Infrared by Nancy Huston Read Free Book Online

Infrared reveals what I cherish more than anything else, what I’ve always longed for, what I lacked most as a child—warmth.
    When I’d lose my temper, my mother would call me a ‘fury’ and send me to my room to calm down. She meant it teasingly, but deep down I liked being called that—I thought the word suited me to a T. In my mind it was connected to fire and I liked the image of myself as flaming and flamboyant…furious, fierce, ferocious—yes, a real Fury—me!
    My first memory is of being cold. Can it really have been as cold as all that in our house in Westmount? Carpets in every room, stained-glass windows, wood panelling, book-lined walls…‘Shh, your father’s working, he’s trying to write his thesis.’ ‘Your mom’s with a client. Don’t you have any homework?’ ‘Shh, can’t you see I’m reading? I need to concentrate. Please go and play, darling.’ ‘Rowan, Rena, please don’t make noise when I’m with a client, all right? They’re such unhappy women, you wouldn’t believe what they’ve been through.’
    Apart from defending prostitutes, Ms Lisa Heyward’s primary concern at the time was the pro-choice movement: her phone would ring off the wall every time a doctor got arrested for having terminated an unwanted pregnancy. Henry Morgantaler, for instance, who claimed to have carried out some five thousand abortions single-handedly. The man had a lot in common with France’s Simone Veil—born the same year, both were Jewish and had lost their parents in the Nazi death camps; both, moreover, were subjected to revolting slander as they fought for abortion rights (hadn’t Jews always ritually killed and eaten Catholic babies?). In 1973, a fifteen-year prison sentence was handed down for Morgantaler, but he was released after only a few weeks, thanks to the efforts of tireless professional feminists like Ms Lisa Heyward.
    For me this meant spending long hours alone with Lucille as I waited for Rowan to come home from school. It was Lucille, in fact—a vivacious young black woman from Martinique—who unwittingly introduced me to eroticism. Waking up one day from my afternoon nap (I can’t have been more than three or four), I heard strange noises coming from the far end of the apartment. I tiptoed across the kitchen and saw that Lucille’s bedroom door was ajar and that she was in there with a man. They were naked, their chocolate-coloured skin was smooth and slick and their bodies formed a sort of ebony gondola that rocked swiftly back and forth in the movingwaves of blankets and sheets. The man was cupping Lucille’s head in his hands, gently holding her neck and staring into her eyes and whispering to her in Creole, I could make out a word here and there but most of them were drowned out by sounds of pure music, pure desire, pure pleasure…
    Maybe that’s where you acquired your taste for the French language? suggests Subra.
    Could be. Definitely it was the first time I ever saw a man’s sex erect and in action, and I’ll never forget it. As her lover penetrated her simultaneously with his gaze, his voice and his impressive tool, Lucille’s eyes sparkled like diamonds, her mouth was half-open in a smile and she kept gasping and letting out these little yelps—no, more like bits of song but always on the same note, staccato—everything about the couple palpitated and vibrated and spoke to me of ecstasy. Yes, that must be when I first realised how much you could ask of life, if only you dared…
    Meanwhile there were endless hours of solitude and boredom to be got through. When Rowan finally came home from school, he taught me everything he’d learned there. Day after day—reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography. My brother gradually becoming more than a brother to me—father, mother, god, sole horizon. ‘I’m the sun, Rena, and you’re the moon.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You have no light of your own; all you do is reflect my light.’ ‘Yes. We’ll stick together