Suzanne Read online

  Your eyes search for your father, focused, quieter than the others.

  He is piling the dandelions to burn them, a bit of him burning along with them. He is already disconnected from you.

  Your fingers turn yellow.

  You can’t count on anyone. You should learn to run.

  You used to like dandelions. You made bouquets with them in the spring. You thought it was a valiant flower, the first to grow, the first to brave what remained of winter.

  A simple flower, without pretence. You liked it before it became the object of a make-work project. Before it made your father bitter.

  You rip out the flowers with violent precision. You are avenging your father.

  At the end of the day, a mountain of dandelions is burning. Even the fire isn’t pretty. It doesn’t even inspire the pride of a job well done. Just black smoke, sadly pointless.

  You leave.

  The Bennett buggy moves lazily along the dirt roads toward home. You glance at the Hole as you go by.

  You wonder whether Hilda Strike could have been born there.

  And the idea comes to you that maybe she could have beaten Walsh if she had learned to run barefoot in the mud.

  You fall asleep on Achilles’s warm shoulder. His silence calms you.

  It’s cold and people are hungry. People don’t want children when they’re cold and hungry.

  The first family planning clinic opens near you in 1932. A young woman, Elizabeth Bagshaw, decides that her kitchen will become an information counter for women who are exhausted. Young women with bags under their eyes line up, their children in a constellation around them.

  Elizabeth explains how to use a condom. They blush, giggle bashfully. They still have to convince their husbands.

  You are sitting on the balcony when, one morning, the police show up and take her away. She never comes back to your neighbourhood.

  You will remember her wrists in handcuffs, her intelligent eyes, her round bottom, and her deep voice. In that order.

  January 30, noon. You are eight years old.

  While Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany, your mother gives birth to her seventh child.

  Apparently Achilles managed to thrust his penis into her, and now she is screaming to expel a newborn.

  You are pacing back and forth in the living room.

  Claudia pants. Giving birth is the only time she makes noise. That may be why Achilles still wants to give her children. Because that’s how he knows she’s alive. That she sweats, that she smells, that she screams.

  Afterward, she will go quiet again.

  You place your fingertips on the piano. You’re not allowed to. It hurts her.

  But you like the forbidden.

  You press down on a key, and a note reverberates through the house, impertinent.

  A beat. Claudia is moaning in the bedroom.

  You press down on another key. Then another.

  You know that she can’t get up. You would like to play her a symphony. You press your whole hands on the piano keyboard; you grab notes by the fistful, you leave none of them in peace. They belong to you for a moment, and you embrace them.

  You press your arms, and then your stomach, against the keys, then you sit your bare thighs on the cold keyboard; you want to warm it up, you want to warm yourself up. You climb onto the piano. You crawl along the keys, and you feel like a giant.

  From the bedroom, crying: It’s a boy.

  From the bedroom, yelling: Claudia says she’s going to kill you.

  You like school. Mainly for a bizarre reason: you like watching people from behind. Watching their necks. You sit in the back of the class, because the steep slope of anonymous necks reminds you of how fragile they are. From behind, it’s as though the crack is inevitable.

  Imagining their necks broken brings you closer to others.

  In art class, the teacher tries to teach you to trace an apple and a hat.

  You wonder about the significance of the pair. Why an apple and a hat?

  You have to use a ruler, a compass, and an eraser. You have to, the teacher says.

  You apply yourself.

  You are a good student.

  When you’re done, the perfect hat is alongside the perfect apple. You look at your perfect drawing. Your mother will probably hang it on the living room wall.

  You think it could use a bit of colour.

  You have a hangnail on your right hand. You pull on it. It bleeds a little. You spread the blood on the apple and the hat.

  There. Perfect and red. Perfect and bloody.

  The teacher is furious. You, so proper, so perfect.

  He rips up your work and sends you to the hallway to think about what you’ve done.

  Standing in front of the window, you count the pigeon droppings piled between you and the outdoors. You tell yourself that life is dirty, and that’s the way you like it.

  You are all gathered at the kitchen table, which your mother is finishing up clearing.

  English kids are playing hockey in front of the house, their war cries filtering indoors, and you are told to stop fidgeting. It’s time for the family catechism.

  Today Achilles tells the story of original sin, of freedom put to the test.

  There are eight of you standing around the table, because it’s harder to fall asleep when you’re standing.

  When he starts talking about God, Achilles’s face changes. It always makes you smile. He becomes a teacher again. He is focused, doing his best to articulate precisely. He takes refuge in this family sermon, where he still feels useful. You don’t know whether he really believes what he is saying, but he throws himself into it, unshakeable, whole.

  Claudia listens, nodding her head, eyeing each of her children, making sure they’re paying attention. She is the only one who is seated. Her legs could give out from under her. Claudia could collapse at any moment.

  Achilles clears his throat, lifts his chin slightly, and begins: ‘God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil spells this out: “for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.”’

  Your sister Claire eats up his words; they hold her spellbound. She even seems a little scared.

  You are already getting impatient. Blood is running down your legs. You are the promise of a woman. You like the idea. It’s a territory you want to explore.

  You are stuck at the end of the table. The wooden corner grazes the spot between your legs.

  ‘Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the moral norms that govern the use of his freedom. Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command.’

  Achilles continues, his voice deeper.

  ‘Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. After that first sin, the world is virtually inundated by sin …’

  You press up against the table and it feels good.

  Your mother leaps up, overturning the table with her momentum. You jump. Your sister Claire cries out.

  Achilles, his sermon interrupted, becomes vulnerable again. He carefully rights the table, looking at his wife, a question in his eyes.

  Claudia stares at you. She smooths her skirt, her hands trembling, and apologizes to Achilles in a meek voice, never taking her eyes off you. Calling for him to continue, she suggests with a controlled gesture that you leave the table and sends you to the pots and pans.

  You are heading toward the parish, dragging a burlap sack behind you. There are three pots in it. Your mother is doing her part for the coming war. She is making a worthy donation of her pots. There is a real need for aluminum: her pots will become a warship.

  You are proud to be a cog in this bit of alchemy.

  Plus, it gives you hope. You imagine a pot slicing through the waves and destroying the enemy i
nstead of hanging around in the oven.

  One day, you too will turn into a warship.

  You walk along the street; your legs have never been so long. You are fourteen, the age of possibility, when we think we are immortal.

  Your feet don’t touch the ground. You skim it and propel yourself elegantly through the space around you, claiming it as your own.

  You reign over the world with a light touch, with disarming assurance.

  You enter the classroom, greet your teacher with a sincere smile, and take your seat at the front.

  It’s oral presentation day, and you have been chosen to get things rolling, which you like doing.

  ‘We are at war,’ you say, solemnly.

  You are wearing lipstick. You thought that talking about war would be the perfect opportunity to wear lipstick.

  You get the distinct impression that the words coming out of your mouth are cushioned. The news is powerful, but your telling of it seems delicate. You choose your words carefully. You pick them with your fingertips, but they settle in your mouth authoritatively and come out ornate, as if proud of having been chosen.

  The whole class is hanging on your words. They already know, they are learning nothing new, but they are captivated by the way you honour the language.

  ‘William Lyon Mackenzie King intends to mobilize the Canadian armed forces and the economy to support the war effort. But in September, he announced that he wouldn’t necessarily introduce the draft. At the time, our prime minister said he was sensitive to the opinion of French Canadians about the draft. We are still against it. Despite that, this morning, he did an about-face … and announced the mobilization of all single men in three days.’

  As you leave school, you hear the church bells ring. Everything seems a little off. An agitated chaos has descended on the city.

  At first glance, the church square looks like a cruise ship. A hundred families are milling about in colourful outfits, their gestures random, their laughter nervous.

  You stop, trying to understand the scene. Then you spot the two priests, attempting to put order to the milling masses.

  Your eyes sharpen and you see the patched, repurposed grooms-wear.

  The clothes have been hauled out from parents’ chests. They have put a dress over a nightgown that more or less matches. It’s a group wedding. There are only a few hours left to get married. A few hours to avoid going to war.

  On a table, hard, white cake is set out, made with sugar ration coupons hastily begged from the extended families of the impromptu brides and grooms.

  Aware of their power, the priests are running around and feeling useful like never before. They are dispensing for better or for worse and savouring the chaste kisses of those plucked from danger.

  You watch the spineless, candy-coated crowd. Too much lace, too much laughter, too much happiness.

  You tell yourself that if you had the choice, you would choose war.

  Cries of joy merge and combine with the blackout siren that sounds through the neighbourhood.

  They are playing war games: it’s a rehearsal.

  People are not scared of it yet. The siren drowns out the music and the church bells.

  You need to seek shelter; it’s to practise. The cloud of newlyweds slowly disperses. You take cover in the church. The confessional is empty, and you settle in there to wait for the all-clear.

  The low wail of the sirens creeps into the church. It seems muffled, as if it hadn’t been invited in.

  You fall asleep.

  There is a creak and you jump.

  ‘Hello?’

  The voice of the priest.

  ‘My child, did you want to confess?’

  You sit up straight.

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I committed obscene acts, Father.’

  ‘On yourself or on someone else?’

  ‘On you, Father.’

  You smile. You like the silence that follows.

  Outside, the sky is turning grey. You hurry. You walk past the plant where women work. You stop to look at them. Their gestures are as perfectly timed as the short hand on the clock in the living room. Fine and exact. Precise, female hands.

  They are making weapons. Turning pots into warships.

  They wear berets, and their clothes have a sober, military cut.

  They are like ballerinas. The elegance of the useful gesture.

  They are also a motivation, a reward. The men who go off to the front fight for them: their beauty is part of the war effort.

  Way in back, you think you spot Hilda Strike, dressed to run, her slender body and warrior presence. She looks up at you.

  It’s raining. You walk slowly home.

  On the radio in the kitchen: ‘At 5:45 a.m., the Operation Neptune fleet opened fire on German defence forces.

  ‘At 6:30 a.m., the first waves of the American assault force landed on Utah and Omaha beaches. In the British and Canadian sector, the attack was launched one hour later because of the different tide times.

  ‘We do not yet know the extent of the losses, but the Atlantic Wall seems to have been breached along its length, and the Allies have penetrated some six miles inland.’

  You, your mother and your sisters are standing on chairs, rags in hand. You are washing the windows.

  You are astonished by the differences possible between two lives. This morning, a soldier was running through the sea at Normandy, dancing with death, praying to his mother to watch over him.

  You look at your mother. She seems so delicate and small. You could take her and crush her. She notices you looking, which makes her squint in irritation. She turns her head, as if you were giving off too much light. She sends you back to your work with a subtle gesture, pointing to the slimy trace of an insect.

  A bird flies into the sparkling clean window. It falls to the balcony. You are fascinated. You love surprises. You rush outside. The bird is there, lifeless. You don’t dare touch it in front of your mother. You know she would wash you in bleach.

  But she bends over the bird and picks it up with a tenderness you have never seen in her before.

  She cups her palms and the bird curls up in them, as if it were made for her hands.

  You aren’t sure who is holding whom. Has the bird picked up your mother or has your mother picked up the bird? For a moment, it is unclear.

  They seem fused, like glass sculptures. Frozen in the rift of time where the idea of death stealthily makes itself known. Your sisters don’t move. Neither do you. Standing in this strange moment, just before life resumes its course.

  Then your mother’s voice emerges: ‘Suzanne, the garbage.’

  She wants to get rid of it, suddenly, right this minute.

  You obey. You go get the garbage can inside the house and return, holding it out to her. She tosses the dead bird into it with a brusque gesture, as if parting with a bad memory.

  Then she goes back into the house and washes her hands. She scrubs for a long time. You watch her from behind, her neck about to crack.

  You imagine her crumpled on the ground. You would have done the same. You would have picked her up, crumb by crumb, held her in the palm of your hands, and quickly tossed her in the garbage.

  You tie the bag with a solemn gesture and carry it to the side of the road.

  Edmond Robillard did his novitiate with the Dominican Fathers in Saint-Hyacinthe. He offers his services as a spiritual advisor to youth in need of moral guidance.

  You go talk to him a few times. Initially out of pressure from your parents, then for pleasure.

  The Dominican Fathers live and pray in a large grey building at the corner of your street. You walk by it on your way home from school. You are welcome; you can pass the time there.

  You think Hyacinthe, his religious name, is funny. And his turtleneck suits him. You don’t tell him, but you can’t stop looking at it.

  What you like about the turtleneck is imagining what’s behind it. Hi
s long, straight neck. A few fine, purple veins, delicate, almost graceful.

  You know that it bothers Hyacinthe when you stare at his neck, but you like that too.

  So you visit him when you walk by, when your heart is light.

  He asks you questions. About your worries, your pleasures, always trying to get at what you believe.

  He knows you are bright. Your grades at school prove it.

  He feels like you are destined for great things, if you can get your wild streak, which he has already sensed in you, under control.

  But Hyacinthe understands that holding you back would do you a disservice.

  So he suggests that your parents sign you up for a big public speaking competition in Montreal.

  He thinks you can do it.

  The idea of taking the train, and then the more vivid one of seeing Hilda Strike’s city, makes you deeply happy.

  Achilles and Claudia agree.

  You have never loved them so much.

  You are eighteen years old.

  You have polished your ankle boots, and you are wearing a boater Claudia has given you for the occasion. Achilles has shaved his beard and put on cologne. He won’t tell you he is proud of you, but you know he is.

  You say goodbye to him as if you were leaving to go far away for a long time.

  You board the train, hanging on to your small suitcase. Your palm is clammy.

  You walk down the aisle, glancing at faces as you go. Your eyes leave a mark, but you don’t know it yet. Something you got from your father: piercing eyes that leave an impression.

  From outside the window, Achilles watches you go. His big girl is such a good speaker and is off to speak in Montreal. You sit down and look at him. He looks like he’s going to cry, but he is old enough to have watery eyes, so you’re not sure.

  The train starts up, and already you’re not looking at your father. You are looking ahead.

  The scenery rolls by and disappears in the distance. You calmly take in everything. For the first time, you feel like this is where you should be. Where things are moving.