But where’s Harold now?

The woman minding Veronica knows….And the river and I both heard what she said, but only the river caught it. Why can I no longer trust it to tell me anything? I lean in again to listen.

18 Finding Harold

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

AFTERNOON.

Hôpital de Verdun. Montreal, Quebec

“I LIKE NOTHING MORE,” Harold says, “than placing myself at the sweet mercy of people who seem quite normal.”

In the main corridor at Hôpital de Verdun he reclines, knitting, on the gurney I contrived to nab so he won’t have to sit on the only chair—one with a broken, jagged seat—in the waiting room. An orderly left an old man on the gurney after nurses summoned her to the elevator, and the old man leapt off it and raced to freedom.

“How did you find me?”

“Yesterday I met the woman who walks your dog.”

“I have several dedicated caretakers for Veronica—was it Sylvie?”

“I lost her card—she had a pointy face and a lot of hair. She offered to buy mine.”

“That’s Sylvie! She makes wigs.”

“She told me you’d been on the news.”

“Have I really?”

“I wish she’d mentioned you were at the end of the broadcast.”

This morning I jeopardized my sanity watching the news program in the library: soldiers with their heads blown off, families pacing the tarmac, sons and daughters lowered in flag-draped coffins. I became dizzy, a peril for tall thin people: that thing happened in my ears where the inner bones go awash in a pounding rush—whoosh! Stallions trample my head. Sophie calls it hypervigilance but it’s only my common-sense approach to the eternal unexpected. I ducked under my carrel. I cowered, whimpering, reaching for the knife I keep in the sheath I stitched inside my red jacket’s arm. The librarian eased me back into my chair and gave me a glass of water. I sat dutiful with headphones on as the anchorman went on and on.

“Was I the funny bit they keep for the end?”

“You were after an advertisement in which a retired sportsman claims to keep his legs strong by resting them on a vibrating disc.”

“Guy Lafleur! What an honour to be on the television after him—greatest scorer in the history of the Montreal Canadiens. What did they say about me?”

“They said a man lay down among the raspberry bushes in the First Nations section of the botanical gardens.”

“It’s true.”

“They said he took a nap in the shade.”

“I did! I fell fast asleep.”

“But not before removing all his clothing and stacking it at his feet…”

“I’m afraid that’s true as well.”

“To the consternation of the Heirloom Marguerite Preservation Society, who came upon him without warning after having travelled by coach from Bowmanville, Ontario, for their annual afternoon tea and garden inspection.”