My October (20 page)

“Mum.”

“What?”

But Hannah couldn't do it. Couldn't bring herself to say no. The word jammed in her throat like a stone—painful, cutting off the air.

“It's one week. That's all I'm asking, while I make the preparations. I can't be in two places at once, Hannah. You could work in the house. Bring your laptop like last time. Get that husband of yours to look after Hugo.”

“I'll call you back,” Hannah whispered.

There was a brief silence, and Connie said goodbye.

It was half past eight. Hannah felt guilty, but not guilty enough to change her mind. Her mother would think her totally callous, but Toronto would have to wait. The marigolds caught her eye. What was that nursery rhyme?
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children all gone.

She sat on the floor, staring at the telephone. There was still
no word from Hugo. Be calm, she told herself firmly. Do not panic. She punched in Hugo's number and pressed the phone to her ear. The ringing sounds were hypnotic. She counted them. One, two, three, four, five, nodding her head in the little pause of silence after each one.
“L'abonné que vous désirez rejoindre n'est pas disponible actuellement. Veuillez raccrocher et essayer plus tard.”
She pressed the End button and put the phone down carefully in front of her on the floor. She was kneeling now. She covered her face with her hands and bent forward until her forehead touched the floorboards.

She was still on the kitchen floor when, a half hour later, the front door to the apartment opened. “Hugo?” she said in a shrill voice, standing up too quickly. “Where on earth have you been?” For some reason, perhaps because of talking to Connie, she had addressed him in English.

He strolled into the kitchen, not meeting her eye.

“I called your cell repeatedly.” Again, in English.

“It was off,” he said to the floor. He too was speaking English, as he was doing more and more, in defiance of Luc.

“I know that, Hugo. Believe me. What I want to know is why.” His face was preternaturally pale. She took a step nearer. “Have you been smoking?”

He turned away.

“Your first day back. How could you?”

He raised his eyes then, but only to the level of her mouth. “I was with Vien.”

“Smoking up? Do you honestly expect me to believe that?” She grabbed his shoulders and held them. He was looking down again, refusing to face her. “Look at me, goddammit! Look me in the eye.”

He didn't resist. It was as if he weren't there anymore. As if he'd packed up and gone, leaving this skinny boy's body, the husk of him, here in her desperate hands. Mandelbaum's book was on the counter where she had left it open, face down. Its title stared at her:
Nonviolent Communication
.

Her hands dropped like dead weights. She had earned a place on Arun Gandhi's tree. “Your dinner's cold,” she said, ashamed. “You'll have to wait a minute while I reheat it.”

After she'd warmed it in the microwave, he took the entire pot of pasta on his plate and all the beef stroganoff. This, too, made her feel guilty. She knew he didn't want to take anything from her, didn't want to give in. But he was too hungry.

She sat across from him at the table she'd set. Neither of them spoke. He looked like an animal, a squirrel or a rat, nervously scanning the room as he forked down his food. His skin was sallow. It was naturally olive-coloured, like his grandfather's, and did best with a bit of sun. Now, it looked sickly, almost jaundiced in the indoor light. And how thin he was. Not an ounce of fat anywhere, no matter how much she fed him.

He'd definitely been smoking. His eyes were far-off and filmy. There was no point of contact or entry. His jaw moved as he chewed like a machine, clenching, releasing, clenching. Mandelbaum's list came back to her: callous unconcern for the feelings of others; persistent attitude of irresponsibility. She shook her head. Not her son. Please, not her son.

“I've booked an appointment tomorrow with Mandelbaum,” she said. She was feeling a little more steady, now that he was safe at home, and had switched back to French. “The school wants an assessment.”

Hugo laid down his fork and stopped chewing. “The school can screw itself,” he answered in English, his mouth full.

“Hu-go,” she said in a warning singsong.

“Han-nah,” he sang back.

“We can go together,” she said, ignoring this provocation. “I'll pick you up tomorrow after your meeting with Monsieur Vien.”

Hugo stood up. “Vien's a jerk.” He paused and seemed to think. “They all are.” There was another pause. “You all are.”

“Who's the you?”

“You. And Dad. Vien. Everyone at that fucking school!”

She took a breath. “Language, Hugo.”

“Fuck language!”

It was the most he'd said in months. She searched his face, but he just sneered and looked away. His body language was so angry, both hands balled into fists. Something must have happened at school to upset him. Possibly with Monsieur Vien.

Hugo turned on her suddenly, eyes blazing. “Do you know where he is right now?”

“Who?” said Hannah, bewildered.

“Luc,” he said. “Your husband.” He could hardly contain the anger. His face was contorted. “Well?” he asked.

“Well, no. I don't know where Luc is. People don't keep track of their spouses every minute of the day.”

“You ought to check, sometime.” The tendons on both sides of his neck were standing out. Hannah could actually see the blood in his carotid artery pulsing upward to feed his angry brain. “There's a lot about Luc Lévesque we don't know,” he said quietly.

“Hugo,” she said, and stepped toward him again. His energy had shifted. His fingers had uncurled. Perhaps now they could talk. “Tell me what's wrong.”

But the moment was gone. He looked down, pursing his lips. “Forget it,” he said. “It is what it is. Or isn't.”

It is what it isn't?
What did that mean? What was she missing?

“Why did you stay?”

Her thoughts were racing. What was he talking about? Stay here at home tonight, waiting for him? Stay married to Luc?

“In Montreal,” he said, seeing her confusion. “In the seventies. When Alfred decided to leave.”

Alfred. When had he begun calling his grandfather that? And the seventies? She stared in utter mystification. “Because of your father,” she said finally. “We'd met by then. We were a couple.”

Hugo grimaced. “Do you ever wish you'd gone with them?”

Hugo kept turning his face away from her, but even when she could see his expression, it gave no clue to what he was trying to say.

“I mean,” he said, “we just about never see your family.”

“I do,” she said. “I was down there two weeks ago.”

“Because your dad almost died.”

Fair enough. Some years she didn't make it to Toronto at all. And she hadn't once been out West to visit Benjamin and his family. Not in fifteen years. The extent of their contact was birthday cards and an annual donation of Hanukkah
geld
for her two young nieces.

“I barely know them,” Hugo said.

“You want to get to know my side of the family? Is that what this is about?”

He looked away again. “I want to know why we never see them. It doesn't make sense. They're not bad people.”

Hannah sighed. “It's complicated.”

“It's because of Luc, isn't it?”

Luc.
As if he were a casual acquaintance. But it wasn't Luc's face that flashed before her as he uttered the name. It was the face of Alfred Stern, forehead creased in disapproval.

“I'm not a kid anymore,” Hugo persisted.

“No,” she said, gazing through her vision into Hugo's angry young eyes. “I guess you're not.”

13

T
he little bronze woman with the round belly was still in the gallery window as Hannah hurried into the building. Hugo trailed behind her glumly.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” she said, bursting into the waiting room, where Manny Mandelbaum had come to greet them. “I took a taxi to pick up Hugo, but there was an accident on Atwater, and by the time I got to the school he'd wandered into the yard.”

Mandelbaum held up his hands. “It's okay,” he said. “I have nothing else this afternoon, there's no rush. I'm glad you both made it.”

He was quiet and calm. Hannah took a deep breath. And another one. His client base was probably small. This would explain why he was so relaxed and welcoming. Whatever the reason, she was too grateful to care.

Mandelbaum filled two glasses from a water cooler for Hannah and Hugo before leading them into his office. “You can use my desk,” he told Hugo, pulling out a coaster with the face
of an elephant on it for Hugo's drink. “Ganesh,” he said. “The Indian god of students.”

Hugo looked at him blankly.

“My favourite Hindu incarnation,” said Mandelbaum. He pressed his nose into his shoulder and waved his arm comically back and forth. “Erases obstacles with his trunk.”

Hugo sighed.

“You just want to write this thing, huh? Get it over with?” Mandelbaum said, smiling kindly.

Hugo nodded.

“Okay, then. Here's a pencil. I'll be right outside.” He took Hannah's arm and steered her out of the room. She was surprised by that. He was more fluid than the last time they'd been here. More in charge. She wouldn't have predicted such a firm touch. His voice was still low, but the scratchiness was gone.

They sat on his waiting room couch. It was leather, like his chairs, but ancient and sunken, covered with small cushions that smelled of patchouli.

“You're feeling better?” she asked, politely, but also out of self-interest, not wishing to get too close.

He said his wife, a homeopath, had plied him with remedies.

“She's a bit of a sorceress,” he explained, laughing. “Got all kinds of medicinal herbs up her sleeve. I can pass you her card if you want,” he added, eager once again to promote the services of somebody other than himself. He nodded in the direction of his office. “So. He came.”

“Barely,” she said. “I had to search all over the school grounds to find him.”

Manny Mandelbaum smiled. “But he's here.”

She nodded. He was here. He was writing the assessment. That was something. “You didn't think he'd do it?”

Mandelbaum shrugged. “I sure wouldn't want to. Write a thing like that? I mean, think about it.”

“It's one of the conditions for staying on at Saint-Jean.”

“Sure, sure,” said Mandelbaum, sticking his legs out in front of him and letting his head fall back against the couch. “But imagine if it was you. Imagine people wanting to find out if you're anti-social.”

Hannah grimaced. “I wasn't found inside my school in possession of a firearm.”

“True,” said Mandelbaum, nodding at the ceiling.

He was a nice man. Too nice, perhaps. Maybe it was beyond him to imagine a person really going off-track. “I've always wondered,” she said in a lowered voice, “what was going on in the heads of those boys in Colorado.”

Mandelbaum's expression changed. “You're really worried.”

She shrugged and looked away.

Mandelbaum drew in his legs and sat up. “It's okay to have fears,” he said, looking at her.

Hannah didn't move. She was perched precariously on the couch's hard front edge, the only solid part of it. If she leaned backward even slightly, she would slide down into the cushions. “Ever since you read me that list of signs, I keep seeing them in him.”

He nodded. “I'm like that too. I read about some psychological condition or whatever and every symptom seems to fit. It's understandable. Every one of us shows callous unconcern, Hannah. Every one of us is irresponsible, has trouble with
relationships. We all get frustrated and aggressive. You have to remember it's a spectrum.”

“Oh?” she said, unconvinced. “Well, Hugo seems to have fallen off the end.”

Manny Mandelbaum sat forward, not an easy feat on his ridiculous couch. “I don't know your family well,” he said, his voice a little less gentle, “but to me Hugo doesn't seem like he's falling off any end. Unless it's the end of childhood.”

Hannah closed her eyes. Until that moment, she'd had no idea how much she'd needed reassurance, or maybe just the permission to give voice to her fears. “I looked at your book,” she said.

“Marshall Rosenberg's book, you mean?”

“Yes,” said Hannah. She was grateful he'd passed it to her. It raised a lot of questions. “I read the foreword by Gandhi's grandson. I didn't realize you were talking about that kind of nonviolence.”

Mandelbaum nodded, drawing his feet up and crossing them.
“Ahimsa.”

“You've been to India, I take it,” she said, gesturing at the brilliantly coloured little pillows adorning his couch. Hannah's nose had habituated to the patchouli, but she could still pick up the sugary hints.

“I was one of those lost kids in the seventies, wandering the globe, trying to find myself.” He smiled. A man who could poke fun at himself.

“And did you?” she asked, smiling back.

“In a manner of speaking. I found out that I was never really lost.” He pulled on a pillow that had wedged between their bodies and stuck it behind his lower back. “So, you read
all about needs,” he said, steering the conversation back to the book.

“Nothing about needs. Only the foreword.”

“Rosenberg's thesis is pretty simple,” he said, placing his palms flat on his thighs. “Basically, we all have these needs. They're few in number, and they're universal.” He glanced at her to see if she was following, and she looked back with what she hoped was a lucid expression.