Suzanne Read online

  English translation copyright © Rhonda Mullins, 2017

  original French © Marchand de feuilles, 2015

  First English edition. Originally written by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette and published in French as La femme qui fuit by Marchand de feuilles, 2015.

  Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Barbeau-Lavalette, Anaïs, 1979-

  [Femme qui fuit. English]

  Suzanne / by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette ; translated by Rhonda Mullins.

  Translation of: La femme qui fuit.

  ISBN 978 1 77056 507 4 (EPUB).

  I. Mullins, Rhonda, 1966-, translator II. Title. III. Title: Femme qui fuit. English

  PS8603.A705F4513 2017 c843'.6 c2017-900550-2

  Suzanne is available as an ebook: ISBN 978-1-55245-347-6 (softcover), ISBN 978 1 77056 508 1 (PDF), ISBN 978 1 77056 509 8 (MOBI)

  Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook of this title, please email [email protected] with proof of purchase. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.)

  The first time you saw me, I was one hour old. You were old enough to have courage.

  Fifty, maybe.

  It was at St. Justine Hospital. I had just come into the world. I already had a big appetite. I drank her milk like I make love now, like it’s the last time.

  My mother had just given birth to me. Her daughter, her firstborn.

  I imagine you entering the room. Your face round like ours. Your dark eyes heavily lined in kohl.

  You enter unapologetically. Walking confidently. Even though it has been twenty-seven years since you last saw my mother.

  Even though twenty-seven years ago you ran away. Leaving her there, teetering on her three-year-old legs, the memory of your skirts lingering on her fingertips.

  You walk calmly toward us. My mother’s cheeks are red. She is the most beautiful thing in the world.

  How could you just walk away?

  How did you not perish at the thought of missing her nursery rhymes, her little-girl lies, her loose teeth, her spelling mistakes, her laces tied all by herself, then her crushes, her nails painted then bitten, her first rum-and-Cokes?

  Where did you hide to avoid thinking about it?

  Now, there is her, there is you, and between you, there is me. You can’t hurt her anymore, because I’m here.

  Does she hold me out to you, or do you reach your empty arms toward me?

  I end up near your face. I fill the gaping hole in your arms. My newborn eyes search yours.

  Who are you?

  You leave. Again.

  The next time I see you, I’m ten years old.

  I am perched at the third-floor window, my breath melting the lacy frost on the pane.

  Rue Champagneur is white.

  On the other side, a woman falters, her long coat no longer enough to protect her.

  Some things children can guess, and even though I don’t know you, I sense you in this waltz of hesitation.

  You cross the street in long strides, your toes barely landing. A water spider.

  You dart, you head toward us, leaving no trace of yourself on the ground.

  You slide a small book into the mailbox before slipping off, yet again. But right before you disappear, you look at me. I promise myself I will catch up with you one day.

  The train is heading to Ottawa.

  I’m twenty-six years old. Beside me, my mother is reading a magazine to keep her mind off things. I like peering over her shoulder at the pictures of girls in dresses.

  We have a mission in Ottawa, a city we don’t know. We are both looking forward to the end of the day, when we can wander and lose ourselves in neighbourhoods off the beaten path, the sort we love.

  But my mother has had an idea. We are going to go see you. If you are still alive, you live in a tower near the Rideau Canal. That was the last place you sent word from.

  We can’t call because you’ll tell us not to come.

  We have to show up in person.

  But I don’t know if I want to. I don’t love you.

  I’m even a little afraid of you.

  In the end, I preferred it when you didn’t exist.

  My mother is still afraid of being abandoned.

  Even though a mother is not someone who can be abandoned, we have to be careful, because it’s not all that clear to her.

  I ask her whether she is sure she wants to go.

  She says yes.

  The day goes by, and we find ourselves in a taxi, on our way to you.

  Ten identical towers reach toward the sky. A caretaker is in the foyer. The names of tenants are listed on the wall, each one with a little buzzer for visitors to announce their arrival.

  Suzanne Meloche. Your name. Written in your hand. Round, painstaking letters. Apartment 560.

  We slip in with a neighbour. Outlaws.

  We don’t talk in the elevator.

  Fifth floor. This is it. We walk down the long corridor. We are stationed in front of your door. My mother knocks. We wait. Footsteps. I’m scared.

  You open the door.

  My young woman’s eyes bore into yours, which are stony.

  You smile.

  You don’t miss a beat. You hardly seem surprised.

  And yet. The last time we were all together, I was just born.

  You open the door a little wider. So we go in. And you ask us to sit down.

  My mother and I sit side by side. On alert. Ready to make a run for it if need be.

  You are facing us. You must be eighty years old. Prominent cheekbones, thin lips, ebony eyes.

  You look like us.

  Then you start talking. You look mainly at me. And you wink.

  It’s the three of us. It’s so natural it’s disturbing. As if we could just sit in silence and flip through women’s magazines together.

  In a resonant voice, a voice younger than your years, you tell us about the neighbourhood, which is quiet, safe. The fellow tenants who don’t bother you, and Hilda, a neighbour with whom you eat sometimes. You tell us an old woman’s tales, but your voice and your eyes are twenty. Your smile too, animated, intense.

  Your old-lady words shield you. You string them together while I search for you somewhere else.

  Your apartment is small and bright. Books are scattered on the floor, as if forgotten mid-read. They, too, await your return.

  In the kitchen, the sink is filled with dirty dishes. You eat alone.

  If you had wanted, we could have come to eat with you sometimes. We would have brought quiches, fruit, smoked salmon. My mother would have set the table to avoid tiring you out. She sets the loveliest tables. But you’ll never know.

  Now you are talking about your brothers. One of them just died. If you are sad, you don’t show it.

  My mother tells you that she heard from Claire. Your sister who’s a nun. You laugh. Your teeth are white and straight, except for one. A rebel. Claire doesn’t seem to interest you, but she makes you laugh.

  All three of us have the same crooked tooth. Have you noticed?

  Then my mother asks why you left.

  You don’t want to answer: No! Not that. Not today.

  My mother doesn’t insist. We are cloaked in a thick silence. But you, you glide above it. Impenetrable.

  I look at you one last time.

  You have big breasts. Not us.

  You have armour. Not us.

  We are together. Not you.

  We haven’t inherited
everything.

  My mother decides to leave. She would rather make a break for it before you can hurt us. You never know. Goodbye, Grandmother. You wink at me one last time.

  We’re going skating on the canal. We’re on holiday.

  It’s cold. We skate holding hands because I’m not a good skater and because we need to. The canal is long and empty. The smooth ice belongs to us. The cold is biting and brings us back to life.

  My mother’s phone rings. It’s you. You tell her not to do that again. You tell her you never want to see us again. Ever.

  My mother hangs up. It’s not the first time she has had to swallow rejection. All the past ones are still there. Stuck in her throat.

  She has learned not to choke on them, but just barely.

  She doesn’t say a word, but she doesn’t let go of my hand. We hold on to each other.

  I hate you. I should have told you so to your face.

  On the train, I fall asleep against my mother, who is smaller than me.

  Then, one day, you die.

  Five years later. In the same small apartment where you annihilated me with seven winks.

  We are nestled away in the country, this family my parents built, that is nothing like you. A close family.

  Claire, the religious sister you would no longer see, calls to tell us you’re dead.

  My mother leans against the wall. Her stomach is Hiroshima.

  She is finally rid of your absence.

  Maybe she’ll start being normal. A woman with a mother who is dead and buried.

  But the soft voice at the other end of the line tells us that a few days before you died you wrote your will, and our names are in it. The names of my mother and her brother, then mine and my brother’s.

  We are your sole heirs. So, finally, you are inviting us over. We have to go empty your little apartment.

  We set out into winter to meet you. Through the storm. Archaeologists of a murky life. Who were you?

  We are on our hands and knees, searching.

  Your closet. Hats. Dresses. Lots of black clothes.

  I can’t help but plunge my nose into the fabric. Smells are usually so revealing. But here even they are furtive. Subtle, faint, hard to pin down. An accidental blend of incense and the sweat of days spent not moving. A subtle note of alcohol, perhaps?

  In a shoebox there are pictures of us: me and my brother, at every age. You kept them. And my mother kept sending them to you year after year. Our ages are written on the back, traces of time lost, wasted, slipped away. It’s your loss.

  My mother is sitting in your rocking chair. Gently, she touches you. Rests her hands where you rested yours. Rocks to the rhythm of a lullaby, the one she never heard.

  I find your red red lipstick in the small bathroom. And short sticks of kohl, which you lined your eyes with, giving them power. I draw a line under mine.

  My mother finds a piece of furniture, made by her father a long time ago. We take it down to the car. She takes the rocking chair too, carrying it on her back, and my father lashes it securely to the roof.

  We’re leaving soon. I’m in your room. There is a small green plant in the window. It is leaning against the pane, drawn by the day.

  Books are piled by the foot of your bed. I read a few passages at random, suddenly greedy for clues about you.

  I find a yellowed cardboard folder between two books on Buddhist zazen.

  It contains letters. Poems. Newspaper articles.

  A gold mine, which I stuff into my bag like a thief.

  We are leaving. I slip a worn copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra into my pocket.

  We close the door behind us, forever.

  We drive slowly through the storm. On the roof, the rocking chair cuts through the wind, heroically. I don’t know it yet, but I will rock my children in it.

  I flip through Nietzsche, yellowed with age. There is a laminated newspaper article stuck between two pages.

  The picture of a burning bus.

  1961, Alabama.

  In bold type: Freedom riders: political protest against segregation.

  Around the bus are young Black people and White people, in shock, refugees from the flames. A young woman is on her knees. She looks like me.

  You had to die for me to take an interest in you.

  For you to turn from a ghost to a woman. I don’t love you yet.

  But wait for me. I’m coming.

  The dead are us, that is certain, there is a mysterious link through which our life nourishes itself from theirs.

  George Sand

  We don’t fall from the sky. We grow on our family tree.

  Nancy Huston

  For my mother,

  For my daughter.

  1930–1946

  Lower Town Ottawa. LeBreton Flats.

  Little houses with peeling paint bow their heads, the bells of Saint Anne’s church ring, and the men are coming home from the factory with heavy hands and empty stomachs.

  It’s hot and it smells like wet dirt.

  The river is overflowing. It’s made it as far as the cemetery this time. The water is above the tombstones. The river has left its bed, lapping at the homes and the feet of the hurried, chasing anything that moves, awakening the dead. You wonder whether coffins are watertight. And you imagine the dead doing breaststroke.

  You stand tall on your long legs. Your face is all eyes, and you have jagged bangs that get caught in your eyelashes.

  They hide your prominent forehead. Your mother feels as though your brain wants to pop through it. She contains it as best she can, cuts your bangs to form a lid. If she could let you grow them down to your chin, she probably would, to filter your words at least, since she can’t control your thoughts.

  The water laps at your feet, soaks through your white stockings in your nicely polished shoes. You want to taste it, to see if it tastes like death. You dip your finger in and bring it to your mouth.

  Apparently this is why the French cemetery was placed near the water. Because the French don’t mind their dead being underwater. The English, well, they would never let that happen.

  It is tasteless. You’re disappointed.

  ‘Get it! Get it!’

  You turn. On the other side of the street, a group of children are chasing a rat.

  ‘Come on, Claire. Let’s go!’

  You drag your little sister along behind them.

  You cross the street, water up to your calves. You don’t hear your mother calling, trying to hold you back, again. She lives in hope of succeeding one day.

  You take long strides, your face intent. You are off to war.

  You dive onto your belly after the rat, which you catch with both hands, holding it firmly, brandishing it like a trophy, your eyes sharp and your face like an animal’s.

  ‘Got it!’

  Your sister Claire looks at you, impressed. You turn to face the English kids, the rat in hand, your dress dirty. You stare at them, a rebel.

  You are four years old.

  Mass is starting in five minutes.

  You have mud in your underwear.

  You look out the window. Walking at a leisurely pace, people are already cramming into the church on the corner. Everyone is clean and pressed, at least down to their knees.

  Below the knees, everything is grey and wet.

  ‘Suzanne! Hurry up!’

  Claudia, your mother, is calling from downstairs. You finish putting on your white blouse and go down.

  Madeleine, Paul, Pierre, Monique, and Claire are clean and waiting sensibly at the door. Your mother is seated, thin and pale. She looks you up and down, severely.

  She has given up on words, doesn’t even look for them. She hides behind her sharp eyes. Eyes that scrutinize you and condemn you to your core. You avoid them, glide above them.

  The dried mud in your underwear itches, but you don’t show it.

  Your brothers help your mother up, then you leave.

  As you walk by, you graze the keys of the
old piano with your fingers and gather the dust. Your mother catches you. You’re not allowed to touch the piano. You say you’re sorry in a clear voice.

  You have always had a voice that carries. Even when you whisper. You don’t know how to tone things down. Words move through your throat in a coarse, precise stream, a diamond, an arrow.

  It’s a good piano. A Heintzman, wood. Its front is engraved with scrolls that chase each other, swirling, never meeting.

  It came into the house twelve years ago. Claudia, your mother, loved it. She played piano as a teenager. Her aunt taught her scales. Claudia found scales more musical than most pieces and played them one after the other with heartfelt enjoyment. She could have played only scales.

  It moved her deeply that the pressure of her slender fingers could make such passionate sounds, filling the space. She liked to touch the piano keys; they gave her power. She felt alive.

  Later she took lessons with a woman who wore pretty flowered dresses and sheer stockings with no runs.

  With her, Claudia took off her shoes when she played, to feel the crisp cold of the pedals on the soles of her feet.

  She played Chopin, because it sounded like the sea.

  She had talent.

  Then she met Achilles. He was a teacher, knew a great deal and didn’t speak much. He had the sort of presence that leaves an impression. Someone you feel has been there several minutes after he leaves. Claudia wanted to swim in his wake, bathe in what overflowed from him.

  They got married. They found a big house, on Cambridge Street, in the working-class quarter of Ottawa. It was across the street from the church, which was handy.

  Claudia wanted to take her piano with her. Achilles carried it there with his bare hands.

  They picked a nice spot for it in the house, so that Claudia could sit there, like a queen on her throne.