For Sure
Page 23
!!
The orange wire emerged a little higher up on the wall, drew an arabesque and then vanished back into the wall. I heard footsteps. Maybe Pomme returning?
. . .
The arabesque was a familiar form. Could it be read? I turned my head one way, then the other. Was it necessary to get down lower to really see it?
!?
In the far corner of the room lay a mass of dusty electronic equipment, one machine piled on top of the other, and all connected by miles of tangled black cable, except for one orange coloured wire. Pomme reappeared.
“Is dis wot you call an installation, den?”
“It’s part of a project I’s workin’ on wid Zablonski.”
“Zablonski’s into electronics now?”
Pomme smiled, as though my question reminded him of something he wasn’t about to tell. He simply said:
“Zablonski’s broken troo all de media supports.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I imagined someone larger than life, completely out of my reach. For a moment I doubted my ability to interview this artist.
538.101.1
Duos
In general, incidents have less unpleasant consequences than accidents, except in the case of diplomatic incidents and border incidents.
539.78.9
Accidents
Tired of waiting for some new manifestation of anxiety in his son to correct what he perceived to be his blasé attitude as a father, Terry decided to intervene.
“Étienne, you know de udder night, when you went to bed a wee bit late, an’ I told you a story an’ den sang a song an’ after all dat, you still wasn’t sleepin’ . . .”
Fiddling with an old Transformer, Étienne nodded that he remembered that evening, and waited.
“I got de feelin’ you was like a wee bit troubled. Is der sometin’ bodderin’ you?”
The child was listening even as he continued to undo and reshape the object in his hand. Terry waited a moment.
“Maybe you doesn’t recall exactly. It’s only dat if der is sometin’ bodderin’ you, you know you can be tellin’ me an’ yer mudder. Whenever sometin’s troublin’ you, sometimes just talkin’ about it makes it not so awful bad. Turns out de ting, whatever it is, isn’t so desperate a problem after all.”
(Clic clic clac clic cloc . . .)
“Anwyay, you don’t have to remember. I just wanted you to know dat you can be tellin’ us if ever der’s sometin’ on yer mind.”
Étienne looked up at his dad for a moment — would he say something? — but then he turned back to his Transformer without speaking.
“OK?”
“OK, Dad.” (Cloc)
540.13.6
Paternity
In the end, it seems fastidious to apologize for every Acadian or Chiac turn of phrase in relation to standard French. Obviously, any language will have its own many colours and idiosyncrasies.
541.33.10
Chiac Lesson
“Me, it’s swallowin’ a piece of glass. Gets so’s I can’t eat some place where dey just broke a glass or dish or some such. It’s always brudderin’ me when I eats out anywhere.”
“You just said ‘brudderin’ instead of ‘bothering’. Maybe your fear is linked to your brother?”
“Me brudder Chip? Ha ha! I doubts it . . .”
542.137.3
Fears
(Pomme was wearing a chestnut-coloured linen shirt, adorned at regular intervals with a sparkling orange thread.)
543.131.8
Parenthesi(e)s
“Hallo, Carmen? Is Terry der?”
Usually Terry’s mother took the time to chat a bit with her daughter-in-law before asking to speak to her son.
“No, ee’s at de bookstore . . .”
“Only sometin’s just happened . . .”
Carmen could believe it. Terry’s mother was not the sort to get upset over trifles.
“I don’t know ’ow to say it. Der’s been a murder . . .”
Carmen’s heart leapt.
“A murder?!”
“Is dat not ’ow you say it?”
“You mean someone killed somebody?”
“Dat’s not de half of it . . .”
Carmen couldn’t imagine what more could follow.
“Do you want me to go and fetch Terry?”
“I don’t know ’ow ee’ll take it . . .”
Carmen’s pulse began to race.
544.25.1
Murder
And yet, Hans does not manifest all the symptoms associated with identity amnesia. He has not stopped talking to people, nor does he go out of his way to avoid being spoken to. He takes decisions, makes choices and, in spite of his detachment, he is considerate of others. True, he has no fixed address and his trajectory is unpredictable. However, wherever he happens to be, he is not evasive, he answers questions, neither retreating nor remaining within himself, and he seems approachable.
545.74.6
Hans
Terry hung up the phone.
“Holy shite!”
“Wot’s goin’ on, fer de love . . . ?!”
After her mother-in-law’s call, Carmen had rushed down to the bookstore to tell Terry to phone his parents. She wanted to be physically by his side when he heard the news.
“Dis fellow, one of me chums when I’s little — Shawn, Shawn Hébert . . . — last night, ee went an’ killed ’is dad.”
Carmen could hardly believe that Terry was somehow linked, even remotely, to a murder.
“Lord! Wot ’appened?”
“Me mom doesn’t know nuttin’ ’cept fer de rumours goin’ round.”
“Like?”
Terry did not reply. He seemed to be going in circles behind the cash.
“Been a long while since I last seen ’im, Shawn. Still . . .”
Carmen did not want to hurry him, but . . . a murder! She tried to ask her questions gently, but balancing gentleness and urgency wasn’t easy.
“Ow did ee do it, den?”
“Stabbed ’im.”
“On purpose?”
“Well! Would be kinda hard to go an’ stab somebody widout noticing.”
“Is it his fault? is what I mean.”
Terry shrugged.
“Like if it were legitimate defence, you mean?”
But Terry knew very little more.
“Don’t know, do I, but I’ll tell you one ting, his dad was no picnic. Not dat Shawn was a saint, only his dad could be terrible mean. ’Twas abuse is wot it was, really, now dat we knows wot dat is.”
“’Ow did it happen?”
Carmen was happy to have found the right tone at last, curiosity, but not without compassion.
“Dey had a fight, only I don’t know over what.”
“Was ee livin’ wid dem?”
“Yah, I tink so. Ee’d got married, only it didn’t last all dat long. His wife ended up takin’ off out west wid some udder fellow.”
As usual, when Terry evoked his past, the English words had slid naturally into his speech. Carmen knew this was not the time to point it out.
546.25.2
Murder
When he wants to read, Hans reads whatever is at hand. As though, in reading, the movement of the eyes were as important as the activity of the mind. It doesn’t matter to Hans, what he’s reading. For example, this pocket dictionary he picked up in a train station, which he reads as though it were a novel, in alphabetical order. To him, this makes perfect sense.
547.74.7
Hans
Ludmilla didn’t understand how Terry could go back to reshelving books.
“But, what are you doing?”
Terr
y turned to her, at a loss.
“You’re not just going to stay here?”
Terry finally grasped what Ludmilla meant.
“Well, I don’t see wot else I can do.”
He looked back and forth between Carmen and Ludmilla, as though pleading his case.
“Dese’re folks I’ve not seen in a shocking long time. I’m not about to butt in on der business now dat tings is turned sour. I’s too late now, ’tisn’t my place to interfere.”
And with that, Terry went back to shelving books. Carmen and Ludmilla exchanged a pitiful glance, realizing that Terry felt somewhat guilty about what had happened. Terry added:
“I’ll go by me parents’ at suppertime, an’ see wot’s wot.”
548.25.3
Murder
Blissful violet. Pale violet, dark violet, blue violet, black violet. Violet ink. Violet iodine vapour. Violet stone. Shrinking violet. White viola, blue viola, the violence of a violet bruise.
549.83.8
Bliss and Colours
No matter how he shuffled the tiles on his rack, The Cripple came up with nothing. But Antoinette knew better than to rejoice prematurely over the prolonged clacking.
“Dat fellow killed ’is dad . . . dat’s not someting you’d have tawt could happen in a town like Dieppe.”
The Cripple disagreed.
“Hun! Ask me, it’s a miracle it don’t happen more often.”
Over the years, Antoinette had learned that her husband’s occasionally brutal realism was rarely without foundation.
“Wot makes you say dat?”
“And even more so in old Dieppe. Well, anywhere where der’s old families, families wot ’ave been der since de beginnin’.”
“On account of?”
550.28.7
A Couple’s Life
“On accound of, it’s like I said de udder day, everyting happens over tree generations. Dat fellow’s young, ee’s most likely part of de tird generation. An’ dat generation der is always doin’ someting in reaction against wot came before, wot de second generation done. Or didn’t do, as may be. It’s as doh dey’re tryin’ to make amends.”
“An’ you talked to me about dis before?”
Where bliss is not the satisfaction of a desire but a place of language.
551.83.1
Bliss and Colours
Back home that evening, Terry related the details of the patricide to Carmen, Ludmilla and Zablonski:
“Seems ee stabbed ’im tree times.”
Carmen winced:
“Tree times. Ee must ’ave ’ad a terrible lot of rage in ’im.”
Terry thought so, too.
“Like I said, I didn’t see ’im all dat often. When I knew ’im, ee sometimes came on tough, but ee never scared me. I knew ’twas just a way to cover ’imself.”
“Cover himself from wot?”
Terry didn’t know exactly.
“I don’t tink even ee could tell you. I mean… his dad wasn’t a big man. I can’t see ’ow ee’d have to kill ’im in self-defense. Mind you, you can never really know a fellow’s strength.”
To support Terry, in a way, Carmen wanted to give the young man the benefit of every possible doubt.
“Could ’ave been . . . wot dey call mental alienation.”
Carmen used the English term. Even though she believed firmly in proper French, even she did not always have the right word on the tip of her tongue. Ludmilla blew on her smoking hot tea before speaking:
“Yes, temporary insanity is intriguing. It’s so difficult to imagine, and yet, obviously it does happen.”
Terry tried to imagine it:
“Fer me, it’s like all de neurons in yer brain decides to change place at de same time… like a perfect storm.”
. . .
. . .
“Is neuron masculine or feminine?”
552.25.4
Murder
Grids and diagrams: learn to count the squares, to follow the arrows, distinguish the colours, read the annotations. Understand the pattern.
553.71.9
Intro Embroidery
Waiting for The Cripple to put a word down, Antoinette reflected on what her husband had said; she tried to imagine what the young murderer could have been trying to make amends for.
“Aha! I knew it!”
The Cripple lay all his tiles down on the board. The word ferrures, or “horseshoes,” which combined with dialyser to give him 90 points.
“I figured you wasn’t takin’ all dat time fer nuttin’.”
“I knew dey would all fit in some way, but I had to wait fer de word to come to me.”
554.28.8
A Couple’s Life
In the field of topology, hope is the most popular of the virtues. It is often accompanied by the adjective good, as in the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. But the question remains: is there such a thing as bad hope?
555.66.7
The Virtues
Antoinette had drawn seven new letters, but she could see no word. She shuffled her tiles R-N-Z-I-H-A-U on her rack, hoping for a lucky accident. What she wished for above all was to double, if not triple, the value of her Z.
“Der’s dem dat tinks Oedipus killed his fawder on account of ee was jealous dat ee was sleepin’ wid his mudder. On account of Oedipus hisself was wantin’ to sleep wid ’is mudder . . .”
. . .
“Freud discovered dat.”
. . .
“Well, today, seein’ as Oedipus was supposedly an adopted child . . . some says dat ee didn’t know de man ee was killin’ was his fawder, an’ dat de woman ee wanted to sleep wid was ’is real mudder. He never knew dey was ’is real parents, on account of Polybus and Merope never told ’im.”
Antoinette, who was only half listening, would have liked to make the word zeux, Chiac for “dey” but she was missing the X. Nor was she sure that the word was included in the Poirier or Cormier Acadian dictionaries, which also served as references since the Officiel du jeu Scrabble® did not include Acadian vocabulary.
“So dat de whole story of Oedipus maybe means dat children ought to know where dey comes from. Dat if dey was adopted, dey ought to be told.”
Antoinette searched for a word on the board to which she could add her Z, but in vain.
“On account of, even if you doesn’t tell ’em, dey’ll sense sometin’. An’ sooner or later dat’s gonna blow.”
Antoinette, distracted, replied:
556.28.9
A Couple’s Life
“On account dey was adopted?”
“No. On account of family secrets end up becomin’ poison.”
The French word for “bruise” or “wound,” alone on a page: meurtrissure.
557.67.6
Terry’s Notebooks
“Tell you troo, der’s not such a terrible lot of murders, if you looks at all de problems families got.”
“Wah? G’wan!”
The Cripple did not insist. His ideas often provoked such reactions. He redistributed the letters on his rack, but found nothing better to play than myes for 14 points.
“Wot’re myes, anyways?”
“Dey’re soft-shell clams.”
“An’ why is it we doesn’t call ’em myes down ’ere, den?”
558.28.10
A Couple’s Life
Olive green, pistachio green, apple green. Celadon green. Bottle green. Green light. Vinho Verde. To go green. Miss the green. Greenland. Green patch. Green at the gills. Green thumb. Green rookie. Green-eyed monster. Jolly Green Giant.
559.83.4
Bliss and Colours
Preparing for bed that evening, Terry and Carmen picked up wher
e they’d left off:
“Ee’ll get a hearing like all de rest, den dey’ll likely put ’im in jail. Dat’s all I can figure.”
Carmen had never seen Terry like this. She figured he was looking for a particle of consolation in the face of his powerlessness in the situation.
“You never know. Might be ee couldn’t do udderwise but kill ’im. If his dad was like you say, it could’ve been provocation, don’t you tink?”
“Could be. But does dat make it justified?”
The answer was obvious. Grasping for something, Carmen fell back onto correcting Terry’s use of English words.
“Well anyway, a hearing, dat’s a trial, an’ a jail, dat’s a prison, by de way.”
Terry didn’t take it badly:
“I knows it. Just goes to show how hard ’tis when dat Dieppe Chiac runs in yer veins.”
From time to time, just so as not to lose the knack, Carmen, too, let herself slip into a mixture of French and English.
“An fer yer information, dat’s why we’ve a pair of kidneys, to clean out de blood.”
“Bingo!”
560.25.6
Murder
Dream of an anonymous character: a few children and their parents are out for a Sunday drive at Cap-Enragé. When they arrive, the dreamer, who is one of the children, realizes that the cape is anything but enraged. Essentially, it’s no more than a hairpin curve in the road at the end of which sits a small souvenir shop, more a hardware store than anything else. The family goes in, and the mother buys a few kitchen items. The possibility arises that the cape is a little further down the road, that they’ve not quite arrived. The father’s behaviour is difficult to decipher.
561.109.3
Dreams
On her next turn, Antoinette found nothing better than to lay an H down on a letter-counts-triple square to produce the interjection eh both horizontally and vertically. She didn’t like such easy solutions, even though they could sometimes be lucrative.
“Twenty-six. How low I’ve fallen since me 125 at the start.”