The Hockey Sweater and Other Stories

by Roch Carrier

  ‘Me, I think the reason our fur’s better looking than anywhere else is because of the water we give our foxes.’

  His firm belief triggered off some laughter, but the men sucked on their pipes and put all their mockery into their expressions. Monsieur Josaphat, disturbed by his own opinion, was taken aback for a moment; he felt himself turn pale and it made him furious. Those who hadn’t dared to laugh before, roared now.

  Monsieur Josaphat was the biggest fox breeder, the one with the largest number of grilled cages: when people heard the captive beasts howl at night they used to say: ‘It’s Monsieur Josaphat’s foxes again.’ Our mothers prayed that the animals wouldn’t escape from their cages, for there were always some children around. The other main breeder, Ferdinand Chapeau, didn’t have quite as many cages, but every year he built new ones and bought new mothers. It was his ambition that one day Monsieur Josaphat would sell out to him and he’d become the only breeder.

  Monsieur Josaphat’s foxes and Ferdinand Chapeau’s foxes drank the same water. Their cages were set up on adjoining plots of land. In the middle, between the cages, a natural basin was always filled with fresh water, summer and winter. All year round, Monsieur Josaphat’s foxes, and Ferdinand Chapeau’s, enjoyed the best water. The villagers were in the habit of saying that the water they drank wasn’t as tasty as the foxes’: ‘If you want proof,’ one wag said, opening his shirt, ‘my hair hasn’t got the same sheen as the foxes’!’ Monsieur Josaphat and Ferdinand Chapeau came in turn to the basin, with two horses pulling a sleigh made of big pieces of pegged cedar; they would fill two or three barrels with the precious water, return to their cages and empty the barrels into wooden troughs. The foxes would cry out with pleasure and smile sinister smiles.

  In those days, Monsieur Josaphat thought the water was useful only to quench the foxes’ thirst; he still hadn’t understood that it contained a magic ingredient that made the foxes’ fur shimmer like the soft brilliance of the water. But then, all at once, he understood: an inspiration. Now he could no longer doubt. How could he have raised foxes for so many years without knowing that the splendour of their fur came from his water? His water was truly a precious possession.

  For several years he had allowed Ferdinand Chapeau to dip water from his basin — not out of generosity, but ignorance. This water, with its miraculous qualities for the foxes’ fur, belonged to him. This water had beautified Ferdinand Chapeau’s furs for years, and Ferdinand Chapeau had never given him anything in return. He would never give him anything. Ferdinand Chapeau had offered to buy all the scraps from the butcher; if the butcher agreed, Monsieur Josaphat would have been forced to buy food for his foxes in the next village, or even farther. That’s the kind of man Ferdinand Chapeau was, whom all these years Monsieur Josaphat had so generously supplied with water. Thanks to this water, received with never any payment, Ferdinand Chapeau strutted about, flattering himself that he had the finest foxes in the village. Ferdinand Chapeau was prospering. Hadn’t he already boasted that he’d soon be able to buy Monsieur Josaphat’s business? But what would Ferdinand Chapeau have been without his water?

  That day when he went, as was his custom, to fill his barrels at the basin, Ferdinand Chapeau was bowled over by what he saw: a fence around the basin. On it was a notice: ‘It is strictly forbidden to take any of this private water under pain of a lawyer’s letter payable by the receiver. Signed: The Proprietor.’

  In vain did Ferdinand Chapeau trace lines, find guide marks, boundary-lines beneath the snow, recall that his father’s horses and his grandfather’s had drunk water from Monsieur Josaphat’s basin; in vain did he read and reread notarized documents and government forms. His fate was sealed: the water belonged to Monsieur Josaphat’s land.

  A farmer from the other end of the village who had too many children and who had gone into debt at the village tavern, allowed Ferdinand Chapeau to persuade him to sell his water. In the days that followed you would see his two horses pulling the sleigh and the three barrels down the village street; he didn’t look up. The angry man whipped his animals relentlessly. The children heard him mutter words they didn’t dare repeat to their parents.

  None of the villagers understood Monsieur Josaphat’s decision. He had to explain: ‘There’s nobody got the right to harvest your oats, there’s nobody got the right to take your horse, there’s nobody got the right to take your wife; and there’s nobody got the right to take your water’. Sometimes, when he knew Ferdinand Chapeau had gone in search of water, Monsieur Josaphat would come up to his cages. It seemed to him that the fur of Ferdinand Chapeau’s foxes was losing its lustre.

  Then it was spring. The air grew warm, the foxes demanded more water. Monsieur Josaphat added a padlock to the little gate that opened onto the spring. Once again Ferdinand Chapeau studied the limits, the boundaries, he noted the line of the fence, analyzed the conditions attached to the possession of the lots from the earliest days. There was no possible doubt: Monsieur Josaphat was unattackable.

  By June the land had absorbed the springtime water. For Ferdinand Chapeau it was time to look for a spring for his own property. For several days he had been searching for a discreet bubbling of water on the surface, a water hole that wouldn’t be a muddy swamp. Suddenly, among the rocks, he discovered a trickle running through the moss: the water was so cold it cut your fingers. This living water was just as fine as Monsieur Josaphat’s. To be so pure this water had to run — but where? It disappeared immediately, creeping beneath the ground. And where did it go? Ferdinand Chapeau examined the conformation of the land. Beneath the knolls, water — Ferdinand Chapeau’s water — and its underground current flowed, quivering and fresh, rushing towards Monsieur Josaphat’s basin.

  Very early next morning, with great discretion, Ferdinand Chapeau went back to his spring, carrying a pick, a shovel and a bag of cement. When Monsieur Josaphat went to his basin to fill his barrels, the water was no longer flowing. The basin was draining. The day after, the earth at the bottom of the basin began to crack, it was so dry. The foxes were thirsty.

  The farmer from the other end of the village who had too many children and had gone into debt at the village tavern agreed to sell water to Monsieur Josaphat. He paid more for it than Ferdinand Chapeau, a ‘faithful, long-standing customer’, the farmer insisted.

  During the summer, Monsieur Josaphat and Ferdinand Chapeau, with their horses, their two-wheeled carts and their barrels, met from time to time; they didn’t see each other.

  ‘After his own blood’, Monsieur Josaphat explained when he went to the general store, ‘the most precious thing a man’s got is his water. You mustn’t waste it by giving it to just anybody.’

  At the general store Ferdinand Chapeau was very careful not to gloat.

  ‘The good Lord’s always told men to share; Josaphat refused to share so he’s been punished with drought. If he showed a little generosity maybe by some miracle the water’d start to pour out of his spring again.’

  Monsieur Josaphat didn’t feel like being generous and Ferdinand Chapeau was too honourable to return the water to a man who refused to share it.

  It was a dry summer, drier than anyone had seen for years. The grass burned; the leaves wrinkled on the trees. The man who had too many children and had gone into debt at the tavern noticed, between drinking sprees, that the two fox-breeders were drying up his well. They found him at the well one morning, shotgun in hand. That day the foxes went without water. You could hear them moan.

  ‘I know where there’s some water’, said Ferdinand Chapeau at the general store.

  His words were carried back to Monsieur Josaphat, who replied:

  ‘I’d rather have an empty basin than a basin full of water Ferdinand Chapeau found.’

  In the fall, the buyers from the large factories came in their big cars and went away without buying any furs. In November after the heavy frost, people learned that Monsieur Josaphat’s foxes, and Ferdinand Chapeau’s, had to be killed; they’d caught som
e disease from drinking bad water.

  The grilled cages were silent but the pungent odour of foxes persisted after the first snow. Monsieur Josaphat and Ferdinand Chapeau undertook to dismantle the cages before the first big storms. To avoid seeing each other, they turned their backs as they worked.

  One morning, the water came back to Monsieur Josaphat’s basin. It melted the snow.

  When Ferdinand Chapeau saw this catastrophe he swore he wouldn’t wait for spring to throw stones and cement into Monsieur Josaphat’s water.

  A Great Hunter

  WHEN HUNTERS told how they had taken the animal by surprise or how its own foolishness had led it to them, you had only to see the fire in their mouths or eyes to know that killing brought them a great deal of joy.

  I liked Louis Grands-pieds’ stories. He would never tell any more. That day, we were taking him to the graveyard. My friend Lapin, carrying the censer, and I the holy water, very dignified in our black soutanes and starched lace surplices, were leading the cortège to the site the sacristan had shown us.

  For years Louis Grands-pieds had been suffering from an incurable disease. He rarely got up before noon. All day he would drag behind him the weight of his bed. No one dared reproach him for his laziness; a man’s entitled to be sad and stooped and tired.

  But when the hunting season came! Then Louis would get up long before the sun, he would dress in wool and jump in his car which had wings as it sped through the sleeping villages along a gravel road all curves and humps and bumps. In the dark, when the yellowed grass began to be visible – very pale because of fog and the grey light – Louis got out of his car, walked around to the other side and opened the door as though for a lady. He took out his rifle.

  Softly, without singing, without catching his clothes on the branches, he walked into the forest filled with night. The path was so familiar he could have walked its whole length with his eyes closed. Near the end the ground was softer. Through his rubber boots he could feel moss; the lake was near. He recognized the smell of water mingled with that of the night. Every autumn morning for several years Louis Grands-pieds came that way. Before he spied the lake he took a sip of brandy. As he was walking beneath the branches, day had approached in the sky. The lake exhaled white steam like that which came from Louis’ mouth. This was the lake where animals came to drink. He had seen beaver swim from one stump to another. Sometimes he had seen hoofprints, moose or deer. Every morning, Louis Grands-pieds was sorry he had come so late. ‘The moose came to drink in the middle of the night’, he thought, looking for a stump that had taken on the shape of a chair, with a back, when the tree was felled. It was Louis’ custom to sit there and wait for the game that would certainly come to drink one day. No one else knew this refuge.

  He drank a little brandy. He had discovered this place when he was a child and he always came back to it. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, he could see it through the leaves whose bright colours were awakening. There was a splash in the water. A frog. There were thousands in the lake. Louis had laid his rifle on the moss near the stump. He picked up his flask of brandy to fan within him a delicious fire that would drive away the cold of this autumn morning. Another frog jumped in the water. Then a branch broke. Another frog! This one jumped into the branches! Louis Grands-pieds looked up. Twenty feet from him, its head and antlers surrounded by dry leaves, a moose watched Louis with an old man’s eyes. Louis was paralysed. Then, instead of picking up his rifle, Louis Grands-pieds had only one thought: to offer his flask of brandy to this animal with the sad eyes. Instead, he did what a hunter is born to do. He picked up his rifle and fired. The morning shattered like a crystal glass. Had Louis closed his eyes before he fired? When he heard the shot he knew he didn’t want to kill the moose, this living, breathing animal, he didn’t want to put to death this head with the expression that was so human. The animal fled. Louis swallowed some brandy. He climbed up on the stump and looked at the place where he had seen the moose. The water in the lake seemed like a smooth mirror between the stumps and submerged treetrunks. Louis drank some brandy. Gradually, reflections tinted the quiet water a darker hue.

  Why did Louis Grands-pieds not want to kill his moose? He was too good. He had been a good child, he had never pulled cats’ whiskers, he had never torn the legs off flies, he had never made a toad smoke a cigarette, he had never stepped on a flower. Louis was too good; he was caught in his goodness like a butterfly in its cocoon. It was the cocoon that had kept him from firing. Every autumn the other men in the village paraded with their deer and their moose exhibited on their cars. Louis had scarcely dared to look at the animal. If he had fired at the moose it was to make it run away.

  Louis drained the flask of brandy. Sitting on his stump, in this place filled with perfumes and silence, he decided he would stop being good. He swore he would kill the moose.

  Every morning that autumn until the snow was deep, he returned to the place to watch and wait, rifle in hand. As autumn advanced he came earlier and earlier to the lake where the moose must return to drink. Winter spread out its fine crystalline layer. And the moose remained invisible.

  Louis Grands-pieds’ incurable illness overcame him, but neither the white blizzards of February nor the July sun could erase from his memory the image of the big moose he hadn’t killed because he was too good.

  The next autumn, on the first day of the hunting season, Louis got up long before dawn. He drove through the familiar villages that the night erased completely from the mountains, he followed the little gravel road and found again the path to the lake. Louis walked like a hunter whose bullet would strike his victim in the heart. It was still night, dark. Soon the light would awaken. In the first ray of dawn the animals would come out to drink fresh water.

  Louis walked. The night seemed to breathe against his ear like a tracked beast.

  Louis forced himself to learn not to be good. He drank some brandy. In the clearing. His chair-shaped stump was in its place, grey, amid the high brown grass. He sat, drank some brandy. On this morning which must resemble the first morning God had made for man, Louis despised his goodness. When the moose came he would fire.

  Close to the pond there was a crumpling of dry leaves. Branches cracked. The moose.

  Louis Grands-pieds shoulders his rifle.

  He is too good. He hates his goodness.

  Louis Grands-pieds will kill this moose another day.

  The moose laps at the clear water.

  Louis Grands-pieds places his rifle on the moss.

  He swallows some brandy.

  On the pebble road leading to the graveyard, in a silence that put a lump in your throat, I heard Louis Grands-pieds’ drawling voice tell his story, as he had done so many times. My friend Lapin had heard it too, because he whispered:

  ‘If Louis Grands-pieds couldn’t ever shoot a moose, how come he could put a bullet through his own head?’

  The curé, who was carrying the cross in the procession, ordered us through the words of his Latin prayer:

  ‘Be quiet, and show some respect for the dead!’

  I remember that grey day very well; it was a day when we said nothing more at all.

  What Language Do Bears Speak?

  FOLLOWING our own morning ritual, to which we submitted with more conviction than to the one of saying our prayers when we jumped out of bed, we ran to the windows and lingered there, silent and contemplative, for long moments. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, our mother was becoming impatient, for we were late. She was always afraid we’d be late … Life was there all around us and above us, vibrant and luminous, filled with trees; it offered us fields of daisies and it led to hills that concealed great mysteries.

  The story of that morning begins with some posters. During the night, posters had been put up on the wooden poles that supported the hydro wires.

  ‘Posters! They’ve put up posters!’

  Did they announce that hairy wrestlers were coming? Far West singers? Strong men who could carry hors
es on their shoulders? Comic artists who had ‘made all America collapse with laughter’? An international tap-dance champion? A sword swallower? Posters! Perhaps we’d be allowed to go and see a play on the stage of the parish hall - if the curé declared from the pulpit that the play wasn’t immoral and if we were resourceful enough to earn the money for a ticket. Posters! The artists in the photographs would gradually come down from the posters until they inhabited our dreams, haunted our games and accompanied us, invisible, on our expeditions.

  ‘There’s posters up!’

  We weren’t allowed to run to the posters and, trembling, read their marvellous messages; it was contrary to maternal law to set foot outside before we had washed and combed our hair. After submitting to this painful obligation we were able to learn that we would see, in flesh and blood, the unsurpassable Dr. Schultz, former hunter in Africa, former director of zoos in the countries of Europe, former liontamer, former elephant-hunter and former free-style wrestling champion in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom, in an unbelievable, unsurpassable show — ‘almost unimaginable’. Dr. Schultz would present dogs that could balance on balls, rabbit-clowns, educated monkeys, hens that could add and subtract; in addition, Dr. Schultz would brave a savage bear in an uneven wrestling match ‘between the fierce forces of nature and the cunning of human intelligence, of which the outcome might be fatal for one of the protagonists.’

  We had seen bears before, but dead ones, with mouths bleeding, teeth gleaming. Hunters liked to tell how their victims had appeared to them: ‘… standing up, practically walking like a man, but a big man, hairy like a bear; and then it came at me roaring like thunder when it’s far away behind the sky, with claws like knives at the end of his paws, and then when I fired it didn’t move any more than if a mosquito’d got into its fur. Wasn’t till the tenth bullet that I saw him fall down …’ Loggers, too, had spotted bears and some, so they said, had been so frightened their hair had turned white.