She left Charles’s place around nine, after having cheered him up as much as possible as well as tidying the apartment.
“I don’t know how to thank you, Isabel,” said Charles as he walked her to the door.
“That’s easy,” she said. “Get a phone, so we can call you.”
Two days later, the phone was installed.
Isabel came back several times, sometimes with Blonblon but most often alone, bearing gifts of pastries, stew, cartons of fruit juice, a book Blonblon thought Charles should read; she jollied him up, encouraged him to take hold of his life again and start looking for a job, while at the same time showing inexhaustible sympathy for the torture he was going through.
About that he regaled her each time she came to visit. She would listen with her hand on her chin, nodding sadly with moistened eyes, and then, after letting him wallow in his favourite subject for a few moments, she would delicately but firmly bring the conversation around to more cheerful topics, and at the end of the evening they would join up with Blonblon at a cinema, or a bar or café, where there would be other friends as well.
Charles liked her honeyed skin, her full cheeks, her large, round, expressive eyes, the way she modulated her phrases with her clear, serious voice, a voice more often associated with a woman of great experience and wisdom. “She must be fantastic in bed,” he caught himself thinking from time to time.
One evening, out of gratitude, he kissed her on the cheek, but let his lips linger so tenderly that she blushed and gently pushed him away.
“None of that! Don’t do that again, please, Charles. It isn’t right. You of all people should know that.”
“Know what?” Charles exclaimed, offended. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about, you old lech. There is only one person who can kiss me like that, and a lot more besides, but that person isn’t you.”
She laughed and rumpled his hair. Charles reddened at the thought that his sudden show of gratitude might have had its origins in a less innocent urge.
“Men!” she sighed.
“Let’s talk about women.”
“We’ve been talking about women all night, Charles. Okay, okay, don’t look at me like that, I know you too well. Everyone needs to be hugged and kissed once in a while.”
Then she stopped, thought for a second, and began to turn red in the face as well.
“Charles,” she said, “my dear Charles, if you really want to give me pleasure, real pleasure, more pleasure than you have ever given me before, you … would you agree to meet with Céline — just for five minutes, no more?”
“Good night, Isabel,” Charles said, coldly, turning his back. “It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
Montreal woke up in the rain; not a spring rain, but a cold, grey, bitter, winter rain, a rain that was half rain and half snow, rain that held no promise of warmer days ahead but rather recalled the demoralizing depths of autumn. Rain that stuck to everything it touched: the air, the skin, coats and jackets, sidewalks, newspapers held by commuters as they waited for their buses. But despite the sullen, malevolent rain, Montreal stirred herself voluptuously, like a grand dame, perhaps a bit sleepy around the eyes, who stretches a while beneath the warm sheets, yawning and sighing, covering her mouth with her curled fist and making a face at the smell of her own breath, and then, with a sudden, determined effort, leaps from her bed, runs into the kitchen, and makes herself a cup of strong coffee.
Montreal stirred herself in all her parts and in every way. Her nearly deserted streets belied an intense activity. Parents served breakfast to their children, who were either still half asleep or else reciting their lessons one more time; lawyers shaved themselves with a careful hand while going over yesterday’s cases; subway drivers, standing for hours, operated their long, blue trains while sipping cups of coffee, taking on and letting off wave after wave of passengers still lost in their nighttime dreams; a sick man, his body contorted in pain, tossed in his bed after another interminable night, his eyes half shut, his mouth twisted, a fleck of foam on his chin as he stared through his window at the wet, grey light that was flooding the city, thinking that exactly one month earlier it was still dark at this hour; in the now too-large dining room of his presbytery, an old curate, having said mass to six parishioners, poked at his egg yolk with the tip of his fork, a contemplative smile on his lips; while not far off, in a yellowish room infused with the smell of urine, a small baby slept soundly under a yellowed woollen blanket while her sixteen-year-old mother rushed downstairs to the corner store to buy some milk for her bottle.
Charles, that morning, got up earlier than usual, managed to shave with a cigarette dangling from his lips, ate breakfast, and planned the rest of the day in his head: he had to take a pair of pants to the cleaner’s, do a load of washing at the laundromat, buy the newspapers, read the want ads, and, dressed as neatly as possible, go out and do some job hunting — any job hunting — since his bank account had given up the ghost and the life of inaction he’d been living for the past few months was beginning to get on his nerves.
He went into the kitchen, poured himself a third cup of coffee, and drank it reading Raymond Chandler’s Spanish Blood, whose tough, cheeky humour pleased him greatly. He then threw on his overcoat, picked up his pants and his bag of dirty laundry, and opened the door.
Céline was standing in front of him, holding herself very straight and looking a bit pale, but also determined. Her hair was wet and drops of water were running down her forehead. She wiped them with the back of her hand.
“Can I speak to you?” she said.
Charles hesitated a second, took a drag of his cigarette, then backed up a few steps and motioned her to come in.
“I can’t see what good it will do,” he said, leading her into the kitchen, “but I can give you a couple of minutes. I’ve got things to do.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down without bothering to offer one to Céline or asking her to remove her coat.
Céline had evidently prepared herself to be humiliated: she sat down across from him as though nothing had happened, rested her hands on the table, and looked at him as she might look at a peach after a long period of fasting. He, meanwhile, continued smoking his cigarette, unmoved, making like Philip Marlowe. Some time passed.
Then she said, her voice cracking, “Charles, don’t you know I love you?”
And at that she broke into tears.
Charles watched her wipe her eyes and blow her nose.
“Yes,” he replied, “but you chose a rather original way of showing it.”
If he thought his words would bring on a fresh volley of tears, he was mistaken. She raised her head, her eyes shining with anger.
“Do you think I didn’t know what was going on?”
That made him jump.
“What are you talking about?”
“I knew about everything,” she said. “I knew that you had stopped working for that preacher. Three days after you left him, he phoned the house to ask if he could send your things there. You had shown up at the hotel earlier that day to ask for them, and you’d been with a woman. Yes, Charles, a woman. Don’t try to deny it. My mother told me about the phone call that night when I came home from college. And it was also my mother,” Céline went on, her voice breaking into sobs, “who told me I should act as though nothing was wrong when you phoned me every night to lie to me. What do you have to say to that now?”
Charles’s Philip Marlowe impersonation had fallen flat on its face, and he was trying desperately to recover.
“Nothing,” he said lightly. “That old pederast would say anything to get me into trouble. If you want to believe him, that’s your business. He wanted to get back at me, and now I see how successful he was.”
“Then why didn’t you come back to Montreal right away, Charles? Why? What were you doing in La Tuque all that time? Can you tell me that?”
Charles could see that nothing but false bravado wa
s going to get him out of this one.
“After what you’ve done to me, my lovely,” he said, “I don’t think I owe you any explanations.”
“Well,” she cried, furious, “I’ll explain it for you, then, shall I? When I found out you were cheating on me, I cried all night, and all the next night, and the next. I didn’t know how I had the strength not to say anything when you called. I thought we should work this thing out face to face, like we’re doing now. But you didn’t come back. So I decided to come and get my things out of your apartment. That night Steve called to find out what you were up to, and it was too much for me; I blurted out the whole thing. I wanted him to know just how badly you were treating me. He offered to come with me to the apartment, and I slept with him, in your bed. I wanted to teach you a lesson! You deserved it! There, now you can tell me what you think of me!”
She started crying again, but noiselessly, as though exhausted from her anger and relieved by her confession.
Stunned, Charles tried to gather his thoughts. His first reaction was shock at Father Raphaël’s perfidy, but then he realized there was nothing surprising about it: wasn’t his whole business based on deception, manipulation, and abuse, after all? But if the preacher had known that Charles had gone to the motel with Aglaé, then he must have still been there… Or perhaps the motel owner had told him … It was a small town, and everyone knew everyone else’s business. The motel owner may even have known Aglaé, at least by sight. They had probably been watched closely, followed, spied upon.
But none of those considerations changed anything at all. Céline was here, before him, and she had clarified the situation — her situation, in any case. The question was, how was he going to respond to it?
Céline could see Charles’s dilemma, his resolution softening, ready to crumble altogether. But as often happens, rather than give her words time to have their full effect, she decided to add to them in order to cement her victory — which therefore eluded her.
“Oh, Charles,” she said softly, in supplication, “it was with you that I learned how to make love … it was you who taught me to enjoy it… but you weren’t there… Please, please try to understand me… I’m just like you, exactly like you … Please forgive me … I’m ready to forgive you, Charles, if you ask me to …”
At this Charles stared at her, livid, his defences back up. So it wasn’t simply a matter of getting even with him… She had actually enjoyed sleeping with that slimy bastard! And in his own bed!
In principle, he could accept that she might feel desire for someone other than himself; after all, desire wasn’t something she could control, and he wasn’t the only male representative of the human species. But that she had satisfied these desires with someone other than him — and moreover with someone who had been his friend, if the slug in question could be called that — went way beyond the pale. The fact that he himself had deceived her, and thoroughly enjoyed doing it, did not enter his head for a second.
He stood up and spoke with a sort of smug coldness.
“Very well. I’ll think about all this. But we both know that love does not give in to demands.”
He also knew that if he opened his arms to her now, she would melt into them. But his arms were suddenly made of lead; it was impossible for him to move them.
She stood up as well, holding back tears, staggered by the knowledge that she had come up against an immoveable force, and moved towards the door. He watched her, suddenly and weirdly indifferent, as though the fire of his pride had totally consumed his love; but he did not give in to that momentary impression.
Before stepping into the hall, in a pathetic effort to prolong these final moments in his company, she turned to him.
“Are you going to buy… another dog?” she asked.
“No, not for a long time, anyway. I still think of Boff too much.”
“Me too, I think about him often. Father still talks about him. By the way, I should tell you that he’s not doing very well these days.”
There was something she wanted to add, but instead she shook her head and moved off down the hall.
“Hey,” he called to her as she reached the top of the stairs.
She turned quickly.
“Did they ever send my luggage to you?”
She shook her head and disappeared.
He went back into his apartment, overcome by a sudden burst of feverish excitement. He had no idea what dark corner it came from and had no desire to find out. His life had simply cleansed itself, become simplified, as though pus had been lanced from an abscessed finger.
Montreal, meanwhile, was buzzing around him. The city was waiting for him to make up his mind, make a choice and stick to it with every fibre of his being. He grabbed his pants and his sack of dirty laundry and headed out of the apartment.
An hour later he was back, his face streaked with rain, his pants freshly pressed, his laundry washed, and the day’s newspapers soggy under his arm. He sat down at the kitchen table and went through the job offers; someone was looking for a judo instructor, someone else wanted a mechanic, an electronic technician, kitchen help, scuba divers, travelling salesmen, nude dancers (must be well-built), pharmaceutical representatives (experience necessary), cooks (experience necessary), soldiers (no experience necessary), shoe clerks, data processors, naturopaths, night watchmen. But nobody seemed to want a Charles Thibodeau, or in other words, a young, sociable male, generally easy-going, more or less educated, expresses himself well verbally, in writing even better, and lacking in neither self-confidence nor imagination. That morning the kind of job he felt most suited for (and which he would have been hard put to place his finger on) did not seem to be on offer anywhere in the city, suggesting that the Charles Thibodeaus of the world were either temporarily useless or superfluous. Yes, there were plenty of calls for apprentice electricians, but they required a diploma. Curiously, an hour ago he thought he would have jumped at any opportunity. Now nothing seemed to appeal to him at all.
He leaned back in his chair, annoyed. Another day down the tubes. He was both bothered and slightly alarmed. It wasn’t exactly a good time to be moping around the apartment. He needed to get out, get some air, be among people.
It occurred to him that he might simply drop into a Canada Manpower Centre. The one closest to him was at 1001 de Maisonneuve East. No point in putting on his freshly creased trousers; the rain would soon make them as baggy as a beggar’s anyway. The jeans he had on would do just as well.
He was walking down Saint-Denis towards the metro, his Chandler novel in his pocket for the waiting room, when a vaguely familiar voice called out his name.
Across the street, a short, oily-looking man in an apple-green cardigan was frantically waving to him from under a huge, orange umbrella. He might have been an advertisement for Modern Art. It was Bernard Délicieux, the journalist Charles had met one night at L’Epress restaurant, and who had so unfortunately introduced him to Pigeon-Lecuchaux, the notable crook who had turned his novel into a total flop. The man signalled to Charles to join him, and then shook his hand exuberantly.
“How are you, my dear fellow?”
“Very, very well,” said Charles, flattered by the journalist’s enthusiasm and trying to look the part of a successful writer.
“And the writing?”
After a second’s hesitation, the young man replied that he was working on something, but he was just in the early stages; there was still a lot of time and effort ahead, because this time it was something big, something ambitious.
Délicieux looked impressed. He nodded his head so vigorously that droplets of rainwater flew from his chubby chin like fireworks celebrating Charles’s announcement.
“It doesn’t pay to be idle, Charles! Life is all about patience, especially for artists!”
Then, with a friendly gesture, he took Charles’s arm. “I wanted to tell you how terribly sorry I am to have sent you to that bloody fool Pigeon. What a disaster! He completely ruined the publicati
on of your novel, which, by the way, I still find extremely remarkable!”
Unfortunately he’d forgotten the name of it, and had to ask Charles to refresh his memory.
“The Quiet Rip-Off,” Charles said, somewhat reluctantly.
No doubt to make up for his gaffe, Délicieux asked Charles to join him for a coffee at La Brioche Lyonnaise, which was a few doors away. Charles accepted immediately, happy enough to be diverted from his morose and tormenting thoughts, and within minutes was sitting at a table with a cappuccino sprinkled with cinnamon, listening to the journalist’s lurid and detailed accounts of the latest rumours circulating in the artistic community.
After his mildly appreciated performance in Nights in the Tailless Chicken Hotel, Donald Laumont, crippled by debts accrued by his passion for gambling, had been forced to sell his beautiful cottage in Morin Heights, and his wife still hadn’t forgiven him for it; in fact, they were sleeping in separate bedrooms, an arrangement she may one day come to deeply regret. Even with the success of her latest album, Lola Malo was going around with a long face because of her obsession with the idea of having a baby — which she could not seem able to do despite all her best efforts as well as those of her husband and no doubt several lovers. On top of that, she was embroiled in a pitched battle with her mother-in-law over a swimming pool that was installed in the wrong place. The producer Martin Majot had eaten up all the profits he’d made from The Idol on his latest film, Love on Skis, which was a total flop, showing to empty houses for the past month and garnering howls of derision from all fronts; the film was a disaster because both his mistresses had left him at the same time, presumably without having consulted with one another beforehand.
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