In the First Early Days of My Death

by Catherine Hunter

  I took a chance. I pulled a parka off the hook inside the closet and put it on. I reached for the doorknob and, as quietly as possible, I turned it.

  I have never remembered opening that door. All I knew was that later in the evening, as I wandered the empty rooms of my house, I felt strangely detached. My head hurt, and I couldn’t seem to get anything done. I’d planned to finish the housework and make a borscht from the beets, then maybe bake a special treat for tomorrow’s dessert. I saw the cookbook lying open on the table to the recipe for chocolate kiwi pie. I felt a brief pang of hunger when I looked at the photograph, but I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t even begin to tidy up the kitchen. The tarnished silver sat out on the counter, waiting to be cleaned. The breakfast dishes and the ice-cream bowls floated listlessly in the sink, the soap bubbles long since gone flat, the water cold. My sense of purpose had left me entirely.

  I drifted into the living room and watched out the window for Alika to come home. There was something important I had to tell him, but I couldn’t remember what it was, exactly. The shadows were lengthening across all the lawns in the neighbourhood. The sun had beaten down ferociously all day, shrivelling the roots of the plants. I thought that I really should water the garden. But I couldn’t seem to leave the house. The sky darkened and a fat moon came up. After a while I could hear thunder rumbling across the prairie toward the city and then the lightning started and finally the cool, hard rain beat down. I knew I should close the window, I should close all the windows in the house, but instead I stayed there watching as the rain turned into hail, trying to understand what was happening to me.

  2

  Darkening of the Light

  Evelyn James woke up with the unsettling knowledge that she was not alone. For years now, she’d been haunted by her twin brother, Mark, who was killed on a trestle bridge at the age of thirteen when he tried to outrace a freight train on his bicycle, and sometimes he’d appear outside her window at dawn, usually wearing his black and red magic cape, waving his fifty-cent magic wand in long swoops as if writing words in the air, some message Evelyn couldn’t decipher. But this wasn’t Mark. This was a thin white streak, a flickering presence that could barely sustain itself.

  She tried her usual cure for insomnia, reciting in her mind long lists of the most monotonous things she could imagine, like the rows of overpriced canned goods at the convenience store: condensed milk, devilled ham, kidney beans, creamed corn. But it wasn’t working. For some reason, her thoughts kept turning compulsively toward the garden in the backyard of the house that should have been hers. The pink roses that bloomed where her own had withered and died. She tried listing the names of the plants she had seen when she passed by: marigolds, zinnias, snow peas, leafy potato plants in straight, weeded rows, and cabbages, their outer leaves so wide and delicately thin it seemed they might flap their green wings and fly away.

  Ever since that woman had moved into Alika’s house, the ground had shifted, the earth had opened up and turned over, revealing a dark, fertile loam beneath its surface. Evelyn had dug out there herself, dug until her back nearly cracked in two, and she knew the soil was marbled through with clay like streaks of fat in a cheap pot roast.

  But that woman had dug and the yard had yielded up its vitamins, surrendered itself with plump tomatoes and waxy yellow peppers, bumblebees and butterflies and poppies and even carnations — carnations! In Manitoba! And early this spring, the bulbs — dark, purple tulips and crocuses — no, this was not going to put her to sleep. It only made her angry.

  She turned over and pulled the chain of her bedside lamp. In the darkness, she tried again. The jars this time: horseradish, mustard, mayonnaise, jam…

  Felix Delano lay in bed with his wife, Alice, and his chow chow, Poppy. He was trying to wake his wife up slowly, beginning with her feet. He slid his calloused heel across her slim arches, across her ankles, hoping to tickle her. The dog woke up and looked at him, but Alice did not stir. Alice lay facing her husband, her mouth half open as if she were about to say something in a dream. Felix slid his foot up over her calf and wrapped his arm around her waist. He blew into the hollow of her throat. The dog whimpered softly and hopped off the bed. Alice smiled, but she was still asleep. Felix began to stroke her hair. He spoke into her ear. He named the things he would make her for breakfast if she would wake up.

  Alice had always loved to sleep. But lately she threw herself into it with such great pleasure that Felix wondered if she were trying to avoid him. Every evening, early, she’d wriggle under the covers and snuffle into the pillow like a burrowing animal. Then she’d lie motionless for nine or ten hours. This morning, she was engaged in a particularly dedicated slumber. Felix gave up. He swung his legs out onto the floor and stood. Poppy followed him into the kitchen.

  It was August twenty-second. The heat wave had been broken by the storm the night before, and the birds were chirping. Felix tried to focus on the day ahead, tried to put his wife’s sleeping body out of his mind. He opened all the windows, letting in sunlight and air and the undulating whisper of thousands of delicate poplar leaves rising and falling with the morning breeze. He put the kettle on and walked to the front door to retrieve the newspaper. The whole street looked clean and quiet, relieved of the oppressive heat that, for weeks, had woken everyone at sunrise. He carried the paper back to the kitchen and spread it open on the table. On the front page, below the fold, the mayor’s face looked up at him, smiling.

  Felix had seen the mayor yesterday, trying to evade the protesters at City Hall, and he wanted to read about the rally. But first he glanced at the top story, illustrated by the photo of a smiling man in a white coat, the city entomologist. The mosquito count was levelling off due to the lack of rain. The entomologist announced that the worst of the plague was over. Felix smiled grimly, thinking of the rain water that had collected overnight in bird baths, ditches, old rubber boots and pails that people left out in their yards. Since yesterday, the city had become one gigantic mosquito breeding ground. He turned his attention to the story with the big picture of Mayor Douglas. The mayor was shaking hands with a large bald man in a dark suit, but the men were not looking at each other. They were beaming at the camera in a celebratory way.

  The caption identified the bald man as the president of All-Am Corporation. According to the story, All-Am was ready to go ahead with the new casino complex that would revitalize downtown Winnipeg. The old buildings were already empty and ready for the wrecking ball. One brief paragraph mentioned that a citizens’ group had persuaded a judge to sign an order preventing the demolition until they could make a presentation at a public forum. But the reporter implied that the citizens’ group was a small fringe element, the order an insignificant hitch, a temporary delay. Felix read the article twice, but he saw no mention of yesterday’s rally. Typical journalism. The reporter had probably spent the day at the beach.

  Felix made his tea and carried it out to the screened porch. He sat on the couch and set his cup on the wicker table, next to the Book of Changes, which was lying open where he’d left it yesterday morning. The three coins in their jade box gleamed in the sunlight.

  He held the box in both hands for a moment, contemplating the intricate morning shadows cast by the porch lattice and the poplar trees, the small slivers and crosses of sunlight that mottled the walls and wooden floor of the porch. A slight breeze came up, and the branches moved; the pattern shifted. He rattled the jade box gently and opened his hands, letting the coins fall through the air.

  The mayor’s office was on the sixth floor of City Hall. Not high enough for the mayor when he was in one of the majestic, proprietary moods that seized him unexpectedly from time to time. When such a mood came upon him, as it did this morning, he would saunter briskly down the corridors, descend to the basement, and follow the underground paths that snaked beneath Portage and Main until he was directly under the Commodity Exchange Building. Then he’d enter the elevator and rise to the thirty-third floor, wh
ere he’d pretend to require a consultation with the accountants of his construction firm — his former firm, that is — he’d had to sign it over to a blind trust when he was elected. Today, the accountants were not yet in their offices. It was far too early. The mayor nodded to the security guards, then used his key to let himself into the empty suite. He stood alone before the magnificent bank of windows that ran the entire circumference of the building. He savoured these moments, his whole city spread out below him like the toy towns he used to build as a child. He felt he could reach down and pluck up a tree, or a whole forest of trees, move a church or two, a department store. Maybe push the whole North End of the city a little farther north.

  He smiled as his eyes passed over the site of the future casino. The publicity in today’s paper was good, and it would only get better, thanks to his wife, Louise. He glanced at his watch. Where was Louise? She’d promised to call him after her morning jog through Assiniboine Park. She was on a fitness craze these days, and kept up her daily exercise religiously, despite the vicious heat, and despite the fact that she didn’t seem to be losing any weight.

  Noni’s leg ached more than usual this morning. She wondered if her lost knee was developing arthritis. Stiffly, she sat up in bed and grabbed the crutch beside the dresser. Then she swung herself down the hall of her apartment and into the kitchen, where she prepared a breakfast of coffee and Aspirins.

  She’d dreamed last night that she was flying a kite in Happyland Park, with Wendy. It was Wendy’s red butterfly kite, the one that, in reality, had a crack in its frame and a broken string. In the dream, the crack had healed, and instead of a string, the kite was attached to a red dog leash, and Wendy was running across the grass beside the stream, trying to launch the kite into the air.

  “Wait up!” Noni called, but Wendy ran farther and farther away, toward the little fork where the stream entered the Seine River. Noni couldn’t keep up. Soon, all she could see was the kite ascending above the trees. It fluttered its way along the banks of the Seine, north, toward the Red. And then she’d woken with her knee on fire.

  Noni rubbed her eyes, trying to clear away the wisps of the dream that lingered in her mind’s eye. She had work to do. The pattern for a customer’s new dress lay spread on the sewing table in her living room, still pinned to its tangerine silk, and the woman was coming tomorrow for a fitting. Noni would have finished the dress yesterday if Wendy hadn’t called. She could have begged off, saying she was too busy. But Wendy, usually carefree and casual, had sounded worried, so Noni had gone. Not that she’d been much help, she reflected. She’d intended to set Wendy’s mind at ease, but the story about the stocking had been sinister. How in the world could Evelyn’s stocking end up under Alika’s pillow? Noni couldn’t think of any but the most obvious answer.

  She gulped another Aspirin. She had to control the pain if she was going to accomplish anything today. She had to finish that dress and then start on the growing pile of mending and alterations. And she needed supplies. She glanced at the clock. The sewing shop wasn’t open yet, but she could start a list. She needed pins, orange thread, two bobbins…

  The telephone rang. Noni waited for the ring to come to a full stop, so she could pick up the receiver with no danger of bad luck. As she waited, a vague image of her brother began to form in her mind, but Alika didn’t seem like his usual self at all. There was something odd about the image, something contorted, as if he, too, was suffering.

  Felix knew his peaceful morning was too good to last. Just as he tossed the coins for the third time, he heard the telephone ring. It was his partner, Paul, alerting him to an emergency right there on Felix’s own street.

  Minutes later, Paul briefed Felix as they drove one short block down St. Catherine. “Caucasian female. Unconscious. They’re trying to revive her.” He pulled up in front of a white frame house. The street pulsed with the flashing lights of a rescue unit.

  Inquisitive neighbours had gathered on the boulevard. One lady, still in her nightgown, stood on the sidewalk, peering with blatant curiosity into the open door. Felix pushed her aside, and suddenly he recognized the white picket fence, the morning glory, the lilac bush. He ran ahead of Paul into the house.

  In the front hall, at the bottom of the stairs, two paramedics worked frantically over a small figure on the floor. A young officer crouched in the entry to the living room, watching. She recognized Felix and straightened up.

  “Detective Delano,” she said.

  “Who found her?”

  “The husband. Came home and found her lying right there.” She pointed. “Says he didn’t move her.”

  Felix nodded. “What else?”

  “Well, it’s weird. Lady’s wearing nothing but a parka. Looks like she fell down the stairs. I don’t see how. There’s no smell of booze. Christ, she’s young. I don’t know.”

  “Anyone else here?” Felix asked. “Other family?”

  “The husband’s sister’s here. They’re in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll go talk to them,” Paul said.

  Felix circled the medics, staying well out of their way as they worked. One of them pounded the woman’s bare chest with a force that threatened to shatter her rib-cage. Felix stood as close as he dared and scanned the body for signs of violence. All he could see was a thick lock of pale brown hair, matted with blood, and a sunburned cheek, incongruous against the fur of the parka hood. He looked at the face. Yes. It was Wendy Li. The girl from the garden.

  It was like one of those nightmares, those recurring dreams in which I was never prepared. In which I was lost or had lost something essential — my clothing or, worse, a puppy or an infant that was in my care.

  At first, all I could think of were the dirty dishes in the sink, the fact that I hadn’t made any pie, that we were out of coffee, and the house was full of people. What would they think? Noni was there, and our neighbour, Felix the cop from down the street, and a pile of strangers, and here we were with nothing to offer them. There was some kind of project going on in the hall, something urgent that I knew I should have been involved in. Everyone was expecting me to participate, but I couldn’t remember how. I tried to concentrate on what they were saying, but there were other voices, calling from some other place as well, and my consciousness stretched thin as cheesecloth, a torn and threadbare sheet through which I wavered, glimpsing the scene in hazy, disconnected images.

  Then, in a moment of clarity, I saw myself lying there, naked in a crowd of strangers. So I relaxed. I was obviously dreaming, after all.

  On the evening of their eleventh birthday, Evelyn James and her brother Mark went swimming at Happyland Park. They were giddy and full of birthday cake, not caring that the sky was overcast and the air was cool. Mark shivered uncontrollably by the side of the pool, drops of chlorinated water dappling his thin shoulders, his lips bright blue. “Are you cold?” she asked him, and he dropped to his knees on the hard tiles, suffered his first seizure, fell unconscious into the deep end.

  Sometimes, the spirit of Mark appeared to Evelyn wearing a bathing suit, as if Mark had become confused and thought he died by drowning. But he hadn’t died that day at Happyland. The lifeguard pulled him out and called an ambulance. At the hospital, the doctors took Mark away, and Evelyn sat in the waiting room until her parents arrived. She ran to them, crying, throwing her arms around both of them at once, but they peeled her gently away from their bodies and told her to wait. It was daylight by the time they remembered her. They came to the waiting room and sent her in a taxi to a neighbour’s house. They stayed with Mark for three days while he had a lot of medical tests. That was how they found out about the tumour in his brain.

  As it grew, Mark’s tumour caused all kinds of strange behaviour, like roller skating off the teeter-totter, or trying to parachute, with a beach towel, from the highest limb of the crabapple tree. Or racing freight trains. Evelyn and her family had always believed this final, foolhardy act was another symptom of his dementia, but now that Evelyn wa
s older, she wondered if it wasn’t simply suicide.

  Evelyn hoped that the tumour wasn’t a genetic thing, like the blonde hair and the brown eyes she shared with Mark. Sometimes she thought she could feel it growing there, small and gelatinous, on the left side of her skull, behind her ear. Her left ear rang sometimes, a high sound, like a tinny sleigh bell, and sometimes she saw things that weren’t really there.

  Like this morning, just before the sun came up, that pale, uncertain smudge of light outside the window. A hallucination or a dream.

  High in the Commodity Exchange Tower, the mayor thought of his wife with tenderness. This past year, Louise seemed to be emerging from the ennui that had enveloped her since the boys had grown up and moved away. She was taking an interest in the mayor’s work again, in his city, and even, it seemed, in the mayor himself. Louise used to complain that Winnipeg was a hick town, but these days, she was enthusiastic about its future. A five-star, top-of-the-line casino would put Winnipeg on the map, she predicted, turn it into a tourist mecca. Especially with the exchange rates being what they were. Winnipeg would become famous and Mayor Douglas would be a celebrity.