MARIE HÉLÈNE POITRAS
GRIFFINTOWN
* * *
A NOVEL TRANSLATED BY
SHEILA FISCHMAN
Originally published in French as Griffintown
copyright © Éditions Alto and Marie Hélène Poitras, 2012
English translation copyright © 2015 Sheila Fischman
This edition copyright © 2016 Cormorant Books Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013–2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Poitras, Marie Hélène, 1975–
[Griffintown. English]
Griffintown / Marie Hélène Poitras ; translated by Sheila Fischman.
Translation of: Griffintown.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77086-388-0 (pbk.).— ISBN 978-1-77086-389-7 (epub)
i. Fischman, Sheila, translator ii. Title. iii. Title: Griffintown. English.
PS8581.O245g7413 2015 C843’.6 c2013-907901-7
c2013-907902-5
Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, Soul Oasis Networking
Cover photo and design: angeljohnguerra.com
Printer: Friesens
The interior of this book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.
CORMORANT BOOKS INC.
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Author's Dedication:
For Charlotte and Olivier
Thanks to Philippe Tessier for showing me how
Translator's Dedication:
To Michèle Jodoin, who urged me to read
this novel — and to translate it.
What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the
blood and the heat of the blood that ran them. All his
reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his
life were for the ardent hearted and they would always
be so and never be otherwise.
— CORMAC MCCARTHY, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
THE BOOT
*
DAWN BREAKS OVER GRIFFINTOWN after months of snow and dormancy, a period of survival. Precarious sunlight appears in the east. On the horizon, in profile, a desolate landscape shot through with hills of rust where an entire genealogy of antiquated objects subsists in strata, in a doomed silence: odd hubcaps, broken bicycle chains, buckled sheets of metal. In the distance stands the royal mountain, topped by a cross, numb to the laments of the trees stretching out their bare limbs, paupers awaiting manna.
Behind the stable, the stream has thawed and its dark water is running to the canal, fresh and furious. A lot of snow fell in April. Some kindly soul has poured a little vodka into the troughs so the few remaining horses can drink when the days are cold. The constant back-and-forth between freeze and thaw has slashed severely the streets, turning them into genuine traps for calèches. Only an intimate knowledge of the days and nights of Griffintown would provide a glance at this ungrateful land of the possibility of a fertile summer.
Three horses wintered in the stable, chewing with their eroded teeth for lack of anything better than what was left of the green hay from the previous year. They have now started to rake with their hooves the scored brown soil to defy the damp indigence of spring. The scrawny animals lick big blocks of red salt, their hollow breaths warming the stable.
In the trailer parked nearby, the man keeping an eye on them has spent the last few weeks playing cribbage by himself while he waits for the night to be over and for his small heater to dry the toes of his damp boots. The man is looking for his people through the trailer’s skylight. Soon he will start a count of the men and beasts winter has overwhelmed. New arrivals will occupy the loose boxes left vacant at the end of summer. Others will be returning, former runners with marks on their gums: Percherons, Belgians, bays, roans, brought back from auctions in Vermont and surroundings. The blunt rumbling of unshod hooves will once again reverberate through the stables.
* * *
BILLY EXTRICATES HIMSELF FROM a dream in which — and this is rare — he was on horseback. He felt the animal’s body moving under him, its warm sides stiffening under his calves, the power of the muscular machine. Gripping the pommel with one hand, he led his mount westward, beyond the limits of Griffintown, when the regular and reassuring sound of the horse’s hooves trotting in the fading daylight merged with the purring of a truck engine, Paul Despatie’s, followed by the animal transport vehicle occupied by new horses.
One black cowboy boot adorned with charms appears in a partly open doorway, followed by another, equally ostentatious. Paul, the man who found gold in Griffintown, owner of the stable and lord of the domain, greets his handyman and offers him a contraband cigarette. “The Indian will be back this summer,” he announces. Billy nods, then they smoke in silence the musty tobacco, rolled tightly in the yellow paper.
Paul opens the doors of the transport vehicle to let the horses out. The first one appears, a ton of nerves and irritability, a raw-boned Clydesdale that will have to be fattened up before the season gets underway but who has keen eyes and a good head. Billy leads him to a stall still dominated by a card with the name of its former occupant, who was sent to the glue factory at the end of the previous summer. Jack. Billy hates to baptize animals. For convenience, he decides to call the new arrival “Jack” also, an easy name to remember, until he recalls that it’s a mare — Paul said so. Billy bends under the animal to check. Taking out a pen from his shirt pocket he moistens the ballpoint and adds two letters to the end of the name: i and e. Jack becomes Jackie.
Billy makes the second mare walk to the stable, the better to note her features: fine grey-blue coat; powerful fleecy hindquarters; rather sensitive legs; the heavy grace of a Percheron but in appearance as gentle as a Belgian. She looks in vain for something cool or blooming, a tuft of weeds in all this mud, all this rust. Billy considers calling one of the new arrivals “Princess,” then changes his mind. He thinks back to all the Maggies who’ve passed through his life as a groom: decent, proud little sweethearts — machines. He grinds his cigarette butt with his heel and slips it into his pocket as a precaution — more than anything in the world, Billy fears fire erupting in the straw. He writes Maggie on the back of a package of cigarette papers, a makeshift index card he’ll put up in the stable. A name, five shovelfuls of sawdust, and a cube of hay: that’s how new residents are welcomed to the stable. The blacksmith will shoe them in a few days and the veterinarian will assess their health. Then the training will begin.
Best to avoid growing attached to the horses when they arrive. Billy wouldn’t have given much for the standard bred, escaped from the hippodrome afflicted by a heart murmur, but he just had to hitch the little dark horse, back this summ
er for an eighth season, to a light calèche and keep an eye on his hocks. He realized that Garlen Lou — yes, that’s the horse’s name — displayed pride inversely proportional to his height.
Like the coachmen, the horses that wash up here pull several lives behind them. They’re taken as they are. For them, too, it is very often the last chance saloon.
* * *
THE MEN FROM THE City have left messages repeating their offers to buy back calèche permits. The golden age has passed. Everyone knows. Even though the business is no longer as prosperous as it once was, Paul has no intention of yielding to pressure. The new owners of high-end lofts and condos don’t enjoy the company of coachmen, the smells they leave behind, the pools of horse piss imprinted on the asphalt, leftover oats that crunch under the heels of their polished shoes. But the horsemen still fill their pockets with marriages. That’s how Paul gets back on his feet and fills his coffers while the coachmen blame the bad weather, fluctuations in the American dollar, or the roadwork that complicates their guided tours and scares the horses. Driving a horse and calèche through Old Montreal is a risky undertaking.
Some day — and that day is fast approaching — this tradition, and the entire legacy of coachmen’s knowledge that accompanies it, will disappear. The stable, the profession, the utility of draft horses, places for them to drink. Old harnesses will disappear, as will the art of harnessing. All will end up in the museum. For now, the legend endures on faded postcards showing passengers filled with wonder, their enthusiastic coachman with hair slicked back, a peach-coloured polo sweater knotted over his shoulders. “We’re becoming fossils,” thinks Paul as he sends his mail waltzing under the blades of the shredder.
When the snow melts, the lord of the domain resumes contact with the horsemen to enquire about who is coming back. He can count on a small crew of coachmen who — year in, year out — are able to get through more or less alive to the other end of the dead season. Every winter, one or two lose the duel with themselves. No one asks what has happened to So-and-So, man or horse. It’s simply noted that it’s no longer possible to reach one of them on his cellphone or that a new occupant has moved from one stall to another. In Griffintown, the harsh season is pitiless for those whose shadows can’t be seen in the distance, whose boots or hooves can no longer be heard pounding the ground. Outside the stable, there is no salvation.
The gruff brotherhood that unites the coachmen lasts the entire season, then disappears as soon as the first leaves fall. Then the logic of “every man for himself,” of “every man against himself,” reasserts itself. No one knows what will become of the drivers outside the boundaries of the territory, at night, under the snow. Fierce and merciless, winter plows their bodies, leaving them bewildered, limping through the slush, coughing loudly and spitting green while they wait for hope to return with the spring. No one talks about the absentees from the small company of horsemen, only await their return. After that, hope vanishes. For a moment they stare at the toes of their boots, then raise their heads, brows creased. Let themselves be blinded by the sun.
* * *
THIS SEASON IS OFFto a good start with John’s calls. The cowboy will be with them: excellent news. John’s mere presence calms the explosive nature of some, giving others the impression that, through him, justice will reign in Griffintown. John’s not armed; he acts only in his own name. He became a driver seven years earlier, after a long bad spell. Unlike the new drivers, he’d known from the start how to earn the respect of the elders. He’s the one who separates the men in an altercation, or stops duels, or is called on to pick up a horse that’s collapsed or to finish off a dying animal. From both drivers and horses he keeps a respectful distance appreciated by all.
The sun bronzes his skin but never burns it. His gaze is hard but anyone who is able to get close to him can get a glimpse of the melancholy lapping gently in his eyes, like blue water.
At the end of every summer John hopes, on bended knee, that the season just finished is his last. But winter passes, leaving him as helpless as the other drivers. Come spring — when Paul’s voice at the other end of the line reiterates the promise of fast-made money — he hardens himself, then gives in. For most of the drivers, boarding a calèche offers salvation after falling: years of drinking, of losing everything, begging, sleeping on the steps of a church, doing time in prison, dancing nude, or working the street. For John, it’s another story. He steps into a calèche like someone resuming a bad habit.
“This is my last summer, Paul,” John announces.
Paul hangs up, exits his office, locks the door, lights a cigarette, and goes to the stable to join Billy.
* * *
BILLY HAS STARTED TO list the bits, leather curbs, chains, and reusable shoes in the big chest containing remnants of leather that have been thrown in every which way, along with old cracked girths, and twisted horseshoes. Paul notices that he has begun to line them up by order of size. Given the state of dilapidation of the place, trying to impose a semblance of order strikes him as absurd. Billy has his hare-brained ideas and Paul can’t reproach him for anything.
When Paul inherited the stable, the groom was part of the deal, along with three scruffy old nags he had to have put down. Billy kept an eye on the premises and on the scrofulous stable of horses. Best to ensure that they’re allies. At the time, he slept in the stable, at the back of the loose box where the bags of sawdust were kept. In exchange for a small weekly wage and the keys to a trailer parked between a crane and a dismantled carriage, Paul had bought Billy’s loyalty; and, accordingly, a less-than-total peace of mind.
By choosing to live near the horses, the men gave up any peace and quiet because there’s always something to fix, to adjust, leather to oil, filth to shovel, animals to tend, injuries to keep tabs on.… Sunny’s nose was scraped, Lady limps on her right forefoot, Champion’s swollen withers are starting to look like bursitis, Cheyenne and Rambo don’t get along, their loose boxes in the stable should be separated — not to mention the changing temperament of Belle Starr, who has started to kick. Paul has abdicated and now lets his groom deal with these situations on his own. He devotes himself to other, less concrete problems, insidious as dormant diseases.
“Anything to do with all that scrap metal, Billy-boy?”
Some months, the groom doesn’t put three words together, only cursing or spitting, at most muttering a “Hello.”
“If a bit’s broke you can glue it back together, but twisted, there’s no way.”
He has the impression he can feel his teeth shaking. Talking is at once painful and liberating, as if a bit were being taken from his mouth.
“I’ll deal with that right away. I got things to do in town. Anything you need?” asks Paul. “Bolo? Chaps?”
Billy has nothing, has never had anything; he could use so many things — first of all socks, without holes, maybe a shirt or two.
“Bring me a bottle of something strong.”
“Okay. By the way, John’s coming back. Evan, too. He’s bringing two new horses tomorrow.”
Evan. The one who’d met a Windigo and has never got over it. His return does not augur well.
After putting the crate of broken bits in the back of Paul’s truck, Billy watches the pickup’s tires spin in the revolting mix of mud and manure. As soon as the earth has dried he’ll be able to order a load of gravel before the season gets under way. Paul gives him a quick wave; he jerks his chin in return.
It’s the last time he will see his boss alive.
* * *
A NUMBER MIGRATE WEST. Aside from the drivers and the horses, Evan, Le Rôdeur, and La Grande Folle head for Griffintown. Every spring, people who gravitate around them — errand boys, new drivers, blacksmiths, loan sharks — also advance towards the stables in a rickety procession. Rumour has it there is still gold to be found.
Evan crosses the first of the territorial limits.
Billy frowns when he hears in the distance squealing tires and the latest pop
hit spat out at top volume. The groom feels a pang when he spots Evan driving a truck with a trailer that can hold the horses. Behind the wheel, Evan executes tricky manoeuvres. He turns with a jolt so that, at one point, truck and trailer form a right angle. The clattering procession comes within inches of overturning. When the demivolt is finished, Billy tells the horses apart by their rumps: Poney, a bay with coppery glints, and Pearl, a Percheron draft mare, one of the most beautiful in Griffintown, a mirage of black velvet and starry eyes, a short range stride but a supple jazzy step.
Billy doesn’t greet Evan, who returns the favour. He notices that the face of Paul’s assistant is emaciated, his jaw rigid, and his movements abrupt. He lets him sort things out on his own. Right away, Poney recognizes the stench of the place, the age-old mix of mouldy grime and sour urine along with the musty smell of the canal behind the stable — slimy water where no horse has ventured to drink. The foul smell of the three-legged cat’s piss and the odour of the groom’s sweat and soot rise in gusts, tempered fortunately by the dry and reassuring bouquet of sawdust. That foul fragrance clings to clothing, never to be dislodged; only fire could get rid of it thoroughly. Poney is at home here. A little later in the day he’ll meet up with his colleagues, Rambo and Lucky, and just as veterans of a factory exchange a nod, he will greet them with a whinny.
In her corseted gown, La Grande Folle too is heading for the Far Ouest, a parasol protecting her from the morning light. Her high heels give her a sore back but elegance has its price; wearing them, it’s easy for her to stand out in the fray. In the bottom of her handbag, all jumbled together, are a makeup kit, rubber gloves, a sponge for polishing the calèches, precious pebbles, and lots of other shameful treasures. She taps them with a long ruby nail and continues on her way.
* * *
IT HAPPENS AT THE start of every season, when a few tenderfeet will come to try their luck in Griffintown. From the moment the apprentices stop their calèche driver’s course at the Institut d’hôtellerie, there are some twenty desperadoes in all: two delinquents in rehab; some early retirees trying to come up with a country hobby; a dancer who’d put her back out and now carries a pillow with her everywhere; identical twins whose father was a driver; a barmaid; an exceptional student who plans to study veterinary medicine in California at the end of summer; two dyslexics who demand in loud voices an exemption from the written exam; a handicapped man in a wheelchair; several riders yearning for a horse; and, at the very bottom of the class, Marie, who one day will be called “the Rose with a Broken Neck,” whose destiny will be tragically linked with that of Griffintown.
Griffintown Page 1