#theguardsmen

Part five of The Guardsmen. 

Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part four here. 

5. 

For the next days, Anaïs could think about little else than her visit with the strange boy and about what his possible connection could be to her family. She knew it was futile to look for him in a city this big but she tried anyway. She returned several times to the abandoned house in Yorkville, sometimes waiting there for several hours in the cold, but she saw no one. She reread her grandmother’s journal in its entirety, searching for clues in the electronic archives. She paced the floors of the empty basement, gathering the few scraps of paper the Guardsmen had left behind, reading and rereading them, to no avail. As the days stretched into weeks with no word from him, she began to lose track of time. She would begin to make breakfast only to stand for twenty minutes in front of the open fridge, unsure of what she was doing.  

She was unable to return to her normal routine, or at least not to the version of which she had been living since Marguerite died. The idea of partying seemed as ludicrous and unappealing to her as running naked in a snowstorm. The cloud of exhaustion that had enveloped her for the past few weeks had finally lifted, replaced by a kind of manic energy. Now she hardly slept. She wrote pages after pages of theories in her journal. She wrote memories too, trying to compile any recollections she had of her parents. When she did sleep she dreamed vivid, snapshot-like dreams full of loud jingly music and Technicolor images like something from a bad MTV commercial. She wrote her dreams down too, because that is what Marguerite would have wanted, but she gleaned nothing from them. 

She thought vaguely that maybe she ought to return to school, but that idea seemed as unpalatable to her as curfew parties. She had begun to receive several calls each day from the school counselor, which she sent to voicemail. Her days took on a hazy, subdued quality, the hours bleeding in and out of each other. She had only indistinct memories of showering and eating. She felt detached from herself and wondered almost absently if this was another stage of grief, and if so, how long she could possibly sustain it. She began to wonder if she would ever see the boy again, sometimes she even doubted his existence at all, thinking perhaps she had dreamt the whole thing. 

One morning, Anaïs sat in her living room, staring out at the small garden at the back of the house, when the doorbell rang. She froze for a moment and then ran to the door, wrenching it open, the cold air immediately filling the hallway. Anaïs realized then that she was only wearing a thin, silk bathrobe, which she hastily pulled tight around herself. Standing on her front step was a short, pretty girl wearing a denim dress over thick tights and a long, black wool coat. Her hair was a rounded bob with bangs that framed a heart-shaped face and she carried a backpack so big and heavy it threatened to topple her over backwards. Anaïs sighed and tried to keep the disappointment from showing on her face.

“Constance! Hi. What are you doing here?”

Constance Huang was Anaïs’ schoolmate and friend, though they had not spoken since Marguerite’s funeral.

“It’s fucking freezing out here!” was her response as she pushed past Anaïs and into the hallway, closing the door behind her and dropping the book bag onto the floor by Anaïs’ feet. She then proceeded to unlace her boots and make her way into the kitchen where she sat with a heavy thump at the table. Anaïs was starting to get very tired of people inviting themselves into her home and she struggled to resist the urge to send Constance back out into the snow. Instead she began, as usual, to make tea while Constance removed her myriad layers and thawed out at the table. Several minutes passed in a silence punctuated occasionally by Constance’s chattering teeth while Anaïs made the tea and set a steaming mug down in front of her.

“Thanks. Sorry for barging in. I walked over here. Fucking stupid of me. But I forgot my bus pass and I didn’t have any change. And I tried to beg the driver but he was being a total dick about it. Now I can’t feel my toes and my fingers are so cold. Look, feel them.”

She stuck her hands across the table and touched Anaïs’ forearm. Anaïs flinched, partly from the cold and partly because it had been so long since she had been touched. 

“See? I’m basically a corpse here,” said Constance between big slurping gulps of tea. 

Anaïs sighed. Constance had always been socially inept. Anaïs was one of her few friends. Normally she found Constance’s lack of a filter charming but her nerves were too fraught from lack of sleep and the last thing she wanted was for Constance Huang to be hanging out in her kitchen if the mysterious boy came back. 

“I’m sorry about your grandmother. Really unlucky she was not diagnosed sooner. Colon cancer has a high survival rate if caught in the early stages. I guess she was already stage three? That’s too bad.”

Anaïs knew better than to take offence at Constance’s rambling. Constance’s parents were also dead, they had been killed during the coup when Constance was only a few months old.  She was brought up by her great aunt, a formidable old woman who had looked the same for as long as Anaïs had known her and seemed likely to live forever.

“What are you doing here, Constance, don’t you have class?” 

Constance was a terrible student and was notorious for skipping class, usually to go to the mall and play video games at the computer store until they kicked her out at closing time. 

Constance eyed her over the rim of her mug and then responded, with surprising gentleness, “Anaïs, it’s Saturday.” 

Anaïs rubbed her eyes. Saturday. That means it had been two weeks since the boy’s visit, and more than a month since Marguerite’s death. 

“I came to warn you. I was in the principal’s office the other day, getting the usual amount of shit for cutting class, and when I was leaving I overheard Mr. Maxwell talking to the guidance counsellor. He was saying that you have not sent in any of your math homework or done any of the online assignments. They were talking about coming over in person. The words “phoning the authorities” were thrown around.”

Constance continued sipping her tea while Anaïs thought about this. A visit from a government organization was the last thing she needed right now. Technically, at eighteen years old, she was an adult, but until she graduated from high school her teachers were allowed to enquire after her. Truancy was not exactly an offense, like breaking curfew, but it was not something the CPP encouraged either. Maybe she ought to get back to class, just to avoid raising suspicions. 

Constance stood up from the table and made her way over to the door. Anaïs followed, unsure of what to say. They hugged awkwardly at the door.

“Thanks. I appreciate the warning. I guess I should get my ass back to class, eh?” 

Constance laughed and said, “Listen, you know I’m usually a pretty big proponent of malingering myself but, yeah, might be a good idea to show your face, keep the man off your back.” Then she made a fight the power symbol with her fist and bent for her backpack. Anaïs smiled despite herself. It felt good to talk to another human being. She decided to say as much.

“And thanks, also, for coming. No one else did.”

Constance looked surprised at this. “Seriously? No one from the bunhead mafia made an appearance?” 

Anaïs laughed again. The bunhead mafia was what Constance liked to call Anaïs’ other school friends. They all did ballet and tended to wear their hair in severely tight buns a top their quite regally poised heads. They stood out in their all girls’ school where most students made little to no effort towards personal grooming. Anaïs was also a dancer, or at least she had been until Marguerite’s death, but unlike her other friends she had diverse interests, such as photography. She had met Constance while working at the school newspaper. Constance was an excellent writer and investigator. She had single-handedly brought to light a massive scandal involving a school administrator and the cafeteria food supplier that had actually made local news. Her participation in the school newspaper was likely the reason she had not yet been expelled for truancy; Anaïs figured the teachers were probably a little bit afraid of her. 

“No, none of the girls came. Maybe they all thought cancer was contagious.” Anaïs said, laughing emptily. 

Constance rolled her eyes and said, “Bitches.” She then reached for her backpack, heaving loudly as she lifted it. 

“What the hell do you have in there, anyway?” asked Anaïs, “I know it’s not books.”

Constance adopted a look of mock offense, holding her hand to her heart, “Hey! I read! But no, not books.” 

She leaned in conspiratorially towards Anaïs and opened her backpack, which was filled with big cans of spray paint. Anaïs looked from the backpack to Constance’s face, which was painted with a big grin.  

“You’re tagging now? What if you get caught?”

“It’s for a story! I’m trying to infiltrate a group of artists, they’ve been leaving these amazing pieces all over the city. Did you see the one in the Village? It made the news.”

Anaïs vaguely remembered seeing a report about some graffiti a couple of weeks ago. 

Constance continued excitedly, “They didn’t show the actual artwork on the news because they wanted people to think it was just vandalism or whatever but it was so beautiful. I got to see it before the Guard painted it over. Man it was so cool. And huge! It must have taken a whole team all night to do it. I wonder how they didn’t get caught.”

Anaïs interrupted her, “So you’re going to write a story about them? Won’t that just lead the Guard right to them? Besides, what newspaper is going to publish that? They’d get shut down in minutes.”

Constance looked almost disappointed with Anaïs as she said, “I’ll publish it myself and I’ll keep it all anonymous obviously. There are lots of people who are curious about the street art and who aren’t buying the CPP’s whole ‘all vandalism is an act of terror’ bullshit.”

“But then won’t the CPP come after you and get you to tell them who’s doing the graffiti?”

Constance waved her hand dismissively. “No way they’ll trace it back to me. I’m off grid. All analog! I hand print my zine on an old printing press.”

“I don’t know, Constance. That sounds sketchy as hell.”

Constance narrowed her eyes at Anaïs, “I thought you were rogue now. Skipping class, going to curfew parties every night.”

Anaïs started in surprise, she did not know that rumours of her recent spiral at reached school.

Constance sighed and made for the door, “I guess once a bunhead, always a bunhead eh?” Anaïs frowned and Constance continued, “Look no offense kid. You’re cool and I know you’ll have my back with keeping all of this tagging stuff secret, right? Listen, if you decide to show up to school next week, come find me in the photo lab. Peace!”

Part four of The Guardsmen. Read part one here, part two here and part three here.

The streets were crowded, as they always were at sunset, with commuters rushing to make it home before curfew. The Guard usually gave a small margin to allow for subway delays and emergencies but it was better not to risk it. Once curfew began, anyone caught on the streets without passes would be detained until morning. Usually those who were detained were drifters who had been unable or unwilling to sleep in a shelter for the night. Sometimes the Guard arrested straggling partiers, people who attempted to make it to a club after curfew or who tried to sneak home early. 

Anaïs had never had to spend the night in a detainment centre but she had heard stories. Her friend Miko had been scooped up after stumbling drunk out of a curfew party well before sunrise. He told Anaïs the Guard had thrown him in a tiny cell with close to fifty other men and boys, some of whom were curfew violators like him, but there many others who were awaiting sentencing for more serious offences and who had been there for days, even weeks. There was no toilet, only an overflowing bucket. There was no room to sit for newcomers like him and he had spent the night standing, wedged between other detainees. Fights broke out every few minutes over space on the two long, wooden benches. The government liked to make an example of curfew violators and a night in a local detainment centre was usually followed by a large fine and a note on your permanent record. 

Curfew violation processing was nothing compared to a peace disturbance or incitement charge however, as those were likely to land you at the Institute, the massive internment facility located on the Toronto Islands. Anaïs could not imagine the terror of spending a single night at the Institute. During the Crisis, hundreds of protestors had been sent there; those who denounced their loyalty to the previous regime and testified against the old party were freed, most were executed. Now, being sent to the Institute was referred to as going to the lake and people did not usually come back from trips to the lake.

Anaïs checked the time on her phone and picked up her pace. She reached her front door just a few minutes before curfew. The sun had almost set and the sky was pretty shade of purple and yellow. Anaïs closed the door behind her just as the sirens sounded the call for the beginning of curfew. She sat at the kitchen table and thought about the day. She did not know what to think of what she had seen. What was that building and why was its address recorded in her grandmother’s journal? Who was the boy she had followed and what was in the envelope he had left behind? Anaïs had no idea what to do next. She thought about looking in the journal again for more information. She decided to have a hot shower to warm up first and so she headed upstairs, stopping out of habit to touch the small framed photograph of her parents that hung on the landing. That was when she saw him, in the reflection in the glass in the frame. She spun around quickly, almost falling down the stairs. She let out a small scream before his hand covered her mouth.

“Don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you. If you scream, your neighbours will call the Guard and neither of us want that, do we?”

Anaïs thrashed about in his arms, struggling to be free of his grasp. He held on tightly and continued to speak calmly. “Please calm down. I promise I am not going to hurt you. You were the one following me. I’m just trying to find out why.”

Anaïs stilled and he continued, “Nod if you understand.” Anaïs nodded and he released her. She spun to face him and punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled over and for a moment Anaïs felt satisfied, until he began to laugh.

“What the hell are you doing in my house,” Anaïs yelled at him, her voice was shrill and revealed how scared she was.

“It isn’t your house. It’s Marguerite Payne's." His response shocked her into silence. She felt like she might faint so she sat on the stairs and rested her head against the wall. He sat a few stairs up from her and said nothing else.  After a while she said, “You know my grandmother?”

“No,” he responded, “that’s just the name on the lease.”

Anaïs’ head was swimming. She had never had a day like this in her life. It was so bizarre, sitting on the floor of her grandmother’s house having a conversation with a stranger whom she had spent the whole afternoon following around. She felt an overwhelming desire to normalize the situation so she got up, went to the kitchen and began to make a pot of tea.  He followed her slowly, as if he was unsure whether she would turn around and punch him again. He sat at the kitchen table and watched her, a small smile on his lips.

“Do you make tea for everyone who breaks into your house or should I feel special?”

“Only the ones who accost me on the stairwell.”

He laughed and she surprised herself by smiling too. What a day. He was still wearing his coat and he sat as he had walked, upright and broad chested. His eyes followed her around the kitchen as she went about making the tea. She felt conspicuous of her movements, everything felt exaggerated and contrived, like when you say a word too many times and it becomes just a noise. Her life was beginning to feel similarly foreign. 

“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s unnerving.” Demanded Anaïs.

“I’m an observant person.” Replied the boy, unfazed.

Anaïs sat across from him and warmed her fingers around her mug. She looked anywhere than at him. She hated how nervous she was, he was intruding on her and yet she was the one who felt out of place. Finally, when she could not stand the silence anymore, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“That is not important. Why were you following me?”

“I think you know something about my dead parents.”

She had hoped to surprise him with this admission, to shock him into belying something he may not otherwise have done, but he would not be rattled.

“I have no idea who your parents are, or were, and I have no idea why you would think that.” 

Anaïs said nothing for a moment. She stared at him across the table and then rose suddenly, her chair making a loud noise against the tile. She went upstairs to her grandmother’s room and got the journal. She was not sure if it was a good idea, showing it to this stranger, but she was not sure what else to do. When she returned to the kitchen he had not moved, not even fidgeted, he sat with his hands folded calmly on the table.

She placed the tablet on the table in front of him, open to the entry with the address. He glanced down briefly and a small flicker of emotion, almost imperceptible, darkened his features. Anaïs felt a pang of triumph.  

She said, “Yesterday the Guard came to my house and confiscated every scrap of paper they could find. They claimed that my grandmother was in possession of illegally obtained documents. This was the only thing they did not find, it’s my grandmother’s journal. The last entry in it is this address and when I went there today, I saw you dropping off an envelope and winking at the security camera. Am I supposed to believe this is all random?”

He did not answer though cracks in his calm facade began to appear, a small twitching of the lips, and he did not meet her eye now, choosing instead to stare studiously at some crumbs on the placemat in front of him.

She went on, rambling a little bit now, excited, “Look, you didn’t know my grandmother ok? Nothing was random with her. She did not believe in coincidences and neither do I.  She wrote that address for a reason and I think it has something to do with my parents.”

“How did they die?”

Anaïs had not been expecting this question. She hesitated and then answered honestly, “A car crash. They drove off a bridge in Montreal.”

He said nothing. She paused for a moment, unsure whether she should go on. She was thinking a thought she had been until that moment unwilling to vocalize, for fear she was deluding herself. Fuck it, she thought then, if he thinks I’m crazy then so be it. 

She took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know. I…I think that maybe it was a cover-up. I think I think they were involved in something, something the Guard didn’t approve of and…and…I think it got them killed.”

“If the Guard wanted to kill your parents they wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of faking a car crash. They would just execute them on a heresy charge.”

His bluntness, rather than upsetting her, was oddly comforting. It felt good to talk about these things.

“But what if the Guard didn’t want people to know that my parents were, you know, against them or whatever? Maybe they needed to make it look like a car crash so that whatever it was my parents were up to would stay secret.” He did not look convinced, but he did not object either and this emboldened her. She went on in a quiet voice, hating how small she sounded, “Maybe they’re not even dead. Their bodies were never found. They could have been sent to the lake.”

“That sounds like wishful thinking.”

“Who would want their parents to be locked up in a maximum security prison?”

His face darkened slightly and he said, “Depends on the parents I guess.”

He laughed then, an empty laugh, and Anaïs was once again weary of his presence in her kitchen. She silently chastised herself for opening up so quickly. She knew nothing about this person and there she was sharing her most private confessions. This was how desperate she was for information and this visitor was the closest she had to a lead.

They sat in silence for a few more moments then he said, “It sounds like you and your grandmother have active imaginations. I think you both should let this go.”

“My grandmother is dead too.”

He did not flinch when he said, “Another government conspiracy? Suspicious car crash? Alien abduction?”

“Colon cancer.”

He stopped smiling then.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

He rose from the table and cracked his back, placing his large hands at the base of his spine and leaning backwards. He seemed unsure of what do next. Anaïs sensed her best bet was to wait it out. He sat again and looked at her, his expression serious.

“Let’s say I could help you, which I might not be able to, what’s the end game? Let’s say your parents weren’t killed in a car crash. Let’s say they were executed, or taken to the Institute, what then?”

Anaïs hesitated. Truthfully, she had not thought this far ahead. She was just grasping at any loose connection that she could find to her deceased family. She felt like she was chasing shadows.

“I want to talk to someone who was around eight years ago. When my parents died. I want to find out more about them. About what they were like, what they were really like.”

“That’s it? No hidden agenda?”

Anaïs did not know what to make of this question. She was unsure what hidden agenda she could possibly have given how little she knew about anything.

“No. Just information about my parents. That’s all.”

The boy rose suddenly, heading towards the door. He stopped and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

Part Three of The Guardsmen. Read part one here and part two here. 3.

Anaïs walked quickly down Old Bloor Street, hugging her arms to her chest against the wind. It had not snowed in days as the temperature had remained firmly below - 20 and mounds of filthy snow remained piled up along the sidewalks. She hated this part of town. What had once been the most fashionable and luxurious area was now a wasteland of empty buildings and littered streets. She passed what must have once been a high-end department store, the mannequins still standing in the windows, a haunting reminder of an old city that she never knew. Someone had covered the face of one mannequin with a photograph of the Prime Minister and placed it into a graphic sexual position with another mannequin.  Anaïs laughed and then quickly swallowed it. Whoever had done this was very reckless. Anaïs was amazed that the display was even still in existence. The Guard was usually quick to remove anything that could be construed as anti-government propaganda.

Anaïs turned down a few side streets, eventually coming to a stop before a derelict building with boarded windows and a crumbling façade. The walls must have been white once but now they were covered in scrawling graffiti and old, peeling posters. She double-checked the map on her phone and the little blue dot indicated that she was in exactly the right place. She tapped the dot and a small pop up appeared with information about her location but it provided no specific information about the building in front of her. It appeared to be deserted. Abandoned homes were everywhere in the city. During the Crisis hundreds of wealthy families fled the city of Toronto to the surrounding areas. This exodus left many wealthy neighbourhoods in downtown almost completely abandoned.  After the coup, when order was restored, some chose to return, creating new exclusive enclaves in the West End. They lived in steel and glass high-rises surrounded by with heavily guarded walls close to the government offices on the Lakeshore. But most previously wealthy downtown neighbourhoods, like Yorkville remained completely empty.

Anaïs tried the front door but it had frozen shut. She worked her way through the snow to a window and wiped away the frost, peering inside. The interior was exactly what she expected, a desolate open space cluttered with trash. Anaïs turned away disappointed, unsure of what to do next. It was freezing. The wind was blowing the snow around her ankles and into the hood of her coat. Anaïs glanced at her phone to check the time. She had been so excited when she read this address as the mysterious final entry in her grandmother’s journal but now she was stumped. ‘What a master spy I am,’ she thought to herself.

She turned to walk away from the house when a beeping sound made her pause. It came from a small surveillance camera that was attached to an electrical pole at the corner of the lot. Anaïs continued walking towards the street, glancing backwards to see if the camera was following her movements but it did not seem to change direction. Anaïs then turned and walked quickly back towards the front door and as she passed a certain point in the path the camera made the same beeping noise followed by a soft whirring sound. Anaïs recognized it immediately. It was the sound a lens makes when it zooms in.

Anaïs thought the camera must have been government. No one else would be allowed to install a camera on the street like that. That meant that the government was surveilling this building. This was not uncommon. There were cameras everywhere in the city. But the fact that this camera was motion sensitive and programmed to zoom in implied that the government was particularly interested in people visiting this building. Anaïs glanced around the property, taking in details she had not noticed on arriving. She saw that the snow leading to the doorway was disturbed, with multiple footprints crisscrossing her own. Yet there was no signs that property was inhabited, no garbage on the sidewalk, no evidence of any fires being built by drifters to stay warm. This was strange. It was normal for a house to be abandoned, but not this abandoned. There should have been more evidence of drifters, cigarette butts and fresh garbage. Especially in weather like this it was strange that no one had chosen to shelter there. Second, why would the government bother to keep tracks on an abandoned property? And what was the deal with these footprints? Nothing made any sense.

Her curiosity sufficiently piqued, Anaïs decided to stake out the house for the rest of the day. She crouched behind the crumbling wall that divided this property from the neighbouring one. Within twenty minutes she was shivering and her knees were cramped, she cursed to herself for not thinking ahead to bring stake out supplies. She imagined a thick wooly blanket and a thermos of hot coffee and nearly sighed out loud. She shifted her weight so that her back was propped up against the wall. She knew she would not last long like this. She began to feel that familiar tired ache creeping into her body. The urge to go home, curl up in Marguerite’s bed and forget everything that had happened was nearly unbearable.

No, Anaïs thought suddenly. She could not go on living in a fog anymore. For the first time since Marguerite died she was taking control. She had tried to dull her grief with drugs and booze at curfew parties and that had not worked. She had tried to sleep her grief away. That had not worked. She knew then that the only way she would recover from the loss of her family was to discover the truth about their lives. And so she would stay outside the house for as long as it took.

This renewed determination did not last long and within another half an hour Anaïs was once again daydreaming of coffee and a warm bed. She thought of all those times she had passed drifters in the streets, being chased out the subway by the Guard. She could not imagine spending more than a few hours out in the cold, let alone days or even months. Another half an hour passed and Anaïs was sure she would give up soon. Her boots were soaked through and she could not feel her fingers or toes. She was hungry and her whole body throbbed. But she did not move and her stubbornness surprised her. She thought of her parents to pass the time and tried to imagine what their connection to this derelict property in a forgotten neighbourhood could be.

Anaïs was only ten when they died and they had been private people. Her mother had been a beautiful woman; poised, stylish and immaculately put together. She was tall and angular with reddish, brown hair that fell in impossibly perfect waves to her shoulders. In all of Anaïs’ memories her mother wore the same cream skirt and matching jacket. Around her neck was a thin gold chain on which hung her wedding ring. No matter how hard she tried Anaïs could not imagine her mother any other way, and some days it was impossible to conjure any memory of her mother at all.  It was only in her dreams that she could envision her differently, more at ease, more playful. Anaïs could not reconcile these two images of her mother, and she was unsure of which to trust.

Her father had always been a mystery to her. In her memories he was little more than a shadow in a suit. Because of his position within the government he was not bound by curfew and often did not come home until Anaïs was already in bed. Anaïs’ childhood was a happy blur of sleepovers, dance lessons and holiday visits to her father’s family in the Caribbean. Anaïs had never questioned this idyllic upbringing. Even when her parents died and she moved in with Marguerite, little changed in her routine.

Anaïs wondered then if it was normal that she knew so little about her parents. She could not imagine any of her private school friends crouching in the snow in their plaid skirts and knee high socks, spying on an abandoned building in hopes of finding out why their family was being surveilled by the Guard. She was entertaining herself with this image when a figure appeared on the path, walking briskly towards the front door. Anaïs rose slightly to peer over the wall and get a better look. The man, well boy really, took a large brown envelope out of this backpack and slid it through the mail slot in the door. The he turned, waved at the camera and walked away quickly. What in the hell, thought Anaïs, scrambling to her feet to follow him.

The boy walked quickly down Yonge, his black coat flailing behind him. Anaïs could not see his face but he was tall with broad shoulders that he held very straight, almost haughtily. He stood out among the other pedestrians who, like Anaïs, were hunched against the winter wind.  Anaïs followed the boy into Dundas Square and glanced up at the screens. Less than an hour remained until curfew and Anaïs had no idea where this boy was headed. She struggled to keep sight of him in the winding downtown crowds as hundreds of black coats headed down into the subways and hopped on and off of streetcars. His direction varied constantly, at one point he seemed to be heading directly south and then he turned left on Queen heading east, then north on Sherbourne and soon they were almost back where they had started in Yorkville.

A group of joggers in matching tee shirts approached and the boy crossed the street to avoid them. Anaïs tried to follow but traffic had begun to move and she was stuck. Anaïs kept her eyes peeled on her mark. She finally managed to dodge her way through the honking traffic and caught up with him on Bloor. He entered a café and made his way through the small tables to a booth in the back, where he sat. Anaïs watched him through the window for a moment and then entered the café after him, almost fainting with relief from the cold. She had enough of this sleuthing business and decided she would confront him right then and there, in the warm café. Anaïs paused at the door to hold it open for an exiting customer, and then she headed straight for the booth, unsure of what she would say. But the booth was empty. On the table was a cup of coffee, still steaming, and a small square napkin with a note written in blue ink.  ‘Nice try. Here’s a coffee for your efforts. Keep warm. xoxo”

He knew she had been following him. He was mocking her. She could not believe it. She thought she was being so clever. Anaïs sunk into the booth and removed her gloves and boots, her fingers and toes tingling as they warmed up. She took a sip from the coffee and tore the note into tiny pieces, cursing to herself. She glanced up and saw a young couple looking at her from across the café. She scowled and they turned away. She realized she must look like a drifter. This thought made her laugh out-loud, once again drawing stares from the other customers.

Part two of The Guardsmen. Read Part One here.

2.

Anaïs dreamed of hands, long and slender hands with perfectly oval nails that ran along her scalp, getting tangled in the tight curls at the base of her neck. The hands were familiar yet strange, they seemed inhuman, detached from any corporeal form. But they were soothing and Anais felt herself sinking under the weight of them, falling deeper and deeper asleep until the dream became like a pile of blankets that mounted atop her, further distancing her from reality. Then more hands appeared. But these hands were not perfect. They were bloody and scarred, fingernails tearing at the edges. They pulled at her, grasping at her clothes and hair, yanking her to the surface, forcing her up and into the day light.

Anaïs woke reaching for her notebook with her right hand while her left fumbled to switch on the bedside lamp. She always slept with a notebook and pen by her side, a habit her grandmother had encouraged in her. Marguerite wrote down everything and had nagged Anaïs to do the same. Her grandmother was particularly adamant about the importance of remembering dreams. She often claimed that people were only ever really honest in their dreams and that all the things people feared admitting to themselves manifested themselves in dreams. She told Anaïs to write down her dreams in order to know the truth about herself. Anaïs was not sure if she believed all of that but she did it anyway, partly to please her grandmother, but also because, and she never admitted this to Marguerite, she could only really remember what her mother looked like when she was dreaming. During the day her memory was disjointed and felt more like a story she had read than something she lived. But in her dreams she could see her mother clearly, hear her voice, even speak to her. Anaïs sometimes felt like she trusted her dreams more than her memories.

Anaïs completed her entry and turned off the light. Her head was still hurting and she was uncertain if she would be able to fall back asleep. She thought about her dream, which had already begun to fade from her memory, and was glad she had written it down. She smiled then, thinking for the millionth time that her grandmother, in all her absurdity, was almost always right about things like this. She was just about to drift off once more when she had a thought so clear and focused it made her sit upright. Marguerite wrote down everything. This meant that Marguerite had a journal too. Probably several. But Anaïs had not found anything like that among her things. If she had not found it, then possibly the Guard had not either.

Anaïs clamoured out of bed and over to her grandmother’s dresser. It was lined with small bottles of essential oils and natural lotions that her grandmother had made herself. Each bottle was labeled with masking tape. Anaïs pulled open the drawers of the vanity and rummaged through the contents. The dresser was oddly tidy, devoid of the usual clutter that Marguerite tended to scatter around the house. Anaïs moved on to the wardrobe, then the bedside table and even the bathroom cupboards. She knew the Guard had already cleared out Marguerite’s desk but she checked again anyway, finding it bare. She sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, imagining her grandmother moving around the room in the periwinkle robe and slippers she had stolen from some hotel. She imagined her grandmother preparing for bed, rubbing shea butter into her elbows and massaging her temples with nutmeg oil. Anaïs returned to the dresser and examined the bottles again. The labels were written in Marguerite’s small, cramped hand, the ink thick and blotchy. Anaïs guessed that Marguerite had used a fountain pen, as she had always had a penchant for anachronistic quirks like that. But Anaïs had found no such pen, or any pen for that matter, anywhere in the room. It made no sense.

Anaïs removed the bottles from the vanity, placing them gently on the floor. She ran her hand over the smooth wood of the dresser, a thin layer of dusk sticking to her palm. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then she noticed a small crack, almost imperceptible, where the mirror attached to the vanity. Anaïs stood and tugged lightly on the mirror. Sure enough it slid easily to the side revealing a small space beneath it. The hiding place was just wide enough for her hand to fit and was only a few inches deep. Inside it, Anaïs found a small, silver tablet, fully charged. So much for antiquated affectations. Anaïs laughed out loud at the thought of her bespectacled grandmother typing away at the touch screen, noting down her deepest secrets. If Marguerite had been one thing, it was unpredictable, thought Anaïs fondly.

Anaïs pushed the small button at the base of the tablet, bringing the screen to life. It was password protected. She tried a few simple guesses, Marguerite’s birthday, her own, her mother’s. She tried phone numbers, addresses, even the too obvious 1111 and 0000 but the four-digit code remained elusive. Anaïs began to feel a tad guilty. It was clear that her grandmother had wanted to keep her electronic journal private; otherwise she would have kept it unlocked. Not necessarily, thought Anaïs. She wanted to keep the journal a secret but from whom? Had Marguerite anticipated the Guard’s search? If so, she would never have chosen an obvious password. But Anaïs felt certain, for reasons she could not explain, that her grandmother had meant for her to find the tablet. That meant the password had to be something only she, Anaïs, would know.

Anaïs wracked her brains for the answer, drawing on memories of times spent with her grandmother, private jokes they shared. There were many, but none that held any clue as to how to unlock the journal. Then Anaïs remembered the tattoo. Her mother had been red with embarrassment when Marguerite had shown it to Anaïs, the small bird tattooed on her left breast. Anaïs remembered giggling at her grandmother’s dark, blotchy skin.

“Oh my god mum she’s only seven. I don’t think she’s ready to witness the harsh realities of old age yet,” her mother had joked.

Her grandmother had laughed appreciatively at that. “Come on, a grandmother has to show her grandchildren her secrets. Lord knows mothers never share any of their past mistakes. They’re too scared they’ll lose their children’s respect or some such foolishness,” she retorted, winking at Anaïs.

Anaïs remembered reaching shyly to touch the soft, thin skin of Marguerite’s chest, the black and brown ink of the tattoo disappearing and reappearing in the wrinkled flesh. “What is it?” she had asked.

“A wren,” her grandmother replied, “do you know the fable of the eagle and the wren?”

Anaïs shook her head and Marguerite continued, “The story goes that all the birds in the forest decided to compete one day to see who would be the king of the birds. The bird that flew the highest would be named as the ruler. Everyone expected the eagle to win and sure enough within seconds of the race the eagle was flying high above the clouds, far higher than any of the other birds. But, just as the eagle was about to be declared the winner, the wren appeared above him. You see, the wren had hidden in the eagles’ feathers and waited until the eagle had flown as high as possible and was too tired to climb further. Then the wren flew just a few feet above the eagle and won the contest, becoming the king of all the birds.”

Anaïs’ mother rolled her eyes, “Great mum, teach my only child that the best way to succeed is to cheat. Very good advice.”

Marguerite paused, her brown eyes finding Anaïs’ as she cupped her gently under the chin and responded, “No, the best way to succeed is to always do the unexpected.”

1. 

Anaïs took two steps into the dawn sunlight, wobbled briefly on her platform boots and then barfed into a mound of snow. Around her the streets of downtown Toronto were swiftly filling with early morning commuters, one of whom casually side-stepped Anaïs’ puke without a second glance. Anaïs wiped her mouth with the back of a gloved hand and straightened up. It was April and the sun was rising earlier and setting later, meaning a shorter curfew. But it was still freezing. She buttoned up her coat and walked home as quickly as she could manage. In Dundas Square, a chipper weatherman smiled down at her from one of the massive screens and promised that spring was never coming. Beneath the weatherman a news ticker informed Anaïs that it was 6:48 a.m. and that exactly thirteen hours, twenty-three minutes and nine seconds remained until curfew. Anaïs planned to sleep for most of those hours. She reached her grandmother’s house and crawled directly into bed, stopping only to remove her snow-caked boots.

Anaïs awoke in the late afternoon with an eye-watering headache. She rose from bed, and padded to the bathroom in search of painkillers, her stocking feet slippery on the tile. She tried to avoid looking at herself in the mirror, catching only glimpses of frizzy hair and raccoon eyes. If her grandmother were here she would have stood with her arms akimbo and sucked her teeth in that way only Caribbean women can. But her grandmother was dead. She had been dead for close to a month and Anaïs had tried everything she could to ignore her grief. She had never been to a curfew party before Marguerite died. She found the idea of drinking and dancing from sunset to sunrise, with no ability to leave in between, absurd. But now she went to curfew parties every night. She had not been to class once in the last week. It was her final year of high school and while her classmates were studying for final exams and awaiting responses from universities, she was mourning the death of the only family she had left.

Anaïs slipped on Marguerite’s robe, which still smelled of aloe vera and shea butter, and went downstairs. She turned on the television and watched the news briefly while her coffee brewed. It was the usual reminders that only a few hours of sunlight remained to shop the end of winter sales. Club owners were not the only ones to take advantage of curfew, all the stores did their best business during the winter, when shorter days meant fewer hours for shopping, and therefore more desperate shoppers. The newscaster’s voice changed instantly from cheery to somber as she reported on some vandalism that had occurred in the Village the night before. She then turned to a spokesperson from the ruling party, the Canadian Party for Progress, for a special report on radicalism and violence among the youth.

“For the last 12 years, since the CPP has been in power we have seen a drastic decline in acts of terrorism such as this one. We all remember what it was like under the previous administration. The CPP has worked tirelessly to ensure a stable and safe environment for Canadian families, an environment that fosters growth and progress. However there are still those who wish to see Canada slip back into the dark ages. That is why acts of vandalism such as this, with the intention of destroying community spirit and creating chaos, will not be tolerated. Any citizen who witnesses law-breaking behavior should not hesitate to call the Guard. No act is too small and--”

Anaïs switched off the television. The painkiller had done little to dull her headache. On the counter rested a pile of papers and books. Her final assignments and study guides had been sent to her house by the school. They were being lenient with her given her grandmother’s death but she had hardly glanced at the work. Anaïs ignored the pile again, choosing instead to take her coffee down into the basement.

Marguerite Payne had been a hoarder. Nothing like what you see on reality TV shows, people buried under mounds of clothes and dirty dishes, houses so full they are hardly able to fit through the front door. She was not this bad. Most of her possessions were packed into towering boxes that filled almost every inch of her basement, some piled so high they grazed the ceiling.

Anaïs sat at the foot of one of these towers now, a box open at her feet, its contents fanned around her on the dusty basement floor. She had been trying to sort through her grandmother’s old papers for weeks, but had hardly made a dent. Her fingers were shaky has she sifted through the piles of hand scribbled notes, photographs and books. She was grinding her teeth unwittingly, her body still processing the chemicals she had ingested the night before. She was exhausted and it showed. Her long curls were unwashed and twisted in a messy matted bun atop her head. The pineapple look, Marguerite had called it. Anaïs chucked another stack of documents in the recycling pile and began sorting through the next box.

Every scrap of paper brought more memories of Marguerite, her smell, her handwriting, her wandering trains of thought. Her grandmother had been a fearsome woman, a tenured professor and scholar of Caribbean and African literature. She had taught at the University of Toronto right up until a few weeks before her death, despite Anaïs’ protests. She was a tiny woman, just barely five feet tall, but she was strong and stubborn like an anchor. Anaïs pictured her in her signature red hair wrap and long black dress and felt her absence most strongly then, surrounded by all of these remnants of her life. She also felt more alone than she had ever imagined possible. The light from the small half window was the murky yellow of winter sunset. Anaïs’ head continued its relentless throbbing as she curled up into a tight ball, pulling her grandmother’s robe up around her ears, and fell asleep.

Anaïs awoke to the sound of knocking at the front door. The sky through the basement window was black and the basement was so dark she had to feel her way along the wall for the light switch. She must have slept for hours. The knocking at the door continued and Anaïs could hear several muffled voices coming from the front steps. She thought they were likely drifters, people looking for shelter and food in exchange for manual labour and odd jobs. Marguerite had hosted drifters before, much to the chagrin of her neighbours.

“Who is it?” Anaïs called as she made her way up the stairs from the basement and into the foyer.  

“Officer 2319 of the Canadian Guard. I am on orders to search the premises.”

Anaïs froze. What on earth was the Guard doing at her grandmother’s home? She turned to her tablet to access the house’s security system. Her grandmother had installed two cameras, one at both the front and back doors. On the screen of her tablet Anaïs could see the officer at the front door motion with his fingers to someone off camera. He seemed to be sending them to the back of the house. Sure enough a few moments later two men appeared in the view of the other camera.  

“Please hold your identification up to the camera, Officer.” Anaïs said, her voice betraying her nerves. She had little experience with the Guard and though she knew she had not done anything wrong she was nonetheless shaken by their presence on her doorstep. She wracked her brain for a reason for their presence. The Guard did not arrest people in their homes for attending a curfew party the night before. Usually if they caught you out at night they would throw you in the drunk tank and put a mark on your permanent record. This had to be about something else.

Officer 2319 held his badge up the camera and then he removed a folded sheet of paper from his inner jacket pocket and flashed it briefly at the camera. “This is an authorization from PSCP for the search and seizure of unlawfully acquired Ministry documents.”

PSCP stood for Public Safety and Community Protection, the department responsible for maintaining law and order, the watchdog of the government. The Guard was official police force of the PSCP. Anaïs had no idea what documents the PSCP imagined Marguerite had in her possession. Her father had been a civil servant and loyal CPP member. Any Ministry records in the house must have belonged to him. Anaïs opened the door. Officer 2319 stepped into the foyer removing his tuque. He was handsome, in a boyish way, with a round, cherubic face and blue eyes. He smiled at Anaïs and offered her a gloved hand, which she shook meekly.

“How about this beautiful spring weather eh? With Aprils like this who needs Januaries?” He chuckled and entered the house, stopping to dust the snow off his boots. He was friendly the way dentists are friendly right before they yank your tooth out. He seemed to want to put Anaïs at ease but he never looked her in the eye. Instead he scanned the house, peering over Anaïs’ shoulder into the basement. “Sorry to barge in like this but I’ve got orders, you know how it is.” He played the role of the beleaguered civil servant but Anaïs did not buy it. His body was tense under his down jacket; he was like a cat that had caught a whiff of something worth hunting.

Anaïs felt helpless. She did not want this man in her house. All of her instincts screamed at her to keep him away, to call for help. But there was no one to call; the Guard was the consummate authority.

“So here’s how this is going to work, Ms. Payne. I’m going to bring in some other officers and we’re going to have a look throughout the house. We’ll be taking anything that we think might fall under the purview of the Ministry. Anything we remove that is later found to be immaterial will be returned to you. Does that make sense?” He smiled at Anaïs again and continued before she could respond. “Great. So I’m going to go ahead and invite in the other officers and we’ll be in and out before you even notice we were here.”

Anaïs had to swallow a sarcastic retort. The scene felt surreal. She sat the table and watched numbly as the three guardsmen hauled box after box up from the basement. She was sure Marguerite would have known what to do in this situation. Well, maybe not. She probably would have gotten them both dragged off to a detainment center with her loose tongue. Anaïs still longed for her grandmother. Every day spent without her was new lesson in how little Anaïs really knew about the world. This latest run in with the Guard only reinforced her feelings of helplessness.

Anaïs did the only thing she could think of in that moment which was to make a pot of tea. She felt ludicrous as she steeped the green leaves in the infuser, while strange men pawed through her belongings but she she was too overwhelmed with exhaustion to really process the bizarreness of the night. She found herself craving sleep almost constantly. She knew this was a weakness, that she was using sleep to escape the reality of Marguerite’s death, but she found it difficult to care. Her life, the value of which she had never questioned until then, had suddenly become so empty as to be rendered pointless. Anaïs felt small and useless and with each piece of Marguerite’s life that was carried away by the Guard, the more Anaïs shrunk into herself.