“Kay. The traffic is getting heavier. You need to get under the blanket before a truck sees you,” says Liv.
I lift the blanket enough to see that beside me, Firuzeh is spooning Bahadur, who is shaking like a leaf. I break our silence.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” I motion to remove the blanket. Bahadur stops me, as much as their shaking will allow. They try to spit words out, but I cannot understand. “Do you need help? Do we need to stop?” Firuzeh is behind them trying to stifle their shakes.
“I . . . I can’t! I can’t! Please . . .”
“Shhhhh . . . Shhhhhh.” I hold their hands together, two hands in a fisted prayer. Their knuckles are white in their tight grasp. Sweat. Drool. Tears. “Breathe, Bahadur. Come on. Breathe with me.” They take a breath, then another, then another. They finally slow down enough to speak, but every now and then they hiccup on their own tears.
“I . . . don’t know if I can do this, Firuzeh. I am not a fighter like you. I’m a runner. I run. I know how to hide. I know how to make myself as small as possible so that no one can see me, harm me. I know how to freeze and go somewhere else, go outside my body when bad things are happening to me. But I don’t know how to fight.”
“I saw you, Bahadur,” Firuzeh says, tenderly. “You can fight. We all have learned how to fight. We’re capable.”
“No. No. I can’t!” Sweat. Drool. Tears. Firuzeh tries to will them to breathe again. I can see that she is working hard to contain Bahadur in her loving arms.
“Is everything okay back there?” I hear Liv call out from the passenger seat. Bahadur suddenly emerges from the blanket cover and unlocks the van door. Beck is forced to pull over on the country road as Bahadur tumbles out of the van. They collapse on the side of the road. We all huddle around them as they scream.
“What’s going on?! We can’t be out here. Everyone back into the van!” Beck demands in a stage whisper. He looks around frantically. The van is a black rectangle in a vast stretch of open field. Rows of corn stand low and green to the right of our vehicle. Rolling hills undulate softly in the distance. At the top of one knoll, a farmhouse sits beside a droopy willow tree, its windows framing the scene we are creating.
“Just wait!” Firuzeh says to Beck before she crouches down to Bahadur’s reddened face. “Bahadur! Look at me. Look at me!” Firuzeh attempts to touch them, but Bahadur flinches.
Bahadur starts spitfire monologuing. “Firuzeh. What if this were a movie? What if we were all in a movie right now and all of us were characters? We would be as we are in real life: the first ones to get killed. The first ones to become invisible. Silenced. Disappeared. We’re the ones. We’re gonna die. We’re all gonna die!”
“SHHHHH!” Beck spits at us. I look out at the farmhouse Beck has been eyeing, and we both see the curious homeowner open the front door.
A middle-aged man with a red golf shirt shifts right and left, wondering what’s going on behind our black minivan. He waves and says something inaudible. I hide. Firuzeh hides. Bahadur shakes. Their sobs transform into hysterical choking, as if fluid has gone down the wrong pipe. Their tongue hangs just outside their lips. Their face is beet red.
“You need a boost, young man?” the man repeats to Beck. Liv quickly emerges from the side of the van, pretending to wipe the front of her pants.
“Just a couple of sick kids, sir.” Liv poses in pretend irritation and laughs.
“Boy, do I miss those long drives with kids!” the man says sarcastically. He gives a dismissive wave and goes back inside. The distant sound of a screen door closing.
Beck waves, then focuses on us with an alarmed glare. “Get in the car!”
“We’re gonna die!”
Firuzeh holds Bahadur’s face in her hands.
“No. Not today. Look at me, Bahadur! Not today!” Firuzeh screams, loud enough that my ears are ringing. Everyone is silent, including Bahadur. Everyone is surprised by the sound of her voice. “Look at me. Look at me!” Bahadur obeys, their breathing still laboured, spit gathering in the corners of their mouth. Then quietly, calmly, “You will not die today. You are not that character. This is not that movie. You are not invisible. You will not be silenced. You will not disappear. You will not die. You will not die. You will not die. You will not die.” She says it again and again until I, too, believe it. Until she has little breath in her body. Firuzeh models deep inhales and exhales until Bahadur’s face slowly returns to its normal colour and their breath slows. We all crowd around Bahadur, silent in the wake of Firuzeh’s words until Beck finally, solemnly, speaks up.
“We need to get into the van before somebody sees you.”
We drive again. The sound of the rocky asphalt becomes the sound of city potholes. Under our blanket cover, Firuzeh continues to spoon Bahadur, who faces me, speaking prayers into our six intertwined hands as we enter Toronto.
I close my eyes and consider all those who have come before me, who have prayed over the barrel of their own gun, before fighting for their own survival. What objects did they touch in the corners of their pockets to steady the beat of their hearts? What pictures did they kiss to remind them of their reason to fight? I touch two fingers to my own mouth, imagining you kissing me good luck.
I close my eyes and remember that dreaded day I was exorcised. At dawn, after my mother’s church folk released me, I walked, Evan. I walked for as long as my legs would allow me, my head unevenly shorn. In the light of dawn, I walked north on Parliament Street, away from my neighbourhood of St. James Town, away from my mother, away from those who prayed over me. A store owner cranked his awning open and shuddered at the sight of my humiliation. Seeing me in my soiled pyjamas, a woman walking her dog avoided me and crossed the street. I kept walking. I descended a steep hill under a bridge into a ravine, hoping for quiet, away from the sound of the city and the repetition of scripture. I walked until there were no longer sidewalks, until the only people who passed me were joggers who assumed I, too, was on my morning run. I walked until I saw a white bridge towering above me and underneath it an old cemetery. I approached the weathered headstones, each leaning in different directions, each one moist with the morning dew. I felt nothing. I, too, was dead. Perhaps if I sat down among them, I would have something in common with someone else. Maybe I would belong. I ran my raw and newly clipped nails along the surface of the epitaphs. 1850–1911. 1872–1895. 1922–1963. I found one that read “Lord, we give you our littlest angel,” for someone by the name of Beatrice Annabel Anderson who had lived and died in the year 1937. It was a humble, flat marker. I lay my head down on its cold surface, outstretched my arms and legs, closed my eyes and prayed to join her.
That’s when I felt the sensation of being watched. I jolted upright and searched the forest and bridge for yet another person about to attack me. The crack of a branch breaking startled me again. From the grouping of headstones I saw a majestic doe. Her neck peeked out from the grass she was eating and she looked me in the eyes. She chewed for a while and then swallowed, the grass going down her graceful throat. The fearful pounding of my heart slowed in the presence of her. As minutes (hours? lifetimes?) passed, the glow of the morning sun warmed the surface of her golden fur as it warmed the surface of my weeping face. What did she transmit through her gaze that day? What message did she have for me from beyond? I still cannot put into words what was communicated. Only images. In the reflections of her eyes I saw myself as a young child again, listening to the magic of a piano playing. Me spinning about the room as an LP turned on its table. Dancing like birds just about to take flight. Dancing like eyes slowly opening in the morning. Dancing like the fog dissipating in the warmth of the sun.