“Well …” said Morgan, stripping off his shirt and wringing it out. Soggy as it was, he offered it to Miranda to cover herself after she took off her blouse and swung it up in the air and away as if she would never want it again. She accepted Morgan’s awkward gallantry.
“Well?” Miranda said, gazing down at their catch. “What have we here?”
Nishimura glanced up at them both, then down at the fish that now seemed opalescent in the shaft of sunlight falling into the tub. “Look!” he said, and didn’t say anything more.
The three of them bent over the fish, which seemed oblivious to being observed as it hovered gently so as not to brush against the sides of the tub.
“Look,” Nishimura said again.
“What?” asked Miranda, trying not to intrude on whatever Nishimura was experiencing. She was curious, though.
Morgan looked at Nishimura, who remained silent. Reaching across, he squeezed Miranda’s shoulder. His damp shirt bled streamlets of water on his hand, and she shuddered from the cold of wet cloth pressing against her skin but shifted her body weight slightly toward him.
“I know this fish,” said Nishimura.
“I know her.”
“Personally?” asked Morgan.
“Yes.”
They were stunned.
“You’ve never seen such white. Just look. It’s layers upon layers of the purest white over white over white, like a blessing. The red’s perfect, like continents floating on a pure white sea, like perfect wounds on a sacred relic. This fish is a holy thing.” At his own pace Nishimura tried to clarify. “It’s the Champion of All Champions, the Supreme Champion of the All-Japan Koi Show two years ago. I saw her there. I know her.”
“How?” asked Morgan.
“She was never missing. As far as anyone knows, she’s cruising peacefully in a vast clay pond in Niigata, breeding a fortune.”
“A fortune?” echoed Miranda.
“The owners were offered four million for her after the show. In U.S. dollars. They turned it down.”
“Gosh,” said Morgan.
“Holy smoke!”
“My goodness,” said Miranda, smiling.
“Indeed,” said Nishimura.
“What a fish!”
9
Carp
The next day Miranda and Morgan had lunch on an open verandah projecting over the Elora Gorge. Below them the river ran silent and deep, cutting through layers of sedimentary rock millions of years in the making. The restaurant itself had been a large mill. Five storeys of fieldstone, with dressed limestone at the corners and around windows and doors, it appeared to be held together by the generous application of cement, not pointed between the stones as in a more formal design but smeared thickly across the walls so the stone pressed through in a rustic patchwork that made Miranda homesick for Waterloo County, for all the old Mennonite and Scottish-built farmhouses and the rare stone barns like the one down from Waldron on the way to Galt.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said.
They were the only ones eating outside. Cool air rising, lifted by the September breeze pushing through the gorge, carried the scent of the river, sending a shiver through Miranda.
“You want me to get your coat from the car?” Morgan asked.
“I didn’t bring a coat, Morgan. Thank you, really. It was a nice thought.”
“This is another world. A stone’s throw from TO.”
“You’ve travelled through Europe …”
“When I wasn’t much more than a kid. I know. I’ve lived in London, hung out in Rome. You would love Italy. Siena’s the most beautiful city in the world.”
“You were in love in Siena?”
“It’s possible. I remember sitting in the Campo. It’s a huge cobbled catchment for rainwater. It dips to one edge. There’s a system of cisterns under the city. I remember sitting at a café, day after day, watching tourists, trying desperately not to be a tourist myself. I don’t remember if I was alone or not.”
He did; he wasn’t. But it seemed inappropriate to mention a woman whose name he couldn’t even recall.
“But you’ve never travelled near home?” she asked.
“When I first joined the force, I’d go to New York for the weekend, Chicago, New Orleans a couple of times, San Francisco. Just to make sure they were there.”
“What about north?”
“It’s big and empty.”
“Absolute nonsense! Have you ever been to Muskoka? It’s a ninety-minute drive.”
“To see where Rosedale spends the summer? Never had the need.”
“Do you know why?”
“Just didn’t.”
“No! Everyone goes there. It’s beautiful. Goldie Hawn has a cottage in Muskoka.”
“No kidding, Miranda. Kate Hudson’s mother? Kurt Russell’s life partner? I’m astonished. Let’s drive up this afternoon.”
“Go to hell!” She smiled.
Morgan had hated it when they had to deal a couple of times with movie actors. He liked movies. When he was a kid, he sneaked into the big downtown theatres through the fire exits. And when he was a student, he spent more time at films than at pubs. He watched DVDs at home. Movies were life in the perpetual present. He liked that. They were parallel worlds that made sense if only because they had limits. Actors as people, especially celebrities, undermined the illusion. He was fascinated by how people made movies, not how movies made people.
“I’d like to go to Muskoka,” he said. “I like Muskoka chairs.”
“Also called Adirondack chairs.”
“In the Adirondacks. I like Muskoka chairs and I like Muskoka launches, the old-fashioned inboards.”
“Where did you see those?”
“Along the Toronto waterfront.”
“Fall colours in Muskoka, Morgan! Just imagine walking out of a black-and-white newsreel into a Cinemascope romance with wraparound sound. Let’s go together. I used to go with my parents. We’d get up really early and drive to Muskoka and back the same day. Let’s get this business over with and we’ll take a vacation. Not boy-girl. Just a trip to see colours.”
“Next year for sure.”
“Next year …” Her voice dwindled into awkward silence.
They had talked in the car on the way from Toronto. After waiting a day to sort out memories and responses, emotion and judgment, she had poured it all out in a torrent. It was like a confession on the verge of hysteria, but he was neither analyst nor priest, just a friend. At one point she had had to pull over to regain composure, but had insisted on not giving up the wheel. He had listened, and when her account rounded out to completion, he had talked about ordinary things. He had felt it was important to keep up the usual banter, to give her confidence in who she was now.
“You’re a really bad driver, Morgan,” she now told him.
“What made you say that?”
“If we go to Muskoka, I drive.”
“Are you okay?” He gazed through