The Incident Report Read online

  “Slower than yesterday?”

  “Slower. It was beautiful out. People walked. They weren’t in the mood to ride in a taxi.”

  “Anyone memorable?”

  “They were all memorable.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. They told me where they wanted me to take them and I drove them there.”

  “None of them said anything else?”

  “Nothing. But I listened to them breathing and moving about on the seat. I heard one of them taking things out of her purse. I heard another scratching behind his ear.”

  “You could hear him scratching behind his ear?”

  “Oh, yes. I watch them with the eyes in the back of my head. It is a trick I learned from my father. His students thought that since his eyes were on the blackboard he couldn’t see their pranks, but he had very good ears, my father. Suddenly he would turn. When he threw a piece of chalk, he could hit a boy in the forehead, or in the side of the head above the ear, from across the room. He never missed. Because of his perfect aim and excellent hearing his students respected him. He could be kind to them now and then, even joke a bit, and they wouldn’t forget to fear him and to obey his orders. They never forgot to be frightened of him.”

  “But Janko.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought your father was a postman?”

  “Later a postman, first a teacher. He became a postman when I was eight years old.”

  “Ah, I see. You never said.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “No. And when he was still a teacher, and throwing chalk and scaring everyone, were you frightened of him?”

  “Once in a while. Yes.”

  “Not more often?”

  “Yes, quite often.”

  “You always seem so calm. When I’m with you, I feel as if I’m standing in a field of tall grass under a huge sky, and it doesn’t matter which way I go, whichever way I’ll be surrounded by grass. It’s not scary but disorienting.”

  “Have you ever gotten lost, Miriam, my Darkest Miriam, so lost you couldn’t find your way home?”

  “I’ve already told you. I told you about the time my parents pulled into a gas station, and while the tank was filling I opened the back door and climbed out and walked away.”

  “In ten years, Darkest One, I’ll beg you to stop telling me the same stories of your life, but for now I want to know, again, how you got lost.”

  “Will you still be here in ten years?”

  “Of course. Where would I go? Whatever direction I’d go, all I would find is tall grass.”

  “You’re never serious, Janko. Will you really be here?”

  “I am not serious?”

  “You never get angry with me, not really angry.”

  “I do.”

  “But you don’t show it.”

  “I’m not allowed to hide what I want to hide? What if I don’t like anger?”

  INCIDENT REPORT 91

  At 6:05 this evening, a female patron came to the Reference Desk to report that several hours earlier her elderly mother had gone missing. Because the patron was deaf she was unable to notify the police by telephone. As she did not know the location of the police station nearest her home, she’d walked to the library. She appeared to be quite upset by her mother’s disappearance. I called the police for her, and explained her situation. Next I telephoned, upon her request, several of her relatives, to inform them of her plight. The deaf female patron, who lived alone with her elderly mother, thanked me and went home to wait for her mother to return.

  INCIDENT REPORT 92

  An elderly patron identified himself as Ovid Mallory. He came to the Reference Desk to say he had “lost his ideas.” As he could not recall his phone number or address, the police were called. The time was 5:30 PM.

  INCIDENT REPORT 93

  “Janko.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did your father stop teaching and become a postman?”

  “He became a postman when they told him he could no longer teach because of his good aim. This was his good aim: he told funny stories, in which certain characters suffered ridicule and humiliation, and these characters happened to share mannerisms, ticks and gestures with a number of politicians. This was his good aim. It was decided that children should not be exposed to my father.”

  “But they trusted him to deliver people’s mail?”

  “They’d already read everyone’s mail. They knew what he was delivering. If he added messages of his own, they’d find out soon enough and give him a worse job.”

  INCIDENT REPORT 94

  At 3:45 PM, a patron reported that a man was standing outside the library’s largest window, beckoning to the young girls seated at the study tables in adult nonfiction. The man appeared determined, said the patron, to convince the girls to join him outside on the grass.

  I went straight to nonfiction and spoke with the girls, who confirmed that the man on the other side of the window was a stranger. Despite my presence the man in question continued his gesturing. The police soon arrived, in answer to my call, and charged the man with trespassing.

  At 4:45 PM, two girls reported that a teenaged boy, standing outside, had flashed a red laser light through the library’s largest window and straight into their eyes, as they sat doing their homework at the study tables in nonfiction.

  At the very moment the girls were reporting this misbehaviour, the teenaged boy entered the library and aimed the red laser light, this time at the faces of three staff members, who covered their eyes and shouted at him to desist. He left the premises hastily, before I, or any other staff, could detain him and demand an explanation. Should he return, he will be given a letter of exclusion. The library’s largest window has not, until today, been put to such dubious uses. The purchase of diaphanous curtains will be considered.

  INCIDENT REPORT 95

  “Darkest Miriam, you’re always so angry when your plans don’t work out.”

  “I have no plans.”

  “Yesterday you planned to meet me in Allan Gardens.”

  “We both planned.”

  “True, but then I didn’t come on time. I couldn’t. I arrived an hour late.”

  “You apologized.”

  “Your eyes became wild, Darkest Miriam; you slammed down your book on the bench.”

  “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I was late because of my dispatcher. It was my dispatcher’s fault.”

  “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “When I was a child and wanted to think, I would lock myself in the bathroom. Even when they pounded on the door I pretended I was not inside and refused to open. But you see—I am here.”

  “Yes.”

  INCIDENT REPORT 96

  The time was 4:15 PM. My mother entered the garage to look for my father, and found him hanging by his neck. He’d climbed a stepladder and tied a rope to the rafter. Stacks of books surrounded him on all sides. After his body was brought down and taken away to be examined, it was determined that 2:05 PM had been the exact time of his death.

  My father had spent the morning whistling. He’d mowed the front lawn and trimmed the hedge. He’d kissed my mother on the cheek and told her she looked “pretty as a picture.” After lunch he’d gone out back, to do a bit of spring-cleaning in the garage.

  I was twenty-two years old, my brother nineteen and my sister seventeen. My father left no message of farewell for my mother and no note of any kind for his progeny.

  INCIDENT REPORT 97

  Shortly before closing time, a male patron approached the desk and asked if he might stay past closing time, 8:30 PM, should his brother fail to arrive before then to take him home. I explained that he could not.

  “The library closes at exactly 8:30, and everyone must leave,” I stated.

  He begged me to take pity on him.

  “I am in big trouble,” he pleaded. “You can’t imagine what will happen to me, if you force me
to go out there before my brother arrives.”

  “The library closes at 8:30,” I repeated.

  “If you won’t let me stay, then will you take me to the nearest police station when the library closes?”

  “I can’t take you anywhere. I am sorry. I ride a bicycle. But I will call the police, if you like, and you may ask them to come and collect you,” I offered.

  The man agreed, and I dialed the appropriate number. The police responded positively. They promised to arrive soon and assist the patron in question. Everyone was in agreement. Some ten minutes later, at 8:35 PM, the man’s brother appeared and offered to take him home. The police, who pulled up within seconds of the man’s brother, deemed the brother’s suggestion satisfactory and left in the direction from which they’d come.

  The patron thanked me for saving his life. He got into his brother’s car and was driven away.

  INCIDENT REPORT 98

  I sat on the narrow, winged sofa. The time was 10:00 PM. I pulled Janko’s blanket up to my chin. The rain struck at the windows and slid down the glass. I got up from the sofa and made a pot of ginger tea.

  The time was 10:15 PM. Janko unlocked the door and let himself in.

  “I’ve made ginger tea.”

  He dried his head with a towel.

  “My father called me this morning,” he said. His nose against the side of my nose felt cold as he kissed me.

  “What news?” I asked.

  His chilly fingers brushed against my breastbone as he unbuttoned my blouse.

  “My mother has been taken to the hospital. She tripped on a loose piece of pavement and broke her hip.”

  His mouth was a small animal, warm and wet. It explored the length of my collarbone.

  “Will your father manage?”

  “My sister will help.”

  As I pulled his shirt up over his head, his nipples stared at me.

  “How long will they keep your mother?”

  “They haven’t said.”

  As I undid his pants, the button at the waist came off in my hand.

  “I’ll sew it back on.”

  “Yes, Darkest Miriam.”

  His hands, having hidden in my hair, were now warm.

  “Will your sister mind looking after him?”

  “She’s fond of my father, but busy. She has three children.”

  His breath entered my ear, hot and damp.

  “Three children, yes, you told me. And is her husband a good father?”

  “Yes, a good father.”

  My small breast became heavy as he lifted it carefully in his hand.

  “Is your sister calm, like you?”

  “Am I calm?” he asked.

  I did not answer.

  INCIDENT REPORT 99

  At 1:00 this afternoon, returning from my lunch break, I found three posters affixed to the front wall of the library. One was taped to the brick, and the other two were glued on. They appeared to have been created by means of a fairly sophisticated computer programme. Printed in colour on high quality paper, they looked convincingly professional. They announced that Jim Davis, the renowned cartoonist, author of Garfield the cat, would be making an appearance at the Allan Gardens Library, on Saturday, July 25th, at 2 PM. All ages welcome.

  I checked the workroom calendar and looked through the Room Bookings Binder, but could find no indication. I asked my coworkers, and showed them the posters. Nothing. The programme, according to the poster, was sponsored by Paul & Paul, excellent caterers whose shop was located in the immediate neighbourhood. I telephoned. They knew nothing of the event. I removed the posters. The promised event, being fictitious, would not take place.

  INCIDENT REPORT 100

  When her time expired at 2:30 PM, a female patron loudly refused to log off public computer #506. She’d not yet finished sending her e-mail, she explained. The man who’d booked computer #506 for the following half hour demanded she log off immediately. The woman in question accused the man of having hit her in the head a moment earlier. He’d struck her on the back of her neck, she claimed.

  I questioned the patrons seated at the neighbouring terminals. Not one of them had seen the man hit her. Nobody supported the woman’s story. The man stated his innocence repeatedly and with utmost confidence. The woman left the library, yelling obscenities, a damp patch spreading across the bottom of her pants, and the flower in her buttonhole drooping.

  INCIDENT REPORT 101

  At 4:05 PM, a Page reported that a pair of dentures had been left unattended in the foyer. I went to take a look. The dentures in question lay on the display rack, where flyers for the public are generally placed. I wrapped the dentures in a paper towel, on which I marked the date and time of their discovery. I placed them, thus loosely packaged, in the Lost and Found box behind the Reference Desk. There the dentures remained, a full half hour, until another staff member, Nila Narayan, judged them hygienically suspect—upon which grounds she threw them out.

  INCIDENT REPORT 102

  The time was 12:15 AM. Janko asked me to scratch a little lower and I did so. His sigh of pleasure pulled me closer.

  “And here?” I asked.

  He mumbled his relief into the pillow.

  “And here? And harder?”

  I’m acquiring sublime knowledge of his various itches.

  “My dispatcher is an asshole,” said Janko, into the pillow. “I will quit and go far away, and when I come back, my dispatcher will be an old man with shrivelled balls, who sits on a park bench, dispatching pigeons.”

  “Will the pigeons obey him?”

  “They will rebel. But not how I did against my father, hiding and eventually running away. They will circle above him, dropping white shit in his hair. He is cruel, and so they will treat him in this way.”

  INCIDENT REPORT 103

  We were standing in the cacti room, and could go no further, the rest of the greenhouse being under repair.

  Janko turned to me and said, “I am going to enroll in a computer school, then I will be able to stop driving a taxi.”

  “But you’ve already studied,” I protested. “You’ve restored twelfth-century frescoes on the walls of churches.”

  “Look around you, Miriam, do you see any frescoes?”

  “You could paint fake frescoes, make them look old and sell them as copies. You wouldn’t be lying. People will pay a lot for a good copy of something old and beautiful.”

  We left the cacti room and followed the curving narrow path that led between the raised beds where plants grew leaves as large as dinner plates.

  “You’ll paint fake frescoes,” I insisted, slipping my arm through his. “People in Florida, in Miami, will buy them from you over the Internet.”

  INCIDENT REPORT 104

  His note appeared, taped to the door of the piano room, and was brought to the desk by a puzzled patron. I thanked the patron for bringing the unusual message to my attention.

  What use is eyesight so long as we have hands to feel our way in the dark, to move deeper into darkness? My Gilda disguised herself as a boy and knocked on the door of the inn. She gave her lovely life to spare the one who’d twisted his key in her heart, as if her heart were a windup toy, a ticking delight created for his diversion. She died in place of my debauched and loathsome master, the Duke.

  But see, see how free and lighthearted my Gilda is now? Do you see how happy she’s become, now that she’s died and recovered? See her freckled hands fluttering from here to there. I am her father and know my duty. To protect her from grief will take all my cunning.

  I folded the paper and slipped it into the drawer of my desk. In the mirror above the small sink, in the corner of the workroom, I studied my face. I gathered up my hair and pictured how I’d look with it cut off short as a boy’s, or with it hidden under a cap.

  INCIDENT REPORT 105

  Daily, for the past three days, a male patron has been devoting his energies, between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, to reading the 2006 Martin’s Annual Crim
inal Code. His favourite section seems to be the Charter of Rights.

  Yesterday morning, he slipped a handwritten note between the pages. I found the note when I went to reshelve the book, which is a Reference volume and must not leave the library. The note expressed unequivocally the patron’s irritation at feeling himself to be the object of somebody’s scrutiny. It read: “get a life you nosy bastard, stop staring. I’m trying to get a life, so don’t bug me. What do you mean to me? Fucking nothing. Get a life.”

  At 12:15 PM, the patron in question, Mr. Criminal Code, was observed taping postcards to the foyer wall. On each card he’d scrawled in thick black marker, “Try to pray to Jesus. He will help you.”

  At 12:40 PM, Mr. Criminal Code entered the men’s washroom, from which he reemerged half an hour later, reeking of cigarette smoke. I informed him that smoking was not permitted in the library. He swung the library’s copy of Martin’s Annual Criminal Code this way and that through the air, while loudly recommending that I do my homework, like the “fragrant bitch” I was.

  INCIDENT REPORT 106

  “How many rides today? Good fares?”

  “Tomorrow evening I take my first class.”

  “Do you want to programme computers?”

  “I don’t want to drive a taxi.”

  “Then I hope you do well in your first class.”

  “I will do well.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “Muca Copatarica.”

  “The illustrations are beautiful. Who is Muca? Is she the cat?”

  “Yes, her name is Muca. She takes the slippers that children lose and she embroiders on them. Sometimes she even takes slippers they haven’t lost, just because she likes a particular slipper. The children know where to go when they lose a slipper; they go into the woods and follow the path to Muca’s house. She gives them back their slippers, all covered in embroidery, every inch.”