No Safeguards (21 page)

I
T'S SUNDAY. WE'RE
back at the apartment. Each of us waits for the other to make the first move. Paul's in his bedroom.

Is he hiding from me?

I'll settle the estate as soon as possible and give him his share and wash my hands of him. Here he's back after fourteen months of silence and can't even say sorry.

I'm hungry.We'd had toast, coffee, and orange juice at the Beaulieus'.
Don't cook, Jay. Don't be his servant.
I go to the kitchen, grab a handful of cookies, open the fridge, pour myself a tumbler of apple juice, and take them to my room. I pull out Marcel Trudel's
L'Esclavage noir au Canada français
from my bookshelf. It's on the list of texts for my major comprehensive exam. At least now I can reschedule the exam for January or February. I pile up the pillows, cushion them against the headboard, and nestle myself in the bed, supporting the book on my pulled-up legs. My eyes rove over the words without registering their meaning
.
I can't concentrate, and know I'll never be able to until I find out why Paul had been incommunicado.

Paul raps and enters. “What's there to eat? I'm hungry.”

“Cookies and juice.”

“That's not food.”

“There are lots of restaurants on Victoria and Côte des Neiges.”

“I thought you'd be glad to see me.”

I ignore the opening.

“I checked the fridge. There's no food in it. Give me some money. I'll go buy groceries and cook.”

Let's see where this is headed
.

“See, you're smiling. Tell me you're glad to see me alive, Jay. I want to hear it.”

“Only you would say something like that. Only you. I gave up teaching, rescheduled my comprehensives, because I was preparing to come to Guatemala to try to find you. You don't believe me? Phone Marjorie Bligh at the Canadian High Commission in Guatemala. She thought I would end up getting conned by crooks, or, worse, getting kidnapped. She'll tell you how many times I called and quarrelled with them because they hadn't located you.

“You're a selfish, sadistic lout! You enjoy torturing people. You want to be a writer? Use writing to explore your own sickness. It wasn't enough for you to torture Ma while you lived with us; you continued to do so after you left.
Ma! Ma
who did nothing but sacrifice her entire life for us! While you were here I hated you for it, but I forgave you. It was adolescence, I said. It was your frustrations because you no longer got the adoration you got in St. Vincent. You were lashing out at us in anger for your asthma, for the rotten deal life has given you.” I try to stop, but it's no use. “But life also gave you the best intellect any human being can have. You turned that too into a whip. Deliberately. To flog us.”

Paul's staring at the floor.

“Then you went away, and you made Ma feel she meant nothing to you. How has Ma ever wronged you? How? You and I received the best parenting Caribbean children without fathers can ever get. The son for whose health Ma ended her marriage rejected her. Unbelievable. She bore it in silence. She did. Her only concern was that you were in good health and not in trouble. Instead of blaming you she blamed herself. She never judged you. In the end, I was glad she had her religion. Her belief in God and the afterlife was a great solace to her. But I can tell you, before her illness came, she cried a lot, grieved a lot, ate very little, and went into a depression over the fact that you never even said hello to her in your cards and letters to me. You are a
monster
.

“You were in Guatemala for a year and a half. We got
one
letter. One! No address. No way to contact you. Not a telephone. I have e-mail. I'm sure there are ISPs in Guatemala. And you damn well could have phoned — collect. You have a sick sense of power.

“Go! Get out of my sight! Leave! My wallet's in my jacket pocket. Take what you want and go buy your food. Close the bedroom door and keep out of my sight.”

Paul leaves and I begin to sob. My thoughts go back to the day that Jonathan drove me to collect Anna's ashes at the crematorium, and later to the funeral service in the church Anna belonged to. Paul wasn't there, and I'd wondered if he too might be dead.

I feel listless and exhausted and eventually sleepy. When I awaken, I smell cooking. I get out of bed and see a sheet of paper on the floor inside the door. I pick it up, put it on the dressing table, and head to the bathroom.

I return and read the note. “
In much of what you say, Jay, you are right. Ma never deserved to be treated the way I treated her. But consider
this. I hated myself, and I hated her for having had me. But if I am as heartless
as you make me out to be, I would prefer to be dead. And there are many times I wanted to be dead, since I was 12. At times I deliberately courted it.
Not writing to Ma or mentioning her when I wrote you was just a continuation
of my behaviour before I left. You're right. I wanted to make her suffer. It's childish. I know. But I didn't see the consequences you mentioned —

The telephone rings. A male voice says: “
¿Puedo hablar con Pablo, por favor?
”

“Paul, take the phone.”

— If you remember well, I was supposed to leave Guatemala two months or so after I wrote you. Well, I didn't. There was a good reason for it. For that same reason, I couldn't write and didn't want anyone contacting me. Of course, some good later came of all this, but it further complicated
the issue. If you will allow me to, you'll get to know the full story in due time.

Would you at least tell me what happened to Ma, what her illness was, where she's buried, etc.? I want to know.

Twenty minutes later Paul knocks on the door. “Dinner's ready. That's if you trust a monster like me not to poison you.”

There's a long silence.

“What did you cook?”

“Chicken paella.”

The table's set with a green damask tablecloth, beige linen napkins, crystal wine glasses, Royal Doulton plates, and sterling flatware — all of which Anna had brought back from St. Vincent after Grama's funeral. The paella is in one of Grama's Royal Doulton serving platters, and the salad in a crystal salad bowl.

Some Christmas dinner this.

Paul's watching me intensely. “Go on. Don't hold back. Say what you're thinking.”

I want to say, what sort of bribe is this? Instead I ask: “Where did you learn to do stuff like this?”

“Can't tell you right now. Do you like it?”

I don't answer.

“Sit.” Paul goes to the kitchen counter and returns with a bottle of Frontera. “Inexpensive but good.” He fills my glass and pours himself half a glass.

“I didn't know you were allowed to drink. I was surprised when I saw you drinking last night.”

“A glass of wine a day is fine. I'm having half a glass now and will have another half a glass later.” He holds up the glass for a toast. “Here's to my jewel of a brother.”

I don't reciprocate. “What's all this buttering up for?”

“You have every right to be angry with me. Did you read my note?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what! You said you have some explaining to do. I'll wait until I hear it.” I sip the wine, then taste the paella. It's delicious.

“You'll never taste chicken paella better than this. Carlos' mother was impressed with it.” His brow contracts. A look of embarrassment comes over his face.

“So I guess that was Carlos on the phone just now?”

He nods.

You could give Carlos the telephone number to call you here, but you yourself didn't have the decency to call
. “You and he are what? Business partners?”

“Business partners! I know what you're thinking. But if I was in the drug business I wouldn't arrive here penniless.”

“Maybe you spent it all to bribe the immigration officers so you could leave. Maybe you're lucky to make it out alive. I guess that's part of the forthcoming explanation.”

His face grows tense, a hand goes to his chin, he bites his lower lip, and looks down at the table.

Bullseye.

His salad contains red beans, onions, tomatoes, and avocado. It's delicious. “At least you've learnt to cook. It's no longer a sissy occupation.”

“Drop it, Jay. Remember I left here on a voyage of self-discovery. What I was before doesn't count. I was just over 19 when I left. It feels like I have lived two lifetimes since. On the plane, I kept telling myself that you and I are going to get along swell because we are more alike than you know, and now here we are bickering.”

“Judging from how you treated Ma, basic decency isn't something we have in common. I'll say no more. I promise.” I give him facing palms.

“Where's Ma buried?”

“In Havre. I put off the funeral here for two weeks, hoping you'd find out. I had her cremated and took the ashes to Havre. I lied to cover up your absence. I fooled Daddy but I didn't fool Haverites. Members from Ma's church had already sent home the news about you.”

“Excuse me. I have to check the oven.”

“What's in it?”

“Yucca pone.”

“You can bake too!”

His face breaks into a huge grin. “Learned it all from a cookbook, to vary the monotonous diet in Guatemala.”

“Even so you've managed to lose weight.”

“Nine kilos. Almost 20 pounds. I left here swaddled in fat. I vowed to take off a layer or two before I got back. The Guatemalan diet made it hard — rice, corn, beans, potatoes — but I was determined. I walked a lot, taught two days a week, and wrote and read in the evenings. Had to leave lots of blanks in my writing though because my diaries were here. Where are Grama's journals, Jay?”

“The ones we brought back are still in Ma's room. Remember? There are two cartons we left back in St. Vincent.”

I offer to wash the dishes. Paul shakes his head. “I'll do it. It's good to be home again. Are you happy to see me, Jay?”

“I am happy that you are alive.”

“But not to see me, right? And here I was thinking we'd be like buddies again, pick up from where we left off in St. Vincent.”

“Never mind St. Vincent, we'll talk at the appropriate time. Okay?”

“Why not now?”

“Because I don't want to. Isn't that a good enough reason? And you'd better watch your tone. I'm not obliged to take it anymore.”

I return to my room and phone Jonathan. Jonathan reminds me that we'd planned to see
CRAZY
at 6:30. I speak to Cecile, to thank her for the birthday supper and the sweater she and Raymond gave me.

While dressing I think of Paul's cooking and washing the dishes
.
Manipulation. He's being silky smooth because he already suspects I'm the liquidator for Ma's will. I'm surprised he hasn't asked about it yet. After brushing my teeth, I stay in the bathroom a long time thinking. Was Paul the victim of too much attention? In St. Vincent he loved — needed? — Grama so much that he never did anything to anger her. He did his schoolwork without prompting, read all his textbooks by the first month of the school year and turned to mine and all the stuff he found in the library. Reads twice as fast as me. Knowledge flows into him and stays there like water in an elastic cistern. No one could have predicted that he'd become contemptuous of academe.
It has happened to others, Jay. Remember CLR James. In secondary school he revolted against his precocity. He later went on to become a leading intellectual. Ease up on Paul.

On my way back to the bedroom, Paul, stretched out on the sofa, asks: “You're going out?”

“That's evident. Isn't it?”

“Quit barking at me! I can't take it. If you want me to leave, I'll leave, but I have nowhere to go.”

“Tomorrow I'll begin the process of settling Ma's will. Understand? You'll have your share. I'll turn every cent over to you, including the money Grama said you shouldn't have until you are 30, and cut my ties with you.”

“I won't let you violate the terms of her will.”

“You asked to have it when you were in Costa Rica. I have lots to do. Managing your inheritance isn't on the list.”

“That's more than a year ago. In my short life, a year is a long time, especially the first one without a mother and a brother breathing down my neck.”

There's a long silence.
Yes, I'm being hard on him.

“You want to come see a movie with us? I mean Jonathan and me?”

“I don't know? Should I?”

“Suit yourself.” But he gets up, goes to the bathroom, comes back, and dresses hurriedly.

“How come you've lost so much weight?” I ask while Paul is bent tying his shoe laces.

“I don't have AIDS. Okay? I eat less and walk more. I've told you so already. Are you trying to catch me out in lies?”

“On our way out I'll go to the ATM at the shopping centre and get you some money, so you don't have to remain cooped up in here. Who's Carlos?”

His face darkens. One hand goes to the back of his head, the other to his chin.

“By the way, would CSIS, Interpol, or the RCMP be knocking on our doors soon?”

“If they were after me, they'd have held me at the airport.”

“Only if they have enough on you to hold you. Perhaps, they're waiting for more. I want to know if the telephone is going to be bugged or is already bugged.”

“It won't be.”

“Paul, it's almost 14 months that you've been incommunicado. You didn't even get in touch with us when Stan struck Guatemala.”

“You'll find out why in due course.” He's shaking his head slowly. “Seems like you want me to give you a blow-by-account. I'll tell you alright, but in little bits.”