Griffintown

by Marie Hélène Poitras

  * * *

  SITTING IN THE LICENSE bureau office, Marie smiles as she thinks about the evaluation, which turned out to be much less arduous than expected. That the world of calèches, about which she sometimes wonders if she is dreaming, intersects with an institution, more specifically government buildings, amuses her. The smell of her soiled boots repels those sitting around her, tangible proof that it’s all very real. Marie celebrates privately the marriage of two worlds she would have thought irreconcilable. She has seen horses in the city. A small victory, an exploit, a rapture.

  After she obtains the precious document and hangs it proudly around her neck; the confirmed driver gets back on her bike and repeats the trip, this time to the Far Ouest. John said there was one last stage in her training as a driver — a detail, but an important one. After that, she will be able to start the season knowing all there is to know about the profession. Marie hopes it’s not an initiation. She hopes with all her might that she won’t be asked to drink stagnant water from the canal. The bubbles that come up slowly from the depths leave her perplexed.

  She drops her bike to the ground not even bothering to lock it. Her mind elsewhere, Marie goes into the calèche garage. Two well-behaved black horses are waiting to be harnessed but John isn’t there. Joe appears with his usual dumb look; he has big pliers to take God knows what from God knows whom. She nods at him without expecting anything in return, then heads for the stable. John and Billy are in the alley, arguing about a situation that’s bothering them. They are talking sotto voce; she pricks up her ear and notes that John has lost his usual composure.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Bill. For weeks now he’s been in the cold. Paul deserves better than that. We have to get him out of there!”

  “And put him where?”

  The new driver understands that with horsemen, explanations don’t come when you want them; you have to advance patiently in the dark. Marie has also noticed that when she stops asking, the replies come by themselves.

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  She doesn’t bother asking where, but is still surprised that they go on foot, taking neither horse nor calèche.

  Getting down from their drivers’ bench, John and Marie are exposed and much more vulnerable.

  They sweep into the damp night of Griffintown.

  * * *

  AT THE HÔTEL SALOON, Joe sits by himself at the bar. Lloyd plays video poker. Three coachmen sip beer. The regulars, including Gerry, who drives the spotted horse at the Basilica, stand. Alice seems to have snorted, swallowed, or smoked something too strong. He goes to the men’s room every fifteen minutes, cursing. Some local patrons complete the tableau, around twenty people in all. A minor commotion is set off by the entrance of Marie and John. The old drivers are torn between happiness at the sight of a female and irritation generated by the arrival of a neophyte among them. John has warned Marie: “Act like nothing’s going on. They’ll balk at first, but they’ll get used to it.” Advice that she quickly ignores. “Hey, guys,” she says when gazes turn in her direction. “I’ve got my permit.” A reaction so unexpected and contrary to their usual behaviour that the drivers don’t know how to behave. Behind the bar, Dan drops his dishcloth so he can follow the scene.

  “You make me hot,” John whispers in Marie’s ear

  “I beg your pardon?!”

  John immediately regrets his choice of words and tries to regain his composure.

  “I told you to keep a low profile … but don’t worry, they look like they think you’re cute. You’ve got guts and charisma and they’ll help when it’s time to take on clients.”

  Dan arrives with two drafts.

  “Horse piss, on the house,” he announces. “No charge for the little lady.”

  The alcohol moistens palates, washes thoughts, dissolves acid, and sweetens dispositions. At the Hôtel Saloon tonight they’ll drown all sorts of things: the death of Paul, the fact that his murderer is still on the loose, the stress of the past few weeks, the apprehension that goes along with the beginning of the season, the weight of accumulated debts, the grip of the loan shark, the impression of being alone and tough, regret at having let his luck go by too long ago for any hope of bringing it back …. Unburdened, the drivers are transformed into characters larger than life. It’s at these moments that they most embody their legend. All under Boy’s feeble eyes, a pitiless reminder of the day to come.

  Marie has the smart idea of buying a round for the drivers. Their brotherhood, which seemed impenetrable a month before, is now offering her a hand. She has left the periphery. She knows now that she is one of them. She stops at the mounted head and shoulders of Boy and imagines him patrolling the streets of Griffintown.

  “Back then, calèches weren’t used for carting fat Americans who’re sick of having to drag themselves around. The horses delivered things,” Dan explained.

  “I see. Were they happier back then?”

  “That I couldn’t say, but they were useful, even necessary, not just decorative.”

  “What did that horse die of?” she asked, intrigued.

  “Bled to death after a wild man took a knife and slashed his chest.” Marie’s thoughts become confused and muddled, she feels the ground slip away under her boots, the drivers’ words slacken off. She faints.

  * * *

  WHEN MARIE COMES TO, John is bending over her, talking gently but firmly, in the tone he uses to soothe horses. He suggests calling a taxi but once she’s recovered, Marie goes to the stable to make sure Champion has everything he needs. Tomorrow will be her first day as a driver and she wants her horse to be in good shape.

  In his stall, Champion, exhausted, is lying on his side, sleeping so soundly he’s snoring. Marie pictures him as a colt, a tiny creature with downy hair taking refuge in the flank of his enormous Belgian mother with an engorged udder. It is when the horses lie on the ground to listen to the secrets imprisoned in the earth that Marie catches a glimpse of what they were before they washed up in Griffintown.

  Taking advantage of John’s momentary inattention while he is in the garage rummaging for matches under his driver’s bench, Marie goes out to get a cube of hay so there will be sustenance for Champion when he wakes up. She knows more or less where the bullets are stored but here in the dark, she can’t see much. She spots a door at the back of the stall in the corridor, holds her hand out to open it, touches something warm: a hand.

  “Who’s there?” barks a man’s voice.

  Taking refuge in the shack where he sleeps on a chair with one eye open, Le Rôdeur flicks his lighter to see who has the nerve to disturb his sleep.

  “Oh!” says Marie, stunned. “I didn’t know that you …. What are you doing?”

  “Sleeping, for Christ’s sake, haven’t you got eyes in your head? Shut the door and get the hell out.”

  Going back to the stable, she inhales the moist, familiar breath of the animals. Hearing the horses inhale, and smelling the sweet aroma they exude in sleep, the fine, scarcely visible perspiration, like dew — this comforts her. She likes the presence of the sleeping horses. In the garage, Marie notices a man on the floor, dozing on cushions: a driver she doesn’t know. John isn’t around, she finds it strange that he has abandoned her in the middle of the night. It’s getting late; dawn will soon be there. Marie takes her bike out of the prickly bushes and approaches the broken edge of the sidewalk as a rider nears an obstacle, an impulse she has never shed. Suddenly she hears her name called, then the footsteps of a man making his way towards her in the night. Marie recognizes John’s silhouette. “I thought you’d gone away and left me behind!”

  “Griffintown’s dangerous at this time of night,” says John. “I’ll see you home.” Dawn, complicit, sheds its milky light in front of them, guiding their footsteps. In the old city, not a living soul. They follow the Lachine Canal and rue de la Commune, then John leaves Marie at the border of the territory. She gives him an enigmatic smile then gets back on her bike and spe
eds down the bicycle path on Berri. The cowboy with time on his hands, without a mount, stands for a long moment, unmoving, as he watches Marie disappear, then takes off again for the ghost town whose streets at this hour are paced by the silent hooves of horses made of mist.

  * * *

  ALREADY DAWN. STRETCHED OUT on the flowered eiderdown on a narrow pallet in his trailer, Billy can’t get back to sleep. He stands up, pulls on jeans and a shirt, climbs onto his bed, and takes down the crucifix Paul Despatie acquired when he bought the trailer. He goes out and tosses it into the syrupy water of the stream, then comes back to make coffee. On the dented trailer wall remains the persistent ghost of a pale cross. And on the small mat at the door, Paul’s boots — the one found in the water and the second, placed on the kitchen table by an intrusive visitor. Billy considers them at length, then turns to his mother’s picture and finally, the clock. Nearly five a.m.. La Grande Folle won’t be long.

  There’s no one here who knows how the old transsexual hooker ended up in Griffintown. No matter, she’s part of the landscape now and has been for seven years. La Grande Folle arrives to clean the calèches when the rooster crows, which suits everyone. She returns every year, looking five years older, reliably appearing at the beginning of June when the season takes off and a rumour of abundance still floats in the balmy air. When she leaves the stable at dawn, vulnerable and weary, La Grande Folle can’t distinguish between bats and hummingbirds. The groom can’t get back to sleep after the incident with the crucifix. The investigation isn’t progressing; Billy moves at a snail’s pace, stamping on the roof of his trailer, obsessed with Paul’s body, twisted and frozen. And now he wants to go on horseback. Half-past five a.m.: the one moment of the day when horses and drivers leave him alone. Billy’s gaze lights on the horizon. Then he does something inexplicable: he dons the boots of Paul Despatie and heads for the stable.

  He strokes the flank of his mare while she finishes her ration of oats, then saddles her and leads her through the sleeping streets to see how the new shoes fit. In spite of the early hour, the mare ought to be full of beans, but she stays placid and calm, respectful of the character of his race. He looks up at the direction of the clouds: soft streaks of mist on a sky that ranges from pastel to lead. The light is coming from the south-east, as if it takes its vigour from the fluorescent lighting in the Costco warehouse and is born from a part of the city Billy knows all too well.

  * * *

  The Last of the Irish

  Legend has it that beneath the department store survived the traces of an old Irish village razed in 1964, the year of his birth. Billy knows by heart the tales of bad luck, memories of potatoes and stewed pigeons that are stirred by this part of town.

  A few years ago several Irishmen were driving calèches. Then Scott moved to the States, Andrew was behind bars, Jimmy became a trucker, and Leo Leonard sold off his last horses. Until very recently, once a season, generally in August when it was hot and they were on edge, Scott, Andrew, Jimmy, and Billy himself would hitch up a horse and go down to Goose Village to meditate in their own way at the foot of the black stone not far from the Victoria Bridge. Billy hasn’t set foot there for two or three years. Ever since his compatriots disappeared and he was condemned to bear by himself, at arm’s length, the weight of his origins.

  At Windmill Point, not far from the old train station, four or five thousand Irish were put in quarantine in the mid-nineteenth century because of a typhus epidemic.

  On her death bed, his mother Jane made him promise to honour his ancestors, ghosts smothered beneath the asphalt of a parking lot built on the single grave where all the victims of typhus had been thrown. For the last Irishman in Goose Village, that impoverished heritage had become too great a liability.

  Everything Irish that remains could be boiled down to a white plank decorated with clover brought home from a St. Patrick’s Day party and nailed up in the stable to keep Champion’s stall from caving in. There is also, hanging in the trailer, an old black-and-white photo of Jane, a serious look on her face. Towards the end, Jane no longer believed in anything and, knowing her days were numbered, asked her son to take down all the crosses in the house and burn them. She insisted on being buried out of the way under just a stone with no epitaph, anonymous, reflecting on how she had lived all those years. “I’m a simple passenger,” she whispered in the ear of Billy, who was already fatherless. Those were her last words, dictated in a way that was hard to decipher. Billy was sixteen.

  * * *

  THE LAST IRISHMAN REGRETS going back to Goose Village. While he is listening to his ancestors whisper in his ear that he must pay them a tribute, two vultures have crossed the limits of Griffintown. The men in black suits care nothing for their immediate environment. Backs to the stable, facing a wall of corrugated tin, they are debating, waving their arms in a way that suggests high-rise construction, the placement of something on a vast open space. Their self-assurance, their predatory smiles, and their Mercedes parked nearby suggest that generally these two men go where they want, quickly and in a straight line, that they belong to a race that generally doesn’t come to Griffintown.

  After a vigorous handshake, the Men from the City go back to their vehicle and drive away.

  Someone has emptied the bottle of vodka he keeps in the refrigerator freezer. That’s all Billy notices on his return. A hesitant light suddenly brightens his tangled thoughts. He has a hunch: Evan. It can only be him. Because of the vodka. And Paul. He has a duplicate of the keys to the boss’s truck, thinks Billy, who doesn’t know very well where that trail leads. Ever since he came home from Afghanistan, Evan hasn’t been the same.

  For the veteran horses, the sound announces more comfort. Stone dust absorbs half the surrounding mugginess, tempers the air in the stable, offers a climate that’s better for wrecked joints and sensitive hocks.

  * * *

  The Man Who Met a Windigo

  In a time not so long ago, during the nineteen-eighties when things were going well for Paul and the coachmen came back to the stable every night with at least three or four hundred bells, even on weekdays, Evan had assumed the expression of the star-coachman long before Georges Prince. He had a movie star’s looks and plenty of sex appeal. Business was going briskly for Paul, who at the time trusted him with his best horses. Evan had fallen in love with Kim, former dancer and twenty-five-cent hooker, who still worked the street when the day’s returns hadn’t been hefty enough for his liking. A glorious girl, with whom Evan had a son. The boy’s birth sounded the end of what had been a wild party that had been Evan’s life since he’d started to drink at age of nine.

  He decided to get a grip on himself, put back some order in his life, but there wasn’t much on the horizon for a marginal type like him. Evan wanted to act quickly; he signed up with the Canadian Forces. He and Kim took a break from the world of the calèche for several years. She never came back to Griffintown. He limped there, face drawn, stooped, confused, too battered and bruised to go back to being a coachman but too proud to work as a groom. To anyone who dared to ask what had happened during the years when he was away, Evan would reply, staring into space, that he’d bumped into a Windigo in the desert and didn’t want to talk about it.

  And so he became Paul’s assistant, the one who led the horses back to the stable in the semi-trailer and who at the end of every summer took responsibility for leading them to the place where they’d be made into glue, the one who drowned cats in the stream, the one who wept eternally tears of black ink. Ever since he’d met the Windigo, Evan’s hands were stained with blood and his face tattooed with tears.

  One day when he was drunk, he talked to Paul about the war in Afghanistan. He confessed that in the company of some infantrymen, he’d played football in a field with the head of a dead peasant and that at the time it had been good for him, even made him laugh. Afterwards, he was a changed man. He avoided telling Paul that he’d killed civilians and children, raped a woman as ordered by the Windigo
. That was the story he’d poured out to the lieutenant. He was demobilized and came back to Griffintown. Within a short time, Evan’s trailer was transformed into a crack house and that was the beginning of the end for several of the horsemen who thought they’d triumphed over their former vices. Every morning when she came to sluice down the calèches, La Grande Folle brought something in her purse to supply Evan’s business. Most of the coachmen who succumbed managed to get over it, but some — like Billy’s best friend, Ray — didn’t have the strength. It was powerfully tempting and above all, it was right there, two steps away. It was enough to hold out an arm, to not look away, to say “I do” and swipe a few bills from the envelope to take up again with all that electricity and feel on his forehead the great black wing of indulgence. Every summer, like a weed that can’t be uprooted. The person who comes face-to-face with the Windigo comes back to sow chaos, taking in his fall the vulnerable souls.

  * * *

  BILLY NOW CONSIDERS EVAN to be his prime suspect. In fact, a few days have passed since he last ran into him. At first he concluded that now with Paul gone, the little helper’s jobs were rarer. Perhaps Evan had realized it would be of no use for him to stay behind and he too decided to get up and go. The groom is very happy no longer having to live under the same roof as Evan, no longer to tolerate his bad vibes and his trailer, but this complicates his access to the horses’ shower.

  Ever since he came home from Afghanistan, Evan has lost his ability to feel empathy, first for animals, then for his fellow creatures. The former coachman acts as if life owes him a living; he cultivates discord and resentment as others would a fertile field. He has always been thirsty for power — pondered, dissatisfied, irascible — following Paul, expecting a little of his boss’s power to rub off on him. If he were a horse, it would have been said about him that he didn’t have a good eye. He could have, in a megalomaniacal frenzy, eliminated the boss in order to take his place. Yes, it’s a possibility, Billy concludes.