Mirror Lake

by Andrée A. Michaud

  Immediately I thought I was dead and, given this fact, I managed to resolve a couple of metaphysical questions that had troubled me during life; there really is life after life, as I said, and the body doesn’t vanish simply as a consequence of being dead, because lo and behold, I had two feet. I hadn’t seen the rest of me yet, but divined that if I was able to think then I must have a brain and some kind of container preventing it from spilling out, and thus a head, and there had to be something connecting the head and the feet. That said, I did experience a brief sensation of doubt as pictures of God and Jesus came to mind, hovering above the clouds in smooth cassocks beneath which there was no suggestion of a body at all, as nobody has seen God naked. Perhaps the feet drawn at the bottom of the cassock weren’t attached to anything and could decide, at will, to walk to the left as the head moves to the right.

  Because it was completely uninterested in spending eternity searching for its feet, my brain promptly ordered whatever was below it to feel me up and down, which allowed me to confirm that I had all my parts — plus one, an enormous bruise swelling up out of the right side of my forehead, and which had started hurting as soon as I recognized it existed. And if I was in pain, then I was either alive or in hell. I opted for alive, and waited for this assertion to be refuted.

  And yet, despite being in one piece, I couldn’t actually move. I felt as if someone had filled my glass with some paralyzing drug while I wasn’t looking. I told myself that I merely needed to wait a little and soon I would have the use of my limbs again, otherwise I didn’t see the point of having any. To pass the time, I considered what I might do other than think or pat myself. I could choose between singing, praying, or reciting poems. But before I was able to decide, my speech apparatus launched into the first meaningless thing to cross my mind, namely “La dame en bleu,” no doubt because I desired with all my heart and soul to meet the Holy Virgin, whom I’d missed by a nose the last time Winslow and I were drunk together, and no doubt she would be showing up any minute if I really was alive.

  So as not to spoil the precious moments of peace, I gagged the stubborn lady in blue with her azure silk scarf and focused on the white around me, miraculously landing back on the ice floe where my polar bears had taken their places again, big balls of lard gambolling under the Arctic sun with the levity of creatures delighting in the simple joy of being alive. Astonished by their suppleness and grace, I started gambolling around with them, because I was alive at least until the contrary could be proven, and glad to be so, because life is beautiful when you manage to forget whatever needs to be forgotten. So I went walkabout with the two bears from floe to floe, until I too became a bear, another big ball of lard roaring in a white desert where I was king. And then I let myself fall backwards and rolled back and forth on top of the ice to scratch my back, flipped over to scratch my stomach, rolled onto my back again — like a true madman — until a low voice coming to me from the borders of the domain where I was king rattled my good cheer with the question “Are you crazy, Bob?”

  “Anita,” I said before I opened my eyes. She’d heard the call of “La dame en bleu” and come running, also managing to chase away my bears. To unsettle her, I decided to play dead, but it must not have worked because then she said, “Thank God you’re alive.” So yes, I was alive, I had the proof I needed — and Anita too. I wasn’t nearly as alive as I’d been at the North Pole, where my two bears were disappearing into the blizzard, but more as I was used to being, alive and putting up with all the aggravations that come with it, including Anita.

  “Hi Anita,” I said, opening one eye. I saw she was weeping tears of joy that she was not even bothering to wipe away, delicately, with the tip of a finger so that she didn’t smudge her eyeliner. They were genuine tears, unrestrained, making their way down her face and falling hotly onto my hands, the cold hands of a guy who has returned from a long journey to a place far away, if I were to believe the rambling tale Anita was telling me through her tears and of which I did not understand a word.

  “I called the others,” she added, after shedding one last tear.

  “The others? What others?” I said. I was alarmed, both eyes wide open now, a sign of my increasing anxiety, experience having taught me that, when someone mentions “the others,” imminent danger awaits. “Hell,” do we need reminding, “is other people.” Yes, Sartre wrote the words before me, but I felt as if I had a claim on his famous sentence and that I would have come up with it first had I been born earlier and Sartre not preceded me in the knowledge that ultimately it would be other men who would cause my misery, if not his, because “other people,” as I had good reason to know, is Agent Orange knocking at your door with a tank of napalm, nothing less.

  I’d narrowly avoided the gates of hell and now Anita was telling me she’d made the necessary arrangements for me to go there.

  “What others?” I said again for form’s sake, because I certainly knew what she was inferring. They were all going to come, Anita went on, to make me happy. Apparently we didn’t exactly have the same idea of joy.

  On top of it, they’d arranged a surprise, a tiny surprise, she simpered coyly, conceding nothing. I’d had enough of surprises these last few weeks, one of them my presence in a white room that, after a cursory examination, turned out to be in a hospital. Besides, my right arm was attached to a drip, which in and of itself was a significant clue. “When will they arrive?” I added uselessly, because no doubt they wouldn’t delay, problems always turn up with thunderous speed, especially when there are a lot of them.

  “Any minute now,” she confirmed, and at that very second the hospital room door slowly opened. I was expecting to see Winslow’s big red face framed in the doorway when — surprise! — the sweet smile of my sister Lou appeared, gentle enough to break your heart if you have one and, at the same time, cure you of the most infernal migraine.

  So Lou was Anita’s surprise, my sister Lou, in her immaculate nurse’s uniform, with her beautiful nurse’s hands and her gorgeous black hair which the years had accentuated with something that only made her more beautiful — that makes all women more beautiful. Lou, my father’s raven, had flown over the Chaudière river and the Appalachians to be at my bedside. “Lou,” I choked out, trying to swallow the lump rising in my throat.

  “Hello, big brother,” she said. The word brother made the smile stretched across her face crinkle in the form of the footprints that delicate crows had furrowed at the corners of her eyes. And then I cracked, started crying like a baby — or, as we say in Quebec, like a calf, which made me think of veal and overwhelmed me with compassion for the little calves that never get to grow up, small and alone in their sheds for a single season, and I started wailing even harder in the arms of Lou, who’d come to my side and was pressing my head against her enormous womanly heart — enormous because women don’t spend their time hiding, and consequently their hearts don’t wither away in the dark.

  It occurred to me that if Lou had crossed the U.S. border for my sake, then I must have been in a terrible way. “What on earth are you doing here, Lou?” I snivelled.

  “I came to heal you, big brother,” she said — and with cause. Already she was curing me. When, despite it all, I died in the next few minutes, I would die feeling altogether better, thanks to Lou. Then, given how discombobulated I was, my feelings all over the place, I called myself every name under the sun for having disappeared like a damn barbarian three months before, abandoning my family and the two or three friends who still deserved to be called that, under the pretext that I needed space. As if there wasn’t enough space in Quebec! And all this only to find myself surrounded by a bunch of degenerates and murderers.

  “And are the others here, Lou?” I asked. When I said the word others it didn’t have the same effect as when Anita said it, because the others I had in mind weren’t the threatening kind but the category of others you’d happily wish on anyone but your enemies. They were my fa
mily, brothers-in-law included, my nephews and nieces and the trail of infant girls and boys who would inherit our stupidity in time.

  “They’re here,” answered Lou, “I’ll go get them.”

  “Okay, Lou. See you in a minute, Lou. I love you, Lou,” I whimpered as she was leaving and was too far away to hear the whisperings of my heart having such trouble making their way out of my knotted throat.

  Ten minutes later, during which time Anita tried to make me look presentable, a tremendous din filled the corridor and the door opened again, this time revealing Maman, Ode, Lou, Viv, and Jim — my whole immediate family — and then Ben, my uncle Chaise, Big Feuillard, and my peerless brothers-in-law, deep in conversation with Winslow, Robbins, Jones, and the Dalton brothers, who’d brought Bill and Jeff along. There was laughter, backslapping, hugging, barking, licking, the shedding of tears, and more laughing, and I remember thinking, Damn, family’s great, even going so far as to include the twerp Winslow in the gang.

  You’d have thought we were in some dubious Eastern Bloc country, at the betrothal of a Mafia don’s daughter’s or a Greek wedding, it was all so exuberant and chaotic at the same time. I’d not have been at all surprised if Anthony Quinn had shown up dressed as Zorba the Greek to do a little folklore number for us. As we waited for Zorba, Winslow was histrionically waving his arms over his head to explain to Uncle Chaise and Ben a technique of his own invention for casting a line. My condition must have improved, otherwise Winslow wouldn’t be making such a racket. Even Maman, who was standing quietly in a corner so as not to disturb the pandemonium, finally gave herself up to the general jubilation, though not before she managed to peer at me with one of those discreet looks only she gives, in order for me to see all the pain I’ve caused her. Don’t start again, the look said, and — as if I’d asked to be in a coma, because that’s indeed what had happened, I’d lost the plot for an unknown period of time — I’m warning you, above all, do not die before me.

  How long had I been absent? I tried to put the question to Maman, but the Dalton brothers were dragging her off and, had Viv not intervened, I’m sure they’d have abducted her, the shits, if only to see how it actually feels to have a sweet little Mom, the kind that doesn’t push you to delinquency and have you cut the throat of your first victim when you start kindergarten. Enough of that, what were these three idiots doing here?

  “They’re under arrest,” said Robbins. Before I’d even formulated the question there he was. And off he went back to his conversation with Feuillard and Ode, who was calling him Bob, as meanwhile Jim was addressing Winslow as Tim, and Winslow had his arm around Anita’s waist, and Maman was calling her Miss Swanson. Total mayhem.

  And during all of it, nobody was particularly bothered about me, or only slightly, except for Jeff, who was sitting by the side of the bed and looking at me as if I were Christ come back to life, which I basically was in his devoted dog world. It took Robbins proclaiming my exploits for me to become the centre of attention again. But what was he going on about? He was mixing everything up — and giving himself a starring role. I wanted to correct him on a few details, but gave up, my head hurt too much. Besides, his time would come, I would write this story down, tell it as it really happened, and he would come across as the bastard he was! When he reached the end of his own account, which culminated with a “bang!” there was a long silence that did not strike me as a stunned silence of admiration so much as one of embarrassment, no one having anything to add, and then someone suggested they should all go find something to eat together. I tried to say something because I didn’t want them to leave, not right away. We could easily order pizza or souvlaki, I said, and if someone was on a diet we could bring a few trays up from the cafeteria, since I almost certainly hadn’t burned through my chicken-broth budget while I was comatose.

  “How long was I in a coma?” I asked. Was someone going to tell me? They all started rummaging in their pockets or purses and blushing, this one staring at a crumpled tissue, others at their car keys or their health insurance cards, and one even at an old piece of gum tidily folded back up in its original wrapper. It’s incredible how interesting chewed gum can be, the burning question whether you’ll discard it or if it’s worth putting in your mouth again, if it hasn’t yet lost its flavour or textu —

  “HOW LONG?” I shouted, which made the gum jump, which meant it would now end up in the garbage. The rummaging in pockets and bags was interrupted, but we didn’t get much further than that, the silence was total, except for Winslow’s hum-humming as he attempted to take refuge behind Feuillard, who was able to conceal the height but not the breadth of him.

  “HOW LONG?”

  “A year,” Anita said under her breath.

  A year? No. Impossible, I must have misheard. “Sorry, what was that?”

  “About a year,” she repeated, the voice strained and breathless. Inadvertently, she’d almost put me right back in a coma.

  About a year . . . about a year . . . what did that mean, when we take into account the relativity of time? Could she not be more precise?

  “Three hundred and forty-two days,” I heard, deep in the immeasurable expanse of white where I was headed. But three hundred and forty-two days wasn’t a year! As far as I knew, or at least before my coma, there were three hundred and sixty-five days to a year. Had things changed in the interim?

  There was silence when I asked this legitimate question.

  “Maman, it can’t be true,” I implored, Maman being the only person in the room who wouldn’t joke about something so serious. But Maman, true to her courageous motherly nature, corroborated the information, as did the others, the bunch of cowards, who’d finished emptying their pockets and were starting to dust off the bars of the bed as if nothing was up.

  Faced with their unanimous acquiescence, I was tempted to take an overdose of saline solution. I sank, like a ship in distress, into an ocean of depression as dozens of questions flooded my brain. And then the room filled with the usual brouhaha that precedes departures, reaching me through the gurglings of my floundering ship. Everyone was picking something up — bags, jackets, caps — the brothers-in-law came to shake my hand, Robbins put his hand on my shoulder, Bill licked my cheek, the Daltons told me they were still looking for Artie, Winslow hummed “See you later, alligator,” and Anita hugged me as, all the while, young Jones played with the piece of gum he’d retrieved from the floor and that perhaps wouldn’t come to the end of its life in a hospital garbage can. Then they left in order of height and in single file, briefly leaving me alone with Lou, who tucked me in, wiped my forehead, and pulled Jeff out from beneath the bed, where the good creature had hidden in order to stay with me.

  When she closed the door, bye-bye, big brother, everything turned white and smooth again, the room tilted sideways with sadness, and I tried to find something to think about so that I wouldn’t collapse into the void the abated laughter had left in its wake, not a single trace of it remaining in the infinite white reasserting its rights and smothering the groundswell that had carried me earlier. I whistled to my bears, but they’d gone fishing under the ice cap and I couldn’t follow them. I tried to gather up a few affecting memories from childhood, memories of snow or storms, but they were out of view too. One of those insipid January winds even childhood can’t make warm started to blow and the only recollections that did manage to surface were full of chilblains, frozen-stiff mittens, and the creaking under my boots.

  I was right there in the January cold, in the silence, solitary as a clump of ice in the middle of a field, a northwesterly wind blowing its misery along the ground and building a drift of powdery snow up around it, concealing and finally burying it in the desert-like expanse of the wintry field. I needed to shake free of it, so I stood up and immediately stumbled to the ground with my drip. After an effort that was as hard to quantify as the white, I managed to rise to my knees and make it as far as the toilet. Which
I should not have done. I should have let that July day be winter, because I didn’t like what I saw when I hoisted myself up to the mirror, I didn’t like it at all, and fainted, dragging down all the equipment that had monitored me during my coma as I fell.

  Humpty Dumpty. I saw the vile thing in the mirror at first, hence the fainting, which earned me a new bruise, on the other side of my head this time, to balance things out. Trying to get a laugh, someone looking at me straight on might have said, “Whoa, cuckold-horns.”

  When I glanced up at the nurse on duty who found me on the floor, I thought at first it was Lou, who, knowing the whole sad story, had come back to save me from Humpty Dumpty. So I jumped into her arms, or at least as far as anyone can jump when they’re in the state I was in. Better to say that I grabbed hold of the back of her uniform as I begged her to remove the Humpty Dumpty face that someone had drawn on the mirror.

  “Stay calm, Bob, stay calm,” said the voice of the nurse who wasn’t Lou and didn’t have her sweet voice, “there’s no Humpty Dumpty here,” she said, and then she called for an orderly to help get me back to bed. She gave me a shot, despite my screaming and protesting that I didn’t want her to give me a shot that would send me back into the void. Because I was screaming, she gave me the shot anyway, it was all so stupid, see where misunderstandings and mistakes get you. My speaking became laboured and I asked to see Lou, “You know, the beautiful nurse, a few moments ago she was here with my family,” I said, but the dullard told me I was delirious, that I hadn’t had any visitors for days. I wanted to ask how many days, but was entering into a soft cottony space, the vast cumulus where bare-bottomed angels amble whenever they’re not sprawling around and playing the lyre. The last words I heard were “Goodnight, Mr. Winslow” — but, she’d told already me, I was delirious.