Forty Words for Sorrow

31

ALGONQUIN BAY’S GOVERNMENT dock is a quiet place on a winter evening. The only sounds are likely to be the sawtooth buzz of a passing snowmobile or a sudden quake in the ice as massive plates shift against each other, emitting an otherworldly sigh, a slow-motion squeal, sometimes a horrendous gasp.

Eric Fraser and Edie Soames huddled side by side in a corner of the wharf out of the wind. Lake Nipissing stretched out into the grey like some bleak Nordic vision. Eric wasn’t saying anything, but Edie was luxuriating in the thrill of knowing another mind so well that no words were necessary. In fact she knew what Eric was going to say—he would say it any minute now. He’d been restless and irritable all morning and into the afternoon. And now, although taking the photographs was calming him a little, Edie knew where things were headed, even if Eric didn’t. Any minute now he would say it.

But Eric moved away to stand below the Chippewa Princess, a tour boat that had been turned into a restaurant. At least, during summer it was a restaurant; in winter it hung clear of the ice like a white whale on a hoist. Eric adjusted a lens, cursing the cold. Edie fussed with her hair, trying to get it to hang across one eye like Drew Barrymore’s in a movie she’d seen. Some hope, she thought bitterly. But at least it would hide some of her face.

Watching Eric in his long black coat, she wished they could sleep together. The problem was, Eric didn’t like it. His entire body would go stiff as a board when she touched him—not with desire, but with revulsion. At first she had thought the revulsion was directed just at her, no surprise there. But Eric seemed revolted by sex in general. Sex is for weaklings, he always said. Well, she could live without it, especially now that they shared this other, deeper excitement. He would say the word within the hour, she was sure.

“Move over.” Eric motioned her to her left. “I want to get the islands in.”

Edie turned to look. Out there, where the sky and the lake met in mutual shades of ash grey, lay the islands. That island. Windigo. Who would have thought such a tiny island could have a name? Edie remembered the dead girl, the curve of her spine against Eric’s duffle bag. So momentous it had seemed at the time, the murder; such a grim weight to that word. But it was amazing how little it mattered, the actual event, when you got right down to it. A human life had been extinguished, but no pillar of flame had descended from the sky, no maw of hell had opened. The cops and the newspapers got a little excited, but essentially the world went on exactly as before, minus Katie Pine. I wouldn’t even remember her name, Edie thought, if they hadn’t yammered about it day in and day out on the news.

She moved a little to the left, just as the ice shifted with a squeal like tearing metal. Edie let out a cry. “Eric, did you hear that?”

“The ice moved. Give me a smile now.”

“I don’t want to smile.” Cameras were no friend to Edie, and the ice had rattled her—as if the island had spoken her name.

“Look grumpy, then, Edie. I don’t care.”

She gave him her biggest grin, just to spite him, and he clicked the shutter. Another one for the record.

They’d started their photographic expedition out at Trout Lake, up near the reservoir. Eric had snapped one of Edie making an angel in the snow right over the spot where they’d buried Billy LaBelle. With all the snow there wasn’t the slightest trace of anything untoward. The hill, with its view of the lake, the deep blue sky, would have looked good on a postcard.

Then they’d driven down to Main Street and taken a few shots in front of the house where they’d killed Todd Curry. One of Edie, one of Eric, and then one of the two of them (Eric had used the timer for that one). A man had seen them—a man walking his big woolly dog, and Edie had imagined for a moment that he had glared at them. But Eric had reassured her: just a young couple playing with a camera, what’s the old fart going to care?

They moved to the lee of the bait shop so Eric could light a cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. He leaned against the wooden wall and looked at Edie through narrowed eyes. She could hear the words he was going to say before he said them, as if she had already dreamed the scene, as if she had created Eric, constructed the dock and the cold and the smoke all in her own mind. She sensed the same dark thrill running in his blood as was running in hers now. She could smell it, like the metallic smell of ice that quivered on the frigid wind. Seeing the house again had set her nerves humming. Seeing the island. She was shivering with cold, but said nothing. She didn’t want to spoil this moment.

They got back in the van and turned the heat up full blast. It felt so good, Edie laughed out loud. Eric dug a book out of the glove compartment and handed it to her. It was a large paperback, very grimy, with a used sticker on it.

She read the title. “Dungeon. Where’d you get this?”

He told her he’d picked it up last time he was in Toronto. It was a historical document he’d been looking for, a catalogue of torture devices used in the Middle Ages. “Read it to me,” he said. “Read page thirty-seven.”

Edie flipped through the glossy pages of photographs and drawings. The photographs showed the chair, whip or restraint; the drawings illustrated the device’s use. Hooks to yank out guts, iron claws to tear the flesh, saws for splitting a human in two. The illustration for that one showed a man hanging upside down while two others sawed him from crotch to navel.

“Read page thirty-seven,” Eric said again. “Read it to me. I love it when you read to me. You read so well.”

Oh, he knew how good his praise felt. Like coming home to a roaring fire after freezing half to death. Edie found the page. It showed a sort of helmet that was fixed over a wooden bar. Above the helmet was a huge screw.

“Skull crushers,” she read. “The accused’s chin is braced against the lower rod. As the screw is turned, the iron cap is forced downward, smashing the teeth together and gradually into the upper and lower jawbones. As more and more pressure is exerted, the eyes are pushed from their sockets. Eventually the brain itself is forced through the splintered cranium.”

“Yes. The brain squirts through,” Eric breathed. “Read another one. Read about the wheel.”

Eric had his hands deep in his pockets. Edie knew he was touching himself, but she knew better than to mention it. She flipped through the pages, the pictures of old iron instruments, the funny little woodcuts with their cartoon-like expressions of horror.

“Come on, Edie. Read about the wheel. It’s near the end.”

“You seem to know this book very well. Must be a favourite of yours.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe that’s why I want to share it with you.”

Oh, I know what’s coming, Eric. I know what you’re going to say. Finding the page, she felt a throbbing in her belly like a second heart. “The wheel. Stretched out, naked, on his or her back, the victim’s arms and legs were fixed to the outer rim of the wheel. Blocks of wood were placed beneath all the important bones and joints. Wielding an iron bar, the torturer smashed arms and legs into pulp, using all his skill to avoid actually killing his victim.”

“They just smashed people to bits,” Eric said. “But keeping them alive the whole time. What a thrill it must have been. Can you imagine? Read the rest.”

“The report of one eyewitness described how the victim was turned into ‘a sort of huge screaming puppet writhing in rivulets of blood, a puppet with four tentacles, like a sea monster, of raw, slimy, and shapeless flesh mixed up with splinters of smashed bones.’ When there was nothing left to break, the limbs were woven among the spokes of the wheel. The wheel was then raised horizontally on a pole. Birds of prey pecked at the eyes and tore off bits of flesh. Wheeling was probably the slowest and most agonizing death the human mind has ever conceived.”

“Read what comes after. Bottom of the page.”

“Wheelings were extremely common and were considered good fun. Woodcuts, drawings, and paintings through four centuries depict crowds of people laughing and chatting, clearly enjoying the hideous pain of a fellow human being.”

“People used to love it, Edie. People still love it. They just won’t admit it.”

Edie knew. Even Gram loved watching wrestling or a boxing match. Well, it was better than staring at this godforsaken sea of ice. You bet Gram loved it. Watching some guy get beaten half to death.

Perfectly normal, according to Eric. It just didn’t happen to be perfectly legal at the moment, that was all. It had fallen out of fashion. But it might come back—look at the United States. Look at the gas chamber, the electric chair. “You can’t tell me people don’t love it, Edie. It would have died out centuries ago if people didn’t get a big bang out of inflicting death. It’s just the biggest thrill known to man.”

It’s coming now, Edie thought. I can see the words forming in the air before he even says them. “I agree,” she said quietly.

“Good.”

“No, no. I mean I agree with what you’re going to say. Not just what you said.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” Eric smiled slyly. “What was I going to say? Come on, Madame Rosa. Tell me my thoughts. Read my mind.”

“I can, Eric. I know exactly what you were going to say.”

“So go ahead. Tell me my thoughts.”

“You were going to say, ‘Let’s do him tonight.’”

Eric gave her his profile. Blew smoke in a thin stream into the gathering darkness. “Not bad,” he said quietly. “Not bad at all.”

“I don’t know about you, Eric, but I’d say it’s party time.”

Eric rolled down the window and flicked his cigarette into the snow. “Party time.”