Elodie stares out the window. The neighborhood beyond her street is a mix of factories, row houses, looming smokestacks.
“There’s still work being done for the new Métro,” Sister Camille explains. “That’s why there’s so much debris from the construction.”
“The Métro?”
“It’s an underground train. They’re building it for the world expo this summer.”
Sister Camille may as well be speaking a different language. Underground train? World expo? Elodie is staring at her, fighting back tears.
“We can tell you all about that when you’re settled,” Sister Camille says. “Don’t worry, Elo. It will get easier.”
Elodie nods, not believing her.
“The city is blossoming,” Sister Camille goes on. “It’s a wonderful time to live here. Just wait till summer.”
Elodie forces a smile. She can see how hard Sister Camille is trying. “I like it,” she says, staring at the red row house. The rent is seventy-four dollars a month, including heat, of which Elodie will pay half. “Let’s go inside,” she says, taking a breath.
“And it’s yours,” Sister Camille reminds her. “You don’t have to answer to anyone. Except God.”
Elodie ignores the remark. She doesn’t have a sense of humor about God.
Marie-Claude is waiting for her inside. The apartment is clean and sparse. One room with a pullout couch and a dresser for them to share, a tiny bathroom, and a kitchenette with just enough room for a square table and two fold-up chairs.
“It’s not much,” Marie-Claude apologizes. “But it’s better than Saint-Nazarius.”
Elodie smiles and sets down her suitcase.
“Here,” Sister Camille says, handing her a note.
Elodie opens it. “Dominion Textiles?”
“They’re hiring sewers,” she explains. “I saw the sign in the window. The factory is in Saint-Henri.”
“Isn’t that where that FLQ guy got blown up last summer?” Marie-Claude says.
“Blown up?” Elodie repeats, feeling faint.
“He was trying to blow up the Dominion Textile factory, but his bomb detonated.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He was FLQ,” Marie-Claude says. “They’re terrorists who want Quebec to separate from Canada, so they attack English companies like Dominion Textiles.”
Elodie looks nervously at Sister Camille.
“They still need sewers,” Sister Camille says firmly. “It won’t happen again. Not there anyway. It’s perfect for you. Saint-Henri is easy to get to from the Pointe.”
“How will I get there?” Elodie wants to know.
Sister Camille sighs. “You’ll figure it out, Elo. You’re not helpless.”
“I am, though!” she cries. “That’s exactly what I am.”
Sister Camille looks her in the eyes. “You don’t have to be,” she says. “You’re free now.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Elodie mutters.
“You must forgive the other nuns,” Sister Camille says sharply. “Some of us had fifty children to look after with no help. The decent among us were forbidden to treat you with kindness or affection. But we weren’t all bad.”
Elodie looks down at the ground. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “You’ve been so good to me, and I have no way to repay you.”
“Repay me by forgiving the others.”
Elodie holds her tongue. She will never forgive the others—least of all Sister Ignatia—but she won’t disappoint Sister Camille by saying so.
“I have to go,” Sister Camille says.
“Already?”
Sister Camille pulls Elodie into her arms and hugs her—a short, quick embrace—and then hands her some money. “To tide you over,” she says. “I’ll be back in one week.” And then she leaves the two girls to their new life.
It doesn’t take more than a minute before Elodie bursts into tears again. Marie-Claude hands her a tissue. “I was the same way when I first got out,” she says, sitting down on the couch. “I couldn’t stop crying.”
“How am I supposed to find this place?” Elodie cries, holding up the note. “I have no idea where I am, let alone where Saint-Henri is. And what if someone tries to bomb it again? It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“I’ll come with you,” Marie-Claude says. “I’ll make sure you find it.”
“Thank you.”
“You have to get a job right away,” she adds. “I can’t pay the rent on my own.”
Elodie nods, feeling overwhelmed.
“Do you want to unpack? There’s a drawer for you.”
Elodie opens her suitcase on the floor and removes her few belongings. All of them fit into the bottom drawer with room to spare.
“Are you hungry?” Marie-Claude asks her. “There’s some food in the refrigerator which I’ll share with you until you have money for your own.”
The refrigerator. Elodie looks over at the white metal box in the kitchen and remembers being asked by the doctor at Saint-Nazarius if she knew what it was. She did not.
Marie-Claude jumps up, full of nervous energy, and goes to the kitchen. “I have some leftover pork,” she says. “And we can boil some potatoes.”
Elodie nods mutely.
“Come and help.”
Elodie reluctantly joins her new roommate in the kitchen. She watches dumbfounded as Marie-Claude fills a pot with water, covers it, and places it on the stove. “This is how you turn the stove on,” she explains, twisting the dial. “Now we peel the potatoes.”
She reaches for one of the mismatched knives in the drawer and begins to expertly carve the dirty brown skin off the potato.
“Why are you doing that?” Elodie asks her.
“Because you don’t boil the potato with the skin on.”
“Why not?”
“You just don’t.”
Marie-Claude continues peeling the potatoes. The skin comes off in a perfect coil. “Want to try?”
“No.”
“You’ll learn all of this stuff,” Marie-Claude assures her. “I did.”
Elodie nods, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. You know what? Never mind this. Let’s go out.”
“Out?”
“For lunch.”
“But there are so many people—”
“Yes, there are people in the world. You can’t hide from them.”
“I’m too scared.”
“Of what?”
Elodie shrugs. “That they’ll know.”
“Know what?”
“That I’ve just come out of a mental institution.”
“Only you and I know that.”
“I feel like it’s stamped on my forehead—”
“Well, it’s not. How much money did Sister Camille give you?”
Elodie reaches into her pocket and pulls out a few dollar bills.
“We won’t use much,” Marie-Claude says. “Fifty cents at most. Just enough to celebrate.”
The girls bundle up in their coats, and Marie-Claude loans Elodie her scarf to wrap around her head instead of a tuque. They head out into the cold, flinching at the sharp bite of the air against their cheeks. The wind whips around them, and Elodie pulls the scarf up to her eyeballs. “Tabarnac, y’ fait fraite,” Marie-Claude curses.
Snow crunches underfoot as they come to the Parc Marguerite Bourgeoys. Elodie glances up and notices a group of children running around in their snowsuits, laughing and yelling, playing in the snow. What shocks her most is how free they are. They don’t seem the least bit afraid to laugh out loud or raise their voices or enjoy themselves.
They turn onto Wellington and the sound of the children’s laughter lingers, following Elodie down the street.
“Here,” Marie-Claude says, coming to a stop in front of a place that says paul patates frites in the window. “My favorite greasy spoon.”
Inside it’s warm and smells like fried oil, the way it did in the cafeteria a
t Saint-Nazarius when they served fried perch for special occasions. They stomp their boots to shake off the snow and sit down side by side at the counter on red leather stools that spin. At first Elodie worries she might fall off, but soon she’s spinning around like a child on a merry-go-round.
Marie-Claude orders two steamés and two Pepsis. Not more than five minutes later, the waitress delivers a plate that smells like heaven. “What is this?” she asks Marie-Claude, leaning over it and inhaling the pleasing smell of grease.
“That’s a hot dog and french fries,” Marie-Claude says.
Elodie reaches for a french fry and shoves it in her mouth, not caring that it burns her tongue. She closes her eyes and savors the taste and texture of it—crispy on the outside, mushy inside, perfectly greasy—and then grabs another handful.
“Try this,” Marie-Claude says, pouring a glob of red goop from a glass bottle that says heinz. “Dunk the French fry in the ketchup. That’s it.”
“Mon Dieu,” Elodie gasps, reaching greedily for the hot dog. “It’s delicious.”
“Put ketchup on that, too,” Marie-Claude instructs.
“Mon Dieu!” Elodie exclaims again, biting into the pink sausage wrapped in a blanket of warm, squishy bread. “Why couldn’t they feed us like this at Saint-Nazarius?”
“This is real food,” Marie-Claude says, her mouth full. “You have ketchup all over your face.”
“I don’t care.”
The waitress sets down two glasses of a dark liquid. Elodie puts the straw to her lips and takes a sip to wash down the hot dog. “Oh, mon Dieu,” she repeats, her lips tingling and her tongue fizzing. “It’s so sweet!”
“Pepsi,” Marie-Claude says. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Elodie laughs, delighted. “Yes,” she says, taking another long slurp. “Beautiful.”
Chapter 47
Maggie
Maggie sits down on her porch swing with a cup of coffee and her stationery, barefoot and still in her nightgown. The sun is already up, and the air has the lovely, dewy smell of summer mornings. Gabriel and James are asleep, a rare moment that’s nothing short of sacred. If not for the chorus of the magnolia warblers in her yard, it would feel like she had the planet to herself.
She pulls out a fresh sheet of paper and her good pen. There’s a new premier in office, which means it’s a new opportunity to make her case. She starts to write.
Dear M. Bourassa,
I’m writing on behalf of my daughter, Elodie de Saint-Sulpice, an orphan born—
“Good morning, my love.”
Maggie looks up, and Gabriel is standing in the doorway, hair disheveled, naked but for his briefs. He lights a smoke and comes out onto the porch. “It’s warm,” he says, joining her on the wooden swing he built.
Maggie sets her letter aside, and they rock quietly for a while. Gabriel reaches for her mug and takes a sip of her coffee. “You’re writing Bourassa, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He nods and she detects a note of pity in his eyes. “Poor bastard,” he teases. “He has no idea how often he’s going to hear from you. He probably wouldn’t have run for premier if he’d known.”
“I know you think she’s dead,” Maggie says, reiterating the same conversation they have every time she sends one of her letters to the government.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” he says.
“It does to me.”
“I know you need to believe she’s alive, Maggie.”
“And you?”
“I just don’t think the government is going to help you get her back,” he says pragmatically. “They’re the ones who put her where she is.”
“Bourassa is new,” she says. “It’s a fresh start. He hasn’t heard our story. Maybe if we go to Quebec City in person.”
“And do what? Knock on the door and ask to speak with him? We couldn’t even get past the goddamn nuns!”
Maggie looks away. “She’s twenty this year,” she reminds him.
“She would have been.”
“You read the letter from Sister Alberta to my father,” Maggie says sharply, not for the first time. “She was perfectly healthy. Profound mental retardation? We both know that’s not true, and we have proof.”
“But it doesn’t mean she didn’t die, Maggie. Who knows how her health might have deteriorated by the time she got to Saint-Nazarius? Are you going to keep sending letters to the government for the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“Let’s have another baby,” he says.
Maggie looks at him like he’s gone mad.
“I’m serious.”
“Why? So I’ll forget about Elodie?”
“No,” he says. “So James has a little brother or sister.”
“He’s nine.”
“So?”
“I’m too old for another kid.”
“You’re thirty-six.”
“It won’t fill the void,” she tells him. “James didn’t. You didn’t. Nothing can, except her.”
“And you may have to live with that for the rest of your life,” he says. “We all have our crosses.”
Chapter 48
Elodie
1970
Elodie drops four plastic menus on the table and smiles without making eye contact. “Something to drink?” she asks, pulling an order pad from the pocket of her white apron.
The boys in the booth stare up at her with blank expressions. One of them says, “English?” and points to his baseball cap. “We’re from Boston.”
“Drinks?” Elodie repeats in English, still not looking up from her pad.
“Four Cokes.”
She nods and rushes off to get the Cokes. She’s been working downtown at Len’s Delicatessen for more than a year. She applied on a whim—walking along St. Catherine Street the previous summer, she noticed a sign in the window and went in. She liked it immediately because it reminded her of the diner she went to with Marie-Claude, the first time she ever tried a Pepsi and french fries. Looking up at the towering glass counter crammed with slabs of smoked meat at Len’s, she knew it was the right place. Behind the counter, a man wearing a white doctor’s coat—so she thought at the time—was singing as he sliced meat with a machine that purred like a car. In a refrigerator at the front of the deli, there must have been a dozen enormous cakes all decorated with white icing and chocolate shavings and topped with shiny red cherries. An older woman in a beige waitress uniform kept tossing sandwiches on top of the counter, where they sat for a few minutes under the buzzing heat lamps before getting swept away by the other waitress. Those dumbfounding sandwiches, with their thick walls of shaved pink smoked meat, were so big they looked like yawning mouths.
Every booth at Len’s Deli was full that day, the din of cutlery and conversation just loud enough to drown out the doctor’s singing. The smell of smoked meat and french fries made Elodie deliciously woozy. She had to wait a while for the lunch crowd to disperse before anyone could speak to her, but when things quieted down in the late afternoon, the doctor (who turned out to be the owner and not a doctor after all) sat her down in a booth and interviewed her.
Although she could barely look him in the eyes or speak a word of English, he must have taken pity on her because he hired her on the spot. “You’re adorable,” he said. “We don’t get many French girls applying.”
She quit Dominion Textiles the next day, which was an enormous relief. She hated sewing, hated factory life even more. It reminded her too much of Saint-Nazarius. She’ll be happy if she never has to hear the whir of a sewing machine again. Besides, she was constantly looking at the windows, worrying that a Molotov cocktail was going to come smashing through the glass. It’s 1970 and a lot is happening in the province—the War Measures Act, political kidnappings—but Elodie feels much safer at the deli.
She’s managed over the past few years to adjust to the outside world as best she can. She finds ways to be inconspicuous among people,
to fade into the background without being noticed, to draw very little attention to herself. She likes being downtown, where the moving throng of people can swallow her whole. She’s good at disappearing in plain sight, blending in, becoming invisible. Relationships are more challenging—intimacy, looking people in the eyes, one-on-one conversations. She prefers the obscurity of strangers. She has little confidence in her intellect and is perpetually afraid of calling attention to her ignorance and lack of education. At least at Saint-Nazarius, she didn’t stand out. She was just one of many unfortunate girls, no worse off than any of them.
Out here in the world, though, the real or imagined scrutiny of others plagues her. Apart from when she’s home with Marie-Claude, Len’s Deli is the only place Elodie enjoys a reprieve from her crippling insecurities. She owes that to her boss, Lenny Cohen, whose warm and gregarious personality set her at ease from day one. Lenny is a large, hulking man, with a booming voice and an even louder laugh. He wears a white butcher’s coat for cutting the meat, sings Johnny Cash songs all day. He eats the leftover smoked meat and french fries from the customers’ plates without even a hint of shame and encourages his employees to do the same. “I pay for this stuff,” he always says. “Why should it go to waste?”
The other two waitresses are Len’s cousins, elderly women who mother Elodie and teach her English, the way Sister Camille once taught her how to read from the Bible. They not only accept Elodie; they seem to like having her around. They don’t ask questions about her limp or her scars; they know she’s an orphan and have likely deduced the rest. She, in turn, is like a little French refugee they’ve taken in to nurture and mend.
Elodie sets down four glasses of Coke at the booth by the window, and retrieves her pen and pad. “You know what you order?” she says, in her terrible broken English.
“Four smoked meat sandwiches,” the one with the cap says.
She glances up long enough to notice his blue eyes, his freckled pink cheeks, his bright white teeth. They all smell of beer, which is not unusual. Len’s is open until midnight to accommodate the partiers who stumble in drunk and craving smoked meat. Elodie likes the nighttime crowd—a sprinkling of college kids, hippies, bums, and tourists. The stranger and more marginalized they are, the more comfortable she is.
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