The Years of Fire

by Yves Beauchemin

  “I get the feeling the crisis has passed,” Fernand said one evening as he and his wife were walking home together from the hardware store.

  “There’ll be others, Fernand, don’t worry. No one becomes a man in six months …”

  Without knowing it, Wilfrid Thibodeau had had a salutary effect on his son. But in a short while, and again without his being aware of it, he was going to plunge him into a real horror show.

  7

  Several months went by. One night, in July 1982, after his last delivery for the pharmacy, Charles helped Henri Lalancette decant two litres of port dregs into small vials. The pharmacist had procured the dregs through his acquaintance with the director of a laboratory run by the Liquor Control Board of Quebec, and he was going to make use of them in a series of (according to him, in any case) definitive experiments. Afterwards, Charles left to meet Blonblon at the Frontenac metro station, and the two young men sat for a moment on a bench by the entrance, enjoying the delicious freshness of the air settling over the city after a blistering, completely still day, a day when even the idea of doing anything made sweat roll down the middle of one’s back.

  An old, partly crippled man appeared, looking stern and solemn in a black suit and tie, and began hobbling across the square as though walking barefoot on hot coals. Charles leaned towards his friend and whispered something, and Blonblon burst out laughing. Realizing that they were laughing at him, the man stopped and gave them a withering look, and they laughed again, although more quietly this time. Then Blonblon suggested they watch Apocalypse Now on television; his father had just had air-conditioning installed in their living room.

  Both of them were going through a bad patch. Blonblon had split up with Caroline two months before and was wallowing in prideful solitude, obstinately refusing to say a word about the cause of their breakup, despite the fact that he had heard so many of Charles’s confidences. Charles was still seeing Marlene, off and on, but less and less. They had grown tired of each other; she had quit school and was working as a cashier in a Provigo supermarket, spending her time picking up clerks and customers. Charles had gone out with two or three other girls from school, but for the moment he preferred being alone, dreaming of the ideal woman.

  He hardly saw Steve at all any more. Steve’s family had moved to Pointe-Saint-Charles at the beginning of the summer, and it looked as though the day was fast approaching when they would be total strangers, with nothing whatsoever to say to each other.

  Since the film wasn’t coming on until late, Charles convinced his friend to take the metro with him to McGill Street, to a bookstore called the Palais du Livre, where he bought a used copy of Gone With the Wind? that was nearly falling apart; Blonblon picked up a copy of René Ducharme’s The Swallower Swallowed, which Charles had praised to the skies.

  The film lasted until one in the morning, and left them in such a disturbed state of mind that they sat talking in the little park in front of Blonblon’s building until two-thirty. Charles walked home whistling “The Ride of the Valkyries,” struck by the strange charm of the sleeping city and thinking with satisfaction that he would soon be turning sixteen, that his whole life was stretched out ahead of him, and that it would be filled with an incalculable number of perfectly wonderful nights like this one that was just coming to an end.

  He quietly slipped his key into the lock, and closed the door carefully when he got into the hallway. There he took off his shoes and tip-toed along the corridor, keeping to the right, where the floorboards didn’t squeak. A quiet return home avoided all sorts of excuses and explanations.

  To his great surprise the kitchen door was closed and light was coming from underneath it. He took a few steps down the hall and stood at the door to his own room, listening. He heard a series of loud sighs followed by the clinking of glass, a sound that was all too familiar to him from his previous life. Someone was drinking himself into a foul mood. It could only be Fernand. A faint odour of rum, the hardware store owner’s favourite drink, came to his nostrils. What was Fernand doing drinking rum in the kitchen at three o’clock in the morning?

  What terrible thing had happened to him?

  Charles was torn between going to bed (and lying awake all night, torturing himself with questions) and risking a conversation with a man who was drunk (the idea frightened and sickened him at the same time). Suddenly he heard a stirring and Lucie appeared, tying her bathrobe. He barely had time to withdraw into the shadows before the hallway was flooded with light as she pushed open the kitchen door. He heard her subdued voice, pleading and very worried, in the otherwise silent house.

  “Fernand, come on, come to bed. Please, Fernand. What’s the use of staying up the whole night like this?”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Come and curl up against me anyway. It’ll be nicer that way, won’t it?”

  “I’m in no mood to curl up against anyone.”

  There followed a conversation that seemed to have taken place many times already. Fernand was unable to stop brooding over whatever it was that was tormenting him, and his bitterness continued to increase. Charles was riveted to the spot. Time stopped. How long did he stay there in the darkness, his eyes unfocused, his mouth trembling, trying to figure out what was going on? Ten minutes? Thirty?

  Gradually, through the snippets of conversation he could overhear, he was able to piece the story together.

  As if Fernand didn’t have enough to worry about, a new problem had appeared, one much bigger than all the rest. Bigger and more appalling, because Charles was involved in it, in a way – a horrible way.

  Wilfrid Thibodeau had gone to see Fernand two weeks before to ask him for more money. He hadn’t worked in months and he was saddled with debts. The brief confrontation had taken place in the small warehouse beside the hardware store. Furious, Fernand had shown Thibodeau the door, and Thibodeau had threatened him: “I’ll give you some time to think it over, my friend,” he had said coldly, “but if you want my advice, you’d be wise to take out a lot of insurance on this place.”

  Grabbing the drunkard by the shoulders, Fernand had propelled him out of the warehouse and into the store, and then, to the astonishment of Lucie and three customers, who had turned at the sound of raised voices, he’d given Thibodeau the bum’s rush to the door. There the carpenter had narrowly escaped the rough justice of Fernand’s boot, which had just missed connecting with the seat of his pants; instead it brushed his back pocket and sent his frayed wallet flying into the air.

  “I shouldn’t have given up playing soccer,” Fernand had quipped, his face flushed from his exertions. “I’m losing my touch.”

  Everyone had laughed, and after a few days Fernand had forgotten the incident. But when he’d arrived at the store that morning he’d found an empty gasoline can and a book of matches lying beside the wooden wall of the warehouse. It was a clear warning. Lucie had wanted to call the police. “And what good would that do, eh? Do you think they’ll send a cop over to spend every night in our yard? Come on, use your head, you know how these things are. The police won’t get involved until the firemen have watched the place burn to the ground!”

  But in the end, at his wife’s insistence, he’d filed a complaint against Thibodeau.

  That afternoon an officer had come to the store, taken a look at the gas can without seeming very interested in it, made a few notes in his notebook, then left, saying the police would look into it. “Rooster feathers will be growing out of my ass before they look into anything,” Fernand had grumbled disgustedly.

  He had an electrician come and install two powerful spotlights in the yard. But he knew how easy it was to set fire to a building! Committing arson was safer than making candy; all proof of the arsonist’s presence usually went up in smoke, gone, disappeared. Towards five o’clock Lucie had found Fernand in his office, a total wreck. “The only thing I can think of is to sell the place,” he said. “If there’s still time …”

  In the kitchen, the two of them
discussed the situation at length. Then Lucie angrily took the bottle of rum, emptied it into the sink, and convinced her husband to go to bed. Ten minutes later the bedroom was reverberating with his snores.

  Charles lay on his bed, Boff stretched out along his leg, and watched the day approach through his window. He hadn’t bothered to pull the blind, since he’d known he’d be awake all night. For a long while a star twinkled above the back alley, its solitary light courageously defying the immensity of the night; from time to time a dark, purplish cloud mass would obscure it from Charles’s view, but it always managed to gain the upper hand simply by staying put. As the sky turned milky blue the star slowly faded, defeated at last by the light it had helped to shed. Translucent swaths of pink and pale green spread across the sky, and suddenly everything took on its normal shape. The alley became an alley, the brick wall and tiled roof of the house next door reappeared in all their familiar and reassuring details, the branch of the basswood tree reached out above the fence with its usual grace; the birds resumed their singing, cars and buses began their rumbling. A new day was starting, and he could either fill it with something useful or do nothing about it at all.

  Charles got up and ate his breakfast hurriedly while Boff chomped his in the corner. Then he dressed and took Boff out for a walk. He couldn’t sit still, and he had three whole hours to wait until the credit union opened. It was his turn to act. Fernand and Lucie had done their bit, now it was up to him to take over. But how was he going to go about it? He thought he had an approach to the problem, but actually going through with it was the most difficult part.

  He walked for a long time, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and eventually found himself in Médéric-Martin Park, as deserted as a coral reef at this time of the day. Somewhere far off a church bell rang very slowly. Its muted, unassuming voice pealed with such calmness that it seemed to be inviting everyone to stop for a moment and reflect. Across rue Gascon two women in grey hats, tall and straight in their dark dresses, walked carefully along the sidewalk, probably on their way to church. Suddenly Charles felt tired. He sank down onto a bench; Boff, conscious of the unusual nature of their outing, busied himself sniffing at everything in the vicinity.

  “Come here, Boff. Stay close to me!” Charles called, but the dog seemed not to have heard him.

  His throat burned from having smoked too many cigarettes, and his thoughts, which so far had seemed clear and almost too free-flowing, were becoming cloudier by the minute.

  “What a drag!” he murmured to himself. “Why can’t he just leave us alone, once and for all? Why doesn’t he just get lost and go to hell? Do everyone a favour …”

  He raised his hand to his cigarette pack, then thought better of it. His head sank onto his chest and he closed his eyes.

  When he awoke, the sun was warming his legs. Two little girls in blue overalls were standing motionless in front of him, watching him gravely.

  “Charlotte! Melanie! Come over here!” called a young woman’s voice.

  The two girls ran off.

  He stretched, yawned, rubbed his back where it had been pressed against the bench, then jumped to his feet and looked around the park for Boff. The dog was sleeping under the bench.

  “You gave me a fright, old friend,” he said, kneeling down and shaking him. “Come on, get up, we’ve got to go.”

  Though his sleep had been filled with confused, agitated dreams, it had renewed his resolve. As he walked home, he managed to work out a plan of action.

  At the house he found Céline in the kitchen, making toast. She was seated at the table, one foot raised on a chair rung, concentrating on wiping a spot of jam from the tablecloth with her finger. The back of her neck was a delicious caramel colour; it glowed softly through the strands of her black hair. Charles stood in the doorway, struck by her grace.

  “Where’ve you been?” she said, looking up and smiling at him.

  “I went for a walk.”

  “You were a real early bird. You’re as bad as Papa. He left for work at seven, and Mama’s just gone to join him. Poor man. This business has thrown him for a loop. We should help him, but what can we do? Do you want some toast?”

  He said yes, just to prolong the moment. Sitting across from her, he continued to watch her surreptitiously. What was it about her? Had she grown even lovelier overnight? He found her more attractive than ever. She was like a squirrel, but a squirrel that had somehow, as though by magic, grown calm and affectionate. He wanted to touch her neck; perhaps some of her sweetness and gentleness would rub off on him. He could sure use a bit of sweetness and gentleness this morning!

  “There’s a fly on your neck,” he said, brushing her warm, velvety skin with the tips of his fingers. He played with one of her curls.

  She laughed, undeceived by his pretence.

  “That tickles,” she said. “What do you want on your toast?”

  “Leave it, I’ll do it.”

  “No, no, let me,” she said happily, a tender, mischievous gleam in her eye.

  He bit into the toast – it was soggy with butter and dripping with raspberry jam – and watched her do the same. Her nostrils dilated with pleasure, and she looked small in her too-large pyjamas. Her bare foot curved gently around the chair rung. Suddenly he felt his face turning red. She went on smiling at him.

  “Boff!” he called, looking around. “Come and eat!”

  The dog ran up to him and took the piece of toast.

  “I’m going to try to do something for Fernand this morning,” he announced suddenly, almost regretting his words before they were out. But he urgently wanted to be useful. “You have to promise you won’t say anything to anyone. Promise, Céline?”

  She listened to him in silence, crunching her toast, and the admiring expression that spread across her face as he described his plan chased away Charles’s last fears and gave him a reckless desire to throw himself into action.

  “I’m going to do it now,” he said, standing up. “If Lucie or Fernand call, tell them I’ve gone over to Blonblon’s, okay?”

  She nodded and also stood up. Then, with a rapid, supple movement that froze him to the spot, she pressed herself against him and put her arms around him.

  “Be careful, Charles. You’re being very brave, and very good. I don’t know anyone else like you.… Shouldn’t someone go with you, though?

  Like Henri, maybe? He’s as strong as a bull, you know.”

  “No,” Charles replied coolly, disengaging himself from her. “This is my doing and I’ll take care of it. Besides, there isn’t time. I want to be back by supper.”

  He left the house and walked to the credit union on Fullum, where he emptied his account: the one thousand five hundred and fifty-five dollars and sixty-four cents, most of it in hundreds, made a satisfying bulge in his pocket.

  Standing outside the building he looked across the street: to the left was his old school, Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur, where he had scored such a success with Le Cid; to his right, beside the school, was Saint-Eusèbe Church, where his mother’s funeral had taken place. “Come on,” he said to himself, shaking his head. “Get your ass in gear.”

  His next move was to find out where his father was living. It was probably somewhere in the neighbourhood. He returned to the park, where there was a telephone booth, and looked up his father’s name in the phone book. It wasn’t there, and the operator had no listing for it, either. It then occurred to him that if he checked out all the bars, brasseries, and taverns in the area he’d be bound to run into him, or else find someone who knew where he was living. He set off and went into the first place he came to, the Rivest Brasserie, on rue Ontario near Frontenac.

  The brasserie was almost empty. It was an old, seedy-looking place. Two large men were sitting with a woman next to the counter, smoking and talking.

  “You’re not getting old, Émile,” said one of the men, punching the other man lightly on the shoulder.

  “Oh yes I am. I’m getting old,” said t
he second man. “An’ if you can’t see it, it’s because your eyesight’s failing. I’m turning into an old fart.”

  Charles stood uneasily in the doorway, looking around the room. The walls were trying to hide their scars and bruises under a thick coat of bile-green paint. They must have seen generations of drinkers, he thought; it was as though all the shouting, the rattling of glasses and bottles, the scraping of boots on the floor, and the sounds of all the fights that had broken out had made the walls look cracked and broken.

  The woman looked up and came towards him. Her long, blond hair and desiccated body made him grimace involuntarily.

  “What can I do for you, young man?” she asked, in a voice that was both hard and inviting.

  Charles explained that he was looking for a man named Wilfrid Thibodeau. Did she know him?

  “Wilf? Sure I know him. He’s in here all the time.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  She turned to the two men at the table.

  “Hey, any of you guys know Wilf’s address?”

  “This spring he was living on rue Préfontaine, down by the park,” Émile said. “But he moved three weeks ago. I don’t know where to.”

  The aging blonde smiled at Charles and shrugged her shoulders, as though to say: “You’re a good-looking guy, dearie, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do for you this time.”