The Dead of Winter

by Lisa Appignanesi

  I hesitate. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Altogether sure.’ Her eyes fix on some distant point beyond the busy streets we crawl through. Beyond Chinatown and its array of steamy restaurants. Beyond Ste Catherine where the prostitutes and pushers are already gathering for the business of the night.

  ‘I need to reacquaint myself with my granddaughter,’ she eventually offers in taut explanation. ‘And I don’t want Monique and that hulking Marcel of hers hanging over me. You can stay, too, if you like, Pierre.’

  She doesn’t mean it. Nor do I want to. As I drop her by the door of Madeleine’s apartment and hand her the keys, I suddenly realise that all I want to do now is to be away…from everyone. I can’t think straight anymore. I feel buffetted by winds from opposing directions. They push and pull and batter at me. And at the Madeleine who inhabits me. So that we are both left in tatters. I need to escape so that I can reconstitute the two of us, singly and together.

  I drive. I retrace yesterday’s route. At some point I notice that I have gone past the exit for Ste-Anne. Where am I heading? Heavy metal rhythms blare from the radio, the hard rock sounds of Voivod, followed by another Québec group, Vilain Pinguoin. I switch off and listen to silence.

  The hills of the Laurentian range rise like ancient slumbering dinosaurs out of the darkness. I race past the lights of the ski resorts which twinkle from their haunches. Mont Gabriel, Ste Adele, Val Morin, Val David, Ste Agathe des Monts, I know these slopes and the myriad lakes which nestle between them as well as I know my back yard.

  At St Jovite, I find myself turning off the main road. I realise where I am heading now. I drive past the cluster of small chalets and inns which make up the village of Mont Tremblant, the mountain which according to Indian myth once shuddered and trembled. Tonight, the only movement on its slopes is that of the evening skiers, as bright as exotic beetles in their luminous gear. My melancholy rejects their hurtling brightness.

  I cut across the base of the hill towards the small lake to its east, Lac Supérieur. There are no lights here, only the shimmer of ice through trees. One-fifth of Québec’s terrain, I remind myself, is now frozen water. The frozen water of vast rivers and 400,000 lakes, vestiges of a glacial age.

  Heading south, I drive slowly for about a mile and pull over where a tree bears an old weathered board marked ‘privé’.

  After the heat of the car, the cold claws at my face with icy fingers. It rouses me as painfully as the loud cracking of the trees in the woods. Like gunfire leaping from stillness. The sounds cover the crunch of my boots. I walk carefully down the rutted drive. Its state tells me no one is here, but I tread slowly until the continuing darkness confirms my solitude.

  In the pale moonlight, the house with its steep roof looms out at me like a yacht from the mist. I walk round its expanse and meet my own tracks coming back at me in the untouched snow. The windows are shuttered. As stealthily as a thief, I try the door. Everything is solidly locked and bolted. I didn’t really expect otherwise. I traipse down to the edge of the lake. On the opposite shore, the lights of the village flicker and dance.

  This is the house Madeleine and I came to on our wedding night. We weren’t alone. My friend Guillaume, whose father’s house it was, and her closest friend, Colette, were with us. They had served as witnesses at our utterly unemphatic wedding ceremony in Montréal. Madeleine wore white, one of those flowing Indian cotton dresses which looked like a nightie and turned her into the slightly wistful flower child she had never been. Mme Tremblay was the single other guest. We dropped her off at Ste Anne, drank and ate far too much at her urging and then carried on north. To arrive here.

  It was summer. The sky over the mountain at our backs still glowed faintly pink and tinged the fluttering surface of the lake. In its depths, the trees scattered in the wind, then slowly reassembled themselves. We were laughing, playful. We dipped our toes in the eternal chill of the water and like children, screamed and scampered away, only to try another and then another inch of skin.

  Madeleine was the first to plunge. She let out a wild hoot and thrashed towards the dock, her feet kicking out more foam than an outboard motor. I was right behind her. Groaning and laughing, we heaved ourselves onto warmed planks and rolled into each other’s arms.

  She gazed up at me for a moment, her eyes round and serious. ‘Man and wife’ she murmured and then intoned it again in the ringing cadences of the marriage ceremony. We erupted into giggles. They merged into a kiss, the first real kiss of our married state.

  In the sudden racing of my pulse, I can still taste that heady mixture of passion and promise. The potent brew of youth. In the early seventies, the air itself was intoxicated with it. It was a good time to be young.

  The wedding took place a mere three weeks after our breathless film chase down the Côte des Neiges. It was only a little over a year since I had seen Madeleine as Lulu. The months in between had raced past, their pace as tempestuous as Madeleine herself. We loved hard and we worked hard. Each day was an adventure brimming with the newness of discovery.

  Sometimes, I had the uncanny feeling that I wanted to step out of this rush of time so as to list and hoard the sensations Madeleine stirred in me - not only when our bodies were entwined, but at breakfast when she might cup a warm egg in her hand and stare down at it in silent wonder. Or when I saw her coming towards me, her walk altogether different from the one she had left me with, a mincing gait or a mannish stride, an unconscious rehearsal for whatever part it was she was brooding over. Or when she stopped me in mid-sentence, her fingers on my arm, her face grave, and asked me to take it a little more slowly, to explain exactly what I meant. Yes, I wanted to store each and every one of those moments.

  Perhaps, somewhere, I already knew that my life with Madeleine would find its permanent home in memory.

  We didn’t live together that first year before our wedding. Madeleine shared an apartment, just off the Rue St Denis, with Colette and I had my own place in Outremont, a few streets north of the University. She was in her final year at the theatre school, a year punctuated by performances with the troupe that had put on Lulu. She also had a sporadic part-time job as a waitress. Her clothes-money job, she called it. I was working at Le Devoir. But we would see each other, three or four times a week, sometimes more. In this, like everything else, Madeleine was unpredictable.

  I loved her impulsiveness. It took me out of myself. I loved the way she would say she couldn’t see me the following day and then suddenly turn up late after a performance. Looking a little forlorn, she would stand at the door and throw her arms around me and whisper that we must be good, as quiet as two exhausted kittens - sleep the night through so that we could be blissfully fresh for work.

  Or she would phone me at the office and ask whether I fancied a late night drive. We would end up at some auberge in the mountains or in Quebec City, alone in deserted night-time streets that had grown glistening ice sculptures: amidst them we danced like butterflies released from the cocoon of the overheated car.

  If the pressure of a deadline prevented my frolicking, she would curl up in the sofa behind me with a book or a text to be learned. For all her mercurial energy, Madeleine knew how to be quiet, so quiet that sometimes I only remembered her presence when I rose from my desk.

  That Christmas, Madeleine played a part which demanded quiet of her. It was a role diametrically opposed to her Lulu and I was awed by her ability to find its dimensions within herself. She appeared as Teresa of Avila, the Spanish nun who survived the torments of temptation and the inquisition to accede to sainthood. Black gowned, wimpled, her scrubbed face as pure and serene as the most godly of novices, Madeleine floated across the stage listening to the conflicting voices which raged about her, watching a war enacted by shadowy shapes and lights.

  Needless to say, the drama was hardly a conventional exposition of Saint Teresa’s life. The text made of her an exemplum of a woman hounded by hostile, hide-bound priests for the heresy of speaking directly t
o God, for speaking, too, in her own voice. She was a prototypical feminist.

  When Madeleine rose mysteriously above the stage to levitate, the sweet pain of her rapture, made me think achingly of our love-making. I longed to bring that ecstatic expression to her face in the privacy of our twosome.

  I was able to do so only twice.

  The first time was right here on our wedding night when we lay on the rustling ground beneath a sky alight with stars.

  The second time it was already too late.

  7

  _______

  I don’t want to go home. Something awaits me there that I am not ready to confront. Something vital which crackles with temptation and dread. The electricity in the crisp, cold air alerts me to its presence.

  I head back to the car and drive in no particular direction. Escaping is one of the things I do best. Like an alcoholic, I know how to disappear, from myself as well, and forget that I have done so. It’s a useful art, though tonight its practice eludes me. Images of Madeleine haunt me as assiduously as troubled ghosts and force me into myself. She won’t leave me in peace. But she isn’t there.

  The road in front of me wavers and grows misty. I rub my eyes. They are wet. A sense of loss lashes through me threatening my hold on the steering wheel. I press my foot savagely down on the gas. I could careen now into a darkness without end. The world without Madeleine blurs into indistinctness. It holds as little interest for me as the fleeting shadows which bank the road.

  A swirl of lights flashes in the distance, blue and red and green. As I draw closer, I see that they illuminate a thick, dusky pine. The words ‘Auberge Maribou’ come into focus. Without thinking, I brake and skid into the drive.

  There is no one behind the polished teak reception desk, but from beyond a curtained door I hear voices and laughter. Soft, cadenced music which has none of the piping blandness of muzak emerges from some invisible point. A sign beside an old cow bell instructs me to ‘ring this’ for attention. I do as I am told.

  The resulting clatter would be enough to wake the dead. It produces a sturdy, cordoroy-jacketed man with greying temples and the startling good-looks of an Italian film actor.

  ‘Bonsoir.’ He greets me with a softly intent gaze.

  I ask him if he has a free room.

  He shakes his sleek head a little mournfully. ‘C’est plein. If you’d like some food, though…’ He points towards the door from which he has emerged.

  ‘I’d better carry on,’ I say. Yet I hesitate, unwilling to leave the warmth of the room or perhaps the reassuring solidity of his presence.

  ‘Wait.’ He strides through the door and returns moments later. ‘C’est fait,’ he announces with a diffident smile. ‘The attic room. We’ll have it ready in fifteen minutes.’

  He slides a register towards me. As I scrawl my name, I can feel his eyes on me.

  ‘Pierre Rousseau.’ He barely glances at my signature as he says it. ‘I thought so. But I wasn’t sure.’ He holds out his hand. ‘Giorgio Napolitano. You don’t remember? It’s the collar.’ He traces a semi circle round his neck with a stubby index finger and laughs ruefully.

  Suddenly I see a darkly beautiful young man in casual black trousers and sweater, a dog collar just visible at his neck. He is at once passionate and shy. An Italian lilt to his voice, he is saying to a group of us, ‘The trouble with you Québecois is that for too long you were a servile race. You trusted in the revenge of the cradle. Power through numbers, through population growth. Good Catholic tactics. Our fault. We priests. And it just wasn’t good enough. Equality has to be won by other means.’

  Père Giorgio. Fresh from Italy and as radical as they came, even though he was working as secretary to the bishop. Madeleine introduced us. Her theatre troupe were consulting him for their Saint Teresa of Avila project. And despite the conjuncture of our politics, I wasn’t altogether sure I liked him.

  But now I return his firm handshake. ‘So you left the priesthood?’

  ‘Not so long after we met.’ He grins, as if the act still has the power to astonish him. ‘In Bolivia. My posting after Montréal. Then I got married. I was never too sure whether politics were at the root of my defection or women.’ He seems to be about to say something more, but changes his mind and instead asks me to join him for a drink.

  Through the curtained door, there is a small, well-appointed restaurant. Green and white chequered cloths cover the tables. Sprigs of holly decorate grainy timbers. Fat white candles flicker and glow and cast dancing shadows. Diners sip brandy from large tumblers. They look sleepy and satisfied, like well-fed cats.

  ‘Would you like to eat something? It’s pot-au-feu night, so there’s always plenty. And Paloma is a wonderful cook.’

  In Giorgio’s expression I see myself as a lone famished wolf who needs to be placated if he is not to disturb the order of things. To please him, I acquiesce. He places me at a table near the fireplace and disappears into the kitchen, only to reemerge a moment later with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. He pours and sits down opposite me. His scrutiny is slow and steady.

  ‘So, how are things with you?’ he asks at last. ‘I used to read your articles, but no more…’

  ‘No. I’ve gone back to my original profession. Notary. In Ste-Anne.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He pauses. I can feel the name struggling to his lips before he pronounces it. ‘Madeleine mentioned that I think.’ Our eyes meet. ‘Yes, I know about her death. Of course, I know.’

  He rubs his temple, as if to eradicate a sudden pain ‘The world will be poorer without her.’

  I swallow a mouthful of wine. I cannot think of anything to say.

  He tilts his chair backwards and stares towards the darkened windows. ‘I’ve thought about her a great deal since I read about her death. You know, she was the first woman who ever tempted me. Really tempted me. Perhaps it was because of her…’ He traces a semi-circle round his neck with the backs of his fingers, and I have a sense of that stiff collar still there, still chafing.

  Madeleine’s words float towards me, playful, flirtatious, but the discomfort I felt then is as acute as if someone were, even now, standing next to me and grating a serried knife against the base of a saucepan.

  ‘It’s a waste,’ she says to me with a laugh. ‘Such a waste. This beautiful man trapped in celibacy. If it weren’t for you, I think I’d make a concerted effort to woo him into life.’

  I stare at Giorgio Napolitano. He is still rubbing his phantom collar. Perhaps Madeleine did make her effort. Or maybe she didn’t need to.

  A slim, trousered woman with the unmoving face and matt skin of a métis deposits a shiny copper pot on the table, spoons meat and carrots and potatoes and leeks and turnips onto my plate and disappears into the kitchen. Giorgio doesn’t seem to notice her. He is leaning towards me. I have the odd feeling that the world has grown topsy turvy and I am about to hear a priest’s confession.

  ‘Madeleine always made me feel she was living at a pace that was twice as fast as the rest of us,’ he says in a hushed voice. ‘At an intensity, too. As if she always knew she had to double up on experience. Pack twice as much into the time allotted her. As if she knew she would die young. There are people like that. You know what I mean?’

  I nod.

  ‘So that when I read about her death, though I was shocked, though I mourned, still am, nonetheless I had this blasphemous feeling that perhaps it was right. That she had had the best life has to offer, was replete. And now it was enough.’

  ‘A handy consolation,’ I mumble.

  He chuckles in self-deprecation. ‘Yes, that too. I’m not sure I mean it in the small hours of the night. Then I think…’ he pauses, muses over his wine, ‘Then I remember how vulnerable she was when I first met her. Had so little skin and so much imagination. She so desperately needed looking after.’

  This portrait startles me. I do not recognize it. Another of Madeleine’s many faces, this one created specifically to meet the needs of the young p
riest Giorgio was. It was not a face I saw, until the end perhaps.

  ‘So, in the small hours it occurs to me that maybe, if only one of us - you, me, someone else - had been brave enough to marry her then…’ He lets the words hang and I sense that for him marriage is still resonant with sacral meanings.

  I don’t know I am going to say it until the words are out of my mouth. ‘I did marry her, Giorgio. Didn’t she tell you?’

  His face is all embarrassed astonishment. ‘Forgive me. I had no idea.’

  ‘No. Yet it wasn’t a secret. Simply a failure. And long ago.’

  I can feel the questions rushing through him. But unlike him, I am not ready for a confession. Even with a former priest. I deflect him.

  ‘Had you seen Madeleine recently?’

  ‘Some ten days ago last. She drove down here to visit regularly. When I recognized you, I thought maybe she’d mentioned this place to you. And that’s why you were here. She told me we needed publicity. Others have come on her recommendation.’

  I try to remember whether Madeleine did indeed say something. Memory eludes me. Madeleine had so many acquaintances, was so profligate with her gossip and her favours. As a survival tactic, I had half-trained myself to let her words flutter over me and leave as little trace as a butterfly’s wings. Yet, perhaps, subliminally I took the information in.

  ‘So you were in touch over all these years,’ I say.

  ‘No, not all. But when I was in Bolivia, my second year I suppose it was, I saw her. In a movie. It was so bizarre. It was as if she was right there beside me and I could speak to her.’ He gives me a whimsical look. I recognize the emotion it hides. Giorgio and I wear the same mark on our brow. Brothers linked by Madeleine.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur.

  ‘I wrote to her. Wrote to the studio, that is. In France. It took some time, but eventually, miraculously, she answered.’

  I want to ask him what she said. I want to know the details of their correspondence. Instead I prod at a turnip. ‘Delicious.’