"Football. Go away."

"The Eskies?"

"I'll give you money if you promise to leave me alone. How does a crisp twenty-dollar bill sound?"

The woman leaned out over the water so she could get a look at Raymond. She was a moon-faced forty-year-old with a crooked toque and a bubble of visible snot under her left nostril. "It's dumb to kill yourself, man. All your friends'll be"

"I don't have any friends."

"Bull."

"Earlier this evening, I made myself into a pariah."

"What's a pariah?"

"How about this: how about thirty-five dollars?"

The wind was light. For a minute Raymond and the woman looked to the east, where the river curved. "I just thought about the worst stuff," she said.

"Pardon?"

"I just stood here and pretended everything was the worst it could be for me. Ten times awful, with s.h.i.t on it, the way you feel I guess. But I still think it's dumb to jump. You might as well stay around until you get cancer or a stroke or whatever, even just to watch TV. Think about all the TV you won't see. It's September and all the new shows are just starting. And then there's h.e.l.l to think about. You'll go to h.e.l.l for sure."

"There is no h.e.l.l."

"Bull."

"Just dark. Nothingness."

"So you don't believe in G.o.d?"

"No."

"Oh man, that is dumb."

"Take my whole wallet, please. Just reach down and slip it out of the right pocket of my suit jacket. I went to the bank machine yesterday so there'll be about seventy dollars in there. Use my credit card. Buy some Adam Sandler movies."

"Yeah, but my DVD player's busted."

"Get it repaired."

"For seventy bucks? You can almost get a new DVD player for that."

Raymond sighed. His arms were locked on the rail behind him, but they were beginning to fall asleep. It was uncomfortable to stand like this, with his feet hooked on the outer bar. If he were going to jump he had to jump now, or soon. But he didn't want to jump and sail through the air in a final moment of majesty while this sniffing stranger with the crooked toque and onion breath watched. He wanted his death to have mythic power.

That was what had been missing from his life all these years. His career, his city, this bonehead province.

Mythic power.

"Excuse me," Raymond said. He started to shift so he would turn away from the water, but it was an awkward transition. If he let go with an arm and took the weight off one foot, he could slip. And if he slipped he would be gone. Not flying with slow-motion black-and-white movie majesty but flopping and spinning straight down.

"You need help?"

As it turned out, Raymond did need help.

41.

name that father of confederation Jonas directed Rajinder and Madison to a corner table in the Hotel Macdonald's Confederation Lounge, surrounded by tapestries and people speaking Russian. "This is where I come to play rich and carefree." He pretended to smoke a cigar. "Isn't the lighting in here perfectly, romantically, heartbreakingly dim?"

"It is a lovely spot, Jonas." Rajinder held the chair for Madison and then sat down.

The server arrived immediately, said good evening, and left menus on the table. Jonas raised his eyebrows a couple of times. "Are you paying, Raj?"

Rajinder smiled and slid the wine list across the table. "Of course."

"Come to papa."

While Jonas scanned the wine list, Madison sat back in her chair and tried not to look at Rajinder. They were sitting under the giant Fathers of Confederation painting, which offered her the opportunity to play a round of Name That Father of Confederation. She feared it would be a short gameJohn A. Macdonald, Charles Tupper, the a.s.sa.s.sinated Thomas D'Arcy McGee...And it was.

Rajinder didn't seem to share her bashfulness about staring. Madison felt his eyes burning into her cheekbones, and the fathers of Confederation hadn't done much to slow her heartbeat. Somehow she had to respond. Weather? Hockey? The struggle in Iraq? Instead, she blurted, "Yeah, I'm a travel agent but don't judge me because I do have a master's degree in comparative literature. Not that being a travel agent is anything to apologize for. Sure, I live in my parents' bas.e.m.e.nt, but I'm not, you know, a complete failure."

Rajinder blinked.

"So, Raj," said Jonas. "I can order whatever I want?"

"Within reason, yes." Rajinder looked away from Madison. "I have never been able to taste the 250 dollars in 250-dollar wine, but perhaps it is a deficiency in my palate."

Jonas waved at the server, who had just popped the cork on a bottle of champagne for the Russians. As the server approached, Jonas turned to Madison and Rajinder. "Dig this accent."

"You're ready?" the server leaned forward with his hands behind his back.

"We'll have the Joseph Drouhin Clos Vougeot Grand Cru."

"The Burgundy?"

"Yes."

"Good choice, sir. Will that be all?"

Jonas nodded. "For now, my good man." When the server was gone, he turned to Rajinder and pressed his hands together in prayer. "So. Will you be my best friend?"

"Jonas, stop that." Madison leaned forward and cuffed him lightly on the ear. "I'm sorry for his behaviour, Rajinder. And for mine and everyone's behaviour tonight. We all acted like it was a trailer-park keg party, without the dignity."

Rajinder nodded. "I must admit. It was not as I had imagined."

"What is, my brother? What is?" Jonas moved his chair away from Madison so he would be closer to Rajinder. "But I have to ask you something. You have, like, many millions of dollars, right?"

"Well..."

Madison made a fist and shook it.

"Some Texans bought up your company. You have all this cash. Why don't you live in New York or London orsince you're a FrancophileParis? Of all the cities in the world, why Edmonton?"

"Only an Edmontonian would ask such a thing."

"That isn't exactly true, Raj. My friends in Vancouver and Toronto ask me all the time why a gay man would choose to live in Alberta. All the time."

"They are ignorant. They do not understand."

"You've lived in London. You've been to Paris and New York. So why"

"There is an inferiority complex in your DNA," said Rajinder, as the server returned with the wine. The server removed the cork and poured a bit for Jonas to sniff and swirl and taste while Rajinder continued speaking. "You have the foundation of Canadian inferiority reinforced with Edmonton inferiority, a species of inferiority that insinuated itself after Wayne Gretzky moved to Los Angeles. Yes?"

Jonas lowered his head. "The parties. The cocaine. Like a potato-chip bag in the wind."

"Soda and cranberry, please." Madison wanted to try the wine, badly, but she turned her gla.s.s over so the server would leave it empty.

Rajinder smiled at her. "You don't drink?"

"Not really, no."

"That is wise."

"Yeah."

Jonas took a second sip of wine and closed his eyes. "Oh, this is the b.a.l.l.s. Isn't it?"

"Yes," said Rajinder. "The b.a.l.l.s."

"Anyway, all the redneckery and big trucks and Harley Davidson T-shirts when you could live in the Marais. I'll never understand it."

Rajinder smiled at his wine. "European cities are relatively monocultural, and the vehicles are getting larger, not smaller. There are equivalents in Paris for all our local shortcomings, and a global entertainment machine that is beginning to erode what we find charming about older countries. It's cold in the wintertime in Paris and London, too. People are frustrating and complicated and..."

"Stupid."

"...wherever they live." Rajinder turned to Madison. "Why do Edmontonians grow West Coast plants in their backyards instead of native species?"

"Edmonton suffers from an anywhere-but-here disease. It's a great city, but it's not a city."

"But it is, Madison, you see?"

She didn't see.

"Edmonton is a real city as soon as we, as Edmontonians, believe it is real."

"We're a communal Pinocchio," said Jonas.

The server brought Madison's soda and cranberry, so she lifted her gla.s.s. "To believing."

Rajinder and Jonas leaned in. "To believing."

The Russians had gone quiet. Madison turned and saw the Russians were looking at them. Had they been speaking too loudly? She talked more quietly. "Rajinder, what is Anonymous? It was on the wall in your conference room."

"I am Anonymous."

Jonas pointed. "That's you?"

"I don't get it," said Madison.

"The era of government support for the arts in Canada, especially around here, is waning. Health care is too dear."

"Farmers and suburbanites think arts funding is a h.o.m.o plot." Jonas swirled the wine in his gla.s.s. "And those people actually vote."

"I fund the arts, Madison, but I don't want to be seen as a replacement for broader public support. I don't want to be in the newspaper either. So: anonymous."

Jonas snorted. "But you could be famous. They'd make doc.u.mentaries about you."

"Who would?"

"They would."

"That is not my measure of success, Jonas."

"It's mine. Oh, it's so mine." Jonas slugged his wine. "Did I already ask if we could be best friends?"

"Twice in the conference room after the others left, three times on the walk to the hotel, and once a few minutes ago."

"Think about it, Raj."

"I will, thank you."

Without any warning, an acutely foolish desire bloomed in Madison's chest. As Jonas continued to press Rajinder for a best-friend commitment, Madison wanted to make a similar proclamation. Instead of building toward an afternoon ice-cream date with Rajinder, instead of asking him about growing up in India or his thoughts on landscaping, code words for I want you like I want a gulp of 250-dollar wine, Madison wanted to say, out loud, I want you like I want a gulp of 250-dollar wine.

42.

cowards that jump Professor Raymond Terletsky wanted to be free of the woman who had dragged him, by the neck, over the rail and onto the pedestrian path of the High Level Bridge. But she had insisted on escorting him home.