Through the slits of her nearly closed eyes, she spots something. Points with her free hand: Over there, Jeanne. Over there, that’s the lodge, yes?
Jeanne confirms her cousin’s discovery with hoots. The girls run, spit out snowflakes and, out of breath, reach the dark mass of the stone lodge that appears out of the snow.
Jeanne unties the red scarf that has kept them together. Rachel disentangles the cord from her hand, her piece of wreckage that allowed her to arrive safe and sound. Against the stone wall, the wind relents and the cousins can breathe to their lungs’ content. Sweat drips down their spines and their teeth are chattering.
We must get in, Rach.
How?
They go around the lodge. Shake door handles. Locked. Peer through windows. See only darkness. Call out. Nothing moves outside or inside.
Jeanne seizes the sled. But its long, narrow shape is too awkward for her to handle alone.
Help me.
Do what?
We’ll ram it in this window like invaders in movies do with a log to break down the castle door.
Are you crazy?
Cold. I am cold. And I need a pee.
Me too.
Rach, I can’t do this alone.
Rachel, who never gets into trouble, helps Jeanne, who often gets into trouble. They lift the back end of the sled. At the count of three they run, and ram the curled front into the low window. They have to try five times. On the fifth try, Rachel knows they’re in a pile of shit.
Glass breaking. Clear sound above monotone wail of wind. Gaping hole surrounded by a thousand fissures. Next will appear security guard in black uniform. Grabbing the vandal cousins by the scruff of the neck. Jail, you two!
Damn you, Jeanne!
You’re always afraid of getting punished or scolded or…
My toboggan! You broke my toboggan.
They stare at the twisted toboggan, half-hanging through the smashed window.
We had no choice, Rachel.
No choice? We could have found a better way.
And freeze while searching?
With you, it’s always…
It’s either die outside or save ourselves inside. Jeanne slides the useless sled into the snow.
You never think before…
Go in, and careful with the glass.
As soon as Rachel feels the warmth on her face, her qualms, fear, anger, they all melt as fast as the snow stuck to her clothing. She coos with relief. Her muscles, tense for so long, relax and she shivers, shivers.
The cousins take off mitts, scarves, tuques, coats. They cover the broken window with a large piece of cardboard advertising a giant strawberry ice cream cone.
Because of the snowstorm, the night outside has remained clear. Inside, the girls must walk with arms straight in front to guide them. Their fingers grope along walls to locate a switch.
I found one, Jeanne. Nothing.
It’s dead here too. Must be a power failure.
Ouch, damn! Careful. I just hit my head.
Rachel touches the point of impact. Of course, she hit the injured spot.
It felt like, a, locker or something, Jeanne. Metal.
Jeanne laughs: I can’t see you. Where are you hiding?
Wait. I’ll go stand in front of a window.
Before a hand grabs her, Rachel hears the sound of a collision. A laugh and a curse. Now holding hands, their free arms straight out, the girls find the curving stairway that leads to the snack bar. At last, they reach the higher floor. Up here, the panoramic windows cut through darkness in big slices.
Rachel marvels: Look at that snow! A real blizzard like they had in the days of Nouvelle-France. You know. The colonists were trapped inside their houses for days.
Nose against the window, her face wrapped in the fog of her breath condensing on cold glass, Rachel can’t get enough.
Jeanne, do you think we’ll have to spend the entire night here?
Isn’t it great! The whole place to ourselves. Jeanne moves things around behind the counter: And no one telling us what to do.
We had the mountain to ourselves. And look what happened. I nearly split open my head and you broke my toboggan. What are you doing?
Rachel walks toward the darker shape of the counter, tripping against a chair leg before reaching her destination.
Ah, I found some. Jeanne strikes a match and fixes a candle in a small pool of melted wax. Soon, a luminous line flickers along the edge of the counter, which she wipes with an imaginary cloth: What may I serve you, Miss?
No no no no no! I won’t play the customer. No! Move over. You be the customer.
As Rachel enters the light, Jeanne shrieks.
Shriek all you want. I’m telling you, I won’t be the customer, Jeanne. You’re always d’Artagnan or the Warrior Queen. This time, I’ll be the important character. I’ll be the server.
That’s not it. It’s your face.
My face? Scrunching her muscles into a scary mask made scarier in the candlelight, she plays ghost, enunciating each syllable: This is a phan-tas-ma-go-ri-cal face for a phan-tas-ma-go-ri-cal night.
Jeanne shrieks for the fun of it, then sobers up: Your face. It’s covered in blood. That’s what’s scary.
Rachel touches her forehead, crusted over. She finds a mirror hanging on a pillar. In the candlelight, her puffed-up face and her left eye, swollen half-shut, shock her to death. Now that she sees it, the deep cut throbs intensely.
It’s your fault, Jeanne. Because of you, I’ll have a huge scar. And what if I go blind in that eye? It’s all your fault.
Let me wash off the blood and wrap a towel around.
Jeanne finds a white linen towel and a white apron. At the deep sink behind the counter, she wets the towel and cleans the wound. Despite the pain, Rachel tries not to squirm, practising making herself tough. Jeanne wraps the towel around her cousin’s forehead. Folding the apron, she secures the bandage in place with the apron strings. At the same time, they both remember they need to pee.
On a dare, they enter the men’s washroom, propping the door open to let in some light. The girls stare at the urinals, hooting at the contraptions. Rachel, who hates sitting down on public toilets, pees standing up. Jeanne follows her cousin’s lead. Their aim not too good; they splash their boots. Share their rather limited knowledge of male anatomy. Still, while rinsing their boots in the bathroom sink, Rachel declares urinals a more hygienic way to pee in public toilets.
Yes, Rach, but. There’s no privacy and you’re shy about…
That’s true. Rachel hadn’t thought about that. Men though. Maybe they enjoy peeing together. Maybe they have contests. That’s the disadvantage of growing up without fathers. You can’t ask them important questions.
Back in the main room, Jeanne admires her handiwork in the candlelight: Rach, you look like a soldier wounded in real battle.
Rachel examines herself in the mirror. Even though her swollen eye worries her, the overall effect of the white bandage pleases her. She also has mixed feelings about this place. So ordinary when the server prepares the hot dog and hot chocolate that Rachel’s mother orders her after she’s come in from skating, and yet, so mysterious tonight, as to…
Gongs and chimes suddenly sounding in the silence make her jump. She turns around. Jeanne with her flair for the dramatic. Banging on gigantic stainless steel mixing bowls. Causing the oversized spatulas hanging over the grill to collide into one another. Next, she wouldn’t be surprised to see her daffy cousin juggle with the chef’s knives, shiny blades flashing in the candlelight. Or wear as a fencing mask one of the empty metal frying sieves hooked over their basins of congealed grease.
Jeanne hoots: Wait till we tell this story at school! Our big winter night in this place. The Christmas pageant will be a flop compared to our adventure. Everybody’ll be so jealous. You can bet on it. I’m hungry.
Without missing a beat, she goes in search of food, her partner in adventure following closely.
&nbs
p; They open the heavy wooden door of the fridge. The kind you walk in! Select milk—no, no, not milk, not on a night like this!—hamburger buns, minced beef already formed in patties. Rummage through shelves for pastries that taste of grease and artificial vanilla, so yummy. Get two Cokes out of the cooler.
Take notes, Rach, because we’ll propose this night as the official school pageant. As soon as we get home, we’ll begin writing the play.
As Rachel bites into her ketchup-loaded hamburger, her stomach tightens. But nothing in the world will keep her from eating this meal to the last morsel. Prepared on a restaurant gas stove. (And they’re only eleven and they didn’t burn themselves.) In a deserted public lodge. Where they had to break a window. (Oh, her poor toboggan!) So the cousins could find shelter. While a snowstorm. While a huge snowstorm was raging. The whole night. Alone together. Cut off from all adults. And left to their own re-source-ful-ness. She bites into her hamburger and must admit, Jeanne is queen of the game. Swallows. Takes another bite. If Jeanne hadn’t been with her, Rachel would still be wandering. Lost and freezing in the storm. Swallows. Yes, but. If it hadn’t been for Jeanne, Rachel would be having supper with her mom right now and none of this…
Rach, isn’t this night the most marvellous night of our entire lives! Beating Christmas by a long shot.
Rachel isn’t so sure. She bites into a May West. Before the night ends, her mom will die of worry. Licking the yellow cream from between the two layers of the little cake, she sees it all. Pearl making urgent calls. Getting no help. Weeping. Lamenting her daughter buried under snow as her husband was. The thought of her father ruins Rachel’s dissecting even more than the thought of her mother’s panic.
It’s true, eh, Jeanne? Mothers are the queens of worry.
I wouldn’t know that, now, would I?
Oops, sorry. Even if grown-ups don’t think so, we can take care of ourselves.
You bet, we can.
As Jeanne tears the cellophane wrapper off a Twinkie, the ringing of a phone shatters the silence. Fills the space with roaring outrage. Caught in the act of stealing, breaking and entering, vandalism, the cousins jump off their chairs in a panic, screeching like back-alley tomcats in the night.
Jeanne shouts above the insistent tumult: Where’s the damn phone?
Don’t answer. It can’t be for us. If we answer, they’ll know we broke in. We didn’t steal anything. But. We’ll still go to jail.
Jeanne is as helpless to deal with the situation as Rachel, until she has a brilliant idea: What if it’s your mom? She knows we came to Mount Royal to slide.
She does? I don’t remember telling her.
Since we’re not home yet and it’s late and it’s snowing like in the days of New France, she would phone the lodge, right?
Don’t answer, Jeanne! It can’t be Mom. Don’t answer!
The phone goes on ringing, urgent, menacing, accusing. Jail! Jail! Jail!
We must answer.
No!
If we don’t, it would be like refusing help while drowning.
We are not drowning.
I found it.
Jeanne, no!
Hello? At first, her voice, so unsure, produces no more than a high-pitch mew, until it brightens into relief: Auntie Pearl! I knew it was you. It’s your mom, Rach. See? I was right. Yes, yes, Auntie. This is Jeanne speaking.
Rachel moves closer to the phone, putting her hand over the mouthpiece: Tell Mom everything’s fine. Don’t say anything about. And she touches her bandaged head.
Jeanne nods, indicates to Rachel to keep quiet for a moment, then speaks into the mouthpiece: We’re both okay, Auntie Pearl. But we had to break a window to get in. It was a matter of life or death… You’re sure they’ll understand?… There’s no electricity, but we found candles and we made hamburgers on the gas stove… Of course, we were careful. You taught us well… No, it’s still warm in here. When will you be able to come and get us?… Oh, yes? All night?… She’s here. Your mom wants to talk to you.
Hi, Mom! Rachel is somewhat disappointed to detect no hysteria in her mom’s voice, only a minor worry put to rest: Yes, Mom, we’ll be careful. Do you think they’ll make us pay for the hamburgers?… We also ate some cakes. Little ones… What about the broken glass? It’s a big window… And my toboggan. I’ll tell you later… No, nothing… Don’t worry, Mommy. We’ll keep warm. See you tomorrow. Bye.
Rachel joins Jeanne at their table piled with ketchup-smeared paper napkins and cellophane wrappers.
Mom says a lot of the streets are closed because of the snow. There are power failures all over Montréal. Even on the south shore. They won’t be able to fetch us until tomorrow.
The accomplices burst out laughing. Then they allow silence to measure for them the full scope of the event.
After a while, Jeanne speaks, her voice husky: We’re lucky to have the lodge. Your dad and my mom didn’t have such luck.
Rachel’s voice is quiet: When we were lost in the snow and I was getting really cold, I was thinking about them. I was playing the game. We were searching for them and we rescued them.
I was playing the game too. I wonder if it’s easier to freeze to death. Or to drown. Or to die in a boiling jungle.
Albert and Colette could have died a thousand different ways, like in stories.
This is not a story, Rachel.
No.
Jeanne creases the cellophane. She rolls it into a tight ball and, as soon as she lets go of it, it puffs up. She pursues, her voice hoarse: When my mom came back from her endless expeditions and we spent a few weeks together, she was always telling me stories about the jungle.
In the jungle, Jeanne, there are tigers. Colette and Albert could have been attacked and devoured by a big tiger. It must be scary being eaten by a tiger.
It would hurt like crazy. My mom and your dad also spent months in all sorts of deserts, remember. In Africa. In Australia. In Asia.
I know that.
In their deserts, they could have died of thirst, like in adventure movies. They say when you’re that thirsty, your tongue swells up like a balloon.
It’s worse dying of thirst if you’re in the middle of the ocean. Like when your ship sinks and you’re stuck in a lifeboat or hanging on to a piece of wreckage, like in war movies. That much water around you, and not being able to drink. What torture!
I’m thirsty just thinking about it. Jeanne gets two bottles of Coke from the cooler.
And what about sharks, Jeanne? There are always sharks.
Rachel drinks and the fizz makes her burp. The girls launch into a burping contest. They burp and laugh until the game loses its appeal.
Jeanne pushes the tip of her tongue into the neck of the bottle: My mom told me. It happened once.
Sharks? They were attacked by sharks?
Jeanne pulls her tongue out of the bottle: Not sharks. Their boat capsized in a storm. They were lucky. Everybody managed to swim to a small coral reef.
Coral! It must be sharp. Did they cut their feet?
Rachel?
Yes?
Would you. Would you prefer to know for sure your dad is dead or would you prefer not to know? I mean for real?
I don’t know, Jeanne. When Mom explained he was declared dead, I cried, but I wasn’t really sad. I cried because I had to, otherwise Mom would have thought I didn’t love him. I cried, and the more I cried, the more I wanted to cry. I liked the tears. But I’m telling you, Jeanne. If Mom had died, I would have cried my eyes out for really really real. A really huge real sadness.
Why so sad for Auntie Pearl and not for Uncle Albert?
Because. Because I didn’t really know my father. He was away so much with Auntie Colette. Your mom. The brother and the sister of the big expeditions. Granny used to say that. So, when he came home, I felt bizarre around him.
Bizarre?
I don’t know. Like those salesmen who ring our doorbell. Imagine one of them moving in with us. And Mom was all excited, paying more attenti
on to him than to me. It’s not that I was jealous, it’s just. She was different when he was around. I couldn’t wait for him to leave, even if it made Mom sad. And a little sharp with me for a while.
So, you’re glad he’s dead?
Rachel doesn’t answer. Some things are best left to live in silence. But now, she is dying to ask that taboo question, even though her mom made her promise never to talk about it. So, she takes a deep breath: Your father, Jeanne. You never knew him, right?
You know I’m a bastard. And my mom never spoke about him. Maybe she didn’t know him.
But. To have babies, the woman must know the man, right?
Maybe it’s not necessary to know each other to make babies. Like when we buy penny candies at the corner store. We don’t really know Mrs. What’s-her-name. That doesn’t stop her from selling us licorice and jawbreakers.
The cousins ponder this tricky question. After a while, Rachel breaks the silence: Colette was also declared dead. Why don’t you believe it?
Jeanne stares at the large windows. Listens to the wind. Sees her mom’s fleeting face against the white night, a face that is becoming increasingly blurry since the last visit. So long ago. She answers her cousin, her voice barely above a murmur: It’s like Christmas, Rach. I’m looking forward to it for two months and, as the day gets closer, I become more and more excited. The most exciting moment is Christmas Eve at seven in the evening when we’re going to bed. It’s hard to fall asleep, but eventually, I do. Then at midnight, Auntie Pearl comes to wake us up. And the house is full of lights. And the Christmas tree and the presents. But an hour later, it’s over. After we’ve opened our presents, it’s not the same anymore. Even with the music and the candies and the special food, I’m sad.
Sad. Why sad?
Because it’s over. But of course it’s not. Sure, we must wait one whole long year for the excitement to begin all over again. But it will. When I’ll know for sure Mom is truly dead, it will be truly over. It’ll be over for real. Declared dead is not dead for sure. Your mom explained, it’s dead on paper only. One day, I swear I’ll know for sure. One day.
I understand. But Rachel keeps her real thoughts quiet. Truly, she does not understand Jeanne’s desire. Rachel is certain that Colette is as dead as her own father. Over there in those terrible Himalayas that keep their bodies in the frozen hell. She shivers.
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