magnified gaze was still unsettling.
“There’s new madness,” he said. Then, spotting the pin on my blouse, he leaned across the desk and peered at it. As he absorbed the pin’s message, his face grew grim. “More trouble for me,” he muttered. “And I suppose you’ve heard those women have got themselves some kind of propaganda space on the machine.” He thumped my monitor to identify the source of his latest crisis, then handed me a slip of paper with a Web-site address. “Here’s where they are, but I need you to show me how to find them.”
“Kevin, have you ever even turned on a computer?”
“Why would I?” he barked.
I stared at him. “Because as of five years ago, all the members of this department were supposed to be computer literate; because Rosalie was handling stuff for you that you should have been handling for yourself years ago; because we all have to submit our grades electronically now; and if you win your appeal, you’re going to have to…”
He scowled at me. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready to learn. As the Buddhists say, ‘Leap and the net will appear.’ ”
“And I’m the net,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ll bring you coffee. You can find the propaganda while I’m gone.”
I moved to my own chair, turned on the computer, and waited.
When Kevin came back, he handed me the orange and brown striped mug and examined the screen. “The information isn’t there.”
“Kevin, if I bring up the Web site for you, there’s no leap.”
He dragged the student chair over so it was beside mine. “Okay,” he said. “Teach me.”
For someone who had spent years railing against computers as the handiwork of the devil, Kevin Coyle proved to be a surprisingly quick student.
He made a few false starts, but within minutes the Web site appeared. It was striking: a black screen with a yellow dot glowing in the lower left corner. As I watched, the dot etched a graceful sunflower. It was an image I had introduced myself, yet I felt a stab of anger at this fresh proof that my private memory had suddenly become public property. The sunflower vanished, and Ariel’s name flowed across the screen, followed by the dates of her birth and death. There were some photos and, in the guest book, a dozen e-mailed memories. All grew out of the nine brief months Ariel had taught at the university. Solange had not cast her net wide, and even a quick glance revealed that the Web site had the sweetly elegaic flavour of a high-school yearbook.
I turned to Kevin. “Perfectly innocuous,” I said. “Looks like you lost your status as the last of the Luddites for nothing.”
Kevin stabbed at the computer screen with his forefinger. “What are those?”
“Just links to other sites that may be of interest to people who cared about Ariel.”
“How’s that one connected to her?” he asked, pointing to a site with the address “redridinghood.”
“Easy enough to find out,” I said. I clicked on the word “redridinghood,” and swivelled my chair to face him. “Even a child can do it,” I said.
He was staring at the monitor, transfixed. “That’s not for children,” he said. I followed his gaze. The picture filling the screen was of a woman: her gender was the only fact a viewer could know for sure. Violence had obliterated her other distinguishing characteristics. The hair surrounding her face was a rusty mat of dried blood. It was impossible to tell if, in life, she had been a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Whether she had been pretty or plain was anyone’s guess. Someone had pounded her face into the livid pulpiness of a rotted eggplant. Her naked body had been hacked at, her breasts severed, her genitals slashed.
I scrolled down the page to see if there was explanatory text.
The quotation that appeared on my screen was evocative: “… the better to eat you with my dear” This site is devoted to all the Red Riding Hoods – to all the women who have been devoured by the wolves that walk among us.
I shuddered.
“Someone just walked over your grave,” Kevin said absently. He took the mouse and clicked on “NEXT.” There was page after page, each with a photo of the murdered woman; each had been taken from a different angle, but they were all equally blood-drenched and appalling. The worst picture was the last because, as the caption indicated, it had been taken just hours before the woman died. The photo recorded what must have been a pleasant moment for her: a good-looking young man wearing an Armani suit, a Santa Claus hat, and the punchy look of the slightly drunk was raising a glass to her.
Red Riding Hood #1 wasn’t looking at him; she was gazing at the camera with a steadiness that suggested a woman who wasn’t easily deflected by party tricks. Her short black hair had been brushed back sleekly from her heart-shaped face, and a silvery T-shirt glittered through the opening of her smart black jacket. The outfit was festive yet professional, exactly the kind of outfit Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan or Flare would suggest a successful woman should wear to a holiday gathering at the end of a business day. By anyone’s criteria, Red Riding Hood #1 was a success. A newly minted MBA from Queen’s University, her curriculum vitae was so impressive that, the caption said, she had created the job she wanted with a venerable Bay Street brokerage firm and had landed it after one interview. The photograph had been taken at her company’s traditional supper gathering on the last working day before the Christmas break. After the firm’s partners sang “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen,” the carol which, for seven decades, had been the signal that the company Christmas party was at an end, the good-looking young man in the Santa cap followed Red Riding Hood #1 home to her shining new condo in the Annex, and raped and murdered her.
Another click took us to Red Riding Hood #2, a real-estate agent with a client who had said he was keen on finding a property that could be a real hideaway. Red Riding Hood #3 was a shift worker in a plant that made pasta; Red Riding Hood #4 was a kindergarten teacher; Red Riding Hood #5 had a husband who couldn’t live without her. In all, there were a dozen grim little folk tales, each with its own stomach-churning, mind-numbing illustration.
The last click took us to a familiar passage. It was the moral Charles Perrault had appended to his version of Little Red Riding Hood three hundred years earlier: From this story one learns that children,
Especially young girls,
Pretty, well-bred, and genteel,
Are wrong to listen to just anyone,
And it’s not at all strange,
If a wolf ends up eating them.
I say a wolf, but not all wolves
Are exactly the same.
Some are perfectly charming,
Not loud, brutal or angry,
But tame, pleasant, and gentle,
Following young ladies
Right into their homes, into their chambers,
But watch out if you haven’t learned that tame wolves
Are the most dangerous of all.
When I read our children the story, I’d always stopped before I came to Perrault’s moral. I hadn’t wanted my daughter to grow up believing that men were the enemy; I hadn’t wanted my sons to grow up seeing themselves as predators to be feared. I thought about my granddaughter, a girl whose smiles went everywhere, and wondered whether the world into which Madeleine had been born would allow for such a benign omission.
I braced myself for a blast of blowtorch rhetoric from Kevin, but it didn’t come. He was as shaken as I was. “Unspeakable,” he said. His hugely magnified eyes were anxious. “But this horror show is only going to make things worse. Not just for me,” he added quickly, “for all of us.”
I pushed my chair away from the desk and stood up.
“Are you bailing out on me?” Kevin asked.
“No,” I said. “We’ll sink or swim together on this one. I’m going to ask Solange to remove the link to ‘Red Riding Hood’ from her Web site.”
