In the Skin of a Lion - Michael Ondaatje [70]
He was still crouched when the redcaps wheeled the cages down the ramp. On his knees in Union Station. He felt like the weight on the end of a plumb-bob hanging from the very centre of the grand rotunda, the absolute focus of the building. Slowly his vision began to swing. He turned his head to the left to the right to the left, discovering the horizon.
He moved tentatively into the city, standing in front of strangers, studying the new fashions. He felt invisible. Outside Union Station the streets were deep in snowdrifts. He walked towards the east end, along Eastern Avenue, till he eventually came to the Geranium Bakery, entering the warm large space where winter sun pie ced through the mist of flour in the air. He passed the spotless machines, looking for Nicholas. Buns moved forward along rollers till they were flipped over into the small lake of sizzling shortening. Finally he saw him in his suit covered with white dust at the far end of the bakery, choreographing the movement of food. Nicholas Temelcoff walked forward and embraced him. A bear’s grip. The grip of the world.
– Welcome back, my friend.
– Is she here?
Nicholas nodded.
– She has packed her things.
Patrick climbed into the service elevator and pulled the rope beside him which took him up to Nicholas’ living quarters on the next floor. He went in and knocked on the door of the small room.
Hana was sitting on the bed wearing a frock, her hands on her lap. Looking down, then up slowly, the way Alice used to glance up, the eyes moving first. So much like Alice it was terrible to him. He turned away and looked at the girl’s neat room, at the packed suitcase, the light on beside her bed in the daylight.
She watched him, understanding what kind of love was behind his stare. His cheek was pressed against the door frame, the new jacket collar rough against his neck. Five years earlier, before he had taken the train to the Muskokas, they had come to the Geranium Bakery. And Nicholas had offered to look after her. She was welcome to stay with his family. He had suggested this casually and with no hesitation, sitting in his office under the clock Hana loved, where each hour was represented by a different style of doughnut. “Each of us is on our own for a while now,” Patrick had said. “I know.” She had been eleven years old then.
She rose from the bed. “Hey, Patrick, look how tall I’ve got!” Stepping forward towards him and embracing him quietly, her arms all the way around him, the top of her head just reaching his chin.
At the Balkan Café they sat down and ordered sujuk, the sausages with leeks and pork and garlic that he had not eaten for so long.
– Are you healthy?
– Oh yes. As a horse.
– Good.
– I’ll have to get used to things, though.
– That’s okay, Patrick … and being in jail’s okay too. Don’t let it go to your head, though.
– No.
He felt comfortable joking with her, gathering her perspective. In prison when he imagined freedom it was as a solitary. Nothing to carry, nothing to fall back into the arms of. This was the image he luxuriated in, awake all night, watching the other prisoners turning like great grey fish in their cells. In prison he had protected himself with silence – as if any sentence would be unsafe territory, as if saying even one word would begin a release of Alice out of his body. Secrecy kept him powerful. By refusing communication he could hold her within himself, in his arms. But on the night Caravaggio was attacked, his father’s neutral song slid out as warning. And Patrick turned from himself.
– Did you make any friends in prison? Hana asked.
– I made one friend. He escaped.
– Too bad. What did he do?
– He was a thief. Some people tried to cut his throat in jail.
– Then he’s lucky he escaped.
– He was most clever.
Ambrose Small, as a millionaire, had always kept the landscapes of his world separate, high walls between them. Lovers, compatriots, businessmen, were anonymous to each other. As far as they knew there