Maxine (20 page)

Maxine plods resolutely along the sidewalk toward the hotel. It is unfortunate that she did not sleep on the plane because of sitting next to the emergency exit all night, the emergency exit that felt colder than any other bit of plane, so that she kept touching the wall beside her, which was actually a door, and determining that she hadn't exaggerated last time, it really was exceptionally cold, much more so than the patch of wall a foot away. The cold soaked through the door and enfolded her like the thin, scratchy blanket the flight attendant provided after she had explained that there were no other seats and agreed that, yes, it really was a remarkably cold piece of wall, for which she apologized, but she didn't think there was anything wrong.

No, I don't think so, she had offered by way of reassurance.

It's difficult to sleep through the awareness, amplified by fatigue, that you are the very first in line to be sucked out into subzero freefall at any moment. Maxine felt as if she were bobbing in a chocolate milkshake directly under the little x in the middle of the plastic lid through which a starving celestial giant might poke his straw. She reread some of
The Way I Found Her
, which she'd studied in a course, because it's about an English boy who travels to Paris and has an adventure, but she'd forgotten how tragic his adventure turns out to be, and how much there is about falling from a great height, which brought her back to the freezing emergency exit, at which point she'd flicked off the overhead light and tried to be warm enough to sleep.

All this is unfortunate because now Maxine needs her wits about her, and they aren't. When a problem arises, she'll be in trouble.

The small knapsack, Maxine's carry-on, has glued itself to her back, so she takes it off and adjusts the straps, wondering whether anyone would tell her if someone cut it. That's what they do. She read about it in a newspaper. They come behind you and slice into it, grab your stuff and run before you know the difference. There's no one to tell her the difference.

Maxine is realizing she's on her own in a big foreign city. If a bad guy offed her in an alley, it could be a week before anyone noticed. She's tired enough to zone out and do that thing where your mind stops running around and goes all vacant and you realize you've been studying your toe for several minutes. Although it's still early, Maxine's scalp prickles with the heat. Her face and back feel damp and gummy. She peeks into the window of a movie theatre and flicks at her hair. Maybe she should just go into the movie theatre to regroup. It would be safe in there, and cool. She could sit down, she could sleep, everything would be better if she could seek safe haven in a plush seat for an hour or two. Any movie would do. Above her head a huge poster, a new release—she tips her chin way up and sees a tall figure in black, a ski mask, an alley, a fire in the distance. Every ten minutes, the promo blares, in Paris, someone disappears. Maxine tugs her shoulder straps and sets a brisk pace.

A tiny lobby, well-appointed, a solidly elegant receptionist in late middle age who frowns over gold-chained glasses and says, as if Maxine had already caused an infinite amount of grief simply by walking through the door:
Madame
. Fortunately Maxine's Acadian mother vehemently opposed what she referred to as the
tyrannie
of
la langue anglaise
, as a result of which Maxine can converse in imperfect but respectable French, and she explains that the reservation was made on her behalf by Editions Merluche, that it is a single for a week, that although it is not yet check-in time she has travelled all night and requires the room immediately. Cleaning is unnecessary. All she needs is a set of sheets. The woman spends some time riffling through the book and then the computer. She consults scraps of paper and disappears into the back room to whisper. An old man in a grey suit appears and gives Maxine a tiny smile of annoyance.

Foule
, he says. (
Une foule
, a crowd. They have a crowd?They are expecting a crowd?)

But
monsieur
, I have a reservation, Maxine replies. Her voice sounds shaky even to her. It was made in my name by—

Hhwee arrre foule, the man repeats, as if this settled everything, and Maxine is inclined to agree with him. This is where she says Why yes of course I'm so sorry and slinks out and never comes back. She hoists her knapsack and grabs the luggage handle and slinks.

Maxine's cheeks feel unnaturally hot on the surface, the way an overtired, dehydrated person's cheeks do. She stands on the sidewalk outside the hotel feeling her heartbeat stutter and skip. There is a problem. There is a big problem here. Maxine does not, it seems, have a hotel reservation. She has little money. She does not own a credit card—she cancelled it when she left work. The plane ticket went on Gail's, to be paid back when Maxine returned. Something profoundly unpleasant is rising up inside her, some sea monster of horror from the murky depths of the lagoon of desperation, and it must on no account be allowed to surface, so she stops thinking. She thinks a blank white wall and permits no further thoughts. She looks around and sees a café. She walks toward the café. She will sit in the café. She will think later. She will have a milky decaf or, if they have no decaf, some tea. She chooses a table in the shade, shrugs off the pack, and sits. The waiter approaches.

Two kirs, says Maxine, quite by accident. And, she adds primly, a glass of water.

She met him at the terminal and they boarded the ferry to Tsawwassen as foot passengers, one overnight bag each. They booked into a pleasant B&B near Cambie and 12th. At 2 a.m. Frédérique asked for a cab to show up a few blocks away. They transferred their belongings to a couple of small knapsacks and slipped out the back door. Frédérique had told him to leave his passport and all his ID at home, not to bring anything with his name on it, not even a monogrammed handkerchief. Jerome didn't own anything monogrammed. He understood that wherever they went, it would at least be inside Canada. Maybe somewhere remote and northern, that might be exciting. Maybe somewhere exotic and under-populated, a fishing village in Newfoundland. So he was surprised to be led to the Air France counter.

Maxine wonders if Frédérique ever stops to think, in the departure lounge, about young, Middle-Eastern-looking men. Especially ones who seem to be travelling alone, ones who have no obvious luggage. Does it cross her mind to hope they will be on the other plane? Do these kinds of thoughts ever occur to her? Are they like bubbles, like the headlines of a newspaper on a stand that you pass and that dart into your mind and out again just as quickly? Or does Frédérique never have such thoughts. Does she just swing one leg over the other, flip the paper open, and dive into a science article? Maxine is trying to decide if Frédérique would be relieved to see a toddler run over and be swept up in the arms of such a man. Probably not. Is it wrong, Maxine wonders guiltily, to speculate as to the intentions of fellow passengers who might have every reason to feel revulsion at and perhaps hatred for Western imperialism? Is the mere appearance of a thought like that racist? Maxine herself often finds revolting many of the values her society seems to live by. On a scale of happy-go-lucky to very uneasy, how much, Maxine would like to know, has the North American consciousness changed in two years? It has left Indifferent behind on the way to Very Uneasy, just as Maxine herself has been headed in the opposite direction. No, she's not at Happy-Go-Lucky yet, not likely to see that outpost looming on the horizon in the near future, but pointing the right way is a start.

The fact that Maxine has finished her novel does not, apparently, mean Frédérique has left her. She keeps popping up, long after the contest submission. Every time Maxine turns around, she sees something that makes her think of a stage in Frédérique and Jerome's journey. In fact, she has brought the manuscript with her and she plans to flesh it out during the week: details of setting, snatches of conversation overheard in cafés, local colour. New scenes. There's always room for improvement.

Jerome had brought
The Lord of the Rings
in a battered boxed set. While Frédérique tucked their knapsacks into the overhead bin he started in again on volume one,
The Fellowship of the Ring
. She reached out and took the book from him. She lifted the front cover and saw his name in small handwriting at the very top right of the flyleaf: J. Kerville. Covering one hand with the other to muffle the sound, she tore the top corner off the page and casually crumpled it into a small, tight wad of paper. Frédérique offered Jerome a piece of gum for the take-off, which he accepted. She then popped the wad of paper into her mouth, smiled, and chewed.

He didn't bother re-setting his watch. They changed planes a few times, wandered in airports. He didn't ask. Jerome was in a dream, relaxed, sleepy, not very aware of his surroundings.

When she woke him the last time, it was late afternoon. He felt suddenly alert, as though a drug had left his system. They were beginning their descent. “Is this Paris?” he whispered.

“Marrakech.”

Halfway through the first drink, a feeling of well-being appears on Maxine's perceptual horizons. It's not exactly that she experiences well-being, but she recognizes it as a feeling she might at some point experience. Her shoulders ease down a fraction. All her attention is no longer required for maintaining basic function. She notices things, water rushing into a storm drain, people going by, lots of them, talking on cellphones, smoking. Smoking! They don't look sheepish about it. They wave the cigarettes around with abandon. You'd think no one had told them they weren't supposed to. You'd think they were enjoying themselves.

Maxine, on her second kir of the morning, listens to the Frenchman at the next table complain to his friend about London, how dirty it is, the Tube smells, the people are fat, but none of this he minds—all these things have a certain charm. However, he says with contempt, what I reproach of them, it is their
café
. Maxine is feeling marginally recovered. She's prepared to try a brief thought, just to see what happens. She imagines explaining to Gail or Karen why she'd had her drink(s), returned to the airport, and flown back home. This is not an agreeable daydream but it's just about bearable if you brace yourself for it. She will explain that errors had been made. The passive voice will come in handy. And then she thinks of Cindy. Cindy would kill her for giving up so easily. And Kyle. She imagines his expression of disbelief as she tells him she didn't even stay one night.

Maxine knows what must be done. It mightn't be pleasant, but she must make it happen. She pulls a notebook and pen out of her knapsack, composes several sentences in the notebook, and returns to the hotel.

Outside the main door Maxine hesitates for a second. Her face goes wobbly at the edges, but she rubs her cheeks hard with both palms. Would Frédérique go all wussy? Would she allow herself to be intimidated by a small number of contemptuous French people? I am not Frédérique, says a small voice in her head, but Maxine tries to ignore it, sticks out her chin and sucks in her belly. Andomeda, Maxine thinks. Um. Andromeda. Andromeda. Andromeda, M33, Leo I, Leo II, Peg dSph, Cass dSph. She marches in.

Maxine smiles with mustered sternness in the direction of the front desk. There is more of the forbidding receptionist, some waiting, the reappearance of the grey-suited man, who looks at Maxine as if she were a piece of dog poo. But Maxine, once launched, is a woman on a mission. She's not about to abandon it at this juncture without a measurable degree of suffering, nor does she want to croak in a back alley for want of a place to stay. Giving up is no longer an option. Life wasn't invented so people could have fun. So she slips one hand into her pocket and fingers her inhaler gently to make sure it's still there. She summons a picture of Frédérique to mind and locks on to the man in front of her. She is so sorry, she explains, trying not to sound the least bit sorry, but she doesn't understand his English and perhaps he could consult his book and locate the reservation, or if he would prefer to give her the key now and deal with the paperwork later then that would be fine because she is very tired. She imagines Frédérique giving her head a little toss at this point. Maxine tosses her head, uncertainly but not without effect, and the man disappears into the back room and is heard to dial a number and ask for someone in charge at the publishing house.

Excessively deferential is the Maxine of forty-five minutes ago. This one here's a mover and a shaker. And she is in fact trembling slightly as the disapproving gold-chained glasses and the dark suit open a sort of gate in the counter to let her in—they do this, Maxine can see, with extreme reluctance, and it's clear she has racked up a victory of some kind. The man shows her to the back room and waves at the phone in an irritated manner. He is elderly and some bits of his dark eyebrows grow straight out from his head like spiky weapons. Maxine picks up the receiver. She makes an effort to sound confident and certain.

...No, it was an email. It was signed by Emmanuelle Duchamp... She was with you a few weeks ago... I have a printout of the email with me and it comes from your firm's email address... They have no more rooms. They say there is a winner and it is a man and he has already arrived. Your representative informed me in writing— That may be the case, however I have crossed an ocean because of Ms. Duchamp, who was in your employ when she sent it recently... Your company has informedme, and I have a record of this—I have no wish to involve the authorities, but I will not sleep on the street... But it is, Madame. I'm afraid it is your responsibility.

By this point, Maxine, having flung herself fully into the moment, has slipped so fully into character as to issue the following brazen directive:

You will need to send a taxi, then. I have luggage.

They skipped the luggage carousel because they had only the two backpacks. They took a taxi from the airport and checked in to a small hotel in a side street near the Djemaa el Fna. They rested and had a drink at the hotel, then walked around the crowded square. They noticed the dust, noise, white clothes, white buildings. Everywhere there were people: pedestrians, mopeds, cars, motorcycles, elaborate contraptions rigged up on wheels, pulled by people or animals. All these jostled for space in the warm Moroccan evening. Street performers banged at drums with bent sticks. A snake charmer leaned into a rising cobra and kissed it, grinning at Frédérique, beckoning. His partner had a large snake draped around his neck like a lover. “The souks, darling, they're to the north of the square, look, this way,” said Frédérique.