by André Alexis
– Come and see this, he called.
And as they approached he pointed down towards an impossibly beautiful valley. Immediately to the left, invisible from the car, a stone hill ascended. Not a hill, really, it was more like a large, scalene triangle that went on for a hundred yards. At its highest it was, perhaps, thirty feet and, near its summit, there was a tree: leafless, almost as grey as the rock on which it had managed to thrive. Ten strange birds, with pinkish wings, alighted from the tree in strange formation. The hill, or triangle, was some five feet wide, and its width was smooth, as if the hill had been a road. Beyond the hill, the land dipped sharply, and the three men looked down onto a valley’s valley, through which a wide river ran, making a bluish Sygma among the trees. Though it was November, and the sky was more ash-grey than blue, the place was inspiring.
– Where are we exactly? asked Reinhart.
– I don’t know, said Edward. We’re a little lost. I think.
– Why didn’t you say something before? asked Franklin.
Reinhart was intently taking pictures.
– Take some photographs for us, Eddy, said Franklin suddenly enthusiastic himself.
– I think, said Reinhart, if this is the place, I wouldn’t mind drawing something for it, you know? A few buildings, maybe.
But he was not thinking of architecture. Rather, he was overcome by the place itself, as if he had dreamed this very corner of Gatineau, not as a lieu for a prison but as a kind of crèche for his imagination. This landscape (which was, as chance would have it, part of the land proposed by the government of Quebec) was part of him, and he knew this immediately.
Franklin was not thinking of architecture, either. He looked out on the land, the river, the trees and thought, almost casually, So this is the place. How did he know? He, too, recognized it, but in Franklin’s case the recognition was unmysterious. The place reminded him of Anse Bleu: water, rock, sky. To think he had come so far only to discover that his “destiny” was in this piece of land that looked torn from what had been home. And yet, on reflection, Alba had been born with him in Anse Bleu. It was only reasonable that it should find itself here, that they should find themselves here. So, it wasn’t that the land belonged to him, it was, rather, that he and Alba belonged to this part of Gatineau.
And so, the ground on which MacKenzie Bowell Federal Penitentiary would sit (if either man had anything to do with it) insinuated itself into the minds of Reinhart Maur and Franklin Dupuis.
One wonders, given the difference between them, if one should say that here were “two minds one place,” “two minds two places,” or, even, “two minds no place at all,” as both saw the land as somewhat other than it was. There was a third man with them, of course, and he saw only what was there: a dark river, pebbled shores, ground thick with pine trees and undergrowth, and a steep hill. Edward did not find the land inspiring, but he suspected his outlook was influenced by certain thoughts he’d been having.
First, there was a foreboding, a persistent feeling that something was going to go wrong. And, in light of the foreboding, he’d begun to think up arguments against the prison, searching for one that would, like a key, open Franklin’s mind to caution where this penitentiary was concerned.
One might have thought this moment (standing with his closest friends before a rough landscape) a good time to reveal his misgivings. But he kept his opinion to himself and suffered, principally, not from his doubts but from the feeling he had been set apart from his friends, both of whom were captivated by a plot of land that did nothing for him. To be kept from the joy Franklin and Reinhart were evidently feeling was, for Edward, like being unable to enter a promised land.
And what did he do? He simulated joy, or tried to, nodding his head and smiling, before saying, once the others had stopped speaking:
– Make a great place for a penitentiary. So isolated and all.
At which, Franklin and Reinhart both turned to him and stared. It was as if he’d said something ultramundane and they were struggling with its sense.
– Yes, said Franklin, I guess it is a little out of the way.
Reinhart added
– Make sure you take pictures, Eddy, in case something happens to mine.
Which Edward did. And the resulting photos were sharp and well lit, though, as Edward had unwittingly cracked the camera’s lens cover while climbing over a tree trunk, there were spidery lines that made the photos look like small jigsaw puzzles.
{30}
LIBERTÉ, ÉGALITÉ, FRATERNITÉ
Some time after his modest parliamentary triumph, Minister Rundstedt was in Paris. He had been in Oslo, representing the government at a conference on the social sciences. He had given a short address, in a hall filled with sociologists and minor politicians, and then, duty done, he had gone to Paris. He was in Paris to attend a conference on penal reform. There he gave the same speech he had given in Oslo. He attended a dinner in his honour at the embassy, and he was his usual gregarious self. Then he took a few days to see the city.
Paris?
As far as he could see, there was nothing much to the place. The river was fine, as rivers go, but you could only take the “fly boats” so often, and the Seine was not clean. He had been disappointed by the Eiffel Tower, and bored by most everything save the traffic. (The traffic was not interesting, you understand, but it needed careful attention.)
He had long heard of Paris’ reputed charms, its historical significance, its legendary prospects. He was to spend three days in the city of lights, but all he had to show for it, after two days, was the vague feeling he should be elsewhere. He had bought a few trinkets for Edwina: a glass globe in which a copper miniature of the Eiffel Tower was enclosed, a menu from one of the famous brasseries (Lipp: an expensive, disappointing haunt), an illustrated history of the Bastille on whose bright cover a faded republican held up the faded head of Louis XVI, and a book he had bought at the Louvre.
The book from the Louvre was emblematic of his stay in Paris. He’d bought it for Edwina, because its cover was striking: a woman in a long dress seated on a brown bench, in her arms and on her lap a naked child in one of whose hands there is a ball; the child leans away from the woman to cull roses from the flower bed beside them. All done in painted terracotta: white, white, blue and green. Rundstedt assumed it was the Virgin and child, which it was. He assumed it was French, but this it was not. It was Italian, which he discovered only when he’d returned to his room on Rue Chevert. So, the most beautiful work he saw in Paris was not French.
Perhaps part of the problem with Paris was the unspoken assumption that superior men would find it superior. The embassy staffers had pleasure at the thought of introducing him to their wonderful city. Theirs was the delight in Rundstedt’s first views of the Pont Alexandre III, the Musée Rodin, the Tuileries. Every man has two cities, he heard said, his own and Paris. It did not occur to luteciaphiles that there were some cities inimical to Paris. You couldn’t truly love Calgary, as Rundstedt loved it, and love Paris, unless of course you were damned indecisive, and Rundstedt was not indecisive. His heart beat faster by the foothills. The Bow River ran through his happiest memories. What was this collection of old stones, Paris, to him?
Still, once he decided he and Paris were quits, once he resigned himself to his hours in the city, he began to unwind. Travel to foreign cities was one of the rewards of his position and if, like most things in life, it was less than it was made out to be, so be it.
The sky on this late November day was cloudy. Rundstedt crossed the avenue to Les Invalides, for Napoléon’s sake, but despite the encouragement of his guide, an embassy secretary named Morgan, he did not go in. When they had walked to St-Germain, Rundstedt dismissed the woman.
– I hope you don’t mind, he said politely, but I’m tired.
– Not at all, said Morgan.
She hailed a taxi, gave the driver the
address.
– Have a safe trip home, she said.
Before the taxi pulled away, Rundstedt put his head out the window and asked if she knew where he might eat supper.
– Somewhere good, he said.
– Of course, she answered.
She took a square of paper from her purse, wrote the words
Au Pied de chameau
rue Quincampoix
and handed it to him.
As it happened, the taxi driver knew English passably well.
– What she say? he asked.
– What? said Rundstedt.
– There. On paper. What she say?
Rundstedt peered at the paper for the first time.
– Pee eh duh sham oh, he said.
– Pied de chameau?
The driver held his index finger up and moved it from side to side.
– Is marocain, he said. You like marocain?
– Sure, said Rundstedt. Why not?
– No American can like marocain, the driver said bitterly.
– Je suis Canadien, Rundstedt answered.
– Ah…, said the driver.
And he was silent for the short ride to Rundstedt’s hotel.
– You go to Pied de chameau? he asked.
– Later, said Rundstedt, later. Thank you.
He paid the man, then got out of the taxi. He went up to his room, slept for an hour, woke up to write letters to his constituents, to plan the coming week, and to read Franklin’s report on his favoured site for a federal penitentiary: the Gatineaus. (Rundstedt himself would have preferred MacKenzie Bowell in Alberta. He accepted, however, that it would do the party most good if it were built in Central Canada. The Gatineaus? Sure, why not? As well there as elsewhere, if the party approved.) Then, though there were almost twenty-four hours before his plane left Orly, he cleaned his room before sitting on the bed to read a few pages of an old Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead.
Rundstedt had decided to try a small restaurant on Boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg when, as he stepped out of the hotel, he was met by the taxi driver.
– You go to Pied de chameau? he asked smiling.
How long had the man been waiting? Rundstedt was not quite pleasantly surprised, as if he’d met an acquaintance about whom he was ambivalent. He was going to tell the man he’d decided against Pied de chameau when the man said
– I take you. No money.
– No money? asked Rundstedt.
– Je ne peux pas prendre votre argent, he said. No money.
As it turned out, the man was Moroccan, and he was sincerely sorry for having suggested Rundstedt was American.
– American? said Rundstedt. That’s no insult.
The man held up his index finger and moved it from side to side.
– Is insult, he said. I pay back.
He would take Rundstedt to the Pied de chameau, free of charge. He insisted, and it would have been impolite to refuse. Besides, the man was honourable. He had been called Algerian or Tunisian or Lebanese so often in Paris, he could not bear to have called a Canadian an American. He was honourable and kind, and his kindness brought out the politician in Rundstedt. During the twenty minutes it took to reach Quincampoix and Molière, they spoke warmly of their respective homes. Ah but Safi was a wonderful town, and how important it is for a man to have children. And they agreed: there is nothing in life but children and land, yes, and God willing they would both shortly return to their own.
– Amen.
– Inch’ Allah.
By the time Rundstedt stepped from the taxi, the men were confreres. Now it would have been wrong to eat anywhere but Au Pied de chameau. Whatever Moroccan food was, he would try it. He stepped from the Parisian street into the restaurant. It was dimly lit, not dark, and, without knowing the Middle East, Rundstedt thought it Middle Eastern. What figured it as such? The colours (brass, pomegranate, amber), the fabric that hung down as if they were inside a tent, the waiters?
– Est-ce que monsieur a prénoté? asked the maître d’hôtel. You have a reservation?
– No, said Rundstedt.
The restaurant was not full, but you could sense it would be. There was bustle. It was early but, just as Rundstedt had made himself comfortable, he was asked if he would share his place. There were, after all, many reservations.
A young woman was shown to his table.
– Thank you, she said.
– No problem, answered Rundstedt. Your first time here?
The woman was not as young as he first thought, but she was attractive and she had an accent that mingled German with a highly correct Anglo-English.
– Yes, she said, but I have heard the food is exquisite.
– Oh yeah? said Rundstedt. Maybe you could help me order. I can’t make much of this menu.
She looked at him. Their eyes met.
– Neither can I, she said. But I’ve been told the tajines are very good.
– What’s a tajine?
– I am not certain, she said, but I shall try one.
– And I’ll have the lamb and couscous, said Rundstedt. At least I’ve heard of those.
Both dishes were good. So thought Rundstedt, who, having been invited to do so, tasted his companion’s tajine with chicken, onions, lemon, and olives. It smelled of lemon. It was not the kind of thing he would care to eat often, but isn’t it odd how the presence of a beautiful woman distracts the palate? She was certainly dressed to distract: décolleté without being vulgar, her bosom accentuated by a red dress that had a deep-V wrap bodice, long sleeves, and padded shoulders.
– My wife would love this stuff, he said.
– And what sort of woman is she, your wife? she asked.
– Edwina? Ahh, Edwina’s great. We’ve known each other since high school. Listen, what’s your name again?
– Gudrun.
– Well, Gudrun, I’ve been married most of my life, and I’m a happy man.
They had eaten, largely, in silence. The Pied de chameau had accumulated patrons. The mood, the accents of the place, the unbuttoned humanity had done its part for conviviality. Rundstedt, naturally talkative, had made only tentative efforts to bring Gudrun out, but he had certainly taken her in: her blue eyes, her long fingers, a gentle precision. Well, she was European. There were no crumbs in her butter: young, elegant, perhaps even, if he’d been younger, arousing. Arousing? Now there was a word on whose neck you had to step.
– Will you have a drink? asked Gudrun.
The restaurant was full and lively, yet it was only eight.
– I would like to buy you a drink, she added. You have been kind enough to share your table.
– No, no, said Rundstedt. I’ll stay, but only if you let me buy. What’ll you have?
She had the thé à la menthe.
He had a liqueur distilled of figs.
– And what is it you do, Herr Rundstedt, if you do not mind my asking?
– I’m a politician, he answered.
How that word needed an entourage. Politician? For a moment, it seemed to him the word was meaningless without its formal trappings: its leather-backed chairs, its solicitous secretaries. Rundstedt felt not bashful but naked. He was in a city where his language and position mattered only to a few who were themselves strangers. For the first time since meeting Edwina, Rundstedt was awkward in the company of a woman.
– And what do you do? he asked Gudrun.
– I am a hair stylist, she answered.
– It’s a good profession, he said. Edwina sees her hairdresser, what, once or twice a week? Must be interesting work.
– It is not very interesting, said Gudrun. I have always wished to do other professions. Habit has confined me to my work. Only now that I am dying, I have begun to do the things I would like.
– Oh, said Rundstedt. Well that’s just, that’s just very sad.
– Forgive me for saying it, said Gudrun. I should not like to hide it any more, you see? That is why I am in Paris. I have always wanted to visit Paris.
– Yeah, it’s quite the place.
– Would you like another drink?
Rundstedt had finished his alcohol without realizing.
– No, he said. It’s getting late and I have to pack.
– I see, said Gudrun. You have been kind. I hope I have not spoiled your evening.
She put her hand on his, momentarily.
– No, no, he said. It’s nothing. Happens all the time.
– I do not understand, said Gudrun. Do you know many people with cancer?
At a table nearby, a man said
– My wife thinks I’m in Oslo – Oslo, France, that is.
Rundstedt said
– I don’t know a lot of people with cancer, no.
Gudrun smiled.
– You are fortunate, she said. Thank you. I, too, should go.
Again, she touched Rundstedt’s hand with her impossibly long fingers.
– I hope you will have a nice flight home, she said.
She stood up, and how beautiful she was standing beside him: a hint of rose water, a discreet smile, a manner both serious and distracted. Her dress was swiftly swallowed by her beige coat, and then she was gone.
It is true Rundstedt was, at times, a shallow man, callous even. He was never unfeeling, however, and he felt he had been petty. He had, at the mention of her death, wished himself as far from Gudrun as possible. Year after year, he had listened to dire stories followed by requests for assistance. It had hardened him to the most heartbreaking tales, and hers had not been the most heartbreaking.
Still, Gudrun had asked for nothing. He had needlessly flinched.
He felt even smaller when, having given her enough time to leave the vicinity, he approached the bar and discovered she had paid for his meal and his drink and had left a note: