Autant

by Paulette Dubé

  She grabbed his arm and hauled him to stand. Eyes lowered, he said softly, “Sorry Alice. I lost your knife.”

  “My? You took my knife? You lost it? Stupid little turd,” she spluttered. Alice shook her head. Idiot! Crazy as a loon that one. He is worried about losing my knife? He . . . he . . . he should be glad that’s all that was lost today. The realization stunned her. “Stupid, stupid turd. Find it, Maurice,” she said. “You are responsible.”

  Bella whimpered. Her legs and arms twitched. Juliette curled over her, humming and rocking her gently. Alice knelt down and felt Bella’s face. She listened to her chest. Satisfied with the rhythm and inner gurglings, she stood her up. “We need to get home,” she said. “Juliette, I’ll carry her a while, then you.”

  Juliette sniffed back tears. She wiped them angrily away when she saw Alice looking at her. “Screw you, I’ll carry her,” she said.

  Alice seemed not to have heard. She hoisted Bella higher onto her hip and started up the hill towards the house.

  They walked and carefully juggled Bella between them. They were all dripping wet. Maurice, trudging behind, yelped when a magpie landed between him and his sisters. “Now what?” snapped Alice. There was blood under Bella’s nose and Juliette absently wiped at it with her shirtsleeve. Alice scolded her; blood is tough to get out without cold water. Bella coughed, and spit blood.

  “No, no nonononononon.” Maurice knew this was bad. He knew that when Bella started bleeding sometimes she couldn’t stop. “What will we do?’ he moaned.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh Bella, no. Hang on, hang on,” whispered Juliette. “We need help. Madame Trefflé, and we need Mom, go get Mom, Maurice.”

  Alice was shaking. “We’ll go to Trefflés, meet us there,” she said. She gripped Bella tighter and started for Trefflé’s yard. “Run!”

  Before Maurice could even turn around, Trefflé’s dog, Bête, came hurtling towards them. Snarling, he honed in on the group now huddled together. Juliette kicked out. “Nasty Bête! Bad dog! Get lost! No Bête, no! Leave us alone, asshole! Maurice, stay here. Bête, you shithead, Maurice, don’t run. We will go together. Bête bad dog, bad dog. I hate you!”

  The children were at the lilac bushes now and pushed their way through the pointy grabby whippy branches. Alice stumbled up the stairs to the porch calling, “Madame! Madame, help. It’s Bella. Bella needs help!”

  Émérentienne opened the screen door wide and they nearly fell in. “On the table, it’s clean. Up, up, come on hurry!” she said. They lay Bella down and Émérentienne removed the girl’s shoes and socks. She ordered Juliette to get a bowl of water and dishtowels from the drawer. She told Alice to clean her up. “If your Maman sees her like this, she’ll have a heart attack.” Madame made the sign of the cross on Bella’s forehead and her heart. Raising each leg in turn, she slapped Bella on the soles of her feet. She held her hand in her own, closed her eyes and began to pray.

  Alice wiped down her sister’s face and arms. When she turned to rinse the cloth, she saw the phone. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “Juliette,” she whispered, “call Mom.” Juliette stared at her sister. Kids didn’t use the phone, especially not neighbours’ phones, and most especially not Trefflé’s. Alice looked at Madame Trefflé, deep in prayer; she looked outside, no one in the yard. “It’s for Bella. It’s okay.”

  Juliette dragged her feet to the black phone on the wall. She lifted the receiver and waited to hear the click of the operator then told Mrs. Mullen who she was, and to please connect her to her mom. Mrs. Mullen snapped that she had already connected this party line with the Garance house once today and that was enough. She, after all, was not in the employ of Lucille Garance. She had other people who also desperately needed to contact other people. Juliette gritted her teeth and told her it was an emergency. It was for Bella. She heard the phone ringing in their house.

  “HEY, LA VIEILLE! WHATCHA GOT there? Presents?” Edgar called from the side of the nearly completed shed. “Bring ‘er here to me. I’m dying for something to drink.”

  Lucille shaded her eyes and called back. “Yes, yes, presents for you, Monsieur Edgar, and your helper too. Sunshine tea and bits of tongue between bread.”

  “Adrien? Adrien! Hey, Boy, come wet your whistle.”

  From the small loft area Adrien called down, “Coming boss.” He pounded his hammer twice more to drive home the nail. Behind him, where sharp rays of sunlight made columns of dust motes, he heard a monotonous humming. He twisted around. “Who is that? Who is there?”

  “No one. To hurt you,” said the voice that was Lily. “Someone to. Help you. I, help others find, what they want.”

  “Okay, come on out, let me see you.” Adrien’s strong voice belied his uneasiness. His scalp was crawling because, try as he might, he couldn’t make out the shape of the person speaking.

  “I. Can help you.”

  “This is stupid! I won’t stand here and listen to a — ” He was cut off by the voice, so close to his ear it made all the hair on his neck stand up.

  “You need, not shout. Nor stand, for that matter.”

  Suddenly Adrien was sitting on the unfinished floor. The faint sound of Monsieur Garance hammering down below grew still. He could hear Madame Lucille laughing at something her husband said. Adrien inhaled deeply. There was pine resin oozing from the fresh lumber. He squinted, then squeezed his eyes shut.

  “When I open my eyes, I will see who is here,” he said.

  “Is, that what you want? You. Want to see?” said Lily.

  Adrien turned his head without opening his eyes. “Yes, this is a dream, I can tell, I must be hungrier than I thought and I fell asleep. You look like . . . like . . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “Anyone. You can be anyone, whoever I like. It is my dream. I can make you . . . ”

  “Yes? Someone. Anyone. Anything.”

  The silence thickened between them. Adrien wasn’t entirely convinced that the shadow voice was a dream anymore. He was afraid, but the tickle in his throat signalled excitement as well. The prospect of curing his father’s drinking and all the rest of it, no matter how, was too good to be true. And there was Alice.

  “Go on,” Lily said. “Ask.”

  “You, ah, can you?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucille called up, “Adrien, time to eat. Better make it quick, your mom called. She needs you back home.”

  Her voice jerked Adrien from his reverie. The voice became smoky ribbons, evaporating as sibilant laughter into the columns of sunlight.

  “Be, be right there, Madame,” Adrien called down.

  He pounded his hammer once more on the already driven nail, then slumped and closed his eyes. The voice was gone. The only thing left was the pine gum smell and the drone of bees outside somewhere. He stood and ran his hands lightly along the roughed-in wall. He turned from the wall and walked toward the hole in the floor that led to the ladder and down. His ears strained to catch that voice again. Nothing but the sound of an empty loft in an unfinished building in the heat of summer. He stared, as if hypnotized. The ladder was twelve rungs down to the main floor. Twelve steps, straight down.

  If he fell from here, he would break his neck. He would die. The flies would find him first, then the dogs. Wait, if he was lucky the dogs would go find help and he would not die! Maybe he would end up a cripple for the rest of his life, and someone would feel responsible and take care of him, make it up to him, forever. This thought cheered him and he swung down the ladder, whistling.

  Lily stirred in the corner. She watched the beautiful sixteen-year-old boy fall from view.

  Funny, how they equate falling with, at best a fear, at worse a punishment. One is always falling into misery, into a depression, or on hard times. One might fall to one’s knees; in prayer or in shame, fall in with a bad crowd, fall in love. And of course the greatest despair of all, falling from grace. Falling from grace . . . priests have used that one forever to control people.

  Now an
d again, though, there are some who see falling for what it is, an opportunity. These chosen ones embrace the darkness. Not because it is bad, oh how tedious that train of thought, but because they relish the weightlessness, the freedom from fate. For one shining moment they finally have control over their own lives. How grand that step, to leap. To finally trust enough to fall.

  The walls, beaded here and there with resin, began to shine. Attracted to the smell, a bee entered the loft and began her cursory investigation, antennae twitching, looking for the story. Lily whispered to her, sharing the boy’s request and the promise made one summer’s day. The bee tucked this into her back pouch and deposited a drop of honey as payment, as was the custom. She winged her way home, pushed by Lily’s breath.

  Lily had no substance with which to savour sweetness. Sweetness was the one thing she craved and the one thing she could no longer enjoy. She could no longer taste, only remember. That was the judgement levied against those who fell.

  THE CAR HAD BARELY COME to a stop before Lucille flung open the door and stepped out. She steadied herself for a second then forced herself to climb the porch steps one at a time. She knocked at the door and Juliette was there, hugging her around the waist. She almost walked through Juliette and Alice both to get to her baby. She watched as Émérentienne finished the first round of prayers and tipped Bella’s head to the other side. A small rivulet of blood came out of the nostril. She held back a sob. The girls kneeled, as she kneeled, beside the table, adding their voices to Madame’s barely audible prayers.

  Outside on the porch, Edgar held Maurice. Adrien was leaning on the car and watching as his father came towards them from the barn.

  “Garance, what’s all the noise for?”

  “Bella has a nosebleed.”

  “All this for a nosebleed?”

  “She can’t stop sometimes, you know that. She might . . . ”

  “No one dies from a nosebleed, Garance. Not around here for sure. The old lady’ll fix her up. She knows what to do. Am I right? You can pay me later.”

  “I can pay you? Depuis quand?”

  “Depuis now, I figure.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  Philip Trefflé crossed his arms across his chest. “Now, now, not in front of the kids, eh? Wouldn’t want them to think we aren’t friends. Listen, why don’t we talk about this over, say, a glass of something? You are a man who pays his debts so besides the pig for the party, well now we have a little matter of this help. I reckon . . . ”

  “You reckon I will pay you for your wife’s prayers? Is that what you are saying?”

  “No, I am saying you’ll pay me for your daughter’s continued good health.”

  Lucille stepped onto the porch. “It is done. She’s all right. She will be all right. Edgar, please, come help me get her to the car.”

  Edgar went into the house and left Trefflé in the bright glare of his son’s stare. “We have work to do,” Philip said, and punched Adrien on the shoulder by way of steering him towards the barn.

  Once Bella was settled in the back seat, the other kids piled in and Edgar drove slowly out of the yard.

  As he approached the barn, Adrien slouched down a bit and smoothed his face until it was still as stone. He blanked out the turmoil roiling inside him, in case his father would, as he often could, read his mind. He coughed, spat and mentally pitched his voice lower. Cap pulled down to hood his eyes, he circled away from his father towards the side door and entered cautiously.

  He was struck by the warm, metallic tang of blood in the air. From a rope and pulley on the ceiling swung a large sow, her distinctive black spotted face almost obscured by the blood still dripping from the belly cavity. Under the body was the galvanized bucket burlapped in ice to hold and clot the blood. His mom made the best blood sausage in Autant, and his mouth watered at the thought of boudin on toasted bread. But, it was too hot now to butcher, the meat would spoil.

  “Boy! Did the Devil give up before bringing you brains? Get over and get to work. Get this stuff packed with salt before the fuckin’ flies and maggots make a mess in there.”

  Philip tipped back his chair in the shadow and gestured towards the carcass with a half empty bottle of leftover liquor made from soaking the insides of a whiskey barrel. When they were still in Gaspé, his dad had called it l’eau bénite, holy water.

  “Me and Joseph have been busy already all morning,” he continued. “Got the side room boarded up.”

  Joseph Corneille looked up at the boy and smiled. He was washing his hands in a bucket with yellow soap and a scrub brush. A jean jacket and empty coffee cup on the bale of hay beside him.

  “What’s that smell? You eat something?” Philip tapped the bottle into his son’s chest.

  “Sandwich over at Garance’s.”

  “Well, there’ll be boudin for supper I say. No need for handouts from them any more. You get over here and do a man’s job. The other job a man’s gotta do,” he said, cupping his groin. “Einh, Corneille?”

  Joseph half smiled at the gesture. “Sure, Boss, whatever you say.” He poured himself a shot from the bottle. “This pig’s going to Edgar’s tonight?”

  “What does Monsieur Garance need a pig for?” asked Adrien.

  “Let’s say, I traded him a pig for some lumber. I . . . ” A low roll of thunder interrupted him.

  “Better make this quick,” Joseph said, draining his cup. “Storm’s rising.”

  Adrien rolled down his sleeves and steadied the swaying carcass while his father took up the knife.

  BELLA WAS FEELING A LITTLE lightheaded so she did not put up much of a fuss when Lucille insisted that she stay in, and in bed. She allowed her mother to plump pillows that smelled like Heet (her dad’s) and pipe tobacco (her mom’s). She smiled when her mom lifted the sheet high and let it parachute down over her, but her head started to hurt again and so she shivered and was still. Lucille gave her a glass of water with some Eno and a bowl with a bit of water on the bottom in case she had to throw up. She kissed her on the forehead and left, softly closing the door.

  “Well, it is just the two of us now,” said Ruel. “Welcome home.”

  Without opening her eyes, Bella sighed, “Who are you?”

  She does not recognise me? Me, she does not know? Her reaction was so unexpected that he forgot to hold onto the hazel green colour he had chosen for eyes. Now his eyes had no colour. Now, they were black, shiny wet black. His short curly hair was the colour of the sky. His features were angular, his skin grey as bark.

  Bella sat up, and looked at him. “Who. Are. You?” she asked again. She leaned over to squeeze his wrist a little like Alice squeezed hers when she was angry, but she wasn’t angry, just curious. “Have you been here before? Do I know you? Are you a dream? Why is your hair blue? What’s the matter with your eyes?”

  “What do they call you now?” asked Ruel. He knew the shape and true resonance of her light. No mischief could alter that.

  Bella opened her mouth to answer, then shook her head, no. If ghosts or even others called you by your real name, it was very difficult to get them to leave you alone after that.

  “No? They call you No? Strange name to give a child, yet it would solve the eternal problem of children doing what they should not, going where they should not go, eating what is forbidden.”

  “My name isn’t No. My name is Bella . . . oh!” She clapped a hand over her mouth. He tricked me. “What’s your name?” she said quickly. “It’s fair. You know mine.”

  He hunched over, to accommodate her size. “Ruel — it means Small Road. We are one small light on one small road leading home.”

  Bella sipped at her Eno water. The headache rumbled in her stomach. “Lectric lights or candles? I like candles, the light is soft and more yellow and I can have one of my very own at the table if I am careful. The wax sometimes falls on my hand though when I carry the candle. It burns.” Bella held up her right hand and pointed to a thickened patch of skin below the knuckles.
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  Ruel tsked and took the glass from her. “Not firelight,” he said.

  “Lectric then,” Bella said, scootching closer, cross-legged beside him.

  “Love. Light as love.” His hands wove the figure eight on its side. He made Marie-circles in the air.

  Bella watched Ruel’s story curl and unfurl, sounding like bed sheets snapping on the clothesline, like sails on a tall ship. She saw then. He was from far away and he was here to take her, home. That is silly. I am home. Oh, away home. What?

  Ruel’s hands collected their story, their unfulfilled contract, up into the shape of a bee and carefully placed it in the bag tied to a belt around his waist. Bella heard a contented, busy humming sound coming from the pouch. Ruel smiled, his eyes relaxed into blue cat’s eyes. Bella decided she liked those eyes best and she patted his hand.

  ALICE HAD BEEN GIVEN A chicken of her very own. The eggs that chicken would lay in time, she could sell. It wouldn’t be much, but a fortune for a thirteen-year-old girl. She named the chicken Roméo. A romantic name because it was part of the name of her ever-true love, Adrien Joseph Roméo Trefflé. She planned on a new dress, even went so far as to tell her mother, a dress of red plaid. The same material she saw him fingering in the store last time they were there.

  Lucille snorted. “Red plaid? Lumberjacks wear red plaid, not little girls. Besides, it is the middle of summer and that material is too thick. Save up your egg money, ma belle. Later, if you still want to buy yourself some nice material, I’ll teach you how to sew. It is a good skill to learn anyway and high time you learned. But plaid, Alice? Honestly.”

  Alice had already spoken to Madame Toupin and asked her to put aside the material. There was the promise of eggs all summer to keep Madame happy.

  Now Juliette heard her mom promising Alice another chicken as reward for having been such a quick thinker, such a responsible sister, and she was livid.