Preview.
This is the first chapter—after the prologue—of my
novel Sandstone.
Sunday October, 21, 2012.
1
The Great Circus of China
With his
peripheral vision, Duncan Alastair Strand watched his doubled profile
in the antique faceted mirror while he absentmindedly doodled a
circle of rope on old company note paper for Strand
Cordage Ltd., a circle of rope in the shape
of a snake eating its tail, an image whose mythological name and
spelling preoccupied his mind and clashed with the initial purpose of
his sitting at the kitchen table on this Sunday afternoon, pen in
hand, the preparatory requirement of his hunting and gathering: a
grocery list.
Bananas.
Dust
motes rose in the sun from a faux-fur slipper—his wife Amelia's
sacrifice—which Hugh, their miniature dachshund, grappled with on
the kitchen floor. Duncan paused to look upon
Hugh who
rested his nose in the slipper. They shared eye contact, blinking in
unison.
Bananas.
Duncan
tried to think of the other items they needed which had occurred to
him only minutes ago, but his thoughts were scattered, elusive,
skittish as subjective personal truths. Amelia would be greeting her
new friend Jacqueline at about this moment, kissing each other on the
cheek, admiring each others outfits, and entering a café for a
little brunch and conversation; two translators from different
factions exchanging stories of deadlines and authors—distant,
unruly, recalcitrant.
Bananas,
Cucumbers.
He
wondered if there was a theme here.
Baguette.
. . dish soap, capers, artichoke hearts. That
was good enough to get him going he thought.
The
radio played softly in the background, an eighties song, making him
wonder if a musician from the band had become an executive of the
radio conglomerate, for they were forever playing that specific song
along the horizon of the airwaves like some kind of psychotropic
drug, such that it made him feel like a subtopian redeemer embracing
a pacifying tonic required by State.
He
turned the radio off.
He looked through the weekly flyers for grocery
sales, and then rewarded himself with a few pages of the free arts
paper where he noticed an advertisement for the latest Cirque
du Soleil
show. He closed his eyes as memories began to effervesce. What year
was it? A winter month. He gathered the papers and carried them over
to the small recycling bin, then stood at the back door thinking he'd
been measuring out his life in weekly flyers and recycling pickups,
conditioned to respond to bananas at fifty-seven cents a pound. What
year was it? It had been quite cold he remembered. Late January or
February. 1982? Yes, it must have been February 1982.
Through
his pale simulacrum upon the glass, he could see his
twenty-three year old self emerge from the Viau Metro station on a
cold evening, uncertain, anxious, late. The convex roof of the
Maurice Richard Arena
hovered in the near distance like a dimly lit space craft. He
searched for his neatly folded ticket to see the Great
Circus of China, and
upon opening the door to an empty foyer,
heard the
clashing, stridently exotic music of the East: gongs, cymbals, erhus.
The show had already begun.
A
disgruntled usher pointed the way with his flash light and left him
in the dark to find his seat.
In the ring, young women in silk
outfits and exaggerated eye make-up, twirled glistening plates
impossibly on multiple sticks, their dark eyes radiant with
controlled emotion, their smiling lips demure. So different from the
circuses of his youth, with their manure and popcorn odours, their
parades of animals, clowns, trapeze artists, the hideous snap of the
lion tamer's whip, and the anonymous man shot out of a canon for the
deafening finale.
The
usher had returned, a bobbing flashlight coming his way. Asked for
his ticket, the attendant informed him that his seat was in the first
row. A domino effect in motion, the usher made his way between the
seats to talk to a young man in the front row while the dark outlines
of two people in the aisle awaited their true placement. The women MC
of the show looked imperiously their way wondering why there was a
commotion. The attendant waved him forward, and he shared an exchange
of looks with his imposter, but there was no animosity to be read,
and feeling a tinge of guilt at having ousted him, said
'pardoner-moi' as they edged past each other like prisoners exchanged
on a dark border. The residual warmth left by his phantom occupant
added to his sense of complicity. He'd been quite content in the
fifth row. He didn't like to draw attention to himself. Yet here he
was, ushered into the light that splashed the ring's edge.
Two
young women came out, placed themselves on their backs on raised,
curved platforms, and began to juggle with their soft-slippered feet,
an assortment of large items tossed to them from assistants: wooden
chairs, large imitation Ming vases, boxes, and carpets. Their finely
contoured legs and bums were slightly elevated by the platforms and
at an angle to his seat. His heart rate and temperature rose, a blush
came to his cheeks. At one moment as they twirled fine woven carpets
in wavering circles like the gowns of spinning dervishes, the
performer closest to him, looked sideways and caught his eye for a
moment as if curious to see who'd been the focus of attention. Their
eye contact brought him closer to the experience, overcoming the
spectacle with the personal, overcoming their diverse cultures with
an intense shared moment. She was not just a circus act, but a young
woman behind the rouge and the lipstick, a young woman with a
history, a young woman with desires and hopes, a young woman from
Communist China possibly looking to . . . escape.
Returning
to the frigid night and the dreary metro ride home had not diminished
his sense of wonderment. The patterns of circularity and the human
form had merged to create a symbolic representation of universal
symmetry. There had been a hint of transcendence in the performances.
It had all made sense to him. The answers had seemed clear. It was
only later, however, sleepless in the dark, did he imagine himself
befriending the circus performer, listening to her life story,
discovering her desire to live in the west, helping her escape, and
finding themselves chased by Chinese officials across the breadth of
Canada like spies in a best-selling thriller.
Duncan
stared through his indistinct reflection, then brought his hands up
to his face and rubbed his eyes. Thirty years ago. Another life. The
attractive young performer was likely long retired from the circus;
married, probably with a son. The young man he'd supplanted was, he
liked to believe, the man who was now worth almost three billion
dollars. It was unlikely he would ever know for certain whether he
was the future founder of the Cirque du
Soleil. He
could very well have been a bartender from Beloeil, but it was his
personal myth, a type of cautionary tale, making him mindful of
opportunity, even though, at the time, he wasn't a street performer
finding influences from the East, but a young man trying to avoid a
family business, a young man adrift from a relationship with a young
woman newly arrived from Hong Kong, a young man looking for a way
out, a way out of his own making.
© Ralph Mackay
