A refrigerator was slowly making its way up the stairs, lumbering from side to side like an amiable bear, its top sprinkled with flakes of snow that took on fresh whiteness in the glow from the ceiling fixture. Two hairy arms protruded from its flanks and hugged its porcelain midriff, and two feet, shod in massive workboots that flared out at the tops, stomped heavily on the stair treads, taking them one at a time.
“We should have removed the handrail,” said a voice coming from somewhere under the fridge. “The darn thing’s mangling my elbows!”
Charles went down a few steps to lend a hand to the unhappy contraption, but it fended him off.
“No, no, no! Stay where you are! There’s no room for two of us down here! We’d only be working against each other!”
The refrigerator continued its laborious ascent, then, entering the apartment through the wide-open doorway, made its way inch by inch down a narrow hallway.
“Oof!” grunted the hardware-store owner as he set down the appliance, the weight of which seemed to make the floor sag.
Charles went up to him and smiled, extending his hand. “Thanks, Fernand. This is really great of you. I owe you one.”
Although the words sounded formulaic, Charles’s gratitude was sincere, and Fernand returned the smile.
“Don’t mention it, my boy. Glad to be of help. Now you can do your own cooking. And not a minute too soon!”
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Papa?” Céline called from the far end of the hallway. “I’ve just made a pot.”
The hardware-store owner accepted the offer with a grunt and looked around the kitchen. It was small enough, and dirty, but well lit by a large window above the sink. Boff, who was stretched out on a grimy strip of linoleum before a radiator, opened one languid eye and then closed it again.
Fernand Fafard sank down on a kitchen chair and pointed his huge index finger at the kitchen table, where Céline had placed a sugar bowl and a cream pitcher on the yellow formica top. He touched the table thoughtfully.
“This came from the other apartment, then?”
“Yes, and the coffee maker,” replied Céline.
“And my statue of Hachiko, along with a few dishes and two pots,” Charles said sadly. “That’s about all I was able to salvage.”
The beginnings of his novel, all his notes, and even his typewriter had suffered the same tragic fate as the library in Alexandria. The fire had, however, had one favourable result: it had melted the chill that had settled in between Charles and the hardware-store owner.
On the morning in question, Charles, still numb and exhausted, had gone to the Michauds’ to ask for their hospitality. Amélie had made him take a hot bath, then sat him at a table with a towel over his head above a steaming bowl of eucalyptus oil, “to get the pneumonia out of your lungs,” as she said, convinced he had contracted the disease.
While Charles slept, Parfait Michaud had called the Fafards to tell them about the disaster, and ten minutes later the hardware-store owner was at their door, like a fireman arriving too late but determined to fight the fire anyway. It was all Parfait could do to prevent his friend from waking Charles up and bringing him back to the Fafards’ house. Under such circumstances, Fernand said fervently, a son should be in his father’s house.
“Let him sleep, Fernand, please. The boy can barely stand on his two feet.”
“You promise to call me the minute he wakes up? Promise, swear to it, cross your heart? I’m making this a point of honour, Michaud.”
And he made the notary recount once again everything he knew about what had happened the previous night. Then he returned to the store to let Lucie come to the Michauds’ to hear the story for herself.
The next day Charles agreed to return temporarily to the Fafards’;, and Fernand took the following measures:
He found a three-and-a-half-room apartment, quite comfortable and at an affordable rent, at the corner of Dufresne and Champagne. Charles would be living on the same street as the Fafards, but far enough from the house and the hardware-store owner that he would feel completely free and independent, which is what he wanted.
Taking Victor with him, he made a sweep of the area’s junk shops and second-hand stores, and in two hours replaced almost all of Charles’s furnishings; he intended it to be a gift, but Charles insisted on paying him back immediately.
Knowing that Wilfrid Thibodeau was capable of anything, he called Liliane, the carpenter’s former mistress, to get the name of Thibodeau’s employer in Winnipeg, then called there to make sure that Charles’s father had in fact been in Manitoba on the day of the fire. That being confirmed, he went down to the police station to find out how the inquiry into the cause of the fire was proceeding, where he succeeded only in increasing the blood pressure of everyone present and in unleashing a few choice but ineffectual epithets.
He topped off his day at dinner, just as dessert was being served. After much clearing of his throat and playing with his utensils, and looking as awkward as a teenager the first time he had to bare a buttock to a nurse, he offered Charles a part-time job at the hardware store.
Deeply touched, and to Fernand’s great relief, Charles accepted on the spot. The hardware-store owner had dreaded another instance of Charles’s spirited independence, but in fact Charles was very nearly at the end of his savings, and the job offer fitted in perfectly with his plans to become a writer. Fernand’s offer and Charles’s acceptance marked the final reconciliation between the two men.
The following night, Fernand invited Charles out to a tavern for a beer. Charles agreed, although he was astonished; Fafard hardly ever set foot in such an establishment. He went feeling somewhat apprehensive. “What does he want to say to me?” he wondered. “I’ll bet he’s going to put me to sleep with a sermon about Céline, about the difference between sex and love.”
After a long preamble about traffic holdups, delivered in a distracted, preoccupied way that reinforced Charles’s fears, Fernand emptied his glass in one swallow, struggled with an irruption of gas for a few seconds (a brief skirmish that was settled in the hollow of his fist), smiled at Charles, stretched his legs, leaned back slightly in his chair, folded his massive hands on the table, and sighed.
“I owe you an apology, my boy.”
“An apology?” said Charles, surprised.
“Yes, an apology. I misjudged you.”
“In what way?”
“About your… choice of work. I mean… this idea of yours to write books.”
Charles gave a small, ironic smile.
“The other night,” Fernand continued, “I got a phone call from Parfait. We talked for about an hour. I think it was the longest phone call I’ve ever had in my life. You know how much I hate talking on the telephone. Anyway, he told me a few things I didn’t know.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you’re going to laugh at me because you probably know them already. But I always thought that books were written by people who were starving to death, you know, the kind of people who lived on welfare and wrote books as a pastime so they didn’t have to go looking for real jobs. In other words, it was a shameful occupation for a man who had any self-respect. But Parfait showed me that the very opposite was the case.”
“How did he do that?”
“Well, it was easy, really. He gave me the names of people who had made a lot of money, who even became very rich, by writing novels. There’s this Michenon guy, for example …”
“Michenon?”
“Yes, Michenon. You’ve never heard of him?” Fernand asked dubiously.
Charles thought for a moment. “I wonder if he meant Simenon.”
“Simenon, that was it! I was getting his name mixed up with another writer, an American — Michener, that’s who it was, James Michener, the guy who cranks out books as thick as Kleenex boxes that everyone snaps up and they make films out of…”
“Yes, that’s the one,” said Charles, “although I’ve never read him myself.”
“And then there’s that other American, I think his name is King or something …”
“Stephen King, probably.”
“That’s it. And there were others, French, English, even German, but I can’t remember all their names. As you know, literature has never been my strong point. I’m not proud of it, but what can we do, we all come into the world with the brains the Good Lord gave us, and we do the best we can with what we’ve got. I’ve never seen much point in reading novels and that kind of thing. But that has nothing to do with what I wanted to tell you. What I want to say is …”
He hesitated, looking for the right words.
“What I want to say, Charles, is that I used to think that your idea of writing books was a bit like — and I don’t mean to upset you here, the last thing I want is to cause you any sorrow — but I thought it was a bit like your idea of selling drugs. But I’ve changed my mind on that,” he added quickly, seeing that Charles’s face was turning red with indignation. “I mean a complete hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. I don’t think anything like that anymore, I give you my word of honour. And it’s all because of Parfait. He opened my eyes, made me less stupid, if you like, or in any case gave me a new perspective, as they say at those fancy meetings.”
The smile on Charles’s face had turned slightly sour.
“Surely Parfait must have gone on to tell you that you can count on the fingers of one hand the people who make a lot of money from writing books. They’re the exceptions, practically miracles. Did he not?”
Fernand looked at Charles for several seconds, at a loss for words, his conviction visibly crumbling.
“Not in so many words, no,” he replied, regaining his worried look. “Mostly he said it was luck. And that there’s not much you can do about luck, except work as hard as you can and hope with all your heart. He said that if writing novels was guaranteed to make a person a millionaire, there’d be a lot more novels out there. People would be chaining themselves to typewriters! Anyway, my view,” he added, once again choosing his words carefully, “is that if this writing thing doesn’t work out the way… that you would, well…”
“Give up writing novels and do something else.”
“Exactly! That’s what I thought. After all, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and it’s not like you to stick at something that will…”
“… make me miserable …”
“More or less,” Fernand acknowledged, somewhat disconcerted by the cold, ironic smile on Charles’s face.
“Well, you’re absolutely right, Fernand. The day I realize that I’m a lousy writer and my books are a pile of boring tripe, I’ll throw my typewriter out the window and open a car wash, or something like that.”
The two men regarded each other in silence, slightly embarrassed. Then they both raised their glasses at the same time and took a long drink.
“You know, Charles,” the hardware-store owner couldn’t help adding, “if I didn’t consider you to be my own son, I mean my real son, I wouldn’t worry about you as much as I do. But you are my son, as much as Henri is. Even though I’ve known for some time now that you and Céline … that you’re …”
“Sleeping together,” Charles finished, calmly insolent.
“Whatever,” said Fernand, feeling more and more uncomfortable. “As you know, I’ve never tried to stand in your way, even though you’re both still minors.”
“Thanks,” Charles said sarcastically. “Very kind of you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ve always thought that from about the age of fourteen or fifteen a child who’s been reasonably well brought up is able to judge for himself how he’s going to get through life, and that his parents are wasting their breath trying to … Am I right, Charles?” he asked suddenly, looking uneasily into the young man’s eyes.
“I love Céline,” Charles replied simply, but in a firm and serious tone. Two red splotches appeared on his cheeks.
“That’s what I wanted to hear… that takes a great weight off…. It makes me think you’d never do anything to hurt her. She’s my only daughter, after all, and you know how I feel about her. I wouldn’t want anyone to … you know, harm her.”
“I love her,” Charles said again. “So stop worrying.”
Fernand smiled noncommittally and patted Charles on the shoulder. Then he turned to a waiter who was passing behind him and ordered more beer.
“Dear boy,” he sighed, “if parents could control what they worry about, the world would be a much better place…. Wait until you’re a father yourself, you’ll see what I mean.”
He drummed his fingers on the table.
“But you’ve told me you love her. That’s good enough for me. I can’t ask for more than that.”
At that, Fernand’s former good spirits returned; with the help of the beer, his cheerfulness took on a joyful exuberance. Some people who knew him from the store came in, said hello to him, joked a bit, then sat down at the next table. A fat man with closely cropped hair and a military jaw, his shirt buttoned askew and tufts of grey hair poking through holes in his tattered undershirt, laughed uproariously, slapping his thighs and calling Fernand by his first name (although he was completely unknown), and addressed him as “Captain.” Before long the conversation came around to politics.
A young professor, thin, angular, tightly wound, wearing a jacket and tie and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that made him look like a Protestant minister, began attacking the Lévesque government. In a reedy, whistling voice, he accused it of betraying its own electoral base by imposing special language laws so that it could reopen collective bargaining with employees of the State in order to lower their salaries. It was a move towards dictatorship, he declared. He could see Naziism looming on the horizon.
Fernand Fafard broke in. “Hold on, hold on, you’re talking through your hat, my friend. It’s easy to play the rabble-rouser when you stand on the sidelines with your hands in your pockets watching everyone else do all the work! What d’you want the government to do? Keep on going further and further into debt until it’s bankrupt? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a recession. There’s no money, that’s the goddamn problem! Plus, fifty per cent of our taxes goes straight to Ottawa, where most of it is turned into smoke and mirrors, and the rest is given away to their friends! For crying out loud, we don’t have much of a choice here: if we don’t tighten our belts, our pants will fall down!”
He continued in that forceful vein, defending René Lévesque, but to no avail. His passion drew snickers, and the diminutive, wire-rimmed professor treated him like a myopic innocent. Everyone wanted an early election so they could kick the burnt-out government out of office. Charles sided with Fernand, then suddenly glanced at his watch. A few seconds later he stood up and asked Fernand to excuse him: there were some things he still had to do.
“I’ll come with you,” said the hardware-store owner, finally fed up with the conversation. “Goodbye, my friends! Good night, everyone. I wish you all a nice little Bourassa in your Christmas stockings!”
He strode quickly along the sidewalk, muttering furiously “If we don’t look after ourselves, who’s going to do it for us? Certainly not the English!”
He stopped abruptly and began to sing:
Wait for me, my little man,
You’ll come crashing down without me.
The pleasure of one
Is to see the other breaking his neck!
It was a verse from one of Félix Leclerc’s songs, and it put Fernand back in a good mood. He made a face, danced a few steps, then patted Charles on the shoulder and began walking again. Before long they turned onto rue Dufresne.
“Going back to your place?” Fernand asked, stopping in front of his own house.
“Yes. I’ve got to write. Plus there are dishes that need washing.”
“Right, then. See you tomorrow at the hardware store. Eight o’clock?”
“Eight o’clock.”
The two men clasped hands, then stood f
acing each other, suddenly gripped by emotion, knowing there was more to be said but unable to find the words to express themselves. Despite his broad smile and his way of holding his head high as though about to deliver a speech to a large crowd, the hardware-store owner suddenly seemed old to Charles, and tired, and the younger man remembered the time Fernand had tried to commit suicide.
“You know, Fernand,” he said in a sudden gush of affection, grabbing his arm, “I may never have had a father, but you’re worth two!”
The hardware-store owner looked up quickly, then glowed contentedly, his cheeks reddening.
“It’s awful good of you to say so, Charlie my boy. Makes everything worthwhile. But Lucie did a lot more than I ever did. If it wasn’t for her…”
“I’d jump into a fire to save Lucie,” Charles said. “You tell her that. Tell her that right away, Fernand! It’s thanks to the two of you that I’m still alive. Yes! I know that as well as I know that a dog’s a dog and Trudeau’s an asshole!”
Fernand, delighted by the comparison, shook Charles affectionately by the shoulders. He gave a sudden rueful smile. “You know what?” he said. “You never know about life — as well as being your father, I could become something else, you never know. Your father-in-law, maybe …”
He burst out laughing and shook Charles even harder. Charles laughed too, but his gaiety seemed forced, as though his adoptive father’s words embarrassed him. Fernand noticed and let him go. Charles shook his hand and left.
“You always talk too much, you big windbag,” Fernand sighed as he opened the door to his house. The exhaustion he’d felt earlier suddenly came over him with renewed force. “Why can’t I ever learn to keep my mouth shut! Every time someone hands me a cake, I’ve got to go and stick my finger in it.”
“Well?” Lucie asked anxiously, appearing in the hallway. “How did it go?”
“Very well. That was a good idea you had there. I think we got a few things straightened out. He seems to be quite serious about Céline. I’d have been surprised if he wasn’t, of course, but it’s always good to hear it from him, like you say. I don’t think I said anything stupid until right at the end.”
A Very Bold Leap Page 3
