Chapter Four
When Joe recovered from the dizziness that’d lasted no more than a few minutes, he couldn’t believe what he saw. In fact, it was what he felt—the chilliness in the air—that overwhelmed him before anything else. Then it was the beauty of the world in front of his eyes that made him forget about the coldness: little whitish, feathery snowflakes were flying all over the sky, covering the ground with a marvelous silver carpet; they whirled and twirled playfully in the air, glistening on his hands, and kissing him in the face.
Joe wrapped his arms around himself and raised his head to look for the sun in his unconscious effort of seeking warmth. Unfortunately, it seemed like nighttime with no sign of that fireball in the sky. Instead, he spotted a crescent moon dimly glowing from behind the cloud up above the pine trees that were all around them. He understood that it was not the same as Magic Moon. That moon was Earth’s sole natural satellite that illuminated at night. In fact, it didn’t have its own light; it shined simply because its surface reflected sunlight. At least that was how Jasmine had explained to him.
“It’s cold,” a black cat meowed at Joe and jumped into his arms. It was Doodle who now took the form of a real cat whose language could only be interpreted by Joe on this planet.
Joe began to regret that he didn’t wear anything warmer. He only had a thin shirt and a pair of light pants on—the clothes Jasmine had bought for him the first time he’d come here at the beginning of summer. He hadn’t known that this time he would arrive in winter, and he’d never imagined that winter could be so cold, at least in this part of Earth—a place that Jasmine called “Montreal in Canada.”
Drawing a deep breath, Joe folded the cat more closely to his chest and started to walk toward Jasmine’s house as fast as his trembling legs could manage. He remembered its location—a bit more than an hour’s walk from where they were.
Ten minutes later, they left all the trees behind and reached a big street surrounded by countless buildings, most with two or three levels and a handful more than a dozen, shooting high up into the sky. From time to time, there were cars running past them, a few with luminous signs of “TAXI” on top. He knew those were vehicles you could pay to take you to your destination, but he didn’t have the money.
He squared his shoulders and continued his stiff march on the right side of the street. “This is on Jasmine—she could have warned me of the coldness in this goddam place!” He half closed his eyes when a gust of icy wind lashed him in the face.
“Sir”—a silvery voice came to his attention—“I have a blanket here for you. It’s clean and you can use it as a cloak.” A little girl barely half of Joe’s height was standing in front of him, with a fluffy red blanket carried in both hands. She was about 7 or 8 years old, wearing a wool hat and a heavy winter coat.
“Um, th-thank you ...” Joe hesitated, partly surprised by the casual kindness, partly in doubt of the girl’s intention. “I’m fine. I don’t need it.”
“But you are shaking, so is your cat.” The girl made a step closer to Joe and held the blanket up toward him. “Please, at least warm the cat with it.” She looked at Doodle with enchanted eyes and asked, “Can I touch it? It’s so adorable.”
“O—Ok, go ahead.” Joe took the blanket from the girl’s hands as he lowered his arms for her to reach Doodle.
With a radiant smile, she caressed the cat and mumbled, “Oh, so cute, so soft ... What’s its name?”
“Doodle,” answered Joe.
“Sweetheart,” a young woman suddenly called out at the girl from beside a car a dozen meters ahead, “are we done?” From such a distance in the dark, Joe could only discern her tall and slender figure. It must be the girl’s mother.
“Coming.” The little girl hurried back to the woman after a quick kiss on Doodle’s head, then ducked into the car and took off.
Joe still couldn’t believe what had just happened. He examined the blanket meticulously and sniffed at it with caution—it looked clean and smelled good—before he gave it several vigorous shakes in the air and spread it across his shoulders with Doodle covered underneath.
“What a kind little girl!” Doodle sounded rather funny with its muffled voice. “And adorable, with gentle hands—”
“Can you stop talking? I’m concentrating here on finding the way.”
“I thought you knew the way—don’t you now?”
“No, not now.” Joe grunted. “I knew it under bright daylight. Now it’s as dark as your hair and I can’t see well.”
At a crossroad, Joe stopped and looked around to decide on the right direction but remained clueless after a long while. It was now deep at night. He knew that he couldn’t possibly find the right way without asking someone. He chose the street that was the most lit by various coffee shops, bars, and restaurants, and walked toward a small but nicely decorated café that was largely empty.
Joe opened the door and entered. A young man with blond hair standing behind the counter greeted him, “Welcome to Chez Liliane!”
“Uh ... I don’t want to drink or eat,” said Joe a little embarrassedly as he made a few steps toward the barista. “I just need to find my way home. Do you happen to know how to reach Street Saint-André in Central Plateau?”
“Sure,” answered the man with a good-natured smile. “Are you with your car or would you like to go there by bus?”
“Neither. I’m on foot.”
“Oh, that will take some time.” The man took in Joe’s thin shirt under the half open blanket, looking somewhat concerned. “It’s only about 15 minutes’ drive, but you probably need to walk an hour to reach there.”
“I know how long it takes to walk there, but don’t know how to from here.” Joe was a little impatient—he didn’t like being pitied at.
“No trouble. I can draw you a simple map to show you the way.” The man took out a piece of paper and a pencil from behind the counter, starting to produce the map. “But sir, if—just if—anything bad has happened to you, don’t hesitate to tell, since we have a cop right here right now.”
“Oh, come on, Max!” another man grumbled from the corner, almost making Joe jump—he hadn’t seen him at all until now. The cop was a middle-aged man in a disheveled uniform. He had a slightly hooked nose and retrieving hairline. But what stuck out a mile in him were his sparse eyebrows above those protruding ridges, which gave him a strangely angry look.
The cop stood up from his seat, put his hat back on, and walked a few steps toward Joe. “What’s your name, sir? Can I help you?”
“N-no, I don’t need any help, except a point of direction toward home.” Joe didn’t want to involve a policeman, not to mention one that looked so unfriendly.
“Don’t worry, sir. I’m here to help, not to investigate ... unless you’ve done something wrong.” The cop locked Joe with hard eyes for a while. When Joe’s expression turned rigid, he broke into a laugh and patted Joe on his shoulder. “Relax, pal! I’m only messing with you.”
He turned to the barista and pointed at his coffee cup on the table behind him. “Give me a refill, will you, Max?”
“Sure thing, sir.” Max swiftly walked out of the counter with a kettle of coffee in hand. “But can’t you give this gentleman a lift to Saint-André? If I’m not mistaken, you live in the same block, don’t you?”
Before the cop responded, Max had already put a full cup of steaming coffee into his hand. He slurped his drink with satisfaction, then smiled at both Max and Joe. “It doesn’t matter where I live. I’m a cop. I go wherever I’m needed. Now are you ready to go home, pal?” The last sentence was obviously toward Joe alone.
“Really? You are going to drive me home?” Joe didn’t have the habit of assuming things, although he already felt he could breathe easy again.
“Yeah, absolutely!” The cop took out his car key from his pocket and moved toward the door as he signaled Joe to follow him. “Call me Andrew. And I can continue calling you pal, if you don’t want to tell me your name, PAL!”
Joe hurriedly bade Max goodbye and followed Andrew out of the café. “My name is Joe, sir—Andrew.”
**
As the car drove smoothly into the Plateau area, Joe began to be able to recognize most of the establishments—nestled among residential buildings were some stylish boutiques, fancy restaurants, bed and breakfasts, convenient stores, a dental clinic, and an ice-cream parlor. Joe also remembered that a few blocks away from the residential zone stood a tangle of bustling commercial streets, high-rise office buildings, and one of the most prominent universities in the country. It was no wonder that the majority of the residents in Plateau were young professionals and university students, who created a rather lively culture in the place.
“What’s the number of your building?” Andrew’s question broke the brief silence, forcing Joe out of his reminiscence.
“Er ... actually, I’d like to walk back by myself from here. It’s only a few minutes’ walk now.” The truth was that Joe couldn’t wait to get rid of the cop who’d kept asking him personal questions all along the way—where he was from, whose house he was going to stay in, for how long, etc. He’d managed to answer all the questions in a breeze by reciting his rather boring background story concocted by Jasmine: he was a clerk working in the church of a small town called Tofina somewhere in the west part of America; it was so remote and insignificant that it couldn’t be located in the map; he was the only family member left of his sister, a local resident who was in need of his help to look after her kids as she and her husband had been assigned to a research project in America.
“As you wish.” Andrew didn’t insist. “It’s almost”—he cast a look at his watch—“nine thirty. Time for me to head back and hit the sack as well!”
“Thank you very much! Good night.” No sooner had the car pulled over than Joe jumped out of the door with Doodle in his arms, welcoming a gust of biting but refreshing wind that blasted snowflakes in every direction.
“See you around.” Andrew offered Joe a casual two-finger salute before fishing a cigarette out of his pocket, his eyes fixed at Joe with a hint of half a smile.
Joe quickly wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and gathered the cat against his chest. After a final wave at the other man, he started to jog toward Jasmine’s house. Behind him, he could tell the cop’s vehicle was still unmoved. The man inside seemed to be having a smoke break, but Joe could sense that the pair of grey eyes under those sparse eyebrows were still following him—until he made a turn at the corner of the path.
A few minutes later, Joe arrived at the front door of Jasmine’s house. Before he knocked, the door was already opened. A small girl with curly brown hair stood inside, grinning a wide, toothy grin.
“Uncle—” The girl swallowed back the rest of the words with dropped jaws when she had a clear view of Joe, a tall man carrying a red blanket and a black cat.
Joe was also taken by surprise when he saw her under bright light—she was the girl who’d offered him the blanket about an hour ago. “You are Wendy, aren’t you?”
“Y-yes, I’m Wendy.” She recovered from the shock and moved aside to let Joe in. “So, you are our Uncle Joe.”
“Yeah, just call me Joe.” He entered the warm room with an exhale of relief from coldness. “You knew that I was coming?”
“Of course, Mom told us to wait for you tonight. But we didn’t know you would arrive so late.” Wendy looked at Joe up and down with curiosity before quickly switching her attention to the black cat. “Oh, Doodle, it’s you. Come to me.” She grabbed Doodle from Joe, gave it a smack on the nose and stroked its sleek hair with twinkling eyes.
In the meanwhile, Joe noticed that another pair of brown eyes were examining him from head to toe without much enthusiasm—it was a straight-haired teenage girl sitting in a long sofa in front of a large TV.
“You—you must be Elena?” Joe moved to the sofa to sit beside the bigger girl.
“Uh huh.” Elena instantly stood up and left the sofa, as if a snake just climbed in.
“Wendy,” she called out at her little sister in a cold voice, “let’s go to sleep.”
Wendy threw a chastising glance at Elena and apologized to Joe, “Sorry, sometimes my sister is”—she raised one hand to cup around her mouth and lowered her voice—“annoying.” That didn’t escape the ears of her sister and brought on a hard stare from her. “But she’s right. We have to sleep now. Tomorrow is Friday, almost weekend, but we still have to get up early to go to school.”
“Uh huh,” Joe mumbled as he spread his limbs in the sofa and closed his eyes. “Then go to bed, girls. Me, too ...” He couldn’t understand why he felt so exhausted—crossing from Magic Moon to Earth didn’t seem to take much effort. Did he already start to age? He hoped not.
Doodle jumped onto Joe’s belly and meowed, “Master Joe, you should at least help Wendy brush her teeth and send her to bed before you rest. I think that’s what’s expected from you.”
“Go away!” Joe swept the cat off the sofa, turned to his side, and slipped into sleep.