Until the Night

From the Blue Notebook

Twice a week, Vanderbyl would set off on his skis for the seismic hut. This was several kilometres away, toward what had been the western end of the island but, owing to headwinds, encounters with other islands and underwater shoals, was now the southern end. He had government funding to complete the mapping of the Alpha Ridge, the hope in Ottawa being that it would prove to be firmly connected to Canada and not to Greenland—or, worse, to Russia. Kurt would sleep at the hut in order to begin blasting as early as possible.

Sometimes, when the others were safely engaged in their separate pursuits, I would go to Rebecca’s lab. Despite how it may appear in the movies, desks and countertops are not ideal surfaces for lovers’ encounters, even without all Rebecca’s electronic gear. Sometimes I would sit myself on her task chair and she would straddle me, and I could lose myself in the scent of the hair at the nape of her neck, the taste of her sweat.

On nights when Vanderbyl was gone—this was May, when the nights were still extremely long—we could still use her cabin. But if Vanderbyl was in camp, she would come to my hut, my dwarf planet, as she called it, and we would lie in each other’s arms. Afterward, it was a struggle for her to climb out of bed and venture once more into the sub-zero darkness. But we felt safer there, because there seemed little likelihood of Vanderbyl visiting me.

One night I was in bed and I put my book aside. It was another novel Rebecca had thrust on me, a “coming of age” story about a Pakistani boy growing up in Muskoka. His experience was remarkably similar to that of the Catholic girl in Newfoundland in the previous book she had lent me, and I resolved to accept no more. There’s a factory somewhere turning these things out, I had said to annoy her.

Why does everybody have to be kooky? I yelled in answer to the soft rapping at my door. Why does everybody have to have a heart of gold? Come in, for God’s sake. I want to berate you.

But it was Vanderbyl who opened the door and came in and quickly shut the door behind him.

He removed his gloves and pushed his hood back and stood there in his stooped way. His face looked as if it had crumpled with exhaustion and subsequent attempts to smooth it out had been unsuccessful. Dark circles under his eyes, points of white at the corners of his mouth. A man to whom sleep was a stranger.

I apologize for the disruption. May I sit down?

He removed his boots and sat on my desk chair in his parka. He stretched his hands out before him as if checking the lengths of his arms, then let them rest in his lap, a collection of long fingers, bony wrists. He lapsed into stillness.

There was nothing for me to say under the circumstances. I sat back against the wall, wrapped in my sleeping bag that smelled of Rebecca.

A rustling of parka as Vanderbyl roused himself. I thought he was going to go hurtling back out into the night, but he went down on his knees. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and shook them before me as if they were chained.

Is this what you want? he said.

Kurt, for God’s sake.

If this is what you want, you have it. All right? You have it. It must feel good, right? Must fill your heart with joy?

Of course not. Please get up.

But you’re the one who put me here. You must want me here, isn’t it?

No.

You and my wife. Together, you have crushed me into nothing.

She had reasons, you have none. Kurt, you split from her. You left her. You’re separated.

A trial separation. I wanted her to realize she wants to stay with me. It turns out I am the one doing all the realizing.

That’s the trouble with experiments. They rarely yield the data we expect.

Is it because of the hiring committee? Is it because you didn’t get tenure?

That was years ago, Kurt.

You must realize that was nothing personal. There was simply a more suitable candidate.

That’s debatable.

It was duly debated. It was not an easy decision. Nor was it unanimous. But in the end—for a number of reasons—Klimov was the committee’s choice.

You were chair. You had ultimate control.

And here I am.

He held his clasped hands out to me again. Even on his knees, Vanderbyl was looking down at me.

I was angry then, I said. Full of resentment, perhaps even hatred. But I’m perfectly content at Carleton, and I don’t believe in revenge.

Are you so certain? I didn’t believe in jealousy.

He got to his feet and reached for the chair. For a moment I feared he was going to raise it over his head and smash my skull with it. He dragged it closer and sat down.

But now I do. Proved upon the pulses, as the poet says. How ridiculous that I—I, who pride myself on nothing so much as my reason—should see that reason overthrown by a simple fact of anatomy. All logic, all judgment gone from me, leaving me reduced to whatever is left when they are gone. I am yearning and appetite, loneliness and lust. I am rage and grief and helplessness, the whole sorry—no, the mere sorry, the merest, weakest, sleepless sorry thing. Amusing for you, of course—to see me devoured alive.

No, Kurt. I’m sorry you’re in pain.

Yes, yes. Of course you are.

Well, that’s the nature of jealousy, isn’t it? Keeps you at the centre of the story?

When you’re being eaten by a shark, it’s difficult to see it from the shark’s point of view.

I’m in love with her, Kurt.

Then I ask you, as a man in love, to recognize what I am going through. And if revenge is your motive, I am here to tell you the knife is in my heart and yours is the hand twisting it. I am on my knees before you. Begging you to stop.

Kurt.

We have worked together many times. We do not know each other well, but well enough. You know that I have a large ego. Such an easy target. I ask you to measure my words to you now against that nature and calculate what it is costing me.

Kurt.

I don’t come here empty-handed. Brenner is retiring next year. You’d start with full tenure.

I have tenure at Carleton.

You’d have almost no teaching, no committees. Full research sabbaticals. And the salary would be higher. We could probably make it as high as mine.

Jesus, Kurt.

If I had money of my own, I would give it to you, but you probably have more than me. I am not a wise investor. Perhaps we could come to some quiet arrangement.

Kurt, she isn’t mine to sell.

She isn’t yours at all. Rebecca is my wife. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea? It’s not a piece of paper. It’s not a matter of a ceremony. It means I have watched her grow from a graduate student, still a girl really, into a fully mature and wise woman. I have been there in the big moments of her life—achieving her master’s degree, the day she defended her dissertation. I have been there for the disappointments, the setbacks. I have watched her walk face first into the most cruel academic traps. She thinks everyone is her friend, everyone wishes her well, until they don’t.

That was not my experience of Rebecca, and I said so. Whether he heard me or not, I’ve no idea.

I held her at her mother’s funeral, he said. I have heard her talk in her sleep, stroked her hair when she woke up from some nightmare. Driven her to the emergency room and sat with her hour after hour. I’ve never seen anyone so sick. They gave her five bags of fluid, Durie, five bags of saline. It caused her temperature to plummet and she shook on the gurney as if possessed by epilepsy. And the car accident—did she tell you about the car accident?

I said no, but it hardly mattered. He didn’t hear me.

Norway. We were going far too fast. Terrible weather, fog and sleet, and the driver lost control and we woke up in some tiny little outpost clinic, not a hospital. I received a broken arm only, but Rebecca had a deep gash in her leg and desperately needed a transfusion. I woke up covered in her blood. They had a line in my arm and took my blood for a transfusion—we have the same type. She is literally of my blood, Durie, that’s what the word wife means in this particular instance, in case you don’t happen to know or care.

I tried to speak some calming words, but he was raving now.

It means also, yes, I have hurt her. Because I am a man and I am vain and stupid and weak. I have hurt her and felt her tears soak through my shirt when I have given her my abject apologies. But it isn’t just that. It is not such big things always. Not so long ago I was looking for a stamp or some scissors or something and I opened her desk drawer and you know what I found? I found a ticket, a torn ticket, for an evening of Bach concertos. No great virtuoso, no acclaimed orchestra, but it was the first place we had gone together, and she had kept the ticket and glued it to a piece of fine paper and written the date underneath in her beautiful handwriting, with the words The first place I went with Kurt.

Kurt, please. It’s late. Let’s just work together as best we can.

I have heard her giggle on the phone like a schoolgirl, I have heard her singing off-key at the top of her voice when she thought no one was home. You think because you fuck her you’re somehow closer? Yes, sure, look away, I don’t blame you. And it’s not just the little things either, it’s the less than that. The nothings. I get up in the morning and she is there, Durie. She is there, you understand. Year after year, day after day. This person I know I don’t deserve, every day.

Was there. You took her for granted, Kurt.

Yes, of course I did. I’m selfish and vain and not very noticing of things. But it’s not all bad, you know, taking each other for granted. You get used to each other, as you get used to a landscape—living on the plain or in Toronto or in the shadow of some mountain. Yes, they are your landscape, they surround you, you forget they’re there. In a way, taking a person for granted is a mark of love.

Good night, Kurt.

A mark of trust.

He swiped at his tears with the sleeve of his parka. God, I’m a stupid man. Of all the people to ask! I’ve long known you for a cold person, Durie, an unfeeling person. But it would take a microscope to measure the distance between unfeeling and cruel. Sometimes to be cruel requires no action at all, just the willingness to stand by and do nothing. I am a man engulfed in flame, begging you to piss on me, but of course you won’t. Give her back? God, I’m an idiot. You’ll never give her back.

Kurt, I’m not trying to hurt you. You say you love her. Is it so hard to believe I love her too? Why is it so impossible that I should love Rebecca as well—maybe more than you ever did?

He was struggling with his boots now. Muttering. Yes, it’s impossible. I’ll tell you why it’s not possible. It’s not possible, Durie, for the simple reason that you don’t love anyone and never will.

Honestly, Kurt, I don’t think psychology’s your strong suit. You talk like some half-educated priest.

Kurt opened the cabin door and the polar night rushed in. He went out and slammed the door behind him. I listened to his footsteps recede, then switched out the light and crawled deeper into my sleeping bag. In his rage and impotence Kurt imagined that his words had made no impact on me. But his claim of intimacy, true intimacy, with Rebecca had wounded me. I breathed in the scent of her—took it deep into my lungs, my antidote, my morphine. And I wondered once more if I was a bad man or simply a man of no moral import either way. I have never suspected myself of being good. If I have any virtue, it must be my not claiming any.