Washika

by Robert A. Poirier

  “Hello Monkey,” he said.

  “I’m not a monkey,” the little girl protested.

  “Ah, don’t start, Henri,” the woman ran her fingers through his hair.

  “And you, Gilbert? What’s new with you, eh?”

  “He’s been good lately,” the woman said. “Your father had to speak to him the other day. You know what that means.”

  “Aha! What was it this time? Snakes? Bugs? Surely not spiders again.”

  Gilbert was small for his eight years. He adjusted the glasses on his nose and kicked at the doorsill.

  “Gilbert!” the woman raised her voice. “The flies! Close the door, will you.” The boy stepped across the sill, pushing his sister ahead of him, and closed the screen door.

  “No,” the woman continued. “This time papa had reached the end of his patience. Imagine, during the night, we were all in bed and suddenly we hear a great noise and then a lamp falling and then my curtains in the living room, and banging against the window.”

  Gilbert lowered his head but, when he saw that Henri was looking at him, he smiled, showing where he had lost a second front tooth.

  “Oh, I’m telling you,” his mother continued. “I was terrified. Finally, I wake papa. He was not in a good mood, you can imagine.”

  “So, what was making all the noise?” Henri laughed.

  “You’ll never guess. I was so afraid I hid under the blankets and all I could hear was the scratching against the window glass, and your father swearing. Oh, I was so scared.”

  “Me too,” Céline added.

  “Go on,” Gilbert spoke up suddenly. “You weren’t even awake. Monkey.”

  “Maman!”

  “Now Gilbert, don’t start!”

  “Anyway maman,” Henri said. “What was it, finally?

  “An owl! Can you believe it? Mother of God, an owl in the house…in the middle of the night!”

  “Wonder how it got in here?”

  “Don’t ask, eh? You know how he is with animals. Anyway, papa got the bird out somehow. Oh, he was mad. Lucky for you young man, papa waited until later to speak to you. The air in the room was blue. Oh, he was mad.”

  Henri laughed. He sat down at the table opposite his mother. He pulled the plastic-tipped cigar out of his shirt pocket.

  “Here, Gilbert,” he said. “A cigar.”

  “Henri!” the woman’s voice rose again.

  “A joke, maman.”

  “Okay, I’ll take it. Can I have the cigar, Henri? Please.”

  “You’re too young, you know. And besides, you’re liable to feed it to your fish, or your turtle or whatever else you’ve got up there in that zoo of yours.”

  “Yes, you can well call it a zoo,” his mother laughed. “I’m almost afraid to make the beds in the morning. You never know what will crawl out on you. Oh, it makes me shiver, just thinking about it.”

  “Ah, maman.” Gilbert looked at Henri and then at his mother. “It’s not that bad. And they’re all in their little boxes and everything.”

  “And the lizard! Eh?”

  “Is it my fault? Eh? Papa won’t buy me a real cage.”

  While they spoke, Céline had moved in closer and she pulled at the straps on Henri’s packsack.

  “What’s that, Henri?” she said.

  “That’s your brother’s packsack,” the woman replied. “Now, go and play outside, my sweet. You too, Gilbert. Papa should be home soon.”

  “There’s something in there, Henri?” the little girl tugged at the straps.

  “My clothes. And a baby raccoon.”

  “Henri!”

  “Where? Let me see!” Gilbert begged.

  “A joke, Gilbert. There’s nothing in there.”

  “Aw, how come?” the boy was let down.

  “Ah, that stinks!” the girl cried. She had loosened the straps and slid the top cover back.

  “You brought your washing, Henri.” Henri recognized, by the tone of her voice, that it was not a question.

  “Yes, maman. And that reminds me. Some of the clothes I put in a garbage bag. I don’t think they can be washed. We were on a forest fire.”

  “Yes, I know. So, was it very bad?”

  “You knew about the fire? How come?”

  “A man from the Company phoned to say that you wouldn’t be down. He said that the fire was very bad.”

  Henri smiled. He was thinking of Lavigne who had been worried because he had not answered his girlfriend’s letter. It was probably she who had worried more about her precious Gaston fighting those “very bad fires.”

  “It was not so bad, maman. At least not for us.”

  His mother passed her hand over the tablecloth, smoothing out the long narrow plaits. For a brief moment, Henri was reminded of some other long, narrow plaits that now seemed so very far away.

  “I was worried,” she said. “You never know. It could be dangerous. We hear stories. Papa just laughs at me when I worry like that but I can’t help it.”

  “No, no, maman,” Henri laughed. “There’s no danger. Come on!”

  Henri had planned on telling her all the stories: the hours they worked, CC vomiting into his hard hat, patrolling around the island, the animals that had burned alive and him being left in the bush on that last day.

  “Maman,” he said. “Got anything to eat?”

  “Poor Henri. Don’t they feed you up there in the bush?”

  “Sure. But, we ate at six this morning.”

  “Look in the fridge, there.” she got up from the table and went into the dining room. “Wrapped in foil. There’s a ham.”

  “Yes, I’ve found it.”

  Henri was hungry. He had not eaten like the others at the Café D’or. Should he call her from the upstairs phone? It was only three thirty. She might not be home. On Saturdays the girls sometimes took a walk downtown. No. Better to call her later, from a pay phone at the hotel. Maybe he would not have to call. Sylvie might be there to hear the new band. They could spend some time together.

  “Henri,” his mother called. She came in from the dining room. She was carrying a large brown envelope. “Henri, I’ve got some news for you.”

  Henri looked at her face, at the envelope in her hand and, suddenly, he was not hungry any more. That’s it then. I’m paying for it now. It was all wrong with Lise. It was good and wonderful but it was wrong and a sin and now I’m paying. Henri’s throat was dry and his stomach felt the way it had early one morning on the bus going out to the fire.

  “Yes maman?”

  “It’s from the provincial exams,” she said. His mother was not smiling. She removed the letter and the attached form from the envelope.

  “It says here,” she held the letter up to the light. She lowered the letter and looked into Henri’s eyes. Henri could not look at her. More than anything at that moment, he wanted to be somewhere else. He looked at the flower patterns on his mother’s apron.

  “It says here, Henri,” his mother repeated, “that you passed with seventy-nine percent and that you will be accepted into university!”

  “Ah oui,” Henri said, neither believing nor disbelieving. “Not bad, eh? Seventy-nine, you said?”

  “Yes, Henri. Oh, we’re so proud of you. Papa was mad at first. He said that being so close they could have made it eighty. Eighty percent sounds better than seventy-nine percent. But he’s proud too, Henri. You can be sure of it. Naturally, he might not mention it. But he’s very proud of you, Henri. I know that for sure. Believe me.”

  “Anyway, I’m glad that’s over,” Henri said.

  There was the sudden sound of tires rolling on the gravel driveway and a car’s horn honked twice.

  “There’s papa,” the woman said. “I told him not to toot the horn like that.”

  The screen door opened and Albert Morin, father and provider, entered the kitchen carrying two large paper bags, followed by Gilbert and Céline carrying smaller bags.

  “Here on the table,” the woman said.

 
“Well,” the man said, looking at Henri. “Back from the bush, eh. How was it on the fire?” The man put a large hand around Henri’s neck and slid it across his shoulders. There was a smell of beer on his breath.

  “Pretty good, papa,” Henri replied.

  “Pretty good? Christ, when I was on the fire…”

  “Albert!” the woman looked up from the paper bags she was emptying. “The children!”

  The man wiped the perspiration off his upper lip with the palm of his hand. “As I was saying,” he continued. “When I was on the fire it was pretty rough. Molasses and salt pork, and not too often at that. And the flames chasing after us. And I seen men on their knees, praying, and me, I was running like hell. Christ, I was never so scared in all my life.”

  “Albert!” the woman stared hard at the man.

  “Yes, yes. I forgot.”

  The man looked at Henri and brought one of his great big hands down gently on his shoulders. He winked at Henri.

  “The bush’s been good for you, my boy. I can see that, just looking at you.”

  “Yes papa,” Henri said. He bent down to the sandwich he had been preparing. He could feel the stinging coming to his eyes and he did not want his father to see that.

  Albert Morin burped loudly as he opened the refrigerator door. “Hey maman,” he yelled back from the open door. “My beer, maman. I knew it. Just leave the house for a couple of hours and all the hens come around to your house and drink your beer.”

  “Albert! That’s not true and it’s not nice either. Anyway, look in the cellar. Next to the potato bin. I needed room in the fridge.”

  “Ah, saved. I thought that old gobbler, Madame Brisebois had paid herself a few.”

  “Albert!”

  “All right, maman. Can’t we laugh a little, eh? Henri?”

  “Yes papa?”

  “A cold one?”

  Yes sure. Wait papa, I’ll go and get them.”

  “Ah sacrament! They learn things on the fire.”

  “Albert!”

  “Yes, yes, maman. I forgot. I know, I know. The children.”

  The man approached the table, covered in small parcels taken from the large paper bags. “Come here, ma belle maman,” he said. “A nice big kiss for your poor tired old man.”

  “Get away from me,” the woman laughed, stepping around to the other side of the table. “You maniac. You smell beer.”

  “Come here,” he teased. Suddenly, he lunged across a corner of the table and locked his large hands around her waist. The woman did not pull away. Her arms went up to his shoulders and her hands caressed the sides of his face, and she kissed him with her mouth open and her fingers playing with his hair that curled at the back of his neck.

  “Maman!” the man whispered. “The children.”

  The woman laughed and pushed him away. She looked at Céline and Gilbert who had been opening the parcels. The two were standing close together with their heads just barely above the table. They looked at the man and the woman with inquisitive eyes and their mouths open and waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.

  “Come on, now,” the woman said to them. “What’re we waiting for, eh? Help me put these in the fridge, my sweet. Gilbert, you take the cans.”

  Henri arrived with the beer.

  “You want a glass, papa?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Maman, I brought an extra one for you.”

  “What’s got into you, Henri? You know I never drink that. But, don’t worry. It won’t go to waste. Papa will see to that.”

  “Your mother,” the man said. “Always on my case. I don’t know how I manage. Tell me, Henri, you made good money on the fire?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bon. You don’t know?”

  “No. We haven’t been paid yet.”

  Henri felt the lump against his right hip. “I almost forgot,” he said. He opened his wallet and dropped the one hundred and seventy-eight one-dollar bills on the table.

  “And that’s just for the last three weeks on the sweep,” he explained. “There’ll be more when we get our fire pay.”

  “Be careful, Henri.” His mother looked at the bills spread on the table. “You shouldn’t leave money lying around like that.”

  “No, maman.”

  “How much?” his father asked.

  “One seventy-eight.” Henri gathered up the bills. “That’s three weeks less two days. The rest is fire pay and we should be getting that in a few days.”

  “Not bad,” the man said. “Should pay your room and board for the weekend.”

  “Papa!” the woman scolded.

  “A joke, maman. Everybody knows you’re worth more than that, eh?”

  “Don’t try to flatter me, old man. I see it coming.”

  “Now I’m an old man. Imagine!”

  Henri’s parents loved each other very much. It was obvious every hour of every day and it always made him feel wonderful and secure. Many times he had wanted to ask them what it was like before, when they had been younger and just starting to love each other. There was so much about loving that he did not know. His father never talked about such things. Perhaps he was just good at it naturally, without knowing anything about it. His mother rarely spoke of it and when she did it was always about someone else. None of it had been of any help to him.

  Henri finished the sandwich and drank the cold beer. He gathered the one-dollar bills into a neat stack and went up to his room.

  Once again there was the feeling of visiting a former classroom. It had been only five weeks but he felt a stranger in a familiar place. Everything was the same: the pictures on the wall, the map of the world, his writing desk and his bed with the thick down-filled comforter his mother had made for him and that he used both winter and summer. Still, there was a presence in the room, as if he had been there, thinking, being, only hours before. Henri pulled open one of the bureau drawers. He looked back to reassure himself that the bedroom door was closed. He slid back two heavy, wool shirts and, from beneath these, he withdrew a plain wooden box held secure with a tiny brass padlock. He sat down on the bed, with the money beside him in a pile, and held the wooden box on his thighs. Just touching the wood made him think of her. He had promised himself at Christmas that he would go on with his life, a life without her. He was young, after all, and there would be others. But there had not been others. Not like her.

  Henri opened the box. He took out the magnifying glass, the Lone Ranger ring and the plum-sized chunk of Pyrite that he had, for many years, considered as precious as real gold. He removed the square of white canvas and took out the flat cigar box that had been hidden underneath. He opened the cigar box and saw the bundle tied with green fishing line just as he had left it. The letters had been tied like that for more than six months but he knew every word of every line of every page and remembered the pictures of them together, at the lake, huddled together in the tiny rowboat. He saw every smile and every hair in and out of place. There were seven pictures in all, but he had a favourite and it still hurt him, just thinking about the day he had taken the picture of her with the wind blowing her hair across her face. The two of them had chased each other through the park and he had finally caught her and thrown her to the ground covering her in the dry leaves and she, suddenly, not smiling and looking very serious, said, “I love you.” And what could he say? He knew nothing of such things. “Yeah?” was all he could manage and she had pretended to be angry with him but she stood close to him and kissed him on the mouth and then she left him and ran down the street to her home. Henri had turned sixteen a few days before. The next day he was in love. Nothing else was important; nothing existed in his life but Shannon and what they had together. Imagine! Shannon Morin. They used to laugh about that. They were very happy and walked hand in hand everywhere and sat close together at the movies, with their heads touching. And Henri’s mother had warned him not to get too attached and his father had made jokes about checking out the rest of the p
ond. And then, one day, it happened. The kiss was not as warm, they did not hold hands anymore and, at the cinema, Shannon sat with her arms folded beneath her breasts.

  “I want to meet people, Henri,” she said. “I want to live.” And so Shannon went back to living and Henri crawled into his shell. The only time he left his home was to attend classes at the high school. He no longer went to the dances and changed his route home from school to avoid walking by the restaurant at the Hotel Chamberlain where many of the students gathered after school and on the weekends. Finally he got word that she was gone. Her parents had moved to Montréal. He found it easier then. To Henri, Montréal was far removed from his life in Ste-Émilie. As far as he was concerned, Shannon might have gone to live in Dublin or Chicago or Red Deer, Alberta. She was gone and now, perhaps, he could start again. And so, on Christmas Day, when everyone was sleeping in the afternoon, Henri re-read each letter she had written, looked at the pictures and then tied them in a bundle with a bit of green fishing line, never to be looked at again.

  Henri moved the bundle to one corner of the cigar box. He placed the stack of one-dollar bills beside the other bills he had earned during his first three weeks on the sweep. He closed the cigar box, replaced the canvas, returned the lens, the ring and the chunk of rock and closed the box. Seeing the bundle of letters in the cigar box had awakened familiar feelings. One day, he thought, I’ll burn them all. Someday, when I’ve got things straight, I’ll do it.

  Chapter 35

  Henri sat at the table opposite his brother and sister. His father ate loudly at one end of the table while his mother rushed back and forth from the table to the stove, to the sink and back to the table.

  “Maman!” the man said. “Sit down, will you. They can get their own.”

  “It’s nothing,” she replied.

  “Ah.”

  “Céline, eat my sweet,” she said. Then, turning to her youngest son sitting beside her, “And you too, Gilbert. No dessert, I’m warning. No one can live only on cake and ice-cream, you know.”

  “Why?” the boy said, pushing the glasses up on his nose.