My October (29 page)

For several seconds, they stared at each other in shocked silence. Perhaps it was exhaustion, or perhaps something was seriously wrong with him, but Hugo's brain felt like it was short-circuiting. He couldn't make sense of the picture. In his dreams, the house in Toronto had been a refuge, a place where
he would finally, for the first time in his life, find his place. With mounting panic, Hugo watched as the strange, childlike face in front of him jerked, its mouth stretching and opening. Then, without warning, his grandfather turned his face sharply away and began to howl.

22

H
annah awoke to the sound of a baby crying. She had shut her eyes after Kingston, and now they were passing the beaches of Lake Ontario on their way into Toronto. Some of the passengers on the train had their coats on, ready to disembark. The lake was a dull silver colour, a tarnished spoon reflecting an overcast sky. She glanced across the aisle at the baby, who was now wailing at full throttle. He looked like a newborn, his little face puckered and red. The baby's mother was, of course, trying frantically to quiet him. She looked like a child herself. She was wearing a bright shalwar kameez and was trying to get the child to feed from her breast. But with all the other passengers so close, and with the child writhing in her arms, she was too agitated. Her husband, clad in a suit a couple of sizes too big and a pair of shiny black shoes, sat stiffly beside her, glaring, as if the whole thing were her fault. She had thrown a shawl over herself, which muffled the baby's cries but didn't do much to help its humour. She shifted in her seat, readjusting
him, her body, and the shawl, and as suddenly as it had begun, the crying stopped.

Hannah looked out the window. Her neck was sore. As the train rounded a bend, the CN Tower came into view and her eyes brimmed. Had anyone ever cried with joy to see the CN Tower? Hugo was here, in this city, alive and safe.

When her mother had called at around nine o'clock the night before, Hannah had been reluctant to pick up the telephone. The police were still in the apartment. Every officer in Montreal had in his or her possession a description of Hannah's only child.
White. One hundred sixty-nine centimetres. Fifty-two kilograms. Black hair and eyes. Likely wearing dark jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt
.

The search had gone on all day, feverishly, because of the story of the gun. When the call came in, the detective in charge of the case, a large, calm man named Dubois, was asking Luc again about Hugo's state of mind. It was clear where the questions were going, but neither Luc nor the detective would say the word. Could it be that Hugo was depressed? the detective had asked. Had he seemed unusually preoccupied or withdrawn prior to the disappearance? Had he dropped any kind of a hint? Had there been conflicts at school or at home that Luc could recall?

Luc was clearly not going to talk about the fights, so Hannah had been forced to do it. She'd felt awful, especially with Luc sitting across from her looking stricken. But really, she had to. She told of their differences over language. Of the physical fighting that had erupted between Luc and Hugo following the incident with the gun.

“She's making mountains out of molehills,” Luc kept saying,
his eyes searching those of the detective. “Conflicts come up in family life.
C'est normal
.”

He had just finished asking the detective, rather aggressively, if he had kids of his own, when the telephone rang. Luc and Dubois stopped talking. Hannah, who was seated nearest to it, leapt up. She stood over it stupidly for a moment, not daring to move, just staring at the Talk button until it rang a second time, shaking her from her trance.

The voice on the other end was instantly recognizable. “What a surprise,” said Connie. “Though you might have warned us.”

Hannah turned her back to the two men. She had not returned her mother's calls all week, even though four had come in since they'd last spoken. “Mum, I—”

“Not that I'm complaining. You should see your father. He's in heaven.”

Hannah glanced over at her husband. He was frowning in irritation and mimed hanging up.

She looked down at the bare wood floor, trying to concentrate. “This isn't the best time,” she said, doing her utmost to keep her tone even. She had no idea whether Connie had gone ahead with the plan to bring Alfred home. She had no desire to know. Wherever he was, Connie needed help caring for him. And Hannah could not provide it.

“But really,” her mother said, “I think you might at least have given the boy an overnight bag.”

Hannah felt her heart stop.

“Which boy?”

Across the room, Luc saw her expression change. He stopped gesturing.

“And those jeans,” Connie went on. “You're his mother. God knows, I wouldn't dream of interfering, but honestly, someone should tell him it's inappropriate for a person's underwear to be on display to the entire—”

“Mother. Which boy?”

After she had given Dubois an account of what had happened and seen him to the door, she sat beside Luc on the couch, absorbing the news.

“Toronto,”
Luc said, as if learning a new word. “I don't believe it.”

But Hannah did. Hugo had given plenty of clues. All those questions about Alfred on the night he disappeared. And the name change, which Manny Mandelbaum had immediately recognized as significant. Hugo had been interested in his grandfather for years now. He'd done that project about him in grade six, learning more about him in a single long-distance telephone call than Hannah had learned in a lifetime. In retrospect, it made perfect sense that he would go to Toronto.

“I could come with you,” Luc had offered when she said she'd go down the next day. He seemed serious, but when she shook her head, he looked relieved.

The train was on the last stretch before Union Station. People were standing in the aisle even though they had been told repeatedly in both official languages to remain in their seats until the train came to a full stop. Hannah sat obediently. There was a knapsack on the floor by her feet. Her only clothes were on her back, plus an extra pair of underpants and some items for Hugo. She had brought the laptop along, which took up most of her packing space. She would have to visit the Word at some point. She owed Allison March that much.

Before they reached the station, the train stopped and hissed. The lights went out, and everyone, including the baby across the aisle, fell into sudden respectful silence. Hannah sat in the dark, feeling the clutch and release of her heart. She felt calm and strangely united with these strangers waiting around her. And then the moment was over. Outside the train, someone shouted, and seconds after that the lights came up. People started moving again, as if they too had just been reconnected to an electrical source. Women combed their hair and called their children to order. Men buttoned their coats. The train roused itself from its moment of stillness and made the final push down the tracks into Toronto.

She took the subway north to her parents' neighbourhood. Coming up the steps at Lawrence, she noted changes in the landscape since her last visit. Most of the leaves had fallen. Piles of them filled the gutters. Above them, denuded branches swayed in the October wind. In the little park on the far side of Yonge Street, the grass was yellow and dead. Autumn was drawing to a close. That coming Sunday, the clocks would be pushed back.

The walk did not take long. Within ten minutes, Hannah rounded the corner onto Chatsworth Drive. There was the house. She concentrated on the details of its exterior, not daring to let her mind ponder what awaited her inside. Her parents' bushes had been pruned, divided neatly into bunches, and tied with string. The grass was a chemical green, not a fallen leaf in sight. Her mother had once enjoyed tending the lawn. Now a company took care of it, sending a crew each week with a deafening army of leaf-blowers. Hannah turned up the front walk, repaved just last spring with interlocking flagstones.

When the door opened, a smell engulfed her: roasting meat and garlic. Her mother stood before her, wearing an apron and a smile—a happier smile than Hannah had seen for years. “Come in from the cold,” she said, pulling Hannah by the arm. “I knew you'd get down here. And I knew it would be in your own particular Hannah style. I just never imagined Hugo would be part of it.”

Connie was beaming, as though this arrangement were a stroke of genius, a plan laid by Hannah with her parents' best interests in mind.

She hugged her mother.

“I'm so glad you're here,” Connie said. “Things have worked out fairly well with Alfred. For now, anyway. Who knows about tomorrow.” In her right hand, she was holding a wooden spoon, which she flourished. “Look at me! A cartoon granny.”

Hannah shook her head. “You look great.”

Her mother cocked her head toward the interior of the house. “That's because he's doing better. He's eating again.”

“I can imagine,” Hannah said, inhaling the smell wafting out of the kitchen.
Gigot d'agneau
with rosemary and slivers of garlic inserted under the skin: a Connie Stern classic, and certainly more enticing than anything on offer at the hospital.

As they hung up Hannah's coat, Connie described Hugo's arrival. She didn't seem to realize he'd run away. Hannah hadn't told her, justifying this in her own mind as a protective move, for everyone's sake. Now, watching this agile woman bend down to stow her knapsack under a chair, Hannah felt guilty. Connie was obviously strong enough to handle the truth.

“I didn't recognize him,” Connie said, looking up at her. “He's transformed.”

“You mean the hair?” In spite of herself, Hannah made a face.

But Connie wasn't passing judgment. “The hair. The body. The lines of his face. Everything,” she said, smiling. “His baby fat's melted away. He's left his childhood.”

Hannah's throat went tight. Was this what had happened? She was too close to see it.

“Alfred's reaction was even stronger than mine,” Connie continued. “He was so upset when he saw him, he started to cry.”

Hannah pictured her son's shaved head and sullen mouth. “Did Hugo scare him?”

Connie laughed. “No, no! Not at all. If anyone, it was your son who got the scare.” She paused, remembering the moment. “Honestly? For Alfred, I think it was … well, Dickensian. An apparition from the past. Come,” she said, taking Hannah by the hand and leading her back into the hall. “There's something you must see.”

On the little mahogany table that her parents used for mail and keys lay a small black-and-white photograph. Connie picked it up. “I pulled this out of your father's album last night to show Hugo. It's quite something.”

Hannah recognized the shot, although it had been years since she'd seen it. It was one of a handful of surviving photographs from her father's youth. It had been taken by an administrator at the internment camp in New Brunswick just after Alfred arrived in Canada. He was standing outside a wooden barracks in the snow, dressed in a dark bulky prison uniform. His head was bare, presumably for the picture. He had no hair to speak of, just a film of fuzz so thin it could have been a shadow. Hannah let out a cry.

“Amazing, no?” said Connie.

“They could be twins.”

“Clones is more like it. They can do that now, you know. They've got the technology, and not just for Scottish sheep.”

Hannah turned the photograph over. In her father's faded handwriting were the words “Minto Internment Camp, February 1941.”

“Your poor father must have thought he was hallucinating. He kept reaching out to touch Hugo's face as if he didn't quite believe he was real. I had to repeat Hugo's name several times before he would calm down.”

“Which he did?”

“Oh, sure,” said Connie. “He did more than calm down. You should see them.” She took Hannah's hand again and led her to the living room door, which was closed. “They're in there at the moment,” she said. “That's his lair.”

Hugo didn't get up when she entered. He was sitting on a hospital bed in the middle of the room, wearing his big jeans and hoodie. He did not look suicidal. Or remotely anti-social. Beside him, propped on pillows, was his grandfather, wearing a navy sweater that swamped his thin frame. The sight of them together was striking—like the beginning and end of a single story. Set out between them on her father's bedspread was a chessboard with a dozen or so pieces in play.

Hugo glanced up at Hannah and announced, in English, that he was being trounced. She went to his side. In Montreal, he used English as a weapon. But here, in his grandfather's home, it was just a language. That was all. His language, as much as the other one.

The chessboard was a travel set with tiny magnetized pieces. Her father was leading the black forces, her son the white. Her father's side was indeed winning. The white king stood in a narrow circle of defenders as black invaders swarmed for the kill.

“Wow,” said Hannah, kissing the bristly top of Hugo's head. “Trounced is right.”

She kissed her father too. Alfred Stern looked up at her with his strange new affectless face. Not a hint of the old judgment or anger, the gaze as open as a child's.

“Chess?” she asked, not quite believing it.

As if in answer, Alfred Stern reached out with his left hand and, with surprising dexterity, took the enemy queen.

23

H
annah got off the subway at St. Patrick and joined the masses of people making their way up from under the ground. She allowed herself to be swept along by the human current, as if her own will had nothing to do with it. And in truth, it didn't. She was moving on instinct now, nothing that resembled reason. She had no idea, for instance, why she was heading at this very moment for the Word, or what she could possibly say to Allison March once she got there. Her eyes rested momentarily on the jacket of the man in front of her. It was navy blue and padded. Flesh-coloured hearing aids were visible behind both of the man's ears. She looked more closely. He must be in his eighties at the very least, possibly nineties, tottering along unaided in the core of this city. There was a story here, as compelling, in its way, as her father's.