for months?”
They had a pair of bedside fans that they used as white-noise generators, drowning out the sounds of traffic from outside, as well as each other’s occasional snoring. “There’s no way I could have known that,” he said. He’d occasionally noticed her shuddering next to him as he fell to sleep. Half conscious, he’d idly thought she’d been masturbating; he kept that thought to himself.
“I’ve got to think about this,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure what I want to do.”
She nodded.
Peter threw his head back, let out a long, ragged sigh. “Christ, I have to rewrite the entire last six months in my mind. That vacation we took in New Orleans. That was after you and Hans—And that time we borrowed Sarkar’s cottage for the weekend. That was after, too. It’s all different now. All of it. Every mental picture from that time, every happy moment—fake, tainted.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cathy, very softly.
“Sorry?” Peter’s voice was ice. “You might have been sorry if it had happened just once. But three times? Three fucking times?”
Her lips were trembling. “I am sorry.”
Peter sighed again. “I’m going to call Sarkar and see if he’s free for dinner.”
Cathy was silent.
“I don’t want you along. I want to talk to him alone. I’ve got to sort things out.”
She nodded.
CHAPTER 5
Peter had known Sarkar Muhammed since they’d both been teenagers. They’d lived on the same street, although Sarkar had gone to a private school. They had perhaps seemed unlikely prospects for friendship. Sarkar was heavily involved in athletics. Peter was on his school’s yearbook and newspaper staffs. Sarkar was devoutly Muslim. Peter wasn’t devoutly anything. But they’d hit it off shortly after Sarkar’s family moved into the neighborhood. Their senses of humor were similar, they both liked to read Agatha Christie, and they were both experts at Star Trek trivia. Also, of course, Peter didn’t drink, and that made Sarkar happy. Although Sarkar would eat in licensed restaurants, he avoided whenever possible sitting at a table with someone who was imbibing alcohol.
Sarkar had gone to the University of Waterloo to study computer science. Peter had studied biomedical engineering at U of T. They’d kept in touch all through university, swapping email letters over the Internet. After a brief stint in Vancouver, Sarkar had ended up back in Toronto, running his own high-tech startup firm doing expert-systems design. Although Sarkar was married and had three children, Peter and he often dined out together, just the two of them.
Incongruously, dinner was always at Sonny Gotlieb’s, a deli at Bathurst and Lawrence, in the heart of Toronto’s Jewish district. Peter couldn’t stand Pakistani cuisine, despite Sarkar’s valiant efforts to broaden his palate, and Sarkar had to eat where he could get food that adhered to Islamic dietary laws— something which most Kosher fare managed to do admirably. And so the two of them sat in their usual booth, surrounded by zaydes and bubbehs chatting away in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian.
After they had ordered, Sarkar asked Peter what was new. “Not much,” said Peter, his tone guarded. “What about you?”
Sarkar spoke for a couple of minutes about a contract his company had received to do expert systems for the New Democratic Party of Ontario. They’d only been in power once, in the early 1990s, but were always hoping to make a comeback. Before Canadian socialist governments disappeared completely from living memory, they wanted to capture the knowledge of party members who had actually been in power back then.
Peter half listened to this. Ordinarily, he found Sarkar’s work fascinating, but tonight his mind was a million kilometers away. The waiter returned with a pitcher of Diet Coke for them, and a basket of assorted bagels.
Peter wanted to tell Sarkar about what had happened with Cathy. He opened his mouth a couple of times to say something, but always lost his nerve before the words got out. What would Sarkar think of him if he knew? What would he think of Cathy? He thought at first that he wasn’t telling Sarkar because of his religion; Sarkar’s family was prominent in the Toronto Muslim community and Peter knew that they still practiced arranged marriages. But that wasn’t it. He simply couldn’t bring himself to speak aloud to anyone— anyone—about what had happened.
Although he wasn’t really hungry, Peter took a poppy-seed bagel from the basket and spread a little jam on it.
“How is Catherine?” Sarkar asked, helping himself to a rye bagel.
Peter took advantage of having his mouth full to buy a few