He opened his eyes and found himself
lying upon a small bed in a small room. He noticed a porthole above
him framed with dark smooth wood. Kneeling upon the pillow, he looked
out but could only see a fog of shifting patterns spinning slowly
like a kaleidoscope of café au laits.
Out in the hallway, the walls were
wainscoted and featured polished brass hand rails, and beneath his
bare feet, a carpet runner leading to a set of narrow stairs. As he
made his way to the top stair he could see a large wood-panelled room
with four figures seated around a table. Approaching, he recognized
Yves wearing a captain's hat and puffing on a pipe, and beside him,
Melisande and Thérèse dressed in dark suits, white shirts and black
ties, and beside them, Jerome in brown rags with a cigarette behind
his ear. They looked up at him.
“What's put on a table, cut, but
never eaten?” Jerome asked.
Duncan didn't understand.
They all smiled as Yves produced a
pack of cards and began to shuffle the deck while he hummed the tune
to Gilligan's Island. His navy pea jacket sported a crest with a
large fish. Duncan turned around and saw Amelia in a long evening
gown with pearls around her neck, Hugh at her feet. She waved to him.
Nearby stood Tom wearing a long green overcoat and holding an
umbrella in one hand and a swinging pendulum in the other.
“Don't worry Dunc,” Tom said,
“I've brought my ultrasonic weapon in case we need to break down
any walls. We'll find your old friend David Ashemore don't you worry.
Have a drink, relax.”
Standing to his left he discovered
P. K. Loveridge in a butler's outfit holding a tray with shot glasses
arranged in a spiral formation. He took one, drank it, and found
himself out on the deck of the ship. The life saver read: SS Qupode.
Leaning on the railing, he looked down but neither saw nor heard any
evidence of water, only foam. They were floating on foam.
“How deep is the ocean?” asked
Yves who now stood beside him puffing away on his pipe.
“A stone's throw,” replied Tom,
standing on the other side of him, swinging his pendulum out over the
railing.
Yves took the pipe from between his
lips, the smoke rising from the bowl of fading embers, and tossed it
into the fog. “I feel we're close to L'Isle de Mont Lautré. It
shouldn't be long now. Tabarnac Dunc, you'll be fine, just fine.”
Duncan felt extremely fatigued, and
turning around, found himself back in his childhood bedroom, the den
over the garage. The large twin windows were open and he was lying on
his bed looking at the night sky, the strobe light of Place Ville
Marie swept the underside of the clouds. He began to count slowly
to eleven. One, two, three, four, five . . He remembered those early
years going to the library with David to take out Tintin books. He
could see the small, white clap-board library, the steps down to the
children's library section, the Librarians at the desk, the
colourful books, the path home through the park with its benches with
elderly people feeding squirrels and pigeons. The path home. The
light swept the clouds once again. One, two, three, four . . . The
hidden lighthouse searching for lost souls. He breathed in the scent
of rain. Petrichor Amelia had said. From the Greek petros for stone,
and ichor, for the golden blood of the Gods. Petrichor. He looked
beside him and there was the National Geographic map from his youth
tacked to the fake wood panelling, a map he would gaze upon for hours
dreaming about the Mediterranean Sea from the straits of Gibraltar to the port of Jaffa where Jonah set sail, and everything between, the place names magical, mythical,
romantic. He could see the pencil lines he'd made as a youth, the
supposed route of Ulysses according to some book he'd read and long
forgotten. How ridiculous he now thought. How ridiculous. The light
from Place Ville Marie swept past once more. He began to count, one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . .
*
The Doctor checked the vital signs
monitor and then looked down at the chart of test results. The
Glasgow Coma Scale looked promising: GCS 11= E4 V3 M4 at 7:10 this
morning. Eye response at 4 points: spontaneous eye opening. Verbal
response at 3: random words exclaimed: haddock? Cupid? Motor
response at 4: withdrawal from pain stimulus.
That was promising she thought. She
lifted Mr. Strand's left eyelid and noted the condition of the pupil
and then with two gentle movements, brushed his brown hair back from
his forehead thinking he didn't look his age. There was something
about his chin and the curve of his lips that seemed familiar. She
rearranged the bedspread and held his right hand and bent down to
speak softly into his right ear. “Hello Duncan, my name is Doctor
Julia Yee. You're doing fine. Your wife Amelia was here with you and
will be back soon. We're taking good care of you. Don't worry.
You'll be fine.” And with that she gave his hand a squeeze. There
was a slight response in return. Then, with the soft edge of her
thumb, she swept a stray eyelash off his cheek.
*
A fragrance of sandalwood
and jasmine overcame him. Memories were evoked, memories of
Montreal's Chinatown and the Chinese soap he used to buy when he
dated Yiyin, the Bee & Flower brand, so beautifully wrapped and
labelled, everyday exotics, golden emblems of their time together. He
was now sitting across from her in a booth at the Tean Hong Café,
the restaurant that had burnt down years ago. She was explaining the
various Dim Sum dishes to him while he practised his chopsticks. The
waiter, a young student in black dress pants, white shirt and black
bow tie, brought them a pot of Chinese tea, and she began to pour.
The light from Place
Ville Marie swept by once more, and he began to count again. One,
two, three, four, five, six . . . .
*
Melisande sipped her tea and
looked out the window. She could see Pavor scraping frost from his
windshield and then brushing it off. He looked up, noticed her, and
waved. She smiled and waved back. A few moments later, she watched as
he pulled out from the curb and made his way east along Sherbrooke
Street on his way to her apartment to feed Clio, and to stop by St.
Viateur Bakery for a dozen sesame seed bagels and hummus. She felt
somewhat guilty for not being there to feed Clio her early morning
meal, but inversely, she luxuriated in the freedom from
responsibility. Looking back to the parking space Pavor had vacated,
she noticed an oily slick, circular rings of orange, then indigo,
light blue and back to dark orange and the blues once more. Her
Mother used to say such spots were evidence of rainbows touching
down. She sat at Pavor's desk and stared at the small antique brass
compass resting on a stack of leather bound notebooks and wondered if
he'd ever witnessed a rainbow from this window.
She put her tea down and
opened the central desk drawer, and slipped out the latest instalment
of his work in progress. He'd told her it was there if she wanted to
look it over with her keen-eye for typos, faulty grammar, factual
mistakes, and implausibilities, and give him what he called his much
needed 'elaborative and corrective reinforcements.' Rereading his
own work was the most creatively draining task of any day, 'like
retracing my steps across a beach looking for a cipher in the sand.'
It was a sentence he often used. If she'd come across the sentence in
his work, she might have to put brackets around it and add a question
mark in the margin.
She opened the binder and
began to read:
Rex Under Glass, Part Eight
Rex parked the Venetian
green sedan in an unlit spot around the corner from Vernon Smythe's
house. The digital numbers on the clock glowed like binary poison,
11:00. Too late for people to be walking their dogs. Most residents
were likely preparing for bed, checking their emails, or hypnotized
by the litany from the late night news. He folded the car rental
papers and pushed them into the inside pocket of his jacket. It was a
good time for him to make his surprize visit. With his collar up
around his neck, hands in pockets, and a dark ball cap on his head,
he counted the steps as he made his way to Vernon's front door:
forty-two. As he pushed the door bell, he thought he saw something
move on the lawn to his left. There was a faint hint of skunk in the
air. A shiver rippled down his spine.
“Yes, who is it?” Vernon
demanded, his voice sounding more annoyed than perplexed as it issued
from the small intercom speaker above the doorbell.
“I come bearing gifts from
the old city of Prague,” Rex said. He waited in silence, casting
worried glances at the shrubbery. Then he heard footsteps approach
the door, a hesitation as if he was being viewed on a video
screen, and finally the door opened.
“Well Rex, you've caught
me on my movie night. Come in, come in.” Vernon sniffed a few
times. “A bit skunky out there tonight isn't it. Or is that one of
your gifts?” He stood there dressed in a long, richly woven brocade
house coat and matching slippers. “Have you ever seen the movie,
The Dark Corner, 1946?”
Rex shook his head.
“Don't worry Rex, few
have.” He motioned to the half open door revealing a fully
furnished drawing room. “Please join me. Don't worry about your
shoes. Yes, The Dark Corner, quite a film. You've arrived just
as the camera panned away from the great Eddie Heywood on the piano
in the High Hat Club. Ah, those were the days, elegance, savoir
faire.” He motioned to Rex to take a seat at one of the two
highback upholstered chairs facing the large flatscreen television on
an antique table. The film had been paused leaving a still shot of an
attractive actress sitting at a nightclub table wearing a striking
black jacket with white stripes in a V design. “Lucille Ball,” he
said, gesturing to the actress on the screen. “Perhaps you know of
her from old reruns of I Love Lucy? The famous scene in the
chocolate factory with the conveyor belt conveying confections
unremittingly. Oh, my, such hilarity is rare indeed, rare indeed. How
we laughed.”
“What's The Dark Corner
about?”
“I'm sorry Rex, I didn't
offer you anything to drink. You must be jet lagged and dehydrated.
What can I offer you?”
“I'm fine. No need.”
“Well, if you change your
mind, the bar is over there,” he said pointing to the corner.
“Beer, orange juice, tomato juice, ginger ale, water. Help
yourself.” Vernon sipped his Cinzano Rosso and crossed his
legs. “So, The Dark Corner is a lesser known film noir. A
private detective played by Mark Stevens—a part more suited for
Alan Ladd but alas, he was busy with The Blue Dahlia, another
film noir which came out the same year—the detective is framed for
the murder of a playboy lawyer who was having an affair with the
younger wife of a wealthy older art dealer. The art dealer set it up
using a thug to do his dirty work. Lucille Ball plays the detective's
secretary. Quite simple really, but the writing is decent, and
Lucille Ball provides a very good performance.” He picked up the
remote control. “I can start it from the beginning if you'd like to
watch.”
“Evan Dashmore told me
about the young man who had an affair with your wife, the files on the
thumb drive, and how you were essentially responsible for his death.”
Rex withdrew a thumb drive from his jacket pocket and held it in his
open palm. “Evan wanted to mail this to you. He advised me to avoid
you altogether. Change my name. Start a new life.”
Vernon sipped his drink and
rested his head back as he contemplated this revelation. “William
Powell might have been good for the part as well, but I imagine he
was on contract for the Thin Man films. Yes, good old William
Powell,” he said, looking up into the darkness seemingly lost in
nostalgia. “Jean Harlow, such a tragic loss. Love of his life, dead
at 26. And then his son, a suicide. Yes, Rex, even the high and
mighty have their afflictions.”
“What's the truth Vernon?
Did you drive the young man to his death?”
Vernon placed his tumbler on
the side table and rested his hands on the arms of the chair. “Rex,
Rex, Rex. Evan has played you. He's taken the shark out of you. The
young man in question worked for the service and was planning to
reveal certain secrets about our contracting of certain operations.
He was discredited and fired. As for having an affair with my wife,
that is neither here nor there. As for myself, I have been retired
from the service for a year now. The private contract companies I
oversee provide solutions for international problems. We use finesse,
not hit men. We provide training and techniques, expedience and
methodology. Today's science and technology has made our work much
more efficient. You've worked for me, not the service. Cash on the
barrel. You should have no quarrel with me.”
“Maybe I'll have that
drink.” Rex walked over to the bar and opened the small fridge and
took out a bottle of orange juice, popped open the cap and drank
deeply. “Evan thought you might have sent me to Prague to set us up
like your film noir detective.”
“I think Mr. Dashmore has
been reading too many European spy novels.”
“Why did you send me to
Prague?”
Vernon directed the remote
control towards the television screen reducing it to a dark shadow.
“If you must know, it was sleight of hand. I needed someone to draw
attention away from the man I sent to Prague on your flight, make it
look like you were the courier. Information was purposely leaked
concerning your connection with my interests. Did you notice extra
attention to your passage through customs, the taxi driver, the hotel
workers. Probably not. They're very good.”
Rex reviewed his memories of
the trip, his arrival and subsequent movements, and could now see how
people's interactions with him could be reinterpreted. He'd been
followed and watched. “What about Evan? Won't he be under suspicion
now?”
“Evan works for Czech
intelligence. I imagine he's now recognized he's been played. You
were my smoke screen. Your final payment is in the second drawer, on
your right.”
Rex opened the drawer and
took out a legal size envelope. He placed it in his jacket pocket
without looking at the contents. “So what about the thumb drive?”
“A souvenir.” Vernon
drank the remnants of his vermouth and stood up. “The world we
inhabit Rex, has a custom of misfortune. Civilization is a thin
topsoil easily swept away by barbarity. Stoics cultivated the soil
for the nihilists to sow and religious extremists to waste.” He
walked towards the bar, hands in his house coat. “This is not a
world for jaded postdocs, cynical ambivalents and hip divines. You
may think I have an endless Rolodex of disreputables, but really my
work is the very syntax of international cooperation. The sand in the
mortar that keeps the masonry of relations intact.”
“You know Vernon, I don't
know who, or what to believe anymore. I don't think I'm suited for
your world.” Rex placed the half-finished orange juice on the bar
and taking the thumb drive from his pocket, dropped it into the wide
opening of the bottle. They both watched it sink to the bottom, a
shadow in the glass.
Vernon looked at his watch.
“Ah, 11:30, half-past hanging time. I want to thank you Rex for
your work. If you have second thoughts, you know how to contact me.”
He held out his arm as a sign to escort him to the door.
In the foyer, Rex noticed
the painting leaning against the wall, “Why don't you put that up
on the wall?”
Vernon turned his head
sideways. “Ah, yes, de Chirico's The Nostalgia of the Infinite.
A decent copy, but a fake as they say. Those two figures in the
foreground and their dark shadows are us Rex. The tower and its
flags dominate our lives. We're just shadows in the sun.” Vernon
approached the painting. “Why don't you take it. It requires a new
home.” He picked it up and held it out towards Rex.
They shared eye contact for
ten seconds, then Rex accepted the gift.
Vernon opened the front door
and Rex stopped, and held out his hand. “Good bye Vernon.”
A brief solid handshake
passed between them.
“Not at all, not at all,”
Vernon said. “Careful as you go . . . mind the skunks.” He
watched Rex meld into the shadows of the street and then closed the
door. He walked towards the staircase and stood with his hand on the
ornately carved newel post, one foot on the lowest stair, and
listened. Nothing. Not tonight he thought, not tonight. He would not
see his ghostly double tonight.
He entered the main floor
powder room to pee, and standing before the mirror, noticed the two vertical lines that rose between his eyes to meet the horizontal wrinkles of his forehead, a crossroads which produced an outline reminiscent of the outstretched arms of Christ the Redeemer, the one that loomed over Rio de Janeiro on Corcovado Mountain. Looking directely ahead, he rested his gaze upon the bags under his eyes, crescent shaped dumplings, puffy, plump. He stared at them until they brought to mind the rounded scales of a balance, weary with the weight of decision. How ravaged his face seemed. How grim. In another dimension he was certain he'd found a
sense of the sacred, lived a life of beneficence, of honours, and one night that munificent soul would be waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, and
would lead him away.
*
© ralph patrick mackay
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