jerked open the flap of her handbag and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here! Here is it!” She waved a photocopy of a picture in front of Rebecca’s face.
“What is it?” Rebecca asked, trying to focus on the moving page. “May I see it?”
Mrs. Kochinsky handed her the sheet, which Rebecca glanced at, puzzled. She commented on the obvious. “It looks like a duck.” Before she could examine it further, Mrs. Kochinsky grabbed it back and replaced it in her purse.
“You don’t believe me,” said Mrs. Kochinsky, hurt.
The image of the duck walking along a sidewalk appeared to have been copied from a news photo. Rebecca worried that her patient had lost what grip on reality she may have had.
“Can you tell me what he was doing when you saw him?” she asked.
“Waiting for me. He knew I come. I run here and he follow me. You have call police.”
Rebecca placed a concerned hand on her arm. “Please sit down.” When they were both seated, Rebecca said, “I can see how upset you are. Help me understand what happened before you came here. I know how difficult it is for you to leave your area. Why were you downtown?”
“My cousin from United States coming ... he ask me for shop so I look around.”
“But why didn’t you shop close to home, on Eglinton? Why did you come downtown?”
Mrs. Kochinsky looked confused. “But shop downtown. I have to.”
It was Rebecca’s turn to be confused, but she went on. “Did he touch you?”
“He come at me. But I ran.” She wrung feverish hands together and leaned toward Rebecca with stark expectation. “Oh Doctor, he almost get me!”
The Greta Garbo face, the greying brown hair soft on her cheek, fought with the words. It was like a cartoon with the wrong caption. A mistake. She should have been a grandmother at home enjoying her family. Instead, she sat perched on the end of her seat, hands clasped tightly together, knuckles turning white. Deep sighs heaved periodically from her chest.
Rebecca tried to elicit cogent details that might interest the police but Mrs. Kochinsky seemed capable of relating only vague descriptions and indeterminate locations. Though she was more upset than usual, Rebecca had to put it in perspective. At last week’s session, it was someone who had followed Mrs. Kochinsky off the bus when she was coming for her appointment. Rebecca had attributed the anxiety to the unfamiliar first trip down to the new office. Maybe this was the level of anxiety the poor woman was operating on now. How was Rebecca to know, as last week was the first time she’d seen her in eight weeks.
Maybe she would call Dr. Romanov again and get clearer details of Mrs. Kochinsky’s behaviour during the time he was covering for Rebecca. She watched her patient now as she sat talking, her trenchcoat crumpled around her. This unscheduled visit worried Rebecca; she wondered if she could expect Mrs. Kochinsky to drop in anytime. At least she was calmer and seemed to have more control of herself.
“Feeling better now?” Rebecca asked.
Mrs. Kochinsky gave a wan smile.
“You can rest in here till you feel you’re all right to leave,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rebecca closed the door and headed for Iris’ desk. “Mrs. Kochinsky is taking a short rest,” she said behind the partition. “Keep an eye on her and let me know when she leaves.”
Iris handed her the next patient’s file.
Then came a cat and ate the goat That Father bought for two zuzim. One little goat, one little goat.
chapter six
Tuesday, April 3, 1979
Toronto was not Buenos Aires, thought Goldie as she watched the news at eleven o’ clock. It was a staid, humourless place where streets were laid out in unimaginative lines like a giant grid. A bookkeeper’s city. You might not get lost in Toronto, but the trip would be tedious. Buenos Aires, now there was a city! As exciting as Paris, with its furtive alleyways, its wide sweeping boulevards lined with plane-trees, the women dressed like models strolling past the outdoor cafes. After nearly two years in Toronto, Goldie still missed the European feel of Buenos Aires. The city was not to blame for the nightmare of what had happened to her.
It was such a long time ago. It was just yesterday. How much older she felt now. A hundred years older, sitting in flannel pyjamas in her living-room watching the late news. At eleven-thirty Buenos Aires was just waking up. What did she care if Pierre Trudeau was heading to Calgary this week? Or that his pretty young wife was showing off their three sons to the press? He was an old goat who had found a brood mare to propagate his line. Well, why not? Why shouldn’t he have sons? Maybe he would be luckier than she had been and his sons would live past their twenty-sixth birthday.
She changed the station with the remote. Another clip of that tedious Star Wars movie. Too loud. They were trying to whet people’s appetite for the next one coming out. Something about a sinister Empire. She wished she could escape into fantasies like other people. She flicked to another channel. Maybe she could find an old movie.
That was when she thought she heard it. She flicked the mute button and strained to listen. A soft knocking came from her door. She jumped in her seat. Her heart dropped as she remembered that other knock in Argentina. “¡Abra la puerta! ¡Abra la puerta!”
She sat rigid while the man knocked softly, softly on her door (she was sure it was a man). Go away, thought Goldie, I’m not ready yet. She had told Dr. Temple today — she knew it would be him. This one was clever, tapping so quietly. The others had not been quiet. They had knocked and knocked. “¡Abra la puerta! ¡Abra la puerta!”
Soon he would kick the door down. She had seen this moment coming since the basement in Buenos Aires during that other nightmare. First the blindfold, then without preamble, the machine. People said they couldn’t remember pain. Well, maybe one forgot the pain, but never the terror of it, never the racing heart in the night. Where’s your son, you Jewish whore?
What was the point of surviving your children? The man at the door in Toronto was carrying the tail end of the plague that had come after her family in Poland in 1939.
For nearly two years in Canada now she had waited for the executioner. Every time she went on the street, someone was watching her. People scoffed when she told them. They didn’t understand. How could they? They hadn’t been tortured. Even the bakery where she worked, men came in looking for her. Oh, not openly, no. They were good actors; nobody believed her. But she knew. And she waited. Every place she had settled in had betrayed her. And now here he was at her door. Toronto was the last place that would betray her.
Safe Toronto. Safe for everyone else. Not for her. She knew he would come. She knew she could not stop him coming. And though she did not always recognize him, she knew him. By heart. How many years had she waited for him to reveal himself? Her body trembled now as he called through the door. She struggled to hear the words.
“I just want to talk,” he said. “You wouldn’t let me explain this afternoon. That’s all I want, just to explain.”
This afternoon.
