In the empty dorm she changed into dry clothes, wrapped herself in a rough hostel blanket the same colour as the dismal day and went to wait for him in the kitchen. When he came in he was holding a crinkled brown paper bag. From it he removed a small, long-handled metal dipper, a jar of dark brown powder, another of sugar cubes and a small bottle of clear liquid. He turned on one of the burners on the electric stove and unscrewed the cover of the jar. The bitter perfume of coffee. He smiled at her but did not speak as he spooned the grinds into the dipper, filled it with cold water and balanced it on the red-hot spirals of the burner. As soon as the mixture began to froth, he lifted it from the heat with the dipper’s long handle. He repeated this two times before pouring it into the bottom of a white mug inscribed, in pale green, with the words ‘Le père de la scrap.’ He sprinkled a few drops of the clear liquid on a sugar cube and sank it into the brew.
‘Gouttez un peu,’ he said. Lucy lifted the mug to her lips: dark, bitter, burnt, it was not coffee but its essence: burning hot, sweet with the perfume of roses. She felt as if an important secret had been revealed to her.
Antar was working illegally at the hostel in exchange for a bed. He was about to be deported for overstaying his student visa. Things had changed in his country since he had come to Canada. His father had been jailed and, Antar believed, tortured. He had applied for refugee status but it didn’t look good. His only chance was marrying a Canadian.
Some of this Lucy has told Wendy.
‘Bring back some beer,’ her mother says over her shoulder as Andrea goes inside to use the bathroom.
‘Did you tell him you were Jewish?’ she says to Lucy.
‘Why would I tell him that? I’m not Jewish.’
‘For a while there you were telling people you were Jewish.’
‘Well, maybe when I was ten or something. I was trying to make myself interesting.’
‘Oh I was just – ’
‘And I told you: it’s not a real marriage; we’re not going to live together or have kids.’
‘Things change sometimes. People fall in love.’
‘And besides I’m not friggin’ Jewish. And neither was Dad. Judaism is matrilineal: your mother has to be Jewish.’
‘Well, I …’
‘You think that because he’s Muslim he’ll bail if I tell him I’m Jewish.’
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘I don’t know why I tell you anything. You’re never on my side. Not once have you ever been on my side.’
Where this comes from, Lucy does not know. She has never once felt or even thought this. Not consciously, anyway. Maybe it’s the beer. She slips her feet into her sandals.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ she says.
The porch rises to meet her, the round earth lurching under her. She hates drinking in the afternoon. She should have had a nap instead, or done some yoga. She pulls at her shorts, stuck to her damp skin. What a mistake to come for a week. She loves Tobago but you need a good ten days to get acclimated. Looking out she sees someone walking up Belleville Road. It’s the postmistress, going home after another day of slowly shuffling from one end of the minuscule post office to the other while ignoring the line of patient clients waiting to buy a stamp. She’s walking even more slowly now, eating from a bag of chips. Isn’t she anxious to get home? At this moment in the Montréal metro, people are running to catch the suburban trains, pushing past each other to get on the subway cars.
‘I’m sorry-I’m sorry-I’m sorry,’ Wendy says. ‘Okay? Now could you please sit down for a minute? I want to tell you something. It’s important.’
Lucy sighs. Even to her ears, the sigh sounds dramatic. Do I have to be like her? She sits down again.
‘I know this is going to be a shock. I know you’re going to hate me for this. I know I should have told you before – ’
‘Just tell me,’ Lucy says. This is one of Wendy’s best tricks. In the preamble to a confession she builds her sins into such great hulking monsters that when she finally spits them out they appear trivial.
‘It’s Dad,’ she says. Her mouth crumbling. Her eyes filling.
‘Dad?’
‘Dad wasn’t your biological father.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was pregnant when I met him.’
‘When you met Dad.’
Wendy nods. ‘I was probably three weeks pregnant. But I didn’t know.’
‘—’
‘I know I should have told you a long time ago …’
‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me Dad’s not my father?’
‘Not your biological father. He’s still your father. We were going to tell you when you were older – ’
‘He knew?’
‘Of course. I told him as soon as I found out I was pregnant. We’d been together six weeks then. I was sure he’d take off. But he didn’t.’
‘So who is he? My real father.’
‘Dad was your real father. I want you to remember that. He named you, did you know that? He’s the one who picked your name.’ She starts to cry.
‘What’s his name?’
‘And he loved you so much.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Jerry. Jerry Sastamoinen.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘I’m not sure. Toronto, the last I heard.’
‘Does he know about me?’
Wendy shook her head.
‘What about Nana and Curly? Do they know?’
‘No they don’t. We said you were premature. Until today I was the only person in the world who knew.’
‘He was protecting you.’
‘He didn’t think it mattered. Maybe we would have told Curly and Annabel eventually, I don’t know. But then he died.’ Wendy began to cry again. ‘You were all they had left of him, Lucy. How could I take that away from them?’
‘They might not have wanted to babysit me every summer if they knew. That would have been a drag.’
‘Lucy.’
Andrea’s back and shoulders pushing the screen door open.
‘What a good fucking deal that was for you! I can’t believe it! I can’t!’
‘Oops,’ Andrea says. She stands two sweaty bottles of Carib on the floor and takes the third back inside.
THE KING OF SWEETS
After the ceremony they have a picnic on the mountain with the witnesses: her roommate Marie-Ève, a nursing student from Jonquière, and Antar’s friend Mohammed, a tall, big-boned man with horn-rimmed glasses, always serious. But she is getting used to him.
Antar has brought merghez and a rice and vegetable salad, Marie-Ève Tunisian dates and wine, and Mohammed a box of baklava. Lucy had wanted to contribute something Canadian. After all, this was a marriage of Canada and the Maghreb. But what? In the end she bought a baguette and some cheese.
It’s late April and classes and exams are over. A good day all around. They sit on blankets on the grass and joke and laugh. Antar is a strict Muslim, he doesn’t usually drink, but he has a sip of wine. He can’t stop smiling. The threat of deportation gone he can finish school, find work, maybe become a Canadian citizen. Lucy is also relieved. A woman from immigration has been calling her:
– We know what you’re doing.
– It’s against the law, you know.
– Are you sure you want to do this?
– You’ll have to support him. You’ll be responsible for everything.
– You might think the money’s good but it’s not worth it. He’s not covered by la Régie. Do you realize what it would cost you if he has to go to the hospital? I can tell you.
Lucy lounges on the new green grass and drinks more wine.
Mohammed unties the string around the box of baklava. He holds it out in front of Marie-Ève, who is next to him. T
he palm of her hand against her flat midriff – she is a long-waisted, sinuous girl – Marie-Ève shakes her head:
‘Non merci, j’suis pleine.’
Mohammed looks at her with mock dismay.
‘Marie-Ève,’ he says, setting the box of sweets on the blanket. ‘Let’s say that you are having une grande fête chez toi.’ He looks at her with a grave smile. What beautiful lips he has, Lucy thinks. And his eyes. She had never noticed his eyes. She wants him to smile at her, too.
‘You have invited your family, your friends, everyone you know.’ He peoples an imaginary kitchen and living-room with his hands. (His hands are like the rest of him, big-boned but slim and graceful.) ‘And the house is pleine à craquer. So full that when there is a knock on the door you can barely make your way through. You open it and there, standing on your doorstep, is the king. The king! And what will you tell the king? “I’m sorry, you can’t come in, there is no room for you in the house?” Of course not! You will open the door wide, will make room for him somehow. Eh bien, baklava is the king of sweets. No matter how full you are, there is always room in your stomach for baklava.’
‘Ah ben, si c’é comme ça …’ Marie Ève laughs, and she takes a piece. Mohammed turns to Lucy, holding the box in both hands. Behind the glasses are the deepest brown eyes she has ever seen.
‘Tell me again,’ Mohammed says. ‘The rain.’ Lying on his side, facing her. Rain drumming on the tin roof of the first-floor neighbour’s shed. The pale grey light of the room.
‘I shouldn’t have told you. You’ll think I’m crazy.’
‘Cinglée, ma Lucie.’ He skims the skin of her bare shoulder with the side of his index finger. Lucy closes her eyes.
‘Today doesn’t count,’ she says. ‘It’s just normal rain. Because I live here.’
‘Because you live here?’
‘It only happens when I travel.’
‘Oh. When did it start?’
‘I don’t know exactly. My mother thinks around puberty because she doesn’t remember it happening before that. She didn’t notice it right away. And of course I didn’t either. Rain happens.’
‘Every single time we go anywhere,’ Wendy said. She counted the episodes on her fingers:
‘Toronto. I had to buy an umbrella, remember?’
‘Cape Breton, of course.’
‘It even rained when we went to Andrea’s for New Year’s. I didn’t mind it that time.’
The polar bear swim. Lucy waiting in the cold rain with blankets while Andrea and Wendy, full of hot buttered rum, jumped in Lake Ontario.
‘Manitoulin last year.’
Lucy had not wanted to go there, either. She knew that the only reason she and Tina wanted her along was to babysit Tina’s nine-year-old son. They had stopped at a flea market on the way to the campground. Murphy found an electronic boxing game and she bought three Babysitters’ Club books. She had spent the Victoria long weekend in a damp tent trying to read while a mechanical voice droned: Right hook. Left jab. Player One wins by a knockout.
Wendy began to keep track. ‘Just for fun,’ she said. And it was crazy but true: Lucy did not seem to have any effect on the weather when she stayed put. But a day or so after she arrived in a new location it began to rain without fail. If she stayed longer, the normal weather patterns resumed, the skies, it seemed, adjusting to her presence.
She was the rain girl. Lucy Cloud.
‘Even my grandmother Annabel noticed,’ she tells Mohammed: ‘‘I don’t need the radio to tell me the weather. I know it’s going to start raining as soon as you land.” But I’ve never told her.’ Because who would believe such a thing? And why is she telling Mohammed?
‘What does it mean?’ he says.
‘I don’t know.’ She turns over, hoping he will caress her back and shoulders. Especially her shoulders. ‘I try not to think about it.’
Straw mats line the walls of Mohammed’s living room. On the floor, mattresses covered with bedspreads from Value Village: prosaic plaids and ’60s brown and orange. The Ninja Turtles. Mohammed’s friends, Antar among them, sit cross-legged, talking, smoking, drinking coffee and playing cards. As soon as Lucy leaves the room they switch to Arabic. The words come harder and faster then, and the conversations seem to have more portent. On some nights they don’t bother to go home, roll up in a blanket and sleep on the floor. The only thing missing, Lucy thinks, is a desert sky.
One Friday they take the metro to Bérry and get on the bus to Québec City to visit Antar. He is doing a Master’s at Laval, sharing an apartment with three other students, an Algerian couple and a French girl. He makes a couscous to celebrate. Lucy looks at him while he chops, grinds, spices. Stirs and tastes. He knows to put some aside for her before he adds the meat. My husband, she thinks. Weird. And next to him, my lover. Mon amant. But she prefers mon amoureux. She is in love with that word. They eat at the small table, talk late. When the Algerians come in they go straight to their room. The French girl is out. When Antar talks about her he rolls his eyes. She and Mohammed sleep in his room. Antar beds down on the futon in the living room.
The next morning the men leave early to play soccer. ‘Foot’ as they call it. Lucy doesn’t like most sports but she enjoys watching Mohammed play soccer. How he explodes onto the field, powerful, fast, everywhere at once. Completely taken by the game. But they don’t invite her.
‘It’s just a practice,’ Antar says.
‘Ça ne sera pas très marrant,’ says Mohammed. ‘We’ll be right back.’
She does not insist. She has tons of reading to do for a paper and this might be the only time alone she will have all weekend. But it still stings to be excluded. She finds a gluey dishrag, rinses it under the tap, and wipes the tabletop of coffee and jam spills and baguette crumbs. The counter is mounded with last night’s dirty dishes and pots and pans. She’s a guest, maybe she should clean up a little. But she thinks better of it. Pulling textbook, pen and highlighter from her backpack she sits at the table.
The apartment is quiet. The studious Algerians have already left for the library. Only the girl Vinciane remains, behind the closed door of her bedroom. Lucy opens her book. Voices drift in from the street. If she cranes her neck she can see their owners from the window. A couple, hand in hand. A woman walking a dog. A man pushing a stroller. The telephone rings. Somewhere in the building, someone laughs. A door opens behind her: Vinciane; a tall girl in a sarong, one side of her face squashed from sleep. Short black hair shoots from her skull. The door of the bathroom closes behind her. For a long time it’s silent but for the sound of the shower. Then the telephone rings again. When Vinciane exits the bathroom, wrapped in a yellow towel with the word Oaxaca in green along one side, her hair is gelled and spiked and her face made up. Ignoring Lucy, she turns on the CD player in the living room and re-enters her bedroom.
Hard-core electronic. Damian’s favourite while he lifted weights in his parents’ basement. To Lucy it screams headache, nosebleed, psychotic episode. She moves to Antar’s room. Sits on the bed against the wall, puts a Sarah MacLachlan CD in her Walkman, opens the book again.
She is startled by a great thump on the wall next to her head. And yelling. She removes her earphones. From the next apartment: ‘C’é trop fort, hostie d’cons!’ More banging. ‘On dort icitte samedi matin! Fermez votre musique de cul!’ The music shrieks. The man shrieks. The wall pulses with blows. Lucy closes the book. In the kitchen, no sign of Vinciane. Lucy goes out, leaving the music on and the door unlocked. Because Antar didn’t give her a key. They leave her alone, don’t give her a key, she is supposed to stay here and do the dishes while they play football? Fuck that, she thinks.
She walks around the block a few times, not wanting to miss Antar and Mohammed’s return. She’s hungry. Maybe she’ll go finish that couscous. Maybe Vinciane is gone now and the psycho has stopped hitting the wall. Or maybe he’s at their
door, foaming at the mouth. Or inside, ransacking the place. Because she didn’t lock the door. And she has all that reading to do.
She sees them in the distance. Walking side by side on the sidewalk. One tall, one short. How close they are. She loves that about them. As they approach she sees that Antar is carrying a black and red gym bag. But Mohammed is holding his tan leather briefcase. As if he is returning from the library.
‘How was the practice?’ she says.
‘It was cancelled,’ Antar says.
‘I’m hungry,’ Mohammed says. ‘Where’s a good place for lunch? I’m buying.’
After lunch they walk around the old city, cross the Plains of Abraham, where the English general Wolfe defeated the French Montcalm, then they both died. Lucy can’t help feeling a little sorry for the losers. But not Mohammed: ‘Worse colonialists than the English – look what they did to us.’ Meaning North Africa. ‘Everywhere they went.’
Antar holds out the palm of his hand. Raindrops. Just a few, giving people time to find shelter before the rain. They start back.
‘It’s true!’ Mohammed says, bending close to her ear: ‘La femme qui pleut.’
STORY AND A HALF
John A was sitting in his room, his knobbly dark-veined hands on his dark-clad knees. He was alone. Whereas he used to enjoy roaming the halls chatting up staff and residents – and later, when he lost his mobility, watching their comings and goings from an armchair in the foyer – he now prefers the room he shares with his ‘best friend,’ a thin, stooped man named Albert who is also deaf.
John A’s armchair faces his roommate’s side of the room. All day he gazes at Albert’s world: his single bed and night table, his armchair and bureau, and the gallery of framed family photographs on the wall – all the people smiling, posing in their best, graduating and getting married and celebrating anniversaries. One photograph always caught Lucy’s eye. Above the faces of men in suits and ties and smiling women in above-the-knee pastel dresses, the photographer had inserted a cameo of a dark-haired girl. Albert had explained that it was his daughter Anita, who had drowned at the age of fifteen. Her face, floating ethereally above the heads of her siblings and parents, imparted a tragic quality to the photograph.
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