Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  He was able to prove this three days later, when he was on his way to French class. Richard Daviault, an overweight but not necessarily malicious boy who liked his soups as thick as he was, was imprudent enough to trot out the “Mama’s little boy-child” line in the stairwell leading up to the second floor. Charles responded with such a fusillade of violence that the fat boy went over backwards down the stairs and might have broken his neck had he not rolled into the French teacher, who was coming up behind him.

  Jean-René Dupras was in his mid-twenties and in the first flush of his new career. He had been keeping an eye on Charles since the first day of school, struck by his intelligence as well as by the sadness in the boy’s eyes.

  “I didn’t know I was on your hit list,” he said calmly, after blocking the other student’s descent down the stairs. The latter scampered off without hanging around to see the outcome.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t see you coming up,” Charles replied, turning scarlet.

  He hung his head and waited for the order to report to the principal’s office, which would have been an unfortunate start to his time at Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur. By this time the whole stairwell was deserted.

  “It didn’t look like it was going to go much farther,” said the teacher. “At least not this time.”

  Charles continued to stare at the steps in silence.

  “Is there something wrong?” the teacher asked.

  The child shook his head, still looking down.

  “You don’t want to be teased again after class, do you?”

  “Don’t worry, sir, everything will work out okay,” Charles replied in a constricted voice, on the verge of tears. Then, realizing he was not going to be given a detention, he managed a faint smile and climbed the stairs to class.

  At four o’clock, when school was over, Dupras hesitated then decided to call the Fafards to try to find out what was going on with Charles. His call upset Lucie. The idea that a total stranger, completely unaware of what Charles was going through, could pick up on his distress, put her in such a state that she gave the teacher the whole tumultuous story of their protégé. It took her more than half an hour.

  “Is there anything I can do to help, Madame?” Dupras finally asked, overwhelmed by the deluge of confidences.

  “Gracious God in heaven, Monsieur Dupras, how should I know? You have so many other children to look after … There are a few of them worse off than my Charles, from what I’ve heard after twenty years living in this neighbourhood. If you’re a church-goer, you might put in a good word for him the next time you’re speaking to God. I hardly have time to go myself these days, what with everything I have to do. But even knowing you’re keeping an eye on him is a comfort to me, sir. I thank you for that with all my heart.”

  She hung up the phone and, seized by an excess of piety as rare as it was sudden, left the house and made her way to church in order to bring Heaven up to date on Charles’s situation. But her fervour was thwarted, unfortunately, when she found the doors of the church locked. She’d forgotten that for several years now there had been so much theft and vandalism in God’s house that the church authorities had been forced to limit the faithful’s access to it, which in turn had rendered it even more useless and ineffective. She considered sitting for a moment on the steps of the entrance to send a mental prayer to the Lord on High, but the noise from the street made it impossible for her to concentrate.

  “Good Heavens,” she complained as she made her way home, “even God is keeping office hours these days. The whole world is becoming more and more business-like …”

  She hurried home, for supper time was drawing near and she knew from experience that there was no greater adversary than an empty stomach.

  Still mentally concocting her menu, she pushed open the small metal gate that opened onto the minuscule patch of lawn in front of their house, raised her head and saw Wilfrid Thibodeau sitting on the porch steps, with an amused, even mocking, look on his face. He was wearing a suit and tie, although his trousers were slightly worn and the toes of his shoes were scuffed from use. But his body was straight, his shoulders squared, and his entire attitude suggested the sober, confident family man who had come to assert his rights.

  “Hello, Madame Fafard,” he said loudly, if a bit shrilly. “How are you this fine day? I’ve come to collect my son.”

  “He’s not home from school yet,” she muttered breathlessly.

  The front of her house wavered faintly before her eyes, and her legs felt as though they had suddenly turned to marshmallow. She had to lean back on the fence to prevent herself from fainting.

  Within less than an hour some critical decisions had been made in the Fafard household. Fernand had rushed home, where he found his wife and the notary, to whom Lucie had also made a frantic call, sitting in the living room with Wilfrid Thibodeau, trying their best to worm some information out of him. Thibodeau seemed to be taking a malicious pleasure in withholding it.

  Fernand’s arrival changed the dynamic of the conversation.

  “Hello, there, Wilf!” the hardware-store owner said. The sight of the hated man seemed to have filled him with a sudden dark energy. “It’s been quite a while, eh? We’ve been expecting you! Come back to your old stomping grounds, eh? Can’t remember the last time I saw you in a suit! What, are you getting married again or something? What’s new with you, anyway?”

  “I’ve got somethin’ lined up,” Thibodeau replied calmly. “Somethin’ I think’s gonna pay very well.”

  Then he repeated what he had said earlier, in the same firm, detached voice:

  “And so I’ve come to pick up my son.”

  The notary looked up at Fernand, who was still standing in the doorway with his massive arms folded across his chest like a shield. Michaud coughed twice, trying to signal to Fernand to go gently, that things had come to a very delicate pass. Lucie managed to maintain a courageous smile, despite the fact that she was trembling.

  “Yeah, well,” said Fernand, sighing so hard the carpenter could smell his breath, “that’s something we could talk about till the cows come home. You want a beer?”

  “I don’t drink any more,” Thibodeau replied, smiling nastily.

  “Good for you!” Fernand blurted out with a nervous laugh.

  “I think I’ll have one, if you don’t mind,” said the notary timidly. “I don’t know why, but my throat’s been as dry as an old board all afternoon.”

  Lucie got up, left the room and returned shortly with two glasses of beer crowned with enormous heads of foam.

  “So you want your son back,” Fernand said, sitting down heavily on a chair across from Thibodeau. “Do you mind my asking what made you change your mind? I thought you’d, er, decided against it.”

  “He’s my son,” the carpenter replied, his expression unreadable.

  The notary joined his hands together and coughed again, then spoke with the obsequiousness of a funeral director trying to sell an expensive coffin.

  “Yes, of course he is. That’s a fact. No doubt about that. An incontestable fact. Once you’re a father, you’re pretty much a father for life. Both nature and the law agree on that point. But aren’t you afraid there’ll be certain, er, difficulties down the road? Please allow me to remind you that it wasn’t that long ago …”

  Thibodeau’s face hardened and his thin, dry lips took on an evil twist. “That’s nothing but lies from a kid who was half asleep at the time!” he snarled. “There’s nobody can prove that I tried to hurt him. Nobody at all, d’you get me?”

  “Lies? From a kid who was half awake?” Fernand repeated, trying to obey his wife’s signal by keeping the threatening tones from his voice. “But at the time, Wilfrid, you believed it yourself, didn’t you? When I went over to your place the next morning with the notary, you weren’t exactly behaving like a man whose conscience was without stain, as the priests put it. You even signed …”

  “You intimidated me,” cut in the carpenter. “It wa
s the two of you against me. Piece of cake, especially when one of you is educated. Yeah, yeah, I’m always intimidated by educated people. My head goes belly up. I’ve always been like that.”

  He raised his hand to the inside pocket of his suit jacket and took out a pack of cigarettes. When he had taken a deep drag, he went on:

  “Anyway, I didn’t do nothing I should be sorry for, believe me.” He was staring at a cloud of smoke, as though that were what he was talking to. “And no one here can stop me from leaving with my son.”

  “But he’s very happy here. Really, he is,” Lucie murmured, her voice quivering. “Ask him. He’ll tell you.”

  The carpenter studied her red, tension-filled face and his eyes crinkled with satisfaction.

  Silence ensued. Michaud took a sip of beer and a small meringue of foam stuck to the end of his nose. Fernand made a furtive gesture to get him to wipe it off.

  “I saw Sylvie last week,” the carpenter went on. “We talked the whole thing over, top to bottom. She agrees it happened just like I said.”

  “Now you listen to me, my friend!” shouted Fernand, leaping to his feet, his voice thundering in the house. “I’m going to –”

  But before he could say what he was going to do, Parfait Michaud was also on his feet and, forgetting both his education and his mild temperament, clapped his hand firmly over Fernand’s mouth and ordered him with his eyes to sit back down and keep quiet. Stunned, Fernand let himself fall back onto his chair like a sack of potatoes.

  “You see, Monsieur Thibodeau,” the notary said as though nothing untoward had taken place, his voice assuming that smooth preciousness that had gained him the admiration of some and the secret disdain of others, “the whole thing would be much simpler if we could come to some kind of amiable accord. As you must have guessed by now, since you are obviously a man of intelligence, Monsieur and Madame Fafard, as well as myself, intend to contest your right to take Charles back into your custody. The thing will obviously have to go to court. And you don’t get into court without having a thick wallet, as you can well imagine. No, it’s going to cost us a pretty penny. But it’s also going to cost you a fair amount, because you’re going to have to be represented by a lawyer; and when you add court costs, not to mention all the worry, the time lost from work and all the rest of it …”

  Leaning to one side, he picked up his leather briefcase.

  “On the other hand, if you sign this Letter of Consent, everything can be settled quick as a wink, no worrying, no headaches for any of us, and you will have regularized a particularly confused situation. This would mean a lot to Charles, I can assure you.”

  Thibodeau sat immobile, his arm raised, observing the smoking tip of his cigarette, deeply engrossed, it seemed, in a profound reverie that tugged gently at the corners of his mouth.

  “It is, however, my duty to explain to you precisely,” added the notary after a moment’s pause, “that by signing this document you definitely lose all parental authority over Charles.”

  “Do you have an ashtray?” Thibodeau asked Fernand in a detached, almost relaxed tone of voice.

  With almost servile haste, Fernand stepped over to a side table, took a handful of business cards out of a huge, cut-glass ashtray, and brought it to the carpenter.

  Thibodeau carefully tapped the end of his cigarette with his index finger, took a drag, pursed his lips, and blew a thin jet of smoke into the room. His expression was one of disdain, even spite. Then he turned to the notary with a sickly sweet smile on his lips.

  “And if I refuse to sign …?” he said.

  “Then we’ll get the whole, boring machinery rolling, Monsieur Thibodeau. We’ll petition the director of Youth Services, who will present a judge with a request for adoption, and if you contest that there will be a trial, the consequences of which I have already outlined.”

  Again there was a long silence. Lucie was holding her head so far forward she thought she would faint.

  Thibodeau went on smoking, taking short, nervous puffs, his face almost disappearing behind a bank of white smoke. Fernand watched him humbly, submissively, almost pleadingly; huge sweat stains appeared under his arms and the tips of his oversize black shoes tapped nervously on the carpet.

  “Uh-huh,” Thibodeau finally said. “Yup. A real poser, ain’t it, this whole business? Don’t know what to say …”

  An expression of utter dismay suddenly appeared on the man’s face, as though the horror of his present situation and all the past evils of his life that had led up to it had just struck him. It lasted only a moment. Then his mouth hardened and a cold brutality filled his eyes. When he addressed Fernand his manner was as hard and cold as ice.

  “If you want me to sign that letter of yours, it’ll cost you five thousand dollars. Cash. Or else I take Charles with me. And once I get my hands on him, you’ll never get him away from me again, I can promise you that.”

  It was seven o’clock at night. Charles was sitting on the asphalt with his back against the garden shed, gazing up at the sky. Darkness was approaching swiftly, like a fine powder suspended in space, swallowing the light. The other side of the street could be seen between the basswood tree by the fence and the rear wall of the house, at the foot of which a narrow sidewalk ran across a stretch of grass. The house where Charles had once lived with his parents was also visible. Its peak was adorned with a brilliant sheen by the setting sun, giving the otherwise unimposing building a golden lustre.

  Céline and Henri had just left the yard, having sat with Charles for some time. They felt he needed to be alone for a while to think about what had happened during the day. He didn’t seem to have grasped its significance. A few vigilant stars twinkled in the flat, charcoal-grey sky now that the light was almost gone. Charles looked up, feeling a curious bond with them despite the incomprehensible distance that separated their world from his. He recalled a remark by a character in a novel he’d read a long time ago. Every man, the character said, must find his own star if he wants to make his way in the world. There is no secret way to finding it. You just have to be lucky.

  Charles began counting the stars above the basswood tree. There were five, or four, if you didn’t count the one that had just disappeared behind a cloud. Maybe one of those remaining was his own star? Could he simply choose his own star? No, it was no doubt the star that chose us. Charles stared at the stars hopefully, willing luck to come to his aid, and decided on the brightest one, the one right at the top of the tree. It would be a good day for finding my own star, he thought. A day when something solid had been established. He felt calm, at peace with himself, settled into a sense of satisfaction he hadn’t felt for a long time.

  He’d arrived home with Henri about five-thirty, just in time to catch the tail end of a very important scene. His father was in the living room with Fernand, Lucie, and Parfait Michaud, surrounded by so much smoke it made his eyes sting. His father had been signing a document that would allow him to remain living with the Fafards for as long as he wanted.

  “Ah, Charles, my boy!” Fernand had cried with an odd catch in his voice. “You’ve got here just in time!”

  And he’d explained briefly what had just taken place. Then he took Charles in his arms. Lucie ran towards him, crying in huge gulps, and after hugging him for a long time she’d hurried off to the bathroom to “fix her face,” since she said she was no longer “presentable.” The notary’s eyes were blinking rapidly and his face appeared strained, as though he had just worked a twelve-hour shift. He’d punched Charles on the upper arm with a grin, and Thibodeau punched his other arm, although his smile seemed strangely forced, showing that he was feeling awkward and wanted to leave. He’d moved off towards the door, where he turned to his son for the last time and said, “Good luck!” dryly, as though he were giving an order. Then, curiously, he’d winked at Charles. Charles would never forget that wink. He’d never seen anything so pathetic in his life. The next instant he was moving off down the street, in the company of Ferna
nd.

  Over supper Charles had learned that the two men had been hurrying off to the Credit Union on Saint-Eusèbe, where the manager was waiting to meet with them on urgent business.

  It was almost dark. The basswood had become a dark, shapeless mass. It appeared to have taken over the entire yard, but from its heavy, menacing shadow came a soft, delicate sound that seemed to be whispering to Charles that life wouldn’t always be as difficult as it seemed now.

  Suddenly he was enveloped by the smell of french fries and grilled meat, carried on a breeze that raised goosebumps on his skin. Somewhere in the neighbourhood a baby was crying its lungs out, as though demanding the entire universe to be born in. The sound reminded him of little Madeleine. He’d had to hide in the bathroom with his hands covering his ears to escape that sound. He thought of everything he’d been through since those terrible days. How often he’d felt like that desperate, raging baby. But somehow a tiny glow floating in his chest, a kind of smile like that of Alice’s Cheshire cat, had refused to go out despite all the unhappiness raining down on it, and had allowed him to rise above his trials – and finally overcome them.

  Left to his own devices he definitely wouldn’t have made it. He let the faces of all the people who had helped him run pell-mell through his mind: first of all Alice, sweet Alice whom he still missed terribly and to whom he still felt close at the most unexpected moments; then Lucie and Fernand, Rosalie and Roberto, Boff, the notary Monsieur Michaud and his odd wife Amélie, Mademoiselle Laramée (he mustn’t forget her!), Simon the Bear, Brother Albert, Blonblon, Henri, Céline, and even Sylvie, who’d been cold and distant but on his side in her own way. That was a lot of people, a kind of team who backed him up in his fight against some formidable enemies. Of course he owed their support to Luck, but also, he had to admit, to that weird kind of smile inside him that refused to go out, and had won him so many friends. From now on everything would be all right. He could go back to work for Rosalie and Roberto and make a lot of money, which he would one day hand over to Fernand and Lucie to thank them for their help. He’d be able to work with Blonblon again. He’d slacked off these last few days, but now his eagerness to get back to work fixing things was stronger than he’d ever felt before.