Crossing the Continent

by Michel Tremblay

  She finds herself back on a gleaming hardwood floor lit by an electric system of a kind she’s never seen; it is blinding, intimidating, more powerful than daylight. She shields her eyes with one hand and realizes that she is on a stage in atheatre. She has never seen a theatre but this is how she imagines them from the descriptions of Grandpa Méo, who boasts willingly and often of having once visited the Pantages Vaudeville in Edmonton, where he saw scantily dressed women wiggle their behinds in a very pretty way: a big stage of varnished wood, blindingly lit, a great dark space filled with rows of red seats, you become aware of them when your hand shields your eyes. What can she be doing there? After all she’s not going to take her bath on a stage in front of … men like her grandfather who’ve paid to watch her take her bath! But there’s no one in the house. Yes, there, in the fourth row, right in the middle, a fourth lady whom she can’t really see clearly because she is so far away. The only spectator in a vast theatre. The lady gets up, takes off her gloves which are very long, much longer than hers or Grandma Joséphine’s. It takes time, Rhéauna is cold, she realizes that she’s been trembling for a while now. The lady holds out her arms, smiles. The rest of her person is hazy, but not her smile. “Right, now show me what you can do!”

  She wakes with a start. One of her fairy-tale books is on her lap. Was that a dream? She has the impression, though, that she had read the dream, that it was written in the same style as her fairy tales, with words that keep coming back all the time, words that lull you and sometimes put you to sleep … She has already forgotten what the dream was made of, if it was one, but she is left with an impression of discomfort that makes her heart beat like a terror-stricken bird. She looks outside. A city is coming near. Saskatoon. She’s not going to stop there, she has to stay on the train, which will just make a quick stop. Then the trip to Regina will be a little longer. One of her aunts, great-aunts rather, will be waiting for her on the platform in Regina. Her aunt Régina. Her great-aunt Régina. Régina from Regina. That’s right, now she’s starting to think as she did in her dream.

  2

  Régina-Coeli, Part I

  There’s no one waiting for her at the station in Regina.

  If her aunt is late, she must have a good reason. Rhéauna sits on a bench that’s made not of wood like the one in the station in Maria but of cold, hard metal, and looks around her. She has never seen such an impressive building – she doesn’t remember passing through here five years ago, she was too young – her worry is somewhat alleviated by the crowds of travellers, the whistles of trains pulling into or out of the station, the announcements of departures and arrivals that emerge from invisible loudspeakers. The actual building is overwhelming, like a church but bigger. The church of Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan would easily fit under the metal vault with its exposed beams. Even the steeple wouldn’t reach the ceiling. A little dazed she rests her feet on her suitcase to show that it is hers and that no one should approach it. She looks at the big clock above the ticket windows. She has been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes. If her aunt Régina doesn’t come, what is she supposed to do all alone in a big city? But she’ll come. After all, she can’t have forgotten her.

  The little girl is hungry. During the stop in Saskatoon, she’d wolfed down the sandwich Grandma Joséphine had fixed for her. It was good. A thick chicken sandwich. Along with a handful of radishes. And a slice of raspberry pie. But that was quite a while ago. Her stomach is making unpleasant growling sounds and, on top of it all, she’s thirsty. She did spot a water fountain near the ladies’ bathroom, but she didn’t stop there so as not to miss her aunt who must have been waiting impatiently. Her great-aunt Régina’s impatience is celebrated throughout the family and her grandmother warned her to be obedient, discreet and polite during the few hours, overnight, that Rhéauna will spend with her. If she’d only known … But Grandma Joséphine had also warned her never to drink from a water fountain because you don’t know who’s been there before you and what deadly unknown disease they’ve left behind …

  She opens the purse hanging around her neck. She could take out one of the nickels and buy herself an orangeade and a snack. The lemonade vendor is nearby on her left and he seems bored, maybe because he doesn’t have many customers. He smiled at her two or three times, no doubt to encourage her to come over. She’s well aware that she mustn’t talk to strangers but you have to talk to a lemonade vendor even if he’s a stranger, don’t you? Otherwise how would he know what she wanted to buy?

  She is about to make up her mind to dip into her little nest egg when she senses a presence nearby. A shadow in fact has just set down on her knees. She looks up. Her great-aunt Régina, red-faced and out of breath, has both hands on her chest.

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to walk so I could save a little money and the station’s farther than I thought!”

  She’s a tiny dried-out little woman with a yellow complexion – her brother Méo calls her Jaundice to tease her and it’s the thing that she hates most of all in the world – she talks quickly and moves abruptly, driven by a perpetual motion that she can’t hold back and that exhausts everyone else. She is squeezed into a threadbare coat despite the August heat and a silly-looking straw hat, vestige of the end of the last century, sits askew on her hair which is pulled into a salt-and-pepper pile, a complicated structure perfectly held in place that reminds Rhéauna of the illustrations she often used to see in the newspaper her grandfather reads.

  Rhéauna gets off her metal bench and picks up her suitcase.

  “If your place is far from here, ma tante, I don’t think I can carry my suitcase all the way.”

  After a quick peck on the cheek – she smells too strongly of some flower Rhéauna doesn’t know – Régina grabs the suitcase and sets out without waiting for her.

  “I didn’t say you’d have to walk, I said I came on foot … We’re going to take a taxi.”

  A taxi? What’s that? She doesn’t dare to ask, she’d also been told not to ask pointless questions.

  The street they emerged onto when they left the station doesn’t look like anything Rhéauna has ever known. It’s lively, it’s noisy, it’s swarming with people, you might think that cars and people have been thrown down any which way, in big handfuls, and that no one, anywhere, knows where it is heading or why. An anthill of activity. No, not an anthill; ants know what they’re doing … A gigantic monster on rails – her aunt tells her that it’s called a streetcar – drives past them, making an ugly clang-clang-clang that causes her to jump; sparks escape from the electrical wire hanging above that it follows with the help of a long metal pole fastened onto its roof, which connects them. Receiving too much information at a time, Rhéauna feels dazed. As if she knew, her aunt turns toward her.

  “Big city’s impressive, isn’t it? Stay next to me, you could get lost in the crowd.”

  She holds up her hand to hail a car parked nearby. Rhéauna has never been in a car and excitement at the thought of travelling full speed through such lively streets makes her heart beat faster.

  At first, the taxi ride through Regina thrills her. Everywhere, the streets are packed, people seem to run, not walk, cars mingle with horses in all kinds of harnesses, sedans, carriages, the horses neigh when the cars go too fast – men have actually been hired to follow behind them and pick up their droppings, there are so many! – on some streets the houses are three or four storeys tall. At one point the taxi goes past a kind of general store where she counts up to eight and she can’t help letting out an exclamation of surprise.

  Her aunt frowns, turns to the window to see what’s going on.

  “What is it? What did you see?”

  “That store. It’s eight storeys high!”

  Disappointed not to have witnessed one of the urban dramas she’s so fond of – a woman run over by a car or a frightened horse galloping off, or at least a traffic jam at a busy intersection because there are more and more of them as cars become more numerous, complicating traffic by terri
fying the horses – Régina heaves an exasperated sigh.

  “This isn’t a little village, Rhéauna, it’s a big city! You’ll see plenty more eight-storey buildings!”

  Rhéauna would like to call her idiotic, to tell her that she knows she’s in a big city but that actually she’s never seen a big city before and that it’s normal for her to be surprised at everything she sees. She restrains herself, knowing that it would be pointless because she can sense that her grandfather’s sister, as a city dweller, will look down on her and keep treating her like a perfectly ignorant country mouse. It’s true that she hasn’t seen anything, she’s come from deep in the prairies, but is that any reason to make her feel uncomfortable? Her pride somewhat damaged she presses her nose against the car window again after shooting at her great-aunt a look into which she has tried to put all the contempt she can muster.

  It seems as if everybody in Regina is dressed in their Sunday best. Nobody seems to be wearing everyday clothes, overalls for instance, which her grandmother calls dungarees – or old checked shirts or battered straw hats as they do in Maria on weekdays. No, they’re all dressed to the nines. It looks as if they won’t step outside without changing their clothes. Yet they bump into one another without even noticing! Why change to go out if they don’t trade compliments? Especially when the men dressed like cowboys are so handsome under their enormous hats. She realizes then that they don’t all know one another – there are so many more people here than back home – and she wonders how a person can live in a city full of strangers. Then she realizes that Montreal will be worse, as it’s even bigger than Regina. That thought is enough to spoil her pleasure. She loses interest in what is going on outside the taxi and she lowers her head. Then pulls it up almost immediately because something has just happened around her, an abrupt change when the car was turning left, after blowing its horn: less noise, less coming and going, more trees, surprising peace and quiet all at once, after the downtown din. They have just turned onto a small street that could look like a corner of the countryside if the houses were less impressive and if there were fields of corn all around them.

  Régina opens her big handbag, takes out a leather billfold and stuffs her hand into it.

  “It won’t be long, we’re nearly there.”

  The car stops in front of a tiny house. Another disappointment for Rhéauna, who would have liked to stay in one of those eight-storey homes that must have an impressive view from so high up. She would even have been content with three. But Régina lives in a ground-floor apartment so small and so clean that Rhéauna, who has never smelled commercial disinfectant hanging over everything, immediately feels out of place. The house in Maria has always been well-kept, of course, Joséphine spends all day long working and cleaning, but after one quick glance inside her great-aunt Régina’s suite – a living room, kitchen, a real bathroom, one bedroom – Rhéauna imagines her aunt is obsessed with cleanliness and that makes her uncomfortable. Everything is too-carefully positioned, calculated, the sofa cushions as well as the toiletries on the vanity, the new soap in the soap dish as well as the shining kitchen sink, and the little girl feels as if she is a big oil stain, indelible and all too visible on fabric that is too clean. Actually, it’s funny, but her great-aunt’s apartment reminds Rhéauna of her excessively elaborate and slightly ridiculous hairdo. Lacquered. The apartment is lacquered.

  Régina asked her to wipe her shoes before coming inside, which she does, but she soon regrets not having removed them, even though they are new. They have been hurting her feet since this morning. She catches herself watching for traces of her passage on the rug. No, nothing visible. Oh, oh, her suitcase, which she set down in the entrance, may not be clean.

  While she gathers up her things to put in the kitchen where they’re less likely to be in the way or to get things dirty, the rumbling of her stomach reminds her that she’s famished. Going up to her great-aunt who has put the kettle on for tea she says in a shy little voice:

  “Could I have a snack? … I haven’t eaten anything since the lunch Grandma made me for the train … I’m really thirsty, too.”

  As if she had just been waiting for that to get on her high horse, an excuse for expressing her frustration, Régina turns to her great-niece and starts yelling at her. It’s so sudden that Rhéauna jumps and takes refuge in a corner of the kitchen, just in front of the bathroom door.

  “Now that’s going too far! Supper’s in less than an hour. Can’t you wait that long? You’re a nice little girl, you’re my brother’s granddaughter and I’ve got a duty to look after you till tomorrow morning but I’m not your servant and I’m not here to cater to your whims! Joséphine should have warned me you’d be hungry before supper, you’re a growing girl. I can give you some green tea and crackers because it’s tea time but don’t expect anything else, you won’t get it! You’ll eat when it’s time to eat and that’s that!”

  Aunt Régina’s stinginess is well-known – in fact, Méo blushes a little with shame when he talks about it because as he puts it so well, Jaundice will do anything to save a penny, even make a fool of herself – but Rhéauna had forgotten about it in the excitement of arriving in Regina and she remembers too late that her grandmother had told her not to ask her great-aunt for anything to eat, to wait until she offered. No matter how hungry she is. Because Régina isn’t rich; in fact, she’s rather destitute. Above all, she doesn’t want it to show.

  First mistake.

  Rhéauna listens to her aunt’s griping as she bustles around the wood stove. She wishes she were miles away, on the train to Winnipeg, why not? – she could have continued on her way, just changed trains and gone directly to her aunt Bebette whom she loves so much, couldn’t she? – or in her own house, with her sisters and grandparents. She feels as if she’s in a novel by the Comtesse de Ségur, Sophie’s Misfortunes or The Inn of the Guardian Angel, where children are always bullied and unhappy and she’d rather be reading their stories than living them. A phenomenon like aunt Régina doesn’t really exist in real life; it’s too ridiculous. You might come across one in a novel, you laugh a little because it’s absurd and you feel sorry for the character who’s in the kind of situation that she herself is living through, but no one, ever, has lost her temper with Rhéauna just because she asked for something to eat. It doesn’t make sense! Then she thinks about a book she tried to read last year but gave up because it was too scary. It was called Oliver Twist and it was written by a Monsieur Dickens and it started with a little orphan in an orphanage who dared to ask for a second bowl of thin gruel for breakfast because he was hungry … She brings her hand to her mouth as she thinks about what happens to little Oliver after that.

  All at once Régina seems to realize what she’s doing, and she jumps as if someone has just called her back to reality by telling her off. She looks at Rhéauna, wipes her hands on the apron she’s just put on and speaks in a contrite tone she never uses and that makes her seem even stranger. She stammers, she stutters, Rhéauna has trouble understanding what exactly she’s trying to say, so confused are her words.

  “Sorry … You see … So-so-so sorry … I’m not used … Usually … See, I’m always alone here and … Well … See, I’m not used to … I’m not used to having people … Especially children … I don’t know anything about … I don’t know what to do … I’ve got a nice dish of eggs goldenrod … In a little while we’ll have some nice eggs goldenrod …”

  She runs to the icebox, opens it, points to the egg sauce that in fact Rhéauna can’t see.

  “I made it last night … I’ll warm it up …”

  Grandma Joséphine says, though, that you should never reheat eggs goldenrod because it can go bad, that you have to eat it in one meal if you don’t want to get sick … Anyway it’s so good that there’s never any left. A tremendous gloom falls on Rhéauna’s shoulders: she has a choice between eating some dangerous eggs goldenrod that’s liable to poison her or to be left hungry until the next morning. She doesn’t dare
imagine what kind of bread her aunt Régina uses to make her toast in the morning … Or butter to spread on it … Or strawberry jam, if there is any …

  Régina goes back to the stove with quick little steps, burns her finger when she accidentally touches the kettle, lets out a little yelp more from exasperation than from pain, rushes to the sink to run cold water over it. Vigorously she works the pump, holding her injured finger under the metal spout.

  “I don’t know what I … I never burn myself … I don’t know what … Can you go sit in the living room? Wait there for me … I’ll bring your tea and crackers, I won’t be long … But don’t watch, you can see how it upsets me …”

  Back in the living room, Rhéauna settles into a corner of the sofa, making herself as small as she can. Everything around her is distressing, the curtains drawn in the middle of the day; the ecru-lace headrests that very likely no head has ever rested on; the threadbare carpet, its designs long since faded, that barely hides the pitiful state of the hardwood floor; the furniture too big for the room, especially the upright piano that takes up nearly one whole wall. Why on earth does her grandfather’s sister have a piano in her living room?

  The absence of food smells worries her, too. In the house in Maria there is always an aroma of something simmering, a soup made from yesterday’s delicious leftovers or the evening meal that has been cooking since morning. Or a cake that is rising in the oven. When you climb the stairs to the veranda, you are already glad to be there and the appetizing aromas make your mouth water. Here, no sooner have you arrived than you want to leave. Because it smells of nothing. Except for commercial disinfectant.

  She has an urge to leave, taking her suitcase with her. Anywhere. Running. Even if it means losing her way or rushing at the first policeman she sees to ask for help. There must be hundreds of them here in Regina, whereas Maria has only one, a Monsieur Nadeau, who is jovial and always drunk. She is on the point of doing it, she’s about to set her foot on the ground while looking in the direction of the door, her heart pounding, when Régina appears, carrying a tray with an old white china teapot flanked by two mismatched cups and a tiny plate of crackers. Rhéauna will never know then if she would have found the courage to leave her great-aunt’s house without asking for her due, like a thief caught red-handed.