But, of course, he had not been. He walked her to the door and waited for her to go inside. “Call your parents,” he said right before he left.
“I will.”
She pulled aside the bamboo window shade, watching until the squad car pulled away. Then she threw out the brochures she’d received, flung off her clothes and stuffed them into the trash. She showered and changed, packed a bag full of clothes and another of books. Then she called a cab. When it arrived, she directed it to the Argus campus, where she retrieved her laptop and her research on tiger moths, and then had the cab bring her to Union Station.
She bought a train ticket home. Only after she arrived and told her parents what had happened did she finally start to cry. Even then, she could not remember what the man had looked like.
She lived at home for three months. Her parents insisted that she get psychiatric counseling and join a therapy group for rape survivors. She did so, reluctantly, but stopped attending after three weeks. The rape was something that had happened to her, but it was over.
“It was fifteen minutes out of my life,” she said once at group. “That’s all. It’s not the rest of my life.”
This didn’t go over very well. Other women thought she was in denial; the therapist thought Jane would suffer later if she did not confront her fears now.
“But I’m not afraid,” said Jane.
“Why not?” demanded a woman whose eyebrows had fallen out.
Because lightning doesn’t strike twice, Jane thought grimly, but she said nothing. That was the last time she attended group.
That night her father had a phone call. He took the phone and sat at the dining table, listening; after a moment stood and walked into his study, giving a quick backward glance at his daughter before closing the door behind him. Jane felt as though her chest had suddenly frozen, but after some minutes she heard her father’s laugh; he was not, after all, talking to the police detective. When after half an hour he returned, he gave Janie another quick look, more thoughtful this time.
“That was Andrew.” Andrew was a doctor friend of his, an Englishman. “He and Fred are going to Provence for three months. They were wondering if you might want to house-sit for them.”
“In LondonT’ Jane’s mother shook her head. “I don’t think—”
“I said we’d think about it.”
“I’ll think about it,” Janie corrected him. She stared at both her parents, absently ran a finger along one eyebrow. “Just let me think about it.”
And she went to bed.
She went to London. She already had a passport, from visiting Andrew with her parents when she was in high school. Before she left there were countless arguments with her mother and father, and phone calls back and forth to Andrew. He assured them that the flat was secure, there was a very nice reliable older woman who lived upstairs, that it would be a good idea for Janie to get out on her own again.
“So you don’t get gun-shy,” he said to her one night on the phone. He was a doctor, after alclass="underline" a homeopath not an allopath, which Janie found reassuring. “It’s important for you to get on with our life. You won’t be able to get a real job here as a visitor, but I’ll see what I can do.”
It was on the plane to Heathrow that she made a discovery. She had splashed water onto her face, and was beginning to comb her hair when she blinked and stared into the mirror.
Above her eyebrows, the long hairs had grown back. They followed the contours of her brow, sweeping back toward her temples; still entwined, still difficult to make out unless she drew her face close to her reflection and tilted her head just so. Tentatively she touched one braided strand. It was stiff yet oddly pliant; but as she ran her finger along its length a sudden surge flowed through her. Not an electrical shock: more like the thrill of pain when a dentist’s drill touches a nerve, or an elbow rams against a stone. She gasped; but immediately the pain was gone. Instead there was a thrumming behind her forehead, a spreading warmth that trickled into her throat like sweet syrup. She opened her mouth, her gasp turning into an uncontrollable yawn, the yawn into a spike of such profound physical ecstasy that she grabbed the edge of the sink and thrust forward, striking her head against the mirror. She was dimly aware of someone knocking at the lavatory door as she clutched the sink and, shuddering, climaxed.
“Hello?” someone called softly. “Hello, is this occupied?” “Right out,” Janie gasped. She caught her breath, still trembling; ran a hand across her face, her finger halting before they could touch the hairs above her eyebrows. There was the faintest tingling, a temblor of sensation that faded as she grabbed her cosmetic bag, pulled the door open, and stumbled back into the cabin.
Andrew and Fred lived in an old Georgian row house just west of Camden Town, overlooking the Regent’s Canal. Their flat occupied the first floor and basement; there was a hexagonal solarium out back, with glass walls and heated stone floor, and beyond that a stepped terrace leading down to the canal. The bedroom had an old wooden four-poster piled high with duvets and down pillows, and French doors that also opened onto the terrace. Andrew showed her how to operate the elaborate sliding security doors that unfolded from the walls, and gave her the keys to the barred window guards.
“You’re completely safe here,” he said, smiling. “Tomorrow we’ll introduce you to Kendra upstairs and show you how to get around. Camden Market’s just down that way, and that way—”
He stepped out onto the terrace, pointing to where the canal coiled and disappeared beneath an arched stone bridge. “—that way’s the Regent’s Park Zoo. I’ve given you a membership—”
“Oh! Thank you!” Janie looked around delighted. “This is wonderful.”
“It is.” Andrew put an arm around her and drew her close. “You’re going to have a wonderful time, Janie. I thought you’d like the zoo — there’s a new exhibit there, ‘The World Within’ or words to that effect — it’s about insects. I thought perhaps you might want to volunteer there— they have an active decent program, and you’re so knowledgeable about that sort of thing.”
“Sure. It sounds great — really great.” She grinned and smoothed her hair back from her face, the wind sending up the rank scent of stagnant water from the canal, the sweetly poisonous smell of hawthorn blossom.
As she stood gazing down past the potted geraniums and Fred’s rosemary trees, the hairs upon her brow trembled, and she laughed out loud, giddily, with anticipation.
Fred and Andrew left two days later. It was enough time for Janie to get over her jet lag and begin to get barely acclimated to the city, and to its smell. London had an acrid scent: damp ashes, the softer underlying fetor of rot that oozed from ancient bricks and stone buildings, the thick vegetative smell of the canal, sharpened with urine and spilled beer. So many thousands of people descended on Camden Town on the weekend that the tube station was restricted to incoming passengers, and the canal path became almost impassable. Even late on a weeknight she could hear voices from the other side of the canal, harsh London voices echoing beneath the bridges or shouting to be heard above the din of the Northern Line trains passing overhead.
Those first days Janie did not venture far from the flat. She unpacked her clothes, which did not take much time, and then unpacked her collecting box, which did. The sturdy wooden case had come through the overseas flight and customs seemingly unscathed, but Janie found herself holding her breath as she undid the metal hinges, afraid of what she’d find inside.