Gil Marsh

by A. C. E. Bauer

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She picked up the purse she had dropped, gave him another scowl and strode into the Apropoulis. Gil shook his head. It was as much her fault as his. He rehoisted his duffel and headed for the bank.

  He joined a short line. When Gil got to the teller, she smiled politely.

  “Je peux vous aider?”

  “Do you speak English? I’m American.”

  “Of course,” she said with a heavy Québécois accent. “How can I help you?”

  Gil took out his pouch and placed two hundred and fifty dollars on the counter. “Can you convert this for me?”

  She nodded. “Do you have the identification?”

  He decided to use his driver’s license rather than his passport, since the photo was more recent. She looked at it and read the birth date.

  “A student exchange?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “One minute,” she said.

  As she went back with the cash, counted it out and filled in some forms, Gil glanced to his right. A woman was handing over a piece of paper—a check, it looked like—to the teller next to him. She wore jeans, flip-flops and the pink button-down shirt that had caught his eye earlier. She was the woman he had bumped into.

  “You sign here,” his teller said.

  She counted the Canadian cash, a rainbow of bills and several coins. He carefully folded the bills into his pouch and pocketed the coins. He reached down for his duffel and noticed that the woman in the pink shirt was now by the bank’s front door. She had narrow features, dirty blond hair tied back into a ponytail and small, round eyes that were staring at him. As he approached her, she smiled, which made her look quite beautiful.

  “I waited,” she said in accented English, “because I want to say sorry.”

  He held the door for her. “It’s okay. We both bumped into each other.”

  “Oui, but I was … how do you say? Brusque?”

  Gil smiled. Yes, she had been brusque.

  “I make it up, okay?” she said.

  “Sure.” Gil grinned, glad his charm still worked here in Quebec.

  “I treat you to a café, non?”

  “Thanks.”

  She led him farther down the street and turned up a block where a small coffee shop, with two tables out front, advertised espresso in its window.

  “How you like it?” she asked.

  “Milk and sugar,” he said.

  She ordered for them at the counter and brought the steaming cardboard cups to one of the small tables. She took a sip from hers before extending a hand.

  “We need the introductions,” she said. “I am Adèle.”

  The name sounded familiar.

  “Gil Marsh.”

  Her hand was soft in his.

  “You are American, non?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Un étudiant?”

  Gil had taken a year of French in eighth grade, but he had forgotten most of it. And when she said “ay-tu-DZEE-aw,” he had no idea what she meant. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any French.”

  “Oh. That is okay,” she said. “I only ask if you are a student.”

  This was a natural question, he realized. “Yeah. But I don’t start till after Labor Day.” That gave him almost two weeks. He had been working on this story line since the teller had asked him.

  “Aah. So you are a free man.” She said this with a wave, as if to encompass the whole world.

  Gil laughed. “As free as a poor man can be.”

  “Eh oui. Un étudiant, he not have a lot of money.”

  Gil shrugged, but she was right. He had a fair amount of cash at the moment, but he needed to make it last.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  Gil thought quickly. “At a youth hostel—until my dorm room opens up.”

  “I have an idea,” she said. She smiled, crinkling the small ridges around her blue eyes. They were so pretty! “I just lose my roommate. I need someone permanent, but until the school begin, you can rent the room. If you want.”

  Gil wasn’t sure about that. Rooms were expensive: he had seen the ads in the Green Valley paper—many hundreds of dollars a month. He couldn’t afford that.

  “No worry,” she added. “You come take a look first, then you decide.”

  Gil was less and less certain, but Adèle seemed determined.

  She rose, coffee cup in hand. “You okay for a walk?”

  He laughed. A walk was nothing. And he did need a bed for tonight. “Lead the way.”

  She did. A long way. They walked away from the mountain, heading down a wide avenue—Sherbrooke, it was called. They passed tall, shining buildings with banks and fancy shops that slowly shortened to buildings of gray stone and brick, gas stations and apartment buildings. They turned left, up Boulevard Saint-Laurent. The street was grungier. Garbage and urine smells escaped from alleys. Bums who hadn’t washed in weeks sat on street corners. A woman with a small kid begged from a doorway. Gil reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver coin with a golden circle embedded in its center. It looked like play money. He put it in her outstretched hand.

  “Merci, monsieur!” she said with emphasis.

  Adèle raised an eyebrow.

  When they had gone another block, she said, “You are a generous student.”

  Gil shrugged. What was the big deal?

  “That was a toonie,” she added. “Two dollars.”

  Gil felt like an idiot. He needed to be more careful. “I’m still not used—”

  She put a hand on his arm. “That okay. Two dollars, that’s not so much. Just remember. The Canadian coins are real money.”

  They turned right down one street, left on another. Gil became disoriented after the fourth or fifth turn. They wound through blocks of buildings a few stories high that sported long metal stairways to their upper floors. Adèle stopped at a weathered, two-story yellow row house, paint peeling off the stairs, and pulled out a key. She walked down two sunken steps to a weather-beaten door next to a trash can.

  “Voilà,” she said, leading him into a dimly lit apartment.

  She turned on a light in the tiny living room, which connected to an even smaller galley-style kitchen. She threw her purse onto the table that filled one side of the room.

  “Your room is this way,” she said.

  She led him to a door in the back, pointing out a dingy bathroom on the way.

  “It is small,” she warned.

  That was an understatement. The room was no larger than a utility closet. A bare mattress took up most of the floor. A green paper lantern covered the ceiling bulb, giving the yellow walls a sickly tinge. There was just enough room for two people to stand, if they didn’t mind rubbing elbows.

  Adèle gave him a wry smile. “You see why my roommate left.”

  Gil grinned.

  “I know you don’t have much money,” Adèle continued, “but if you give me fifteen dollars a week, it would help me pay for the electricity and telephone.”

  That, Gil thought, was a fair price. It was less than it would cost him for one night in a hostel! He dropped his duffel in the back corner and extended his hand. “Deal.”

  She gave him another of her dazzling smiles and shook his hand. He pulled out his money pouch, carefully counted out one blue five-dollar bill and a purple ten and handed them to Adèle. She tucked the bills into her wallet.

  “Now,” she said, “I need to find a job. So you need to keep busy without me.”

  “A job?”

  “Fired,” she said matter-of-factly. “Early this morning. I don’t fill the saltshakers the way they like.”

  A bell went off in Gil’s head. Of course, the Adèle that Renée had fired from the Apropoulis. He watched her as she laid out a newspaper on the table and began circling ads with a pen.

  She paused and smiled up at him. “You are my roommate now. I have an extra towel in the box.”

  The box was a small plastic crate wedged betwee
n the sink and the wall. Gil took the scratchy but clean yellow towel and went back to his room to get clean underwear from his duffel. He’d be able to rinse out yesterday’s clothes now.

  Maybe Adèle wasn’t a great waitress. But she had given him a room. And even if the room was a cave, it was what he needed: a safe place he could afford while he tracked down Enko’s grave and figured out how to head north.

  After he showered and hung his washed clothes over the shower rod to dry, Gil stretched out on the mattress, just to test it. He immediately fell asleep. He woke up, confused for a moment. His door opened a sliver.

  Adèle poked her head in. “You okay? You’ve been sleeping a long time.”

  Gil stretched. “Yeah. I feel great.”

  But it had been a while since his massive breakfast at the Apropoulis, and his stomach rumbled angrily.

  “We go out,” Adèle said.

  Out? He still hadn’t started looking for the cemetery. His stomach growled again.

  “I need to get some supper,” Adèle added.

  That convinced him. He looked down at his rumpled clothes and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “You look fine,” Adèle said. “Get some shoes.” She sounded like his mother.

  Gil checked the phone. Four-forty-five. He had slept the afternoon away! He hesitated, remembering the message from his mom. Should he reply? He heard Adèle rummage at the other end of the apartment. She was waiting for him. He tied his sneakers.

  Adèle led them to a park surrounded by colorful three-story buildings and filled with young people (real students, he figured), several loose dogs and the smell of reefer wafting from a corner.

  “This is Square Saint-Louis,” she said.

  A couple of guys and a woman, all dressed as latter-day hippies, waved.

  “Adèle!” the woman yelled. “Tu reviens?”

  “Plus tard,” Adèle said.

  Gil wondered what they had said. Enko had once told him that Montreal was a bilingual city—people spoke both English and French. A tourist from the United States could easily get around. But he realized that he wasn’t a tourist. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was—a stranger in a new land. He had fled Green Valley, looking for answers. He’d need to learn some French—he could use a dictionary.

  “What did she say?” he asked.

  Adèle looked at him for a minute. “She asked me if I come back.”

  “And you said?”

  Adèle smiled. “ ‘Later.’ ”

  Gil nodded. He wouldn’t mind returning to the park.

  They reached a street that had been closed off to traffic. Tables lined the sidewalks, spilling out from dozens of restaurants. Gil’s mouth watered at all the food smells.

  “You ever have poutine?” Adèle asked.

  “Poo-teen?”

  “No translation for that,” Adèle said. “You are going to get a treat.”

  She led him past the sit-down places, around the corner to another street where a hole-in-the-wall restaurant advertised “Frites” in its window. At the counter, Adèle ordered a hamburger “all dressed” and a poutine. The woman rang up the order. “Douze et cinquante,” she said.

  Adèle reached in her purse and her face fell. “I remember my coins, but left my wallet at home.” She showed Gil the change purse and took out a toonie and two quarters. “You have ten dollars we could use?”

  “Sure.”

  He handed her a twenty-dollar bill, which she passed on with the coins to the server. Adèle gave the ten dollars change to Gil.

  “I pay you back when we get home,” she said.

  “No problem,” Gil said.

  They sat at a small booth, and soon the server called them from the counter. Adèle returned with a tray. She placed the poutine in front of Gil with a plastic fork and paper napkins while she unwrapped the hamburger for herself. The poutine looked like an unholy mess: french fries with what Gil thought might be melted cheese, covered in a brown gravy.

  “They make the best poutine this side of Saint-Laurent,” she said. “Try it.”

  To Gil’s surprise, it tasted good. The fries were delicious, moister and less grainy than the ones he got at diners in the United States. The cheese was very fresh and creamy. The gravy tasted rich and pulled it all together. And the dish was filling! He finished everything in the Styrofoam bowl.

  Adèle smiled at him. “Good stuff, oui?”

  “Oui,” Gil said.

  “So. You’re no student.”

  Gil was taken aback by the matter-of-fact way she said it. “How did you know?”

  “Easy. No books. No laptop. No papers. No pens. An American like you, he comes with TV, stereo, car, twenty suitcases and a laptop. Always the laptop.”

  Gil frowned.

  “That okay,” Adèle continued. She took another bite from her hamburger.

  “It’s a long story,” Gil said.

  “I’m not in any hurry.”

  “A really long story.”

  Adèle put her hamburger down. “Okay. I finish the hamburger. We get two Pepsis and we go back to the Square. I find a quiet corner, and you tell me the story. Maybe I can help.”

  Gil didn’t reply. Adèle didn’t seem to expect him to. She methodically finished her burger, dabbed her lips with her napkin, gathered all the dishes and dumped them in the corner trash. She bummed a few more dollars from Gil for sodas, and they headed back the way they had come, winding their way to the park. The whole while, Gil kept running through his head the last thing she had said. “Maybe I can help.”

  Gil started slowly, describing his first meeting with Enko. Adèle listened intently. Her face didn’t even twitch. She nodded sometimes and let Gil speak. And as he warmed to the story, he forgot she was there, sitting in the shadows of tall trees on a bench, smoking a cigarette, surrounded by homeless vagrants, partying students and lovers.

  He told her how he loved Enko, and how Enko had died. He described his grief and how he couldn’t stay in Green Valley anymore. The sun had set by the time he finished the tale.

  Adèle pressed a hand over his and gave it a squeeze before taking it back. “I am sorry.”

  Gil stared at his hand. He could still feel the press of her fingers. The ring glinted slightly in the light of the streetlamps. Gil told her about the legend.

  “That is quite a story,” Adèle said.

  “Yeah. But it made me think that I should head north.”

  Adèle laughed. “North is big.”

  Gil looked down at his hand. “First I’ll find Enko’s grave.”

  “And after that?”

  Gil thought for a moment. He wasn’t ready to tell her about searching for the immortal man. She’d laugh at that, he was sure. “I’ll go to where they made this ring. The ring connects me to Enko’s family.”

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  Gil hesitated but slipped the ring off his finger. She took it, stubbed out her cigarette and stood, taking a few steps toward the streetlamp. She lifted the ring to get a better view and twisted it. Gil saw the light reflect off the stone. When Adèle returned, she handed the ring back to him.

  “A dark stone,” she said.

  “Do you know anything about it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know someone who might?”

  Her hesitation made Gil hopeful.

  “Let me think on it.”

  The next morning, Gil woke to shouting. He heard Adèle’s voice in a high-pitched, rapid-fire French, answered by a rumbling, deep voice, not quite as loud, but menacing in its tone.

  Gil bolted out of bed, pulled on his jeans and tiptoed out of his bedroom. As he approached the front of the apartment, he saw Adèle from behind, her legs planted apart, head held high, a finger pointed at a large man whom Gil saw from a three-quarters angle. The man wore torn jeans and a stained short-sleeve shirt that hung, untucked, over his stomach. A patch of stubble dotted one cheek, while his unruly hair stood up in all directions. The palm of his l
eft hand lay flat on the kitchen table, as though he had just made a forceful point.

  “What’s going on?” Gil said.

  Adèle whirled. Her face boiled in fury. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her cheeks, all were pinched and angry. “Gil.”

  The man looked over at Gil in mild surprise. “Un autre?”

  “What’s going on?” Gil repeated.

  Adèle took a deep breath, and Gil watched as she forced her features into neutrality.

  “I am sorry. Some people have no manners,” she said.

  “C’est qui, ça?” the man asked. He appeared more curious than angry.

  Adèle swung back around. “Gil, this is Maurice.” She paused. “My old roommate.”

  The man now grinned. It wasn’t a friendly grin, but it wasn’t malicious, either.

  “Hello, Maurice,” Gil said.

  The grin grew. “An anglo?” He stared at Gil, assessing the bare chest and hastily put-on jeans. “At least you’re a pretty one.”

  Gil frowned and clenched his fists. “I’m here temporarily.”

  “Of that, I’m sure,” Maurice said.

  His Québécois accent sounded thicker than Adèle’s but his speech was more fluid. He seemed genuinely amused by the situation.

  Adèle frowned. “Maurice is leaving.”

  Gil took another step forward, placing himself next to Adèle. If she needed his help, he was there. But Maurice focused on Adèle and made no move to leave.

  “Your new boyfriend doesn’t change anything.”

  Adèle jutted her chin out as if she didn’t care. Maurice pursed his lips, then turned to go. At the front door he paused, glanced back at Gil and left. The door clicked behind him. Adèle exhaled and crumpled onto a chair.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Gil sat across from her. “What was that all about?”

  Adèle sighed. “When Maurice left, we had a fight. He thinks it is not over, the fight.”

  The man was at least twice her size.

  “Do you need me to—”

  “Non, non,” she interrupted. “Maurice will not hurt me. He just doesn’t like to give up the argument. He’ll get over it.” She placed a hand on one of Gil’s. “We know each other since we were little kids at Marieville. He is like a little brother who always gets in the way.”