Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather Read online

  When I got home, my mother wasn’t there. So I spent the afternoon alone in my room, watching the ice come down.

  I couldn’t think of anything better to do.

  IN LIFE, IT’S EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF

  Meow!

  Brutus rubbed up against his lovely mistress’s smoothly shaven calf. Julie was at her mirror putting on make-up. She didn’t look either happy or unhappy, it was all just habit. It was a ritual to make herself beautiful, because it was her job to be beautiful. The Christmas tree had disappeared from the coffee table. Christmas was well and truly over. An hour earlier Julie had got a call from the owner of Sex Paradisio – he was expecting her at six p.m. sharp, ice or no ice. If she didn’t show up, she shouldn’t bother coming back.

  ‘There’s no such thing as winter in a strip club. There’s only one season, and that’s summer. Here it’s hot indoors and hot on stage.’

  Julie didn’t even know why she went on doing this job. As a teenager she’d had a fierce desire for independence, and she’d been left pretty much to her own resources. She could simply have not run away, but love had found her for the first time when she met Max, a real smooth operator. She had just turned eighteen. He was thirty, and a sort of father figure. When he found out that Julie’s savings account, which her grandparents had hitherto made impenetrable, had just been unlocked, he suggested they live together. The apartment was their little nest; they’d chosen it together. The lease was in Julie’s name – Max didn’t like to deal with paperwork. But he’d wanted them to have a joint account. She hadn’t even finished decorating the apartment when Max disappeared, with every dollar in the savings account.

  ‘I’m just going to the corner shop for a packet of cigarettes. I’ve run out.’

  Julie hadn’t wanted to move. Not because of the memory of Max, but for the sake of her own independence. She didn’t want a flatmate. At first she’d had to get a second job. She worked days in a restaurant, evenings at a bar. That’s a lot, especially when you’re working seven days a week. She’d had no time left to live. Chatting to one of her customers one night, he’d told her that she was far too beautiful to go on hiding behind a bar. He was the owner of Sex Paradisio. It hadn’t taken him long to convince her she’d earn three times as much while working ten times less. He’d been telling the truth: when you’re pretty, with big breasts, you’ve got a bright future in this field.

  ‘You see that little bald guy over there? He sometimes blows three hundred bucks a night!’

  Julie couldn’t stop thinking about the future. She’d realised that being a stripper meant accepting that you didn’t exist. The woman on stage unveiling herself to men’s gazes, that wasn’t her. And yet, even if it was some other woman who managed to earn up to five hundred dollars a night, it was Julie who deposited half of it every week into a savings account, in memory of her grandparents.

  The owner of Sex Paradisio made a point of being tough with his girls, but he liked Julie. She behaved properly around him, but above all she behaved properly around the clients. Always smiling and friendly, a true professional. An example to her co-workers, who tended to be frivolous, their noses buried in powder, or hung up on second-class pimps – an even harder drug. With Julie, everything was simple. That was why he’d called her, why he was sure she’d show up.

  ‘If you don’t show, you’re fired!’

  That was his managerial style, to threaten the girls. But he wasn’t so crazy that he’d let Julie go, because she’d waste no time making one of his competitors happy. She’d promised herself she’d only do it for a while, but sometimes that while drags on too long. These days, she was just letting time go by, waiting for the right day to quit. Only love, the real kind, could make you quit a job that brings in five hundred dollars a night.

  As she stood at her mirror, Julie suddenly grew four inches. She had just pulled on a pair of high-heeled boots. Brutus couldn’t rub against her warm calf any more, and the leather was cold. He went to join his mates on the sofa. The larger of the two sleepy beasts made him understand with one swipe of the paw that he wasn’t welcome, so he wandered around the house. There is a hierarchy among cats, too, and Brutus was still a long way from the top.

  Julie came out of the bathroom wearing a superb, tight-fitting dress, all red, her favourite colour. She took her coat off the peg and put it on, and inspected herself one last time in the mirror, the one in the hallway this time. She opened the door.

  ‘Bye, cats!’

  Meow!

  Brutus was the only one who replied. When you’re at the top of the hierarchy, you often forget about those who helped you get there. Such is the ingratitude of cats on sofas. It’s often said they’re independent. But they’re merely using you, like men do, or at least like every man Julie had ever met.

  ‘That’s not a very good idea, Mademoiselle!’

  Julie was startled. Even at five thirty in the afternoon, a woman alone is a woman alone. From her door she cast a suspicious look at the person who had just spoken, a man with a dog on a lead.

  ‘I’m not sure those boots are the best thing to be wearing with what’s coming down at the moment. Especially as they say it’s going to last all night . . .’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I’m your next door neighbour . . . and I work for Météo Canada.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you around.’

  ‘That could be because we’re not on the same schedule . . .’

  Julie didn’t like the insinuation. Still wary, she walked down the steps to the entrance, forgetting to lock her door. One good look was enough to suss her neighbour out. She knew a ladies’ man when she saw one, and he wasn’t one. Her face immediately softened.

  ‘So what’s wrong with my shoes?’

  ‘Your shoes look very nice, but I’m worried you’d fall even harder with them on . . . The emergency rooms are full of people who’ve slipped in the street. To see such a lovely woman lying in bed with her leg in a cast . . . That would be a waste!’

  Julie smiled. It felt good to be in the presence of a man she need neither mistrust nor fear.

  ‘Thing is I don’t have any shoes without heels . . . I don’t know how to walk without them . . .’

  ‘I see. Well, if you’re used to wearing them, just don’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  The little Maltese bichon wagged his tail and came closer.

  ‘And this is Pipo!’

  Julie didn’t even have time to smile. A taxi came tearing down the road. He was showing off, so he braked abruptly, only to skid foolishly on the ice. Taxis think the streets belong to them just because they know them better than anyone else does. But you’re often in for a surprise when you think that way. Bang! Fortunately the rubbish bin he collided with was empty and, more to the point, plastic.

  ‘I hope there won’t be too much ice on your journey, otherwise you might be in for a pretty long ride . . .’

  The driver, looking sheepish, got out and put the rubbish bin back in place, and Julie smiled. She bent down to stroke Pipo, who probably didn’t get to enjoy a woman’s touch very often.

  ‘Nice meeting you. I’m Julie, by the way!’

  ‘Michel . . .’

  ‘It’s really odd I’ve never seen you before . . . The dog looks familiar, but I don’t remember seeing him with you.’

  Michel clenched his jaw. He couldn’t mention Simon, for fear of revealing their situation, and yet it was so obvious.

  Beep! Beep!

  The driver was in a rush to get back to his game of rubbish-bin skittles. Julie went back up the steps to lock the door to her little nest, then hurried back down and climbed into the taxi.

  ‘I’ll tread carefully, I promise!’

  Michel watched the taxi take off in a zigzag across the ice. Once again, all he could think of was hiding. When Pipo lifted his leg for a final wee, Michel stared up at the windows of his apartment. The situation was becoming unbearable. He had to bring it up again with Simon.


  Boris Bogdanov could have opened his window to tell his neighbour from across the way what he had just witnessed.

  ‘Hey, your little cat has just got out!’

  But he was not at all the sort you could count on. It might have meant going out and lending a hand trying to find the cat. Boris didn’t want to leave his place, not even for a few minutes, in case the electricity suddenly got cut off. He turned to his aquarium. The four fish were still going around the exact same way. There on the floor, ready for an emergency, were a thermometer, a camping stove and only three little gas canisters . . .

  At Canada Dépôt a customer had seen Boris emptying the shelves of gas canisters and had protested vehemently to the checkout clerk. Boris had maintained that he had the right to buy as many bottles of gas as he wanted.

  ‘I’m a free Canadian!’

  ‘Like hell you are! You can be a free Canadian all you want, but first you’ve got to show some solidarity with your fellow Quebeckers!’

  A few customers applauded. People began to cluster around the source of this outpouring of wild, Russian despair, Boris alone against the world. The manager came over to settle things in his best bombastic manner. Legally he had no right to stop Boris from buying as many gas canisters as he wanted, but under the circumstances, it was a matter of prestige, of corporate image. The very mission of Canada Dépôt was at stake. This was not the time to go telling his customers that business had never been better, that he had sold all his salt, all his ice picks, all his torches and every generator he had in stock, that he had tripled the order to be delivered tomorrow, and that he reckoned he would sell all of it in one day and beat his sales target, with a fine bonus to come.

  ‘Young man, as the manager here, and given the forecast from the weather folks, I cannot allow this mass purchase. Come back tomorrow – I’m supposed to get more in. It’ll be a pleasure to sell them to you.’

  The manager of Canada Dépôt turned to his customers, and they all nodded approvingly. Normally they only came to him to complain, so he savoured this magical moment. Boris poured his heart out, but his Russian accent wasn’t welcome on this day of great Quebecker solidarity. He told them about his fish and his knot theory, how vital it was to him. He took out his sheets of paper filled with complicated calculations to explain that with one gas canister, if the temperature fell to zero degrees in his apartment, he wouldn’t be able to keep the water in the aquarium at thirty-two degrees for longer than one hour and thirty-three minutes. The manager waited for a moment before replying, to make sure all the customers were paying attention. Then he spoke very loudly.

  ‘Sir, we’re trying to help people here who’ve lost their heat and who have children or old folks to look after who are going to suffer from the cold, and you want to take all the gas in the store for your fish? Why, that’s a scandal!’

  Thunderous applause from the customers. Aware that he was now centre stage, the manager took twenty-three of the twenty-five gas canisters from Boris’s shopping trolley and carefully set them down by the till, as if they were the day’s special offer.

  ‘Anyone who needs gas can help themselves. But no more than two per person. Have a thought for other people!’

  Shamefaced, Boris pushed his trolley up to the woman at the checkout. She picked up one canister to read the price. She multiplied it by two, then when she was sure no one was watching, she quickly grabbed a canister from the huge pile surrounding her till and slipped it discreetly into Boris’s bag.

  ‘I have fish, too. I know what it’s like. It’s a real can of worms if you don’t look after them!’

  Boris greeted this topological solidarity with a simple nod of his head, then hurried off to see if he’d fare better in another store. Unfortunately, the clientele of those other stores were all Quebeckers utterly lacking in solidarity. He couldn’t find a single gas canister. The shelves were empty: other selfish shoppers had taken the lot.

  Staring at his aquarium, Boris knew that if the ice storm led to a power cut, he would not last more than four hours and thirty minutes. So what if the neighbour’s kitten had got out? With glacial indifference he watched Brutus scamper across the street. The kitten was lucky: a car went by but didn’t run him over.

  In life, it’s every man for himself.

  WHAT ON EARTH WAS THE SKY UP TO NOW?

  When my mum came home, I threw my arms around her and gave her a kiss. I’d been doing a lot of thinking that afternoon. I couldn’t let the sky do it all on its own.

  ‘Help yourself and the heavens will help you.’

  I don’t know where I’d heard that phrase. But with all my thinking about the heavens, it came back to me. I hugged my mum as tight as I could so that she might think it was coming from someone else.

  ‘This is from Dad!’

  She stood there in my arms not knowing what to do. I wasn’t trying to take revenge or hurt her, I just wanted her and Dad to understand that I existed, and if they thought they could just decide things without me, well, they were wrong.

  ‘Did he get to the cottage all right?’

  ‘Yes, he called. He said you saw each other before he left . . . They’ve had a heap of ice falling there, too, and the power is out . . .’

  I froze for a second. I was almost ashamed to be in a nice warm house when my dad was cold. Served him right for leaving the house, but he didn’t deserve to die frozen and all alone in the cottage.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. He has everything he needs. You know him. He’ll use the generator. The one he bought last year to do the renovations this summer, remember? The phone is working, so you can call him if you want, darling.’

  ‘Later . . .’

  ‘Whenever you want, darling. We’re always here for you.’

  Why was she calling me ‘darling’? She never called me that. I have a name, after all! It really annoyed me, right from the start, and I didn’t feel like being nice at a time like this. I had a plan.

  ‘Will we go back there, to the cottage?’

  ‘Of course we will, darling . . .’

  I took a deep breath. She’d walked right into the trap.

  ‘All of us together?’

  By the look on her face, she hadn’t seen it coming. I knew I’d hit home but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to tell her about helping myself. As for her, she really wasn’t helping herself at all.

  ‘Not necessarily, darling. The main thing is for you to have some good times together . . . And just think, dividing the time between your father and me will mean twice as many holidays at the cottage. You’re one lucky boy!’

  I just looked at her. She understood that I didn’t think I was lucky at all. She closed her eyes for a second and came closer. I could feel her hands on my cheeks, ever so soft. She took her time.

  ‘Forgive me, darling, I know this isn’t easy for you. It’s not any easier for me, for either of us. No one wants to have this happen, but that’s life. Things will get better with time and besides, we’re going to do everything we can to make it right for you. For your father and for me, you are the most important thing on earth.’

  Thing! She’s a teacher and that’s all she could think of to say?

  She kissed me tenderly. She seemed moved. I am sure she didn’t go into the kitchen just to make something for me to eat. I hoped she was crying, maybe not a lot, but a few tears at least. It was her turn now.

  There was no answer. But I let it ring a long time. I redialled the number at the summer cottage and waited some more. My dad wasn’t picking up. Where could he be?

  ‘He must have gone somewhere to eat. It’s hard to make dinner without electricity. Particularly when you don’t know how to cook.’

  My mum wanted to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work with me. I could detect a certain amount of affection in her words, but knowing that my dad might not get enough to eat made me really sad. No child deserves this. We should have all been together, Dad in front of the television, Mum reading in the kitchen, and me s
omewhere in between. My mum wasn’t relaxed. I think that for her too this situation wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it was going to be. I was discovering what it meant to be a kid who’s divided between two adults, and she was finding out what it meant to be half a parent.

  My mum wanted to watch television. She sat on the armrest of my dad’s chair. I don’t know why – maybe deep down it was as if he were still here? Maybe she too would have liked him to be there with us, with the remote in his hand? Often the moments we miss the most are the ones we didn’t especially enjoy at the time.

  ‘At last I’ll be able to choose the programme tonight!’

  She chose the news channel, the one my dad always switched on first.

  Could it be the sky was overdoing it, after all? All they could talk about was what it had been up to. My mum didn’t like it one bit.

  ‘Damned black ice . . . It sure picked the right time!’

  All they were showing on television was the ice storm.

  ‘You should film it. Think of the memories.’

  ‘I don’t really feel like remembering it . . .’

  She grimaced, as if everything she said turned against her. But I could hardly come out and tell her that the video camera my dad had given me was in a desk drawer at school with a close-up of the neighbour’s boobs stored on it.

  ‘You know what? The educational director fell and broke her coccyx!’

  ‘How’d she do that?’

  ‘She slipped on the ice in the playground while she was sprinkling salt. She fell right on her behind.’

  ‘Oh, poor woman, that must really hurt.’

  In bed I thought about the educational director lying on her stomach in her hospital bed. Even if she was strict sometimes, I could remember all the times she’d been nice. Maybe she had kids who were sad to be at home without her. Maybe I’d really gone too far?

  My mum came in to wish me good night. She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hair.

  ‘Sleep well, darling . . .’

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’