by Alice Zorn
He repeated her number.
“It’s still the wrong number. I don’t know who you are.”
“This is the number your dad gave me.”
“I’m going to hang up now.”
Frédéric, who’d started to walk out of the kitchen, turned when he heard her tone.
“Your dad and me,” the man said quickly, “we both come from Brimberg.”
She grimaced at his continued repetition of the ridiculous word, dad. “Even if you did, that’s got nothing to do with me. I was born here.”
“I know you were, sweetie.”
“Don’t call me that!”
He chuckled. “You liked it before.”
“Listen, buddy, I don’t know you and I don’t care where you came from!”
Frédéric gestured for the phone but she flapped his hand away. Anything to do with her family she would deal with herself.
“Calm down, okay? Your dad told me you got married. I just wanted to say hi for old times’ sake. Your dad knows we went out for a couple of rides on my bike. Don’t tell me you don’t remember — up in the woods by the pond.”
The pond was a neglected marshy puddle at the back of her parents’ land. Only her parents called it a pond. “I don’t —”
“Don’t you dare,” he cut her off. “Don’t give me that I-was-a-virgin-before-I-got-married act. Maybe your husband buys it. I don’t. You had your ass in my face, begging me to eat you out.”
Fara stared before her, remembering the story Claire had told her about a man on a motorcycle with the engine running. He’d revved it when she came.
Her hand with the phone slid to her breasts, muffling the voice still coming from the receiver. Frédéric watched her with concern. Again he gestured for the phone. “I’ll get rid of him.”
She shook her head. “He knows Claire.” And after a beat, she said, “Knew.”
The confident rumble of his voice. The insinuating leer of a question. She’d known Claire was more sexually adventurous than she was. The men she went out with weren’t gentle. Sometimes she had bruises on her arms. Once, Fara saw what looked like a ridged soother on Claire’s dresser. Curious, she’d reached for it. Claire said, Leave it. It’s a butt plug. It puts me in the mood.
Maybe Fara should have listened to Gay-org’s stories. Yet more details to add to her memories. But this wasn’t how she wanted to remember Claire — this jerk from her father’s village reminiscing about how much fun Claire was.
The voice against her breasts had stopped and she lifted the phone to her ear again. “When you called my father, who did you ask for?”
“You,” he said as if she were being thick.
“I’m asking what you said. Exactly.”
“I told him how everyone back home was doing. You know, the village news. Then I asked about you. He said you were in Montreal and you were married. I thought maybe you —”
“No. Who did you ask for?”
“I told you!”
“You still haven’t said my name.”
“Your name?” He blew into the phone. “I don’t remember, okay? So what? You don’t even remember me! And that was the best tail that bike ever saw, and believe me, I put miles on it. Rode out to Prince Rupert and down to Oregon. You were the best.”
All these years, Claire was dead and the myth of her sexual appetite had lived on in his imagination. She wondered if Claire would have been pleased. “Not me,” she said slowly. “My sister.”
A beat. Then a laugh exploded. “No wonder you don’t remember me! Because your sister, there’s no way she forgot me. We really hit it off.”
Had her father even suspected that this Gay-org was looking for Claire — or had he forgotten that he’d once had two daughters?
“So, yeah, how about you give me her number?”
“She’s not in Montreal.”
“Where is she?”
“You’ll have to call my father. Ask him for his other daughter’s number.” It was cruel, but he deserved it after making her hear how Claire had begged this Gay-org to … whatever. Let her father tell his own lies.
“What’s her name again?”
Fara hung up. Stared hard at the phone, daring him to call back. When nothing happened, she stepped forward into Frédéric’s arms and leaned against him.
His hand found hers and released the knife she still gripped and set it on the counter. “He didn’t know she was dead?”
“He’s from Germany.” Her parents’ families in Germany hadn’t been told Claire was dead. Suicide was a sin and a shame visited by God as punishment. Her parents explained Claire’s ongoing absence by saying that she’d moved to Australia to work. Fara had protested. The very least her parents could do was admit Claire was dead. It was ghoulish to pretend she was working in Australia! Her mother said Fara didn’t understand how the people back home would judge them. Sometimes Fara wondered if that was the bottom line for her parents: not losing Claire, but how that loss reflected on them.
Past Frédéric’s shoulder Fara saw the French doors leaning against the wall in the dining room. Doors made of wood and glass that would open when you wanted to step through them and otherwise be closed. A solid barrier, not this gauze between life and death and unwanted memories.
Two days in a row felt risky, but next week Ben worked the day shift and wouldn’t be able to get into the house. He reminded himself to walk slowly down his old street. Just another guy on his way to the dépanneur. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He didn’t take anything. He only wanted to get into the house. In the house he could remember Xavier — the shy, snickering boy he’d grown up with, not the crazy daredevil he’d become.
At the fence Ben stood close to the shelter of the overhanging vines, key in hand, glancing quickly behind him to make sure he was alone. The lock was rusty, and he had to jiggle the key. Then he heard the oncoming crunch of gravel — too fast for anyone walking — but he took the chance that he could slip through the gate unnoticed.
“Hey! What are you doing? Ben!”
The bicycle braked hard, so close to him that the front tire nearly pushed him through the gate. He was face to face with the hippie, with her wild frizz of hair poking from under her helmet, her legs braced as if to charge him.
“What are you doing?” Her voice had dropped to an insistent whisper. “I’m sorry your dad sold the house, Ben. I’m sorry. But you can’t go in there anymore. It’s illegal. If they find out, you’ll get arrested.”
His lips twitched to retort, but no sound came out. He didn’t give a shit about her being sorry, but the word illegal made him bristle. Did she mean to call the police? Her face was concerned like a teacher’s or a social worker’s — useless concern that never made anything happen. He’d seen enough of that look when he was a kid.
“Why do you even want to go in there? What are you doing?”
He had to scrape through the vines to sidle past her tire. He hated that confidential, wheedling tone people used. Face rigid, he strode off down the alley.
“Ben!” she called after him.
Great. Now anyone with half an ear would know he was there.
“Ben!” Same as the day he’d found Xavier. Carried him outside, dead in his arms, head an inhuman colour, body limp and lolling — and all the while she wouldn’t stop screeching on the other side of the fence. Ben! Ben!
He spat his disgust onto the pavement.
Eric had come to install the French doors that morning. When Fara left the house, he was setting up a table saw in the dining room. The table and chairs had been pushed against the wall and covered with drop cloths. Frédéric was lugging in the lumber Eric had brought in his truck. When Fara called bye, both men looked surprised she was still there at all.
She was meeting Karin downtown. Karin couldn’t often get away now that she and Tom had two chil
dren. The first, Julia, had been easy enough to pop into a stroller. But Julia, who was now an ingenious three-year-old with Houdini powers, plus the imperious Charlie, who believed anything within reach was a javelin to be hurled, were impossible. Fara thought Tom should have been able to manage by himself for a day, since Karin spent each day of the week with the volatile duo, but Tom insisted on his mother for backup. Grandma duly fetched and ensconced for the day, Karin had been set free. Even so, she checked her cellphone constantly. Fara hardly recognized her friend, who used to know the doormen of the dance clubs along Saint-Laurent by first name, in this woman who spilled a Winnie-the-Pooh diaper and a Ziploc bag of wipes from her purse while groping for her wallet.
Fara shouldn’t be buying clothes — and had told Frédéric she wouldn’t — but what a treat simply to walk into stores that didn’t sell light fixtures, tools, paint, and faucets. Had she even been anywhere except a hardware store since they’d bought the house?
Karin fingered a tunic. “What do you think?” She was still plump from pregnancy and favoured tops that covered her hips.
Fara knew that the thigh-length tunics, which were the fashion this season, wouldn’t even cover her crotch. But she let herself be tempted by the shirred and crisp fabrics, the insistent beat of the look-cool, feel-good music. She and Karin gathered an armful of clothes and joined the lineup for the change rooms.
Her first misgiving was the boxy little cubicle that made her feel like a football player in a bra. Second, the stark light in the cubicle. No hiding any bulges. Third, the way the clothes that draped so elegantly on the hanger pulled awry on her. She fiddled with straps and tiny buttons. What kind of body did you need for clothes like these to fit?
“How’s it going?” Karin called from the next cubicle. And when Fara didn’t answer, “Fara?”
“It’s not.” Fara smirked at a neckline that gaped across her bra.
“Yeah … I guess I’m not this size anymore.”
Karin kept only one of the many tops she’d taken into the change room. When she saw the long lineup of women waiting to pay, she groaned.
“It’s okay,” Fara said. “I don’t mind waiting.”
“Nah.” Karin slung the top over the closest rack. “I don’t really love it. I’m not into this anymore.”
“Me neither,” Fara admitted. “At least not today.”
“I buy clothes for the kids.”
“I buy boxes of screws.”
Karin slid her hand in her purse to check her cellphone. That neither Tom nor Grandma had called seemed to bother her more than if they had.
Fara strode down the hill, feeling how she was leaving the manic bustle of the city, the urgent grumble of voices and music, the dense crawl of traffic. As she waited for a light to change, she looked back at downtown — which, from this perspective, was uptown: the jut of skyscrapers stacked close around the mountain with its trees and mansions on the slopes. She was heading down, down, down … to where the castle serfs lived.
She’d never before walked from downtown to the Pointe but guessed that eventually she would reach the canal. She oriented herself by the Farine Five Roses sign in the sky.
She wondered how Frédéric was managing with Eric. When Eric had arrived that morning he’d announced that they had to be finished by suppertime because he’d dropped Chantal and the boys at her sister’s. It was already late afternoon.
She found Eric standing with his hands on his hips, scowling at the frame he was building between the hallway and the dining room. Frédéric mimicked his pose, though his expression was more mystified than upset. The opening was too large for the French doors. Eric had fit panels of glass along the top and to one side.
“Is something wrong?” Fara asked. “It looks great.”
“Against building code,” Eric muttered.
“Why —” Fara began, but Frédéric shot her a warning look. Right. Let Mr. OCD fantasize about a building inspector barging into their house to slap them with a fine.
She backed away and went upstairs to get her novel from the night table. She’d finished painting the new bedroom and had hoped that Frédéric would still have time to move the bed today. Probably not.
In the living room, she dropped onto the sofa and stretched her legs. It felt good to come home and relax. She caught herself thinking the word home. It was true, every day the house felt more and more like home.
She hadn’t opened her book yet, still listening to the men. “Hold it steady,” Eric said, followed by the grinding of the drill.
Would she be allowed to walk through to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea? Eric was on the ladder. Frédéric stood waiting for instructions. “Does anyone want tea?” she asked.
“Beer,” Frédéric said.
“Yeah,” said Eric.
Sawdust had drifted from the table saw across the floor. Fara debated sweeping the floor, but it would only have to be swept again later. She grabbed two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and set them on the drop sheet on the table.
“Thanks.” Frédéric winked and gave her a quick grin. What a trooper. Still able to smile after a day of playing underling, admirer, and audience to Eric.
Fara lay on her side in bed, waiting for Frédéric. He’d been so long, she wondered if he’d fallen asleep, upright under the shower.
Eric had fussed over the French doors well into the evening, even though Chantal called twice to remind him that her sister had made supper. He’d told her he was still working and to go ahead and eat. After the second call, he turned off his phone.
At seven, Fara decided to order a pizza. She asked the men what kind they wanted. Eric, stooped over one of the doors, sweeping the planer with exact, smooth strokes, didn’t answer. Yet he ate a few slices when it came — still standing, a level hanging from one hand. He only finally packed up his tools and left at nine-thirty. The doors closed perfectly. They made the dining room look elegant. The hallway too. Imagine once she’d stained and varnished them.
Only now, as she lay in bed, did she realize that she’d admired the doors, leaning back on her heels in the hallway to take them in, and not once had she thought of the hanging body.
She heard the bathroom door open and the floor creak with Frédéric’s slow steps. He shuffled into the bedroom. “Oof.” He sat heavily on the bed, swung one leg up, then the other, and fell back on his pillow. “Eric doesn’t stop,” he groaned.
“But you got it done.” She nestled close. “I think it’s worked too — the doors.”
“Good.” But he was already falling asleep and might not have heard.
“Tomorrow you’ll move the bed into the back room?”
“Sure …”
She leaned over to kiss him and lay back on her pillow.
Over lunch today, Karin had said that now that they owned a house, they would have a baby. Fara let her talk. People who had kids didn’t understand that you simply might not want to. She and Frédéric had agreed on no children before they’d married. Why would a house change that?
She glanced around the large room, wondering what they would do with it once they moved the bed. It used to be a bedroom. Frédéric had had to drag out a futon and twisted debris of blankets, and break apart a platform base built of plywood and painted black. It must have been the boy’s. Maybe this had been his bedroom all his life. Maybe when he was little, he’d slept here with his brother.
She and Claire had shared a room up until Fara had left home. Two single beds pushed into opposite corners. The closet was divided with a line of masking tape Fara had stuck to the floor. Her shoes and Claire’s shoes. Claire’s clothes and her clothes. Of the six drawers in the dresser, three were hers, three Claire’s. Once, Fara had walked in when Claire was changing her sheets and had thrown her pillow and comforter on Fara’s bed. Galvanized with rage at the trespass, Fara had whipped Claire’s beddi
ng to the floor.
In her body she could still feel how angry she’d been. The righteous stiffness in her arms. She closed her eyes, wishing she didn’t remember so clearly, turned in bed, and curled against Frédéric, pressing her forehead to his shoulder.
She knew she’d been a terrible sister to Claire. But what else would she have learned growing up in that family? They were all terrible to each other. A younger sister wasn’t a companion but a burden Fara hadn’t asked for. Where’s your sister? What is she doing? Was macht sie? The eldest was supposed to watch out. No one ever spoke of sharing or love or kindness. Obedience was the expectation, punishment the threat. Fara knew her parents blamed her for Claire’s suicide. She was supposed to have realized Claire was going to do something stupid. Didn’t she live close by in the city?
For years, too, Fara had blamed herself. It had taken her that many years again to understand that the longing to die was irrational. Sure, she could imagine circumstances that might lead a person to consider suicide — the wickedness of others, desperate loneliness, emotional starvation, mental health, altered consciousness, fear of the future, even chance. But she would never have an answer for that final, definitive why. There was no explanation for a wish that was stronger than the instinct to draw breath.
And yet, Claire and this boy had killed themselves. That was the only ugly yet knowable fact. Fara had come to believe that the only meaningful gesture those left behind could make was to acknowledge that, not make excuses or pretend it hadn’t happened. She wished she could tell this boy’s brother that and save him years of asking himself a question that had no answer.
Ben pointed a pistol finger at the waitress to signal for another bottle. On the TV at the head of the room, men in bulked-out uniforms trotted across hyper-green turf. Before the TV was installed, there used to be a moose head. Ben remembered the head from when he used to dart into the murk of the tavern to get his dad. Years had passed, but the men scattered across the room at the tables still sat in the same poses. Backs stooped, legs splayed, arms on puppet strings hooked to boozer heaven. Lift the bottle to the mouth. Glug. Lower it to the table. Lift again. Short, stubby brown bottles in his dad’s day. Long necks came later. Even skinny men were deadweights glued to the seats of their chairs.
