Station Eleven

What I like to see is when actors use their celebrity in an interesting way. Some of them have charitable foundations, they do things like try to bring attention to the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, or they’re trying to save the white African rhino, or they discover a passion for adult literacy, or what have you. All worthy causes, of course, and I know their fame helps to get the word out.

But let’s be honest here. None of them went into the entertainment industry because they wanted to do good in the world. Speaking for myself, I didn’t even think about charity until I was already successful. Before they were famous, my actor friends were just going to auditions and struggling to be noticed, taking any work they could find, acting for free in friends’ movies, working in restaurants or as caterers, just trying to get by. They acted because they loved acting, but also, let’s be honest here, to be noticed. All they wanted was to be seen.

I’ve been thinking lately about immortality. What it means to be remembered, what I want to be remembered for, certain questions concerning memory and fame. I love watching old movies. I watch

the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they’ll never truly die. I know that’s a cliché but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, the Clark Gables, the Ava Gardners, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the nightclub. They’re all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.

35

DIALLO: What was it like, those last days before you left Toronto?

RAYMONDE: I stayed in the basement watching television. The neighborhood was emptying out. Peter was going out at night—stealing food, I think—and then one morning he said, “Kiki, we’ve got to go.” He hotwired a car that the neighbors had abandoned, and we drove for a while, but we got trapped. All the ramps onto the expressway were clogged with abandoned cars, the side roads too. Finally we just had to walk, like everyone else.

DIALLO: Where did you go?

RAYMONDE: East and south. Around the lake and down into the United States. The border was open by then. All the guards had left.

DIALLO: Did you have a set destination?

RAYMONDE: I don’t think so. No. But it was either leave or wait in Toronto, and what would we have been waiting for?

36

JEEVAN RESOLVED TO follow the lake. The beach was all gravel and rocks, difficult to walk on in the snow, in the twilight, he was afraid of twisting his ankle, and he didn’t like the footprints he was leaving, but he was determined to stay off the roads if he possibly could. He wanted very much to avoid other people.

On his last evening in the apartment he’d stood by the window, watching the expressway through the telescope. In three hours of watching he had seen only two people, both headed away from downtown, furtive, glancing over their shoulders. In every moment of those hours he was aware of the silence emanating from Frank’s bedroom. He’d checked twice to make sure Frank wasn’t breathing, knew the second time was irrational but how terrible it would be for Frank to wake up alone. He’d felt a vertiginous giving-way, the cliff crumbling beneath his feet, but held to sanity by sheer willpower. He wasn’t well, but was anyone?

While he was waiting for the day to end he sat at Frank’s desk, looking out at the lake. Trying to hold on to the tranquility of these last few moments, here in this apartment where he’d been for so long. Frank had left his manuscript on the desk. Jeevan found the page he’d been working on, a philanthropist’s thoughts on old movies and fame. Frank’s impeccable handwriting in the top margin: I’ve been thinking lately about immortality. Was that line Frank’s, then, not the philanthropist’s? Impossible to say. Jeevan folded the piece of paper and put it in his pocket.

Just after sunset, he left the apartment with a dusty backpack that Frank had taken on hiking trips in his pre-spinal-cord-injury days. Its existence was something of a mystery. Had Frank imagined he’d someday walk again? Was he planning on giving it to someone? When the last light was fading over the lake, Jeevan pushed the dresser aside, stepped out into the terrible corridor with its reek of death and garbage, and made his way down the stairs in darkness. He stood for several minutes behind the door that led to the lobby, listening, before he eased it open and slipped through, heart pounding. The lobby was deserted, but the glass doors had been smashed.