Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather (7 page)

Thunderous applause from the customers. Aware that he was now centre stage, the manager took twenty-three of the twenty-five gas canisters from Boris’s shopping trolley and carefully set
them down by the till, as if they were the day’s special offer.

‘Anyone who needs gas can help themselves. But no more than two per person. Have a thought for other people!’

Shamefaced, Boris pushed his trolley up to the woman at the checkout. She picked up one canister to read the price. She multiplied it by two, then when she was sure no one was watching, she
quickly grabbed a canister from the huge pile surrounding her till and slipped it discreetly into Boris’s bag.

‘I have fish, too. I know what it’s like. It’s a real can of worms if you don’t look after them!’

Boris greeted this topological solidarity with a simple nod of his head, then hurried off to see if he’d fare better in another store. Unfortunately, the clientele of those other stores
were all Quebeckers utterly lacking in solidarity. He couldn’t find a single gas canister. The shelves were empty: other selfish shoppers had taken the lot.

Staring at his aquarium, Boris knew that if the ice storm led to a power cut, he would not last more than four hours and thirty minutes. So what if the neighbour’s kitten had got out? With
glacial indifference he watched Brutus scamper across the street. The kitten was lucky: a car went by but didn’t run him over.

In life, it’s every man for himself.

WHAT ON EARTH WAS THE SKY UP TO NOW?

When my mum came home, I threw my arms around her and gave her a kiss. I’d been doing a lot of thinking that afternoon. I couldn’t let the sky do it all on its
own.

‘Help yourself and the heavens will help you.’

I don’t know where I’d heard that phrase. But with all my thinking about the heavens, it came back to me. I hugged my mum as tight as I could so that she might think it was coming
from someone else.

‘This is from Dad!’

She stood there in my arms not knowing what to do. I wasn’t trying to take revenge or hurt her, I just wanted her and Dad to understand that I existed, and if they thought they could just
decide things without me, well, they were wrong.

‘Did he get to the cottage all right?’

‘Yes, he called. He said you saw each other before he left . . . They’ve had a heap of ice falling there, too, and the power is out . . .’

I froze for a second. I was almost ashamed to be in a nice warm house when my dad was cold. Served him right for leaving the house, but he didn’t deserve to die frozen and all alone in the
cottage.

‘Don’t worry, darling. He has everything he needs. You know him. He’ll use the generator. The one he bought last year to do the renovations this summer, remember? The phone is
working, so you can call him if you want, darling.’

‘Later . . .’

‘Whenever you want, darling. We’re always here for you.’

Why was she calling me ‘darling’? She never called me that. I have a name, after all! It really annoyed me, right from the start, and I didn’t feel like being nice at a time
like this. I had a plan.

‘Will we go back there, to the cottage?’

‘Of course we will, darling . . .’

I took a deep breath. She’d walked right into the trap.

‘All of us together?’

By the look on her face, she hadn’t seen it coming. I knew I’d hit home but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to tell her about helping myself. As for her, she really
wasn’t helping herself at all.

‘Not necessarily, darling. The main thing is for you to have some good times together . . . And just think, dividing the time between your father and me will mean twice as many holidays at
the cottage. You’re one lucky boy!’

I just looked at her. She understood that I didn’t think I was lucky at all. She closed her eyes for a second and came closer. I could feel her hands on my cheeks, ever so soft. She took
her time.

‘Forgive me, darling, I know this isn’t easy for you. It’s not any easier for me, for either of us. No one wants to have this happen, but that’s life. Things will get
better with time and besides, we’re going to do everything we can to make it right for you. For your father and for me, you are the most important thing on earth.’

Thing!
She’s a teacher and that’s all she could think of to say?

She kissed me tenderly. She seemed moved. I am sure she didn’t go into the kitchen just to make something for me to eat. I hoped she was crying, maybe not a lot, but a few tears at least.
It was her turn now.

There was no answer. But I let it ring a long time. I redialled the number at the summer cottage and waited some more. My dad wasn’t picking up. Where could he be?

‘He must have gone somewhere to eat. It’s hard to make dinner without electricity. Particularly when you don’t know how to cook.’

My mum wanted to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work with me. I could detect a certain amount of affection in her words, but knowing that my dad might not get enough to eat made me really
sad. No child deserves this. We should have all been together, Dad in front of the television, Mum reading in the kitchen, and me somewhere in between. My mum wasn’t relaxed. I think that for
her too this situation wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it was going to be. I was discovering what it meant to be a kid who’s divided between two adults, and she was finding out
what it meant to be half a parent.

My mum wanted to watch television. She sat on the armrest of my dad’s chair. I don’t know why – maybe deep down it was as if he were still here? Maybe she too would have liked
him to be there with us, with the remote in his hand? Often the moments we miss the most are the ones we didn’t especially enjoy at the time.

‘At last I’ll be able to choose the programme tonight!’

She chose the news channel, the one my dad always switched on first.

Could it be the sky was overdoing it, after all? All they could talk about was what it had been up to. My mum didn’t like it one bit.

‘Damned black ice . . . It sure picked the right time!’

All they were showing on television was the ice storm.

‘You should film it. Think of the memories.’

‘I don’t really feel like remembering it . . .’

She grimaced, as if everything she said turned against her. But I could hardly come out and tell her that the video camera my dad had given me was in a desk drawer at school with a close-up of
the neighbour’s boobs stored on it.

‘You know what? The educational director fell and broke her coccyx!’

‘How’d she do that?’

‘She slipped on the ice in the playground while she was sprinkling salt. She fell right on her behind.’

‘Oh, poor woman, that must really hurt.’

In bed I thought about the educational director lying on her stomach in her hospital bed. Even if she was strict sometimes, I could remember all the times she’d been
nice. Maybe she had kids who were sad to be at home without her. Maybe I’d really gone too far?

My mum came in to wish me good night. She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair.

‘Sleep well, darling . . .’

‘Can I ask you a question?’

She’d had a rough evening. I can’t say she seemed very enthusiastic.

‘Of course, darling . . .’

‘How did you and Dad first meet?’

She raised her eyes heavenwards.

‘Oh, well . . . Listen, darling, maybe this isn’t the best time . . .’

I put on my good little boy face, the one you use when you’ve just done something naughty, but not really very naughty.

‘Oh, I don’t know; give me time to digest all this. All right, darling?’

‘Some other time?’

‘Yes, some other time . . .’

She leaned down to kiss me.

‘Don’t read for too long, darling.’

She didn’t wait for me to answer. She got to her feet quickly, afraid I might ask her another question.
Slam!

When I switched off the light on the night table, I could hear the clicking of the ice falling against my windows. The sky had seen that I was trying to help myself, so it went on helping me. It
felt good, knowing someone was thinking about me. I got up to look out of the window. The landscape was turning into something strange. The little tree across the way was bending under the weight
of the ice, its top about to touch the ground.

I looked down the street: it was completely deserted. The light from the windows was reflected on the ground, in the ice. Suddenly there was a bright glow from the opposite side of the street.
And then it was almost completely dark. The lights in the building across the way had all just gone out. I went over to my bedside lamp. Click. It came on.

What on earth was the sky up to now?

IT’S A MIRACLE!

The flame from the gas stove curled against the base of the aluminium saucepan. The water in the pan was boiling: one litre, no more, no less. Boris Bogdanov plunged a
thermometer into the water and held it there with a trembling hand. The mercury rose slowly. The boiling water was beginning to burn his hand.

‘
Crisse de marde!
’

That’s how you can tell the landed immigrants – they swear in Québécois. Boris wasn’t surprised to see the water boiling, once it reached a hundred degrees. That
was something he’d learned in his second year at the Yuri Gagarin Primary School. He immediately extinguished the flame. He needed exactly a litre and, given the atmospheric pressure, he knew
that the evaporation would be six centilitres a second. He only had ten seconds to transfer the liquid from saucepan to aquarium, because there, too, you can lose tenths of a degree.

Taking care not to burn any of his fish, Boris methodically poured the hot water into the aquarium. It took only nine seconds! He put the saucepan down and picked up the thick notepad where he
had recorded the trajectories of each of his fish. His worried gaze moved in succession from each of his complicated drawings to each of his simple little fish. Suddenly the young Russian’s
face lit up. Not one of his fish had changed course!

‘
Da . . . Da . . . Da . . .
’

Boris’s joy was short-lived. He looked at his gas canisters, then his watch. He got up and went over to the bookshelf crammed with hundreds of books. He hunted for a moment and found a
little battery-operated radio.

‘No sign of improvement in the weather for Montreal and the South Shore, where the ice is continuing to fall. At the current rate of precipitation, we can expect roughly a million
households in Quebec to be without electricity by tomorrow morning. Already several school districts have announced that schools will be closed tomorrow, and the same will apply
to—’

Click. Boris Bogdanov didn’t want to hear any more; it was clear enough. He knew that it was going to be a long, long night. He looked at his three gas canisters. A flash of hatred went
through him, for Canada Dépôt, for the manager and for all those Quebecker customers with their damned solidarity. If the temperature of his aquarium started to drop significantly,
years of work would all come to nothing. If his fish died he’d have to start all over again with his theory. For Boris Bogdanov this meant, incontestably, that he would have to establish the
profiles of four new fish, which would require several weeks’ observation for each one. Before he could prove that Melanie wees standing up, he would first have to prove all over again that
Melanie exists. And he had four Melanies. He stood up and hurled the saucepan to the floor in a rage.

Crash bang!

‘Fucking faggot up there! Can’t we have five minutes’ peace around here? Asshole!’

Yes, there had been some noise, but it was surely the first time the upstairs neighbour had made any. Alex had been listening to the news before going to bed. He dropped off to sleep in a
pleasant cocoon, knowing that school would be closed the next day. He had taken an extra blanket in case the power cut lasted a while, and he put the other blanket on the sofa; he’d drape it
over his dad later.

‘Fucking weather report! They could’ve told us there’d be freezing rain! What am I supposed to do tomorrow?’

Alexis never did much of anything when tomorrow came.

‘I’m going to call and tell them what I think of the way they do their job!’

He got up in the dark, not making the slightest move to pick up the phone, even though it was right there. He strode into the kitchen. With a firm hand he opened the fridge, which was very dark
inside, and grabbed a bottle of beer. Then he closed the door and went out into the hallway.

Bang!

‘What’s all this stuff lying around, fuck!’

There was nothing lying around. It was just the doorframe. With one hand on his head he went haltingly back over to the sofa and lay down, pulling the blanket Alex had left over himself. He
sucked on his beer to the last drop, like a baby. Then he lay on his stomach to forget everything, hoping he’d dream about Doro.

Boom ba-dah boom!

At three in the morning the sound of someone tearing down the stairs briefly masked the sound of Alexis’s snoring. He was fast asleep, murmuring to himself.

‘
Je . . . t’ai . . . bébé . . .
’

Then he rolled over into a foetal position, snoring even louder, and failed to notice that his son Alex had just tucked the blanket back round him. Outside, the ice was still falling. Then the
sound of it on the window was drowned out by a sudden, heartrending, inhuman cry from the street.

‘
Neeeeeyyyetttt!
’

Boris Bogdanov collapsed, theatrically, on the steps of his duplex. Ice was falling on his head, mingling with his tears.

‘What have I done to God that this should happen to me?’

Boris Bogdanov did not believe in God, and he could not bring himself to accept an irrational explanation for the misfortune that had befallen him. For a mathematician, everything must be
susceptible to proof. But he could not find an explanation for this ice. If it existed, it could only be God’s fault.

Brutus couldn’t understand what was happening, either. If he had only known, he would never have run away from home in the middle of winter, on a day of freezing rain. When he heard Boris
moaning, he poked his head out from under the stairs and without a moment’s hesitation jumped up onto Boris’s lap. Boris didn’t even try to push him off. He was weeping in a sort
of rhythmic, monotonous chant, which made Brutus purr. A car door slammed.