For Sure (31 page)

“Go bigger? How're youse gonna manage dat, den?”

“We'll plant down along boat sides o' de building. Not too wide, maybe one or two rows. Goin' all de way down de sides'll get us a fair bit.”

The Cripple was proud to see his wife taking the project to heart.

“An' wid flowers in amongst de veggies, 'twill be a right pretty sight to see, fer sure.”

Blissful red. Red meat, red cabbage, red earth. Red star. Red gold. Mercury red, lead red, pure red. Tube of rouge. Red lantern. Redneck. See red. Red blooded. In the red. Red Cross. Baton-­Rouge.

After Marianne was born, Terry and Carmen had pretty much decided that two children was enough. But, from to time, they found themselves imagining life with a third.

“It's terrible strange. As doh der was sometin' in me dat wants anudder one.”

“It's de same ting wid me. Must be some sort of animal instinct, 'cause when I tink about it, two's plenty.”

“Same wid me. I wouldn't want us to go and complicate our lives too much. I tells meself, tings are pretty good de way dey are, we ought to just keep goin' dat way.”

Carmen nodded: she understood exactly what Terry meant.

“Anyway, if we decide we want anudder, we better not wait too long. I'm older'n you are, even doh I don't look it.”

As she spoke, Carmen had rolled her hips, a kind of burlesque demonstration of her powers of attraction. Terry applauded:

“Nice work, girl! Nice work!”

What should a writer do when she realizes she's made a mistake? Admit to it, even though it seems incongruous to admit a mistake in a fiction.

The following Saturday, 17 people were back at it, digging, shovelling, raking, and barrowing rocks, branches, old soil, new soil, manure, mulch, and more. In the midst of all this toing and froing, wearing his panama hat, and his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, Étienne Zablonski was drawing plans, trying to design a garden that would take into account all the various biological, aesthetic, and practical factors. Ludmilla, who was watching him work, pointed to a spot on his plan.

“And what sort of flowers will go here?”

“Nasturtiums. They'll protect the broccoli in behind.”

Ludmilla had never realized that Étienne was a natural gardener.

“And here?”

“Sunflowers, behind the corn. I think there'll be sufficient space to plant three rows. Otherwise, the corncobs won't be full.”

“Oh?”

“Because they have to pollinate each other. Antoinette explained it.”

Ludmilla also liked her husband's generosity.

“And there?”

“Thyme among the cabbages. Thyme is very pretty when it's in flower.”

Exploring
L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble®
turns out to be useful in several ways. First, because it does not include definitions of commonly used words, and only brief definitions of lesser-known words, one can easily scan all the words beginning with a given letter in an hour or two. Anyone willing to dedicate a few hours to each letter of the alphabet, could acquaint themselves with the entire vocabulary of the French language. Evidently, the French language is finite after all, contrary to the impression it gives of being a pitiless and limitless mistress.

All this fresh ground seemed to rejuvenate the very soul of the courtyard.

“I can't wait to see all dis 'ere growin'!”

“Dat corner over der's goin' to be tropical like.”

In the distance someone shouted:

“Hotdogs're ready!”

The announcement sparked a small rush toward the barbecue. Lisa-M. and a non-resident girl friend moved against the current to go over and admire the flowerbed at the rear.

“Who's dat over der den, wid de straw hat?”

“Dat's Zablonski! Sexy in't ee? His wife's shockin' beautiful, too, and real nice, to boot. Funniest ting is all de boys in de building have got a crush on 'er… but do you tink dey'd try der luck?”

“I sure wouldn't mind living 'ere, too. You're one lucky ducky!”

“Here's where dey planted dose giant flowers. It's gonna be right pretty.”

A second call rang out:

“Alright den, de hamburgers're ready too!”

More specifically, what should a writer do if she realizes she's made what might be a fundamental error at a relatively advanced stage of writing the book, an error, in this case, involving a false premise? First of all, remain calm, avoid a crisis of discouragement, the temptation to abandon the work. Then, begin to look for a solution.

“If I'd bin just a wee bit smarter, I'd 'ave gone an' fetched Chico, so ee could spend de day wid us. 'Specially wid de barbecue an' de games an' all. Ee could've even slept over if ee'd a mind to.”

“Fer sure.”

Terry looked truly disconsolate. Carmen sympathized, tried to comfort him:

“Well, we can't be tinkin' of everyting all de time. Dat's someting we ought to do, doh. Invite 'im over before too long, before he can't remember who we are.”

“Yeah. Some time we're doin' someting dat's… wot's de word I'm lookin' fer in French?”

“Fun?”

Terry was not amused. He tried the English word.

“Sometin' like
distracting
. . .”

“Amusing? Entertaining? Diverting?”

“Diverting. Seems I can never remember dat word.”

Before confirming this newly discovered and surprising finitude to the French language, it might be useful to verify the true value of language tools such as
L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble®
by comparing — why not? — the list of verbs beginning with the letter
a
in
L'Officiel . . .
with those in the authoritative
Bescherelle
L'Art de conjuguer
, for example. The
Bescherelle
lists 528 verbs beginning with the letter
a
, including the verbs
accroire, adirer, advenir, apparoir, assavoir,
and
avenir
, although the conjugations of these verbs are either limited or nul. As for
L'Officiel . . .
, although it lists two fewer verbs than the
Bescherelle
, it does include some not in the
Bescherelle
. Together,
L'Officiel
. . . and the
Bescherelle
list 496 of the same verbs beginning with the letter
a
. The
Bescherelle
lists 31 that are not in
L'Officiel
. . ., and the latter includes 30 that are missing in the
Bescherelle
. Thus we arrive at a total of 557 French verbs beginning with the letter
a
.

In English, one might arrive at a similar result by comparing lists of 448 verbs beginning with the letter
a
in the
Official Tournament and Club Word List
for Scrabble with a source such as the
Woxikon Free Online Dictionary
, which lists 444 verbs beginning with the letter
a.
The
Official Tournament List
contains 48 verbs that do not appear in
Woxikon
's list, while
Woxikon
has 47 not in the
Official Tournament
list. Altogether these two sources list 397 verbs in common, which yields a total of 492 English verbs beginning with the letter
a.

At the end of the work day, everyone shared a big communal meal in the yard. And two particularly creative dads improvised a series of competitive games for the children.

“First, you toss de rock in the pail wid de shovel, see, den after dat, you goes an' empties your pail on the pile of rocks over der.”

“Wot does we win?”

“Wot does you win? . . . You wins twenty-five cents. But don't go fergettin' to come back over 'ere wid yer pail. When yer done emptyin' yer pail, you gotta come over 'ere and touch de board, de board where youse started from.”

“Where does we put de rock?”

“The rock's gotta land on dat big pile over der. Youse all see de pile?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Rock has to fall on de pile. If she don't touch de pile, boy, you lose right der, automatic. Understood?”

The kids nodded, they were already beginning to concentrate their attention. A question came from the attending adults:

“Wot happens if dey miss de pail?”

The other dad answered the spectators:

“If dey miss de pail a first time, dey can try a second time . . .”

He turned to the children to make sure they too understood:

“Understood? You miss de pail once, you can try again. An' if you miss a second time, you picks dat rock up in yer hands and put 'er in de pail, den take off wid de pail. Understood?”

To be sure they'd all understood, the first dad went through the whole explanation again, demonstrating each step along the way. In the end, the children were hopping up and down with impatience.

“Alright den, Roussel an' Étienne, youse two are goin' first. Haul on over 'ere.”

Pure errors are rare. It's always possible to wring an error in order to extract an explanation, a justification, a motivation, a lesson, an elixir, a premise, and sometimes even the pre-text to write another book.

Then Zed filled a vat with water and tossed in seven or eight apples.

“Alright den, youse each takes a turn tryin' to bite into an apple.”

The children were hopping with excitement to decide who would go first. The luck of the draw fell to Julie. She soaked her face several times before conceding defeat.

“My turn!”

“No, mine!”

“Me!”

Thomas won out. He came forward, gripped both sides of the vat and began chasing the floating apples with a wide open mouth. Finally he straightened up, his head soaked and defeated.

“Yer turn, Étienne.”

Étienne understood that success was far from certain. He stood for a moment studying the apples.

“You don't want to give 'er a try?”

“Yes, I do.”

He concentrated for a few more seconds and then plunged.

Since readers are invited to complete each section of
La Bibliothèque idéale
with a fiftieth book of their choice, nothing prevents us from creating a fiftieth category of books, all personal choices, in which we might include works that don't entirely belong in any of the existing categories. In this fiftieth section, I would place
Stratégies de la framboise. Aventures potagères
(
Strawberry Strategies. Adventures in the Garden
), by Dominique Louise
Pélerin, published by Autrement. A pure delight.

“Deep down, isn't dat why dey do an autopsy? To prove wedder yer time had really come or not?”

This fiftieth category of
La Bibliothèque idéale
could also serve to include the truly excellent books in categories that have already filled their quota.

When night fell, to the accompaniment of applause, whistles, fatigue, and the joy that comes at the end of a long and productive day in the fields, Zed turned on all the lighting they'd installed to prettify the yard: Chinese lanterns of different sizes and colours, electric candles in the shape of red peppers and little orange pumpkins, and a few spotlights shining on the still-young trees. After a few songs, requested by both young and old, most of the residents retired to their apartments with heavy limbs and sore backs, and unable to remember what life had been like before.

The 31 verbs beginning with the letter
a
that appear only in the
Bescherelle
are:
abloquer
,
abomber
,
abricoter
,
acétyler
,
aciseler
,
(s')adire
,
(s')adoniser
,
affriter
,
agricher
,
alcaliser
,
(s')ambifier
,
aminer
,
amourer
,
analgésier
,
apatamer
,
aplomber
,
appéter
,
aquiger
,
archaïser
,
argotiser
,
argougner
,
arpigner
,
arquebuser
,
arquepincer
,
(s')arsouiller
,
artiller
,
(s')autoguider
,
(s')autosuggestionner
,
(s')autotomiser
,
aveindre
,
and
azimut(h)er
. On the other hand, the 30 verbs listed in
L'Officiel du jeu Scrabble®
that do not appear in the
Bescherelle
are:
aborner
,
abréagir
,
abrier
,
abroutir
,
abuter
,
accouver
,
accréter
,
affaiter
,
agender
,
agrainer
,
aguiller
,
allotir
,
ameulonner
,
amouiller
,
anathémiser
,
anatomiser
,
anecdotiser
,
antiparasiter
,
apigeonner
,
appondre
,
aquareller
,
attraire
,
attremper
,
aubiner
,
auditer
,
(s')autodissoudre
,
(s')autogérer
,
(s')autoréguler
,
azorer
,
and
azoter
.