The Book of Stanley (13 page)

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

T
he Lord would not allow Maha to call him the Lord, so she called him Stanley. It was such an old-fashioned name, a
salesman's name. In her heart, the Lord would remain the Lord, even if on her lips he was Stanley.

In Montreal, she had walked past places like Far East Square hundreds of times. The wall fountains and tiny chairs, the simple marriage of dark wood and glass. But she had never eaten in a place like this. Her parents thought restaurants were too expensive, and she only went to food courts and cheap cafés with Ardeen.

Maha was about to ask the Lord how he came to be the Lord when the hot tub man, who had already tried to buy her a cocktail, arrived at the table with a square of cotton taped to his right cheek. It was soaked through with blood. He cleared his throat.

“My name is Kal McIntyre.” He stared at Maha, so she looked down at her plate. She didn't want to be embarrassed by this mentally handicapped man in front of the Lord and his wife. The appetizers had just arrived–deep-fried prawns in the form of lollipops, with a ginger sauce for dipping. Maha focused on the dollop of ginger sauce, the non-colour of a vinyl-sided condominium.

Alok Chandra engaged him. “What happened to your face?”

“Wendy Yang stabbed me with a fork, but that's not important.”

“Right you are, my son.” Alok gestured at the table. “We're here to find what
is
important.”

Their server, an excited Asian man, ran out of the kitchen. He was waving his arms about, smiling at the diners and laughing. “It's a wild night, folks, no tax. No tax on your meals.” Yet when he reached Kal, his whispered threat was loud enough for Maha to hear. “If you do not leave right now, I will make sure you die.”

Perhaps the server did not understand whispering, for it was clear that everyone at their table and the table behind Kal had heard the server. The Lord reached up and took the server's hand. “He's going to join us for dinner.”

The server struggled with this news. But he was also at the mercy of the Lord, whose touch had calmed him. The server no longer smiled or laughed nervously or grimaced.

“Do you understand?” said the Lord.

“I understand.”

“And of course, you didn't mean what you just said to Kal.”

“No.” The server turned to Kal. “I did not mean what I said. I will not poison your food or hire someone to shoot you.”

Kal rubbed the server's back. “Great news, Mr. Yang. I'll sleep better tonight, knowing that.”

Once Mr. Yang was gone, Kal sat next to Maha. The back of her neck tingled. She did not turn and look directly at him, but she could feel him there, his breath and his beating heart.

Frieda and the Lord introduced themselves to Kal and he shook their hands. “I just have to tell you, Mr. Moss, that was something else. The way you calmed Chip down like that. I was just about ready to take a fork in the other cheek. Are you some sort of hypnotist?”

“No.”

Alok reached across Maha's plate and squeezed Kal's hand.

Then Kal turned to Maha. His eyes on her like a heat lamp. “And you are?” he said, as though they had never met.

“Maha Rasad.”

“Now that is one hell of a pretty name. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Maha.”

Around the table, everyone started eating the deep-fried shrimp again. Maha sneaked glances at the Lord, who kept looking up and staring at something or someone across the room. A couple of times, Maha turned around quickly to see what it was. But there were only paintings on the wall back there, and the window to the street.

Frieda asked Kal what had brought him to Banff and he told his story. A story Maha had already heard in the hot tub. This delighted Alok, who informed Kal that he had been called here, like everyone else. “Young man, you
have
changed your life. In twenty years you will look back on this night with a sense of divine wonder.”

“Divine wonder,” said Kal. “I could sure use a wedge of that.”

When they had arrived at the restaurant, the only available table was for six. Maha would have preferred a gathering of two–her and the Lord. She was lamenting the number of filled seats when the woman from the hotel lobby appeared, huffing, at their table. “Is it too late to join you?”

All right, this is enough
, Maha wanted to say, but Alok welcomed Tanya Gervais warmly. Kal stood up and called her “ma'am.”

The waiter brought cutlery and wine glasses for Kal and Tanya, and a sort of calm descended on the table. The music, slow dance beats behind a whale song, was gallingly perfect.

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

M
aha asked Stanley a series of questions he could not answer: Why did you create human beings this way, with their taste for war and consumerism and beheading? Why do you allow class to exist, and poverty, and poisoned water sources? What happens, exactly, when we die? Do you know the devil? Are we alone in the universe? The Holocaust, for one: what were you thinking? Earthquakes, drinking and driving, volcanoes, nuclear weapons, pornography, cancer?

All of Stanley's answers frustrated Alok. Especially this one: “I don't think much of anything happens when we die, save decomposition.”

At this, Alok laughed, bellowed, “He doesn't mean that!” and pulled Stanley to the bar.

Someone had spilled sake and Stanley smelled it and saw it. But he didn't warn Alok, who placed his bare arm in the puddle. Alok wiped his arm with the Rush shirt and prepared to engage in a lecture.

“I know what you're going to say,” said Stanley.

“Well, then?”

“Do you want me to lie to them?”

“Stan. How do you think you got here? Why do you think they're here? This has all been preordained.”

“By whom, Alok?”

As he considered this, Alok put his arm in the spilled sake on the bar again. “Pissing hell.”

“I'm not an actor. I can't pretend. That girl thinks I'm some sort of god.”

“Not some sort of god.”

“All right, God.”

“So?”

“So she's deluded.”

“How did Maha recognize you in the hotel lobby? Please, Mr. Rational Explanations, enlighten me.”

“That is curious, but it doesn't mean I'm–”

“Please tell me what it means, Stan.” Alok finished wiping his arm again, and glanced back at the table. Maha was now questioning Frieda. Tanya, the television executive, looked as though she had been slapped a number of times. The young man with the bandage on his face stared longingly at Maha. “You have to admit there is more than coincidence to this. Somehow, for some
reason
, you have been plucked from the herd to accomplish certain goals. Spiritual goals, Stan, for a spiritually bankrupt time. I can't tell you what to say to those people, but I hope you think before you speak. Decomposition? Where's the hope in that?”

“I think a world without the rewards of Heaven would be much improved. Like a world without video games and machine guns.”

“Well, keep that opinion under wraps for a while, what say? Until we figure this thing out.”

“This thing.” Stanley looked toward the windows at the entrance of Far East Square, and the busy sidewalk beyond them. “Maybe Frieda's right. I could do these people much more harm than good.”

“Snap out of it, Stan. You're it. You're him.”

“I don't know what I'm doing.”

“All the great prophets made it up as they went along.”

The child from the Volkswagen appeared at the door. Stanley could see, now, that it was a girl. She wore the same black hooded sweatshirt, and watched Stanley with crossed arms. “Excuse me,” said Stanley, and he hurried across the polished floor toward the exit.

As he passed the table, Frieda called out.

Stanley opened the door and the child ran off. It was a warm night and the streets were full of boisterous tourists moving from restaurants to bars. Stanley pursued the girl, but not so quickly as to frighten her. The girl ran backwards, facing Stanley with a smile. Yet, somehow, she weaved expertly through the crowd.

Not once did he take his eyes off her. But in front of the chocolatier, she vanished. Stanley stood in front of the shop and looked around. Gone.

Since he was there anyway, he stepped into the shop and purchased a dark bear claw for Frieda. He bought one for himself, too, and back on the street he tried to eat it. Bear claws were his favourite, but he could not summon an appetite for chocolate. Instead of hurrying back to Far East Square, Stanley leaned against a brick wall in front of a café.

Stanley watched the people pass and listened to them. Their hopes for the evening, their enthusiasms. Their children and the amount of credit remaining on their
VISA
cards. What would God, if there were such a thing, make of tourism? What was Stanley supposed to
do
, really do, now that he was here? What was expected of him? Even as his memory of the strange little girl faded, Stanley was afraid. He looked down at the sidewalk and wished, briefly, that he were dying after all.

Back in Far East Square, the members of his dining party welcomed him back. No one asked where he had gone. The
television producer, Tanya Gervais, announced that her lawyer friend in Calgary would certainly help Kal negotiate compensation for his injury that evening. “We can't be too Canadian about this sort of thing. We have to go for the carotid artery.”

No one, not even Kal, responded.

So she continued. “How much is your rent?”

“Including utilities, $850. But I don't want to inconvenience anyone, and I think they're probably nice people, deep down. Besides, I had way worse, back when I was playing hockey. My teeth are all messed up.” Kal opened his mouth, to show everyone. Some of the deep-fried prawn batter was visible in there.

Frieda was watching Stanley. “Not hungry?” she said.

“No. But I got you a treat for later.”

“That's nice of you.”

He turned to face the others. They stared at him again, expecting something. Something wise. “Please,” he said, with a sweeping gesture. “This food isn't going to eat itself.”

Maha cleared her throat. “Stanley. One quick question. Are the Sunnis right, or the Shiites? The Wahhabis are way off, I feel that. I'm not sure about Ismailis. But my personal feeling, and tell me if I am wrong, please, is that the Sufis are the soul of Islam.”

“I don't know anything about that.”

“Yes, you do. You must. You
are
Islam.”

Alok nodded. “That is a superb question, Maha, about where Stanley fits among the ancient religions. But I don't think it's relevant any more, really. Stanley is here to clear the board and create an altogether new game. Something fairer, cleaner, more reasonable, more peaceful, closer to our hearts and our minds.”

“You guys are making up a religion?” said Kal.

Maha shook her head. “No. It's already–”

“Yes.” Alok slammed his chopsticks on the table. “That is exactly what we're doing. Stan can perform miracles, wonderful miracles. I'm sure most of you feel, in some secret corner of your heart, that we're all in big trouble–humanity-wise. Well, Stan's here to basically save the land from dying. Right, Stan?”

Stanley decided to present Frieda with her gift of chocolate now. He passed the bear claw under the table into her lap and she sat motionless, stunned. It was clear she did not want to be in Far East Square, with Alok and these strangers, talking about her husband as though he had become…Allah? She looked down at her lap. “That's why you hurried out, to get bear claws?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Stanley was incapable. “No.”

 

TWENTY-NINE

I
n her hotel room that evening, after dinner, Maha searched the Koran for references to Stanley or a man like Stanley. There was, as she expected, nothing. So she watched television until it bored her, and then lay in bed. When she could not sleep, Maha drew a bath and lowered herself into it.

The Lord did not operate according to human reason. Yet he was married to Frieda, a quiet woman with sad eyes and a lovely black pendant on her silver chain. It was all so normal, boring even.
Banal.
There was a musty smell around them, like an old car that has been sitting too long in the sun.

It was her holy duty to bear witness to the unity of God and Mohammed–peace and blessings be upon Him–as His messenger. Unless the Lord was an angel, or a prophet. A new Mohammed, with an Oldsmobile.

Maha turned on the hot water, as her bath had gone cool. Soon, she would be out of money. The hotel cost $91 per night, plus taxes. She had already spent the bulk of what she had saved working for three years at Torino on Décarie Boulevard. Now, in the bathtub, a part of Maha wished she had stayed home. Perhaps, in time, the Lord would have made the trip to Montreal.

Maha wanted to phone her mother. But she knew how it would go if she heard the voice of Sara Rasad. They would argue, and apologize, and cry. Surely, the imam had been consulted, not to mention every man and woman Sara Rasad knew in Montreal and London and Beirut. Woe to the mother of the lost daughter! Guilt would gush through the fibre optic cables and Maha's bones would vibrate with it, like a plucked bass string, for hours. They would have her coordinates, finally, and her father would arrive the following morning–sleepy and annoyed. He would pretend not to have noticed the Rocky Mountains on the shuttle bus ride from Calgary to Banff. When pressed, he would shrug and say they were not nearly as beautiful as the mountains of Lebanon. Zaki Rasad would pay Maha's bill at the hotel and, shortly afterward, feign a heart-related illness. They would eat at McDonald's and they would take the next shuttle bus to the airport.

She imagined herself, with fragrant steam rising out of the bath, as a plant with rotting roots. A strong wind could blow her away, and when she fell to the ground, in some distant land, Maha would not have the energy to get up. The television commercials about mood-enhancing pharmaceuticals echoed in the silence of her room, amid the deep rumble of the climate-control mechanisms and the dripping water.

Even though he seemed not to believe in an afterlife, seemed not to know why he had created the earth and its murderers, the Lord was supreme. He had to be. The Lord suffered from a strain of amnesia, that was all. The body he inhabited was aged and sick, burdened by marriage and all the ordinary responsibilities and ornaments of a white, middle-class Canadian senior citizen. It would arrive, the rapture, and the Lord would loose himself from these chains.

A knock. Another knock. “Maha?”

She stepped out of the water and wrapped the white terry towel hotel robe around herself. “Just a moment.”

There was a peephole in her hotel door. Tanya Gervais stood on the other side, with a notebook in her hand. “Can I come in?”

Maha opened the door. Of all the people she had met today, Tanya was most like her friends in Montreal. She dressed like a
Montréalaise
and spoke just a bit louder than everyone else. There was a frantic air to her, and hints of a fake British accent, and it made Maha feel tired and suspicious. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine, fine.” Tanya sat on the edge of the bed.

Maha waited for a moment, for Tanya to explain herself. But the explanation was not forthcoming. Maha stood and Tanya sat. Outside, on Banff Avenue, a bus passed.

“I can't sleep.”

“We have that in common,” said Maha.

“What do you think of him? Of Stan? Do you buy this? I don't want to bore you with details of my personal history, but I'm at a very vulnerable point in my life right now. I had what they call a near-death experience in Vancouver last week. This slab. I got here for the festival and all I saw was meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. And then…tonight.”

“I think he's–”

“I go back and forth. Maybe it's a scam. I'm single and I've been careful, Maha. The real estate market's been very good to me. But maybe, just maybe, this is genuine. Maybe that's why I came to Banff.”

“In Montreal, my parents–”

“What makes it seem authentic is his reticence, don't you think? It's like he doesn't trust what Alok says he is.”

“Well, in Islam–”

“If the guy was cocky, if he was going on about making the blind see and that crap, I'd probably run screaming. But he's so sincere. It's like he's frightened, isn't it? He's like a baby who wakes up one morning able to walk and talk. There's something really special about him, isn't there? I'm not just crazy, am I?”

“No. But the angel Gabriel–”

“Let's just see, right? Alok says the guy can perform miracles. I say we challenge him tomorrow morning. We want to see a miracle. Is it too much to ask? I don't need anything huge. God damn it, I'm fragile. Really, really fragile. If I were home right now, I'd be all over my therapist. All
over
him. I got this great guy, on Pender. He just lets me talk, mostly. Anyway, all I mean to say is I'm ready. I'm ready for whatever Stan is about. Aren't you?”

“Yes.”

Tanya started to the door. “Thanks so much for the talk, Maha. Really, it means a lot. Tomorrow morning? Breakfast? Miracle?”