closed her eyes: “I don’t know. I believe in miracles.”
Max did, as well, but what was that worth compared to the belief of Dr. Migneault? Dohmann’s replacement was a thorough young doctor with a shaved head, a bit tough-looking. Béatrice suspected this was to pre-empt the appearance of baldness. Juliette and Dr. Migneault shared a love of chocolate. She pretended to hope, but knew she could not. She found herself in an office with Béatrice and a corpulent social worker. Patterson stood in the hall, discreetly out of the way.
“The decision is yours and yours alone,” Migneault said with the appropriate flutter in his voice. “We can wait for weeks, if you wish, but his condition will not alter.” He glanced from the social worker to the pair of them. Juliette knew what was next.
“David is clinically dead,” Migneault said.
Whatever he said afterward didn’t register with Juliette. All her thoughts were for David. She pictured the timid young man who’d approached her in the cafeteria at McGill University, relived those evenings discussing international politics, those long walks in Westmount parks when he passionately but patiently explained the inevitable nature of things in general and the world order in particular. There was the coffee spilled in that Sherbrooke Street Restaurant and the young waitress’s irritability. What about that absurd shirt he absolutely had to hang on to, the stolen bike he never got back, his hopeless attempt at wearing contacts, or his illegible signature, and that mix-up at the post office — “Just why, tell me, do you have to write as though you’re retarded?” His last birthday was at Montebello. Never another. Never growing old. Dying young. Dying, period.
Moments later, out in the corridor, Patterson was all solicitude. Words of encouragement were the very last thing she wanted to hear, neither his nor Béatrice’s. They’d abandoned David, and now it was her turn to do so. Dohmann and Migneault, too. What cowards we all are.
Chocolate, once more, chocolate.
David was not allowed to die, not until she decided. The terrorists had done their worst by leaving his fate in her hands.
“Mukherjee remembered saying goodbye to David late in the afternoon,” Max continued, “about four-thirty. Luiz was with him on his way back, then nothing, the car just disappeared. No witnesses, just an explosion by the Yamuna in the evening. Near a Muslim slum … on top of it.”
“I don’t suppose anyone’s talking.”
“Majid Khankashi — Genghis Khan, they call him,” Max said. “Vandana told me he and David met often. Did he ever tell you what about?”
“No.”
Juliette regretted not having been more curious. David returned home from the High Commission worn out. Why bother him with questions?
“He never came to see him in Maharani Bagh?”
“Just evening phone calls … David never brought his work home with him.”
“Except for the conference.”
“That’s right.”
“They met the day before the explosion.”
Juliette hadn’t known that. Anyway, she never asked him about his movements. Why not ask Khankashi himself?
Disappeared …
She remembered once having met him by accident with David in Old Delhi near the Kasgari Mosque. The impeccably trimmed beard allowed a glimpse of what Juliette considered an enigmatic smile, one given to showing joy as well as sadness. He offered them tea in a nearby café. She’d felt no apprehension at the time. In the crowded streets, passersby eyed them with respect, and yet the papers portrayed Genghis Khan as a bloodthirsty Islamist, despite his being a Sufi mystic. How could there be a monster behind such a harmless facade? Why was David committing the blunder of being seen with him in public? She’d brought it up that evening, and his answer was, “If Sri Bhargava invites me to tea, I go. Both of them monsters, perhaps, but my job doesn’t exempt me from horror or allow me to pretend such people don’t exist.”
“Sri Bhargava, founder of the Durgas,” said Max.
“Ah, Vandana told you about them?” replied Juliette.
“Yes.”
“Do you think he sponsored the attack”?
“I don’t know. Did David meet him or make contact?”
“Not at all.”
“What about members of the RSS or other Hindu groups?”
“David never mentioned it.”
“Any complaints to the High Commission about, say, ‘connections’ with the imam Khankashi?”
“Nope.”
“Any comments, accusations, or even threats from Hindu personnel? Or anyone, for that matter?”
“Never.”
“What about helping the imam … any insinuations or hints?”
“No, I’m telling you, no! David knew his job to a T, as well as his mandate. He was in New Delhi to represent Canada and its citizens, not to mix in India’s internal controversies.”
She recounted for him a discussion they’d had.
“Having tea with a Muslim extremist, isn’t that taking sides?”
“Khankashi’s no extremist.”
“That’s definitely not what the Indian papers are saying about it, David.”
“Only the ones that support the BJP, not all of them.”
Max was puzzled: “You’re sure he said it that way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Khankashi’s no extremist.”
Police and security officers were rushing down the corridor and out of the stairwells, out of breath, sweaty and excited. Orders were bellowed. Juliette got into the middle of it all as Béatrice exited the elevator, where a uniformed man stopped her from going any farther.
“What’s happened?”
“They arrested someone in the kitchen.”
They sent the two women home with an escort and a policeman to keep watch overnight. What was all this?
The Rockhill turned into a fortress with the comforting presence of a patrol car in the parking lot. Another officer with a hat too big for him said good night to them in the corridor and touched the butt of his handgun as if to say Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.
Béatrice closed the curtains with a dramatic sweep. There might be snipers hidden in the building facing them. No point taking chances. Juliette could not sleep and felt guilty for not staying with David.
The phone rang. It was Patterson back from his information hunt.
“The unidentified man was walking in a suspicious way through the hospital basement. An employee thought he looked strange, so he alerted security.”
The rest of it followed the usual pattern: The supposed cook didn’t have his ID with him, nothing. He tried to ditch the security agents before the arrival of the police; then there was a foot-race through Orthopedics, a fight in Obstetrics among a crowd of panic-stricken mothers, and finally the takedown in Rheumatology.
“Was he there for David?” asked Juliette.
The police didn’t know. They hadn’t finished questioning him. Patterson promised to keep them posted.
The next day, Dr. Migneault found Juliette at the vending machines. “I’m sorry I didn’t put things too well yesterday.”
“No, you were right. Why insist on overdoing it?”
“In the face of life’s horrors, we don’t