Gil Marsh

by A. C. E. Bauer

  Gil gave her a wry smile. “He had a crush on you?”

  Adèle smiled back, making those blue eyes of hers crinkle. “Yes. A crush. Some things, they don’t change.”

  Gil still didn’t know what they had argued about, but Adèle’s obvious ease with the subject convinced him it couldn’t be that serious.

  “I am just sorry,” she said, “that you have to meet this way.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was hoping to ask Maurice for help.”

  Now Gil was curious. “Help?”

  But instead of answering, Adèle rose, headed over to the galley kitchen and began emptying a small grocery bag. Gil had briefly thought about getting breakfast at the Apropoulis, but Adèle placed a liter of orange juice and a loaf of sliced bread on the table. She also took out her wallet and handed Gil a five-dollar bill, a toonie and a one-dollar coin called a loonie. “For the hamburger and Pepsi,” she said.

  She poured Gil a small glass of juice and put a plate in front of him while she boiled water for instant coffee.

  “Maurice knows a lot about jewelry,” she said.

  Gil had trouble believing it—this oversized man in cheap, beat-up clothes?

  “You not believe, I can tell. But it’s true. Right now he is a student at the Université de Montréal, in their engineering. But always, when we were growing up, he love the rocks. He study them and collect them.”

  A geology geek. That would make sense.

  “I think he might tell us something about your ring.”

  That seemed somewhat of a leap to Gil.

  “But right now,” she continued, “he be too angry with me to help. So first, we look for your friend’s grave.”

  We? Gil was surprised but pleased, too. He crammed down a half dozen slices of bread while she fetched a laptop from her bedroom and turned it on.

  “So,” she asked, “where is he buried?”

  “Uh, here, in Montreal.”

  “Oui. But where in Montréal?” She pronounced it moh-ray-al. “It’s a big city.”

  How could Gil be so stupid? Green Valley had only one cemetery, not too far from the high school, near the town green. It was big and old and had lots of trees. Kids dared each other to go there at Halloween. Gil never thought much about it. But here in Montreal, there were probably dozens!

  “I don’t know which one,” Gil said.

  Adèle stared at him for a moment, unbelieving.

  “This will be a little more work,” she said.

  She asked Gil to spell Enko’s name for her, then typed it into the search engine. “Maybe we are lucky and there was an announcement that would tell us where he was buried. Or give us the name of a church or the … uh … place where they take care of the details. You know.”

  “The funeral home?”

  “Oui. That’s it.”

  Several articles from the Green Valley paper came up: three in its sports section about the high school cross-country team, plus one about the memorial service back in May. The search also pulled up Enko’s defunct Chatbook page. Nothing useful.

  “Okay,” Adèle said. “We try again.”

  She typed in “cimetières Montréal.” That pulled up a long list next to a map with arrows indicating each one.

  “So,” she said, “was he Catholic? Protestant? Jewish? We can narrow it down that way.”

  Of course—cemeteries were usually divided by religion. Why hadn’t Gil thought of that? But they had never talked about religion—not that Gil remembered.

  He tried to visualize Enko’s house. When he visited, they spent most of their time in Enko’s room. He had a vivid memory of Enko’s computer, his game system and his bed. Gil shut that memory down, concentrating on the Labettes’ kitchen and living room. The house was much like everyone else’s, but he did recall seeing an old cabinet with photos inside—one being a picture of a baby after a baptism.

  “He was baptized.”

  “Catholic? Anglican? Pentecostal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Adèle was undeterred. “Okay. His family, they were just Québécois or did they also have English roots?”

  “Québécois, I think.”

  “Well, that is a start.”

  Adèle concentrated on the Catholic cemeteries first—because most Québécois were from Catholic backgrounds. She took out her cell phone and offered to make the calls. “Since you don’t speak French.”

  “Thanks!” Gil meant it.

  Two cemeteries had interred people with the name Labette, but neither had any record of Enko. Adèle started down the list of other Christian cemeteries, then contacted non-denominational ones. As the morning gave way to the early afternoon, she called back the ones where no one had been there the first time. Still no luck.

  Soon, the only burial grounds left were Jewish and Islamic ones.

  “Are you sure he was buried in Montréal?” Adèle asked, sounding defeated.

  She had made so many phone calls and looked tired. Gil was grateful for her patience. She had not complained once about this monumental chore, rather reassuring him each time that the next call might produce the information they needed.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  He had been told that the family plot was in the Montreal area. But that could be anywhere, he realized. The area was huge. How was he going to track Enko down? He was too late now to contact Enko’s parents for more specifics—they would alert his parents, who must still think him safely with the cross-country team.

  He buried his face in his hands.

  Adèle leaned over and put a hand on his arm. “Voyons. We’ll figure something out.” She glanced up at the clock. “It’s getting late. I promised some friends to meet them at a pub on Saint-Denis.”

  She invited him along. Gil realized he had never told her his age—she had never asked. And in Quebec, the drinking age was eighteen. At home, Robert usually supplied the booze with the help of his older brother. Here, he should be able to pass.

  The pub was a long underground room with tables along one wall and a bar along the other. To Gil’s relief, they also served food—sandwiches, fries, nachos. Several tables had been pushed together, and a group of a half dozen men and women greeted Adèle as she walked in. Maurice sat among them. He gave Adèle and Gil a nod.

  Everyone spoke French. Adèle introduced Gil, but after the initial “Hello” and “You are from the U.S.?” they lapsed back into French. He gave his order to a waitress, glad to have food and beer to keep busy. When he had almost finished eating, Maurice moved over and sat next to him.

  “How did you meet Adèle?” he asked.

  Adèle glanced up from her conversation on the other side of Gil, but the woman she was speaking to leaned in and said something in her ear that distracted her.

  “At a bank,” Gil said, “after I knocked her over on the sidewalk.”

  “Ah,” Maurice said.

  “We struck up a conversation, and I told her I needed a place to stay.”

  “So she showed you her extra room.”

  Gil grinned. “Yeah.”

  Maurice lowered his voice, leaning in. “I’ve known Adèle a long time. Be careful.”

  Gil sat back. Adèle, so far, had been nothing but helpful to him. She had spent all morning tracking down Enko—even if they hadn’t been successful.

  “She’s okay.” He said it a little louder than he had intended.

  Adèle looked over with an inquisitive smile. “Maurice tell you stories about me?”

  Maurice laughed. “Not yet!”

  A man with a black goatee leaned across the table. “You tell us.”

  “No, no,” Maurice said. “Only Adèle gets to tell you about Adèle.”

  Adèle sat up straight in mock seriousness. “Absolument!”

  Laughter all around.

  Then the woman next to her said something in French to the young man, and pretty soon they were all talking and laughing again—in French. Maurice, however, did
n’t join them. He was watching Gil.

  “You have an unusual ring,” he said.

  Gil flattened his hand. “It was given to me.”

  “Would you mind if I looked at it?”

  Gil remembered what Adèle had told him earlier. “Sure.”

  Maurice’s touch was surprisingly gentle, despite his thick fingers. He fished an eyepiece from a shirt pocket and wedged it into his right eye, bringing the stone under a lamp that hung next to him. He turned the ring slightly right and left, grunting as he did. Then he flipped the ring around and inspected the setting. Adèle winked at Gil and went deeper into conversation with her neighbor.

  Maurice popped the eyeglass out, stowed it in his pocket and held the ring out for Gil to take back. He gave Gil a look of genuine curiosity.

  “Do you know anything about it?” he asked.

  “My friend gave it to me before he died,” Gil said. “The ring belonged to his family. There’s a legend that goes with it.”

  Maurice leaned forward. “Can you recount it for me?”

  So Gil did. He told the story of doomed love and of a ring made by an immortal man.

  “ ‘Antoine et Clotilde,’ ” Maurice said. “Yes, I have heard that tale, too. Were you ever told how Antoine died?”

  “Only that he was inconsolable and died the following spring.”

  Maurice sat back. “There’s more to it than that.”

  Now Gil leaned forward.

  During Clotilde’s wake, Antoine refused to leave her coffin’s side. His father had to drag him home from the cemetery after the burial. Antoine took to carrying the ring around with him wherever he went. When men headed north to the lumber camps, Antoine signed up.

  “You’re not strong enough,” his father said. “You’ve never done this kind of work.”

  “I’ll find my place,” Antoine said.

  The jobber quickly assessed his worth. He paired him with a seasoned lumberjack who had brought two draft horses with him. Antoine proved good with the horses, so as soon as the cold truly set in, the crew boss put them to icing.

  “What’s icing?” Gil asked.

  Maurice explained that to transport logs to launching points by riverbanks and lakeshores, the workers dragged them on heavy sleighs. Overnight the icing crew drove a double sleigh loaded with a large tank filled with water, which they spread over the trails, allowing ice to form. Once the barrel was empty, they’d refill it at a lake and repeat the process until dawn. They iced the trails as thoroughly as they could for the crews to slide along come morning.

  “It sounds like exhausting work,” Gil said.

  Maurice nodded.

  The work suited Antoine.

  Although perpetually tired and cold, he only had to deal with the older lumberjack. He, in turn, proved taciturn. They slept during the day and hardly spoke at night. Antoine brooded about Clotilde in silence.

  Come spring, his normally quiet partner began talking about home. He hoped to be back in time for lambing and wondered whether his youngest had begun walking. Antoine’s heart hardened at this talk of home life. He had lost the only woman he would ever love. He’d never have a home to call his own.

  When the jobber started asking for draveurs, Antoine signed up. His partner tried to talk him out of it.

  “A draveur?” Gil asked.

  Maurice explained. In spring, they released the walls of logs that the lumberjacks had piled up. These tumbled into the water to begin a long route down swollen streams and lakes, to reach mills or to be exported to England. On lakes and larger rivers, the flotillas of logs were corralled into log booms—sixty-foot-long floating chains of logs linked to each other. The draveurs manned the big boats that pulled the logs along. On smaller rivers, the logs were set loose. Sometimes they floated easily, and sometimes they cascaded down, roaring and thwacking in a deafening cacophony of wood slamming on wood. The draveurs’ job was to keep the flow going, pushing and pulling with long poles and peaveys—javelins with a hinged hook.

  “It sounds dangerous,” Gil said.

  Maurice nodded again.

  Inevitably, the logs jammed. These were the most dangerous times. Logs had to be pulled free. Sometimes explosives were used to blow the jam away. Antoine always ran into the thick of the work.

  At a particularly treacherous set of rapids, the swollen river had almost overtaken the banks. The current frothed, running swift, freezing and deadly. At the top of the rapids, a jam formed. Though it was still small, if they didn’t loosen it immediately, the logs would back up for several miles.

  Antoine ran to the pile. No one could stop him. He pushed and pulled as more experienced men yelled at him to stop and wait for help. They wanted to string a rope, use longer poles. This was no place for a man by himself.

  The men who watched that day said they saw glee in Antoine’s eyes as he pried the logs loose. At the pop of the freed logs, Antoine raised his arms in victory and, for the first time since he came to the lumber camps, he smiled. And then he went under.

  They found his body downstream, barely recognizable, crushed and battered by the logs.

  Gil shuddered at this story.

  “What happened to the ring?”

  “The legend says that the undertaker found it, sewn into the hem of Antoine’s shirt. It was a miracle that it hadn’t been lost when he was killed.”

  “That seems incredible.”

  Maurice grinned. “It’s all a legend. Now see here.” He pointed to the stone in Gil’s ring. “This is grenat—garnet, from northern Québec. Good quality. The setting is old and a bit rough, done by someone with rudimentary tools but with true craft. I would guess the forgeron made jewelry on the side.”

  “For-juh-ROH?” Gil asked.

  “A blacksmith. Every village needed one. But the metal is impure—you can see the streaks.”

  “Would you know where it was done?”

  Maurice frowned. “No. But if I were looking, I’d start in the Laurentides, at one of the smaller settlements that were around at least one hundred years ago. They used to mine garnet up there by Le Gros-Curé.”

  “Luh-groh-coo-RAY?”

  “It’s a village, about a hundred and sixy kilometers northwest of Montréal.”

  Gil thought about that for a moment. “Do you think it was really made by an immortal man?”

  Maurice burst out laughing. Adèle looked over, curious. Gil frowned, annoyed.

  “Gil, it is a legend. True, that ring is old. And the story is a good one. But …” He paused. Gil waited. Maurice shook his head. “Every garnet ring in Québec comes with that story.”

  Gil walked silently through the evening gloom on their meander back to Adèle’s apartment.

  “Maurice, he tell you quite a bit. Non?”

  Gil yanked himself out of his thoughts. “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He filled me in on the legend.”

  “He knew about it?” She sounded excited.

  Gil recounted what Maurice had told him.

  “But then,” she said, “this must be the same ring!”

  “Maurice said everyone who has a garnet ring is told this story.”

  “But not everyone has a ring made by a blacksmith, all the way in the Laurentides, over a hundred years ago. Even Maurice said the silver was old and the garnet was probably from that area.”

  Yes, Gil thought. It did all fit.

  “What you need to do,” Adèle said, “is find the old smith shop.”

  “But Maurice said it was only a legend.”

  Adèle shrugged this aside. “Of course he say that. He don’t like to believe in those things that aren’t scientifique.”

  They passed a convenience store with the word “Dépanneur” on a sign above.

  Adèle turned in. “I finish my last cigarette,” she explained.

  She asked for a pack from the man behind the counter. When he rang up the sale, she pulled out her wallet and her face fell. “Ah non!”


  Gil saw that she no longer had any cash.

  “I can take care of it,” he said.

  “But you don’t even smoke.…”

  “No. It’s okay. You’ve helped me so much.”

  She took the ten-dollar bill, paid for the cigarettes and handed him the change.

  “Thank you,” she said, lighting up outside. “It’s a very bad habit, I know, but I can’t give it up.”

  The laptop was still on the table when they returned to the apartment, reminding Gil of their defeat.

  Adèle unplugged it and stored it in her room. “Maybe tomorrow we have more luck.”

  Gil nodded but he had begun to worry. This was his third day on the road. Tomorrow was Friday, and the trip to the Berkshires would be over. His parents expected him home tomorrow afternoon.

  Gil had texted his mother back. Got a ride Fri. Have my key. But he knew Mom. She’d be home waiting. And when he didn’t show up, she’d figure out pretty quickly that he never made the trip. The first place his parents would think of was Enko’s grave—they would have to. And they wouldn’t have any reason not to contact Enko’s parents to find out where it was. He might be able to beat them to it, but only if he tracked down the cemetery tomorrow morning.

  But even then, that might be too late. Wherever Enko was buried, it probably wasn’t on the island of Montreal. Gil had to figure out transportation to the cemetery, and that took time. True, there was no way his parents could travel north fast enough to get there before him. But what if his dad called the police and had someone waiting for him? Once they found him, they’d drag him home.

  He sat on his mattress, staring at the stark walls. There was no way he was going home. He couldn’t bear it. He needed to head north. And maybe Maurice was wrong, and he’d find an immortal man somewhere up there.

  Gil turned off the light and stretched out.

  He tried to imagine what it must be like to be immortal, to live through every age and see the world change, knowing that as others died, you’d cheated death.

  Gil sat up.

  How had the man cheated death? He must know something that others didn’t, maybe something he could teach Gil. And Gil would use that knowledge to bring Enko back. Then he thought of Frankenstein and those cheesy vampire and zombie movies. Could he really bring Enko back, hale and whole? All the stories he’d ever heard told him no. But the immortal man … He must know something.