Until the Night (16 page)

Kurt, she isn’t mine to sell.

She isn’t yours at all. Rebecca is my wife. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea? It’s not a piece of paper. It’s not a matter of a ceremony. It means I have watched her grow from a graduate student, still a girl really, into a fully mature and wise woman. I have been there in the big moments of her life—achieving her master’s degree, the day she defended her dissertation. I have been there for the disappointments, the setbacks. I have watched her walk face first into the most cruel academic traps. She thinks everyone is her friend, everyone wishes her well, until they don’t.

That was not my experience of Rebecca, and I said so. Whether he heard me or not, I’ve no idea.

I held her at her mother’s funeral, he said. I have heard her talk in her sleep, stroked her hair when she woke up from some nightmare.
Driven her to the emergency room and sat with her hour after hour. I’ve never seen anyone so sick. They gave her five bags of fluid, Durie, five bags of saline. It caused her temperature to plummet and she shook on the gurney as if possessed by epilepsy. And the car accident—did she tell you about the car accident?

I said no, but it hardly mattered. He didn’t hear me.

Norway. We were going far too fast. Terrible weather, fog and sleet, and the driver lost control and we woke up in some tiny little outpost clinic, not a hospital. I received a broken arm only, but Rebecca had a deep gash in her leg and desperately needed a transfusion. I woke up covered in her blood. They had a line in my arm and took my blood for a transfusion—we have the same type. She is literally of my blood, Durie, that’s what the word
wife
means in this particular instance, in case you don’t happen to know or care.

I tried to speak some calming words, but he was raving now.

It means also, yes, I have hurt her. Because I am a man and I am vain and stupid and weak. I have hurt her and felt her tears soak through my shirt when I have given her my abject apologies. But it isn’t just that. It is not such big things always. Not so long ago I was looking for a stamp or some scissors or something and I opened her desk drawer and you know what I found? I found a ticket, a torn ticket, for an evening of Bach concertos. No great virtuoso, no acclaimed orchestra, but it was the first place we had gone together, and she had kept the ticket and glued it to a piece of fine paper and written the date underneath in her beautiful handwriting, with the words
The first place I went with Kurt
.

Kurt, please. It’s late. Let’s just work together as best we can.

I have heard her giggle on the phone like a schoolgirl, I have heard her singing off-key at the top of her voice when she thought no one was home. You think because you fuck her you’re somehow closer? Yes, sure, look away, I don’t blame you. And it’s not just the little things either, it’s the less than that. The nothings. I get up in the morning and she is there, Durie. She is there, you understand. Year after year, day after day. This person I know I don’t deserve, every day.

Was
there. You took her for granted, Kurt.

Yes, of course I did. I’m selfish and vain and not very noticing of things. But it’s not all bad, you know, taking each other for granted. You get used to each other, as you get used to a landscape—living on the plain or in Toronto or in the shadow of some mountain. Yes, they are your landscape, they surround you, you forget they’re there. In a way, taking a person for granted is a mark of love.

Good night, Kurt.

A mark of trust.

He swiped at his tears with the sleeve of his parka. God, I’m a stupid man. Of all the people to ask! I’ve long known you for a cold person, Durie, an unfeeling person. But it would take a microscope to measure the distance between unfeeling and cruel. Sometimes to be cruel requires no action at all, just the willingness to stand by and do nothing. I am a man engulfed in flame, begging you to piss on me, but of course you won’t. Give her back? God, I’m an idiot. You’ll never give her back.

Kurt, I’m not trying to hurt you. You say you love her. Is it so hard to believe I love her too? Why is it so impossible that I should love Rebecca as well—maybe more than you ever did?

He was struggling with his boots now. Muttering. Yes, it’s impossible. I’ll tell you why it’s not possible. It’s not possible, Durie, for the simple reason that you don’t love anyone and never will.

Honestly, Kurt, I don’t think psychology’s your strong suit. You talk like some half-educated priest.

Kurt opened the cabin door and the polar night rushed in. He went out and slammed the door behind him. I listened to his footsteps recede, then switched out the light and crawled deeper into my sleeping bag. In his rage and impotence Kurt imagined that his words had made no impact on me. But his claim of intimacy, true intimacy, with Rebecca had wounded me. I breathed in the scent of her—took it deep into my lungs, my antidote, my morphine. And I wondered once more if I was a bad man or simply a man of no moral import either way. I have never suspected myself of being good. If I have any virtue, it must be my not claiming any.

9

S
HE CAME OUT OF THE
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and trotted down the front stairs, enormous backpack bouncing with each step. Red mitten in the air as she waved to someone heading upstairs. Pretty smile.

A winter evening at the University of Toronto. Crowds of students flowed across the intersection in currents that shifted with each change of the traffic lights. They chattered to each other, their faces alive with the effortless beauty of the young, eyes shining in the street light, their cheeks lit by cellphones. Amid all this, one man, his features shadowed by a hood, made a very still point.

He watched as the young woman reached the bicycle rack, hair whipping across her face. Between the backpack slung from her shoulders and the helmet dangling from one hand, she looked more student than teacher. She put the backpack into her carrier, removed one mitten, and held it clamped between her teeth as she put the helmet on and fastened it. She bent to undo the U-lock and snapped it onto the frame and, still with the mitten in her mouth, unzipped a pocket of the backpack and reached inside.

A red light throbbed in her hand. She attached it under the bicycle seat and fixed another one—white, not flashing—to the handlebars.
Mitten on, she walked the bike over the curb, climbed on and pedalled west along Harbord.

The bicycle made her difficult to follow by car or on foot. Not that it mattered ultimately. Nothing mattered ultimately.

He watched as she joined the line of cyclists waiting at the next light. A confident woman, unfazed by snow squall or rush-hour traffic. Intrepid. She evoked in him a kind of awe. It is a tremendous thing, when you are composed of nothing but the past, to behold a creature, effortlessly beautiful, who is all future.

“And what am I supposed to wear to this thing?” Delorme sounded a little panicky on the phone. “How formal is it?”

“I don’t know,” Cardinal said. “He didn’t say. Ronnie’s not a formal guy.”

“But he’s rich, no?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Okay, so formal. He knows this isn’t a date, right? We arrive together, people are going to think we’re a couple, and I don’t want to be explaining all night.”

Cardinal had been a little nervous about asking her to Ronnie Babstock’s party, especially after she had been so annoyed with him in Ottawa. When she answered the door, he couldn’t shut up about how great she looked.

“Have you been drinking already? It’s just a little black dress.”

“No, it’s not. You’ve got shiny things on, too.”

“Shiny things. Great. Anyway, since when do you notice what I wear?”

Cardinal thought about that as they drove out to Ronnie Babstock’s house. Delorme was right that it was out of character. Of course, it was also out of character for her to look like a total knockout. But it was more than that. It had been two years now since his wife’s death, and he was aware of certain changes in himself.

Back before Christmas, he had been watching a movie with Delorme at her place. It was not a comedy but it had some funny bits, and Cardinal had laughed too loud. He heard it himself—he’d been doing it a lot lately—but he was defensive when Delorme remarked on it. She asked if he planned to become one of those laughers who annoy other people in movie theatres.

“It was just funny,” he insisted. But he had been laughing too loud, and it had felt good, as if something inside him, not his heart but some lesser-known organ of feeling, long frozen, had somehow melted. The world began to seem a richer place; amusing things were more amusing.

And sad things were sadder. When Delorme had told him about her neighbours’ dog having to be put down—their young daughter hysterical with grief—he had been quite upset. These were not even people he knew. Where did it come from, this burgeoning susceptibility? He was sure it was healthy—well, fairly sure—like recovering the feeling in fingers numbed with cold. It felt good on the whole, if slightly illicit. It only made sense that he was finally beginning to fully engage with the world once more.

Delorme had a lot to do with it. Their friendship was so free and easy, like no friendship he’d ever had. He never worried about Delorme. With Catherine, after her first breakdown early in their marriage, there was never a time when he was not worried about her. His love for his wife, though deep and loyal, had always contained a large element of protectiveness. Delorme was just a friend, he wasn’t responsible for her, and she did not require anyone’s protection, thank you very much.

When they arrived at the party, Cardinal enjoyed introducing her to Ronnie and his other poker friends, observing their reactions. Several of the women were wearing shiny things as well. Amid the candles, the ice buckets, the flutes of champagne, they took on the cheerful glitter of Christmas presents. But he felt no urge to leave Lise’s side.

He was not generally much of a drinking man, but a bevy of highly groomed young women drifted among the guests, refilling glasses without asking. By the time dinner was served, he was discovering in himself hidden wells of amiability.

People asked about the Marjorie Flint case. A senator’s wife had been murdered in their city, why wouldn’t they? It was one of the things Cardinal usually hated about parties, people inquiring about high-profile cases when he couldn’t say a thing about them. Tonight he refused to let it bother him. And in any case, Ronnie Babstock was running a kind of protective interference for him.

“Is it true she was chained up like a dog?” one woman asked.

“He can’t talk about it,” Ronnie said. “Case in progress.”

Over dessert, another woman said, “Totally nude in sub-zero weather—it’s unbelievable what that man did.”

Actually, the fact that Marjorie Flint was warmly dressed was far more remarkable, but Cardinal said nothing.

“Rachel, didn’t you hear? The poor guy can’t talk about it.”

“It’s okay,” Cardinal said. “People are bound to be curious.”

“I mean, really,” Ronnie said. “There’s a limit.”

The conversation turned to Ronnie’s own work. Delorme mentioned the photographs that had been coming back from Mars, how Marti, the peripatetic robot, had lasted longer and travelled farther than anyone had expected. Cardinal realized she must have read up in preparation for the party, a courtesy that would never have occurred to him.

“You must worry all the time,” she said. “All those billions at stake.”

“Our test protocols are stringent,” Ronnie said. “We put ’em through hell before
NASA
even gets a peek at ’em. And I mean hell.”

“Does
NASA
get a warranty?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Well, there’d be rolling guarantees, I imagine.”

“You know about contracts?”

“Lise is our white-collar-crime specialist,” Cardinal said. “Don’t let her near your tax return.”

“There are various time frames with various liabilities,” Ronnie said. “We’re way above water on this one.”

“Yes, I’d imagine so.” Delorme raised her glass. “To Marti.”

They toasted the robot, and then someone said, “A wife gets murdered, it’s always the husband. And David Flint’s known as a total bastard around the Senate.”

“For Christ sake,” Ronnie said. “They can’t talk about it.”

“Yes, but
we
can.”

It was late when they said their good nights and stepped outside into the cold. Cardinal handed his car keys to Delorme, and she accepted them without comment. She took the slow route, along Lakeshore, probably because the lighting was better.

“I really enjoyed that, John. Thanks for taking me.”

“I’m glad you came. I wouldn’t have gone on my own.” That didn’t sound quite right to Cardinal’s ear, he wasn’t sure why. He reached over and turned down the heater a notch.

“Ronnie Babstock’s so down-to-earth. Kinda cute the way he wouldn’t let people make us talk about work. Like we were celebrities or something.”

“Uh-huh.” Cardinal was still trying to figure out what it was he had meant to say.