(to SARA) What did he tell you?
He grabs TOM by the neck.
(to TOM) What did you tell her? Eh? What?
SARA
(stepping in) Hey! Let go of him! You beat him to a pulp and he still insists on staying here? He doesn’t have to say anything!
TOM
(almost shouting) I told you to speak French, GODDAMMIT!
AGATHA
(off) Who’s swearing in my house?
SARA
(calling, attempting a fancy French accent) Cognac, si vous plaie.
FRANCIS
(to TOM) You haven’t finished with me.
SARA
Cognac!
FRANCIS
We’ll tell my mother she wants to go to my brother’s grave, then we’ll take her to the bus.
SARA
Whoa! Where am I going?
FRANCIS
To the cemetery.
TOM
(threatening SARA) To the cemetery or straight to the cow ditch!
SARA
To the what?
FRANCIS
And you can count on him, he knows the way.
TOM
One carcass more or less, no one will ever notice.
SARA is terrified. AGATHA returns with the bottle of cognac and a shoebox.
AGATHA
What were you talking about?
FRANCIS
She was talking about the decor in the kitchen.
Everyone looks at him, surprised.
She likes the decor.
AGATHA places the shoebox on the table, solemnly.
SARA
Souliers! Je aime les souliers!
AGATHA
“Souliers”! I know that means shoes. No, Nathalie, there are no shoes.
She opens the box and holds up various objects.
His first report card. His first grown-up watch. And his little notebooks. I think they’re his drawings, and his personal diaries.
FRANCIS
(uneasy) He didn’t take them with him?
AGATHA
No. He left them here.
FRANCIS
You never read them?
AGATHA
I’ve always respected your privacy. I figure, if my sons have something to tell me, let them tell me. If they have secrets to keep, let them keep them. But if their secrets make liars of them, then they’re no longer my sons. Would you like to read one, Tom?
TOM
No.
AGATHA
Read us a few lines. For Nathalie.
TOM
She doesn’t understand English.
AGATHA
Just to hear his voice. We’re all together.
FRANCIS
(threatening) That’s not a good idea, Mum.
AGATHA
Tom, do you agree that it’s not a good idea?
TOM
(upset) I don’t have the heart to read it.
AGATHA
(continuing her inventory of the contents) There’s his first tie. A lock of his hair. He had long hair when he was eighteen. Beautiful. You’re not translating, Tom?
Solemnly, she closes the box and hands it to SARA.
It’s for you, Nathalie. It’s rightfully yours.
TOM
Shit!
AGATHA
Why isn’t she taking the box? Why isn’t she doing any of the right things? Why didn’t she come to the funeral? Why doesn’t she ever look moved? Why is there no mourning in her clothes? Why hasn’t she asked the way to the cemetery? Why didn’t she bring me flowers? Why aren’t you translating, Tom? Why do I feel that I’m missing something? Why didn’t Tom speak at the church? Why is there something wrong? Who was my son? Who was he? He never came to see us anymore. What did we do to him? He never called anymore. He never wrote. Why do I feel useless? Useless.
FRANCIS
Stop, Mum!
AGATHA
I feel like Nathalie never existed.
FRANCIS
Let’s go get some cigarettes!
SARA
I don’t smoke!
Beat.
TOM
Francis has frozen. Turned to stone, marble.
SARA
I’ve never smoked, ma’am.
TOM
Boil. Shout. Explode.
FRANCIS
(to TOM) Let’s take her to the station.
FRANCIS takes the bottle of cognac and exits with TOM and SARA. AGATHA opens one of William’s notebooks and thumbs through it.
+ TABLEAU TEN +
Same evening. Outside. In the background, the sound of rain falling and a rumba playing softly.
In the trunk of the car. TOM is lit by the glow of his watch.
TOM
It stinks of gas. I’ve got a shovel handle in my ribs. My jaw’s a wreck from the punch he gave me. I’m cold. In the pitch-black trunk of the car, I can read the glow of my watch. Thirty-seven minutes and a bit. I say “a bit” because it’s hard to decide when it’s over. At the moment of ejaculation? The last kiss? When one of the two starts to talk about their family? They finished the cognac. Sara was so drunk, she forgot our little game was over. She was still talking to him in French. “Pourquoi tu mets Tom dans derrière de l’auto?” That’s when the thirty-seven minutes and a bit began. I set my stopwatch when Sara moaned the second time. I’m including her first moan in what I’m calling a bit. For thirty-seven minutes …
TOM is beside himself.
Francis is screwing her.
Penetrating her.
Banging her.
Pounding her.
Plowing her.
Digging her.
Drilling her.
Slobbering her.
Drooling her.
Sucking her.
Watering her.
Wetting her.
Spraying her.
+ TABLEAU ELEVEN +
Day 10. Morning. In the cemetery.
AGATHA
The volunteers are nice. They’re all thumbs, but they’re nice. They don’t even know how to level a dead man’s grave. The grass will grow crooked. I told Jeff one day: “It doesn’t cost a thing to bury someone around here. It’s a community service. Our cemetery looks like a cross-country bike trail, but it’s a community service.” Go get a shovel, we’ll fix up the grave.
FRANCIS
I thought you just wanted to say a prayer. I didn’t expect us to be landscaping this morning.
AGATHA
Just like me, yesterday. I didn’t expect people to make a fool of me. Go get a shovel. There’s one in the trunk of the car.
FRANCIS
How do you know?
AGATHA
There’s always a shovel in your trunk. Have you seen Tom? Did he leave with the girl? Answer me!
FRANCIS
He didn’t leave.
AGATHA
So where is he then?
FRANCIS
With the shovel.
AGATHA
What do you mean?
FRANCIS
I drank too much. I fell asleep. I forgot him in the trunk of the car.
AGATHA
I’m not asking why you forgot him, I’m asking what the hell he’s doing in the trunk of your car.
FRANCIS
A game.
AGATHA
Let him out and bring the shovel. I need to get something out of him.
FRANCIS
(trying to be funny) With a shovel?
AGATHA
You’re like that girl yesterday. You don’t know how to be funny.
FRANCIS
You mean Nathalie?
AGATHA
Stop treating me like a halfwit, okay? Go get Tom and leave us alone for a few minutes.
Go enjoy the trunk yourself!
FRANCIS
Are you mad at me?
AGATHA
I’ve had three men in my life, and I’m left with the worst of them. You don’t have to wait till you find me dead
on the kitchen floor to get rid of me. You don’t have to wait. You can leave when you want. You’re free, Francis. You’re free. Leave today if you want. I’d rather become a soft-in-the-head old lady than an old lady whose head’s been stuffed with lies. Bad son!
FRANCIS
You know I’ll always be there for you.
AGATHA
I read your brother’s notebooks.
FRANCIS
(shouting) You shouldn’t have read that!
AGATHA
He put them on my bed the day he left. I knew he’d left them there for me to read. I refused to touch them, on principle. If my son can’t tell me what he wants to tell me to my face, let him keep it to himself. If my son leaves without telling me why, I don’t want to find out why he left in some notebook! All the stories I told myself so I wouldn’t open them … Last night, I read all three the way you read the scriptures when you’re looking for the truth. First notebook: “Not in the woods. Dangerous. No pastel sweaters. Dangerous. One chain around your neck. Not two. No looking at buttocks in the showers. Swear. Smoke. Fight. A guy laughs at me. Hit him. Beer. Not wine. Two seconds in the eye. Not three. Find a girlfriend. Go hunting. Eat meat. The rest area: a trap. The gym teacher’s basement: a trap.”
FRANCIS
You shouldn’t have read those notebooks.
The silhouette of TOM holding the shovel appears.
AGATHA
Second notebook: “Swim in the stream until the current takes us away. Stare at the sun until our eyes burn. Walk on the first ice until it cracks beneath our steps. We meet at the far end of the field. I love you, Paul. What was the name of the kid whose face you tore apart?”
Beat.
In his last notebook: “Tonight at the tavern, the brother I love more than anything in this world tore apart the face of the boy I love more than anything in this world. Paul, who wanted to talk about us to my brother … the brother I loved more than anything.”
FRANCIS
He told me: “I have to talk to you about your brother. It’s touchy. We’re really in love. It’s touchy.”
AGATHA
(still quoting from the notebooks) “He tore Paul’s beautiful face apart. I saw the whole thing. I didn’t lift a finger. I could see he was suffering, I could hear him screaming, I didn’t defend him. I didn’t do a thing. I think we should never tell the truth. Never.”
The silhouette of TOM holding the shovel disappears.
FRANCIS
If I hadn’t shut Paul up, someday, someone would’ve shut your little boy up for good! Let them do that stuff in the city, but not here. Let’s keep the little we’ve got left here clean!
AGATHA
Go get Tom.
FRANCIS goes to the trunk of the car.
“He entered the house. No one recognized him. He sat down at our table. No one recognized him. He spoke to us of love. No one recognized him and those who were mourning him went to his grave, but it was empty.”
FRANCIS
(as he returns) He’s not in the trunk, goddammit. It was empty.
AGATHA
Amen, Francis. Amen.
FRANCIS
(calling, shouting) TOM! TOM!
FRANCIS exits again.
+ TABLEAU TWELVE +
Same day. In the cornfield.
TOM
He’s shouting. He’s furious. He’s telling me to stay. He’s looking for me. He’s apologizing to me. Anything to get me to stay. He’s afraid. He’s finally afraid. I can feel his heart beating. He’s still calling me. I’m waiting. I can hear him coming closer. I don’t make a sound.
FRANCIS
(off) Tom! Tom!
TOM
Only the dog answers him in the distance. Not even God cares about him now. Like a madman, he’s looking for me in the cornfield. The dry stalks of corn slap him in the face. He can’t see a thing. I raise the shovel. First I hit him in the back of the neck. A stifled cry. He falls. That was cowardly. I should have hit him from the front. I couldn’t have done it. He looks too much like you. The sun glows with hope. I hit him again. He collapses. You’re strong, man. Breathe, for chrissakes, breathe! He’s stopped moving. In the distance, the trees are autumn red. I kick him to see if he’s still alive. He’s still moving. A hare. Francis is a hare. He’s bleeding from his mouth. My hands in his mouth. I open. Wider and wider. “You tell me when to stop, man.” All around us, sheaths of gold. I’ll tell Agatha that Francis left for the city to be with Sara.
BLACKOUT
Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal. Her translations of plays by Quebec’s most prominent playwrights have been published and produced across Canada and abroad. In her work as a literary manager and dramaturge, she has directed numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. She was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Gaboriau has twice won the Governor General’s Award for Translation: in 1996, for Daniel Danis’s Stone and Ashes, and in 2010, for Wajdi Mouawad’s Forests.
photo: Josée Lambert
Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard emerged on the professional theatre scene in 1985. Since then he has written twenty-five plays and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including, in June 2012, the prestigious National Order of Quebec for his contribution to Quebec culture, and, in 2005, the Order of Canada. He has also received le Prix Littéraire du Journal de Montréal, Prix du Cercle des critiques de l’Outaouais, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, and the Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play. Translated into nine languages, Bouchard’s bold, visionary works have represented Canada at major festivals around the world.
photo: Julie Perreault
Also by Michel Marc Bouchard
The Coronation Voyage*
Down Dangerous Passes Road*
Heat Wave
Lilies
The Madonna Painter*
The Orphan Muses
The Tale of Teeka*
Written on Water*
*Available from Talonbooks
About Talonbooks
Thank you for reading and purchasing Tom at the Farm.
If you came across this e-book by some other means, feel free to purchase it and support our hard work. It is available through most major online e-book retailers and on our website. The print edition is also available.
Talonbooks is a small, independent, Canadian book publishing company. We have been publishing works of the highest literary merit since the 1960s. With nearly 500 books in print, we offer drama, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction by local playwrights, poets, and authors from the mainstream and margins of Canada’s three founding nations, as well as both visible and invisible minorities within Canada’s cultural mosaic.
Learn more about us, or learn more about the playwright, Michel Marc Bouchard.
© 2011 by Michel Marc Bouchard
Translation © 2013 by Linda Gaboriau
Talonbooks
P.O. Box 2076, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 3S3
www.talonbooks.com
Cover design: Mauve Pagé (Page & Design)
Cover photography: Makito Inomata (front), Roberto Oleotto (back)
Cover model: Bryson Norrish
First printing: 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit for our publishing activities.
Tom at the Farm was first published in French as Tom à la ferme b
y Leméac Éditeur, Montreal, in 2011. Translation commissioned by Factory Theatre, Toronto, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Rights to produce Tom at the Farm, in whole or in part, in any medium by any group, amateur or professional, are retained by the author. Interested persons are requested to contact his agent: John C. Goodwin & Associates, Suite 200, 839 Sherbrooke est, Montreal, Quebec H2L 1K6; tel.: (514) 598-5252; www.agencegoodwin.com.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bouchard, Michel Marc, 1958–
[Tom à la ferme. English]
Tom at the farm [electronic resource] / Michel Marc Bouchard ; translated by Linda Gaboriau.
Translation of: Tom à la ferme.
Electronic monograph in EPUB format.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-0-88922-760-6
I. Gaboriau, Linda II. Title. III. Title: Tom à la ferme. English
PS8553.O7745T6413 2013 C842’.54 C2013-900161-1
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