by André Alexis
But fall in love he did, walking into the store at Lee’s Garage like
walking into a well-known ambush.
What is it like to fall in love at first sight?
Skennen had never felt anything like it. His outrage vanished
at the sight of Carson’s face. It didn’t seem to him a “beautiful”
face, though he understood why some might call it that. To him,
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her beauty was beside the point, overcome as he was by her face’s
rightness. No other face, seen at the moment he first saw hers,
could have had the same effect on him. His sense of justice was
appeased and expanded. It wasn’t that Truth was Beauty or Beauty
Truth. It was that both “truth” and “beauty” were avatars of Justice,
both manifestations of rectitude. In fact, you could have called
this love at first sight a kind of crossed wiring in which all the
higher ideals – Truth, Beauty, Love, Honour – seemed to be
avatars of Justice.
Somehow – was it because desire for her had afflicted so
many that she immediately recognized the signs or was it that he
radiated longing? – she knew at once what his feelings meant.
He approached the till, bringing with him a bag of Lay’s Potato
Chips. He did not look directly at her, until she asked for his
payment. He was careful to say nothing to betray the fact – the
impulse, the instinct – that he loved her. His first words to her –
as he stared at Wilfrid Laurier’s receding hairline and pursed
lips on the five-dollar bill he gave her – were
– There you go.
He would have welcomed any words she spoke, but her first
words struck him as elegant.
– Thank you, she said.
But she added, as he stood there trying to figure out where to
put his change
– There’s a thing that makes me sad. Do you know what it is?
Skennen allowed himself then to look directly at the woman
he loved and almost lost himself in contemplation. No particular
aspect of her struck him as inescapable. He had seen eyes as
lovely (but where?), lips as appealing (not possible!), a brow as
noble, hair as lustrous. But he’d never been as affected by these
things. He’d never felt as he did and, really, it would have been
difficult for her not to recognize his state.
– I’m sorry, he answered. I’m afraid I don’t know you at all.
– No need to apologize, she said. Would you like to guess?
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Skennen said the first word that came to him.
– Portulaca?
To one side of the till, there were four or five men – locals all,
from the look of them – standing around, quietly watching. At
Skennen’s mention of the word portulaca, they snorted in unison.
But Carson was kind.
– I’ve never heard that before, she said. It’s a flower, isn’t it?
– It is, he said, but I was thinking of a poem.
One of the locals – pink face above a blue-and-green plaid
shirt – said
– You phony bastard!
Ignoring him, Skennen quoted Dennis Lee.
– ‘Lovers by the score come sporting fantasies like we had,
strolling bright-eyed past the portulaca …’
– That’s lovely, said Carson, but, no, portulaca doesn’t make
me sad. Neither does poetry.
Skennen felt dismissed. There were customers behind him
waiting to pay.
– I’ll be back when I know the answer, he said.
– I’d like that, said Carson Michaels.
She sounded polite, nothing more. Lee, on the other hand,
was cheerful as he met Skennen on the way out. Warm and
friendly, if you went by the man’s smile. But he radiated menace.
It wasn’t only that the man was six feet nine inches tall and three
hundred pounds. It was that, even standing still, he seemed like
a vicious dog straining to break a metal link chain.
– That’s one guess, he said. When you come back it’ll be two.
You get three in all, then I feed you to Frick and Frack.
Skennen considered pleading ignorance or expressing doubt
that he’d be back at all. But there’d have been no point. In the
same way that Carson Michaels had known he was smitten, Lee
knew that Skennen would be back. They all knew, even the men
who were probably still snickering by the till.
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Surrendering to his fate – his fate being love for Carson
Michaels – Skennen took this task seriously. Where was one to
begin when trying to discover what made a woman weep? Difficult
question. And the first thing he discovered was just how particular
his difficulties would be. To begin with, it was next to impossible
to see Carson on her own. Not only did she work in the general
store attached to Lee’s Garage but she lived above Lee’s as well.
She was not sequestered, exactly, nor did she live the life of a
hermit. But she was inevitably accompanied by Lee or Lee’s sons,
wherever she went. She was chaperoned – or, as rumour had it,
jealously guarded by Lee’s eldest son.
Skennen’s next idea was to petition her family and friends
for help. They were bound to have at least some idea of what
made Carson cry. This thought was obvious and, among the suit-
ors, common. But Michaels, her family, and her close friends
were all from Schomberg, one of the most unnerving towns in
Southern Ontario. Schombergians were secretive at the best of
times, but Carson Michaels’s suitors had driven her family and
friends to a pugnacious silence. Skennen did not find a single
acquaintance of Carson’s who would speak to him, and, as far as
he could tell, her family had disappeared entirely.
His third – and final – idea was to talk to Carson’s old suitors,
the ones who’d failed and were now bitter enough to co-operate
with anyone who might win her, bitter enough to wish her
“defeated.’ There were quite a number of banished suitors, enough
of them to fill a modest-sized town: bigger than Napanee, say,
but smaller than Quinte West. Skennen met these people singly
or when they assembled in support groups. And though they
were of every race, height, gender, and size, Michaels’s former
suitors shared a greyness of soul. Each had his or her own tale of
despair. And none had any information to help him.
Or, rather, almost none.
One evening, Skennen met a man named Glenn Baillie in
much the same way as he’d met the weeping man in Sutton. Baillie
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was sitting alone in the Pig’s Ear Tavern, in Peterborough. The
man was young – in his late twenties, say – and he was extremely
fit. This, he said, had to do with his diet. He claimed to eat only
vegetables, fruit, fish, nuts, and yogourt. He was a fanatic about
his health, he said. The strange thing was that he made these
claims aloud, though he was by himself. More: his concern for
his health was contradicted by the seven shot glasses of whisky
that stood in a straight line before him.
It was this seeming contradiction and the fact the man spoke
so blithe
ly to himself that interested Skennen. After watching
him awhile, he approached Baillie’s table and politely asked why,
if he was concerned for his health, he would drink so much in
one go.
– I haven’t drunk anything, Baillie answered. I’m waiting to
see if I drink them.
There being no answer to that, Skennen nodded and was
about to turn away when, unprompted, Baillie asked
– Do you know Carson Michaels?
The question caught Skennen completely by surprise. He
hadn’t been thinking of Carson. He turned to look at Baillie
again: young in appearance, his hair falling into his eyes, medium
build, slightly shorter than Skennen, pale with a hopeful expres-
sion on his face.
– I know about her, Skennen answered.
Baillie’s expression changed from one of hope to one of concern.
– Do you love her? Baillie asked.
– Yes, said Skennen, but I don’t see how that’s your business.
– I love her, too, said Baillie. I’ve never loved anyone half as
much, but I know for certain she’ll never love me. Even if I could
answer her question.
Despite himself, Skennen offered his sympathy.
– No one knows the future, he said.
Baillie looked at him, then, with unconcealed dislike.
– I have to tell you a story, he said, one that might concern you.
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Glenn Baillie, born in Liège, had moved with his parents to
Petrolia at the age of five. Ashamed yet proud of his “foreign
accent,’ he deliberately spoke English – a language he’d easily
mastered – with an exaggerated French accent. He couldn’t always
maintain it, though. From time to time, an English-Canadian
accent or even a Flemish one would come through.
He’d been an unhappy child. Though he was the third of five
children, he grew up lonely, close to no one in his family, close
to no one around him. Canada itself struck him as miserable:
uncultured, bland, hypocritical, and quietly cruel. So, at eighteen,
he returned to Europe and, for a time, drifted through its countries
working on farms. He ended up in a small village in Normandy,
penniless and desperate for work. More exactly, he was in a
tavern near Clasville. The place was sullen and poorly lit, and
when he entered, all conversation stopped.
About five minutes after him, an older woman came into the
tavern – “older” to him, though she was all of thirty-five. At her
entrance, it was as if the silence itself had gone silent – an
absolute zero of conviviality. There was something about the
woman that made him wary, but he was young, defiant, and,
although usually shy, he asked if she would like a drink.
Without hesitation, she said
– Thank you. I don’t drink what they serve here. But maybe I
could offer you something. I’m looking for someone to help
around the farm. It’s apple season. My trees need picking. You
look like you could use a little money.
– I could, he said. I was looking for a job.
And just like that, the woman hired him.
There were signs – there always are in retrospect – that
Madame Madeg was not what she seemed. First, the tavern’s
barkeep gave Baillie a strangely charitable look when it was clear
he’d be working for the woman. This look was followed by a refusal
to take money from him. Then there were the strange looks he
and Madame Madeg got from pedestrians, some of whom made
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the sign of the cross as her car passed. In his innocence, Glenn
Baillie took these things as expressions of concern for Madame
Madeg’s car, a 1957 Citroën that rattled its way to her farm.
Further signs: there were bats nailed to the doors of her house
and barn.
– Just ignore them, she said.
But they were not the kind of things he could ignore. The
poor creatures were nailed through their hearts, their bodies and
wings curling around fixed points like drying leaves curled around
their midribs.
– But why do you do this? he asked.
Madame Madeg shook her head.
– I don’t do it, she said. The neighbours do it to intimidate
me. If I take them down, they replace them. So, I’ve got used to
them. It’s not so bad. The creatures only stink for a day or two
once they start to rot.
He never got used to them. It was easier to close his eyes as
he approached the doors.
Madame Madeg had hired him to cull the apples from her
orchard – about a hundred Gros-Hôpital trees, their apples a
kind of dirty green with, here or there, an outbreak of red. The
trees were ready for culling but there seemed to be little urgency
about it. He was the only one she hired and she didn’t appear the
least interested in the number of barrows he emptied into the
ancient wooden crates in the barn.
Nor did he know what she did while he was picking apples.
He rarely saw her during the day. What he saw, now and then,
were the women who came to see her. Were they friends? Business
associates? Clients? It was impossible for him to tell. Those who
happened to see him never returned his greetings. Some seemed
frightened. Others gave him defiant looks. But none ever spoke
to him.
His evenings were another matter. The farmhouse was simple,
spacious, well-lit, and clean. Its kitchen was large and almost
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intimidating with its supply of pots, pans, and the paraphernalia
of preparation. (Preparation for what, though?) On one shelf,
there were alembics of various sizes and test tubes. The dining
room was more inviting. Its large oak table was pleasing as only
wood can be, having accommodated countless diners, their
many touches.
Despite the warmth of the room, it was sometimes awkward
to sit alone with Madame Madeg. On those occasions, he was
spared discomfort by a framed reproduction of La Kermesse by
Pieter Balten. The painting – which hung on a wall – was one of
those in which the artist had depicted countless scenes from
the daily life of his own time. It was one of those “life’s rich
pageant” things – like something from Hieronymus Bosch –
and it was diverting when neither he nor Madame Madeg had
anything to say.
From the beginning, Baillie understood that Madame Madeg
wanted something from him. But, young as he was, seeing nothing
valuable in himself, he could not guess what that might be. Nor
did Madame Madeg help him guess, or not directly. She was
considerate. She fed him well. She made sure there was enough
for him to drink. But then, every once in a while, she alluded to
his appearance – his brown eyes, his muscular shoulders. So
that, from time to time, he had the distinct impression that she
desired him. But here, too, his inexperience got in the way.
Madame Madeg was, to his mind, like a friend of his parents.
And yet …
Those were the days when his own sexual longing was oppres-
sive. He went to bed a
t night with an erection and woke in the
morning with another. His mind and glands conspired to keep
him aroused. A wind that blew sand on his neck, a warm touch
on his wrist, the sight of Madame Madeg’s feathery brown hair,
a glimpse of her breasts, pale white where the sun had not reached,
the smell of her perspiration mingled with the lavender of her
soap … almost anything could call pleasure to his mind and body.
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So, it should not have been a surprise when, one evening
when he’d drunk more wine than usual and Madame Madeg had
left her hand on his upper thigh as she praised him for his work
around the farm, he’d felt longing. But it was a surprise. The
immediacy of his arousal – every atom of him suddenly, humili-
atingly filled with longing for Madame Madeg. And then: how
easily and expertly she touched him! In those hours between
their kiss at the dining room table and the bluish dawn light that
finally revealed her body to him, Baillie learned that what he’d
previously taken for pleasure – the quick satisfactions he’d given
himself when desire was overwhelming – was to real pleasure
like a pond is to the ocean. Now aware that Madame Madeg put
his body to better use than he could, he’d have done anything
for her.
They spent the next months copulating, wearing clothes only
when it was unavoidable, Madame Madeg as enraptured with
him as he now was with her. That is to say, Baillie spent the
winter making love with the most accomplished and, to some,
most terrifying witch in Normandy.
Not that Baillie knew Madame Madeg was a witch. Not that
winter. No, the world they created was meant for lovers – a dense
garden, a bed smooth as a wafer of sunlight. And although women
(mostly) and men (ashamedly) still came to see Madame Madeg,
Baillie never thought to ask why they’d come. That winter, he
couldn’t wait for them to leave. But then, as spring approached,
he sometimes went into Clasville with Madame Madeg, so as
not to be away from her. It was on these excursions that he first
became curious about her work. For one thing, the people in
Clasville inevitably nodded at him in silent greeting. Few talked
to him. There weren’t many occasions when they could. But when
they did they were pointedly circumspect, as if worried about
the impressions they’d make.
