“I don’t—”
“Watching Mrs. Whitcomb’s film, for the first time. How did it make you feel?”
A simple enough question, on the face of it. Safie stopped, made a concerted effort to think her less intellectual reactions through, only to quickly find the flickering images had given her less a jolt of recognition or curiosity than a gradually dawning sick feeling, as though she were starting to perceive something incipiently dangerous drawing ever closer. That by the time the playback had stopped and she’d looked away, it had been with a lurch, a gasp—as though she’d been holding it, ever since the few tiny sections I’d shown her of what Jan Mattheuis and I had come to call Lady Midday (Version One) began.
“Why do you ask?” she replied after a moment, only to watch Soraya give the same weird smile, this time with even less humour behind it.
“Oh,” was all she finally said. “No reason.”
That night, Safie eventually told me, Soraya contacted her on Facebook, warning her: I would be careful on this project, if I was you—keep your eyes open. Other people’s obsessions can be fascinating, but there’s also an element of pull. A current. Don’t want to go any deeper with it than you need to. Might be you’re inviting something in without even knowing it.
Like what? Safie sent back. She waited for a reply but none came. Look, she continued, it’s not up to me, anyways. You said that stuff to Ms. Cairns, she’d just quote David Cronenberg at you. Be all, “where I need to go with this is all the way through, right to the end. I need to see.”
Some things you don’t need to see, though. Like some things shouldn’t be seen.
Don’t know what you’re talking about, S.
I get that.
Maybe it was because she didn’t know me that Soraya went to Safie first. Christ knows I have that effect on people, sometimes. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because she knew better, from hard—and entirely personal—experience. Because I reminded her enough of herself, or someone else she’d once known, to understand it wouldn’t have made a damn ounce of difference either way, even if she had.
“So that’s the deal,” I told Mom the next afternoon, while Simon watched as Clark bounced up and down on his trampoline in the background, hooting frantically along to his favourite album, They Might Be Giants’ No! “Safie drives me up to Quarry Argent and plays videographer when we get there. We gather as much background material as we can from the museum, then visit the Vinegar House for more—footage of all Mrs. Whitcomb’s paintings, any photos we can scavenge of her, her son Hyatt, or Mr. Whitcomb, stuff about the séances. We’ll try to find where she might’ve shot the films and check that out as well: Méliès had a specially constructed studio made of glass in a steel frame, to let in as much light as possible; the Vinegar House’s plans say Mr. Whitcomb built a greenhouse but never used it, so I’m betting that was probably Ground Zero. Then we come back, go through all the NFA’s L
ake of the North silver nitrate films again and match them up with the fairy tales, digitize anything Wrob Barney didn’t get around to . . . it’s gonna be amazing.”
“Mmm. How much are you paying her for this, exactly?”
I huffed, took a beat. “You know it’s not my money being spent here, right? That’s sort of the point of a grant.”
“I know what a grant is, Lois, thank you. I also know you’ve never done anything this big before—or have you? Am I wrong?” I shrugged. “That’s what I thought.”
“Safie’s trustworthy, Mom. I wouldn’t have involved her if she wasn’t.”
“Which you know how?”
At that, I really did have to laugh, though I saw Simon shoot me a warning glance as I did. “Because I just do, and I guess you’re just gonna have to believe I know what I’m talking about! I mean, you either do or you don’t, right? It’s not rocket science.”
In fact, though Safie probably didn’t rely entirely on her family anymore, it seemed likely she wasn’t hurting quite as badly as some of my former students, which kept her motives strictly un-mercenary. I knew this because she’d accepted my first offer without a qualm, let alone any attempt at further negotiation: a 500-dollar retainer, plus forty dollars per hour logged for her initial assistance, to be raised if the research period exceeded two weeks. Jan Mattheuis had told me it was pretty standard boilerplate, and she’d have to return a signed copy of the agreement to him before we could leave for Quarry Argent. We were planning to go up over the weekend, travelling Friday, exploring and shooting Saturday-Sunday-Monday, then back on Tuesday by the latest.
“The Archive is going to want to do a tie-in documentary for their website, which could lead to an expanded documentary for the CBC,” I explained. “That’s why I need someone with Safie’s skills.”
“But you don’t know.”
“I know if I do this fast enough my name’s going to be on it, and if she helps, hers will, too. That was my sell, and it worked.” Mom looked at me again, sceptically. “Listen, I’m not asking you for anything here; I’m telling you what’s going to happen. I signed a contract, worked out a schedule, so you’re not going to see me around for the next few days because I am going to Quarry Argent, with Safie Hewsen. Me informing you is a courtesy; this is me, being courteous.”
“Oh, mmm-hmmm. Very.”
“As I can be, yeah.”
Dryly: “I could debate that.” Her gaze shifted up over my shoulder, pinning Simon, one eyebrow lifting. “And you, you’re all right with this?” He nodded. “Health issues and everything else, you’re fine with her going out of town with someone you don’t know from Adam, where anything could happen.”
Simon gave her his patented earnestly placatory look. “Honestly, Lee, I really don’t think it’s as sinister as you’re making it sound. It’s Northern Ontario, not Beirut, and they both have cell phones; no worse than going up to a friend’s cottage for the weekend. Lois and Safie’ll be fine.”
“I could care less about this Safie person.” To me, again: “You’re not well these days, Lois, in general. Would you agree with me on that at least?”
I snorted. “C’mon, Mom. I mean, I’ve had some trouble sleep-ing. . . .”
“Constant insomnia, migraines. That’s not nothing.”