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  Downs his beer, opens another.

  * * *

  Kevin goes down to class. Holds the handrail because today he’s afraid of falling.

  The teacher says the names of the animals in the nativity scene, in English. The ox and the donkey watch the baby.

  Kevin lays his head on his desk, his cheek plastered against his Batman book. Beside him, the crazy girl is talking to herself, meaningless words. He wants to tell her to shut up. He lifts his head, looks at her: ‘Shut up,’ he tells her. Puts his head back down on the desk.

  Roxane couldn’t give a shit; she can’t hear anything anymore. Snieg snieg snieg. Her eye wanders to the light from outside while the teacher places the figurines from the nativity scene under a fake Christmas tree that doesn’t smell like anything.

  Other girls ended up making Mary. She’s beige, she has no smell, no boobs. Flat as a board, Mary. Eat shit, Mary.

  The donkey is grey, the ox is brown, and it’s almost Christmas. Things are going really well in the remedial class.

  * * *

  Kathy and Kelly are clinging to each other under their soaked covers. Meg is crouched beside them. Kathy holds the joint out to her. On the TVS, time has stopped on the bands of colour that bleed onto the grey of Rue Ontario. Kathy inhales the smoke.

  ‘So apparently women think more about shopping than making love.’

  Kelly bursts out laughing.

  ‘It’s true. They said so on TV. Three out of four women think about buying something, a dress or whatever, every sixty seconds. I mean, come on! I counted, that’s 960 times a day, for fuck’s sake.’

  Kathy accepts the joint back from Meg. Takes a long drag.

  Silence.

  Meg, her voice trembling from the cold: ‘Well, I’d like to shop instead of making love.’

  ‘You don’t make love. Here, take some covers.’

  Kelly holds out the sleeping bag, and Meg drapes it over her shoulders.

  ‘It’s true. You don’t make love. That’s not making love.’

  ‘So what am I doing then?’

  ‘Well, you fuck.’

  Silence. Between confusion and reflection.

  ‘ … I make love to them.’

  ‘They buy you, you sell yourself, you– ’

  ‘I make love to them. I know what I do, for fuck’s sake. I’m the one doing it!’

  ‘Okay, okay. Here, have a puff.’

  Meg has a puff. ‘It’s true, or else what? If I don’t make love and I don’t shop, then what the hell am I doing?’

  ‘Don’t cry, Meg.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t cry, Meg.’

  * * *

  Roxane and Louise are in the living room, in front of the TV. Under the spotlights, they’re deciding who to eliminate. Roxane on one sofa, Louise on another.

  ‘Pass the tobacco.’

  ‘He’s going to get booted off.’

  ‘Yeah, for sure.’

  They roll cigarettes together. Roxane concentrates because she’s going to bring some to her father. The nicest ones, the best-rolled ones.

  Outside, the yellow brigade has its equipment out: snowplows, scrapers, spreaders, loaders. All the machines are out. It’s been snowing all day, and it’s still coming down. The sidewalks are going to be a big job.

  Footsteps on the stairs. It’s the stepdad coming home. A case in his hands.

  Roxane looks up. At him. And her mother. Puts the half-rolled cigarette on the table. Gets up. Her mother heads her off.

  ‘Oh, c’mon, Roxane, relax!’

  ‘No, I have stuff to do. Homework.’

  ‘Hey! Enough of this crap! Sit down! I’m not drinking! Jesus, quit running off every time you see a bottle. You’re the one who’s sick!’

  Roxane sits back down.

  ‘The edge of your ass on the edge of the sofa. You comfortable?’

  Roxane backs up a little, body stiff.

  ‘She’s scared of me! She’s scared of me, for chrissake!’

  Roxane’s mother opens a beer. Phsst. The sound. Just the sound ties her stomach in a knot.

  ‘I’ll be back, Mom, I – ’

  ‘Go on, run away. Go back to your little world. It’s so much nicer there than here, isn’t it?’

  Louise takes a swig. She wishes Roxane would stay there with her, rolling cigarettes, watching TV. She takes another swig.

  * * *

  Rue Aylwin. Night falling.

  Kevin drags his feet through the snow. It leaves tracks, like he has super-big feet. Imagine being kicked by feet that big. Kevin walks backward, looking at his giant footprints all the way home.

  His key is hanging around his neck; he looks for it under the umpteen layers of his snowsuit, finds it. Opens the door – it’s dark inside – turns on the TV.

  Steve is there, sitting in the dark, beer in hand.

  ‘Dad?’

  Steve takes a swig.

  Kevin doesn’t take his eyes off him while he takes off his snowsuit. His father looks unhappy. That much he knows. What to do about it he doesn’t know. Kevin sits on the floor, at his father’s feet. Slips a game into the PlayStation – PLAY – and hands Steve a controller.

  ‘C’mon, one game with me.’

  A moment goes by while Kevin hopes. Steve puts down the beer and grabs the controller. Kevin suppresses a wide grin and grabs the other one.

  * * *

  Sitting on her bed, Roxane tears photos from the red book. In addition to the paper tearing, she hears the regular sound of gunfire coming from the wrestler’s apartment next door. But it’s in her own living room that war preparations are underway.

  She sticks images to her bedroom walls. A map of Russia and, beside it, the Kremlin in winter. She also has a picture of a skating rink in the middle of Moscow with crowds of tiny people. There’s probably music playing, you can see it, practically hear it. It’s obvious. There is music in this picture. Roxane glues Anastasia beside her bed.

  She flips through what’s left of the book. A few pictures left. A river, wide, calm, gentle. It’s pretty. That’s where she would go with her boat.

  Roxane cuts, concentrates, glues.

  The Volga runs through her bedroom, its whitewater foam masking the shouting that gradually takes over from the living room. Roxane holds her breath and dives, body and soul, into the Volga.

  * * *

  ‘AHHHH! Jesus H. Christ, you’re good!

  ‘Yeah, but Dad, I play all the time! It’s your first try! Oh, shit! You did that on purpose! You distracted me!’

  The two of them are standing in the dark, bodies bent over the light of the screen. Kevin’s shining eyes dart quickly at his dad. He’s almost making him happy.

  ‘Let’s go, let’s go.’

  * * *

  Shostakovich, beginning of the record. Roxane puts on her headphones and lies down on the bed. She loses herself in Moscow, a big white city with its rows of snow-covered roofs. ‘From the Es-pla-nade of the Krem-lin, the view of Mos-cow stret-ches before you. You are in a differ-ent world … ’

  BANG! The door opens, the light hits Roxane, her mother is yelling, but Shostakovich is there, between them and her. He is protecting her. Her stepfather grabs her mother from behind by the hair. Roxane can make out screams underneath the sultry bow. Roxane, a hostage of the scene, takes in the absurd choreography.

  Her mother, on the floor, face contorted, is having trouble getting up. He’s got her by the neck. She bites, he hits, she screams.

  Roxane is petrified.

  The music.

  Her mother’s face.

  The music.

  Her mother getting up off the floor.

  Him going to the kitchen.

  Her, screaming, following him.

  In the kitchen, knives.

  Shostakovich can’t protect her against knives.

  Roxane runs.

  In pyjamas in the storm, Roxane walks by the prostitutes.

  Just one or two of them. The storm has hit everyone.
r />   Roxane runs along the river. Snow in her eyes, a scream in her head.

  On the shore of the Volga, Roxane waits for a boat that doesn’t come.

  Roxane is bundled in a wool blanket under the fluorescent lights of the police station. Snieg, dymn, toumann, louna, zima, oblako – like a story just for her that tells no tale, where there is nothing to understand, where nothing hurts – snieg, dymm, toumann, louna, zima, oblako. Snieg, dymm, toumann, louna, zima, oblako.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Roxane is trembling. ‘It’s okay.’ Roxane is rocking.

  They picked her up in the street. It’s not the first time. They’re waiting for her to warm up, then they’ll take her home.

  * * *

  It’s midnight. The two of them are bare-chested in the living room, sweating as if they had done battle for real. Kevin is eating a hot dog, looking outside.

  ‘She ran away again.’

  Downstairs, Roxane gets out of the police car, escorted by two men in uniform.

  ‘Dad! The neighbour ran away again.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Steve is eating his hot dog, head in the clouds, butt on the sofa.

  Kevin stands in front of him.‘Dad?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I want you to teach me to wrestle.’

  Steve laughs, but Kevin insists. ‘Seriously, Dad. I’m serious.’

  ‘Oh, come on, have you taken a look at yourself?’

  ‘I WANT YOU TO TEACH ME!’

  * * *

  Louise at the door, a bit drunk, exchanges a few words with the officers.

  The smell of chaos lingers in the apartment, but a ceasefire has been signed for the night.

  Roxane goes to bed.

  * * *

  ‘Ouch!’

  Steve holds Kevin on the floor. Kevin strains to get up.

  ‘Now, you fake. You move your head over like this, and – bang! – you get up.’

  The two of them are standing in the kitchen.

  ‘And then – schlack! – into the ropes, hard, with everything you’ve got!’

  Kevin throws his tensed little body at his father. Steve plays along and, as if he were blown backward, hurtles to the other end of the room and falls to the floor.

  ‘Ah! I’m out!’

  Kevin lifts his arms in the air.

  ‘AND THE WINNER IS!’

  пять

  5

  Roxane’s bedroom.

  Looks at the clock. Fuck. She didn’t wake her up. Again.

  It’s dark outside. It’s dark inside.

  Roxane gets up, blanket over her shoulders. Opens the door. Drags her feet to the cold living room.

  Beer bottles all over the place; her mother too.

  Roxane approaches her, hand over her mouth, close. Waits a moment. She’s alive.

  Pulls the sheet over her and goes back to bed.

  * * *

  The hems of the skirts tickle her face. Mélissa is sitting in the closet surrounded by fabric. Takes a deep breath.

  Smells leave too.

  Mélissa slips her feet into the black shoes. Women’s shoes. Meg wore them on big nights. Her birthday, Christmas. Or sometimes she liked putting them on to have a coffee at Sandy’s, or just to do groceries. That meant she was in a good mood and that you should go with her because it would be fun. When Meg put her black shoes on, it meant they would stop at the park and run after pigeons and hurl insults at them, they would share a pudding chômeur with one spoon at Clo’s and drink coffee even though she’s not old enough, they would laugh at people and the crazy lives they invented for them, then they would race to the grocery store. Mélissa would be faster than her mother because with the black shoes you run pretty, not fast. At the grocery store, Meg would hang off the back of the cart, and Mélissa would run and push. She would want to go fast so her mother would laugh louder, so Mélissa would get winded on the way to the frozen-food aisle, where they would concentrate for a minute to find pizza pockets and pogos for the boys, then they would start rolling again. If her mother were in a really good mood, they would buy a box of Fudgsicles, and the four of them would eat them in silence on the balcony, fast so they didn’t melt all over the place. But they would melt anyway.

  Mélissa emerges from the closet, the shoes on her feet. Just a while longer and they’ll fit perfectly. Looks in the mirror. Takes a few steps. Crosses the bedroom once, then again, sashaying.‘Hello, yes, a pudding chômeur a spoon a coffee please!’ Meg reborn on her lips for a moment, Meg, light and feminine. Meg laughing and wearing black shoes.

  ‘MEEEEL!’

  The boys’ voices in the kitchen.

  ‘MEEEEL! I’m hungry!’

  Mélissa emerges, shoes on her feet. She makes porridge for the boys. Each clack of a shoe between the fridge and the stove, between the stove and the table, each clack is like a balm to her heart.

  * * *

  The schoolyard.

  Leaning against a wall, eyes staring off into space, Roxane talks, half mumbling, in an invented language.

  Children hurl words and pebbles at her.

  ‘She says she’s Russian.’

  ‘So why aren’t you there?’

  ‘Because I moved here?’

  ‘You’re mental.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, you’re mental.’

  ‘Go back to where you came from, you fucking headcase!’

  ‘Okay.’

  * * *

  Mélissa is in running shoes and wears a scarf tied carefully around her neck.

  She walks along the prostitutes’ street. Slows down once she’s across the street from them. Catches her mother’s eye.

  The cars go by between them, as if to remind them of the space that separates them. The fifty metres that tears them apart. When a car passes, Mélissa squints and focuses her eyes to catch all the little bits of her mother that can still be caught. Through the windows, over the shoulder of the driver, a shoulder – a hip. Behind the rolling wheels, blurry, a shin – an ankle.

  When there’s a break in the cars, she looks at all of her mother.

  Today she has something for her.

  She places an envelope in the gap between the gutter and a tire at rest.

  * * *

  Meg waits for her daughter to move on. Her eyes glued to the white of the paper against the grey of the street, she crosses. She holds the envelope in her hand. A piece of her daughter. She holds the envelope awhile longer before opening it. Then, with her fingertips, she opens it. She hangs on through her pink nails. She is trembling.

  Cursive letters. Pretty. She has good penmanship.

  ‘Your boyfriend left. We’re all alone at home.’

  She holds the letter in her hand. He left. They’re alone. Fuck.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  They’re going to get picked up, for sure. They’re going to get placed in some shitty conditions far away, fuck FUCK!

  * * *

  The white library under the school’s fluorescent lights. In the middle, the ‘World’ aisle.

  Roxane searches. Her long fingers brush the spines of the books. Frrrrrrrrrrrr.

  Alone in the middle of the World, Roxane is searching for herself.

  Alone in the middle of the aisle, Roxane collapses.

  * * *

  Ms. Bilodeau is bent over her. She stopped reading just as James was leaning toward Mia’s lips, on page 42, when Roxane collapsed in the middle of the aisle with a dull thud. Her face is hovering over Roxane, eyes worried. Hands under her head, she gently lifts her. Roxane feels good, like this, lying in her aisle with Ms. Bilodeau.

  ‘Are you okay, Roxane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was dizzy.’

  ‘You fainted?’

  ‘It’s seasickness.’

  ‘To be seasick, you have to be on water, Roxane.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ />
  ‘I have all the water in the world inside me. Didn’t you know?’

  In the middle of the enormous library, between a thousand warehoused stories, two castaways. A fleeting moment in the aisle of the World.

  * * *

  Steve is walking along Ontario, facing into the cold.

  It’s a cold that gets inside you as if you were its home. There’s nothing you can do about it – you can be wearing fifteen layers and it blasts right through them.

  Steve goes into a french-fry joint. Heads to the counter.

  ‘Coffee, please.’

  The waitress serves him a black coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He adds sugar.

  To the waitress: ‘Don’t suppose you’re looking for someone for deliveries?’

  She shakes her head.

  Steve drinks his coffee, pays, and leaves.

  * * *

  Incredulous, Roxane holds a violin in her hands as if it were a redhot ember.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My son doesn’t play anymore. He never really played. I wanted him to … Anyway. You like the violin, right?’

  ‘ … ’

  ‘We’ll need to find you lessons now. You can touch it. It’s yours.’

  Roxane brings the violin to her stomach.

  Hugs it against her like a life preserver.

  ‘Thank you.’

  * * *

  Five o’clock. The kid’s late.

  At that moment, footsteps on the stairs. Louise smiles. Tells herself she’s a crap mother, but she’s a mother all the same. They can’t take that away from her.

  She’s had only two beers. Maybe three.

  ‘Hi, sweetie.’

  ‘Hi, Mom.’

  Roxane hugs the black case against her stomach.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A violin.’

  ‘A violin?’

  ‘The librarian gave it to me.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To play.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  A pause. Takes a breath. Approaches. Kneels down. Puts the case down, gently.

  Louise, understanding the tenuousness of the moment, kneels too, awkwardly.