Empire of Wild Page 3

  Joan slipped into her sneakers by the front door and edged out, carefully turning the latch and easing the door shut behind her. She felt lighter leaving the burden of young and old relatives behind, lighter and without boundaries. It was scary to feel this weightless, to be this unheld. She slid behind the wheel and lit a cigarette, cranking the window down, then backed out of the driveway as quick as she could.

  The early evening air was warm enough for bare limbs, the sky streaked with uneven slashes of orange and pink like a child had mashed a fistful of highlighters into a blue wall and run down the hallway. Kids screamed and laughed from cottage backyards, fearless. Two teenage girls from Arcand were walking on the side of the road, sharing a smoke between them. Joan raised her hand to return their shy waves. Everywhere she looked she saw not-Victor. Victor was not in line to leave the marina. He was not at the pumping station refilling the water jugs with drinking water. He was not part of the crew repairing the heritage barn that had half burnt down last month, its old planks crumbling to ash in the heat of young fire.

  She smoked slowly, leaned back in the seat, the picture of someone taking a leisurely drive around the Bay into town. Even still, she was tempted to veer off the road at Concession 5 and crash into the wide oak at the corner, smashing her chest to bits. Because inside the dark of her thin body, her heart was beating against bone like a wing trying to find the sky. It would be a small mercy to grant its release.

  2

  THE RESURRECTION

  Joan was so hung over she thought she might still be drunk. She’d left Travis on his couch, curled around a half-empty box of wine, with his phone on the coffee table where it had sat all night just in case Joseph had a change of heart. It wasn’t the best way to be at noon on a Monday, deathly hung over, walking across a Walmart parking lot under a sun like a spot rubbed clean and thin on the sky. But she needed coffee and food before attempting to drive home, and this place was the closest spot to Travis’s apartment where she could find both.

  In front of her, a freckled child came out through the sliding glass doors with a jumbo freezie in his red fist and pointed. “Mom, look, a circus!” Joan turned and saw a tent in the corner of the lot. At first she thought it must be one of those sad carnivals that pop up in small towns for no real reason or occasion. But there were no sketchy rides or rickety game booths around it. And the tent was just white, with no flags or signs or colour. The prospect of cold cuts eaten straight out of the package in an air-conditioned aisle was a powerful incentive to keep going. But a low, thick hum—from some joyful machine?—was escaping through the gaps between cloth and asphalt. She couldn’t resist.

  As she walked across the lot, the tent seemed a mirage wavering just past the shopping carts scattered like camels in the desert. It took forever. She grew dizzy in the bright heat and thought she should at least have grabbed a bottle of water.

  She was almost there when the humming stopped, breaking off into a dozen individual voices, then winking out one by one. Before she could push aside the canvas flaps, they opened and a wave of people poured out, breaking around her, then curving back to a single stream in the concrete sea. She stood still while they passed, holding her nausea in place. There were a lot of people, and none of them were carnival-boisterous.

  Being surrounded by all these good, sober souls reminded Joan that, at the moment, she was neither. She shouldn’t have hung out with Travis. She’d been partying too much lately. It was the only way she knew to fill up the hollow hours when she wasn’t searching.

  As the herd thinned, she deked around the last of them and into the shade of the tent. No smell of popcorn or cotton candy or animal shit, just a soft undertone of summer sweat and fresh sawed wood. The tent was much bigger than it looked from the outside. The ceiling was high enough to be forgotten. Hundreds of folding white chairs went on forever, one after the other like crocodile teeth. At the front was a low wooden stage holding a simple podium and a wooden cross about nine feet high, painted white and barbed with clear Christmas lights. It was crisp in here, all shades of pale with clean corners at ninety degrees. The only thing out of place was a high-backed armchair on stage, upholstered in pallid green velvet. It seemed a mistake, like it had been put down for a moment on the way to somewhere else and forgotten. It was soft folds of mould on smooth white fondant.

  When she realized she’d wandered into some kind of old-timey revival tent, Joan put her hand over her mouth and giggled, turning on one red Converse to take in all the weirdness. Suddenly the white walls and carpeted runner leading up to the stage, even the folding chairs, seemed unusual and singular, like weapons from a dead civilization displayed in a museum.

  Shit, why hadn’t she brought her cousin? Travis would have loved this. The scene was so strange it begged to be shared. She took her phone from the back pocket of her jean shorts and started filming.

  A voice entered the tent, just behind her. “Excuse me, miss. Can I help you?”

  She turned to find a pleasant-looking kid, about twenty-five, clean-shaven with blond hair parted on one side with such fierce exactness a ruler had to be involved. He smiled big and genuine, and Joan felt ashamed of her small mockery and shoved her phone back in her pocket.

  “I was just curious. I was, uh, walking to the store there and saw the tent.” She pulled a fallen bra strap up over her shoulder and hastily tucked in the wrinkled back of her tank top.

  “So you were drawn in, were you?” He clasped his hands in front of his khakis, still smiling like his life depended on it. His angles, too, were all ninety degrees. The sun muscling in through the open canvas flap behind silhouetted him beatifically.

  “Uh yes, I mean, no. I was just curious.” She laughed nervously, making her way around him in two steps, heading for the exit. “Guess I’m just a cat that way. Not that you’re gonna kill me or anything, uh, ha ha…You know, curiosity and the cat…”

  “Well, we’re done for the day. But I have good news.” As she turned politely back to him, he threw his hands up and spread his fingers to demonstrate the reach of such good news, opening his eyes almost as wide. “We don’t head out of town until tomorrow evening. Perhaps I could interest you in one of tomorrow’s sermons?”

  “No, no. I’m okay.” She touched a palm to one cheek as if to make the assessment physical. She turned away and stepped out of the cool shadows of the tent into the glare and uneven geometry of the world.

  And then she heard him.

  “Jonathan, we good to start stacking chairs?”

  She looked back and, over the smiling blond’s shoulder, a second person came into focus standing on the stage: a man in a black suit and grey fedora in this improbable heat, his red bow tie the colour of shock and murder. He lowered himself into the armchair, unbuttoned his suit jacket and slouched into the comfort of the cushions.

  If her heart was a song, someone smashed the bass drum and pulled all the strings off the guitar. Notes fell like hail, plinking into the soft basket of her guts.

  She didn’t know she’d fallen until her knees jabbed her. She tried to stand and they spit out gravel and a small piece of glass. Blood trickled down her shins, fast and thin. She folded again, right back onto her raw knees.

  “Miss, are you okay?” The blond was over her, reaching out to help her up, the earnest smile gone.

  “I’m, uh, yes I’m okay, Jonathan.” Fuck, she was dizzy. How did she know what this guy was called? Then she remembered the other man had said his name in her husband’s voice. “Victor?” She blinked hard to make her eyes work, searching the blurry expanse for him. She used Jonathan’s offered arm to pull herself to her feet.

  “Ma’am, I think you maybe fainted? Maybe we should get an ambulance. Those knees are bleeding pretty bad.” He didn’t seem equipped to deal with this kind of non-religious crisis. A knee wasn’t a spiritual thing unless it was being used to balance on in prayer.

  Her head was swimming with impossibilities and stale booze. She pushed him out of th
e way, teetering the few steps back into the tent.

  “Victor, where are you?” she called, as her eyes adjusted to the dark cool.

  “I’m Jonathan, ma’am, not Victor. There is no Victor in our mission.”

  But the man who was Victor came down the aisle and stepped into the light streaming through the open doorway, his beautiful face illuminated like Jesus himself. Joan sobbed, once—a big gulp.

  He removed his hat, revealing hair cut close at the sides and wavy on top.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “All your hair.”

  Holding his hat to his chest with one hand, he reached out slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, to touch her forehead. She felt that connection like electricity and her eyes fluttered. For a moment it was a perfect portrait of healing; the good preacher laying hands on the weak and ill, the latter swooning under his holy touch, the glowing cross in the background.

  “She’s a bit warm. Let’s get her into a chair.” He called over his shoulder, “Bring some water, Cecile, will you please?”

  Joan was laughing now, delirious, relieved. “Where have you been?” She threw herself into his arms. “Oh my god, Victor, I almost didn’t make it.”

  He gently shifted her away from him, patting her arms until they were back by her own sides. “You’re going to be just fine now. We’ll just get you situated there and get some water into you.” He placed one hand on her back and guided her to a chair at the end of an aisle. He took a knee in front of her, concern on his handsome face. Her eyes pinballed from mouth to eyes to newly shorn hair.

  She reached out to search the planes and hollows of his face, and he pulled back, just out of range. What was wrong with him?

  A woman scurried over with a bottle of water. She put a hand on Victor’s arm to get his attention, her yellow braid hanging over her shoulder as she smiled into his face.

  “Thank you so much, Cecile.” His tone was kind, familiar.

  Joan noticed how their hands overlapped for a second on the cool plastic of the bottle, and jealousy stitched humiliation into her muscles with quick, sharp loops. She only realized how close she was to anger when she was shouting at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Cecile and Jonathan, in their matched khaki pants reeking of innocence and clean laundry, each took a step back. Cecile even placed one hand at her collarbone as if there were a set of pearls to be clutched.

  “We are serving the Lord, sister. We are here because He sees fit to bring us here.” The Reverend’s voice was all chrome and shine, no recognition in his vacant eyes.

  “Sister?” Joan shouted, standing so fast she had to grab the seat back in front of her to stay upright. She leaned toward him so she could speak directly into his face: “What the fuck, Victor? I’m not your goddamn sister. Where have you been? It’s been almost a year!”

  Being this close to him made her whole body react. Lust elbowed rage out of the way, then slipped on the slick cold of relief. She was wrong—this was a carnival, a fun house, everything ugly and exaggerated.

  Her legs gave and she sat back down. When he crouched in front of her, holding out the bottle of water, she wrapped her arms around him as tight as they would go. She pushed her face into his neck and breathed deep. Even though her nose was right up against his pulse, she could feel that something was still draped between his skin and hers. She couldn’t pull him close enough, and then he was grabbing at her too, that sweet pressure of his fingers. Except he wasn’t. He set his hands on either side of her ribcage and pushed her back into the chair. He picked up the bottle he’d dropped and settled it in her lap. Then he knelt in front of her again, at a distance.

  “Miss, I really think you’re confused. Perhaps too much sun or too much of a good time?”

  Shame hit her hard in the chest. Of course, she stank like a brewery. Probably looked like death warmed over too. Was he trying to disown her, the drunken halfbreed? Maybe because he was with his new blonde girlfriend? Anger punched her again.

  “And who’s this bitch, then?” Twisting the cap off the water bottle, she pointed with her lips at the woman he’d called Cecile. She eyed the girl, who showed no fear on her face, only a kind of pity that hurt Joan more. She downed half the water in one long shot. Then she collected herself enough to say, “Is she why you never came home?”

  “Cecile,” he said, “I think we really do need to call that ambulance—and right away.” And off she went.

  “Look,” the man pretending to be not-Victor said, “we’re just trying to help you, Miss…?”

  “Joan, I’m Joan.”

  A brief light showed in his eyes and then was gone.

  “I’m Joan. Your wife. Are you kidding me?” Tears gathered in her arid skull.

  As she saw his confusion melt into practised pity, she finally realized he really didn’t know who she was. Either that, or he was going for a fucking Emmy. He put a hand on her shoulder and, despite the familiar weight of it, there was no electricity this time. It was a dead connection. It was the most she’d felt in eleven months and one week—this devastating absence.

  “I’d better go get Mr. Heiser,” he said. “You stay here with her, Jonathan, please.”

  The Reverend turned and fled, slipping through a fold in the canvas near the back of the tent. Joan looked up at Jonathan, who gave her a tight smile, then down at her hands, still holding the water. She felt herself teetering between giving chase and crumpling to the floor. What the fuck was going on?

  “I hear we have an issue out here.” A clear voice cut the room. From the same slit where the Reverend had made his escape, a shorter man emerged.

  His blue suit bore a subtle stripe and his pant cuffs hit his brogues crisply. His shoes clicked on the false floor like fingers snapping a simple military rhythm. His narrow tie and pocket square were both daffodil yellow, a colour that brought out the gold hue of his eyes, deep-set below groomed brows.

  As he came toward her he extended his right arm to check the time on a wide gold watch. In the shift of fabric, Joan saw dark hair dense on his too-white skin. He met her eye and then smiled with so much sharp in it, something in Joan reacted like she’d taken a punch with the promise of more.

  “Hello, there. I’m Thomas Heiser,” the man said. “What can we do for you?”

  Joan held her breath to stop a scream from rolling out. Her bladder pinched. Her stomach hitched up. It was clear her body wanted to flee.

  Victor, she reminded her heart.

  Victor, she scolded her feet.

  We need to stay for Victor.

  “I want to see my husband.”

  The man called Heiser put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “Why don’t you give us a moment, please? See if the Reverend needs any help.”

  Jonathan hesitated.

  “We’ll be fine. The cavalry is en route and I can manage here. Go. Now.”

  He gave the boy a pat that sent him speed walking to the tent opening. There was such a bright flash of sun, she had to make a visor out of her hand to shield her eyes, and then the boy was gone and she was alone with Mr. Heiser.

  He said, “Have you been doing any recreational drugs I should know about before the ambulance arrives?” In the moment she’d been distracted, he had taken a seat in the folding chair in front of her and was leaning close.

  “Are you being serious right now? I know my own husband. Get him for me now.” Something about the way he looked at her with those light eyes made her shift her gaze to her hands. “Please.”

  He placed a hand on her arm and she flinched. It seemed like she could feel the whorls of his fingerprints on her bare skin. He smelled wrong too. Like milk. “Your husband isn’t here,” he said, and moved his eyes around her face as he tilted his head one way and then the other. He squeezed her arm a little, then let go. “Your husband is dead.”

  She stood so quickly light burst behind her eyes. “No.” She shook her head as she backed away from him and into the aisle.

  “He’s dea
d and you are losing your mind because of it.” The man still wore that same sharp smile.

  Why was he saying this? How could he know? Her thoughts were muddy and her chest hurt. She leaned over and threw up the water she’d just drunk in a puddle by the man’s feet. He didn’t even move out of the way.

  She swiped at her wet lips with the back of her hand, looking up at him. “He’s here. I saw him!”

  He shrugged. “He most certainly is not here.”

  “Who are you?”

  He gave a small laugh and calmly sat.

  She screamed, the way she had wanted to when he first walked toward her on those clicking shoes. She pulled at her hair. Such grief and confusion demanded movement so she walked in short bursts, glancing at Heiser when she could manage it. He remained in the folding chair, watching her as if she were part of a play. How could he say those things to her? What did he mean?

  Nothing made sense. She was insane. Or he was insane. There was humming in the room again or maybe just in her head. She launched herself at him, grabbing his jacket. “Go get him! Get him now!”

  Then the paramedics arrived in the company of a single policeman who detangled her from the man. The paramedics sat her down in a chair and listened to her heart, looked into her eyes with a small light and stuck a thermometer in her ear. They informed her and the man in the yellow tie that her heart rate was elevated and that she was severely dehydrated. They asked them both if she normally suffered panic attacks.

  Joan yelled, “Don’t talk to him. He doesn’t know me. And he’s a fucking liar!”

  Heiser opened his eyes wide like he was shocked and then he led the officer away, leaning in to talk. The medics urged her onto a gurney and asked for permission to start an IV. She nodded, needing something, anything. The fluid dripped cold and steady. It made her think she had to count, which she did, whispering, “twenty-eight…twenty-nine…thirty…” before she felt her muscles unclench. She closed her eyes for a minute. Just to get herself together.

  * * *