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Last Days of Montreal

Page 6

by John Brooke


  Well, that’s life.

  Josée, the junkie hooker? Sure.

  And with nothing underneath her clothes!

  He knows where to find her though…

  Mais oui — you know that Last Days knows!

  But deep down, Last Days worries that he’s never really done anything good.

  Except one thing, maybe…once. It was the summer of ’95: Last Days was puttering across the Cartier Bridge one fine afternoon, sipping a beer the way he likes to, weaving along at a leisurely pace and screwing up the flow of traffic, when he saw a woman get off her bike right at the highest point. Last Days knew what was up: Quebec has the highest suicide rate in the country and he has an eye for death. So he cut across a lane or two and bumped to a stop at the curb. He was thinking he might get a good look up her skirt as she climbed up on her bike, put her foot up on the rail. And he did.

  She looked around as she got herself into position. He grinned at her. Kind of cosmic that the last guy she would see in this world would be Last Days. She had a deep white sullen face and she moved it at him. A smile?…a cute and sorrowful moue? Whatever it was, Last Days felt it, the power of her deathly eyes, and was caught in a double bind. “Don’t give the bastards the satisfaction,” he told her, mean as he could, which was right; but he was telling her not to jump, which was wrong — for him, at any rate.

  “Leave me alone,” she said.

  “Think about it.”

  “I have.”

  “Yeah? So do you think someone will find a job if you jump? Will the economy pick up if you sacrifice yourself? Will the Canadiens win it next season if you die? Or the Expos — will they hang on, make some money, stay in town? What’s your death gonna do for this place? Will the Federals come to our rescue? Will those PQ’s rewrite their question if you kill your white body?”

  “What question?”

  “Their referendum.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “No? Well, do you think there’ll be any coherence in the way the two sides interpret your jump?”

  “My jump is my own!”

  “No it isn’t.” Now he was getting mad. “It’s theirs!”

  “That’s politics,” she sniffed. “This is mine, and I’m going to.”

  “Ah, you ass! You dumb, stupid lady!” It always gets him so worked up. Last Days was bouncing on his seat, grabbing at himself, and the people in their cars were beginning to notice. “It looks like politics but it’s just their goddamn minds! Their big minds…their swollen minds. But it’s nothing. Hear me? Rien du tout! All they do is open up the other one’s head and start eating, then farting out nothing, and we’re stuck here in the middle of it with their stink! You and me in Montreal, squeezed by the high-powered jerk-offs and the well-connected cunts. It’s what they want…this end-game!”

  “You’re grotesque!”

  “And you’re pretty. But is your stupid little death going to do anything to fill the vacuum?”

  “What vacuum?”

  “Montreal!” shrieked Last Days. “Jesus Christ, where have you been, girl? What have you been doing?”

  She was crying by that point. “Oh please,” she whined, “just go away!”

  “I know what you’ve been doing,” accused Last Days. “You’ve been falling into despair and now you think you have to finish what you started. Don’t! They’re the ones who created your despair. If you jump, they’ll win!”

  She didn’t want to hear it. “Stop it!”

  “Me, stop? You stop! Stop being such a fucking lamb! Don’t just slip over the side of a bridge. Rub their noses in it! Take drugs, get on welfare, go sit in the Emergency room at the hospital all day, or drink beer and eat donuts and get dangerously fat. Die slowly! Go down moaning, screaming — or laughing like me! Go down as ugly as you can! It’s all we can do to make them know!”

  Her eyes were tight and the tears were flowing. Sirens could be heard approaching. She wavered and Last Days thought he might’ve blown it. The cops pulled up, three of them, and trucks from Channels Twelve and Ten. They all made a move — but Last Days held out an arm. Stop! Stay there! This is me and her now… This is our show. So they kept their distance and it was quiet: traffic stopped, people gawking. Just the wind that never ends up there. And her weeping.

  “So what’s your name, darling?”

  “Claudia.”

  “Claudia. That’s nice. I knew a Claudia once. Crackhead. She didn’t make it… Maybe you’re the next Claudia. Maybe that’s your job.”

  “No! I have no job.”

  “Well, who does? I mean something to do. Everyone’s allowed to have something to do in this life — even you. And if they won’t give you money, do it anyway!”

  “I don’t do anything except cry and I’m sick of it.”

  “What…your boyfriend?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend!”

  “Well, you should. When was the last time you got laid?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “What I mean is, maybe you and me could — ”

  “I’m married!”

  “Damn.”

  This Claudia scowled at him. Kind of bent, like him. “I’m married to a tree.”

  Last Days had to smile. This was definitely his kind of woman. “That’s nice. Which tree?”

  “Behind the house. Two trees…two horrible poplar trees. My father gave me to them. All I ever do is stand there and cry. I’ll never have sex with anyone.” She turned toward the sky.

  Last Days laughed: a wicked, peeling, broken cackle that stopped any would-be heroes behind him dead in their tracks.

  It also stopped Claudia.

  He told her, “You’re perfect for Montreal. Really. A woman like you, you’re not Claudia, you’re goddamn Miss Montreal!” She blinked. But yes, his smile, though ghastly, was a true one. “Don’t jump, Claudia. Please don’t jump. Stay with us! Stay with your trees… Jesus, I haven’t said please since before the dog died.”

  She stared down at him, her white face not really English, not French.

  “You Italian?”

  She nodded.

  “I knew it. Cook?”

  She shrugged. It seemed she’d lost her dark resolve.

  Another police car came wailing through the throng.

  “Claudia!” A woman’s voice. Then a torrent in Italian as she came toward her daughter, one stocky little mama in a dull grey dress. The father, a big bullish guy, was being held by two cops. In fact they’d cuffed him. The mother was the calm one.

  They talked and screamed and cried; then she climbed down. Last Days copped another peek. She noticed. He grinned again, crude and sly. She shrugged and walked away with her bike and her mom. Back to her pa and her trees? He wanted to find out more.

  But they all walk away from Last Days. “So fuck ’em!” cried the dirty man.

  The people, starting up their engines, turned and glared.

  Who knows where Claudia ended up? They’re finding bodies everywhere these days. All the people who just can’t handle it. Last Days was thinking he could make some extra money helping find them. He rides low and sees underneath things. What’s more, Last Days of Montreal knows exactly where to look.

  But he won’t, because he’s afraid he might be the one to find her. Claudia.

  It’s lasted, you see. Claudia…sad and crazy, and just his style.

  A spark of love for Last Days’ heart. It keeps him clear of total darkness. It might be the only thing.

  Clau-di-a?

  Clau-di-a?

  Almost in a singing voice,

  He breathes it as he goes…

  Our Lady of the Poplars

  There are two poplars spreading over the lane behind Claudia’s house in rue St. Gédéon, in the north end of Montreal. They stand just the other side of the fence, in the big yard behind the maison de retraite, tall — as tall as the home’s six floors, and windy. The poplars are treasures and the old people in the home are protective. Last spring, wh
en Bruce the Anglo neighbour screwed the other end of Geneviève’s clothesline into one of them, there was a crowd gathered at the fence, skeptical, making sure no harm was done. It is not a legal question of property that concerns the old people. It’s because the poplar is a tree of death and resurrection, and the souls of the residents are tied to these two as they prepare to die. But is that why Claudia dithers in the lane, teary and aimless on this heavenly August afternoon? Is she crying because the old people are going to die? Of course not.

  Claudia’s problem is love. Always love and only love.

  She watches the old people watching, listening to the song of the wind in the poplar boughs. A song of dreaming. The old people, on benches in the maison yard or sitting on their balconies, are enveloped by it. Eternity beams through the sun, touching quiet faces. Maybe one or two of them are leaving the world at this very moment, disappearing into pure warmth. Claudia’s T-shirt is loose. The wind gets inside it and kisses her skin. Her shifting skirt is weightless. Everything is perfect but her heart. Her heart sends the message to her eyes: Cry. Her eyes, chestnut coloured, with a sparkle of blue she got from Pa, obey. Then Claudia’s black hair moves on the back of her neck and she is reminded that her neck is so white. She’s not sunny brown like her father. Or Mama or Sophia. Or Jean-François, Sophia’s man. Or little Nicolo, Sophia’s child. They love the sun, but Claudia is as white as —

  No! Don’t think it! Claudia, you are pretty. Your pallor is attractive. The meaning it sends is irresistible; lots of men turn and look. It’s fine, delicate. Lots of men would love to touch you. And you know this — but you won’t budge! You love your obsession, don’t you? Claudia? Be honest.

  They are not my obsession! Like Pa, Claudia hates these words. They are my fate!

  This loyalty is useless, Claudia. Very Old World. Leave it. Forget what he told you…

  The argument within her heart goes on and on. The only result is tears.

  And always, Claudia’s ultimate answer: They are all I have.

  Because Claudia has no look or style, no job for very long, no real friend but Mama.

  Her mama keeps saying, You’re young!…you have lots of time.

  But she’s not young. She’s thirty. She believes she has the personality of a tree. Two trees. And so she sniffs, wipes a finger under her nose and stares up through the sparkling leaves. Time alone, she asks — alone with two old trees? Is that my job? Yes it is, yes it is, yes it is… Everywhere above her, the answer is the same: millions of poplar leaves deflecting the sun. Protecting! Protecting! is what they always whisper. Claudia knows the poplars intimately. They are hers. Hers in marriage. She is married to both of them, and has been since she was twelve. Because Pa said.

  A silver fir would give her hope for children. With a linden, she would find passion.

  Even a prickly juniper would make it better, imbue her with the haughty pride of spring.

  But Claudia got twin poplars for her life. At least they’re not yews, reaching down through the cloying earth into the mouths of the rotting dead. No, Claudia is complex but never categorical; she always comes full circle, back to life. Back to love. If you’re a man, you have to trust she will.

  Yes, well, that’s the trouble. Making a man believe.

  For now, she stands in the shade and cries. Claudia cries for the men.

  Bruce, who lives with Geneviève, is on his porch with a beer and a book. Claudia can’t see her from where she stands, but she knows the snarky Française will be directly below, sitting reading in her bikini that’s getting too small. Bruce sips his beer and looks up from his book — and looks.

  Mélanie’s in her yard next door to Bruce’s, with her hair all permed and dyed. It’s horrible, but even she has a boyfriend now. The nurse, approaching fifty and so long alone, sits on her porch with a beer and the dumpy little guy who’s been coming around. Claudia bets she must have found him in her hospital, probably in the basement, hosing down bodies. Ah, Claudia…it’s jealousy that can make her heart turn morbid. While the nurse, free on this perfect day, lets the sun play on her dried-out skin and processed hair. The dumpy little guy is laughing. But he steals a glance at the woman in the lane.

  Mario, Mélanie’s brother, is on his porch directly above them, working on a fish he caught that morning. Greta, a bitch hound, lies at his feet, tail thwapping, happy to be with him on a Saturday. Mario does good things with the fish he catches. After Sophie, Mario’s wife, moved out, and after his backdoor thing with Lise who lives on the other side of them, Mario brought some smoked Lake Ontario salmon to Claudia’s window. Then a fillet of St. Lawrence River trout. In return, she took a couple of bottles of Pa’s wine and gave them to Mario. Mama knew. Pa didn’t…he never does. Claudia and Mario drank a bottle together when Christophe, his kid, was at his mom’s. They were as close as you can get to doing it without quite doing it, when he burst into tears. It was money. All the jobs he always loses. His failed marriage. Claudia listened and then went home. She blamed herself. Of course. She’s married to death. The thing with Mario never got past that point. But Mario still looks.

  The same way Rodrigo, Lise’s new Latino boyfriend, will look. Rodrigo likes her, Claudia can feel it in her skin. Her pale skin… She turns the other way.

  Pacci, her uncle, is sitting in the shade with Marisa, Mama’s sister, beside their truck at the edge of the lane. Pacci studies her openly as he lights a cigarette. Pacci’s upstairs tenant Danny Ng is out on his porch with his wife. He waves, smiling that guileless smile. But Claudia is not fooled.

  Pa’s working in the garden. He won’t look. He’d rather watch Geneviève basking in the sun. Oh yes, Claudia can see her pa looking up with each stroke of his spade for another peek at Geneviève. Mama, on the porch steps binding parsley, ignores it. Above Mama, Maurice, their tenant, has his jazz playing while he works in his kitchen. Maurice has tried — almost. Pa scared him off before Claudia had a chance to. She knows he wants to try again. Today, he’s only a shadow behind the screen door, but Claudia can see him so he can see her — if he looks.

  That’s how they line up on an August afternoon. All the men. If they want to, each man can see Claudia where she stands in the shade of the poplars with the warm wind blowing, her perpetual tears falling from her lonely eyes.

  A quick breeze gusts through the poplars in the form of a wanton sigh.

  Sure enough, Mario, Rodrigo, Bruce, Danny, Pacci, they all look up. Pa too. Maurice the tenant comes to his door.

  Sullen, Claudia snaps a piece of bark from one of the poplars and twists it in her hand. Then, hopeless, she tosses it into the yard of the maison de retraite and walks away. She walks fifty paces, to the end of the lane and into the small park at the corner of rue Chateaubriand. They can still see her though. Claudia knows they can, and she feels the movements of their eyes while she’s swinging on the children’s swing. Pull…push…pull…push…

  Nothing happens. No one comes. None of them dares need her.

  Claudia puts her sandalled feet back in the dirt and leaves the park.

  She comes back up the lane to stand beneath her trees.

  As proprietress of the poplars, Claudia is always — eternally — a force of change: life-in-death and death-in-life. More essentially, she is Love. She tries to tell each man who wants her; tries to make them know this. But approached through the poplars, she is complicated, difficult. She is a woman and so she loves; but her love sways, back…then forth, and settles in extremes. Love stops, she waits to die. A man approaches and love resurges. She swells with power, like with Mario, forcing him to confront his feeble life. She can be straight, with an imposing dignity, flashing silver-white and seductive. Or she can be horrid, her pale white face decaying even as men reach to touch her, her desperate hands grasping till the bones play through her skin. Just as she’s about to die forever, coldly triumphant in her crypt of strength, she understands love will be there again on the other side of death. So Claudia smiles again…until she c
ries.

  Poor Claudia, forever changing. Men can’t cope with it.

  The poplars, luxurious, insouciant, seem to know.

  Did Pa know this when he gave her to those two trees? She was twelve, on the verge of being a woman, exactly at the wrong moment. She had spent her childhood watching him make his wine, hearing him singing as he sipped it in the sun out back, seeing the beauty of him there in the yard, listening to him dream, hanging on his every word as they went walking in the lane. “…walking with the Gods,” he said. She was happy — it was fun to have a pa so magical. She was his special girl and believed him totally. That day, a day not unlike this one, Pa saw her looking up at the waving branches, the white sparkle of the leaves, and told her, “So you will be married to a tree, my Claudia. Oh yes, cara mia. But which one?” Then he laughed and they’d gone in for supper.

  And she’d been thrilled and dreamed with all her heart to make it so for Pa.

  But which one indeed? How could she ever choose? She couldn’t, and it made her sad until Pa, because he loved her, said she could be married to both of them. So she was. She gave herself to the poplars… In high school, she revelled in it. Those moments of power over boys…then the loneliness she soon perfected; either way, Claudia was special, just like Pa had promised. She even had girlfriends who thought they’d like it too — to have a story like Claudia’s.

  But they could never know how it was, because they never had Pa for a pa.

  Then they no longer wanted to, while Claudia went deeper into it, the story of her marriage to the poplars. Her story became her fate and she took it with her into the world; although her sister warned her, “Don’t be like Pa, Claudia. Look what his madness has done to Mama.” And Sophia was right: special soon meant marginal, isolated, at jobs…at love, telling everyone about the poplars and her fate, because she had to, because the more it set her apart, the more it was all she had. While Pa smiled knowingly. Claudia gave up on the world. She stays at home with Pa and Mama now. And now she knows that no one knows what Pa knows, least of all poor Mama — that there’s a problem there, and that her own life is another sad result of Pa’s.

 

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