7

DURING THE DRIVE MY EMOTIONS DID ACROBATICS. IT HAD TURNED dark, but the city was fully lit. Apartment windows glowed softly in the east end neighborhood surrounding the SQ building, and here and there a television flickered blue light into the summer night. People sat on balconies and stoops, clustered in chairs dragged outside for summer curtain calls. They talked and sipped cold drinks, having piloted the thick heat of afternoon into the renewing cool of evening.

I coveted their quiet domesticity, just wanted to go home, share a tuna sandwich with Birdie, and sleep. I wanted Gabby to be all right, but I wanted her to take a taxi home. I dreaded dealing with her hysteria. I felt relief at hearing from her. Fear for her safety. Annoyance at having to go into the Main. It was not a good mix.

I took Ren #233; L #233;vesque to St. Laurent and hung a right, turning my back on Chinatown. That neighborhood was closing for the night, the last of the shop owners packing up their crates and display bins and dragging them inside.

The Main sprawled ahead of me, stretching north from Chinatown along Boulevard St. Laurent. The Main is a close-packed quarter of small shops, bistros, and cheap caf #233;s, with St. Laurent as its main commercial artery. From there it radiates out into a network of narrow, back streets packed with cramped, low-rent housing. Though French in temperament, the Main has always been a polycultural mosaic, a zone in which the languages and ethnic identities coexist but fail to blend, like the distinct smells that waft from its dozens of shops and bakeries. The Italians, the Portuguese, the Greeks, the Poles, and the Chinese cluster in enclaves along St. Laurent as it climbs its way from the port to the mountain.

The Main was once Montreal?s principal switching station for immigrants, the newcomers attracted by the cheap housing and the comforting proximity of fellow countrymen. They settled there to learn the ways of Canada, each group of rookies banding together to ease its disorientation, and to buoy its confidence in the face of an alien culture. Some learned French and English, prospered, and moved on. Others stayed, either because they preferred the security of the familiar, or because they lacked the ability to get out. Today this nucleus of conservatives and losers is joined by an assortment of dropouts and predators, by a legion of the powerless, discarded by society, and by those who prey on them. Outsiders come to the Main in search of many things: wholesale bargains, cheap dinners, drugs, booze, and sex. They come to buy, to gawk, to laugh, but they don?t stay.

Ste. Catherine forms the southern boundary of the Main. Here I turned right, and pulled to the curb where Gabby and I had sat almost three weeks before. It was earlier now, and the hookers were just beginning to divvy up their patches. The bikers hadn?t arrived.

Gabby must have been watching. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, she was already halfway across the street, running, her briefcase clutched to her chest. Though her terror wasn?t enough to launch her into full flight, her fear was evident. She ran in the manner of adults long estranged from the unfettered gallop of childhood, her long legs slightly bent, her head lowered, her shoulder bag swinging in rhythm to her stilted stride.

She circled the car, got in, and sat with eyes closed, chest heaving. She was obviously struggling for composure, clenching her hands tightly in an attempt to stop the trembling. I?d never seen her like this and it frightened me. Gabby had always had a flare for the dramatic as she threaded her way through perpetual crises, both real and imagined, but nothing had ever undone her to this extent before.

For a few moments I said nothing. Though the night was warm, I felt a chill, and my breathing became thin and shallow. Outside on the street, horns blared and a hooker cajoled a passing car. Her voice rode the summer evening like a toy plane, rising and falling in loops and spirals.

?Let?s go.?

It was so quiet I almost missed it. D #233;j #224; vu.

?Do you want to tell me what?s going on?? I asked.

She raised a hand as if to ward off a scolding. It trembled, and she placed it flat against her chest. From across the car I could sense the fear. Her body was warm with the smell of sandalwood and perspiration.

?I will. I will. Just give me a minute.?

?Don?t jerk me around, Gabby,? I said, more harshly than I?d intended.

?I?m sorry. Let?s just get the hell out of here,? she said, dropping her head into her hands.

All right, we?d follow her script. She?d have to calm down and tell me in her own way. But tell me she would.

?Home?? I asked.

She nodded, never taking her face from her hands. I started the car and headed for Carr #233; St. Louis. When I arrived at her building she still hadn?t spoken. Though her breathing had steadied, her hands still shook. They had resumed their clasping and unclasping, clutching each other, separating, then linking once again in an odd dance of panic. The choreography of terror.

I put the car in park and killed the engine, dreading the encounter that was to come. I?d counseled Gabby through calamities of health, parental conflict, academics, faith, self-esteem, and love. I?d always found it draining. Invariably, the next time I?d see her, she?d be cheerful and unruffled, the catastrophe forgotten. It wasn?t that I was unsympathetic, but I?d been down this route with Gabby many times before. I remembered the pregnancy that wasn?t. The stolen wallet that turned up beneath the couch cushions. Nevertheless, the intensity of her reaction disturbed me. Much as I longed for solitude, she didn?t look as if she should be alone.

?Would you like to stay with me tonight??

She didn?t answer. Across the square an old man arranged a bundle under his head and settled onto a bench for the night.

The silence stretched for so long I thought she hadn?t heard. I turned, about to repeat the invitation, and found she was staring intently in my direction. The jittery movements of a moment ago had been replaced by absolute stillness. Her spine was rigid, and her upper body angled forward, barely touching the seat back. One hand lay in her lap, the other was curled into a fist pressed tightly to her lips. Her eyes squinted, the lower lids quivering almost imperceptibly. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind, considering variables and calculating outcomes. The sudden mood swing was unnerving.

?You must think I?m crazy.? She was totally calm, her voice low and modulated.

?I?m confused.? I didn?t say what I really thought.

?Yeah. That?s a kind way to put it.?

She said it with a self-deprecating laugh, slowly shaking her head. The dreadlocks flopped.

?I guess I really freaked back there.?

I waited for her to go on. A car door slammed. The low, melancholy voice of a sax floated from the park. An ambulance whined in the distance. Summer in the city.

In the dark, I felt, more than saw, Gabby?s focus alter. It was as if she?d taken a road up to me, then veered off at the last minute. Like a lens on automatic, her eyes readjusted to something beyond me, and she seemed to seal herself off again. She was having another session with herself, running through her options, deciding what face to wear.

?I?ll be okay,? she said, gathering her briefcase and bag, and reaching for the handle. ?I really appreciate your coming for me.?

She?d decided on evasive.

Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was the stress of the last few days. Whatever. I lost it.

?Wait just a minute!? I exploded. ?I want to know what?s going on! An hour ago you were talking about someone wanting to kill you! You come sprinting out of that restaurant and across the street, shaking and gasping like the goddamn Night Stalker?s on your tail! You can?t breathe, your hands are jerking like they?re wired for high voltage, and now you?re just going to sail out of here with a ?Thank you very much for the ride,? without any explanation??