Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  “I won’t say no,” Wilfrid said after a pause.

  “Perfect! Let’s go into the kitchen. My wife’s out visiting one of her sisters, there’s no one here to bother us. You kids, go on in and watch TV.”

  Charles looked imploringly at Fernand, who, with an urgent gesture, waved him out of the room. But after exchanging a few quiet words with Henri in the living room, he tiptoed back into the hall, torn by anxiety, to spy on the two men in the kitchen. There was a large pine cupboard against the wall in the hall outside the door, in which Lucie kept the linens and towels. By squeezing himself against the side of it, Charles could look diagonally into the kitchen and see his father and Fernand sitting across from each other at the table. He had barely settled in when a sentence from Fernand struck his heart like a block of ice:

  “Look, Wilfrid, why pay a vet twenty dollars to give your dog a needle when the SPCA will do it for nothing?”

  Wilfrid set down his beer, which was already nearly empty, and spoke in a thickened voice:

  “You’re right … I never thought of that … He’s already cost me forty bucks, the son of a bitch. That’s enough. Where’s the SPCA, anyway?”

  “On Jean-Talon, in the West End.”

  “Good enough, I’ll take him there,” he said, standing up. “Do you know the exact address?”

  “What’s your hurry? They’re open twenty-four hours. Anyway, my friend, I don’t want to insult you, but in the state you’re in, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t drive out there. If you got pinched by the cops, or if you had an accident, that dog of yours would end up costing you an arm and a leg, nevermind forty bucks! Why not let me take the dog. We’re neighbours, eh? We should be able to do favours for each other.”

  Wilfrid looked at him for a minute and a suspicious grin slowly spread across his puffy face.

  “Oh no, you sly bastard, I know what you’re up to. You’re trying to pull one over on me …”

  “Why do you say that, Wilf?” replied Fernand, feigning indignation. “I’m only trying to help, for crying out loud. Do you want to get rid of the dog or don’t you? Okay! Get rid of him, then. But when I see that you’re in no shape to do it tonight, I offer to do it for you, that’s all there is to it. What am I trying to pull? Oh, I see your bottle’s empty. Reach back and get another one from the fridge.”

  Drunk as he was, the carpenter didn’t need to be asked twice. In an instant a new mouthful of cold beer was flowing down his throat, which seemed that night to be burning like the sands of the Sahara.

  “You really want to get rid of that dog for me?” he asked after wiping his lips with his bandaged hand, slightly out of breath.

  “You’ll never see it again, I promise you.”

  “You’re going to get them to give it a shot, right there in front of you?”

  “I’ll ask them. I don’t know what they’ll say, but I’ll ask them.”

  “If they charge you for it, I’ll reimburse you.”

  “No problem, you can pay me later.”

  Wilfrid, leaning heavily over the table, thrust his hand out to the hardware-store owner, who took it in the tips of his fingers with a slight grimace of distaste.

  “Thanks, Fafard. I owe you one.”

  A cry of despair rose from the hallway. Charles ran into the kitchen, tears in his eyes, yelling curses and threats at the two men, especially at Fernand, who had betrayed him so cruelly. Then he threw himself down on the floor, curled up in a ball, and continued to wail.

  “Little beggar,” was all Wilfrid said, with a satisfied smirk. “Where’s the dog?”

  “In the basement.”

  “If I had my way I’d go down and finish it off with a two-by-four.”

  “No, Wilfrid, your way is off to bed. You can hardly stand up straight.”

  “Haha. Whatever you say, Fafard. Whatever you say …”

  Fernand, upset by Charles’s reaction and barely able to conceal the fact, kept glancing down at the boy, impatient for Wilfrid to be gone. But the man was so drunk he hardly seemed able to move.

  “I’m going to take the boy downstairs to say goodbye to his dog,” Fernand said, getting up. “No, no, no! Not a word, Wilf … Give me that, at least, for Pete’s sake. You still have a heart in there, don’t you?”

  “A heart? Of course I have a heart, it’s just that … Ah, the hell with it … Do what you want. Where’s the can?”

  Fafard pointed to a door. The carpenter got to his feet with the solemn dignity of the drunk and crossed the kitchen, concentrating on walking in a straight line; at one point he pushed off a wall. Charles was still lying on the floor, crying loudly. Fernand wanted to talk to him, but he didn’t want Wilfrid to hear. The sound of urine streaming into the toilet bowl lent a grotesque note to the scene. The carpenter emerged from the bathroom tugging at his fly, and Fernand steered him towards the front door, made sure he got safely across the street, and then returned to the kitchen – to find that Charles had disappeared. He found him in the basement with Boff and Henri.

  “You’re a traitor!” Henri said to his father.

  Charles was kneeling with his face pressed against the dog, sniffling in great gulps of air, his posterior sticking up as though to show his contempt for his former ally. Boff, sensing himself in some way responsible for the entire mess, was whining softly and looking up anxiously at Fernand.

  “Charles, I hope you don’t seriously think that I want to take your dog to the SPCA,” Fernand began, ignoring his son’s remark. “I only said those things to gain time. But, doggone it, I couldn’t very well tell you that in front of your father, could I?”

  Charles sat up sharply.

  “Is that true?” he said, with a cry of joy.

  “Well, what do you take me for, for pity’s sake? Some kind of two-faced jackass? When I give my word on something, I give my word. That’s always been my way. Ask my wife. But enough talking, it’s getting late and we have to find some place to keep your dog until we can think of a way to save its hide.”

  “Keep it here, Dad.”

  “You and I both know that your mother is allergic to dogs. She doesn’t like them much, either. I can’t very well saddle her with this chair-leg chewer, can I? This twenty-dollar-bill-swallower.”

  Coming from him, the phrases sounded like affectionate compliments; Boff sensed as much and began wagging his tail.

  With his hands thrust into his pockets and his brow furrowed in thought, Fernand paced back and forth in the basement making strange noises with his lips. The two boys watched him in silence, not daring to interrupt his cogitations. After looking at his watch, he went upstairs and telephoned his wife to ask her to come home as soon as possible, because he needed the car to go out.

  “It’s Charles again,” was all he told her. “I’ll explain later.”

  When she arrived at the house, Lucie found her husband and Charles in the vestibule with their coats on (Charles had borrowed one from Henri); curled up at their feet was Boff, calmly shredding a newspaper.

  “Henri will tell you all about it,” said Fernand, hurrying out to the car with Charles and the dog in tow. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  Charles was once again overcome with anxiety as he sat beside Monsieur Fafard, having installed Boff in the back seat.

  “Okay, listen to me,” Fernand said in a sudden fit of impatience, “I’m not taking your dog to the vet’s to have him put down, but to have him put in a kennel until we find him a home where you can go see him as often as possible. I hope the Good Lord will send me an idea because I’ve wracked my brains and come up empty. It’s like scraping the bottom of an empty barrel.”

  “It’s too bad your wife is allergic,” sighed Charles. “Boff would be so happy living with you, and I could come see him every day.”

  “Well, that’s how it goes, my boy. If cows shat caramel, we’d all eat candy.”

  The Maisonneuve Veterinary Clinic near rue Ontario was housed in an old, two-storey building between
a flower shop and a used-car dealer; founded twenty years earlier, the establishment had grown considerably, expanding into the basement and boasting a reception area and individual treatment rooms. Just the week before the beautiful carved wood that had decorated the building’s facade had been covered with aluminum siding in the purest “no-maintenance” style that was beginning to crop up everywhere.

  “Whoa, whoa!” cried Fernand, waving his arms, when he saw the receptionist getting ready to lock the door.

  The woman batted her eyelids (and a young man sitting in the waiting room, obviously her boyfriend, more strenuously batted his), but she graciously let the hardware-store owner in, since she knew he was one of her boss’s friends.

  Boff, for whom the clinic held very few happy memories, suddenly began to manifest a decidedly fidgety disquiet, as though he’d suddenly remembered a thousand pressing things he needed to do outside. He tried to drag Charles back to the door, and the youngster had a great deal of difficulty restraining him. They said their goodbyes in the basement, where new kennels had been installed, amid a cacophony of barking, scratching, and other displays of chronic discontent.

  “I’ll be back, Boff, don’t worry,” Charles said, tears filling his eyes, after stroking his dog’s muzzle for the nth time through the bars of his stainless-steel cage.

  “We have to go, my boy. I think the receptionist has other plans for tonight.” Fernand gave the girl a big smile and she frowned in embarrassment.

  Charles climbed back into the car in complete dejection and said nothing for the entire drive home.

  “Thank you very much, Monsieur Fafard,” he said with a brave smile as he got out of the car. “I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for Boff and me.”

  “Oh, well, neither will I, I guess,” Fernand laughed. “Quite a night, eh? We’ll neither of us soon forget it. Well, sleep well, Charles. And don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. Your Boff hasn’t licked our faces for the last time, believe me.” Yes, but how will I take care of everything? Fernand wondered as he watched the boy run across the street and up the stairs to the Thibodeau apartment. Lucie will never allow that animal to live with us.

  10

  It had been a rough evening, and the night was no less turbulent. Charles, exhausted, slipped into bed shivering, but was kept awake by the gigantic snores of his father, coming to him from the bedroom; they made him think of a huge saw cutting through the house. Suddenly his eyes closed and he sunk into a deep, heavy sleep.

  He woke with a start at three o’clock in the morning. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted, and his limbs tingling. He looked fearfully about the darkened room, which seemed strange and vaguely menacing. Light from the streetlamp was reflected on the handle of his door, and its colour made him think of Boff’s blond, silky hair. He imagined his dog lying in its cage, its eyes wide open in anxiety and dread, not understanding anything that had happened to it. Suddenly a flood of terrible doubts washed through Charles’s mind. What if Monsieur Fafard had tricked him? What if he were more in league with his father than with him? Or, even worse, what if the veterinarian put Boff to sleep by mistake, instead of another dog? And even if that didn’t happen, what if they couldn’t find Boff a new home in the neighbourhood? Would they give him to just anyone?

  He sat up in bed and, sliding his arms under the covers, slipped his fingers between his moist, freezing toes and began tugging hard, as though trying to pull away from the anguish that was tormenting him. He knew that there was no going back to sleep that night.

  Stretching up on one side, he lifted the blind and looked out onto the street. Pools of ice glowed softly on the opposite sidewalk, surrounded by fringes of black that meant they were melting.

  He was suddenly gripped by an irresistible desire to see Boff. When he’d been at the kennel a few hours earlier, he’d noticed a large basement window facing the row of stacked cages in which they had placed his dog. He wanted to see Boff and he would not calm down until he had.

  Breathing quickly out of fear and excitement, he dressed in the darkness, slipped silently down the hall, and, for the second time in twenty-four hours, sneaked out of the house. He would be back in twenty minutes; no one would know he’d been gone.

  As he descended the elegant curved staircase to the sidewalk he looked up and stopped in mid-step, in a sort of rapture. A beautiful sky spread out over the city, and hundreds of stars twinkled peacefully, transforming the terrifying blackness of space into a calming blue, and turning the night into a friend and accomplice.

  He quickly ran down the remaining steps and along the street, then stopped once again: the silence of the streets, down which a gentle, almost warm breeze was blowing, made his footsteps ring out like gunshots. “Quiet!” he said, addressing the stars. “If you’re going to see Boff you have to go softly, softly …”

  Reaching rue Ontario he saw a pair of headlights turn onto the street in his direction. For some reason he thought they might be from a police car. If they caught him out on the street at this time of night, they’d pick him up for sure and take him back to the apartment. And that would certainly earn him a licking!

  He retraced his steps and came out on rue Coupal, a curious, S-shaped street lined by single-storey houses running parallel to rue Ontario. The street would surely be deserted at this hour. Rue Coupal would take him to the rear of the veterinary clinic. First he came to the corner of Fullum. From there, Coupal went in a straight line all the way to Parthenais and ended in the parking lot of the used-car dealer beside the clinic. He crossed the nearly empty lot and stopped at a high, metal, chain-link fence that separated the lot from the clinic grounds. This he climbed without difficulty and dropped to the other side on all fours, scraping his palms on the sand-studded ice.

  The next instant he was crouched beside the basement window. In the subdued lighting of the room he saw Boff sleeping on his side. In the cage next to him was a sort of poodle, stretched out on its belly, legs at its sides, its hind quarters trembling.

  Seeing Boff looking so peaceful surprised Charles a bit. Was he the only one who was upset? Perhaps Boff had fallen asleep from exhaustion, still in the grips of despair? Surely it would do him a world of good to know that his owner had come to see him in the middle of the night, to reassure him that he had not been forgotten? But to do that he would have to wake Boff up.

  Charles spied a large piece of brick lying in a pool of loose ice at his feet. He picked it up and turned it in his hand, his eye still fixed on Boff. After a long pause he tapped twice on the window with the brick.

  The effect was instantaneous. An immense clamour of barking, howling, and yapping rolled up from the basement, so loud that Charles looked anxiously towards rue Ontario, afraid that the sound would draw attention despite the clinic’s thick walls and closed window. Boff was standing up, barking with all his strength, but he didn’t seem to have seen Charles. The boy gently waved his hand and the dog, seeing him, threw himself frantically against the bars of his cage, backing up to rally his forces and throwing himself against the bars so forcefully that Charles was afraid he would hurt himself. Now he was sorry he’d wakened him. He thought he could make out Boff’s barking in all the cacophony; Boff’s face was so full of despair that Charles turned and backed away from the window. The noise from the clinic increased. Charles stood up and a sob shook him. What should he do? Go home? Stay where he was until the noise died down?

  He knelt down again beside the window. Boff was sitting in his cage, howling piteously. Suddenly it was as though something clicked inside Charles, and his hand, which seemed to have a mind of its own, began beating violently against the window with the brick. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces. He jumped back, terrified by what he had done. Now the noise from the basement would surely reach the street and bring someone running. The police were bound to hear. But the foolishness of his act stunned him, nearly knocked the wind out of him, and instead of running he began tearing at the few pieces o
f glass still stuck in the frame, then slipped through the opening and landed on the cages that were stacked under the window. The floor was barely six feet below him; closing his eyes, he jumped down, deafened by the racket that was now rising to an even greater pitch. He landed square in front of Boff, who was dancing with joy, paws pumping the air, front end rearing up and falling, licking the bars, quivering with love. The cage door opened easily, and the dog leapt out and sat on his haunches in the middle of the room, awaiting instructions from his lord and master. Now Charles was thinking coolly, like a man of action. He saw a table in a corner of the room, swept off the plastic boxes piled on it, and dragged it across to the broken window. Then lifting Boff onto the table, he climbed up after him. From there, hoisting Boff up to the top of the cages was more difficult, but after a few tries he succeeded, and no sooner did the spaniel find himself at the window than he disappeared through it. Charles was not far behind.

  Since he knew he couldn’t climb the chain-link fence with his dog, Charles went around the clinic and, with Boff running wildly ahead of him, raced onto rue Ontario, a distance of only a few metres.

  The deserted street was profoundly quiet. It was as though nothing at all had happened. Uselessly, enigmatically, a traffic light changed from green to amber, and then to red. Charles continued to run, his eye fixed on the corner where he would turn and make his way back up to rue Coupal, where he knew it would be dark and safe. Boff stopped every ten feet to make sure Charles was still behind him. At the corner Charles stopped, out of breath. Only then did he feel something hurting his hand. He brought his hand up to his eyes and saw that it was bleeding from a long, deep gash that he must have made when he escaped through the window. He stuck his hand into the pocket of his windbreaker and began walking, his legs suddenly stiff and sore, his breath coming in short gasps, his shoulders aching. Boff ran in great circles around him, sniffing the ground, every now and then emitting a small whine to attract Charles’s attention. Afraid that the dog would start barking, Charles knelt down and put his arms around him; the spaniel threw itself on the boy, its paws up on his shoulders, and began frantically licking his face.