For Sure
Page 47
. . .
“Der’s nuttin’ wrong really. An’ I don’t tink ’tis on account of ’er bein’ older dan me an’ all dat. ’Twouldn’t be on account of dat, I don’t tink.”
“Der’s just sometin’ missin’ . . .”
“Dat’s it. Der’s sometin’ missin’.”
Terry held his tongue, sensing that Zed still had something he wanted to say.
“Anyhow, I tinks she feels it as well. I suppose we ought to be talkin’ ’bout it.”
. . .
. . .
“Might be dat wid Chico, now . . .”
Zed had expected the addition of Chico in their lives would perhaps change something for Élizabeth and him, but Terry’s way of putting it cast a different light on the matter.”
“Fer sure, dat changes tings . . .”
Deep in thought, Zed did not go further. Terry thought to conclude by lightening things up a bit:
“Could be you wants Chico all fer yerself!”
“Could be!”
The idea made the two friends laugh, but Zed added:
“I’s laughin’ only ’tis de God’s troot’ all de same. It’s as doh I needs Chico to feel der’s somebody — one person — dat’s der just fer ’im, an’ dat person’s meself. Only me, an’ all o’ me. So, in a way, yes, I wants ’im all fer meself.”
Without realizing it, Terry had hit the mark.
“Might not be like dat fer all time, but has to be like dat fer a while anyhow. Chico an’ me, we gotta find ourselves, gotta build a life fer ourselves. We gotta gel.”
. . .
“So, deep down, could be I doesn’t want Élizabeth to be der as much as all dat. An’ not only dat, I don’t tink she is der really. Not dat she shows it. Not a bit. Like I says, ’tis more just a feeling I’s got.”
Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Terry could see the two boys were fast asleep. Étienne’s hands had relaxed, but they still lay open with both palms turned up.
1116.63.8
Terry and Zed
“Does all dat make any sense at all?”
“Makes sense to me.”
True or false: Louis Aragon met his muse Elsa Friolet in Caraquet in 1928.
1117.140.1
Caraquet
Before disappearing through the door he’d come in, Shawn turned to me and said:
“Der’s a fellow comes in to see me time to time. Ee tinks ee’s helpin’ me out. Ee talks an’ I listens. You ask me, ee needs more help dan I does.”
That shook me. We weren’t alone in the room. Was he allowed to shout like that? The guard didn’t seem to mind. Shawn added:
“Write dat.”
1118.103.5
Disappearances
The long saga of human languages provides a terrain rich in matters for reflection. In Sudan, for example, approximately 100,000 people* speak 1 or the other of 30 languages belonging to the small Nigero-kordofanian family. Which amounts to an average of 3,300 speakers per language. Do these people have the feeling that their ethnic group will disappear? Are they worried about it?
1119.112.11
Languages
* The population of metropolitan Moncton is approximately 100,000.
1122.143.4
Varia
“’Ow come den dat Marianne’s never gotta be apologizin’?”
“We don’t say how come. We say pourquoi.”
“Pourquoi, den?”
“On account of she’s too young, isn’t she. She doesn’t understand how apologizin’ works yet.”
Seeing that Étienne did not look satisfied, Carmen added:
“An’ on account of yer older, there’s tings that Marianne’ll be learnin’ from you. That’s why ’tis important you set a good example.”
“Only, I doesn’t want to give me good example to Marianne.”
“An’ why not, pray tell?”
“On account of she takes everytin’ apart. Every time I give her sometin’ she only takes it apart.”
Carmen felt like laughing, but restrained herself.
“A good example’s not something a person can take apart. ’Tis only sometin’ you see and hear, an’ seein’ an’ hearin’ it often enough, you starts to figure that’s the way to behave.”
Étienne knew you weren’t supposed to burp after drinking pop.
“Bein’ de elder has its advantages as well. You can drink ginger ale, but Marianne’s too young. She can only drink juice.”
Carmen had been clearing the table as she spoke.
“Mum! You took me plate, only I weren’t done eatin’!”
As a matter of fact, Carmen had assumed Étienne would not finish his macaroni and cheese.
“Oops!”
Carmen put back Étienne’s plate:
“’Ere ya go, me big boy. I apologize.”
Étienne speared a forkfull of macaronis, ate them in silence, and then concluded:
“Alright den, Mum, I’ll set de good example as well.”
1120.86.12
Apologies
Belated discovery: the character of Élizabeth is in fact an interpretation, an unconscious representation of another character: Lydia Towarski in Romain Gary’s novel Clair de femme (The Light of a Woman). To be honest, Élizabeth and Alida, another character in Real Life, are both sketches of Lydia Towarski. One might deduce from this that a part of Lydia Towarski lives on in Catherine. Catherine?
1121.96.6
Characters
no one on the beach
so many folks in me head
wash dem in water
1123.55.11
Haikus
No matter how long and loud Chico shouted, Étienne did not turn around. Finally, Chico went to him at the far end of the yard.
“Yer deef as a cod!”
?
“Are ya pickin’ up recyclables today?”
“OK.”
Chico and Étienne never had any trouble finding recyclable drink containers in the neighbourhood, especially on the grounds of the English school next to their building. Zed had found them a small wagon for collecting.
“Wot’re ya gonna do wid yer money, den?”
“Don’t know. I’m savin’ it.”
“I’s gonna buy a dustpan fer me granny’s birt’day. ’Er’s is old an’ banged up.”
Étienne liked the fact that Chico took care of his grandmother.
“I can help you pay fer it, if you like.”
“Naw, I can pay fer it on me own.”
. . .
. . .
“Do you buy tings fer Shawn sometimes?”
Chico shrugged.
“Ee only wants a card when his birt’day comes round.”
“Awh.”
“Last year, I slipped a pack o’ gum inside de card.”
1124.139.8
Étienne and Chico
The next day, to get a bit of perspective, I drove from Shediac along the coast to Pointe-Sapin. I stopped for an ice cream at the Cap-de-Cocagne pier, and then on for a breath of sea air and creosote on the pier at Côte Sainte-Anne, just to make sure the trip took about as long as I’d imagined.
1125.56.2
Pilgrimages
“Wot do you call it when a person’s afraid of sometin’ dat affects dem directly? Like a girl dat loves skiing crosscountry, only she won’t swim in a lake if can’t see across. Or de lass dat wins de Stella Artois brewer’s competition, an’ she’s right proud to be off to de national finals, only she’s dead afeard of de draft in airplanes. Is der a word fer dat, den?”
1126.92.12
Questions without Answers
One should let a good rumour spr
ead, because it refreshes, lightens, gives reality a bit of a push.
1127.108.11
Rumours
“You don’t know ’ow to play squares?!”
Neither Étienne nor Marianne knew what their mother was talking about.
“Well den, me children, I’m gonna show you right ’ere an’ now!”
Carmen disappeared for a moment, returning with a pink chalk. She lifted the living room carpet as though it were no heavier than a dishcloth, dropped it along the edge of the wall, and began drawing long lines on the floor. Étienne and Marianne stood watching her.
“Étienne, don’t you ’ave some bits o’ broken seashells in your things?”
“Yes . . .”
“Well, go an’ fetch them, we’re gonna need ’em.”
But Étienne did not move. He was unable to tear his gaze from the hopscotch that Carmen was blithely chalking on the living room floor. Did this mean that drawings of any kind would be allowed?
“You don’t want to?”
Yes, Étienne wanted to, but . . .
“When I’m done, I’ll tell ya wot numbers to write inside de squares.”
Étienne ran to his room to get his bottle of seashell fragments whose edges had been softened by the sea.
1128.106.5
Customs
When she really had nothing to do, a young poet working at the Babar liked to scan the completed crosswords in search of evocative word phrases along the rows of the puzzle. For example, heads-shreds, shroud-earth, wandering-ps, torque-clash. She even found revery-use-ere and ere-use-year. Should she conclude that dream-use-year?
1129.91.11
The Poet
“So den, you tink ’tis really wort’while?”
“Well, you gotta know wot yer doin’ . . .”
“Is it sometin’ you could be showin’ me how?”
“Matter o’ fact, I was tinkin’ just dat. We could go in togedder, if you had a mind to. I was gonna mention it, only I’s waitin’ to be more sure o’ meself first.”
Zed agreed, adding for Terry’s benefit:
“An’ dat way ’twould be less of a surprise fer Carmen. She’s used to me gettin’ you into all kinds o’ crazy schemes.”
“Exactly!”
1130.63.10
Terry and Zed
On the subject of yellow, it can connote wealth or disease: yellow gold, yellow fever; games of skill or games of chance: yellow jersey, yellow dwarf; the abstract or the concrete: yellow streak, yellow flowers; human groups or groups of humans: yellow race, yellow union; the banal or the sublime: yellow pages, Van Gogh’s yellow.
1131.118.4
Concerning Yellow
“Mum, can I be havin’ some Smarties?”
“No, not this time.”
“I’s hungry.”
“We’ll be havin’ supper in a bit.”
“I want Smarties . . .”
“Look out, now. Let me by so’s I can empty the cart.”
. . .
“’Ere now, would you like to give me a hand?”
. . .
“Don’t be grabbin’ the bag any which way, the peas’ll fall out!”
. . .
“Never mind den, it’ll go a whole lot faster if I do it meself.”
. . .
“How about an apple?”
“Naw.”
“Der’s bananas. Wouldn’t you care fer a banana?”
“I want Smarties.”
. . .
. . .
“Thirty-seven sixty-four. The young feller’s tired I believe.”
“Yes, and his Mum’s just about had it as well.”
“Wot did she say?”
“He looks so sweet.”
“Yes, but he’s been so stubborn today I’d gladly give him away!”
“Wot did she say?”
“Thanks but no thanks, I’ve got my own…”
“Well, was worth a try.”
“Wot did she say?”
1132.138.11
The Other
Linguists currently identify 8 major language families: the Indo-European family, which includes some 1,000 languages and 3 billion speakers; the tonal languages of Asia, which are spoken by 1.5 billion people, including more than 1 billion Chinese; the 370 Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) languages, spoken by 300 million people, including 200 million Arabic speakers; the Austronesian languages, which group together 300 million speakers and 850 languages; the Altaic language family which includes 65 languages spoken by 100 million people; 80 million people speak the 2,000 languages of Africa, 900 of which belong to the sub-group of Niger-Congo languages; the Uralic languages counting 25 million speakers, mainly Hungarians and Finns; and the indigenous languages of the Americas, which include 1,100 languages and 25 million speakers. Altogether this adds up to approximately 5,300 languages, but this list is neither exhaustive nor uncontested.
1133.112.7
Languages
On the way home, Étienne could not get over Carmen’s refusal to buy him some Smarties. Hence, the whining tone:
“How come we’s always goin’ back to de same grocery?”
“So you’ll know where to find de things when yer older.”
This silenced Étienne. Carmen regretted her ironic reply, and tried to soften its effect:
“And, when yer older an’ drivin’ de car yerself, you might be goin’ to the store fer us from time to time.”
Étienne thought about this eventuality, and decided, when the time came, he’d buy as many Smarties as he liked.
1134.88.3
Freedom
Terry reads the words haulms, volute, shingly, keelson, parapet, cascade, trundle dodder, and nimbus on a page of the small stapled notebook he pulled out of his back pocket. He finds a pencil and adds the word menagerie.
1135.67.1
Terry’s Notebooks
“’Round ’ere even language’s a sport, fer chris’sake!”
“Fer sure!”
1136.122.4
Sports
And on the next page of the notebook:
Die? Meself? Really?
It’s about time dat sometin’
Leaves me friggin’ cold!
1137.117.10
Death
Zed didn’t want Chico to feel uncomfortable about not calling him Dad.
“Dat’s OK dat you don’t call me Dad. We know Shawn’s yer real dad. Most likely, if you was still a wee ting an’ you’d no memory o’ Shawn, well den it’d probably come to ya natural. On account of I’d be de only dad you’d ever known.”
Chico put another plate in the dish drying sink. Zed picked it up and began drying.
“I doesn’t call you Dad, only in me head yer like me dad.”
“Dat’s right fine wid me! Wot counts is dat I help you to ’ave a proper life.”
Chico agreed, but remained silent, washing a few utensils and putting them in the sink.
“Wot’re ya tinkin’? Aldoh, you don’t ’ave to be tellin’ me. Der’s times a fellow wants to keep ’is tawts to ’imself.”
. . .
. . .
“Do you tink Granny’s got a proper life?”
And there it was. The cat was out of the bag. For a while, Zed had suspected that Chico was carrying guilt about his grandmother. He dropped the dish rag, pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Come ’ere, boy, I wants to tell ya sometin’.”
Chico came closer.
“I already told ya didn’t I, dat I didn’t really ’ave a real dad neider, at de start, remember?
Chico nodded.
“De ting I most likely didn’t tell ya, is da
t when I’s yer age, I could see me mudder was ‘avin’ a hard time of it, see. Awh, not dat she was blearin’ or anyting like dat, ’cause she’s not de complainin’ type. Only I could see she was workin’ terrible hard to make a bit o’ money to buy our food an’ clothes an’ a Christmas present an’ all dat.”
. . .
“Well, when she starts goin’ wid Tony, I’s right proud fer her. On account of ee was helpin’ ’er out. An’ den she marries ’im. An’ der again, I’s right proud fer ’er. Only, deep down, I wasn’t all dat fond o’ Tony. I never said a word to me mum, mind you; I didn’t want to cause ’er any pain, an’ I didn’t want ’er gettin’ discouraged.”
Chico seemed to understand what Zed was telling him.
“Wot I’m tryin’ to say is dat yer granny — an’ I knows you love ’er a whole lot on account of she was pretty much yer mum — yer granny made de best life she could. ’Tisn’t easy to understand, I knows it, but dat’s de way it is. We can’t go changin’ de past. An’ today, one ting dat’ll make Granny’s life better, dat’s to see yer growin’ up fine, wid folks dat love you an’ helps you out.”
. . .
“’Tis a fine ting you tinkin’ of Granny, an’ doin’ stuff fer ’er, phonin’ ’er, bringin’ ’er strawberries an’ all dat, only you mustn’t be puttin’ ’er life on yer shoulders. You have to live yer life too, an’ you’ve a right to be ’appy.”
Chico was almost frozen to the spot.
“Do you understand wot I’s tryin’ to tell ya?”
1138.135.2
Zed and Chico
Chico nodded, and Zed took him in his arms and hugged him tight.
Looking everywhere for your Bescherelle, but not finding it. Coincidence?
1139.17.10
Chance
Étienne spotted a second cross decorated in flowers on the other side of the ditch along the highway.
“’Ow come dey puts dat der, Mum?”
Carmen was torn between being happy to see her son wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, and being disappointed that he’d used the English expression how come.