Boundary

by Andrée A. Michaud

  Keeping her eyes on the dark, hushed stillness where the animal’s shadow had slunk away, it’s a fox, it’s just a bear, Zaza Mulligan began to retreat, silently, one step following on another, over the spongy soil. It’s a fox. Then a hand came down on her shoulder and Zaza Mulligan screamed.

  It was Gilles Ménard, who lived down by the water, who found Zaza, her leg severed by an old bear trap overgrown with vegetation. The rusted iron had torn into the limb and had bared it to the bone, to the long white tibia of a leggy young girl.

  There had been no sign of Zaza for almost forty-eight hours, but with her parents absent, no one was concerned except Sissy Morgan, whose voice echoed around the lake for two days, from Saturday morning to Sunday noon, while the men mowed their lawns or sipped beer while reading the newspaper. The two girls, along with Françoise Lamar, called Franky-Frenchie, had spent Friday evening at the campground. They’d left at about eleven o’clock, after having shared a twenty-sixer of gin pinched by Frenchie from her father’s liquor cabinet. Marcel Dumas, whose cottage bordered the campground, heard them laughing as they passed under his bedroom window, then one of them tripped, he didn’t know which, and their laughter got even louder.

  Sissy came in through the back door, preferring not to run into her parents, who were entertaining the McBains, and she climbed right up to her room. She lay down without getting undressed, holding onto the sheets to stop the bed from rocking, then fell into a deep dreamless sleep from which she was wrenched by a violent nausea. As she ran to vomit in the toilet, a barn owl outside began shrieking like a woman being raped. A chill ran through her just as pink spray splattered the bowl. Zaza, she murmured, and the owl went silent.

  Seeing her sheets on the floor, Saturday morning, she wondered where she was, then the owl’s complaint came back to her through the hissing of the waves. Zaza’s image loomed up before her in the room’s semi-darkness, and she rushed to the telephone her father had just had installed so Sissy could reach Zaza. Getting no answer, she charged outside despite her headache, without taking the time to have breakfast or brush her teeth, and went to hammer on the door of the Mulligans’ cottage, almost kicking it down. She finally got into the cottage through the kitchen window, the little window over the sink, tipping over a pile of dirty dishes, goddam, Zaza, you could have washed your dishes, then she called out Zaza, Zaz, passing through the cottage’s rooms one by one, a huge living room, four bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room off the kitchen. Zaza, where are you, dammit? Finding Zaza nowhere, she circled the lake on her bicycle shouting out her friend’s name, threatening to tear out her fingernails, her hair, her eyes, everything a girl flipping out might think of extracting. Several residents saw her coming down Turtle Road, out of breath, with her face on fire. What’s happening? Stella McBain asked, dropping a stitch in her knitting. Ed, her husband, answered that it was Sissy, Victor’s daughter, chasing her shadow.

  After two hours of fruitless searching, Sissy swallowed her pride and, with a view to dragging her along, went to get Frenchie Lamar, who slept until the cows came home, out of bed. Frenchie also had a throbbing headache, and, not in the mood to be rushed, she took the time to swallow a Nescafé. She must have gone to join her parents in town, she told Sissy, adding sugar to her cup as the coffee level went down, or maybe she treated herself to a night-time walk with Mark Meyer, the campground guy, teasing him just to get his goat. But Sissy didn’t believe it. If Zaza were going into town, she would have told her. Zaza told Sissy everything, and vice versa. Neither did she believe that Sissy would have taken off with Mark Meyer. Meyer was a pretentious idiot, who frenched like a snail. She’d tried him too, before Zaza, after Zaza, who cares. Zaza would never have gone off with this stupid guy, never without telling her, never!

  Frenchie shot back that Meyer wasn’t as stupid as all that, that she and Zaza didn’t even know him, and the two girls walked as far as the campground in a sour mood. Busying himself around the attendant’s shed, Conrad Plamondon, the owner of the campground, reminded them that Meyer was off that day, and Frenchie called herself stupid for having forgotten that Mark didn’t work on Saturday. I told you, she’s with him, she added, giving a kick to a deflated ball, she’s with him, that bitch. It’s impossible, Sissy replied, totally and fuckingly impossible. And Zaza’s not a bitch! She kicked the flattened ball in her turn, and Frenchie left her there to go and tan herself. Zaza would have told me, Zaza would have told me, she shouted after Frenchie, then she spent the next hour tossing stones in the water, stones big as a fist meant alternately for Franky-Frenchie Lamar, Mark Meyer, and Zaza Mulligan. You would have told me, she repeated every time she pronounced Zaza’s name, adding the word “bitch” to underscore her frustration, you would have told me, bitch! Only she had the right to insult Zaza, she alone, her friend for always and forever, only she: bitch! Now she was angry as well as worried, because whatever the reason Zaza had vanished, she’d lied to her or hidden something. Unless there’d been an accident, that Zaza had decided to take a midnight swim and had been surprised by a stomach cramp, a spasm that tied her in knots so her moans couldn’t be heard on shore. Sandra Miller had almost drowned that way the year before, trying to catch her breath between waves. If old Pat Tanguay hadn’t been fishing that morning, Sandra would have gone under and been gobbled up by the pike. But Zaza wasn’t Sandra Miller, and Zaza wasn’t dumb. She swam like a bloody mermaid, and could cross the lake both ways with her hands tied behind her back.

  But Zaza was drunk, but Zaza reeked of gin, Sissy thought, weighing in her hand the warm stone she was getting ready to throw at the first goddam little minnow swimming by. And Pat Tanguay, despite his old crock bull-headedness, still didn’t fish in the middle of the night. Run, Sissy, run! And Sissy ran, other vacationers saw her fly by, her hair dishevelled and tears, perhaps, in her eyes reddened by dust. She tossed down the stone she was holding, and sped home to her mother’s arms, because where could a lost child take refuge if not in the arms of her mother, who’d brought her into the world to dry her tears and console her.

  Charlotte Morgan was preparing her first cocktail of the afternoon when Sissy burst in, but she was too distracted placing one of the little wood and rice paper parasols into position to take note of her daughter’s distress. Bloody hell, Sissy, go have a shower, she said calmly, a bit put off by her sweat-dampened hair, her dirty hands and feet, her tank top stained with who knows what. Under other circumstances Sissy would have left, slamming the door, but she needed an adult, there, now, someone who’d call the police and Zaza’s parents, who’d have the lake dragged, who’d rouse the neighbours, and phone her father to ask him to come home right away.

  Charlotte Morgan did none of that. She sipped her daiquiri while listening with half an ear to her daughter, and replied that there was no reason to panic, that Zaza was just the kind of girl to disappear and reappear without warning. That kind of girl, she let drop, and Sissy felt as if she’d been slapped. That kind of girl, her mother repeated, knowing perfectly well that Sissy and Zaza were the same, that they took themselves for twins, blood sisters, babies found in the same damn basket. That kind of girl, you know? And Sissy drew back. She left her mother to her daiquiri and set out to question the neighbours, who all said the same thing, that kind of girl, but in terms more polite, more insidious. She even interrogated the little kid who stuck her nose in everywhere, little Aundrey something-or-other, Aundrey Whatever. Uncharacteristically, she’d seen nothing, heard nothing, but she was troubled by Zaza’s disappearance. So Sissy recruited her to forage around at the edge of the forest, in the backyards, to check out the lakeshore. Sissy would search near the campground and Ménard Bay, the kid would take care of the northern sector, from the McBains’ cottage to that of Brian Larue, and they would meet two hours later at the same place, below Snake Hill. As the kid had no watch, she lent her her own, she’d go by Frenchie’s to pick up another, and they separated. The afternoon was winding down w
hen they got back together, empty-handed. Aundrey had picked up a bunch of objects, a bag of vinegar chips, a crow’s feather, a matchbook, and a mother-of-pearl button. She’d even put her hands on an earring lost by Zaza at the beginning of summer, all excited to show her discovery to Sissy, who clutched the jewel in her fist while fighting back tears, stroked the kid’s hair, full of pine needles, and told her to go back home.

  It was the hour when the men lit their barbecues, the mothers called home their children, Michael, Marnie, Dexter, supper time, Julie, Bernard, your hot dogs are going to burn, come on. Conversations, the noise of dishes and utensils overlapped, filtered through the smells of charcoal, sausages, and buttered bread sizzling on the grills. The Morgans ate later, like civilised people in the words of Charlotte Morgan, who’d visited the Côte d’Azur four years earlier and ever since had taken herself for Grace of Monaco. Sissy had swallowed nothing all day and was dying of hunger, but she was too proud to make herself a sandwich under the scornful gaze of her mother. No way! She’d rather die or mooch a burger from Don Irving, going into ecstasies over the hairdo of his wife, a washboard with a perm who smelled of vinegar and smoked two packs of Player’s a day. But Sissy wasn’t in the mood. Instead she’d make her way over to the Mulligans’ cottage and wait for Zaza on the veranda after digging out something to eat in the Art Deco kitchen of Sarah Mulligan, Zaza’s mother. She got in again through the kitchen window, landing in the dirty dishes, and asking herself why she’d not unlocked the front door earlier on. As usual the refrigerator was empty and the pantry not much better, but she was so hungry that she could have downed a jar of mustard with a spoon. She fell back on a box of Froot Loops that she brought out onto the veranda, as the closed-in odour of the cottage was making her queasy.

  She was ashamed to be eating while her best friend was maybe gathering white pebbles at the bottom of the lake, those magic pebbles they’d once piled on top of each other to make their own Himalayas, but hunger, and its gurgling echoing in a vacuum, was for the moment stronger than shame. The hunger was seconded by a voracity born of dread, driving her hand compulsively into the Froot Loops box, as she recalled the mornings when she and Zaza, centuries earlier, used to write on the tablecloth, lining up letters picked out from their Alpha-Bits.

  As memories jostled each other in her head, the pillow fights, the awful air guitar concerts, the badminton matches, Sissy gave vent to a resounding Jesus Christ and hurled the Froot Loops as far as she could. The box ended up propped against the screen door, and Sissy rushed over to crush it, squash it, to demolish Toucan Sam’s damned face, the idiot smiling bird on the package, which lost none of its jolly demeanour despite the blows from her heel raining down on it. She was behaving like an idiot, as if Zaza were not coming back, dredging up treacly memories that she tarted up with stupid sunlight, stars, and birds that never even existed. She gave one more kick to the toucan, right on the beak, and went back inside, determined to phone the Mulligans in Portland. After fifteen rings, she hung up with a curse, then tried again, once, twice, three times, begging the Mulligans to answer, to come home, to finally pick up the receiver. Around her objects wavered, liquid and grey in the shadows, and the ringing resounded every two seconds in George Mulligan’s office at the other end, in the sitting room with its lacquered furniture, in the kitchen, and in Zaza’s room, near the Paul McCartney poster on which were stamped thousands of Zaza’s lip prints, pink or white, Dazzling Pink or Everlasting Snows. Every two seconds the phone vibrated in front of the grimy poster, awaiting the growling of an engine, the clicking of a key in the front door, and it seemed strange to Sissy that she was listening to the one audible noise in the Mulligan house about two hundred miles away, while the Mulligans could not hear her sniffling. It was hard to take in that the sounds, on either side, did not follow the invisible wire linking her to the empty house. She stood there, hoping for a sign of life beyond the electrical connection. She redialled the number until darkness fell, in vain. The Mulligans were not in Portland, and Zaza neither. As for Jack and Ben, Zaza’s older brothers, they had to be tanning themselves somewhere in Florida or Virginia, waiting to go back to college.

  Zaza had just barely disappeared, and already Sissy didn’t know who she was. Without the image sent back to her by Zaza, the smiling reflection deep in the vast flawed mirrors around her, without this confirmation of her reality, she felt deprived of her identity. Zaza filled the void, and gave meaning to the world’s instability. For a moment, to feel less lost, she wanted to go and get Frenchie Lamar out of bed again, but Frenchie, besides being an idiot, was just a copy of Zaza, a tracing whose lines wandered wide of the mark. She couldn’t hope for any consolation from this girl who thought the coolest thing in the world was to raise your index and middle finger and shout peace and love, man! A bit queasy, she butted out her nth cigarette in the shell-shaped ashtray, and went down to the beach.

  A little before midnight, as she paced the shoreline, telling herself that she would at least have found Zaza’s towel if she’d taken a midnight swim, her father appeared. She saw the glow of his flashlight coming around the cottage, and wondered whether the man casting that beam of light before him was arriving as a friend, or if he was one of those faceless monsters you saw at the movie theatre, looming up out of nowhere and dragging behind him the poor imbecile who’d ventured out alone at night. Transfixed by the man’s silence, she imagined herself in the presence of one of those hideous creatures who made off with young girls, totally drunk Zazas, and then she recognised her father, his features coarsely highlighted by the yellowish ray that lit only the bottom of his face. Dammit, Dad! she cried, You scared the hell out of me. Sorry, Victor Morgan replied, lowering his light, and he took Sissy’s hand to bring her back home. But Sissy resisted. No question of leaving when Zaza needed help. Something’s happened to her, Dad, I know it, I know it, she moaned, challenging her father to make her budge. And Sissy knew, in fact, that there’d been some kind of accident, because the bond that linked her to Zaza was stronger than blood. It was rooted in the lonely nights of little girls, huddled together in the pink sheets of Zaza’s bed, while the music down below, and the alcohol, were oblivious to their stomach aches and the monsters hiding in the closet. Their bond was forged from that music’s indifference, from the warmth of little bodies clinging to the pink sheets. If one suffered, the other felt her pain, there, right in her heart, in some mysterious way. If one wept, the other couldn’t laugh, not even smile. She’d take a handkerchief and dry the wet face, her own or that of the other, it made no difference.

  On her knees in the bathroom the night before, Sissy knew immediately, hearing the barn owl’s cries, that Zaza was in danger, that Zaza was in trouble, that Zaza was afraid, and now she blamed herself terribly for having waited until morning to run and knock at the Mulligans’ door. So there was no question of her leaving their cottage. No way, Dad! Still, reasoning with her, her father managed to persuade her that there was no point brooding away in a dark and empty house. If Zaza were to reappear before dawn, she wouldn’t come here, but to them, the Morgans, to seek comfort in Sissy’s arms, as in times past, two young girls sharing their hopes and fears. But Zaza would not return that night. Young ladies, young girls, her father murmured, did not venture out in complete darkness. Those simple words broke down Sissy’s resistance, young girls, young ladies. Aware suddenly of the night’s chill, she took hold of her father’s arm, shivering. They’d find Zaza the next day, he promised, I swear to God, thus lightening Sissy’s terrible solitude in Zaza’s absence, and allowing her to lean, for a few hours, on a shoulder where the reassuring scents of Aqua Velva and fresh cotton blended together.

  Around the lake, all the windows were dark. Only a few bulbs on the porches were still lit. You could also make out two camping lights, behind the trees, whose weak halos were wrapped in fog. A dismal prospect. Gloomy, Sissy murmured, and she huddled up to her father.

  She only slept a few hours
that night, dropping off and waking with a start, certain of having heard Zaza’s voice, Zaza’s footsteps under the window, open the fucking window, Sis! And fatigue swept her away, opened up the corridors of dream. Zaza danced to Lucy in the Sky, sang her head off with Frenchie, but the sky was dark, and the waves were drawing the boats towards the open water. Heavy breathing coiled about Zaza, run! but Sissy had no more voice, there were hands closing around her throat, and she screamed silently, her eyes wide open on a night that wouldn’t end.

  With the first light of dawn, she slipped into the kitchen and made coffee and ham and mustard sandwiches, her father’s favourite, which they would take with them. There was still no one outside except for Pat Tanguay, who would end up emptying the lake of all its fish. His boat was anchored in Ménard Bay, and you only saw the old man’s head peeking over the edge, sporting the same dirty hat he’d worn for the last ten years. No longer able to contain her distress, she wanted to go and toss stones at his hat, to wake him and ask him if he’d seen Zaza in the water along with the pike, but finally she heard the shower. She left old Pat to his fish, took the sandwiches out of the fridge, and waited, again, for the scent of Aqua Velva to precede her father into the hallway. Coming into the kitchen, he kissed her on the brow, good morning, Sis, swallowed a cup of black coffee in one gulp, then, like the night before, took her gently by the hand, come.

  Victor Morgan hadn’t slept well either. In fact, he’d only dozed off here and there, transfixed by the crystal flask shimmering on the chest of drawers, staring at it while he asked himself if he shouldn’t have paid more attention to Sissy’s fears and acted immediately. Because Sissy was right, Zaza would never have left Boundary without telling her, without calling or leaving her a note: Hi Sis! Gone to town with Dad. Back tomorrow. Zaz. Now he could feel his daughter’s anxiety in the dampness of her hand, in the faint trembling it passed on to him, and he didn’t know what to say to reassure her, because the sense of foreboding that had crept over him during the night was only magnified in the morning light.