by Roch Carrier
The two enemies could be heard shouting and swearing in the cold air. While they tore at each other, the rest were praying for Corriveau’s salvation.
“Grant him eternal salvation. Forgive him his trespasses.”
They stopped eating. They did not dare to raise another glass to their lips. Everyone was praying. The winter became silent once more.
“They’ve killed each other,” moaned one of the women.
Then the two men appeared in the doorway, faces bloody and blue, snowy, their clothes torn, arms around each other.
“It’s not worth going to the bother of fighting if Corriveau isn’t in it,” Pit explained.
They moved towards the coffin. “You missed a Vierge of a good fight,” Jos said.
Pit put two fingers into his mouth. He was missing some teeth.
“Peace deserves a glass of cider!” proclaimed Anthyme.
Molly was watching Bérubé sleep, his head on his folded tunic which served as a pillow. She had awakened because she was cold. She pressed against his chest. The warmth of this sleeping man felt good. Bérubé was snoring. Each time he exhaled he enveloped Molly in a cloud that smelled of Scotch and rotten sausage.
“What a stink — a sleeping man!”
She turned her head to avoid the disagreeable odour, but she remained fastened to him, flesh against flesh. She slid her arm under Bérubé’s shoulder and pressed her chest a little more closely against his, as though she wanted to merge her breasts with his hard torso. Bérubé’s sex slowly rose. Near him, overcome by a burning dizziness, Molly would have liked to throw herself into him, as into a bottomless pit. Downstairs people were laughing, praying too, and under his flag Corriveau was dead. He would never laugh again, never pray again, never eat or see the snow or a woman or make love. With her whole mouth Molly kissed the sleeper; she would have liked to take his breath away. Bérubé stirred a little, and Molly felt his flesh come alive, rouse itself from sleep.
She sighed, “Darling, let’s make love. I’m afraid you’ll die too.”
Bérubé moved, grunted, farted.
“Let’s make love, please.”
Bérubé rolled onto Molly. It was death that they stabbed at, violently.
Three sudden little knocks at the living-room window above Corriveau’s coffin made everyone shudder. The villagers were quiet, listening. Every time someone dies, inexplicable things happen. The soul of the dead person does not want to leave the earth. Now nothing disturbed the silence. The villagers pricked up their ears: all they could hear was their own breathing, hoarse from fear. The cold twisted the beams in the whining walls. The silence was sharp enough to cut a throat.
Three little blows shook the window again. The villagers looked at each other questioningly. They were not mistaken; they had certainly heard it. The men stuck their hands in their pockets, stiffening their chests in a challenging way. The women pressed against the men. Less terrified than the others, Anthyme said, “Something’s going on at the window.”
He pulled the curtain, which was never opened. Night had fallen long ago. It was very black outside the window. The eyes of the villagers were fixed on the blackness.
“If there was a noise at the window it’s because somebody’s out there,” reasoned Mother Corriveau. “Have a better look, Anthyme, and not with your eyes shut.”
“Maybe it isn’t something you can see,” suggested one of the women.
Then a shadow moved in the shadows. Anthyme took a candle from the coffin and approached the window. The light shone first of all on the sparkling frost. In the centre of the frame the glass was bare, but Anthyme could see nothing but his reflection.
The knocking began again.
“Vieille pipe de Christ” he swore. “If you want to come in, come in the door.”
A little voice from the other side of the window tried to make itself stronger than the wind. “Don’t you recognize me?” she asked.
“Vieille pipe de Christ, if you’d let us see you maybe I’d recognize you. Are you ashamed of your face?”
“Open up!” the little voice implored. “It’s me.”
“Vieux pape de Christ, don’t you know the difference between a door and a window?”
Anthyme climbed up with both feet on his son’s coffin.
“Open… ”
“Open!” repeated Anthyme. “Baptêmel It isn’t summer!”
“It’s me, Esmalda!”
“Esmalda! Vieille pipe du petit Jésus! Esmalda! It’s my daughter Esmalda, the nun,” Anthyme explained. “It’s our little nun. Come in, little Memalda!”
“The blessed rule of our community forbids me to enter my father’s house.”
“Little Esmalda!” Mother Corriveau cried with delight. “My little Esmalda! I haven’t seen her since the morning when she left with her little suitcase that had nothing in it but her rosary; she left me a lock of her hair, beautiful blonde hair and I hung it at the feet of Christ on the crucifix.” She was weeping with joy; she rubbed her eyes to wipe the tears. “My little Esmalda! Our little saint!”
The villagers got on their knees and bowed their heads.
“I’m not allowed to come into my father’s house.”
“Vieille pipe de Christ! I’d like to see anybody try and stop you from coming into your father’s house.”
“… and your mother’s. Come and get warm. And I’ve made some good tourtières. Don’t stay outside.”
“But I must obey.”
“I’m your father. If you didn’t have me the good sisters in your community wouldn’t be able to forbid you to enter my house.”
“I must obey.”
“Vieux pape…”
His wife cut him off. “Anthyme, you don’t understand a thing about holy matters!”
Esmalda’s face near the window pane, her breath and her voice, her warmth, had enlarged a circle in the frost. You could make out her face more clearly, though it was still flooded in darkness.
“I would like to pray for my brother. Open the window.”
“Come in by the door,” shouted Anthyme. “We’re glad to see you. The window will not be opened. It isn’t summer. If you don’t want to take the trouble to come in to see your little brother who was killed in the war you can stay outside and go back with the women who ask you to turn your nose up at the people who brought you into the world.”
Mother Corriveau interrupted. “Anthyme, go and get the screwdriver and the hammer. Are you going to refuse hospitality to a little sister of Jesus?”
Using the screwdriver like a wedge, which he struck with the hammer into the space between the window and the frame, Anthyme tried to pull the window out of the ice. Although he hit it with the hammer and his shoulder, the window remained fixed in its place.
Arsène and Jos joined Anthyme on the coffin. The three of them pulled away the window the way you tear cloth.
A cold wind blew into the living room. The nun’s face appeared, under her coif, rumpled in the lamplight. “It’s good to come back to the house of one’s parents, dead or alive,” she declared.
Soaked in sweat, the villagers were shivering now. The sweat turned to ice on their backs.
The nun’s head was motionless. A thin smile uncovered her sharp teeth.
“Who is dead? Who is alive? Perhaps the dead man is alive. Perhaps the living are dead.”
The villagers crossed themselves.
“Sin may have killed the person who is alive. Who is without sin? Grace, the gift of God, may have revived someone who is dead. Who has the grace of God?” Then Esmalda was quiet. She looked at the villagers assembled before Corriveau’s coffin. She looked a long time at each one, trying to recognize them. She had not seen them for many years, since her adolescence. She noted how voracious time had been, how it had ravaged the people of the village. When she recognized someone she smiled less parsimoniously. They would not forget that smile.
“All together, men can damn a soul. All together, they cannot save a soul th
at has been damned. All together, men can lead one of their own behind the door that opens only once, and behind-which eternity is a fire. But all together men cannot have one of their own admitted into the kingdom of the Father.”
“Hail Mary,” implored a voice which sounded like the last cry before the shipwreck.
The villagers replied in chorus. “The Lord is with you; have mercy on us poor sinners.”
The nun waited for the end of the prayer; then she said, “I won’t ask you to open the coffin to see my brother. If he has been damned I will not recognize his face; the face of one who has been damned is like a tortured demon. And if he has been saved I am not worthy of setting my eyes upon the face of an angel chosen by God.”
“Hail Mary… “ began another voice, as if it wanted to chase away what it had heard.
“Forgive us sinners!”
The nun lowered her head over her brother, gathered herself together for a moment, prayed in silence, and then raised her eyes to the villagers. “All men live together, but they follow different paths. But there is only one path, the one that leads to God.”
The nun’s decayed teeth could be seen in her rather sad smile. “How sweet it is to come back among one’s own people!”
She turned around and disappeared into the night and the snow.
“She’s a saint!” exclaimed Mother Corriveau.
“Let’s shut that window fast,” said Anthyme.
Stretching out his arms to show how long the pig was that he had killed for Anthyme, that was now being eaten chopped up in Mother Corriveau’s tourtières, Arsène awkwardly bumped into the man next to him. The glass he was holding broke and slashed Arthur’s cheek. Blood spurted out. Arthur stopped up the wound with the sleeve of his jacket. Amélie held him by the arm.
“Arthur, don’t go and dirty my Sunday clothes. Blood stains don’t come out.”
Arthur refused to sit down. He remained standing in the middle of the kitchen. The villagers formed a circle around him to watch the blood flow. Arthur was amazed to see so much blood gushing out of such a little cut. He felt as if he was being drained of his contents like a bottle. When he started to bring his hand up to the wound, to put pressure on it and ease the flow of blood, Amélie lowered his arm. He was surprised that the blood was so red. Dazed, he put his hand on the wound again, and the blood burned his fingers, flowing onto his hand, his fist, his suit.
“What a baby!” said Amélie. “I tell him not to put his hands in his blood, but he can’t resist it.”
Anthyme arrived with a towel. He soaked it in cider.
“Cider’s good for the blood.”
“Arthur’s bleeding like the pig I killed.”
“Instead of laughing,” suggested Amélie, “how about bringing me some snow?”
Several men went out and came back with their hands full of snow. Amélie got busy and applied some to Arthur’s wound. He grimaced because of the cold. The snow, all red from the blood, dropped onto the floor where it melted. Arsene, who was responsible for the wound, could only apologize awkwardly.
“If I’d hit you a litte harder they’d be burying you with Corriveau.”
Arsène laughed derisively. Everyone laughed. The clothing of Arthur and Amélie was red with blood. Grouped around them, everyone contemplated all the blood.
“Arthur didn’t want to go to the war, but he looks as good as a lovely war wounded.”
“Keep quiet,” a woman begged.
“A handsome wounded man isn’t as sad as a handsome man dead in the war,” insisted Mother Corriveau who, after the accident, had returned to her pastry, in which a tear fell, and to her tourtières crackling in the oven.
Arsène insisted. “Seeing that much blood and a face chopped up so nice makes me sorry I didn’t go to the war. Arthur makes me want to go to war. I think that having a German at your feet, losing all his goddamn German blood, that must satisfy a man. But it seems as if our soldiers don’t see the Germans when they lose their blood. Our soldiers shoot their little rifles, then they go right away and hide, pissing in their pants for fear they’ve caught a German, because the Germans know how to defend themselves.”
“Shut your big yaps!” shouted a demented voice that terrified the villagers. “Shut your yaps,” the same voice repeated more calmly.
Bérubé appeared on the staircase, barechested, his face flat as though he had no eyes, barefoot, his khaki trousers too wide and his fly open.
“Shut up!”
No one opened his mouth. His cries had stifled their laughter and their prayers. The men, anticipating a good fight, didn’t dare put down their glasses and plates. Rosaries were still in the hands of the women. Bérubé came down the last step buttoning himself up. They cleared a path for him, stepping back as he approached. He punched several stomachs, several breasts, and found himself in front of Arsene, who was convulsed. But his laughter was stopped in his throat when Bérubé grabbed him by the jacket. Buttons flew, cloth tore. The villagers were still as mice.
“Calice de ciboire d’hostie! Christ en bicyclette sur son Calvaire! So you think we enjoy ourselves in the war? You pile of shit! War is funny? I’ll show you what the war’s all about. You’ll laugh.”
While he was spitting his blasphemies Bérubé was hitting Arsène in the face (“maudit ciboire de Christ!.”), not with his fist but with his open hand, and Arsene’s big face was twisted with pain. Bérubé’s eyes were red, and Arsène’s big face was swinging with the blows (“cochon de tabernacle! ”); his jacket was in shreds, his shirt was torn. Bérubé was in full cry.
“Oh!” cried Zeldina, “I’ve peed on the floor!”
“Shut up or I’ll make you lick it up!”
He pushed Arsène against a wall, and tossed him about until the house shook.
“Ah!” he said, “soldiers have lots of fun in the war! War is fun! You don’t know anything but the asses on your cows that look like your wives. It’s funny, the war. You like having Corriveau there in his coffin; he can’t laugh any more, he’ll never be able to laugh any more, crucifix!”
Bérubé could no longer shout or swear or speak. He was choked by his bitter anger; his eyes burned, and like a child he burst into sobs.
Was he the devil in flesh and blood? Terrified, the villagers stopped their prayers.
Arsène, waiting to take advantage of Bérubé’s softening up to get away, took a chance and moved his foot. There was no reaction to his movement; Bérubé hadn’t noticed it. Then Arsène threw himself forward. But Bérubé had caught up with him again. He held his head tight in the vise of his hands. “War is funny, eh, you big shit? I’ll make a man out of you! Forward march!”
Bérubé pushed him, shoved him towards the mirror hanging on the kitchen wall. The villagers dispersed, closed their ears, broke glasses and plates, spilled cider on their coats and jackets. Bérubé flattened Arsène’s face against the mirror.
“We have fun in the war, do we? It’s a funny man who has a bloody face like a crushed strawberry. Laugh! There’s nothing funnier than the war.”
Arsène didn’t dare move a pore of his skin.
“I told you to laugh,” Bérubé repeated, punching his ears.
Arsène looked in the mirror and saw his rotten, tobacco-stained teeth; they were revealed as his lips unstuck and were clenched into a kind of smile.
“Laugh!”
Bérubé struck Arsene. The blows resounded and echoed in his head, which felt immense. His head felt as if it was going to burst, and his brains come out through his eyes.
“War’s funny. Laugh.”
Finally, Arsène succeeded in releasing a loud, phony laugh.
“So you laugh when men get themselves massacred by the goddamn Germans. I’ll make you understand, by the sweet shit of holy Jesus.”
Once more he struck, crushing his head between his two hands. After several blows Bérubé stopped the torture.
“Tell us what you see in the mirror.”
“I see myself,” Ars
ène replied fearfully.
“You see a big pile of shit. Have a good look. What do you see in the mirror?”
Bérubé grabbed Arsène by the neck and shook him until he begged for mercy. Then Bérubé calmed down. “In the war you have to look carefully; you have to see everything. Looking is learning. You learn everything through the seat of your pants. Watch out.”
He let fly a few kicks.
“Okay,” asked Bérubé, “what do you see if you look in the mirror?”
“I see Arsène.”
“He doesn’t understand a thing.”
Bérubé began to hit him around the ears again. Arsène was so stunned that he wanted to vomit, as though everything in his head had fallen down into his throat. Bérubé threatened him now, waving his closed fist in front of his eyes.
“Arsène, I’m going to make a good soldier out of you. Tell me exactly what you see when you look in the mirror.”
“I see myself.”
Bérubé brought back his fist to make him understand that the threat was stronger. “One last time. What do you see in the mirror?”
“I see a pile of shit.”
Bérubé had won. He smiled; he hugged Arsène. He patted his cheek. “Now you’re a real good soldier.”
The shouting had awakened Molly. She stretched out her hand to caress Bérubé, but finding that he was not in the bed she started as though she had just awakened from a nightmare. At that moment Bérubé was shouting some blasphemy. Recognizing his voice, she jumped out of bed onto the cold floor, slipped on her dress, which she had let fall on the floor and, worried ran downstairs.
She appeared like another incarnation of the devil, in this house where they were holding a wake for a dead man. In her haste Molly had put on the dress without taking the trouble to put her petticoat on first. She was completely naked because the dress was made of very sheer tulle. No one dared raise his voice to tell her to go and get dressed.
