Impurity

by Larry Tremblay

  “Félix, tonight you made love with a woman, that’s all. The rest, you’ve imagined.”

  “You’re wrong. It was as if Anaïs had been there. As if I’d touched her in touching Alice. You can’t understand this feeling of perfect harmony, of fusion.”

  Antoine takes a little notebook out of his pocket.

  “Have a look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Open it.”

  Félix obeys, reads a few sentences at random. He goes pale.

  “Alice didn’t write you those letters, I did. She just recopied them before she sent them.”

  “That’s impossible, after everything that’s just happened between us.”

  “But it’s what she did. Check it out: they’re all in this notebook.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Deep down, you love neither Anaïs nor Alice.”

  “You want to humiliate me?”

  “You fell in love with my sentences.”

  Félix looks at Antoine as if seeing him for the first time. He wonders what’s hiding behind the smile that has just appeared on his face.

  “I’m the one you love.”

  “And you, who do you love? Get out of here.”

  Antoine hesitates before confirming with the owner of the country house that he will rent it again. He’s afraid of being at loose ends, of mulling over memories in that big house in Saint-Armand. What will he do there without Alice? In Montréal, at least he can go out, take in a movie, check out a restaurant. Finally, he renews his rental but for a shorter stay. Instead of his usual month, he’ll spend two weeks there and use the time to prepare his courses for the coming school year, already approaching.

  He arrives at the end of the afternoon. After getting groceries in the village, he goes for a swim in the pond behind the house. The August day is perfect. Lower humidity, a light breeze rustling the leaves of the aspens and a few birches that have made it through the winter. In this light the pond’s surface is gleaming like a mirror reflecting in reverse the infinite expanse of blue sky.

  After his swim, he fixes himself a salad, opens a bottle of red wine, and spends the rest of the evening reading his newspapers. He has never slept alone in this house with its many curtainless windows. He was used to doing so in Montréal because Alice was often on the road, promoting her novels. He puts off getting into bed as long as he can. Around midnight, no longer able to read, he turns in. He can’t sleep either, though the wine has made him groggy. He listens to the sounds of nature. The crickets have begun their concert at the same time as the tree frogs. Sometimes he hears a strange growling, and wonders what animal is responsible. Large insects throw themselves onto the screen of the half-open window. The murmur of the stream that feeds the pond, winding down a pebbly slope, blends into the constant whispering of the leaves. The crack of a branch signals the furtive passing of a deer, a coyote, or even a bear. Are there any bears in the region? Posing the question, Antoine can’t remember if he locked the front door. His solitude weighs on him during this night filled with beasts going about their mysterious affairs, their lovemaking, hunting for survival. He regrets having rented the house. He’s not ready. He thinks of Alice. He feels her presence more strongly than in Montréal. She’s dead, her body has been reduced to a few ashes sitting in an urn chosen from a catalogue. Antoine is behaving as if his wife has become a gaze that he carries with him wherever he goes. It’s not a constant feeling. Sometimes several days in a row can pass without his thinking about her. Then his memory returns like a powerful wave he must fight off. And often the wave is infused with guilt. Because Antoine has a feeling that the pain induced by his wife’s death doesn’t make the grade. He thought that such a shock would destroy him, but he continues to breathe, to eat, to follow the daily news, even to desire another woman. In the bed where he is trying to sleep, Antoine finds only torment. He endows the dead with powers his reason denies, and asks himself whether Alice was witness to his pathetic attempt at seducing Claire Langlois. He tries to understand why he called the journalist back and agreed to the photo session that he now regrets. He turns over in his head the events of recent days. It’s not just a story of sexual desire. He wouldn’t have seen Claire Langlois again if Jonathan had not revealed his liaison with Frédéric Létourneau – eventually he persuades himself of that. He can’t bear the thought of Jonathan finding himself in bed with a man who could be his father. He feels betrayed, abandoned, replaced. He thought he could avenge his son by wanting to sleep with a woman who could be his daughter. It’s pathetic, infantile. The real problem is elsewhere.

  The red wine’s heaviness has had its way with his questioning. He slips into sleep, his thoughts like portions of his dreams that magnify his discomfort. He’s awakened suddenly by an unusual noise. Something is clawing or scraping at the window opposite his bed. It seems to start at the floor and climb to the ceiling, giving onto the garden where clumps of daylilies grow in profusion. Antoine thinks a man is trying to get into his bedroom. He imagines a serial killer escaped from prison. Paralyzed in his bed, he dares not turn on the bedside lamp. After long minutes, he ends up reasoning with himself. Realizing that it must be an animal, he slowly approaches the window on all fours and finds himself face to face with a baby raccoon looking at him with its red eyes. The little animal is totally white.

  “An albino raccoon!”

  He turns on the light and waves his hands to drive it off. The raccoon continues its game. Antoine goes into the kitchen and drinks a glass of water. He’s fully awake and doesn’t want to return to the bedroom. He opens the refrigerator, cuts himself a piece of cheese, and goes to sit in the living room. He has brought along in his baggage Alice’s new novel, which Louis-Martin Vallières has just sent him. The padded envelope, not yet open, is in the pile of newspapers and books he’s deposited near the armchair where he likes to read.

  He tears open the envelope, takes the book in his hands, opens it, and reads the dedication:

  To Félix, with all my regrets.

  Suddenly unsettled, Antoine puts the novel back in its envelope. He’ll wait for dawn before returning to Montréal, never mind the rental. Before packing up, he goes back into the bedroom to see if the raccoon is still scratching at the windowpane. The animal is no longer there. On the way back, heavy rain starts to fall. Since his wife’s accident, he’s been extra careful when driving. He stops on a country road to wait for the rain to let up. Big drops pelt the car’s roof. Again he takes the envelope lying on the seat beside him and removes the book. He reads the dedication once more, as if to assure himself that he hasn’t been dreaming.

  Back at the house, he doesn’t bother to unpack his suitcase. He immediately immerses himself in A Pure Heart.

  At the very moment when, in the Chicago Stadium, Jim Pappin is sending the puck that will garner his team a first win in this seven-game series into Ken Dryden’s net, the village of Saint-Jean-Vianney is in part disappearing into the Saguenay’s icy waters. It’s about eleven o’clock when some forty houses and their occupants are swept away by a mudslide.

  A few days later, sports commentators note that the overtime period in the Canadiens–Blackhawks game saved lives. Many television viewers delayed going to bed so they could watch the end of the game. They had a better chance of quickly fleeing their houses than did those sleeping peacefully in their beds.

  That night Laure, her mother, and grandmother, who have no great passion for hockey, go to bed very early. Jolted awake by a cracking sound, Laure tries unsuccessfully to turn on her bedside lamp. There are cries of terror in the black night. Women scream, children cry, dogs bark. Then an infernal din rises up from the earth. The whole village is plunged into darkness. Panicking, Laure gets up, calls her mother. Her bedroom window shatters. A piece of glass strikes her and gashes her eye. She screams in fright. It’s the punishment, she’s certain. Philippe was right. God is punishing her. Through the blood veiling her eyes, she makes out the silhouette of he
r mother, who is coming toward her, a candle in her hand. When mother and daughter meet, part of the roof caves in. The house walls shudder, then collapse. The grandmother dies instantly, crushed in her bed by a beam come loose from the ceiling. Laure and her mother don’t have such luck. They are swallowed up alive by icy mud that, like death itself, pours in from every direction. Laure, with her last breath, pronounces Philippe’s name. In just a few seconds, the house slides into a clay crater, where it disappears, engulfed.

  At the same time, Philippe is leaving the Let’s Talk Business tavern. He heads quickly toward the Saguenay. A frigid wind is churning the river’s dark waters, swollen by the melting snow. He walks with hands clenched inside the pockets of his coat. He keeps his eyes on the river’s powerful current, lit sporadically by a pale moon. He can’t calm his anger, or check his inner torment. The constant rumbling of the Saguenay seems to feed his rage. Vincent’s words torment him. Philippe raises his head and screams into the night sky: “I wish she’d die!”

  His heart will repeat that sentence until dawn.

  * * *

  Three days after the mudslide, Rachel hands an envelope to her brother, who is back from college.

  “Where’s it from?”

  “I don’t know. I found it in the mailbox. There’s no stamp, just your name.”

  Vincent opens it. There’s a photo inside. He recognizes it. He has seen it in Philippe’s room, above his bed.

  “You know who sent you that?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Who?”

  “Rachel, you’re too curious. Anything new on Saint-Jean-Vianney?”

  “Same news as yesterday.”

  * * *

  Since the announcement of the catastrophe, Vincent has been spending his days in front of the television. The scope of the disaster fascinates him. He tells whoever will listen that he knows one of the victims. He could have been with her at the time of the tragedy. He explains to his girlfriend, Simone, that since she’s dead, he has felt a kind of love for Laure.

  “It’s as if I loved her retroactively.”

  “Have you seen Philippe? He must be devastated.”

  “He sent me this photo today.”

  “What is it?”

  “A monk who set himself on fire during the Vietnam War. What do you think?”

  “That you should go and see him.”

  “I’m not sure he wants to see me.”

  “Then why did he take the trouble to send you that?”

  “I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Go to see him now.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Don’t be naive, did you look at that photo? It’s an ominous message.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Here, take him back his picture.”

  At once, Vincent goes to the student residence. Knocks several times at Philippe’s door. No reply. He turns the knob; the door’s not locked. He goes in. The room is bathed in shimmering light. A host of lit candles are spread across the floor, the bookcase shelves, the chest of drawers near the bed. A tall wax candle is set on the worktable, near which Vincent recognizes the little metal box where Philippe keeps Laure’s letters. He picks it up. The metal is warm. Inside, the remains of burned paper. He goes to the bathroom. Knocks on the door several times.

  “Philippe, are you there?”

  He opens the door a crack, takes a worried look inside, Philippe isn’t there. Turning around, his eyes are drawn to something. He goes to the window and sees something that glows between the stones of the cemetery bordering the college. He runs out of the room.

  When he gets there, he can’t locate the spot that he saw from the window. The cemetery is full of dense shadows, but he is quickly guided by an acrid smell that leads him to a little mound bordered by scrawny trees. A few tombstones are scattered where a last patch of snow is resisting the spring. It’s then that he sees it. All that’s left of Philippe is a heap of burned flesh. The blaze has created a dark island in the hardened snow. The smell is awful, a combination of gasoline and burned food. He makes out, amid the remains, a boot, a belt buckle, and above all, the head separated from the body. A partly melted can lies nearby. His friend’s mouth is wide open, as if loosing a scream into the world. Philippe got it all wrong, right to the end. His immolation inspires in Vincent only disgust. He takes the monk’s photograph out of his pocket and throws it onto the fire. He’s waiting for it to curl up and disappear before he leaves the spot. It doesn’t burn. Using a small branch, he buries the photo beneath the still-smoking embers.

  He finds, intact, Philippe’s heart.

  THE END

  Antoine closes A Pure Heart with a taste of bile in his mouth. He has read it in one sitting. No matter how many times he tells himself that it’s just a novel, his unease grows. His wife spent two years writing a story in which she portrays him, in the character of Vincent, as an unscrupulous manipulator. He wonders what she was trying to tell him with this. If Alice were still alive, what would her answer be?

  That night, he dreams about the monk Thích Quảng Đức, about his face, so impassive despite the fire consuming him. He wakes in a panic when he sees, amid the flames, the smiling face of his wife.

  Claire Langlois’s article appears the next day. It’s on the front page of a cultural section previewing the season’s new books: two whole pages on Alice Livingston and her final novel. The photos take up most of the article. The first, the most important, shows Alice with her arms around Jonathan. A few lines are devoted to the young actor’s current success. Jonathan expressed his boundless admiration for his mother, and the deep sorrow caused by her sudden death: “It’s a shock that has radically changed me and made me a better man – and also a better actor.” Claire Langlois had never told Antoine that she was also interviewing his son. And Jonathan never mentioned it. Antoine blames Jonathan for having authorized the publication of this photo. He’d taken it himself, a year before Alice’s accident. He remembers it well: it was the last time they were all together.

  A photo of Alice’s office accompanies a brief sidebar: “Alice Livingston called her work space her ‘aquarium.’ She referred to herself as an ‘authorfish,’ and liked to say that she didn’t write, but made bubbles.” Antoine doesn’t remember having revealed those details to the journalist, and concludes that she got them from Jonathan. Again, he’s annoyed with his son.

  The main part of the article is on the following page. Claire Langlois also met Alice’s publisher. She quotes long excerpts from their interview. Louis-Martin Vallières describes the career of his favourite author, makes connections between her various novels, draws out themes, and finishes with A Pure Heart.

  “It’s a special case, and marks a departure from the books that came before. An incisive novel, metaphorical, largely autobiographical, requiring the author to work on herself, to delve into her past, to surpass herself. A novel about the purity of love when it’s as young as the dawn. Alice Livingston’s death makes this posthumous work a true testament.”

  A photo of Louis-Martin shows him in front of a bookstore window, Alice’s book in his hands. He’s smiling.

  At the bottom of the page, a fourth and last photo, smaller than the others: Antoine looks so ridiculous that he hardly recognizes himself. He is standing stiff as a post, his fists clenched, face rigid, dressed like a corpse. Behind him, the dark, tormented rectangle of The Blot, the impressive canvas in front of which he posed.

  “Antoine Ste-Marie, Alice Livingston’s husband.”

  It’s the only mention of him in the entire article. Claire Langlois kept nothing of their interview. Antoine goes to get a butcher knife out of the kitchen, and slashes wide strips in the painting he can no longer bear.

  Louis-Martin Vallières greets Antoine with an enormous coffee in one hand and a half-eaten croissant in the other. He’s a dynamic man in his early forties. His worktable is buried under files, books, manuscripts. Author photos adorn the walls. H
is publishing house, founded fifteen years earlier with only three employees, is still modest, but prosperous. Alice Livingston merits the largest photo, strategically hung. Hers is the first smile Antoine sees on entering the office. Without replying to the publisher’s greeting, Antoine launches his first question:

  “Did Alice ever talk to you about this Félix, to whom she dedicated her novel?”

  Louis-Martin gestures for him to sit down, but Antoine keeps going.

  “How do you explain that this Félix Maltais killed himself last month in the same way as Philippe in her novel?”

  “Who told you that this Félix Maltais is the same man to whom Alice dedicated her novel?”

  “I just know it, that’s all.”

  The publisher, visibly embarrassed, is searching for words.

  “Antoine, take a minute to sit down and calm yourself.”

  “It’s clear that there’s a link between this man’s suicide and Alice.”

  “It’s only a novel.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not leaving here till you tell me the truth. Félix Maltais must have read Alice’s manuscript. That many similarities can’t be just a coincidence. Answer me, I’m sure you know something.”

  Louis-Martin pauses, breathes deeply.

  “This is rather awkward. Awkward for me. But I assure you, this man’s suicide has nothing to do with your wife’s novel. Something bothered me about the end of A Pure Heart. In the version Alice gave me before she died, Philippe absolutely didn’t burn himself to death. He entered a religious order and devoted his life to prayer. I found that end disappointing. And then in July, as you might imagine, I learned on television about Félix Maltais’s suicide. I confess it now, yes, Alice had spoken about him. And so I made the connection. He’d left this photo of the Buddhist monk in his car before immolating himself. The idea seemed perfect for a novel. And so, there you are, I … let’s say … inspired by what … I mean, I …”