The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “Don’t look now, but I think that’s Venise Van Veen . . . She’s coming in . . .”

  Venise Van Veen was the host of the new nightly culture show, Call Me Venise, on Radio-Canada. She was the kind of no-nonsense woman who could look a prime minister in the eye and ask, “Are you going to be frank with me, sir?” No shrinking violet, she was used to rubbing shoulders with the who’s who of Montreal: artists, politicians, writers, academics. And she was a woman who spoke her mind: at the age of twenty-seven, she had been hired to provide a woman’s take on the issues of the day. She came to the restaurant very early that Friday morning, around seven o’clock, sat down at the counter, and ordered a “Solange pancake” in an imperious tone. Solange had watched her walk in slowly, inspecting the diner before she chose a seat in case it was the kind of place where she didn’t want to risk being seen. Without a doubt, Solange had thought to herself as she watched her, she would go for the pancake menu. Her father had been born in France and so she spoke with a posh accent that charmed Madeleine and exasperated Solange. As she waited for her meal, Venise gave the Sacred Heart and the picture of Saint Cecilia tacked to the wall a derisive smile. She almost snickered aloud when she caught sight of the palm crosses. Solange came over with her meal and she gobbled it down at once, as though frightened someone might steal her pancake.

  “I am a woman of few words,” Venise lied. “But I must say that pancake was especially . . . how can I put it? Especially aaairy! An American-style pancake, unless I’m very much mistaken. My compliments, miss,” she said to Madeleine, who was bustling between the hotplate and the cutting board, waving her hands in the air like an octopus.

  It was Solange who kept the conversation going. “Thank you, Mrs. Van Veen!”

  “You recognize me?”

  “Yes, you’re on television. We know who you are.”

  “And youuuuu are?”

  “Solange Bérubé. And this is Madeleine Lamontagne.”

  The guest seemed intrigued.

  “You both seem very young to be working. Are you stuuudents?”

  Solange smiled. Venise had a habit of stretching out her vowels, and would do it at least twenty times every show.

  “No, we’re not students. This is our restaurant.”

  “I seeee. You’re working for your parents, like so many young women. So that’s it.”

  “No, no. Mado’s belongs to us. She’s Mado. This is our restaurant,” Solange insisted.

  “At your age? But how is that possible?”

  “Well, it is. As you can see. More coffee, Mrs. Van Veen?”

  “Yes, just a little. But you do everything? That seems a lot for two women.”

  “Mr. Zucker helps us with the accounting, but Madeleine can do most of it on her own now. He’s there to help. He gets us everything we need.”

  “Zuuucker?”

  “He’s from Austria, like Mozart. His name means ‘sugar’ in his own language.”

  “Hmm. And Mado’s is always this busy?”

  “Almost always. It’s quieter at the start of the week, so we’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays.”

  “A woman needs her rest!”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of raised voices from a table behind them. Two shady-looking characters were giving Juliette the waitress a hard time. The men had come in just after Venise, a fat man and a thin one. Laurel and Hardy had sat down and were now harassing the young woman in the lewdest, loudest way. Their degrading insults washed up against the counter, leaving oozing brown stains in the minds of everyone they touched.

  “Just one moment, ma’am. I have to deal with this,” Solange apologized to Venise.

  The two ne’er-do-wells had spent the night out on the town and, come dawn, found themselves famished and with no sweet companions on their arms. For a moment, Solange worried their fetid breath might strip the wild strawberry–print wallpaper from the walls; she’d had a devil of a time putting it up. The scene was brief but effective. A few choice words, a couple of kicks up the ass, and the two stunned rascals were outside on the sidewalk. Solange could be heard proffering further threats from her vast repertoire before they scuttled away. Solange picked up her conversation with a wide-eyed Venise Van Veen without missing a beat. The television personality settled her bill, left Solange an almost embarrassingly large tip, and announced she would be back at the same time the following day.

  “Have you ever been on television?”

  “Never.”

  “See you tomorrow, then, my dear Solaaange.”

  “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Van Veen.”

  “Call me Venise.”

  Venise Van Veen came back to eat the next day and the next and the one after that. Each time, she brought a journalist she worked with, a minor celebrity. In September 1969, she had breakfast at Mado’s three times a week. It was in the fall that she put her plan into action. Having gained Madeleine and Solange’s confidence, Venise proposed recording Call Me Venise in the restaurant, using the opportunity to introduce the province to two women she found fascinating (something she was always telling them).

  “I find you both faaaascinating.”

  Solange turned her down flat. There was no way she was going to take up half of the already too-small restaurant with so many people; people who would go on and on for hours on end while they sipped a coffee or nibbled on a round of toast.

  “We only have thirty places, Venise . . . and overheads,” came her curt reply. Madeleine saw things differently. She remembered her father’s business and thought back to the obstacles The Horse had faced. There was no shortage of dead bodies, but they didn’t all want to be embalmed by him. How come? As Madeleine told it, it all boiled down to gossip and perception. And now someone was giving her the chance to feed the gossip mill, to have it work in her favor for once. She eventually convinced Solange, who managed to squeeze one concession out of Venise: she would never appear on camera. She couldn’t have cared less what the people of Rivière-du-Loup might think; no, her concern lay elsewhere. Solange quite simply didn’t want to be around for all eternity. She already had everything she’d always wanted. The rest was no more than “window dressing,” as she liked to say.

  And so the program was recorded one October morning just after the breakfast rush. The production team had come a few days ahead of time to move this and arrange that, to fiddle with the lighting and gussy up the place. Venise insisted on opening the show with a body shot of herself outside the restaurant on the corner of Saint-Hubert and Beaubien. After a few words of welcome explaining the change of décor to an audience more used to seeing Venise inside a studio, Madeleine was to walk into the shot, coffee pot in hand. Interviews would follow with that morning’s guests sitting around a table. The lineup included a French philosopher, a Canadian opera singer, a federal government minister, and, naturally, a “Solange pancake” or two. The introduction was short, and Madeleine entirely charming. Her resemblance to French singer Mireille Mathieu was not lost on a single viewer, and her smile, which she had inherited from her American grandmother, outshone all the guests. She only had to come into shot and suddenly the whole world revolved around her.

  Solange managed to keep the boys away from the media circus for a time, but destiny decided otherwise. They shared the same blood as Louis Lamontagne, after all. Venise ended her show with a short interview with Madeleine, asking her to explain, among other things, her menu.

  “They’re recipes handed down to me by my grandmother.”

  “Oh reaaaally. And was she a cook?”

  “Uh . . . yes. I guess so.”

  Earlier, the cameraman had also filmed Madeleine lifting cast-iron pans and sacks of flour.

  “Madeleine, we saw you lifting heavy pans and the like earlier. Wherever did you get your strength?”

  “Oh, you know. That just comes with working in the kitchen!”

  Off in a corner by herself, Solange almost choked.

  “And tell me, Madeleine, your
parents . . . you told me you lost your parents. Where do you get your inspiration from? To whom do you turn for advice?”

  “First, to God. Then to Mr. Zucker, who helped me open my restaurant. He’s always there when I need him.”

  “Siegfried Zucker of Zucker Food?”

  “Yes, he’s a real gentleman.”

  “And do you always wear your little cross?”

  “Yes, it keeps me safe.”

  “Well, thank you once again, Madeleine, for such a warm welcome. May God protect you and your restaurant and all those you looove.”

  To thank Madeleine for allowing her to bring her show to the restaurant, Venise presented her on camera with a little pendant, a piece of jewelry beyond the young woman’s means. For a moment, the entire province looked on as her gaze fell upon the twinkling object; her lips parted, her fingers took it, her face momentarily hypnotized by the comforting glow of gold and precious metals. Venise had to snap her fingers to rouse Madeleine from her reverie. Laughter rang out. Venise turned to the camera to wrap up the show.

  “That’s all for today, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us for this special edition of Call Me Venise, brought to you from the restaurant of this exceptional young woman, Madeleine Lamontagne. And if you have a chance to drop by Saint-Hubert and Beaubien, you, too, will be able to admire Madeleine’s eyes. What color are they, Madeleine, turquoise?”

  “Teal,” Madeleine replied.

  “Teaaal. Charming! And, by the way, life will never be the same again without a ‘Solange pancake’ for breakfast. Enjoy your weekend. And remember: dare to dream, ladies!”

  “And . . . cut!”

  The program was broadcast the following evening, a Friday. In the homes of French Canada, Madeleine’s accent was welcomed like the song of an angel. Her ingenuousness, her youth, and her smile melted even the most cynical hearts. Reaction, however, was mixed in Rivière-du-Loup. On the one hand, people were proud to see Louis’s girl bring her local charm as far as the big city. But why hadn’t she taken the opportunity to honor her father’s memory? Some took this to mean Madeleine had disowned them, as though she were turning her back on her roots, which wasn’t entirely unfounded.

  The morning following Venise’s show, Solange and Madeleine woke up from two hours’ sleep. The twins were teething. Solange was the first to go downstairs, at six o’clock, Gabriel still screaming in her arms. The staircase led from the apartment right into the restaurant.

  “It’s more praktisch in winter,” Zucker had told them.

  Solange warmed the hotplates, turned on the taps, set Gabriel down on the counter, switched on the radio, then froze. She had a feeling she was being watched. Someone or something was staring at her. Shadows milled around on the other side of the big windows. People were smiling and waving in at her. Solange took fright and went to get Madeleine, who came down with Michel in her arms.

  “What do they want?” Solange hissed.

  “Pancakes, dear Solange. They want pancakes. Call Mr. Zucker and Juliette, and tell Juliette to bring her sister.”

  “She’s fourteen!”

  “Well, today she’s sixteen. That’s old enough to work. Now come on. We can do this!”

  “But Madeleine . . .”

  By the time Zucker arrived at the restaurant, the girls had already served dozens of customers. A line had formed down the street.

  “Jo, Mädels, that television show sure was a great idea!”

  Madeleine and Solange were up to the job. In March 1970, Madeleine and Solange opened a second restaurant on the corner of Papineau and Beaubien. Zucker was a big help. It was he who got the servers and the new cooks trained and who took care of the accounting, all while keeping the restaurants well stocked. Months of hard work followed, along with a third restaurant in 1972 (at Saint-Denis and Jarry), then a fourth in 1973 (Mont-Royal and Chabot). The Mado’s restaurant chain would never have enjoyed such a meteoric rise had it not been for the administrative clout provided by Zucker Food. Zucker taught Madeleine the joys of vertical integration and the subtleties of running a business. New restaurants popped up like mushrooms across the province, each welcomed with open arms. Having your own local Mado’s was a gauge of civilization. Each time they opened a restaurant, Solange and Madeleine gave a town new proof of its existence. Soon the huge egg supported by three roses that Madeleine had chosen as their logo became a familiar part of the landscape in every town or city of more than twenty thousand souls.

  Solange remained a staunch ally, through thick and thin. It was she who took care of the buildings and anything with an engine or a mechanism: refrigerators, freezers, stoves, delivery vans. A nanny was taken on to look after the boys, who were growing up in each other’s slobbering company, two adorable little youngsters with round faces—the best-fed babies in town. In 1974 (grand opening on Sainte-Catherine and Pie-IX), Solange declared it was time for them to start sleeping in separate beds. Madeleine, who didn’t believe in credit, decided she wouldn’t move out of the apartment above the first restaurant until she was able to pay for someplace else outright. Gabriel, a sound sleeper, was only too happy to find himself in a little bed of his own, free at last from a nuisance of a brother who was of a nervous disposition and prone to nightmares. Michel wasn’t so accepting. The first night, when the boys were put down in their little beds no more than six feet apart from each other, Michel began to howl.

  “Nooo! Me want Gabriel! Waah!”

  When they were older, Solange would tell them that Michel had thrown such a fit that night that they’d had to lay him down next to his brother. And Gabriel had somehow managed to sleep through it all, as soundly as The Horse ever did. Snuggled up against his brother, Michel had calmed down. Clutching a plush green frog under his left arm, Gabriel snored away, his head on the pillow. He was, and would always be, the first to fall asleep. Clinging to him like a bad smell, Michel, a whimperer and cougher by nature, held his brother by the penis, something he always needed to do to relax.

  “It’s strange, all the same,” Solange remarked to Madeleine, who had found the sight of the pair of them as cute as could be.

  “There’s no harm in it at all. My brothers Luc and Marc used to do the same thing at that age. If it helps him fall asleep . . .”

  Solange wasn’t convinced, but she let this whim of Michel’s pass, like many more to come. When he began to talk, instead of pronouncing “Mama” like a good French Canadian, like his brother, like Madeleine, and like everyone else, inexplicably it came out with a posh Parisian accent instead. Madeleine laughed; Solange bit her top lip. “My God, anything but that. Not that pain-in-the-ass accent,” she howled inwardly.

  “He’s already talking like one of those well-dressed gentlemen on the news. He’ll be a minister some day!”

  Madeleine couldn’t get over it. Gabriel, a child who didn’t talk much but was plenty physical, required Solange’s full attention. She raised him with a virile hand that few men would have been capable of. It was what he needed. Too big and strong for his age, he needed someone to keep a very close eye on him.

  In 1975 (Longueuil, then Laval), the boys were packed off to school, where a teacher discovered Michel had a gift for music.

  “I think he has perfect pitch, Mrs. Lamontagne.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He sings perfectly in tune. He can tell the notes apart.”

  “Is there any money in it?”

  So Michel, a docile child who was always keen to please, was sent to a singing instructor, who found him adorable. Gabriel refused to go with his brother. He preferred being out on the motorcycle with Solange. He even took to calling her Suzuki in honor of the bike they hopped on every Sunday afternoon while Michel took his singing lessons. Solange had bought it from one of Zucker’s customers, who found it too “skittish.” In 1977 (Sainte-Foy), Solange and Madeleine managed to buy a lovely home in the upscale Outremont neighborhood of Montreal as English speakers were fleeing the province in dr
oves following the Parti Québécois’s election. And so the boys played with middle-class Outremont children who had never heard tell of strongmen, funeral parlors in family homes, nuns who lived forever, or Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Corpus Christi parades.

  In September 1980 (Rimouski), Siegfried Zucker was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Six weeks later, he was down to his last few painful hours in the hospital, with Madeleine and Solange praying by his bedside.

  “Are you in pain, Mr. Zucker?”

  Zucker was in that place, shortly before death, where reason abandons the body.

  “Be nice to the boys, Madeleine.”

  “Why do you say that, Mr. Zucker?”

  “Because you’re not always nice.”

  “You’re suffering, Mr. Zucker. Would you like more morphine?”

  “No, I want to die. Don’t forget about The Horse, Madeleine.”

  Those were the Austrian’s last words. Solange reminded Madeleine of them at the cemetery. Madeleine pursed her lips.

  “The Horse is dead, Solange, and so is Mr. Zucker. We’re on our own now.”

  Madeleine inherited Zucker’s business affairs, including packing facilities, a slaughterhouse, a fleet of thirty-two refrigerated trucks, a warehouse, business premises in Pointe-Saint-Charles, and stock market shares and property assets worth more than every home and plot of land in Rivière-du-Loup put together. On Zucker’s desk they found an envelope containing five tickets to Tosca, which the Montreal Opera had decided to put on as its very first performance that October. Madeleine looked intrigued.

  “He probably wanted to take us. He often said he’d always wanted to go to the opera. Europeans are into that kind of thing . . . We should go with the boys.”