The Years of Fire

by Yves Beauchemin

  She jumped to her feet. Just as she came out of the living room she saw his bedroom door close.

  “Charles,” she said, bringing her mouth close to his door. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  There was no response from within.

  “What’s the matter, Charles?” she whispered, more and more concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  She heard a deep sigh coming from her parents’ room, and the bed gave a dry, imperious squeak, as though ordering her to be quiet.

  Frightened, she waited a moment; then, in an almost inaudible whisper, she called Charles again. This time she heard steps approaching the other side of the door.

  “Leave me alone!” the young man said in a hoarse and curiously guttural whisper, as though he were choking back sobs.

  Céline stepped back, suddenly chilled. She remained in the hall for a few moments, wondering if she should overcome her fear and go into the room, then she went back to the living room instead. She turned off the television and went to bed.

  But it was a long night! She slept for five or six minutes, then suddenly opened her eyes, her mind as clear and racing as though it were mid-afternoon. She listened, jumping at the tiniest sounds, trying to figure out where they came from. She thought of Charles, and only of Charles. A plethora of details passed through her mind, some she hadn’t paid much attention to earlier: his sudden bursts of irritability over the past few weeks, especially aimed at Henri (when he’d always been so easy to get along with), and his secretiveness and mistrust, the way he went out nearly every night. According to Fernand he was simply “out on the prowl,” and Lucie, more elegantly, said he was old enough now to be interested in girls, and added that she hoped he would find one who would please him and stay with him. Henri didn’t say anything. All he did was roll his eyes, or snigger behind his hand and look away.

  Céline didn’t put much stock in Charles’s supposed amorous adventuring, partly because when someone runs after a lot of girls it’s usually because none of them is very interesting. But she also thought there was something else going on; there was the way he talked to her now, so different from how a brother talks to his sister! But mostly it was the air of unhappiness that had hardly left him for the past few weeks: that wasn’t at all how a boy behaved when he was chasing after girls. Of course she wasn’t naive enough to think that he hadn’t had his adventures.… Steve Lachapelle, whose mouth sometimes worked faster than his brain, had let something slip a while ago about a girl named Marlene. Céline had been instantly jealous. But Charles had never brought anyone to the house, never spoken of anyone, and for several months now hadn’t seemed to be seeing anyone special. In the end, Céline felt nothing for this Marlene person but indifference.

  No, there was something else afoot, something serious, and she was sure Henri knew what it was. She’d tried a few times to worm it out of him, but he hadn’t responded with anything but vague stories he was obviously making up, or an abrupt order to mind her own business. What could be going on? Nothing really terrible, she was sure, because she didn’t think a person like Charles would get mixed up in anything like that. It must have something to do with his father. With that man, anything was possible. He could be forcing his son to do something he didn’t want to do. If only she had the courage to talk to Charles directly, or if he would come to her to confide in her, share whatever it was that was tormenting him, everything would be out in the open, and the two of them could surely find a solution.

  Two or three times she got out of bed and tiptoed to the hallway to listen. Once she thought she heard a strangled sob, but with her father’s deep snoring she couldn’t be sure. His room was across the hall from Charles’s.

  Then she was suddenly overcome by exhaustion and fell dead asleep. She woke up feeling that she had climbed out of a deep, cotton-filled chasm, and that it had taken all her strength and left her with a feeling of deep sadness; she was almost sick to her stomach. How long had she slept? It was nearly morning. Then she suddenly sat straight up in bed. Something had happened, something she could sense only confusedly. But it had to do with Charles.

  Her intuition was confirmed when she heard slight creaks coming from the hallway, followed by the squeaking of the door lock again: someone had just left the house!

  She jumped out of bed, ran to the vestibule, and, pulling aside the curtains on the door, saw Charles disappearing around a corner with his backpack. His backpack? Where the devil was he off to? And why so early? According to her watch it was only twenty after five. She ran back into her room, took off her pyjamas, and climbed into her jeans.

  Lucie appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said, pulling a sweater over her head. “I don’t have time right now.”

  “But where are you going? Don’t you realize what time it is?”

  Without even looking at her mother, Céline ran out the door. An instant later she was dashing down the street, and then she was gone. To Lucie, it was as though the city had swallowed her up.

  She ran for a minute, maybe two, hoping to catch up to Charles, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. She stopped. Where could he have gone? Maybe he was waiting for a bus on rue Ontario. At this time in the morning they didn’t come very often.

  Retracing her steps she came to the corner and swept the street with a glance. Two city workers were tinkering with a fire hydrant, making a lot of noise, but there was no one else in sight. Had he flagged down a taxi? She turned around in circles, feeling more and more helpless, and then had an idea. It was a long shot, but for the time being it was the only shot she had.

  She ran towards rue Dufresne, turned south as far as rue Lalonde, crossed it, and came to a stop in front of Charles’s old daycare. It had long been converted into a woodworking shop. There was a sign on the front door:

  GODIN & GOSSELIN

  Furniture of all types

  Specializing in kitchen cupboards

  She had come here the day Charles told her about the little yellow dog. Whatever else was going on in his life, it was certain that he was going through great distress: maybe he had come here to find some peace beside his dog?

  The gate to the yard was locked at that hour, so she climbed over the iron grating. Then she ran alongside the building into the yard, where piles of boards and beams were covered with large, flapping tarps to keep them from getting too much sun. At the back, to the left, now flanked by a kind of plastic garage, stood the old cherry tree under which Charles had buried the little yellow dog. Someone had tried to trim it, or had attempted to cut it down and given up, but despite the mauling it had received, and even though it was reduced now to a twisted shrub, it was still responding to the spring by valiantly sending out a spray of blossoms.

  Céline uttered a cry of disappointment; there was no one under the tree. Her intuition had failed her. Then, in the pale, blueish haze of dawn, she saw someone slumped against the tree trunk on the opposite side. She moved forward, holding her breath, ready to run away at the least sign of trouble. She saw a pair of legs, and recognized the black leather boots as belonging to Charles. She kept moving ahead slowly, craning her neck forward, her eyes wide, trying to figure out what he was doing. His head was bent over his backpack, his arms were crossed, and he seemed to be staring off into space. A piece of cardboard, no doubt picked up in the yard, protected him from the wet ground.

  “Charles,” she said softly.

  She fell to her knees beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up, apparently not surprised to see her.

  “So,” was all he said, raising his shoulders. “So it’s you the little yellow dog has sent me.… How did you know I was here?”

  She smiled timidly.

  “I knew.”

  Then she added, “I’ve come to help you.”

  “Henri told you, then?”

  “Henry didn’t tell me anything. But just seeing you last night, I knew that something terrib
le had happened.”

  “Henri doesn’t know anything … about this, anyway,” Charles went on, as though talking to himself. “No one knows … yet …”

  “What is it, Charles? And where are you going like this?”

  “South America.”

  “South America?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll hitchhike.”

  “But you don’t have a passport.”

  “I’ll get one. There are ways.”

  She tried to say something, but her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Have you gone crazy, Charles? I …”

  “Yes. Crazy.” She started to cry.

  “Charles, listen to me. Please, Charles, try to calm down a bit.… Tell me what happened. I’m sure we can work something out.… All we have to do –”

  “I killed an angel, Céline.”

  She looked at him, stunned, wondering if she’d heard correctly.

  “I killed an angel,” he said again, with bitter conviction. “We can’t work that out. It’s done. I have to go away. I can’t live here any more. Ask your parents if they’ll look after Boff. And thank them for everything they’ve done for me.”

  A moment went by. She kept looking at him, not knowing what to say, wondering if he really had lost his mind.

  “What angel, Charles?” she finally murmured. “I don’t understand.”

  Feverishly, speaking a mile a minute, as though he had no time to lose before removing himself forever from human compassion, he told her the lamentable story, right up to the terrible conclusion she had witnessed the night before. Caught between the demands of his father and the terror of pushing drugs, he had gone through moments of deep wretchedness, but the death of the Blond Angel had been worse than any of that. It had dirtied him forever, and the only way he could put it behind him and be forgotten by everyone was to leave the city, like the hero of some romantic fable.

  She listened calmly and closely, holding back the surprise and fear that his story produced in her. All the while he was talking she was trying to think of a simple and practical idea, something she could put together with other ideas to come up with a plan of action that would pull Charles back from the brink of despair.

  When he finished talking, exhausted, he stared down at a small bump in the dirt in front of him with a pitiful, bitter smile.

  “I’m rotten, eh?” he said at last.

  “No, Charles, you’re not rotten. You’re the opposite. You’ve shown what a generous person you are, trying to help Papa, more generous than anyone has ever been. It’s just that you picked the wrong way to go about it.”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “Easy for you to say! There was no other way.”

  She said nothing. She followed Charles’s gaze to where he was staring at the ground.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked after a moment.

  He seemed not to have heard, lost as he was in despair. Then a shiver passed through him; he raised his voice, turning towards her.

  “This morning I was on my way to the port to try to get a berth, so I could get the hell away from here as soon as possible. But while I was looking for a cab I thought I’d come here first, to say a final goodbye to my little yellow dog, because I knew I’d never see it again. I hoped it would do me some good, because it always has in the past. I felt so messed up, Céline, so sick of myself, I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the day. So I came here and sat down with what’s left of this pitiful tree and I tried to get calm again. I leaned against the trunk and tried to put my thoughts into some kind of order – but it was hard after what happened last night, and I could feel the cold rising up my legs. And then I saw … Céline, you won’t believe this, but I’m telling you I saw … it only lasted a few seconds … I saw a kind of yellow vapour rising up out of the ground, out of that little bump you can see there: it looked like a kind of cloud in the form of a small dog … please, Céline, you’ve got to believe me, I wasn’t imagining it! … it rubbed against my leg and then pffft! where it went I don’t know. But from that moment I knew that something would happen, so I waited, and … you arrived. It’s amazing, don’t you think?”

  What Céline thought was that Charles was a deeply troubled soul. “Those blasted pills,” she thought, “he must have taken some of them himself.”

  But she told him she hadn’t the slightest idea what had happened; what was important was that they were together and that they would find a solution, that really difficult problems were always easier to solve when there were two.

  He nodded his agreement and his face brightened a bit.

  Encouraged, Céline told him what she had been thinking. The first thing they had to do was find somewhere where Charles could rest, even sleep, because he didn’t seem to be in any condition to make decisions at that point. Then they had to find out exactly what had happened to Brigitte Loiseau. In his befuddlement he was behaving as though she were dead, but how could he be sure? If she were still alive, it would change everything.

  Charles shook his head like a stunned boxer.

  “Either she’s dead or as good as.… You didn’t see her, Céline, you didn’t see …”

  “Listen to me! You’ve got her dead and buried already and she might be walking around as alive as you, maybe even more so! Let me at least find out, and stop being so damned stubborn.”

  He shook his finger at her.

  “Do not ever call the police! I absolutely forbid that. That would finish me!”

  “Come on, Charles, what do you take me for, a turkey? I’ll find out, don’t worry.”

  That Charles was even listening to her plans was encouraging. But they had to get out of the yard before the workshop opened and they were discovered. Where could they go?

  Charles, all of a sudden, seemed to have pulled himself out of his slough of despair. He walked as though on firm ground, his step back to its normal assurance. Seeing him gather his wits about him so quickly filled Céline with boundless joy. Her love for him grew stronger, if such a thing were possible. She laughed and kissed his cheek. He didn’t respond, lost in his own thoughts.

  “There’s a small hotel at the corner of Mont-Royal and de Lorimier,” he said suddenly. “They’ll probably let me have a room. Let’s go there. I’ll go in alone, though; you look too young.”

  She looked at him a little crossly and was on the point of asking him how he knew about this hotel, but she thought it wasn’t a good time to be challenging him.

  Twenty minutes later they were there. Charles hadn’t said three words the whole way, having slipped back into his despondency. The Blond Angel was surely dead, he knew it. He could feel it. All Céline’s kindness and resourcefulness wasn’t going to change that. Her presence at his side was comforting, of course it was, but it didn’t erase his crime. And even if Brigitte Loiseau were alive, he was still what he’d always be: a miserable dope peddler. He could never forgive himself for that.

  “Wait for me in front of that fruit stand, okay?” he said to Céline. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

  She crossed the street and went up to the window of a fruit stand. Inside, a man with a black moustache and a thin, brown face was washing the floor with wide swipes of his mop, his eyes still half closed. He looked up and saw her, and gave her a smile. Another good sign. She felt bubbles of goodness welling up inside her, ready to burst out of her body and float off in all directions, to do battle against all human misery. Charles would be the first to feel the benefits. How wonderful! A feeling of intense happiness invaded her, and she had to lean against the window frame and tap her foot on the pavement in her excitement.

  Charles came out almost immediately and crossed over to where she was waiting, making a small sign with his hand to indicate that everything was settled. He seem calmer, relieved.

  “You were right, it will do me good to get some sleep. I’m dead on my feet and my brain feels like mashed potatoes. I�
��m in room 206. Come and get me whenever you’re ready. I’ve told the clerk to let you up.”

  And he kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ll make a few inquiries first,” she said, blushing with pleasure.

  He gave her Brigitte Loiseau’s address and warned her again to be careful. She left, full of excitement but not having the faintest idea how she would go about achieving her mission.

  “I’ll just play the innocent little know-nothing,” she decided after thinking about it for a moment.

  A few minutes later she was ringing the door to the actress’s apartment. “There might be someone there who can tell me what happened,” she thought. When there was no response, she rang the bell of the apartment below. A woman with a large, wrinkled nose opened the door. She had a knife in her hand, and her hair was tied back in a nylon net; she smelled strongly of spaghetti sauce.

  “Poor little thing,” she said, “you should’a phoned before coming all this way, dear. She’s in the hospital, is our Brigitte, and she won’t be getting out too soon, if you ask me.… They had to take her in an ambulance last night.”

  “An ambulance?” cried Céline, feigning surprise. “What happened to her?”

  “How should I know? And even if I did I wouldn’t say nothing,” replied the woman, with a caution that contrasted sharply with her earlier loquacity. “I don’t know who you are, do I? It’s everyone for himself in this world, dear. That way no one gets in trouble, eh?”

  She turned and went back into her apartment, where her spaghetti sauce was calling.

  After a few more inquiries, Céline learned that the actress had been taken to Notre-Dame Hospital. That was all she’d really hoped to find out. She left, feeling encouraged. If the actress were still alive, a terrible catastrophe would have been averted. Now Céline had to find out if that were the case. She ran into a restaurant and telephoned the hospital, pretending to be a friend. She was told that Mademoiselle Loiseau could not receive any visitors at the moment, but she was out of danger and was getting better.