<\/p>\n
He stood in the rain, looking back along a quaintly curving street of houses half-hidden by trees and vines. He\u2019d grabbed a raincoat and a hat before going outside, but rain dripped from the hem of his raincoat onto his shoes. He’d forgotten his galoshes. Wet feet were a small price to pay for a moment of serenity. The sky hung dark and low over the streaming rooftops, and bright drops fell from the leaves when the breeze shook them. It was a beautiful place if you liked the rain, and he did. The house he was staying in with his wife was beautiful too: two storeys, brick walls, leaded glass, finished attic, with little secret rooms, rustic furniture bought with old money, but arranged in a calculatedly haphazard way, that sort of thing. It had a back yard sloping down the river, with a little dock and a couple of skiffs waiting on it, upside down, moss growing on their hulls. A paradise of sorts. But every Eden has its snake.<\/p>\n
He hunched himself deeper into his raincoat. It wasn\u2019t really his, but he was the same size as the master of the house, and he was free to “borrow anything you like except my wife.” Well, he’d brought his own wife along, so there would be nothing of such. The master of the house was an old friend who’d made good by marriage, and he was taking the role of baronial lord too seriously. At least it looked like he was. Bob Parker, the man in the rain, felt terribly uncomfortable about this. He didn’t want to go back to the stately house by the river, but he would have to. He had to ask his wife what she thought. Maybe she had seen and heard what he’d seen and heard. Maybe they were both pretending not to notice. That was the way it usually happened, wasn’t it? You didn’t want to hurt a friend, so you pretend not to notice.<\/p>\n
He had established the habit of walking every morning, sometimes before breakfast, sometimes after. It was nothing unusual, nothing to excite comment. The rain pattered on his yellow rain hat. No cars came and went along the road, which was narrow and led to nothing but houses in a cozy, quiet neighborhood with lots of trees. The houses weren’t mansions, really, but they were big. Hedges obscured the front yards or brick walls with ivy… Ivy, he smirked to himself. A good hiding place for rats. He turned back towards the house where they were staying. He had to talk to Kate. She might be up by now. His friend, Claude, would be up too, making coffee. Claude didn’t let his wife make the coffee. Only he knew the right way to make it and it took him half an hour. He was that way.<\/p>\n
He saw Claude through the kitchen window as he passed by on his way to the back door. They waved at each other through the glass. He left the raincoat on its hook in the service porch and went into the kitchen, composing himself. Claude was bent over the coffee grinder, carefully adjusting it. Why he had to adjust it when he let no one else touch the expensive Italian machine, was just part of who he was. “Morning, Claude.” Bob kept his voice neutral.<\/p>\n
“Out early, Bob?”<\/p>\n
“Rain woke me up.”<\/p>\n
“Round here, this time of year, that could happen every day.”<\/p>\n
“It’s fine by me. Terry up?” Terry was Claude’s wife, a frail, nervous blonde from back east.<\/p>\n
“In process. How about Kate?”<\/p>\n
“I’m going to check on her now.”<\/p>\n
“Coffee in fifteen minutes. Breakfast and more coffee at nine.”<\/p>\n
“We’ll be here.” Bob went on into the living and up the stairs. On the way to the guest bedroom he caught sight of Natasha, the Russian girl who lived with Claude and Terry. The door to her room was open, and she was staring out at the rain through a leaded-glass window. The corridor ran straight into her door; all the other rooms were off the sides.<\/p>\n
The door to their bedroom was open, but Kate was still in bed. She turned over as he came in. “Why’d you leave the door open when you went out? I was still asleep. A girl needs her privacy, you know.” She offered him a lazy scowl, then pouted her lips for a kiss. He bent to kiss them, and breathed in her scent; she always smelled good, night or day.<\/p>\n
“I did close it. You haven’t been up to pee?”<\/p>\n
“Before you left. You were asleep. That’s weird. Your friend Claude maybe. I think”\u2014she hesitated briefly\u2014”I think he’s a little creepy. I think\u2026he might have peeked in. I thought I heard something, but I was asleep.”<\/p>\n
Bob nodded. He waited a while, sitting on the bed and holding Kate’s hand under the blanket. “Did you notice anything earlier, when you did get up? In the night, I mean. Noises, anyone walking around?”<\/p>\n
She sat up in bed. “I did hear someone shush someone when I went to the bathroom. What do you mean?”<\/p>\n
“I mean\u2026I thought I saw Claude walking around in the middle of the night when I got up to pee. He didn’t hear me. Though he must have heard the flush.”<\/p>\n
“Well, it’s his house, isn’t it?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah. It’s his house. That it is.”<\/p>\n
“What are you worried about?”<\/p>\n
“I don’t know yet. I don\u2019t know. Get dressed; coffee’s ready.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, good. We can hear Claude pontificate on anything and nothing again. That poor wife of his! She never gets to talk.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah. That poor wife of his. Her too.” Kate raised an eyebrow at him, but he had nothing more to say.<\/p>\n
When they got downstairs to the kitchen, Claude had just poured out cups of coffee at all the places around the heavy wooden table. Claude’s wife Terry sat hunched over her cup, and Natasha sat rigid and silent as usual in her place. Natasha was fourteen, skinny and stiff, and almost pretty. Her long, lank black chair did her no favors. Claude and Terry had taken her in as a foster in lieu of having children of their own. Terry wanted a child, but Claude nixed the idea as she was older than he was and he feared genetic debilities. Natasha apparently came with the usual backstory: alcoholic parents, poverty, foray into drugs from age eleven, running away from home, involvement with the social services and foster care. Her parents had overstayed their visas but Natasha was American-born, though she spoke more Russian than English whenever she spoke at all. Claude had given them the brochure version of the story at their first dinner together while Terry looked on in her usual wide-eyed silence, and Natasha stared into her plate. Everyone was bundled in sweaters; the kitchen was all window along one wall and never did heat up except in summer. Claude slouched in an oversized wooden chair at the head of the table. A Labrador retriever sprawled at his feet, staring up at his master. The Parkers had been worn out with traveling; they made a good, quiet audience.<\/p>\n
Kate greeted cheerfully as they sat down: “Good morning, world! How are we all today?”<\/p>\n
“We’re hungry,” Claude grunted. “Glad you finally got up.”<\/p>\n
“Morning, honey,” Terry said to Kate. “Hi, Bob.”<\/p>\n
“Morning, Terry. Coffee smells good, Claude.”<\/p>\n
“Ought to. Ethiopian, hard to find. Got it at a little place on East Burnham, almost out of town. No one knew about them so they closed down last month. Won’t be able to get it again. Try it black. Omelets today, my special recipe. Eggs came from my pal Chrissie’s chickens. Also east side. Good things happening there lately.”<\/p>\n
Claude got up and attended to the array of pans over the stove. Kate looked at Natasha: “How are you this morning? We hardly see you except at breakfast.”<\/p>\n
Natasha didn\u2019t look up. Bob studied her face: a neutral mask. She was quite conscientiously ignoring everybody. “I am okay,” she said. “Terry I want tea please. I don’t like coffee. Can you make me some please?”<\/p>\n
“Of course, honey. But please call me ‘Mom.’ Please try.”<\/p>\n
Natasha kept staring at her plate.<\/p>\n
“She’s been here four months,” Claude said. “She ought to stop holding back.” He bent over the burners, shuffling the pans and dropping spices in with exaggerated gestures. The scraping of a spatula announced the first omelet. “I love this stove,” he said. “Six burners, so I can get us all served at once. Found it in a junkyard and got it refurbished. Must be fifty or sixty years old. Work cost me more than the stove itself, but it’s worth it.” Pans clattered and dishes clanked. “Terry, get this stuff to the table, will ya? Then get the rolls out of the oven. They’re from that new bakery. Good like you wouldn’t believe.” Terry stood up, too quickly, and spilled some of her coffee on her sweater. She seemed not to notice. She put the cup down absent-mindedly and hurried to the counter to pick up the plates. Claude turned his attention to the coffeepot and carefully adjusted the fire underneath. Raindrops rolled down the other side of the window. A crow called harshly outside, and the Labrador looked up for a moment, then put its head back on its paws. Claude brought the coffeepot to the table and distributed more coffee before taking his seat. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Let’s eat.”<\/p>\n
The rolls were good, and the omelets were perfect.<\/p>\n
“Going into town today?” Claude asked. Bob presumed he was addressing him and Kate.<\/p>\n
Kate answered: “With a beautiful place like this to stay in, I’m tempted never to leave the house. I might just read in one of those little attic rooms, and look out at the river and rain.”<\/p>\n
Claude frowned. “Well, it sure is a beautiful house. I was lucky to find it. But you ought to see the city. You won\u2019t believe the good stuff that’s out there. Little places, mostly. Let me make you a list. Maybe you should go in with Terry when she goes to the doctor. Don’t forget, eleven-thirty with Dr. Meyers.”<\/p>\n
Terry nodded. Natasha picked at her omelet. Bob wanted to raise his eyebrows at Kate, but Claude was watching them closely. Kate broke the silence: “Delicious omelets. I’ve never been able to get them right.” Claude smiled, and everyone continued eating.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThey went into the city in Terry\u2019s old car. Terry was a careful driver, but she always looked nervous because she hunched over the steering wheel. The house wasn’t far from town: the curving streets and ivy-swaddled houses only seemed far away when you were in it. Bob could have walked downtown in less than an hour. Terry’s doctor was in a building near the train station. “There’s restaurants everywhere,” she said when they parked in an open space under the building. “There’s a new museum too.”<\/p>\n
“Don’t worry,” Bob said. “Claude gave us his famous lists.”<\/p>\n
Terry sighed. “He loves to find the little hidden places. I’ll be out in an hour. Where should I look for you if you’re not back?”<\/p>\n
Bob looked at Kate. She said, “The museum, I guess. We’re not really hungry after that nice breakfast.” Nods all around. Terry walked to the elevator. Bob and Kate walked out the driveway and into the rain. They brought their umbrellas, but it wasn’t really raining, only small random drops that kept the streets glistening. They could see the museum building from the corner; Terry had pointed it out as they drove by. “Well,” Bob said. “Did you get the impression that Claude wanted us the hell out of the house for a while?”<\/p>\n
Kate quoted an old saying: “‘Guests and fish start to smell after three days.'”<\/p>\n
“Something’s fishy all right,” Bob said.<\/p>\n
“What do you mean by that?”<\/p>\n
“I don’t know yet.”<\/p>\n
“And what do you mean by that<\/em>?”<\/p>\n “Same answer, I guess.”<\/p>\n Kate snorted, then took his hand. “Your friend,” she said, “is a bit of a boor, that’s all. Let’s go look at culture. Rainy climates are good for culture. There’s nothing else to do but get creative.”<\/p>\n “There are plenty of indoor games people play.”<\/p>\n Kate smiled at him. “We enjoy them ourselves, don’t we.”<\/p>\n “Yeah. But we agree on the rules.”<\/p>\n “I like our rules.” She squeezed his hand, and they went into the museum.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Terry found them at the museum, and insisted on stopping at one of the places on Claude’s list. “We really haven’t been gone all that long, and I could use some more coffee.” They found the address, a little wood-fronted cubbyhole with gleaming espresso machines and the smell of bread and muffins billowing invisibly from the door. The attendants were all young and shiny, and the rustic-looking tables flaunted antique stamped-tin buckets filled with napkins, knives, and forks. Terry seemed calmer after her visit to the doctor. “I guess Claude wants some quiet time,” she said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.” Theshiny young waitress brought a tray with their order and distributed mugs and pastries with a smile. Terry thanked her and buried her face in her coffee mug. The rain fell a little harder, and they watched it spatter on the people passing by with their umbrellas and hooded jackets. They could feel the cold seeping through the plate glass. The gray sky tumbled by slowly overhead.<\/p>\n Kate stirred herself to say, “Natasha seems a bit quiet. Is she all right?”<\/p>\n Terry shrugged with a feeble lift of her shoulders. “I don’t know. I just wish she’d call me ‘Mom.’ I\u2019m too old to have kids of my own. At least Claude thinks so. But I’m only forty.” She stared past the rim of her coffee mug. “I guess Natasha’s been through a lot. She won’t talk about it. The agency told us nothing. Maybe they don’t know either.”<\/p>\n Kate said, “No one really knows what someone else is going through.”<\/p>\n Bob nodded gravely. It was true. But sometimes youcan guess pretty well.<\/p>\n They finished up and lingered for a while. Terry seemed to be waiting for some inner signal. Bob felt suddenly tired though they hadn’t donemuch of anything. Finally Terry said, “I guess we can go now.” They got up and went out into the rain to find her car.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was no breakfast waiting when Bob and Kate went down the next morning. Claude scowled in his chair at the head of the table, Terry looked nervous, and her hands fidgeted as if they were looking for a coffee mug on their own. “Natasha’s missing,” Claude said. “Little bitch ran off in the night, or this morning. Must have been around three. Bob, help me look for her. Kate, take care of Terry, she’s a wreck.”<\/p>\n Terry shook her head and said, “I just need coffee.”<\/p>\n “No time,” Claude said. “Get some boots on, Bob. I already checked the house. Attic rooms and basement even. Some of her clothes are gone but not much. Stole some cash out of my wallet too. Dumb little bitch.” Claude jerked his head in the direction of the service porch. Bob noticed a scratch on his face. He followed him out, put on Claude\u2019s old pair of boots and raincoat. It wasn’t raining but the sky was dark and turbulent, clouds rolling past overhead. Outside, the air smelled wet, fresh and earthy. Claude led him to the garages. The house had a four-car garage with little rooms on top. Claude had been refurbishing the rooms, which hadn’t been used in years before he and Terry bought the house. That was his number one project. He jangled some keys as they hurried to the garages and lumbered up the rickety outside stairs. “I don’t think there’s another key,” Claude said, “but you never know. Could’ve left them open too. She’s been a real distraction.” The Labrador galumphed up the stairs after them. There was nothing in the rooms but scraps of lumber, a table saw, tools, and a sack of plaster, unopened. “Didn’t think so,” Claude said.<\/p>\n “Why would she run away and only go fifty feet?” Bob asked.<\/p>\n “Where the hell is she going to? It’s a long walk to town. We don’t even have a bicycle here, and she doesn’t know how to drive. Check the woods. Look for small footprints.”<\/p>\n “Shouldn’t you call the agency?”<\/p>\n Claude shook his head vigorously. “They\u2019ll take her away from me if they knew. You go that way; I’ll check the toolshed.”<\/p>\n Claude sent him to the river. There was a tiny boat shed by the little dock, though the boats were never in it. Natasha wasn’t in it either. But one of the rowboats was missing. Bob was debating whether to call to Claude when he came striding down the slope to the dock. He stood next to Bob and looked at the dock. “Well, I’ll be damned. And it’s downriver to the city. Wouldn’t even have to row much. Come on.” Claude hurried up to his car. Bob followed.<\/p>\n Claude wound the car along the little side roads closest to the river, but they couldn’t see much beyond the garden walls with ivy and rosebushes and dark dripping roofs. In this part of town the riverbank belonged to the houses. “Could’ve beached the boat anywhere. Might be hitchhiking. Or even just walking,” Claude said. “Keep your eyes open. When we get downtown, we’ll split up and check the places where the street kids hang out. She used to go there before they sent her to me. You’re not afraid of dark alleys, are you? It’s rougher back home, where we come from, than up here.”<\/p>\n Bob shook his head. “Just tell me where to go.” The car emerged from the riverside neighborhoods where the freeway swooped down along the riverbank through downtown. Warehouses and a railroad track appeared. Beat-up trucks huddled in the rain along chain-link fences. The rippling green-brown flow of the river was barely visible beyond the pillars of the freeway. Bob stopped the car in front of a warehouse with the words “Albertson Milling Co.” painted in faded blue on its cinderblock wall. “Start here,” Claude said. “I’ll start at the north end, near the docks. We’ll meet at Tinker’s Bar in the middle. If you find her and she won’t go with you, stay with her. I’ll find you.” Bob got out of the car and into a light drizzle. There weren’t many people about. He followed a curving railroad spur to the riverbank, which was more of a concrete flood wall. A small freighter, stained with grease and rust, rocked slightly as it pulled on its heavy mooring ropes. It looked like he could walk along under the freeway for nearly a mile towards downtown. There were no other ships in view until the freeway veered away from the river again in the rainy distance. He saw the dull flicker of an oil-drum fire with some people standing around it under the freeway. His legs started moving on their own, and his mind followed later. He hoped he wouldn’t find her.<\/p>\n There were only three old men warming themselves over the fire, hunched close to the flames in ragged army jackets. Bob nodded at them as he walked by. They didn’t nod back. It was dry under the freeway but even gloomier than out in the gray light of day. The underside of the freeway was streaked with calcite water stains where it wasn’t dark with soot. There were mooring rings set in the concrete that he had to step over regularly, but no more boats moored to them. Shabby broken stairs led down to the water, disappearing beneath the murky flow. Some of them were just metal ladders set in the vertical wall. He wondered how it would have looked to the runaway girl from a damp rowboat out on the river in the rain. It would not have been a glorious escape.<\/p>\n As he approached downtown he saw another oil-drum fire in the distance, under an interchange with its bridges and its jumble of concrete pillars. He walked on with his hands in his pockets. It looked like a bunch of teenagers gathered around the greasy flicker of the drum. As he came near he saw Natasha, sitting on the concrete bank with her legs dangling over. Her lank black hair was unmistakable. She was apart from the crowd, staring over the water.<\/p>\n As he came up to the group, a blond boy detached himself and came to stand in front of him. He was trying to look tough, jutting his jaw out. They both stood there, hands in pockets, looking unlovingly into each other’s eyes. The kid was smaller than Bob, but he had friends. “What ya want?” he said.<\/p>\n “Nothing.”<\/p>\n “Well, you found it. You walk like you’re looking for someone. They’re not here.”<\/p>\n “I decided that a long while back.”<\/p>\n “What do you mean by that?” The kid’s eyes looked puzzled under his flop of blond hair.<\/p>\n “I mean that I am looking for someone. But I don’t want her to be found.”<\/p>\n “The Russian kid?”<\/p>\n Bob nodded.<\/p>\n “You’re not a social worker. What the hell are you?”<\/p>\n “Nobody. It doesn’t matter. She’s probably better off here.” Bob stood up a little taller. He felt strong now. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Natasha turning occasionally in her heavy coat to sneak a glance at them. “If you all treat her right. You know what I mean.”<\/p>\n The blond kid looked irritated. “For fuck’s sake, she’s just a kid.”<\/p>\n “If the social workers come, let them talk to her.”<\/p>\n “They’re the ones gave her to\u2014”<\/p>\n “I know. But if she can tell them what happens\u2026.”<\/p>\n “She wouldn’t even tell us.”<\/p>\n Bob nodded towards the girl sitting on the cold concrete river wall. “Ask her if she’ll let me talk to her. Tell her I won’t tell him where she is.”<\/p>\n The blond kid stared into his eyes for half a minute and then nodded. He walked over to Natasha and crouched down by her side, talking quietly. Natasha nodded. The blond kid gestured to Bob to come over, then stood back a few paces but kept watch on them.<\/p>\n Natashsa spoke to the broad river. “It’s true, you won’t tell him?” Natasha asked Bob.<\/p>\n “I won’t tell him.”<\/p>\n “Then you know\u2014?”<\/p>\n “I don’t know anything. You should go to the cops, though.”<\/p>\n Natasha shivered. “They just give me to social workers. The same thing again.”<\/p>\n He sat on the concrete near her. They didn’t speak. Finally he took out his wallet and pulled all the cash he had in it. It wasn’t much. He folded his business card from work into it, he wasn’t sure why. “Don’t do anything stupid when you run out of money. You know what I mean.”<\/p>\n “That I would never do -. What you are thinking.” She glanced at him and took the money. “Thank you.”<\/p>\n “It’s all I can do. I should go now. I\u2019ll tell him I didn’t see you.”<\/p>\n “I appreciate. Please hurry. In case he comes looking. Thank you.” She put the money in her coat pocket. Bob stood up and walked away. He nodded at the blond kid, who nodded back. The group around the fire had been watching them too. One of them, a slim blond girl in a big coat, lifted her hand in what seemed like a gesture of approval, reassurance, something, he could only hope. He could only hope.<\/p>\n As he walked on under the rumbling freeway, he saw the rowboat, half-swamped at the bottom of another stairway. It was jammed against the bottom steps by the current. He climbed down, rocked it loose, and watched it drift away downriver, towards the sea. But the sea was a long way off. He was sure that someone would rescue it before it got that far.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n -30-<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Basil, Not Spice<\/strong>
\n\u201cHow much do you want?\u201d I asked in Arabic.
\nHe thought for a second. \u201cWhatever you can give.\u201d
\nI tossed some coins into his tin can. He handed me a red gumdrop and I popped it in my mouth. \u201cThank you.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThank you,\u201d the boy repeated.
\n\u201cYou have a different accent. You\u2019re not from Beirut, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/3914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}