The Bradbury Report (41 page)

Again she was silent. We lay in the dark for a minute or so, and I tried not to fall back asleep. It was nonetheless jarring when she spoke.

“Still, all the conversation seemed to make him no less sad, no less discouraged. I tried to get him to speak about his life, before he came to us. I thought, after I'd spoken so freely, jabbering on about
my
life—whatever else you want to say about it, it's been full—if ever he'd be willing to talk about what it was like for him inside the Clearances, that might be the time. I was wrong. ‘I don't remember,' God help him, was all he'd say.”

 

We are into September. I began writing this report in June. If, by some miracle, I live through November, I will be sixty-seven. Already I have made it to an older age than either of my parents. I have outlived my wife and son by nearly four decades. Today, not pressing our luck, Anna threw a party. A cake—decorated with plastic hockey players and a net—candles, and pointy hats. She decreed it everyone's birthday, Alan's and hers and mine. I was able to get out of bed and sit for a few minutes at the table. Anna and I each had a small piece of cake. We sang “Happy Birthday.” Alan would not eat or sing.

 

The Tall Man did not show up at the end of the month as we'd come to expect, then surprised us with a visit two weeks later, in the middle of July. We had not seen or communicated with him since early June, our first day in Calgary. He came in the morning, early, when Anna and Alan were still in their pajamas. I am all but perpetually in my pajamas. They'd been reading
Adam Bede
, which both of them preferred to Dickens, though parts of the book, one character in particular, infuriated Alan. I haven't read Elliot. We'd just sat down to breakfast, mine a somewhat rare appearance at table.

“Good morning,” the Tall Man said. “I hope I'm not too early.” To me, he said. “Glad to see you up and about. How are you feeling?”

“Same,” I said. “Tired.”

“Are you able to work?”

“Some,” I said.

“How's it coming?”

“I don't know how to answer that.”

“Is there something I can read?” he said.

“When I'm finished.”

He smiled. “I'll look forward to it.”

“Would you like breakfast?” Anna said to him. “I can fix you something.”

“Thank you,” the Tall Man said. “I've already eaten breakfast. It's my meal of the day. I'm religious about breakfast.”

“Don't come here,” Alan said. He had not looked at the Tall Man since his entrance, and, so far as I can recall, had never spoken to him. “It is not time for you to come. We are eating. Do you see?”

“I do see.” The Tall Man smiled. “It's you I've come to see. I thought we should talk.”

“Ass fuck,” Alan said.

Anna said, “Alan.”

“Now that's impressive,” the Tall Man said. “A year with you, and he says, ‘Ass fuck.' ”

He meant this as a joke, I thought, but it lacked all light and warmth.

“Don't talk to her,” Alan said.

“Where might we go, he and I?” the Tall Man said, again to Anna.

“Stop talking to her,” Alan said. “Talk to
me
.”

“That's why I've come,” the Tall Man said.

“That's why you've come,” Alan said.

“To talk to you. Yes.”

“To talk to me.”

“Yes,” the Tall Man said. To Anna: “This repeating he does. What's it called?”

“Echolalia,” Anna said.

“He's got a mild case,” I said, as if we'd actually got a diagnosis.

“Interesting,” the Tall Man said. “And tedious.”

“Stay with it,” I said. “He'll surprise you.”

“Shall we talk?” he said to Alan.

“No,” Alan said.

“Why not? Do you not want to talk to me?”

“I want you to leave,” Alan said.

“I'll leave after we talk.”

“I want you to leave now.”

“You've come at a bad time,” Anna said.

“I need to talk to him. To see what he can do.”

“Ass fuck,” Alan said again.

“Besides that,” the Tall Man said.

“He's been really dark since Ray got sick,” Anna said.

“What did you say?” Alan said.

“I said, you've been sad since Ray got sick.”

Alan didn't confirm or deny this assertion. Instead—perhaps he was offended by Anna's apologizing—he went to his room. We heard him shut his door.

“Dark,” the Tall Man said.

“Maybe another time?” Anna said.

“There's not much other time left,” the Tall Man said.

“Next time,” she said, “I'll make sure he speaks to you.”

“Listen,” he said to me, “I know you've been in the hospital. I know about your heart attack.” He sat down at the table, and I took this as the kindness it was: he was much less fearsome sitting down, which, of course, he knew. “I also know you decided against a transplant.”

He was sitting close, speaking quietly.

“I did.”

“It might have been the strategic thing to do,” he said. “To go back to the States. Get the transplant. It might have confused them.”

“The Dolly Squad.”

“Then again, it might have led them straight here.”

“I wasn't thinking about them. Should they actually exist.”

“They exist, and, I'm sorry to say, they're after you, too, now.”

“They'd better come quick,” I said.

“They're trying,” he said.

He shifted in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position. He was unable to fit his legs beneath the table. He pushed his chair back. Finally, and with considerable effort, even for me painful to watch, he managed to cross one leg over the other.

“So,” he said, “I'm sorry this happened.”

“Thanks.”

“I want to tell you I respect your decision. I'm sure it wasn't an easy one. It was admirable. There's no other way to see it. But I have to say this. It's one thing to make the decision for yourself. Anna's husband, for instance. Quite another to make the decision for someone else. Denying them available care.”

“You're speaking from personal experience.”

“I am.”

 

Anna took Alan to the library. He didn't want to go, but Anna got him out the door. Her program for cheering him up had begun to wear on them both. There is a satellite branch quite near us, but they went to the Central Library on Macleod Trail. A new building. Lots of steel and tinted glass and a shadeless plaza with a fountain in its center. “Ill-conceived,” Anna said that night. She was talking about the fountain. “Cruel, really. Figures of children linked round a jet of water, dancing in the spray. The figures are sentimental. They've put a metal sign in front of the fountain: ‘Do Not Play In The Water.' What were they thinking? Hot as blazes, and poor Alan in his long sleeves. I showed him the sign. I pointed out the provocation. He understood, but he didn't react.”

She hoped Alan might enjoy—she told me she'd known this hope was unrealistic—or at least be diverted by seeing all the books. It was something to do. They took the bus, still a novelty for Alan, who insisted they sit in the very back. At the library, already crowded when they got there, it turned out the books were hard to find. Except for a capacious children's section—which, in addition to toys and
stuffed animals and child-scaled furniture, was, Anna said, brimming with books, and, on this summer day, with parents and their kids reading them—the rest of the main floor was given to rows and rows of partitioned carrels, each with its own computer and headphones.

“We went to the information desk,” Anna said. “I asked the librarian where the books were. ‘Is there a particular book you want to see?' he said. I said, ‘No. We just want to browse.' He said, ‘I'm sorry, but the stacks are not open to the public. The catalog is on-line. If there's a book you want, just click on it, and a staff person will bring it to your carrel. It doesn't take long.' ‘Is there no way to see the books?' I asked him. ‘I'm here with my son. I want him to see what a library is like.' The old man smiled at us. ‘This is a library,' he said. ‘I mean a library with books,' I said. He repeated that the stacks were private. I asked him, by the way, where they were. ‘They're on three levels,' he said. ‘Basement. Sub-basement 1. Sub-basement 2. Only library staff is allowed down there.' ‘Listen,' I said to him. ‘We just want to look. I promise we won't disturb anything. We won't touch the books. We'll be five minutes, tops.' The man said he couldn't let us go. ‘What if someone goes with us? Just for a minute.' ”

“You wore him down,” I said in the dark, from my bed.

“I did,” she said. “ ‘I'll tell you what,' he said. ‘I've got a break coming in ten minutes. If you guys want to wait, I'll take you myself.' I thanked him. ‘So long as it's on the q.t.,' he said.”

“He said that?” I said.

“He was sweet. Alan was not happy having to hang around. He found the men's room, and he stayed in there. I had to call in to get him out. There was a door near the information desk. The librarian opened it with a key attached to a wooden paddle. We followed him down one flight of stairs to the basement, where he unlocked another door, and we were in the stacks. ‘Literature and History and Philosophy on this floor,' he said. ‘You guys go and have a look around. I'll stand right here. You can take your time. I've got a few minutes.'

“I led Alan down the central aisle, to give him a sense of the size
of the place, which was huge, cavernous, maybe a hundred yards square. Low ceilings. No windows. There was metal shelving, I'd say ten feet high, on all sides, with almost impassably narrow aisles between the rows. A few yards from the end—we could barely see the librarian—we turned off into the thick of the stacks. We walked, single-file, about twenty yards in the near dark. Though the books were close on either side of us, it was difficult to read their spines. I slid a book out at random. It was something by Henry James.”

“What luck,” I said.

“I turned to show the book to Alan. I can't really say what I wanted him to see—at that point I wasn't sure why I'd brought him there—and I knew nothing about Henry James to tell him. Have you read James?”

“Not a word,” I said. I used to feel some regret about all the books I hadn't read.

“Then the lights came on above us. The librarian called out, ‘Is that better?' Though the place was dead quiet, we could only just hear him. I looked at Alan. I held out the James to him. What did I expect him to do with it? He didn't look at the book. He was upset. His face was white. I thought he might be about to throw up. I reshelved the book. ‘What's wrong, Alan?' I said. ‘I want to go away,' he said. He was frightened. ‘Do you mean you want to go home?' I hoped that's what he meant. ‘Will you tell me what's wrong?' ‘I do want to go home,' he said. ‘Then we'll go home,' I said. ‘I don't want to be in here,' he said. ‘We'll go then,' I said. ‘Let's go.' I took his hand and led him back out to the central aisle. I tried to put my arm around his waist, but he wouldn't have it. We walked towards the librarian. Alan walked fast. ‘Is your son okay?' the old man asked when we got close. “Are you okay, son?' ‘We're okay,' I said. ‘I think we're ready.' ‘It can be pretty spooky down here in the dark,' the librarian said. ‘I don't like it much myself. I should have turned the lights on sooner.' ‘No, no,' I said. ‘Thanks for bending the rules.' The librarian smiled. ‘Bending, hell. We broke them.'

“I tried to talk to Alan while we were waiting for the bus, but he
wouldn't speak to me. He didn't say a word all the way home. Did he say anything to you when we got back?”

“Not a thing. He came in, lay down on the bed, put the pillow over his eyes, went to sleep. What he always does. What do you think it was?”

“Well, I don't think it was the dark. He doesn't seem to mind the dark. Do you think he does?”

“I don't,” I said.

“In fact, if I'm right, it was worse for him with the lights on.”

“What's your idea?” I said.

“I think it was the shelves. So many of them. Packed in tight. Floor to ceiling just about. All the books on all the shelves.”

“And this . . . ?”

“And this reminded him of his life inside the Clearances. How he was kept. How he lived. How he slept. More than reminded him. Took him back. Do you think this is too farfetched?”

“I don't know, Anna.”

“No. You weren't there. It must have felt like he was back.”

 

Anna urged Alan to try out the camera he'd bought. To placate her, he took a few pictures: of me in my bed; of Anna standing in front of the living room window; of Anna and me, Anna sitting beside me on the bed. He took two pictures of the television, one with it on, one with it off. He took a strange picture of himself in the mirror, wearing the mirrored sunglasses, taking the picture. He took a picture of his empty bed. We downloaded the pictures onto the computer, and we looked at them together. For the most part, they were clear and sharp and relatively well-composed. The mirror shot—Alan's unwitting experiment in infinite regression—was unreadable. They were, without exception, uninteresting and dull, which Alan—an aficionado, after all—could plainly see. He insisted we delete the whole batch. I said I would. He watched to make sure I followed through, but I contrived to keep the one of Anna sitting beside me on the bed. Which, for all I knew, might have been the one he most wanted scrapped. Anna suggested they go over to Prince's Island Park, where the photo
opportunities would be plentiful. Alan refused. After the library outing, he resisted leaving the apartment, and almost never did.