In early December of that first year in her new position, she had to go to a dealers’ market in Boston. She’d already done a lot of flying and thought it might be a pleasant change just to drive the new car this time. Boston wasn’t that far from Montreal — just four or five hours on the highway.
Dupont was a little concerned because, even though there had been no sign of snow as yet, the weather at that time of year could turn bad very quickly. She assured him she’d be careful.
Around seven on the morning of the trip, he walked her to the elevator, kissed her, and told her how much he loved her.
“I wish I were staying here with you,” she said, hugging him tightly. “Always remember, I’m only doing this because I love you more than anything in the world.” Just before the elevator door closed, she promised she’d call him that night from her hotel in Boston.
Dupont’s phone did indeed ring at nine o’clock that night. But it wasn’t a call from his wife. It was a Massachusetts police officer, who informed him that his wife had been killed in a collision with a truck during a snow squall on the turnpike an hour out of Boston. The police had found his address in her wallet. The passenger in the car with her was killed, too. The officer gave Dupont the passenger’s name: it was the owner of the business. They’d both died instantly.
Dupont wondered why his wife hadn’t mentioned that her employer would be travelling with her. But he was too grief-stricken to dwell on it.
Grief or not, along with her sorrowing family he managed to get through the funeral. Then he had to deal with the sad business of winding up her affairs. An insurance company representative assured him that all the funeral expenses would be taken care of, but wondered if he wished to continue the coverage on her jewels.
Dupont was surprised to hear that. The only expensive jewels she ever wore belonged to her employer, so she wouldn’t have insured them.
The insurance agent assured him that yes, they were her property and she’d had them expertly evaluated at half a million dollars a month ago. She’d gone ahead and insured them for that sum and they were now Dupont’s, as her only beneficiary.
Over the following weeks, with grim determination to know everything, Dupont established the facts. Records showed that his wife had indeed been given the jewels as outright gifts by the owner. In addition, he discovered that the owner had accompanied her on several of her business trips — hotel clerks remembered especially the striking woman with the long black hair. The two shared planes and meals — and hotel rooms.
Dupont couldn’t believe what a fool he’d been not to have suspected. Now her sudden elevation within the firm made sense. His first instinct was to take those jewels of hers and throw them into the deepest part of the St. Lawrence.
Then he thought better of it and instead went to a dealer in jewels and sold them for half of what they were worth. But he couldn’t bear to be in Montreal anymore, so he transferred to the medical school at the University of Camberloo in the province of Ontario. There he was able to live very well on the money from the jewels.
He graduated as a physician and put in his years of surgical residency, but he couldn’t find a cure for himself. The wound caused by his wife’s treachery was now compounded by a deep sense of self-loathing at having allowed himself to live comfortably on its benefits. He’d left Montreal because of the one, and could no longer endure Camberloo because of the other. In the desperate hope of somehow cleansing himself, he volunteered to work as a medical generalist in whatever remote corners of the world could use his services.
DUPONT TOOK a big gulp of his whisky.
“So, here I am, headed for Africa again,” he said. “Not that I expect any longer that my service in such places will resolve my personal problems. I’m afraid it’s true that you always take yourself with you, no matter where you go.
“But things are much better for me now with the passing of time. For years, I tormented myself over what happened. Did she really love that other man? Was it the jewels she loved? Or did she really love me? Or maybe she thought it would be nicer for us to live in comfort while I finished my medical studies, and that what I didn’t know wouldn’t harm me? After all, the last words she said to me were ‘I’m only doing this because I love you more than anything in the world.’ I couldn’t get them out of my head.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“In the end, I came to believe she did love me and that everything she did — even giving herself occasionally to her boss — really was for me.” He looked at me sympathetically.
“Of course, after what you’ve been through, it’s hard for you to understand. When I was young, I felt the same. But now, what she did no longer seems so awful to me.”
I honestly couldn’t see any similarity between our situations. His wife’s infidelities, if she’d done them out of love, weren’t really all that treacherous. To forgive her didn’t require great generosity. But Miriam’s rejection of me was quite another matter. She’d let me fall in love with her, didn’t love me in return, and had all along intended to marry another man. It was my misfortune that I still loved her. In the matter of forgiveness, I was too mixed up to know where to begin.
Dupont, as I was contemplating these things, was fingering the two little green beads on the tips of his beard.
“I didn’t sell all her jewels,” he said. “These are sapphires from one of her rings. I’ve been told they’re the stones for remembrance. Whenever I touch them, I think of her.”
3
At night in the crew’s quarters, some of the men would lie on their bunks smoking what they called “kief.” They’d stuff little ornate pipes with a brownish substance, inhale it for a few seconds, then slowly exhale. The entire area would be filled with a sweet smell, for this kief was a mixture of rose petals and marijuana — naturally, I’d never heard of it in the Tollgate, where beer and whisky reigned supreme. Some of the crew, when they were smoking, became a little friendlier towards me. One of them even offered me his pipe.
But the whole scene brought to mind that horrible old man lying on his couch in Duncairn.
“No thanks,” I said.
My shipmate was in too good a mood to be offended.
I ASKED DUPONT about kief one night in his cabin over a glass of scotch.
“I occasionally smoke it myself,” said Dupont. “I’m one of those travellers who believe that participating in such local customs can be an important aspect of understanding other parts of the world.”
He saw I was interested in hearing about that.
“I’ll give you a useful illustration,” he said.
ONCE, HE WAS posted to a group of islands in the Pacific. He’d been sent there by a philanthropic agency to set up a clinic to treat the islanders’ ailments. But when the clinic was ready, they stayed away from it. Dupont discovered the reason in a roundabout way.
At some distant point in their history, it seems, the islanders had realized that the skin of little fish from certain mountain streams stored a type of narcotic. This fish soon became an integral part of various rituals. The men of the tribe would assemble at some holy place where the women would serve them the fish. The men would lick the skins of the fish and go into a state of religious ecstasy. The women could only watch as it was taboo for them to lick the fish.
Dupont, when he heard about the fish-licking, wanted to try it out. For him, it was his professional obligation as an anthropologist as well as a medical doctor. Fish-licking seemed to be intimately related to island culture. For a researcher not to try it out would be as foolish as a confirmed teetotaller attempting to grasp the essence of many Western forms of celebration.