IT’S 5:45 PM, OCTOBER 7, my birthday. Jonathan’s mother has invited me for supper at 7. I’m rushing. I have to get to the Radisson metro station. The telephone’s ringing. I don’t have time to answer it. The answering machine comes on. “This is a message for Mr. Jay Jackson, from Marjorie Bligh at the Canadian High Commission in Guatemala City. It’s to let you know we have news of your brother Paul. The Guatemalan government informed us that at 9:15 am Guatemalan time, he boarded a flight for Miami, and from there will take one to Montreal. He knows you’ve been looking for him.”
“Ms. Bligh, this is Jay Jackson. Thanks for letting me know. Is Paul alright?”
“I think he is. I just wanted you to know he has been located and is on his way to Montreal. If the flights were on time, he should be there already.”
“Thanks.” I hang up the phone and feel slightly dizzy. I sit on the sofa. My heart is racing. I try to control my breathing. The phone will be ringing any time now. It’s 14 months — 14 months. Too fast, Jay. Too fast. He hasn’t told you his story yet. Wait.
The phone rings. The caller ID screen says it’s a public telephone.
“I don’t know if I should speak to you,” I say.
“You’re expecting me. Good.”
Silence.
“Shouldn’t you be welcoming me back? Glad that all’s well?”
“So all is well! And you want me to kill the fatted calf?” Silence. “I don’t have all evening. I’m dressing to go out.”
“Okay. Okay. You’re in a position to make me crawl, so I’ll crawl. I’ll brown-nose if that’ll make you happy.” Silence. “Jay, I need to get into the apartment.”
“Ma could let you in.”
“Ma is dead, Jay.”
“You know that, Paul! You know that and you didn’t come home.” I hang up the phone and the dizziness returns.
The phone rings again.
“Jay, calm down. Please. I found out yesterday. I went to Guatemala City with a friend, and I ran into my ex-Spanish teacher in front of the Cathedral tour-guiding a group of students. He told me somebody had come to the school trying to find me and had placed ads to let me know my mother had died. I booked my passage immediately — at great risk — right away and went back to Huehuetenango to collect a few things. I have been on buses and planes for the last 36 hours.”
“Paul, it’s my birthday and I have a supper engagement at 7.”
“Happy birthday.”
“I’ll leave a key under the mat at the front door.”
“I need money for the cab too.”
Of course you do. The opposite would have been news. Guess I shouldn’t knock it; cheaper than getting you out of jail.
“I have only eight US dollars, and I’m hungry and stink.”
“I’ll leave $60 with the key, enough for the taxi and a meal. It’s a loan. Understand? A loan!”
“Not so fast, Bro. Not so fast, my Kuk-kuk! Wait until I explain myself.” He hangs up the phone.
Jay, let him explain himself. My eyes overflow. The dizziness is gone and I feel calmer. Fool, phone Mme Beaulieu. Tell her Paul has arrived and you can’t come.
“I am soulagée. Wait your brother and amène-le. One instant. Jonathan, Paul est arrivé. Je te passe Jay.”
“Pas vrai! Paul est arrivé!”
“Oui. Il vient tout juste de me téléphoner de l’Aéroport Trudeau.”
“We can go get him.”
“He’s already on his way.”
“Wait for him. I’ll come get you. We have to celebrate this. Whoo-hoo!”
I’m silent.
“Cheer up, man. He’s alive and back home. A tout à l’heure.” He hangs up.
I go out to the corridor and put the money under the mat and return inside and leave the door unlocked.
Twenty minutes later Paul raps and enters the apartment. He drops the grey carry-on case, all the luggage he has, at the door and comes toward me with his arms wide open. His beige shirt and white cotton slacks are crumpled. He seems thinner. His eyes are red and his forehead glows. His head is shaved and his face is clean-shaven with some of its roundness gone. He reeks of stale sweat. I stay seated on the sofa, my arms folded. He sits beside me and puts an arm around me. We sit there for what seems to be a long time until I hear Jonathan’s stomping heels followed by his rapping and the key turning the lock.
“Go have a quick shower, Paul. Jonathan’s mother wants you to come for supper.”
Paul leaves us, and Jonathan sits beside me. “He’s lost a lot of weight, at least ten kilos. What do you think, Jay?”
“Jonathan, I’m not thinking.”
Jonathan puts his arm on my shoulder. We sit in silence while Paul is getting ready.
Paul comes into the living room. He’s dressed in olive green slacks and a pale grey knitted long-sleeve shirt. A teal-blue hand-knitted cardigan printed with geometric Mayan motifs is draped over his left shoulder. His eyes are riveted on Jonathan. “Congrats. Have you guys got married?”
“Tu te trompes,” Jonathan says. “We’re not a couple, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Paul’s lips retract, one hand goes to the back of his head and the other to his chin.
“Let’s go,” Jonathan says.
Raymond Beaulieu, his thick white hair glossy under the foyer light, squinting in spite of his glasses, is at the door when we arrive. I introduce Paul. Raymond is 77, 15 years older than Cecile. I admire him. As a young man, barely in his twenties, Raymond worked to unionize his co-workers, and was branded a communist by Premier Duplessis. For 18 months he’d had to sleep in a different house every night to avoid being arrested and thrown in jail. In his later years he joined the administration of the CSN.
Inside, Cecile Beaulieu — coiffed with a gleaming gold pom-pom, cheeks pink and round, pendant jade earrings, an emerald-green silk dress, a beige apron — pulls me to her bosom and gives me a loud lip smack on both cheeks. “Bonne fête, mon fils!”
I introduce Paul and she searches our faces for resemblances.
Supper is onion soup au gratiné, stuffed tomatoes, lamb with rosemary sauce, roasted potatoes, and a mixture of roasted red, green, and yellow peppers, washed down with Beaujolais red wine.
While Cecile is in the kitchen putting together the dessert, Raymond says: “So, Monsieur le Voyageur, tell us about your trip.”
“Nothing special to tell. I got malaria once, stomach trouble a few times. Got robbed once. On another occasion had to crouch behind a car until a gun battle ended.”
“Ça alors! Parle-nous ça.”
“The robbery or the shoot-out?”
“Le vol d’abord.”
“Maman,” Jonathan calls. “Viens écouter ça.”
Cecile comes and stands at the entrance between the kitchen and the dining room.
“It happened a Saturday night. We’d gone clubbing, four of us, in Guatemala City. We’d arranged for an SUV to pick us up at 3:15 am to take us back to Antigua, less than an hour’s drive from Guatemala City. When we left the club, we saw a black car following us. About half way between Antigua and Guatemala City, on a stretch of downhill road, the car sped past us, stopped, and blocked us. Three masked guys came out from the black car, their guns trained on the SUV. ‘Get the fuck out and put your hands up,’ one of them shouted in perfect English. Next they shot bullets into the tyres of the SUV. We got out of the SUV. They ordered us to face a steep bank and to empty our pockets. We did. One frisked us to make sure we’d handed over everything, while the others trained their guns on us. They demanded our watches too. Hans — from Germany — lost his Swatch. I’m sure it all took less than three minutes but it felt longer. Then they got into their car and sped back toward Guatemala City.
“Ten minutes later a police cruiser with two officers came by. Our chauffeur explained what had happened. They squeezed us into their cruiser and took us back to Antigua.
“‘¡Estén feliz que no hayan muertos!” (Be glad there were no deaths) the officer who did all the talking said to us.
“Eleven days after the robbery, the police officer who’d interviewed us came to the school with our wallets. He said somebody found them in a forest somewhere outside of Guatemala City. Everything except our money and credit cards was still in them. I lost about $30. I kind o’ knew this sort of thing could happen, so the only ID I had in my wallet that night was the data page from my passport. I’d left my ATM and credit cards at home too. The other guys weren’t so lucky. Of course, the robbery never made the news. Too routine I guess.
“All in all, we just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I stayed in Guatemala for 13 months after that and nothing like this happened to me again. And of all the students in the school — there were over a hundred of us — we were the only ones that got robbed . . . Guess because we’d had the temerity to go into the capital on a Saturday night.”
“Et pourtant tu y’es resté pour encore combien de temps?” Raymond asks.
“Thirteen months. That’s a long story that will take more than a thousand and one nights.”
“Coffee’s ready,” Cecile says.
Long before the party is over Paul falls asleep on the living room sofa. Around 1 am, Cecile prepares the spare room for him. I share Jonathan’s bed.