The Garneau Block

by Todd Babiak

  “Not at all, sir.” The doorman adjusted his white gloves. “Are you a guest of the hotel?”

  David noted the doorman’s nametag. “Your name’s Ronald, is it?”

  “Ronald. Yes sir.”

  “Well, Ronald, I have half a mind to speak to your manager about your arrogant behaviour.”

  “Sir, I don’t mean to be arrogant.”

  “Arrogant people rarely know how arrogant they truly are.”

  “Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

  At the piano bench, the women dried their eyes with the shred of silk Abby used to clean her glasses. David wandered over to them.

  “Cab’s on its way.”

  Abby thanked him.

  Shirley touched a low E on the keyboard. “This is so odd. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been feeling off lately, since the night of the shooting. It’s as if my life has been leading to this.”

  “No, sweetheart, not to this.” Abby put her arm around Shirley. “It’s leading in a wonderful new direction. This is just a pothole.”

  “Yeah,” said David. “And it’s not like he cheated on you. He just…”

  Abby looked up with the most fearsome glance in her arsenal of glances. “Go away and call another cab or something.”

  David turned around to see the doorman watching him. Since he didn’t want the doorman to see him chastised by his wife, David walked to the window with a natural gait. No, said the gait, I’m walking to the window because I want to gaze up 101st Street. He pulled the cellular phone off his belt and called home for messages. There were no messages. So he pretended to talk to Preston Manning for a few minutes.

  From the lobby of the Chateau Lacombe, David could see the thirty-eighth floor of Manulife Place. The lights were on. Maybe Madison and Jonas were still up there, finishing off the crab cakes.

  Rajinder Chana, with his fancy posture and money and youth. And, behind all those manners, a good dollop of arrogance. That icy assistant of his. The presumptuous signs, the “lawyer friend,” the naïve meetings with the university, the catered mini cocktail party that the host himself was too posh to participate in. If Rajinder Chana weren’t drunk with his own self-regard, he might have sought out an experienced advocate. Didn’t he know who David was?

  Experience had taught David the only way to fix anything in this world was to cultivate important relationships and trade favours artfully, nudgingly. Maybe a sit-down with a few simpatico cabinet ministers was in order, a coffee with the mayor, a couple of pointed letters to the editor. If only Rajinder had asked, instead of charging forward with a doomed meeting that would only lead to useless petitions.

  The cab pulled up. David informed the women, and led them toward the doors. “Goodnight, sir,” said the doorman.

  David veered toward him and spoke slowly and quietly, like Rajinder. “Young man, I occupy a very important position.”

  “Congratulations, sir.”

  Between the two sets of doors, the heater made David feel sleepy. He took out his wallet, so he wouldn’t have to reach for it when they pulled into the Garneau Block. It was best, in a cab, not to move around much. It stirred up invisible microbes, foreign dandruff.

  The women got in the back seat together. David opened the front door and sat next to the driver. It was like diving into a soup of cigarette smoke. “I asked the dispatcher for a non-smoking car.”

  In front of David, on the glove box, was a cigarette with a red line through it. The driver flicked at the sticker.

  “Yes, I see, but you’ve been smoking.”

  “No.”

  David told the driver where to take them, and noted his name. He would bring civility back to human relations, in his small way, by ratting the driver out.

  On the High Level Bridge, looking west at the water, as the women whispered at one another in the back seat, David had a premonition. There were two spare bedrooms upstairs and the professor knew it. Dr. Raymond Terletsky would have nowhere else to go.

  40

  the river is deep

  In 1960, Raymond Terletsky’s grandmother had a brain aneurysm on the toilet and died. Lost with grief, her husband sold his ranch and purchased six plots of converted swamp where Ellerslie once met south Edmonton.

  Raymond’s grandfather found several houses built during the First World War that were about to be ripped down for a grocery store on the north side of the river, and placed one of these houses on each of his six plots. He planted spruce, aspen, plum, and apple trees, and got the right price on concrete. Once the neighbourhood was complete, Raymond’s grandfather lived alone in the smallest bungalow and sold the remaining homes to his five children and their spouses for almost nothing.

  This is where Raymond passed into adulthood, among parents and sisters, his uncles and aunts, his cousins–and everyone’s favourite, the dark-skinned patriarch. The old man played the violin, danced, built bicycles out of salvaged parts, and unconsciously slipped into Eastern European languages when he drank vodka.

  Five years after they settled into their house in Edmonton, on Halloween night, Raymond’s grandfather got drunk, spoke Polish, gave candy to kids, walked into the wooden shed behind his bungalow, and committed suicide with a rifle.

  Raymond considered his grandfather’s death as he walked home drunk on the east side of the High Level Bridge. The noise had been loud enough to bring five fathers running, and everyone who was still awake at 10:20 p.m. had stood in a storm of adult tears and screams and long, confused silences. Even though he never saw the scene in the little wooden shed, Raymond had created the memory. He knew what it looked like and smelled like, the secret power of the thing.

  Halfway across the bridge Raymond stopped and looked over the rail into the dark water fifty metres below. There were swirls and eddies in the North Saskatchewan River; now and then a tree would float by. Raymond knew the river was cold and deep, and that the mysterious sturgeon swam along its bottom.

  Three men tumbled from the bridge while building it in 1912 and 1913, but what had killed them? The fear of death while falling? The impact on the river surface? The rocks on the bottom? Ravenous sturgeon?

  With a drunk man’s precision, Raymond climbed to the outside of the black rail. His feet tingled and a layer of clammy sweat flashed over his body. Instead of looking down into the roaring soul of the city, Raymond stared at the old power plant and at the lights of million-dollar houses nestled around the valley. Regular people doing regular people things: reading books, watching movies, making love.

  The confession on the thirty-eighth floor of Manulife Place hadn’t been liberating. He hadn’t felt unburdened afterwards. Halfway across the bridge Raymond understood he may have cut himself off from regular people things for the rest of his life.

  “Hey, fella.” There was a woman behind Raymond. He could hear her sniffing. “Whatcha doin’?”

  “Go away. I’m thinking.”

  “You’re not gonna jump, are you? That’s illegal.”

  Raymond could not see the woman, but he didn’t like the nasal quality in her voice. He worried he might catch her cold. “I’m not going to jump. I’m just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Football. Go away.”

  “The Eskies?”

  “I’ll give you money if you promise to leave me alone. How does a crisp twenty-dollar bill sound?”

  The woman leaned out over the water so she could get a look at Raymond. She was a moon-faced forty-year-old with a crooked toque and a bubble of visible snot under her left nostril. “It’s dumb to kill yourself, man. All your friends’ll be–”

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  “Bull.”

  “Earlier this evening, I made myself into a pariah.”

  “What’s a pariah?”

  “How about this: how about thirty-five dollars?”

  The wind was light. For a minute Raymond and the woman looked to the east, where the river curved. “I just thought about the worst stuff,” she
said.

  “Pardon?”

  “I just stood here and pretended everything was the worst it could be for me. Ten times awful, with shit on it, the way you feel I guess. But I still think it’s dumb to jump. You might as well stay around until you get cancer or a stroke or whatever, even just to watch TV. Think about all the TV you won’t see. It’s September and all the new shows are just starting. And then there’s hell to think about. You’ll go to hell for sure.”

  “There is no hell.”

  “Bull.”

  “Just dark. Nothingness.”

  “So you don’t believe in God?”

  “No.”

  “Oh man, that is dumb.”

  “Take my whole wallet, please. Just reach down and slip it out of the right pocket of my suit jacket. I went to the bank machine yesterday so there’ll be about seventy dollars in there. Use my credit card. Buy some Adam Sandler movies.”

  “Yeah, but my DVD player’s busted.”

  “Get it repaired.”

  “For seventy bucks? You can almost get a new DVD player for that.”

  Raymond sighed. His arms were locked on the rail behind him, but they were beginning to fall asleep. It was uncomfortable to stand like this, with his feet hooked on the outer bar. If he were going to jump he had to jump now, or soon. But he didn’t want to jump and sail through the air in a final moment of majesty while this sniffing stranger with the crooked toque and onion breath watched. He wanted his death to have mythic power.

  That was what had been missing from his life all these years. His career, his city, this bonehead province.

  Mythic power.

  “Excuse me,” Raymond said. He started to shift so he would turn away from the water, but it was an awkward transition. If he let go with an arm and took the weight off one foot, he could slip. And if he slipped he would be gone. Not flying with slow-motion black-and-white movie majesty but flopping and spinning straight down.

  “You need help?”

  As it turned out, Raymond did need help.

  41

  name that father of confederation

  Jonas directed Rajinder and Madison to a corner table in the Hotel Macdonald’s Confederation Lounge, surrounded by tapestries and people speaking Russian. “This is where I come to play rich and carefree.” He pretended to smoke a cigar. “Isn’t the lighting in here perfectly, romantically, heartbreakingly dim?”

  “It is a lovely spot, Jonas.” Rajinder held the chair for Madison and then sat down.

  The server arrived immediately, said good evening, and left menus on the table. Jonas raised his eyebrows a couple of times. “Are you paying, Raj?”

  Rajinder smiled and slid the wine list across the table. “Of course.”

  “Come to papa.”

  While Jonas scanned the wine list, Madison sat back in her chair and tried not to look at Rajinder. They were sitting under the giant Fathers of Confederation painting, which offered her the opportunity to play a round of Name That Father of Confederation. She feared it would be a short game–John A. Macdonald, Charles Tupper, the assassinated Thomas D’Arcy McGee…And it was.

  Rajinder didn’t seem to share her bashfulness about staring. Madison felt his eyes burning into her cheekbones, and the fathers of Confederation hadn’t done much to slow her heartbeat. Somehow she had to respond. Weather? Hockey? The struggle in Iraq? Instead, she blurted, “Yeah, I’m a travel agent but don’t judge me because I do have a master’s degree in comparative literature. Not that being a travel agent is anything to apologize for. Sure, I live in my parents’ basement, but I’m not, you know, a complete failure.”

  Rajinder blinked.

  “So, Raj,” said Jonas. “I can order whatever I want?”

  “Within reason, yes.” Rajinder looked away from Madison. “I have never been able to taste the 250 dollars in 250-dollar wine, but perhaps it is a deficiency in my palate.”

  Jonas waved at the server, who had just popped the cork on a bottle of champagne for the Russians. As the server approached, Jonas turned to Madison and Rajinder. “Dig this accent.”

  “You’re ready?” the server leaned forward with his hands behind his back.

  “We’ll have the Joseph Drouhin Clos Vougeot Grand Cru.”

  “The Burgundy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good choice, sir. Will that be all?”

  Jonas nodded. “For now, my good man.” When the server was gone, he turned to Rajinder and pressed his hands together in prayer. “So. Will you be my best friend?”

  “Jonas, stop that.” Madison leaned forward and cuffed him lightly on the ear. “I’m sorry for his behaviour, Rajinder. And for mine and everyone’s behaviour tonight. We all acted like it was a trailer-park keg party, without the dignity.”

  Rajinder nodded. “I must admit. It was not as I had imagined.”

  “What is, my brother? What is?” Jonas moved his chair away from Madison so he would be closer to Rajinder. “But I have to ask you something. You have, like, many millions of dollars, right?”

  “Well…”

  Madison made a fist and shook it.

  “Some Texans bought up your company. You have all this cash. Why don’t you live in New York or London or–since you’re a Francophile–Paris? Of all the cities in the world, why Edmonton?”

  “Only an Edmontonian would ask such a thing.”

  “That isn’t exactly true, Raj. My friends in Vancouver and Toronto ask me all the time why a gay man would choose to live in Alberta. All the time.”

  “They are ignorant. They do not understand.”

  “You’ve lived in London. You’ve been to Paris and New York. So why–”

  “There is an inferiority complex in your DNA,” said Rajinder, as the server returned with the wine. The server removed the cork and poured a bit for Jonas to sniff and swirl and taste while Rajinder continued speaking. “You have the foundation of Canadian inferiority reinforced with Edmonton inferiority, a species of inferiority that insinuated itself after Wayne Gretzky moved to Los Angeles. Yes?”

  Jonas lowered his head. “The parties. The cocaine. Like a potato-chip bag in the wind.”

  “Soda and cranberry, please.” Madison wanted to try the wine, badly, but she turned her glass over so the server would leave it empty.

  Rajinder smiled at her. “You don’t drink?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “That is wise.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jonas took a second sip of wine and closed his eyes. “Oh, this is the balls. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Rajinder. “The balls.”

  “Anyway, all the redneckery and big trucks and Harley Davidson T-shirts when you could live in the Marais. I’ll never understand it.”

  Rajinder smiled at his wine. “European cities are relatively monocultural, and the vehicles are getting larger, not smaller. There are equivalents in Paris for all our local shortcomings, and a global entertainment machine that is beginning to erode what we find charming about older countries. It’s cold in the wintertime in Paris and London, too. People are frustrating and complicated and…”

  “Stupid.”

  “…wherever they live.” Rajinder turned to Madison. “Why do Edmontonians grow West Coast plants in their backyards instead of native species?”

  “Edmonton suffers from an anywhere-but-here disease. It’s a great city, but it’s not a city.”

  “But it is, Madison, you see?”

  She didn’t see.

  “Edmonton is a real city as soon as we, as Edmontonians, believe it is real.”

  “We’re a communal Pinocchio,” said Jonas.

  The server brought Madison’s soda and cranberry, so she lifted her glass. “To believing.”

  Rajinder and Jonas leaned in. “To believing.”

  The Russians had gone quiet. Madison turned and saw the Russians were looking at them. Had they been speaking too loudly? She talked more quietly. “Rajinder, what is Anonymous? It was on the wall
in your conference room.”

  “I am Anonymous.”

  Jonas pointed. “That’s you?”

  “I don’t get it,” said Madison.

  “The era of government support for the arts in Canada, especially around here, is waning. Health care is too dear.”

  “Farmers and suburbanites think arts funding is a homo plot.” Jonas swirled the wine in his glass. “And those people actually vote.”

  “I fund the arts, Madison, but I don’t want to be seen as a replacement for broader public support. I don’t want to be in the newspaper either. So: anonymous.”

  Jonas snorted. “But you could be famous. They’d make documentaries about you.”

  “Who would?”

  “They would.”

  “That is not my measure of success, Jonas.”

  “It’s mine. Oh, it’s so mine.” Jonas slugged his wine. “Did I already ask if we could be best friends?”

  “Twice in the conference room after the others left, three times on the walk to the hotel, and once a few minutes ago.”

  “Think about it, Raj.”

  “I will, thank you.”

  Without any warning, an acutely foolish desire bloomed in Madison’s chest. As Jonas continued to press Rajinder for a best-friend commitment, Madison wanted to make a similar proclamation. Instead of building toward an afternoon ice-cream date with Rajinder, instead of asking him about growing up in India or his thoughts on landscaping, code words for I want you like I want a gulp of 250-dollar wine, Madison wanted to say, out loud, I want you like I want a gulp of 250-dollar wine.

  42

  cowards that jump

  Professor Raymond Terletsky wanted to be free of the woman who had dragged him, by the neck, over the rail and onto the pedestrian path of the High Level Bridge. But she had insisted on escorting him home.

  “Your name is Helen?”

  “Yes, Helen.”

  Raymond pulled the beige handkerchief out of his pocket and passed it to Helen so she would stop sniffing. Nearly falling off the bridge had sped up his hangover by several hours, and the seeming omnipresence of Helen’s snot was making him feel queasy. “This is for you.”