by John Brooke
Her Bruce was disappearing into the cold several nights a week and on Sunday afternoons, leaving shows he loved unwatched to drive through the cramped and broken streets, out to the West Island, Westmount and NDG, or down to McGill for these meetings.
“Seinfeld, The Health Show, the hockey game, even his stupid Super Bowl! And twice to the Townships, just near your place.”
“They call it l’Estrie now,” muttered Gaston, whose Micheline had put everything aside while she prepared a speech she would give at the town hall down in Burlington, Vermont. It was less than an hour from the border. The border was five minutes from their farm. “…to tell them the real history of Quebec and not to be afraid of it. That’s her message. They have a network. They’re determined to spread the good word from the Adirondacks over to Maine.”
“Bruce’s group is going over to the Outaouais next week. A weekend workshop, is what he’s calling it.”
“They don’t have a chance.”
“They don’t care. They’re expecting contingents from the Gaspé, the Mégantic, Pontiac County, even from up in Val-d’Or.”
“It’s provocative.”
“It’s what they’re thinking,” shrugged Geneviève. “He says they’ve got the Indians on their side.”
“Not really. That’s a whole other thing.”
“Try telling him. He says his country had a near-death experience and he’s vowed never to let it happen again. It affected him.”
“Micheline says she has never felt more alive.” He rolled his bony jaw around on its joints, shook his head and stared down at the messy mélange of police cars amid the drumlins of dirty snow. “…alive in front of the computer for sixteen hours a day. My children have it too. Not just from Maman. It’s their teachers.”
“So where do you stand, monsieur?”
“I don’t care,” said Gaston, glum. “I don’t feel it.”
“Mmm,” agreed Geneviève. “It all seems so unnecessary.”
“Yes,” he said, reaching for her, “and so does all the snow.”
“I’ve never been homesick,” whispered Geneviève, “but I feel quite left out by all this. I feel cast aside.”
He nodded. He knew.
And so, like that, they made love.
Then, sitting there in the apple farmer’s pied-à-terre, they watched a tribute to the wily Mitterrand. Wily? Some American journalist’s word. But yes: a survivor — in the face of controversy and even, for a while, mortal illness. They both identified with that.
They continued making love through the winter into the spring. It was nice. It was necessary: a step back from the tense bleakness colouring the cold. Endless Montreal winters made life seem directionless in the best of times and these were anything but. She was glad she’d done it… In the rusty shower, Gaston showed Geneviève the right mix of water and cider vinegar. A simple rinse, to close the follicles after the shampoo. With regular use, it worked; her itching all but disappeared. So did Bruce’s, once she’d started him on it. (It was, she felt, the least that she could do.)
Yet, when it’s up in the air like that — in three lime-coloured rooms with water marks on the ceiling — you have to begin to wonder where it could ever lead. Gaston seemed sustained by the sex, a sharing of the odd perception, a laugh together at Paris-Match. But Geneviève felt a need to push it; she found herself saying things she had tried to stop thinking. “Every time I go back I marvel at the cleanliness, the stream in the gutters every morning. It’s such a beautiful place because they keep it that way.”
“They?”
“We.”
“That’s more like it.”
“But if I went back, I’d be taxed through the nose the second I put out my little shingle.”
“To keep the water running in the gutter.”
“They don’t give you time to get going like they do here.”
“But your money’s stronger there. The franc fort — European money.”
“But would I make any? Who needs a French translation in France? And especially in the south. I won’t live in Paris. Never again.”
“They still take care of you if you fail.”
“They’re trying to get out of it…they seem determined this time.” Juppé had sat tight and taken the strike right through Christmas. “Can’t afford it, just like anywhere. We’re supposed to care more about Europe than France now — for our own supposed good.”
“You know that’s impossible,” scoffed Gaston. “Besides, there will always be a place for you. Le Pen will see to it.”
True. Fifteen percent last time out and expected to rise.
“But do I want that?” she asked.
“Do you want a job — or a clear conscience? The man speaks from the heart. Our heart.”
“Not mine. Not the one I left there.”
“Nor mine,” he sighed, eyes on the ceiling. Gaston could make the dream of returning difficult.
But Gaston was all she had to share it with, and she persisted. Some days it would be the TGV, the fast train, and the brilliant autoroutes, signs at every rond-point that never left you guessing. And look at Mitterrand’s new monuments; only a true giant would have dared! Pride was an ongoing subtext; even, ironically, pride in Algerian bombs along the railway track — as if to say, what do Canadians know of trouble? Or the climbing rate of male suicide, the highest rates of AIDS and psychiatrists, the neurotic lineups at pharmacies for sleeping pills and tranquilizers. (She and Gaston both admitted to having brought this inclination with them to Canada.) The declining state of French film was discussed at Oscar time. And how the rampant cheating, from Juppé’s rents to Tapie’s matches, was making the best and brightest look so bad. And the growing malignant shadow behind the Church that was l’Opus Dei…
Everything, good and bad, was set against the obsession surrounding her. Her adopted home was trying to kill itself. The wish was building, morbidly — les moutons de Panurge; or as the English would say, lemmings to the sea. Either way, Geneviève did not need that. She was a citizen, but she did not know how she was meant to participate. She could not see herself as one of them. She should leave it.
Yet the more she prodded her lover and explored her Frenchness…and the France that existed now, the more she thought maybe she was too old and too far from the France she’d left to really think of going home. That Cosmo magazine had even determined that 87% of married French women were faithful. Well, she was not married, but —
“Home?” asked Gaston, to challenge her…to keep it going, the talk that sculpted clarity. That very French thing.
“Home,” she murmured. “Like Bruce says: where does it start? Where does it end?”
“And like Micheline,” echoed Gaston, soothing her. “We’ll see what happens. Look,” slicing an apple into perfect halves, “each side shows a five-pointed star, the sign of immortality, the sign of the Goddess in her five stations from birth to death and back to birth again. It’s a Celtic thing. You have the Celt inside you — lots, according to your cousin Yves. Who you are lasts forever.”
“I suppose it could.”
And une aventure could become a holding pattern.
The Jean Talon Market is a cultural crossroads in the north end of the city proper. The stalls in the centre are owned mainly by Québécois farmers selling fruit, flowers, vegetables and eggs. But there is an Italian with his own kind of tomatoes, an Anglo egg man called Syd. Merchants in the shops surrounding are Greek, Italian, Mideastern and North African…with one Québécois butcher, baker and another fruit seller. Everything is fresher and cheaper, and every sort of Montrealer goes there. Some Chinese can even be spotted, lured away from their own market downtown, and also some regulars from the cluster of Thai and Vietnamese grocery stores two blocks away at the corner of St. Denis. Any politician fighting for the hearts of the people will naturally find his way to the market, to glad-hand and smile, and be seen with all the various kinds of faces. Look! says the image: our bustling community, happ
y together amid the bounty of our land.
It was May and finally warm. Six months of soul-draining winter lay between the comfort of that morning and the cold night of the former Premier’s ugly words in the face of a most narrow defeat. The idea of partitioning Quebec still simmered, but without the fervour of those initial cries of war. It was a good time to start reaching out again. The new Premier showed up in corduroy and cashmere with his wife, two sons and the usual entourage of handlers and media representation.
Geneviève and Gaston had adjusted to Bruce on a Saturday. They dealt with it without a blink. And they surpassed themselves when Micheline would decide to work the weekend, with the silent daughter behind her, keeping the $1 and $3 baskets full.
Bruce was deliberating between Cortland and McIntosh when everything suddenly stopped. A crowd formed and pressed close. Lights went on over the eyes of the cameras. Gaston pushed the hair off his forehead and Micheline, looking good in tight denim (Geneviève always gave credit where it was due) beamed as the two boys sampled her apple juice. The Premier chose a basket of Lobos, and, being from Lac St. Jean, made a glib comment about blueberry season, still a good three months away.
“We close up for three weeks,” joked Gaston. “They make our apples lose their point.”
That was untrue. Les Pommes Le Gac was never closed. But it sounded good and everyone laughed. Then Micheline presented the Premier’s wife with a bottle of cider vinegar. It came with Gaston’s small brochure explaining both the gastronomic and medicinal uses. The woman, an American, seemed impressed.
Yet no one paid for the apples. Geneviève wondered if anyone else had noticed. Perhaps money was not a part of this sort of thing, and someone else took care of it later. Then the Premier, just another shopper with a sack of fruit, moved to shake some hands.
What are you supposed to do? It’s Saturday, the market… Geneviève took his hand, looked into the dark eyes that had charmed so many and said, “Bonjour.”
But Bruce, who was beside her, said, “Are you kidding? No way!”
“Dommage, monsieur.” In that rumbly voice.
“Hell of a lot more than a pity, monsieur.”
“I mean your manners. You are very rude.”
“And you’re dishonest.”
“I am a democrat.”
“Try demagogue…”
Geneviève was watching it from that distance she had been allowing herself to feel, the voice inside saying oh, these people, when Bruce was suddenly yanked away from in front of the Premier’s face — and smacked. By Micheline.
“Va-t-en! We don’t want the likes of you around our stall!”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” said Bruce when the blush had faded. “Well, to hell with you and your apples, madame. Your children won’t thank you when they wake up in the Third World!”
A dour man in sunglasses made a move, but Bruce indicated there was no need. The cameras panned away from the Premier, following as Bruce pushed through the throng and walked away.
Geneviève hurried after him. Of course she did.
Her aventure was over before the next weekend. Gaston’s daughter had said something in the aftermath of the ugly incident. Something about la Française, the Anglo’s wife. Yes, he knew she was not Bruce’s wife. That was not the point. He was someone’s husband and that someone had caught on. Gaston said that’s it — fini.
Geneviève would have said the same thing, regardless of his wife la militante. It was as good a time as any. She and Bruce would be gone by mid-June, back to the village in the south — for a month this time. She would be recharged. Maybe they would be renewed. Even Bruce wouldn’t be able to think about his politics with all those topless teenagers wandering around on the beach.
But that was cynical and, happily, something that was burned away by the Mediterranean sun.
Because she had watched the thing on the six o’clock news, in both English and in French, and then again at eleven, with the sound turned off. In fact she had taped it, and watched it again, alone, brown and relaxed, the night they got back. Geneviève watched herself: her reaction; the way she went straight away after her man — no hesitation. She realized she had a purpose, if not a cause, right here in Montreal. A passion for something new had brought her life to Canada and now she was involved in it. The place and its people. She had been reattached through love. Yes, she thought — it had to be. It was there on Canadian television. Just look at my face: Jeanne Moreau. Arletty. Deneuve or Fanny Ardant. Very noble. Very knowing. Very right. Surely Gaston would have watched and seen as well.
Bruce never knew. For his sake, Geneviève bore the prick of feeling like an enemy whenever she passed Micheline Le Gac, there most days now, defiant in her stall. The apples were just as good at the other end of the market. Apples are apples. Unfortunately none of the other merchants were as ambitious or creative as Gaston when it came to developing spinoffs. No more cider vinegar. Although her scalp itched in the dryness of the next winter (Bruce’s too), Geneviève forced herself to live with it. Besides, it was $10 a bottle — an outrageous amount to pay for vinegar.
There would be something in France to solve the itching. They would find something the next time they went, and bring it back.
Adjusting to Pacci
Bruce’s father once had a problem coming to terms with new realities and his mother talks about acceptance and grace. It’s posted on their refrigerator door for both of them to read. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” Bruce lives there on and off during his divorce and reads it too. Then he finds Geneviève, a translator transplanted from France. In the spring of 1993, Bruce moves in with Gen. He owes her a lot — is starting to feel safe at home again. Like the prayer on his mom’s fridge, Gen keeps telling him he has nothing against anyone, he only has things against himself. The moment he steps out the door it changes. It’s these all-too-present realities. This new place.
It’s not exactly a poor quarter, but certainly not a rich one either. It is north, lost in the nondescript sprawl that is the heart of Montreal. He can recognize no connection to Pointe Claire on the West Island where he grew up, no trace of Lower Westmount, where he settled, raised two children, then divorced. His new neighbours are from everywhere, but they’re not the kind who blend through affluence. They are the kind who are doing things he would never have imagined. There are the neighbours who run a brisk drug-dealing business from their home and put up Christmas lights like everyone; the neighbours who collect stuff Bruce and Gen toss out, selling it shamelessly from their yard thirty steps away: “Spécial!”; the neighbours from a land where it’s normal to take a belt to your wife, their terrified kids calling, “Au secours!” from the window; the Baptist Latinos, holding fervent prayer meetings that keep him up at night…how strange having to call the cops because people are praising God. Now most of his French Canadian neighbours are the kind who speak only French. There’s a cranky Italian over the fence who pulls bizarre madman faces when he drinks on his porch, with a daughter who believes she’s married to a tree. Or two trees; that’s another thing that’s just not clear.
Bruce feels freed but lost, searching for bearings.
More than that: He longs for male companionship, in need of the way another man can help you see things and share a sense of what is going on. But his friends all left for Toronto and points west. Or for New York. One is doing fine down in Phoenix. Maybe they’re the brave ones. The smart ones. Maybe he is not. His brother followed a company to Calgary. Each time Bruce and his brother speak, he says he’s “adjusting” to the life out there. Adjusting is something Bruce can only wish for. He’s afraid to attach a handy phrase to what is happening to himself. There was one guy, just down St. Gédéon. Donald: probably twenty years his junior and from Toronto, strangely enough, but solidly WASP, like himself. And also with a French-speaking woman. They’d met while sitting beside each other in the barber shop at the corner. They had things to talk about, especially as the
Referendum closed in around these streets like a suffocating blanket of blue and white. But Donald seems to have disappeared. Bruce walks past his house and looks up at his window. The wife is still around. Maybe there was a problem…
He has found a group. But it’s on the other side of the city. And it’s about politics, not “friends.”
Around here? Emerging from the emotional rubble that is post-Referendum Montreal, more than ever, Bruce wonders how to bond when the looks of men in the street are the looks of travellers — travellers who pass each day on the same street, fixtures, yet unsettled, always travelling, far from home, still searching. He must be one of them too.
Pacci lives in the lower half of a place on rue St. Gédéon. Bruce’s front door is around the corner in a cul-de-sac called rue Godbout. They share a back lane which connects to St. Gédéon. Take away the fence and passageway, and their gardens touch. Bruce gets to study Pacci’s enormous jockey shorts as they bounce in the wind, suspended from his line. And those of Danny Ng, Pacci’s tenant upstairs. And the underwear of Vic, Pacci’s misanthropic beau-frère next door. And Bruce can see into their kitchens where their wives plod back and forth. These men can in turn take note of Bruce’s plaid and dotted boxers each Saturday when Gen hangs them out to dry. They can watch her when she takes the sun in her tangerine bikini. In the cheek-by-jowl living model of the north end, a fence is more idea than fact, and people interpret it in different ways. Pacci’s way is to try to help.
But it will take a while for Bruce to understand.
First: an armload of cucumbers and tomatoes, passed over the fence one afternoon that first tentative summer. “Is to take…from jardin.”
