For Sure

by France Daigle

  389.96.2

  Characters

  And so it was that the responsibility for transforming the rocky wasteland behind the children’s playground into a vegetable garden fell to the celebrated artist Étienne Zablonski. He’d volunteered during the monthly meeting of the lofts, residents and shopkeepers. On the first Tuesday of every month a more or less official — depending on the circumstances — meeting was held at the Babar. In the absence of items requiring serious discussion, the meeting would become purely social, which was the case most times, because Zed did an excellent job as manager, and all the residents felt comfortable raising any issues with him as they came up. If things ran smoothly in the building, it was also because no one harboured unrealistic expectations. As a result, the first Tuesday of every month, a good-neighbourly evening accompanied by libations was held at the Babar, a gathering to which were also welcome friends from outside who were linked in one way or another to the dynamics of the lofts.

  390.9.3

  The Garden

  The science and wisdom of numbers have more to teach us than the elementary principles of arithmetic. Why, for example, is the number PHI, 1.618033989, considered to be the most beautiful numeral in the universe? And how do we get from PHI to the golden ratio, which is based on the relation between 3 and 5? And does this golden ratio really exist, or must we be content with striving toward it, as does the Fibonacci sequence?

  391.97.11

  Numerals and Numbers

  Later, Terry regretted having insinuated that Carmen’s hormonal fluctuations had influenced her perception of Monctonian French.

  “Hey der, Marianne? In French, we says sauté, not jumpé.”

  Marianne looked at Terry, not entirely sure what her dad was getting at.

  “Sauté?”

  “Dat’s it, sauté.”

  And Marianne threw her arms up over her head and jumped:

  “Sauté!”

  “Dat’s it, Marianne, sauté. Alright den, now we all gets in de car.”

  But her dad was willing to bide his time while Marianne did a bit more jumping.

  “Alright, Marianne, dat’s it, den. All aboard, now.”

  Finally, Marianne stopped jumping and let Terry strap her into her seat.

  “Dad, de trunk’s not closed!”

  “La valise, Étienne, we says la valise.”

  “Lots of folks says trunk.”

  “Dat may be, but we say valise. Get it?”

  A little while later:

  “Dad, I know we say sauté fer jumpé, so how come we say trippé when we wants to make someone fall down?”

  392.26.7

  The Movie

  In spite of the inexhaustible variety of languages and boundless nuances that each permits, one truth remains: human beings desire clarity and simplicity. This is evidenced by the word that introduces the largest number of titles in La Bibliothèque idéale, the word histoire in French, which can refer to the stories of people or to the history of nations but, whether these histories or stories are ordinary or extraordinary, true or imaginary, that word histoire sets the human psyche in motion. Oddly, although the genre is promising, we cannot say the same for historians, because only two titles in La Bibliothèque idéale begin with that word.

  393.48.3

  Inferences

  In spite of his good will, Étienne was beginning to run out of ideas to fill his work week. His collection of new words was not being well received at home. And yet it was an interesting game.

  “Are you comin’ over der, den?”

  The other boy peppered his sentences with English words:

  “We can stamp our feet in de cement an’ bring de slab home!”

  Though he hadn’t quite understood what it was about, Étienne followed the boy.

  “Sure, beats sittin’ ’ere wid dis boring puzzle.”

  The fact that he could employ the same language as the other boy added the thrill of adventure to their activities. Incursion into the territory of the Other.

  394.26.8

  The Movie

  Even psychoanalysis has taken up the subject of numbers because, as Lacan put it, “speaking beings count and account for themselves.” We can deduce from this that people suffering from neuroses (obsessional, hypochondriac) and psychoses have certain things in common when it comes to their relationship to numbers, but Lacan warns against a simplistic use of the arithmetical metaphor.

  395.97.12

  Numerals and Numbers

  While running an errand for the bookstore, Terry noticed a van for sale parked in a vacant lot owned by the city. The vehicle looked to be in good shape, so he did a U-turn to take a closer look. He liked the van’s resilient attitude, a quality that corresponded to the image he had of their little family. He took down the telephone number written on a piece of cardboard in the front windshield: 383-8383.

  396.27.2

  New Car

  Letters and correspondence offer humans near as much interesting material as do stories. The titles of La Bibliothèque idéale beginning with the words letter and correspondence are almost as numerous as those announcing one or more stories. Entirely subjective, letters and correspondences probably function as a counterweight to the stories so painstakingly designed by authors, and to history, which historians study so assiduously.

  397.48.4

  Inferences

  The need for an organ of standardisation and preservation of the Acadian language is nowhere more pressing than in the case of the word for “this,” cte pronounced “ste.” This demonstrative article, which replaces ce, cet and cette, leads to the necessity of clarifying a whole battalion of deictic expressions: sticit, sticitte, stilà, stelle-là, stelle-cit, stelle-citte, stelli-cit, and stiya-là — most of which originate in the vernacular Latin — culminating in the famous ceuses-là.

  “Dat way, dem’s dat might be wantin’ to say dis ’ere dis way, could go right ahead an’ say: ‘De cte wé-là, ceuses-là qui voudriont le dire de même pourriont itou.’”

  398.30.5

  Chiac

  Recipe for carrot cake. Bof.

  399.57.10

  Photocopies

  Despite her profound conviction, Carmen did not want to be intransigent:

  “I’ll wait to see it before I make up my mind.”

  Terry had already phoned the owner of the van and obtained some information. The owner agreed to meet them with the keys to the van in the vacant lot at six o’clock that evening.

  “How is it he didn’t come over ’ere with it? Would’ve been a whole lot simpler, seems to me.”

  Terry agreed with her, the best course of action under the circumstances.

  “Dat’s true. Shall I call ’im back, den?”

  On second thought, Carmen realized that she did not want to inspect the vehicle under the noses of her neighbours, considering the touchy discussion that was likely to ensue. Nor did she relish the thought of every Tom, Dick, and Harry butting in with his opinion on the vehicle.

  “Naw, never mind. Since we’re goin’ out, might as well stop over at the Dairy Queen with the kids. Been a long time since we did that.”

  400.27.3

  New Car

  (Perhaps) the (supposed) opposition between Freud and Lacan stems from their different linguistic cultures. Freud, for his part, tried to describe (inscribe) as clearly as possible his research, and the ideas and conclusions that followed from it. Any yet, once these were written down (and many times rewritten), Freud still felt he had failed to do justice to the marvels of psychic nature he had witnessed. For Lacan, the unconscious is revealed first and foremost in speech. Hence the surprising gaps (traps) opened up by puns and word play (ploy) typical of Lacan’s methodological choice (voice). />
  401.34.7

  Lacan

  “Like, wid dem tartan designs in Scotland, does you know if dey has to follow every, wot you call golden ratio afore dey’re chosen official tartan of de clan?”

  402.92.1

  Questions without Answers

  Memoirs come in about halfway down the ladder of interest we can extrapolate from the titles of La Bibliothèque idéale. There are approximately 30 titles beginning with the word memoirs.10

  403.48.5

  Inferences

  Carmen walked round the van again, holding Étienne by the hand. At one point, the boy pulled away to go over and kick the front tire the way he’d seen Terry do it. Carmen observed how quickly males establish a kind of authority over machines. “Where’ve you been, Bergère, where’ve you been? Where’ve you been, Bergère, where’ve you been? . . .”

  Terry sang softly as he circled the van with Marianne in his arms.

  “I’ve been in the stable . . .”

  Meanwhile, seated behind the wheel of a muddy Grand Cherokee, with a cellphone to his ear, the owner of the van for sale was talking and looking through a stack of documents he kept unfolding, turning over, and refolding.

  404.27.4

  New Car

  It would not be wrong to say that the characters in literary fiction are the avatars of their authors, that is, at once, their representations, their metamorphoses and their misfortunes.

  405.76.6

  Avatars

  The possibility considered, early on, to write one fragment for each of the six faces of 1,728 cubes. In the end, the book would have contained 10,368 fragments, or six times the number in this version. Monstrous project. No desire whatsoever to mount such a monster.

  407.54.7

  Forgotten/Recalled

  “Essentially, we eat vegetables at one of three stages of their development.”

  Sporting the panama hat Ludmilla had bought him for the occasion, Étienne Zablonski was explaining the rudiments of a vegetable garden to the other three, who were zigzagging with him behind the lofts building, between the children’s playground and the train tracks.

  “First, there’s the vegetative stage, which includes the leaves and the tender roots, like lettuce, radishes, carrots and turnips.”

  Zablonski wondered if his approach might not be too professorial. But since they had decided on a vegetable garden designed à la française, he was obliged to offer at least some explanation.

  “Other vegetables, we eat at the reproductive stage. Those are the ones whose flowers we eat before they pollenate and produce seeds: broccoli, cauliflower, and artichoke, for example.”

  At this point Zablonski had a moment of doubt regarding the inclusion of the artichoke in the French vegetable garden. Which is understandable, because France was starting to be a long time ago by now.

  “And finally there are those we eat at the post reproductive stage; in other words, vegetables whose fruits we consume. Tomatoes for example, and all the flesh that covers seeds.”

  “Hun!”

  This initial reaction from his audience reassured Zablonski, who was beginning to worry that his assistants might not be interested in such details.

  “Obviously, the vegetables we eat at the vegetative stage will be harvested long before those whose fruits we eat.”

  . . .

  “Logically, we can plant and harvest those we eat at the vegetative stage several times — lettuce, for example — during a single cycle of the stage that produces fruit, like tomatos, squash, etc. . . . So it would be handier — as we say in these parts — to plant the lettuce with easy access, compared to the carrots, for example. That’s the sort of useful detail to keep in mind when we decide where to place the planks.”

  “Hun!”

  Lisa-M. was thrilled to learn so much basic knowledge in such a short time. Zed, for his part, knew exactly where to find the boards they would need. And rather than try to continue talking while the passenger train to Halifax clattered by, Zablonski accepted a cigarette from Antoinette.

  408.9.2

  The Garden

  As for the personal “journal,” much preferred to literary or other kinds of “journals”, if it lacks the charisma of stories and correspondences, it comes in a close second, ahead of memoirs. Forty or so titles of La Bibliothèque idéale begin with the word journal. To brush up against history while telling one’s own experience.

  409.48.6

  Inferences

  When the caboose had filed past, Le Grand Étienne picked up his lecture:

  “Vegetables don’t all require the same conditions to flourish. In general, those we eat at the first stage like cool weather and a bit of sun. Too much heat will exhaust them.”

  . . .

  “This is true for spinach, for example. We plant it in the spring and again after the dog days of summer.”

  Antoinette nodded.

  “Finally, the basic principle of the garden is to always have something to pick, always fresh vegetables. In France, this means all year round. But here in Canada, we’ll obviously have to adapt.”

  “It’ll take a whole lot o’ work to get someting to grow in dis ’ere ground.”

  The three others turned to Antoinette, who was scraping the heel of her boot against the hard, rocky soil, a movement that did little more than raise a bit of dust. Zed had anticipated the difficulty:

  “I snatched up a pick in a garage sale last week. We can bust up de ground wid it.”

  The Cripple’s wife was undaunted:

  “Well, der’s notin’ like eatin’ radishes an’ beats an’ peas you been watchin’ grow up from nuttin’ outside yer own kitchen window. Even doh, wid dese ’ere, I’ll be lookin’ at dem from me livin’-room window.”

  410.9.4

  The Garden

  But the most surprising inference drawn from an analysis of the titles of La Bibliothèque idéale is the following: the number of titles beginning with the words poem, poetry, and poetic is equal to the number of titles beginning with the words war and battle.

  411.48.7

  Inferences

  “So, den it’s de colour you don’t fancy?”

  Terry was already convinced this was the perfect vehicle — and for a good price! — for their family, but he didn’t want to force Carmen into liking the van. At the same time he was vaguely aware that his effort to be nice could be interpreted as a kind of manipulation. But Carmen didn’t seem to notice:

  “She doesn’t look too old to you? No shine or anythin’ . . .”

  After their first discussion about replacing their car, Carmen had started to think that Terry wasn’t entirely wrong, that it would probably be wiser to buy a used vehicle. But not being quite ready to say so openly, she beat a bit around the bush:

  “Inside’s not so bad. It’s not torn up or anythin’.”

  Terry tried to keep from pushing too hard:

  “Sure an’ we’ll have to get her inspected proper. Find out if she’s bin driven too hard, or if she was in a crash . . . or if der’s parts need replacin’, stuff like dat.”

  He turned to his son:

  “Well, den? What do you think?”*

  412.27.5

  New Car

  * It is worth noting Terry’s careful language here — “What do you think?” rather than “Wot does ya tink?” He made the effort, for example, to use the word quesse for “what” instead of his usual “quoisse” in a moment of delicate transaction with Carmen. Did he deliberately slip the more proper “quesse” into his question to Étienne in order to please Carmen and, in that way, perhaps influence her, or did he say it spontaneously, which is possible though unlikely? Unless it was neither of the above, but rather that his use of “quesse” was
simply a linguistic slippage into more proper speech.

  414.143.5

  Varia

  In the scattered unwinding of this novel, I forgot to mention that Lisa-M., who first appeared in Life’s Little Difficulties, had sinced moved into a loft with Pomme, who has become Zablonski’s self-proclaimed impresario, not that Le Grand Étienne was looking for one, but he is amused and surprised by Pomme’s tortuous and gently treacherous artistic theories.

  413.7.3

  Useful Details

  Freud believed in the possibility of coincidence in the external world, but not in the psyche.

  415.39.12

  Freud Circuitously

  Étienne tried his luck:

  “Me an’ Uncle Étienne could paint it.”

  “Yi yi!”

  Marianne fully supported her big brother’s idea, but Étienne could not return the favour:

  “Naw, Marianne, yer too little. An’ you ’aven’t taken de class.”

  Astonished by this refusal, Marianne turned to her mother, who welcomed her into her arms, while addressing Étienne:

  “’Tisn’t so easy to paint a car. It’s not like a drawing or painting a wall . . .”

  But Étienne was confident:

  “Won’t be hard fer Uncle Étienne.”

  Terry, too, tried to reason with his son:

  “Folks have to go to college to learn how to paint cars. It’s sometin’ a fellow’s got to study fer. Not to mention, you need all kinds of special equipment to do it.”

  Étienne, not daring to pursue the issue, pulled on a long stalk of grass beside him.

  “Still, you can say what colour you’d like to paint ’er . . .”

  Unmoved by Terry’s offer, Étienne remained silent.