For Sure (51 page)

“Holy Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, you didn't go an' say dat!”

Pomme's concern was all too real:

“Aren't ya afraid dey'll tink yer warped sometimes?”

“Well, you know de way it goes . . . when you see de words about to come out, only you can't stop 'em in time.”

Zed put two and two together:

“Now I knows how come Chico was askin' me if I's afraid me parents was goin' to die when I was a boy.”

Pomme too wanted to know:

“Well den? Were ya afraid?”

“Not really. Der was times I was almost hopin' 'twould happen. So's I could be a real orphan.”

“G'wan!”

Terry shared Pomme's surprise:

“I tawt you missed yer real dad . . .”

Zed shrugged.

“Don't know really. Not so much as dat, I tink. I don't really know anymore.”

CHAPTER 8

we speak English
we speak French
we speak
all languages
fluidently

Patrice Desbiens,
désâmé (de-souled)
, Prise de parole, 2005

“Yer not afeard o' turnin' 'im off?”

There he'd said it. Pomme felt that sometimes Terry was too demanding with his son.

“Well, I try to make it fun fer 'im at de same time.”

“A person might tink you was wantin' to turn de boy into a jack of all trades.”

“Not so much. I just want fer 'im to be curious, to like learnin' how life's workin'.”

Zed chimed in:

“I know wot yer sayin'. Dat's wot I'd like fer Chico as well.”

. . .

. . .

“Well dat could be . . . As fer me, when I's a boy, I learned stuff by meself mostly. An' I haven't changed, far as dat's concerned. I gets bored wid other folks' explainin'.”

Pomme's idea did not go unappreciated.

“Eh boy! I was just de same. I liked to figure tings out meself. So, maybe I oughtn't to be all de time explainin' everyting to Étienne . . .”

. . .

“Ting is you don't always know if yer doin' de right ting or not, do ya? Yer always figurin' it out as you go.”

Zed could relate to that:

“Me, I's only really learnin' a ting when I'm doin' dat ting. Den tings open up fer me.”

“Me, I gotta 'ave it all in me head afore I start.”

For Zed, it all made perfect sense:

“Dat's wot I been saying, yer an intellectual.”

The three friends ordered another round.

“Nowadays in school, dey don't call dem problems no more. Nowadays dey're challenges. Chico shows me his lessons, an' den ee explains de challenges. I suppose it's kinda clever, when ya tink about it.”

Pomme was still not used to hearing Zed talk as Chico's father.

“De word ‘problem' was too
overweight
I suppose. Challenge is more
marketweight
.”

“Ya mean a challenge
rattles
us less dan a problem?”

The tilde serves to distinguish words pronounced as in English from those pronounced as in French. Hence
jãck õf ãll trãdes
and
rãttle
. It Latinizes English. As for the acute accent on the end of a verb pronounced as in English, it indicates that the end of the word should be pronounced as in French. Hence
tũrnér õff
. This is a common form of Chiacification.

“Look, Mum, de pumpkins!”

“Wow!”

Indeed, Carmen had never seen a field so full of big, beautiful, perfectly orange pumpkins. She slowed down so that Étienne and she could admire the sight a little longer.

“Can we be puttin' up a whole family again fer Halloween?”

The previous year, Terry had worked hard to install three lit pumpkins in the window — a small one, a medium sized one, and a great big one, just like in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

“Don't see why not.”

“Dat was right nice, eh?”

Then the word had gone out to all the residents of the lofts to put a pumpkin in every one of the building's large windows, which had enhanced the stature of the building and created a festive mood throughout the neighbourhood. Families came from as far away as Dieppe and Riverview to admire the collective effort.

“Yes, 'twas beautiful!”

. . .

. . .

“Mum, could we be cuttin' our pumpkins like Madeleine did dis time?”

“Madeleine's an artist. She knows wot to do to give de pumpkin more of an expression.”

“Is it troo dat she's got a special knife?”

“I don't know. Could be.”

Carmen wondered what a special knife for the artistic carving of pumpkins might look like.

“Dat's wot Dad said.”

Carmen felt like laughing; she imagined that Terry had probably invented the special knife to moderate Étienne's aesthetic expectations.

“Takes imagination as well, not only a special knife.”

Étienne seemed to be in agreement. He watched the field of pumpkins slowly disappear:

“Could someting be inventin' itself?”

The fragment 1011.7.1 on the writing of Chiac may have come too late, not to mention its limited relevance to the translation.

“Any other questions?”

A hand went up.

“Me, I've an idea dat runs 'round in me head a lot of de time, an' I wonders like, is it an' obsession.”

“Can you tell us what it is?”

“Sure! Like dey says, ‘mix a bit o' business wid pleasure,' right?'

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I often tinks o' mixin' business wid pleasure.”

“For example?”

“Well, in airplanes, de bags fer trowin' up in. Dey oughtta write on dem ‘Address Unknown.' Dat way 'twould be sometin' we could return to sender.”

“Friggin' right!”

“Awh, grõwse*!”

“Dat's not an obsession, dat's a fantasy.”

“Dream on.”

“Class, please! Please!”

Third possible title:
Small Amusing Betrayals
. Referring to those minor aspects of life that come unravelled, or ravelled and escape our control. Thinking here also of Étienne, Marianne, and Chico, of all children really, of the universal child. And thinking, too, of words, when they betray us. But the children in this book are not really betrayers.

Do you know anyone who's suffered health problems after eating a decaying onion?

A book, picked up in passing, more for its appearance than anything, a handsome antique look. On closer examination, the book's subject and author are intriguing. A name we recognize, often encountered, but never read. A book to read in your spare time, or at least to leaf through. What's more, the book is pleasant to hold. How much better to be placed on a bookshelf in someone's library, modest though that library may be, than to end up in one cardboard box among many in a dusty junk closet, in a box someone fully intends to sort through some day, a day that never comes. A book, then, snatched up in passing, after decades of wandering: Michelet,
Précis de l'histoire moderne.

Alphabits, also. . .

What other kinds do you like?

Those well-read primates.

Seen from behind: a classic look, not flashy, black leather with five nerves and gold lettering. At the very bottom, slightly worn away, the numbers 1-8-5-0.

Jar covers, cans. Aluminum plates (and other utensils). Nails, useless screws, plumbing scraps. Metal wire. Steel wool. Old grater. Trombones. Dishes, grills, camping pots and pans. Broken folding chairs (aluminum). Old toaster. Ornaments. Odds and ends.

“Do you know de tent nation?”

Le Grand Zablonski thought Étienne was perhaps alluding to tint saturation. He fetched a tube of solid red and one of white.

“Look at this bright red colour. Now I squeeze a bit of white and mix them, see how it changes to pink? We've created a lighter tint of red. Is that what you mean?”

“No, 'tisn't a colour, 'tis a place yer not supposed to go.”

Étienne Zablonski thought perhaps the boy had been watching the news.

“You mean a refugee camp? Like in the news?”

Étienne shook his head.

“No, not in the news. In the prayer.”

Zablonski really had no idea.

“No, I don't know any tent nation in a prayer.”

Not forgetting the Love Canal in New York State, the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Lake Constance on the borders between Switzerland and Germany, the Pacific Ocean Loyal, a small town in Wisconsin, and Lac des Pises in France, since to despise is a facet of love rather than its opposite.

“Good evening, everyone and thank you for coming in such great numbers. I dare say the task before us is of Herculean proportion, which is why we will need all your ideas and all your linguistic talents if we are to succeed. And, let's be frank, we will also need nerves of steel, because creating a modern Acadian language on the basis of its present-day componants will be no picnic. But nothing prevents us from undertaking our task with joyful ardour and wacky courage, since . . .”

Cleaning products. Lighters. Aerosol cans. Oils (inedible), paint strippers, and varnish removers. Paints and dyes. Glue. Nail polish. Colouring (hair). Insecticides. Thermometers (mercury). Anti-flea spray. Antifreeze. Empty propane gas tanks. Wax (old candles). Pool products. Obsolete computers (diskettes?). Broken electronic games. Birthday cards containing batteries. Batteries (rechargeable and non-rechargeable). Old television set. Large appliances (toxic liquids and gases).

“We're gonna adopt anglicisms?”

“Ee said adapt, not adopt. Adapt anglicisms.”

“Awh.”

In the field of kitchenware, the French word
fusil
, which also means “rifle,” is a steel knife sharpener that resembles a sword.

“It hurts when I press 'ere, eh?”

Little Marianne looked at the woman bent over in front of her. Her name was Marie-Josée, and she'd hardly pressed at all.

“An der? Hurts a wee bit more?”

Marianne nodded yes. After all, Marie-Josée was being so nice and wouldn't stop smiling.

“Poor little darlin'! You musta had a fright when you fell, eh?”

When it happened, Marianne had felt neither fear nor much pain. All wrapped up in her Halloween onion costume, she'd tumbled down the steps of the wooden staircase, almost in slow motion and soundlessly. It was the great ree-raw that followed that had started her crying. But how was she supposed to explain all that? Carmen replied in her stead:

“Less than her mudder, I tink! I'm telling you, I go to bed at night and I see de whole scene all over again in slow motion. I can't believe she didn't suffer anything serious.”

Marie-Josée was not lacking in compassion for Carmen either.

“Sure, I can imagine how you must've felt!”

“An' to think, I went all the way up dose staird wid 'er, to be sure she'd not be fallin'!”

Marie-Josée sympathized with a shake and a nod of the head.

“Fer us, 'twas when we lost our girl in Disneyworld . . .”

Hearing this, Carmen felt her heart and stomach tighten into knots.

“I's so afraid I can barely talk about it to this day.”

Now it was Carmen's turn to sympathize as she listened to the chiropractor describe her misadventure. In the end, the two women tried to laugh off their maternal traumas and returned to Marianne's case:

“You were right to bring 'er. It's always best to be sure. If she does 'ave a problem, 'tis a whole lot easier and quicker to treat now dan later. Most people only worry 'bout the head. Dey don't tink 'bout the back bone.”

“I wasn't sure if you could treat children dat young.”

“Awh, sure we do, a lot. ‘Specially fer de colic, ear infections . . . tings like dat.”

“Her ears hurt, too, some o' de time.”

Carmen smiled at Marianne, who allowed herself to be handled without complaining.

“Hop! Did you feel dat?”

Marianne smiled. Yes, she'd felt something, but it was mainly the contorsions that Marie-Josée was making her do that were funny.

“Nowadays, we even treat animals. Cats, dogs, horses, even rabbits! Don't be askin' me who'd bring a rabbit to a chiro.”

Carmen was thinking about the horse:

“Well, must take a shockin' great chiro to crack de back of a horse.”

But Marie-Josée did not reply. She was totally absorbed in feeling Marianne's neck and turning her head back and forth.

“Awh! Der's a wee bit o' sometin' over 'ere. I'll need me gun.”

A glass of wine = a cluster of grapes = 75 grapes. In 2006, 267 c/s of Red Bull were sold. The pit of a date is made of hardened albumen. A kilometre on foot: 12 minutes; a kilometre by bicycle: 3 minutes. Shirt cuffs begin to fray after approximatley 60 washes. There are 88 gods in a grain of rice. The useful life of a plastic bag is 20 minutes. The moon rises at 109 km/s. The human being learned to read a mere 3,000 years ago.

Easy to pick up, fits comfortably in the hand. The weight surprises considering how thin it is. A robust cardboard cover, a book made to last. Perhaps a schoolboy or girl's book. On the top and bottom boards a speckled medium brown dominates a paler brown background, with touches of pink. Inside the cover, a surprisingly motley flyleaf, which is perhaps suitable. The edge is smooth, sand-couloured, and subtley luminescent. The inferior endband has lost almost none of its symmetry or gilt.

Étienne, on the other hand, absolutely refused to dress up as a vegetable.