by Mario Bolduc
“I found Stéphane Kavanagh,” Max said. This was the man who’d ruined their father. Philippe’s smile vanished, which surprised Max, who had also never heard his brother raise his voice. He was normally so calm and collected.
“Stay away from that guy!”
“He put us out on the street.”
“Ancient history, all of it. Forget it!”
“Forget it? He’s living a totally normal life as though nothing happened.”
“DON’T YOU LAY A FINGER ON HIM!”
Max didn’t get it. Since finding the piece of garbage, he was determined to clean his clock, and his own brother, who’d suffered as much as all of them, was telling him to sit on his hands. Max’s thirst for revenge had grown over the years and kept him awake at night, even in his cell, and now Philippe was telling him to forget it. He didn’t realize that vengeance was Max’s food and his fuel.
Deathly silence followed. A pall fell over their farewell dinner. Philippe was perturbed and only pretended to wrestle with his steak. Finally, he pushed his plate forward forcefully, the noise of clanging cutlery turning heads.
“Look, one wrecked family is enough. We don’t need two.”
“Who says he has a family?”
“You found him already. You knew where he was and didn’t tell me …”
Philippe had made his own inquiries at the same time as Max. Stéphane Kavanagh had a teenage daughter.
“I don’t give a damn about his family!” Max yelled.
Philippe looked around nervously as though searching for help. It was a reflex, an indication of deep discomfort left over from childhood.
“What is it, Philippe? What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Who do you think he had his family with?”
Philippe didn’t need to say any more.
Solange.
Max had been content just to find the guy. Philippe had gone deeper into his life and stumbled on a marriage certificate with Solange’s signature. She’d started a new family with Gilbert’s banker. The rest was easy to figure out. She’d used Kavanagh to push the king of Roxboro over the edge to ruin. On purpose.
“She did it to punish the three of us.”
Now it was Max’s turn to push away his plate.
Solange.
No wonder Kavanagh had shown such interest in Gilbert after Solange left and urged him to “expand” the business and stretch his investments beyond his means. He’d done it simply to please his mistress. Now, though, it seemed she and Kavanagh were scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, the whole family was, Philippe told him.
“I don’t give a damn if they’re having problems!”
“I didn’t say you should, Max.”
“Then don’t start in on me tonight, okay?”
“Look, promise me you won’t do anything to them. Don’t be like her.”
Promises. Here we go again. Max had had enough of them. He got up and rushed out of the restaurant. He didn’t want to give his brother the opportunity to make him soft, to turn him into a man without convictions, or memory. Philippe was too down to try to stop him. He probably despised himself, cursing his magnanimous spirit. Max felt as if he’d lost his one and only friend.
Philippe was right. Kavanagh wasn’t doing so well. He was working as a cashier at a plant nursery, earning barely enough to support Solange and their daughter.
Max sat in his car for hours watching Kavanagh through the store window, surrounded by climbing plants in clay pots. What should he do: listen to Philippe or his own tortured conscience? One day, Solange came to pick Kavanagh up from work. Max hadn’t seen her for centuries, and it was like staring at an old photo. Missing her? Maybe. Love? Definitely not. Philippe was right, though. You couldn’t hurt all three of them. No point lowering yourself that far. Then Solange started laughing, the same laugh as that night when she’d tried to order them to follow her and they had clung to Gilbert instead. A defiant laugh that still carried a chill. He started the car. He’d made up his mind.
Tricky business, ruining a rich guy. A poor one like Kavanagh would be child’s play, a no brainer. Max could do it with his eyes closed. In the end, Max didn’t have the stomach for it. A touch of shame at the last minute? No, more like doing as his brother had asked him. Ruining Kavanagh and tossing Solange out on the street wouldn’t be worth losing Philippe’s respect. Still, he had to justify what he was doing — or rather, not doing — to the one who had been most affected.
The Melchior Residence on Viau Boulevard. The small pension afforded by Castor Bricoleur wasn’t enough to cover Gilbert’s costs — uniformed nurses, meals in his room, a huge garden — but Philippe (and Max, too, though discreetly) sent the necessary amounts.
Gilbert was sitting in a wheelchair looking out the window, as always, as Max knelt down and told him what he’d found out about Kavanagh, Solange’s cruelty and vengeance. Gilbert listened religiously without reacting. He no longer had the slightest idea who Stéphane Kavanagh was or what he’d done. He didn’t even recall owning a hardware store or dreaming of dominion over the northern suburb. Even having loved a woman named Solange and wanting to give her the moon escaped him. No, Max’s retelling of their misfortunes was for Max’s ears alone, to put an end to it all, to close the book on it. For good.
Why was this painful episode coming back to him here and now, a bare few metres from David’s home in India? Perhaps it was the bougainvilleas at the entrance that brought the greenhouse to mind again, and with it his mother’s laugh, followed by his determination to put an end to it once and for all. Jayesh’s Maruti was parked diagonally by the wall that encircled the only unlit house in the street. Max would love to get his hands on the things that Walkins had taken from the High Commission and then handed over to the Indian police, but even Jayesh with his roll of rupees couldn’t buy him that. But David’s residence, now that was another story. This was an open book.
The two of them climbed out of the car, and though the sentry box and the entrance gave the impression of constant surveillance, Jayesh had found out the guard had been sick for a week with malaria. The police had emptied the house, and it was no longer of interest, so Max and Jayesh would have free run of the place.
The kitchen door was locked, but Juliette had given Max the key before he left Montreal. They couldn’t turn on the lights for fear of alerting the neighbours, but Jayesh swept the place with his flashlight beam unnecessarily, as the immense moon cast a glare over the room, enough for them to make out the contents of the house. They could tell the police had been through every nook and cranny, leaving no drawer, closet, or cupboard untouched.
Max had never been invited here, or to Philippe’s home. And it felt strange being here tonight, as though he were an intruder, a stranger, yet one who recognized certain objects, like a trinket that once belonged to Philippe. Here was David’s privacy spread out before him, and his presence felt almost indecent. Especially now that he knew certain intimate things about the couple, like Juliette’s pregnancy.
On the wall behind the sofa was a collection of photos, again both familiar and foreign: David and Juliette in one another’s arms, so obviously in love. Then there were older ones of David as a teenager standing in between Béatrice and Patterson. Some, even older, were of Philippe and Béatrice at the award ceremony for the French high school in Bangkok, or of David shivering by the pool at their house in Ottawa. Then, there they were, all three of them, on a ride at a fair in some country or other. He couldn’t tell. Max felt himself being overtaken by an immense sadness. His nephew’s life, like his brother’s, had unfolded without him. Béatrice’s orders at the funeral home on O’Connor had been respected by her son. Max had no longer existed, had just disappeared, completely obliterated and shut out of the lives of both his nephew and brother.
Yet
Philippe had always been there, discreet but faithful, despite the Kavanagh episode, often showing up when Max least expected. You thought he was on the other side of the world, and then suddenly he’d be there at the penitentiary with the right words of encouragement, as usual. Max asked for nothing, but Philippe gave him everything. Why was that? Out of love, but also out of guilt, Max figured. Philippe mistakenly felt responsible for what had happened to their father. Perhaps he’d promised himself never again to make the same mistake. Two brothers united forever like the folded blades of a pocket knife.
One day, when he was in Ottawa for a meeting of the Asian bureaus — he was posted to Ankara at the time — Philippe received a message from a Turkish businessman who absolutely insisted on meeting him at the Château Laurier. Max waited with Pascale in Room 506. He was proud to introduce his wife and apologized for not having informed his brother of the wedding: “It all happened so fast!”
Philippe had hugged Pascale and welcomed her into the family. And into a normal life. Almost.
“Hey, look at that, yaar!” Jayesh exclaimed as he crouched next to the stairs, facing the wide-open safe beneath the lowest step, its door wedged under the bottom of the banister. Max knelt down for a look while Jayesh swept the inside with his flashlight. Documents such as insurance policies had been removed from their plastic sleeves, so had a copy of the lease on the house, various expired passports belonging to David and Juliette, a marriage certificate, and an airline ticket.
Max took a closer look. The latter was for David via Paris on Air France to Montreal. That would have been for the conference. The dates matched. He took a closer look, especially at the cover it was in — a sort of wax-paper envelope — where David or someone else had scribbled some notes. But the ink had run because of the paper, and the words were illegible. Maybe they had been jotted down quickly while on the phone and copied somewhere else later on. Using Jayesh’s flashlight, he could make out one word, Tourigny, and some digits, perhaps a phone number.
There was something else inside the envelope: a coin that rolled out onto the floor. Jayesh trapped it with his foot.
“Rupee?” asked Max, coming closer.
“Yes, but Nepalese.”
Kathmandu again.
Next morning, the bellboy with the Texas accent brought breakfast to Max’s room sporting the smile of one who expects a huge tip. On the tray were a teapot, toast, porridge, and the daily edition of the Times of India. Page one had an account of the previous night’s clashes in Kashmir, as well as the latest Bollywood gossip and releases from the international press.
There was a photo of David: DIPLOMAT DIES.
Part Two
LOUNGE LIZARD
15
“Come on, don’t be afraid, I’m telling you!”
On the ramparts of Fatehpur Sikri, David held out his hand and flashed that killer smile of his. “You won’t fall, I promise. Come on up!”
Juliette slipped her hand into his and felt his fingers closing over hers: “Okay, nothing can happen now.” She felt swept up and David’s arms held her fast and high. His deep, good-hearted laugh was like a child’s as he carried her. She didn’t dare open her eyes. That would mean losing her balance and smashing her skull on the flagstones in the courtyard. How stupid I am! she thought, He’s here holding on to me. I can’t fall. This man, this man of her life, seemed to be made especially for her protection, she the free-speaking young university student. She opened her eyes. “I love you, David.”
Now, that same hand felt soft, weak, damp, and meaningless. Who’ll protect me from vertigo now that he’s gone?
After they unplugged his life support, David didn’t die right away as she had expected. There was a moment of suspension, unbearable, as she and Béatrice hugged each other, two wounded souls, already emptied of tears and pain. Then he was gone, just like that, with no further ceremony. The machines confirmed it.
Juliette wanted to be alone now. She didn’t throw herself on David’s body as she’d done so many times these past few days, but she surprised Béatrice and the personnel by running out into the corridor.
With no one left to protect, the security detail was gone. She rushed into the little room at the end where they’d taken their meals and closed the door behind her. She went over to the window and watched the wind blowing through the trees on Mount Royal, the out-of-breath joggers and a cyclist pumping his peddles.
“You won’t fall, I promise. Come on up!”
He was the one they’d pushed into the void, and she felt dragged along with him — a long fall into the night that might never end. David, David, David. She ought to be remembering the important things, but what came back to her were the little ones: His way of pinching the crease in his pants when he crossed his legs. His inability to make coffee that wasn’t a disgusting mess — “But really it’s so easy!” — The way he slept tangled up in the covers. The scruffy hair he vainly struggled with in front of the bathroom mirror…. Meaningless little memories like that came flooding back.
There was the wind again and a mother, her baby in a carriage, waiting to cross the street. Juliette’s hand went to her belly. “His” child. Suddenly, she just wanted to disappear along with him. Sure, just jump out of the window then and there. Get done with it once and for all. Be with him. What was it the Mahabharata said?
“… the body of the king is laid out with the living body of his spouse. The fire is lit and Madri, without lament, quits her life in the heart of the flames.”
She heard the door open behind her as Dennis Patterson stepped gently into the room holding his cellphone. She didn’t want to see a soul.
“The prime minister wants to speak to you.”
She looked up at Patterson as he held out the phone to her, more sensitive to manners than sadness, she felt.
“Later …”
He didn’t move, but just stood there holding it.
Oh, all right, let’s get it over with, she thought. She took the phone from him.
“Mr. Prime Minister …”
The sympathy, pain, and sadness resonated in his voice as it did on TV, sincere. Sincerity was his job, though, wasn’t it? Well, for thirty seconds at a time, anyway.
Juliette handed the phone back to Patterson, still standing at attention. He wanted to discuss practical details, how things were going to be done. She waved him off: “Not right now.”
“Sorry, Juliette.”
She turned toward him and fell into his arms as she had the first time, and began crying once more, uncontrollably, into his shoulder. Then she raised her head, her voice quavering. “Has he been identified?”
For a moment, Patterson didn’t seem to know what she meant. Then he said, “False alarm. It was a burglar.”
Everywhere in the hospital, she’d seen the signs warning patients and visitors to keep their belongings close at hand.
“Creep probably just chose the wrong hospital at the wrong time.”
Call Juliette, but to tell her what exactly? Max hadn’t a clue. He wanted to talk to her, hear her voice, period. It could wait. Jayesh had left town, knowing that for the time being, Max needed to be alone. From his window, he had a view of the pool, where tourists frolicked without a care in the world. The past caught up with him again. So David’s death was one more in the string of deaths that marked out his life. This one was the most unbearable of them all, but who could he turn to for comfort? Pascale would have talked about the predetermined transition from one life to the next, a constant and harmonious cycle of rebirths. The easy pictures of fatalistic Hinduism, like every other religion, he believed, especially for the uneducated and unlettered, deprived of the acquired wisdom of the ages. Small comfort for such an abysmal tragedy. Religion invented to defeat death actually created it, as now in India.
Max felt somehow responsible for what had happened to David: a vague sort of guilt that was h
ard to pin down, and it was eating him up. Could things have turned out differently?
Alone, Juliette stood before the desk belonging to Patterson’s secretary, but the young woman was not there. Patterson himself was in a meeting next door. Should she wait for the secretary to announce her or just walk in? Juliette had been relieved to let Patterson deal with the “arrangements,” as he called them. He kept her informed more than she wanted him to. Who cared what happened now? Nothing mattered anymore. Still, she had to sign all these papers. That was why she’d stepped into this maze. But now the secretary had vanished … for good? Wasn’t that her raincoat there in the wardrobe with the others? Juliette thought back to the hospital. Here, as well, it would be easy for someone to slip into any of the offices and make off with the coats. That man had been caught in the act. How could she forget? David’s death had wiped out everything else. She went on looking at the wardrobe. What had he been doing in a hospital? He’d gone to the trouble of disguising himself as a cook … good cover. But what if Patterson and the cops had it wrong and he really was there to kill David?
Voices were raised in Patterson’s office. Juliette could hear the consultant, grave and soothing, then suddenly Béatrice, her voice high-pitched and exasperated, a voice Juliette had learned to recognize among thousands when she called for news of David. There was a third voice, too, a woman’s, that she couldn’t identify.
