Richard Ford - A Multitude of Sins

When he turned away from the cashier’s, folding his receipt, he found Madeleine Granville waiting for him, standing beside the great red pillar where luggage was stacked. She’d changed clothes, pulled her damp hair severely back in a way that emphasized her full mouth and dark eyes. She looked jaunty in a pair of nicely fitted brown tweed trousers, and a houndstooth jacket and expensive-looking lace-up walking shoes. Everything seemed to emphasize her slenderness and youth. She was carrying a leather knapsack and seemed, to Henry, to be leaving on a trip. She looked extraordinarily pretty, a way he’d seen her look other times. He wondered if she was expecting to leave with him, if matters with the husband had gone that way.

“I left you two messages.” She smiled in a mockingly amused way. “You didn’t think I’d let you take a taxi, did you?”

Some of the same people he’d seen earlier were present in the lobby — a child sitting alone in a big throne chair, wearing his white tae kwon do get-up. A black woman in a brocaded fall suit, having a present wrapped in the sweater shop. It was past noon. He’d missed lunch.

“Are we going fox hunting?” he said, hoisting his suitcase.

“I’m taking Patrick to see the last of the fall foliage after school.” Patrick was her son. She held one arm out, extended a foot stylishly. “Don’t I look autumnal?”

“You’re standing right where I had a truly ridiculous conversation an hour ago,” he said. He looked toward the revolving doors. Traffic was silently moving on the street. He wondered if Jeff was lurking somewhere nearby.

“We’ll have to erect a commemorative plaque.” Madeleine seemed in gay spirits. “‘Here the forces of evil were withstood by’ … what?” She patted her moist hair with her palm.

“I don’t mind getting a taxi,” Henry said.

“Screw you,” she said brightly. “It’s my country you’ve been kicked out of.” She turned to go. “Come on … ‘with-stood by the forces of dull convention.’ Alas.”

From the passenger’s seat of Madeleine’s yellow Saab, Henry watched the big construction cranes at work — many more cranes and superstructures than had been visible from his window. The city was rising, which made it feel even more indifferent. A taxi would’ve been better. A taxi alone to an airport, never looking right nor left, could be a relief.

“You look all beat up, though I guess you’re not,” Madeleine said. Driving too fast always put her in aggressive good spirits. Together they’d always been driving someplace good. He liked speed then — but less so now, since it threatened getting safely to the airport.

There was nothing to say about looking “all beat up.” He knew her, yet also now he didn’t quite know her. It was part of the change they were enacting. When they were in the thick of things, Madeleine couldn’t drive without looking at him, smiling, remarking about his excellent qualities, cracking jokes, appreciating his comments. Now she could be driving anybody — her mother to the beauty parlor, a priest to a funeral.

“Do you realize what the day after tomorrow is?” Madeleine said, maneuvering skillfully through the traffic’s changing weave. She was wearing some sort of scent that filled the car with a dense rosy aroma he was already tired of.

“No.”

“It’s Canadian Thanksgiving. We have it early so we can get a jump on you guys. Canada invented Thanksgiving. Canada invented Thanksgiving, eh ?” She quite liked making fun of Canadians and didn’t like it at all if he did. He had never really thought of her as Canadian. She just seemed like another American girl. He wasn’t sure how you considered someone Canadian, what important allowances you needed to make.

“Do you observe it for the same reason we do?” Henry said, watching traffic. He still felt slightly dazed.

“We just have it,” Madeleine said happily. “Why do you have it?”

“To solemnize the accord between the settlers and the Indians who might’ve murdered them. Basically it’s a national gesture of relief.”

“Murder’s your big subject down there, isn’t it?” Madeleine said, and looked pleased. “We just have ours to be nice. That’s enough for Canada. We’re just happily grateful. Murder really doesn’t play a big part.”

The old buildings of the French University were passing below and to the left. The little Frogs-only fantasy world. He considered how he and Madeleine would function together after today. He hadn’t really thought about it. Everybody, of course, had a past. It would be a relief to the people who knew about them to have this be over with. Plus, not having him in her life was going to be easier for her. Clear her mind. Open the world up again for both of them.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Madeleine said, both hands firmly on the leather steering wheel.

“I probably already know what it is,” Henry said. His tongue sought the sharp little spike of his broken molar. The flesh was abraded and sore from going there. He could get it fixed in San Francisco.

“I really don’t think you do,” she said. A big white Japanese 747 descended slowly out of the pale sky and across the autoroute in front of them. “Do you want me to tell you?” she said. “I don’t have to. It can wait forever.”

“That guy wasn’t your husband,” Henry said and quietly cleared his throat. The thought had just come to him— why, now, he didn’t know. Lawyer’s intuition. “Did you think I was stupid? I mean …” He didn’t care to finish this sentence. It finished itself. So much that was said didn’t need to be.

Madeleine looked at him once, looked away, then looked again. She seemed impressed. She seemed happy about feeling impressed, as if this was the best of all outcomes. The enormous jet sank from sight into an unremarkable industrial landscape. No big ball of flaming explosion followed. Everyone safe. “You’re guessing,” she said.

“I’m a lawyer. What’s the difference?”

She liked this, too, and smiled. He understood it was impossible for her not to like him. “How’d you know?”

“Among other reasons?” The freeway traffic was standing back now for the airport exit. “He acted more serious than he felt. Something he said … ‘divided inner somethings’? That wasn’t right. And he looks like an actor. Are you sleeping with him, too? I don’t mean ‘too.’ You know.”

“Not currently,” Madeleine said. She touched her silver hair clip with her little finger and cocked her head slightly. She appeared to be realizing something. What that might be, he thought, would be worth knowing. “I knew you’d go down there,” she said. “I knew you couldn’t resist it. You always want to be so forthright and brave. It’s your disguise.”

Henry watched the pleasureless freeway ambience pass slowly along — freight depots, trucking companies, car rentals, gas stations. The same all over. The green sign was visible. AEROGARE/AIRPORT. An exertion saying everything twice.

“He’s an American,” Madeleine said. “His name’s Bradley. He is an actor. We worried you’d know he wasn’t Canadian.”

“Not a worry there,” Henry said. She took the AEROGARE/AIRPORT SORTIE/EXIT and looked across at him. She seemed slightly undone now. Perhaps, he thought, she was thinking about patting her cheeks when they were in the room, or saying, I’d pictured something more poignant . That could seem excessive now.

He reached and took her hand and held it loosely. She was nervous, her hand warm and moist. This whole business had taken something out of her, too. They had been in love, perhaps were still in love.

“Is someone filming all this?” he said and glanced to the side, at a pickup truck following along beside them on the highway. He expected to see the truck bed full of cameras, sound equipment, smiling young cinéastes. Everything trained on him.