The Divide (13 page)

The afternoon light had dimmed. The house was dark.

He rubbed his face, sighing. Traitorous sleep. But he supposed there was some truth in his dream. He had implied to Susan that there was some treatment available for John; presumably she had passed this implication on. Poor trusting Susan, who believed in his miraculous powers. In fact there was nothing for John in this house but a warm bed in which to endure his crisis. And my notebook, Maxim thought. My obdurate curiosity, and my guilt.

Tests would be run, of course, and there was dopamine, which had relieved some symptoms in the animal studies. But there was nothing to forestall the ultimate resolution. Unwillingly, Maxim recalled his laboratory chimps, the animals prostrate and comatose or consumed by fever. In the initial tests—before John was born —the beasts had not been allowed to live long enough to exhibit symptoms; they were grotesques, capable of understanding a few words of written English and copying the alphabet from children’s books; they were destroyed as a potential embarrassment. But Dr. Kyriakides had allowed his second animals, his private experiment, to live to maturity—caged homunculi with enlarged skulls and wizened, cynical faces. He had watched them live out their truncated lives, scratching
apple
and
orange
onto yellow copypaper or probing their fur with the pencils, and dropping into recurrent fevers which he mistook at first for some form of malaria; then battering themselves against their cages and screeching, as if they had suffered some unendurable insight into their own condition— collapsing at last into a febrile unconsciousness.

Most died. Some recovered, but never fully. Never regained their facility with the pencil, never remembered how to operate the infant toys. The ones who survived lived on as lab animals, caged and listless… though an x-ray or an autopsy might reveal certain unusual cerebral lesions. Whatever its outcome, the affliction was universal.

And now John.
I didn’t mean this to happen.

But it had happened anyway.

Maxim stood up, groaning. Old bones. But his feet were not as cold as they had been, and he realized that the gas must have been turned on while he slept; the house had begun to warm around him.

Roch said he was going out for the day—looking for work, he said. Amelie watched from the kitchen window as he drove off in his battered green Chevy van. Then she telephoned Susan.

“Today,” she said. “Can you pick me up?”

“All right,” Susan said.

Amelie hurried to pack her things.

Not that there was much to pack. A suitcase full of clothes; the stereo, the TV set. None of the furniture was worth hanging on to; if there had been time she would have sent it back to the Salvation Army depot where she’d found it. But the arrangements had to be made in secret, and quickly, so that Roch wouldn’t find out. He had been in a tolerable mood through Christmas and Amelie didn’t want to provoke anything before she left. Above all, she didn’t want him to find out where she was going.

Susan had said she would come by with the car around noon. At eleven forty-five Amelie hiked her belongings out to the curb where they sat in a small, unimpressive heap. She wrapped herself in a jacket and stood shivering next to the luggage. It was a cold January day and the clouds had begun to wring out a few flakes of snow. The sidewalk was clear but cold; ice stood in pockets in the grassy verge. It was at least not one of those hideously cold days you sometimes get in January and February, when the air steals your breath and even the short walk to the bus stop is an endurance test—but it felt like those days were coming. Amelie decided she would need a new winter coat, not just this jacket. She used to own a parka (from the Thrift Village over on Augusta), but she’d thrown it away when the seams ripped under the arms.

She looked up and down the street anxiously, but there was no sign of Susan’s car.

It felt funny, leaving the apartment behind… leaving it to Roch, who would probably have to be evicted. But she’d left so much behind already. Her job at the restaurant, for instance. Susan claimed that Dr. Kyriakides would be able to find her another job soon, and maybe that was true or maybe not; but she couldn’t stay on at the Goodtime, because Roch would be sure to find her there. She had no illusions about Roch. She had lived with her brother for most of the past month and she understood that whatever was wrong with him—she thought of it as a kind of broken wheel inside him—was getting worse. The wheel was running loose; it had come free of all the gears and governors and pretty soon it might wreck the machine entirely. You could tell by the noise, by the smell of hot metal and simmering oil.

Amelie, who smoked cigarettes very occasionally, fished one out of her purse now and lit it. It made her feel warmer. But then she coughed and felt mildly guilty—felt the pressure of all those Public Health ads on TV. She took a last drag and butted out the cigarette against the icy ground. Her watch said 11:58. She whispered, “Come on, Susan!” Her breath made clouds in the cold air.

She tried to remember what Susan Christopher was driving these days. She had seen the car a couple of times: a rented Honda, she recalled, some drab color—beige or brown? Kind of box-shaped. Maybe that was it, at the corner?

But no, the distant grey automobile rolled on without turning. There was a stillness in the air, the eerie calm of a cold weekday noon. Everybody was inside having lunch. Amelie thought randomly of the école in Montreal, bag lunches in the dingy cafeteria and pale winter light through the mullioned windows. Dead hours like this. Behind closed eyes she pictured the Honda, willing it to arrive. Susan, goddamn! This was
dangerous.

She opened her eyes then and looked down the street. A vehicle turned the comer. But it was not Susan’s Honda.

It was Roch’s green van.

She stood up, panicked. But what was there to do? Hide in the apartment? How was she supposed to
explain
this—the little Sony TV, the stereo, taped Tourister luggage, all sitting at the curb in a neat pile? She wanted to run but couldn’t make her feet move. Susan will come, she thought, and I’ll jump into the car and we’ll zoom away.…

But Susan didn’t come. The van rolled to a stop beside her.

Oh, Amelie thought, oh,
shit!

Roch cracked open the door on the passenger side. She saw him peering out from the dimness inside, and the expression on his face was stony and opaque. He said, “Going somewhere?”

It was like being back in school. Latin class, she thought dizzily. Inevitably, the Sister would ask her to decline some verb. And Amelie, who could not get a grip on Latin, would stand beside her desk in mute humiliation. This same wordlessness overtook her now. She could not run. She could not speak.

Roch said disgustedly, “Get in.”

Meekly, Amelie obeyed.

Susan turned the corner and saw Amelie’s possessions piled on the curb… then registered the green van idling ahead. It was Roch’s van. Susan had seen it parked at the building before; Amelie had pointed it out.
No,
she thought—and pulled the Honda over before she could be spotted.

She watched Amelie climb into the van.

Susan’s mind was racing. She wished John was here, or Dr. Kyriakides. She remembered the bruise Amelie had showed her… remembered Amelie’s description of Roch.

She was what, five minutes late? She shouldn’t have stopped for coffee at the hotel. Shouldn’t have come up Yonge Street; the traffic was bad. Shouldn’t have—

But that was stupid. Not helpful at all.

She watched the green van roll away. It turned right at the next comer.

Now or never,
Susan thought.

She gunned the Honda down the street.

Pretty soon, Amelie understood where Roch was taking her.

When she was young and on the street in Toronto she had heard about Cherry Beach. It was a bleak strip of shoreline east of the harbor, and if a cop picked you up after midnight, for vagrancy, say, or trespassing, or prostitution, and if you said the wrong thing, then the cop might drive you out to Cherry Beach and do some work on your attitude. It was called Cherry Beach Express, and although Amelie had never experienced it she knew people who had. She was always afraid it was Roch who would end up out there—permanently damaged, maybe, because he did not know when to shut up and lie down.

Now Roch was driving her past the peeling towers of grain silos and the shadows of lake freighters, down industrial alleys and across rusted railway sidings. Cherry Beach Express. Because Roch understood how punishment worked. Obviously it was punishment he had on his mind right now.

But it’s daylight, she thought, someone will see us—

But that was stupid. She knew better.

She looked at Roch, a careful sideways glance. His lips were compressed and pale. He was nodding to himself, as if he had expected this all along, ratty old Amelie showing her true colors at last. This was not even hatred, Amelie thought; it was something much colder and vaster than that.

She said, “Roch, I—”

“Don’t talk,” he said. “Shut up.”

She bit her lip.

The van rolled to a stop far along the isolated shoreline, obscured from the road by a stand of leafless maples. Roch reached across and opened Amelie’s door, then pushed her out. She stumbled onto the cold, compacted sand. The air was brittle with moisture and she could hear the waves lapping at the shore. Far off, somewhere in the harbor, a freighter sounded its horn.

Roch climbed down after her. Amelie fought the urge to run. There was nowhere to go; Roch was fast and she would only make him mad. She stood with her hands at her side, breathing hard.

Roch stood in front of her, close enough for her to smell his breath.

He said, “You don’t trust me.”

She said, “That’s not true!”

He slapped her. It was a hard, stinging, open-handed slap; it rocked her head to the right. Roch was strong… he still worked out in the gym twice a week. Amelie knew this, because he had borrowed money from her to keep his membership current.

“You don’t trust me,” he said, “and you’re lying to me. What kind of thing is that to do? Christ, I’m your brother! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

He expected an answer. Amelie was rigid, frightened. “Sure it means something to me.”

“Liar,” Roch said sadly.

“No, I mean it! I mean—Jesus Christ, Roch!”

He grabbed her wrists; his grip was powerful. “You were running away.”

Amelie could not hold his gaze. She looked at the lake, instead, grey under grey clouds.

“Running away from home,” Roch elaborated. “Look at me, goddammit!”

He took her jaw in his right hand and forced her to face him. His hand traveled up along her cheek in a gesture that was almost a caress; then he took a handful of her hair and twisted it. Amelie said, “Ow!” and began to cry.

“You were going somewhere,” he said.

“I was moving out,” she said. “All right? I’m sick of that place!”

“You didn’t tell me,” Roch said patiently. “You could have told me.”

“I thought you’d get mad!”

He seemed puzzled. “Why? Why would I get mad? I mean, maybe you’re right. We need a bigger place. Hey, I’m reasonable.” His grip tightened on her hair. “But that’s not all of it— right?”

“Shit,” Amelie said.

“Don’t use bad language,” Roch said. “It makes you sound cheap.” He was thinking; his face was contorted with the effort of it. “You wanted to get rid of me. That’s it, isn’t it? Or else—it’s that guy you shacked up with, right? He’s back—right?”

Amelie hated it when Roch talked about Benjamin. Dirty, dangerous words. “Shut up,” she said.

He slapped her again. This time, with his left hand firmly tangled in her hair, it was worse.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said.

She moaned.

“He’s back—right?”

After a long pause, Amelie nodded.

“You were going to stay with him.”

Pause, nod again. Snow was falling gently now. She felt the flakes against her burning cheek.

“Well, you can go,” Roch said. Amelie looked up. Roch smiled. “You can go if you want to. Sure! Go with him! I’m on your side! All I want—I just want you to prove you trust me. I just want you to tell me where I can find you.”

“No,” Amelie said instantly.

“No? You won’t tell me?”

“I—I don’t know, Roch, we haven’t—”

But she did know. Susan had given her the address of the house; Amelie had written it down and hidden it in her purse. Roch understood this, of course. He always knew when she was lying.

This time, though, he didn’t slap her. This time he jerked his knee up into her belly and at the same time released her hair, put his hand in a frightening grip around her face and pushed. Amelie fell to the ground, doubled over and gasping for breath. The pain was enormous.

Roch said, in a tone of weary patience, “All you have to do is tell me.”

Amelie blinked. She felt like throwing up. She rose to her knees, and then—past Roch, a great distance back the way they’d come along the shore road—she saw a flicker of light. It was a reflection from a car window, and the car was rolling along in slow motion, and it was grey—a grey Honda.

It was Susan, Amelie realized, who must have followed them from the rooming house.

She looked up at Roch, trying hard to disguise her emotion.

He took her hair and dragged her up. Amelie grabbed a double handful of cold, gritty beach sand …and then she was on her feet.

She had seen this in movies. You took a handful of dirt—

Roch frowned. “What now?” Reading her face.

Amelie brought both hands up and thrust them forward, spraying the beach sand into Roch’s eyes.

“What the
fuck
—!” he screamed.

Amelie ducked past his groping hands toward the Honda. She saw Susan accelerate suddenly down the gritty tarmac.
Hurry, Susan!

But the sand-in-the-eyes thing was not as paralyzing as it looked on TV. Roch turned and scrambled after her. She could hear the thump of his big feet against the beach. The sandy beach slowed her down; it was like running in a dream… but maybe it would slow Roch down, too. Amelie saw the Honda speeding toward her as Susan realized what had happened. Amelie drew in great ragged gasps of frigid air.