The Divide

When they came to Toronto they had lived in the streets and Roch had encouraged Amelie into occasional prostitution.

“But that sounds like—I mean, you have to understand, it was the kind of thing a runaway kid might do. It happened maybe four or five times and it was a question of having money for food, a place to stay. It was a long time ago.”

Susan nodded.

Eventually Amelie had found a job and a cheap apartment. Roch had taken a whole string of jobs, mostly lifting and carrying. He was strong, Amelie said, but he didn’t get along with people. He’d been working for the last six months at the Bus Parcel Express depot down at Front Street, but he lost that when he put a choke-hold on his supervisor and almost killed him. Roch was outraged when they fired him. His life, Amelie seemed to imply, was a continuous series of these outrages: he would be provoked, he would respond, he would be punished for it… “Christ knows what the guy said to him. Some kind of insult. So Roch practically breaks the man’s neck, and he’s fired, and it’s business as usual, right? Except that, for Roch, every time this happens it’s like brand-new. Like he’s filing it away on some index card in his head:fucked over again.”

Amelie had avoided Roch fairly effectively for a few years. But the BPX firing had been a point-of-no-return … now Roch was back, and he had changed, Amelie said; he was closer to the edge than he had ever been before.

“Like this thing with Benjamin. Suddenly Roch is jealous. For three years he ignores me altogether, then suddenly he resents this guy I’m living with. What makes it worse is that Benjamin—or I guess it was John—did this humiliation thing on him, the fight they had. No real physical damage, but the contempt—you could feel it shooting out of him. And Roch just soaked it up. Charging his battery—you know what I mean? You could say Roch is at a very high voltage right now.”

Amelie stopped long enough to finish the beer she’d ordered. Susan waited.

Amelie drained the glass. “Maybe it’s better Benjamin left. I don’t think he could stand up to Roch right now. I don’t think—I’m not sure I can, either.”

Susan said, “He’s staying with you?”

“I can’t make him leave.”

“Is he hurting you?”

Amelie looked across the table, then reached up and pulled her hair away from her forehead. There was an angry blue bruise underneath.

Susan drew in her breath. “My God!”

Amelie shrugged. “I’m just worried he’ll get worse.”

“You should call the police!”

She laughed derisively. “Have you ever seen a domestic dispute call? I have. You know what happens? Fuck-all, is what happens. And it would make Roch really mad.”

“You can leave, though, can’t you?”

“It’s my apartment!”

“I mean temporarily,” Susan said. “There must be a women’s shelter in the city. You could have a restraining order put on him—”

“A restraining order,” Amelie said: the idea was comic. But she added, “Are there really shelters?”

“Well—we can find out. Let me make a couple of calls.” Susan looked at her watch. “Oh, lord—myplane!”

“That’s right,” Amelie said. “You gotta go.” She stood up; Susan fumbled out money for the check. Amelie added, “You expect to hear from him again?” Meaning John.

“I don’t know,” Susan admitted. “Maybe. Maybe you’ll hear from him first. We have to keep in touch. Listen, there are phones in the lobby … let me make a couple of calls for you?”

Amelie shrugged.

Susan stopped at the front desk, hunting in her purse for the room key. Check out, locate a shelter in case Amelie needed it, then take a cab to the airport—there was still time for everything, but only just. She tapped the bell and the desk clerk hurried over. “Ms. Christopher—”

“Yes,” she began. “I—”

“That call came through,” the clerk said. “I suppose the one you’ve been waiting for? Long distance collect.”

Susan just gaped.

“No message,” the clerk said. “Except that he would try again in an hour or so.”

Susan checked her watch a second time.

“When was this?”

“About twenty-five minutes ago.”

“Thank you,” Susan said. “I’ll wait up in my room.”

“Yes, ma’am. Was there anything else—?”

“No—not just now.” She turned to Amelie. “You can wait with me if you like.”

Amelie said, “Won’t you miss your plane?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “I will.”

11

John said he would meet her Wednesday morning at the ferry docks at Tsawassen.

Dr. Kyriakides wired the money for her flight to B.C. and two tickets back. Susan helped Amelie check into a YWCA, spent a sleepless night at the hotel, then caught a taxi to the airport and a westbound plane.

It was windy and cold at the docks. Susan bought a cup of bitter coin-machine coffee and huddled in the waiting room. She was excited but terribly tired. She slept for a few minutes with her back against the wall, woke up stiff and uncomfortable—and saw John standing a few feet away.

He looked thin and worn, a duffel bag in one hand and a grey visor cap pulled down over his eyes. He was sun-brown and his hair was longer than she remembered. But it was John, not Benjamin … there was something in the way he stood … she knew at once.

She stood up. She had envisioned this moment, played it over in her mind a dozen times during the trip from Toronto. She wanted to embrace him but decided she didn’t really know him well enough—it just seemed that way, after all the waiting.

She took his hands: a small, spontaneous gesture. “I’m glad you decided to call.”

He looked at her for a long time. He reached up to touch her cheek, and the expression on his face … Susan could not take the measure of it; but there might have been surprise, curiosity, maybe even gratitude.

She said, “Can I ask what it was—why you changed your mind?”

He took his hand away and held it up in front of her.

His hand was trembling. It was a pronounced, involuntary tremor; Susan was suddenly afraid, watching it. He was sick—he was admitting it now.

He said, “I found out that I don’t want to die.”

She called Dr. Kyriakides from a booth in the airport, confirming the meeting. “He hasn’t said it in so many words, but I think this is his way of telling us he needs us. That’s important, isn’t it?”

“Possibly,” Dr. Kyriakides said. He sounds worried, Susan thought; or worse—he sounds frightened.

“Hey,” she said, “the battle’s over, isn’t it? We’re almost home.”

“No,” Dr. Kyriakides said. “I think you’re mistaken. I think the battle has only just begun. I think we’re a very long way from home.”

PART 2

CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS

12

Maxim Kyriakides paid the taxi driver and watched as the automobile sped away, leaving him alone in the gravel driveway of the house north of Toronto in which he would be spending the next few months.

The house was a whitewashed pseudo-Georgian structure, isolated from its neighbors by groves of trees. Maxim had never seen it before. It belonged to a colleague, a University of Toronto professor named Collingwood, who was a member of what they had called “The Network” many years ago. The house was to have gone up for sale a week ago, but Collingwood had offered it to Maxim when Maxim explained the problem he was facing.

The house was suitably large. Maxim walked up the driveway to the big portico, fished a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock on the double doors. Open, they admitted a wash of December sunlight into the tiled foyer. The house was cold; the heat had been turned off for some days.