As a Thief in the Night (16 page)

"Where is this place?" Ezra asked.

"It's on the road to St. Joachim."

"Past the church?"

"It
is
the church."

Nick Carraway, who had only been giving the conversation the slightest attention while he looked over a Mustang parked nearby, shot his eyes quickly toward Alex.

"
Our
church?" he snapped.

"Yeah."

"You're crazy, Alex."

"I know," he said through a smile. "What do you guys think?" he asked, tapping Ezra's foot with the side of his running shoe. "One more time and then that's it."

"Shit, Alex, I'm eighteen now. If I ever got caught doing any of this craziness, I'd be arrested as an adult." Adam's birthday had been that December.

"What do you say, Ezra?"

Ezra let out a deep breath, looked up at his friend, and said, "I don't know."

I
t was the Thursday before Easter and Olyvia Mignon was at work at the theatre in Walpurgis.  She always liked to be there on opening night to see the costumes she had made come out from behind the curtain for the first time. They had taken shape and changed in her drawings and on the design table, then, when the bodies of the actors filled them out at rehearsals and the stage lights played on them, they had become something else, something full of potential, but it was not until opening night, when the eyes of the audience fell upon them, that they finally became alive. The final transformation took place after the tragedy or comedy had run its course, when the costumes were placed one on top of the other in their trunk coffins. But it was not Olyvia who put them there, and she did not know who did. It was someone else's job. All the comforts of disguise...

Sometime over the last few weeks she had begun to be troubled by sporadic but intense lower abdominal pain. Olyvia was not one to run to the doctor for minor discomforts, but during the last few days the pains had grown worse and more frequent. Earlier in the day, as she was making sure everything was as it should be for that night, the pain had hit at its worst and she had doubled over in front of a couple of stage hands. She called her doctor and made an appointment for after Easter.

From a doorway in the back of the theatre she watched the actors move on and off the stage. They delivered their lines in histrionic tones. She had known for a long time that most of them were not particularly talented, but she did not care. Someone came in from the door behind her and a little light from the lobby spilled into the dark theatre. She felt a hand upon her shoulder.

"Olyvia, we need you backstage."
  It was one of the girls from the university who worked part-time to put herself through school, a pretty half-Asian woman who was studying midwifery.

"What's up?" she whispered back.

"The guy playing David's son can't find his crown."

"It's in his locker with the rest of his stuff."

"He's saying it isn't."

"It's there. I hung it there myself."

"Well, he's stumbling around back there like an idiot. He's in a big panic."

"Alright," Olyvia sighed. But as soon as she moved to head backstage the stabbing pain came again, this time so badly that she was slowly forced down to her knees. The girl who had come from backstage rushed to her side.A few of the audience members seated at the back of the theatre turned around because of the commotion. Olyvia winced in pain and dropped her head.
  She tried to compose herself, and after several moments took the girl's hand and allowed her to help her up. In the lobby she balanced herself against the wall.

"Are you alright?" the girl asked, still holding her hand.

"I'm okay; I just need a minute. I'm sure the crown's—"

"Don't worry about the crown. Someone else can take care of it."

"Okay," she winced again, as if the effort of speaking were bringing on the pain. "I think I need to use the washroom. I feel a bit nauseous."

"Alright, take my arm."

The young woman led her into the ladies' room. As soon as they had entered, Olyvia rushed to one of the stalls, flung open the door, and threw up in the toilet. The girl rushed up behind her. "Okay, that's it!  I'm calling an ambulance," she said firmly, after Olyvia had coughed the last of it out.

"No, no. It's nothing like that."

"Olyvia, are you sure? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Olyia breathed heavily. She used her arms, on either side of the toilet, to prop herself up. "I've just been having spells lately."

"This has happened before?"

"Yes," she lied.

"Can I do anything?"

"Maybe you could just put some pressure on my lower back with your hand for a minute."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, it's a bit sore."

She put her hand on Olyvia's back, just above the coccyx, but the pain hit her in the stomach again and she winced.

She knelt on the bathroom floor for several minutes. They could hear the muted music of the pit band through the wall. The girl held her hair and pressed down on her lower back, which relieved some of the pain. When Olyvia felt good enough to stand again she went to wash her face and hands in the sink. Then, with the girl following and watching over her closely, she went to look for the missing costume piece, but could not find it. That moron has lost it, she thought to herself.

She felt embarrassed and knew she couldn't stay, so she found the manager and told him she was going home. The young woman insisted on driving her. She told Olyvia she had to get a few people up to speed and made her promise to wait for her in the car. Gathering her things quickly, Olyvia headed out to the parking lot. But as soon as she got outside the pain came again, lower in her stomach this time. She struggled to get into the car and only half shut the door behind her. The pain became even worse and she gripped the steering wheel hard with both hands and waited for whatever was gripping her organs to let go. When the pain finally subsided she felt something odd between her legs. Was it? It felt like that. She undid her pants and stuck her hand down the front of them. When she pulled it back out it had blood on it.

Southwest of Olyvia and her pains, her sister's son played European Handball. Ezra had never played until that year, but liked it as soon as he'd tried it. Practices were late because they had to wait for the basketball teams to be done with the gym. Alex DaLivre and Adam Nayeve walked in to the gym toward the end of practice and sat down on the bleachers to wait for him. They wore heavy winter jackets and had the smell of cigarettes and cold weather about them.

In the days before Ezra had wondered if he would be able to go through with it. Alone, behind the altar, there was a cross that hung on the wall. To get to the office, where the collection money was kept, they would have to walk across the back of the sanctuary and across the face of the cross. Would he freeze in front of it? Would the weight of what he was doing finally seize him?

A half-hearted prayer lived upon his lips. Strange that he should pray at all, but Ezra asked for an omen to steer him away—if the crime was not meant to happen, if God really forbade it.  But he slept soundly. When he woke he searched his memory for traces of some stern or gentle voice to instruct him and determine his steps, but he found nothing.
God has shown me the same indifference he showed my mother in the flames. For I have searched for benevolent whispers and found only dying wind.

He was still sweating when the three of them left the school. In Ontario, even towards the end of April, it gets dark early. The sweat froze in his hair and he pulled his hood up over his head. Out on the street, Alex pulled a big knife out of the backpack he was wearing. Ezra just shrugged. The gravel on the road was frozen in place and coarse and they kicked it loose while they walked. He had a cold that he'd been fighting off for the last few days and he coughed roughly. Adam and Alex lit cigarettes and smoked. They offered one to Ezra but he refused. He did not want to smoke anymore.

They cut through parking lots and walked in front of houses that had windows with winter steam on them. Inside the houses Ezra saw families eating dinner and watching television. He could not make out the screens through the fog but saw the lights changing on walls and couches and on people's faces.

The three boys walked in front of the Charcoal Pit and saw Jason B. Prism sitting at a table, a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, and the remains of the meal he had just eaten in front of him. Alex tapped on the window and waved at him. Jason waved back with his long fingers and went on mumbling to himself. They kept on past the grocery store, the co-op gas station, and then by one of the convenience stores from which they'd stolen. It was the same store where Ezra had rented movies and bought treats in the days when he had spent such nights as this one alone. After they were beyond these places, there was only a long stretch of road with houses in front of them.

The knife was to cut through the wall. There was only one locked door between them and the money. Alex had scoped it out and thought it through. At Sunday service with his family he had knocked on the drywall that separated the office and the big meeting room. From the sound it made when he hit it, he believed it was hollow. Instead of breaking down the door or picking the lock, he had come up with the idea of cutting a hole in the drywall and then crawling through it into the church offices.

The unlocked door, the one they would use to get in, was at the back of the church next to the children's playground. They didn't want to be seen in the lights that shone on the front lawn so they walked around to the back, along the border of an empty farmer's field, to get to the door.
  The field was muddy and wet and they paid close attention so as not to step in the muck.

If the door had been locked, then they would have turned round and gone home, but it was not. Alex pressed down on the steel button atop the handle and the door clicked open. It was warm and dry inside, and they were glad to be out of the cold. Ezra started to cough; the other boys looked at him angrily. "Sorry, I couldn't help it."

For a minute they stood in silence, just inside the entrance, and listened to make sure no one else was inside the church. There had been no cars in the parking lot. Once they were sure they were alone, they went up the steps to the main level and entered the sanctuary through the side door. It was dark and hard to see and they stood still again and waited for their eyes to adjust. They walked slowly and carefully along the back of the large, sparse room trying not to bang into anything. Ezra ran his hand along the tops of the last row of chairs to feel his way. The church sat its congregation in chairs one would expect to find in the waiting room of a doctor's office; pews were considered to be impractical, unnecessary ornamentation, as were all devices of ceremony. The doors to the main hallway were propped open with jams, and each followed the other out of the sanctuary. The cross, the one Ezra had attached such importance to when he'd considered the crime he was about to commit, was lit the way it always was, the only light in the room in fact, but he passed it without really noticing anything other than the utility of its light in the darkness. In the wide hall, which was attached by an open entranceway to the cloakroom, Alex pulled the big knife out of his backpack. He had probably stolen it from his mother's kitchen, Ezra thought to himself.

"Okay, somebody's got to stand at the window and watch the parking lot while I start cutting," said Alex.

Ezra and Adam looked blankly at each other. Now that they were inside they were both afraid to act. "I'll watch first," Ezra said finally.  He stood beside the window, careful to avoid the little bit of light coming in from the lamp over the front doors. Two cars drove by on the road in front of the church. People were always speeding on that road. He heard Alex drive the knife into the wall. Making a sawing motion with the knife, he began to cut through the drywall. After a minute he hit one of the studs and started sawing downwards. White dust from the drywall sprayed out all over his clothes and onto the floor. He didn't seem to care or notice and only moved the knife back and forth more violently. Soon he had cut a small circle into the wall.

"Adam, you cut now."

Adam looked fearfully at the knife. "Hell no!"

"Come on, I'm tired."

"This is your thing Alex."

"So you're not going to take any of the money then?"

"Keep it all, if you want."

Alex shook his head and stabbed the knife into the other side of the drywall. He sawed through quickly but stopped before he had cut the piece all the way around. He lay down on his back, cocked one foot back, and kicked it out into the office. Spinning round, he stuck his head through the hole to the other side and then pulled it back out quickly. "Let's go," he said.

"I'm staying here," Adam said firmly.

"Take Ezra's place at the window then.
  Ezra," he called quietly, "we're through."

Adam took Ezra's place as lookout and Ezra came into the hallway just in time to see Alex's feet disappear through the hole in the wall.

Ariadne held Olyvia's arm to steady her as they walked up the path to the front porch. At the door, Olyvia searched through her purse for the keys. "Isn't Ted home?" Ariadne asked. She had worked with Ted at the theatre before he had accepted the position at Stratford.

"No," Olyvia answered, tightening up a little from the pain in her stomach, "Ted's never home anymore."

"Right...the new job. Has he been working a lot?"

"I'm sure he has." She was still searching. "But that's not why he's never home."

"What do you mean?" The younger woman stepped out of the light to allow Olyiva to see.

"He left me."

"What? When?"

"Six weeks ago," she said without looking back. Olyvia found the keys and opened the door. She turned on the lights and Ariadne saw her face was still uneasy with pain. Without taking off her shoes she went right to the couch and lay down. As soon as she did she had another attack. Before she had felt it in one concentrated spot, but now the pain had spread all over her stomach. She pressed down on her abdomen with one of her hands to try and relieve some of the pressure, and as she did, her shirt came up a bit and Ariadne noticed the small lion tattoo she had on her stomach. But now was not the time to ask. Olyvia lay there and did not attend to the blood she had found in the parking lot, nor did she check for more. The midwife knelt down beside her and lightly brushed the hair off her forehead.