Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather (8 page)

The moment Julie’s taxi pulled away she noticed the man lying on the steps of the house opposite, but in the dark she could not see who it was. She opened the door to her apartment and
switched on the light in the hall. Warily, she turned around. She heard the weeping and gave a sigh of disgust.

‘There’s no point coming over here to cry, go back to your wife!’

Meow!

She raised her eyes heavenwards.

‘Don’t go trying the cat trick on me either. Leave that to the kids!’

Meow!

‘Brutus?’

Meow!

‘Right, give me back my cat!’

Julie saw that the man had not moved.

‘Look, I’m tired, give me a break . . . No one showed up. I didn’t even make a hundred bucks, and my patience is at the absolute limit.’

As she went closer she could see her kitten on the man’s lap; his head was down and he was still weeping.

‘Come on, give me Brutus, then go home and get some sleep!’

Boris, who had only just realised that Julie was speaking to him, looked up at last. Julie stopped short, feeling foolish.

‘I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else . . .’

‘I wish I were someone else.’

You never get men crying in strip clubs. In fact, Julie had never seen a man cry. She was always the one crying. She reached out for Brutus, but he stayed curled on Boris’s lap, although
Boris hadn’t done anything to keep him there.

‘It looks like he doesn’t want to leave you on your own.’

‘Is he yours? He must be cold.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not all right.’

‘What’s wrong? Did someone break your heart?’

‘My fish are going to die . . .’

As he spoke, Boris could not suppress a huge sob. Although she did have a kind heart, Julie was flabbergasted that a man could cry over a bunch of fish.

‘You really love them that much?’

For a moment Boris seemed to emerge from his sorrow. He grew thoughtful.

‘Without them, my life will have no meaning.’

Broken hearts were Julie’s speciality. She didn’t know you could cry over a few fish but, in the end, the only real friends she had were her three cats.

‘If you want, I can keep them at my place.’

‘I can’t leave them alone.’

Julie smiled: of course. Another girl trap.

‘It’s not what you think. The water mustn’t drop below thirty-two degrees. I have to submit my dissertation in June. My knot theory is a mathematical revolution. I’m
nearly there . . . I don’t want to lose everything!’

Giving one last sniff, Boris Bogdanov dried his tears with the back of his hand and stared at Julie. He looked so pure, so honest. And even if his cheekbones were a bit too prominent, like all
Slavs, he had a certain exotic charm. She’d never seen anyone like him at Sex Paradisio. She didn’t understand a word he was saying about these mathematical fish. She just wanted to
believe him, and hoped he wasn’t lying to her.

‘How many fish have you got?’

‘Four little ones.’

‘Is your aquarium very big?’

‘It’s average . . .’

‘What’s average, in your opinion?’

Boris Bogdanov merely spread his arms, removing roughly sixty centimetres from the actual length of his aquarium. Julie thought it seemed awfully small to accommodate four fish, but she was
moved by her neighbour’s unhappy situation.

‘Just one night, then, because I’m expecting some guests soon. I warn you, you stay on the sofa and behave yourself. I’m armed and I’ve done three years of
self-defence!’

Boris Bogdanov leaped to his feet. Brutus wasn’t expecting this and went flying. Like any self-respecting cat he landed on his paws, but slid across the ice. He quickly steadied himself,
then ran across the road and, without a meow, straight through the open door into his mistress’s house. He was greeted by two unfriendly meows: he was still not welcome on the sofa.

Julie didn’t even have time to demonstrate a single self-defence movement: leaping to his feet, Boris Bogdanov threw himself on her and embraced her in a manly, very Slavic manner, patting
her warmly on the back as if he would never stop.

‘All right, fine, I see you’re happy . . . Go on! Go and get your fish.’

Boris bounded up the steps to his place four at a time and went straight to the sitting room. He stared for a moment at his four fish, swimming in pairs. He plunged the thermometer into the
water: twenty-three degrees! Not only did his fish risk forgetting their trajectories forever, they were now bound for the great beyond, even as they continued to weave their knots. He had to save
them!

Boris spread his arms to pick up the aquarium. It wouldn’t budge an inch. There was far too much water in it, and too many stones at the bottom. He grabbed the saucepan and dipped it in
the aquarium, then ran to empty it in the toilet. After a few trips he faced the bitter truth that this manoeuvre would take hours. At this rate his four little treasures would end up frozen. There
was only one thing left to do. He grabbed his fishing net.

Boom ba-dah boom!
on the stairs.

Still sprawled on the sofa, lost in a dream, Alexis didn’t budge. Alex was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, enjoying every moment.

‘
Je . . . t’ai . . . bébé
. . .’

Boris Bogdanov pounded on Julie’s door. It had taken him over half an hour to catch his four fish. In any group there’s always one that doesn’t want to follow the others. When
Julie opened the door, she was wearing her red bathrobe, the collar carefully wrapped high around her neck. She had just got out of bed.

‘I didn’t think you were going to come after all!’

She saw the saucepan in Boris’s hand and the four fish wiggling around in a terrible knot.

‘That’s very kind of you but I’ve had dinner already.’

Boris Bogdanov had never had much of a sense of humour, and even less so in the presence of his four little treasures who were swimming their hearts out in their iron coffin.

‘Can I see your bathroom?’

‘Dream on . . .’

‘It’s for the fish!’

Julie felt a bit sheepish. She pointed down the hallway. Without a glance or a thank you, Boris Bogdanov ran to it and locked himself in.
Slam!
Julie opened a cupboard and took out a
blanket, which she left on the sofa, careful not to disturb the two cats sleeping there. Then she went up to the bathroom door.

‘I’ve left a blanket for you on the sofa. Don’t think you can sleep anywhere else, otherwise you’ll wake up in the emergency room!’

‘
Da!
Thank you very much!’

‘The towels are under the sink.’

‘
Da!
Thank you very much!’

‘Where are your fish?’

‘They’re here with me.’

‘Can I see them? They were all on top of each other in the saucepan.’

‘
Nyet!
I’m too busy!’

Astonished, Julie reached for the doorknob. She thought for a moment of turning it and going in without warning. This was her house, after all. But this intrusion, so totally unexpected and
unlike anything she’d ever experienced, was a change from her usual routine. It was about life, and where there’s life, there’s hope. She went to her bedroom and looked out of the
window at the falling ice. Yes, the ice storm had completely emptied Sex Paradisio, something unheard of in that world of men who love girls, but she wasn’t sorry. There were other things in
life besides money.

Day was breaking and Julie hadn’t managed to get to sleep. From the bathroom there came a continuous sound of water running, then stopping, then running again. For the
first thirty minutes or so she figured it must be the unexpected, unique nature of the event that was keeping her awake. There was something of a lullaby about it. But even the sweetest refrains,
if they’re repeated too often, will get stuck in your head and become unbearable.

‘It’s time to calm this mathematician down!’

Forgetting to put on her bathrobe, Julie rushed into the hallway, wearing nothing but her fine, see-through nightie. She flung open the bathroom door without knocking. This was her house, after
all!

‘Now you and your fish, you are going—’

‘
Shh!
’

Boris accompanied his command by putting his finger to his lips. Without knowing why, Julie obeyed. He was on his knees facing the bath, surrounded by flannels and scribbled sheets of papers
strewn everywhere, and he motioned to her to come closer. She froze for an instant. Her short nightie wasn’t hiding a thing. Boris wasn’t looking at her, though.

‘Come and see, in the bath.’

Julie obediently knelt down. From behind, the scene was one of torrid indecency. Julie’s bare buttocks bounced next to Boris’s worn jeans. When she leaned forward to peer into the
water, her breasts nearly burst out of the thin material of the nightie – but Boris did not notice a thing, preoccupied as he was with his makeshift aquarium. At the bottom of the bath where
the plug should have been there was a face flannel. One hundred and nineteen centilitres drained through the cloth per minute. By maintaining a fine trickle of water from the tap at forty-two
degrees, at a steady volume, Boris had succeeded in the incredible challenge of keeping the temperature of the water at a constant thirty-two degrees.

‘It’s all written on here!’

Julie took the sheet the Russian genius handed to her, but she hardly looked at it. Thermal equations, with face flannels thrown in, weren’t really her thing. But she did marvel at the
sight of the fish swimming in her bath. It was one of the most beautiful things she’d seen in a long time. Even Brutus thought it was a pretty sight. He’d managed to jump up on the sink
to watch the aquatic performance. Julie pointed to one of the fish.

‘What’s his name, the green one with orange stripes?’

‘Number One.’

Boris paid no attention to her bare leg as he reached under her knee for a little pad of paper. He turned back to the bath, flipped over a few pages and stopped at a drawing where the basic
trajectories of each of the fish were pencilled in different colours. He pointed to the path drawn in green and dotted with orange.

‘That’s him!’

Leaning into the bath, his face practically in the water, Boris followed Number One’s progression for a long time. Then he turned to the trajectories of Number Two and Number Three. He
finished with a meticulous observation of Number Four. He placed his hands against the edge of the bath to push himself up. Julie turned to him. He did the same, his eyes popping out, and
instinctively she covered her breasts. He quickly turned back to the water.

‘Look! Look! They’re all on track again!’

Boris grabbed Julie’s bare shoulders with his manly hands. He shook them unrestrainedly, causing his charming hostess’s breasts to bounce so vigorously that a wardrobe malfunction
nearly ensued. But she let him shake her – he wasn’t even looking that way. His big blue eyes were staring intensely at her face.

‘It’s a miracle!’

Tuesday, 6 January 1998

CAN THINGS LIKE THIS REALLY HAPPEN?

‘Don’t tell them you did it, otherwise they’ll strangle you!’

A Hydro-Québec truck had just stopped in front of us. The two men in the cab, their eyes red, their faces drawn, were eating a sandwich while they looked at the long list of places they
still had to go to. It started me thinking. Not Alex, though.

‘You see that? With their messy hair they look like Gremlins!’

Maybe they had kids who were sad they couldn’t be with them. Maybe their wives had made dinner but they didn’t have time to go home. I remembered the images I’d seen on the
news at noon. They showed these enormous electricity pylons collapsing under the weight of the ice. ‘
It is unlikely that the situation will improve, since freezing rain has been forecast
for the entire day tomorrow. Nearly seven hundred thousand households are now without power . . .
’

Including my dad. He had called that morning to tell us about his day, but mainly to inform us that the generator was holding up.

‘But you should see the way it guzzles gas. I had to go to the gas station twice!’

He was not the only one going to fill up his jerry can for his generator. The gas station manager had had to step in. People were shoving, squabbling.

‘No more than twenty litres per person!’

Then my dad told us how these two Hells Angels showed up on their bikes, in spite of the icy roads. They weren’t afraid of anything, but everyone was afraid of them, especially the
manager.

‘Twenty cans of twenty litres? Sure, no problem, I understand your plants have to keep warm to grow!’

Dad didn’t tell them he was with the police.

‘There were two of them. I was all on my own, with nothing more than a jerry can for a weapon . . . An empty one, to boot.’

After my dad hung up, my mum didn’t really try and talk to me. I think the discussion the night before had tired her out a bit.

‘I have so much homework to correct!’

This was good timing. It meant I could go and meet Alex. He told me about his night without power. I could have taken him to our place, just so that he could have a shower, but I was a coward. I
didn’t want him to see my new life. And besides, he didn’t ask for a shower.

‘You know that guy upstairs from me, he goes over to the neighbour’s to get laid.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘He was making so much noise up there that he woke me up.’

‘If he was making noise upstairs, then he was upstairs, not across the way.’

‘I saw him go into her place with a saucepan.’

‘A saucepan?’

‘He made some little dish for her.’

‘In the middle of the night?’