by Eric Dupont
“The cardinal of Montreal is delighted to see a Catholic elected to the White House and invites the faithful to include America, henceforth and more than ever, in their prayers.”
The rosary stopped dead.
Irene and the children ventured into the living room one by one. Louis was standing in front of a wooden dresser with a screen in the middle of it. A man was reading a news bulletin. In the blue light, the Lamontagne family and Solange Bérubé watched the first pictures of the victorious presidential couple. The crowd was ecstatic, people were shouting in English. A cold wind blew through the house.
“Television!”
Marc and Madeleine had fallen into their father’s arms. He had just been promoted from Papa Louis to the Emperor of All Galaxies and Creator of All Happiness. Irene ran a finger across the wooden box.
“So we can afford this now?”
“Come on, Irene. Almost everyone in the parish has one . . . Everyone except the nuns!”
“How much did you pay for it?”
“It’s my surprise, Irene. For the children.”
“Could you please explain to me how we can’t go about our lives without one of these things, Louis Lamontagne!”
He nodded toward the dead body in the parlor, as if to tell his wife that the old Lévesque woman’s funeral had paid for it.
“Do you think the store will take it back?” asked Irene, to the children’s despair.
“Come on, Irene!”
“You figure it out however you please, Louis, but it’s madness. Now I’ve told you. I don’t want it in the house.”
From the funeral parlor, there came a noise, a wheezing sound. Someone was having trouble breathing!
“Grandma isn’t well!”
Madeleine had run in to see what was happening. She found Old Ma Madeleine sitting down, trying to catch her breath, finger pointed at the television, her eyes rolled back in her head. Guttural sounds . . . spittle . . . more wheezing . . . the old woman passed out.
“Turn off the television, Papa,” Madeleine begged.
Old Ma Madeleine came ’round as soon as Louis did so.
“What is that thing?” she moaned.
Never, not since she died for the first time in 1933, had Old Madeleine fallen ill or complained of a single ailment. But as soon as Louis had switched on the infernal machine, the old woman had felt an unbearable pressure pushing down on her skull, she’d heard screaming voices, found herself short of breath, begun to tremble.
“It’s the television, Grandma.”
Old Ma Madeleine walked into the dark living room. Stopped in front of the television, now turned off, peered at the faces of her grandson and his children, where she saw nothing but joy and contentment. For the first time in her life, Old Ma Madeleine felt overtaken by events, in orbit, far from her world. At the very idea of having to endure this contraption straight from the bowels of hell, Old Madeleine grasped her head in her hands.
“You said the nuns don’t have one?” she asked her grandson.
“No. They don’t want one.”
Old Ma Madeleine slowly walked upstairs. The thing was there to stay, that much she could tell from the look in her grandson’s eyes. She would be the one to go. The dead have need of few things in this life, but peace and quiet is one of them. The tinny voices, the flickering blue and grey images of other worlds foretold the worst. Old Ma Madeleine packed a small case and took the painting, The Entombment of Mary, that Louis had brought her back from Europe. They thought she’d gone upstairs to bed, but she took the kitchen stairs out, noiselessly, like a ghost in the night.
As she made her way to the convent—for that was where she was off to—she stopped from time to time in front of homes bathed in the same blue-tinged light. It gave everyone the blueish complexion her son Louis-Benjamin had had when they fished him out of the river he’d thrown himself into after Madeleine the American had died. While it never crossed her mind to follow his lead, she felt a pang of sadness for all the people sitting in front of the same pictures, each in their own home. And she could hear the death of endless stories, chatter, and questions. “Nothing of interest left to be said now,” she thought.
The dead are so quiet that her footsteps didn’t even squeak, instead elegantly sliding above and below the snow that God sends down on the northernmost countries. In the distance, the moon shone on the St. Lawrence the same way it shines over Lake Starnberg: with extreme violence.
At the convent, the nuns were getting ready for bed when Old Ma Madeleine rang the bell. It was Sister Mary of the Eucharist who would take her into her room until she died a second time, years later. Mother Mary of the Great Power had no objections to accommodating Louis’s grandmother. After all, she thought, that Irene—peculiar and money-grubbing though she might have been—was well within her rights to rule over her household like any other mother. Why should she have to endure a mother-in-law whose definitive departure date remained unknown? Old Ma Madeleine had no vows to take: death would be her safe conduct. Henceforth, the nuns shared their porridge and raisins in the morning, their ground meat in the afternoon. In return—and much to the delight of all the nuns—Old Ma Madeleine hung The Entombment of Mary on the refectory wall, where it would be admired by all for years to come. The painting intrigued them. In the beginning, each and every one of them would stand in front of it, as though to unearth a detail that had eluded the others. Some counted the apostles, tried to identify them by their first names. No one could agree on which one St. Andrew was supposed to be. No one was indelicate enough to admit to Old Ma Madeleine how uneasy the painting made them feel. Hadn’t the Blessed Virgin ascended into Heaven? Why linger on the decomposition of the flesh? What would His Grace make of it? The painting served as a daily reminder that every living thing must rot away, a thought to which they reacted by praying even more fervently than before.
At Louis’s house, Old Ma Madeleine’s disappearance went unnoticed until the following morning. Louis searched everywhere for his grandmother, panic-stricken, calling out left and right until Sister Mary of the Eucharist appeared in person to explain the situation. Papa Louis protested. After all, he was perfectly capable of looking after his own grandmother! And Sister Mary of the Eucharist looked over at the television as if to say, “Even enough to get rid of that?” The point wasn’t lost on Irene, ever present and alert. Without giving her husband time to compromise this happy ending, she hammered the final nail into the casket:
“The television has become absolutely indispensable. Now is the time to look forward. Besides, Mother will be fine at the convent. As for the funeral parlor, we’ll manage. The whole business was beginning to wear her out, I think.”
And that was how Madeleine saw her great-grandmother leave for the convent. The dead woman’s wrists were still sturdy enough, and she was put to work in the laundry since she felt neither hot nor cold. From then on, she appeared only very rarely before Madeleine, who almost forgot she existed.
Sister Mary of the Eucharist and Old Ma Madeleine formed a touching duo who stayed well clear of televisions; the first because she considered them Japanese devilry, the second because the shrill static noise drove her mad. Prayer was all the entertainment they needed.
And God only knew that Madeleine and Solange would soon be in great need of someone, somewhere, praying for them.
And Solange? After watching the news for the first time on television, Solange went home smelling of formaldehyde, convinced the world had no sweeter perfume. Her parents were waiting up for their daughter, worried stiff. It was another girl who came home to them, a different one. Clutching the photograph Papa Louis had given her—the one of him posing in a tight-fitting leotard alongside the archbishop of Rimouski—she looked at her still-awake brother, the same one who had shown her his willy in the garden. She burst out laughing and went up to her room to hide the photo away in a safe place. Her cry woke the whole house.
“My name is Solange Lamontagne! I love rabbits! I
love dead people! I love John F. Kennedy!”
The following day, the extent of her impudence was made abundantly clear. She was ignored for almost the entire day, then, at around four o’clock, her father came looking for her.
“Your mother wants to see you in the kitchen.”
The potatoes were waiting for her. And not just one batch of potatoes. On November 13, 1960, Solange Bérubé was shown to a wooden stool that was surrounded by every variety of potato available in Rivière-du-Loup. She was given a very sharp paring knife and ordered to peel every tuber and remove every last eye.
“Every single one, Solange.”
And so Solange began peeling. Days, weeks, months, years passed. Tons of potatoes, probably enough to feed all of Rivière-du-Loup for a century. As the greyish peels fell down into the tin bucket, Solange got older. Her feet eventually touched the floor, her fingers grew longer, and she became defter with the knife. Years went by without it feeling like she’d ever left her potato-peeling stool. She was given new clothes to wear, horrible skirts, even though she’d been praying to Good Saint Anne for pants. Round-neck blouses when she’d rather have worn one of her older brothers’ checked shirts. And the white potatoes, eyes now removed, tumbled one by one into the huge earthenware bowl. The Corpus Christi procession passed by Solange Peeler of Potatoes. Sister Mary of the Eucharist laid a hand on her shoulder in solidarity. We all have a cross to bear, dear. Solange’s hair grew longer, fell down over her eyes. Her mom cut it while she peeled and rinsed the potatoes. There were all kinds: white, yellow, red, blue, Kennebec, baby potatoes. While Louis Lamontagne drove his hearse the length and breadth of Rivière-du-Loup, while Irene Lamontagne née Caron applied makeup to the dead and styled their hair, while Old Ma Madeleine prayed at the convent, Solange peeled potatoes. Her aunts from New Brunswick came to visit, whispering words of encouragement. “Do you like the Beatles? We got you a record in Moncton!” Sacks of spuds fell beside her with a dull thud, keeping time to “I wanna hold your hand, I wanna hold your hand, I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-a-a-nd!” Poking out the eyes, peeling the skins, picking up the pace. Every potato was a bead on a never-ending rosary offered up for the teal-colored eyes of Madeleine Lamontagne. “All my loving,” Madeleine. There was the occasional break: Solange went to school, Solange walked along beside Madeleine, Solange was confirmed. The kitchen radio played: “I give her all my love. That’s all I do. And if you saw my love, you’d love her too. And I love her. And I love her. And I love her.” Ghastly breasts grew on her, looking every bit like the potatoes she was peeling. On Madeleine too. Solange became a woman while she peeled potatoes. What she had done was no laughing matter. She’d preferred another family to her own, but a little elbow grease will atone for anything in French Canada! Peel, wretched child! The occasional drive in the car with Papa Louis and Madeleine. Eating an ice cream with one hand while the other peeled. Mr. Bérubé died. They ate potatoes at the funeral. One nun replaced another at the convent, each stricter than the last, each strangely, improbably, more enamored with God. How many winters? Five? Six? Eight? She couldn’t say. And the church began emptying slowly, then suddenly, maybe two years before the yellow submarine passed by the shores of Rivière-du-Loup.
One night while her mother was braiding her hair, just as she was nearing the bottom of a bag of Kennebecs, her aunt Louisa set down a cake on the kitchen table. There were seventeen candles on it. Solange looked up from her chore. The whole family stared at her, wide eyed, all wearing their Sunday best. Mrs. Bérubé looked her straight in the eye.
“You can stop peeling, Solange. It’s your birthday. You’ve served your sentence. What’s your name again? Can you remind us?”
“Solange Bérubé. My name is Solange Bérubé,” she replied, spitting on the floor.
It was the most ladylike thing she did that day.
A New Confessor
IN THE FAMILY portrait taken by Marmen the photographer in June 1968, Louis Lamontagne and his wife are sitting on a love seat upholstered in a magenta floral print on a chestnut background. Irene is dressed in black, and is wearing the look of someone who has lost something important and is wondering wherever it might have gone. Between husband and wife, an empty space, large enough for a child to sit in. Standing behind them, their two oldest children. First Marc, an attractive, austere young man, looking every bit like he’d just stepped out of a Botticelli self-portrait: the same fleshy lips, the same hungry and languorous eyes. His hand is on the frail shoulder of his big sister Madeleine, who’s standing tall and proud as befits a Lamontagne, although everyone knows, without being able to explain exactly how or why, that her mind is occupied with some complex mental arithmetic, as is a Caron’s wont. She’s wearing a pale-colored dress. A necklace. Her hair nicely done. Of course she’s pretty! Doesn’t she look like Mireille Mathieu with her hair cut in a bob like that? The Lamontagne parents, sitting on their love seat, are looking their age. Irene especially. Dark rings, crow’s feet, practically ostrich feet. Papa Louis now has a round belly, greying temples, weary eyes. But he’s still the best looking of the bunch, closely followed by his son Marc, a dangerous rival.
But where has little Luc gone? The dreamy child who needed his meat chopped up for him?
It must have happened shortly after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Luc, then nine, was playing with a Caron cousin, a boy a little younger than himself. Papa Louis had strictly forbidden them from running around the caskets in the basement and from getting too close to the room where he embalmed the bodies. Fear of Luc’s father had kept them away, but curiosity had drawn them back. And that’s how, during a game of hide-and-seek, Luc had slipped inside a huge oak casket. He’d had a hard time opening it, but it had closed over him in no time at all. The cousin counted to one hundred upstairs. Marc was looking on, having been vaguely told to keep an eye on the boys that afternoon. Papa Louis had business in town; Irene was out running errands. The cousin began to look for Luc in the upstairs bedrooms, a decision that, many would later say, played a part in the tragedy. Not finding him upstairs, he made his way down to the basement. Nothing. Alarmed, the cousin reported Luc’s disappearance to Marc, who helped him look everywhere a second time. It was only when Madeleine came back from Solange’s house that light was shed—literally—on the mystery. Generally more observant than her brothers, Madeleine had long since noticed the youngest child’s interest in what went on in the basement and, paying no heed to Papa Louis’s warning, Madeleine, with Marc’s help, opened the lids of the four caskets that took up half the basement. She found young Luc suffocated in the smallest casket of all, his skin blue, his face scratched. He had ripped his hair out. It was this detail that would haunt Madeleine in her dreams. In the room beside them, a dead body was waiting for Papa Louis to return so that his wake could begin. Madeleine’s first reflex was to go get Solange, who could do nothing more than call for help. Soon the shouts of the cousin, traumatized for life, began to alert the neighbors on Rue Saint-François-Xavier, then the rest of the parish. News of Luc’s accidental death flowed across Rivière-du-Loup like lava spreading from above the church of Saint-François-Xavier, running down Côte Saint-Pierre and Rue Lafontaine and passing by the convent, emptying it of its nuns within seconds. The news spread from house to house, making its way in through upstairs windows and out through basement window wells. No one was spared, not even Louis as he sipped his gin at the Château Grandville, not even Irene as she tried to decide between two ties at Ernest & Paul. The further the news made its way down the hill, the more it got distorted. Still in its purest form when it reached the convent (“Little Luc Lamontagne has been found suffocated to death inside a casket”), by the time it was halfway down the hill it had become “Marc Lamontagne shut his little brother Luc inside a casket and he died, suffocated to death.” And when it reached the bottom, the news had been completely distorted. Now barely recognizable, it traveled all the more quickly. Now it was “Marc Lamontagne strangled his little brother Luc
with his bare hands and tried to hide the body in a casket” and “Marc Lamontagne is coming down Rue Lafontaine armed with an axe—hide your children!” The news finally spilled into the waters of the St. Lawrence, a stretch of the river that forever after would retain a greenish hue, the color of slander.
Irene arrived on the scene a little before Louis. People still maintain to this day that she raced into the house with a full head of red hair and came back out completely white, like Marie Antoinette on the scaffold. Papa Louis had to push his way through the crowd that had gathered outside his house. A handful of the Sisters of the Child Jesus were praying out loud, hands in the air, as though warding off ill fortune. Outside on her porch, Mrs. Bérubé was staring at the ground.
“A defenseless child,” she sighed.
Little Luc was buried in the casket that killed him. His wake lasted only a few hours, the time it took for half the town to file through Papa Louis’s parlor. The religious service, sung by Father Rossignol, who sobbed and spluttered his way through it, stayed with those fortunate enough to attend, not only due to the horror and gravity of the event, but also because they were witnessing on that cursed Sunday the beginning of Louis “The Horse” Lamontagne’s decline. The organist, thinking he was doing the right thing, decided to play a solemn, serious piece at the beginning of the funeral service. The Lamontagnes, sitting in the front row and looking the worse for wear, didn’t pay the music the slightest bit of attention, except when Papa Louis stood up, strode from one end of the church to the other, walked up to the jube, and interrupted the musician.
“I want you to play Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
The organist, a small, spindly man, as dogmatic as he was effeminate, sat dumbfounded for an instant.
“I . . . no. It’s not appropriate. It’s not for funerals, Mr. Lamontagne.”
The congregation craned their necks toward the jube. Louis’s voice rang out, sounding unmistakably like he had more than a few drinks in him.