LITMIR.BIZ

      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

      J. Kirk Howard, President

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      Dundurn Press

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      To Donatella, who believed.

      To Nicolas, who listened and laughed.

      And to Saleem, who simply is.

      My thanks.

      Chapter One

      It was the time of Diwali, the festival of light and release, but the corner of Main and Terminal was still a prisoner to darkness. The intersection marks the social fault line that divides the city of Vancouver between east and west, poor and rich. A stone’s throw west of the corner the futuristic dome of Science World glitters under its metallic, spiderweb frame, studded with glowing, blue gems. Beyond lays False Creek with its sailboats and little docks: a swimming pool for the privileged whose condos line its banks. On this overcast morning, the waters sat still, sullen, barely rippled in the wind — blue grey in the rain.

      To the east, achingly close to this beauty, is The Corner: the wine-soaked, refuse-strewn intersection where the street people scrabble for a slow death. They are Leonard Cohen’s children, leaning out for love amid the garbage and flowers, looking for their mother in a bottle, their father in a needle, sucking in forgetfulness, transforming a filthy alley or a bus station washroom cubicle into the shores of Lotophagia.

      It is the turf of the squeegee kids. “Kids,” they call them, although they can be thirty, or forty, even fifty years old, and look as ancient and gnarled as desert trees. Today, as every day, they were up early to greet the rush hour traffic, stiff limbs and aching muscles moving mechanically, like a medieval clock tower’s figures, working to the rhythm of the traffic lights. Green. Hustle the westbound lanes, walk between the lines of cars, looking left, looking right, hoping for the nod or smile of agreement. Amber. Wipe the windshield. Quick, quick. Take the money, try to smile. Red. Cut across the four lanes that run like asphalt veins into the city. Face the east and a fitful, rising sun glimpsed through ragged clouds. Green. Walk down the line of cars, looking left, looking right….

      On the east side of Main Street, two young people, a boy and a girl, were waiting for the light to change, watching the squeegee kids weaving through the BMWs, SUVs, and compacts. At a glance you could tell they didn’t belong — not yet. Their clothes were too clean, too new. Value Village shoppers by choice, not necessity. The boy, Andy, was excited.

      “It’s going to be so cool,” he said for the hundredth time that morning. “The Magus totally rocks.”

      The girl, Sam, was slightly older. Teenagers, she thought, but not unkindly. Andy had a gleam in his eyes that lit up his brown, lean face. He was, she considered, an ideal candidate for the task ahead of him, at least physically. In his late teens, Andy was well-built. But his mind needed training. The camp would see to that. The camp and Arnie, Sam grinned.

      “Focus on what we have to do now,” she urged him as they crossed the avenue, the sole pedestrians not out hustling for change. “Service before reward.”

      “Oh yeah, ’course,” said Andy. “Present moment.”

      On the other side of the street they came to the park in front of the bus station. It was dotted by overgrown maples, aged and diseased, losing their leaves in the late autumn, dropping withered limbs that littered the thinning, ragged lawn. Andy glanced over at them and felt his stomach constrict. Ragged bundles like discarded dolls — the junkies, the winos, the insane — were sprawled under every tree. Condos for the crazies. Nothing in Andy’s past had prepared him for this and he was still unused to it. He looked up at Sam, guilty, but her hard, blue eyes were staring to the right. She stopped abruptly.

      “Thad? Thad?” she called out.

      Andy followed her gaze. In the middle of the park, under the lone oak tree that was its centrepiece, a hooded figure, sitting cross-legged, immovable, like Buddha. Sam started across the lawn towards him.

      “You’re not going to go over there!” cried Andy, unable to hide the disgust in his voice.

      “He’s a friend!” Sam snapped, looking carefully at the ground in front of her, scanning for used needles, broken glass, the unidentifiable.

      Andy started after Sam, trying hard to evoke the compassion that was at the heart of the Magus’s teaching. But it was difficult, looking at this dirty young man dressed in a faded grey kangaroo sweater, face hardly visible, to feel pity or remind himself that this figure contained a spark of the divine within. Sam stood behind Thad now, calling to him as Andy approached.

      “Thad. You okay?”

      Probably on junk, thought Andy. What was Sam doing associating with a junkie? A frown creased her smooth, white face as she knelt down beside the figure.

      “Hey, Thad? Thought you kicked. Weren’t workin’ this scene anymore.”

      Silence. Andy stood beside Sam. He was about to politely suggest that they were going to be late if they wasted much more time here when Sam made one last attempt to get through to her friend.

      “Thad?”

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