My October (30 page)

At the top of the stairs, she moved past the man. His face was composed, giving none of its secrets away. She lengthened her stride, passing people, pushing ahead. The previous night, she'd slept badly, tossing in her parents' guest bed until two in
the morning and then falling into a dreamless sleep from which she awoke hours later than she'd intended. By the time she got downstairs, her mother and Hugo had left the house.

She glanced at her watch. Twenty-three minutes late, and she wasn't even at street level. She should have phoned Allison to tell her, but that would have required a level of organization that was beyond her. It had taken all her energy to come here for Hugo. There was nothing left for anyone else.

Her mother had taken Hugo out shopping first thing that morning, Hannah had learned from Irene, the housekeeper. Her mother, whom Hannah had always thought so confused, so blinkered and unadaptable, was doing just fine.

Alfred's frontal lobe could be thanked for that. So Connie had told Hannah late last night, in confidence, after Hugo and Alfred were safely in their beds. In some ways, she'd said, the stroke was a blessing. It was as though a crust had fallen off Alfred Stern. There was a tranquility about him. He looked at her when she spoke. He listened. At first, she'd thought she was imagining it, reading her own hopes into the silence of this man with whom she'd lived for almost fifty years. But it wasn't just hope. It was Alfred himself, stripped down, his essence revealed.

Dr. Ufitsky had confirmed that such things could happen. After a stroke, people's sociability often changed. Most of the time, it decreased, especially in left-hemisphere strokes that robbed people of their language. They often sank into despondency. But occasionally, as in Alfred's case, sociability increased. Inhibitions were lost.

“He didn't lose all of his inhibitions,” Connie had said, resting her hands on the edge of the sink, “but enough to keep me laughing.”

Hannah walked west toward Spadina. Traffic was badly snarled. When she reached Spadina, even the sidewalks were crowded. Where was everyone going at ten thirty-three on a Friday morning? She missed Saint-Henri, where at this hour the streets were mostly empty.

The Word Press was on the fifth floor of a renovated warehouse squeezed between two shiny office towers. Over the past few years, a number of warehouses here had been gutted and refitted as offices for designers and publishers and other artsy types. Stylish men and women walked purposefully down the wide sidewalks. Hannah was hurrying now too, caught up in the rush, slaloming toward her destination. She could see the building with its discreet doorway, over which hung the publisher's name with its eye-catching
W
that doubled as a bird. She glanced at her wristwatch. Thirty-seven minutes late now.

As she entered the building, she took off her hat and sunglasses and stuffed them into her knapsack, which was empty save for a brush, a small plastic package of tissues, and her wallet. She was wearing the same clothes she'd worn on the train and looked, she knew, lamentably stained and rumpled.

Allison March didn't appear immediately after the receptionist informed her of Hannah's arrival. This was to be expected. First of all, there was Hannah's lateness. Second, there was the larger pattern of which this lateness was a characteristic part. For several months now, Hannah had played a perverse game of chicken with Allison, failing to meet every deadline the young woman had set. And third, Hannah Lévesque was a translator. Her work might have won prizes, and it was certainly necessary in a country with two languages, but still, it was derivative.
Traduttore, traditore
. She was not a
writer. Why should a gifted fiction editor like Allison March make any special effort?

Minutes passed. Hannah studied the spines of recent novels arranged in alphabetical order on the shelves. The Word Press was a class act, well known in literary circles for its sense of aesthetics and for the care it took with its publications. The company had been around since the 1940s. Everything it published was meticulously edited, designed, and printed. In an age of mass production, the Word still managed to make books that looked and felt like works of art.

After ten minutes, Allison March walked into the reception area extending a hand. She was perfectly groomed, as usual. Her nail polish was the light, creamy pink of the interior of a conch shell. She was slightly breathless. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “What a morning we've had.” Working for a publishing house, she was necessarily a professional defuser of crises. Always a little short of breath. But the crises seemed never to shake her calm. Not a hair was out of place.

Hannah reflexively smoothed her own hair and checked her sweater for button malfunctions. She noticed that the cuff of one pant leg had somehow got caught in her sock, and she bent to unhook it.

Something about Allison was different, though. Her features seemed less angular than usual. She was still thin, still impeccable, but for some reason her contours looked softer. She led Hannah into a conference room, closed the door, and sat down.

“I'm pregnant,” she said, without introduction. She was announcing it, she said, because it affected Hannah. The publication date for
Dreamer
would fall during her upcoming maternity leave. “You mustn't worry,” she added calmly. “Everything will
go as planned. My assistant is taking over while I'm away. Terrific girl. Loves your work. She'll take good care of you.”

Hannah thought of the succession of deadlines she'd missed. No wonder Allison had been so persistent. It wasn't just her perfectionism; she'd known this was coming. While Hannah had been dodging her telephone calls, Allison had been trying to deal with the first trimester of a pregnancy.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, ashamed.

Allison regarded her strangely. “Well, I'm not.”

“I didn't mean your pregnancy,” Hannah added hastily. “That's great news. I'm sorry for all the missed deadlines.”

Allison waved her hands as though it hardly mattered, then settled them on her belly, which Hannah now saw had a small bulge.

“How's it going?” she asked, nodding at it. But the answer was obvious. Allison looked radiant.

“To tell you the truth, I've barely noticed it,” Allison said, giving Hannah a bright smile. “I'd heard all these stories from people about nausea and dizzy spells and varicose veins, but so far”—she rapped the table with her knuckles—“I can't complain.”

Hannah smiled with as much warmth as she could muster. Could life actually unfold like this? Allison March would probably be one of those mothers who got her figure back right after her natural, epidural-free delivery in the comfort of her own home. No hemorrhoids. No stretch marks. Her baby would probably sleep through the night.

Hannah knew little about Allison March outside of her work at the Word. Luc had said once that she was a former dancer who had stopped performing due to an injury, but Allison herself had never mentioned this. Nor had she mentioned a man. Hannah
tried to picture her with one. He was likely rich, a successful young CEO.

“So it's done?” Allison asked.

Although Hannah had been expecting the question, it still made her breath catch. She'd told Allison she would have the manuscript finished by today. “I promise,” she'd said hopefully, weeks ago. “You have my solemn word.”

Hannah's spine seemed to stretch suddenly and unaccountably. Then she tipped over. It was the strangest sensation. She had no idea she would do it until it happened, then she was in motion, her torso describing a slow, ineluctable arc until her forehead touched the table.

There was a second of silence and then Allison stood up. “Hannah?” she said, hurrying to her side.

Hannah studied Allison's legs, shimmering in a pair of sheer stockings, and her burgundy pumps, low-heeled, practical, yet somehow radiating style.

Hannah sighed. “It's over.”

Allison stepped in closer. “What is? What are you talking about?”

“Everything,” said Hannah. It sounded melodramatic, not that Allison seemed to notice. She crouched beside Hannah and put a hand on her shoulder.

Hannah took a breath and the words flowed out at last. She declared, finally and unequivocally, that she was breaking the contract. Finishing the translation was beyond her. She could no longer bear the sight of Luc's book. He had left her, she said. She was giving up on the book, on her marriage, on the whole intricate structure of the life she had been living for the past twenty years.

The hand on her shoulder tensed and then withdrew.

She deserved this. Why should anyone stick by such a spectacle of failure? But then Allison said her name, and her tone was so unexpectedly mournful that Hannah looked up in surprise.

Allison had straightened and was hugging her arms. She shook her head. “I can't believe you and Luc are splitting up. You two always looked so solid. You're one of the reasons I decided marriage might be worth a try.”

Only the seriousness of Allison's facial expression stopped Hannah from laughing out loud. She took one of Allison's hands in her own. The palm was moist, like a child's. “I'm sorry,” she said, able finally to glimpse the trouble in Allison's cool grey eyes. But the truth was, she wasn't sorry. Not even a little. Love wasn't something a person ever got right. It was pure improvisation, from beginning to end. Everyone had to learn this lesson sooner or later, even perfect editors of fiction in Toronto.

24

A
s she reached Chatsworth Drive, the bells in the high school across the street from her parents' house started ringing. The sound was not pleasant. Several loud blasts, insistent and shrill, followed by a short synthesized tune. The students had to listen to it five or six times a day, and so did the rest of the Lawrence Park neighbourhood. Hannah shivered as she fished the small key out of her jacket pocket. Since she'd left that morning for the Word, the temperature had fallen sharply. Her fingers were so stiff that she had to jiggle the key repeatedly before the door would open.

The heat struck her. She stopped for a moment in the front hall, letting the warm air envelop her. She was grateful enough for it now, even though the previous night it had prevented her from sleeping.

Hugo's sneakers weren't on the mat, she noticed. Nor were her mother's shoes. A good sign. They were still out shopping. She removed her own shoes as quietly as possible and tiptoed into the hallway.

“Hello?” she called softly, her greeting reverberating through the house. No one answered.

“Anybody home?”

She was heading for the staircase, about to run to the refuge of her room, when the living room door opened and Irene's face appeared in the crack. “Your daddy is home,” she said, smiling.

Irene was the only person Hannah knew who used the word
daddy
in reference to Alfred Stern. Hannah and her brother certainly didn't. When Benjamin was young, Alfred had made him say “sir” when addressing him. Hannah had been spared this formality, presumably because she was a girl. But even with her, Alfred had never been anything but “Father.”

Irene had worked for Hannah's parents since the year they arrived in Toronto. She had a gold-capped front tooth and an easy smile. “You want to come in and visit with him?” she asked.

This was the last thing Hannah wanted. She was still feeling the effects of her encounter with Allison March, still shaken by her own admissions of failure. She had no idea what to make of those admissions, except that she had no intention of repeating them. Certainly not here, in front of her father. Laying out the shambles of her life to Alfred Stern was not on the agenda.

“He's about to eat his lunch,” Irene said. “You could help him.” It was not framed as a question.

Her father was in a chair by the window, wearing a checkered shirt. A tray was balanced on his lap.

“Look,” Irene said to him. “It's Hannah.”

Alfred looked up, unblinking and curious, the way small children do.

“You sit,” Irene said, pointing at the chair opposite Hannah's
father. “He will like it, I am sure.” Then she disappeared discreetly out the door.

Hannah looked at the little microwavable dish on her father's tray. “Smart Ones,” the wrapper said. The dish contained brilliant orange macaroni.

He was having trouble with the spoon. It took a lot of control to manipulate it with his left hand, the non-dominant one that he had never before had occasion to use. The macaroni kept slipping off. It was hard to watch.

“Here,” Hannah said, sitting down. She took the spoon and gathered the fallen food. “Let's give it a try.”

Her father opened his mouth wide, reminding her, as he had at the hospital, of a fledgling waiting to be fed. He liked Smart Ones, it seemed. Hannah remembered her son and his Kraft Dinner. Perhaps Connie was right. Clones.

As she scraped out the last of the noodles, the silence began to feel oppressive. “All done,” she said, trying to sound cheery. Seconds later, she found herself talking about the weather, because even small talk was better than silence.

Her father didn't seem to mind. He stared at Hannah with his strange new frankness. She stopped talking, and in the stillness she heard the sound of her breath, and his. She laid the spoon down in his dish and faced him. “All right,” she said, as if they'd reached an agreement. “You want to know? You sure you want to hear?”

His eyes were exactly the same shape and colour as her son's, two round black moons. And so she began to speak about Hugo, revealing the true reason for his arrival in Toronto. It wasn't a visit. It hadn't been her idea. Hugo had run away from home.

Her father's expression didn't change. The eyes were like black holes. He couldn't respond, she told herself; no matter what she said, he couldn't talk back. She was safe.

So she told the whole story, beginning with the gun.