The Measure of Darkness

by Liam Durcan

  From somewhere behind him, Jean-Sebastien appeared, shooing away some of the associates who had come to wish Martin well and inquire about the accident. The door closed. Not a word from Brendan, but Martin could still hear him, feel the reassurance of the odds somehow seeming to be made more even by family just sitting there.

  “Jean-Sebastien, this is my brother, Brendan.”

  “Jean-Sebastien Houde. Oh yes, the veterinarian. I never knew you had a brother until we met in Vermont”

  “Hmmph,” came a mutter from Brendan’s direction.

  “So, hey, this is a surprise. It’s wonderful to have you here. The place is buzzing, just seeing you, walking in on your own steam. It’s great.”

  “Where’s Catherine?” Martin asked.

  “She’s not in the office at the moment.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t keep her hours, Martin.”

  “I would have liked her to be here.”

  “Then you should have given us some warning.” A pause, Martin thought, just to let everyone get more uncomfortable. “The truth is that she can’t bear this, Marty. She can’t bear to see you like this. Now, what can I help you with?”

  “I just wanted to know why,” Martin said.

  More silence from Jean-Sebastien. The acoustics were good in the boardroom, and the silences were emphatic, like in a symphony hall or at the bottom of a well. Martin listened to Jean-Sebastien breathe and was certain he could hear the remnant of a chest cold his partner had had as a child.

  “I’m sorry, Marty, but I don’t understand.”

  “I get home—after all that’s happened, after months of trying to get better, after you and Catherine visited me, I finally get home and I find this.” From a breast pocket Martin pulled the lawyers’ covering letter that fronted the buyout agreement that Brendan had walked him through earlier in the day. Brendan—familiar with the terms of just such a deal from his own business—had taken most of the morning pouring over and then highlighting the details of the deal, using a voice measured to be optimistically impressed yet not patronizing, gently emphasizing and reemphasizing what appeared to be the generous terms granted to his brother, only to look up and see an expression of pallid mortification on his brother’s face. The only fact that resonated with Martin was that he was no longer a part of the firm he had created.

  Martin unfolded the letter now, using both hands to spread it flat on the large conference table with the deliberateness of a man intending to consult an unfamiliar maritime map prior to some serious navigating.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Jean-Sebastien said, and shifted his gaze to Brendan, incredulous.

  “He doesn’t remember signing it,” Brendan added softly.

  “Martin,” Jean-Sebastien continued as his former partner struggled with the letter in front of him. “Martin, this is what we all agreed to. Look at the last page. Everyone signed. That’s your signature.”

  Martin’s gaze seemed to sweep over the page. He turned away from Jean-Sebastien and slid his right hand along the table, running it over a second letter, which remained folded. Brendan knew it bore the crest of the Ordre des architects du Québec. At Martin’s condo Brendan had read it to himself silently, and then to his brother. Two sentences informing Martin Fallon that, for medical reasons, his license to practice architecture had been suspended indefinitely.

  “I spoke to the Ordre this morning,” Martin said. His left hand trembled a little as it kept the letter flat in front of him. “I know everything. You asked them to revoke my license.”

  “I didn’t ask them to do anything. We had to inform them about your injury. The restructuring deal hadn’t taken effect and you were still technically a partner. It was necessary.”

  “Jay-Ess. Necessary? This is my life.”

  Jean-Sebastien nodded, looking from Martin to Brendan and back again. “There were obvious liability issues here after your accident, Martin. You . . . we have to face facts. You couldn’t be an architect associated with the firm, even temporarily, with the impairment you have. I spoke to your doctors—” Martin opened his mouth, truly uncertain if a snarl or a muttered profanity would emerge. His objection was wordless.“—your doctors, who don’t feel you’ll ever come back. I don’t believe that. I’m in your corner. But this had to be done.”

  “I brought you in, Jean-Sebastien. I still want to be involved in the project.”

  “Martin, you signed an agreement,” Jean-Sebastien’s voice rose.

  “Then bring me in as a consultant.”

  “To work on a design that wasn’t yours? One that you said you could never stand to see built? You may not remember what you said, but everyone else in this office remembers.” Jean-Sebastien looked around the room, as if the empty spaces would help him garner support. “Martin, listen to yourself. Even if we were to make you a consultant, even if the Ordre hadn’t suspended you, with your problem, if you were to even appear anywhere near the project, the firm becomes the default shit magnet. Any problem, structural will point to us, construction will point to us, every subcontractor . . .”

  “That’s nonsense—”

  “The public will go nuts. And that’s not even talking about the Russians. You want the Russians suing you? You’d better hope they’re only suing you.” Jean-Sebastien looked around the room. “Projects go forward, Martin. You taught me that. Sometimes with us, sometimes without.” Martin felt a hand on his forearm and had to fight the urge to throw off what felt like a gesture of bullshit bonhomie. “After I spoke with that psychologist . . .”

  “You spoke with Feingold, too?”

  “Of course. I had to.” J-S paused. “Have you been doing any sketching?”

  “Oh, enough with the condescension.”

  “It could help.”

  “Did Feingold say that?”

  “I just thought—”

  “Sketching. I’m not interested in ‘sketching.’”

  “You should take some time, for yourself.”

  “I understand things more fully than ‘sketching.’”

  “Sketching, drawing, whatever. Get the juices flowing.”

  “My juices flow differently now,” he said, mumbling, looking for Brendan.

  As he said this, Elodie appeared, materializing almost in front of him, carrying a tray that supported a pitcher of water and drinking glasses. She placed the tray on the large boardroom table, like a chessboard between them. Her hair was different, the light of the boardroom making it seem more blond. She had already turned to leave when Martin finally registered her perfume. An after-smell of vanilla that he hadn’t noticed earlier. Subtle, a pleasant diversion for anyone who would have to share a seat with her on the Metro home that evening. He inhaled again; it was a relief to smell Elodie, another sense corroborating her arrival in the room. Maybe she had put on perfume for him.

  “Thanks,” Jean-Sebastien said as the glass door of the boardroom closed behind Elodie. “I got in touch with someone who could be interested in the magazine pieces you’ve written. The piece about Mies. And the Matta-Clark essay. You were talking about Melnikov; you were working on something about the house. Maybe you could put it all together in book form.”

  Martin shook his head. “I know busywork when I hear it. This is Feingold talking.”

  “Look at it however you want to. I’m just saying that I think you’re not finished. But I think we have to be realistic. Everyone’s happy to see you back, Marty; it’s just that we have to accomplish a job within certain reference points.”

  “You were expecting me to come back. That’s why you went to the Ordre.”

  “Marty, maybe one day you’ll understand how much I wanted to protect you.”

  “I want to see my old office.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that.”

  Martin wondered how Jean-Sebastien managed to get this way, how he’d been able to somehow inflate with the situation. People had specifications, just like buildings, and wh
en it came to moments of pressure, to moments of confrontation, J-S was, in many ways, reliably not up to code. Everything had changed since that visit at the Dunes, two personalities retrofitted. It was as if everything he’d lost had been subsumed into the new Jean-Sebastien.

  Martin nodded. “Then could I have a few moments alone here?”

  “Sure.”

  The door closed and whatever hum that had existed before ebbed further into background noise, hiding in the ventilation ducts.

  “Let’s go,” Martin said to Brendan.

  Brendan stood and offered his hand, and his brother reached for it, balancing with the cane and hobbling to the door. At the bottom of the stairs that led from the boardroom, Martin pulled his brother sharply to the right, meeting with resistance.

  “It’s this way,” Brendan said, correcting him.

  “I know where I’m going,” Martin replied, “trust me.”

  Together the two of them staggered along the corridor that opened up into a common work space, filled with the spacious planes of drafting tables, interrupted by computer workstations and the odd right angle of cubicle wall. They moved slowly, Martin putting himself through the indignity of parading himself through his workplace after being told to leave. He paused every few steps, a voice or a sound causing him to recalibrate. The fingers he didn’t need to grip the cane were partially extended and brushed along the wall.

  “Do you want me to describe where we are?” Brendan asked.

  “I can see everything. I’m fine.”

  Martin stopped for a moment and turned to the right, edging down a small subsidiary hallway past a copier to bring them both to a doorway. With the tip of his cane, he pushed open the half-closed door, to reveal a small lunchroom. A woman looked up from her coffee, and except for a quick volley of estimation aimed at Brendan, she fixed her attention on Martin.

  Martin smiled, “Hi, honey. I thought I heard you.”

  The woman put down her coffee cup; to Brendan, the expression on her face was disturbingly neutral. “Hi, Dad.”

  Chapter 7

  The three of them stood in the lunchroom of St. Joseph/Houde and, for the acute embarrassment he felt, Brendan initially wished for nothing more than to turn and leave. What kept him there, he would later understand, was not an allegiance to Martin, but simple awe at being in the presence of a new, female Fallon. His first impression of his niece—and why hadn’t their paths crossed at least once during his visits to Martin’s apartment or during his stay at the Dunes, why had circumstance conspired against that?—was capsized by an unexpected swell of euphoria, the realization that the Fallons were capable of something beautiful and divergent, that there were permutations beyond the overlapping varieties of maleness in the two boys he’d raised. In the relative silence—a sleek little espresso machine hacked and burped in a corner—Brendan imagined a world of possible daughters, parallel families and experiences expanding and then collapsing into the moment again, with just the three of them and their definite histories. He studied Susan Fallon, trying not to squirm in her lunchroom seat under the vacant stare of her father, and as he did, Brendan felt an amalgam of pride and regret that he quickly attributed to a feeling projected onto his brother, a feeling that he reasoned must be the core emotion of having a grown daughter.

  Brendan wanted to introduce himself, but he stood in silence, and she eyed him from time to time. Maybe she had seen pictures of him. Maybe Martin had established him in that way that the perpetually absent always seem to loom.

  So he resorted to emoting, hoping his demeanor would help Susan understand that he was neutral here, but he felt like a cornerman for a staggering heavyweight, less neutral than simply present and ineffectual. He looked away as Martin reached out for the straight edge of a chair’s back and pulled it out for himself. He groaned as he eased himself down.

  “What are you doing here, Dad?”

  “I’m feeling well, thank you for asking. I decided to come back to work.”

  “Is that okay with your doctors?”

  “They’re fine with it. I’m fine.”

  “I spoke with the psychologist—”

  “Feingold. Yes, she spoke to everyone, apparently, a staggering breach of confidentiality, if you ask me.”

  “She wanted the best for you.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She’s still in the Sudan.”

  “Is that what she said, she said ‘the Sudan’?”

  “That’s just what people call it, Dad.”

  “It’s always seemed like an affectation to me. The Sudan. Like people who say Nee-har-ah-wa.”

  “Well, maybe she didn’t say ‘the Sudan,’ but she’s there.”

  “Did she ask about me?”

  “Of course she did. She and Eric were almost ready to come home right after the accident. If she wasn’t in the middle of a project, she probably would have. She spoke to your brother. . . .”

  Brendan held out his hand.

  “I suppose I’ll have to introduce us. I’m Brendan Fallon.” Susan smiled for a moment, the novelty of new relations just another barrage that she wouldn’t allow to unsettle her. She shook his hand, all the tensions of the moment paused for niceties. Then it was game on.

  “. . . and Mom knew that Brendan would be here.”

  “Lucky for her.”

  “So where’s Agnetha in all this?”

  Agnetha. It was a name that Brendan was coming to understand would be spoken of in a tone of matter-of-fact neutrality reserved for long-dead peacetime presidents. Acknowledgment of an office held without any emotion left over.

  “Agnetha is far away, too. Farther than any Sudan, if that’s possible. Just as well.” Martin raised one hand and it flicked the air beside his head, as if shooing away a buzzing insect.

  “And how are you feeling?”

  “Perfect. A little unsteady on my feet. I have a lot of hardware in my legs now, so that’s to be expected. Did they tell you that they had my license revoked?”

  “I knew about it.”

  “No one told me.”

  “No one expected you to just show up like this.” With this, she looked at Brendan for a moment with what he felt was an indictment of his custodial responsibilities. She turned back to her father, who was now leaning in close over the table, whispering.

  “I hired you, Susan. Do you know what I had to deal with to have you brought on here? Let’s just say it was done over the strenuous objections of Jean-Sebastien and Catherine. I was your advocate.”

  “I’ve proven myself here.”

  “Of course, but you needed that initial chance. I gave you that chance.”

  “Dad, the Ordre des architects du Québec took away your license. Not me. I can’t do anything about that.”

  “I could work as a consultant.”

  “I would lose my job for suggesting it.”

  “You owe me.”

  “Stop it.”

  Martin slid his hand across the table toward Susan. “This firm wouldn’t exist without me.”

  With this, Susan pulled back, looked to her side, and reached for a piece of paper towel that sat folded on the table. She spread it flat. Then she drew a long horizontal line with a pen and pushed the paper toward her father.

  “Bisect the line.”

  “What?”

  “Just make a mark. Midpoint.”

  “This is more Feingold bullshit.”

  “We’re talking about your being an architect. If you’re an architect, then you can bisect a line.”

  “You owe me, Sue. I’m not asking to draw up plans, I just want to get to the site.”

  “Bisect the line.”

  Martin took the pen from his daughter and with a clean economy of movement that surprised Brendan, he drew a vertical line through the horizontal. Brendan peered over his brother’s shoulder as Martin pushed the piece of paper towel back to Susan.

  “And you think that’s normal?”

  “I think it�
�s fine. I’m fine.”

  “Jesus, Dad. You just don’t see it.”

  “You don’t know the way I can see things now.”

  “You can’t practice like this.”

  “I have an awareness of space that I didn’t have before.” He paused. “I don’t expect you to understand that.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’re with them. You wanted me off this project.”

  “That’s . . . that’s just so nuts,” Susan said, and looked at Brendan for something more than the silence and averted glance that she received.

  “It makes sense to me. Jean-Sebastien and Catherine coming to the Dunes. Scouting me. Then you had my license taken away. Better than any noncompete clause.”

  “The Ordre made a decision. The firm informed them, yes, but Dad, it was necessary for liability reasons. Jean-Sebastien and Catherine didn’t do this lightly.”

  “Yes, yes. They discussed it with you, I know. Painful deliberations. I’m sure it was all very adult and reasoned, but it was still theft.”

  Susan was silent. She looked at the paper towel. Its ends began to curl up and slowly close over the line she had drawn.

  “What do you want, Dad?”

  “I want what I’m owed. I want you to recognize that I’m owed something.”

  “You left the project, Dad,” Susan said, and reached out to touch the sleeve of his sweater. “There was an impasse. You and Jean-Sebastien and Catherine decided to part ways. You wanted out. No one forced you out.”

  Martin shook his head slowly, as though shooing away the thought. “I would have made this project work. With them or by myself.”