by Anne Degrace
There is the sound of my breathing, fast, with the fear, and the beating of my heart. Then the sound of the river, moving through the dark like a large animal. And then, a small sound, like the mewling of a cat.
We found Emilie on a large rock very close to shore. She had crawled across a tree limb to get there, and when she had reached the rock the tree had fallen away and she was too afraid to get back. M. Boucher took one step into the water right up to his hip and snatched my little girl in his big arms, and she buried her head against his shirt. I cursed Henri for being away, for not being there, so that it was M. Boucher instead of Henri saving Emilie. It should have been Henri.
Oh, I should not have cursed my husband. It was a bad time, I was upset and relieved and angry, all at once, but who knows what fates are unleashed when you utter a curse? If I had known what would happen . . .
But my Emilie was safe, and that was most important, with everyone else running up as M. Boucher gave Emilie into my arms. Maman! she sobbed. J’ai peur du monster qui vit dans le fleuve!
The monster that lives in the river.
And now the monster is again here, only bigger, much bigger, and more fierce. It swallows up the river bank and farms and homes. It drowns cattle. The things swept down in its huge, gobbling mouth, as if it is hungry for everything: animals, outhouses, chicken coops, washing lines.
Daniel
CHANTAL JOINED A group last year, a Y2K Preparedness Group. I’ll admit that when I saw the list she brought home of “things every home should have,” my first thought was what a great time this is to own a hardware store! First aid supplies. Toilet paper. Duct tape. Wire. Tinfoil. Rolls of plastic. Batteries, all sizes. Manual can opener. Gas. Cash.
Chantal told me that ATMs probably won’t work, and if the system breaks down there will be uncontrolled inflation. A loaf of bread could cost five dollars one day, a hundred the next. She wanted to take our money out of the bank and buy gold, but I put my foot down.
There might be no airplanes, trains, Chantal says — they all run on computers. Television won’t be able to broadcast, and probably radio, too. The government might have to get the news out using old-fashioned megaphones, with soldiers broadcasting from the tops of tanks driving through the streets.
It’s important not to be in an elevator at midnight, Chantal warned me. Now why would I be in an elevator at midnight? I asked her, but she went on with her list.
“We should have some plywood on hand,” she said.
“Plywood?”
“In case we need to fortify the house against looters,” she said.
Now, we have extra locks on all of the doors, so that when all hell breaks loose, we’ll be safe in our own private hell. I don’t even know where the keys are to most of them.
Brigitte
I MUST GET home. Help me, please. Why won’t anyone help me? The door is shut. There is a way to get out, but I don’t understand. I see people push the buttons with the number, dit-dit-dit. We never had such things. We didn’t often lock our doors — who would steal from us? — but when you did lock a door, there was always a key.
I WILL NEVER forget the day we were locked out. We had come home from town. I had the children all with me, Lucien pulling a wagon on which was piled the groceries I had bought. Because whatever happened, we had to eat, didn’t we? Before any bills — and there were so many, on our hall table, I had stopped opening the envelopes, because what was the point? — we had to eat. You can’t eat heat. You can’t eat light. You can’t eat payments to the bank.
I can remember what I bought, exactly: flour, because with flour I can make bread. Split peas, for soup. Pork bones and onions, because with these, and the peas, I can make a soup to fill our bellies and the house with a good, warm smell as if we are rich. Milk and tea. Some sugar. I had apples from Mme Boucher, from her tree because it was autumn and she said I could have the fallen ones. I had potatoes and turnips from Mme Garneau, who said she had planted too many in her garden, even though they will keep through the winter. From the spinster Mlle Laurent, I had eggs.
I could see the notice as I came up the lane, fluttering in the wind. It was fall, but still mild, which was good because Lucien had grown out of his winter boots and I did not yet know what I would do about that. His shoes were tight, but they fit him still. I wondered what the paper was, at first, and thought perhaps a kind neighbour had left me a note, but then Ben ran ahead and came back to say: Maman, the door is locked! There is a lock on our door!
I have never read English very well, but I could understand it. Foreclosure, it said. There had been letters, but this sort of thing was something Henri had always looked after. I suppose I just didn’t want to see them, like the bills, and so I didn’t.
But now, there is a new lock on our door, a padlock. And I have no key.
We found our dog, Ami, around the side. Perhaps he had tried to bite the man who came with the lock. He was such a faithful dog. I told the children he did not suffer, that it was quick, but how could I know? Lucien, such a good boy, dug a hole in back of the house that was no longer ours.
How can we ever really know the suffering of another?
Our new house was at the back of M. Laurent’s property, near the river. It had been empty for a long time, but I scrubbed every room, and our good neighbours in St. Vital brought us furniture and other things. M. Laurent said he would not charge us rent; instead, I would clean the house of the Laurent family, a big house, a large family. So if I am careful, Henri’s pension is enough for food, for Lucien’s winter boots, for coats for Ben and Emilie.
M. Laurent worked for the railway, but not like Henri, not with his hands; M. Laurent worked in an office and made decisions for the Western Line. Why did he help us? I suppose he felt badly, because of Henri.
BUT THE NEW house, it is so close to the river. We are to be evacuated, to the firehall. We must go at once! Lucien won’t know where to go. Ben and Emilie, sometimes they don’t listen; they think everything is a game. Poor Emilie, she’s so afraid, now, of the monster in the river.
We must go. Will you take me?
IF HENRI WAS here we would be already safe. Even though Henri was away so much, working, he always looked after us. Always. The children loved him so. Lucien adored him, and looks like him, too. Those big hands. Lucien is good with his hands, like his father. He made the wagon, the one we use to carry groceries. He made it himself, with wheels from a baby carriage he found thrown away, and two apple boxes, and the handle of a broken shovel.
Henri was a good husband. A good father. It was not Henri’s fault. Henri would have wanted to make sure everything was working on the line. Perhaps he knew something wasn’t right. Perhaps he went out with a lamp to make sure everything was right at the switch, so no more accidents would happen.
They blamed Henri for the derailment. But what happened to him later, it was because he was just making sure. Because you would be afraid, wouldn’t you? That after a mistake like that happened, even if it wasn’t your fault, that it might happen again.
I am sure he slipped, caught his foot. Could not get out of the way. Yes, they said they found a bottle, but Henri would never drink when he was working, of that I am sure.
They said it was quick. That he did not suffer.
I don’t like to think of it.
ALL I MUST think about now is the children. I have to know they are safe. The river is rising; we must get to the firehall. We can’t wait any longer! Please. My babies.
The water.
Daniel
BY THIS AFTERNOON Chantal had candles and camping lanterns in every room, ready. She had extra blankets out and folded at the ends of the beds. Marcel thinks it’s a big adventure. He made a fort out of chairs and sheets in his room, and he has it stockpiled with Cheetos and comic books. Josslyne, though, was invited to spend New Year’
s Eve with her friend Annette, but Chantal wouldn’t let her. Josslyne looked at me, hoping I would intervene, but I shrugged my shoulders and winked, as if to say: this is Mummy’s game, and we’ll just have to go along for now. She stomped off to her room. Why didn’t I bring her with me to see Mémére? I don’t know.
Maybe when midnight comes and Chantal sees that nothing has happened, we can talk. Maybe I can convince her to get some help — or maybe both of us will go. These things don’t start all at once, do they? They build and build, like the flood Mémére is always talking about, and then whoosh! The dam breaks.
The main thing is the children.
When I left this evening, Chantal had every container we have in the house full of water. She had me bring four-gallon containers from the hardware store, everything we had, and these are stacked up in the basement for drinking water. Then she started filling everything else: buckets, garbage cans. To drink? I asked her, but no, she said. Was I nuts? To wash, to flush the toilet. The kitchen counter is lined with pop bottles full of water. If the Y2K apocalypse comes, we might drown anyway.
Brigitte
I WILL NEVER forget.
The water it came higher, higher. They said, you must be out by the first of May, and at the beginning I thought, no, it would not ever come so high. M. Laurent, Mme Laurent, they have gone to stay with relatives in Portage la Prairie. They wanted us to move, but we have only the house, and if the house was washed away, where would we go? So we stayed, because we had made a wall, yes? A wall of earth.
Lucien and Ben, two brothers, they were outside every day, digging and piling. M. Archambault came with his tractor, and soon there were more and more people, and then came big machines, and then the army! Everyone worked, and the dike we built, it was called the Carriere Dike. We filled sandbags — so many sandbags. Two working together, one to hold, one to fill. Emilie would hold the bag open and I would shovel, and sometimes we sang a little song, to the tune of “Frère Jacques.” I will sing for you, listen:
La pluie, la pluie
Les nuages, les nuages
Le tonnerre et les éclairs, le tonnerre et les éclairs
L’arc-en-ciel, l’arc-en-ciel
YOU LAUGH! BUT I had a very nice singing voice, and it helped to make the work go easier, especially for Emilie. There were no rainbows, of course, just more and more rain. We would fill the sandbags, and then the men would form a line and toss them one to the other, and up onto the top of the wall that grew higher and higher. But so did the water.
The noise, mon Dieu. Lying in our house in the night, Emilie with me in one bed and the boys together, and in the dark I knew we were all awake and listening to the roar of the water as if it would come right in our door, in our windows, at any moment. How can I explain? I would lie there with the sound all around and think and think how I could protect my children and our home, and I would talk in my head to Henri. Sometimes I would curse him for being dead, and sometimes I would plead with him to tell us what to do. Because if we left our house, as they wanted us to do, would it be there when we returned, and if not, where would we go? But if we stayed, then we could keep piling high the sandbags.
And all the time the water gets higher, and I would dream of waking up to find it swirling around our beds. And of course it would have, except for the dike. But would it hold? We went every day, the neighbours too, to make sure, and every day the water was higher. Emilie began to have nightmares, she would wake us all up: Maman, Maman, il vient! Of course, she was afraid of le monstre dans le fleuve.
The Seine and the Red Rivers, they met like two huge serpents de mer, and when the dike broke there went Marion Street, and St. Anne’s Road.
So much water.
I GO TO see M. Archambault, to say yes, we will go to the St. Vital firehall, we have our things we will take. We would not stay any longer. To ask: will you take us? In his truck, Emilie and me, we could sit in the front, the boys in the back with our things.
But the Archambaults have gone. I walk through their house. Everything has been moved — table, chairs, rugs — upstairs, and the downstairs, it is empty. My heels sound hollow on the linoleum as I walk across, calling, although I know there is no one there. It is like what they say is the eye of the hurricane, because there in the Archambaults’ house it is still, nothing, while outside is the roar of the water. It seems louder than before. Is it a trick of the empty rooms? Alors, mon Dieu! I know it is the sound of the river with nothing to hold it back.
I run across the field to our house, but it is so far away! I can’t run fast enough in these shoes, with this mud! I am slipping, falling, my heart is pounding and in my ears I hear Emilie’s voice as if she is here with me: Maman, il vient!
Where are my children? I told them, stay upstairs. You will be safe if you stay upstairs and wait for me. Will they know to wait? J’arrive!
What is that sound? Is it the water, at last, breaking through the dikes?
NO, NO, MÉMÉRE. It is just the fireworks starting. See, they have turned the lights off so we can see out the window better. For a moment I thought — but never mind, everything is fine. No one was washed away. We are all safe. Chantal and Marcel and Josslyne. Papa and Maman. Uncle Benoit and David. Aunt Emilie and Didier. All of your grandchildren!
Everyone is celebrating the New Year, Mémére. It’s a new millennium.
Look out the window. Here, I’ll push your chair.
Aren’t they beautiful?
YES. YES, THEY are beautiful.
TWELVE
ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
·2012·
Day 1
THE WEATHER’S FINE as we leave the Halifax port behind us, and before us, the open sea. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to, the movement beneath my feet, but it’s nothing compared to what my great-great-grandmother, who came from Ireland in 1847, endured. Her ship was a sailing ship; she didn’t have the small, efficient cabins we have, and she certainly didn’t dine with the officers. We are the only paying passengers on this voyage, while on Mary’s ship almost two hundred people travelled crammed together in steerage.
My granddaughter Josslyne turns from the rail and grins at me. For Josslyne and her brother Marcel, after a gruelling year of university, this is a great adventure. For their father Daniel, it’s a concession — it was hard for him to take time from expanding his hardware business. For my husband Lucien, it’s a celebration, because I’m still here, after all.
It took a fair bit of research to find a cargo ship that would trace the same route, more or less, as Mary and her family took, but I insisted. I wanted to cross the Atlantic as my ancestors did, and I didn’t want to travel in some fancy cruise ship. I wanted to sail from St. John’s but we had to settle for Halifax and this freighter, which is transporting Eastern White Pine among other things. We’ll dock in Liverpool, and then we’ll take a ferry across the Irish Sea to Dublin.
Lucien puts his arm around my shoulders. He’s still protective, even now that I’m well. I lean into him, sheltered from the wind by his familiar body.
“Did you know there was another family on that crossing?” I ask, and Daniel turns, humouring me.
“I imagine there were a few.”
“I wasn’t finished,” I say, and give him a playful slap. “The McGraths and the Murphys became friends on the crossing. Mary McGrath was a Murphy before she married Daniel — your namesake — and so afterwards, when her younger sister Catherine married Paddy Murphy, Catherine got to keep her last name.”
This revelation is lost on Josslyne, who is getting married next month, but who will still be Josslyne Gauthier. “Different times,” I add, catching her eye.
“Hmmph,” grunts Marcel. “She should have hyphenated it. Then she’d be Catherine Murphy-Murphy.”
They’re all humouring me. I think it was this research into fam
ily history that pulled me through recovery, giving me a different focus, and by the time my hair had grown back and I’d gotten used to the absence that was once my right breast, I knew I needed to go, and I needed my family with me, as many as would come. I wanted to complete the circle.
Marcel faces the wind, eyes closed against the sun, arms outstretched in parody of that scene in the Titanic film. Josslyne, hamming it up, joins him. I plant my feet on the deck and spread my arms, too, letting the wind press my clothes against my body, outlining the parts that are there and the parts that aren’t. Rooted this way, I can’t help but think of the family tree that we are: great-great-grandmothers behind us; great-great-grandchildren yet to be born.
Day 5
THERE ISN’T MUCH to do on a ship like this, which is fine by me. I love the day stretching before me, with time to read, or think, or talk with Lucien, who still follows me about like he might lose me. My energy is returning, and yesterday I played table tennis with Marcel, and won. There’s a weight room, a day room with a tiny library, a small swimming pool, dining room, and an officer’s bar. This ship has only three passenger cabins, and so Lucien and I are in one, Daniel and Marcel in another, and Josslyne has the third all to herself. Last night I joined her there for a bottle of wine, which we drank like sneaky teenagers; since I’ve been healthy, nothing feels out of character for me. I want to know my children, my grandchildren, all of the people I love in this way: as themselves, no expectations, no judgments. I want to meet them on their turf; to remove any constructs of distance or separation. There is nothing like facing death to make you want to take down walls.