Charles was obliged to remain in Montreal for two weeks while his sprained ankle healed, a process that was complicated by several badly torn ligaments. His period of convalescence cast a shadow over the Christmas holidays at the Fafard household, where Fernand insisted he stay until his ankle was better. Father Raphaël, kept informed every two days of Charles’s progress, telephoned the house himself after a week to find out how his young charge was faring. His voice was a model of compassion and understanding, which Charles found both surprising and curiously touching.
The preacher told him to take all the time he needed to get well. His job would be waiting for him whenever he was ready. Charles had undergone a tough trial. Who wouldn’t need time to recover? Tough trials were part of the human condition. It was in such times that a man was most in need of the support of his friends. Father Raphaël was there for him, in whatever humble capacity was required. Marc-Edouard and Maxime had told him about the terrible ordeal he had gone through, which had caused the death of his old and faithful dog, a death rendered even crueller by the circumstances in which it had occurred. Father Raphaël was not one of those who shrugged such things off; he completely understood how serious they were. When he himself had been a child, he’d had a dog for a companion for a number of years, and even today the memory of its death wrenched his heart. God put a measure of intelligence and goodness in the souls of animals as well as in humans, and we must respect and cherish all creatures since they came from Him.
The sermon went on for many minutes, and ended up trying Charles’s patience. The preacher’s syrupy tone sounded almost absurd. Was this his “telephone voice”? Or was he speaking from some kind of genuine emotion?
Why was he so concerned about Charles’s well-being? Charles wasn’t his son, he wasn’t even a friend. He was an employee. And an employee who not only shared none of his boss’s ideals, but was hostile to all of them; and Father Raphaël had known that since day one. So what was the big deal?
“I think it might be best if I let you rest for a while,” Father Raphaël said, struck by the lack of response from his interlocutor. “I’ll call you again in a few days.”
“Thank you,” Charles said simply.
He went back to his room and his morose memories. Since his return from the woods, his room was where he was most often to be found, stretched out on his bed, reliving over and over his unfortunate excursion with Boff. He would never forgive himself for having dragged his old friend into the forest in the depths of winter; he berated himself for having neglected to take the flashlight and more matches; he kicked himself a thousand times for his stupidity as an inexperienced woodsman; and he asked himself again and again whether a hot bath when they got back to the cabin would have saved his companion’s life. He saw Boff in his mind’s eye, lying on the table, wrapped in a blanket, shivering in front of the red-hot stove as it crackled and ticked, his supplicating eyes turned towards his master. “What if I had simply taken Boff with me when I first went to work for that old windbag, as I had meant to do all along when I got the job?” he wondered. “Poor old Boff would probably still be with me today.”
Blonblon and Steve came over a few times to cheer him up, secretly astonished that the death of a mere dog would cause anyone such persistent sorrow (a sentiment they didn’t dare mention aloud in Charles’s presence!). But only Céline’s tender ministrations were able to lift Charles from his lethargic state and coax a smile to his lips. Lucie and Fernand were also surprised at the depth of Charles’s grief, and thought that there must have been something else going on — some dark secret somehow related to that itinerant preacher who went around selling eternity wholesale. Finally, one night, unable to remain quiet any longer, Fernand barged into his adopted son’s room and asked him straight out if such were the case.
“Good Lord, Fernand,” Charles replied with a disdainful look on his face. “Where in the world did you come up with that idea?”
Parfait Michaud also showed up one afternoon, at Fernand’s instigation, and tried to reason with Charles. Boff could not have had a more loving and conscientious master, he said, and in any case, he had lived a full life and was about to die anyway.
“Sounds like a funeral oration,” said Charles, laughing nervously.
The notary looked at him a moment, shaking his head sadly.
“Charles, I don’t know if it’s possible to die happy, but I can tell you one thing: Boff died the best death any dog could ever hope for. First he saved your life, then he died by your side, close to the one person in the world he truly loved. I hope that idea will give you no small consolation. There are human beings whose deaths are a good deal more miserable than that!”
Charles looked at him coldly. “No,” he said, “that doesn’t console me very much. The pharmacist I used to work for,” he added, “Lalancette, used to say to me, ‘Other people’s pain doesn’t lessen your own.’”
“Maybe not,” said Parfait, his nostrils becoming slightly pinched, “but sometimes it helps us to accept our own pain, when we compare it to that of someone who is suffering more than we are. But never mind, Charles. I didn’t come here to lay a sermon on you, I came to help make you smile again. I’ve brought you a present. Yes, indeed. I know, I know, but I couldn’t help myself, you see…. With your permission I’ll just skip the formalities and unwrap it myself, because I want to … how shall I say… use it before you do.”
He dug into the pocket of his coat, which he had draped over the back of the sofa, and took out a small package wrapped in paper on which white snowmen frolicked on a red background — leftover Christmas wrapping paper — which he carefully removed. Inside was a book, the dustjacket of which showed an ancient warrior armed with a sword and brandishing a bronze shield.
“It’s Homer’s Odyssey, Charles, one of the fundamental texts of our civilization, and a thrilling read, too, once you get used to the idiosyncrasies of the time in which it was written. You haven’t read it already, have you? No, I didn’t think so. Would you mind if I read you a bit from Book XVII? You’re sure?”
“No, go ahead,” said Charles, intrigued, the beginning of a smile forming on his lips.
“This is nearing the end of the story. Ulysses has been away on his adventures for the past twenty years, and has finally returned home to Ithaca, only incognito, and he has just met the swineherd Eumaeus, who of course doesn’t recognize him.
As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying nearby raised its head and perked up its ears. It was Argos, the dog that had once belonged to the unfortunate Ulysses, who had fed it with his own hand in the old days but whom Fate had taken away to Troy. Other men had, in the meantime, taken the dog with them to hunt wild goats, deer and rabbits; but now, enfeebled by old age and in the absence of its master, it was lying on a dung heap, forgotten amid the manure of mules and cattle left beside the gate for Ulysses’; servants to come and take up and spread on the fields. There Argos lay, ridden with vermin. But now it had recognized Ulysses approach; it wanted to drag itself over to the feet of its master; but it was too weak; filled with joy, it could only wag its tail and lift its ears.
Ulysses saw Argos and his eyes flooded with tears; he turned his head and wiped his eyes quickly to hide his emotion from the swineherd, who noticed nothing. Then Ulysses spoke to the swineherd:
‘Eumaeus,’ he said,’ here is a curious thing. That dog lying there on the dung heap has a fine body. I don’t know if, being so beautiful, it was once a racing dog or just one of those pets people keep in their houses, tossing it scraps from their table, the kind of animal that kings raise for sport!
And the swineherd Eumaeus replied:
‘That dog belonged to a man who died many years ago. If he still had the form and the qualities that he had when Ulysses went away to Troy, you would be amazed by his swiftness and strength. Once a wild beast was in its sight, it never escaped into the depth of the woods; and it was gifted with an excellent intuition. Now troubles afflict the poor ani
mal. Its master has long departed from this land, and its master’s servants no longer look after it. They have left it here to perish. Alas, that is the nature of slaves: no sooner does the master put away his whip than they become negligent and lazy. When thunder-voiced Jupiter subjected Man to a life of servitude, he took away half his value.’
Having thus spoken with the swineherd, Ulysses entered the palace, which he walked through to stand among Penelope’s suitors. But the blackness of death covered the eyes of Argos, who had just seen his beloved master again after twenty years.”
A few times during his reading, overcome by emotion, the notary had had to stop to compose himself. When he finished, he set the book down on his lap and, for a moment, neither he nor Charles said a word. In the hallway, standing stock still and with bated breath, Céline waited for the conversation to continue.
“So, you see, Charles,” Parfait said after clearing his throat, “even if Argos had a good death, he was a great deal less lucky than Boff. Argos died of happiness after twenty years of living a useless life lying on a manure pile, whereas Boff… well… you know as well as I do … at least…” The notary stood up and held the book out to Charles. “It’s a good read. The Odyssey is one of the great books … After three thousand years it still has something to teach us about life.”
Without saying a word, his eyes filled with tears, Charles stood up, put his arms around Parfait Michaud, and hugged him warmly — a gesture that almost made the notary appreciate how Argos must have felt when he was overcome by joy.
Every two days, accompanied by Céline, Charles went to the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital for his physiotherapy treatments. One day, however, he announced that his ankle was sufficiently improved that he could make his way to the hospital on his own.
“This way,” he told her, “you’ll be able to stay at the hardware store and Fernand won’t have to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
His appointment was for three o’clock. Forty minutes later, looking somewhat the worse for wear, he threw his crutch into the back seat, slid behind the wheel of his car, and drove out of the hospital parking lot. Instead of returning to Fernand’s house, however, he drove to Villa Frontenac, the restaurant that was famous for its smoked-meat sandwiches, and spent a long time over a cup of coffee and La Presse. Then, towards five thirty, he looked at his watch, left the restaurant, and drove to rue Lalonde, not far from the Fafards’;. He’d known the area for most of his life: it was where his old daycare centre had been, in a building that was now owned by a furniture maker. He hadn’t set foot on the property in ages, and saw with satisfaction that the building was empty. The workshop was no doubt closed for the holidays.
Leaning on his crutch, he managed without too much difficulty to open the gate that led into the backyard, and was relieved to see that the old cherry tree was still there, although in a sadly mutilated state. It was the tree beneath which, as a child, he had buried the little yellow dog. He hobbled towards it.
It was beside this poor cherry tree that Céline had met him three years before, to prevent him from making a terrible mistake. It was there, in fact, that their love for each other had surfaced. But above all it was there where the little yellow dog lay, his faithful friend, whom he had perhaps not known well, and who, although he was dead, had brought him so much more comfort than most of the humans he had had to do with.
He had come to tell him about Boff.
He found an old wooden crate, emptied of its contents, in front of a sheet-metal shed, and dragged it over to the tree to use as a bench. He thought about lighting a cigarette but decided against it. To smoke in front of the little yellow dog seemed a mark of disrespect. He looked around the area, now in the fading daylight. His old daycare centre had indeed changed for the worse. All of Montreal, in fact, had become uglier. All of life.
A sort of muffled silence reigned over the city, the silence of a huge city slumbering under its winter blanket, interrupted from time to time by the snore of a passing automobile or the internal rumbling of a truck. He was buffeted by a damp breeze that brought with it the smell of woodsmoke and grilled meat. It made him feel slightly nauseous, or perhaps that was merely the effect of his sadness, a heavy melancholy he didn’t seem able to shake off.
His eye fell on the spot where he thought he remembered burying the dog. A small mound covered in snow, nothing more. Maybe he had the wrong spot? It had been such a long time ago.
Ah! If only he’d been as demanding of himself, as headstrong, with Boff as he had been with this little yellow dog… But why keep going back to the same recriminations? How could he get rid of this mill wheel of remorse that kept turning in his heart, slowly poisoning his thoughts? Who could help him? No one. Despite what he had said to the notary, not even the story of Argos had been able to sweep away his pain. Was he going to lose his mind over a dog? Wouldn’t that be raising one folly on top of another?
He took the glove off his right hand, bent over, and patted the snow-covered mound a few centimetres from his feet. “My poor dog, do you still remember me? Do you remember all the trouble I went to to save you from the cold? Well, I’ve failed again. My dog Boff died, too. I’ve buried him in Fernand’s backyard, which was a difficult and miserable business, I can tell you. The ground was frozen solid. Now I have to try to forget him, but I don’t seem to be able to … What am I going to do?”
He felt a kind of warmth arise from the ground he had cleared with his bare hand, and heard, in his head, but with astonishing clarity and precision, the sound of a dog barking joyfully, a sound he recognized because he had heard it a thousand times before: it was Boff, speaking to him from the Other Side, telling him all was well, that everything was fine, that he, Charles, could get back to the business of living.
Charles remained seated on the wooden crate for a long time with a myriad of thoughts running through his head, oblivious to the dampness that was settling at the end of the day, until finally the cold forced him to leave.
That night at dinner, Lucie thought Charles appeared to be in a better frame of mind, and was happy to see him eat once again. He teased Henri about putting on weight, and Fernand made him laugh out loud with a story about a crackpot customer. After dinner he announced that he would return to his own apartment the next day, since his ankle was healed enough that he could walk almost normally.
He had another reason for wanting to go to his own place, but it was one he could hardly mention to Fernand and Lucie. Despite the open-mindedness, laboriously acquired, of his adopted parents in matters of sex, he and Céline would feel infinitely more at ease about making love in the apartment than they ever would in the house.
Charles had been back at work for five weeks. He had rejoined Father Raphaël and his other assistants in Granby, where the small team had been preparing for a large meeting in a room in which auction sales were usually held. The preacher and the two others were staying in the Grandbyen Hotel, on the city’s main street. Charles had arrived in the middle of the afternoon and immediately called up to the preacher’s room. The welcome he received from his boss completely floored him.
Father Raphaël was alone. He seemed thinner, nervous, and tired, although he appeared to be in an excellent mood. He asked after Charles’s health, and insisted that he be told in great detail about the ordeal in the forest that had led to Boff’s death, a story that Charles told with great reticence because he was still deeply affected by it. The preacher gave Charles his complete attention, nodding his head sympathetically.
“God sometimes sends us His message in cruel ways,” he said when Charles had finished, “if I may be permitted to interpret His intentions. Still, we must be able to understand them! Maybe he was telling you it was time to give up certain attachments. What do you think, Charles?”
Charles gave a sarcastic smile.
“I would have preferred it if he’d done so by letting my dog die less stupidly.”
Father Raphaël continued nodding his he
ad thoughtfully Then his expression changed abruptly and he proposed that they share a bottle of wine that someone had just given him. Stunned, Charles declined the offer. The preacher took the bottle from the armoire anyway and poured himself a glass. He sniffed it, and his eyes crinkled with appreciation as he took a drink.
“It’s not a bad thing to allow ourselves the occasional luxury,” he said, smiling. “It improves our mood and makes us more charitable towards others.”
He took another drink and smacked his lips with a satisfied air. Then his thoughts took another turn, and he looked at Charles with eyes filled with emotion and seriousness.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, Charles. I had almost convinced myself that you wouldn’t come back. Yes, I was sure of it. It pained me a great deal, because I consider you to be an exceptional human being.”
Charles felt his face become red. Was the preacher courting him for some reason?
“Where are Maxime and Marcel-Édouard?” he asked, to change the subject.
“Marcel-Édouard has just gone to make the final arrangements with the owner of the room where we’re holding tomorrow night’s meeting. And I sent Maxime off on an errand a couple of hours ago, and as usual he’s taken the opportunity to spend some time on his own. But I see I have made you feel ill at ease,” he said, laughingly. “Please don’t misunderstand the nature of my comments, in any case. We are all exceptional human beings in the eyes of God, because he made us all unique and irreplaceable. But certain among us, through His goodness, are more richly endowed than others. You are one of them. Count yourself lucky. You are, however, going to allow me to profit from your gifts by going off to help Marcel-Édouard, whom I probably should have accompanied myself since the owner of this blasted room is a difficult man to get along with, and loves to make everything as complicated as possible. But your charm and good nature will smooth everything out, I’m sure. Here’s the address. Take a taxi.”
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