‘Oh, Rena…All of a sudden I couldn’t stand being my body. Things were bad that year. Then they got worse. Edmond started complaining about fatigue. He went in for tests and they found he had an extremely rare form of blood cancer. The illness evolved slowly but cruelly, attacking not only his body but his mind. Destroying his beauty, his fine intelligence, his humour, his personality. One day — he’d been hospitalised by this time and was already unable to walk — I ran into Alix at his bedside and discovered she was a lovely person. Of course I’d made her out to be a scheming conniving witch, but that’s because I was jealous. So as the weeks went by we started getting together to comfort each other. God knows we needed it: before our very eyes, the man we both loved was turning into an incontinent, deranged, obstreperous monster. He refused to see anyone but the two of us. He was ashamed…He’d been so proud of his looks, and now they were gone for good…It was a shock, Rena, to go to the hospital and find our Edmond surrounded by a bunch of obscene, paranoid, loudly abusive old men…Oh, we’d tell ourselves, but deep down he’s not like the others. With him it’s only temporary; he’ll soon be his old self again — but we knew the other visitors were thinking the same thing about their men. They, too, had once been young and debonair, maybe even incomparable lovers…Every time our paths crossed in the hospital corridor, Alix and I hugged each other desperately, not wanting to let go because we knew the only place to go from here was down. We wanted time to stop. Then it was the other way around — we wanted it to speed up. We longed for the end of this slow, sadistic, relentless destruction of the man we both loved.
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…