The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “Lord, I confess to raising a hand to my daughter.”

  The admissions of the younger folk ventured onto the tumultuous seas of sins of the flesh: impure thoughts, unwanted advances, adultery, orgasms of all kinds.

  “My God, her breasts hung like overripe fruit.”

  Halfhearted acts of contrition that seemed to Lecavalier to come more from the lips than the heart. Which is how in two weeks he learned more about the women of Rivière-du-Loup (and women in general) than decency would have allowed him to hope, since Catholic confessions only count when the precise part of the body that sinned is specified. How exactly did the voluptuous pleasure arise? A priest who gave up the cloth would know more than enough to get by with a woman.

  “He took me, Father, while I was cleaning the oven.”

  They cheated on their husbands. Teal-colored eyes multiplied across the parish. And two words were on everyone’s lips: The Horse. It could only mean one thing: that drunkard of a muscleman Lecavalier had met when he arrived, the father of that wonderful young man and that strange girl, Madeleine. (The girl had in fact been first in line on the first Wednesday Father Lecavalier took confession.) But what could these poor women possibly see in the brute? That’s the question the young priest asked himself as he listened to the sometimes embarrassing descriptions of the risqué dreams in which Louis Lamontagne featured so often. In the darkness of the confessional, Lecavalier pinched his nose and prayed that the Lord would send him to Rome as soon as possible. And he complained to Father Rossignol that there were ten women for every man who came to confession.

  “Are your men all saints?”

  Rossignol had smiled.

  “No, but the women take you to be an angel, my poor Lecavalier.”

  The stations of the cross began to take shape. With his “Jesus falls for the first time,” he had completed his third painting by July 10. Lecavalier worked from dawn till dusk and insisted on painting inside the church, where the light was best, he said. And so at every mass there stood an easel covered by a dirty sheet. As soon as they’d finished celebrating the eucharist, Father Lecavalier would pick up where he had left off, stopping only to eat, sleep, and hear confession.

  In mid-July he began painting the station depicting Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry the cross.

  “Did you know, Marc, that the real Simon of Cyrene was black? He came from Libya.”

  “I didn’t, Father. Should I take off my pants too?”

  “Yes, and cover yourself up with this sheet the nuns gave me. Wait a moment: I’ll make a tunic out of it, don’t move.”

  “Just as well it’s summer! I’d be cold in winter.”

  “Here you are. Now hold the beam like this, in your left hand. Act as though you’re walking behind Jesus . . . Exactly. It’s not too heavy? You seem strong enough.”

  “I used to lift weights with Papa Louis sometimes, but not anymore.”

  “What? Louis Lamontagne has abandoned his weights?”

  “More or less. He spends more time at the Ophir.”

  “The Ophir?”

  “It’s a bar on Rue Lafontaine. His friends go there.”

  “And how come you’ve given up bodybuilding?”

  “I’m usually too tired to work out. Sometimes the neighbor’s girl comes over to lift weights.”

  “The one with the motorcycle?”

  “Yes. She often comes ’round.”

  “She’s a little like a sister to you, the Solange girl.”

  “To Madeleine, yes. But to me, she’s just our neighbor.”

  “Turn your head a little to the side . . . There we go. Can you hold that for at least ten minutes? Time enough for me to make a sketch of the scene.”

  “No problem, Father.”

  “So you’re not crazy about Solange.”

  “No, I’m not crazy about Solange.”

  “It’s true she’s a bit of a tomboy.”

  “What do you mean a tomboy, Father?”

  “Well, like a boy. Like you.”

  “And like you?”

  “Well, yes. But you’re not too hard on her?”

  “She’s the one who’s hard on me. She won’t stop poking her nose into my business.”

  “What business would that be?”

  “She never leaves me alone with Madeleine. Or hardly ever. The only chance I get to see my sister alone is at supper or in the mornings.”

  “But why do you need to see your sister alone? Are you to Madeleine what Hamlet was to Ophelia?”

  “Who’s Ophelia?”

  “Never mind. Why are you so keen to spend time with your sister?”

  “To play, of course!”

  “To play?”

  “To play at laughing!”

  “What do you mean, play at laughing?”

  “Like before, like when we were with Luc.”

  “Can you keep your head straight, Marc? Yes, like that. With Luc, you were saying?”

  “With Luc gone, Madeleine doesn’t want us to play like we used to.”

  “Once we’ve finished this pose, can you show me the game?”

  “Uhhh. No.”

  “What do you mean no? I like to laugh too.”

  “But it won’t be the same with you.”

  “You don’t find me funny?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “And if I do this to you, doesn’t that make you want to laugh?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “And here?”

  “Ha-ha!”

  Marc’s laughter was interrupted by a noisy, virile sneeze from the sacristy. Father Lecavalier rushed back behind his canvas and the church was silent again. Only the scratching of his pencil and the rumbling of Marc’s stomach disturbed the peace and quiet. Soon, footsteps echoed in the church and Father Rossignol emerged. Lecavalier hated being interrupted by the priest while he was working, but it was something he’d learned to tolerate. Did he have any choice? The priest appeared surprised to find Marc Lamontagne wearing nothing more than his underpants and some sort of sheet in the middle of the church. Then again, had the Lord been given his pick of clothing for the Passion? He thought to himself that Lecavalier was indeed a very talented man and went back to the sacristy, going out of his way to thank Marc for the favor for the thousandth time.

  “So long as you don’t catch cold, poor Marc. Are you still tired?”

  “Not today, but I slept the whole day long the day before yesterday.”

  “I’ll have to speak to your father.”

  Summer 1968 went by like an Apollo rocket. Fall advanced along with Solange’s despair. Madeleine appeared to change before her very eyes, sometimes even to the point of being curt with her. She evaded her questions and spent her time, a lot of time, watching Father Lecavalier paint. The priest-cum-painter had allowed the whole Lamontagne family, in return for services rendered by Marc and Madeleine, to watch him paint. Only Madeleine had taken him up on his offer, the others having better things to do. And so it was in mid-August that Madeleine lied to her friend Solange for the first time. She didn’t even know why. It had just come to her, and her heart told her it was the right thing to do.

  “Do you want to go out on the bike after school? We’ll go up by the lake.”

  “Uh . . . I can’t this afternoon. Mom wants me to help her with supper.”

  Solange pursed her lips and wreaked vengeance on the world, revving her Triumph up and down the length of the lake. It was also about that time that Madeleine undid her braids, cut her hair shoulder length, and gave in to the gentle delights of hair spray.

  “What’s that in your hair, for the love of God?” Solange snorted. And the Triumph terrorized another village. A floral dress also put in an appearance, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Lecavalier, who, ever the sycophant, complimented Madeleine on her purchase.

  “I’m working as a cleaner at the Saint-Louis Hotel,” she said, as if to justify such extravagance.

  Most of the time,
Madeleine hovered silently behind Father Lecavalier and watched him paint. She congratulated him on his Simon of Cyrene, the spitting image of her younger brother Marc.

  “He even has his eyes, Father Lecavalier. He has Mom’s brown eyes.”

  “But you have your father’s eyes, Madeleine,” he replied, passing his hand through her fine blond hair.

  “I have Dad’s eyes and Luc had Mom’s eyes, just like Marc.”

  “He has lovely eyes, your brother Marc. They’re so dark. Look how they stand out in the painting. You could stare at them all day.”

  “You don’t prefer teal-colored eyes?”

  “They’re nice too. But Marc’s have such depth. They’re so—what would you call it?—so . . . playful. Isn’t that right, Madeleine? Your brother’s a playful boy, isn’t he?”

  “No more than Luc used to be, Father. He used to laugh most in the family, after Papa Louis. Marc doesn’t laugh all that much.”

  “But he told me he loved to laugh . . . That you love to laugh together.”

  Madeleine was taken aback. She stared at the church floor.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Perhaps you should have a word with your father, Madeleine. Can you come by tomorrow? I’d like to start the station with Mary Magdalene.”

  By way of reply, Madeleine wiped away a furtive tear, got up from the pew she’d been sitting on, and left the priest to his work. She found her brother that same evening in something of a trance. She walked up to him. There were shouts, shouts that Papa Louis did not hear from the Ophir. The thud of a body falling to the ground, a sound that had not been heard in the house since Papa Louis had, to save the soul of his son Luc, stopped lifting his hand to Irene. “You’re hurting me. You’re killing me.” Moans that did not wake Irene from her drunken stupor in front of the television, that never passed through the walls of the Lamontagne home, but that, strangely, the whole town managed to hear. The people of Rivière-du-Loup have a keen ear. The following morning, Madeleine refused to speak to Solange.

  “I have to pose for Father Lecavalier. He’s drawing Mary Magdalene today.”

  “Madeleine . . .”

  “Yes, Solange?”

  “Madeleine, you have to do something.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s it to you, Solange Bérubé? You’re just our neighbor. Since when has it been any of your business?”

  “Madeleine, listen to me . . .”

  “Nobody other than the nuns has ever wanted to take care of the Lamontagne children, and now you want to go around acting all holier-than-thou, is that it? You think you’re better than us? When your dad was beating you with a stick and we could hear your screams all the way over here, did we get involved? No, we didn’t! So don’t act all smart, okay? Get on your bike and go wake the dead in Saint-Arsène!”

  Solange gave Madeleine a slap of Wagnerian proportions. It was a sleepless night for both the living and the dead in Saint-Arsène. When she arrived at the church the following morning, Madeleine looked like a woman who had just attended her own crucifixion.

  “You’re perfect, Madeleine!” Father Lecavalier exclaimed.

  Dead tired and prostrate on her knees before Christ on the cross, no more than six yards from where her father had been born, Madeleine prayed while the priest drew her.

  “Tears aren’t necessary, Madeleine.”

  “I know. I can’t help it.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “The suffering of Our Lord, Father.”

  “You can speak frankly to me, Madeleine.”

  “I’m crying because you’ll be leaving soon,” Madeleine answered, without abandoning her pose. “The station with Mary Magdalene is the twelfth of fourteen. You’ll be finished soon. You’ll go back to Quebec City and then on to Rome.”

  “Oh . . . Rome. I can only hope. It will all depend on the kindness of our archbishop.”

  “You’re going to leave and I’ll be stuck here alone.”

  “Did you speak to your father?”

  “My father drinks. He doesn’t hear anymore.”

  “And your mother?”

  Madeleine ignored the priest’s questions. She seemed to be lost in a sort of trance, her eyes fixed on the crucifix, mumbling some prayer or other. Lecavalier would later swear he heard her say something in German: “Zucker, ja Zucker.” He couldn’t be sure, however, because he didn’t speak a word of German. He put it down to exhaustion and thanked Madeleine once he’d finished his sketch.

  “When will you be finished, Father?”

  “I’ll have added the color in three days. You can come back and see it then.”

  Madeleine left the church without saying a word, stopped by the Damours grocery store on her way home, and slipped a can of maple syrup into her bag while the clerk was busy giving a woman her change. She left after buying a bunch of turnips, two onions, and three radishes.

  “Will that be all, Miss Lamontagne?” the cashier asked her.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied, looking him square in the eye.

  She hid her spoils in a drawer, under a pile of bras, and locked herself away for two days. She heard her brother get up to pee ten times that night.

  The day that circumstances compelled Madeleine to take Tosca’s fate in her own hands coincided with Lecavalier’s birthday. Madeleine went to the church. Solange saw her leaving home in the early afternoon and followed her. She waited for Madeleine to go into the church. Without making a sound, she slipped in through a side door and hid behind a confessional. Father Rossignol and Father Lecavalier were deep in discussion and didn’t notice her come in. Madeleine watched them from the vestibule. Their voices carried over to her. From what she gathered, the men were discussing the stations of the cross. From behind a half-open door, Madeleine watched the scene unfold, the importance of which she wouldn’t realize until later. Lecavalier had set up stations V and XII side by side, “Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry his cross” and “Jesus dies on the cross” respectively. Even from a distance, Madeleine was struck by the resemblance between Simon and Marc. It was so remarkable that, for years afterward, the parishioners would look up and say, “That’s Louis ‘The Horse’ Lamontagne’s boy. Just look how alike they are. He has the same dark eyes.” The three-quarter-view portrait of Marc even had the same look of solicitude that believers like to ascribe to Simon. On another easel to the right, the painting representing Christ’s death was even more captivating. Lecavalier had opted for bold, almost brash, colors. In the background, the familiar sunset over the Charlevoix mountains. The same orange-tinted pink light that enveloped the people and properties of Rivière-du-Loup when evening fell. This poetry hadn’t escaped the painter, who had even gone so far as to include typically Canadian trees such as balsam fir and a white spruce. In the center, Christ, his face forlorn, had just expired. Below him, two women: the Virgin Mary, whose face could barely be seen, and Mary Magdalene, as faithful as a photograph of her model. Madeleine was taken aback for a second or two at the sight of her own face. She had never before seen herself in a painting or anywhere else other than in Mr. Marmen’s photographs. The image before her eyes transfigured and transfixed her. No one would doubt for a second it was anyone but her, and the thought filled her with a feeling that was impossible to describe. Inner peace? Happiness? Bliss? Something rare, that was for sure. She heard the two men talking. Father Rossignol seemed delighted.

  “I couldn’t tell you, Father Lecavalier, which I like more. The portrait of Marc is so true to life. And the same goes for little Madeleine. As for the fir tree, I’m not so sure . . . Folks here tend to be quite conservative.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll be pleased to see the St. Lawrence?”

  “Not in a crucifixion scene. We’re not used to awful things happening here, you see. Canada is a blessed land. Misfortune is for Germany, Poland, the Middle East, sandy places . . . The people of Rivière-du-Loup really feel as though they are living
in the land God chose for his children.”

  “Well, if that’s how they see it. I, on the other hand, am more than pleased to have finished my work.”

  “You didn’t enjoy your time here, Father Lecavalier?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Father, but I find the atmosphere in the town a trifle stifling. People can’t simply get on with their lives without constantly being watched and judged by those around them. And some of your parishioners are . . . how can I put this? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings . . . Let’s just say that some of them need to step outside themselves. Take the Lamontagnes. They need to get out of their funeral parlor now and again. Those children are much too close.”

  “But there’s no harm in a brother and sister getting along, Father Lecavalier.”

  “You’re not following me. And it’s none of my business in any case. It’s a shame for the boy. Lord knows what might become of him in the city.”

  “Marc speaks highly of you. You’ve made quite an impression on him. He’s spoken of nothing but painting since you arrived.”

  “I think he’s the best-looking of the Lamontagne children, Father Rossignol. Truth be told, both are beautiful. In such different ways, but they manage to complement one other. Marc is well built, like his father. Madeleine has her mother’s dreamy beauty. When I look at Marc, I immediately think of Bernini’s sculptures and I curse the heavens that I lack his talent. And the mere sight of Madeleine is enough to make me question my vows.”