by Mario Bolduc
Max walked around the house and headed toward the river, where the brand-new dock valiantly stood over the water despite the strength of the current. A great expanse of uncut grass led to it, covered with patches of snow. A supplier had piled a delivery of cut maple and cherry, but no one had come to store it in the basement. Clearly, Drolet hadn’t been wrong: Kevin had expected to spend the winter in Grande-Vallée. A project he hadn’t mentioned to anyone. Perhaps a Christmas present to himself?
A shovel, a broken ladder, old planks of wood with rusted nails poking out were scattered on the deck. The front door was solidly locked, of course. In Montreal, Gabrielle had gone through her father’s effects but hadn’t found the key. On the other side of the house, where the deck ended, Max put his hands on each side of his face and pressed them against the window of a double room, a living room, probably. Antique furniture in harmony with the exterior design of the house. Raymond and Sharon had purchased most of it at local antiques stores.
Max glanced around: there was no one. The Dandurand residence was far from the road, and not a single vehicle had driven by since he’d arrived. With a single punch, he broke a windowpane, unlocked it from the inside, and stepped over the frame and into the kitchen.
The sound of his boots resonated on the floorboards. The heat was set to a minimum so the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and the rooms stank of humidity, making them feel colder still. Max crossed the kitchen and into the corridor leading to the front door. In the middle of the living room, on his left, an oval carpet, half hidden under a bright red sofa. Max looked around. In a corner, the space where a television normally sat. Perhaps Kevin had taken it, but Max hadn’t seen one in his apartment. On the wall, lines left by an old bookcase — it, too, brought to Montreal, probably. This hideaway, this refuge, left abandoned to the ghosts of the rivière Saqawigan tragedy.
Max crossed the corridor. Another room that gave onto the deck, this time filled with cardboard boxes, the ruins of a hurried move after the accident. Kevin and Caroline had wanted to leave as quickly as possible. They’d never come back — until Kevin’s recent visit. Frames leaned against a wall. An abandoned pillow. Their return to Montreal executed in complete disorder, made only more chaotic still by Nordopak’s impending bankruptcy.
A few mismatched chairs. Max moved them around for no particular reason, just to fill the place with a bit of sound. There were mouse droppings in every corner; the mice, too, had found a way in without a key. In a closet, more boxes, all empty.
If Kevin had planned to make the place livable in time for Christmas, he still had his work cut out for him.
Max noticed a pair of paint-speckled shoes placed on sheets of newspaper on the other side of the room. Kevin’s, clearly. He recognized the old pair from when he’d picked Kevin up, years earlier, at the Astoria police station. Kevin had tied his laces with a foot up on a wooden bench. Max grabbed the newspaper under the shoes. It was a copy of Le Soleil from early August. Those dates made sense with the story he’d heard so far.
Making his way toward the staircase, Max climbed it two steps at a time. Only bedrooms on this floor, bathed in sunlight. The repainting had been left unfinished. Light bulbs removed but not replaced. Furniture covered in plastic tarp. More newspaper on the ground. And a container of dried paint, a now unusable paintbrush abandoned. Farther off, a roller entombed in the dried paint of a plastic tray.
Kevin had grieved enough, as Sylvain Drolet had suggested. Perhaps he’d thought to take a vacation in Grande-Vallée, the three of them, Kevin, Caroline, and Gabrielle.
“Soon … everything will be as it was,” Kevin had written in his last message to his daughter.
In a room at the far end of the floor, a bed. The sheets were undone, a blanket on the floor. Obviously, Kevin had slept here during the renovations. Max sat down on it, trying to understand what had been happening in his friend’s head. He’d received a letter from the notary, Michaud, which had had such an effect on him that he’d decided to renovate a house he hadn’t set foot in for years and to make both his employer and his family believe he was off hiking the Appalachian Trail. So many mysteries, but to what end?
Then Max noticed the answering machine at the foot of the bed, half hidden by fallen sheets. He picked it up. The small red light was blinking. He pressed the play button. A single message: “Hi, Kevin, it’s Marie-France. I’ve thought about it and … listen, I agree. Okay? Okay. Call me when you get back.”
Max searched for the cordless phone, which he found near a pile of old rags. In the phone’s memory, a number of unidentified incoming calls, but also Drolet’s name three times. Finally, an “M-F Couturier” appeared. Three calls, all in August. In the closet, Max found a phone book and located the entry for M-F Couturier. The numbers were the same. An address on a rural road outside Grande-Vallée.
Max drove north from the river, through a forest of conifers. Lakes dotted the landscape, glimpsed through the trees, and prefab houses, small fragile boxes, in front of which huge pickups were parked. Then the road narrowed, the prefabs disappeared, and even the most dedicated farmers hadn’t tried to make a go of it. Hardscrabble land here, abandoned to wild nature, no human intercession at all. A hunter’s paradise, Max thought. He glanced at a roadside sign alerting drivers to crossing moose — the sign itself was dotted with bullet holes. Clearly enough, in the fall, during hunting season, this was the sort of place you avoided.
Within that greenery a small school bus suddenly appeared, stopped in the middle of the road. A strange vision, a boreal mirage. A woman in overalls led three children, toques screwed on their heads, to the vehicle, attempting without much success to prevent them from jumping into mud pies made of melted snow and dirt. A last few minutes of play before climbing into the bus. Without losing her temper, the young woman walked back a few steps, grabbed a child by his waist, another by his huge school bag, and pushed them into the driver’s arms, he standing on the footboard. Max halted the Jeep a distance from the bus so as not to interrupt the manoeuvre.
When the vehicle continued on its way, the young woman sent air kisses to the children, whose noses were glued to the glass. Once alone, she examined the disorder around her without noticing Max’s vehicle. In their rush toward the school bus, the children had pushed over a sled and some ski poles, which had been leaning near the door frame. Time to tidy up. The woman could only be Marie-France Couturier.
Shovel in hand, she raised her head when the Jeep’s door slammed closed. She straightened, watching Max approach, seemingly suspicious, on her guard.
The place was isolated, and Max realized he was likely a threatening sight. He stayed a little back on the road so as not to scare her. “I’m a friend of Kevin Dandurand. You’re Marie-France, right?”
Kevin’s name seemed to reassure her. And intrigue her. She took her toque off, releasing a flow of long hair that she brushed away from her face. “What can I do for you?”
“I just got in from Montreal. I heard your message on his answering machine.”
She waited for what was coming next.
“Do you know the police are after him?”
Marie-France Couturier nodded. Clearly, she hadn’t recognized Max despite the fact that his picture had been circulating. Perhaps the young woman never watched television.
“It’s horrible,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’re with the cops, too?”
“A friend of his, like I said.”
“Do you believe what they’re saying about him? I just can’t.”
“I’d like to speak to you for a few minutes.”
A long silence.
“You’ve got nothing to fear. I promise.” He added, “Kevin needs help.”
She hesitated for another moment, then gestured toward her door. “Come.”
A cozy little house, low ceilings, its large beams visible. A snug nest filled with plants and ol
d furniture. Max noticed a piano in the corner, an old Steinway, a couple of its keys missing. Marie-France had transformed part of the living room into a classroom. Tiny chairs, coloured pillows, a movable blackboard, and of course, children’s drawings hung up all over the place.
“I tutor children,” the young woman explained when she noticed Max looking around.
She’d taken a year off work and hadn’t had the heart to go back to a bricks-and-mortar school. So, instead of going to them, she thought of bringing the children to her for remedial work. The school board gave her its desperate cases, and she tried to help the kids with a lot of perseverance and patience. Most of the time she succeeded. A small miracle each time, she said with a smile.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Coffee. As strong as you can make it, if possible.”
Marie-France smiled. Max followed her to the kitchen. He leaned against the door frame as she filled the drip machine.
On the refrigerator, more children’s drawings. Her protégés.
“About your message. What exactly were you referring to?”
She and Kevin had known each other for years. In fact, they’d been in love once. Each other’s first love. Marie-France’s family came from Rimouski and took their summer holidays in the area. They, too, had had a country home, though farther up the river. A tiny house, uninhabitable in winter, that had more holes than walls. Nothing like the Dandurand castle, but she’d loved the place. Sooner or later, the two teenagers had been bound to meet.
Kevin was from Montreal, the big city, swaggering his way to rivière Saqawigan. He listened to strange music, wore trendy clothes, knew all about things she’d never heard of. In September, after a summer of total joy, the separation had been heart-rending. Life had slowly pushed them apart, as it does. Later, as adults, they’d seen each other a few times. They became friends again. Marie-France never married, but she didn’t regret losing her chance with Kevin.
She returned to the living room, two cups of coffee in hand, and offered one to Max.
When Kevin started coming back to the house after having been gone for years in New York, they saw each other from time to time in the village at the post office or grocery store. She was happy to see he was a father.
“I thought it was a shame he wasn’t competing anymore. I would still see him running, though, sometimes early in the morning. He would run right alongside the road.”
And then the tragedy. Everyone still talked about it in Grande-Vallée.
“And he came back last summer?” Max asked.
“Right. I hadn’t seen him since the accident. I thought they’d sold the house.”
He seemed radiant. Happy, which had surprised her. His car was filled with brand-new tools. He explained he was renovating, that he planned to come back to Grande-Vallée.
The same story he’d told Drolet and the others.
Marie-France had been intrigued but hadn’t pushed him for an explanation. She understood why he’d left in the first place. She would have probably done the same. The fact that he was returning seemed like a good sign. He had mourned and now was living again.
Then Kevin called her one evening and asked if they could meet. He wanted to talk about something important. She invited him over. Supper, just the two of them, old friends who knew each other well.
“We drank a little, not much. I’ve never really liked alcohol, anyway. We traded memories. We laughed. I’d pretty much forgotten why he’d come over in the first place …”
She fell silent for a moment, then said, “Over dessert he offered me money.”
Max raised an eyebrow.
“I had the exact same reaction as you at first. Then he explained everything.” Marie-France got up, opened a dresser drawer, and threw an envelope onto the table. “Look inside. You’ll understand.”
Pictures of a party. An open-air reception. A beautiful afternoon. Men in dark suits, women in long dresses, servers in their livery.
Some of the pictures seemed hastily taken, as if the photographer wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. Fifteen pictures in all. One in particular caught Max’s eye: a woman dressed all in black, looking pensive, the only picture in which someone was staring straight at the photographer’s lens.
He recognized the woman immediately. Laura Costinar, murdered in Bucharest. Widow to the Romani leader, Ioan Costinar — he, too, murdered, but in Woodlands, Manitoba.
A low-angle shot showed part of the sky, azurine, the rest of it obscured by a palm frond.
“They were taken in Spain,” Marie-France explained. “In Granada, actually. Taken by Kevin himself.”
Max didn’t understand why the pictures were so important to his friend. Except for the one with Laura Costinar.
“Look at this one.”
At first glance it seemed as if Kevin had taken the picture by mistake. The people in the background were all blurred. But on the right side of the frame, very clearly, a child’s head seen from behind.
Max jumped to his feet.
There, between the collar and the child’s hair, on the nape of the neck, a red mark.
Just like Sacha’s.
“That’s impossible.”
Another picture, this one better, taken earlier or later, there was no way to know. Among a group of children, there was Sacha-the-Red, seven years old, more or less, and seemingly perfectly healthy. In another picture, a man in his forties held the child by the shoulders, either in congratulation or in protection. Just as a father would hold his child. A man fulfilled, satisfied, happy with his life. A man who’d stolen someone else’s son.
Sacha was alive.
Part Three
The Mulo
29
London, April 7, 1971
The BOAC Boeing 707 bounced once on the tarmac at Heathrow, startling Emil. He’d only ever been on a plane one other time, years before, and they’d flown across Europe so quickly he could hardly believe it. When he was a boy, his father’s kumpaníya could drive down the same road for weeks and they’d still be in the same country, the same province even! Was it really Great Britain there, out the window, or some illusion only Ceauşescu had the secret to?
Like an obedient schoolboy, Emil followed the other passengers out of the plane and took his luggage off the long piece of moving rubber his fellow travellers grouped around. Now that he could read as well as any gadjo, Emil recognized his name written on a piece of cardboard in the hall. A young woman in a very short skirt and huge glasses held the sign.
She led him to a large van that already held several other Roma. He didn’t know a man among them, but his guide introduced them all.
“Slobodan Berberski, Antonin Daniel, Jan Cibula, and from Canada, Ronald Lee,” she said.
“Emil Rosca from Romania.”
Emil had heard of Berberski, a famous Romani poet from Serbia. He’d fought against the Nazis in the Yugoslav resistance. Antonin Daniel worked tirelessly to increase literacy among the Roma, as well as being a member of the Romani Union of Czechoslovakia. Jan Cibula, a doctor living in Switzerland, promoted Romani culture around the globe. Ronald Lee, a Vlach-Roma originally from the Balkans, was a writer and journalist and had been fighting for years for the recognition of Canadian Roma.
Emil felt privileged being part of such a select group of Romani leaders and organizers. Doubly so since the trip had been so difficult to organize despite Rossen Markov’s repeated intercessions. After Emil had asked permission from Ceauşescu, two Securitate agents had shown up at his door. Asking Eugenia and the children to make themselves scarce, the two men had politely, with smiles as wide and kind as a shark’s, begun asking Emil question after question. They, of course, were only looking for a reason to deny him an exit visa.
And so, three days before his supposed departure date, Emil still hadn’t received the necessary
paperwork.
That evening he’d put on his best sports coat — the only one he owned — screwed his hat on his head, and gone knocking at Ceauşescu’s private residence. A rather bold move, one very few Romanians would ever be brave — or foolish — enough to do. If the dictator gave himself permission to sometimes visit the King of the Roma unannounced, Emil told himself, the king had permission to do the same in turn. Over the years, Emil had deepened his friendship with the Conducător, though the two men hadn’t seen each other in months.
As Emil approached Herăstrău Park, around which the party’s most privileged comrades lived, he was intercepted by agents of Ceauşescu’s personal guard, who forced him to stand under a street light on Primăverii Boulevard for more than two hours. At least a dozen people, from uniformed policemen to stone-faced men in civilian clothes, checked and double-checked and triple-checked his identity, one after the other, explaining each time that the president of the State Council was absent and it was best to return tomorrow, go to his office, meet with one of his subordinates, and schedule a meeting.
Emil answered the same thing every time. “I’m the leader of the Roma of Romania. Nicolae Ceauşescu is a personal friend and godfather to my children. If he learns that you’re stopping me from seeing him, he’ll send you all to gather bulrushes in the Danube delta!”
All evening Emil felt as if he were switching a tractor to make it pull a plough faster. But, finally, a handful of agents escorted him to Ceauşescu’s home. They guided him through a great garden — where other agents stood guard — then led him to an office isolated from the rest of the residence, a vast room bright with fluorescent lighting.
Ceauşescu was waiting for him, seemingly worried, hands behind his back, head held high. Around the Conducător, pictures of himself among his collaborators, all retouched to make sure he appeared taller than the apparatchiks with him — they were members of his family, for the most part. Pictures of Elena, as well, who’d been exercising an increasingly important role in government. She was the new director of the Institute of Chemical Researches, even if she had no competencies whatsoever in the subject. It was said ambition burned in her. One day she would possess the same power as her husband and lead the country beside him. Just as his was, her birthday was a day off for the entire nation.
