A Very Bold Leap

by Yves Beauchemin

  The more he thought about it, the surer he became that Charles was hiding somewhere near the door. He motioned to Maxime to get ready to plunge in to the left, while he would throw himself in the opposite direction. At his signal, they leapt in, but found no one there. Charles heard them cursing loudly: he had placed piles of heavy objects on either side of the door: benches, sawhorses, jam jars, even an anvil. Crouching beside the furnace, he pulled on the end of an electric cord, his simple plan for obtaining his liberty: the cord produced a loud noise deeper into the cellar.

  “He’s back here!” shouted Maxime.

  With a great rustling noise, the two assistants pushed their way through the paper to the back of the cellar, in the direction of the sound, but all they found was a partially eviscerated sack of cement. Charles, meanwhile, had moved swiftly towards the door. His adversaries, suddenly realizing that they’d been tricked, shouted curses after him, but he was through the opening and out into the fresh air, where his only remaining obstacle was the frightened pastor, standing on a patch of solid ice, who tried timidly to stop him but ended up flying ass over teakettle into a snowbank. Charles ran as fast as his legs would carry him, intending to make it to a neighbouring house where his adversaries wouldn’t dare to follow. But then he saw the car in the drive, a welcoming plume of white exhaust fumes coming from its tailpipe. He swerved towards it, jumped behind the wheel, and the next second was tearing down the driveway, the door still swinging open. A moment later he was on the highway, with the pastor’s house far behind.

  He burst out laughing and began to sing:

  I love to go a-wandering, in a borrowed car

  And as I go, I love to sing, I’m going really far!

  His plan was to drive all the way back to Montreal, but he realized that by doing so he’d be guilty of theft, and he knew that Father Raphaël would make him pay dearly for it. He decided instead to drive to the bus station, leave the car in the parking lot there, and make the trip home by bus. Within minutes he had bought his ticket and then telephoned the motel to leave a message for the preacher, telling him where he would find his vehicle.

  He had an hour and a half before the next bus, and so he went into the station’s snack bar to get something to eat. He was famished, not having eaten since noon the previous day. Now that his fear had evaporated, he was overwhelmed by exhaustion, and if he had been able to choose between a bed and a plate of food, he might well have chosen the former. While making short work of a cheese omelette, he examined a small, painful blister on his left hand: during the hours he had spent cutting pages out of all those telephone books with a piece of broken glass, he had inflicted several deep cuts to his palm. The bleeding had stopped and the blood had coagulated, but the painful throbbing continued, reminding him that he had better wash and bandage the wound as soon as possible.

  Since there was still plenty of time, he decided to go to a drugstore. The waitress in the snack bar pointed him towards one that was close by, and he was standing before a rack of shelves trying to choose between two brands of disinfectant when a familiar voice made him jump and filled him with joy at the same time. He turned towards the sound: Aglaé Maynard was behind the counter, serving an elderly woman who was apparently hard of hearing. He stepped behind the woman and waved at Aglaé, who saw him, gave a cry of surprise, and then blushed with pleasure and confusion. She signalled him to wait for her in a corner of the store, and two minutes later came to greet him, all aflutter.

  “What are you doing here? Oh, I’m so happy to see you!”

  Charles told her a bit about his adventures, then showed her his hand. Abandoning her customers, she spent several long minutes preparing a bandage for him and making him take a painkiller and an antibiotic, then reached into her handbag and handed him a key.

  “Go to my place and lie down, you poor baby. You look half dead! I’ll be finished here at the end of the day.”

  And then with an imploring, seductive smile that, for a second, made her look like a starlet on the rebound, she added, “Will you be there when I get off work?”

  “Of course I will,” he said, returning her smile, and with his good hand he discreetly stroked her thigh.

  Charles prolonged his stay in La Tuque for a week. Aglaé, who had resigned herself to never seeing him again, pampered him, coddled him, fulfilled his every desire, and totally exhausted him. She made him one succulent meal after another — shrimp, scallops, filet mignon, fried chicken, beef Wellington, Black Forest cake, ice cream covered with Grand Marnier — making him forget his long night of fasting in a cold cellar. Every night he called Céline to find out how she was doing, and made up stories to account for his time in La Tuque; not until the end of the week did he tell her he was returning to Montreal, and even then he put it off from one day to the next, since, although Aglaé wasn’t quite able to make him forget that he had a girlfriend, she did have some very persuasive charms.

  Charles wore his infidelity lightly; he thought of it as a kind of male prerogative. He was soon to learn, however, that in matters of the heart, as in most other domains, equality between the sexes had made some progress.

  Sitting in the bus on his way back to Montreal, Charles examined his nearly healed hand with satisfaction. He had left Aglaé Mayrand despite her many entreaties to stay a while longer, but he had promised to keep in touch with her. At the time his words had seemed heartfelt, but barely an hour later the pharmacist’s image had already begun to fade in his mind, and all his thoughts turned towards Céline, who was as yet unaware of the true nature of his sojourn in La Tuque.

  The week he’d spent in the sweet company of Aglaé had been delicious. His belly had definitely begun to take on the dimensions of a paunch from his having assiduously dined at the banquet of love, and he thought of Céline with a great deal of anticipation. Surely she would agree to spend this first night at his apartment, especially when he told her that he was returning to Montreal for good.

  He would have enough time to choose his next job carefully: he had the princely sum of three thousand, seven hundred and eighty-two dollars in his bank account, more than enough to live on for several months.

  Two days after his escape, he had run into Maxime on the street in La Tuque. The idiot had pretended not to recognize him, but Charles had gone right up to him and, with an impertinent smile, had asked him if he would be so good as to drop the things he’d had to abandon in the motel off at the bus depot. Maxime had muttered some vague curses under his breath and taken off in a hurry. The next day, Charles had gone to the motel, taking Aglaé with him, and he’d been told that Father Raphaël and his two companions were out, and no one could tell him what had become of his bags. Charles vowed to pursue the matter further as soon as he was back in Montreal.

  Stepping off the bus at six o’clock that evening, he had the feeling that a new phase of his life was commencing. Exciting things were awaiting him. He couldn’t wait to take them on; he felt as though he were overflowing with strength, courage, and new ideas. Every time he thought about his clever escape from the basement, he felt more confident: that was nothing compared to what he now felt capable of. With a bit of luck, he’d soon show the world what he was made of.

  It was Thursday. The stores would be open until nine. He went into Archambault’s and came out with three records: Charlie Mingus, Bill Evans (whose music Blonblon had turned him on to), and the Beethoven violin concerto played by Isaac Stern (Parfait Michaud’s idol). Then, famished, he went into Da Giovanni’s and devoured a huge plate of shepherd’s pie with lots of ketchup and two cups of coffee.

  And so it was nearly eight o’clock by the time he found himself walking to his apartment. Looking up, he saw that all the lights were on. He stopped, utterly confused. Was someone in there? Who could it possibly be? Céline doing her homework? A thief? He charged up the stairs, key in hand, unlocked the door, and rushed into the kitchen. He heard whispering coming from the bedroom; he knew immediately that something terrible was abo
ut to happen.

  Céline and Steve were lying in his bed, stiff as boards, as terrified as two criminals caught in the act. He regarded them for a moment without speaking, completely flabbergasted, fighting off rage and tears, and finally managed to speak in a tone sufficiently firm to hide his feelings.

  “Get dressed and continue your affair somewhere else. I need my bed. And you,” he said to Céline, “don’t forget to change the sheets.”

  He left the apartment as quickly as he had entered it and didn’t return for two hours, by which time he was nearly drunk. He’d tried ten times to call Blonblon, and finally learned that his friend and Isabel were at a lecture on Oriental religions and wouldn’t be back until just before midnight.

  He stretched out on the sofa in the living room (there being no question of going back into that cursed room) and tried to sleep. At four a.m. he was still trying. He had an enormous cramp in his stomach; his head swam with elaborate murder plots, suicide attempts, public humiliations, angry retorts, sweetly prolonged revenges. When he wasn’t raging he was crying. Why had Céline betrayed him? he asked himself over and over. But he dared not answer that question. As for that laughable clown, that unprincipled moron whom he’d had the good grace to befriend, whom he had helped a thousand times, enlightened, regaled, encouraged, bucked up, he had now disappeared forever into the void: Charles no longer knew him, had forgotten his name, or that he’d ever known he existed.

  At five a.m., unable to stand it any longer, and despite all the social conventions, he phoned Blonblon.

  “Wha—?” Blonblon said in a hoarse, sleepy voice. “You want me to come and meet you? Right now? What’s going on?”

  Charles couldn’t bring himself to explain over the telephone. But his voice spoke volumes, and Blonblon’s compassionate nature did the rest. He tried to collect his thoughts, think of a place where they could meet at such a ridiculous time, and suddenly thought of the KliK restaurant on rue Ontario, a greasy spoon that was nearly always empty, but was at least open all night.

  Half an hour later, they were sitting in front of two untouched Cokes, Charles talking non-stop, his hands shaking beneath the table. He talked for an hour as Blonblon listened patiently, accustomed as he was even at his young age to witnessing human folly and suffering, and to combatting it as best he could. He asked few questions, as was his nature. Céline’s and Steve’s disloyalty shocked him, and Charles’s despair filled him with sadness, but the questions that came to mind were ones he didn’t dare ask. Why, for instance, had his friend chosen such a peripatetic life, despite the advice of all his friends, a life that kept him out of Montreal almost constantly? How would he have reacted if the roles had been reversed, if Céline were always away and he were stuck here at home? And had he himself always been as faithful as he was now reproaching Céline for not being?

  Wallowing in pain though he was, Charles made no allusion to his dallying in La Tuque, but he had mentioned it two days ago when he’d been talking to Blonblon on the phone.

  Blonblon suggested a reconciliation between the two lovers.

  “Out of the question!” Charles shot back furiously. “It’s over between us. Finished as if it had never been in the first place. I will not be deceived twice, and that’s it!”

  “Will you at least let me talk to her?”

  “Do what you want, it’s no business of mine. But it won’t change anything!”

  Tears welled up in his eyes.

  “Do you have any downers, or sleeping pills, anything at all I can take to calm down?” he asked Blonblon, suddenly a humble supplicant. “I need to sleep, Blonblon, I need to sleep for three days. I can’t go on having these awful bloody thoughts!”

  They walked to the Frontenac Towers, where Charles waited in the foyer while his friend went upstairs to fetch the medications.

  “Just three pills?” Charles exclaimed.

  “In the state you’re in, three’s plenty. I’ll give you three more tomorrow.”

  Exhausted though he was, he returned to his apartment on foot. The walk calmed him a bit. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning. The weather was warm. The street was swarming with pedestrians and people driving to work late, with shoppers making purchases, the unemployed taking the air; here and there a few old women made their slow way home from mass, their faces solemn under their Sunday hats. A shopkeeper was washing his store window with a hose, singing “Le p’tit bonheur.” How can he sing? Charles asked himself, his eyes again filling with tears. While he was stopped at a red light, a dog that looked vaguely like Boff took a thorough sniff at his shoes. Charles bent down to pet it, then changed his mind and crossed the street quickly. Disappointed, the dog barked after him.

  Arriving at his apartment building, he felt like throwing up.

  “I’m going to break my lease and move out,” he decided on the spot. “It’ll cost what it costs. And I’ll sell all this furniture.”

  He ran up the stairs in a fury. Despite the fatigue that was making his head swim, he noticed that there was mail in his box. Two leaflets, a bill from Hydro-Québec, and one letter. He immediately recognized the scrawl of Wilfrid Thibodeau.

  “Oh, no!” he thought. “Not him on top of everything else!”

  He crumpled the envelope and threw it on the street.

  The next morning Blonblon brought him three more pills, as promised. He found Charles in a less demented state.

  “I tried to call you last night,” he said plaintively to Charles. “I was worried about you. I almost came over. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

  Charles hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone. Especially not to the bitch he thought was making the calls. He’d unplugged his phone. Whatever they’d had was over, he kept telling Blonblon. He would never see her again, neither her nor her parents, if that was the way they’d brought her up. Blonblon kept his eyes down and let Charles blow off steam. He needed to let his pain work itself out, like a safety valve, let it spread throughout the apartment like so much pent-up steam, or else it would poison him. Blonblon listened patiently while his friend said the same thing over and over again.

  “Anyway,” he finally said, “I found this on the sidewalk. I wondered what was up.”

  And he handed Charles the envelope that the latter had tossed onto the street the night before.

  This time Charles opened it. It contained a brief note, badly scribbled, and a twenty-dollar bill.

  Montreal, February 17

  Dear son,

  It’s been a longtime since we herd from each other. I’m in the Sacré-Coeur hospital where I just had a big operation. Yesterday the doctor told me the worst was over and I might be able to get out in a couple of weeks or so. I hope your doing good and everything’s okay at your end. I’m inclosing twenty dollars just in case you need it.

  Wilfrid

  Wordlessly, Charles handed the letter to Blonblon. It evidently had a great effect on his sensitive heart.

  “I wonder what he has,” he murmured after clearing his throat.

  “If there’s one thing on earth I don’t give a damn about, it’s that,” Charles replied.

  And he held out the twenty dollars to Blonblon to pay for the pills, and insisted that he take it.

  Within a week Charles had moved into a small apartment on Saint-Denis, just south of Sainte-Catherine, not far from the Saint-Luc hospital. It was the first time he had lived outside his old neighbourhood, and he felt as though he were starting a new life. He’d kept a few pieces of furniture but had sold most of it to his landlord for next to nothing. He’d also spent some time looking for a new job, without really putting his heart into it. In order not to be bothered, he delayed having a telephone installed.

  Blonblon was still worried, and went to see him as often as he could, sometimes shouting through Charles’s locked door. But he couldn’t afford to spend as much time as he’d have liked with his unhappy friend; for the past month he’d been working in an antique shop on rue Amherst, as well as taking
three courses in art history at the University of Montreal. He also had to take care of things at home, since his father was still ill and his mother was often out selling real estate. He asked Isabel to fill in for him from time to time vis-à-vis Charles, and she was only too happy to oblige. The role perfectly suited her motherly temperament.

  One evening in April, she showed up at the apartment with a container of vegetable soup and some meatloaf. Charles had been eating badly, she thought, and was smoking more than ever. She’d told Blonblon he was looking “like a lemon that someone had left in the back of the fridge.” She found him in a greatly excited state: it had just been announced on television that the Bourassa government was paying for Alliance Quebec’s lawyers in its challenge to the Charter of the French Language before the Supreme Court of Canada.

  She thought his indignation was a good sign, since for once he seemed interested in something beyond his own misery. He was beginning to look better, and maybe before too long he’d be ready to re-enter the world from which he had more or less retired for the past two months, watching life pass him by from a distance, yawning and sighing like those old men who spent all day on their balconies watching cars and pedestrians go past, paralyzed with boredom, drained of all desire and with zero interest in anything except their own caustic observations on the minuscule events taking place on the street.

  Surprised to see her, Charles thanked her effusively for the food and even offered to pay her for it, which she refused, and then, since it was dinnertime, asked her to stay and eat with him. He gobbled down his meal, while she took little more than a mouthful, having already eaten at home. After dinner she got up from the table and began tidying and cleaning the kitchen, which was in great need of her attentions. While she worked, she talked to Charles about her courses — she had begun her studies as a nurse — and about Blonblon’s dream of opening his own antique shop. Then she told him of an incident that had made her laugh the night before at a liquor store, when a self-proclaimed “connoisseur” of wines had asked for an Italian Bordeaux. The clerk had laughed in his face, and the customer had come close to punching him out.