Beth leaned up against a tree, steadying herself. If the baby had no name, then perhaps it was not... claimed. Perhaps it had not yet been properly tethered to this place, these people. Maybe there was a chance. In a flash, she saw it — the plump, umber-colored child tucked under a yellow fleece blanket, being ferried along Bloor Street like royalty in her sturdy stroller. If she got homesick, Beth would show her the Humber. They would gather bouquets of pale purple phlox and Queen Anne’s lace and she would tell her the story of Etienne Brûlé, who learned to live among the Hurons. She would show her the CN Tower, that useless, space-age thing. Oh, there were those little pots of organic baby food in the No Frills grocery store, weren’t there? And bags at the baby boutique that had compartments for everything...
Juana moved closer to her, reached out to touch Beth’s cheek and hair, the silver camera that hung like a medal around her neck. Beth brightened. “Would you like me to take your picture?”
“Yes, yes,” Juana said happily, bobbing up and down.
“Okay,” said Beth. “You should stand over there. Maybe I should hold the baby.” She held out her arms to take the child, but Juana backed away, cradling the baby’s head under her stern chin.
“No,” Juana said.
And then the group spilled into the clearing, muttering and perspiring, craning their necks to see a flock of parrots winging by.
Next to the Humber, Beth could hear thunder rolling in over the lake.
“Paul,” she said, “do you think we should go back, find a way to help them rebuild?”
Paul sighed heavily. Soon the sky would open, and it was possible the humidity would break.
“I mean, if we are responsible, maybe we should just take responsibility...” Beth knew she was whining a little, but couldn’t help herself.
Paul threw up his arms, which almost made Beth laugh. “Jesus, Beth, do you even know what happened to Etienne Brûlé?”
Beth nodded. Brûlé had eventually been disowned by his countryman, Champlain, it was true. And then the Hurons decided he had betrayed them to the Iroquois, or at least this was the speculation. And those were harsher times, weren’t they? “They killed him,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” said Paul, pleased with her accuracy, but not nearly finished with his own story. “The Hurons killed him.” He paused to take a breath, then turned toward her and whispered sadly, excitedly, “Then they ate him.”
And that was when Beth pushed him. If he had fallen differently, with more agility and pliability, the water might not have pulled him to the center of the flow. But within seconds, Paul was struggling in the depths of the river, carried further and further away from Beth by a wicked undertow.
For a few seconds, Paul seemed not to care; there was surrender in the position of his body. But then Beth watched as he clambered strangely toward the shallow water on the opposite shore, and she watched as the current caught him by the ankles and pulled him back into its grasp. Perhaps he would survive; it was up to the river to decide. It confused her to think about what she wanted — how rarely people’s plans and yearnings find their proper, perfect form. She focused on the rushing water between them, its opaque mystery, the smell of rust, fish gut, and human effluent. She noted its very force, which was like the force of blood or cum, a liquid force that pulsed around the globe, hastening into places humans could not reach.
The evening after Beth met the nameless baby, Miguel invited her on a jungle walk. Paul had gone to bed early, blaming the bug bites and cheap wine for his fatigue.
“It is possible we will see some night animals, the nocturnals,” Miguel said as they traipsed carefully along the path. “Do you have any like this in Toronto?”
Beth laughed. “Maybe raccoons,” she said. “They’re the cleverest creatures you’ve ever met, and they’ve adapted to us, so now we adapt to them.”
“Adaptation,” Miguel said. “Is that how you call it?”
The light was beginning to fade, making shapes waver, turning living tableaux into unreliable dreamscapes. Miguel placed his hand at the small of her back and invited her to take a closer look at an orchid the size of a thimble which was growing in the crook of a tree.
“Can you see?” he said. “Here.” He slid a penlight from his pocket and shined it tightly on the flower. “It’s precious, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Beth said. And then, in a rush, “There was a child, back there, in the forest. She was maybe three months old, so sweet, and she didn’t have a name. I was wondering if there might be a way, if she is not wanted or a burden of some kind, I know I — we — could provide a good home. We live in a village of sorts — clean and comfortable, with very good educational opportunities and lots of diverse friends and toys for her to play with, secondhand clothes, because we don’t like to be wasteful, and love. We have love for her. We can’t have kids of our own, or at least that’s what we’ve found.”
“I don’t think so,” Miguel replied.
“But I don’t understand!” Beth began to sob, then stopped when she noticed Miguel chortling to himself, bent at the waist with the laughter that was coursing through him. He stopped for long enough to hold out a fibrous piece of bark he had pulled from the trunk of a tree. The bark was a coppery color, flecked with a darker, richer brown, and the piece he had stripped sat in the palm of his hand like a special seashell.
“Try it,” Miguel said. “Rub it here.” He ran his index finger across his gums. “Chew on it. It was what we used when we went to the dentist, to do the dental work. A way of freezing, of feeling no pain.” He passed her the bark and she put it in her mouth like a lozenge. It was true what he said; within seconds her tongue felt clumsy and numb. She looked at him, shocked, and found she could not speak.
“Shh,” he said, although she had not uttered a word. He sidled up close to her, from behind, and put his arms around her in a restrictive embrace.
I should resist, she thought, but fear was making her tingly and compliant. She wondered if there was a place where she truly belonged.
Then Miguel’s fingers were down the front of her pants, his lips tender at her neck, his fingers rubbing and hooked up inside of her. “Here you go, Toronto,” he said into her ear. “A souvenir.” And Beth came, gasping soundlessly into the hand he had clasped firmly across her mouth. “Now,” Miguel said. “Now do you understand?”
Sic transit Gloria at the Humber Loop
by Sean Dixon
Humber Loop
She said she wasn’t married anymore. But then, about two weeks into our thing, the dude came to visit, from Ohio or Iowa or someplace like that, I don’t even know. And he insisted that they sleep together, side by side in the same bed, every night for ten nights. Said she owed him that since he was her husband and she was his wife. She agreed to it, she told me, because she was afraid of him. Said she’d left a little something under my pillow to get me through. Said she’d call again in eleven days. I could hear him in the background, demanding to know who she was talking to. She told him to fuck off and then she said bye and hung up.
Reflecting on it now, it didn’t sound too much like she was afraid of him.
I had three gigs lined up. Double bass players can always find a gig, even if they only know ten or twelve notes. I don’t have a car, but it’s not a problem. I used to have a car. A big car. Fit the soft case nicely in the backseat. But then one day I backed the car over the bass. It could not be salvaged. I kicked the car a couple of times and then sold it so I could buy myself another bass, along with a lightweight, state-of-the-art Styrofoam case, more than an inch thick, with an Oxford cloth surface. Meant for air travel. It was six and a half feet tall and weighed just over twenty pounds without the instrument. I didn’t mind. The contents would not get damaged. And there were wheels. I could roll it down the street to wherever I was going, even in the rain. Means I was generally available to play. Man, I just want to play. Never tried to pull that rig onto a streetcar. Wasn’t even sure it was possible. Just did gigs in the Queen West area, mostly. Walking around. And up Roncesvalles. I got a rain hat that looked like a Tilly but it wasn’t, though that didn’t stop people from calling me asshole.