For Sure

by France Daigle

  “I knows it.”

  . . .

  “Only, just in case somebody was wantin’ to call me in English?”

  “Really, I don’t know any English name for Étienne. Must be the same in boat English an’ French.”

  Carmen tried to pronounce the name Étienne in English, but any difference was barely detectable.

  “See now, ’tisn’t so hard to be sayin’ yer name in English. You pronounce it pretty much de same.”

  Étienne remained sceptical, even though Carmen did not go so far as to claim that his name would flow smoothly off an English tongue.

  “Well, Dad, ee’s called Terry . . .”

  Carmen could already guess what was coming.

  “An’ ’ow ’bout you, lot’s of folks call you Carm . . .”

  “Well sure, that’s troo. Only we didn’t ask fer those names, now did we. Folks just got started callin’ us that a while back, an’ it stuck. Now, feels like ’tis too late to change. Yer name’s more French on account of dat’s who we are, more French.”

  Étienne did not reply, momentarily preoccupied with looking for a satisfactory piece of wood to complete the roof of his hangar. Carmen took advantage of the pause to shift the conversation a bit:

  “Do you like yer name?”

  Étienne thought a bit, then seemed to make up his mind:

  “Yes, I like it.”

  “Ouf! I’m happy.”

  “On account of?”

  This was an easy question for Carmen:

  “I wasn’t all that fond o’ me name when I’s a wee girl. I would’ve liked to be called Dominique.”

  Étienne raised his head to look at Carmen. His mother, a Dominique?”

  “I liked Martine as well.”

  Well, this was all news to Étienne. He stood up and walked up to Carmen to look at her more closely, trying to see his mother in these other names. Then he huddled against her for a caress, thinking of the bronze fly.

  1160.123.4

  Carmen and Étienne

  But where does a language begin, where does it end? When does a language become a different language? Isn’t all speech an interpretation of reality, hence a kind of translation, a fleeting attempt of language, a lalanguage? And whether French is old or contemporary or standard or hybrid, isn’t language, like life, nothing more than a long processs of uninterrupted hybridization?

  1161.112.9

  Languages

  Finally the man had begun to look at the books. First at those on the tables near the counter, then those on the shelves. He would pick up a book delicately, take the time to examine the cover, then turn the work slowly round to study the spine and the back cover. He studied all these from three angles — over his glasses, through his glasses and under his glasses — and seemed to decode useful information at each stage. When he finally opened a book, apparently at random, he took the time to read a bit on each page before returning to the first pages or leafing toward those at the end. From time to time, he seemed to experience a kind of spasm. At first, Terry thought these spasms were somehow linked to the man’s infirmity, but he began to suspect that that they were caused by something the man was reading. Often, the man smiled.

  “Youse can sit yerself down, if you like.”

  And the customer accepted the chair Terry had carried over.

  1162.91.4

  The Poet

  (Bescherelle found.) The new rules of the Académie also simplify the plural of compound nouns: when the first word of the plural of a compound word is a verb or a preposition, the second word must now end in s; for example, snowdrops are perce-neiges and afternoons are après-midis. (In the past, the second word was invariable.)

  1163.131.11

  Parenthesi(e)s

  “Hallo der. Are yer mum or yer dad around?”

  “Me dad’s ’ere, only ee’s in de toilet.”

  “Awh well, let’s not disturb ’im den. We’s volunteers fer de Red Cross. We’s collectin’ money an’ household tings like furniture or dishes to lend a hand to de folks whose apartment buildin’ burnt down last week. I’ll leave you dis ’ere flyer, wot explains de whole ting. Der’s a telephone number if youse have any questions. Can you give dis ’ere to your parents, OK?”

  “OK.”

  Once the man was gone, Chico slid the sheet under the bathroom door.

  “Zed?”

  “Yah?”

  “Val O’Tears left dis ’ere fer you.”

  “Who’d ya say?”

  “Val O’Tears.”

  “ Val O’Tears? Am I supposed to know who dat is?”

  “Ee came by on account of de fire.”

  “Fire? Wot fire?”

  1164.135.9

  Zed and Chico

  The Académie has also decided to drop the hyphen in many compound nouns and allow them to be written as single words; for example, bat becomes chauvesouris, centipede millepatte, undertaker croquemort, picnic piquenique, rickshaw poussepousse, corkscrew tirebouchon, and purse portemonnaie. Perhaps you are thinking we could write snowdrops as perceneiges and afternoons as aprèsmidis? As a matter of fact, lexicographers are encouraged to follow suit and practice fusion.

  1165.77.10

  Grammar

  The man stayed for so long among the rows of shelves of Didot Books that Terry completely forgot about him, and continued to leaf through the newly arrived publishers’ catalogues. It was only when the customer accidentally pushed several books onto the floor while trying to reach up to the highest shelf that Terry remembered his presence. Seeing the man in difficulty, Terry hurried over to lend a hand.

  “Agh! I am zo sorry, really . . .”

  “Believe me, youse not de first to be tumblin’ de books offa dis ’ere shelf. She’s too high fer most folks. We oughtta be rearrangin’ tings ’ere, only we never takes de time. Which was de book you was lookin’ fer?”

  The customer took a book out of Terry’s hands, and then another, while he was at it.

  “If der’s any little ting yer wantin’, you only ’ave to shout.”

  1166.91.5

  The Poet

  “Yes, this I will do. Thank you.”

  Back behind the counter, Terry saw the man studying what appeared to the Poems of A. O. Barnabooth, a work that had been gathering dust on the shelf for several years now.

  A word one would expect to be yellow, but is definitely not: lemon.

  1167.118.8

  Concerning Yellow

  Élizabeth stood in the doorway and cast a last look over the apartment she was preparing to abandon. The sun was lighting the room exactly as it had the first time she’d seen it. The similarity lifted her spirits. She was leaving without regrets, with a feeling that this was a fine day to turn the page.

  1168.47.6

  Yielding

  True or false: another initiative of the Académie Française was to agree that all compound numbers are to be written with hypens, since even the best intentioned cannot always master the writing out of a number like 251,697, or two hundred fifty-one thousand six hundred ninety-seven, which will henceforth be written in French as deux-cent-cinquante-et-un-mille-six-cent-quatre-vingt-dix-sept.

  1169.77.11

  Grammar

  After a few days, Carmen decided that just because he had a cold was no reason to keep her son locked up in the house.

  “Wot would you say to the two of us goin’ out to fetch a good-luck plant fer yer room? I thinks I know where there’s some. An’ after that, we can go fer a hot chocolate, if you like.”

  Étienne’s face brightened.

  “Fer sure, I want to, Mum!”

  Delighted, Carmen walked over to the wall where they hung their coats.

  “Now isn’
t this fun! It’s been a dog’s age since we went out, just the two of us.”

  “I knows it, Mum. You work too hard sometimes.”

  1170.123.5

  Carmen and Étienne

  “The Ideal Library of the Social Sciences” does not shrink from classifying some books as essential even though they do not exist in French. Most of these works — approximately 20 of them — were written in English. Economics, Political Science and Psychology are the disciplines that have been most marked by this absence of translation.

  1171.58.12

  Extensions

  Having located the bamboo stalks they would plant in water and stones, Carmen and Étienne found themselves in a café, blowing softly on their steaming hot chocolates. The mother discretley directed her son’s attention:

  “Do you see the woman with the brown coat over there, de one’s gettin’ up from the table?”

  Étienne spotted her.

  “OK, OK, now look at me!”

  Étienne was taken aback by this sudden change in tone. Carmen leaned across the table to explain in a low voice:

  “’Twasn’t meant to scold you, only I didn’t want you to be starin’ at ’er. On account of ’tisn’t polite to talk about a person an’ then to be lookin’ over at them. You catch me drift?”

  Once Étienne had grasped this lesson in étiquette, he was granted permission to glance over at the woman again. Then Carmen told him:

  “She was me teacher when I’s in grade four. Her name was Madame Rose-Marie, only we called ’er Madame Grosse-Marie behind ’er back.”

  . . .

  “’Twasn’t very nice, eh?”

  Étienne was tempted to look over at the erstwhile teacher again. Without moving his head, he tried to force his eyes as far to the right as he could, but that only made his eyes hurt.

  1172.123.6

  Carmen and Étienne

  The grammatical corrections evoked above are not obligatory. The Académie has stipulated that old spellings remain valid, which could lead to some confusion and, if this isn’t already the case, more doubts, more questions. How could it be otherwise? A pitcher that goes to the well too often eventually breaks.

  1173.77.12

  Grammar

  After reading for a long while, Terry’s customer stood up and moved to another aisle of books, occasionally pulling volumes off the shelf, handling them all with equal care, as though they all deserved the same attention. Terry concluded that the man was the type who came to bookstores to read, but never bought anything, just as others might attend receptions purely in order to feed themselves on the snacks. He wondered if perhaps chairs were not particular conducive to sales. Because, beneath the ideal of a bookstore (to nourish the spirit) lay the commercial reality (to nourish sales), and though he loved almost everything about books, Terry was also concerned about his bottom line.

  1174.91.6

  The Poet

  Since 1803, the Spanish alphabet has contained 29 letters. In addition to the 26 letters of the French or English alphabets, the Spanish includes the indivisible letters ch and ll, and the ñ. In alphabetical order, these follow the c, the l and the n; however, computers have problems reproducing the combined ch and ll, which has led to some confusion in Spanish dictionaries published after 1994.

  1175.90.5

  Letters

  After their afternoon chocolate, as they were walking toward the van in the large parking lot of the mall, a car alarm suddenly went off at the moment Étienne was brushing past. Étienne jumped, twisting his body in a way that made Carmen laugh.

  “Bit of a surprise, eh?”

  . . .

  “Must be somebody fergot where they parked der car.”

  Étienne’s heart was still beating furiously. He only regained his speech in the van, on the way home:

  “Do you ’ave a good name, Mum?”

  “What do you mean, a good name?”

  “De udder day, in de shop, de man said Dad had a good name.”

  “Awh. Ee couldn’t pay, I’ll bet?”

  “Naw! Ee wanted to pay, only ee ’ad no money!”

  Terry was in the habit of leaving the house without cash or cards, which had always irritated Carmen, but she restrained herself:

  “Awh!”

  “An’ de man in de shop told Dad ee didn’t ’ave to pay on account of ’is good name.”

  Carmen decided to accentuate the positive:

  “Dat means yer dad’s an honest fellow. The man in de shop knew ee could trust Dad to be payin’ ’im later in the day, or maybe the next day. Ee could trust ’im.”

  Étienne nodded.

  “Do you ’ave a good name as well?”

  “I think so. Only most times I’ve the money to pay in me purse, don’t I. Eidder cash or cards. Terry, well, ee walks around wid nuttin’ in ’is pockets.”

  “Sometimes ee’s got ’lastic bands.”

  “Dat’s troo, I suppose, only you can’t buy nuttin’ wid elastic bands, now can you.”

  Étienne knew this, but the possibility made him laugh.

  1176.123.7

  Carmen and Étienne

  But before the novel Clair de femme (The Light of a Woman) by Romain Gary, the film by Constantin Costa-Gavras based on Gary’s book, and starring Romy Schneider as Lydia and Yves Montand as Michel. The film, seen in the early ’80s; the novel, read 20 years later, and steeped in memories of the film. Without a doubt the source of the characters of Alida and Rodriguez in Real Life. To the extent that an extension can stretch backwards as well as forwards.

  1177.58.4

  Extensions

  “De worst progress trap I can tink of? Me girlfriend waters ’er plants wid bottled water she’s buyin’ at de store. Well, don’t go tellin’ ’er I said dis, only dat’s our big disagreement. Could be dat’s wot’ll break us up in de end.”

  1178.128.11

  Fervours

  Partial list of yellow words in French: ananas (pineapple), carnaval, patate, banane, carnage, barrage, garage, camarade, bagatelle, papaye, canard, charade, parade, glas (knell), sac, flash, bazar. Obviously, words not ending in e are yellower than others. Another difference: in words in which the a is followed by an m or an n, creating the sound an — panda, grange (barn), estampe — yellow takes on a brownish, orangey, or ocre tint. In a way, the sound an contaminates the yellow.

  1179.118.7

  Concerning Yellow

  “Say wot you will, dey doesn’t work all dat hard. Not so hard as dey’d like youse to believe, anyhow.”

  Anonymous #2 was fed up with certain people’s artistic pretentions, and especially Pomme’s and Zablonski’s. I felt I was ideally placed to defend them.

  “Sometimes it takes time fer these things to mature.”

  He or she pulled a pouty face. I’d broke the camel’s back.

  “You means to tell me dat you doesn’t even know wot sex I am?!”

  I explained that I hadn’t felt the need to decide one way or the other.

  “When I think of one, it works fine, an’ when I think of t’other, it works just as well. Could be either one.”

  “An’ I suppose dat’s why I’s got no name neidder?”

  “No, not really. I could’ve given you a name that works with both, like Majella, Aldoria, Doris, Flavie, Wilma, Césaire, Bélonie . . .”

  “Aren’t you de hilarious one . . .”

  . . .

  . . .

  “I wanted somebody neutral, somebody I see from time to time. I don’t know you by name. An’ yer sex, well, ’tisn’t really relevant is it? Don’t go takin’ it personal.”

  “Somebody neutral. You ask me, dat’s plain insultin’.”

  “Alright, I suppose I was insensitive.” />
  “By de way, don’t it require some kind o’ permissions to be talkin’ ’bout us in yer books?”

  “Not if you’re not clearly identified. Take you, for example, with no name an’ no sex, you wouldn’t have much of a legal leg to stand on . . .”

  “Well, dat’s exactly wot I’s sayin’! You artists, youse tink you can bloody well do wotever you like!”

  Really! I was thinking I had better things to do but, at the same time, I was desperate to make progress in my novel. I tried another approach.

  “Look, we meet a whole lot of people in this life, folks we talk to an’ folks we doesn’t. An’ even if we talk to them, doesn’t mean we know der names. Anyways, makes absolutely no difference. We can have good relations with them, even doh we don’t know them by name. An’ no one takes dat as an insult, now do dey?”

  “Alright, dat’s fine an’ dandy up to a point. Once you’s in a book, seems to me, you oughtta ’ave a name. Or a sex, at de very least. When you sees a person in de street, you sees der gender.”

  “Dat’s troo. Most of the time, anyway. Well alright, I can be givin’ you one, if that’s wot you want. Do you ’ave a preference?”

  “No, dat’s yer job, now isn’t it? You’s de one dat’s gotta decide.”

  “Alright then. ’Tis done.”

  “I’ll wager I’s a women.”

  “You win.”

  “I knowed it! I knowed it!”

  “How come?”

  “In yer books, de men has de better parts dan de women.”

  “Fer real?”

  “You doesn’t see it, but yer borderline chauvinistic.”

  “Fer real?!

  1180.101.9

  Duos

  Terry can remember finding it strange to see the name of a character in the title of a poetry collection. Strange too that a poet would create a character who’s a poet, write that character’s poems and then publish the whole thing under his real name, as seemed to be the case with Larbaud’s Poems of A. O. Barnabooth. One thing leading to another, Terry had ordered the collection, convinced that these layers of identity were bound to pique the curiosity of other poets. So far, no one had taken the bait.