The Extinction Club (26 page)

“Are there any books I could read?” I called out to Céleste, who was putting on her own uniform in the bathroom. “Like
Forest Ranging for Dummies
? Or …
The Bluffer’s Guide to Wildlife Detection
?”

Her reply through the door was muffled. She opened the door and limped out, wearing a ski-mask and my black suede coat with the collar up. She was quite a sight, like she was Halloweening as a terrorist.

“I’ll coach you,” she said. “If we run into poachers we’ll use the walkie-talkie. You just follow my instructions, like Christian in
Cyrano de Bergerac
.”

I nodded, still eyeing her outfit.

“You’ve read that, right?”

“Well, I … saw the Steve Martin movie.”

“I thought you went to the best schools in Europe. What did you do there anyway?”

“Drugs, mainly.”

“Give me the badge.”

“What?”

“Give me the badge.”

I plucked it out of my pocket and handed it to her.

“Put your hand on your heart.”

I looked ceilingward but obeyed.

“Do you promise to faithfully execute your duties to the best of your abilities, to protect the wildlife and natural resources of the province of Quebec, and to tell the truth at all times?”

“I do.”

“Do you swear on the bones of your ancestors?”

“I do.”

She pinned the badge onto the left breast pocket of the parka. “By the powers invested in me, you are now a wildlife detective. You have the authority to arrest villains and killers and evildoers. And anyone at all, for that matter.”

Despite her valiant attempts, it was too painful for Céleste to climb into the back of the van, so I had to lift her. I flashed to the first time I’d lifted her in, to the coarse, wet, cumbersome sack—so different from the soft and dry and malleable form I now had in my arms! I set her down on the same sleeping bag and covered her with a wool blanket, though by this time the Westphalia was warm.

From behind the wheel I looked up at an iron sky: grey on grey, swift clouds threatening snow. I flipped on the wipers, which groaned as they crossed the glass, in counter-rhythm with a song on CBC:

Over the river and through the woods

To grandmother’s house we go

The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh

Through white and drifted snow …

“How are you doing back there?” I shouted as we bumped along the perilous
chemin saisonnier
. The pot-holes and ruts gave off a silvery blue sheen, and the white plumes of low branches glided overhead. It was so cold that the snow creaked as we drove over it. I turned the radio down and repeated my question.

“Not dead yet,” she replied.

On the highway the street lamps were still on and the morning stars blinked faintly between the clouds. Silver beads of ice glazed the wires overhead. We were the only car on the road.

“I’ve got to be careful,” I said, glimpsing my passenger in the rear-view. She had discarded the blanket and was drawing triangular faces of cats on the back window fog. “I haven’t a clue how fast I’m going!” I tapped on the dash. “Speedometer’s dead!”

Céleste made her way to the front of the van, gingerly, through columns of packed boxes. I objected, but not strenuously, asking only that she keep her mask on. She looked over my shoulder at the instrument panel, then out the window while glancing at my watch.

“You’re fine,” she said after a few seconds. “You’re going … 79.6 kilometres an hour.”

I looked down again at my speedometer, odometer, tachometer. All on the blink. “How do you know that?”

“Well, I know the telephone poles are sixty metres apart. The calculation’s really quite simple.”

She clambered into the passenger seat, wincing. Then reached over and thumped the dash, once, twice. Third time lucky. The speedometer needle, and all the other dials, became unstuck. I checked our speed: a hair under 80 kilometres.

“What’s that in miles?” I asked.

“Forty-nine point four.”

“And in … knots?”

A slight pause. “One forty-seven point three.”

“I was kidding.”

“I know.”

Not far from the church, a yellow vehicle appeared suddenly in my wing mirror, getting bigger and bigger. It pulled up beside us, in the oncoming lane. Cops? No siren, no flashing lights. Céleste, as alert as ever, slid down into the footwell.

The car, or rather tank, remained there, cruising abreast, matching my speed. When I looked over, its passenger window came down. A faintly familiar face, with a drunkard’s grin and periscopically rising middle finger beside it. He sped up and veered into my lane, missing my bumper by a hair. Hummer, licence 666 HLL. My second encounter with this idiot. I pressed on the accelerator, to the floor, until I felt something around my ankle. Céleste’s hand.

“Don’t,” she said calmly.

“You know the guy?”

“No, but let him go.”

I took my foot off the gas. She was right of course. But if ever there was a third encounter of the close kind, I vowed, I would give chase, not stopping until I shot him in the face with Brooklyn’s Walther .38.

I didn’t quite know what to expect from Céleste when we arrived. Joy? Horror? Relief? She felt none of these, as far as I could tell. As I prepared cranberry-bloodorange tea and a cat’s breakfast for six, she sat motionless at the kitchen table, staring out the window, her mouth curved in a vague expression of resignation. Even the cats couldn’t seem to cheer her up, although she had a kind word and a hug for each. I told her about the first time I fed them, about Moon following me through the cemetery rows, but she didn’t respond. I told her about the two racoons I had seen in her grandmother’s study, who had come and gone through the doggy door. It was as though she were deaf.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

Moon was on her lap, the only cat that wasn’t eating. “I’m not bragging,” she rasped. Her voice was sounding worse and worse, like she had lung cancer and was talking through a hole in her trachea.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. She gave Moon a kiss and set her down in front of her dish. Declining my help, she then hobbled up the stairs, pausing at each step, head down, moving as if sleepwalking through a nightmare. She disappeared from view and I heard her bedroom door being shut and locked.

A churchly silence settled on the house, on its living and lately dead, and a sense of guilt began to dye my time there.

XVIII

I slept all day & all night which was a big surprise because when we arrived I couldn’t stop thinking about Grand-maman. I walked to my bed with jelly legs and when I closed the door I started shaking so hard that I couldn’t stop myself. I pulled the covers right over me & felt like a bird with a cloth draped over its cage for the night. I started to panic. I was sure I’d hear strange sounds all day long, like footsteps or windows being pried open. Or that I’d pass out from lack of oxygen. But when I made a little air hole & put my head on the pillow, I fell asleep almost right away! Because I feel safe with Nile?

In a dream I saw Gran’s face & she pointed her finger at me & told me not to be sad, that her time had come, and that Nile would take care of me. Did she mean that we would get married? Anyway, it was just a dream.

Then I started thinking about other things. About bears, and one bear in particular. And about Baz cutting me open like a fish & bleeding me like a deer. I got out of bed & threw up in the toilet, with the taps running full blast so that Nile wouldn’t hear. I sat down & started shaking again, so hard that the toilet seat began to rattle.

“I’ll never get back to sleep,” I thought. Then, without warning, I was in another dream talking to Santa. I was sitting on his knee, waiting for Mom to take my picture, when he whispered in my ear: “Only good girls will make Santa’s list this
year.” I couldn’t get the words out of my head so I forced the dream to end & got out of bed again. It was around lunchtime — the next day! I crept down the hall to see which room Nile had taken. He took the guest room, the second-smallest room in the house, just below the maid’s old room in the attic. I told him he could take Gran’s room but he didn’t & I’m glad.

Nile served lunch, if that’s the word, some plant fibre that reminded me of a braided door mat. Stewed weeds on the side, tomato sauce mixed with something white, perhaps toothpaste. After I secretly tossed it, Nile asked if I’d like to watch a movie. I said no, I had work to do (making gifts, though I didn’t tell him that) but he talked me into it. He had a big Walmart bag full of DVDs that he spread out on the table. He doesn’t rent them, he buys them! Some were comedies, to cheer me up I guess. I said that I appreciated the gesture, but that I would not watch any movie with a midget in it. And that includes Danny DeVito. Some were “stamp” movies: The Mandarin Mystery, Decalogue IX and Charade. I chose Charade, which was shot in Paris & stars Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn. After the film Nile rewound and freeze-framed an image near the end, of the 3 valuable stamps everyone was after: the Swedish 4-Shilling of 1854, the Hawaiian Blue 3-cent of 1894, and the Gazette Moldave, supposedly the most valuable stamp in the world. In the movie they were worth $85,000, $65,000, and $100,000.

Nile said that it’s really the Swedish 3-Shilling of 1855 that’s valuable. There was a mistake in the colour — the printer made it yellow instead of green. Only one copy of this stamp has ever been found — by a young Swedish boy looking through his grandfather’s collection. It sold in 1996 for $2.3 million. It’s the most valuable stamp in the world.

As for the Hawaiian Blue 3-cent of 1894, Nile said that it’s actually the 2-cent of 1851 that’s valuable, worth about $750,000 if unused. In 1892 one of its owners was murdered for it by another collector. To be specific, Hector Giroux killed Gaston Leroux. I wrote all this down — my memory’s good but not that good.

As for the “Gazette Moldave,” Nile says it doesn’t exist.

While I ate Lucky Charms out of the box, with Mercury on my lap & Comet on one side & Moon on the other, Nile told me some interesting things about the movie. About the casting. He said that Cary Grant was worried about the difference in their ages (over 25 years, more than me & Nile!) so he insisted that the Hepburn character pursue him, rather than vice versa. Which is cool because it cancels out the creepy factor. Why am I mentioning all this? Because it gave me an idea: I will pursue Nile, even though he’s a bit off, and it will cancel out the creepy factor.

I’m not beautiful like Audrey Hepburn, so I’ll be Jane Eyre instead. Jane was plain like me, and an orphan and runaway too. And Nile will be Rochester — old, rich, proud, sardonic, moody & morose. Naturally, his moroseness goes away after he meets me. He calls me his “elf,” his “changeling.” And Nile’s ex is like Rochester’s wife — mad — and he never goes back to her. Then we separate for a while & I dream that Nile is calling my name & when I finally find him he’s blind. But he regains sight in one eye so that he can see his child when it’s put into his arms …

More later. Is that a snowplow I hear?

   XIX   

C
éleste slept like the dead her first day back home but seemed to be awake for the next two. I could hear her pacing about in her room in the wee hours, or wandering the halls like Ophelia.