Black Bird (26 page)

A switch closed in her mind, and she gave herself over to the inexorable progress of the plan, executing every step towards the goal as if she were herself a series of dominoes falling against one another. She had a dim presentiment of watching the march of events as if from outside herself, and she could see ahead to their end as clearly as if she were following the course of a stream downhill. But she had lost all volition, and while she watched her mind toss back and forth the feeble emotions connected with a sense of right and wrong, of guilt and purpose, without assigning any of them a value higher than another, she suddenly discovered the helpless, directionless sense of floating above events like a cork on the water that others must feel—the others she’d always accused of apathy, of collusion, of stupidity—when they throw up their hands and ask despairingly, yes, but what can
I
do about it?

Somewhere she struggled within herself to reconnect, to force down those troubling, amorphous feelings of danger, of error, of failure, to grasp herself firmly and be once more in charge of her
own destiny, responsible for her own actions. To claim them as hers, as right, as inevitable. As she’d always felt when she was most proud of herself.

But she discovered now that she was truly under the influence of the events that had led her here, to this car and this action; and though she knew she could still change her path, choose to step away from the otherwise inevitable, she knew she had at last given herself over to the plan itself, finally acknowledging that she had striven so hard and for so long towards such an unreachable goal that she had wholly submitted to the Great Work and acknowledged herself inferior.

If she was ever to regain any strength of her own, if she was ever to steer her own course again, she could do so only along the path already chosen. There remained only one direction in which to move. The shore she’d left behind had disappeared over the horizon—there was no harbour on any side—and all that was left was to press on and trust that somewhere ahead lay a new landing.

Marie got out of the car with the gun in her hand. The two others were nervous, hiding their weapons, fearful of being seen, waving their hands in a frenzy of signalling: The gun, the gun! Put it away!

She drew them together. “No. This will go like clockwork. Do as I tell you, don’t hesitate, and we’ll be gone in five minutes. Everyone up to the door.” She shoved them along the path, and they went hurriedly.

Marie tightened her jaw, strode up behind them and knocked loudly on the door. She had a second to breathe deeply, and then it opened.

She barely measured the maid’s face before all she saw was her own fist pointing the pistol at it. Her other arm snapped out, grabbed the startled woman’s shoulder and pushed her back. She shunted the maid aside, barked an order to one of the others and stood in an open hallway, pointing the gun in a quick sweep.

Jesus, she thought. What do I do now?

They were watching her, waiting for instructions. The maid, in a chair by the door with a gun held at her temple, cried.

A toilet flushed upstairs. Marie held the pistol out before her like a shield and carried herself on legs locked like a dancer’s. She felt taller. She was breathing deeply and evenly, and even though she was aware of every detail around her, as if she had all the time in the world to observe her surroundings, she was moving up the staircase faster than she wanted, effortlessly, with the momentum of a child down a slide.

She had no idea what she was doing, but felt no impulse to stop or slow down. One of her colleagues followed her. At the end of the hall, light spilled from a door, flickering with the movement of people inside the room. It drew her like a moth.

She pointed her arm around the corner and followed it in. A man and a woman turned from a mirror where they were dressing for dinner. The woman was startled and grabbed the man’s arm as she exclaimed. The man jumped back and yelled
an obscenity. Marie pointed her arm at him. He cowered.

He’s afraid of me, Marie thought.

In an instant the couple were more collected, and indignant. They choked out angry questions.

“Shut up,” Marie barked. “I’m in charge.” I’m in charge, she thought; they don’t know who I am, and they’re going to do what I say.

The wife was sat on the bed; the husband’s head was covered, his wrists bound. “Down the stairs.” They marched him down, past the maid, and the four of them poured out of the house and across the lawn towards the waiting car, all without breaking stride or speaking.

They doubled him over, threw him across the floor in the rear of the car, and everyone scrambled to get in. The driver had the engine running before the doors were closed, and the car lurched and swerved all at once before straightening and charging down the street flat out.

Marie slouched down in the car as much as she could. Ahead, across the street, was her house. In the darkness she waited, watching passing traffic, until one by one the lights went out, as first one then another of the Desouches went to sleep.

Still she waited. A couple of lights came on again, and then an hour later Uncle and Grandfather left by the front door, turning the lights out and locking up behind them. She waited.

Finally she drove the car slowly and quietly to the end of the block, turned right onto Prince Arthur Street, turned again up the lane that separated the church from the row of gabled houses. She turned off the headlights, took her foot off the gas, and the car drifted slowly towards the rear of her home.

She stopped the car, killed the engine. She paused. She carefully got out of the car, opened the rear door and pulled the stumbling, bound man from the back seat. She’d left the basement door unlocked. As quietly as she could she got him into the house. Father and Mother, of course, would be asleep; Aline too; Uncle and Grandfather had left, and Jean-Baptiste was still in jail. She led him to the secret room.

It wasn’t the sort of French that John Cross was used to hearing. It was full of scatological terms, religious references, oddly pronounced English words and others impossible to identify. It wasn’t accented in the manner of French diplomats or of English private school instructors. It was not, and had never been, the language of diplomacy.

But its message got across to him and he acquiesced to the bag over his head and the pistol in his neck, and to being jerry-marched blindly across his lawn and thrown forcibly face down into the back of a small, musty-smelling car. Then there’d been a series of drives, changes of vehicle, waits in unknown apartments, listening to these lower-class hoodlums
arguing, being pushed here and there—all without seeing a thing. He’d been struck when he spoke, he was not offered water or food, and when finally someone thought to take him to the bathroom, even then he’d not been allowed to remove the bag. How was he to see what he was doing? He wasn’t: he was helped.

It was perhaps the most frightening moment of the entire ordeal. He stood with his hands tied behind while someone else unzipped him, pulled him out and said, “Piss.” He couldn’t recall ever having felt so vulnerable, so small. And, when the woman laughed, so emasculated. Not even in public school.

It seemed a terribly long time had passed, and he was afraid for his life. He was faint from hunger and thirst, and sometimes, sitting in a darkened room or a closet, he couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep until he jerked alert. But there was nothing to see and often nothing to hear. His attention was concentrated on his body. It ached. No position, standing, sitting or lying down, was comfortable. His muscles were tense and cramped, and he trembled all over when he tried to force them to relax.

He became angry at the British Foreign Office. Stupid bastards. If he’d been posted to Africa or the East, they would have given him a bodyguard or at least some training for this sort of thing. But then, who could have expected a British diplomat to be in danger in Canada? Which was why he’d chosen the posting, naturally. The idea of taking his family to a country that required the precautions of a bodyguard was out of the question.

After a final interminable ride with the car radio blaring and so many turns around corners that he’d never be able to place himself, and then some interminable wait where he’d thought they must simply be parked on a busy street, he’d been bundled down concrete steps. He assumed it was a basement. Boards groaned close overhead. He was sat down on a bunk or a cot. The springs creaked under his weight. A door closed; the chain of a bulb was pulled. His hands were untied and blood ran back into them. But he wasn’t allowed to rub his wrists as he wanted. His left arm was grabbed and he felt a handcuff applied, and heard its mate rasp against steel.

Finally the paper bag over his head was removed. He saw her face. Her eyes were dark and shadowed, her cheeks flaccid and her mouth held shut by a kind of resigned determination. Suddenly he was more frightened, not less. He was in a tiny unfinished room, barely more than a closet, with no more space than was necessary to stand or to lie on a cot. The bare bulb glared and swung inches above her head. Was it she who’d laughed at him?

She struck his face. “Don’t look at me.”

He looked to his cuffed left hand. It was secured to the frame of the cot. The mattress was barely an inch thick over the rusted springs and the linen wasn’t fresh.

When she removed his gag, he said, “For God’s sake, let me go.”

She scoffed. “None of us can be free as long as we’re all in chains. Here’s a sandwich. There’s a pail under the cot. You might as well relax.”
“Why are you doing this? Why me? Let me go, please!”

“I’m sorry. Though I despise you, it’s not personal. And I won’t let it become personal. No conversations.”

“I am a representative of Her Majesty’s Government—”

She slapped him.

“I am a diplomat, and I demand you release me right now.”

“We hope to release you as soon as possible. Get some sleep. It’s rather late.”

When she was done, and climbing the stairs to the kitchen, she thought, I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. She quietly opened the door, stepped up into the kitchen, shut it again quietly behind her and flicked on the light.

Grace squawked and fluttered above the refrigerator. Marie jumped, and then laughed. She looked at the settling bird. “I’ve done it,” she said, and laughed again. It felt good to tell someone, even the bird. And the bird wouldn’t squeal.

Grace folded her wings back and clacked her beak, and turned her head, staring at Marie from a single eye. Clack. Clack.

It went on for days. He saw only her. She brought table scraps as if he were an animal, or sandwiches or fruit. He asked for tea, and to his surprise, he got it.
She emptied his bucket every day with evident distaste. When he pleaded and cried for release she struck him. When he demanded his rights as a British citizen, she scoffed and struck him.

“I beg you to be reasonable.”

“It’s too late for reason.”

“I’m a human being just as you are.”

“It’s not possible to reach me on humanitarian grounds.”

“Can’t I have a radio? At least a newspaper? For God’s sake, what day is it? How long have I been here? Does my family know I’m alive? The police must be looking for me.”

“I’m sure our police are looking for you. It’s unfortunate for you we aren’t hiding in a doughnut shop.”

He slept; he ate; he cried. He lost all track of time, of day or night. He ached for a cigarette. He missed his wife, his children. He reviewed his life and catalogued his regrets. He tried to think his way out but became unable to distinguish between his plans and his dreams. He prayed.

He’d tried everything he could think of to get himself out of this fix, and none of it worked. He fingered the chain around his neck and, as he prayed, thought of trying to pray with his captors. If reason and logic had failed, if emotionalism had failed, perhaps this tactic would not. What had he to lose by it?

It was the only thing that could make a difference. It was the only answer. And with his hands bound and mouth gagged, the only thing he could do.