Children were clustered on the sidewalk across the street, between the two hoses with inadequate pressure, the church having been built on the only hill in town. Now it is being consumed from above, a pyre in reverse, a witch whose brain would burn before her possessed body. One after the other the trompe-l’oeil gave way because their wood was dry. The arrow painted to look like silver, the first cornice painted to look like stone, the underpinning of the roof that had been painted like copper. Flickering fireworks blown towards the back, charred hunks of wood invisible in daylight. Now they’re beginning to gnaw at the slates, false as well, that people always talk about replacing because their grey colour doesn’t harmonize with the pale lemon siding on the walls. The ridgepole is burning all along its length, gleaming like a funambulist’s wire, inaccessible to the streams of water, as though traced by a delighted god.
No alarm bell has sounded, but the crowd grows to watch the steeple fall, chimes of the poor that soon will shatter, in a puddle of water. It is a man, not the women, who is weeping now; they are busy herding the children out of the way. If he was the one who built the shell of the steeple, this is a sad business. But how can anyone know, the priest is on his annual journey to the Holy Land and the vicar won’t return till late tonight from the far-flung parishes whose penitents require his presence once a week. The body, in any case, is burning more cheerfully now. And it’s over, some brave soul has gone in through the basement to save the holy vessels and most of the objects in the sacristy. In the inferno, no one can see the vanished varnished pews, tomorrow only steel hooks will remain. It was a church without statues, and so with nothing to regret.
Marie climbs up the southern slope of the hill where the more opulent houses provide a view of the fire from a distance, in the event that the wind should drive it towards her. The summer has been so dry. But smoke and sparks continue to drift towards the back, near the grounds of the former boys’ school, which is made of brick and empty now. Water is trained on the presbytery, trickles, cool, down the stucco, it will be saved.
She looks for sadness but finds none. The door had to be closed one day on the pale copies of the mystic emotions fostered in places like this, with their monotonous chants and promises of a peace as impracticable as it was offensive. She will only miss the giggles in the choir loft at the organist’s trembling legs as she pumps away at the country harmonium. From up there, unless some lost soul blocked your view of the nave, you could see every detail of the twelve cardboard saints mounted on the walls, twice as large as life, some bearing the symbols of the evangelists, but most of them martyrs. All had the same face, the face of men-women indifferent to the flesh; they looked God in the eye and turned more pallid still as a result. Skeletons under the pastel robes. She will remember them more than the confessionals, though their terrors had more meaning, you entered them with your guts in a knot and left them a little less of a child, until you left them for good when there were other places to feel guilty in.
Her mother joins her by the fire, hypnotized for a moment. She has few memories in the rubble. It is the place where one enters a different age, from time to time. Women wore hats when she first came here, now they go bareheaded and soon her daughter was to be married there. The square outside the church is black with soot where confetti should have fallen. It is cement, it will survive, with enough room for the entire wedding party.
She sees Marie in the satin dress they’ve chosen, straight, short, with no lace. Only the back is to be bare and there will be no veil. A simple cap on her pulled-back hair, and pearls at the ears. A dress for a still-warm autumn, but able to defy the rain. It sleeps in plastic, it is perfect, it will always be.
Ervant will be upset. He rather liked this tacky church with its faint smell of northern mildew instead of old stones, wrapped in pastels instead of running, as it would have done in his country, into shadows propitious for women’s moans. He had chosen the angle for the photo he’ll send home, on the left where it would show the street and cars, including the rented convertible.
But now on the right a charred ruin stands, like a hotel that went up in flames one night because a drink was refused or a woman turned down. The steeple is a thousand pieces now and some people are gathering them up, already relics. Afterwards, next Sunday and on other Sundays still to come, the church will move into the old boys’ school, so rumour has it.
Rumour has it, too, the following day, that the organist did not set the fire. That she had been in the sacristy, smoothing surplices. That the fire had been smouldering since the day before, that around midnight a neighbour had seen two shadows run away, shadows of a boy and perhaps a girl in a long beige car like the one that belongs to the sect with the crescent flag, which survives precariously somewhere near Bellecombe. Their children are brought to school by force and they refuse to kneel for prayer. In her class, Marie left them to their own people. She saw the mystery elsewhere, in their drawings of serpents and huts from which inner suns emerged. They came from the East.
Until the end of August, she goes by the Portage; every day a little more of its ruin has gone, leaving very little else. The ground is turning grey. Ervant is consoled, he studies the new houses. She goes to her appointments by way of the close-cropped knoll, she feels drained, she no longer knows how to come down.
Ten
THE DAYS ARE GROWING SHORTER FROM the middle. Marie’s reason is restored from ten a.m. till noon, in the classroom where stuffy summer air lies stagnant despite wide-open windows. Traces of paste have been washed from the walls, the desks smell of bleach that never dries, textbooks are stacked in a corner, some will be left, there will be fewer children this fall. There’s no exodus, says the principal who amends lists, refashions groups, and gossips from one class to the next. But the springs are drying up. The mine will soon shut down its underground development, nothing will be seen, the blast furnaces will continue to feed the chimneys. The men will no longer come. And the women who were born here will no longer provide. It will be September tomorrow, none of her colleagues is pregnant, they say that children are expensive but Marie hears summer creaking in their words. She’s not the only one who merges with the rock, the crumbling clay, who goes by way of the dwarf aspens. Fate has brought them together.
And there’s no other place to go. School, home, the park. If only there were a tavern where a woman could be alone in the dimness, to quench her thirst, to laugh softly at her ghosts, dispatch them in alcohol that really does dissolve them. What she knows about drunkenness is funny. Ervant taught her how to toss back vodka in one gulp, and you can see it clearly all the way down your back as you feel it go down. The table becomes solid, Ervant’s shoulder, too; it’s easy to start drawing a garden or living room furniture, a big living room like those in the new houses, in the addition to the old Townsite which has just been authorized. Easy to long for saucepans, china, silverware, and sheer curtains.
What she would see if she drank alone would be, perhaps, the road that leads out of here. Straighten its curves, repave it before winter, and soon you could save half an hour over the four hundred miles. She would drive, she would get there.
But at home there are only the sour wines her father cultivates in stoneware basins, that have to evaporate before they can be drunk; you don’t sample them till winter, and then such a small amount.
From school to park takes twice as long if you go by way of the Portage. One last time Marie gives in, because it looks as if tomorrow there will finally be storms. She will draw out her walk along the main street, at least she can have lunch at Kresge’s, alone and elbow to elbow with the old maids who watch the ballet of waitresses between the tubs of margarine, the production line of toast, the deep-frying vat, the coffeepot that starts up over and over. The place used to smell of breakfast all day long, it was the reward for hours of shopping on the Saturdays of her childhood. Unknown women in their thirties will certainly come here today, dragging their children to the stationery department just beside it
. Strange plastic knapsacks have replaced flat bags this year, even leatherette has disappeared. There, hesitating over the schoolbags, will be a pupil destined for her class next week, whom she won’t recognize once his mother shines him up. In her eyes they all resemble one another, despite what’s said by those who like to think of themselves as pedagogues. You filter them through yourself as best you can, their affection is never sincere, no one is more duplicitous than a half-grown child.
The bookstore window has been changed, a new paperback collection she’ll explore briefly, classics that she ought to tackle. But those can be kept for old age, a way to guarantee that you’ll arrive there. Under its hardcover jacket the latest American novel offers the true story of a cold-blooded killer whose only motive is his hatred of quiet folk, of farmers and married couples. She takes it and the bookseller disapproves, she can tell from the way he gets rid of her.
She is alone at the outer limit of the park, with no dog or knitting, it’s three o’clock, much earlier than usual, and if Corrine doesn’t show up she’ll be free of her, the interval will suffice, summer will have ended, a simple misunderstanding. Some willow leaves have already turned inside out, the storm will come slowly but it will come, before five o’clock, and then she’ll have to run away at last.
She walks jauntily now. It wouldn’t take much to make her feel the chill in the wind that is brushing against the rock at the edge of the park. From green and ochre, the poisoned water is turning black at her feet. Look, now the scar is a mere thread, not even wide enough to hold a secret. She wonders what colour the ice will be in January, when no one comes to this place where they dump the only old snow that is picked up in town, along the three commercial streets. Mauve, perhaps, like those plum-flavoured drinks that taste like artificial pectin. It’s cheerful now, with the sun that plunges into the black water and does not resurface. You can resist all the lights come from elsewhere, make an opaque square for yourself and still be warm. She can’t wait to read about the crime, that will be for Ervant’s next night shift, the last one before the wedding.
Corrine isn’t there, Marie would have to wait for an hour that she is wary of granting her. She advances firmly now, she knows every knoll, every patch of dried mud under the dead ferns, she will even walk by herself around the water tower whose fence seems to be permanently open. She wishes she could speak to the guard there, learn where he finds the cuttings and whether he knows all the names in his jungle. He is not like the foreigners, he has a belly and shoulders like those priests whose only abstinence is from women. Perhaps he too travels to the Holy Land, or to the Christian Americas of the south, with their forests of perpetual rain. There is coolness between his machines, she will go farther inside it today, the water tower belongs to the town after all, it’s not a private house.
Vapour falls almost in a mist as soon as she crosses the threshold, a great milky flower has burst on a stem that returns to the earth, she doesn’t recognize it. An orchid, most likely, the only exotic flower Marie can recall, from a plate in some encyclopedia. Their names must be in Latin here, a mass of vowels that give even more grace to the green. There are palm trees that ooze a kind of oil, as if it was born from the vibration of the pumps.
And brief groans, a soft, regular hiss. She sees, then hears them. Underneath the hammock, directly on the cool earth, they breathe heavily with their exertions. The man on his back, stomach slumped across on either side, arms along his body, eyes shut, naked to the knees which are imprisoned by his clothes. The woman straddles him backwards, buttocks offered to his unseeing face, riding the penis that is visible down to the root, she is masturbating, her eyes howl. Her breasts sway inside the blouse she hasn’t shed, a red spot where the sweat is darkening. There was wetness in her groan, she’s coming hard.
She’s finished before the man and now it’s he who can be heard, she is making a spectacle of him for Marie, eyes locked on hers, contented. With both hands she spreads her buttocks, forcing him a little more, he comes in their mingled bushes. Corrine wipes herself with her underwear, unfolds herself, sways the hammock to fan herself, stretches, puts on her clothes. She is there, very close, closer even than the first time. Flings an arm around Marie’s neck, plasters her sweat against her hips. “That was good, nice and juicy, I wouldn’t mind starting over.” Her loud laughter as she pinches Marie’s thigh. “Come here.”
The storm will wait until five o’clock on the rock where they lie to talk about flesh and folds. It is Corrine who says everything, Marie who learns. There are some men who give more pleasure, often those who sleep in strange places, who have no woman. You have to be able to guess who they are and be quick to take them. They laugh at his flaccid belly, his hissing groan. No matter, he is sleeping now, satisfied, and they are here and they’ve survived the summer.
A wave on the lake, then two. The rain will stop before their hair is even wet. Thunder booms, an Angelus.
Eleven
WITH THE MARRIAGE CAME AN EIGHT-DAY vacation. Marie would have liked to find a sea still warm in October, but Ervant had waited till fall so that he could finally touch New York in all its commotion, between seasons when his cousin who was lucky enough to live downtown had told him the weather was better. She quickly agreed because she also liked the hotels of novels, and she’d recognize those of New York, their windows always open to the sound of sirens. You made love there surrounded by the smell of other casual visitors, the rugs retain it, and the wallpaper next to the bathtubs. The doorman would whistle down a yellow cab, they never go to houses.
It was raining on La Guardia at dusk, and on the island of Manhattan where the first thing they found was the night. A torrent that lashed the embankment, that washed away graffiti from the overpasses. They drove across bridges to the accompaniment of windshield wipers, guessed at the tall cages of Harlem past 100th Street, then the private fortresses around the United Nations. There were no New Yorkers on the streets, iron curtains had been brought down across a thousand shops, not even a beggar on the corners. They didn’t know what this desert resembled: they had never seen a full city, they’d wait for the taxi to stop. It pulled up in front of a hotel whose lighted sign was extinguished. The cousin had recommended the Roger Smith Winthrop Hotel, he’d never been there because he lived in the centre of town, but it was just across from the side entrance to the Waldorf Astoria, where they were sure to see the best of what New York had to offer in the way of jewels and limousines.
The Roger Smith managed without a doorman and it opened directly onto a counter that was almost in darkness. The clerk was a thousand years old and as dusty as the pigeonholes from which he took a key, not looking at them: with just one suitcase, they could manage by themselves, the elevator was on their left. An ornate mirror sent back to Marie the image of a girl in a wrinkled suit, it should have travelled better, but you bring the rain along with you. In the dim light Ervant was smiling, he saw only the succession of mirrors, he’d probably been afraid there would be old-style woodwork. Tomorrow, he said, we’ll see everything.
A pretty room. There were many lamps, which broke up the mauve corners, the sirens howled their wonderful wet sound, the furniture was French provincial and there were floral prints and a writing desk that would make you want to write to Europe if you knew anyone there, because the Roger Smith provided stationery with its picture. A strange expenditure, since they scrimped on everything else, thin towels, thin bars of soap. Ervant wanted to go out, he knew all the places, including Rockefeller Center which must be quite close by. She declined, she wanted to fall asleep with something to look forward to, with the rain beaten back. To comply with the notion of a honeymoon she pulled him to her and opened herself to him. She knew he was thinking of tomorrow as he took her, thinking of the sun and sunlight on every window of every skyscraper.
They had forgotten to hang up the Do Not Disturb sign and to double-lock the door. It was half-past seven when the chambermaid came in without knocking; a voice apologized, then wen
t away. As far as they could judge, since the room gave onto a high blank wall, the day would be grey and dry. The Roger Smith didn’t offer room service and Ervant wouldn’t have wanted it, he was eager to try the snack bar he’d spotted last night, its revolving door next to the elevator. Fresh butter on toasted white bread, coffee so insipid that they gulped it down, music stirring under the counter interspersed with an announcer’s chatter predicting that the day would be mild. She understood every word and was surprised, it was the same English that was spoken around the mine, she’d never have thought it would sound the same. Ervant knew. They headed towards Rockefeller Center.
Ervant had drawn a map that started at the hotel and took in all the observation points, all the high places that would offer a view of the city. The contours stood out surprisingly well, although the day was grey. She cared little, in fact, about knowing exactly where the two rivers met, beyond the green mass of Central Park. His manoeuvres touched only the centre. He peered out through binoculars at the long avenues, spotted the most bustling places and decided on immediate destinations. He would never have enough of plazas where the only trees grew scrawny, in soil that looked more like asphalt. Of the summer there remained some strolling vendors of fresh-squeezed orange juice, office workers from the skyscrapers who went outside to wolf their plastic meals, the open air invective of escaped mental patients, and New Yorkers’ taste for white cars, a sea of cars that seemed to fascinate him endlessly. He told her about life here as if he knew it, he didn’t envy the rich, didn’t look longingly in store windows. He dreamed of being swallowed up every day in the crowd that rushed to work as to a riot, through the inner mazes of the big buildings, insiders’ shortcuts that he claimed to know. He covered the side streets, Grand Central took two hours, and that was where they stopped, in one of those cafeterias where trays are pushed at you before you even have time to read the menu. He laughed, he’d eat anything, even pastrami.
Following the Summer Page 5