Nancy Huston - Infrared

The night before Edmond died, I spent four hours at his bedside, holding and kissing his hands. He had such beautiful hands, Rena, I’d been in love with them for thirty-five years and they’d hardly changed, they were as slim and strong as ever. Strangely enough, at that moment, I felt the rightness of it all.’

Long silence. I was flooding my prints with water, holding them up to the light, setting aside the ones I liked. ‘I hope you know how beautiful you are, Kerstin,’ I murmured at last. ‘Thanks. Oh, I was pretty pretty once…It doesn’t matter anymore.’ ‘Don’t say that. You are truly, right now, with no reservations or qualifications whatsoever, an incredibly beautiful woman.’

I meant it. But not for a second did I imagine the effect my words would have on Kerstin Matheron…

Gaia keeps refilling their wine glasses and chattering up a storm. Rena listens and nods, weak with relief not to have to make a single decision until the next day.

Simon and Ingrid retire early — annoyed at being excluded from the conversation in Italian, or dead tired, or both. As she helps Gaia do the washing-up, Rena strives to preserve her hostess’s illusion that she understands at least half of what she’s saying.

Having guessed that Ingrid is not her mother, Gaia asks the dreaded question in a gentle voice, ‘Dov’è la sua vera madre?’

It knocks the wind out of her. Unable to form a phrase in Italian, she answers simply, ‘Partita.’

Not bad, crows Subra. It suits Ms Lisa Heyward to be described as a piece of music.

More than half asleep herself, Rena wishes her hostess goodnight and goes up an elegant wooden staircase that comes out across from the bathroom on the second floor. The two bedrooms are on either side of the landing and, because of this architectural choice made by Gaia’s dead lover — because of her fatigue, and the stress of the trip, and her boss’s anger, and the two electrocuted kids, and Aziz’s strange new aggressiveness, but especially because of the bathroom being directly across from the staircase, with one bedroom to the right and another to the left — the scene bursts into her brain.

It was summertime, the month of June. Rowan’s school had finished a week before mine and he’d returned to Montreal. He was back in his old room again just as if nothing had changed, but I was ill at ease. I didn’t recognise my brother. It was like a science fiction movie — as if there were an inhuman soul living in his body and transforming it according to its needs. His height had increased by six inches in the course of the school year, the soft blond fuzz on his upper lip had turned dark, and his hair was cut very short…But it wasn’t only that; the changes weren’t only physical; there was a new jerkiness to his movements and his eyes no longer met mine. He made fun of me every chance he got, calling me tattle-tale, birdbrain, goody-goody.

‘No, Rowan,’ I protested in panic. ‘I’m not a goody-goody, I just pretend to be one! Deep down I’m still bad and dirty, I haven’t changed, I swear!’ ‘Prove it. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Poor little innocent girl.’ ‘Well, then teach me. Please don’t reject me. All you have to do is teach me. I’ve always been a good student.’ ‘Get the fuck out of my room. Did I give you permission to come into my room?’ ‘No, but…’ ‘Did you so much as knock?’ ‘No, but I didn’t used to have to knock.’ ‘I didn’t used to have to knock!’ (Sarcastic imitation.) ‘You may not be aware of this, Rena, but things change. Learn the new rules. You fucking well have to knock now. Got that?’ ‘Sure, Rowan. I won’t forget.’ ‘Okay. See you later.’

But since my cheeks were aflame with the rage of rejection, and since Rowan was sitting at his desk with his back to me, I couldn’t resist the temptation of snitching his miniature transistor as I went past his dresser.

The next memory is slapped up against that one as if it came right afterwards, whereas several hours must have elapsed because the sky had changed colour in the meantime. Night was falling…it must have been about nine p.m. Where were our parents? I don’t know. Oddly enough, Lucille wasn’t home either; Rowan and I were alone in the house.

You weren’t little anymore, Subra gently points out. Rowan was fifteen and you were eleven. You didn’t need babysitters anymore.

Yeah, that must be it…I was already in my pyjamas, doing my homework and listening to Sweet Emotion, I’d practically forgotten about the theft of the transistor, when suddenly I heard Rowan coming up the stairs. I knew he was furious because his step was light and swift — if he’d been faking it, he would have come upstairs with heavy plodding giant steps: ‘Okay, now you’re in for it!’ Suddenly I was electrified by fear. My heart started hammering in my chest. He’ll kill me, he’ll kill me…I decided to take refuge in the only room with a lock — the bathroom. I dived into it just as Rowan reached the top of the stairs and managed to slam the door in his face, but before I could lock it he started throwing his whole body against it like a mad bull. He’ll come in and murder me, my parents will find me lying here in the morning, bathed in my own blood…

I pushed against the door with all my strength but I could feel Rowan’s greater strength pushing on the other side, my slippers were sliding on the tiling and the door kept coming open…Icy with fear I pleaded with him—’Please, please, Rowan!’—no, I tried to plead with him but I’d lost my voice, fear had frozen my vocal chords and my throat emitted nothing but a series of rusty croaks. I kept striving to calm my heart, clear my throat and articulate the words clearly, ‘Please, I’m sorry! I apologise! I’ll do whatever you say! Please!’ but all that came out was an absurd whisper and Rowan, in silent, furious determination, kept crashing into the door with monstrous thumps of his shoulder. Finally the weakness and impotence of my vocal chords spread throughout my body and I gave up, gave in, the door burst open, inwards, knocking me flat, Rowan grabbed me by the hair and dragged me across the tiles, my head banged up against the toilet bowl, and he said, ‘Now I’ll teach you, you asked for it.’ I kept pleading with him, saying, ‘No, no, please, Rowan!’ over and over again — that is to say, my lips shaped the words, the air passed through my throat, but not a word came out of my mouth and my body didn’t put up even the semblance of a struggle. All this was in semi-darkness, it was late evening and there was almost no light coming from outside, just a single streak of orange along the top of the blue-black rectangle of sky framed by the bathroom window as seen from the floor, interrupted by the jagged black silhouettes of three pine trees, the sentries of our back yard.

When his spasms had abated, Rowan glued his sweating body to my back and I felt a fraternal tear run down my neck. Then, getting to his feet and adjusting his clothes, he said in a voice so low as to be all but inaudible, ‘Remember when you were little you always wanted me to teach you what I’d learned at school?’ His voice broke then and I had to strain to hear what followed—’Well, now you know… what I’ve been learning…in that goddamn fucking school I got sent to…because of you.’

Rena takes a Noctran and a half before slipping into Gaia’s large soft bed. Impeccably washed and ironed, the white linen sheets are redolent of lavender.

Selvaggio

Doing a reportage with Aziz in a foreign city — we’re in a bus but we forget to ring the bell and the bus goes hurtling past our stop — by the time we lurch to the front to ask the driver to let us off, the bus is already beyond the city limits. Getting off at last, we find ourselves in an unbelievably beautiful landscape — bright sunlight, clouds scudding across the sky, trees waving in the wind—’Look!’ I exclaim. ‘It’s pure Stieglitz!’ Glancing around, I see some enormous animals in the field right next to us. ‘Look, Aziz! What are they? Oh, my God…they’re gorillas!’ There are several of them, circling one another and emitting angry cries, clearly about to start fighting…I see lions as well, and other wild animals roaming free — there’s no barrier of any kind between them and us. ‘I’m scared, Aziz,’ I say. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ A bit farther down the road, a wildcat has escaped and a woman farmer is running after it…‘Oh my God, Aziz,’ I keep repeating. ‘Oh my God!’