Montreal Stories (26 page)

The wedding party walked in a procession down the steps and around the corner: another impression in black-and-white. The August pavement burned under the women’s thin soles. Their fine clothes were too hot. Children playing in the road broke into applause when they saw Marie. She waved her left hand, showing the ring. The children were still French-Canadian; so were the neighbors, out on their balconies to look at Marie. Three yellow leaves fell—white, in a photograph. One of the Driscoll boys raced ahead and brought the party to a stop. There is Marie, who does not yet understand that she is leaving home, and confident Louis, so soon to have knowledge of her bewildering ignorance.

Berthe saw the street as if she were bent over the box camera, trying to keep the frame straight. It was an important picture, like a precise instrument of measurement: so much duty, so much love, so much reckless safety—the distance between last April and now. She thought, It had to be done. They began to walk again. Mme. Carette realized for the first time what she and Uncle Gildas and Berthe had brought about: the unredeemable loss of Marie. She said to Berthe, “Wait until I am dead before you get married. You can marry
a widower. They make good husbands.” Berthe was nearly twenty-four, just at the limit. She had turned away so many attractive prospects, with no explanation, and had frightened so many others with her skill at cards and her quick blue eyes that word had spread, and she was not solicited as before.

Berthe and Marie slipped away from the reception—moved, that is, from the parlor to the bedroom—so that Berthe could help her sister pack. It turned out that Mme. Carette had done the packing. Marie had never had to fill a suitcase, and would not have known what to put in first. For a time, they sat on the edge of a bed, talking in whispers. Berthe smoked, holding the Buffalo Hofbrau ashtray. She showed Marie a black lacquer cigarette lighter she had not shown her mother. Marie had started to change her clothes; she was just in her slip. She looked at the lighter on all sides and handed it back. Louis was taking her to the Château Frontenac, in Quebec City, for three nights—the equivalent of ten days in Old Orchard, he had said. After that, they would go straight to the duplex property, quite far north on Boulevard Pie IX, that his father was helping him buy. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning,” said Marie, for whom tomorrow was still the same thing as today. If Uncle Gildas had been at Berthe’s mercy, she would have held his head underwater. Then she thought, Why blame him? She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

T
HE FAMILY’S EXPERIENCE
of Raymond was like a long railway journey with a constantly shifting point of view. His mother and aunt were of a generation for whom travel had meant trains—slow trips there and back, with an intense engagement in eating, or a game of cards with strangers, interrupted by a flash of celestial light from the frozen and sunstruck St. Lawrence. Then came the dark brown slums of the approach to Montreal, the signal to get one’s luggage down from the rack.

To make a short story shorter, his Aunt Berthe (she worked in an office full of English Canadians) would have said Raymond was Heaven and Hell. Mother and aunt, the two sisters had thought they never could love anyone more than Raymond; then, all at once, he seemed to his aunt so steadily imperfect, so rigid in his failings, that the changing prospect of his moods, decisions, needs, life ceased to draw her attention.

He’d had a father, of course—had him until he was eighteen, even though it was Raymond’s practice to grumble that he had been raised, badly, by women. His last memories of his father must surely have been Louis dying of emphysema, upright in the white-painted wicker chair, in blazing forbidden sunlight, mangling a forbidden cigar. The partially flagged backyard had no shade in it—just two yellow fringed umbrellas that filtered the blue of July and made it bilious. Louis could not sit in their bogus shadow, said it made him
sweat. Behind the umbrellas was the kitchen entrance to a duplex dwelling of stucco and brick, late 1940s in style—a cube with varnished doors—at the northern end of Boulevard Pie IX. “Remember that your father owned his own home,” said Louis; also, “When we first moved up here, you could still see vacant lots. It depressed your mother. She wasn’t used to an open view.”

Where Raymond’s sandbox had been stood a granite bird-bath with three aluminum birds the size of pigeons perched on the rim—the gift from Louis’s firm when he had to take early retirement, because he was so ill. He already owned a gold watch. He told Raymond exactly where to find the watch in his desk—in which drawer. Raymond sat cross-legged on the grass and practiced flipping a vegetable knife; his mother had found and disposed of his commando dagger. His father could draw breath but had to pause before he spoke. Waiting for strength, he looked up at the sky, at a moon in sunlight, pale and transparent—a memory of dozens of other waning moons. (It was the summer of the moon walk. Raymond’s mother still mentions this, as though it had exerted a tidal influence on her affairs.)

The silent intermissions, his gaze upturned, made it seem as if Louis were seeking divine assistance. Actually, he knew everything he wished to say. So did Raymond. Raymond—even his aunt will not deny it—showed respect. He never once remarked, “I’ve heard this before,” or uttered the timeless, frantic snub of the young, “I know, I know, I
know.
”

His father said, “There have always been good jobs in Boston,” “Never forget your French, because it would break your mother’s heart,” “One of these days you’re going to have to cut your hair,” “Marry a Catholic, but not just any Catholic,” “With a name like Raymond Joseph Driscoll you can go anywhere in the world,” “That autograph album of mine is worth a fortune. Hang on to it. It will always get you out of a tight spot.”

In his lifetime Louis wrote to hockey players and film stars and local politicians, and quite often received an answer. Raymond as a child watched him cutting out the signature and pasting it in a deep blue leather-bound book. Now that Raymond is settled in Florida, trying to build a career in the motel business, his whole life is a tight spot. He finds it hard to credit that the album is worth nothing. Unfortunately, it is so. Most of the signatures were facsimiles, or had been dashed off by a secretary. The few authentic autographs were of names too obscure to matter. The half dozen that Louis purchased from a specialized dealer on Peel Street, since driven out of business, were certified fakes. Louis kept “Joseph Stalin” and “Harry S Truman” in a locked drawer, telling Marie, his wife, that if Canada was ever occupied by one of the two great powers, or by both at once, she would be able to barter her way to safety.

Raymond had a thin mane of russet hair that covered his profile when he bent over to retrieve the knife. He wore circus-rodeo gear, silver and white. Louis couldn’t stand the sight of his son’s clothes; in his dying crankiness he gave some away. Raymond stored his favorite outfits at his aunt’s place. She lived in a second-story walk-up, with front and back balconies, a long, cool hall, three bedrooms, on the west side of Parc Lafontaine. She was unmarried and did not need all that space; she enjoyed just walking from room to room. Louis spoke to Raymond in English, so that he would be able to make his way in the world. He wanted him to go to an English commercial school, where he might meet people who would be useful to him later on. Raymond’s aunt said that her English was better than Louis’s: his “th” sometimes slipped into “d.” Louis, panting, mentioned to Raymond that Berthe, for all her pretensions, was not as well off property-wise as her sister and brother-in-law, though she seemed to have more money to throw around. “Low rent in any crummy neighborhood—that’s her creed,” said Raymond’s father. In
his last, bad, bitter days, he seemed to be brooding over Berthe, compared her career with his own, said she had an inborn craving for sleeping with married men. But before he died he took every word back, said she had been a good friend to him, was an example for other women, though not necessarily married women. He wanted her to keep an eye on Marie and Raymond—he said he felt as if he were leaving behind two helpless children, one eighteen, the other in her forties, along with the two cars, the valuable autograph album, the gold watch, and the paid-up house.

Louis also left a handwritten inconvenient request to be buried in New Brunswick, where he came from, rather than in Montreal. Raymond’s mother hid the message behind a sofa cushion, where it would be discovered during some future heavy cleaning. She could not bring herself to tear it up. They buried Louis in Notre Dame des Neiges cemetery, where Marie intended to join him, not too soon. She ordered a bilingual inscription on the gravestone, because he had spoken English at the office and French to her.

Raymond in those days spoke French and English, too, with a crack in each. His English belonged to a subdivision of Catholic Montreal—a bit Irish-sounding but thinner than any tone you might hear in Dublin. His French vocabulary was drawn from conversations with his mother and aunt, and should have been full of tenderness. He did not know what he wanted to be. “If I ever write, I’m going to write a book about the family,” he told his aunt the day of Louis’s funeral, looking at the relatives in their black unnatural clothes, soaking up heat. It was the first time he had ever said this, and most likely the last. Poor Raymond could barely scrawl a letter, couldn’t spell. He didn’t mind learning, but he hated to be taught. After he left home, Berthe and Marie scarcely had the sight of his handwriting. They had his voice over the telephone, calling from different American places (they thought of Vietnam as an American place) with a gradually altered
accent. His French filled up with English, as with a deposit of pebbles and sand, and in English he became not quite a stranger: Even years later he still said “palm” to rhyme with “jam.”

Raymond behaved correctly at the funeral, holding his mother’s arm, seeing that everyone had a word with her, causing those relatives who did not know him well to remark that he was his father all over again. He was dressed in a dark suit, bought in a hurry, and one of Louis’s ties. He had not worn a tie since the last family funeral; Berthe had to fasten the knot. He let her give his hair a light trim, so that it cleared his shoulders.

Marie would not hold a reception: The mourners had to settle for a kiss or a handshake beside the open grave. Louis’s people, some of whom had come a long way, were starting back with the pieces of a break beyond mending. Marie didn’t care: Her family feelings had narrowed to Raymond and Berthe. After the funeral, Raymond drove the two sisters to Berthe’s flat. He sat with his mother at the kitchen table and watched Berthe cutting up a cold chicken. Marie kept on her funeral hat, a black straw pillbox with a wisp of veil. No one said much. The chicken was not enough for Raymond, so Berthe got out the ham she had baked the night before in case Marie changed her mind about inviting the relatives. She put the whole thing down in front of him, and he hacked pieces off and ate with his fingers. Marie said, “You wouldn’t dare do that if your father could see you,” because she had to say something. She and Berthe knew he was having a bad time.

When he finished, they moved down the hall to Berthe’s living room. She opened the doors to both balconies, to invite a crossbreeze. The heated air touched the looped white curtain without stirring a fold of it. Raymond took off his jacket and tie. The women had already removed their black
stockings. Respect for Louis kept them from making themselves entirely comfortable. They had nothing in particular to do for the rest of the day. Berthe had taken time off from the office, and Marie was afraid to go home. She believed that some essence of Louis, not quite a ghost, was in their house on Boulevard Pie IX, testing locks, turning door handles, sliding drawers open, handling Marie’s poor muddled household accounts, ascertaining once and for all the exact amount of money owed by Marie to Berthe. (Berthe had always been good for a small loan toward the end of the month. She had shown Marie how to entangle the books, so that Louis need never know.)

Raymond stretched out on Berthe’s pale green sofa, with a pile of cushions under his head. “Raymond, watch where you put your feet,” said his mother.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Berthe. “Not today.”

“I don’t want you to wish we weren’t here,” said Marie. “After we’ve moved in, I mean. You’ll never know we’re in the house. Raymond, ask Aunt Berthe for an ashtray.”

“There’s one right beside him,” said Berthe.

“I won’t let Raymond put his feet all over the furniture,” said Marie. “Not after today. If you don’t want us, all you have to do is say.”

“I have said,” said Berthe, at which Raymond turned his head and looked at her intently.

Tears flooded Marie’s eyes at the improbable vision of Berthe ordering her nearest relatives, newly bereaved, to pack and go. “We’re going to be happy, because we love each other,” she said.

“Have you asked Raymond where he wants to live?” said Berthe.

“Raymond wants whatever his mother wants,” said Marie. “He’ll be nice. I promise. He’ll take the garbage down. Won’t you, Raymond? You’ll take the garbage out every night for Aunt Berthe?”

“Not every night,” said his aunt. “Twice a week. Don’t cry. Louis wouldn’t want to see you in tears.”

A quiver of shyness touched all three. Louis returned to memory in superior guise, bringing guidance, advice. “Papa wouldn’t mind if we watched the news,” said Raymond.

For less than a minute they stared at a swaying carpet of jungle green, filmed from a helicopter, and heard a French voice with a Montreal accent describe events in a place the sisters intended never to visit. Raymond jumped to an English channel, without asking if anyone minded. He was the male head of the family now; in any case, they had always given in. Vietnam in English appeared firmly grounded, with a Canadian sergeant in the Marine Corps—shorn, cropped, gray-eyed, at ease. He spoke to Raymond, saying that it was all right for a Canadian to enlist in a foreign army.