Of course, the locals hated her — they saw only a shy, mousey Canadian woman who kept a fine Italian boy locked up far away from home. But she spent most of her time in the library anyway, continuing her studies. And for Pierre, it was heaven. He slipped perfectly into the role of the foolish knight, and took the stage each evening with a sense of self-confidence that eluded him in his North American appearances. In character, he became far less troubled than in reality, when an uncontrollable European moodiness would sometimes sweep him without warning.
The performance Christine chose to remember was his penultimate one in Bologna. The opera concludes in a solo. Falstaff, who has just suffered the embarrassment of a beating at the hands of fairies, surrenders in a fugue that the whole world must surely be a farce. With each show, Christine found herself more and more desperate to hear Pierre bring the evening to its climax. She knew, even then, that he would never again be so transcendent. But that night, just as he began, there was an accident. A young oboist, well-known for his fondness for a preperformance drink, had passed out in the pit. A sound like a duck being stepped on brought the music to a halt, and the orchestra mobbed the fallen boy, swiftly bearing him up and over to an exit. The performers on stage looked at each other, suspended in the instant, unsure of how to proceed.
And then Pierre began, without accompaniment, to sing. For the rest of her life, Christine would insist that no single superlative could sufficiently describe the joy that credenza released inside her. She felt suddenly conscious of all the layers of reality around her — that of the audience, the theater, the opera, and the music itself, which seemed like it had been evolving for thousands of years toward each of those perfect notes.
Thinking of that moment — her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin buried between her knees, her feet pulled up onto the tiny seat beneath her — Christine felt herself relax. As the plane lifted above the clouds and began its journey, she closed her eyes and, for the first time in seven days, finally found her way to sleep.
Pearson was a gargantuan airport, far larger than Vancouver’s, and Christine strode through it with her head down. The crowds terrified her. So many people, yet so little talking — airports were one of those places, like subway cars, where the density of solitary travelers created great moving, silent hordes. The thicker the swarm, the more isolating the experience. The baggage concourse seemed to have been built with this in mind — pillars like redwoods were spaced throughout a room the size of several gymnasiums. Christine imagined that the entire population of Toronto could likely fit inside the space. But it would somehow still feel empty. Its walls and roof were all glass and white steel, so that it felt like she had moved not only east, but also forward, through time itself, and arrived at some point in the future, inside the hangar for some monolithic spacecraft that had not yet been invented.
Christine’s bag was one of the first, and she snatched it off the ramp so suddenly that it slipped to the ground with a crack. No one paused their own searches to notice.
The hotel was connected to Terminal 3. The lobby was nearly empty when she arrived. One geriatric traveler sat sleeping at a coffee table before a bowl of green apples, that morning’s paper scattered across his lap. Two young men, barely more than teenagers, stood at the front desk. Christine was only steps away before they noticed her, and thus she had to endure one describing to the other how he had been “whipping his dick like it owed him money.” Red-faced, he turned to her. Ripe, moist acne covered his cheeks, and his blond hair hung in a limp swoop across his forehead.
“Good morning,” he said. “Welcome to the Gateway Hotel.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m checking in, but I have a strange request.” His mouth hung open in reply. “My husband is staying here tonight, and I’d like to surprise him. Would it maybe be possible for me to get into his room without you letting him know I’ve checked in? It’s our wedding anniversary.”
The boy nodded dumbly for a moment, still embarrassed. “Let me see,” he said. “Can I have your name, ma’am?”
“Of course. Alvio. My husband won’t be arriving until this evening.” He busied himself for a moment with a computer monitor that stood below the counter, making rapid jabs at its touch screen. Christine held her breath.
“And your husband’s first name?”
“Pierre.”
The boy’s face scrunched up for a moment, and Christine noticed that the acne extended down to his neck, its pustules thickening within the nourishment of a razor burn. He nodded.
“Looks like it won’t be a problem,” he said, and grabbed a print out from somewhere by his knees. “I’ll give you one key, if you can sign this for me?”
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I really do appreciate it. And, it won’t... He won’t know that I’m here?”
“That’s right. We will, but he’ll have no clue.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“Uh huh.” The boy slipped her a plastic keycard. “Enjoy your anniversary, ma’am.”
“I will,” she said. “Thank you again. I know this is unusual.”
He smiled. He had a very small head, like the ball atop a needle.
Given that it was only an airport hotel, the room was well furnished. A full desk and two brown leather club chairs surrounded an inviting queen-sized bed. Christine left her purse by the door, rolled her case to the bed, and threw it onto the duvet. She went to the window. Toronto was a distant gray bar graph upon the horizon. It shimmered in the smoggy heat. The airfield spread out below her — a sea of tarmac gradually giving way to endless, ugly squares of yellow grass. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something move among its tall, dying blades. Something animal, like a large rat. She imagined what kind of beasts must lurk out there, stranded in the fields between no places, surviving off nothing but insects and each other. But she couldn’t find whatever she had seen again, and so turned to the case on the bed.
Inside, things were just as she’d packed them. Her clothes were wrapped around the cash, and atop them sat a hair gel container. She unscrewed its cap and sniffed — the moist mixture inside smelled like dead fish left out in the sun. Once hemlock dries, its toxicity is severely reduced. But kept damp and ground to a paste, it is lethal, choking off the nervous system like salt in a gas tank. She had discovered it in her studies — it had been used to execute Socrates after his condemnation for impiety. Plato, watching his former teacher’s last moments, carefully took note of how death’s grasp took hold:
The man... laid his hands on him and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. He said “No”; then after that, his thighs; and passing upwards in this way he showed us that he was growing cold and rigid. And then again he touched him and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. The chill had now reached the region about the groin, and uncovering his face, which had been covered, he said — and these were his last words — “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.” “That,” said Crito, “shall be done; but see if you have anything else to say.” To this question he made no reply, but after a little while he moved; the attendant uncovered him; his eyes were fixed. And Crito, when he saw it, closed his mouth and eyes.