V
II
After eight years, they came to settle in our city, or rather right next to us in Winnipeg. My uncle claimed that the winter
must be easier to endure in a city like Winnipeg, with its streets laid out in ranks, than in regions where the farms are at least a mile apart. He likewise thought he would find in town doctors who might try something more for Th£r6sina than old tags of advice: always keep dry and warm, avoid rain
Having sold his farm, my uncle went into watch and clock repairing in Winnipeg. When anyone manifested a certain astonishment at his choice of this trade, my uncle laughed a little and said that we were still far indeed from conceiving all the things he knew how to do and could undertake. He explained that the city was short precisely of such repairmen; he had noticed it the very first day, as he wandered about the streets, and he had reached the conclusion that he would earn a very good living at putting clocks and watches in order. In our neighborhood, he hinted, there must be many timepieces in bad shape; they would not agree, and how many appointments that must make people miss! Beneath his joking exterior, my uncle was a man whom you eventually discovered to be full of common sense. And, in fact, he became quite skillful at his new trade.
Unfortunately, my aunt was not helped by this move made in her behalf. I recall how, when we went to see her of a January evening, we had to hasten to close behind us the heavy storm door, and then the inside door with its felt weatherstrip. Sometimes, even, thanks to excess of quickness, we caught the tails of our coats in this door. And then a straw mat must at once be thrust over the crack of the threshold. . . . Yet however speedily we observed these regulations, a bit of glacial night must have slipped into the house and reached the tiny sealed room at the end of a hallway, where my aunt kept herself snug, for very often the moment we came in, what yve heard was Th^resina's gasping, terrible cough.
You did not go visit her in clothing that might still exhale something of the snow and frost; first of all you warmed yourself in front of the big stove always stuffed with logs and purring evenly; there my uncle, who never lost his gaiety, would tell us about the amusing clients he received in his Main Street shop, and he would make us laugh.
When, later on, you presented yourself before my aunt Theresina, it did not mean that you saw her face. My aunt was still fearful of the cold air through which we had come, and of which some whiff might remain upon us, in our hair, upon our outer skins. For a year or two she had been living
hooded and muffled, wrapped in a complex of blankets, and deep in a horrible sweet and skkish haze, for the Winnipeg doctors made my aunt smoke medicated cigarettes. A shawl thrown over her head, the edge of which she occasionally raised to peer at us, sheltered her like a tent; in its depths you could make out something that shone—probably Th6r6sina's eyes, the blue eyes my uncle Majorique had loved. A long thin hand hid the rest of the face. My aunt now breathed only from behind her hand, as though not to inhale the least bit more air than was absolutely needed. Never have I seen a person breathe with such care, prudence, and even terror.
We children, having greeted my aunt, always hastened to return to my uncle, who would sing us something or suggest a game of dominoes. To us it seemed impossible that to this huge package of skirts and wool and shawls which was my aunt you might talk, recount your enthusiasms, smile; that toward her you might become affectionate and trusting. My mother, however, carried on real conversations with the odd bundle seated on the edge of the bed, and she must even have inspired it to laughter, for at times the whole mass of blankets would shake in a motion at once funny and frightening. But soon a wheezing would emerge from it, the motion would change aspect, and everyone would rush to help my aunt regain her breath, gently tap her back, hold her up, try to forestall an attack. In fact, laughing was even more baneful to my aunt than breathing. And hence not often were amusing or witty things recounted to my aunt Th^rdsina. Moreover, even on such occasions, she showed preference for people with afflictions . . . and in this department my mother spoiled her, telling her for a whole evening long about a veritable crowd of wrfetched beings who aroused my aunt's interest. She would nod and conclude, "Yes, indeed! There are those worse off than we!"
Meanwhile, my mother always claimed that during those long winter nights she herself learned a great deal from my aunt, for if Th6r6sina was incapable of sewing or cooking herself, she knew very well how one must go about it to succeed in all things. Remote from any practical knowledge, she had accumulated very sound theories about everything—a trifle harsh and authoritarian, but most sound, Maman insisted. Then, too, having a great deal of time to watch people make mistakes, commit serious blunders, my aunt had acquired a remarkable capacity for criticism; she could put her finger on
exactly the spot where others went wrong. It was even a truly extraordinary thing that, never venturing forth, living immured and beyond movement, she should have been able to run her house very efficiently, know everything that went on, not only in her own home, but in almost every part of the city. She was the first to inform my mother of the behavior of our cousin Yvonne—her parents had entrusted her to mine so that she might finish her schooling in our city—our cousin Yvonne, whom we thought very devout, since every evening she went to church, but who, in fact, used this as a cover for her meetings with a certain Monsieur Belleau, a newcomer, especially worrisome because no one knew anything about his antecedents. And this time my mother was truly incensed—more against Th6r£sina, indeed, than against Yvonne.
But my aunt Tter&ina's real passion, far more than for criticism, was, above all else, for geraniums. She had some of a shade of red so unsullied, so bright, that I have never seen the like since. When she was not too indisposed, my aunt would come look at them in the small pots lined up along her windows. She would dust them—I can still see the way she did it!—with the tip of her finger, delicately cleaning off their leaves, and she would say, "You must not leave dust on the leaves of plants; plants breathe through their leaves; plants need good air." And she was still overjoyed to be alive when the month of June came round and she could set her geraniums out in the open. My uncle would offer to do this task for her. He pointed out to her that by going close to the still damp, cool soil, she would lay herself open to aggravating her malady. But, protected by three or four sweaters, a small trowel in her hand, one fine day my aunt would herself emerge to set out her plants.
Alas, the Manitoba summer is very short. With the first autumn rains, TWresina had to return to her tiny overheated room, reeking with the smell of the dreadful cigarettes which she began once more to smoke. And my uncle Majorique would begin to say that Manitoba did not in the least suit Theresina's illness, that she needed a wholly different land ... California, for instance ... yes, why not California ?
"She, who so loves plants," my uncle would say, "does it make any sense that she can only see them and enjoy them for two months in the year? ..." And he sent to a travel agency for pamphlets and all sorts of information about California.
Thus it was, by means of brochures and vividly colored
post cards—they were thought to be overvivid—that California loomed up for us on the frozen prairie horizon, not too far off, and wonderfully real, with small white houses basking in the sun!
From this medley of cards sent to my uncle, my auftt chose one that showed geraniums—no longer mere plants, but almost trees!—covered with huge and glorious flowers. My aunt folded this bit of paper and preserved it between the pages of her prayer book, alongside pictures of the Pope and mementos of the dead bearing the words "In Memoriam." Thus, from the start, did my aunt show sympathy for California.
She would look at the little white stucco houses on the post cards and would say, "See! They're pretty as places to live!"
She already knew that inside these small dwellings there is a garden which is called a "patio."
And finally she invited my mother to come visit her someday in California.
"When we g
et there" explained my aunt, "you'll come, Eveline. I'll make you come. You, with your rheumatism—it will do you good, too!"
In our family all of us were far from taking too seriously my uncle's new idea. We spoke of it as a silly scheme. Silly? .. . Yes . .. certainly ... if you thought of the distance, of the money required. All the same, my uncle had looked into the matter seriously: the American government would allow him to establish himself with his family in the United States, but in view of the fact that my aunt was incurable, only on condition of his possessing a capital sum of ten thousand dollars. Apart from that, as far as the warmer air and sunlight were concerned, wasn't the plan the most reasonable thing in the world ? Of course, my uncle was far from possessing the capital required by the government of the United States.
So, for want of anything better, and since he had heard that the Saskatchewan climate was auspicious for bronchial infections, my uncle left our city and took all his family to live in Gravelbourg.
Ill v
In Saskatchewan, not only does it blow in winter, but almost all summer, and perhaps the summer wind there is more noxious than the winter. We used to be told—we who had
never seen the desert, nor a great deal of Saskatchewan—that the wind blowing there felt as though it came off the Sahara. Yet, through such comparisons, our imaginations heard from afar the Gravelbourg wind, that sad, hot, desiccating wind; all day it sucked up the poor soil, reducing it to wandering, miserable dust. Thus, particle by particle, the best of the land disappeared. My aunt Th£r6sina wrote us a short and very sad letter, in which she said, "Dear Eveline: I take my pen in hand to tell you that here all goes well enough, except that I cannot go out, even in midsummer. The wind chokes me . . . the cattle perish . . . the wells are drying up. . . ."
Out there my uncle had found too much competition in his trade as watch repairer—or rather, better opportunities for prosperity in another. He became a lumber merchant; in those days a new house was being completed in Gravelbourg every week. The first year he sold I know not how many thousands of board feet. Nevertheless, since the climate was not exactly what suited Th^r&ina, my uncle was already seeking a buyer for all the wood remaining on his hands. My aunt drew on her reserves of patience. She retained her faith in the California plan, and henceforth ended her letters with such phrases as: "We have got a little closer, it's true, to California, but not so much so, when you think it over. ... It must come soon, because, before long, I shan't even have the strength to leave this dreadful Gravelbourg. ..."
Then we learned that my uncle Majorique, after four and one half years spent at Gravelbourg, had turned even farther west. The family had made its move; the letter bearing us the news was posted from North Battleford.
Whatever could have induced my uncle to select this town ? Gravelbourg might do in a pinch! It was a French Canadian center relatively toward the south, and when the family arrived there, they had run into a few acquaintances; but North Battle-ford! That ugly pioneer town established in mud, at the moment resounding from dawn to dusk with the racket of hammers, passing through a turbulent boom, like the towns of the Klondike during the gold rush! We have long thought that my uncle's sole motive for deciding upon this stop along his way was to acquire some money there. He was able to revert to his former trade, to which he added that of jeweler. "Two things that go together," wrote my uncle, "for here there 202 Street of Riches
are many rich, and I feel I can sell them without trouble small diamonds for engagement rings and other odds and ends of precious stones—not too costly—for anniversaries. . . ."
At about this time, however, while my uncle was going full steam ahead, my aunt began to withdraw her confidence. She would henceforth refer to him as "the Utopian!" or "the Dreamer!" and things even less flattering. "You know your brother," she wrote to Maman, "full of wild fancies and unstable! ... I go bouncing from town to town; scarcely have we time to unpack our things when our fine Majorique wants to move again. . . . California! Yes! Talk about California! At the rate we're going, one of these days we'll end up in Alaska! When you get right down to it, I wonder whether your brother hasn't made an excuse out of this California scheme to satisfy his fidgets. . . ."
For his own part, my uncle Majorique complained to us a little about my aunt Ther&ina. "The poor woman is becoming quite ill tempered. I know it is her dreadful illness that makes her this way, and I myself don't mind too much ... but the children are growing up,.. and they don't like to be scolded all the time. I'm afraid we shall not keep Maxence and Clarisse at home with us much longer."
Obviously to my aunt Th^r6sina, cheerfulness, bustle, songs, dancing—all such things seemed less and less natural. We heard that she was strict with her daughters and her grown sons. However, what she deplored the most was that Serge had retraced his steps to Gravelbourg, where he was managing the lumber business. Then she had Clarisse to regret; she had found a match—a wealthy one, according to my uncle—at North Battleford.
"We leave children in every town through which we pass," my aunt wrote; "we soon shall not have a single one left . . . what a diaspora!" And she reverted, making it responsible for all these misfortunes, to that stupid scheme of going to California. "We should indeed have stayed home," she told us. And now there could be no vestige of doubt that, through time's weird alchemy—that transformation in our memories which it alone is capable of effecting—the years spent in Manitoba, and even the stifling little Winnipeg room, had become for my aunt the best part of her life. v
It was sixteen years after they had left us that we learned they had reached Edmonton.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed my mother. "Think of choosing
Edmonton! The northernmost city in Canada! Poor Th£r-esina, she's good and far from California now!" Suffering more and more from rheumatism, my mother had reached the point of wishing as much for herself as for my aunt that she might see them at last settled in California, since the invitation to pay them a visit there in orange blossom time had never been withdrawn. And nothing seemed more surprising to me in those days than this eagerness to get away manifested by the older people among us. Just the opposite of what happens elsewhere, where it is the young who want to journey forth, here it was the poor souls weary of the cold, the sick, the arthritic, all those who were beset with age or feeling poorly. Why, we young people were keen about the tingling winter, the snow crunching under our feet, our breath freezing as it left our lips, the droll fringes of frost over our lashes, and, overhead, the blue sheen of the stars, as well as, on occasion, the great far-flung play of the aurora borealis!
From Edmonton we received only one single brief letter from Theresina, which began saying, "I take my pen in hand to tell you that today the thermometer registers fifty-five below zero. . . . Even the horses can't go out. I thought I used to know what cold is like; my mistake was to have complained of it too soon. . . ." Toward the end she told us: "That fine fellow Majorique finds Edmonton a city of the future. ... He speaks of the future as though we were still twenty years old. ... As for me, I must be drawing near my end. ... It was not God's will that I go down into the South. God's will be done."
Later on she was too wretched to give us news. We heard of them through No^mi, who became a trained nurse, settled in Edmonton, and refused to leave when the rest of the family moved on toward Vancouver.
My aunt had become so pessimistic, so thoroughly certain that she would go forever from cold to colder, that in British Columbia she long refused to believe the air was soft and agreeable. One day, however, having taken a few steps out of doors, my aunt, who believed that she was still living in a region where nature was cruel, saw roses in bloom. She sent us some of their dried petals, telling my mother, "Maybe you won't believe it—I picked them on the twenty-eighth of February, while I thought of you, my dear Eveline. ..." A little joy, we 104 Street of Riches
saw with pleasure, was rebuilding feelings of affection in our poor aunt's heart.
But the coastal fogs did her ast
hma no good. Eventually my aunt shut herself up out there in a stifling little room, as she had done almost all her life, be it here or be it there, and -when you came down to it, as she said—how much had she seen of so many cities, of the many weary miles she had traveled, of the almost enire continent she had traversed ?
At that juncture my uncle was setting up a laundry business. Ever young, alert, and enterprising, he had certainly just discovered that in this city there were too few laundrymen. This undertaking flourished so mightily that within two or three years he had a string of branch stores and his third son, Leopold, could take over its management. This son of his was to remain in Vancouver; and so, even today, almost all across the country there are children of my aunt Theresina and my uncle Majorique, as though to prove once and for all that these constant moves, their unbelievable wanderings, were no mere figment of the imagination. As for my uncle, at last we realized to how great an extent, despite all appearances, he had been a man of one set idea . . . that if he had taken a northern route to go south and then had veered west, he had all the same been making his way toward his goal. In any case, relying upon the good faith of a real-estate agent, he bought a parcel of land in California. It was said that he arranged the purchase before leaving in order the better to make up my aunt's mind, for had the money not been invested and the place ready to receive Ther&ina, almost certainly she would have been unwilling, despite the fog, to set off once more.
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