First she was just a voice. Somewhere close to the two showers where I couldn't see her, she was a thick-throated, entangled mumble in (second-language) French, addressing the slim-bodied young woman on my left who could see her from where she was standing, in front of her locker, but who had trouble understanding her. When she finally did, she pointed to the farther shower cabin, and said it had warmer water. Towel in hand, the young woman left, and the well-deep, shot-through voice disappeared into the shower cabin. I finished changing, flip-flopped my way to the swimming-pool, and forgot all about it. In the water, as usual, I swam steadily just above the straight black stripe painted on the pale-blue tiles underneath which divided the lane lengthwise into two perfectly symmetrical halves, until I merged with its unidirectional simplicity and synchronized my breathing in matching symmetry.
Afterwards, the changing room was fuller: women and children of all ages were strategically scattered around hairdriers, mirrors and changing cubicles, half-dressed, their hair wet or dishevelled. On the way from the shower to my locker, I saw her briefly, her back turned to me. It was just a second, but it was enough to identify her as the body behind that cracked-to-the-core voice. She wore a pair of faded jeans loose around the waist, and a fluorescent winter jacket (its colour washed out), but something about her posture, about the way her wet hair rested limply on her slouched shoulders, about her movements betrayed her 60-odd years, even before she turned and her face clinched it.
Aged Asian features. Or native American? I cast quick glances on the sly as I was putting my clothes on (a routine succession of movements polished to perfection and reduced to muscle memory through repetition). She seemed to move in slow-motion, and tried to say small words of politeness, also in slow-motion, to women passing by her. A blonde wearing a white two-piece swimming suit which revealed half of an undecipherable tattoo on a cellulite-rippled side gave her a wide berth and a suspicious look on her way to the pool.
The bottom hem of her trousers was soaked. She held on to the open locker door with the left hand and attempted to slip on her right sock. She took a pause after each minute move, the sock showing a sizeable hole on the sole.
Avez-vous besoin d'aide, Madame? I didn't hear myself saying because I didn't say it. I kept looking at her from the corner of my eye, keeping track of this slow suffering as if the Secret of Secrets was encoded in it and compelled me to watch silently.
She wasn't like the occasional homeless women who come to the Y just to shower -- next to her concentrated downward-turned face, her swimming suit dangled (green, with a floral pattern), dripping on the floor. She seemed so weak I wondered how she managed to swim at all; or was she exhausted
because she had swum? As she reached up-- ever so slowly -- to get the suit, her hands surprised me: the skin was old but the hands themselves were nimble, with youth-like movements and able fingers. Then she bent with deliberation, in what seemed to be a carefully studied trajectory, to tie her shoe laces.
Avez-vous besoin d'aide, Madame? Why was I not saying it? The commitment to soaking in the details somehow overrode everything else.
In her jacket pocket, she found a stray piece of paper, looked at it for a while, then walked over to the garbage bin, threw it in, and made sure it was in. She went back to her locker and stared at it as if trying to remember what to do next. Then she pulled out a tuque from her backpack and put it on her head tightly, without drying her hair. She thought some more, then dove her hand again into the backpack and came out with a blue woollen headscarf which she placed over the tuque. She finalized the preparation for the exit into a chilly winter afternoon by lifting the hood of her jacket with both hands and throwing it over everything. A few more seconds of contemplation (or rest?), a painfully long process of strapping her backpack to her shoulders, and she was ready.
By then I was the only other person left in the changing room. As she walked toward the exit, for the first time her eyes focused on me. She gazed at me in passing, her mouth partially open (in a way which indicated she was missing a few teeth). The eyes were opaque, with no distinction between the pupil and the iris. I smiled, she said bye, I replied, and she was gone.
I finished packing my bag much more slowly than usual, with an empty head. Later, on my way out, a perplexing moment: having climbed the stairs from the underground level of the changing rooms, I approached the bright-red door with white RC letters on it, and for a long alienating instant I stood in front of it, not knowing what I was supposed to do next.
