For Sure (69 page)

“Sure an' why not?”

Pleased, Étienne began to remove his shoes and socks.

“I has to tell you doh, she's a whole lot harder dan she looks; if you goes too fast, you gets some on yer skin, an' dat's a terrible chore to get off; an' if you takes too long to lay down de second coat, she gets all gummed up and streaky.”

Étienne took the time to observe his father's technique.

“Mum goes a whole lot faster'n dat.”

“I knows it. She's done it a whole lot more times dan me. Dis 'ere's me first time.”

And Étienne thought that Chico was right: his dad did have some great ideas.

One sure advantage to putting it in the infinitive is that it lends it an indeterminate quality: “things to want.”

“Obsessions aren't de sort of ting a person feels like blabberin' to just anyone. Seems to me, we ought'n to be obliged to be revealin' stuff like dat 'ere. Dat stuff's personal.”

“You're right. And I'm not forcing anyone. I merely wanted to demonstrate how common obsessions are.”

“Well, 'ow about you, den, 'ave you got obsessions?”

“Of course. Obviously.”

“Come on den, let's 'ear one . . .”

“Alright. For example, I have a dry-skin obsession.”

. . .

“Yes, dry skin. Mine, first of all, but also other people's.”

“Dry, you mean, like it makes de
dandruff
?”

“Yes, amongst other things. Basically, all forms of dry skin.”

“Wot does dat do to ya?”

“It gives me the feeling that everything is very thin, and could disappear . . . could be erased or fritter away simply by being rubbed, or scratched or peeled.”

. . .

“In a book for example, I imagine a fingernail might easily lift up the end of a sentence and remove it completely. See? Exactly . . .”

In stock market language, a contrarian is an individual who buys stocks that others abandon for the wrong reasons. A kind of character.

Catherine thought that Chico looked bored.

“You boys aren't playing in your cabin today?”

Chico shrugged and continued to run his finger along the dusty edge of the window. When he got to the end, he wiped the dust on his pants and more or less flung himself into the sofa, sighing:

“'Tis awfully hot . . .”

But it wasn't particularly hot. Catherine concluded that Chico just didn't know what to do with himself.

“How 'bout we go for a drive?”

“Where to?”

Catherine already had a destination in mind:

“I could show you where I used to hide when I was little and wanted to be alone.”

. . .

“I think you'd like it . . .”

. . .

. . .

“OK.”

One student argued that the professor was probably the avatar of the author, who had lifted the sentence from the book.

Carmen told Mimi how Terry had beaten her at her own game of secrets. Mimi thought this little lover's tussle was cute, and she even threw oil on the fire to drag out the pleasure.

“Now dat you mention it, de udder day I saw dem talkin', he an' Zed, an' when Terry spied me close behind 'im, ee clammed right up. I'd say der was sometin' fishy goin' on der.”

Carmen took the bait:

“You want to kill me or wot?!”

But Mimi had no desire to let the lie last. Anyhow, she'd scored a direct hit:

“'Tisn't troo! I's only gettin' a rise out o' you.”

Carmen tried to clear her head, but it wasn't easy. Mimi tried to reassure her:

“You knows it can't be sometin' real serious. Terry? Der isn't a fellow more sensitive an' carin' dan dat boy!”

Still, Mimi could understand Carmen's frustration:

“If Tony tried dat on me, I'd skin 'im alive.”

There is no 13 point in typography.

Her parents had sold the family's land years ago, but Catherine had never renounced the narrow trail that led to her old refuge. She parked the car along the country road.

“See the trail beside that telephone pole over there?”

Chico finally spotted it.

“We have to walk down a bit.”

Chico opened the car door without a word. Catherine gathered their things together, handed the boy a canvas bag, and the two of them walked to the head of the trail. Before starting in, Catherine said:

“See the bigger trees over there? That's where the house I grew up in was. Half of it burned down when I was thirteen. Instead of fixing it, my father and mother decided to sell the land and move into town.”

The opposite of a thing to want would be something fervently desired.

“Can I help ya?”

“I'm lookin' fer some
tuck tape
.”

“
Tuck tape, duck tape,
or
duct tape?”

“Well . . . I'm pretty sure ee said
tuck tape
. . .”

“Wot's it fer?”

“I don't know. Ee didn't say.”

“Well, was it fer fixin' sometin' electric, sticking on siding, tapin' a hockey stick?”

Carmen found the clerk's tone unpleasant; she took the offensive:

“I don't know, I didn't see wot ee's fiddlin' wid. Ee only asked me to pick up some
tuck tape
.”

The clerk came down a notch:

“I can be showin' you wot we's got. Come along down 'ere.”

Carmen followed the clerk to the end of a long aisle down to the back of the store to finally end up in front of a panel covered in a multitude of sticky ribbons destined for all kinds of uses.

“Dat's wot we got.”

Carmen studied the wall, and almost immediately grabbed a packet:

“Must be this one 'ere. I just rembered ee said 'twas red.”

Carmen picked up the plastic-coated packet, and read the large lettering:

“An' it's written right here,
tuck tape
!

“Awh!
Tek tape
! Why didn't ya say so, girl!

To be honest, the difference between 10 point and 12 point in a typeface font seems smaller than the difference between 12 point and 14 point.

“Me, it's de folks who says ‘
quèsiment
' instead o' ‘
quasiment
'! It's like dey says ‘practicawly” instead o' ‘practically.”

“An' who says dat?”

“Awh, de folks up North an' from Québec, an' dem places. Pretty much de same dat says ‘Mointun' instead o' ‘Moncton.' Like dey got a broomstick up der ass.”

. . .

“You never 'eard somebody say ‘
quèsiment
'?”

“You get too worked up 'bout de language. Let folks talk as dey please, why don't ya? Wot difference is it gonna make?”

“None, most likely. Only I'm pretty sure dat dem dat says ‘
quèsiment
' tink dey's talkin' better dan dose of us dat says ‘
quasiment
'.”

The origin of the expression “a whale of a difference”?

While she was doing her exercises at the YMCA, Carmen wondered if she ought to include Chico in the adventure. At the same time, she liked the idea of being just the four of them, the little family.

“
Are you finished here?
”

“Yes.”

Carmen answered in French. She glanced at the time as she made her way over to the stationary bikes. Another 10 minutes and she'd be done. She didn't particularly enjoy pedalling on the spot. Maybe she ought to talk to Zed and Catherine? What would Terry think?
Oof
! She lowered the pace on the machine. Whoever had been using the bike before her must be training for the Tour de France. One way or another, Terry and the kids would be happy. So, when all was said and done, it was her decision to make. Without a doubt, this pedalling was her least favourite part.

So that confusion about the nature of the avatar spread. And since most people only had the vaguest and more or less accurate notion, the avatar was left with an extremely large sphere of activity.

“Dad? Are ya sleepin?”

Terry opened his eyes, recognized Marianne.

“How's it goin'?”

Terry blinked.

“I want to introduce you to Jacinthe.”

Jacinthe approached the bed.

“She says 'er parents know you.”

Jacinthe confirmed this:

“My mother grew up in Dieppe, on Gould Street. She was a Surette before she married. Mélissa Surette.”

Terry's eyes seemed to smile.

“Ee understands. Go on.”

“My father painted the first sign on yer bookstore. Gérard Babin.”

Terry's eyes continued to smile. Jacinthe added:

“That was a long while ago, eh?”

How ¡ntr¡gu¡ng, th¡s ups¡de down exclamat¡on mark that ¡sn't qu¡te an
i
, but more l¡ke an ag¡ng
i
, to be honest, w¡th bags under ¡ts eyes, but endear¡ng all the same, thanks to th¡s stretch¡ng, seen at the beg¡nn¡ng of a sentence or a word not so long ago — how could one not l¡ke th¡s character?

The path was overgrown in certain places but not everywhere.

“Geez, der's a whole lot o' mushrooms 'round 'ere.”

“That's because it rained a lot last week. Some are good to eat, but I don't know which. Some are poisonous.”

Chico began to look at the mushrooms very differently, trying to guess which ones might be good and which were certainly bad, but eventually he became lost in conjecture, and turned his attention elsewhere.

“De wee red berries, are dey good fer eatin' den?”

“Yes. They're called bunchberries. They don't taste like much, though.”

Chico bent down, picked a few, ate them. Catherine wasn't lying.

“Blueberries!”

“That's right! I forgot all about them!”

For a few moments, they abandoned themselves to picking and devouring the little round fruit.

. . .

. . .

And then Chico, who until that moment had heard only the noise of his own movements in the forest, suddenly discovered that a subtle range of sounds was riding on the breeze into his ears.

The wind she's blowin', the leaves are fallin'

But the larches der still a handsome green

Now a fierce wind carries off de last o' de leaves

But de larches der still hangin' yellow

(Der spirits keep on lurchin' back n' fort)

“Say, do you think the child might be a bit precocious?”

Élizabeth had only just arrived, and was removing her coat.

“She's cute, isn't she?”

“Cute yes, but more than that. She has a . . . I don't know how to describe it. But, well, maybe all children are like that.”

“She made you one of her paper things?”

“A kind of fissured assemblage?”

“It's fun to watch her going at it, isn't it?”

“Exactly, she was putting it together almost without paying attention but, at the same time, she knew exactly what she was doing.”

“And did you see her face?”

Considering the large number of dead or dying languages, why not recognize those who want to survive, give them a chance? Chiac for example. Heresy?

“Me, my greatest fear is to be paralyzed. I couldn't bear it. Someone would have to kill me.”

True or false: the bits of dry skin that accumulate around the fingernails are called hankerings.

“I'm not tellin' you de whole of it in de right order or nuttin', only I's givin' you a general idea of how she works.”

As he spoke, Terry kept clicking away on the mouse, opening files one on top of the other.

“De most important ting is you's gotta be comfortable wid yer decisions. Dat way, if yer losin' a bit o' money, 'tisn't all dat terrible. An' dat way yer learnin' wot you figured wrong. Yer learnin' from yer own mistakes.”

Zed still had his doubts:

“Wouldn't it be better just puttin' de maximum in yer REER every year?”

Terry's answer came a few clicks later.

“Better'n buying stocks you mean?”

Yes, that was exactly what Zed meant.

“De best ting is to put de maximum in yer REER, den you buys stocks wid de money you gets back from yer taxes. Dat's de system.”

Zed was impressed:

“An' where did you learn all dis, den?”

“Awh, readin' 'ere an' der . . .”

. . .

“Dat's funny all de same; dis mornin' I was askin' Carmen de exact same question 'bout 'er makeup. I tawt 'twas sometin' women had in dem natural. I never knew dey was readin' it in magazines.”