She had called at about 7:30 Friday evening. Ari had just walked away from him, leaving him seriously rattled. She can do a lot of damage. Suzanne was at the table waiting for him. Then he’d felt the vibration in his pocket, fished out his phone, saw Aggie’s number and walked outside where it was quieter.
He’d called back and got his mother’s answering machine. He felt a spasm of relief. He told her he was with the guys and would probably be out late—might not be home at all. Went back inside to find Suzanne scrolling through her messages. She smiled at him and put the phone away. “So what did Ari have to say?”
“Nothing interesting. Just that he’s too busy to talk. We should come back another time.”
“Busy? Friday night in a pub?”
“That’s what he said.”
Outside the Only Café she’d seemed stressed, increasing his confusion. “Where now?” he’d asked.
“Let’s just walk.”
They’d walked slowly, heading nowhere in particular. Her arms were folded, her bag looped over her shoulder. She was mostly silent.
He’d been grateful for the silence. He’d assumed he knew Suzanne, but now he wasn’t sure. But then, who was Ari anyway?
The restaurant was called Lolita’s. They’d been walking for about fifteen minutes when Suzanne spotted the place and laughed. “Role reversal,” she said, and it took a moment for him to realize the comment was flirtatious. Lolita. Right. Ha! She grabbed his arm, pressed herself against his shoulder. She was smiling and he welcomed the sudden change in mood. “I could use a proper drink,” she said. “But you must be hungry.”
The restaurant was busy so the hostess led them to the bar to wait until a table became available. He was happy at the bar, perched on a stool, Suzanne beside him, almost touching. Closer than they could ever sit at a table but with a neutral place to stare when the conversation lapsed. Shelves of bottles and behind the bottles, barely visible, a mirror in which he could see their reflection.
“I’ll drive myself crazy all night,” she declared while they were waiting for their drinks. “I know I’ve seen him somewhere but I just can’t place it. How long has he been here?”
“I don’t know,” said Cyril. “I don’t know anything about him.”
The drinks were set down in front of them. She turned sideways on the stool, elbow on the bar. “You don’t even know his name?”
“Just Ari.”
Her smile was crooked, skeptical.
He shrugged. “I told you that.”
“Maybe you did. Tell me again.”
“There isn’t much to tell. Dad dropped by that place one night, I don’t know why. They met. They had something in common, maybe just the Middle East. Maybe something more. Dad mentioned him in a note attached to his will so it must have been more than a casual connection.”
“Maybe we should think about eating something,” Suzanne said. “Are you okay staying here at the bar?”
“This is perfect.”
“Okay.” She asked for menus, then turned to him again. “Do you know what year your father came to Canada?”
“I think it was the early eighties. Maybe ’83 or ’84.”
“I was over there a lot in the eighties,” she said.
“I have his diaries,” Cyril said. “They start in ’83.”
“Diaries?” She laughed. “So how come you don’t know exactly when he came?”
“Well, the first couple are written in Arabic. But even the English ones…I’ve just glanced. It’s a bit creepy. Right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And the one I really want, the one that covers his last months in 2007—that one is missing.”
“Really?”
“Which is partly why I keep wondering if he’s still alive somewhere.”
“How so?”
“If he ran away from something, he’d take it with him. Right? It would have had clues about what was going on.”
She nodded.
“Anyway. It seems my father had a lot of secrets. It’s possible that Ari might know some of them.”
“I’m sure he has his own secrets, this Ari. In fact, I’d put money on it. Damn, I wish I could place him.”
“What kind of secrets would Ari have?”
“Real ugly secrets, if my vibes are accurate. Ugly, ugly. Someday I’ll explain my theory about secrets.”
“A theory.”
“Yes,” she said. “Here’s the short version. Secrets are invariably motivated by something shameful. Like a betrayal or a crime. When the shame becomes too much, it leads to self-destruction of some kind.” She tossed back what was left in her glass, then again turned sideways on her stool. “Look at me.”
He looked. Her eyes searching. Then she smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re how old again?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four. I bet you have your own secrets,” she said. “Interesting secrets.”
He laughed, but realized he was blushing. “I’m an open book. Okay?” Then he asked, “Do you think your father had secrets?”
“Big heavy secrets. Don’t we all?” She waved a dismissive hand, turned back to the bar. “I’m going to switch to wine. What do you say we get a bottle and order up some grub. Red or white?”
“I’m easy,” he said. “I like red. Anything.”
She rummaged in her bag, retrieved a pair of reading glasses and began examining the wine list.
“About suicide,” he said. “I used to hope it was that. It’s easier to understand.”
“Malbec?”
“What?”
“You okay with Malbec?”
“Anything.”
They stood outside the restaurant watching for a taxi. He didn’t know what time it was but it felt late, city sounds subsiding. “That was fun,” she said.
“Fun?”
“I don’t get to do that much anymore,” she said. “Just hang out. Talk about stuff.”
He caught her by the wrist but he was unsure why he’d done it and suddenly he wished he hadn’t. Maybe he’d expected that she’d instantly withdraw her arm but she didn’t. She reached out and touched his cheek.
“We could share a cab,” he said.
“I’m walking distance.” She checked her wristwatch. “Hey,” she said. “It’s still early. At the risk of seeming forward…”
“No fear of that,” he said.
“Come.” She looped her arm through his and they started walking. “We’ll have a nightcap at my place and then we can call a cab from there. Okay?”
“Sounds great.”
He dropped to his knees and fished around beneath the bed, felt the fabric of a T-shirt. And he remembered how deftly she had stripped it off him, how carelessly she’d tossed it.
He could hear a shower from somewhere up above. Then it stopped. A footfall. He tossed the bedclothes, searching. Ah. Underpants. But what about the trousers? The socks are probably caught up in trouser legs somewhere. A sudden wave of despair drove him back into the bed and he dragged the blankets up. Fragments of the night before floated freely. How she’d grasped his hand, guiding his fingers. “There,” she sighed. “Yes there. Yes. Oh my…perfect.”
He buried his face in the pillow. What did she think? It was like she had to tell him everything. Like it was his first time. Christ oh Christ oh suffering Jesus. Never again. Ever.
Then Suzanne was standing in the bedroom doorway, swaddled in a towel, smiling at him, roughing her hair with one end of the towel as she clutched the rest of it in front of her.
“Ah, there you are,” she said. And dropped the towel. “May I join you?”
He must have slept again because he was surprised by her tone of voice when, finally, she spoke to him. “So what are your plans for the day?” She was kneeling on the bed beside him, wearing a light dressing gown. The tone was friendly, almost collegial, with no trace of the intimacy that had seemed, at least to him, so recently to have b
een irreversible.
“Come on, sleepyhead. Time to rise and shine.” She tossed his trousers at him, laughing.
He shook them off his face. Of course, he told himself. What did you expect? She had drawn back the drapes and the room was bright. The impersonal sparseness told him that it was a guest room.
A phone chimed. “That’ll be mine,” she said and dashed out into the hallway.
He put his pants on, then the T-shirt. He stood and stretched, then left the room. Suzanne was leaning against a wall, one bare foot rubbing the other. She was patting her unruly hair, which she had gathered up and clasped with a large, amber-coloured clip.
“Love you too,” she said into the phone, then shoved it into the pocket of her dressing gown. She stood for a moment and studied Cyril with what he took for sympathy. “I have the coffee on,” she said at last. He followed her toward where he now remembered they’d sat the night before, at a rustic harvest table Bruno had designed and built for her before they’d lived together.
“You take yours black?”
“Please,” he said.
She busied herself at the kitchen counter. “I’ll make toast,” she said. Then she turned suddenly, stared at him and frowned. “Are you okay?”
He always felt reassured when women asked that. Are you okay? “I’m a notch or two above okay,” he said. And he was gratified to see her blush before she turned her full attention to the toaster.
At the door she took a handful of Cyril’s hair, shook his head a little. Smiled. “Less said the better, I find.”
“Yes,” he said. “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She grinned and stuck her tongue out. For a flash she seemed to be about fourteen years old and he didn’t want to go. “Oh,” she said. “You mentioned the diaries your dad left. That the early ones are in Arabic.”
“Yes.”
“Hughes reads Arabic. I’m sure he’d take a look if you’re up for it.”
“I like Hughes,” Cyril said. “He’s been helping me. I’ll mention it.”
“You can trust Hughes. He’s the most decent man I’ve ever known.”
He was puzzled by her tone, by the expression on her face. Thoughtful. Then she smiled. “You might as well hear it from me. Everybody else knows anyway. For a couple of unproductive but otherwise contented years I was Mrs. Hughes. Does that shock you?”
He thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said. “In fact, it makes perfect sense.”
He smiled, turned, skipped down the front steps and jogged off down the street.
19.
When he figured that he was out of sight he slowed to a walk. Early on a Saturday Danforth Avenue was still quiet. He felt his spirits sag, the post-coital emptiness of everything, the pointlessness. Women think it’s only them.
He checked his cellphone. It was twenty after nine and there were messages. Email, voicemail. He was near a coffee shop and he went in. An old song playing softly in the background was one his father liked. A hoarse, hungover voice like he imagined his would be at that moment: Sunday morning coming down.
Three voice messages. Aggie. Leo. Not unexpected. But Lois? A text from Leo. Hey bro, you planning to crash here? I left the door unlocked just in case. There was an older man alone with his Saturday newspaper seated near the front window. Cyril tried to guess his age. How old would Pierre be now? How long before he’d have looked like that? Dry, thinning hair, sallow, furrowed skin.
He listened to his mother’s message. “Lois called, looking for your number and I gave it to her. Okay? Also the number for that apartment, where you were staying before you moved back home. I suspect that’s where you are. I’ll see you when I see you. By the way I put your supper in the fridge.” He put the phone away. Lois?
Cyril could remember how he’d resented his father in the early days of his abandonment, how it clouded everything, how it contaminated their encounters. He resented the cars, the luxury condo, and then, of course, the fancy house. He came to resent the tablecloths in the restaurants Pierre would take him to, comparing them to greasy paper placemats at the McDonald’s and the Chuck E. Cheese’s establishments that Aggie patronized. He developed a resistance to the smallest gestures he considered to be false.
He had eventually warmed to Lois. Maybe it had something to do with puberty. Almost overnight he’d come to see her as an extraordinarily attractive woman. Sexy. Awful thought, he told himself. But the resistance to Pierre’s rare and superficial gestures lingered. The offer of a pint of Guinness when he was only seventeen along with the insinuating wink: Your mother doesn’t have to know. He knew his dad was working hard at establishing a connection of some kind but the teenaged Cyril fought it all the way. What was that perverse resistance based on?
Lois. Lois was the problem. Lois sister. Lois stepmom. Lois woman.
He listened to Leo’s message. “Some woman called. Lois or Lulu. I think it was your stepmom. Someone told her you were here. Not sure where you are but you better call her, okay? Touch base when you get this.”
His stomach was beginning to protest the coffee but he got a refill anyway, then stared at his cellphone. Had he really told Lois to go fuck herself? What brought that on? He hit play.
“Hey you. Can’t imagine what you’re up to this late on a Friday night.” A light laugh.
Why was it that Lois almost always caught him by surprise.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. I was wondering if you could come by some evening soon. And don’t get all paranoid. I think it’s something that will cheer you up. Plus I really want Pete to get to know you. He needs a man around. A father figure sort of. You are brothers after all. Okay? Call me. Bye.”
Jesus.
Then there was Gloria. He should call her, confirm tomorrow morning or call it down. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He felt the sudden weight of everything. He realized he hadn’t showered. He decided to go home. Maybe Aggie would be out.
He unlocked the door, held it ajar for a moment, listening, felt his spirit rising as he entered. The coast was clear. He was thirsty. Passing by the kitchen he was drawn by the hum of the refrigerator. He drank orange juice from the carton the way he knew she hated. Belched and put the carton back. Then he went to his room, dumped the diaries on the bed, stood for a while surveying them.
The two written in Arabic were for 1983 and 1984. That much was clear from the numbers on the covers on the spiral notebooks, carefully inscribed in that foreign style where ones resemble collapsing sevens. He tried to imagine his father’s hand actually printing those numbers on the cover and writing the impenetrable flowing oriental dots and squiggles on the pages. It was impossible.
1985. The English was simple and unrevealing, crudely rendered in comparison with the fluid scrolling Arabic. Details about the weather. Uneventful days. Homework. Television programs, watched presumably for the education they offered. Sesame Street. Dallas references were plentiful. He was really into Dallas. Had a thing for Pam. Popular songs. Many unfamiliar names. A priest whose name Cyril could recall from references by his mother. Aboud. The “father” carefully printed in large capitals. FATHER Aboud. Frequent phrases in Arabic. He flicked through the pages. There was so conspicuous an absence of revelation that Cyril soon decided it was deliberate. His father didn’t even trust posterity with secrets.
Could he imagine it himself—taking pen to paper and writing down the most significant events of the past twenty-four hours? Suzanne? Honestly? No way. He flopped onto his bed, felt guilt, then a creeping excitement that hardened him again, remembering how she unbuttoned her blouse halfway, then stopping, as she slowly settled on a footstool, extended her leg. “Help me with my boot,” she said and he knelt in front of her.
“Now help me with my buttons.”
Imagine writing that down somewhere, oblivious to the likelihood that someone might discover it and read it and exploit it the way everybody takes advantage of the power of information. He
rolled over on his stomach, thrust himself against the yielding bed. Imagine writing this down!
He returned to the diary of 1985 and this time sensed a sadness that had to be regret, probably homesickness.
January 10, 1985: Today FATHER A say Mass today for Miriam and mother. 9 years ago.
He fetched his backpack, retrieved a writing pad. He made a note. January 1976. Check back, Norwegian doc—something in it—pretty sure.
He stuffed his note and the two Arabic diaries into his backpack so he’d not forget to take them Monday morning when he went to work. Fell back on his bed and drifted off to sleep, wishing he could simply dream the truth.
He knew, as soon as he’d stepped out of the shower, that she’d come home. The ambience had changed. Then came the unmistakable gritty howl of the coffee grinder. A good sign maybe. Hospitality.
“There you are,” his mother said. “I was going to call out search and rescue.” She presented a cheek for kissing. “I was starting to make coffee but decided that I’m going to have a drink instead. You?”
“Sure,” he said.
“I suspect you had a hard night. But we won’t go into that.”
“Whatever.”
He opened the cupboard below the sink where she kept what she called the drinking bottles. He wielded a half-full plastic jug of vodka.
“The usual?”
“Take the good one out of the freezer,” she said. “I want it really, really cold and straight.”
They were on their second. The chit-chat had been superficial, pleasant. Cyril admitted to himself that he was actually glad to be home, and decided to forget the complexity, not to mention volatility, of the personality in front of him at the kitchen table.
The Only Café Page 15
