woman called for help, as two of the men tried to keep her quiet.
The third and most imposing came forward. Tancred calmly said the first thing that came to his mind
– Are you guys holding?
before running at him, catching the man by surprise, punching him (accidentally) in the throat and then (somewhat purposely) in the face. The man growled and hit out but lost his balance, ending up on his hands and knees. Tancred kicked him, very hard – not in the ribs (where he was aiming) but only in the arse. The man swore and tried to get up but, as he did, Tancred kicked him (accidentally but with a physically pleasing thuck) in the face, breaking his nose.
The man stayed down, loudly cursing and holding his face.
Thirty seconds of close-quarter chaos that might have gone either way. But Tancred was fortunate. Fortunate, not only because he was unhurt (though his foot had hit the man’s arse at a bad angle and would later swell slightly from the sprain) but also because the other two, seeing their friend incapacitated, backed away, forgetting about the woman – Willow Azarian! – as they prepared for Tancred’s onslaught.
It was an onslaught that never came. It seemed to Tancred that a beating would have done them good – high school students, they looked like, five or six years younger than he was, thin as whippets. It would have given him pleasure to hurt them, but instead he helped Willow up and led her past the one who was groaning and complaining as he tried to stand up.
They reached Dunn, a block away, when Willow stopped. She could not go on. She stood shaking, her hat almost falling off.
– We should keep going, said Tancred. Where do you live?
It was a while before she could answer. Tancred waited, looking warily west to where they’d left her assailants and east at all the lights along Queen Street, the city stretching from the small desolation of Parkdale to the tall buildings and illuminations in the distance.
– I can’t go home, Willow said.
What she meant was that she did not want to be alone, and Tancred understood. The problem was, he knew nothing reliable about her and nothing about what had happened. What had the three men been after? Were they after her still? Who could he trust to take care of her? All he knew for certain was the reality of the human being beside him: thin, a foot or so shorter than he was, her lipstick smudged so that it looked like a reddish cloud on her cheek, streaks of grey in her bottle-blond hair. Seeing her like this, by street light, it added up only to distress and need.
– I don’t live far, he said. We can wait at my place while you decide what to do.
They made their way to King Street, then past old apartment buildings, rooming houses, big homes and corner stores to Temple, where Tancred rented an apartment. A fifteen-minute walk during which neither of them spoke.
There was a moment, as they climbed the stairs to his place, when Tancred questioned the wisdom of what he was doing. He allowed few strangers into his home. It was his sanctuary. He took pains to keep it as he wished it to be: four rooms (living room, bedroom, small kitchen, bathroom), white walls with ocean-blue trim. There was little furniture. He had a bed from IKEA, a table with four chairs, a blue sofa his mother had insisted on buying for him, above which hung a painting she had made for his home: a portrait of the goddess Oshun in the shade of a tall tree, the goddess – breasts bared – wearing a bright yellow skirt and an ankle bracelet, the whole scene set under a cloudless blue sky. He had lived in this apartment since moving out of his mother’s home on St. Clarens. Though he could have afforded something bigger in a better neighbourhood, it had never occurred to him to move, the simplicity and warmth of his rooms being a tonic to the complications of his life.
On the landing, Tancred looked back at Willow, forlorn as she stood on the step, her hand on the banister shaking, blood on her knuckles. What was this person to him? Nothing, really, but that she needed help. He opened his door for her.
He made her tea, after helping to clean the blood and dirt from her hands, knees, elbows and cheek – the places scraped when she’d fallen. Her clothes – flimsy-looking – had not torn, despite being pulled about. Somewhere between Dunn and his apartment, she had lost her hat. Two or three of the hairpins she’d used to keep her hair tucked in dangled like clots.
Willow was in shock. The only words she managed – insistently repeated – were
– I won’t forget your kindness.
Somewhere around two in the morning, after they’d spent hours quietly speaking of personal things, her words of gratitude gently met by his assurances that he’d been pleased to help, he asked if she wanted to sleep.
– I think I should, she answered.
So, Tancred gave up his bed and slept on the sofa.
He came to think of this as a second first encounter with Willow. This time, his impression was of a woman in distress. But there was more to it than that. As she recovered from the indignity she’d suffered, there were also moments when he sensed strength in her, a resolve. These were unusual things to sense in an older, frail junkie, but they struck Tancred the way the integrity of her clothes had: flimsy-looking was not always flimsy. The glimpses he had of her resolve and determination were what interested him most. He was not moved by weakness, though he felt bound by vulnerability.
This was a precept Tancred had taken from his closest friend, Daniel Mandelshtam, one of two friends he’d had since his childhood in Alexandra Park. As Daniel put it, weakness was a habit, one that led to a kind of contented incapacity. It made no sense to help the weak, because that was what people called ‘enabling.’ But as to the vulnerable – there was a different story. Anyone might, given the circumstances, find themselves in above their heads. And it was dishonourable, Daniel thought, to let such people sink. Tancred had agreed. But the distinction was neither clear nor absolute to the young men since, as Daniel said, the weak, too, could be vulnerable. A further twist: Daniel was now a policeman, paid to protect the weak and the vulnerable indiscriminately.
Early the following morning, Willow emerged from his room and thanked him. She would not hear of his accompanying her. She was not afraid of the boys who’d attacked her. It had all been a misunderstanding, she said, an accident for which she blamed herself. She’d spoken of her wealth to the wrong people, that’s all. Tancred was not to worry about her safety. She would be grateful if he forgot the night they’d just passed. It was too humiliating for words.
Which was not to say she would forget what he’d done. How could she? He’d proven her right. They were destined to be close, and she never questioned destiny, whatever else she might dispute.
A long time passed before Tancred saw Willow Azarian again. Almost three full years. Nor was the time insignificant. His mother died.
Clémentine Fassinou, a non-smoker, died of lung cancer on a bright day in June, her soul leaving earth from her apartment on St. Clarens. She had been suffering for months, and her dark, African face had grown meagre and grey. Before she died, Tancred, her only child, had wished for her release from discomfort and exhaustion. After her death, he was contrite that he’d wished such a thing, though he had wished it out of love.
Then again, he and his mother had always had a complex relationship. From his childhood, they’d been as much friends as they’d been mother and son. This was just as well, because Clémentine had been a somewhat inattentive mother – unavoidably inattentive. Over the years, she had taken on any number of low-paying or temporary jobs to support them. And when she came home, exhausted from a day’s – or night’s – work, it was he who comforted her – keeping the house clean, preparing her meals once he was old enough to do so, washing the dishes. It was a role he had liked, one that he had jealously guarded against the occasional intrusion from men who stayed over from time to time before disappearing from their lives.
As it happened, his mother’s absence brought great good to Tancred’s childhood. When he and Clémentine lived in government housing near Alexandra Park, Tancred spent most of his time at the home of the Mandelshtams,