Maddie observed him. He seemed like un bon gars and his offer was irresistible.
Jacques, my very own porteur d’eau. Oh, I don’t mean in the old contemptuous appellation of hewers of trees and carriers of water. You will carry glacier water in triumph.
That same evening in early December, she hung up her stockpot and canner and jars and skimmer and kitchen scale and measuring cups, the tools of her search, on whatever sections of the walls not taken by Jacques’s climbing gear. The house was bare, except for a few pieces of furniture and stacks of books. Mom would approve of this roofer-climber-bookworm. As for Maddie, she delighted in the large windows facing the four points of the compass, especially the ones looking south and west at the mountains and the big sky. She could grow chives and scallions and, perhaps, leeks in boxes. Jacques had no problem with verdure in the house. He helped her with her collection of postcards. When they ran out of walls, he climbed and fixed the cards to the ceiling. He downclimbed and carried her to his bed.
Now that Maddie is settled in Jacques Lachance’s Bowness bungalow, she daydreams of successful pickling days, while Jacques never misses his chance to go to the mountains with one of his several climbing buddies. Maddie has yet to buy hiking boots and crampons and a harness and a helmet.
Jacques raises his hands: No pressure, ma grande.
And he leaves, excited-expectant. And he comes back, exhausted-elated. Pumped, he tells her. His mouth frothing with tales of spindrift and bergschrund, rock pelting him and his partner, postholing in knee-deep snow, crevasse rescue, a close call inches from an avalanche, a seven-pitch climb on beautiful plastic ice; tales of wondrous days. Tales, it seems to Maddie, extracted from the ancient myths of Coyote the Trickster or Raven the Messenger, rock and ice, mountain spirits with a mind of their own. And Jacques and his climbing partners, mere mortals, battling the Eternal Elements. Does her onion obsession seem as unreal to him as this climbing thing appears to her?
Outrageous, Jacques, what you do. Simply outrageous. Will I ever be ready to try this climbing of yours for myself?
He turns the stained pages of her lab book, stares at graphs, then at drawings of Allium. Grins at her: I’m curious about this stuff you’re doing. But, no pressure.
In between going out and coming back, Maddie loses sight of him, having no clue (not really) what he could be doing out there and how. But each time, he comes back with his bag full of astounding tales and with a few litres of glacier water. Maddie tastes the water and, soon, she can identify the glacier from which Jacques drew it. She claims she can tell the difference between the water from the Rae, or the Bow, or the Victoria, or the Athabasca.
Until they all melt, ma grande, an endless parade of glaciers to choose from.
Maddie inspects the water from the Athabasca: I don’t know, Jacques. But visiteurs’ feet dirtying the toe of the glacier will ruin my pearls. I admit to having a soft spot for the Bow Glacier.
I get the water way higher than any tourist goes. Only your imagination, not the water, alters the taste of your onions. I bet this tap water, which by the way comes from the Bow Glacier, would do just fine.
Yes, but this tap water’s been treated. Are you saying I don’t know my onions?
I don’t mind carrying water from any glacier, Madeleine, but don’t push it. You must accept what I bring you. I carry lots of gear. I can’t hop from glacier to glacier…
Okay, okay. I’ll be out of here in a jiffy. I told you you’d end up kicking me…
Relax. I’m not kicking you and your onions out.
You don’t look like you mean it.
I’m bushed. But what I mean is this. When you begin exploring glaciers yourself, you can take your pick and be your own water carrier. Until then… Now, you mind bailing from this pointless argument?
You’re right, Jacques. This is dumb. Nitpicking about glacier water. Still, I swear the Athabasca does something not quite right to my pearls.
What? What is it the Athabasca does to your pearls?
She can’t tell. Perhaps insomnia more than imagination alters taste, the same way brain seizures make you smell things that are only in your head. Perhaps the time has come to apply poultices to her forehead. She laughs and drinks a sip of glacier water, from the Stanley, while Jacques, despite claiming to be bushed, climbs the kitchen wall and, motionless, facing an overhang near the ceiling, assumes his monkey hang.
They are thinking the same thing and both laugh at the same time, acknowledging the outrageousness of their chosen practices.
Insomnia has followed Maddie to the rat-free land of triumphant water. Jacques is out climbing frozen waterfalls in the Ghost. A region, he told her, difficult to access and where roads, such as they are, and bridges are often washed out and where vehicles get bogged down in streams, mud, snowbanks.
She does not understand the subtleties of his passion. Does not know what’s what in the climbing world, but, since the squabble over glacier water, she refuses to interfere, only grateful that he continues to bring her water from les hauteurs, only happy that he is un bon gars who indulges her onion practice, even though he doesn’t know what’s what in the Allium world.
Nuit blanche after nuit blanche, she dreams experiments awake.
Batik pearls. Maddie twists thin blue rubber bands in a random pattern around each peeled pearl. Steeps the onions in salted beet juice. Goes to work on an overcast, freezing March day, dressing department store windows in frilly Easter garb. Goes back home to catch a few hours of sleep in Jacques’s deserted bed. After two days of leaving them to steep in their glass vessel, she checks on her onions. Removes the thin elastic bands to reveal tiny white veins snaking around the rose pearls.
Jacques at work, redoing a roof while a chinook wind blows. Maddie after work, making amber pearls. She steeps a fresh batch of the vegetables in an infusion of saffron and the skins of Bermuda onion, which impart the rich colour of fossilized resin.
Jacques at home, climbing his gym walls, viewing Maddie’s creations exhibited in glass bowls: I’m impressed, ma grande.
More. I want more. Perle noire, Jacques. The ultimate chic cocktail onion.
Another sleepless night. Jacques sleeping, Maddie searching. How do I get black pearls, Mom?
Lillian takes her time sending this postcard:
Perle noire, Madeleine? It reminds me of the black pearl of the Chinese empress dowager, placed in her mouth immediately after her death. Black lacquers? Deadly. Crushed kalonji seeds? Would the black of the wild onion seeds leach into the solution? How about squid ink? You are the empirical one, Madeleine. I can only theorize.
Jacques is out climbing again. Will be gone for days. Went to a region called the Bugaboos, a place, he told her, of rock spires and hanging glaciers. Maddie goes back to basics. Amber, coral, black are mere distractions. Since she has been using her glacier water, she has often observed that the salt solution in which her pure white pearls steep is cloudy. She has refused to admit it, and yet, the evidence is clear.
Mom, help me. What should I do? I’m at my wits’ end.
Lillian sends this postcard:
My poor Madeleine, no wonder. Your glacier water is no good for pickling. Before sending you to Calgary, I should have anticipated the problem of hard water. But then, you would not have met Jacques. Is he careful? Soft water is best for pickles.
Maddie’s vision blurs. How could Mom be so wrong? Maddie knows, empirically speaking, that glacier water makes a tastier pearl. She has even reconciled herself with the water from the Athabasca. Recognized her imagination had tricked her. Jacques is a roofer, Mom. He lives on the high ground. Ancient water. Maddie knows she is right.
Her vision clears. She reads on:
However, if the mineral salts are in solution, you may have to distill the water. Will you go so far as to acquire a still or a retort? I feel for your difficulties in your Allium world. I’m reading Ulysses and I’m turning insomniac too. An uphill struggle that your gentle bookish climbe
r may know well. Oh, les montagnes et les Irlandais!
A day later, Lillian sends this postcard via Priority Post:
I don’t want to interfere with your onions or your personal life, but I just read that a young Québécois was killed in the mountains last week. The ancient Greeks believed garlic strengthened warriors before a battle and athletes before a contest.
Jacques comes back from his mountains, as always, bringing her a few litres of precious water. But he returns from the Bugaboos with no voice. During his multi-pitch climbs, his vocal cords suffered tiny tears from shouting in the cold against a howling wind.
Silently, he forms the words: Communication is paramount, ma grande.
When he had a booming voice, he did tell her that clear communication between two partners during a climb was more important than good communication in a relationship, unless, he went on with his head cocked to one side, a grin on his face, unless the couple in question also climbed together. In climbing, elliptic talk could be fatal.
Fatal? She asked him to explain further.
You’re the lead climber. So, off you go making your way up a route while your partner belays you from below. Along the way, you put in pieces of protection, so if you fall, the last piece of protection will hold you—if it is placed properly—but only if your partner has you on a firm belay. All’s going well. You get to the top and have not yet secured yourself, but, for some reason, your partner thinks you yelled secure and he takes you off belay. The rope becomes academic and the final word of the day is splat. Clear communication, ma grande. So, wind or no wind, you yell your little lungs out.
Yes, she could see that. On this night of Jacques being voiceless, an ancient lore lurks in the back of her mind. She spots the right postcard high up near the ceiling and she eyes the leeks languishing in the window boxes. She knows what she must do.
Wait. I’ll be right back.
She rushes to the supermarket. Brings home, not the bacon, but leeks. Before he left, she had failed to give Jacques garlic. She will never forget again. From now on, he will eat garlic galore. Otherwise, what? This time, his vocal cords tearing? Next time, the climbing rope tearing? And then, and then. She can’t bear the word “splat.” And so, tonight, she will fortify him and will give him back his voice.
No spoon, Jacques. Hold the bowl with both hands, like for the tea ceremony. Drink slowly. Do you like it?
He articulates silently: Best vichyssoise I ever tasted.
It’s not vichyssoise. No potato in it. Pure leeks and cream and water. Water from the Saskatchewan Glacier. Potage glacé du glacier. Does it help?
Jacques is not saying. Rather, he melts. Gestures for more potage aux poireaux. Swirls the tender green cream laced with the mild onion juice against his damaged vocal cords. Breathes in the bouquet to augment the wonderful palate expanding in his mouth. Feels the swell of scented smoothness sliding down his throat, silk and velvet both, soothing. He licks his bowl, he licks his chops, his eyes become languid, his hand softens on hers. Oh, he is beyond mere desire.
You see, Jacques, the power of your glacier water. Despite containing mineral salts. Your mouth is the living proof that the water gave my leek brew its character. I suppose Mom is wrong. The mineral salts don’t harm my pearls. I must be imagining things again. Now, practise your calls. Be clear, if not loud.
Secure. Off belay. The words grate against the still irritated vocal cords: On belay. Climbing. Tension. Great soup.
Bah! it’s all folklore, Jacques.
He looks for one of Lillian’s narratives. Finds it pinned high above the western window. He climbs up and reads in a husky voice:
The ancient Egyptians, Romans and Celts were great admirers of the leek (Allium porrum). The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that “Egypt is a country where onions are adored and leeks are gods.” The Romans, not to be outdone in the leek mystique, believed the hardy, biennial herbaceous cousin of your beloved pearl was beneficial for the vocal cords. Nero, ma chérie, drank leek soup to clarify and deepen his voice for speechmaking. I am left to wonder if French chef Louis Diat’s American creation, vichyssoise, ever had or still has as far-reaching political ramifications in Washington, DC. Has the leek ever set the town on fire?
As he downclimbs, Jacques rattles on his vital calls in a shaky singsong: On belay. Secure. Climbing. Once safe on the ground, he pins the postcard closer to his climbing gear.
They fall into bed. Jacques loving Maddie. Maddie loving Jacques. He moves with a grace that always surprises her. Around her curves or on his climbing walls, he is all feathery grace. Grace despite a short, stout body with thighs the size of cedar posts. His blood belongs to the sturdy race of coureurs des bois. His ancestors may very well have survived on a diet of wild chicagou, as père Marquette had on the south shore of lac Michigan. Jacques Lachance with his roof-tar hair and raven eyes will always come back from his mountains with glacier water and tales of glory. On Mondays, after his weekend climbs, he will always be up on someone’s roof laying asphalt shingles and nailing them down with his big nail gun.
She will not sleep and she will make the perfect pickled onion yet.
Early this morning, Maddie went to market and bought a twenty-pound sack of pearls from her Hutterite man. He winked at her, the sweet man in black, the country man staring at the women in the city. His face smooth as mother-of-pearl under his rough oyster-shell clothing. She paid and winked back.
Back home, she blanches batch after batch of pearls to loosen the skin. Considers the tedium of the work ahead, and the day so hot.
Standing at the counter, Maddie skins, glancing at a postcard propped against the backsplash:
Ah, the French with their idées reçues! Hear Anatole France babble: “Les poireaux sont les asperges du pauvre.” Didn’t he know about the Welsh? In 640, ma chérie, they wore leeks on their caps and triumphed over the Saxons. I hate to imagine what their fate would have been if they had worn asparagus.
Maddie is skinning onions and Jacques is climbing hard rock in a canyon where, he told her, Indian petroglyphs of hunters on white waters are still visible on the rock walls. She should have fixed a leek to his climbing helmet. She wonders if, last night, she didn’t go overboard with the onion feast she served in bed.
They began with Gibsons. She judged her cocktail pearls not perfect. Not yet.
Forget the pearls, Madeleine. Get tipsy. You need a good night’s sleep. You need a thousand good nights’ sleep.
While sipping gin and vermouth, they nibbled on tiny onion sandwiches made with slices of brioche and rolled in chopped parsley.
Parsley, good for the breath, ma grande. I’m fed up with roofers’ jokes about onion breath.
Jacques is away climbing. Maddie is peeling, the silvery skins clinging to her fingers. She concentrates on her onion repast.
Then, she brought flamiche, a leek pie, which she garnished with roasted cloves of garlic. Jacques’s eyes shone less bright.
Then, she served onion soup à la Casey, the beef stock for which, she told him, had to simmer eight hours a day for three days, before the final simmering with a quantity of thinly sliced…
Onions. Tomorrow, I’m climbing a rock route that is 5.13.
Is that difficult?
I’ve never climbed above 5.12. To give you an idea of 5.12, think of circus acrobats or contortionists. To give you an idea of 5.13, think of Spider-Man without his spider silk. 5.13 is pretty close to the edge of defying gravity.
Does the soup taste a little bitter to you?
I’m excited, but nervous. This might end in bitter disappointment. He grinned rather grimly. Sipped his soup.
La pièce de résistance was caramelized shallots with brochettes of lamb. Jacques’s spirit rose as he sank his teeth into the red meat.
Tomorrow while you climb, I’ll go to market. With so many onions, I’ll be able to sort them precisely by size. I’ll measure the diameter of each pearl. That way, when they’re ready to be cooked, I’ll be able to
calculate more accurately how many seconds each batch must stay in the boiling water.
Jacques bared his teeth at her.
She smiled a tight little smile: I’m entering my 5.13 phase, Jacko baby. Measuring the diameter of pearls before cooking them is pretty extreme.
They rinsed their mutual apprehension and palates with a red onion and orange salad, heavily laced with Italian parsley.
For your breath, Jacques. So tomorrow, while belaying you, your climbing partner will spare you disparaging remarks. And will resist the temptation to drop you. Splat. I will not hear of it.
He narrowed his eyes: And for dessert, Madeleine? Garlic ice cream?
Don’t laugh.
Who’s laughing?
They do it in California.
Figures. I’ll make black coffee. You, have more Gibsons. Tonight, I want you to knock yourself out.
If Maddie slept, it was in a fitful gin-induced stupor. And heard him sneak out of the house at dawn, knowing he didn’t have to leave that early. Is Maddie hanging herself with her rope of onions while Jacques climbs? While Jacques is exhibiting signs of onion fatigue? Or, last night, was he truly experiencing the jitters about today’s climb? She rinses the onion skins off her hands and goes for a run, leaving the naked pearls strewn about the kitchen counter. Damn it, she’s gonna sleep a real sleep tonight.
Maddie’s nuits blanches in Bowness are getting colder. Even in August. Jacques sleeps with reckless abandon in the monkey hang position, as if his bed were the smooth, overhanging monolith of his last climb and his pillow the bulge, he told her, the crux he failed to climb over. No matter how often he tried and tried and tried, he kept falling and falling and falling. While Jacques dreams of climbing success above his level of competence, Maddie shivers. She touches the small of his back, her cold hand on his warm skin. Jacques doesn’t so much as stir. For lack of dreaming, Maddie’s brain hanging on the edge of the precipice of wakefulness will invent hallucinations. No longer will the warmth of Jacques Lachance’s strong-agile body abandoned to the night save her from plunging to the ground of terminal exhaustion.
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