by Nero Blanc
“Wow …” Belle stared, her concealing scarf forgotten, her hat pushed high on her brow. “This is like being in the middle of some otherworldly circus. It’s as if we’ve left planet Earth.” A juggler’s hoop, rimmed with fire, passed above her head. Another and another followed. There were shrieks and “oohs” and “aahs” on every side. Then a trio of acrobats mounted unicycles that appeared built entirely of glowing neon tubing. Bathed in an extraterrestrial glow, the machines seemed to dance with one another.
“Fantastic,” Rosco echoed. “Stuff like this could put LSD out of business.”
The couple wandered among the milling crowd, pausing to warm themselves beside the bonfires, roasting marshmallows, stepping inside one of the dining tents to sip a glass of wine.
“Let’s find Pamela’s installation,” Belle said—which wasn’t as easy a task as it seemed given the full-scale extravaganzas all around. They discovered the echoing wind tunnel that altered each speaker’s voice until it became unrecognizable; a vast mirror that seemed to billow and blow, reconfiguring spectators’ bodies and faces; and finally, on a man-made rise, letters that flashed on and off within the icy ground as if someone trapped under the earth were transmitting messages in code.
The wind picked up, scattering snow like sugar; the letters blinked on, blinked off; the meaning changed. ICI to ICY—“here” in Montréal to “cold,” which it was. LETTRES to LETTERS … the French queen, REINE, to REIGN … REGRET to REPENT … JOYEUX to JOYFUL … GEANTS to GIANTS … ESPERER to its opposite, which was DESPAIR … L’HIVER, “winter,” to SHIVER … CONFONDRE to CONFOUNDS … With each transformation, the speed accelerated until the words almost lost their meaning.
“This is fun,” Belle said as hundreds of images flickered ever faster. Rosco agreed, then held her close:
“I hate to say this, but …”
Belle laughed. “You’re freezing.”
“Getting into our warm bed wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“Party poop.”
“I wasn’t suggesting the party had to end.”
A loud thud from the next door guest room awakened Belle. She looked toward the communal wall, realizing with dismay that old houses were just that: homes where noise traveled, where sound-proofing was unknown. “Darn,” she muttered as the heavy tread of feet creaking across the floorboards and the murmur of a voice talking in rapid and urgent French continued to invade her space. She glanced at the clock. It was past 2 A.M. The revelers next door must have just returned from their evening out. The voice grew louder; there was another crash, and the solid thump of a body hitting a piece of furniture.
“Oh darn!” Belle said. She pulled the covers over her ears. Rosco remained deep in dreamland.
“YOU slept well, I hope?” It was Helene who spoke as she poured coffee for Rosco and Belle. The room adjacent to a narrow but efficient kitchen was pleasantly bright with crisp white tablecloths covering each round table and potted plants lining a long window ledge. The smell of cinnamon and sautéed mushrooms perfumed the air. The sound of something fattening sizzling in a frying pan made the morning quite perfect.
“Not exactly …” Belle began but their host had already moved toward another table, repeating the identical query. Belle looked at Rosco. “I guess our neighbors won’t be down for quite a while.”
“Neighbors?” Pamela asked. She was seating herself at an adjacent table.
“The folks next door to us,” Rosco explained. “They must have been partying late. Belle heard them come in. I didn’t … but then, I didn’t hear much of anything.”
Pamela was about to reply, but her cousin passed by, a censorious glance indicating that family members were supposed to help rather than expect to be waited on. “I’ve done it again,” Pamela said. She rose but, moving between the closely packed furniture, managed to pull the tablecloth with her. Belle lunged for it. “A bull in a china shop,” Pamela admitted.
“We really enjoyed seeing your installation last night,” Belle said in response. “Especially toward the end of the exhibit: COURAGE to the English COURAGE, COUR to CORE, MELANCOLIE to MELANCHOLY, COUPABLE to CULPABLE; and the speed with which the changes occurred—”
“Speed?” Pamela demanded. “CULPABLE? MELANCHOLY? … But my intention was for a reasonable and thought-provoking pace … and those words weren’t part of the design … Hmmm, maybe Jean-Claude is adding his own—”
“Pamela!”
“I’ll be back. Something tells me your omelettes may be done.”
SUNLIGHT glinted over every inch of road and sidewalk, dazzling the eye and making the day summer-bright. Belle leaned close to Rosco as they strolled through the old city, pressing against him not because she was cold but because she was extraordinarily happy. Happy to be alive, happy to be with the person she most loved in the world, and happy to know that her love and admiration were returned. The sorrowful tale of a man who had disowned his children hung heavily on her heart, making her give abundant thanks for all the blessings she knew had been bestowed upon her.
“We’re lucky people, aren’t we, Rosco?”
“I know I am.”
“I am, too. Lucky to have you, friends, work I enjoy, a wonderful home—”
“A great dog.”
Belle regarded her husband. “Wouldn’t you say it was the other way around?”
“What do you mean?”
“That Kit owns us rather than vice versa?”
“She is a little spoiled …”
“A little!” Belle laughed. “In case you’d forgotten, you and I sleep in what we now refer to as ‘Kit’s bed.’”
“Well, where else would you want her to sack out?”
“That’s not my point.” Belle grinned, then turned to admire the scene. “What an absolutely gorgeous day! Let’s walk down to the river. If we can’t take a boat trip to see the sights, we can at least admire the ice-covered harbor on foot.”
They wandered along the promenade that lined the waterfront, crossing the frozen river to explore a park that in summer was a glowing, emerald green and that was now transformed into an enormous skating rink. Children, couples, old, young: everyone was zooming expertly along, gliding gleefully through the air. “What a nice, old-fashioned pastime,” Belle observed. “I imagine it’s been the city folk’s recreation since the town began.”
“You mean since Jacques Cartier first admired the scenery from atop Royal Mountain—Mont Réal—in 1535?”
“In 1535! How did you know that?”
“Looked it up … The view extends over sixty miles. The ‘royal’ refers to King Francis the First—François the First—of France. And those famous rapids were named Lachine because Cartier thought that possibly the sea route to China lay just beyond them—La Chine.”
Belle laughed and shook her head. “Any other historical tidbits you’d like to trot out? Or are you just going to wait and drop them in casual conversation?”
“In 1657, a French nun—now saint—one Marguerite Bourgeoys, established the Bonsecours church in an area that was then outside the city’s walls. She was Montreal’s first school teacher. The first nurse was Jeanne Mance, who arrived in 1642.”
“In 1642,” Belle echoed. “Imagine journeying all the way from France back then …” She let her eyes roam up toward the center of the old city and a wide and handsome square rimmed with stately eighteenth-century buildings. “Imagine when this was nothing but forest, nothing but endless trees, wild animals, and native peoples who didn’t want you to stay … I couldn’t have braved it, that’s for sure. I like my creature comforts too much.”
“Are you insinuating it might be time for a cup of cocoa and a chocolate-filled pastry?”
“We did eat all of two hours ago.” Belle chuckled as she linked her arm through Rosco’s, then her expression grew pensive. “Perhaps the Europeans who first settled in this place needed to be so tough and hard that they were almost inhuman … Marguerite, Jeanne, Cartier, Champlain: they must have had
iron constitutions and wills to match. And perhaps that emotional legacy is what Helene and Pamela and their mothers are dealing with right now.”
Rosco nodded his head, then answered with a gentle: “Are you ready to eat?”
“When am I not ready?”
THE day was so full of sightseeing, so full of food and the invigorating air of winter, that Belle and Rosco were sound asleep long before the celebratory city rolled up its sidewalks. But again, Belle was awakened by their noisy neighbors’ late return as they banged into furniture, gabbing loudly enough for the sound to penetrate the walls but not enough to be understood. Belle almost wished she could listen in. Eavesdropping on a private conversation would have given her a malicious pleasure that she felt was wholly justified under the circumstances. Instead, she decided to take action and protest the thoughtless behavior. She slipped out of bed without disturbing Rosco—who again lay unmoving and unconcerned—pulled on her robe, marched into the hall, and was about to knock on the adjoining door when the noise suddenly subsided.
“Hummmph,” she groused, then returned to bed, but her sleeping thoughts were bombarded by an odd assortment of folk: the rough-and-ready fur traders who had originally established Montreal’s wealth, the teachers, the statesmen, the priests and nuns who had struggled to create a cosmopolitan city on the banks of a vast and dangerous river, the Huron and Iroquois who had called this earth their home. All these people, flitting in and out of her dreams, existed not against the backdrop of a vibrant, modern metropolis but against a landscape of black-hearted forest and bone-breaking cold.
BELLE complained to Helene the next morning about their neighbors’ heedlessness. This time the hostess of Wordsworth House put down the coffeepot, responding with a decisive: “We will talk after breakfast, yes?”
True to her word, Helene conducted them into her office an hour later. Pamela was already there standing beside a small window that faced the rear alley. The cousins exchanged glances, then Pamela waved a dismissive hand:
“A ghost isn’t a problem unless you make it one, Helene.”
“But disturbing people—”
“Hold on,” interrupted Rosco. “Something must have gotten lost in translation. We’re talking about noisy guests, not ghosts.”
“One and the same around here,” Pamela replied airily. Helene glowered at her, but Pamela paid no heed. “The room next to yours isn’t occupied.”
“But—” Belle began to say.
Pamela stopped her with: “And you’re not the first visitor to complain of hearing noises in the night—or to infer that late-night revelers are the cause. Helene and I have discussed the situation before. Obviously, we’re of two different minds. I say: Use the fact; enjoy it; capitalize on it. But Helene feels that acknowledging our supernatural chum might scare away potential customers: i.e., her guests like discovering Montreal’s history, but don’t want to delve into the messier details.” Pamela shrugged her shoulders. “Personally, I envy you. In all the times I’ve visited, I’ve never heard a thing. If it happens again tonight, I’d love it if you’d wake me.”
“This is serious, Pamela,” her cousin argued.
“No, it’s not, Helene. Old houses are supposed to be haunted. You should advertise the fact, not try to hide it … the true vieux Montréal … After all, Place des Armes was where one of the bloodiest battles was fought between the settlers and Iroquois, and nearby Saint Paul Street was no more than a dirt track leading off into some exceedingly inhospitable woods. Who knows what good or ill occurred in this vicinity—”
“The Saint Paul’s that fronts the Bonsecours market?” Belle interrupted.
“And Marguerite Bourgeoys’s church,” was Pamela’s easy reply.
“Oh!” Belle’s eyes were wide. Rosco could see the wheels spinning inside her brain; for someone as amiable as she, Belle had a fascination with the lugubrious and grim. “When we were visiting the archaeology museum yesterday, we learned that Iroquois had attacked and raided the original fortifications near there.”
“That’s correct. The city didn’t have a peaceable birth. Not by a long shot … And as if it weren’t difficult enough carving a town out of wilderness, there were the French and Indian Wars in the 1750s when England attempted to capture the wealthy colony of New France, and the two forces’ generals—the British Wolfe and French Montcalm—were mortally wounded … then the American Revolution with Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys imprisoned in the fort here … Your apparition could be from any era: a soldier, a fur trader, an Iroquois chief—”
“Or a nun from the seventeenth century,” Belle interjected.
Pamela nodded in agreement, but Helene remained staunch in her insistence that the purported ghost had the potential of being a serious detriment to business. “You wouldn’t be so free and easy discussing metaphysical doings if it was affecting your work.”
This accusation had a peculiar effect. Pamela’s mouth tightened into a meditative and not altogether happy line. “Something is playing poltergeist with it,” she admitted at length, and her expression grew so grave no one interrupted. “Belle said she and Rosco saw MELANCOLIE change into MELANCHOLY, COUPABLE morph into CULPABLE … none of which were in the original mots croisés, and Jean-Claude maintains he had nothing to do with it.”
“Mots croisés?” Belle asked.
“Crossword …” Pamela’s shoulders hunched in guilty confession. “It was a puzzle I used as inspiration—”
Helene gasped. “Not Verbeux! What if our mothers learned you were paying him homage with your Letters From Our Past?”
“But I’m not honoring him … I just liked the notion of black words against a snow white ground. The puzzle inspired me. I only borrowed a few of his—”
Helene’s eyes narrowed; her nose grew pinched and angry. “Well, it serves you right if the machinery goes on the fritz, and spoils your fun!”
“You’re being silly, Helene—”
“No, I’m not! The man didn’t care two centimes for his children! He doesn’t deserve even this much consideration—”
“But I haven’t—”
“Could I interrupt for a moment?” Belle asked. The two warring parties spun toward her: Pamela in defensive sorrow, Helene in self-righteous indignation. “Your grandfather constructed crossword puzzles?”
“Heaps,” was Pamela’s ready reply.
“And we threw away every one of them as soon as we found them,” Helene spat out.
“But I take it one was saved?” Rosco interjected.
Pamela nodded slowly. “Despite everything Maxim Verbeux did—or failed to do—the utter extinction of his memory seemed so terribly sad. There was nothing left to connect us with the old man … no letters or photographs … just a boxful of mots croisés hidden in a closet upstairs. I had to rescue one.”
“And you’re certain it was your grandfather’s creation?” Belle asked.
“He signed it, and also entitled it Poetic Justice … Given the name of the house, I simply couldn’t consign it to the trash.”
Helene snorted in wrathful exasperation, but Belle ignored their hostess. “I’d like to see it if I might.”
“It’s in my room.”
Helene sighed afresh, then affixed a tight smile for her guests’ behalf. “If you will excuse me, I have work to attend to.”
LEADING the way to her room, Pamela gave a brief, embarrassed laugh as she attempted to dismiss her cousin’s censure. “Helene doesn’t view what I do as work, I’m afraid.”
Belle smiled in sympathy. “I hear the same type of criticism all the time.” Then she changed the subject. “Tell me about this poltergeist notion again.”
“Yesterday, when you shared your reaction to my installation piece, I realized you’d seen four words I hadn’t built into the design. You also mentioned how hectic and hurried the changes became. So I looked at the video … a tape is automatically made of each performance, and I was amazed at the alterations—and the speed. My technic
al assistant swore the device was working perfectly, so the only explanation is—”
“Ghostly intervention,” Belle interjected.
“I know it seems far-fetched.”
“Not if you believe this house is haunted, Pamela. And quite truthfully, I’ve experienced the phenomenon before.”
Pamela blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“It was in an ancient home,” Rosco added. “In England. Belle discovered a segment from a crossword, and assumed our hosts were playing a practical joke.”
“But they weren’t.” Pamela’s response was statement rather than query. “And when you look at Verbeux’s puzzle, you’ll know why I have my suspicions; it’s odd to the point of seeming like poetic smoke and mirrors.”
Poetic Justice
ACROSS
1. Ottawa dealmaker
4. Hoover; slang
7. Ghostly sound
10. Smoked meat
13. Gorilla; e.g.
14. Here in Montréal
15. Newt
16. Mr. Yale
17. enfin …
21. Metal bar
22. 35-Down quaff
23. Goofed
24. “___was in the beginning …”
25. A day in Dorado
26. Columbus’ ship
27. Layer
28. Does without
30. Com. giant
31. enfin …
36. Perfect mark
37. Turncoat
38. enfin …
46. Tear
47. Illuminators
48. Pester