The Book of Stanley (29 page)

 

SEVENTY-ONE

A
urore brought the tea, rooibos with licorice, and pleasantries were exchanged. Mary Schäffer asked if Stanley enjoyed rooibos tea, as it was packed with antioxidants and other disease-fighting agents.

There wasn't space in Stanley for rooibos tea. He considered tossing the teapot, after the vase and bouquet, out the window. To squeeze this desire out of his mind, he considered the decommissioned fireplace with its two giant logs.

Mary Schäffer dismissed Aurore and poured the tea. There were also biscuits and dark chocolates in the shape of pyramids. “That's why we don't know who you are or what force created you. God has been gone for too long.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We hoped that by killing or expelling you we would gather some insight.”

Stanley laughed. What else could he do? “So this is Hell.”

“I resent that.” Mary Schäffer gestured at Stanley's glass. “Drink, Mr. Moss.”

“You first.”

“We don't eat or drink. We're dead people!”

“Then why do you have rooibos tea, and biscuits, and tiny chocolates?”

“Why, for visitors. Like yourself.”

“You get others?”

“Occasionally scuba divers will go too deep and pass through the membrane. We can't let them go back, of course, so we have to kill them. Drink up!”

Stanley sipped the tea. It struck him that Frieda would love it. “Is it Purgatory?”

“Now you're getting warmer. It's like a border town, between Canada and the United States. Or Kashmir. Yes, it's like Kashmir.”

“And on the other side of the border?”

“There are theories.” Mary Schäffer lifted a hand and touched her hair. “Do you know? Have you heard something?”

“No.”

A sequence of loud noises floated through the window and Stanley looked out. A line of people and sasquatches wound its way through the gardens of Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de' Medici. At the front of the line, several men and women played drums and blew a variety of horns.

“What's this?”

“The parade of gloom. They've been doing it since God abandoned us. Ignore them.”

“Why did God abandon you?”

“He abandoned
you
,
too
. What arrogance! If it weren't for you, up there, God would still be with us. Taking us over the border into Paradise.” Mary Schäffer joined Stanley at the window. “I have half a mind to kill you myself, for your impertinence.”

“Did you ever see God?”

“No, not me. They say God's assistant visited a few times after I arrived but I wasn't mayor then. There were a few closed-door meetings, a reception in Central Park. By the
time I found my way out of the desert and understood Svarga, even God's assistant was gone.”

“What did God look like? The white hair, the beard?”

Mary Schäffer laughed. “There's no point killing you. You're too young and naive to be anyone, or anything, of importance.” She left the room and Stanley followed her. They walked along the corridor, down the stairs, and into a large room decorated with painted tapestries and an engraved oak door. “This is the guards' room,” said Mary Schäffer. On the other side was the entrance to what looked like a chapel.

“The original is filled with depictions of the Virgin. When we built this Chenonceau, we substituted God for the Virgin.”

Stanley did not understand what he was seeing. The paintings, the stained-glass windows, the marble statues all depicted a young girl. They weren't exact representations, as the clothes were all wrong, but the artists were clearly inspired by Darlene.

“Darlene?”

“What?”

Stanley laughed. “That's Darlene.”

“What's Darlene, you silly man? Who is Darlene?”

“No one. Nothing. It must be the tea.”

“It must be the tea!” Mary Schäffer pushed Stanley aside. “God has taken many forms, of course, but sometime in the 1500s God became a twelve-year-old girl.”

“Why?”

“I won't talk to you any more if you don't stop asking inane questions.”

“Sorry. I'll try to do better.”

“Now, I suppose you came down to Svarga to see your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Your friend. The portly one, with the brown skin. Alok.”

“Alok's here?”

“Of course he's here! He's in the desert. That's why you came, isn't it?”

They stood in front of the chapel, and its depictions of God, for a long while. The sound of the parade, which had briefly faded, started up again. “You'll take me.”

“On one condition.”

“Anything.”

Mary Schäffer led Stanley out of the château and on to the grounds. The parade of gloom, which had wound its way around the gardens and beyond, turned out and down the road lined with plane trees. “When you get back up there, you go out of the valley and leave us in peace. I can't ask you to commit suicide, which would be my preference, because I'm sure you lack the inner strength. But I've already expelled you and wasted no end of energy having you killed. Please, be a gentleman.”

“And leave.”

“Yes! Yes! Go back home.”

They walked past the forecourt and the marques tower, beyond the gardens. Ahead of them, the parade musicians played an off-key version of “Louie, Louie.” In the back, sasquatches clapped their hands and danced for God's return.

 

SEVENTY-TWO

T
he lush, continental climate of the Loire Valley gave way, in an instant, to a stiflingly hot desert. Stanley and Mary Schäffer passed from rivers and drooping trees into the sands of what appeared to be the Sahara. He looked back, and the Loire Valley had disappeared.

The Svarga sky looked how the sky
up there
ought to look in the middle of the Sahara, deep blue and streaked with mysterious white blotches. They walked for what seemed like several hours, in deep sand. To Stanley's delight, he grew neither tired nor sweaty. There were smooth hills and spines in every direction, extending in bleary mists. Over one last giant hill of sand, a slightly more forgiving landscape appeared, with short grasses and scorched, leafless acacia trees, their branches twisted like falcons' nests.

Ahead in the shimmering heat, another parade of gloom snaked its way around a small hill. Three goats with bells tied around their necks stood near the parade and ignored its singing, dancing, drumming, and horn blowing. It was easier to walk on this sand; Mary Schäffer adjusted her dress. Just beyond the hill, Stanley made out a few lopsided, windowless stone houses.

“This is as far as I go,” said Mary Schäffer, as she walked back toward the hills of the Sahara. “This is a miserable place, with scorpions and rodents. Do you like horned vipers? I hope so.”

Stanley was about to call out to Mary Schäffer, to thank her for bringing him to this place, when he heard a familiar voice behind him. A familiar yawn. Alok stood, stooped, in the entrance of the poorest-looking house. With a gush of relief, Stanley ran to his friend. They embraced. “I thought you were gone.”

“I am gone.” There was no wildness or joy in Alok's voice.

“I'm so sorry I wasn't there. If only I could have…”

Stanley wanted to continue but Alok had turned away. He wore a yellow muumuu, with reproductions of cave paintings. “Would you like to come inside?”

“I'd love to.”

Alok allowed Stanley to enter the stone house first. It smelled of rotting meat and feces. To spare Alok's feelings, Stanley pretended he did not smell the smell. There was a stone bed and a mattress built with twigs. There was a broken chair and a giant wooden bowl and several blankets. In the middle of the house, a firepit.

The living arrangements were, in sum, horrifying. “Are you being punished?”

“You can't choose when, where, or to whom you're born. Near as I can tell, it's the same down here.” Alok kicked at ashes in the firepit. “I've done everything to get rid of that smell.”

“There's no water. Do you want or need some?”

Alok sighed. “I do
not
like being dead, Stanley.”

“Surely, you can earn your way out with good works. You aren't stuck here forever.”

“That's a nice thought, but there's no real logic to this. Near as I can tell.”

Alok led Stanley out of the stone house, to the best place for sitting, in front of an acacia tree. The heat didn't seem to
bother Alok, but there was an atmosphere of monotony in the windless air of the desert community. They sat, and Alok pulled out a small, rusted knife. He whittled a twig that had fallen nearby, and sighed.

“Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“No God.”

Stanley nodded.

“People don't talk about it. But what a kick in the teeth. I mean, all the things I could have done differently. Sex, travel, hunting. A New Age store? How humiliating.”

One of Alok's neighbours, a bald white man wearing Bermuda shorts and a floral-print shirt, stepped out of another stone house and stretched and waved. He walked over to a black goat and rubbed its head. “Some kind of weather!”

“Yeah, that's a good one, Irving.” Alok tossed his whittled twig in the sand and addressed Stanley. “Same joke every day–if this
is
a day. I don't know.”

They sat together, leaning against the tree, watching the goats. Stanley put his hand on Alok's shoulder and held it there. He wanted to say something, to make his friend feel better. But nothing seemed right. Alok sighed some more and time, or something like it, passed.

“How often does the parade of gloom come by?” Stanley hoped to instigate some liveliness in Alok. Perhaps there were benefits to joining.

“Time to time. They're assholes.”

They sat for several more hours, until it began to seem pointless to Stanley, his being there. He watched Alok whittle, and nearly laughed out loud as he recalled his conversations with Darlene. “I know what I have to do.”

“It really doesn't matter what you do,” said Alok, without looking up from his gleaming twig. He wasn't whittling it for any purpose. Soon, it wouldn't be a twig any more. It would be scrapings on Alok's lap.

“Maybe I can come back.”

“Don't. Don't come back here. It doesn't help.”

Eventually, when it appeared Alok was asleep with his eyes open, Stanley kissed his friend on the cheek and stood up. Stanley waved to Irving, who responded with a hearty, “See you soon, Jake!” and returned to his stone house.

Several minutes, or hours, or days later, Stanley passed out of the desert and into the bottom of Lake Minnewanka. The sunken village appeared before Stanley, so he jumped and rose to the surface.

 

SEVENTY-THREE

H
ow many times had Tanya Gervais said hello, in a chirpy voice, to Carol the executive assistant? How many times had Tanya asked about Carol's chubby daughter with the lisp? How many times had Tanya called Carol's chubby daughter with the lisp
a beautiful girl
?

Too many to count. Yet here she was, two weeks after Stanley's disappearance, begging.

“You know how he is, Tanya. If I put you through, and you make him angry, it's my ass.”

“No, it isn't. I'll vouch for you. Darryl knows you and I are old friends.”

“Old friends?”

“Please, Carol. Five minutes, what's it worth?”

Carol said nothing for a while. There were some clicking sounds. “Approximately seventeen dollars.”

“Are you bribable, Carol?”

“Meaning?”

“I would like to help you and your beautiful daughter out. It isn't easy being a single mother, I know that. And Vancouver isn't getting any cheaper. How does a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill sound? You could buy Annie a new dress.”

“Who's Annie?”

Tanya covered the receiver and said, “Fuckass,” so loudly she worried the Banff Springs Hotel management would kindly ask her to vacate the premises. There had been enough money left over in the The Stan account to take over Francis's room. Francis, like a lot of the media based in New York, London, and Paris, had given up on Stanley returning. And so had Tanya. “Suzie. I meant Suzie.”

“My daughter's name is Miriam.”

“Of course it is, Carol. Of course it is.”

The executive assistant took a deep breath. “Tanya, I told him this morning that you'd been calling. You know what he said?”

“No.”

“Well, I'm not sure I can repeat it, in good conscience.”

“I've had a change of heart. Tell Darryl this: I've got some great ideas about Leap's strategic vision, moving forward into the twenty-first century, and–”

“The vice-president position has been filled.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry, Tanya.”

The blood vacated her brain and landed in Neanderthal stress locations like the stomach and thighs. Tanya wasn't about to give up. “He can make up a new position. Vice-president of brand awareness. Vice-president of audience relations. Minister of propaganda.”

Carol was clearly embarrassed for Tanya. She made a wet sound with her mouth, and delivered a pity-sigh over the digital phone line. “I'm sorry,” she said again, and hung up.

To the ensuing dial tone, Tanya retorted, “I hope your fat fucking daughter gets diabetes.”

And then Tanya went to the hotel gym. It had been several months and she was out of shape. She had to use five-pound barbells instead of ten-pounders for lunges, and she produced at least double her normal amount of lower-back sweat on the stationary bicycle. In the pool, treading water after a few laps, Tanya briefly considered going under and staying under. She wouldn't die, as the pool was full of potential rescuers. But her convalescence would be deliciously restful.

Tanya sat in the sauna with several other naked women, all of them talking about their children. Upstairs, after her shower, Tanya put on the white bathrobe provided by the preposterously expensive hotel and stared out her window at the river, the harsh mountains, the endless fields of pine and spruce trees. It all made her feel claustrophobic and nauseous. She missed the ocean.

The phone rang.

No one knew she was there, except for Francis the adulterer and Darryl Lantz. Francis the adulterer was on the
airplane to New York, drunk most likely, so it had to be the thirty-six-year-old genius.

It was a voice she did not recognize, saying her name with a hint of an accent. He introduced himself so quickly Tanya did not catch his name. “I am in the lobby of your hotel, and I have a business proposition for you. May I come up, or should I meet you in the lounge?”

Tanya was still registering her disappointment at not hearing the voice of Darryl Lantz. It was dreamlike, her disappointment, a power outlet of wretchedness. She did not listen closely, but she agreed to everything. Yes, fifteen minutes. Yes, the lounge. Yes, see you soon.

All of her clothes had burned in the fire. To work out, she had worn a rented bikini and bare feet. Now Tanya put on her panties inside out and slipped into the outfit she had been wearing for two weeks straight–a black skirt, a tight-fitting red shirt with a stylized dragon on it, and a little blazer. She dried her hair and stared in the mirror, fascinated by the dark ovals under her eyes.

Tanya had never understood homelessness. In Vancouver, she had been surrounded by it. They slept in the alley behind her building and shopped in its dumpsters. They broke into her Hummer, twice, even though there was nothing to steal. She saw it and felt it now, how the reversal could come at you like a kung fu chop. How it could tear you out of yourself and leave a shell, an envelope of dry skin, behind.

In the elevator, a man in expensive eyeglasses looked variously at his Blackberry, his shoes, and her breasts. Her bra was so dirty it itched, so Tanya had decided to go without it.

“You like Banff?” said the man, whose suit and hair and skin were grey.

“Piss off.”

The man did not look up from his Blackberry again.

There was a large window in the lounge. Something about the quality of light prompted in Tanya an instant thirst for a dry gin martini.

It was impossible to see anyone, as they were all backlit. One of the silhouettes stood up from a chair near the window and approached her. He was not a large man, though he had a confident gait. Tanya placed the accent when she saw his face, and remembered seeing him on the television news.

The man smiled without showing his teeth. He shook Tanya's hand and slipped her a card. “My name is Dr. Lam. I am a psychiatrist, palliative care specialist, and, from time to time, an entrepreneur.”