by Eric Dupont
“First, we take Manhattan, then we take Rome. We’ll see about Berlin after that.”
The forest-green Jaguar belonging to Solange Bérubé sprang out of the garage at three o’clock on the dot. Solange was wearing a pair of ivory-colored driving gloves and a navy suit she liked to call her “traveling suit.” Madeleine, sitting beside her, had pulled on a goose-shit-colored chunky woolen skirt and a black blouse that made her look like a nun.
Since it was a holiday, both women were wearing plain pearl necklaces, a single strand of real pearls fished by real men on the other side of the world from Montreal, in a country where it had never snowed. With a little luck, traffic would be flowing smoothly across the Champlain Bridge and they’d be on the highway to New York State in under twenty minutes. Downtown Montreal lay spread out before them, a spectacle dominated by the huge fiberglass egg atop Lamontagne Tower.
“You have to admit it’s a nice-looking egg. I prefer the violet lighting. How about you?” Madeleine asked.
“Sure, but it’s a little Easter-eggy. We could maybe keep violet for Holy Week and yellow for the rest of the year.”
“Mmm . . . I suppose. Maybe you’re right. I’ll have a word with Marie-Claude when I get back. Do we have any music?”
Montreal’s radio stations all appeared to be set on a course of decibel one-upmanship to mark the start of the new millennium. Somewhere in the frozen city, an overexcited Céline Dion was going through her warm-up exercises with a singing instructor. Solange’s Jaguar stopped at a red light at the corner of Sherbrooke. The pale day lowered its remaining light over a city that had been taken over by noisy clusters of revelers. From the inebriated groups, shouts, cries, and songs about the end of the world rose up in the cold air. A group of McGill University students passed in front of the Jaguar. Two of the boys whistled in admiration, looking Solange in the eye. The drunker of the two took off one of his gloves and began to fondle the metal hood ornament, moaning lustfully all the while, much to the delight of his laughing companions. “Yeah! Jerk it, baby!” they shouted, perhaps hoping the metal jaguar ornament would climax, a miracle for the new millennium. Solange was still getting used to this kind of reaction whenever she went out in the car. People would stare at the little jaguar on the hood; the more brazen among them would look her right in the eye. Once or twice a day, at least, someone would smile, as though the fact she was behind the wheel of a luxury car made her a woman to be smiled at. But the reaction had never been as vulgar as this. Ever. The two women remained stony faced.
“We should’ve taken the Suzuki,” Solange hissed, trying to pin the blame on Madeleine.
If it weren’t for Madeleine wanting to drive around in a Jaguar, Solange would have stuck to the little Japanese cars she was so fond of. Unlike Madeleine who, even under torture, couldn’t have told a Volkswagen Golf from a Toyota Tercel, Solange knew her cars, right down to the make and model. She knew it was best to stay clear of Buick drivers and to keep as far away as possible from BMWs, which, in North America at least, are almost always driven by the worst kind of asshole. One glance in the rearview mirror and she could tell by the shape of the car behind everything she needed to know about the driver, his ambitions, his worldview, his dreams, how he smelled, and, very often, what language he spoke. It was her experience with motorcycles that led her to start driving Suzuki cars in the 1980s. Her old motorcycles were still back in the garage at the house in Lac Taureau. The first, an orange Suzuki Hustler 400, still ran like a dream. She’d driven Madeleine to the Thousand Islands on it for the first time, back in July 1973. Needless to say, she didn’t have it in her to throw away that pile of junk. Once a year, she’d fire it up and rev the engine, just to relive that trip. Her Suzuki motorcycle collection included a 1979 GS1000S (nearly one thousand horsepower), a 1986 GSX-R1100 (which, Solange liked to boast, she’d driven at two hundred kilometers per hour between Ottawa and Montreal, proof in the form of a historic speeding ticket that she’d had framed), and her latest acquisition, a 1999 Hayabusa 1300 she’d only been on two or three times late that summer, just to hear the growl of the four-cylinder engine. Nothing in the world helped Solange see and feel things more clearly than a bike ride. She’d made every decision worth mentioning straddling a Suzuki. Her most ardent prayers had all tended to be voiced at speeds over 120 kilometers per hour. As a little girl, she’d dreamed of becoming an airline pilot, but the short-sightedness passed down to her from her mother had forced her to reconsider her career path, or so she liked to think. Truth was, Madeleine Lamontagne had become something resembling her one and only career choice. And yet a particularly fastidious analyst could have pointed out—and he wouldn’t have been too far wide of the mark—that such devotion can’t readily be described as a choice. Solange hadn’t chosen to become vice president of Mado Group Inc. The divine forces that had led to her taking up the position were probably the same ones that had arranged the martyrdom of Saint Blandina in a Roman arena and led Mother Teresa to Calcutta. The rest is mere myth. In some cases, vocation is the only word that will do, even at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
And so Solange had proudly taken on the nickname that Madeleine’s sons had given her: Solange Suzuki or plain old Suzuki when they were trying to wheedle something out of her that their mother had already said no to. The nickname went no further: Madeleine had always called Solange by the name she’d been christened with, seeing no reason to burden her best friend with a name normally reserved for noisy, polluting cars and motorcycles. Michel and Gabriel had learned to drive in a manual-transmission Suzuki Swift whose souped-up engine would snarl menacingly every time they so much as touched the stick shift. The two women were in a Jaguar because one day Madeleine had begged Solange to buy a car that reflected her financial success, a car she wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen in, a car that would make it clear to all just how thick her purse was. And so Solange had plumped for the 1995 forest-green Jaguar XJR. She only took it out of the garage for longer trips or whenever Madeleine was with her. Otherwise she stayed true to her Suzukis. She hated the big, lazy car; all it did was draw attention, a distraction from the down-to-earth image she wanted to project.
The vehicle, which only had thirty thousand kilometers on the clock, was now pulling onto the Champlain Bridge, heading due south toward the United States. Madeleine was rummaging around for a CD her sons might have left in the car back when they still lived in Montreal. All she found was a box set of Tosca that Michel had no doubt bought when he was studying at the conservatory. Rather than subject Suzuki to Puccini after what had already been a long day, Madeleine searched for a radio station that was not completely and utterly devoted to celebrating Céline Dion’s career. In vain. Though there was a Leonard Cohen special on the McGill University radio station. The singer’s deep voice filled the Jaguar.
“I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin . . .”
Solange tsked and sighed. Music wasn’t her thing, not that type anyway. Madeleine seemed hypnotized by the song.
“What’s he going to take?” she asked. “Manhattan and then Berlin? Is that what he says?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Only it’s Manhattan we want.”
“We don’t have any restaurants in Berlin?”
“Not yet. One in Frankfurt and one in Munich, but not Berlin.”
“We’ll just have to open one, then!”
“Are you just saying that because Gabriel’s in Berlin? I don’t know if he’s going to stay there.”
“I think we should have one in Berlin just the same.”
“There are better, more profitable markets first. Like Florida and the southern US. The Americans eat more in the morning than the Germans. You know that.”
“The Americans eat more than anyone, whatever time of day it is, Solange. That’s why I’m a billionaire.”
Solange put this newfound interest in Berlin down to motherly affection. She would have paid a lot of money to se
e Gabriel’s face as he came across a Mado’s in the heart of Berlin, having confided in her that he’d chosen the city precisely because it was one of the few places in the Western world where he didn’t run into constant reminders of his mother around every corner.
“But don’t tell her, Suzuki!” Gabriel had implored her, putting his hand on hers. Gabriel’s big hand . . .
Leonard Cohen continued his lament while the Jaguar reached the far side of the Champlain Bridge.
“How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin. First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”
“My God! It’s like he wrote the song for me!” Madeleine gushed in surprise.
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe he did write it just for you,” Solange joked, overtaking a sluggish black Ford in the right lane.
Silence settled over the Jaguar. Both women stared at the almost-empty frozen road ahead of them. Madeleine picked up Tosca again and looked at it. It was the legendary recording featuring Renata Tebaldi as Tosca and Mario del Monaco’s unforgettable performance as Cavaradossi. The box clicked as Madeleine opened it. Solange sighed. At that precise moment, she felt as much like listening to the first act of Tosca as she did like taking a curare-poisoned arrow between the eyes. She saw the projectile come at her from up the road, pierce the windshield, and bury itself between her eyebrows seconds after Madeleine slid the CD into the CD player. She decided to play for time.
“We could wait until we’ve crossed the border before we put any music on.”
Madeleine hit pause. Solange tried not to sigh with relief. Madeleine had opened the libretto and was trying to make out the microscopic print. “It’s always nice to have the words when you don’t understand the language,” she said.
“You can’t make a word out anyway—even when it’s your own language. Do you remember the night Michel took us to see Faust at the Place des Arts? They might as well have been singing in Greek,” Solange replied, shaking her head.
“But it was lovely, all the same.”
“It was long, that’s what it was,” Solange replied, with a roll of her eyes.
“I like opera. It’s nice. But the stories just don’t hold water.”
“What do you mean?”
“The characters are always like caricatures. Take Scarpia, for instance. No one is that awful. It’s just not possible. And she’s even worse. An opera singer! How are people supposed to identify with that?”
Madeleine pointed to the description she’d just found and read with a little flashlight that had the Jaguar logo on it.
“But of course they’re all opera singers once they’re on stage!” Solange replied, a touch exasperated.
“No, no. In Tosca—it says so right here—the character’s an opera singer. The singer’s name is Renata Tebaldi and she’s playing the role of a singer called Floria Tosca.”
“I’d forgotten. It’s not my forte, you know. It was back in 1980, after all, when Mr. Zucker died.”
Solange bit her lip. She hoped what she’d just said wouldn’t be taken as a sign she wanted her to play the CD. Three hours listening to people shouting at each other in Italian. And yet she didn’t have the strength in her to resist Madeleine. She, like so many others, rarely did. Before Michel had taken an interest in opera, Madeleine hadn’t ever given it the slightest bit of attention. But when Michel began to study at the conservatory in Montreal, Madeleine was suddenly fascinated. With every piece her son sang, Madeleine tried to “learn a thing or two,” as she put it. When the young tenor had to learn Tamino for The Magic Flute, his mother had begun listening to Mozart. The same happened with Bizet and Verdi once he began singing—and quite well, too—some of the arias from Carmen and even La Traviata. Truth be told, she rarely made it through a recording and had often been seen fast asleep while the singers on stage sang their hearts out. And yes, she’d admitted it herself, she’d fallen asleep the day Michel sang Cavaradossi at the Montreal Opera. “Nice music,” was all she managed to say to her son after his Tosca premiere. Solange, despite her limited experience in the art of deception, prudently feigned astonishment so as not to hurt Michel’s feelings. After Tosca’s tragic end, Solange had foolishly thought it was all behind her, that never again would she have to sit through the howling of the second act. And yet here the drama was, threatening to come back for an encore on this New Year’s Eve. Solange tried—in vain—to change the subject.
“Gabriel might have at least called over the holidays.”
“Perhaps people like seeing an opera singer in trouble, like when the newspapers publish articles about me and my restaurants,” replied Madeleine, without registering what Solange had just said.
Or was it no more than Madeleine’s usual lack of interest at the slightest mention of Gabriel’s name? It didn’t matter: Solange’s ploy hadn’t worked. The Puccinian threat was gathering momentum. She racked her brains for a way to head it off. But Madeleine wasn’t for turning.
“Perhaps it’s easier for people to identify with a singer rather than a princess, like in The Magic Flute. I mean, could you identify with a princess?”
“The only opera I could identify with would have to be set in a restaurant.”
“There’s no mention of restaurants in the libretto. Do you think people would go to see an opera set in a restaurant? Wouldn’t it be dull?”
“No, no. I think people like to dream. They go to the opera to dream. It’s a little more expensive as dreams go, that’s all.”
“I remember now. That time we went to see Michel in Tosca, what I found hard to swallow was the whole thing between the singer and the head of police. What was his name again?”
“Scarfia?”
“No, Scarpia. I mean, come on. No one’s like that in real life. In real life, with real, down-to-earth people, Tosca would still be alive. At least, I don’t think she’d’ve gone that far.”
“And what if Tosca had been a manager at Mado’s?” Solange asked.
“It’s not the same thing. My restaurants are . . . real. They feed real people with real problems.”
“Perhaps, Madeleine. Perhaps . . .”
Solange managed to keep Madeleine talking until they reached the US border. At the customs office, the Jaguar’s arrival was an intrusion on another otherwise quiet evening. They sent the young guy out to take care of the two ladies. Nationality? Canadian. Where are you traveling to? New York City. How long do you plan on staying there? Two days, no longer. The purpose of your visit? Solange didn’t know what to say. Business? She wasn’t sure. They certainly weren’t here for the opening of the restaurant alone. Pleasure? They weren’t going to be tourists either. Family? They didn’t know a soul in New York. Customs officers like simple answers. And seasoned travelers know better than to reply “It’s a long story” or “I don’t really know myself,” let alone “I got this long letter from Italy. It’s right here; I can show you. The contents are so shocking, so surprising, so outrageous, that I had to drop everything and hit the icy roads of New York State. But if you really want to know the whole story, you’ll have to hop in. Because right now you’re standing outside at a latitude of more or less forty-five degrees north on what is probably the coldest night of the year, not dressed especially warmly and wanting nothing more than to go back to your colleagues inside, and, even if I were to recount these adventures in painstaking detail, you wouldn’t believe me anyway, and the whole time you’d regret ever stepping inside the Jaguar with me, especially by the time we reached Act II of the Puccini opera that is just about to start blasting inside my luxury car any minute now, so, believe me, for your own sake, and for our sake too, for everyone’s sake, I’ll just say: to see New York. So there you have it, Mr. Customs Official, we’re just two tourists in the American night, come down from the north, not that our point of origin is of any more interest to you than the contents of our handbags. Oh, and we should also point out that just one of our shoes costs more than everything you’re wearing right now, that the glove
s I put on to drive this outrageously expensive car are worth more than your weekly pay, that we are splendid wanderers, and that we intend to show everyone just how splendid we are tomorrow morning in Manhattan, a place where splendor goes to die.” All these thoughts ran through Solange’s mind while the border agent waited for an answer to his question. But Solange simply answered: to see the sights. Solange was a pragmatic woman.
Then, at the agent’s signal, she steered the Jaguar onto Interstate 87. At that very moment, both women realized that for the second time they were crossing the US–Canada border side by side at exactly the same point, a memory that was at once painful and wonderful. For every Canadian, and probably even more so for every Quebecer, driving across the American border is a solemn, unsettling occasion. They are leaving behind a peaceful, reassuring country they know like the back of their hand to jump into the madness of America, a world they can only ever dip a toe into, hostile territory, the birthplace of every folly, the mold for every vice. All threats come from the south, as every Inuit knows. And America is down below. In temperate climes, as in operas, the strangest events occur and the most uncontrollable passions are unleashed.
Had the women been brought up differently, they would have both burst into tears to underscore the emotion of the moment. Instead of sobbing, there was a heavy silence. Solange almost began to hope that Madeleine would press “play” so that the sound of Puccini would mask the palpable sense of discomfort. Madeleine waited until the signs for the border post disappeared in the rearview mirror before pushing the button. The opening notes of Tosca rang out in that ice-cold New Year’s Eve. Three chords, ponderous and gloomy, shook the car windows, announcing the end of the world. B flat, A flat, B natural. The Scarpia theme that conveys his brutal menace well before he appears onstage, the music of destiny that draws every soul toward its conclusion. Music to wake the dead. Then a string decrescendo introducing the opera’s first words. D’Angelotti has escaped from Castel Sant’Angelo, crossed the Tiber in the darkness of the Roman night, and found refuge in the deserted church of Sant’Andrea della Valle. He finds a key a nun has left for him outside the Barberini Chapel. “Ah!” he exclaims. “Finalmente!” And Madeleine murmurs to herself, rummaging around in her handbag for the little brown glass vial: “Yes, finally . . .”