Patrick was alone in his room, the radio playing Classical music quietly in the background. He was planning to get to a pile of research papers that had backlogged in his briefcase, and beginning to give him a dull ache in his back. But something else was pulling at his attention and not allowing him to focus clearly. A letter, now beside its envelope, sat on his workbench. He reached for it once again, as if its contents weren’t fully grasped. As he looked at the typewritten pages, a gentle hand tapped softly at his door. He knew that tap well enough to say “Come in,” without even looking up.

Alison entered, noticing Patrick was not just his usual distracted self, but frowning with displeasure at the pages in his hand. “Hey, is that bad news?”

Patrick looked up at her, a little taken aback by the transformation in Alison’s appearance. She was wearing dark colours, a turtleneck and slacks. He was of course used to seeing her in slacks from Avalon, but recently skirts and dresses had become ingrained in her image. Flat shoes, and much less makeup than she usually wore in the city. Just a few traces; you’d have to know her face well to tell.

He could see she was referring to the letter in his hand, and that he must have a look of puzzlement on his face. He waved the letter slightly, “Not really bad news,” stuffing it back into the envelope, which was always a clumsy task. He set himself with an it’s-secret look, but he knew she would only be piqued, and was better at prying secrets from him than he was in keeping them. Now, more focused on her, “This is a different look for you. Where are you going?”

“I’m off to a bistro on Rideau Street. There’s a jazz trio I want to see. A really fabulous piano player from Cuba will drop in. I thought maybe you needed a break. Would you like to join me?” Join, being a code word for accompany. “Have you eaten? They have sandwiches and salads.” Patrick couldn’t think of why not; he simply had to grab a jacket and was ready to go.

In the Market, the last shops were closing for the day, and the streets were quiet. “You’re still deep in thought about that letter.” Alison kept a brisk pace beside him, meaning she was wearing flats rather than high heels. Neither was she clutching his arm.

“Well, ’tis all very queer. A few people have mentioned to me lately, causally I thought, that it might be better for me to spend more time up north, career-wise, than it would be for me to stay in Ottawa.”

“Where up north?”

“That’s what’s interesting. I assumed they were referring to the time I spent in Coppermine. But now, it seems, a very specific offer has come for a job in Labrador.”

“Labrador? That’s almost as remote as Coppermine.”

“There’s a big military base there. Goose Bay.”

“Well, I must say you haven’t been content since you came to Ottawa. It’s not to everyone’s liking. What do you think of the offer?”

“On the surface it is intriguing. Right up my alley. Almost tailor-made.”

“But…”

“Well, it means working very closely with the Americans. It`s a NORAD posting.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Patrick looked pained, realizing he was coming to the end of the things he should say, and not wanting to fall into knee-jerk anti-Americanism.

“It takes me further away from pure science and deeper into military circles than I’d like. I was hoping to find myself in a better position at the university than I have so far. As if there were someone unseen opening and closing doors, without consideration for where I may want to go.” With a huge sigh, almost as if he were a plaintiff kid again, and Alison were a stand-in for Aunt Rose, “I’ve also received notice that my contract for lectureship won’t be extended beyond January.”

“That’s not a push, that’s a shove. You’re hearty stock. How cold is it in Labrador?”

“When the gales come down from Greenland, ’tis fiendishly cold.” By now they had turned onto Rideau; many of the shop windows were still lit. Alison’s gaze had been pulled away from the direction of their conversation. Her reflection in a brightly lit window, with a display of new fashion arrivals behind, brought to mind the contrast with what she was wearing. “Always a fashion reporter on the job?”

She shot a reproachful look back at him, but it was true, and her gaze was more than casual. They had stopped. Patrick had read enough of her columns to know she was contemplating a display of Dior-inspired dresses. “The artist in me can’t help but admire the strong lines, plush fabrics, bold prints. But the woman in me can’t help but wonder how practical these are for an Ottawa winter. Skirts are bad enough, but bare arms and shoulders? It takes a man to think that’s a good idea.” She steered them back in the direction they had been walking. She moved with a purposeful step, as if determined not to pay any more attention to the shop windows that evening.

The bistro turned out to be a small storefront, that stretched narrowly back a long way, with small tables set closely in lines along the wall on either side of the passageway. There was no sign of the jazz trio yet, but in a far corner, a piano and drum kit sat at the ready. There weren’t many people inside, so they had their choice of tables. Alison led them to one with a good vantage of the piano. When the waitress came, Patrick ordered a croissant with ham, brie and apple, Alison ordered a salad with arugula, pear and walnuts. They split a carafe of house white while they ate. Alison eyed Patrick’s croissant enviously. “You have no idea what kind of dietary discipline dresses like those imposed on you. I mean, what’s someone like Maman supposed to wear?”

“Well, she certainly has ample cleavage for it,” they both laughed nervously, but Alison had a point, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

“So, you think someone’s trying to get you out of the way? Maybe someone from the Diefenbaker faction has an eye on your job.”

“Or maybe it’s a red scare thing. RCMP are snooping around the departments like bloodhounds on a trail. Andrei was also given an assignment which is conveniently out-of-the way and innocuous.”

“Why? Because he has an Eastern European background? That’s absurd.”

“You’d think so. I mean, he’s Polish. And let me tell you, there’s no love lost betwixt him and the Leftists. But who knows what’s going on. Why is it better for me to be in Labrador than Ottawa?”

“You think there’s more to the story lurking behind all this?” Now her journalistic instincts had pricked up, which Patrick regretted triggering. It was time for him to clam up, which would only pique her interest more.

“Well, I hardly suppose it’s a story. New parties take power, they find appointments for their cronies and faithful. The old guard starts to smell like old fish.” But Alison was not buying into that line.

“You, Andrei and I were going to get together, weren’t we? Perhaps we should go see a movie, or something, this Sunday?”

“Isn’t it a little mercenary, to be treating your friends and family as if they were leads in a story?”

“Listen, my career is stuck in Nowheresville. If I’m to make it anywhere near the Front Section, and there’s a story to follow, then I have to be all over it.” She gave a you’ve-been-warned look.

By now the bistro had filled with more bohemian-dressed patrons. Someone sat at the piano, while someone else was arranging the drums around him on the stool. A stand-up bass had made its way onto the stage. “Is that your friend?” Patrick nodded in the direction of the piano.

“Mais non. That’s the regular pianist for the trio. Juan will sit in for a few numbers later in the evening.” The music started, nowhere close to the starting time on the small poster next to the payphone. The band played music with variously Latin rhythms, which were all the vogue in jazz circles. Although no one in the band looked especially Latin American. Juan made his appearance during the first set and took a seat at their table, settling his chair familiarly close to Alison.

From the opportunities to exchange small talk between numbers, and during the break, it quickly became obvious that Juan was not one to waste his time in small talk. And that he was a very politically-charged personality. Even a few casual questions about Cuba, meant more as an ice-breaker, were enough to launch Juan into a diatribe about banana plantations, casinos and hotel magnates. “Most of Cuba’s food crops are exported, which keeps food scarce and expensive in the local shops.” His theme was developed with a practised sense of oratory. “The only things in Cuba that interest American tourists are procuring cheap ganja, and cheap sex from our wives and sisters.” – I’m Chiquita Banana and I’m here to say…

When the trio had finished the first set, the musicians came over and squeezed in beside Juan. Under the cover of the crowded room and smoky haze, a joint was lit and passed around the table. Alison seemed quite causal with it in her hand. Patrick had learned to be non-judgmental, and indulgent at faculty functions at the university. He took a few tokes as it came around to him. What surprised Patrick more than seeing Alison smoke marijuana, was seeing how closely she sat next to Juan, not only because the room was crowded, but in a familiar way, as if they had been acquaintances for more than a short time. And why surprised? Patrick turned inward, wanting to study his thoughts. Was he jealous, or being possessive, somehow? He realized he had certain notions about what circles she might eventually marry into. Their very closeness, the flirtation she seemed to be displaying toward Juan: if this got out into wider knowledge, would jeopardize her marriageable standing. Not a comfortable thought, not one he liked entertaining. Nevertheless, even for himself as someone who was Irish and Catholic, doors to certain social circles would be forever barred.

Juan took his place at the piano for a few numbers during the second set. His playing was quite extraordinary – outta sight. At first Patrick had trouble even relating to it as piano playing. The choice of notes was so unexpected, he thought at first he must be having some kicks, or perhaps the marijuana had somehow deranged Juan’s brain. But the trio played on in earnest support and the audience followed in rapt silent attention. Juan’s fingers moved dexterously up and down the keyboard with an uncanny agility and a studied sense of complex rhythms. Patrick had wanted a chance to speak with Juan about what he had played on the piano, although he scarcely knew what questions to ask. He was certain if he could see the notes written out, they would all fall into a proper key signature. And if he could work out the rhythm, the choice of quarter- half- and eighth-notes would make sense. But it all seemed so random. Juan’s attention, however, was monopolized by Alison, who was almost doting on him, almost like those chicks who swoon at the mention of Elvis. Then, with little warning, he realized that he was alone at the table. At the end of the last set, the trio came over and sat beside Patrick, not at all surprised that Juan and Alison had left early.

The trio were all local Canadian cats, who had morphed from high school band class, to rhythm and blues, and finally to jazz as a way to steady gigs. They were new to Latin music, playing it because everyone expected them to pick up on the latest craze. Juan, Patrick was informed, was the real deal. He learned his chops playing the villages of eastern Cuba. He moved to Canada because he was blacklisted as a union agitator. Now he worked with the Ontario Federation of Labour. This made clear snatches of conversation Patrick had overheard between Juan and Alison, which contained phrases like ‘Marxian analysis,’ and ‘Leninist dialectic.’

The club quickly thinned out, but before Patrick could gather up his coat and leave, he was motioned to follow the band into a small room at the back of the club. Bottles of beer emerged and another joint was passed around. Patrick asked if they had ever played in Cuba.

“We did once,” the trio’s Piano player said, passing the joint nonchalantly to Patrick. “It was a gas. Not a real gig. Our chops aren’t good enough to be taken seriously down there. It was more an impromptu jam on the beach. We went down during the carnival. Mike here,” he nodded at the drummer, “thought we should go down, get real gone, and immerse ourselves in the rhythms. The stuff you hear up here, on radio and records, that’s just window dressing. You gotta spend time with the West Africans, to hear the real deal. Rhythms people like us can’t even imagine.”

Patrick let the strange euphoric feeling of the Marijuana swirl around him. He regretted that Alison was not here. They often had a tenseness around each other, she retaining something of the authority of an older sister around him. But tonight she seemed relaxed, in a way that he didn’t often see. He watched the joint being passed on from the bassist to drummer; it slowly dawned on him there was something odd about the way they sat together. Close, comfortable, familiar. The way Alison had been sitting close to Juan earlier. “You should go down, if you can. It’s a different world down there.”

“Carnival was endsville.”

“Like a circus, except you’re one of the acts, everyone is. It’s trippy. We played all night on the beach. The drumming didn’t stop until dawn. Everyone was in costume.”

As the band members traded reminiscences of their time in Cuba, Patrick was drawn to the keyboard. And now that the club had emptied of the clientele, he tried to trace out the chord patterns, as he could remember them from Juan’s playing. But try as he might, he wasn’t able to reproduce the progressions, as if they were something completely alien from anything he had been taught, or could conceive of with his limited theory. His fingers fumbled around, as if searching for keys that weren’t even there. Eventually, the bassist appeared beside him and methodically pointed out a few of the progressions Juan had used: familiar chords, but played in strange patterns. Once he found the logic, he was able to reproduce a few more on his own, which brought a reassuring pat on his wrist.

“How can you tell someone’s a homo?” Patrick was now making his way back along Rideau alone. A light snow had started to fall and he was regretting his choice of jacket that wasn’t warm for this temperature. His footsteps crunched audibly against the snow which was beginning to accumulate on the sidewalk. This lent his walk an odd sense of company. He wondered if he should go back to the house. His room was close to Alison’s. At night, when everything was quiet, he sometimes heard the sounds of her moving around the room. His mind returned to the old familiar voice that had popped into his head. A long-forgotten schoolmate, Phillip – it must have been grade 6 or 7. “How can you tell if someone’s a homo?” It was asked as a lead-in to a joke, many “homo” jokes had been making the round of the class, often as innuendo referring to one of the teachers, who had a tenner voice and vaguely effeminate sway to his hips. “They shake hands like this,” and Phillip offered his hand forward. Patrick took Phillip’s hand with the usual grip and shook it vigorously. But instead of the normal firm grip, he felt something almost comically limp-wristed in return. At the time he laughed it off as another joke. But in later years, he sometimes wondered if Philip was secretly communicating knowledge he had, of which others in the class were naïve.

Thoughts flooded back to his time in Val D’Or, at the Widow Lachasse’s. Most of the girls were French-Canadian, with a very rudimentary grasp of English. When the American airmen came through town, you could tell it was all business. But the atmosphere was quite different when a gang of lumbermen showed up, especially during the log drives. The place livened considerably, almost as if it were a large family gathering. In place of French wine and champagne, skins of a homemade concoction called caribou came out. And in place of parlour tunes on the piano, lively tunes from the button accordion, accompanied by the rhythmic clack of spoons filled the room, while couples flung themselves around the small parlour in wild abandon. Most of the girls had ample figures, wearing low-cut dresses to emphasize their cleavage, with big flouncy skirts to set off the curve of their hips. One girl was conspicuously different. Where the others had great flowing tresses, hers was always in a close bob. Her breasts were small, her hips almost straight. Le petite garҫon the other girls sometimes referred to her in snide whispers. She had her regular patrons; and sometimes, as she’d lead one away in the direction of the bedrooms, you’d see a pitying look on the face of another girl. At first Patrick thought the look was for Joycelyn, as if the patron had some unusual fetish. But eventually, he realized the pitying look was for the patron, as if his life was tainted by some inexorable sin. There were sometimes stories about the men from the lumber camps. Stories about buck dances on Saturday nights, dances without dames, dances where men wrapped aprons around their hips and waltzed backwards.