Neighbourhood Watch

by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette

  Neighbourhood Watch

  by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette

  translated by Rhonda Mullins

  Coach House Books, Toronto

  Original French copyright © Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Éditions Hurtubise, 2010 English translation © Rhonda Mullins, 2020

  First English-language edition. Originally published as Je voudrais qu’on m’efface by Éditions Hurtubise Inc., 2010.

  Coach House Books acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada. We are also grateful for generous assistance for our publishing program from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Title: Neighbourhood watch / by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette ; translated by Rhonda Mullins.

  Other titles: Je voudrais qu’on m’efface. English

  Names: Barbeau-Lavalette, Anaïs, author. | Mullins, Rhonda, translator.

  Description: Translation of: Je voudrais qu’on m’efface.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020036457x | Canadiana (ebook) 20200364618 | ISBN 9781552454176 (softcover) | ISBN 9781770566538 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781770566545 (PDF)

  Classification: LCC PS8603.A705 J413 2020 | DCC C843/.6—dc23

  Neighbourhood Watch is available as an ebook: ISBN 978 1 77056 653 8 (EPUB); 978 1 77056 654 5 (PDF)

  Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook of this title, please email sales@chbooks.com with proof of purchase. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.)

  To Geneviève, my little sister.

  To Gilles Julien.

  Author’s Note

  I first encountered the neighbourhood of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve through its children, thanks to its children.

  After travelling around the world, a trip during which I trained my camera (I am a filmmaker) on some of the planet’s fault lines – from people dying of AIDS in Soweto to street children in São Paulo – I searched for somewhere to help closer to home.

  This is where I went. Toward this neighbourhood in eastern Montreal, one of the poorest in the country. Through the social pediatrician Gilles Julien, I was lucky enough to meet the person who would become my sister: Geneviève. I was twenty-one, and she was twelve. Holding Geneviève’s hand, I got to know this neighbourhood and the people who live there. Going into their homes, in the midst of the collapse, I met little fighters, so full of life.

  I had the good fortune to spend years working with them. Now they are adults, some still seem like an open wound, and others are miraculously full of light. This book is what I wanted to scream to draw attention so they would be heard.

  To Geneviève, Kevin, and Eden, who inspired this book.

  To Nathan, Geneviève’s young son. From your proud godmother.

  To all the little fighters in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and all the others around the world.

  – Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette

  один

  1

  It’s been dark in the stairway for a few lifetimes.

  Light bulbs need changing, but everyone thinks someone else is going to do it. Eventually everyone just forgets that it’s dark.

  You sort of remember, only in winter, when you’re tying your laces and trying not to fall.

  Roxane has always had trouble with her laces. Two rabbit ears, that’s what they say. But rabbit ears don’t look like that.

  Anyway, one day she’s going to have boots and then fuck you, rabbits.

  Roxane yanks her toque down on her head.

  The pigeons are cooing in the ceiling. Roxane stops to listen.

  If she were taller, she could peek between the boards to look at them. They must be settled in nicely, huddled together so they don’t freeze. The dad, the mom, and the babies, all huddled up.

  ‘Hi!’

  Kevin’s little voice. He’s the neighbour in 62. When he talks, he flings his words. It’s like they are going too fast for him, like they come out of his mouth and take off running. He’s like that too. Uncontained. Right now he’s trying to get his key in the lock, but he’s so jumpy that it goes every which way but in the keyhole. Roxane watches him. There, it’s in.

  ‘Bye!’

  He tears down the stairs.

  He must be going to a match. He’s been going to more ever since his mom took off. His father is Big, and Big always wins. Kevin wants to be like his father. He wants to win.

  Roxane holds the handrail so she doesn’t fall. She goes down slowly, looking at her feet.

  On the next floor down, Mélissa throws opens the door to 58. Her bangs hide her eyes. It’s as if she would rather stay hidden. The bangs are a compromise: I’m going, but you won’t see my face.

  Today is judgment day.

  * * *

  Mélissa.

  A virtually empty hearing room. Beige walls, brown benches. Wordless whispers in the air. Background noise with no substance, no personality. It’s like everyone has worked hard to make it feel dead. Like they left life outside the door, waiting for this to pass: inside, it’s just too rough to take.

  From behind her bangs, Mélissa’s eyes scan the few faces that have come to hear the decision. She doesn’t know them. She can’t grab on to any of them, even with just her eyes, even through her hair. There’s her mother. But she’s sitting at the other end.

  Weathered. Even skinnier than last time. High as a kite.

  She sits on the other side of the hearing room, hunched, shrunken. Her whole body says, ‘Don’t do this to me.’ But Mélissa is the only one who hears it. Even though she is far away. She hears it. Because even hunched, even fucked up to her core, Meg is her mother. That’s what the people here don’t understand. Meg is her mother, no matter what.

  It’s probably just too simple.

  Mélissa knows they put Meg at the other end on purpose so she can’t grab her, hold on to her with her eyes, hold her tight.

  Mélissa at one end, Meg at the other. Daughter, mother.

  A few weary faces that feed on the decisions like a bad soap opera.

  A tired judge takes three sentences to say that they won’t be seeing each other anymore.

  ‘Madame, you need to maintain a distance of fifty metres from your daughter until we have proof of your rehabilitation.’

  Other empty words are threaded on the necklace, while Meg and Mélissa vanish a little more.

  • • •

  Kevin.

  A church basement. Showy lights, strobe flashes, heavy metal.

  Behind the smoke, a rough-looking crowd. Children, adults, excitement peaking.

  ‘LET’S GO, BIG! KILL ’IM! KILL ’IM!’

  In the middle of the room, a ring. Two wrestlers face to face, dressed in bright colours, faces distorted by grimaces and makeup.

  In the crowd, Kevin, eyes glued to the match.

  Smaller than the others, gets jostled but stays riveted to the ring, spellbound.

  He gnaws on his lips, nervous.

  The larger of the two wrestlers sends his adversary bouncing off the ropes, grabs him, throws him to the mat, jumps on him. The crowd goes wild. Ding ding ding. Big is declared the winner. The other guy is lying knocked out on the mat.

  Kevin jumps for joy. ‘Yesssssss!’

  The winner, in a red cape, salutes the crowd in triumph. Shines under the white light.

  ‘BIG! BIG! BIG!’

  Kevin chants along with the crowd: ‘BIG! BIG! BIG!’

  His dad won again. When his dad wins, Kevin wins.

  * * *

  Roxane.

/>   Gets off the metro at Georges-Vanier. The Salvation Army is right across the street. She goes there often; she knows everyone there. The guys like her. They all say Marc is lucky to have a daughter like her.

  ‘You’re lucky, Marc. That’s one special daughter you’ve got there.’

  Roxane goes often. Not just because it’s the only place in the world she’s special. But because her father’s been there a few months. Now he’s done. Tonight he gets his certificate. That means he’s won. He’s still going to stay there until he finds a job and to make sure he won’t backslide, but he’s done, he’s won, he’s gone through all the steps. He’s stopped drinking.

  It’s the fourth time he’s dried out. The other times he fell off the wagon; he faltered. But the fourth time’s the charm.

  Roxane walks through the wall of smokers at the entrance. ‘Hey, Louis. Hey, Pascal. Hey, Charles.’ She goes inside. She feels good here. Everyone talks to her. Everyone thinks she’s the best daughter in the world.

  Her father is on the other side of the room, in a corner. Looks nervous.

  The room is decorated with garland and lights. They’re handing out free Cokes and coffee as you come in. Christmas is coming.

  Her father got spruced up. Put on a blue shirt tucked into his pants. Slicked back his grey hair. Looks tired, his face weathered.

  He spots her from across the room. Walks toward her. Long, unsteady strides. As if he might fall off his feet.

  She’s all he has left. You don’t walk the same when you’re walking toward the only thing you have left. He reaches her, finally, as if reaching the other side of the world.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey, Dad.’

  Around them are others. Warriors. Some at the end of the battle, proud and restless. Others still making their first forays, a halo of alcohol as their shield.

  Roxane takes her father’s large hand in hers. They go sit on one of the benches set up in a row. At the front of the room, a mic and a Christmas tree the guys have trimmed. A few Christmas lights blink tentatively.

  A man takes the mic. He is tall and pale, with all the panache of a basement in winter. His voice reverberates through the room.

  ‘Tonight, we’re going to celebrate winners. Big winners. For the new guys in the room, for those of you who are struggling and think you won’t make it, the twelve guys you’re about to see thought the same thing when they got here.’

  Roxane looks at her father out of the corner of her eye. His aged face. His green eyes lost in the hollows. Turns toward her. Breaks into the remains of a smile.

  The tired face of a survivor. She hugs him.

  She’s loved him for so long.

  She wants to save him for good.

  It’s hot as hell in the room. And yet it’s winter. There’s something in here. A distillation of humanity. Guys, raw men.

  ‘Our next winner’s an old-timer … He’s fallen off the wagon a bunch of times. But now he’s on it and holding strong … Marc, come on up.’

  Marc stands, unsteady.

  ‘I’m going to ask his daughter, Roxane, to give him his certificate.’

  Standing in front of a mic that’s too short. A tank, a guy you’d picture at the throttle of a Harley, decked out in leather and tattoos.

  But now he’s standing in front of the guys, sunk into his shoulders. Trembling.

  Emotion. He takes his time, because if he opens his mouth too fast he’s going to cry too loud.

  So he clears his throat.

  Swallowing his tears, Marc tells the story of the end of the world that everyone in the room is familiar with, and the asshole you become at the end of that world. When your anchor is a goddamn brown bottle. When everything you are is contained in a few gulps, and your last breath is a burp. How it seems like you’ll never get back on your feet. How you’re hollow inside; how you’ve dug your own grave. Swallowed what was left of your pride. In over your head.

  Marc grips the mic in his clammy hands. He has so little carapace left; he’s so real it almost hurts.

  In one breath to get to the end of it, he touches on Hell, the phone calls from his daughter – he looks at her – the phone calls from his daughter and her ‘Don’t give up, Dad,’ the nights when he grabbed life by the scruff and bellowed whatever dreams he had left at it. His native Gaspésie, a wooden house at the edge of a cliff that plunges to the sea, a house all his own. Small – it doesn’t have to be big – but on the ocean. And a motorcycle parked out front. To fly down the beautiful country roads. Free. With the wind in his face and his daughter on the back holding tight.

  Dreams as a life preserver. So long as they are more solid than him.

  Roxane hands him his certificate. She had come up with some words to say into the mic, but they aren’t there anymore. She just wants to be his daughter, proud of him. She takes him in her arms. She feels so strong, and he, so little.

  The family of warriors looking on applauds.

  The doors open onto winter. On either side of them, there is a storm.

  * * *

  A few streets away, the lights come back on in the church basement: the match is over. Sallow fluorescent lights on sunken faces. Back to reality. A lineup divides the space in two. Fat mothers, babies slung around their necks; broken-down old men, beer in hand; overexcited boys and crop-topped girls: everyone waiting their turn.

  One by one, they climb into the ring and pose with Big.

  The little kids wrap themselves in his cape. Big grabs them by the throat like a villain. ‘Kill me! Kill me!’ Click. The master of ceremonies snaps a Polaroid, and for five bucks, the kid leaves with a picture to hang on the wall. ‘That’s the time Big tried to kill me!’

  It’s Kevin’s turn. He jumps in the ring, throws his arms around Big, who scoops him up, affection written all over his face. Kevin almost falls, steadies himself, poses seriously, pulling a bit of cape around his shoulders.

  The master of ceremonies takes the picture and holds it out to Kevin.

  ‘You’re hooked there, Kev! You already got, like, twenty!’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  * * *

  Roxane and Marc are sitting beside each other on their bench. The certificates have all been handed out. Now they drink coffee and try to convince themselves it will last. The night’s winners mingle with the newly joined, hunched, frail, perforated from the inside, struggling to stand. In a year, it’ll be their night, at least the ones who make it that far.

  The guys are talking and laughing. The emotion hanging in the room gradually dissipates.

  Roxane takes out a worn pack of Du Mauriers from her bag. ‘From Mom.’

  Marc grabs the old pack, the same as always. Inside there are twelve machine-rolled smokes. ‘Thanks.’

  Roxane rifles through her bag again. ‘I brought you a gift.’

  She takes out a shapeless object, messily wrapped in yellow tissue paper.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open it.’

  Marc’s thick fingers touch the tissue paper. It’s nice, a wrapped gift. Prolongs the surprise. The corners taped so it holds, so the surprise lasts. Marc lets the moment linger, touched. His callused fingers gently stroke the delicate paper, like a first meeting. Roxane could watch him do that her whole life.

  The white triangle of a sail unfurls in his hand.

  ‘A boat! It’s beautiful … ’

  ‘To remind you of Gaspésie.’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks, sweetie … I won’t forget. I won’t forget, promise.’

  He wraps his strong arms around her.

  You have to remember your dreams so you don’t drown from within.

  * * *

  It’s dark out. It’s snowing. The metro’s going to stop running soon. In the entrance to the Salvation Army, the electric buzz of fluorescent lights.

  Roxane puts her snowsuit back on. Marc, in an awkward gesture, adjusts her scarf. He would have liked to have been a father. A real one.

  Sometimes he manage
s to tell himself that maybe it’s not too late.

  ‘Bye, sweetie.’

  ‘Bye, Dad.’

  ‘Get home safe. Take care of yourself.’

  He says dad words, because he rarely gets the chance. They land a bit fake in the echoey entrance, but it feels good to say them.

  ‘You too, Dad. Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I’m proud of you … ’

  That one sounded true. Genuine dad.

  ‘Me too, Dad, I’m proud of you … ’

  Marc hugs her again.

  Roxane keeps her face buried in her father’s neck, under his hair. That’s where the warm smell of days spent without her accumulates.

  * * *

  Dark silence in the apartment block. It’s night. Even the pigeons are quiet. Only the wood of the stairs is expanding, echoing from wall to wall. A wisp of wind slips through the windows, seeking refuge between the floors, snaking under the doors.

  A man suddenly splits the night and tears down the stairs, suitcase in hand.

  A long furtive silhouette. In flight.

  Mélissa is out like a shot, yelling after him. ‘Where are you going?’

  The man is already outside.

  Mélissa yells louder. ‘Where are you going?’

  The man is already gone, and Mélissa’s voice bounces off the walls.

  In her pyjamas, in the stairwell, Mélissa doesn’t cry.

  Her stepfather is gone. Her mother too. She thought that if he loved Meg, he must love her a little too. Like an appendage to her mother. Too small probably. Too ugly.

  Meg is gone, and her boyfriend too.

  Frozen in the dark, Mélissa gets used to the emptiness. If she could leave her head there, she would.

  The downstairs door opens again. The wind spots its chance. Wraps around Mélissa, who isn’t moving.

  The dull thud of laden feet on the steps. Roxane, coming up the stairs in a snowsuit, stops in front of her.

  The girls look at each other.‘Save me,’ they say silently to each other.

  Mélissa tears herself away from Roxane’s blue eyes and goes back inside.