The Divide

She looked up and down the street anxiously, but there was no sign of Susan’s car.

It felt fu

Amelie, who smoked cigarettes very occasionally, fished one out of her purse now and lit it. It made her feel warmer. But then she coughed and felt mildly guilty—felt the pressure of all those Public Health ads on TV. She took a last drag and butted out the cigarette against the icy ground. Her watch said 11:58. She whispered, “Come on, Susan!” Her breath made clouds in the cold air.

She tried to remember what Susan Christopher was driving these days. She had seen the car a couple of times: a rented Honda, she recalled, some drab color—beige or brown? Kind of box-shaped. Maybe that was it, at the corner?

But no, the distant grey automobile rolled on without turning. There was a stillness in the air, the eerie calm of a cold weekday noon. Everybody was inside having lunch. Amelie thought randomly of the Ecole in Montreal, bag lunches in the dingy cafeteria and pale winter light through the mullioned windows. Dead hours like this. Behind closed eyes she pictured the Honda, willing it to arrive. Susan, goddamn! This was dangerous.

She opened her eyes then and looked down the street. A vehicle turned the comer. But it was not Susan’s Honda.

It was Roch’s green van.

She stood up, panicked. But what was there to do? Hide in the apartment? How was she supposed to explain this—the little Sony TV, the stereo, taped Tourister luggage, all sitting at the curb in a neat pile? She wanted to run but couldn’t make her feet move. Susan will come, she thought, and I’ll jump into the car and we’ll zoom away…

But Susan didn’t come. The van rolled to a stop beside her.

Oh, Amelie thought, oh, shit!

Roch cracked open the door on the passenger side. She saw him peering out from the dimness inside, and the expression on his face was stony and opaque. He said, “Going somewhere?”

It was like being back in school. Latin class, she thought dizzily. Inevitably, the Sister would ask her to decline some verb. And Amelie, who could not get a grip on Latin, would stand beside her desk in mute humiliation. This same wordlessness overtook her now. She could not run. She could not speak.

Roch said disgustedly, “Get in.”

Meekly, Amelie obeyed.

Susan turned the corner and saw Amelie’s possessions piled on the curb … then registered the green van idling ahead. It was Roch’s van. Susan had seen it parked at the building before; Amelie had pointed it out. No, she thought—and pulled the Honda over before she could be spotted.

She watched Amelie climb into the van.

Susan’s mind was racing. She wished John was here, or Dr. Kyriakides. She remembered the bruise Amelie had showed her … remembered Amelie’s description of Roch.

She was what, five minutes late? She shouldn’t have stopped for coffee at the hotel. Shouldn’t have come up Yonge Street; the traffic was bad. Shouldn’t have—

But that was stupid. Not helpful at all.

She watched the green van roll away. It turned right at the next comer.

Now or never, Susan thought.

She gu

Pretty soon, Amelie understood where Roch was taking her.

When she was young and on the street in Toronto she had heard about Cherry Beach. It was a bleak strip of shoreline east of the harbor, and if a cop picked you up after midnight, for vagrancy, say, or trespassing, or prostitution, and if you said the wrong thing, then the cop might drive you out to Cherry Beach and do some work on your attitude. It was called Cherry Beach Express, and although Amelie had never experienced it she knew people who had. She was always afraid it was Roch who would end up out there—permanently damaged, maybe, because he did not know when to shut up and lie down.

Now Roch was driving her past the peeling towers of grain silos and the shadows of lake freighters, down industrial alleys and across rusted railway sidings. Cherry Beach Express. Because Roch understood how punishment worked. Obviously it was punishment he had on his mind right now.

But it’s daylight, she thought, someone will see us—

But that was stupid. She knew better.

She looked at Roch, a careful sideways glance. His lips were compressed and pale. He was nodding to himself, as if he had expected this all along, ratty old Amelie showing her true colors at last. This was not even hatred, Amelie thought; it was something much colder and vaster than that.

She said, “Roch, I—”

“Don’t talk,” he said. “Shut up.”

She bit her lip.

The van rolled to a stop far along the isolated shoreline, obscured from the road by a stand of leafless maples. Roch reached across and opened Amelie’s door, then pushed her out. She stumbled onto the cold, compacted sand. The air was brittle with moisture and she could hear the waves lapping at the shore. Far off, somewhere in the harbor, a freighter sounded its horn.

Roch climbed down after her. Amelie fought the urge to run. There was nowhere to go; Roch was fast and she would only make him mad. She stood with her hands at her side, breathing hard.

Roch stood in front of her, close enough for her to smell his breath.

He said, “You don’t trust me.”

She said, “That’s not true!”

He slapped her. It was a hard, stinging, open-handed slap; it rocked her head to the right. Roch was strong … he still worked out in the gym twice a week. Amelie knew this, because he had borrowed money from her to keep his membership current.

“You don’t trust me,” he said, “and you’re lying to me. What kind of thing is that to do? Christ, I’m your brother! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

He expected an answer. Amelie was rigid, frightened. “Sure it means something to me.”

“Liar,” Roch said sadly.

“No, I mean it! I mean—Jesus Christ, Roch!”

He grabbed her wrists; his grip was powerful. “You were ru

Amelie could not hold his gaze. She looked at the lake, instead, grey under grey clouds.

“Ru

He took her jaw in his right hand and forced her to face him. His hand traveled up along her cheek in a gesture that was almost a caress; then he took a handful of her hair and twisted it. Amelie said, “Ow!” and began to cry.

“You were going somewhere,” he said.

“I was moving out,” she said. “All right? I’m sick of that place!”

“You didn’t tell me,” Roch said patiently. “You could have told me.”

“I thought you’d get mad!”

He seemed puzzled. “Why? Why would I get mad? I mean, maybe you’re right. We need a bigger place. Hey, I’m reasonable.” His grip tightened on her hair. “But that’s not all of it—right?”

“Shit,” Amelie said.

“Don’t use bad language,” Roch said. “It makes you sound cheap.” He was thinking; his face was contorted with the effort of it. “You wanted to get rid of me. That’s it, isn’t it? Or else—it’s that guy you shacked up with, right? He’s back—right?”