“Sure, but you haven’t told me anything yet. Give it to me straight, then we can go see him — we can walk over through the park, can’t we? You can fill in the details as we go.”
Sam waved at the waitress, who cruised past the intervening tables and approached them. She was no fool, and appeared to be thinking, what’s going on between this pair?
“Please bring a coffee for the lady — and another for me,” Sam told her. “The cheque, too, if you don’t mind, with the sausages and eggs. We may have to leave in a hurry.”
The waitress smiled and moved away. “The situation is crazy,” Clara said, “but here’s the gist of it. It’s all about trees.”
Sam shook his head and waited for her to elaborate.
“When you checked out that web story you must have noticed that Daniel’s exhibition is called The Trees Remember Sorrow — the title’s designed to sound good in French, too. It’s a protest show and it’s connected with the big scientific conference that’s been going on in the city — papers on ecology, nature, biogenetic stuff, hundreds of them, first here, then more later in Ottawa, where the second stage of the conference is set to be held. The scientists are kicking around some pretty weird ideas. Daniel researched everything. One group in particular, Arbor Vitae, caught his attention, and he wanted to be right here to protest in person, to make sure those guys got the message. He had quite a job persuading the gallery to put up his show to overlap with the conference, but they did. And then, last Friday, the first day of the meetings, he went over and made a stir at the Conference Centre. The police had to haul him away. It made the scientists very nervous. They’re always on the lookout for freaks and weirdos ready to bomb their labs.”
“Daniel wouldn’t bomb anyone.”
“They don’t know Daniel. All they know is that a Native artist is making fun of what they’re doing. And this is a guy who hires a couple of trucks to dump trees in front of the Conference Centre — not real trees, of course, but seven imitation trees designed to comment on the dangers, the bad aspects of the new tree research. One’s called ‘The Tree of Life’ — it looks like an apple tree, but instead of apples there are images of children’s suffering faces in the branches. A plaque on it reads DESIGNED AT MIT AND BUILT BY BECHTEL. Then there’s one called ‘The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,’ with a Native Christ crucified on one side and Dr. Linton raising his hand in blessing on the other. Stuff like that, some pretty bitter, some quite funny.”
“Who’s Dr. Linton?”
Clara wore a puzzled expression.
“I’m surprised you don’t know. He’s one of the star scientists at the conference. His lab has worked out a way of genetically modifying trees so that they can grow even amid the worst pollution, and in some cases help absorb and neutralize the polluted materials. He started a company called Arbor Vitae to market the process.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Daniel sees it as endangering real trees and taking the polluting companies off the hook. Why worry about polluting the environment, why bother to protect real trees, if you can make super-trees to deal with your problems? There’s also the threat of spreading the genetically modified plants and upsetting the natural forestry growths.”
“So Dr. Linton doesn’t like Daniel’s protest?”
She gave him a look.
“You really haven’t been reading the papers. Dr. Linton doesn’t care much about anything anymore. He was murdered late Friday night or Saturday morning — suffered a horrible seizure in his hotel room and died almost instantly.”
The waitress reappeared; Clara paused. Sam swallowed the last of his coffee, and dug into the sausages and eggs. “Not good. Not good at all,” he said. And what’s with the seizure? Are they sure he was murdered?”
“According to Paul, they are. The story’s a bit grotesque. Someone poisoned him, but they did it organically, you might say. An extract of deadly nightshade slipped into his food or drink. The police are working on it. And they suspect Daniel. His protest got their attention, and when they checked out his exhibition, they weren’t reassured. He’s put some heavy stuff in there, although again, a few pieces are quite funny.”
“They don’t like satirical art? Or humour?”
“I don’t know what they like or don’t like. But one of Daniel’s artistic installations — you can see it in the gallery right now — shows a cutout of a ravishingly beautiful woman surrounded by pasted labels of practically every toxic substance sold to unsuspecting consumers around the world, all with their commercial labels, and with some of the advertising slogans that promoted them. The woman is shown nude, holding a skull. She looks as if she’s just stepped out of some academic clothing that lies at her feet. The title of the piece is Atropa Belladonna. Belladonna refers to a dangerous enchantress. And the Latin word atropa, I believe, has something to do with one of the three fates of legend.”
Sam grunted impatiently. “You’re well-informed. And when you put them together?”
“You get pretty powerful symbolism — and also the scientific name for deadly nightshade.”
Two
They walked between the green park and a long row of buildings that faced it, elegant brick or stone mansions with flower-bedecked balconies, alcoves and stairways, umbrellas and gaily striped awnings. Beside them, no less suave, stood apartment houses approached by tree-lined paths, with discreet front gardens surrounded by wrought-iron fences. Flowers bloomed everywhere, pink and yellow and white; joggers trotted past, well-dressed men and women walked their dogs, and children ran toward the open spaces of the Plains of Abraham.
“Lovely spot,” Sam said. “See that apartment building with the ivy growing halfway up? That’s where the Berthelets live. Bourgeois French comfort at it best. We seem to have landed in a genteel nineteenth-century painting: ‘Children and Sailboats in Central Park’ or ‘Morning Stroll in the Luxembourg.’ You wouldn’t suspect that the Grand Allée and its traffic lie just beyond. Maybe I should retire to Quebec City. I could get an apartment, take my poodle for a walk every morning along these paths, and eye the local beauties. Did you see that charming thing that got out of the BMW back there? Rollerblades already laced on tight, a slinky body wrapped in a cocktail dress worth several hundred bucks at least — morning exercise and the old female game of getting looked at all at one stroke. Eccentric, eye-catching. I certainly didn’t mind looking. People-watching in this city could be fun.”
“People-watching or girl-watching? Same old Sam, I guess. Come to think of it, though, I could imagine you living here, though never as a senior citizen. I can’t see you as a senior at all! How’s your French these days?”
“I hear better than I speak. And in case you think I only notice the beautiful ladies, I’ve been marvelling at that ancient, elegantly dressed crone with the cane soldiering along just ahead of us. My guess is that she lives in that next apartment building, the one with the green awnings and the wonderful leaded windows. Looks exactly like her kind of place. She’ll turn any second now and start up the walkway …”
They paused; the old lady turned.
“You should be a detective,” Clara told him.
“A detective? You mean a real one who goes after criminals, and doesn’t spend his time spying on bankers who can’t resist ballet dancers or beach bunnies in crewcuts? Fat chance!”
Clara shook her head.
“You haven’t changed. You know, Sam, after we broke up, every once in a while I tried to remember the colour of your eyes. Just one of those funny things that hit you when you split with someone. Brownish-flecked olive green was the best I could do — I almost called you up to try it out on you, but I thought you would assume it was a come-on. I think what I really remembered was the colour of sadness.”