“That car ain’t worth shit, bro,” he said to Chokichi. “No way you can make it with that pile o’ junk. The engine’s dead, man.”
He called a colleague of his, who came to pick us up in his tow truck. He drove us to the scrapyard, where we waved a fistful of bills in the owner’s face. He sold us another, less beat-up ride. We’d wasted two hours of our time and close to five hundred dollars on this little adventure. Chokichi was sulking, but Saké, in her infinite wisdom, convinced him that it wasn’t the end of the world, that the birds could wait, that her folks would no doubt find a way to track us down and pay us back and more within a week or two. We still had about twelve thousand dollars left anyway; it wasn’t as if we were about to run out of money anytime soon.
We got back on the road, and Chokichi drove straight to Roanoke, Virginia, where we stopped to have a bite to eat, go to the bathroom and look on a map to see how far was left to Montauk. We decided to call it a day and spend the night in a motel. We still had a ten-hour drive ahead of us.
And off we went the next day, stopping only once for food and gas. We reached Montauk in the late evening. About eighty-five degrees (thirty degrees Celsius) under a starry sky. The damp air clung to our skin, but the sea breeze made it bearable. All three of us went to explore the house we’d rented for the next six months: two bedrooms with splendid bay windows, a wide porch, an open-plan kitchen and living room, a fireplace and a piano. I’d deliberately rented a place that reminded me of the beach house as much as possible. In fact, our house was on the beach, separated from the ocean by dunes covered with tall yellow grass.
Chokichi and I picked the bedroom with a view of the dunes, and Saké settled into the one overlooking the long private lane leading to Surfside Avenue. Chokichi cooked us a light meal that we ate sitting on the wooden floor of the porch. The air smelled of salt and seawater, and the wind blew through our hair, caressing our faces, and everything was so perfect that I felt like screaming.
As the sun was setting behind our house, the stars blinked on one after the other. The moon came into sight: a big white orb emerging from the depths of the ocean.
We discussed our game plan for a while: we had the whole weekend to get to know the area before starting to work for the Ornithological Association. Saké wanted us to visit the town and search the house, hunting for old treasures. Chokichi and I didn’t have any special requests, so we settled on going to town on Saturday and exploring the house and our surroundings the next day. Saké was satisfied with our plan. She walked back inside and went to bed. Chokichi was tired too.
“I’ll catch up with you in a bit,” I said. “I just want to look at the stars a while longer.”
He kissed me before following Saké inside. I stepped off the porch and went to lie down on the dunes, gazing at the sky. I did a little mapping exercise and located Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper, Venus and Jupiter.
I lay there, completely still, for a few minutes or hours. I was unaware of the passage of time. I watched Jupiter going past Venus, and the rising moon becoming smaller and smaller. I also counted shooting stars, but stopped once I got over fifty. I’d never heard of such an impressive meteor shower. Then I thought it might be normal that I should see so many here, where there was less light pollution than in the city. At a certain point, I thought I heard something fall into the water nearby, as if another meteor had hit the Earth. But since the stone had probably ended up in the ocean, there was no way I could ever find it.
I started paying a little more attention to the light reflecting off Jupiter. I noticed, after closely observing that part of the sky, that its four moons were visible: Callisto, Io, Ganymede and Europa. I was immediately reminded of the documentary I’d seen several times on TV, and had a sudden urge to try and listen for Jupiter on the radio, like they said you could on the show. I went into the house and rummaged through the closets, but couldn’t find a radio. I went back out, resolving to buy one in town as soon as possible so I could do the experiment.
I was suddenly woken by a rumbling noise, followed by a muffled explosion; until then, I wasn’t even aware that I’d fallen asleep. I got to my feet and realized that a hole had appeared on the beach, in the sand, less than ten metres away. There was smoke coming from the small crater. I knew what it was right away. I got closer to confirm my hunch: once again, a star had fallen right next to me. I wondered if Chokichi and Saké had been woken by the blast. I turned around.
I was standing before the beach house—the real beach house—and Xavier was sitting on the porch, poring over a piece of paper he was holding.
Epilogue
Montauk
Boys, I knew you would eventually end up meeting here. There’s something I would like to tell you.
Hollywood, do you remember that party at your friend Chokichi’s, at the end of August? It was much too hot, and you’d taken something, maybe ecstasy, I’m not sure. I was there because I’d been invited by a friend. A cousin of Chokichi’s. Anyway… I was your one-night stand, the girl you shed so many tears over. You had a son, Zarik, but he’s no longer with us. Xavier can explain.
Xavier, i dashur, don’t worry. Yesterday was the last day of cold. In Montauk, the weather will never change, you’ll see. You’ll be able to look at the stars as much as you like. And at the sea, for me.
The air will always be a bit chilly. But the grass will grow tall. And there will be birds.
Love,
Gia
Xavier
Notebook #2, unnumbered entry
It’s like waking up after a dream and finding it hard to shake the feeling. The dream was so realistic that it’s difficult to distinguish one from the other, the true from the false. And on what basis can we judge if something is true or not, anyway? If I perceive it, it must exist. This knowledge is reassuring; it’s like a cogito that keeps me from going crazy, from falling too far out of step with the world. But sometimes you get lost.
Ultimately, I’m just a needle in a haystack.
We must agree to go back to where we started.
Hollywood
Underground poem unnumbered
when it is time to start over
with no start or end in sight
I lie down on the roof of the world
you may commit your own murder
Pierre-Luc Landry
This novel was born in the Café de Paris restrooms of the Montreal Ritz-Carlton. Next to a room full of politicians, actresses and great writers, I was locked up in a stall, sipping a glass of white wine—my third… or was it my fourth?—scribbling on hotel paper with the pencil I’d borrowed. That was nearly seven years ago. I work slowly, but always with a sense of urgency, and at the very last minute.
I wrote this book so that I could go on exploring through fiction the topics I am obsessed with: existence, strangeness, how each of us experiences reality and the world around us. I wanted to think about truth for a while, the kind of truth we cling to in specific circumstances. Because, for me, the “purpose” of fiction is not to create a different world; I don’t write to make things up, but to describe some reality, a thing that already exists.
Listening for Jupiter is my second attempt at doing just that. I think it’s possible, through fiction, to dig deeper into the so-called “literary.” In order to do so, you have to keep pushing back its limits and those of the genre itself: the novel as a well-written, well-told, well-structured piece. I’m not sure whether I’ve succeeded or not. But it may not even be relevant to wonder, since no book alone could help achieve such a goal—unless its author is a genius, which I’m not and don’t claim to be. Still. It would be so much simpler…
QC Fiction brings you the very best of a new generation of Quebec storytellers, sharing surprising, interesting novels in flawless English translation.
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2. THE UNKNOWN HUNTSMAN by Jean-Michel Fortier
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7. A MADELEINE OF ONE’S OWN by Eric Dupont
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Listening for Jupiter Page 13