After setting the alarm—using the
numbers of his wife's birth date—Arthur Roquebrune switched off the
hall light and exited Wormwood & Verdigris. Even he, after
so many years, still thought of the firm by the old dual name instead
of the inclusive Wormwood, Verdigris & Roquebrune. Habit
no doubt. The Wormwoods and the Verdrigris's were into their fourth,
and seemingly last, generation of lawyers. Arthur thought of them as
an alloy of addendums working out of the original, old Greystone
mansion. He was a mere second generation Roquebrune following in his
Father's wake—who had died young before attaining partnership
status—and a name his dear wife had had previsions of being
Roquebrune & Assoc., once the old guard, who Edward Seymour
light-heartedly referred to as Dither & Bicker, had
retired.
The secretary and his partners in the
law firm had left hours ago, but he'd stayed on to finish up some
loose ends and to make sure all the windows and doors were secured,
all electronics turned off, and everything ship-shape—as Wormwood
liked to say being an avid weekend sailor—for the holiday period.
He'd spent the last hour in the basement archives, an unintended
diversion having merely walked in to inspect that all was as it
should have been. He had passed the empty shelves where David
Ashemore's papers had been stored, and had shifted a number of filing
boxes over to help dispel that memory of failed service. As he had
been ready to close the door he'd looked up to see the Verdigris
collection of Lovell's Montreal Street Directories from1842-1888,
small volumes rebound in sturdy library bindings of oxblood cloth,
gilt titles and dates on the spine. Scaling the small ladder, he'd
taken down various volumes from the early years and turned the pages
to read the names and professions from the past: grocers and
painters, masons and joiners, tailors and carters, labourers and
notaries, bricklayers and blacksmiths, ship carpenters and tinsmiths,
coachmakers and hucksters, clerks and coopers, furriers and curriers,
a diversity of professions that had swept all thought of the present
aside and filled him with visions of skilled workers plying their
trades in cold, ill-lit rooms. When he'd come across the firm of
advocates with the name of Hubert, Ouimet & Morin he
thought of the many contemporaries with those surnames, some he knew,
and all likely able to trace branches of their families back to those
servants of the law, who in turn could have traced their ancestry
back to the earliest Huberts, Ouimets and Morins who had set foot in
New France. The one name that stayed with him as he descended the old
stone staircase to the sidewalk, however, was the wonderful name of
Venant Huberdeau, and his profession, ashes inspector.
Venant, what a wonderful old, and out of fashion, name he
thought, much like the old Amable. He pressed the button on
his key chain and heard the doors of his car unlock, a reassuring
sound, a command of casual power and control. Ashes inspector? He had
never come across the term before. He pulled out into the light
evening traffic on Sherbrooke Street, a light drizzle falling, and
headed to his home in Outremont. His wife had left a meal for him to
reheat as she was out shopping and having dinner with her sister and
no doubt exchanging stories of recent events and past family history,
evocations of familiar anxieties and pleasures that the Christmas
period tended to arouse, and no doubt confounding each other with
conflicting memories as often befall siblings: It wasn't you who
experienced that . . . No, it wasn't in the fall . . . You've got
that all wrong. . . . their
voices like witnesses offering inconclusive and contrary evidence.
Ashes inspector? As he came to a stop at the corner of Guy and
Sherbrooke, he thought of David Ashemore, the name stirred up by the
strange profession. After the theft of the papers, and the occurrence
with Thérèse he'd been worried over a possible threat to himself
or his wife, visions of his car exploding upon pressing the ignition,
images induced from watching too many spy and suspense movies. But
no, it had only been a ghostly visitation, an unwonted spectral
alluvion upon the shores of their normality. And then life had gone
on as usual. He was thankful. There might well have been someone
inspecting the ashes of his demise. Possibly a descendent of one
Venant Huberdeau.
He drove up Chemin de la
Côte-des-Neiges towards Dr. Penfield avenue thinking he would have
his dinner and then finish his glass of wine while looking over his
translations of poems by Thomas Gray and Paul Valery. He'd thought of
a few changes to the nineteenth stanza of Valery's Cimetière
Marin while he'd been washing his hands in the office bathroom,
the mundane everyday actions releasing the creative subrosa insights,
acting as doors to that other mind working away in the shadows like
an overlooked and under-appreciated associate.
*
Once more Mrs. Shimoda
shuffled the Japan Air Lines deck of cards with their stylized cover
image of cranes in flight. She looked to her side table where the
Christmas card for Amelia and Duncan lay, an expensive paper envelope
of weight and texture, a fine hand having addressed the envelope with
what she could tell was a quality fountain pen, the name on the
reverse, Declan-Westlake Entreprises with a flourish beneath.
It had been put in her mailbox by mistake. She'd wait till tomorrow
to bring it to them. She had no desire to disturb their first evening
at home since Duncan's health dilemma.
She spread four cards out
for her tenth game of Solitaire, Aces Up, a game that would soon reach a threshold of boredom, but she had been feeling
open to the ways of chance, perhaps inspired by the accidental
delivery of the Christmas card. The statistical variations of the
fifty two cards and her manipulation of them were so different from
her regular pastime of puzzles and Sudoku; she had to allow for the
uncontrollable, the invisible hand that oversaw her shuffling and
play. She wondered if the cards reacted to moods? They were
recalcitrant tonight. She placed an ace of hearts beneath the king of
hearts and realised it was unlikely she would be able to shift the
ace up, so she swept the cards together and shuffled them once again.
To forfeit a game against an invisible hand was no forfeit in this
world. As she shuffled, she looked at her small white Christmas tree
with its blue lights and decorations sitting on the table beneath the
front window, and remembered the day she purchased it at Ogilvy's
department store many, many years ago. Ogilvy's. How many times had
they taken their son to look at the store's famous holiday window
display? A good ten, twelve years she thought. A clever arrangement
of moving toys, Santa's workshop or a landscape of gingerbread
fantasy with cotton candy chimney smoke. What had it been last year
she wondered? A farm scene, yes, animals at the farm. Now it was her
son's turn to take her to see the display window. He would pick her
up early on Christmas mornings, they would drive by the window, get
out if the weather allowed, and then return to his house for the day
and the festive dinner.
Looking at her small
calendar beside her cup of green tea, she saw that in a few days it
would be Tozi, winter solstice, a time to follow the old
ritual and drink cold saké and take a hot bath with slices of yuzu
to keep her from catching cold during the long Montreal winter. She'd
yet to have a flu shot. The bath with yuzu was good enough for her.
And then after the Christmas period, would be the great last day,
Omisoka, the threshold of the old and the new year. Her son had given
her an internet link in an email where she could visit to watch and
listen to the one hundred and eight strokes of the temple bells. She
looked forward to sipping her amazake and hearing the tolling bells,
one strike for each of the earthly temptations and illusions that so
many were blinded by. She imagined people stumbling along a path, one
they could neither see nor master, which reminded her of an old
painting by a Dutch artist, the blind leading the blind into a river.
Where had she seen it? In a book? Or had it been at the museum? The
faces had been grotesque, nightmarish. A cold, northern cautionary
tale.
She dealt out four cards to
start another game and was bewildered by the appearance of the four
kings. She was about to gather them up to shuffle again when she
began to look at them closely, perhaps for the first time, noticing
the richly coloured and geometrically patterned clothes and the fact
that one of the kings, the King of Hearts, did not have a moustache.
The younger king she thought, the sensitive, thoughtful one. How odd
they depict him with his sword held behind his head making it look as
if he was impaling himself.
*
A pale self-portrait of
Jerome with his eyes closed, his thick brown hair, eyelashes and
facial hair now grey, his features wan and almost glass-like. Thérèse
read the title he'd had written on a back edge of the unframed
painting, The Eidolon of Odilon Redon, and then turned it over
once more to look at the what she could only see as a haunted, faded
image of her fiancé.
“It was P. K.'s
suggestion,” Jerome said coming up behind her with a wooden tray
with various cheeses and sliced baguette.
“This?” she said,
gesturing with the painting in her hands.
Jerome felt the negative
sting of that one word. “No . . . the movie, The Third Man.
Pavor was surprized I'd never seen it.” Putting the tray on the
table beside the wine glasses, he stood beside her. “Just an
experimental study in the techniques after Redon. Don't worry, it
isn't my inverse Dorian Gray.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I was
making copies of Redon's charcoal noirs, his nightmarish
visions, and I decided to try a self-portrait inspired by his Les
yeux clos.” He went over to the DVD player and inserted the
movie he'd borrowed from the library. “I can always paint over the
canvas. My phantom face hiding beneath a heavy striped mini Molinari,
or even a Remedios Varo.” His mind drifted off as he thought of
Varo's Coincidencia, a painting he'd wanted to replicate for
its subtle colour palate.
Thérèse slipped the
painting back behind a group of half-finished canvases leaning
against the wall. “It's a bit creepy. You're as pale as that brie.”
“Sorry Tess. I hope you
can forget . . . .” They looked into each others eyes and then
began to laugh. “I'm so glad you're healthy,” he said, hugging her.
“Not after seeing that
painting!” she said pinching his bum. They hugged each other
tightly. “So, The Third Man? Doesn't sound romantic. I was
hoping we could re-watch Prête-moi tas main,
or Les émotifs anonyms, or
even Bridget Jones's Diary.”
“We'll have time for
those,” he said wondering how many Bridget Jones's Diaries he could
take before he cracked. “It's all because of Redon. I was talking
to Pavor about the noirs and he thought this movie would fit
well, supposedly full of shadow and light, strange angles, atmosphere
. . . and intrigue. I believe there's a love interest too.”
“Is it set at Christmas?”
she said reaching for a slice of baguette.
“Umm, I don't think so.
But Pavor went on and on about it being a classic, a must see.” He
read the back of the DVD case. “I can understand why he likes the
movie, it says here it's about a writer who goes to post-war Vienna
to find an old friend.” Jerome put the case down and poured the
wine.“He did say if they ever remade the movie, he thought the
actor Colin Firth would be good for one of the parts.” Knowing she
liked the debonair actor, he thought this might ease her into the
movie.
“I wonder if he thinks
he's . . . cursed?”
“Colin Firth?”
She laughed. “Yes, cursed
with too much charm. No, I meant Pavor. First he goes to Italy and
encounters a man who has an accident and falls into a brief coma.
Then he comes back to Montreal, and the husband of Amelia collapses
and also goes into a strange sleep. And then there's what happened to
me in Bergen, and we meet him at the airport.” Jerome was silent.
“You know, with his having lost his wife and child, he might think
he's cursed.”
They prepared slices of
bread with cheese as the question hovered between them like a
hummingbird.
Jerome eased himself back on
the couch and chewed. He didn't see a correlation. It was fanciful.
Things happen. “I don't think he's cursed. It's just life. When you
move around, things happen.”
She nodded her head. “Yes,
but what's his perception?” She sipped her wine and looked
at him sideways. “Remember the essay on Isadora Duncan I wrote?”
Jerome nodded but was vague
on the details.
“She thought she was
cursed by man-made machines.” Thérèse shook her head. “Remember
she lost her two young children in a car accident? The chauffeur
swerved to avoid an accident, the car stalled, and when he got out to
crank the thing up, the brakes slipped and it bolted like a spooked
horse across the road and down the grassy embankment into the river.
The two children and their Scottish nurse drowned. Then she was
pregnant with her third child and the doctor couldn't get to her due
to being held up in traffic. A commotion about the war with the
Germans. The doctor was too late. The child, stillborn. And of course
her own death, her scarf caught in the rear wheels of the car she was
in.”
“Yes, I remember now.
Horrific deaths.” He sipped his wine and swished it through his
teeth and over his tongue. “That holiday when we visited Neuilly, I
made some sketches of you under the trees near the barges. It could
have been the place where the car went into the Seine.”
Thérèse kept to her
subject. “She was a natural free spirit, the first to dance
barefoot. When we saw Margie Gillis dance barefoot at Parc
Lafontaine, she was channelling her inner Isadora.” She paused as
she thought of the contemporary Montreal dancer and wondered what she
was up to of late. “She reached back to the sibyls and sylphs,
stirring up their mythological roots. Isadora was channelling the
divine feminine”
“Dance has such deep
roots, doesn't it. Elemental.” Jerome paused as he recalled that
particular visit to Paris. “That was the same trip I dragged you
from the river bank to see where Marcel Duchamp lived, remember? The
corner apartment building?”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Hmm, yes, not the most
interesting of our little excursions. Not even a plaque.” He
pressed the play button on the DVD remote control. A close-up image
of resonating strings over the sound hole of a zither provided the
background to the opening credits and they began to tap their feet to
the jaunty music. “If Pavor feels he's cursed, he seems to be
dealing with it well. It's a difficult subject to bring up with him.”
“Yes, I can imagine.”
“If we don't like this
movie, or if it brings up memories of the intrigue you were involved
with, we can stop it. I also brought home Le Fabuleux destin
d'Amélie Poulain. Just in case.”
Thérèse drew her legs up
onto the couch and snuggled close to Jerome. She sipped her wine. She
didn't want to remember David Ashemore and his sufferings. The
character assassination with its slander, traducements, hindrances,
fabrications. His waking up in the middle of the night with ringing
ears; his neck, shoulders and spine stiff with tension, his jaw
muscles and gums sore from grinding his teeth due to what he had
termed remote acoustic microwave provocation, or RAMP, the
feeling that he'd been cooked and atrophied while trying to sleep.
She hadn't told Jerome the details about the case. It was too
fantastical. He would have raised his eyebrows. No one wants to know
about such things. And the implant? No, he wouldn't have believed
her. Better for him not to know. He had enough noir as
it was. From now on, she thought, she would concentrate on writing
about the arts, sports, travel and local history. She'd leave the
intrigue to the intriguers.
*
Pavor relaxed in his chair
at the Dominion Square Tavern and
finished off the last of his wine. Seeing that
Melisande was attending her librarian party, he'd decided to treat
himself to a meal at one of his Father's old hang-outs. The place had
been fairly quiet for a Wednesday evening, but there were office
parties and Christmas shopping to consider. People were busy. He had
enjoyed his witlof and blue cheese salad, musssels and fries, and
two glasses of dry white wine. As he wiped his lips, he could almost
see his Father at the bar with some of his fellow lawyers amidst
plumes of cigarette smoke. What yarns they must have entertained each
other with during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Episodic tales of golf
shots, holidays and pretty barmaids no doubt. He looked around at the
scattered diners and the small group at the bar and wondered what
they did for a living. Stockbrokers, media personalities, engineers .
. . or lawyers like his old man? May he rest in peace. Pavor's mind
shifted to his work in progress. What to do with Rex Packard and
Vernon Smythe? How to bring Evan Dashmore back into the story? How to
develop a love interest? These questions ticker-taped their way
through his conscious thoughts and back into the depths for more
consideration as he decided to pay his bill and go on his way.
As he left the tavern and
began walking towards St. Catherine Street, he welcomed the fresh air
upon his face, but he felt it was too damp for the walk home. He
would take the metro to Atwater and walk up to his apartment, make
some green tea and look over his work. Bringing the collar of his
long wool coat up around his ears, he made his way north in the
evening air.
“Loveridge?”
Not recognizing the voice,
Pavor didn't quite hear his name.
The large man behind him
called out again, “The writer, P. K. Loveridge?”
Pavor stopped and turned
around to see none other than Fitz, the professor of contempt,
walking hurriedly towards him. He'd lost the baseball cap and was now
wearing a fur-lined aviator hat, ear-flaps flapping in the wind.
“I thought that was you.
What are the chances eh?”
Yes, Pavor thought, what
were the chances. “Fitz, from The Word bookstore right?”
“As we live and breathe.”
Pavor continued walking
towards St. Catherine Street, Fitz scuffing along beside him. He was
concerned that Fitz would tag along and find out where he lived. He
might have to initiate evasive tactics. “I'm just on my way home.
Very tired. An early night for me.”
“Yes, most writers tend to
do their best work in the mornings don't they.”
Pavor nodded his head,
feeling he'd gained a point, enough that he offered a response.
“Well, some writers worked the night shift. Mishima comes to mind.”
He couldn't think of another.
“Yes, an unfortunate case.
I enjoyed his tetralogy though. The four different characters through
time having the same arrangement of moles was a clever device to
weave his story around metempsychosis.”
Pavor wondered if he was a
literature professor. “So, what do you do Fitz? For a living.”
“Cultural anthropology. A
small New England college. I'm just up here on a visit. Staying with
friends on Chemin de Casson.”
Pavor inwardly groaned as
the street was but a few blocks away from his apartment. They would
exit at the same metro station. At least he was just visiting. “For
a visitor, you seem to be well-known at the bookshop.”
“Ah, well, that's just my
personality. I'm a talker. Not afraid to throw my name around. I've
been dropping by the store every day this week. I've also made daily
calls at another shop as well, on Stanley Street I think, Odyssey
Bookstore. They have a high quality selection of scholarly books.
Not many bookshops left these days. You're lucky to have two such
fine establishments.”
Pavor thought that Fitz had
achieved more familiarity in a week than he'd done in years of quiet,
introspective browsing. He was never one to throw his name around.
“Are you heading to the Peel metro station?”
“I am.”
“Looks like we're going
the same direction then.”
The crowds of Christmas
shoppers hindered Fitz's response and their parallel progress. It was
only by the time they reached de Maisonneuve boulevard that they were
able to resume their conversation.
“So, Pavor, do you set
your novels in Montreal?”
How did he now his first
name he wondered? The cars passed them, tires hissing in the liquid
snow. He should have grabbed a taxi. “Some of the actions take
place here, but many other settings as well. Europe, the United
States.” He didn't like talking about his books. They made their
way across the street and into the Metro entrance. Pavor stopped to
give a young man holding an empty Tim Horton's cup some change. He
noticed his ripped coat and torn running shoes, and wondered,
ashamedly, if it was a set costume. As they made their descent on the
escalator, he scanned the faces of those riding up searching for a
friend or an acquaintance who could possibly forestall his literary
inquisitor, but even smiling with his eyes at the pretty women did
not elicit a recognition. His literary persona didn't have much caché
in his home town it seemed. No fan with a copy of his book in their
bag. No one looking for his autograph. No one knew who he was. He was
just another tired commuter. As they made their way through the
turnstiles, they heard the trains leaving the station and felt the
warm, stale air rush past them as it it was trying to escape to the
hallowed atmosphere above, the mothership.
“Set in the past, or
contemporary narratives?”
Pavor loosened his scarf.
“Present day. I'm not one for the recent past.”
They made their way down the
short flight of stairs to the station platform and walked towards an
empty bench. “Yes, writing about certain aspects of Montreal's past
might be undesirable these days. No one wants to be reminded of the
October crisis, or the CIA involvement with psychiatric experiments
and such things.”
Pavor stopped and turned to
look at Fitz, wondering exactly who he was.
“Water under the bridge
and all that,” Fitz said. “Montreal's a city of festivals and
savoir-faire. It's thriving again. The culture industry has a firm
grip. Young people flock here to become part of the local scene. It's
hip right? The past is behind them as my Montreal friends keep
telling me. Avoid bringing up those subjects they say. Good advice
don't you think.”
They sat on the bench. Pavor
began to doubt his meeting Fitz was coincidental.
“Fitz is an unusual name?”
A broad smile revealed
rather pointy eye teeth. “A nickname I picked up along the way.
When younger I was smitten with Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo,
and my fraternity brethren branded me thus. It stuck. Like a
riverboat in mud.” He winked.
Pavor looked across at the
eastbound platform where a young man stared at him. A mere stranger,
or one of Fitz's accomplices? His earbuds really a communication
device? Paranoia began to colour the narrative unfolding around him.
“Do you sell many books?”
“Enough to keep me going.”
Pavor crossed his long legs. “Amazon certainly helps. My
agent tells me I sell a lot of ebooks through them.”
“Ah yes, no doubt, no
doubt.” Fitz crossed his legs and slightly turned towards his
companion. “It's interesting how they named the company after the
Amazons of our classical past, co-opting a feminine archetype for an
aggressive male dominated business. A little pun there. Mail, male.”
Pavor nodded broadly. “Ah,
very good.”
“The Amazons were
emblematic defenders of the old Matriarchy,” Fitz continued,
“battling at the threshold of change. Male rituals and the
exclusion of women developed. The overt displays of body paint and
tattoos. The beginnings of the plough cutting into Mother earth.”
He paused as a loud indecipherable announcement issued from the
speakers. “Have you ever noticed their logo?”
“It's just their name
isn't it?”
“Well, yes, but underneath
there is a curved arrow which is also a smile, going from the letter
A to the letter Z. Very clever indeed. Everything from A to Z. But if
you look closely, the arrow, or smile, looks very much like a penis.
Patriarchy personified. Domination of the feminine principle.
Practically an image of penetration.”
Pavor raised an eyebrow.
“That's quite an interesting observation there Fitz.”
They paused as a group of
students passed with their shoulder bags and cell phones, a happy
group, smiling, laughing, the exams being over. Pavor recognized they
were speaking Cantonese, a language he'd tried to learn once.
“The matriarchal religion
of the Minoans with their Snake Goddess was perhaps the true end of
the line. Such an astonishing image, her large breasts bared as was
the norm in that society, a snake in each hand, firmly gripped and
controlled. A feminine principle and a spirit to bow down before. And
of course the Minoans had those athletic female bull leapers.” He
gently touched Pavor's arm. “Spain's bull fight is rather a sad
inversion of this don't you think?”
Pavor could feel the air
pressure change as he heard a distant hum emerge from the train
tunnel, but he was unable to tell from which direction it emanated.
Spain, bullfights, Hemingway. Perhaps Fitz was right he thought.
“And of course the Cretan
labyrinth and the defeat of the Minotaur by Theseus reveals the rise
of the Greek power over the waning Minoan culture with its
matriarchal roots. Patriarchy and paranoia can perhaps be brought
back to that point.”
After having enjoyed a
lovely meal and put his mind at ease with two glasses of wine, Fitz's
revelations were over-stimulating. Pavor's cup was running over.
“It's my belief,” Fitz
went on, “that the prevalence of tattoos is the unconscious
reaction against the rise of women's power, and the women who take
part in these decorative displays are fighting back, unconsciously of
course. These are all cultural undercurrents that most of us are
unaware of.”
“I'd never thought of it
that way. Interesting.”
“GPS and Siri could be
seen as modern day divination. Do you use them by any chance?”
Pavor shook his head to the
negative. They stood up and awaited the arrival of the blue and white
train.
“Siri is a Norwegian word
for a beautiful woman who guides you to success,” Fitz said,
slightly raising his voice to compensate for the rising noise.
“Woman's voices are used in the United States and Australia but in
Britain, it's a man's voice. Telling that.”
Pavor nodded his head,
feeling a bit unsteady on his feet. The metro slowed down before
them.
"Are you on of those authors who pontificates about how to write?"
Pavor was surprized by the question. "Actually I find writers who blab on about how to write are generally ones who are defending their own particular style. Very reductive. Why restrain the imaginative approach to anything?"
The doors to the metro opened before them like on the old Star Trek television series. “Into the dark labyrinth of tunnels we go,” Fitz said, as they entered.
"Are you on of those authors who pontificates about how to write?"
Pavor was surprized by the question. "Actually I find writers who blab on about how to write are generally ones who are defending their own particular style. Very reductive. Why restrain the imaginative approach to anything?"
The doors to the metro opened before them like on the old Star Trek television series. “Into the dark labyrinth of tunnels we go,” Fitz said, as they entered.
© Ralph Patrick Mackay
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No comments:
Post a Comment