There Will Be Lies (37 page)

The whole thing is a light show, just for me.

I stand for a moment, just drinking it in.

You know how sometimes you’ve imagined something so many times, waited for it for so long, that it’s somehow about two thousand times more incredible than you ever thought; and at the same time it’s just like, oh, OK, that’s what it’s like?

Well, that.

Beautiful, isn’t it?
says (Mom).

Yes
, I say, which is true.

At the same time, it isn’t true. I mean, it’s so much bigger and more all-encompassing than the word ‘beautiful’ can possibly convey. Right where we’re standing, the land basically disappears, it literally takes the earth from beneath our feet, and then it doesn’t rise up again until the fricking HORIZON – there’s just this gap in the world, so monumentally big that it’s not even comprehensible as a canyon or a valley or whatever, or even really possible to take in with the eyes, without just dwelling on little bits of it.

I look down.

Just past our feet, the rock drops away, striped and striated with red, and below is a thin ribbon of blue river. Trees are growing down there. And then for miles and miles it’s these little sort of cones and towers of red rock, rippling, shaded dark and light, until you get to
the sheer red walls of the other side, which is very literally as far as the eye can see. In other words: all I can see is the canyon, and the sky, and so it’s filling the world, filling my vision. Everything is enormity and redness, of varying hues and shades, the whole thing like a painting by a madman with only a couple of colours in his paint set.

I mean, I’ve seen it before, on TV and in pictures. I knew roughly what it would be like. But I just had no idea how BIG it was, and it’s real, I mean, it’s not in the Dreaming or anything. When it’s on TV, it’s usually people talking about the forces that created it, the power of water and time to carry out such demolition, on such a colossal scale – which is kind of interesting, I guess, if it wasn’t already obvious from, I don’t know, the ocean that water can be intensely powerful. For me, though, looking at it – for me it’s not the way that it was made that’s interesting. It’s how it looks now – and what it means.

The way that the land is interrupted, like this

but then starts again, as if nothing had happened, in the same shapes and the same shades of red, only now higher, and rising into the mountains of Colorado.

It’s not a lesson in the force of water. It’s a lesson in endurance and continuity, a break in everything, a pause in the conversation of existence, and the thing about pauses is that they don’t last. That’s the lesson of the Grand Canyon. And OK, yeah, I read a lot and I know the word ‘caesura’. So sue me. And if you don’t know what it means, look it up.

Anyway, for quite a long time I just stand there and stare.

I feel like I’m hallucinating.

Like time has stopped.

Like I’m in a crack in the world.

A crack in time.

Then, suddenly, the moment is gone, and it’s just a load of red rock. I look down, and I think about the secret heart of the world, and how I always thought that by coming here, I could see what was below the surface, below the earth’s skin, and somehow understand something about it.

Do I see the secret?

No. I see a few tents, pitched by the ribbon of river. A donkey making its way down a snaking path below us, some tourist swaying on its back. There’s nothing. Nothing under the reality, under the rock, under the dust.

The world just ends, and then a few dozen miles away, it starts again. It’s a gap. That’s all. And, at the same time, that’s the whole point and meaning of it.

That things stop, fall away – and then rise up again.

And I’m not stupid, I get that this relates to me. That there’s been a crack in my life, of devastating force, but that doesn’t mean it can’t start again, miles away, in a slightly different way – mountains instead of desert, cold instead of warmth. But this isn’t anything I didn’t know already.

OK
, I say.
We can go
.

Yeah? Mexico?

I guess
.

She looks at me, then sweeps her hand, taking in the whole majesty and grandeur of this massive divide in the very earth with just one little gesture.
It isn’t what you expected?

I think for a moment.
It is
, I say.
But at the same time it isn’t
.

And again, you know – I could be talking about my life.

We fill up with gas at Grand Canyon Village and then drive back down on 68 and 180, like we’re coming out of some kind of ancient rite of passage ritual – forty days in the desert – and returning to the fold of mankind, of civilisation.

Coming down from the high places.

The sun is setting to our right – sunsets are amazing in the desert. Red light washes the flat horizon and the single squat mountain rising from it, pink clouds stretch forever in still-blue sky. Cacti catch fire, like torches, burning. Everything is colours that, if you painted them, would seem made up, stupid.

Looking at it, you could almost imagine that the Scotland (Mom) used to stitch was real too – those purple heathers, those emerald-green hills.

I lie back in my seat and just watch the sun go down, till there’s only a glow off there in the distance, like there’s a massive party, floodlit, going down just around the curve of the earth, and then the desert closes its vast eye and

BOOM

it’s night, like I said right at the start.

We have to pass through Flagstaff again – or rather by it, because
we don’t dare go into the town. We just follow the road south in the darkness, towards Phoenix and Mexico beyond. Retracing our steps. Revisiting the scene of the crimes. At one point we pass a police cruiser sitting in a side street, a cop in the front seat, and for like five minutes I’m convinced it’s going to follow us and run its siren, make us pull over, but it doesn’t.

It’s just gone, just dust, behind us. We’re outlaws, on the run. Why not? It’s not like I know who I am any more anyway.

Past Flagstaff we ease down, through greens and blues, back to the all-red palette of the desert, and then we pass through Phoenix and keep going south, on the wide highway through the low endless sand.

Pretty soon after that, (Mom) puts the heater on – it’s amazing how the warmth leaches out of the land as soon as the sun goes. It’s something to do with moisture in desert climates. Did I say that already?

Oh and I’m giving up on this (Mom) in parentheses thing. It looks weird. So from now on I’m going to just say Shaylene. OK?

A couple of hours past Phoenix and we’re deep in the desert now, well on the way to the Mexican border. I don’t know how we’re going to get through it without passports, but I figure Shaylene will think of something.

We need a motel
, she says as I am thinking this.
Just for tonight
.

I nod.

Watch out for a cheap one
, she says.
One where they won’t ask many questions
.

I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, but I scan the side of the road as we drive – a little town flies by, more like a village really, a couple of brightly lit gas stations. A chain motel, very modern, which doesn’t look right.

Then, maybe fifteen minutes later, I point. There’s a rundown place ahead, just off the highway, a broken blue neon sign on its roof that reads APACHE M T L, with a wooden picture of a Native American next to it, old-fashioned racist-style, with a tomahawk in his hand and a feathered headdress, for real.

Shaylene slows, signals, and swings the car off the road and into the cracked, weed-filled lot. There are lights on in some of the rooms of the two-storey, L-shaped motel, so apparently it’s open for business. Another neon sign, this one green, flickers above the door, and it says ROOMS $30. I can feel the vibrations running through me, from the cars flying past on the highway.

You stay in the car
, says Shaylene.
Your CAM thing
…

Yeah
, I say.
I get it
.

Shaylene goes inside. For a moment I think about getting out of the car, just hitching a ride south. But I wouldn’t even get to the side of the highway before Shaylene came out again, with my foot like this, and anyway, where would I go? There’s nowhere.

Five minutes later Shaylene comes back. She’s got a key in her hand – it’s hanging off a piece of wood with another cartoon Indian on it.
Second floor
, she says.
Number 22
.

She helps me out of the car, then slings a long bag, like a tennis bag, out of the back, and I follow her. The stairs are difficult; she puts a hand under my arm and I shrug her off. Then we walk along the little exposed corridor, like a long balcony, past a decaying shelf with some battered paperback novels on it, which I figure have been left behind by other people staying here, and a vending machine selling candy, to Room 22. From up here, there’s a clear view of the highway – it’s dark now and where the cars cross in front of us, it’s a bright zone of white sodium light, then on either side, trails of red dim into the night, as the cars speed away north and south.

I try to imagine what it must sound like, so much speed and light. But I can’t.

While I’m looking at the cars, Shaylene has unlocked the door, and she taps my arm to tell me to go in. The room is like something out of an old movie – woodchip door; brown blanket on the bed, black hairs on it; cracked mirror; dirty curtains. A fan slowly paddling the thick, sluggish warm air. And a Gideon Bible on the nightstand. You can feel everything very slightly vibrating with the passing vehicles.

I gaze around the room. It’s gross! And there are probably roaches! But still, it’s better than the nice clean new condo in Flagstaff where the Watsons were staying, where I could be right now … I bite my lip. I’ve made my choice. I peer into the bathroom – there’s an avocado-coloured tub, stained yellow inside. The kind of shower curtain people get stabbed through, in movies.

Shaylene turns on the TV. A couple of anchors are talking, sitting at a desk with fake scripts in front of them, and then it cuts from the studio to a picture of me, taken in the FBI office, next to a driver’s licence photo of Shaylene.

She turns it off again.

Well
, says Shaylene.

Well
, I say.

If I could make everything right I would
, she says.

I have literally no idea how to reply to this. Shaylene has sat down on the edge of the bed and I am still standing in the middle of the room, in the slow wake of the fan. The thin curtains vibrate with the passing traffic.

I wanted a baby so badly
, she says.

And they had several
, I say.

Yes. It seemed so unfair, and I
–

It seemed unfair that they had kids and you didn’t, so you took one of theirs? Like it was freaking arithmetic? That’s the moral attitude of a crack addict
.

It was a moment of madness
, she says.

But you planned for it. You were wearing a nurse’s uniform
.

She shrugs. She can hardly deny it.

I know what I did was wrong
, she says.
To your parents
–

What about me?
I say.

What do you mean?

This is a question so big it encompasses the universe, who I am,
everything. I sit down on the floor.
You took away reality
, I say.
I mean, before, I knew who I was. Who you were. I knew that I read books and you stitched, and we watched TV with the closed captions on, and every Friday we would have ice cream for dinner. I knew you were my teacher. You taught me sign. You taught me to read and write, and to type faster than any secretary. You kept me safe. I knew everything about you. I knew you liked the smell of lavender but not the smell of vanilla. I knew YOU WERE MY MOM
.

I’m still
–

Still my mom? Please
.

She sighs.
I was going to say, I’m still the person who did those things
.

A tear begins to roll down her cheek. She looks shrunken, like a fruit that has dried up inside, making the skin collapse on itself.
I knew it was wrong
, she says.
I wanted to undo it, right away. Take you back. But I knew they’d arrest me. I hated myself. But then … then I was fixing you dinner and I dropped a spoon, and you smiled. And I fell in love
.

Just like that?

Just like that. And so quick, I knew you were smart. I could see it right away – the way you looked at things, the way when I mentioned a car, a tree, whatever, you would look towards it. I could just see what you could accomplish, if only you could communicate. Because of course you couldn’t speak and you didn’t know what I was saying. So I started to teach you sign. And if I wasn’t totally in love before, I was then
.

Why?

Because of you. Because of your soul. Your personality. You were just amazing. You talked about everything. Animals, bubbles, the
moon – I’d take you out in your stroller, and you’d point up at the sky and make the sign for moon, and I’d say, don’t be silly, it’s daytime, but then I’d look up and I’d see it, this pale crescent. You were always right. If you said you saw something, you saw it. You used to ask me for hugs. Can you imagine that? You’d be watching TV, and then you’d turn to me and say, hug, and you’d get up and run over with your arms out. I don’t know. I can’t explain. And you can’t imagine it. Maybe one day, when you have a kid of your own. You were just … you were like an open window. With light on the other side
.

I just look at her.

I knew your birthday
, she says.
And I didn’t want to change it. Maybe six months after I … took you, it was your third. I made a chocolate cake – that was your favourite. You always said, I want brown cake. So I made it, and we did the candles, and we ate cake. Just the two of us. You had chocolate all over your face. We were both stuffed. But then you asked for more. I said, OK, and I got the fork and took a little piece, and said, here’s a little bit. And you looked me dead in the eyes, and you didn’t even pause, and you said, no. A big bit. And then you just smiled and smiled
.