Rebecca was surprised at how easy it had been to slide behind the wheel of the Camaro and drive away as if it were 1969 again. Funny how the car brought it all back: planning out their wedding, her last year of medical school, David setting up a studio in their new apartment. Life was just beginning. The Camaro had been a present from her in-laws. David drove her down to class in it. The car hadn’t changed much, a bit of wear on the driver’s seat. Only everything else had changed.
She glanced at Sarah beside her in the flowered cotton skirt and blouse. She also looked the same, but Rebecca knew better, recognized the painful rearranging of a psyche through some mirror image. Another reason to stay away — avoid herself in Sarah’s eyes.
Rebecca had arrived at her mother-in-law’s house early Saturday afternoon, wearing a bathing suit under her shorts and top. She hadn’t gone swimming for two years and had felt a stab of elation just pulling the suit on, the remnant of memory from carefree days on Georgian Bay. Halina was sleeping off a late night with Janek. Rebecca had asked no questions, didn’t really want to know. So the three of them went on without her. Sarah said she was tired — had worn herself out baking poppy seed cookies to take with them, the perfect guest — and would Rebecca drive them to Michael’s house. The two-seater Jag was not an option. Natalka climbed into the back of the Camaro.
Rebecca drove west along St. Clair, the afternoon sun blazing down on the roof of the car. She turned on the vents and opened her window a bit, waiting for directions from her navigator.
Sarah opened up the orange Perly’s map book on her lap. “You can stay on St. Clair all the way to Jane, then make a left turn. It’s just a few blocks south of there.” She opened her window part way. “Is it too windy?” she asked Natalka, half-turning to the back.
“No, it’s fine.”
Rebecca glanced in her rearview mirror. Natalka had pinned her white hair up in the back, but some loose strands flew around her face. Their eyes met. “It’s fine,” she said to Rebecca’s unasked question.
Shop followed shop along the straight line of St. Clair Avenue, where so many Italians had emigrated after the war that Toronto was home to the largest community outside of Italy. Colourful, confident stores laid end to end sold wedding dresses, shoes, fabrics, leather goods, and pizza; apartments ranged above. All the way to Keele Street, then a gradual diminishing of style, a shift of ethnicity. Car lots, gas stations, wider spaces with less purpose, a coffee shop with aimless clientele.
Then, without warning, the stench. Like being thrown into water. Rebecca gasped for air. She could hardly believe it could get worse, but as they drove it got harder to breathe.
Sarah flipped open the Perly’s and studied the page. “The stockyards,” she said, holding one hand over her nose and mouth.
They both rolled up their windows, and Rebecca turned off the vent that brought air in from the outside. It suddenly got very hot in the car. She looked in the mirror to see Natalka holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth.
They passed Canada Packers on the north side of the street, a red-bricked warehouse of a building. More meat packers on the south side, all the same square boxes of brick, white trucks parked in front.
“Must be those,” Sarah said, pointing to the south side of the street.
Rebecca noticed her mother-in-law stiffen and followed her finger. To their left, a hundred feet in from the street and fenced in by a tower of chain link, ran an endless stretch of what looked like red, oversized garage doors. They so closely resembled cattle cars that she could imagine Sarah’s distress, the wartime memories they must be unlocking. Sarah never talked about those years, but Rebecca had learned from David how painful they had been.
Were the stockyard doors painted red so the blood wouldn’t show? The entranceways to death went on and on for half a mile or so, while Rebecca drove the car over ancient criss-crossed railway tracks embedded in the road. They must’ve brought the animals to their final destination long before the new tracks were laid down on the south side of the stockyards, more convenient to bring them directly to the slaughterhouses.
“Turn left at Jane,” Sarah said through the hand over her mouth. “The next lights.”
They passed plain semi-detached houses, their porches littered with cartons and worn-out sofas, some pots festooned with petunias. The smell dissipated and they both opened their windows again to chase out the stale air. Shops began on the east side, became quite smart and trendy suddenly. Rebecca wondered where an elegant man like Michael would live in such a neighbourhood.
“It’ll be the next street on your right,” Sarah said.
Rebecca slowed down and searched for the sign: Baby Point Road. The prominent family that had lent the street its name was French, the “ba” pronounced with a short vowel, like sheep bleating. One James Baby became a judge in the eighteenth century, later commanded a militia in the war of 1812, according to her book on historic Toronto. Over the years he bought and was granted thousands of acres in Upper Canada, as it was called then, including this area in the west end.
Rebecca made a right turn into an enclave of large, luxurious houses, of which there had been no hint from the main street. She could have been in Rosedale, only the street was wider and the houses set on larger lots. The road wound further and further, a treasure trove of houses, no two alike, past a centre boulevard that split the street and led them down a road where the homes must have backed onto the ravine, because suddenly nothing could be seen beyond them but sky. The Humber River would be coursing through the valley of that ravine, where, according to her book, an ancient Iroquois village once stood, the southern end of a portage that linked Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay.
“Almost there,” Sarah said as the car crawled along. “It’s that one.”
They stopped in front of a many-gabled house that looked as though it had been plucked from the English countryside. The rough limestone walls were studded with mullioned windows that caught the sun in their leaded panes. There was a wide chimney and a sweeping roof. Rebecca felt as if she’d gone back a few hundred years, though the house was probably built in the 1940s like the others on the street.
The three of them walked along the flagstone to the front door carrying their various bags stuffed with towels and bathing suits.
“What a beautiful house!” said Sarah.
“Like from a fairy tale,” Natalka said.
Rebecca rang the doorbell. They waited. And waited. She rang again.
She looked behind them at the street. Not a soul stirred.
“Maybe he’s already in the back,” she said.
A high wooden fence surrounded the backyard, an entrance gate near the side of the house. Rebecca played with the latch and found it was unlocked. She swung the gate open and led the others in.
Bushes of deep pink phlox grew against the stone wall, their airy blooms nodding forward, touching the women’s legs as they passed. The edge of the swimming pool winked amid the glistening white concrete. Rebecca caught a heady whiff of chlorine, a smell she always associated with happier times in bygone pools.
“Michael!” Rebecca called out. She caught Sarah’s look of surprise at her use of his first name. No doubt she would put it down to Canadian familiarity. Rebecca would have to explain later.
The water in the oblong pool was a pale turquoise, the surface dappled by a wisp of breeze that made the sun bearable.
“Michael!” Rebecca sang out.
Stepping toward the house, she could see through the window that the kitchen was empty. A silence fell, the breeze stilled, and the rays of sun blazed down on them without mercy.
Rebecca turned toward the water, suddenly smooth as glass. A reflection there drew her, only it wasn’t a reflection. Could it be a shadow? She squinted through the haze of sun and saw an outline at the bottom of the pool.
“Oh my God!” she gasped.
Kicking off her sandals, she took a deep breath, then jumped feet first into the water. It was a shock, the sudden change of dimension, silent water pressing in on all sides.
She kicked her feet frantically until she reached him: Michael lay face down on the floor of the pool wearing blue bathing trunks and a pair of goggles. His hair was waving in the water. She grabbed it in her fist to lift his head up — his face was blank, his mouth open. She looped an arm under his and lifted his body. With her free arm she began to stroke hard, pushing the water away. She wasn’t sure she would have the strength, but she kicked and kicked her feet, shoving the water aside, and found herself shooting up in the direction of the surface. It had only been seconds, but her lungs were empty and screaming for air. She had to keep going, she had to get him out. She only needed to surface before her lungs burst.
She sensed, rather than heard, a nearby breach of the water. Someone else breaking the surface, creating waves.
Suddenly an arm reached for her, a slender but determined arm pulled her up into the world again. Sarah.
Rebecca gasped for air.
“Grab the pole!” Sarah shouted.
With her free hand, Rebecca lunged at the pole Natalka was balancing over the water. She let herself be towed into the shallow end of the pool, Michael hooked under her arm.
The three of them struggled to get him out of the water. Sarah and Natalka each took a shoulder, Rebecca carried him by the feet. They managed to get him to the stairs of the shallow end of the pool then lifted him step by step, trying to keep from dragging him along the concrete. Finally they deposited him gently by the edge of the pool.
She stood coughing and gasping for air. The sky was a perfect blue. She had never seen it so blue before.
“Are you crazy?” Sarah cried. “What are you, a cowboy — risking your life like that? You could’ve been killed!”
Sarah’s dripping clothes and hair stuck to her body, her head small as a cat’s.
Rebecca’s chest heaved while she tried to catch her breath. She could only gesture toward Michael like a trophy.
“He’s dead anyway!” Sarah said.
Rebecca shook her head, crouched over him. “Michael!” she shouted, breathless. “Can you hear me?”
There was no response.
“Call for help!” she said to Sarah.
Sarah hurried to the house.
Rebecca rolled him onto his side, pressing down on his back to push out any water in his lungs. A,B,C, she remembered. Airway, breathing, circulation. She turned him onto his back again, then placed one hand beneath his head to tilt it up and lift his chin, a manoeuvre that would remove his tongue from the back of his throat if it were blocking his airway. She noticed a dark bruise at the edge of his jaw. What had happened? A heart attack? The sculpted mouth was gone; only thin blue lips remained. She ignored the goggles, leaned her ear to his face. Was he breathing? Was his chest rising and falling?
No sound. No movement.
Kneeling beside him, she pinched his nostrils together. She took a quick, conscious breath, let it out again, bracing herself for the intimacy. She was glad of the goggles as she bent over, then covered his lips with hers, breathing into his mouth at a normal rate. That was when she tasted it. Alcohol. Nothing particular, like scotch or rum. It was probably vodka, the drink of choice if you didn’t want people to smell liquor on your breath from a conversational distance. The whole scenario suddenly made more sense. Adrenaline still buzzed through her chest, only now it fuelled her anger while she breathed into his mouth. You stupid bastard, she thought. Who are you anyway? I don’t know the first thing about you. Except that you’ve thrown your life away.
Okay, she thought, okay. Concentrate. Breathe. Wait a beat for him to breathe out. Breathe into his mouth. A beat to breathe out. This is how a person lives. A breath in, a breath out. So simple. Yet every cell in the body requires it. It only looks simple. Breath in, breath out. So that oxygen can infuse the blood to course through the organs and keep the engine of the body running. This is how we stay alive.
She placed her fingers against his neck, checking for a pulse at his carotid artery. Christ! Nothing!
Okay. Chest compressions. She counted two fingers from the bottom of his sternum, then positioned the heel of her right hand there, the heel of her left hand over her right, interlacing the fingers. Strong, smooth compression with the left hand, faster than one per second, the heel of the right in constant contact with the sternum. Pump, pump, pump, pump. She was his heart now, his only hope, if he had any hope left. It didn’t look good. His skin was clammy, taking on a waxy look. But one never knew, with drowning victims, when they would suddenly sputter back to life, water erupting from their mouths. She had no way of knowing how long he had been in the water. She looked at his lifeless face, the goggles that gave it a surreal sense of normalcy, the wet brown hair flattened to his cheeks.
She kept pumping, breathing into his mouth, pumping, breathing into his mouth. After about ten minutes she asked, “Do either of you know CPR?”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. Then, “I’m going to take off his goggles, all right?” She asked this softly, the way one spoke to an unreasonable child whose behaviour was unpredictable. “I can’t stand looking at them.”
Rebecca glanced at the goggles for the first time. “Speedo” was stamped on the plastic piece between the eyes. Upside down.
Sarah carefully drew them up over his head.
Rebecca lifted one of his eyelids. His pupil was dilated. It was over.
She suddenly became aware of the sharp concrete against her skin. She pulled her wet top off over her bathing suit and stuffed in under her knees.
A siren approached in the distance, its urgent wail incongruous in the perfect afternoon. Sarah ran to the gate to direct them.
A minute later she was leading in two firemen in blue short sleeves carrying portable medical equipment.
“Okay, ma’am, we’ll take over,” one young man said to Rebecca, positioning himself over Michael to continue the procedure.
She sat back on her haunches to get out of the way. “He’s gone,” she said, glancing at Sarah.
“Let us be the judge of that,” said the second man.
“I’m a doctor,” she said, with resignation. “His pupils are fixed and dilated.”
The first man continued the chest compressions while the other nodded his acknowledgement to her, then took Michael’s blood pressure.
“We have to keep going until we get him to the hospital, Doctor.”
“I understand,” she said.
She stood up and wavered on her feet, dizzy from the stress, the heat, the shock of death. Exhaustion suddenly hit her like a wall. She couldn’t move.
Two paramedics rushed into the backyard carrying a gurney. The firemen briefed them, but she couldn’t hear through the noise of static in her head. It was as if she were tuned in to a radio on the fritz. She watched them heave Michael onto the gurney, while the fireman continued the CPR.
“What’s happen?” A plump, grey-haired woman in an apron came running into the backyard. “Oh, Jesus!” She crossed herself, then her hands flew to her face and strings of Polish issued from her mouth in a wail.
Rebecca glanced at Sarah, hoping to get a translation, but her mother-in-law sighed with fatigue.
Instead, Sarah asked in English, “Are you a neighbour?”
“Just across street.” She waved her hand toward the gate, then put her palm flat against her cheek in the universal gesture of woe. Her blue eyes never left Michael.
“How this happen?” she said. “I just here this morning. Bring food. I here every day bring food. He great man. Great man.”
“It was probably an accident,” Sarah said.
“Poor Edek! The son! He has son. Will be all alone now.”
The paramedics were strapping Michael to the gurney, preparing to leave while the fireman kept pumping, pumping on his chest.
“You should take care of yourself, Doctor,” one of the firemen said to Rebecca. “You’re looking pale.”
The paramedics started pushing the gurney toward the gate.
“Take her in the house,” the fireman directed at Sarah. “Get a blanket for her — wrap her up before she goes into shock.”
That was when Rebecca realized she was shivering.
Sarah put an arm around her waist and led her toward the house. The Polish woman followed the paramedics out of the yard. Sarah opened the French door into the kitchen and prodded Rebecca inside.
“Sit down. I’ll go find a blanket.”
Natalka followed with their bags.
Rebecca stared at the honey-coloured wooden cupboards, the oak floor. She could see Michael sitting in a chair at the small oak table. He was lifting a glass of vodka and toasting her. Better luck next time, he was saying, his sculpted lips smiling, his eyes alight.
“You are all right?” Natalka said.
“I’m very thirsty.”
Rebecca stepped toward the sink and opened the logical cupboard to her right. In front of a row of drinking glasses stood a small crystal glass that looked like it belonged in a bar. She reached behind it and picked up a glass.
“I will do that,” Natalka said. “You sit.”
Rebecca’s legs wobbled beneath her as she headed for a chair. Natalka handed her the glass. Water had never tasted so good.
Sarah came back with a maroon quilt. “Take off your things — they’re all wet. Did you bring some other clothes?”
“Just underwear.”
Her arm around Rebecca’s waist, Sarah led her into the small bathroom down the hall. “Do you need some help?”
Rebecca shook her head and closed the door. She pulled off the wet shorts and bathing suit and wrapped a towel around her body. Then she caught herself in the mirror. Her dark hair was drying in frizzy patches around her white face. Dark circles pulled her eyes into her head. She had to lie down.
She tugged on the dry underpants and bra over her damp skin. Still shivering, she pulled the quilt over her shoulders.
Natalka was speaking Polish on the phone in the kitchen when Rebecca emerged from the bathroom. Probably telling Halina the bad news. Her voice rose in sudden agitation. Halina was taking it badly.
Rebecca followed the hall to a wainscotted study, where a desk stood by the window; behind it, a flowered chesterfield faced the fireplace. She lay down, enveloping herself in the quilt.
A great numbness descended on her, the kind she remembered from her internship when she’d gone without sleep for twenty straight hours full tilt at the emerg. David had tucked her in when she’d finally stumbled in the door of their small two-room flat. They lived in the married residence of the Mount Sinai Hospital then. It had been the happiest time of her life — too much to do, maybe, but the sense of accomplishment, the excitement of adapting everything she’d learned to treat real people, the importance of the work, and of course, David. None of it would’ve meant anything without him. Everything was possible with David beside her. No. That line of reasoning went nowhere. The implications were too barren to contemplate.
She dozed on and off. David knelt beside her, his flaming red hair and beard trembling near her face. The hair turned brown and became Michael’s. He was leaning over her, trying to tell her something, his eyes blank and glassy. His mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Suddenly she was conscious of sound, a filament of noise that rolled out without turning into words. The noise was pulling her into consciousness. She resisted, but a man’s voice insinuated itself.
“She’s very tired,” she heard Sarah say. “I can answer your questions.”
Rebecca opened her eyes to find a uniformed policeman in the doorway of the room. She sat up, every muscle in her back complaining.
“You’re Dr. Temple?”
She blinked, trying to focus.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Doctor, I’m Constable Tiziano. I’m afraid I have bad news. Mr. Oginski was pronounced dead at the hospital.”
She closed her eyes. She had known he was dead, had refused to accept it.
“Do you mind answering some questions?” He waited until she nodded, then came around to stand in front of the fireplace where she could see him. He was a stocky thirty, his round torso outlined beneath the blue uniform shirt.
“Did you see him fall into the pool?”
“He was lying on the bottom when we arrived.”
The constable scribbled in a small notebook. “Do you know if he had any alcohol to drink today?”
The paramedics must’ve passed on their suspicions. The cop leaned on one hip, non-judgmental, a gatherer of data. Bloodless.
“I smelled it when I was trying to resuscitate him.”
“A bad combination,” the cop was saying, “alcohol and swimming. Three-quarters of drowning victims have had too much to drink. Did Mr. Oginski have a drinking problem?”
“I didn’t really know him well enough to say.” She remembered the glasses of wine in Fran’s. “We just met last week. He was a friend of a friend.” It would’ve been too complicated to explain.
“Your mother tells me you’re the one who pulled him out.”
“Mother-in-law,” she said, put off by the mistake.
“Oh, beg your pardon.” He scribbled in a notation. Revise data. “It was a very brave thing to do.”
He was probably instructed to say that to anyone who had stupidly risked their life.
She was embarrassed by the compliment. “But pointless, apparently, since it was too late.”
The cop ignored her comment, barrelled right along. “Was there anything unnatural in his behaviour when you saw him last? Was he depressed about anything?”
She knew where he was going. “Michael didn’t kill himself, if that’s what you’re thinking. He was a vibrant man, interested in things.”
The cop’s pen waited above his notebook.
“He was writing a book,” she continued. “A novel. He was really excited about it. He said he was almost finished. He didn’t kill himself.”
“So what do you think happened here?” The pen still waited, stalled.
She tightened the quilt around herself. “He could’ve had a heart attack.”
“Did he have a heart problem?”
“I don’t know.”
The cop began to write in the notebook again. “There’ll be an autopsy because he died at home. Anything’s possible. But I can tell you every year we get a couple of calls where someone’s had a few drinks, then feels like a dip in the water. The lucky ones are pulled out in time.” He looked up at her. “What did he do for a living?”
“He worked for Baron Mines.”
He licked his lips and solemnly wrote it down.
“Do you happen to know the next of kin?” he asked, his pen at the ready.
What was it he’d said in the restaurant? “He has a son studying in Ottawa,” she said. “Edward. There’s probably an address book somewhere.” She waved behind herself at the desk.
He nodded his thanks. “Would you like me to take you to the hospital,” he asked.
She stared blankly at him.
“To get yourself checked out. You’ve had an ordeal.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine,” she said. As if to illustrate, she swung her legs down to the floor.
When the cop had gone, Sarah appeared at the door. “I put your clothes into the dryer. They’ll be ready in ten minutes or so, then we should go. Why don’t you rest till then?” Sarah headed back to the kitchen.
Rebecca listened to the low murmuring of the two women in the distance. She was too agitated to lie down again. Pulling the quilt around her she stood up and stepped toward the fireplace.
On the mantel stood an array of framed photos, mostly old snapshots in black and white. The exception was a colour headshot of a young man, probably a graduation photo. Edward. A handsome younger version of Michael, with sandy hair and an appropriately earnest expression.
In a brown-tinted photo a handsome young couple grinned at the photographer from a doorway, the man’s arm clasped around the woman’s waist, a very pretty woman with her brown hair pinned on top of her head. Michael’s parents. Next to it stood an old black-and-white studio shot of a girl, maybe sixteen, looking romantically off in some reverie. There was a resemblance to the man in the couple, and Rebecca guessed it was Michael’s aunt. He had inherited the delicate curve of the brows and the strong nose from that side.
She scanned the last photo. An impossibly thin young boy standing warily among the trees, a rifle slung over his shoulder. She felt a tightening in her chest, her heart clenching into a fist. His life had been a hard struggle and now it was over. Maybe the question the cop posed wasn’t so far off. Maybe there was a self-destructive urge in his drinking. Maybe he was having trouble making it through the day and was good at hiding it.
She moved toward the window. It amazed her that the sun was still shining. It seemed as if hours had gone by, yet the sky still held that mid-afternoon blue.
She turned toward the desk, a leather-inlaid mahogany. In the middle lay a thick binder. She opened the black cover and read the first page: “The Stolen Princess, by Michael Oginski.”
Sophie
Voyage of Discovery
January 1744The icy wind has followed our painful progress north along the Baltic coast. The shoreline is frozen, and beyond, reefs of ice drift in the leaden water. Where in heaven are we?
She read the first few pages and became transported. She felt Michael’s breath in the character, his sensibility in the description of the landscape. She became inexplicably close to him at that moment. The neatly typed manuscript grew suddenly precious in her hands — it was all that was left of him. Now the book would never be finished.
He said he had almost two hundred pages and was nearly finished. She turned to the end: one hundred and forty pages. Eight chapters. That couldn’t be right. He had said twelve chapters, she was sure it was twelve.
She flipped through all the pages from the beginning. There were only one hundred and forty. She glanced around the desktop. A dictionary, a thesaurus, a fancy pen in a marble holder. But no other pages. She pulled open the drawers one by one. Blank paper, pens, pencils, erasers, chequebooks, business cards — one from a publisher. Everything but.
Energized, she threw off the quilt and hurried out of the den into the hall. Sarah and Natalka were speaking in low voices in the kitchen as she jumped up the stairs on her toes.
The floor upstairs was covered in Persian carpets. She came upon the library first. Bookcases lined the walls. A brown leather sofa sat in front of a mullioned window. Some newspapers lay scattered on a coffee table. No pages of manuscript.
She noticed a filing cabinet in the corner. She pulled out the top shelf. Finally. A thick pile of handwritten pages had been deposited in the bottom. She lifted out half the pile, then the other half. There must’ve been three or four hundred pages made unreadable because of all the scratching out and written-over words. It looked like a rough draft. The last page was numbered 196 with a question mark. So where were the last sixty pages of the finished manuscript?
She entered his bedroom with misgivings. The walnut sleigh bed only made her remember he would never sleep there again under the high feathery duvet. She made a cursory check of his nightstand but found nothing.
Sitting down on his bed, she noticed a bit of pale turquoise slipping out beneath the pillow. She held the pyjamas up to the light and in the next beat pulled the top on in one smooth movement. The fabric felt silky on her arms, too intimate — he’d worn it next to his skin, and she wanted that right now, part of him that still felt alive, some of his smell still on it. Because she knew it wouldn’t last. Nothing lasted. She told herself Michael would not want her wandering around his house in her underwear. She let her eyes travel through the room unhurried, trying to see what was really there through the fog in her brain. Between the ensuite bathroom and closet, a leather briefcase sat on the floor.
She put it on the bed and opened it. There was some Baron Mines stationery, business letters and documents. No thick sheaf of pages that signalled a manuscript.
Among a few badly typed letters, one handwritten page caught her eye with its splotchy words scrawled across the page. It was attached to an envelope with a paper clip. The letter was dated May 1979.
Mr. Oginski,
I am writing this letter because I am at the end of my rope. I worked in the Baron Mines at Bear Lake for 15 years. I can’t work their no more as my lungs is shot. I developed the cancer of the lung! and people here say its because of the mine. It’s not just me. Lots of men here got sick in their lungs. Its hell working down there the air’s thick like shit. How do you breath in shit? Some say the owners would not let us get sick like that. But I’m not one of them. So I am asking you. What are you going to do about it? We’re getting sick in the lungs because the air is shit. John Baron shoud fry in hell but I told my buddies I’d talk to you when I come to Toronto because you’re a more reasonable man. I’ll be staying at my sisters on the Danforth.
Claude Simard
She stood up straight, her back painful after the strenuous CPR. Ahead, the ensuite bathroom tugged at her curiosity. She stepped inside and opened the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet. The usual aspirin and bandages. A few leftover anti-inflammatory drugs. A bottle of Valium, nearly full. Nothing much of interest.
The last room was a guest bedroom. The son who would never see his father again.
She started back down the stairs, uneasy. Sarah was waiting for her at the bottom with her dry shorts and blouse. She raised an eyebrow at the shirt.
“Are you all right?”
Rebecca nodded.
“You know, I think the policeman was right. Maybe you should see someone. You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine, really.” She fingered the silky hem of Michael’s pyjama shirt. “Okay, so I’m feeling a bit strange, but I’ll be all right.”
She took the clothes from Sarah. “Look, something’s wrong here,” Rebecca said.
“I would say so.”
“No, look.”
Rebecca led her to the desk in the study. “The end of Michael’s manuscript is missing. There are only a hundred and forty pages here. There should be nearly two hundred.”
Sarah flipped through the pages in the binder. “How do you know?”
“He told me. He was almost finished.”
“Maybe he was exaggerating. To impress you.”
Rebecca shook her head. “There are hundreds of handwritten pages upstairs in his filing cabinet. Rough drafts maybe.”
Sarah looked at the manuscript. “Well, it does seem to stop abruptly. Maybe he gave someone part of it to read.”
Rebecca quickly threw on her shorts and top, then ran out the back door. She stood there, blinking into the sun. What was she looking for? A shirt matching Michael’s swimming trunks was draped on the back of a patio chair. She sat down at the white vinyl table and stared across it. There were no glasses, no bottles. If he’d been drinking, why was there no evidence of it? She peered down at the concrete. Maybe he’d set a glass down at his feet.
A wave of perfume from the nearby border of alyssum rolled over her. She bent closer to fill her lungs with it, push out that other smell that should’ve been only a memory. No glass appeared, but the sun set a small patch of concrete aglow behind her chair. No, it wasn’t the sun. Near the alyssum a cluster of tiny gold flecks of various shapes had arranged itself in a ragged mosaic on the concrete, as if a golden nugget had melted from the heat.
Under the other chair she spotted a pair of leather sandals, one thrust into the other, each toe stuffed into the opposite heel. She really knew nothing about Michael.
She headed inside to find his bar. In the dining room, little crystal shot glasses stood in a row in a cabinet. He had gathered together the usual components of a bar, an ice bucket (empty), a bottle of tonic water, seltzer water, half bottles of gin, scotch, and whiskey. But the vodka was nearly full up. And hidden behind the other bottles. Maybe it wasn’t vodka he had been drinking. She could’ve been mistaken.
She stepped into the kitchen. Natalka sat gloomily at the table while Sarah stood at the glass door looking out into the backyard. Rebecca opened the cupboard door under the sink. A plastic bag half full of garbage hung inside a brown bin. On top lay a crumpled handkerchief, a blue and green plaid she couldn’t imagine Michael owning. She pulled the bin out into the light to take a closer look. In the folds of the fabric the plaid was stained with blood. Maybe it wasn’t Michael’s handkerchief. She hurried upstairs to get the letter from his briefcase. Unwilling to offer explanations she went directly downstairs to her bag in the den and stuck the letter with its envelope inside.
Back in the kitchen, she felt Natalka’s eyes on her as she pulled the bag of garbage out of the bin. She massaged the outside of the bag but couldn’t feel the outline of a bottle. Maybe he’d already put it out. She found the garbage pail out the side door of the house. Two small plastic bags lay inside. Her fingers pressed on them as if they were someone’s abdomen. No bottles.
Back inside, Sarah and Natalka sat at the breakfast table watching her wash her hands. “Let’s go,” Sarah said.
Rebecca went to the den to fetch the manuscript. Sarah watched her carry the binder under her arm but said nothing as they walked out to the car.
“I’ll bring it back,” Rebecca said.
They were just getting into the Camaro when a black limousine with tinted windows screeched to a halt behind them. Janek flew out of the driver’s seat. He stopped at their car, a short, squat figure in a polo shirt.
“What happened?” he cried. “The police called me at home — there was an accident?”
His pomaded grey hair fell forward in spears. He looked like he had been in a scrape: the skin around one eye was dark, and a bruise mottled his cheek.
Rebecca faced the bulldog man. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but Michael is dead. He drowned in the pool.”
He stared at her, his eyes growing narrow. “Not possible. He was a good swimmer.”
“He might’ve had something to drink. Did he drink vodka?”
“All Poles drink vodka.”
“To excess?”
“He was an aristocrat. He didn’t do nothing to excess. This is completely impossible. He was a strong, healthy man.” His brown eyes bulged at her.
“You look like you’ve been in an accident yourself,” she said. “Have you had that checked?” She pointed at his face.
He waved his hand in the air impatiently. “It was nothing.” Then, eyes blazing, “You were here — why didn’t you pull him out? Why didn’t you save him?”
She stared at the bullying posture, the jowls swaying, felt bile rising in her, but could not bring herself to answer.
Sarah said, “He was dead when we got here.”
He set squinty, critical eyes on Rebecca and said something to Sarah in Polish. Sarah turned abruptly from him and said to Rebecca, “Let’s go.”
The two women got into the car. Sarah was about to close her door when Janek caught it with his hand. He stooped to look in the back, where Natalka sat quietly.
He gave her no greeting, instead spat out in English, “Where’s Halina?”
“She’s at my house,” Sarah said, anger lifting her voice.
“Then why doesn’t she answer the goddamn phone?” he said.
Natalka’s swan neck stiffened and anxiety rose in her eyes.