Rising Abruptly

by Gisèle Villeneuve

  She gets up. Not long after her arrival, they partitioned sleep and insomnia. She insisted. She could not bear robbing him of his dreams. So, he built a wall to enclose the bed. When Maddie roams, chops, pickles, she imprisons Jacques in the cubbyhole of his bed. He made the partition with hinges to flatten it when not in use, so as not to impede his wall-climbing practice. Now, he sleeps, she roams the night. And shivers.

  She crushes yellow onions, all the onions she can find in the house. Skin and all, she crushes cepa, her chef’s knife dripping with Allium juice, her face wet with onion tears. She weighs skin, flesh and juice on her kitchen scale, then transfers everything to her stockpot. Fills the pot with a mixture of glacier water, all the samples left in the house. Brings the mash to a boil and lets the brew simmer until the water turns a deep amber.

  She reads the postcard by the south window where the herbaceous chives and scallions and leeks now thrive in their boxes:

  Every winter, ma chérie, your paternal grandmother made onion-water. Contre les rhumes et la grippe, your papa told me. The antibiotic properties of the cepa were powerless against cold and flu viruses. But your grandmother called everything microbes, whether bacteria, viruses, fungi or germs. Anything smaller than a fruit fly was a microbe. And microbes make you sick. And microbes never survive the smell and taste of onions. To your grandmother, this was a fact, simply because it came to her from her deep ancestral past. True up to a point, onion-water had its benefits, as diuretic, expectorant, mild heart booster. It gave the family heart. Ça nous donnait du coeur au ventre, your grandma repeated. Your papa’s family sailed onion-water all winter and landed safely on the healthy shores of spring. And there, they pulled out of the earth the newly sprung spring onions. And like pallid aphids, they sucked on the succulent green juice.

  Maddie strains the spent flesh and skins of the resilient onions. Looks for sugar. They are out of cane sugar. Then notices the jar of Alberta unfiltered honey. She spoons two hundred grams of the bee’s ambrosia into her onion-water and boils down the liquid to a light syrup. She pours a small glass. Blows. Sniffs the scented vapours. Breath of bees. An ambrosial brew made of thousands of compounds mixed in minute quantity through the action of earth, sun, water, and in the workshop of the winged honey makers. Maddie dips the tip of her tongue into the elixir. Takes a sip. Swirls and breathes in. Success! At long last, she may have come to the end of her search. With urgency, she notes her findings in her lab book.

  She has landed in the sweet land of triumphant water and ambrosial honey. She checks the label, the beekeeper’s address right there, black on pale yellow. Now, there’s a man sure of his practice. She checks the map of Alberta. She has found her centre, her western centre, between Jacques Lachance’s glaciated water in the high mountains to the west, her Hutterite sweet pearl grower in the south and now, her sugar maker on the northern prairies loving his bees, tending them tender so they may make their perfect alfalfa-clover honey. Honey that will transform even the poorest vinegar into the perfect pickles. She must go lightly on the vinegar. At last, she has climbed the crux of her search. Victory close at hand exploding her white nights. Searching, watchful restlessness, finding. In Jacques Lachance’s Bowness bungalow, in the centre of her equilateral triangle, she dances, onion-fashion, in concentric circles.

  She opens all the windows to air the house. Unhinges the bed partition. Snuggles up against Jacques’s warm flank. Sweet love, Jacques, quelle chance. She sleeps.

  September. Maddie sends Lillian a postcard:

  Mom, the September light here is magnificent.

  In the September light, while Jacques climbs something not so gravity-defying, Maddie chops vast quantities of onions. Steel blade against bulb, she slices through membrane. The sulphurous vapour hypnotizes her into the stillness of the moment. Through onion eyes, she sees quivering shapes. Pictures herself walking knee-deep into fields of the white shallots of Megara. The setting sun painting the stone walls of the ancient city onion-ochre. Through onion tears, she sees Jacques clinging to rock. Imagines the blue water of glaciers. And superimposed on the limestone walls of the Rockies, she sees the shadows of cotton-wrapped pyramid builders biting into onions, their daily bread, before lifting huge stones that they stack into monuments of foolishness.

  In the September light, Jacques climbs closer to his desire. In two litres of glacier water, Maddie boils down two kilos of white onions to their essence. Strains the mother liquor for her thousand-year-old pearls. Pours one hundred and twenty grams of Alberta honey into the one and one-half litres of onion-flavoured elixir. Adds a mere hint of good white wine vinegar from France (after all, her distant ancestors on Papa’s side should be a factor in this difficult chemical reaction).

  Maddie boils two hundred grams of same-size, skinned, salt-steeped pearls exactly seventy-two seconds. Packs them in sterilized glass jars. Pours the hot pickling juice over them. Holds the spices. The result must be pure, naked cepa. She seals the jars and allows the pearls to mature for one month in a cool dark place. As Mom wrote about the thousand-year egg, “some period of burial must be accepted.”

  One month later, Maddie carefully wraps a small jar of perfect pickled pearls and sends it to the other end of the continent.

  The September light has shifted to the darkening short days of autumn. Maddie props on the table Lillian’s latest postcard:

  That translator Jowett wrote: “They will have a relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and onions.” I too will treat myself. Thank you for the jar of thousand-year-old pearls. They are truly delectable. As you had wished. To honour your achievement, ma chérie, I will unlock the kitchen and feast on freshly baked crusty bread, firm sweet butter and five-year-old cheddar. I believe, the perfect accompaniment to your perfect pearls. And I will toast you and your climber with a silver mug of best stout. You’ve reached the end of your search. Are you happy? Will you sleep?

  Jacques and Maddie sit at the table under the western window. They nibble on Maddie’s pickled ambrosial pearls.

  I have to admit, ma grande, I never thought a pickled onion could be so. So…

  Not too pungent?

  Pungent? He pops another pearl into his mouth. Bites. Eyes half-closed, his taste buds in a state of ecstasy, he chews slowly. Swallows. Superb, he says, his voice dreamy. Simply superb. This, my alchemist Zoé Madeleine Rivière, redefines pungent.

  Truly? You feel it too? A true taste desire?

  He grins, his head cocked to one side: You’ve climbed the crux of the matter. And he reads her lab book. You have a winner here. You should publish this.

  Ha! At last, I pickled my perfect thousand-year-old pearl. That’s good enough for me.

  She gets up from the table, grabs various holds on the climbing walls: By the way, Jack Lastchance. Never thought of asking. Do you keep a journal of your climbs?

  He looks up from her lab book: Sure, I do. And he touches his temples. Here. Every single feature of a climb recorded. And he touches his heart and thigh muscles and lungs. And here and here and here. Every move.

  She shakes her head. Hauls herself off the floor a tad. Doesn’t dare go higher. A tad is a beginning. Turns toward Jacques: What do you climbers do after Everest and K2? After all the big walls have been climbed? What do you do for an encore?

  It very much depends on the climber.

  Maddie paces up and down between the southern and western windows, eyeing the planters. Then, she starts to pull the mature leeks and scallions and chives out of the soil.

  What are you doing?

  Thrips. Mom says aphids avoid garlic. But thrips thrive on onions.

  How did they get into the house?

  I’m getting rid of everything.

  Everything? Sounds final. Jacques’s face freezes. You’re not thinking of relocating, are you?

  Maddie shivers with disgust as she squashes the little pests by the dozen. She swears she hears their screams at the approaching giant fingers. Their screams of agony as she squishes
them. Then, she itches all over: I’m really, really tired of onions.

  Oh.

  Oh, what, Jacques?

  I had a surprise for you. That’s oh.

  Une surprise? Tell me.

  Better show you.

  He grabs her by the arm and brings her into the narrow yard. And there stands the sculpture of a gigantic dazzling-white head of garlic.

  Jacques grins at Maddie’s puzzled face: I made it with chicken wire and plaster. You like it? Do you like it?

  Like it! It’s fantastic. What will you do with it?

  I’ll put it on the roof.

  An onion-cum-garlic dome?

  Sure. For our onion house. I started making a big onion. But don’t you think a garlic head is more interesting? You’ll help me hoist it up on the roof. I’ll rope it and we’ll lift it and attach it up there.

  Do you have a ladder?

  Ladder? We’re going to do a bit of climbing, you and I.

  You may know your onions climbing. I…

  High time you learned. And after this little practice, you’ll come with me to see, and feel, where your glacier water came from.

  I’m through with onion cookery.

  You’ll be perfectly safe.

  Climbing the Bowness bungalow with the high slanting roof does seem a ridiculous idea, but Jacques has been so patient, putting up with months of onion and vinegar fumes, and now wanting to show his love for her to the entire neighbourhood by installing the head of garlic on his roof, Jacques, so sweet, la soigne aux petits oignons, treating her like a queen, how can she refuse. Maddie chokes a little.

  Truly, Jacques. What do you do after you’ve climbed all the big mountains?

  He laughs as he wraps the sculpture in a large net, which he ties to a nylon cord before securing the other end of the cord to his harness.

  What do we do, ma grande? We start all over.

  She puts on an old pair of Jacques’s rock shoes. They’re so tight, she feels like the Chinese empress dowager’s daughter. He slips a harness on her and ties one end of the climbing rope through it with a figure-eight rewoven knot. Then he drags the other end of the rope tied behind his harness and, in two steps, it seems to Maddie, he is up on the roof. He describes what he is doing, as if she had a clue. He rigs a belay station around the base of the chimney and will belay Maddie from up there.

  When the rope is taut at her harness, he tells her she is ready to climb: On belay! His voice is leeky, loud and clear.

  She doesn’t move.

  Don’t worry. I got you in case you fall.

  In case? You’ve got to be joking. She laughs softly. Stares at the smooth wall. Wonders how on earth he did it. Giggling, she yells, in a not-too-convinced voice: Climbing.

  Climb on! His voice is full of conviction for the two of them.

  Yes, but. How? She tries and slips even before leaving the yard. Looks and looks at the wood siding. This is impossible. How does he do it? He must have secret suction cups all over him. At last, she notices tiny ledges between the planks and other nodules of imperfection in the siding for her fingers to grab and for her big toes to rest on. With a mixture of terror and exhilaration, she manages to haul herself off the ground. After her tenth fall, each complete with a sharp, short scream and her heart climbing into her throat at the speed of an excited rat scaling inner walls, she lets her body discover its own balance.

  She actually climbs. In a perverted mix of fear and pleasure, she actually enjoys this vertical walking. Pungent desire.

  Now. She faces the crux. How do you climb over the eaves? She wishes Jacques had given her a bit of advance warning, so she could have prepared by eating a whole head of garlic to give herself the Greek courage of warriors and the endurance of athletes. Overhang, how do you overcome the overhang? She has seen him do the move often enough on his climbing walls. But watching and doing are not the same. The gulf separating the theoretical and the empirical.

  She tries the monkey hang, but her arms are dying on her, her calves shake, the whole house shakes with her shaking. And she falls, and falls, dangling in mid-air, held by the rope. She growls in frustration, in jealousy of Jacques’s ease and, finally, in anger. Anger gives her the impetus to hold on to the edge of the roof, as sticky and slippery as decaying onions. A couple more moves, scraping her knees on the aluminum trough, grating her hands on the rough shingles, and she crawls on all fours. Stands up on the roof. Jacques pulls in slack and she walks uphill toward him, holding on to the rope with both hands, quite aware of the force of gravity on the sharp angle of that terrain. He clips her in to the belay station.

  He shouts playfully: Secure! Normally, you’re responsible for clipping in yourself. And you’re the one who has to say secure, loud and clear, before your partner can take you off belay. He kisses her. Wasn’t this fun?

  A whole hour it took me!

  Don’t exaggerate.

  How embarrassing. I’ll eat onion-stuffed crow for a week, Jacques. How dare you rat on me to your climbing buddies. So embarrassing.

  You made it, Maddie. First try. You climbed the Bowness Bungalow route.

  They both laugh, hoisting the head of garlic. Jacques fastens it to the apex of the roof. It gleams in the autumn sun.

  For the first time, Maddie realizes how high above the street they stand: How will we get down?

  Rappel. I’ll teach you rappelling. You’ll love it.

  Love it? She’s not so sure, but she must believe. What’s the alternative? Live on the roof with the big garlic?

  Maddie can almost touch the snow-capped rocks rising against the perfect blue western sky. She fancies she can hear glacier water running. She looks at Jacques. He squints at her.

  L’air des montagnes, Maddie. Wait until you breathe that mountain air. After one day up there, you will sleep like never before. I promise. Best sleep in the world.

  You’ve always known your onions, Jacques.

  He breaks into that grin of his.

  They gaze at the grey limestone walls leaning against the distance. Jacques, full of promise and expectation. They gaze at the giant head of garlic tied to the chimney. One day, perhaps, a strong chinook will send the sculpture crashing down along the property line. Maddie studies Jacques’s face, wondering how she got herself from her warped Montréal apartment to this unreal land.

  What’s wrong with this picture, Jacques?

  Wrong? He squints at the distance. Then looks at her: From where we stand, ma grande, not one single thing I can see.

  He holds her in his strong arms, against his strong heart, gently blowing into her face his sweet perfect-pickled-pearl breath.

  You and I, my onion lady, are just fine.

  Nepal High

  THE PEOPLE of Borlang Bhanjyang are positive. The yeti killed Jeanne. He took her in the middle of the night. Dragged her out of the mud house and carried her into the heart of the Himalayas. Didn’t they find her broken body at the foot of a cliff? The woman where Jeanne is staying, the mother of Jeanne’s mountain guide, Rana, can’t stop herself from beating her breast and wailing, imploring the Nepalese gods and goddesses to forgive her negligence. The wooden panel closing the window. Left open. On the shadowy night.

  The inhabitants of this hamlet of five houses perched on a hill between three deep valleys are gathered together in front of the low door. They tell a long story Rachel does not understand. Except the word yeti that they repeat over and over.

  They show Rachel the famous window through which the creature entered the room. The poor beast couldn’t be much bigger than a cat to have managed to slide through such a small opening. Jeanne and the yeti, a new legend taking form. A story to be told from village to village, the tale that will expand over long winter evenings. Jeanne who could not stand still.

  Rana asks Rachel what she wants to do with the body. She looks at him, not understanding. She is dreaming. When she wakes up, Jeanne will be there, as skinny as ever, as ready as ever to mock Rachel’s concerns. The body? Wha
t body, Rana?

  Two men enter the low-ceilinged room, carrying a stretcher covered with layers of colourful light fabrics topped with wildflowers. They set down their burden on the beaten-earth floor and exit without a word. Even though the villagers have returned to their own concerns and gone home for their evening meal and even though only Rana, his mother and his maybe seven-year-old brother remain in the room already darkened by night, Rachel feels dozens of eyes watching her next move.

  She stares at the fabrics, notes the freshness of the yellow flowers. Doesn’t dare lift the diaphanous shroud. What does a mutilated corpse look like? Maybe Jeanne sustained fatal injuries to her internal organs, leaving her body intact on the outside. Rachel can’t bring herself to look.

  She gingerly feels the shape lying under silk. A vaporous coldness enters her fingertips to freeze her to the elbow. It is rigid, that thing she touched, the arm of her dead cousin. What was she doing outside in the middle of the night? Restless Jeanne. See how still you are now.

  Rana? Can we have her cremated? Can we burn her on a funeral pyre, according to your customs?

  Rana nods: Yes. Jeanne, she was my sister.

  Something else. Her things. She brought things with her to Borlang Bhanjyang. Photos, recordings, from her previous stop. When she went to Tibet.

  Rana’s eyes brighten and he shows her a metal box in the small space reserved for the dead woman. He then joins his mother and brother, both silent at the other end of the room where a tiny fire burns.

  The Nepalese night tightens its grip around the hamlet, over the big mountains, while the wind carries the story of the Western woman who came to join her mother in death, the story whispered all the way to the highest summits where her spirit will be preserved in the thin air of eternal cold. They all came here to die. Jeanne’s mother. Rachel’s father. And now, Jeanne herself. End game.

  Stooping on account of the low ceiling, Rachel moves closer to the group gathered around the fire. Without that small flame burning in the hearth dug in the floor, it would be pitch-dark. From time to time, Rachel glances behind her. Through the flickering flame, it seems to her that something is moving under those layers of cloth.