The Delusionist (15 page)

In the evenings Cyril resumed classes with Novak, who was interested to hear about his Mexican adventures and said, quite frankly, that he was surprised Cyril had come back at all. Cyril said he was wondering the same thing. He'd described Don Antonio Martin Smolenski and his daughter Remedios, though made no mention of Connie.

He also enrolled in Ukrainian History. The course had two parts, lecture and tutorial. The professor was a short, thick, middle-aged woman who outlined the course content and expectations in terms of exams and grades, as well as codes of conduct—no swearing, no sexist or racist language, no eating and no drinking. After the fifty-minute lecture they broke into tutorials of another fifty minutes, each led by a graduate student. Cyril found his room. At the front stood a young man of about twenty-five years of age holding a paper cup of coffee which, when Cyril entered, fell from the fellow's hand and splattered on the floor. The guy from the cab. All the other students turned questioningly toward Cyril who merely stood there. The tutorial leader said nothing, just went to the intercom and punched some numbers and within minutes two security guards arrived. The tutorial leader followed Cyril and the guards into the corridor.

“How did you find me?”

“I wasn't looking for you. I'm only here to take the class.”

“I can't have violence in my classroom.”

“Who's violent?”

“You threatened me with a gun.”

“There were three of you,” said Cyril, controlling his tone. “You wouldn't get out of my cab. It was you guys who were threatening me.”

“We never laid a hand on you.”

“You were mad that I wouldn't take you to a whorehouse.”

The tutorial leader's gaze wavered. The security guards were following the debate with mounting interest. “I allow that my colleagues and I were somewhat intoxicated.”

“The three of you refused to get out of my cab when I politely asked that you do so. All I wanted was to be left alone. I can't believe you brought charges,” said Cyril, as if having been betrayed by an old friend. “It was a complete misrepresentation of the facts.”

“That's not what the judge thought.” He consulted his wristwatch and became fatigued. “Now this has all been very interesting, but I have a responsibility to this institution and to those people in that classroom. And I cannot in good conscience accept as a student a man who threatens people with a gun.”

And with that Cyril was escorted to the parking lot and off the campus.

PART THREE — 1982

In Which Cyril Strikes a New Match

ONE

WHEN THE MODEL
let her black robe drop to stand naked before the drawing class, Cyril saw a being cast down from Olympus and condemned to live among mortals. She was six-foot-one, had dark red hair to her hips, breasts like ski jumps, and teeth like a horse. As she took her pose, one foot propped on a stool and hands on her hips, she studied each artist in turn. When her gaze reached Cyril it halted. He stopped drawing. She smiled a shrug of a smile as if to say,
Well, here we are, you and I, creatures, beings, alive and above all absurd, but with a destiny to fulfill.
Later, he would insist that he'd read all this and more into that brief smile.

When the session ended she looked over his shoulder then reached for his stick of charcoal and wrote her phone number in the corner. He invited her for a beer at the Europe. Her name was Yvonne, she was Quebecois, had lived a year in the Canaries and two years in India where she'd practised hatha yoga. She wanted to be an actress, but her size was proving problematic.

“I am too high,” she said. “Maybe I can be Amazon or robot, but there are not so many calls for Amazon and robot.” She looked glum. She picked up her beer glass and ran her tongue along the rim. Then she brightened. “But I am jazz singer, too.”

Cyril nodded encouragingly. Modelling, acting, singing. “How about dancing?” He could see her in a chorus line or a ballet.

“Of course,” she said as if it was too obvious to mention.

They stayed until closing then he drove her home. She lived in a basement suite off Commercial Drive with a ceiling so low her hair brushed the light fixtures. She made coffee with sweetened condensed milk and Nescafé, and told him how the landlord, Giancarlo, promised to leave her the house if she married him.

He asked, “When's the wedding?”

She let loose a loud piratic laugh.

Cyril said, “If he's old and going to die soon maybe you should.”

“Would you?”

“Who knows?”

She regarded him as though he'd revealed a facet she'd not anticipated but of which she approved. “You should find some old woman who will support you.”

“Okay.”

She was serious. “You must 'ave show. Old ladies will come. They will discover you.”

They were seated on a battered couch. Yvonne sprawled at one end, legs crossed at the knee, bare foot bouncing provocatively. She stretched out her arm and clicked the radio on and began to sing along, “You've got the eyeeee of a tiiii-
gerrr
  . . .”

Cyril was drunk. What rogues they were, plotting away in her lair. He grew bold. Leaning toward her he caught her foot in his hands and kissed her ankle and ran his tongue up her calf.

They became lovers. One morning at Cyril's place Yvonne asked if he thought the soul had a colour.

“Sure. Grey.”

This troubled her. “But I think it is sapphire or gold.”

He said how a house painter he once knew said God was green like a frog. But as for the soul Cyril thought it was grey and had the texture of ashes.

Yvonne was aghast. “Ashes are burnt. The devil is ashes. God is flower or waterfall. The soul is rainbow.”

“You think so?”

“But it is obvious!”

“Okay,” he said, willing to be proved wrong.

“Slavs are miserable,” she said. “In love with their own defeat.”

He wondered about that.

Yvonne was a gazelle. She liked to lounge in bed, take naps, lie on the beach, do the backstroke in the ocean with long slow sweeps of her long elegant arms. She'd model for him and then they'd make love pretending they lived in a
rive gauche
garret. Most nights together were spent at his place. He'd found an airy third floor suite with a northwest view in a vast old house that caught the sunset. He liked when Yvonne left clothes and magazines and jewellery. He liked arriving at Novak's class hand-in-hand with her. The Hungarian marked this without comment though Cyril saw approval, or was it amusement, in his eyes.

One evening after class she asked if her posing before other people bothered him.

He said yes.

“But they are all women.”

“They look at you.”

“They are supposed to look at me.”

He shrugged.

“You could 'ave them,” she said.

“Who?”

“The women in the class.”

“Which one?”

She grimaced as though he was simple. “All of them.”

Cyril was intrigued and yet unsettled. Was this an invitation to pursue other women, to have an open relationship? They'd been seeing each other for three months. “I'm not interested.”

She smiled as if he'd passed her little test.

Wherever Yvonne went she drew looks. This bothered Cyril. He hadn't introduced her to Gilbert, who was between marriages, and therefore on the prowl. Cyril liked it being just the two of them, it added an element of fantasy, their own private world, separate and far away.

Yvonne knew he went to his mother's most Sunday evenings. “Why you don't show me to your family? You are embarrassed?”

“Come this week.”

She turned her head way. “I'm busy.”

They were seated by the window in a pair of deep wicker thrones that Cyril had bought at Value Village. It was late October, the sun down, the leaves turning, the grass still pale, the last scent of summer lingering. “Come.”

She looked at him, eyes wet. “Okay.”

Paul and Della were already there. Yvonne stood a full five inches taller than Della, who was five inches taller than Paul.

“How's the air up there?” he asked.

“I can see for mile,” she said. She shook hands with Cyril's mother, praised her Virgin Marys, then joined Della on the couch.

“Where are the boys?” asked Cyril.

“Steve has a car now. They'll be fashionably late.”

“I didn't get a car until I was twenty-three,” said Paul, proud, bitter, bemused. He looked pale and shaky. Cyril didn't remark on this because it would only incite his brother's rancour.

Yvonne put her hand on Della's knee. “Your boys, they are how old?”

“Seventeen. Twins.”

“Do they read each other's mind?”

“They fight,” said Paul from the padded chair in the corner. He looked as foul as a chamber pot.

“Brothers,” said Yvonne. “I 'ave three and they beat each other black and blue from day one.”

Della nodded wearily.

Helen had placed herself on a small wooden chair the better to study the fantastical Yvonne. Cyril knew what she was thinking: was she daughter-in-law material, was she going to give her more grand-children?

Yvonne had braided her hair in a thick red hawser that she draped forward over her shoulder. The normally reticent Della was fingering it as though it was embroidery. Della's hair was combed straight back and she wore white jeans and a tight black top and a strand of red coral. Yvonne wore a black pullover and red jeans, had a large red stud in her nostril and hoop earrings the size of handcuffs.

Cyril bustled about getting drinks, scotch to Paul, red wine to Yvonne, Della, and his mother. For all that she was dour and self-assured, this evening his mother seemed small and frail and uncertain, as if she was drifting out to sea on an iceberg. It was a desolate realization, but he understood that she was old, that she was ignored, that neither her opinion nor presence much mattered, and hadn't since she was no longer required as a babysitter for Chuckie and Steve. If Cyril and Yvonne gave her grand-children she might return to the world of the living.

When Chuckie and Steve arrived, Steve was leading the way as usual. He wore a short, black leather jacket, collar up, hair artfully greased, a few days of equally artful stubble on his chin, a small ring in one ear. He entered through the kitchen twirling the keys of his new car and abusing Chuckie with jovial contempt.

“No one cares, Chucko,” he stated with finality. “Karl Marx, Groucho Marx, no one. Not even you. You're just churning air.” Having dealt with his brother, Steve went straight to his grandmother and by the time he reached her his swagger had magically transformed into courtliness. He kissed her. She reached to put her palm to his cheek and he hovered just long enough that she might know the glory that was him before turning and acknowledging everyone else. He shook hands with Yvonne who appeared highly entertained by this young blade.

Chuckie was eating two slices of bread plucked from the dinner table. He stopped chewing long enough to kiss his grandmother who made no attempt to stroke his face. He wore a grey sweatshirt and faded jeans. His reddish hair hung uncombed and his stubble, not at all artful like Steve's, was itchy to look at. He was overweight, though moved with a bearlike grace.

“Well?” demanded Paul.

“Friday,” said Steve.

Paul nodded severely. He'd bought Steve an old Datsun on the understanding that he'd pay him back in instalments. So far not a dime had arrived.

They moved to the dinner table. Pork, gravy, brussel sprouts, potatoes. Helen Andrachuk remained faithful to her traditional cuisine, her one concession—after years of pleading from Cyril—was to forego cabbage except in the form of coleslaw. Everyone ate heartily except Paul. Della put her palm to his forehead.

He pushed it away. “I'm fine.”

“You're pale.”

“I'm fine.”

“How did you meet?” Helen asked Yvonne.

“Art class. I am model.”

“Novak,” Helen said sceptically.

“And I sing. I 'ave gig next month at the Classical Joint.”

“Congratulations!” said Della.

Helen's mouth worked silently as if translating the real meaning of these words. Model? Singer? Paul went to the couch and stretched out, arm across his brow. Della went to her bag and consulted an array of pill bottles. She gave him some water and tablets and a cool cloth for his forehead. Conversation resumed at a subdued volume. By eight-thirty Paul and Della had gone home. Steve made some calls and announced he was off to the Ridge to see
Stop Making Sense
.

Chuckie laughed. “Spam for drones.”

“What're
you
gonna do? Put on your Mao hat and read his Little Red Book?”

“You're the monkey in the uniform.”

Steve shook his head scornfully.

“Behold the rebel, the rogue, the renegade,” mocked Chuckie. “Terror of the bourgeoisie.”

Steve kissed his grandmother, tossed them all a jaunty wave, and departed jingling his keys. Cyril cleared the table and did the dishes while Chuckie watched the news and Helen made conversation with Yvonne.

Cyril accompanied Yvonne to her performance at the Classical Joint. He'd often heard her break into riffs, bits of scat, random shrieked notes, as if she was Ella Fitzgerald trying to shatter a wine glass. Her voice was undeniably powerful.

It was a Friday night. The Classical Joint was in a narrow turn of the century building in Gastown, with brick walls and a high ceiling and mismatched tables and chairs. Cyril had been there with Gilbert, it being one of the few places in the city open after midnight.