The Gallery of Lost Species (32 page)

The image of the last living thylacine that died from neglect in the zoo stayed with me, replaying in my head as if on a reel, like the voices in
Forty-Part Motet.

The film was too exposed—the animal and its surroundings at times whited out completely in some areas, erased then reappearing and disappearing altogether.

FIFTY-ONE

V
IV FLOATED THROUGH MY
sleep in a birchbark canoe, all decked out in a glitz dress. I swam up to her, but she peeled my fingers off the rim of the vessel. When she smiled and said
Don't worry, little one,
I saw a hole in her throat. Then she rose and danced the cancan. A monstrous snake emerged from the water, a hairy, toothy serpent with red eyes. It bit Viv's head off and spat it out. Her white plaster-cast death mask bobbed up and down like a buoy in the black waves, singing
Que sera, sera
while I drowned.

Something smacked against the window with a
kowww kowww,
startling me from the nightmare. I opened the curtains. A crow lay in the snow, stunned but breathing.

As the sun crept across the blanketed yards, the snow stole colour from its light sources like a Vermeer—purplish off the clouds, intermingled with streaks of yellow and red from the mountain ash berries. The crow flew off, leaving an indentation of feathers.

It was my first day back at work and I went in early. Passing the taiga garden, I asked a security guard for a cigarette. I sat on a powdery ledge and smoked it in requiem for Theo. All morning I felt seasick from the cigarette and the dream.

There was a stack of botanical studies to get through. With precision, I noted details—accession number, object name, maker, title, date, culture, materials, and measurements—in the vaults. Then I entered what was outstanding at my desk: legal status, home location, current location, valuation, activities, authorities, and on and on. But I just didn't care anymore, about dandelions and bramble. In the grand scheme, their insignificance was blatant.

The librarian had loaned me a tape player. I'd had it on my desk for weeks. I fished through my bag for the cassette Con had given me, and inserted it into the slot. When I hit Play, the machine's mechanisms squeaked and there was a granular hissing.

The quality of sound wasn't great. But I made out the muffled voices of my young parents right away.
“Grand sourire, ma fille!”
and “Attagirl!”

Then came a pitter-patter of feet and a little voice—mine. “Reeeeee … fffeeeee … rrreeeeee … fffeeeeee…” in quick succession.

“Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist,” Con instructed.

“Say it slower, Edith.” Henry spoke over our mother. “Like this:
Preee-sennn-tiiinnng
 …
Vivieeennnne!
”

“Prrreee fffeee prrreee fffeeeee preeeee fffveee ffvvvee fvvveeeee vvveeee Veeee!”

“Maman, put the wings on me,” Viv demanded.

“Vivienne, don't pull your sister's arm so hard.”

“C'mere, sis, watch this. I'll flutter away flut flutter awayyy…”

I could hear Viv skipping around barefoot. Then a jingling—our father playing a tambourine. Dropping the musical instrument to tickle us. Viv and I shrieking like crazy.

“Henri, enough!”

“Fffffeeee bye-bye fffffffveeee bye-bye fvvveeeee Vvvvveeeee!” I started up again. I guessed I was maybe two. It was all I kept saying till someone pressed the Stop button, probably Con.

I pulled the cassette out of the machine. I didn't want the player to eat the tape. I had no recollection of us that small, or of me enunciating some of my first words with my sister. The black plastic rectangle was my memento. If I took proper care of the artifact, it would outlive us like a heart in a reliquary.

*   *   *

I
PACED THE
office halls. Alejandro and Raven were off for another week, and the staff quarters were empty. I continued feeling sorry for myself through lunch, eating a spongy ham sandwich until a
ding dong
notification alerted me to an email from Jonathan Cole.
Just wanted to see how you're doing,
the message read
.
It was invasive to have someone inquire after me like that. Even though we'd exchanged contact information, I hadn't expected to hear from him again.

On a whim, in my bleak mood, I responded.
Fine thanks. I'd like to see Theo.

Jonathan's reply was instantaneous. He'd be going to Theo's later in the afternoon and I could accompany him then. It crossed my mind that he was instigating the visit for my sake, which further aggravated me.

He pulled up at the Gallery in a Smurf-blue Smart car. When I squeezed into it, he had a coffee waiting for me.

On the drive to Sunnybrook Lodge, he updated me on Theo's condition, assuring me that he was making progress. He could sit in a wheelchair and move his right arm and leg. He wasn't speaking, but he was writing. That Theo had lost his speech didn't deter Jonathan. His grandmother had two good years after her stroke, he told me.

“I watched the thylacine on YouTube last night,” I said as we parked. “What happens when you catch your species?”

“It's not a cryptid once it's scientifically accepted.”

“And the animal?”

“It becomes a conservation problem nobody wants to deal with.” He reached into the back for his gloves. “But I didn't have that issue. Neither did Theo.” His face was uncomfortably close to mine in the cartoon car. I made the move to open my door when he added, “Because we never found what we were trailing.”

Despite its upbeat name, Sunnybrook wasn't much different from Mechanicsville's low-income housing. The roof was in disrepair, windows were cracked, and paint peeled off the building's exterior. Inside, the air was oppressive and damp. We signed in for visiting hour that went until five o'clock. After that, meals were served, Jonathan said. Most residents were in bed by eight.

Theo was in the high-needs wing. We passed through a light green hall jazzed up with motivational posters. A kitten dangling by its claw hooked into a branch:
Hang In There!
A beaver resting on a log:
I'm not procrastinating, I'm waiting for divine inspiration.
A snapshot of the sky with
I am not afraid, I was born to do this
scrawled across it.

There were no seniors milling about. Other than the sound coming from TVs in rooms where doors were open a crack, the atmosphere was glum.

I tried not to breathe in the sickly-sweet odour of decaying flowers and apple juice mixed with stale smoke and diapers. Where doors were open, nurses smiled at us. We seemed to be the only visitors.

“It's busier on weekends,” Jonathan told me. “Most folks can't get away from work this early.” The last person I'd heard use the word
folks
was my father. There was something hokey about Jonathan, as if he came from the olden days.

I stopped him before the common area. “He doesn't need to know I'm here,” I said, taking a chair against the back wall when we entered the room. I respected Theo's dignity too much. I wanted to see him without disconcerting him.

“Fair enough. Maybe next time,” he said affably before leaving me there.

Someone had already wheeled Theo in. He sat by the bay window above the river pathway where joggers ran with dogs and strollers on a salted path of packed-down snow. Even with a thick wool sweater over his shoulders, he didn't look so big anymore. I didn't like seeing him confined in this ghastly place—and it was ghastly, however much Jonathan raved about the staff.

I hardly knew a thing about him, other than that he studied animals people thought were extinct. Yet believing he'd been out there on his island had brought me peace of mind. At that point, I understood my attachment to Theo, who, on blind faith, brought the dead back to life by seeking proof of their existence out in a lonely and far-off wilderness. He'd given me what nobody else had: hope. So what if it was delusional or unrealistic? Theo was the firefly in the pitch-dark lairs where I searched for Viv. How many people like this did we come across in a lifetime?

Jonathan sat by him in an easygoing, natural way. I only half made out his words as he gave him news on recent discoveries in the animal kingdom. Not once did Theo's head move. But Jonathan touched his arm frequently, and made a point of laughing. Sometimes he pulled a tissue from his pocket and dabbed at Theo's eyes.

Later, the nurse came over. She spoke to Jonathan like they were friends. Jonathan gave her the
National Geographic
he'd been reading from.

Then he walked over to me and extended a hand for me to stand, as though we were in a dance hall or something. “A round of chess?” he asked.

“I'd like to go,” I told him as I watched Theo. The nurse sat beside him now, chit-chatting. “Where did they put his okapi cane?”

“It's hanging on his door. He just sees this as a setback,” Jonathan said. “Thinks he'll walk out of here and resume tracking die-offs.”

Jonathan drove me home with more stories of the thylacine and his voyages to the Australian outback. Then—I sensed he added this bit of information for my benefit—he told me he was a homebody, and was relieved to be done with fieldwork.

“Not me. I want to travel,” I said, realizing it was true.

Theo had privileged me with a picture of the greater world, the journeys and expeditions that were possible.

FIFTY-TWO

W
ITHIN A FEW DAYS
, Jonathan phoned to ask me out for dinner.

“Like a date?”

“Affirmative. Or an un-date if you fancy.”

“Why not,” I told him, feeling neutral about it.

When the designated night came, I didn't primp. Had it been Liam, the beautifying rituals would have taken hours. With Jonathan, I put on a fresh sweater and jeans just before he got there, washing my face, combing my hair, and doing up my eyes in under five minutes. I was engrossed in a reality TV show and was cranky that I couldn't stay in and watch with a box of strawberry Passion Flakies, especially on such a cold night. Seeing the farcical Smart car pull up through a crack in the curtains, I cursed myself for having said yes.

When I opened the door, Mira went wild. She jumped onto Jonathan's leg and fell, rolling over and repeating her attack a dozen times, yipping and growling.

Under his coat I could see he'd dressed up for the occasion. He wore jeans but had on a canary yellow shirt and a matching tie.

“You should harness her into wind energy.” Jonathan blocked Mira with his slushy sneaker as he proffered a complicated bouquet of pine cones and evergreen interspersed with carnations and a sprig of mistletoe. Christmas was over. He'd probably got them on clearance.

“I had that one special made. To prolong the best time of year,” he said, pleased with himself.

I grabbed the water jug from the fridge and tossed the arrangement into it, hastily zipping up my coat and leaving Mira there whining as I rushed us out.

He moved ahead of me to open my door first. The car tottered along until we pulled into the lot of a downtown restaurant covered with parrots, sombreros, and palm trees, called Maria Guadalupe's Cantina. The windows were boarded up with plywood, but the lot was full. Passing it vacant in the daytime, I'd always assumed the place was out of business.

He rushed around to open my door again, bending his arm for me to slide my hand through it. I did so only because the ground was icy.

The restaurant was loud and crowded and colourful, as if a rainbow had detonated inside. After spending the holiday in isolation, the fiesta was daunting.

Jonathan was helping me with my coat when a woman resembling Frida Kahlo accosted us. We followed her swooshing, richly dyed skirt to a reserved table by a tile fountain. He ordered margaritas while I studied the mural behind him, struggling to make small talk.

“How did you get into cryptozoology?” I asked over the sound of mariachis tuning up nearby.

“My dad's an entomologist. He found a new bee species in the nineties, but it died out within a year.” He dumped some salt onto his fruity drink before tilting it toward mine. “He taught me to see beyond what's there.” His smile was frank. It bewildered me that he didn't give off a fraught vibe. I decided his face was artless. “So, Edith Walker, what led you to the world of art?”

“My dad.” I didn't elaborate, rubbing at the embroidered flowers on the tablecloth.

He sat back and rolled up his sleeves like he was thinking this through. “Tell me about your hobbies.”

“I don't have any.”

“Everyone's got hobbies.” His laughter was confoundingly free of deceit.

What was missing in Jonathan, which was engrained in myself and everyone I knew, was bitterness. Only Clair was like that. I couldn't stay annoyed with him. Even so, I wished he'd back off.

“How do you spend your free time?” He looked at me expectantly.

I searched for my sister. What else was there to do?

“We need to get you a hobby,” he continued as I pressed my hands on my forehead to fight the margarita brain-freeze.

When our shared platter arrived, it smelled delicious. I was famished, as though I'd been deprived of real food for months. I turned my attention to the mariachis while we ate.

“I've always wanted to bake pies,” I finally told him between songs.

“Now we're talking. What kind?”

“Coconut cream, rhubarb. Pumpkin. And I want to play the piano,” I added, finishing my third taco and moving on to the enchiladas.

Through the trees in adobe planters, I saw a moving flash of colour. The mariachis were making their way around the tables. Couples stood and danced. I was ready to go home.

*   *   *

“I
S THAT A
toucan?” I asked Jonathan when we walked out.