Crossing the Continent

by Michel Tremblay

  She sinks into the sofa cushions, takes a cracker, just one, and brings it to her mouth without haste when she would like to stuff it into her mouth and swallow it whole before grabbing the others with both hands. While she waits for the warmed-up eggs goldenrod. Which may be deadly.

  Never in her life has she tasted anything so insipid.

  Or seen food so pale.

  Everything on her plate is white. And mushy. And runny. When her grandmother makes eggs goldenrod, it’s usually to go along with a salmon pie in which you can always see a big piece of delicious pink flesh under the rich yellow sauce; but what her aunt has just set down in front of her is a plate covered with a kind of nearly transparent soup with a few pieces of hardboiled eggs floating in it that can’t even colour the dish because the yellow is so washed-out. And chalky. No salmon pie, of course; that would be too good. Just a thin slice of bread, which by the way is fresh and delicious. If she weren’t so hungry she could claim fatigue from her trip to save herself from this meal that promises to be disgusting, and go to bed right away, taking along the slice of bread without butter, but to her great displeasure her stomach started making its noises again as soon as Régina came in with the soup tureen, even if it had no aroma and, despite her disgust, she quickly grabs her soup spoon because the sauce is too liquid to eat with a fork. As she expected it has absolutely no taste. She is a little relieved; at least what she puts in her mouth and swallows as quickly as she can doesn’t upset her stomach and will most likely check her hunger. Before it kills her.

  The meal takes place in awkward silence. Earlier Régina let Rhéauna know that she doesn’t know how to behave with children and the girl has nothing to say to this great-aunt who seems to be the one who takes the blame for everyone else’s deeds, on the pretext that she is an old maid in a society where an unmarried woman is abnormal, and whom she has hardly ever talked to because she stays in her own corner, even during the lively meals at Christmastime. She doesn’t say that what she is eating is good because she doesn’t want to lie and her aunt, who knows that it isn’t, doesn’t ask her either. That is, Rhéauna cannot even claim that what’s on her plate isn’t good, it’s only colourless, odourless and tasteless.

  All of a sudden she thinks about school, about the last days of May, just before the final exams, when Mademoiselle Primeau taught them those three words that she thought were so beautiful – colourless, odourless, insipid – that she repeated them hundreds of times to her grandmother, who laughed as she told her that she couldn’t use them to talk about the food at home. But here, tonight, she can use them and she wants to cry. Her first real meal away from home is a disaster. She wonders what they’re eating now in Maria. She knows that they’re sad, that her two sisters may be crying, but what they are eating is no doubt delicious, her grandmother would never dare serve them a horror like what’s sitting in front of her, not even on a sad day like today.

  When Rhéauna lowers her nose into her plate, her aunt thinks that she’s being overcome by fatigue, but it’s actually unspeakable dejection that is making her head droop. Her aunt taps her hand before she grabs her empty plate without asking if she wants another helping. Is she going to eat it again tomorrow? Warmed up a second time?

  “You can go to bed whenever your want, you know, the train leaves early tomorrow morning. But Auntie has to warn you that she’s going to play the piano for a while … I hope it won’t bother you too much … your auntie can’t do without it.”

  Because the eggs goldenrod were sitting on her stomach like lead, Rhéauna decided not to go to bed right after supper. In any case, it was no later than half past six when the dishes were done, the table cleared, the floor swept. They went back to the living room, went back to their places in silence and still had nothing to say to each other. Régina asked again how everybody was in Maria, especially the brother she adores despite the way he treats her. Rhéauna replied politely. Adding a few variations to her answers to make them more interesting. She nearly told the story about the peanuts in shells, but suspecting that her aunt wouldn’t laugh, she restrained herself.

  It has been going on for a good half-hour. Now and then, Régina smoothes her dress over her knees, as if to shake off non-existent dust, clears her throat as if she’s about to speak but doesn’t say a thing. She picks up an old magazine from the little table, leafs through it, puts it back, glancing toward the piano. Why doesn’t she just sit down and play if she wants to so badly, what is she waiting for? A signal? From whom? As for Rhéauna, she drinks glass after glass of water, trying to get her meal down. But nothing works, the lump that weighs on her stomach seems to be getting bigger rather than being absorbed and she’s afraid of suffocating to death in the middle of the night, in the bed that she’ll share with her great-aunt. That’s what worries her most: how will the two of them be able to sleep in the narrow bed that she spotted in one corner of the bedroom when she was looking around the house? After all, she’s not going to press herself against the ancient body of her grandfather’s old-maid sister the way she does with Béa and Alice to console them if they’re sad or to warm them if the house is too cold. No, she’ll ask her great-aunt for permission to sleep here, on the sofa, claiming that she doesn’t want to disturb her. So much that she wishes she weren’t there – a presence imposed on a person who obviously would rather be alone. The night before she wanted the night never to end; tonight she wants it to pass as quickly as possible.

  Around a quarter past seven, Régina gets up and heads for the apartment door that opens on to the front balcony. Relieved, Rhéauna thinks that they are going for a walk in the neighbourhood and gets up from the sofa to follow her. But her aunt comes right back and seems surprised to see her standing in the middle of the living room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere, I thought …”

  Régina cuts her off as she turns toward the piano.

  “I just wanted a bit of a breeze. It’s too hot in here.”

  Resigned, Rhéauna goes back to her seat.

  Then something unusual happens. As soon as Régina sits on the piano bench and even before she raises the lid that protects the keyboard, a remarkable change occurs in her, something subtle and radical that can be felt even though Rhéauna only sees her from behind. Her movements become more flowing, her hand strokes the varnished wood, her body, stiff as it had been, is now strangely soft, and it is with very palpable excitement that she opens the music book in front of her. She smoothes it, too, with the flat of her hand but her movement is much gentler than it was when she was brushing non-existent crumbs off her long skirt a little earlier.

  She turns to her great-niece.

  “This is Schubert. Do you know Schubert?”

  She pronounces the name English-style, making the t ring out as if the Monsieur Schubert in question – whom Rhéauna has never heard of – were an American composer. Or a friend of hers in Regina who devotes his spare time to music.

  The old lady’s face is transformed. So is this Monsieur Schubert some kind of god that she reveres unconditionally? Rhéauna has seen that face on some of the sanctimonious women devoted to the Virgin Mary – Joséphine calls them holy cows – who are transformed at the moment of Holy Communion or before a particularly virulent sermon by the fat curé. Is her aunt Régina going to play some religious church music? On the piano rather than the organ? Rhéauna settles into her sofa. After all, better church music, even on the piano, than the unbearable silence that has been weighing on them until now.

  The minutes that follow are so unbelievably beautiful that Rhéauna doesn’t budge from her seat. She has never heard a piano in her life, she knows nothing about music – aside from the small church organ, there is Monsieur Fredette in Maria, the local fiddler who performs on all the birthdays and marriages but whose instrument shrieks too much to be called real music and Monsieur Fredette himself smells too strongly for anyone to hang around too long and listen to him – but what aunt Régina’s fingers are
coaxing from the white and black keys, the nearly unbearable happiness that she never suspected could be possible, the irresistible force that stirs and caresses her, transports her with ecstasy – though a few minutes earlier she had been thinking about running away from this damn house, she was so disheartened. Who would have imagined that so much beauty was hiding here with aunt Régina, the bundle of nerves the whole family fears, the quick-tempered woman who tolerates no annoyance, this slight and obviously fragile person who knows nothing about children: who would have imagined that she possesses one of the greatest secrets of the universe? And that she keeps it hidden here, inside these four walls, when she ought to be sharing it with everyone because everyone needs it to survive?

  So that’s what music is! It can be something other than Sister Marie-Marthe’s wrong notes on Sunday mornings and the insupportable squealing of Monsieur Fredette’s instrument? So it’s true that it can be beautiful?

  It begins softly, gentle as a lullaby murmured by an adored grandmother. Even more, that it’s a melody known forever – it sounds familiar the first time you hear it – but as soon as the music is imprinted on the brain and you’re convinced that you could never shake it off – just as you are beginning to hope that it will stay that way, with no variations, because it’s perfect – all at once the rhythm changes, develops, it rises and falls like laughter, it growls, too, it’s threatening and it brings tears to your eyes because something terrible is hidden there along with an immense joy and, just as suddenly, it becomes melancholy again and the oh-so-beautiful melody from the beginning returns, powerfully, more glorious than ever because of its tremendous restraint. That’s what you want to preserve; in fact, you want to carry it around for the rest of your life – that simple little melody from the beginning and the end which will have the power to soothe you during the difficult moments of life and to ornament the happy moments with one more rapture. It doesn’t end either, it seems to fade away, it blurs until you can no longer hear it. It goes on, it must go on, it cannot stop, but it can no longer be heard, that’s all. The hands are no longer wandering over the keyboard, no vibration surges from the instrument, yet it perpetuates itself in the silence that comes after.

  It lasted how long, five minutes? Twenty? Rhéauna couldn’t say, all she knows is that she would like it never to stop. That is the meaning of eternity. The music of this Monsieur Schubert. When aunt Régina’s hands leave the keyboard and move onto her knees, Rhéauna would like to hurl herself at the keys to replace them in order to get back the happiness that was too short, that doesn’t have the right to disappear.

  A second or two of silence fall over the living room at the end of the piece, then you can hear timid applause that seems to be coming from outside. Rhéauna looks out the open door. When she looks back at her aunt as if to ask her for an explanation, she realizes that Régina is smiling. You can’t say that it’s a beautiful smile, Régina’s face isn’t beautiful, but it’s a smile that illuminates, irresistibly sincere. And in the end, she can allow herself to think that it is in a sense beautiful.

  Rhéauna gets up, crosses the living room, steps out onto the balcony. Dozens of neighbours have gathered outside great-aunt Régina’s house. Some have brought chairs, as if they knew that there would be more than one piece on the program that night. Others are stretched out on blankets spread over the meagre grass that’s beginning to go yellow because there hasn’t been enough rain. Couples hold hands, whole families are peaceful and quiet, an old gentleman in a wheelchair seems to be consulting a music book. As soon as they see Rhéauna emerge from the house they applaud. Surely they don’t think that she is the one who’s just produced those phenomenal sounds. No doubt they know Régina-Coeli Desrosiers, they know that she is the great musician, not a poor little girl who’s just arrived from the far-off prairies and who had no idea that Monsieur Schubert existed! Turning a bit, she realizes that her great-aunt has followed her and that she is the one being applauded. Rhéauna steps aside to give her room. Régina, red-faced, makes a quick little bow and goes back inside after asking Rhéauna:

  “Do you want some more?”

  Does she want some more! She wants some until tomorrow morning, until her train leaves for Winnipeg, until her death, she wants some until her death. She will ask her mother for a piano when she arrives in Montreal, she’ll throw herself at it as if her life depended on it – and her life does depend on it now, she’s certain; starting now she will console herself for everything with the music of her great-aunt’s friend, that Monsieur Schubert who invented it all, all that unbelievable music!

  Before she sits at the piano her aunt turns to face her. She’s no longer the same person and Rhéauna hopes that she will never see the other one again.

  “They do that every evening.”

  “Is that why you opened the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do they do in the winter? You can’t open the door then. Do you play during the winter?”

  “I play all the time. Every evening. All year round. Winter … in the winter they can’t hear me and they wait for summer. But maybe it’s good for them to take a break …”

  She sits down at the piano. Opens another music book.

  “Did the same man compose that?”

  “No, another one. Long before him. But you’ll see, it’s just as beautiful.”

  “Why don’t you say so?”

  The question has come out by itself and Rhéauna blushes. Her aunt looks at her.

  “Why don’t I say what? What are you talking about?”

  Rhéauna coughs into her fist, takes her courage in both hands, dives in.

  “How come you never said you can play the piano? I didn’t know and I bet my little sisters don’t know either.”

  “Life’s like that, some things we want to keep to ourselves, Nana.”

  “But everybody’d be so happy to know how good you are. And … maybe Grandpa would stop saying mean things about you all the time.”

  Another smile appears on Régina’s lips, this one sad, a smile not of joy but of resignation that brings back to the surface the aunt Régina that Rhéauna never wants to see again.

  “Nothing could stop your grandfather from saying mean things about me, Nana. And I think it’s a good thing he doesn’t know I’ve got some talent. It suits him.”

  “Why does it suit him?”

  “Grown-ups are more complicated than you think, Nana. You mustn’t ask questions like that, the answers might disappoint you.”

  “Grandpa could never disappoint me. I love him too much.”

  “That’s what I’m saying; go on loving him. Meanwhile, listen to this …”

  Night has fallen without her being aware of it. The pieces of music, each more beautiful than the rest, succeeded one another all evening, now bubbling mischievously, now slow and sombre enough to break your heart. Finally, Rhéauna joins in the applause that rose up between the pieces, clapping her hands enthusiastically. Louder than anyone. She looks at her great-aunt in profile, follows the movement of her hands on the keyboard, the swaying of her head during the slow movements. She guesses at the movements of her feet on the pedals under her long skirt. No longer is she the same person and it’s this one, the woman in raptures at the piano, that she wants to remember, not the bad cook or the sour shrew who doesn’t know how to behave with children. It doesn’t matter that the eggs goldenrod was so bad and that Régina was impatient with her if it all hides such a gift. This is the first time in her life that she has met someone who has a genuine talent, in any case, aside from being able to cook marvellous dishes or, in her grandfather’s case, to tell stories that go on and on and are never boring, and she is overflowing with admiration. She doesn’t understand how it happens, how her aunt is able to read music as if the notes were words on a page, then transfer them to her fingers, give them so much meaning, so much emotion – and never lose her way! The force of habit? The repetition day after day of the same pieces? Again, it hardly
matters. What does matter is the indescribable happiness it offers her, the rose-coloured night that is falling with no one noticing, the prolonged applause coming from the sidewalk in front of the house, her aunt plunged into the music to the point of forgetting everything else, the warmth that she feels deep inside herself, that she couldn’t name but that she wants to feel forever, like a votive light, because it is consolation for everything. No, that’s not true, it’s no consolation at all. If she let herself think about what awaits her tomorrow, on the train, or in a few days when she arrives in Montreal, she knows very well that her heart would swell with bitterness, that tears would come to her eyes, that she would be as unhappy as before her great-aunt’s concert, but in fact the music of Monsieur Schubert and the other composers helps her to not think about it, and she is grateful to him for this moment of respite before the inevitable avalanche of events descends.

  With the concert over, Régina rises slowly, tucking away a lock of hair that had moved during her excitement.

  “Did you like that?”

  Rhéauna can’t speak. Her aunt understands, goes and shuts the door to the apartment after waving at the neighbours who are sending a heartfelt Merci.

  “Time for bed now. You’ve got a long train ride tomorrow.”

  Rhéauna manages to extricate herself from the sofa. She has to come back to reality, get into her nightgown, brush her teeth in the bathroom, pee as she’s been desperate to do for some time. And sleep. But she’s positive she won’t be able to. For reasons different from the night before. Will she be able to carry all that music with her, to remember the melodies, so beautiful, so captivating, to hum them at difficult moments? No, probably not. Already they’re getting away from her. She would like to grab hold of her aunt’s music books, wishes she could read them like the books by the Comtesse de Ségur or by Monsieur Dickens. But no. That requires knowledge, information that she doesn’t have. It can be learned, of course, but she may not have her great-aunt’s talent. Finally, she is condemned to be one of those who have to be content to listen.