The O'Briens (21 page)

At Christmas and on Iseult's, Mike's, and Margo's birthdays, Joe's presents to Iseult were always cheques for the clinic. He had only visited it once or twice himself: the sight of sick children and undernourished mothers distressed him. He'd write a cheque anytime Iseult asked him to, but he didn't want to have to look at those people.

It was time to start building their house in Westmount. Iseult chose the architect and Joe's men began excavating. Iseult's darkroom was in the design from the start; she drew up the detailed plan herself: a medium-sized room, accessible through her bedroom, with a red lamp recessed in the ceiling and windows with steel shutters. She would have a pair of deep sinks, shelves for chemicals and photographic papers, and a long worktable with her enlarger mounted at one end. The room would have mechanical ventilation and a fireproof cabinet for storing lenses and cameras — her old FPK with its red leather bellows, the Nagel, and the Ernemann Miniatur-Klapp Joe had given her for Christmas.

There were twenty or thirty fellows at work on the excavation and rough grading — more than the job required, but Iseult had insisted that the foreman hire a dozen men from Sainte-Cunégonde, fathers and brothers, who came wandering up the hill each morning pale and scrawny and blinking in the light. She photographed every stage of construction: the electrician and his assistant lugging great spools of copper wire on their shoulders; the driver of the cement truck with his pet cat; men laying hardwood floors, wearing leather hockey pads strapped to their knees.

But her children would always be her main subject. She never posed them but took quick snaps, aiming and shooting fast, a technique learned from Elise — though Elise herself now posed all her subjects, charged them a lot of money, and made them look serious, thoughtful, and gravely intelligent.

Joe kept hundreds of Iseult's photographs organized in leather-bound catalogues on shelves in his office on Phillips Square, each print numbered and dated. Sometimes when he looked through them, all he could think was what an extraneous, cruel gift love was in a world where nothing lasted. When he felt that way, he knew he was soon for a hotel room in New York.

Iseult was nearly six months pregnant the day she brought Mike and Margo out to Skye Avenue to watch the foundation being poured. It was sunny and warm, excellent conditions for pouring concrete. They ate a picnic lunch. Joe sipped lemonade and watched the fresh cement slide from the mixer truck and slop into the forms. His son and daughter were laughing, his men were working, his machines were howling, and his pregnant wife was squeezing his arm as they watched the solid footings of their future literally taking shape. If that moment proved to be as near as things ever got to perfection, he told himself, he would be satisfied, because in his heart he'd never expected half as much.

~

It seemed that Grattan's life too might be acquiring a solid foundation at last. On Joe's thirty-fifth birthday his brother invited him to lunch at the Ritz-Carlton. Grattan was selling house lots for the Mount Royal Land Company, he and Elise had just bought a new Buick, and in a few weeks their daughter, Virginia, would be starting fifth grade at the Sacred Heart Convent on Atwater Avenue.

After ordering a bottle of champagne, Grattan began telling Joe about a business proposition he'd received from his old squadron leader, an Englishman now living in Buenos Aires.

“Dicky's getting out of B.A. and taking up ranching on the pampas. They're exporting beef like mad from the Argentine. It sure sounds like a wonderful country, Joe. Dicky's offering to let me in as a partner. I'd help run the ranch. It would mean putting up a bit of operating capital, but not much.”

“It's the other side of the world.”

“So is the Town of Mount Royal, Joe. Too bloody far. Haven't sold a lot in weeks.”

“You bought a new car.”

“Elise bought it.”

“When things fall apart in South America, what are you going to do next?”

“Drink your champagne, Joe.”

“No, I can't. I've got a busy afternoon.”

Grattan tossed down his own glassful, then refilled it. “Not bad. Nearly as good as the stuff we drank in France. Used to drink champagne for breakfast, Joe. Good wine was a lot easier to come by than a decent cup of tea.”

“You have a family, Grattan. You can't ditch them.” Joe wondered if his brother had enough cash in his wallet to pay the check. It would be close to fifteen dollars. If he really hadn't been selling anything, he had no business spending money on lunches at the Ritz when he had a wife and a ten-year-old daughter at home.

“Jesus, Joe, we ran away from real life to get this far, didn't we?”

“You're not making any sense.”

“We could have stayed in the bush. That was plenty real, wasn't it.” Grattan smiled and sipped champagne. “Think about it, Joe. Here we are, lunching at the Ritz. We're as far from where we started as the Argentine is from here. Mental and spiritual distance. We've come this far, both of us. Don't see why I can't go a little farther.”

“Just what have you accomplished so far? Besides killing thirteen men. Probably fellows a lot like yourself.”

“Jesus, Joe.” Grattan slumped forward, gazing into his champagne glass. He had on one of his beautiful English suits, a fine worsted, better than the suits Joe ordered for himself at Brooks Brothers in New York. Probably Grattan still owed his tailor. Or perhaps someone else, some hero-worshipper, had picked up the tab.

“Do you ever try to add up, Joe, everything you've seen and done in your life?” Grattan's tone had shifted from exuberance to plowing unease. “Christ, adding up everything I've done, places I've been — that used to feel wonderful. Remember saying goodbye on the platform at Ottawa? Hell, I was scared. Dropped the girls off at the Visitations. Went on to Toronto, then Chicago. Met a woman on the train. Got off at Denver and she took me to a hotel — married woman, husband in Colorado Springs — never told you about her, did I? Lost my cherry at Brown's Hotel in Denver. Got back on the train next morning. The orange grove at Santa Barbara
 . . . 
I didn't like those Franciscans much, those sandals and brown robes — an eerie bunch. Hired on at a cattle ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. Awful dusty. Met Elise at Ocean Park, snapping pictures on the boardwalk — that was an adventure, meeting Elise. Selling house lots for Abbot. Elise getting pregnant, us getting married. The priest at St. Monica's refusing to marry us on account of her being a Jew. Virginia's birth. My life handled like a book in those days: I could open it at any page I wanted and go on from there.”

The café had been filling with lunch patrons, including men Joe had done business with, most considerably older than his brother, men who would not have served overseas.

“What about you, Joe?” Grattan said, looking up.

“I don't even know what it is you're asking.” He had hoped his brother's feet were planted on solid ground at last, but they weren't, and probably never would be.

“Do you feel it all connects, Joe? I can't seem to find the connection from one part of my life to another. Can't hold it in one hand anymore like a book. A lot I seem to have forgotten. The war — I really ought to think more about the war. A lot happened. I ought to think about it, but there's never enough time.”

Joe was observing two men whom the maitre d' was obsequiously showing to a banquette. One of them he recog-nized: Louis-Philippe Taschereau, KC, a courtly lawyer who represented the Archdiocese of Montreal in civil matters. As one of the parish wardens of the Ascension of Our Lord, the new English-speaking church in Westmount, he had met with Taschereau a couple of times to review deeds and construction contracts. The lawyer had recently built himself a house not far from where Joe and Iseult were building. Taschereau's lunch partner was dressed like an American college man, in a grey flannel suit and a shirt with a button-down collar. His dark hair was sleekly groomed.

“I used to feel life accumulating, page by page,” Grattan was saying. “I was learning by experience. I've lost that feeling.”

Joe turned to his brother. “South America isn't a plan. It amounts to desertion, if you want to hear the truth. You'll lose everything worth having.”

“Captain O'Brien?”

The young collegian, Taschereau's lunch partner, was standing by their table. He made a very slight bow. “Baruch Cohen.”

Grattan looked blank.

“Second Lieutenant Cohen. I was with the
199
th in France. Buck Cohen.”

“Oh Lord, yes,” said Grattan, squinting. “When exactly were you with us?”

Joe couldn't tell if his brother remembered Cohen or not.

Cohen seemed perfectly at ease. “Well, I took over a platoon in Major Murphy's company on the night of the seventh of July,
1917
. We were in the trenches at Arras. You, Major Murphy, and Captain Grimstead were the company commanders. I was hit a couple of hours later, a blighty. Three months' recovery in England. When I returned to battalion, Murphy and Grimstead were dead. So were all the platoon commanders, and you'd joined the RFC.”

Grattan rubbed his jaw and stared blankly at Cohen, who turned to Joe. “If you're Captain O'Brien's brother, I know you by reputation, sir. You're one of the railway men.”

“Used to be.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. O'Brien.”

The Jew had better manners than most ex-officers Joe had met. Buck Cohen was slight and youthful, though tightness around his eyes made him seem a little older.

“You at McGill?” Joe asked.

“Oh no.” Buck Cohen smiled. “I pursued studies before the war, but my university days are over.”

“Don't you miss it at all?” Grattan said, somewhat hungrily.

“University?”

“The war.”

“I can't say I do. I'm keeping busy. Still a lot of catching up to do. The war seems an awfully long time ago.”

“I was talking to my brother about South America,” Grattan said. “What do you think about South America?”

“Very little, to tell you the truth. Where are you working now, may I ask?”

“I'm selling cow pasture in the Town of Mount Royal. Only no one's buying.”

Joe told himself he had never wanted to boss his brother. He'd just wanted Grattan to be safe. Maybe it came down to the same thing. Maybe he didn't really know how to be a good brother, or husband, or father. He'd acquired no wisdom, had nothing deep and learned to go on. All he'd ever had to guide him was raw feelings and instinct, and when he was in a self-justifying mood, he told himself these amounted to love.

“You might come and see me sometime, Captain,” Buck Cohen was saying. “My operation is growing. Other things being equal, I prefer working with men who've been overseas.”

“What business are you in, Cohen?” Joe asked.

Cohen shrugged. “Import-export.”

“What do you handle?”

“Oh, pretty much anything.” Taking out a small leather notebook and a gold pencil, Cohen jotted something on a slip of paper and handed it to Grattan. “If you ring my secretary she'll schedule an appointment. Do come round. A pleasure running into you, Captain O'Brien. I enjoy meeting fellows from the old battalion. Doesn't happen that often. They were wicked days, weren't they?”

“Wicked?” Grattan smiled slowly. “That's the word. Wicked they were. Wicked were we. Here's to the dead, boys.” He raised his champagne glass in a toast.

Without hesitating, Cohen picked up Joe's water tumbler and clicked glasses with Grattan.

“The dead boys,” Buck Cohen said.

~

Joe's office had an abundance of gold leaf on the ceiling and an enormous fireplace where a log fire was cracking and glowing. It was November. A few snowflakes had been swirling among the grey buildings, but now the slots of sky were hard blue, and down in the square the pavement was mostly bare, with only a dusting of snow on the King-Emperor's shoulders.

On Pine Avenue a car and driver were standing by to whisk Iseult to the Royal Victoria Hospital at a moment's notice. After two flawless births at Santa Barbara's Cottage Hospital she had wanted to have this baby at home, but he would not consider it.

He knew when she saw snow flying she would remember the baby they had lost in the mountains. People always would remember what had hurt them. What gave them pleasure they let go of pretty quickly.

His secretary buzzed and said his sister-in-law was on the line. Assuming Elise was calling to ask about Iseult's condition, he picked up his desk phone. “No news yet, Elise.”

“Joe, Grattan never came home last night. I'm awful worried.”

Grattan had not mentioned ranching on the pampas since their lunch at the Ritz. Early in the fall he had scratched his leg on barbed wire while hopping a fence to show clients a piece of land. The scratch had become infected, and for a while it had looked as if he might lose the leg, but the wound had finally healed.

“Have you tried calling his office?” Joe asked.

“I did, first thing. No one's seen him since before lunch yesterday.” Elise sounded calm, but he knew she wouldn't have called unless she was worried.

“How has he seemed lately?” he asked cautiously.

“How do you mean?”

“Since he got out of hospital. Sold any lots?”

“Joe, it's Armistice Day.”

He lit a cigarette. “What exactly are you thinking, Elise?”

“You know what I'm thinking.” She started to cry.

It was the first time he had heard someone crying over a telephone wire, and he was dismayed by how helpless it made him feel. Holding the receiver to his ear, he spun his desk chair and looked out across the city to the Royal Victoria Hospital, a grim, grey Scottish castle on the silver flank of Mount Royal.

“You think he's had another accident?”