The Devil You Know: A Novel (30 page)

T
here was a bunch of broccoli in my fridge at home and I stir-fried it up with lots of garlic and chilis and tamari and sesame oil, and burned my tongue on it, eating. Not from the spice, but because I was impatient. Usually I would have put the radio on, or the television or something, but I’d been in too much of a hurry. Having sat in the quiet of Angie’s Turismo all day, the silence didn’t seem out of place. No noise from the upstairs apartment.

I chewed.

The police had first interviewed Bernardo in 1990. They brought him in because his friend’s wife thought he was weird. He matched the composite for the Scarborough Rapist and he gave them some DNA samples, but no one bothered testing them for two whole years. It was just an interview. No arrest. He seemed like a well-adjusted, well-spoken guy. The quote from the interviewing officer was that no clean-cut young guy like Bernardo could have raped all those girls.

You can get a lot done in two years.

I
’d barely noticed feeling hungry through the day. Now I was starving. The garlic was cleaning my blood. I was perfect. I was a perfect broccoli eater. I was good and did good things for my body. I was like an example of how to live.

I’d been leafing through an old issue of
Rolling Stone
on the table while I ate, something to distract myself. Clean the palate of the day. It was Sinead O’Connor on the cover, with her giant green eyes. A tiny part to her lips, just enough to seem vulnerable. She was so engaging. How to be like that. I put down my fork and went into the bathroom and practiced. Just for fun. Making my eyes big in the mirror, hair pulled back tight. I stared in at myself. Lips parted just so. Sexy, but childlike. Because childlike. Someone small and broken, or breakable.

The light in the room changed, as though outside the window,
darkness had fallen suddenly, leaving only the overhead fluorescent light. I felt floaty.

It’s okay, I told myself. You’re okay. You missed a night’s sleep, that’s all. Bound to catch up with you. I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them wide again.

The girl in the mirror was both farther away and more in focus. It was like looking at myself through a viewfinder. My peripheral vision dropped away. Above me, the ceiling stretched up higher and higher. I turned my body to leave the bathroom and swung against the tub, banging my shin and almost falling: my perspective was that narrow. I couldn’t see any obstacles.

On my way back to the kitchen I trailed my fingers along the wall to keep steady, then found my chair and sat down all at once. A wave of nausea and I bent over, tucking my head between my knees.

Something I ate? Food poisoning. My shoulders swayed. Even bent over like that, my head was swimming.

All I’d had was broccoli. What could be wrong with that? Some kind of mold or fungus on it. Was that it? Or low blood sugar from starving myself all day.

I focused on my breathing:
1-2-3-4-in, 1-2-3-4-out
. Maybe this was an oxygen issue. Carbon monoxide. Something inside the apartment.

Someone.

I sat up, but the light streaming out from the ceiling fixture seemed impossibly bright. It hurt. The light was stabbing at my temples. I lifted one hand to shield my eyes and the other went instinctively to my heart. My heart was coming through my rib cage. I couldn’t get any air.
1-2-3-4-IN
.

Someone in the apartment. Not safe. I staggered down the hall to the doorway.

If you’re going to pass out, I thought, do it outside. You can’t be alone. At least that way, if you pass out, someone will find you, someone will call an ambulance. You’ll be lying in the gutter and someone will call.

The way the lock worked, I needed two hands to get out: one to hold the dead bolt open, the other to pull on the handle. Out in the hallway, I pulled the door shut and jumped. There were stairs and with my tunnel vision, I didn’t see them until the last second, until I’d turned my head. They were right there. I dropped to the floor and slid down on my bum, struggling with the outer door the same way I had with the door to my own apartment. Outside, I sat down on the curb with my feet in the gutter.

The light was failing now. I tucked my head back between my knees.

If he’s in there, he’ll come out for you. Eventually he’ll come out here.

I lifted my head but stayed leaning over, my elbows heavy against my knees. The street felt like a strange place to me, or like somewhere I’d been once, long ago. Someplace I’m supposed to remember. A thing that should make sense, but doesn’t.

All the parts, everything on the block, were dissonant. The sewer grate, just a couple of feet over from where I was sitting. The light standards, the shape of the curb against the road. The swath of road that was black with a wash of fresher tar, the chunky patched places where potholes had been repaired. The red VW parked across from where I sat. Its license plate (A1G H4H Keep It Beautiful), the driveway it was in, the pavers stamp on the sidewalk,
Dufferin Materials 1987
. My head fluttered inside. The sharp ache had dropped away and was now replaced with a steady pressure along my brow line, over the bridge of my nose, like something dull and heavy was trying to push its way out.

Slowly, the street came back together. The curb was part of the sidewalk, which was part of the road, which links to other roads. The neighborhood was like a rose, the streets curving one into the next.

Tell no one about this, I thought. This is what it feels like to lose your mind.

I
don’t know how long I sat there. It was dark. The air was cold but I liked breathing it. The nausea dropped away and after a while I noticed that I wasn’t thinking about how I was feeling anymore. I’d started thinking about other things.

There were footsteps behind me and I started to cry.

What are you doing out here?

David was wearing his navy peacoat, and I realized I had no coat on at all.

I think I have food poisoning, I said.

Why are you on the curb?

Someone broke into the apartment, I said, suddenly not believing it. I couldn’t breathe inside. I didn’t want to pass out by myself.

David reached a hand down and I got up on my feet.

Your mother would say you’ll get a kidney infection, sitting on the cold ground like that, he said.

I brushed off my legs.

I won’t, I said. Then: I don’t know what happened.

Something scared you?

I felt really sick, I said. I couldn’t see.

David looked at me. I closed my eyes.

I thought I was going to throw up and pass out all at the same time, I said. I didn’t want to do that by myself. Only then I thought I wasn’t by myself, I thought someone was in there with me.

Who? David said.

I don’t know, I said. Someone, someone, I wasn’t alone.

David glanced up at my window.

Like, for real?

I don’t know. I don’t feel like going back there.

Your secret admirer.

I don’t know.

Let’s go to The Stem, David said.

I might have food poisoning, I said.

You don’t. You’d be puking. I’ll get your coat.

He disappeared up into the house. I hugged myself. The streetlights
were on now, and all the house lights. Nothing was left of the strangeness I’d felt when I first came out onto the sidewalk. I was surprised to be outside.

There are a few houses on this street I really like. There’s one across the way and down a bit with a dining room all painted Chinese Red, and a big yellow brick house at the corner with a round room in front, and two armchairs and a giant cherry bookcase built into the wall. A reading room. If I’m walking home at night, I take stock. I know which houses have the best art on the walls, which families only watch television in the basement. You can see the blue flicker from the tiny ground-level windows.

I looked up at my own window. The light was on, and I could see David moving around the apartment. Searching for something. My wallet, my sweater, whatever he’d decided was needed. From where I stood, looking up, I could see just his head and shoulders, his shoulders in the navy coat. My walls painted creamy yellow. I stepped back into the road. Now I could see my own armchair, bookshelf, my desk. I could see my whole life up there, laid out like candy in a coin-op machine. The shiny glow from the chandelier, lighting the room like the screen at a drive-in movie.

W
e walked along Queen Street to the restaurant. David linked his arm through mine, which is my favorite thing he does. It makes me feel like this is the ’40s and I am wearing spectator pumps and we are watching the warplanes fly overhead.

Do you want a drink? I said.

I can’t decide if that’s a good idea or a bad idea for you right now, he said.

We sat and waited for our sandwiches. I always order a BLT and he always gets a club. The only difference between these things is turkey. Other than that, it’s the same sandwich. There was a little white bowl of condiment packs in the middle of the table: peanut
butter, jam, mustard, mayonnaise. Just one packet of marmalade. One bowl for the whole day: breakfast, lunch, supper.

I think you had a panic attack, David said.

Panic about what? I said.

What’ve you been doing?

Murder house.

Peachy, David said. He passed me a tiny mayonnaise, already peeled open.

And the cops came back last night, I said. I mean I called the cops. He had his hand on the glass, David. He was right there.

Tonight or last night?

Last night.

And then the murder house, David said.

I guess, I said.

Eat your sandwich.

W
e ordered extra French fries for the salt and beers a half-pint at a time.

I always love when beer comes in a small glass, I said. We’re civilized now, we’re drinking
glasses of beer
.

And what will you have to drink? David said, pretending to write down my order.

Why, I’ll have a glass of beer, if you don’t mind!

Oh, you will, will you?

We were many beers in, many small glasses of beer. David counted out the bill, right down to our last dimes and nickels. We celebrated our way back home to my house, pleased to have not drunk ourselves into having to cheat the waitress.