The Gallery of Lost Species (22 page)

When Raven banged at the metal door, I drew the paper back over the drawing and closed the frame on it, sliding the rogue wave under the other waves, hoping the tidal surge would erupt under all that pressure, erasing itself.

*   *   *

R
AVEN PULLED HER
shamrock socks up to her knees and got down to business. She needed sandpaper and sample paint pots. “Let's take King Edward, keep it real,” she said, veering me away from the boutiques leading to the hardware store in favour of a detour cutting through the most downtrodden blocks in the city.

She'd given me her honest opinion when I'd called her after seeing Viv in the hospital. “Let's not sugar-coat it, your sister's probably a lost cause,” she told me.

Today, as we walked, I admitted, “I've decided to do the transplant thing for Viv.”

“Nice try.” She whammed her bag into my arm.

“
Ow,
are you carrying bricks in there?”

“Don't be a moron, then.”

“It's safe. I've done the research. Plus, I've always wanted to see India.”

She snapped her fingers an inch away from my face. “
Earth
to Edith. Which planet are you on?”

“I don't exactly have a choice, Raven.”

“I'd like to slap you.” She slammed her palm to her forehead, her lips tightening as she fumed at some wild swans in the park.

When she turned to face me again, her fists were clenched and the veins around her temples pulsated. “Your mom's the only smart one, giving your sister tough love. All you do is enable her.”

“That's not fair.”

“It's like those imaginary unihorses you think are real,” she went on. “I shouldn't have encouraged you with that dumbass book, which was a joke, by the way. They're not real, Edith. In
this
reality, only your sister can save herself, and she's not doing that. Open your eyes and stop being so naive. Has she shown any desire to get the transplant? Is she asking to get on waiting lists here, to find other donors, like, dead ones? Has she talked about staying clean? Course not.”

“You're wrong,” I snivelled, wiping my nose on my sleeve. I blinked hard and shook my head until she put an arm around me.

“I know this sounds harsh. But I don't want to see my best friend wreck her life for nothing. You can't fix this.”

We passed the Shepherds of Good Hope, where I was sure Viv had stayed.
Three hots and a cot.
Instinctively I scanned the faces of the men and women crouched against the buildings, asking us for change. When the traffic light turned red, half a dozen teenagers jumped up with cups, pulled off their hoods, and wove between cars, moving fast.

Raven insisted on taking this route every few months to distribute the granola bars and cookies that she amassed in her office from the lunches Zach prepared for her. As she sprinted into alleyways here and there, I waited on the street, hugging my purse.

When she was back at my side, I tried picking up our pace, but she was in a punchy humour and didn't catch on. She was in one of her moods because Zach was pushing the baby question. Before getting married, she told Zach she didn't want kids. Zach had changed his mind since they bought the house.

“Sinister that there's no Indians here. In Winnipeg that's all there is.”

“That's good, right?”

Some men formed a semicircle on the sidewalk. One of them wore a suit and a skullcap and had a ring on every digit. With each step he took, there was a metallic click on the pavement. He moved in front of us, blocking our way. I stared down at his beige tap shoes.

“Ladies. Can I interest you in some meth or cock?” He had bloodshot eyes and the tattoo of a knife running down his neck. Raven grabbed my arm and went around him, finally walking faster.

He spat and swore. “Fucking cunts!”

I felt the saliva on my neck, through my blouse.

“And that's another thing.” She was on a rant now. “You dress your homeless up too well here. Half the time they're so tidy that I don't know they're schizoids on crack until they open their mouths.”

“Bojangles didn't look nuts enough for you?” I asked as she pulled a scarf from her bag and blotted at my back.

“At least back home the glue sniffers are straight up.” She threw her arms in the air. “What's the goddamn point? Soon the shelters will be shut down and these people will be thrown into state-of-the-art penitentiaries.” She pushed through the hardware store doors. “Now, I was thinking periwinkle for the den and mint julep for the bedroom. Thoughts?”

A nymphish, dark-featured girl grazed against me as I entered the store. She wore platform sandals and was sucking on a Popsicle, her skin thick with goosebumps in her cut-offs and T-shirt. Before disappearing back into the streets, she gave me a penetrating stare and blood rushed to my ears. There was something familiar about her, aside from the scabs and track marks. She pushed a cart piled high with her possessions. A colourless, sullied version of the cart Viv had filled with Henry's inventory from the garage when we were kids.

“Damn, that chick looked like you,” Raven said in a hushed tone. “I'd say you just met your doppelgänger.”

My sister was essentially one of these down-and-outs now. But it could have just as easily been me. And this made me feel guilty, like I owed her.

*   *   *

I
WAS ALREADY
settled behind my desk in the viewing room when De Buuter slogged in after his lunch break. Raven had given me a spare top to wear, but it was too big and billowed in odd places.

“That's a tremendous blouse.”

“Thank you,” I replied, rolling up my pirate sleeves. “Where do you eat lunch, Dr. de Buuter?”

“Your cafeteria. I like the view—the hill and that metal ribbon. It's quiet.”

“That's because the food's terrible,” I told him as he signed the register. “How do you pronounce your name?” I asked. “Like
butter?
”

“
Bu
—like the French
u.
It means pedlar.” His breath caught, forcing a halt in his speech. “My family came from a line of merchants.”

“Dr. de Buuter, if you need anything—”

“Please. Call me Theo.” He made his way to the back of the room where I'd already laid out his file. I wanted to continue our conversation.

Maud and Arnold were the only other ones there. Arnold sat at the opposite end of Maud's table. Although she didn't acknowledge his presence, her face wasn't as grave as she reviewed her father's drawings.

No one needed me, so I pulled out my book. I read through the afternoon about how the unicorn's annihilation came when scientists discovered that a cloven-hoofed animal couldn't grow a single horn in the middle of its forehead, because the skull bones of such a breed would be divided.

In the 1930s, biologists figured out how to surgically alter the horn buds of calves, kids, and baby deer so that they'd fuse together and grow as a single horn. Farmers caught on and did the same, selling their hybrids to county fairs until word got out that these weren't actual unicorns.

You could no more turn an animal into something it wasn't than turn a human being into someone they were not.

People don't change, Constance always said.

THIRY-FOUR

W
HEN
V
IV LEFT THE
hospital, she went back to her dingy basement apartment and I visited her regularly there, as did Dr. Black on his house call rounds.

She'd kept her job with the phone company and had the medical paperwork to call in sick when she wanted. She mainly stayed home, resting on the twin bed I'd bought from
IKEA
, which took me two days to assemble.

She was given strict orders not to consume alcohol for six months before the surgery or the procedure would be cancelled. “And believe me, they have ways of knowing,” Dr. Black threatened. “They'll ship you straight home and you'll have to start from scratch.”

During this time, I went through several weeks of rush medical testing. I passed the evaluation and was deemed a suitable donor so long as Viv's condition didn't deteriorate, making her too ill to withstand the surgery. Dr. Black agreed to “recommend us”—he said it like we were auditioning for a stage production—since we needed his authorization and signature to get onto any list.

The transplant centre was in Bangalore. I assembled paperwork on both of us, adding to the binders each day as though I was filing keepsakes outlining our life accomplishments. For a brief while this scrapbooking became my vocation.

The surgery was the last thing I could do for her. When I'd first announced my decision to Viv, her response was, no way.

“You're out of options, Vee,” I told her. “Suck it up.”

“It's not what I want. I can't pay.”

“Calm down,” I said. “Just stick to your new and improved healthy routine like you promised.”

“I'm not letting you do this, Edith.”

“It's practically minor surgery. Don't be a wimp.”

Thoughts of what could go wrong terrorized me. Ten percent of recipients died soon after the operation due to infection, bleeding, rejection, other organ failure, or cardiac issues. Viv could not wake up. I could not wake up—five percent of donors had complications leading to serious infection, blood clotting, bile leaks, and bleeding.

“I'm not doing it to save you,” I added. “My motives are selfish. I want to get you back painting so I can make money off your art and profit from your creative genius.”

My sister's detoxifying body smelled of mothballs. Her appearance had marginally improved since leaving the hospital. I brought her food and drawing pads and pencils she didn't touch.

Eventually she stopped arguing with me. Her face changed as if she'd reached a decision, but she wouldn't share it. Instead she became complacent and lethargic.

“Mom tells me you won't return her calls from Florida,” I prodded, “and that the packages she mails you get sent back to her.”

“If it were up to the Con, I'd die.” Her mouth turned downward and her eyes moistened.

“That's not true,” I said too quickly, adding, “I thought we could visit the country after you recuperate. I'll look into some tours.”

“Great.”

“Temples, maybe a yoga retreat?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

*   *   *

A
LONG WITH WHAT
little savings I had, I obtained a bank loan and a line of credit. I maxed my Visa and signed up with MasterCard and American Express. I pawned the medallion from Omar, which I'd worn around my neck until then like an amulet. It still wasn't enough for the flights and the three months we'd need to stay in India for the pre-evaluation, the surgery, and the follow-up monitoring period. Not to mention the deposit for the actual transplant, which would then allow for payments by instalment on the outstanding balance.

Constance wouldn't budge when I phoned her.

“I'll pay you back within the year.”

“Non.”

“She'll die.”

“
N'importe quoi.
The liver is a miracle organ. It will regenerate when she sorts herself out. What you are doing is a band-aid solution,
ma fille.
A dangerous mistake.”

“You're in shock, Mom. You're not thinking clearly.”

“Non,”
she repeated, outraged, before her cell clicked off.

*   *   *

O
FTEN
I
VISITED
Monet's cliffs at Pourville on my breaks. It reminded me of Henry's canvases—his frigid flowers and snow people and outcrops of ice formed by the wind.

Rain, Pourville
was an oil painting in a misty palette from 1896. It resided permanently in Impressionist Room C213. Although his eyesight hadn't yet begun to fail, in the hazy details and waning shapes it was as though Monet had foreshadowed his own blindness on this canvas, and the years when he'd use only the memory of colour to paint.

He toiled away in ferocious tempests to test his fortitude and his vision. You had to be five paces back to make out the cliffs and the windblown rain slamming down over everything inside the thick gilded frame.

I visualized the artist setting up his easel on treacherous slopes of the Normandy Coast. Braving winter gales to capture seascapes of mauves and greys where rocks jutted out of the choppy waters.

The painting was in crisis. It had cracks, many of them as long as the lines on the palm of my hand. Up close a red splotch on the right side of the painting became visible, in the middle of the stormy sea.

Like the generic yellow candy bar wrapper at the grocery store checkout—I couldn't pass the rack without seeing it—my eye was always drawn to that red mark on Monet's painting.

It struck me then that the dark spot in a family's tree didn't necessarily originate at the root but could germinate later on down the timeline. Who was to say some disorder didn't stem inside my sister's leaf? Viv was that tree in the park that looked from afar as if it was thriving—the yellows and greens, the golden glow—until you got closer and saw the fluorescent
X
spray-painted on the trunk.

I was ten thousand dollars short. I thought about going to the casino or learning the stock market, or finding a cheaper, illegal hospital that offered the same procedure. I thought about stealing from my own mother but couldn't figure out the logistics. I'd have asked Raven, but she was in debt. I couldn't ask Liam because I was frightened he'd fall back in with Viv. I also couldn't ask Liam because I didn't know where he was.

A visitor nearby dropped her change purse. Coins scattered, clinking like the bells on my sister's old costumes. The hard discs shone at my feet. In that moment, I knew where I had to go.