Snow Job (20 page)

“Gerry, I know you got the weight of the world on you, but this situation ain’t good.” The door was closed but Babchuk was still holding on to Lafayette, by the elbow. “I got a doctor in Canora
waiting for my return call. He’s real insistent. When I explained, like you told me to, there may be security issues, he started shouting at me. We don’t come up with something, he’s gonna go to the press.”

Lafayette broke free, picked up a report from his desk, did some speed-reading. “Okay, it seems they failed to reunite with their travel group in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, their tour company — Exotic Asia, a Central Asian specialist, main branch in Moscow — stalled for several days before alerting our embassy in Almaty. It appears these three women didn’t get on the plane with the rest of the group and may still be in Tashkent. Not the first time they’d taken detours from the itinerary.”

“Well, that’s what them Russians told Dr. Svetlikoff too, but he says those ladies aren’t idiots, they’d have contacted Exotic, or phoned home, made contact somehow instead of just wandering around lost. He’s worried they somehow ended up in Bhashyistan, which was a kind of optional add-on to the tour.”

“Our information argues against that, Ralph, given they lacked visas and the border has been closed to tourist traffic. But give me the good doctor’s number.”

Lafayette had his front desk dial the medical office of Miller, Svetlikoff, physicians and surgeons, in the doubtless homely town of Canora, Sask. He could imagine it, dust storms and wilting wheat fields and tradition-bound babas making perogies.

When the doctors’ receptionist tried to put him off, he said, “I’ll be pleased to wait until he’s done with his patient, but you might tell him this is Foreign Affairs Minister Gerard Lafayette.”

That, not surprisingly, brought him quickly to the phone from his obstetric examination, or whatever the task. Lafayette started off with an uplifting assurance that the federal government was doing its utmost to guarantee the safety of his wife, widowed sister-in-law, and niece. A foreign affairs officer was, as they spoke, winging his way to Tashkent to coordinate efforts to locate the women. It could work against everybody’s interests, given the
current complex situation, if theories were noised about that they’d found their way to Bhashyistan.

“Mr. Lafayette, that rings of typical bureaucratic bullshit. I want answers, I want action, and I’m not going to be sluffed off. You have one day to come up with some results or this becomes tomorrow’s headline.”

“All I can pray for is patience, Mr. …”
Sacre bleu
, he couldn’t remember that impenetrable surname.

“Svetlikoff,” Babchuk said.

“Mr. Svetlikoff.
Dr
. Svetlikoff. I can assure you we have the deepest concern for your wife and loved ones.”

“I want to believe that, Mr. Lafayette. If you had any wife or loved ones, you’d believe it too. Twenty-four hours, then I go public.” With that, he hung up.

Lafayette found himself shaking as he placed the phone in the cradle. “Is this doctor, uh, generally onside, Ralph?”

“The Svetlikoffs? New Democrats mostly. But I got to look after everybody, right?”

“Of course.” Lafayette picked up the phone again. “Tell our embassy in Kazakhstan I want someone in Tashkent by sundown. No excuses. And get somebody face to face with a mulish doctor in Saskatchewan. Beg him, stall him, at least until late Monday, or heads will roll.”

A
rthur was in agony, desperately seeking the right moment to brief Margaret on the Episode, as he preferred to label it, the bed-sharing that morning with Savannah Buckett. It hadn’t seemed decent to mention it right off the bat when she picked him up at Dorval, or during the drive into Old Montreal, and somehow it felt highly improper to do so while treating her to a fine dinner in a stylish restaurant.

Anyway, there was too much on her agenda.

She fumed over salad and entree over a leaked government poll, a testing of the waters about the Emergencies Act. “A police state, that’s what they want. This country’s losing its democratic soul, we’re engulfed in paranoia, we’ll soon be a First World version of North Korea.” She was practically the only M.P. complaining about the jingoistic talk in the House, much of it from the official opposition, too quick to swing in line behind the Tories over Bhashyistan.

As to DiPalma, she was aghast that he’d appeared on Arthur’s doorstep. He was either a faker or a fool, and either way he could cause disaster. Arthur said he’d received a reassuring report about him — but didn’t mention his athletic prowess; that would only get her going again. He insisted DiPalma could be a valuable asset, and if not could easily be unmasked and the government shamed for spying on an M.P. What did they have to lose?

“How is Blunder Bay surviving?” With this, Margaret finally gave him an opening. Which he didn’t take.

“Splendidly. Not much to report. Oh, the poker game.” That took up ten minutes of avoidance time, and Stoney and his hot-air balloon another ten.

“No gossip? No monkeyshines, nasty rumours?” He nibbled his poached trout, finding refuge in Talleyrand’s sardonic aphorism: speech is a faculty given to man to conceal his thoughts.

“You haven’t mentioned Savannah. How is she?” Words continued to fail him. He had to clear his throat to unblock them. “Fine. Constantly on the go.” He felt a flush of embarrassment, hoped it didn’t show across the candlelit table. He ought to have phoned Savannah, begged her to give witness to his innocence. But she’d not remember, she’d slept through the Episode, and something, maybe a warped sense of propriety, continued to hold him hostage to inaction and silence.

“Wipe that grumpy look off your face.” Margaret glared at Arthur across a table set for four. He was looking morosely at the concoction in his cereal bowl. It resembled birdseed.

Their hostess, Jo Rosenstein, swept in from the kitchen with another jug of a beverage with carrots and something else, maybe beets — it had the colour and consistency of blood. “Fill up, you two. What do you think of the granola muffins?”

“Unique,” Arthur said. That was too accurate. “Very tasty.” His stomach screamed for bacon and eggs, but it might cost his marriage to offend these over-obliging folk, stoutly Green — Sam Rosenstein had run for the party federally.

This had to be one of the curses of political life, being captives of the kindness of others, B & B operators like the Rosensteins. Why would they want this lovely nineteenth-century home to suffer
the intrusions of strangers? What was the custom when the owners refused payment? Does one leave a handsome tip?

He could only assume that this genial couple suffered a disorder characterized by feelings of acute loneliness when not surrounded by others of their species. Last evening, they’d fluttered about, giving them nuts, sliced apples, asking questions, nattering, ensuring no conversational void would go unfilled. As a consequence of that, Arthur was too exhausted on retiring to mention the Episode. It would have been hugely inappropriate to do that, anyway, in bed.

“We keep butter for guests,” said Jo Rosenstein, seated now beside him. Arthur begged her not to get up, claimed to be savouring this healthy breakfast. Sam was at the table now too, carrying on about supermarkets selling New Zealand apples when you can get better quality in your back yard.

Margaret made motions to rise from the table, tugging discreetly at Arthur’s sleeve. “Arthur and I have an appointment, I’m afraid.”

“Before you head out, you should try the chicory coffee,” Jo said.

Gaia House was on Avenue des Pins, not far from the mosque on Sherbrooke, and since the sidewalks had been cleared of the night’s snow, Arthur and Margaret decided to enjoy a suddenly sunny day. Another chance to confess. But to what? Confession was for miscreants, and he’d done nothing blameworthy. But would she believe that?

The problem was not so much in the telling but in the manner of it. Should he make a joke of it? Ho, ho, ho, there she was half draped over him as Stoney barged in. Maybe he should come on affronted. How dare she! The brazen woman, thoughtless even in her sleepwalking state.

How to counter Margaret’s questions?
Isn’t she staying in the bedroom below? Why on earth would she have sleepwalked upstairs?
Stoney saw her snuggled up to you? What explanation did you give him? And he
believed
you?

Stoney hadn’t, and neither would Margaret. She’d go off like a moon rocket, forever distrust him for having betrayed her at a most critical juncture of her life and career. After she cooled, guilt would assail her — she’d been too immersed in politics to focus on his needs for companionship. His husbandly needs. But how had he demonstrated those last night? With flaccidity, fibbing excuses, alleged fatigue, complaints of feeling like an intruder in this strange house.

Yet if he didn’t tell her, what if she found out, what then?
Why was I the last to know?
Arthur would be in a hopeless situation, backed against the wall by his unworthy silence.

“Such a lovely day,” Margaret said, taking his arm.

The Mosque of the Holy Prophet was a converted greystone mansion, with little but its sign to designate it as a religious centre. By the door was a corkboard advertising a coming debate: “When Belief and Doctrine Collide,” two Christian clergy, a rabbi, and the mosque’s religious leader, Dr. Mossalen. Workers were washing a red swastika from the wall.

They slipped off their shoes, Margaret tied a silk scarf on her head, and a young woman led them past the sparsely attended prayer hall to the imam’s office. Dr. Mossalen rose to greet them, a furrowed, white-bearded face. His doctorate was in religious studies from Cairo University. Arthur had been told he was not one of the fire-and-brimstone mullahs the media preferred to focus on.

“Welcome, welcome to our little holy institution. Not one of the grand mosques of our Asian and African heartlands, but more peaceful than some. I content myself with the knowledge that God does not discriminate against homely houses of worship.” Efforts at introductions were waved aside. “Your names are well known in
these precincts. Mr. Beauchamp, the eminent barrister, and his industrious political spouse. Mrs. Blake, yours is a sane voice amid the howls of consternation over this Bhashyistan business.”