day, when Hugo was small, he’d tried to help. His grandfather had let him, but then he’d done the job all over again because Hugo’s lines weren’t straight enough.
The door opened suddenly and his grandmother’s face looked out. At first, her expression was blank. When she took in his shaved head and grimy clothes, it turned suspicious. He had to say his name before she recognized him.
She clasped him to her chest, and then pushed him away again so she could look at him. “My God,” she said, gazing at him with intense blue eyes. “You’ve lost all your baby fat.” She ran a hand over his scalp. “And this? When did this happen?”
She’d transformed too. She looked smaller. The whole house did, in fact, now that they were inside. It had loomed so large in his mind that he must have inflated things a bit. He could actually look Connie in the eye now.
She led him into the hallway and stopped beside the living room door, which was closed. “Your grandfather’s new bedroom. He’s in there now with the nurse.” She squinted at him. “He just arrived home yesterday, so we’re still getting used to it. When she’s through with him, you can go in there and see him, if you want.”
She led him to the kitchen. Something was simmering on the stove. It smelled like his mother’s cooking back in Montreal, or at least like the things she used to cook before his dad left. Connie put on an oven mitt and lifted the pot lid, releasing a cloud of steam. “Soup,” she said. “You hungry?”
Minutes later, he was seated in his grandparents’ breakfast room with a big bowl of the stuff. It was full of carrots and turnips, just like the soups his mom made. And Connie put out a plate of bread—whole grain, with butter. He ate it all.
“My goodness,” she said. “It’s nice to see someone with an appetite for a change.”
By the time they cleaned up the dishes and she’d ushered him back to the living room door, he was feeling almost like someone his grandfather might wish to see.
“Your mum told you, I suppose,” she said in a low voice before they entered, “that he’s not the same since the stroke.”
Hugo nodded. “He can’t speak. I heard.”
“He can’t do a whole lot of things, I’m afraid.” She made an effort to smile. “But it’s still early in the game, Hugo. And strokes are unpredictable. You never know what will come back.”
She knocked lightly and opened the door a crack. “Alfred, my love. We have a visitor.”
She turned to check on Hugo, then opened the door wider and moved aside so he could enter.
A bed had been set up in the middle of the room. It had a metal frame and a row of command buttons, like a hospital bed. Because of the drawn blinds, there wasn’t much light, but Hugo could see that the back of the bed had been raised. Propped on the mattress was a very small, wizened person who was watching him intently. Hugo blinked. The person looked nothing like his grandfather. If his hair hadn’t been white, he would have mistaken him for a child.
For several seconds, they stared at each other in shocked silence. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or perhaps something was seriously wrong with him, but Hugo’s brain felt like it was short-circuiting. He couldn’t make sense of the picture. In his dreams, the house in Toronto had been a refuge, a place where he would finally, for the first time in his life, find his place. With mounting panic, Hugo watched as the strange, childlike face in front of him jerked, its mouth stretching and opening. Then, without warning, his grandfather turned his face sharply away and began to howl.
22
Hannah awoke to the sound of a baby crying. She had shut her eyes after Kingston, and now they were passing the beaches of Lake Ontario on their way into Toronto. Some of the passengers on the train had their coats on, ready to disembark. The lake was a dull silver colour, a tarnished spoon reflecting an overcast sky. She glanced across the aisle at the baby, who was now wailing at full throttle. He looked like a newborn, his little face puckered and red. The baby’s mother was, of course, trying frantically to quiet him. She looked like a child herself. She was wearing a bright shalwar kameez and was trying to get the child to feed from her breast. But with all the other passengers so close, and with the child writhing in her arms, she was too agitated. Her husband, clad in a suit a couple of sizes too big
and a pair of shiny black shoes, sat stiffly beside her, glaring, as if the whole thing were her fault. She had thrown a shawl over herself, which muffled the baby’s cries but didn’t do much to help its humour. She shifted in her seat, readjusting him, her body, and the shawl, and as suddenly as it had begun, the crying stopped.
Hannah looked out the window. Her neck was sore. As the train rounded a bend, the CN Tower came into view and her eyes brimmed. Had anyone ever cried with joy to see the CN Tower? Hugo was here, in this city, alive and safe.
When her mother had called at around nine o’clock the night before, Hannah had been reluctant to pick up the telephone. The police were still in the apartment. Every officer in Montreal had in his or her possession a description of Hannah’s only child. White. One hundred sixty-nine centimetres. Fifty-two kilograms. Black hair and eyes. Likely wearing dark jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt.
The search had gone on all day, feverishly, because of the story of the gun. When the call came in, the detective in charge of the case, a large, calm man named Dubois, was asking Luc again about Hugo’s state of mind. It was clear where the questions were going, but neither Luc nor the detective would say the word. Could it be that Hugo was depressed? the detective had asked. Had he seemed unusually preoccupied or withdrawn prior to the disappearance? Had he dropped any kind of a hint? Had there been conflicts at school or at home that Luc could recall?
Luc was clearly not going to talk about the fights, so Hannah had been forced to do it. She’d felt awful, especially with Luc sitting across from her looking stricken. But really, she had to. She told of their differences over language. Of the physical fighting that had erupted between Luc and Hugo following the incident with the gun.
“She’s making mountains out of molehills,” Luc kept saying, his eyes searching those of the detective. “Conflicts come up in family life. C’est normal.”
He had just finished asking the detective, rather aggressively, if he had kids of his own, when the telephone rang. Luc and Dubois stopped talking. Hannah, who was seated nearest to it, leapt up. She stood over it stupidly for a moment, not daring to move, just staring at the Talk button until it rang a second time, shaking her from her trance.
The voice on the other end was instantly recognizable. “What a surprise,” said Connie. “Though you might have warned us.”
Hannah turned her back to the two men. She had not returned her mother’s calls all week, even though four had come in since they’d last spoken. “Mum, I—”
“Not that I’m complaining. You should see your father. He’s in heaven.”
Hannah glanced over at her husband. He was frowning in irritation and mimed hanging up.
She looked down at the bare wood floor, trying to concentrate. “This isn’t the best time,” she said, doing her utmost to keep her tone even. She had no idea whether Connie had gone ahead with the plan to bring Alfred home. She had no desire to know. Wherever he was, Connie needed help caring for him. And Hannah could not provide it.
“But really,” her mother said, “I think you might at least have given the boy an overnight bag.”
Hannah felt her heart stop.
“Which boy?”
Across the room, Luc saw her expression change. He stopped gesturing.
“And those jeans,” Connie went on. “You’re his mother. God knows, I wouldn’t dream of interfering, but honestly, someone should tell him it’s inappropriate for a person’s underwear to be on display to the entire—”
“Mother. Which boy?”
After she had given Dubois an account of what had happened and seen him to the door, she sat beside Luc on the couch, absorbing the news.
“Toronto,” Luc said, as if learning a new word. “I don’t believe it.”
But Hannah did. Hugo had given plenty of clues. All those questions about Alfred on the night he disappeared. And the name change, which Manny Mandelbaum had immediately recognized as significant. Hugo had been interested in his grandfather for years now. He’d done that project about him in grade six, learning more about him in a single long-distance telephone call than Hannah had learned in a lifetime. In retrospect, it made perfect sense that he would go to Toronto.
“I could come with you,” Luc had offered when she said she’d go down the next day. He seemed serious, but when she shook her head, he looked relieved.
The train was on the last stretch before Union Station. People were standing in the aisle even though they had been told repeatedly in both official languages to remain in their seats until the train came to a full stop. Hannah sat obediently. There was a knapsack on the floor by her feet. Her only clothes were on her back, plus an extra pair of underpants and some items for Hugo. She had brought the laptop along, which took up most of her packing space. She would have to visit the Word at some point. She owed Allison March that much.
Before they reached the station, the train stopped and hissed. The lights went out, and everyone, including the baby across the aisle, fell into sudden respectful silence. Hannah sat in the dark, feeling the clutch and release of her heart. She felt calm and strangely united with these strangers waiting around her. And then the moment was over. Outside the train, someone shouted, and seconds after that the lights came up. People started moving again, as if they too had just been reconnected to an electrical source. Women combed their hair and called their children to order. Men buttoned their coats. The train roused itself from its moment of stillness and made the final push down the tracks into Toronto.
She took the subway north to her parents’ neighbourhood. Coming up the steps at Lawrence, she noted changes in the landscape since her last visit. Most of the leaves had fallen. Piles of them filled the gutters. Above them, denuded branches swayed in the October wind. In the little park on the far side of Yonge Street, the grass was yellow and dead. Autumn was drawing to a close. That coming Sunday, the clocks would be pushed back.
The walk did not take long. Within ten minutes, Hannah rounded the corner onto Chatsworth Drive. There was the house. She concentrated on the details of its exterior, not daring to let her mind ponder what awaited her inside. Her parents’ bushes had been pruned, divided neatly into bunches, and tied with string. The grass was a chemical green, not a fallen leaf in sight. Her mother had once enjoyed tending the lawn. Now a company took care of it, sending a crew each week with a deafening army of leaf-blowers. Hannah turned up the front walk, repaved just last spring with interlocking flagstones.
When the door opened, a smell engulfed her: roasting meat and garlic. Her mother stood before her, wearing an apron and a smile—a happier smile than Hannah had seen for years. “Come in from the cold,” she said, pulling Hannah by the arm. “I knew you’d get down here. And I knew it would be in your own particular Hannah style. I just never imagined Hugo would be part of it.”
Connie was beaming, as though this arrangement were a stroke of genius, a plan laid by Hannah with her parents’ best interests in mind.
She hugged her mother.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Connie said. “Things have worked out fairly well with Alfred. For now, anyway. Who knows about tomorrow.” In her right hand, she was holding a wooden spoon, which she flourished. “Look at me! A cartoon granny.”
Hannah shook her head. “You look great.”
Her mother cocked her head toward the interior of the house. “That’s because he’s doing better. He’s eating again.”
“I can imagine,” Hannah said, inhaling the smell wafting out of the kitchen. Gigot d’agneau with rosemary and slivers of garlic inserted under the skin: a Connie Stern classic, and certainly more enticing than anything on offer at the hospital.
As they hung up Hannah’s coat, Connie described Hugo’s arrival. She didn’t seem to realize he’d run away. Hannah hadn’t told her, justifying this in her own mind as a protective move, for everyone’s sake. Now, watching this agile woman bend down to stow her knapsack under a chair, Hannah felt guilty. Connie was obviously strong enoug
h to handle the truth.
“I didn’t recognize him,” Connie said, looking up at her. “He’s transformed.”
“You mean the hair?” In spite of herself, Hannah made a face.
But Connie wasn’t passing judgment. “The hair. The body. The lines of his face. Everything,” she said, smiling. “His baby fat’s melted away. He’s left his childhood.”
Hannah’s throat went tight. Was this what had happened? She was too close to see it.
“Alfred’s reaction was even stronger than mine,” Connie continued. “He was so upset when he saw him, he started to cry.”
Hannah pictured her son’s shaved head and sullen mouth. “Did Hugo scare him?”
Connie laughed. “No, no! Not at all. If anyone, it was your son who got the scare.” She paused, remembering the moment. “Honestly? For Alfred, I think it was … well, Dickensian. An apparition from the past. Come,” she said, taking Hannah by the hand and leading her back into the hall. “There’s something you must see.”
On the little mahogany table that her parents used for mail and keys lay a small black-and-white photograph. Connie picked it up. “I pulled this out of your father’s album last night to show Hugo. It’s quite something.”
Hannah recognized the shot, although it had been years since she’d seen it. It was one of a handful of surviving photographs from her father’s youth. It had been taken by an administrator at the internment camp in New Brunswick just after Alfred arrived in Canada. He was standing outside a wooden barracks in the snow, dressed in a dark bulky prison uniform. His head was bare, presumably for the picture. He had no hair to speak of, just a film of fuzz so thin it could have been a shadow. Hannah let out a cry.
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