Accusation (12 page)

So anyway, Juliet went on, shoving in a new tape, this is Sodo.

Raymond, in his red cap, caught a handful of white juggling pins and turned and, like a lithe piper, waved at the crowd of people who followed him.

There was a parade through the streets before the show, and by the end it was like everyone in town had joined in, Juliet said. And at the time it seemed completely magical.

Two boys on stilts clumped along, tall above those around them; a musician in a green felt hat arched over his saxophone. Gelila and another girl laughed as they strode in their white costumes, and more costumed boys wove among and around men in dusty jackets, women in traditional white veils, a woman in white shirt and dark skirt, children skipping and running alongside them. There were goats, and two boys passed juggling balls back and forth against a backdrop of small buildings with flaking plaster walls, and everyone projected an air of shambling anticipation.

Sara thought, I should tell Juliet about Raymond’s juggling in the service centre on the 401, that other magical moment.

In daylight, on a large rectangle of tarpaulin spread on the ground, two girls, older and younger, mimed actions. The older girl wore a vest with the emblem of the Red Cross sewn on its back and seemed to be showing the younger how to wash her hands with soap; equipped with cordless mikes, they spoke in Amharic. To one side of the stage, a large rectangle of canvas, laced with nylon string to an upright metal frame, featured a series of cheerful, painted illustrations, of a sick child in bed, a boy with a crutch, a veiled woman holding a baby in a doctor’s office while a white-coated doctor held out his hands to her, the illustrations tagged with phrases in Amharic script. Raymond Renaud stood beside this banner, cap in hand, intent on the performance, as other costumed performers waited solemnly, one boy with hands on hips, close to Raymond, not avoiding him. There was nothing obvious to be gleaned from Raymond’s stance or the boy’s stance other than their absorption in the show. Across a low dirt slope, the dark heads of seated children bobbed, engrossed, and curious adults formed a ring around them, mostly men but also a few white-veiled women standing beneath a line of skinny eucalyptus trees.

Better than sex, Juliet said, Do you remember him saying that the night of the benefit?

Yes, Sara said, and this was her cue to say something more, to tell Juliet about the trip she’d taken with Raymond Renaud.

It keeps coming back and I keep trying to remember the context. I thought at first he meant he was choosing this work instead of sex. Because it was so important and necessary. But it doesn’t have to mean that at all.

I did feel, Sara said, there was something shut down in him. Sexually. Something closed or blocked off.

Really? Juliet said and ejected the tape. Can I show you one more thing?

The grounds of the circus compound back in Addis Ababa were recognizable. Dusk once more: the sky still light-filled while shadows pulled the trees toward darkness. Raymond Renaud, in a black T-shirt, was out on the bumpy grass with two of the boys, who were juggling and moving as they juggled, which seemed to be part of the challenge; they were performing a kind of dance, flipping balls and pins and what looked like oranges and water bottles back and forth, their elongated shadows also dancing, while Raymond directed them, conducted them might be a better word, arms in motion, body, visible from behind, lunging forward and back. Some faint and tinny music wavered from a boom box on the ground, and the music entwined with Raymond’s inaudible words, his tone concerned, emphatic, at moments not quite a shout. One of the boys was the boy in blue from the Copenhagen show, the elfin, dexterous boy who —

The other boy scampered off, hugging the juggling pins to his chest, leaving the elfin boy to kick the rest of their juggling implements into a pile. Raymond pulled three metal cylinders from a white bucket in which a handful of similar cylinders were upended — torches, that’s what they were, which the boy had been holding in the photograph that Sara had seen at the benefit, torches that Raymond now tossed toward the boy.

From the pocket of his jeans, Raymond drew something: from the back, it was only clear what he was doing when he held the small thing to the tips of the torches and flames gusted from them. The boy did not flinch. There was tenderness to Raymond’s gestures. He was explaining something. He reached out and adjusted the boy’s hand on the torch. Again, the boy did not flinch but cast one fiery torch aloft, catching it on its descent as he sent the next upward with a whoosh, and the next, the flare of flame washing over his skin. The sun set.

He knew you were filming all this?

Yes, Juliet said. We all walked out together. Now when I see him touch Yitbarek’s hand, I think —. But maybe he’s just trying to show him how to do it right. And he knew he was being filmed.

Leaning over, Raymond plucked the three remaining metal cylinders from the bucket and, clasping them in one hand, set them alight, and he and the boy passed the torches back and forth, before, at a signal from Raymond, Yitbarek tossed the torches one by one to him, and Raymond, face raised, feet shuffling over the bumpy earth, rotated all six. He turned toward the camera, smiling, and, as at the service centre that night in July, didn’t seem to be showing off as much as demonstrating the possibility of something, and there was beauty here, and he knew it, he was making it, and Juliet must have known it, since her eye, filming, was also creating the scene. In this moment, he was performing for her. They were collaborating. Or he was trying to distract her. To convince her that beauty outshone other things. Onscreen, he refracted all these possibilities.

The flames rose and fell, the light truly fading now, and Raymond’s body, in its black T-shirt, began to disappear, and the boy, too, receded from sight, leaving only the smear of their faces and the hungry flames to grow brighter and brighter.

Yitbarek’s the one who had the accident back in the summer, Sara said. Isn’t that right?

What? Juliet said. What accident?

The night of the benefit. Raymond Renaud told me. And now there was nothing to do but go on, explain all of it, Raymond Renaud’s bizarre request that she drive him to Montreal, to which, in the heat of the moment, she’d agreed. His urgency. His admission that there’d been an accident, his fear that Yitbarek was paralyzed. As she spoke, she was aware of Juliet’s physical retraction.

Paralyzed? Juliet said.

Maybe he isn’t. If he didn’t say anything to you. Maybe he got back and it wasn’t as bad as he thought.

Maybe, she thought, Raymond had assumed she would say something to Juliet.

I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this, Juliet said, taut in her chair, while on the screen, in the hall of painted cinder blocks, smaller boys, including Yitbarek, vaulted over the backs of bigger boys, and girls in T-shirts and leggings stretched their limbs. With an almost violent gesture, Juliet stopped the tape.

It was a wild thing to do, but once it was over, I got busy, and I didn’t think that much more about it. I’m sorry, Julie. All of which was partly true. And the episode had felt private, not something she wanted to share with Juliet because she wanted to avoid Juliet’s reaction. I really assumed, since you were in pretty close touch, that he would have mentioned the accident to you.

Everything’s a mess, Juliet said. There were tears in her eyes.

That February afternoon in the Van Houtte coffee shop when Juliet, the unassuming girl from the Feminism and Sexuality seminar, in her trim, dark coat and red knit cap, had walked in the door, Sara had sensed approachability in her. And so she’d waved. Takeout cup in hand, Juliet had come over to Sara’s table by the window. So much was pent up in her, and Juliet, who took a seat across the table, was willing to listen, her cheeks growing pink with appalled solicitude as she took in Sara’s story, and there was such relief in this, until at last Juliet reached out and laid a hand on Sara’s arm and said, If you need somewhere to stay, do you want to come to my place?

There had been such relief at this too. Sara still had the room in the flat full of girls on St. Viateur, but the thought of going back there had felt so lonely and mortifying that she couldn’t bear it. In Juliet’s eyes, she might be a victim, although Juliet also seemed a little in awe of her. An exotic victim. Above all, Juliet seemed trustworthy, ready to believe her, willing to help. She could relax her guard a little.

In the edit suite, Juliet rose and rustled a tissue from her handbag and, with her back turned, blew her nose. Was it also possible that she was hiding something?

Ed Levoix of the International Red Cross in Addis Ababa, whom Juliet had interviewed back in May, answered his phone himself. Juliet had shown Sara a glimpse of him on one of her tapes: a large man with sandy hair seated behind a desk, tigerlike in his self-satisfaction, who winked at his invisible interlocutor and joked, Who’d have thought I’d come to Addis and end up in showbiz?

Sara had tried him at the number that Juliet had given her, from home, first thing on the Friday morning, the day after meeting with Juliet in the edit suite, hoping to catch Ed Levoix at the end of his workday. Before him, she had attempted once more to reach Raymond Renaud at the number on the circus website, which was the only number that either she or Juliet had for him. Again, after several rings, the answering machine clicked on and Raymond’s upbeat voice asked callers to leave messages for him or Cirkus Mirak. It seemed surprising that he hadn’t changed the recording, less surprising that he hadn’t returned the one message she’d left for him.

Ah, so you’re a friend of Juliet Levin’s, Ed Levoix said. He, too, was Canadian, Juliet had told her. I think I recognize your name from the paper. I read it sometimes at the embassy.

Can I ask you a few questions about Raymond Renaud?

I had a feeling that’s what this might be about.

A yellow legal pad open on the desk in front of her, Sara asked him what he knew.

That some of the kids ran off in Australia and are seeking asylum and, you know, I’m sure you know, have made some rather disturbing allegations.

Has the news been reported there?

Not yet. Not that I’ve seen. But everyone in the expat community, everyone who worked with him, knows. And all of us are reeling.

Has he issued any kind of statement?

I’ve not heard a peep. It’s early days, though.

He’s there, as far as you know?

He came back here from Australia. I know that much. He’s not showing his face anywhere now. I might have seen his truck once.

How are people responding?

People? Well, those of us who worked with him are, what can I say, heartbroken. There’s so much broken trust. It seemed like such a fantastic new model for working with children and communities and was attracting so much attention. A circus, brilliant idea, and here’s this fantastically energetic guy with a huge vision who looked to be doing a whole lot of good.

And no word from the circus organization.

That would pretty much be him. Though there’s that other man who works with him. No. I don’t think so. I saw somewhere they’re supposed to do a show in some part of town next week. I’ve no idea if they will. The whole thing may be kaput.

Did you ever observe anything that seemed troubling?

Me? No. He looked like a workaholic who liked to work with children. No, ah, scratch that.

What about a boy who was injured and possibly paralyzed back in the summer. Do you know anything about it?

Really? Paralyzed? I’ve heard nothing.

In bed with David, empty whisky glasses on the floor beside them, her body flooded with heat and a deep internal ticking that was also a settling, the room full of the scent of peat and trees and sex, Sara said, I’m thinking of going to Addis Ababa.

You are, David said, body turned to hers, sweat at his temples, her hand on his hip. Because of the circus man? Is it for work?

Not exactly. No one’s paying me to go. I want to go. It’s impulsive and I know it.

Are you sure he’s there? David asked, in the calm and measured voice that was so much a part of him.

Not sure, no. But I know he went back there and there’s no word he’s gone anywhere else.

Or that he’d talk to you?

Well, if I go, it’s not just for him, there’s the children, the circus, and other people to talk to.

What had his words been on parting: if there’s ever anything I can do for you, ask. Something like that. There was no knowing, now, that she could hold him to such a promise. Ask him to tell her his version of what happened; insist that he owed this to her. Spoken out loud, her plan, if you could call it that, sounded more than impulsive. Ridiculous even. Maybe impulsiveness was a quality that Raymond Renaud called out in her, only this time the urgency was hers. As David, too, had something invested in her impulsiveness and failure to play by the rules.

So you’d go, hoping to write about it, David said.

Sitting up, Sara took his hand and pressed the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, massaging it. There he lay, in her bed, beautiful in the lamplight, watching her. Looking at him gave her pleasure. Touching him. Being touched by him, his fingers tangling in her hair, working their way against her scalp. For all that he was not hers. Still, there was his ability and hers when with him to live entirely or almost entirely in the present. Or I’d figure out some kind of travel piece. It’s true, I’m kind of taken up by this. Who and what he is. In the wake of that drive, agreeing to it, spending all those hours with him. Was I completely duped or not? It’s about what we call ground truths, the things you can only learn by being on the ground in a place, that you can’t know any other way. I want that. It’s a bit mad, but I’m sure I can find a way to write it off.

When?

In a couple of weeks. If I can get the time. As soon as I can book a ticket and get a visa. I don’t think I’ll be able to get away for more than a week.

There was the piece she wasn’t giving David, the piece of her past that was also propelling her toward Raymond Renaud. Her sense of identification with him; the possibility of helping him if by chance he had been wrongly accused. But it wasn’t necessary, it was merely complicating to tell David about this. All truths were partial. There were plenty of other reasons for her to want to re-encounter Raymond Renaud. She had never been to Addis Ababa. There was the mystery of the boy.