Griffintown

by Marie Hélène Poitras

  “So, are you a boarder or a coward?” asks Alice.

  Standing in a wooden calèche hitched to a black horse, sporting a mullet and a sleeveless jean jacket, Alice could just as easily be the devil in person, opening a door for her that goes straight to hell. With no hesitation, Marie gets in.

  With her rear squeezed in next to Alice’s on the driver’s bench, she tries to strike up a conversation by showing some interest in the horse. After two minutes of forced benchsharing, Alice seems exasperated. “No, I don’t know his name, or his age, or his breed,” he replies, sorry to have let Marie get in with him. “For ten years I drove Mignonne, the finest mare in Griffintown, the most beautiful, the bravest. She’s dead now. I couldn’t care less about the other nags.”

  “I understand; it’s like a broken heart.”

  Alice frowns. “No, you don’t understand.”

  “Can I hold the reins?” pleads Marie with a beginner’s zeal.

  “Are you nuts? One thing at a time. You’re going too fast!”

  In the vibrant May sunlight, on Ottawa Street, a grey, windowless warehouse with a charming pink door stands out from the other storerooms. Marie wants to know what’s inside but, checked by her cantankerous teacher, she swallows her question. On the left, hitched to Charogne, Lloyd passes them without a glance. Marie feels her speeding up. She doesn’t know if it’s because of Alice’s pride or the horse’s. Probably a little of each.

  “Quit looking all over the place and memorize the route from the stable to Old Montreal,” orders Alice, beside himself. “That’s what I’m trying to show you!”

  “How come you’re so mean, Alice? I just want …”

  “Out.”

  “What?”

  “Get the hell out. You’re getting on my nerves. You talk too much. Gives me an earache. Hurry up, get down! You don’t want to see my ugly face when I’m mad.”

  Marie is alone in the middle of a deserted street in the Far Ouest. She has no idea where she is, but she’s managed to get into Griffintown. She watches Alice and his no-name horse trotting away. Around her, a number of posters advertise that a man has disappeared.

  * * *

  SITTING ON THE YELLOW buggy Poney is hitched to, John turns onto Ottawa Street, cursing the potholes. No driver wanted this calèche, which was reputed to be very unsteady: mustard yellow on a brown horse isn’t very appealing. But John has never had trouble convincing tourists. He is less flamboyant than some of Halflinger’s, but he inspires confidence.

  He’s glad to see Poney again after spending time with the dun-coloured horse the day before. He walked him around the Basilica, and the horse bolted at the slightest rustling of leaves on trees. John realized that horse wouldn’t be spending the summer in Griffintown. As for Poney, he’s a veteran, always walking at a good clip, straight ahead, calm but alert. John’s not unhappy to see him again. From his seat in the calèche, he tells him so. Poney directs one ear towards where the voice comes from. The horse deciphers mercy towards him in John’s tone.

  Suddenly, a sound draws John’s attention. The mysterious pink door of a shed he passes every day, always closed, halfopens. A girl comes out. Seeing him approach, she holds up her thumb. John recognizes the girl as the one he came across at the stable.

  “Did Alice expel you already?”

  “He’s not very patient,” Marie notes as she approaches John.

  “What’s in that shed, anyway?” asks John.

  “I’ll tell you if you let me spend the day with you.”

  “Never mind …”

  “What’s your problem? I’m trying to learn what to do…. With everything going on I don’t even know where I am. This is a real no-man’s land.”

  Clip, clip, clip, clop, clip, clip. The yellow calèche pulls away. Disheartened, out of ideas, Marie loosens her hair, lies down on the sun-warmed asphalt. The dust soils her hair. In a way, this is the first step in a long introduction: to become a calèche driver she must first let the grime and the filth settle on her like a second skin. The smell will follow.

  Clip, clip, clop, clip — John is coming towards her with a mischievous smile.

  “I was just killing time,” he says.

  “Ha! Ha! Very funny …”

  “Don’t look at me like that. Now, hop in before I change my mind.”

  “Your horse has a loose shoe,” Marie points out as she steps into the calèche.

  “I’m beginning to understand why Alice kicked you out.”

  “A hole.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a big hole on the other side of the pink door.”

  “What’s in the hole?”

  “Nothing. And it stinks to high heaven. Not as bad as the stable though.”

  John shows Marie how to wrap the reins around her fingers, neither absolutely English-style nor western, the idea being ultimately to learn to hold them in one hand without losing the proper tension in the reins, in a sliding U that seems complicated for a novice but comes naturally to an experienced coachman. Any rider recycled as a coachman finds it strange at first not to form one body with the horse, not to have her under him, not to be able to communicate with her through posture, seat, positioning of legs; this is all replaced by tone of voice, and its role is more decisive than might be thought. Marie knows the proper voice to use with horses: open, straightforward, slightly authoritarian, as if she were speaking to a troubled child, never telling a lie. Her true apprenticeship is beginning.

  John teaches her how to slide the lunging whip between her fingers without losing the proper tension in the reins. She’s against it, doesn’t want to. “Take it anyway, to get rid of jerks that pass you too close to the calèches. There’ll be some, you’ll see.” Marie learns how to sweep the horizon, near and far, with her gaze. The apprentice soaks up all of John’s advice, drinks in all his knowledge of calèches, making the teacher generous and verbose in his teaching.

  “When you get to know your horse you’ll be able to do like Dédé.” He goes on, “Dédé reads, sleeps, eats, and does Sudoku while driving Beauté. She’s the calmest mare, but also the slowest one, in all of Griffintown — slow enough to put you to sleep. For now, though, what tells you your horse won’t bolt because of a plain old plastic bag wrapped around her hoof or because she sees an Amphi-Bus coming? You don’t know her, you don’t know what she’s got in her belly, so keep your eyes open. I warn you, your first summer with the calèche won’t be a picnic, it’s not a job like anything else. The girls will be on your back…. That’s how it is here: the girls look after the girls, the guys take care of the guys. You have to earn your place; nothing will be handed to you. It’s rough. You seem to know horses a little, that will help, but it’s not everything. You don’t know how to back up or how to replace the elastic around a wheel — just hit a corner of the sidewalk and off it comes—and if you’re a bit too much of a know-it-all, trust me, you won’t last long around here.”

  “Where are the woman drivers?”

  “Oh, they’ll come to you, don’t worry. You’ll be meeting them soon,” John replies with a half-smile.

  “You scare me with your stories.”

  “It’s risky, driving a calèche. Imagine if the buggy overturned … or if your horse came unhitched. Ooooooh, mommy wouldn’t like to see that, little lady!”

  Being called “little lady” is the most reassuring thing that’s happened to Marie since she first set foot in Griffintown.

  “You’ll see,” John goes on. “Most of the others aren’t altar boys.”

  “Speaking of colleagues, how does a scrawny tough guy like Alice get a woman’s name?”

  “Because he looks like Alice Cooper. Everybody sees that but you. You’re the only one that hasn’t noticed.”

  Besides imposing on him by being in his calèche, Marie smokes his cigarettes. She does all sorts of things that usually exasperate John, like asking endless questions; some of them, several, he doesn’t know how to answer. She asks where the
horses and drivers go after the busy season. He’s never heard anyone ask that so openly. He orders her to be quiet for a few minutes, to listen to the silence. She talks anyway but now he doesn’t listen; his attention falls on her hair — long, straight, dark, like a mane; a lock of it tickles his arm when she turns to look to the left.

  In Marie’s posture and in the length of her neck there’s a reminder of the slender nobility and the bearing of fillies still warm from their mothers’ flank, the ones that don’t come to Griffintown. He dreams that Marie would sprain her wrists if her horse bolted and she tried to rein him in. This summer — his last — will be different from the others. It’s written in the washed-out sky with its ochre glints. In Griffintown, the musky grime runs into the blue of the sky.

  * * *

  WITH PAUL GONE, ONE of the drivers or horsemen would have to take his turn as top man so the ring would keep moving. The question was on the lips of everybody in the Saloon. Who? Who could assume that vital role? Griffintown was now as vulnerable as a hen blown upside down by a violent gust. They’d have to get her back on her feet, fast.

  Several candidates stand out: Georges, the star driver, a proud and reliable man but one who’d rather concentrate on his own concerns.

  Evan has been Paul’s assistant for a number of years. That more humble position is his by right. All eyes turn towards him.

  Evan steps up. With his thirst for power and prestige, which he dwells on too much, he sounds suspicious. Brows are knit. His candidacy is struck off. Everyone knows his dark side and the shadow zone where he founders at times with no warning. His “bad spells,” as he calls them. The leader has to be at all times solid and upright.

  He hopes for more but he’ll adapt. Besides, he has no choice. This coachmen’s culture with its old-fashioned laws is all he has left.

  When John opens the double doors, several see him as a candidate. They know he is loyal and fair, honest. But John turns down the offer, claiming this summer will be his last and that it’s better for those remaining to look for someone who wants to put down roots in Griffintown. “The Indian?” suggests John. The Indian, a Huron-Wendat exiled to Montreal, chokes on his beer and wonders if they’re pulling his leg. “No way,” he replies. Anyway, he’s busy enough with his small company that sells contraband cigarettes.

  Lloyd relinquishes his video lottery terminal for two minutes and turns towards his co-workers.

  “Billy?” he suggests.

  “Not a bad idea,” says John. “But his hands are full already.”

  “Le Rôdeur?” Georges suggests. “He was back at the stable a few days ago …”

  “No, not him,” says Joe, one of the seniors. “He’s as deaf as a post. He misses parts of what people say, he disappears now and then …. If he was a horse he’d have been sent to the glue factory long ago.”

  * * *

  BILLY IS CLEANING OUT the stall when the phone in the stable rings. He puts down the shovel, wipes his forehead on his sleeve and answers. The exchange with John lasts several seconds, then the groom, annoyed, hangs up without saying goodbye. First, he hates to leave the stable, especially when there’s no one around, which happens rarely — in fact never. Second, he still has work to do: finish the stalls, bring out the bags of sawdust, throw a few shovelfuls under the horses’ hooves …. His day is far from over.

  In the harness shed, on a plank nailed to the wall, an old western saddle has been hanging forever. Billy climbs up on the blacksmith’s ladder and slides the object onto his forearm. A few drops of neat’s-foot oil to nourish the leather wouldn’t hurt but he doesn’t have time. He runs a rag over the pommel and the cantle and appraises with a glance the length of the girth, much too short for a plow horse but the scraps of leather in the trunk will make an ideal extension.

  Maggie. He wants to ride Maggie because her back is concave and her crupper is high. The mare lets herself be saddled up without budging, but when Billy tightens the girth she bites the air, emits two muted clacks with her yellow teeth. He has to climb the ladder to haul himself up to Maggie’s back, seventeen hands high. Up there, the view is quite unlike the one from the driver’s seat. The altitude is similar but the sensation is different. Rider and horse form one body, symbiosis becomes possible. The horse’s energy, the pounding of her hooves on the ground reverberates all the way to the movements of the rider’s backbone which rolls from the pelvis at the same rhythm. Continuity, proximity of bodies, meeting of leather and skin unshackled by wood, iron, metal, space.

  Rider and steed march across the bridge, then trot to the Saloon. Billy knots the reins around the post, leads the mare to drink from the brass trough. She inhales slowly, eyes half-closed, and the long hairs of her fine beard dance in the water.

  The groom waits until she’s finished to push open the doors of the bar.

  * * *

  THROUGH THE WINDOW THE drivers recognize Maggie’s dappled croup, but mostly they notice the absence of a calèche behind her and nasty sores where the wooden traces have worn the hide of her thighs. Billy’s silhouette stands out against the light, dust drifting there, motionless as the mist. Everything is silent as he passes; his heels ring out on the ceramic tiles. He sits down at the old guys’ table, between Georges and Joe, who pours him a pint of horse piss.

  It’s been a long time since a man has arrived at the Saloon on horseback. Dan doesn’t remember the last time. Paul’s death, the council of drivers, and now a man on horseback: so many worrisome signs that prove the face of Griffintown has changed. The barman’s hand is trembling; he turns to look at the head and shoulders of Boy, an unchanging figure, frozen in time, while the earth seems to disintegrate beneath his feet.

  * * *

  The Founding Horse

  It is said that before the first horse arrived, Griffintown was a ghost town, a dead place abandoned to its dust and rust, its ghosts. When the hooves of a draft animal sank into the beaten earth in the spring, everything changed.

  A native of the Beauce, Boy had shoulders that were accustomed to farm labour. On his arrival in Griffintown, he was assigned to deliver ice and milk. In town, they recognized by their sound his hooves, which were fitted with iron shoes in winter, bare in summer. When children offered him lumps of sugar, Boy’s grey lips would touch down cautiously on their palms and he would gobble the treat with one gloup. Small hands then made their way to his dark brown coat, gliding over his shoulder, stroking his side. The men got the idea one day to build a calèche for the pleasure of a ride in the countryside. They proceeded, respecting standards, to assemble it from carved wood, robust and embellished; it appeared quite delicate next to the more common big steel calèches.

  After World War II, other horses joined Boy in Griffintown, but the golden years of leisure and innocence were soon over. The changes occurred when the business became lucrative, as it became a front door for prohibited goods that passed through the port. In addition to powders and pills, furs, elephant tusks, and exotic birds that passed from hand-to-hand among the drivers who sometimes gave shelter under their seats to men on the run, there were illegal immigrants, ex-cons, and individuals sentenced to death. Everything could be bought. One day, a tiger was actually moved into a stall.

  The Italian mafia didn’t take long to get involved, imposing its will through barbaric methods. To shake up the man, the horse had to be targeted. Boy was stabbed in the night. He bled to death in the blood-red straw, aorta slashed, eyes riveted to the east. But the sun never rose. That was when a breach was opened that was never checked, a passage towards the gloom in which only Laura Despatie, Paul’s mother, learned how to function. The fate of Griffintown and its dark ramifications had rested mainly in her hands ever since, and she mastered the situation fairly well. She was known as “La Mère.” It had been a long time since she’d been seen prowling in the vicinity. When she turned up at the Saloon, it was in the drivers’ interest to stand up straight and to display their best behaviour. It was her idea to stuff Boy and hang
his head and shoulders on the wall of the Hôtel Saloon.

  From his position, Boy could see everything, pick up complaints and confidences, know in detail the grandeur and the misery in the lives of the coachmen who always talked about themselves through their horses. And so, when Dédé complained about an old nag with a limp, he was actually talking about his hangover. And when Lloyd referred to his mare as a rotting carcass, it was his whole life he was cursing. His regrets, his depression, even his self-hatred were encapsulated in the word Charogne, the name he’d given his fast and slender racehorse who was the most precious thing he owned. From his perch, “Norm’s first horse” — which appeared on the plaque — could sense the tenderness coiled within the insult.

  * * *

  BILLY ACCEPTS HIS FATE as inevitable. One more weight on his shoulders, the last thing he needs, but he would rather take on that role than see the stable fall into the hands of someone like Evan. In any case the question has been settled; at least there’s that. He accepts the cigarette the Indian offers, puts his cap back on, and bows to the coachmen. Maggie is still waiting for him, an unmoving block of splendour. Behind the ashy water of the canal and the scorched hills, the city spreads out — its skyscrapers, its hustle and bustle, an airplane in the sky, the explosion of promise for the new millennium, the modern life that is beating all around, roaring and crashing. None of that has come to the Far Ouest yet.

  Billy lengthens the stirrup by seven or eight holes to give himself a step up. He mounts the horse and sees that a number of drivers, curious, have approached. Georges, Joe, the Indian, and Lloyd have watched him clamber up, perplexed but amused. They’re outside the building, smoking, coughing, wrapped in the grime of Griffintown, their grey eyes, their tanned skin, their clothes in unrelieved sepia and their cowboy boots that tamp the sand and dust, four ragged crooks under his supervision. He leaves them promptly, squeezing Maggie’s sides.