The Withdrawal Method Read online

  Dave was the last to arrive. He seemed fidgety, eyes darting back and forth, obviously anxious to get going. "This is where you'll be," I told him. "From those figurines down to the ashtrays - see how it's taped off? Try to stick to your area."

  "Gotcha." The guy had found a cricket bat somewhere, and he was weighing it in one hand against one of the CanAm security nightsticks. Finally he tossed me the bat. "Going with old faithful. But you can use that, if you want."

  With everyone there, my friends had gone quiet. Gone was the bemusement that had greeted my invitation; even Lisa and Colin seemed resolute and focused. As per the instructions Kaede had helped draft, each person had on long pants and a shirt, eye protection (interpreted as everything from swimming goggles to an Itech hockey helmet), and gloves. People had exactly one minute to destroy anything they wanted in their allotted space. That was it. After sixty seconds they had to stop.

  I rested Dave's cricket bat against the wall.

  "Let's start this thing!" yelled Lisa. People laughed, which was good.

  "What's the deal, Pauly?" said Dave. "Are we gonna bust your store up, or what?"

  Everyone laughed again, but there was impatience in it. My thoughts kept zipping between Kaede, the boy, my parents, and back to Kaede. And my car, what had been written there - why had a little kid wanted to do something like that?

  Dave caught my eye, and I could tell he knew that something was up. "We don't have to do this, Pauly," he said. There was a murmur of agreement from around the room.

  "No," I said, nodding. "I'm good," I said.

  PRETTY MUCH THE entire store was destroyed. The minute rule went right out the window as soon as the first display of figurines smashed against the floor. Even from where I gazed on from the periphery, it was impossible not to get caught up in things - the explosions of crystal and glass, the cracking of wood, the shelves crashing down in an avalanche of kitsch. But beyond the vague, vicarious thrill of voyeurism, I didn't feel anything. I'd expected to be flooded with sadness, or relief, or nostalgia, or catharsis. Instead, all I did was watch.

  At one point I guess everyone must have caught themselves: there was a sudden pause, clouds of dust rising all around, and eight people were left looking at one another in an almost bashful way, catching their breath. I'd like to think some sort of mercy instinct kicked in, although I guess there just wasn't anything left to smash.

  Dave spoke before I could. "Think that's enough?"

  People offered to help clean up, but I wasn't having any of it; they'd paid and I was offering a service. On their way out, everyone shook my hand and told me how great it had been, apologizing if they'd got out of control, offering to pay extra if I needed it. Colin paused at the door and said, "Jesus, Pauly, everyone in the whole town is going to want in on this. Totally amazing. Can I buy shares?"

  I was left sweeping up, collecting shards of glass and ceramic and plastic and tin on the big wide broom and clearing everything down the aisles. While my hands trembled and the sweat cooled on my back, I still wasn't sure what to think about the whole business.

  I'd been at it for maybe an hour when I heard a car pull up out front. I froze, broom in hand, wondering if one of my pals had forgotten something. Three doors slammed, I heard some muffled conversation from the parking lot, and someone knocked on the door. Through the window, I could see Kaede - with two or three other people clustered there too.

  Standing on my step beside Kaede were the kid from the hospital and two other scruffy-looking adults. The man wore sweatpants, the elastics hiked well over his ankles, an old Ontario Hydro parka, and deck shoes. The woman had on an identical parka and a pair of tattered grey leggings. Between them was the kid. He teetered on a single crutch, leaning against his dad. Just like the photo: one black eye, one leg in a cast, and an arm in a sling. The other bandages were gone - or hidden under his clothes.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Hey," said Kaede. "Can we come in?"

  Behind them a taxi idled in the parking lot. The night was cold and their breath came puffing at me out of the dark in clouds. I looked at the man's face, and the woman's, and the kid's, glowing golden in the light from the shop. The smell of cigarettes hung over them like a shroud. All three regarded me with the same expression: a sort of exhausted rage, like caged animals with very little fight left.

  "Careful," I said, stepping over the splintered remains of a stack of ashtrays. "We had a bit of a party earlier."

  "We know what went on here," said the man, lifting his son. "We want in."

  "Bronco wants in," said the woman.

  "Bronco?"

  "That's me," said the kid.

  I looked down at him. While his face seemed tired and gaunt, something in his eyes burned.

  The dad strode across the shop and grabbed Dave's cricket bat, still leaning against the wall. "This'll do. Help him over here."

  I realized he was talking to me, so I moved beside his son. Kaede nodded at me. Bronco wrapped his arm around my waist and leaned in.

  "Careful," said his mom. "He's still real sore."

  I moved slowly with the boy across the shop, around the occasional hit of stray trash, both of us with a gimpy leg, one step at a time. With the crutch working on one side and me on the other, Bronco limped along, wincing occasionally, toward his dad. When we got there he placed the bat into his son's hands and stepped away. "Okay," he said.

  "What do you want to break, baby?" asked the mother, scanning the aisles. She saw what we all did: empty shelves, debris cluttering the floor, clothing racks smashed to pieces and their contents strewn about and covered in dust. At the back of the shop sat four huge piles of refuse.

  "There's nothing left," Bronco said.

  My eyes were on the cash register, sitting there untouched on the counter beside the dad - who, apparently, noticed it too. "There's this," he said, tapping it with his fingertips.

  "Whoa," I said. "I need that. And it's an antique."

  "Look what you did to my son," said the mother, her voice like ice. "Everything else is ruined. What does it matter?"

  "No," I said. "It matters."

  "Fuck you," said the dad. "Bron, do this one, buddy."

  "No," I said. "I said no."

  "After what you've done?" yelled the mother.

  I was surprised when Kaede stepped forward. "After what he's done? Do you know what your son scratched onto his car?"

  The parents looked at each other, then the son. Bronco tapped the bat in his hand.

  "Just do it, Bron. Smash this thing." The dad pushed the register onto the floor. The bell dinged and the drawer clattered open wildly as it hit; one of the sides split and the Enter key popped loose, skittering off under a shelf.

  The kid hobbled forward. Some response in me clicked and I grabbed the bat from his hand, lifting it above my head and out of reach. "Forget it," I said.

  Things seemed to slow down. I breathed, turning to Kaede. The expression on her face was drawn, the lips tight - but in her eyes was something softer, something like an apology. Then they flashed. "Paul!" she cried.

  I spun around and realized that the dad was on the move, wordlessly barrelling toward me from behind the counter. In his eyes was the same look that had been in his son's eyes when I'd smashed into him with my car: hunger, fury.

  He was on me then, screaming into my face: I saw a mouth jawing away and felt a spray of spittle, the heat of breath, was aware of sounds but not words, not what was being said. Then a hand came flying out of somewhere, smacked me in the shoulder and knocked me reeling backward - right onto my bad ankle. Pain shot up my leg. I tensed, regained my balance, and then stood sure-footed, waiting.

  The dad was coming at me again, fists up, and from somewhere I heard other voices - Kaede's, maybe the kid's and the mom's. Something, though, had caught hold of me. I stopped trying to make sense of what was going on. With the dad set to fight I stepped forward, oblivious to the flare of pain in my foot, and cocked the cricket bat, eyes trained o
n the flat smooth plane of the dad's cheekbone, hearing the crunch of splintering bones even before I started to swing.

  THE LOVE LIFE OF

  THE AUTOMATON TURK

  VIENNA, 1755

  ALTHOUGH HE FANCIED himself one, it would have been a stretch to consider Wolfgang von Kempelen much of a wolf, regardless of whether he was going by his Hungarian birth name, Farkas, or the Wolfgang it became when the empire's official language was changed to German. Kempelen was a haughty, blue-eyed fellow with sandy hair and whiskers resembling more those of a kitten than anything lupine. Yet even the feline comparison was limited to moments of inertia: born with a sort of defect in one of his feet, when forced into motion Kempelen staggered precariously from one place to the next, compromising anything that might have been taken for catlike charm.

  At the age of twenty-one, Kempelen was introduced to Empress Maria Theresa at the suggestion of his father, a retired civil servant who had been a favourite of the former king. The monarch was immediately taken with this beguiling youth from Pressburg: having easily bested all the top chess players in the land, the empress had long been in search of a worthy opponent, and she found exactly that in young Wolfgang.

  Their first match, Kempelen took Maria Theresa's offered hand, bowed slightly, and sat down behind the other side of the board, blue eyes sparkling, that half-smile almost playful, almost cocky.

  "So you are the young genius everyone's talking about." The empress was thirty-seven at the time, with a frizzy poof of orange hair, bulging eyes that suggested a thyroid malfunction, and pale, sallow skin.

  Kempelen shrugged. "Genius? Such a relative term."

  The game commenced with Kempelen adopting a classic French opening and ended four hours later in a stalemate. A rematch a few days later produced the same result. Finally, after six games, Kempelen took Maria Theresa's queen during a gruelling endgame and, with her remaining pawn and knight gone astray across the board, winked and said, "I believe that's checkmate."

  "I believe it is." Maria Theresa gestured and from somewhere appeared a dark, pretty girl with a thick dossier in her hands. "Now, chess is all fine and good, but if you're up to it, we would like to present to you a true test of your intellectual prowess."

  As the empress's maidservant handed Kempelen the dossier, his fingers lingered for a moment against the young girl's. "Hello," he said. "What's your name?"

  The girl froze. Kempelen's hand snaked up to her wrist.

  "That's Franciscka," interrupted the empress. "She's dumb."

  "Dumb?"

  "Mute. She hears fine, but can't - or won't - say a word."

  "Ah," said Kempelen, and at this Franciscka withdrew, scampering into the shadows. Kempelen watched her for a moment, then returned his attention to Maria Theresa.

  "This, Wolfgang, is the Hungarian civil code, written in Latin, which needs translating into German. We hear you are quite gifted in both."

  "When do you want it by?" asked Kempelen, weighing the papers in his hands.

  "No rush," said the empress, "but we're looking forward to seeing your work."

  Kempelen bowed. "Pleased to be of service."

  DAYS LATER A translation appeared of such sophistication that it sent rumours rippling through the empire of a mysterious crippled prodigy who had turned the empire's archaic charter into Germanic magnificence.

  Asked about his process by Maria Theresa, Kempelen shrugged. "Languages are just equations of one another - it's all a matter of figuring out what best equals what."

  The empress loved this, the precision of it, and waited for more.

  "Now tell me," he asked, looking around. "This Franciscka - she's not married?"

  "No, Wolfgang, not that I know of."

  "Interesting."

  ON THE STRENGTH of this translation, Wolfgang von Kempelen earned a permanent position in the Austro-Hungarian court. Gossip persisted about the nature of his relationship with Maria Theresa, exacerbated by public speculation as to the sexual orientation of Maria's husband, Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine. (The duke's imperial role could be best defined as secretarial, and he also delighted in the hobby of amateur florist - admittedly, his bouquets were among the most stunning in the land.)

  But civilian conjecture remained just that. Neither Kempelen nor Maria Theresa had anything in mind beyond a strictly platonic relationship: they played chess; she saw his intellect as a tool of the empire, something that would lead them forward; he delighted in having a venue in which to exercise his ideas.

  His first day on the job, the empress took Kempelen on a walk about the palace grounds, slowing her pace to match the counsellor's limp. Having spent most of their time together seated on either side of a chessboard, Maria Theresa was surprised at his gimpy leg trailing stiffly along - the fragility it suggested unnerved her. She preferred to think of this fellow as a pillar on which the edifice of a new Austria-Hungary would be built, rather than some pathetic cripple stumbling from one place to the next.

  Kempelen halted before a team of gardeners watering the manicured lawns and hedgerows.

  "Have you ever thought," he said, eyes narrowed, "that a single machine might be able to do the work of a dozen of these men?"

  The empress watched him, trying to imagine what he saw, what plans and schematics were already being sketched in his mind's eye. "A machine?" she asked.

  "Yes. A machine."

  That afternoon Kempelen retreated to his court-appointed villa in the woods. Days later, unshaven and sleep-deprived, he re-emerged with elaborate plans for a sprinkler system to irrigate the entire grounds of the palace. It was quickly built, widely considered a stroke of genius, and, while failing to endear him to the gardeners who lost their jobs, raised his stock even higher with the empress, who promoted him immediately to senior counsellor.

  The accolades were fine, but it was more the thrill of creation that pleased Kempelen: here was something that he had conceived and given life to, something that was inarguably superior to its human counterpart. He stood proudly before the court as they applauded him, chest puffed out like a peacock, lame leg hidden behind the podium, and in his speech promised even more impressive inventions to come.

  That evening's feast ended with Kempelen drunk and in bed with one of his fellow counsellors' daughters, something that quickly became a trend over the months to follow. While he systematically redesigned the palace's irrigation, waste disposal, and archival systems, Kempelen just as systematically made his way through the palace's female courtiers and maidservants, luring them to his villa in the woods, only to shoo them out the door the following morning like mice discovered in the larder.

  Soon Kempelen had had them all - that is, with the exception of the elusive Franciscka, who fled any room he entered, always with a flirtatious glance over her shoulder before retreating to some distant corner of the palace. During a chess match that saw the empress taking Kempelen's pieces at will, he confided to Maria Theresa that Franciscka seemed to represent the final variable in the equation of his life, and that without her he felt things sprawling infinitely, with no end in sight.

  "So even your love life you reduce to science?" wondered the empress.

  Kempelen frowned at her, and it was the frown of one who, hearing his own philosophy spoken aloud by another, was forced to bring it into question.

  "You've always told me everything is science. Even chess, you've said, relies on logic so precise that a machine could play it."

  Kempelen shrugged. "Maybe I'm in love with her."

  "Oh, Wolfgang!" exclaimed the empress, shaking her head. "Be careful. There's something suspicious about that girl - always lurking around, silent, popping up in places she shouldn't be. I'd stay away from her, if I were you."

  After a restless, sleepless night, Kempelen lay in bed staring at the ceiling. He pictured Franciscka's face: those big, brown eyes, that little nub of a nose, the lips thin and tightly drawn, as though hiding something forbidden within. Thoughts of her made his head
swim, unable to rest on anything definite or absolute; formless images and ideas went caroming off one another, colliding and spiralling away. Kempelen closed his eyes and, one by one, methodically, he pulled the fragments in and laid them out as pieces to a puzzle. With systematic precision he went through, organizing, arranging, and as he did, something conclusive began to take shape.

  Kempelen swept the bedclothes aside and, ignoring the matter of dressing, limped briskly out to the maidservants' quarters in his nightshirt, where he pounded on the door, dropped to one knee, and, when a startled Franciscka appeared, promised to renounce his licentious ways if she would agree to marry him.

  Franciscka looked down at the man grovelling at her feet, eyes reflecting sky. She felt very little, other than a vague satisfaction that she had played her cards right for the past two years, not like those other tarts around the palace. After six years as a maidservant, Franciscka was fed up with being bossed around by the capricious Maria Theresa and knew that as a counsellor's wife she would be excused from her position.

  Extending her hand to Kempelen, who took it and pressed it to his forehead, Franciscka thought fondly of this impending freedom. Kempelen looked up, saw her smiling, and mistook it for lover's joy. His heart raced: he finally felt something that defied his wealth of knowledge, a deep, booming sense of uncertainty that brought him to his feet. He swept his bride into his arms and hollered, "I love you!"