Serafim and Claire (33 page)

Twenty minutes later, he had gotten off in order to cross a set of streetcar tracks that had no cobblestones between them, and had taken the opportunity to check his watch. He was a tad early and so decided to walk his bicycle the rest of the way. Claire had asked him to keep away from the house that afternoon, stipulating that he could come back any time after four, though when he did, he was to knock and wait for her to answer before entering. To many, such a request would be highly suspicious, but it was an arrangement Serafim had been agreeing to for years.

The first time she'd asked him, she had plainly stated that she needed to do something secret but it was the kind of thing that needed to be done and it wasn't hurting anyone. Serafim had told her he understood but he didn't really, and while he'd made himself scarce as agreed, he wasn't so trusting as to leave the neighbourhood. Instead, he kept close and watched the front door of their apartment. Soon after he left, a middle-aged gentleman showed up touting a heavy bag, his other hand pulling on the railing as he laboured up the stairs. Minutes later, a young woman — who, Serafim assumed, was enrolled in the dance classes Claire volunteered her time to every week — sheepishly climbed the stairs after him. About an hour later, the man with the heavy bag left, while the young woman didn't reappear for quite some time. When she finally did, Claire left the house with her, accompanying her to the nearest tram stop. Since then, this was an occurrence that repeated itself every two or three months, never the same girl twice but always the same official-looking man. It was something Serafim had simply learned not to ask for details about, especially considering how easily embarrassed he was with Claire's candidness when talking about “women's matters.” He was confident she wasn't having an affair; beyond that, he felt it wise to leave well enough alone.

On this particular day, he came across Claire outside, just as she was leaving a new girl at the tram stop nearest their apartment. When she saw him, she lifted her arm to wave, already heading towards him, and they were soon walking together, one on either side of the bicycle. Claire had grown her hair out and no longer hid it beneath a hat when she left the house, and Serafim watched as the sun's rays ran through the length of it, auburn bands of iridescence oscillating as she stepped. The limp in her stride was pronounced but natural, something she'd grown accustomed to. She had learned to walk with an air that was graceful again, in a gait that was not.

Serafim, not wanting to refer to how her afternoon had been, waited for her to begin speaking. It didn't take long. “And how's Antonino? Wow, so much food! What's in the wrapped parcel?”

“Antonino is fine. And that, I am proud to announce, is meat.”

“That's an odd description. What kind of meat exactly? And honestly, what does Antonino
do
to these vegetables? Have you seen sadder lettuce in all your days?” She reached back to finger a withered head of the stuff, its yellowed leaves flopping to the side as if trying to avoid her criticism.

“Might be the way he picks them. The meat is . . . what is the word in French?
Veado
in Portuguese. An animal from the forest.”

Claire raised her eyebrows. “Oh my.”

Serafim nodded. “I know. The hair is still on it. And there are thick bones. It was killed by a motor car.”

“Oh my.”

They'd reached the stairs leading up to the apartment and began unloading the small crate. The impediment of Claire's ankle was never more pronounced than when she climbed stairs. It took her some time. Inside, they put the things in the kitchen, a room Serafim kept clean and fastidiously organized. There was a place for everything, and he was always putting things back into those rightful places after Claire had spent any time there, leaving surfaces crumb-strewn and in disarray behind her. Never having set aside a place for meat in such a form as this, and with no idea how to begin preparing it, Serafim just dropped the entire parcel into the sink.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Famished,” said Claire, already reaching for a knife and cutting board and stationing herself beside the kitchen sink, her preferred place when they ventured to fumble through a bit of cooking together. Sometimes it felt as if they were improving, making culinary headway of some sort. Sometimes not.

Either way, the vegetables were a godsend. There was little food in the house, and no ice in the icebox to keep it fresh even if there was. Serafim hadn't worked for weeks, and they were behind on their rent again, like everyone else in the building. Their landlord was so tired of fruitlessly hounding people that he'd stopped even bothering.

“Today, Antonino introduced me to a journalist from
La Presse
. He would like me to take photos of the strike downtown tomorrow.”

Claire spun round from the sink, the green top of a carrot sprouting from her hand. “Why, that's fantastic!”

“I know. There's no mention of money yet, but Antonino said he has a good feeling about it.”

Claire shook her head. “Great news.” She suddenly slammed the carrot and knife onto the cutting board. “Music — we need music.” She left the room, the familiar sounds of her uneven footfalls across the hardwood to the gramophone, followed by the scratch of the needle as it settled onto the vinyl, the swell of blurry song. Bing Crosby, an orchestra lamenting just behind him.

By the time she came back, Serafim had seated himself at the table with a smaller cutting board and was slicing away the rotten and inedible parts of each vegetable, washing the salvageable pieces in a bowl of water and placing them on a plate for Claire to chop later.

Meanwhile, Claire had finished cutting the carrots (into wildly uneven pieces) and was now unwrapping the meat. “How do we get the fur . . . How do we do this?” she asked with her back to him.

“Well, . . . . was hoping you knew.”

Claire sighed, took a knife from the cutting board, and began to poke at the venison in the sink as if it might still be alive. Serafim watched her. The last of the day's sunlight shafted through the kitchen window, brushing the tops of the plants they had tried, and failed, to grow on the sill above the sink, the sickly pale of their leaves straggled and thin but now glowing.

Impulsively, he dried his hands on a tea towel and slipped out of the room to get his Leica. He returned to where he'd been sitting, advanced the film, adjusted his settings, and waited for Claire to turn round. The song on the record ended and a new one began. Claire put the knife down, at a loss how to continue. She paused, still fixed on the quandary, still trying to work it out.

As she did so, waiting with his camera poised, Serafim found himself thinking about what Álvaro had written, about what Antonino had said to him earlier that afternoon. He grinned. Luck, he thought to himself, was indeed a strange thing.

When Claire turned, Serafim released the shutter.

Montréal, le 15 septembre 1933

Salutations ma belle,

A letter for you, like old times! You and Serafim were both out when I dropped by, so I thought I'd sit at a café and scribble a note to slip under your door. What with our living a half-hour walk away from each other, there's really little reason to write anymore, and I find I miss it at times. Peculiar.

Anyway, I called by to talk to you, about the meal this coming Sunday. I want you to know that just because we could sit down with Maman and Papa and seem like a regular family the day we buried Grand-maman doesn't mean it'll work outside that context. I guess I just don't want you to expect too much.

I thought a lot about what was said that day, and what was not. There was no reference made to my divorce, or Gilles, which I think is understandable. But if you recall, there was also not a mention of your life in dance, between the time you left the “care” of our parents and the car accident that ended your career. As if your life as a dancer were a thing to be ashamed of.

Claire, for me it's simple: either Maman stretches the confines of her pious mentality to a point where she can weigh your experiences as things of value, or her world is simply too small and petty for us to fit inside. We will always have each other. I would rather be motherless than have to pretend disgrace just for the benefit of someone else's ego and distorted principles.

At any rate, we'll see how it goes on Sunday. Till then,
ma belle
.

Grosses bises,

Cécile

A
s soon as
her divorce was final, Cécile moved back to Montreal. Gilles — whose political career had, as predicted, been somewhat damaged by the scandal — found some way to plod along, and within a year he had married again, this time a wide-eyed girl of nineteen who was shy and laughed easily. Cécile, on the other hand, was content to remain single for the time being. Before moving to Montreal she had already been in contact with the network of suffragist contemporaries in the city for years, and so when she arrived, she had help finding an apartment and a job, and plenty of work the moment she was settled. Aside from Mexico, Quebec was the last remaining state or province in North America that had not yet granted its women the right to vote. There was work to be done beyond this as well, in terms of other rights, support, and programs. What was more, Cécile was now working directly alongside the iconic women of the province whom she had so long revered, such as Idola Saint-Jean, Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie, and Thérèse Casgrain. She was also happy to see that Claire, while never becoming outwardly active herself, was at least more interested in what Cécile had to say than before. She had become more of a listener.

Their mother's obsession with saving the pagan soul of their grandmother before she passed away had reached an extreme. The old woman was wheeled to Mass twice a day, and later stationed in front of shrines and lit candles to “pray” for long periods of time, her glassy eyes staring at nothing in the flickering dark. On her deathbed the priest was sent for, and the last rites administered, three times before she finally succumbed.

When she died, it had been eight years since Claire's mother or father had spoken to her directly, without Cécile as an intermediary. Her father phoned her up to invite her to the funeral, speaking as if they had just seen each other the week before. Claire agreed that she would go to pay her respects, and afterwards, though it was never her intention, she and Cécile (who was now equally out of favour on account of her divorce) went together to the wake, where they sat in a corner as a cohesive team. Daniel, their obedient brother, kept his distance from them. A few of their relatives cautiously approached, asking Claire how she'd been, and what
ever
had happened to her ankle. It was criminal, they'd declared, how dangerous the roads had become.

Again quite unintentionally, everyone had suddenly left the house except for the immediate family, who found themselves together and in the same apartment the children had grown up in. So it was natural that they were all invited to stay for a meal, which went surprisingly well. Admittedly, the conversation was contrived, awkward, and careful, but Claire sensed a degree of warmth — in place of hostility — buried just beneath it all. When the three children left, it was with a tentative invitation to have a proper Sunday meal sometime in the near future. Though what exactly “proper” meant, with so little means to buy food, was questionable.

The fateful Sunday arrived, and this time it wasn't all smiles and niceties. Cécile made a point of asking about Claire's days as a performer, the people she'd met, the different shows she'd been involved in. Their mother wore a tense grin and tried to change the subject, but Cécile kept returning to it. Daniel watched his fork and moved food around on his plate. As soon as their father began to express valid interest and acceptance, Cécile boldly ventured onto her own forbidden ground, talking about Gilles, their divorce, and then — flabbergasting everyone at the table — the affair she'd had that led to it. The kitchen clock counted out the seconds of quiet afterwards. “Well,” their mother finally said, lacklustre, “anyone for dessert?”

They left with the feeling that such meals were not about to become a weekly occurrence, but that the two girls weren't going to be banished from the apartment's devout and hallowed walls either. On the street outside, Claire argued with Cécile about her tactics. “I just don't think they need to be forced to accept
every
aspect of who we are, especially when I can't offer the same in return. Besides, there are things, you know, that I
want
to keep to myself.”

“Yes, of course, but not whole spans of your life, Claire. Not things you don't think of as mistakes, things you're proud of.”

Claire looked out into the neighbourhood, which was holding the night lightly in its arms. “I just think that not everything has to be said. What would we be without our secrets?”

Cécile laughed, embraced her. “Empty. Though I hope you don't mean to say there are things you keep even from me?”

Claire kissed her goodbye. “Don't be ridiculous. Of course there are!”

On her way home, limping fluidly along the sidewalk, Claire found herself cataloguing those secrets she kept. One of them Cécile of all people would be extremely supportive of, even proud of her for; yet it was something she'd decided to keep exclusively to herself.

It had begun in the spring of 1932. Over the years Claire had come to take her unpaid responsibilities as a dance instructor with increasing earnestness, and it had gotten to the point where she dedicated most of her waking hours to the task. What surprised her was that the bulk of this time and energy was spent in her head, as she tried to figure out ways of getting each of her pupils to reach his or her (often hidden) potential. Somewhere along the way, Claire made what felt like a fascinating discovery: each of her students was receptive to a different set of methods, techniques, and training regimens; and at times their progress and improvement depended entirely on Claire's ability to reinvent her approach. Every apprentice became a separate puzzle to solve, and the gratification of finding an individual solution, and then seeing sudden and rapid improvements as a result, became the fulfilling reward she was after. She found that the more undivided her attention, the more her students flourished, often letting it slip that they preferred learning in “the basement” more than anywhere else in the city. She would never have imagined herself as a good teacher, but that is what it seemed she'd become. At the same time, the trust her students placed in her sometimes spilled over and outside the realm of dance.

In the spring of 1932, one of her pupils was having a rough day. She was a fidgety girl of fifteen, who at the best of times was ill at ease and lumbering but who was now so unfocused that she was becoming a hazard. Claire asked her to stay for some extra practice afterwards, and the moment the two of them were alone the girl broke down. When she'd calmed herself enough to speak, she confided that she had wanted to talk to Claire alone for quite some time. She was in trouble. Unimaginable trouble. Claire discovered that she was pregnant, and asked if she knew who the father was. Yes, the girl wept. Which had Claire asking if she had been violated. The girl shook her head no. Well then, marriage, Claire suggested, might yet be an avenue. You don't understand, the girl exclaimed, breaking down again. After a long while and a lot of coaxing, it came out that the future child was her brother's.

As the girl sobbed into her side, Claire thought long and hard about what to do, even if it was more or less obvious to her. She finally told the girl to come back the next day and in the meantime not to look for any “guaranteed solution” from some Red Light charlatan. Claire happened to know of a safe way out.

With no one able to afford his services, Dr. Bertrand wasn't busy when she arrived at his office.

“Why, Claire, what a pleasure. Come in, come in. What happened to your leg?”

“An accident, automobile.”

“Cursed things. Would you like me to take a look at it?”

“No, thank you.” Claire hesitated, trying to size the man up. “What I would like . . . is for you to keep your word, to keep a promise you once gave me.”

Dr. Bertrand straightened, put his hands in his pockets. “And what was that?”

“I need . . . . fetal expulsion.”

He held very still for a moment. “Claire, that's impossible.”

“It's not for me, but for a young girl I know who's in serious trouble. It's her brother's, and I suspect she'll get it done regardless of whether it's someone who knows what he's doing or not.”

Dr. Bertrand pinched some sleep from his eyes. “Sadly, the Church has grown watchful these last years. Do you know what could happen to me? To you? Her? And I needn't even bother asking if this would be paid . . .” He turned his back to her, playing with some papers on a table. “These are hard times, Claire.”

“Harder for some than for others, Dr. Bertrand. I'm pleading with you. Remember that I barely made it through, and even then not wholly intact.”

His shoulders dropped. “
Merde
,” he mumbled. “Fine. But not here. It will have to be at some local address, have to look just like a house call. And this girl, she should never know my name.”

“Agreed.” Claire rocked on the heel of her left foot. “Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bertrand. This means much to me.”

They set up the appointment and decided to use Claire's apartment, where she would be able to stay with the girl afterwards. There was the risk of Serafim discovering them, but she could find a way around that easily enough. Taking advantage of his traditional and prudish views, she insinuated that she needed to be left alone for “women's reasons,” reasons about which he was more than free to ask, though he was sure to be mortified if given the answer. As predicted, he kept a sufficient distance and his misgivings to himself.

The arrangement was supposed to be a one-off, an isolated rescue attempt, but within a few months careful confidants and discreet inquiries had led another young woman to “the basement,” where she waited outside to catch Claire as she left for the day. It was imperative, the girl said, that she speak with Claire right away. To Claire, every story she heard seemed more desperate than the last, until she simply stopped asking for them, as did Dr. Bertrand. The circumstances that these girls (and sometimes older women) found themselves in became less important than their obvious need and powerlessness.

Claire sometimes wondered why she kept this from Cécile. Oddly enough, it occurred to her that it was
because
Cécile would praise her efforts, commend her. Claire wasn't doing what she was doing for Cécile, or her approval. Neither was she doing it for herself. Like her dance classes, she was acting on impulse, and from motives that she'd never really imagined were in her. In many ways, the more silent it all was, the more valuable.

It was late autumn, and Claire had just walked the latest of these girls to a tram stop near their apartment. As she turned to head home she saw Serafim making his way down the street. Perfect timing, she thought, waving and setting off towards him.

Serafim hadn't been able to find work for the last several weeks, and something that amazed Claire was that, even with so much time on their hands, they still managed to inhabit such close quarters without getting on each other's nerves. She suspected that one of the ways they accomplished this was by reading, both of them settling in corners of the studio, hunched over tomes in their laps. And seeing as they only read illicit literature, it made for intriguing conversation afterwards as well.

Both Cécile and Antonino had their hands in the dissident underworld of banned books, which had been censored by the Catholic Church and were often smuggled in by mail — Trotsky, Balzac, Huxley. Sometimes Serafim's friend Álvaro would send a few additional blacklisted authors from Paris — Descartes, Flaubert, Hugo — and if he was feeling unusually nostalgic he might throw in a record of Portuguese music as well, something that was easier to come by in France than in Canada. They were records whose melancholic harmonies Claire often enjoyed more than Serafim, who had never been as taken with music as she was.

It was among the last warm days of the year, a clear October afternoon, not a breath of wind, and it looked as if Serafim had been gardening with Antonino again. She soon caught up with him, and they walked on either side of his bicycle. “And, how's Antonino? Wow, so much food! What's in the wrapped parcel?”

“Antonino is fine. And that, I am proud to announce, is meat,” he declared.

They hadn't eaten meat for what felt like months, though it was probably only weeks. They brought the groceries into the apartment, and with both of them hungry, they decided to get cooking right away. It was true that neither of them were artists in the kitchen, but Claire felt that they bumbled along well enough, and that they were making improvements all the time. While the vegetables he'd picked weren't superior by any standard, with a bit of cutting away and cleaning up one could get to something salvageable, even fresh, just beneath. The meat, however, was another thing. It was apparently venison, killed by a motor car, and one of its sides was still matted with fur. Claire had no idea how to begin cutting it, and happened to doubt that even a trained butcher would know. But once she had finished chopping a few carrots, she could feel that the job was falling to her, that Serafim was waiting for her to at least give it a shot. She prodded the meat with circumspection, trying to work out the best way to proceed.

As she did so, Claire heard Serafim get up from the table behind her and return with his camera, adjusting the settings in that highly concentrated way of his. He had just given her news that he might have some work tomorrow, taking pictures for one of the city's major newspapers. Something to celebrate, to be sure. Claire put the knife she was holding down on the cutting board beside her, rinsed her hands.

Yes, she contemplated, they both had so much. Which was probably what he wanted to capture, considered Claire, probably why he had just slipped out of the kitchen and returned with his camera, why he was waiting for her to pivot round and face him.

Claire smiled, quietly, and turned.