chapter one
The dimension that separates
the living from the dead is exactly as wide as the edge of a maple leaf. Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet His stirring dragged me out of sleep into a soundless night. I moved closer, pressing my back against his breastbone. My flesh quivered on contact with the soft, slightly ticklish crine. The downy hairs that reigned over his chest and abdomen had also reached the region of his shoulders. Vanguard filaments ventured further down the columns of muscles flanking his ribcage; they threatened to someday collide with the cilia governing in the region of his buttocks. Perhaps in his senior years, the greying fleece might have achieved hairy hegemony. Already the tufts, nestled like snipers, were beginning to sneak out of his ears and the elflock at his throat threatened to join ranks with his beard hairs, the reserve guard he shaved for now.
I curled myself into the curve of his torso and pressed tightly into his pelvis and thighs. He reached his arm further around, pulling me even deeper into the warm hollow of his closing frame. I would have liked to have been absorbed completely, as by osmosis, and become one with his breathing, his breath, his life. He whispered in my ear, teasingly, playfully: "Ehhh, la grosse, je t'aime!" Hey, fat one, I love you! A jolt fired across synapse; I remembered. Oh God, I remembered! Horrified, I pulled away, reaching for the lamp chain. I tugged and turned to look. No. Not there; only a vague indentation, only a slight depression where he had lain. Disbelieving that it was just a dream, I slid my hand along the barely discernible hollow in the still warm sheet. Suddenly, in a split second, a terrible implosion; every cell, every atom of my body condensed into an impossible density. Just as suddenly, that compressed cellular mass exploded; molecules of skin and blood and bone spun out into a blackened sky. I wailed, furious, forlorn, into the deaf night. Finally spent, I gathered myself into a tightly constricted foetal position and quietly wept. Eons later I slept, drowning in a pool of anguish. He had come just like that those first three nights. He had come in the middle of the night and held me gently and firmly in his arms, his cheek pressed insistently against mine, his sweet, sweet breathing harmonizing with the rhythm of my sleep. He had come to tell me he was still with me; that he had not gone so far that he could not reach me. He had come to let me know he could still touch me, still loved me. ~ After that, and every night for weeks after his funeral, I climbed the fire escape onto the second story roof of Moishe's Restaurant next to the Cooper Building on Boulevard Saint Laurent. I made my way over the tar and gravel to the base of the chimney that ascended past the top of the eighth floor of the adjacent building. There I sat leaning my back against the grating bricks, crumbled bits of mortar sticking to my skin, my perspiration acting like glue. I spread my arms like fledgling wings and grabbed the edges on both sides, my thumbs extended downward past all that cement and brick and mortar and asphalt into the earth where his body had gone. Why are you hurting yourself, he asked. I need to understand, I answered. Go home now, he said. I didn’t go home. I stayed for hours, until dawn finally burst into fiery auras around the edges of skyscrapers to the east. Suddenly the city was ablaze, soon to be extinguished by the stark white light that turned those same buildings to ash. I tried in vain to envision what had happened. I thought, if only I knew exactly how it had happened then I might understand why. They hadn't told me much that morning. Only that he was dead. That he had fallen seven stories from the top of the Cooper Building to the roof of the steakhouse next door. It had happened in the early, early morning, just past four am. That was all. He failed to meet me after work that night, so I stopped off at the all-night deli across the street from Moishe’s to have a sandwich with a glass of milk before going home. It was something we might have done together, had he shown up. When I emerged out onto the sidewalk, I noticed men in uniforms, policemen and firemen, on the roof of Moishe's across the street. I remember thinking: there must have been a fire, but there doesn't seem to be any damage. Then, just as I started to cross over, an ambulance shot out from the curb on the other side and sped up the boulevard. Dangerously, it swerved ahead of the sparse, early morning traffic. Only later did I make the connection between that speeding ambulance, the officials on the roof, the fall, and his barely beating heart and broken bones lying on the stretcher. We didn't live far away and I was soon at home, wondering why he hadn't met me after work. Maybe he’d met up with friends and lost track of the time? I'll see him in the morning, I thought. And then he’ll be in trouble. It was almost morning now. I decided it was better to sleep a bit than wait up for him. The phone rang at seven. With eyes still closed, I felt his side of the bed; no, he wasn't there. It must be him calling. Annoyed, I reached for the phone. "He's dead. He fell…at four this morning…from the top of the Cooper building." "No!" ~ On the third day after the accident, the day before his burial, I sat by the window at a bistro on Duluth Street with Philippe’s friend Daniel. It was the first time I met him, although I’d heard about him often. Daniel had been with him on the roof that night. I hadn't been out of the house since the fatal morning. I hadn't moved from the armchair (his favourite chair) in the living room except in the wee hours of the morning to crawl stiff and aching into bed. It took me forever to walk down the block to the restaurant. It took every iota of strength I could muster to dam the floodgate of my eyes. I would have liked to make myself invisible. Everyone on the street, everyone sitting on their porches and balconies, everyone standing in their doorways raised their eyes to meet mine as I passed. They had to know what had happened; it was written all over me. Daniel leaned towards me. His eyes were the colour of lapis lazuli, dark and deep, with specks of yellow in them. They seeped into mine as he confided what weighed most heavily on his heart. "He let go, Tashi. I'm telling you...but I think it's better if you don't tell anyone else. It's all I've been thinking about…since...can’t stop thinking about it. I don't understand. He just let go!" Of course, I knew. Memories flooded through the circuits in my brain, swelling in brackish pools, depositing information like silt, forcing my consciousness to wade through those areas that threatened to engulf me like quicksand. The day I arrived home from a months’ long trip to North Africa and Europe, I found him in bed bouncing his football off the ceiling. He hadn't heard me come in. I hadn't phoned to let him know I would be arriving that day. I'd wanted to surprise him. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching the mechanical flip of his wrist as he bounced the ball off the ceiling, puzzled by the morose expression on his face. I could not speak, overwhelmed by the sadness in his eyes. The ball sunk abruptly into the palm of his hand as he caught sight of me. He didn't jump up, excited, happy to see me, enveloping me in his arms. He just lay there, staring, as if stunned. Months earlier he'd cried the day before I left, begging me to stay, but at that point he'd already moved out of the house many weeks before. We'd hardly seen one another until he'd heard I was leaving, and then he started coming around. He offered to move back into my flat while I was gone. I agreed. And then the day before my flight, over breakfast, he broke down and finally admitted to me how much he loved me, how much he had missed me, how sorry he was for moving out. He told me he wanted to stay with me now, wanted me to stay. But it was too late to cancel the trip. I had my ticket, I'd quit my job. I travelled for many months. I called, sent postcards and letters from Paris, Barcelona, Marrakesh, Al Jaza’ir, Tunis, Athens, Rome and Paris again. I wanted him to join me everywhere I went but he was afraid. Of what, I could not imagine. Each time we spoke, he said: it's enough, stop punishing me, and come home now. Given the opportunity, I would have paid with the remainder of my life to redeem those few months spent without him. Daniel reached over the table to cover my hand with his. It didn't help but I was grateful for the gesture. He spoke softly. "About six months ago I sculpted a very unusual piece. What I’m saying is, it wasn't like my usual work. It was of a man falling from a high building. I realize now it was a warning. But how could I have known then? If I'd known, I..." "What could you have done? How could you have known what that meant? Besides, it was what he wanted." He'd had a death wish. He had been suicidal while I was gone. He'd plunged into a severe depression in the dead of winter. He'd mentioned none of this on the phone and I'd detected nothing in his tone of voice to indicate that his discontent was anything more than his desire for my return. But when I got home he did tell me. And we made a pact. Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He lifted the cup of espresso to his lips, and then, without taking a sip, put it back on the table slowly. Bending forward, he whispered. "What do you mean it was what he wanted?" "Just that. I don't believe it was any kind of accident." I didn't offer an explanation but instead asked him what the others could not, or would not, tell me. "Please, tell me exactly what happened? I need to know." "Tashi, are you sure? I mean..." I braced myself as he recounted the events of that early morning. "Well, when the bar closed we hung out on the street for a bit, just hanging out, you know, talking with one of the waitresses from the bar and another friend of mine. Philippe said you would be along any minute. I guess he was waiting for you to finish work. Then he suggested we all climb the fire escape to the top of the Cooper Building to see the lights of the city. I asked him: but what about Tashi? He said we’d see you coming up the street. So we went up by way of the fire escape in the alley. Once we got up there, I guess we were being a little rowdy because someone in the building phoned the police; we heard the sirens and then saw them parked in front of the building and they were looking up to the roof. At that point Philippe was still walking along the ledge." "The ledge?" He continued, explaining: "Yes, he'd been walking along the ledge of the building, don't ask me why. The others ran for the fire escape but I waited because he'd got to the chimney and it looked like he was going to try to swing around it. On the outside. Crazy! I ran toward him just as he swung out, but by the time I got there he was already inching his way down the chimney. I just managed to grab the collar of his jacket. I told him he was insane, he'd never make it! I had to let go when he pushed my arm away. I remember thinking in that moment it would be worse if I tried to hang on. For sure he'd fall. And I’d probably go down with him. I mean, he was fighting me. He yelled at me: "’Lâches-moi! Je descends par ici!’ Let go! I'm going down this way! His mind was made up. He was determined to go down by way of the chimney. I think he was defying the police or something...well, you know what he was like. Anyway, he scaled down a few feet, so even if I'd wanted to, I wouldn't have been able to reach him. I just stood there. I couldn't move. Then, the weirdest thing: first he looked down. Then he looked way up into the sky. Then...well, he just let go. He let go, just like that." "Traitor!" I muttered under my breath. "What did you say?" he asked. "Nothing," I replied. The day I'd returned from the Maghreban trip we sat talking in bed until late that night. It was then we'd made the pact. I was the one who proposed it, an attempt at deterrence. It wasn’t something that would ever have occurred to me, except that he kept going on and on about wanting to leave the planet. He described in excruciating detail how horrible life was on this planet, the injustices, the suffering he witnessed all around him. He railed against "the system", against corporations in collusion with governments that were destroying the earth and oppressing peoples of all nations through evil acts of conspiracy and corruption and warfare. He railed against the system that justified a distribution of resources that left the larger percentage of people in lack while the few stockpiled or consumed to a point of absolute absurdity. Then he railed against the human race that perpetrated this system through participation and collusion and sheer complacency. He condemned warmongers, murderers, rapists, thieves from the corporate to the individual level, and most especially he railed against child abusers. He laid all these stored grievances out like news clippings on the sheet between us, each horrible story accompanied by his scathing commentary. He denounced humanity for its lies, its greed, its ignorance, its arrogance and its lack of compassion. Most of all he denounced himself for his own incapacity and lack of will to do anything about the suffering. Then he sobbed in my arms like a defeated child. We had been through this before. I could say nothing encouraging because I agreed on all counts; I was also sensitive to the injustices, the destruction I saw all around. I tried to soothe him by offering the positive outlook I often used to try to soothe myself, but it was useless. We both felt powerless. His sensitivity had become intolerable; he was contemplating taking his own life. It had nothing to do with me. It was the first time it had gone so far. I was terrified that he would actually do it and leave me. I made him swear that he wouldn't leave without me. I made him promise to take me with him; we would go together. I was secretly convinced that if it ever really came down to it I could stop him. We made a pact: each forfeited his right to leave without the other. I believed this would protect him from himself. It didn't, of course. He took the opportunity when it presented itself or he created the opportunity. Either way, he left without me. |