Nikolski (23 page)

He enjoyed two years of freedom in the capital, until his father was drowned in a fishing accident. Bernardo returned home for the funeral and decided to stay for several weeks to help his mother, who adamantly refused to leave Margarita. The arrangement was supposed to be only temporary. It went from temporary to transitional, from transitional to permanent, and now, four years later, Bernardo is still mired in the daily routine of the sun-drenched island. He works half-heartedly in the colonial archives, a poorly paid sinecure barely a step up from hawking seashell necklaces to tourists. No one ever comes to consult the archives aside from old Javier Salazar Ramirez, a silent, hundred-year-old genealogist who every other day gets locked in after closing hours.

Needless to say, Bernardo welcomes Noah each morning like a saviour.

The two companions roll up their sleeves, sit down at the enormous writing table and play checkers. From opening to closing time, they pass the hours lazily moving the pieces, drinking oversweet instant coffee and
discussing marine archaeology, Venezuelan politics and the local gossip. Noah corrects Bernardo’s French, and he in turn corrects Noah’s Spanish.

Bernardo is the only person on the island who knows the truth about Noah, and this knowledge obliges him to refute the countless rumours going around. Whenever questioned, he assures the questioner that Noah is toiling day and night toward his doctorate on the Garifunas. Friendship is sometimes more important than truth.

When Noah confided in him, Bernardo had a good laugh: “If people only knew what the archives
really
contain!” he said. For in fact, most of the interesting documents had been reduced to ashes in 1816, during the War of Independence. Nothing remains now of the original archives but bundles of genealogical records interspersed with documents pertaining to church foundations, anonymous shipwrecks, and land registers, all mixed up in some thirty cardboard boxes, which on very humid days give off an overpowering odour of smoke.

It is precisely this sooty stench that hangs in the room when, at nine a.m. sharp, Noah and Simón walk through the doors of the archives.

Simón comes in first, looking rather pleased to be there, although, after serious consideration, a day at the archives is no match for a day at the beach. He crosses the room rubbing his hands together, opens one
of the cabinets with the self-assurance of a regular visitor, and takes out a handful of coloured pencils and a sheaf of white paper. Then, satisfied that he is reasonably well supplied, he sits down at the end of the table and begins to draw.

At this point Noah shuffles in, obviously lacking sleep. He pauses in the doorway and sniffs the air.

“Sure looks like it’s going to rain,” he mutters.

“Don’t you read the papers?” Bernardo answers, as he steps out of the washroom holding a copy of
Últimas Noticias.
“They’re predicting storms all week.”

“Carajo,”
Noah complains after an extended yawn. “It reeks of old charcoal.”

Then he lifts his nose again and changes his mind.

“Hey, doesn’t it also smell of instant coffee?”

“Can I serve you a double, very sweet?”

“Well, if you insist.”

While Bernardo is fixing the vile beverage, Noah watches Simón working away with his pencils. On the next table, the checkerboard and pieces have been laid out, announcing an apparently normal day. At the far end of the room, Javier Salazar Ramirez is huffing like a furnace as he pores over a bulky register. He seems not to have left his chair for days, and Noah wonders if he again spent the night in the archives.

“So,
muchacho!”
Bernardo says as he hands him the steaming cup. “Ready to lose your first game of the day?”

Noah shrugs indifferently.

“You don’t seem to be in very good shape,” says Bernardo, as he places the checkers on the board.

“Insomnia.”

“More nightmares?”

“The
Granma
again.”

Bernardo gestures to him to start the game. Noah takes a sip of coffee, sits down and distractedly makes the first move. Bernardo counterattacks in the opposite corner.

“So, Arizna has gone to Caracas?”

“How did you guess?”

“Because of the nightmares.”

Noah’s index finger freezes on the checker he is about to move.

“Excuse me?”

“Haven’t you noticed,” Bernardo explains, without raising his eyes from the checkerboard, “that the only time you dream about the
Granma
is when Arizna is away?”

For a moment, Noah searches for an answer that would cut short this line of questioning. But there’s nothing to be said—Bernardo is right.

“How is your mother?” he finally asks as he moves his checker.

“Fine, thanks, and yours?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Where is she, these days?”

“Somewhere near Medicine Hat, I guess. We always spent December in southern Alberta.”

At the back of the room, the genealogist laboriously turns the pages of the register. The procedure raises so much dust that the old man occasionally disappears behind a cloud, and might be thought to have disappeared altogether if not for his constant coughing and snorting. Bernardo casts an annoyed glance in his direction before moving a checker, muttering under his breath.

“What is he up to, exactly?” Noah asks. “For years now, I’ve watched him sifting through the same papers.”

“Don Javier? He’s half out of his mind. He’s got all kinds of theories about marriages, births …
la herencia?”

“Heredity.”

“Lo que sea.
He believes that if you unite all the families of Margarita in a single family tree, you can predict the future of the island.”

“I see.”

The cloud of dust grows larger around the old man and turns into a veritable cumulonimbus. Evidently the omens in the old registers are not at all favourable. Noah gives Simón a protective look. The boy has slapped a sheet of paper down on the table and, armed with a grey felt pen, is reproducing the Great Hurricane of 1780.

“Are you planning on going back to Caracas soon?” Noah asks.

Bernardo hesitates. He studies his opponent’s last move, which jeopardizes the western flank of the board.

“Don’t know. Next year, maybe.”

“You said that last year.”

“Nothing is simple where my mother is concerned. Whenever I make plans to leave, she threatens to get sick. Or she asks me to stay one more year. Or she goes on a hunger strike. Or she tries to marry me off to Gladis, the neighbour’s daughter.”

There’s an awkward pause. Bernardo offhandedly captures one of Noah’s checkers.

“The truth is, I should have gone back to Caracas right after my father’s funeral. Now, the situation is becoming more and more complicated. I won’t be able to leave so long as my mother is alive, and she is sure to live to one hundred. And if this goes on, I’m going to end up wishing for her to die.”

He looks up from the checkerboard, horrified at having said these last words aloud. His gaze falls on Don Javier, still immersed in his register.

“I hope to leave before I reach that point,” he murmurs.

Noah wonders if Bernardo meant “leave before wishing for my mother’s death” or “leave before I look like Don Javier” or “leave before Don Javier’s genealogical predictions turn out to be right.” But he chooses not to add anything more, and the rest of the game takes place in an embarrassed silence.

An hour later, as Noah and Simón leave the colonial archives with bundles of drawings rolled up under their arms, the first drops of rain have started to come down.

IT HAS BEEN RAINING FOR THREE DAYS NOW
. Ever since this morning, I’ve been hoping for the incursion of some unusual customer: an armed Sandinista, Bluebeard or simply a second-hand bookstore robber. But no one has come through the door as yet, and I’ve spent the whole day wrapped up in my dreams and an old woollen blanket.

I stretch and blink at the clock. Five to five. I decide to close right away, and to hell with convention. Just as I’m about to get up, the little doorbell jingles, and for a brief instant the door opens onto the storm. As soon as the mist clears, I recognize my favourite book thief, dressed in a raincoat with blackened seams and a pair of jeans soaked to mid-thigh.

She greets me with a nod, drops her sailor’s bag on the doormat and, before I can say a word, vanishes between two sections.

The whole scene plays out so quickly that, without the sailor’s duffel and the puddle spreading around it,
I would think I was dreaming. I rub my eyes and look out the display window. No bookseller in his right mind would do overtime in this miserable weather. I slip out of my blanket and go over to the cookbook section. The girl is not there. I crane my neck toward the computer section. Not there either. I scratch my head. Something in the universe is awry.

I find the girl at the back of the bookstore, near the washroom, in front of the travel section. While trying not to rush her, I ask her if she needs any help. She thanks me nonchalantly and lets me know she can manage on her own.

“It’s almost five o’clock. I’m going to have to close up.”

“Oh?” she says, looking at her watch. “I didn’t notice how fast time was passing.”

“No problem. Have you found what you were looking for?”

“Not really. I’m looking for a travel guide.”

I wait for her to specify a country—the Fiji Islands, Japan, Madagascar—but she adds nothing else. The sentence ends right there, abruptly, as if the destination were of minor importance. I let this pass and behave as though it were perfectly normal for someone to want to buy just any guide, in preparation for a trip to just anywhere.

Unfortunately, I explain to her, our bookstore is rather poorly stocked in travel guides, whatever the
destination might be. We do, of course, have a travel section—one can’t do without—but, to be perfectly honest, I snap up most of the guides as they come into the store. We all have our little obsessions.

The girl looks put out. Undaunted, I offer to lend her a guide from my personal collection. (I subtly stress the word
lend,
but she does not react.)

“I’m going away very soon,” she replies, after a brief moment of hesitation. “I won’t have time to return it to you.”

“Well then, take it with you. Books have to travel. You can give it back to me when you come back, or you can send it back to me in the mail, covered with exotic stamps.”

“I don’t know … I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”

“No, I insist! Just tell me what sort of guide you’re looking for. I’ll bring a dozen of them tomorrow morning and all you have to do is come by and make your choice. How does that sound?”

“Tomorrow will be too late. Do you think we could meet later tonight?”

This catches me off guard. I agree and scribble my address on the back of a bookstore business card.

“It’s in Little Italy, right opposite Dante Park …”

“I know the neighbourhood. Say around seven?”

I nod yes. She smiles as she slips the card in her pocket and, without saying anything more, heads
toward the door. Just as she is about to leave, I come to my senses and ask her name.

“Joyce,” she answers, after wavering for a split second.

The next moment she disappears into the cyclone. Rooted by the door, I stare at the bell dancing in midair. The clock shows 5:03 p.m. I do a little jig and set about closing the shop. There are no receipts to total up—an advantage of the days when there are no sales—so all I need to do is camouflage the cash-register drawer in its usual hiding place, behind the ten-volume
Encyclopaedia of Maritime Disasters.

Outside, St-Laurent Boulevard has vanished beneath a dun-coloured downpour. Anything lying on the ground is mercilessly borne away toward the river: newspapers, gloves and tuques, fast-food wrappers, crumpled plastic bags bobbing on the current with jellyfish throbs. Not a car in sight, no one on the sidewalks.

A foretaste of the end of the world.

When I arrive home, I look like a drowned man who’s just been dragged from a lake by the Sûreté du Québec. I remove my shoes, hastily wring out my socks, and cross the living room without turning on the lights. Somewhere in the shadows, I trip on the grating of the hot-air vent that I’ve been planning to screw back
down for two months. I wrench my ankle and crash to the floor. The grating slides across the wood floor, ricochets with a clang and disappears into the darkness.