“Now, that’s a lot of sugar.”
“Hmm? Oh. Yes. I like it, very . . . sucré, like that.”
His accent was so strong she had to smile and pretend to understand until, by analyzing sounds, grappling with them like the poorly translated fortunes in cookies, she managed to decipher what he’d said a few seconds later. His English would get better in time. So would her French. She’d learn enough to string together a few sentences, savour a few expressions that were so close and yet so far away, grammatically and phonetically. The first time she brought Albert to her parents’ house the conversation turned almost entirely around language, accent, and cultural differences, conveniently papering over questions of values and beliefs that would wreck everything a few months later.
“Can I get you anything else? Besides that coffee syrup?”
He was looking her in the eye now, his lips moving in the centre of his pretty blond beard. He got the joke, she could tell, and stopped stirring for a while, blushed, asked if it was too late for breakfast. She answered no, it wasn’t, they served breakfast any time. He’d have three eggs with ham, bacon, and sausage. He had to use gestures to show her how he wanted his eggs because he didn’t know the word.
“You know, uhh, cooked on one side and then, hop, you turn it with the, the thing . . .”
Richard was listening from a distance, spatula in hand, interested. He yelled out a little too loudly:
“Over easy, Laura. He wants them over easy.”
And Albert pointed at Richard with his index finger, a smile on his face, looking Laura square in the eye.
“C’est ça. Over easy! Thank you. To remember, this is not so easy.”
“No, it’s like an expression. How do you say it in French?”
“We say ‘tourné.’”
“Tur-nay.”
“Like, uh, turned.”
“Oh, okay. That is easier, you’re right.”
And he laughed and she told herself there was no way that he could be just passing through, waiting for the next Greyhound out of town. It couldn’t be. She wanted to ask him right away how he liked Chattanooga, and where he was planning to stay, and whether he had seen how pretty the mountains around the town were, but she went and took a few orders instead, heart racing, feet suddenly heavier. Richard started whistling “Hot Stuff,” the Donna Summer tune with a melody you could whistle even while doing four things at once. He was prancing around in front of the griddle, dancing in the smoke rising from the sizzling meat, and whenever Laura passed in front of him he winked. When Laura came out with Albert’s plate and gently set it on the mat in front of him, she asked:
“Do you know how to say the other kinds of eggs?”
“No. We say ‘miroir.’ Like a mirror.”
“Huh. Mir-wahr. That’s nice. We say ‘sunny side up.’”
“Sunny side up.”
“Yup. Sunny side up.”
Albert came back to the restaurant the next day, and again the day after. He had rented a room nearby, on Broad and 6th. He always came early and he always ordered the same thing. After a couple days it got to be a bit of a joke between Richard and him: Over easy? Over easy. Over and out. He always chose the same stool, where the counter formed an elbow. He had shaved the beard and underneath Laura discovered a much younger man than she’d expected, no older than she was, or not much at any rate. Even with his new face, Albert had retained the bearded man’s habit of rubbing his chin and cheeks. His hair was almost red in spots, and getting lighter by the day under the Tennessee sun. He liked to push it to the side and run his fingers through his bangs. Watching him felt to Laura like observing someone who had stepped out of a time machine and plonked down at her counter, a marine on shore leave with a toothpick in his mouth. Her father must have looked something like that when he came back from Europe: adrift in his hometown, embarrassed to be back in his country somehow, a touch aloof, with proper manners and upright posture. She asked her boss Margaret if the Galaxy was already open in ’46. Sure was, it was open long before that, you’d be surprised.
She would bring him coffee the moment he came in and immediately feel like she’d had one too many cups herself, with six or seven sugars. On his second visit he asked her name, though it was written on the little metal tag she wore pinned to her uniform, and he’d blushed when she said “Laura,” pointing to her chest, gently poking fun. Her smile revealed a girl who would never tire of making fun of him, head slightly cocked, ponytail bouncing, a mischievous expression waiting in the wings. “Me, I’m Albert.” Yeah, I know, she said, it’s written in black marker on the army bag you were carrying when you got to Chattanooga.
Between two orders she’d stop to chat with him, put the dishes away, dry the clean cups as they came out of the dishwasher. One morning, while a late spring rain fell over the city, he started explaining what he was doing there, where he was from. When he said the word “Quebec,” a little louder the second time because she hadn’t heard the first, everyone in the restaurant turned around to look at him. Again he said, “Excusez, sorry,” sweeping the room with his metallic grey eyes. Laura imagined Quebec. She saw a boundless stretch of ice and snow, though part of her felt bad she couldn’t do a little better. She knew there was something ridiculous about her image of a vast white windswept plain, with mountain ranges in the distance. The men she pictured were all good looking and bearded, like Albert, descendants of Vikings who only shaved when their travels were over and they reached their destination.
She loved talking to him, taking the time to let him find his words, it made her feel like he was going to great lengths to please her. When Albert hesitated, stammered, or made an error, she took the liberty of gently sidling up and proffering the word he was looking for like a small gift. She would slowly lean over the counter while Albert snapped his fingers, trying to find the right word or correct expression, or when he made that frustrated “tsk” sound, or swore in French: Voyons, câlisse. What was it again? How do you say it? At times like these he’d look her in the eyes without a trace of bashfulness. Lost in his thoughts, his shyness abated. Laura, ever the good sport, would bring him the answer he was looking for. One day she caught a sudden change coming over his face and realized he had smelled her new perfume.
Albert ate at the Galaxy every morning during his first three weeks in Chattanooga, except Laura’s days off. After a month the whole staff would start whistling “Hot Stuff” the moment he came in the door. Regulars shot him knowing smiles. Even when Laura was slammed, none of the other servers even thought about taking Albert’s order. He’d wait patiently on his stool, spinning around, feet in the air.
In the middle of June he finally made up his mind and asked if she was free.
“You mean generally, or tonight in particular?”
“Well, both.”
“Both.”
“Would you come with me to, I don’t know, a movie? We could eat too. But it seems all I do is eat when I’m with you.”
“Do you like bowling?”
“Bowling, mets-en! I love bowling. Good id-ee.”
She felt comfortable with him, in front of him. It was easy to talk to someone who may have randomly showed up in her life but whose soothing, peaceful presence needed no justification. On his side of the counter Albert may have been nervous, but everything he said and did felt natural, and she sensed that the nervousness which had won her over in the early days was giving way to something even more attractive, a particular clumsiness that only came out in her presence. When he talked to others, like Richard or Margaret, his tone flattened and grew more confident. Laura even started pronouncing his name the French way, just like him: Al-bear.
She deftly redid her ponytail, her elastic held between her teeth. Albert picked up his nearly empty cup and drank the last syrupy sips. He wiped his hands on his jeans. She pushed her glasses up. They looked at each other, and we c
an all understand what they were feeling, though they’re far away from us and we have never met them. Albert asked if he should stop by to pick her up and she said no, it would be better to meet there, at the bowling alley. There was one on Brainerd, on the edge of town, not far from the bus station. She turned his placemat over and pulled a pen from her apron pocket to draw a quick map and write the numbers of the buses he’d need to take. It wouldn’t make sense to pick her up, she lived on the north side, in Woodmore, it was residential, he was sure to get lost. Albert nodded in agreement, then folded the placemat in four and slid it into his shirt pocket. After paying for his coffee and breakfast he set off with a clear sense of purpose, a man on a mission. When he looked at her one last time before heading out into the street she understood exactly what it meant.
That afternoon Laura’s mother came to see her in her second-floor bedroom. Her questions were pointed enough for Laura to put two and two together. Someone had been talking about Albert. Laura’s mother began the conversation standing in the doorframe. As Laura gave answers that were both evasive and enthusiastic she came all the way into the room and sat down on the bed. Laura was holding the closet doors wide open, enthralled by the options before her, unable to make a decision.
“What’s his name?” asked Laura’s mother.
“Albert.”
“Is he French?”
“French Canadian. From the Gaspé Peninsula.”
Laura held a dress against her body with the hanger under her chin, and spun around in front of the standing mirror.
“The Gaspé Peninsula. Sounds far away. What’s he doing here?”
“Research.”
“Research on what?”
“The Civil War, I think.”
“What do you mean, you think? Is he a student?”
“I don’t think so. It’s personal research.”
“He didn’t tell you what he’s hoping to find?”
“Yeah, yeah, he explained it to me.”
“And I reckon he’s Catholic.”
“Mom, I don’t know. How would I know that?”
“All French Canadians are Catholics. Everyone’s Catholic over there.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Well, everyone knows Catholics are . . .”
“Mom, can you just let me get dressed please?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll leave you alone. I just wanted to know a little something about him.”
“Maybe you’ll meet him soon. If things go well tonight. Maybe you’ll get to meet him.”
“I’d love to meet him, dear.”
And she closed the door behind herself, blowing her daughter a kiss, her open hand under her chin like a launch pad. Laura was looking for a pair of faded jeans she’d bought to look like Debbie Harry. She noticed her prom dress at the back of her closet, all ruffles and cream-coloured satin. That was probably what her mother would have wanted her to wear.
The day Laura Howells died somewhere over the Atlantic, on an American Airlines flight from New York to Paris, she hadn’t seen her mother in nearly fifteen years. When Thomas’s grandmother came to pick up her orphaned grandson, he didn’t know how to react.
Thomas knew her name and reputation. He had heard her spoken of. And he often thought he saw her around town as he left school or the park. Any shadow could be enough to trigger this sense, like something crawling under his skin, as if someone was watching him. This woman was an invisible but abiding presence for Thomas, an invisible figure always lurking in the background, at the periphery of Thomas’s and his parents’ lives, though he likely knew more about her story than his own parents’ pasts. He knew baby photos had travelled through obscure, convoluted back channels to change hands in secret and against his father’s wishes. But even after Albert left for good and the divorce went through, no matter how much resentment had built up, Laura never changed her tune about her parents. When Thomas was alone with her on weeknights, lights dimmed to keep from taxing her tired eyes, he would listen as she told family stories that illustrated concepts like stubbornness, stupidity, and bigotry. Mrs. Howells featured prominently.
Laura described her mother as a hysterical, withdrawn woman who had ruined everything without noticing. Watch out for do-gooders, she liked reminding Thomas, they can be the very worst of all. Watch out for the pious ones, she told him, standing in front of you with folded hands and nodding their heads with condescending empathy. This was Laura’s mother in a nutshell: she was pious. Laura never forgot her mother’s reaction when her father ordered her to immediately stop seeing that young Canadian, that atheist who held nothing precious, that abortionist, nigger-lover (here he realized he’d gone too far and apologized: I shouldn’t have said that, my tongue got away from me). But the damage was done. It was July 1979. Laura was already pregnant. No one knew, not even her. The three of them were standing in the hall beneath a crystal chandelier that cast long shadows. She had just returned from a hike in the mountains. Her key was barely out of the lock. She hadn’t even seen Albert that day. It was the morning after the dinner when he had revealed his true nature. Her parents were waiting in their robes, despite the heat, standing apart in their usual postures, each on a different step, hands in their robes’ capacious pockets, slippers on their feet. Her father’s speech didn’t take long. In a series of short, performative utterances he painted his colours on the wall. It’s him or us. She tried to catch the eye of her mother, who held onto her husband’s arm, gave Laura a searching, pitiful look, and said a silent prayer for Albert’s salvation. It didn’t matter what exactly Laura had been asking that day; she had her answer.
She left home a few days later and married the unbeliever who spoke broken English at City Hall. She never told her parents. That, at least, was the story Thomas had heard a thousand times. He’d always taken it to be true until the doorbell rang, after Laura’s death.
It had come the day before, on a Wednesday evening: the call that would change Thomas Langlois’s life, leaving him orphaned, whatever that might mean. Now a carefully made-up, sixty-year-old woman, thin lipped and quite pretty, was in front of him, standing straight and unsupported. Thomas’s bum was sore from hours sitting almost perfectly still on the living room couch, slowly ingesting the news like a boa constrictor swallowing an ostrich egg. He sat, still and silent, in the empty house. With the cordless phone on his knee he sat long enough to start believing nothing was going to happen. It wasn’t just that nothing would change; nothing would even happen. No one would come, no one would do anything at all. Not one tear had been shed yet, as if every one of them were occupied elsewhere, somewhere behind his eyes, lubricating his confusion. As he got up to answer the door the words of the responsible, empathetic woman who had kept calling him “sweetie” were running through his mind in a loop. Are you alone, is your dad home? There’s something I have to tell you. There’s been an accident.
His grandmother was standing in front of him. He knew it was her immediately. A woman from social services stood behind her, she looked Latin American and she also called him “sweetie” and Thomas felt sick. Then she said his name. It was his mother’s voice, recreated, emanating from a face that looked at once identical to hers and nothing like it. Without warning she grasped onto a balcony post and started crying.
While Thomas sat still on the living room couch a mechanism had sprung into action, arrangements had been made, authorities consulted. He’d fallen asleep in a sitting position and his fate had been decided. He asked his grandmother whether she had spoken to his father. No, honey, no, they haven’t spoken to your father. No one had spoken to his father. They might have tried to contact him, but no one knew where he was. They knew he was out of the country. That complicated the search even more. The search? In a manner of speaking. No one was exactly searching for Albert, they just wanted to let him know what had happened, he deserved to know. They weren’t expectin
g anything from him. They just wanted him to know.
She drove like his mother, with two hands firmly planted on the wheel at ten and two o’clock. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, from time to time, without taking her eyes off the road. He could tell she didn’t like driving and was trying to look confident, chattering away as she performed every regulation shoulder check. She explained that they, his grandfather and herself, would look after Thomas from now on. Their house, the one where Laura had grown up, was a welcoming home; they were hospitable, loving people. They would have liked to get to know him earlier and under better circumstances, but life was hard to understand sometimes. In Albert’s absence his maternal grandparents had been appointed guardians, ideally until he reached adulthood. There were words she said exactly like his mother. They had the same pitch, the same nervous laugh that burst out at the wrong time, delighting Thomas and catching him by surprise without fail. His grandmother was an older version of his mother. In the features of her face, sharpened by wrinkles and redrawn by age, he could discern the ones that disappeared the day before and were now before him again, like a disconcerting optical illusion. The closeness of her voice to Laura’s confirmed that his mother was no more. Thomas listened, politely and attentively.
“We have a room all ready for you. It was Laura’s room, your mother’s room, where she slept the whole time she lived with us. You’ll see, it’s not too girly, your mom was a bit of a tomboy, she loved sports, football and basketball. In fact, she wanted to be a professional basketball player. Your mother played all kinds of sports when she was a girl, and had a lot of friends. She wasn’t the type to sit around twiddling her thumbs. She started working for pocket money when she was sixteen. She was always ready to lend a hand. You know when Laura met your father, back in 1979, Margaret at the Galaxy was going to make her manager? You knew your mother worked at the Galaxy, right? If she hadn’t left at that point to be with your father she would probably have been manager a month later. Who knows, she might even have taken over from Margaret one day. Don’t get me wrong, your grandfather and I were proud when she went back to school after you were born. It wasn’t that. We’ve always done everything we could to support her. Anyway, you’ll see, you’ll be happy in that room. It’s full of good memories. Team pennants on the wall. We didn’t change a thing. It’s just the way she left it. I even kept all her stuffed animals, but we can take them away if you’d prefer, we could put them somewhere else. Laura loved stuffed animals, she talked to them like real people, loved petting them and rocking them like babies. If you want we’ll box them up, you’re fourteen after all, you’re a big boy. Won’t be long now, we’re almost there. Do you know your mother’s old neighbourhood? It’s hard to believe that all these years we’ve been living so close and never once saw each other. It’s all a misunderstanding, a horrible misunderstanding. It’s a shame, that’s all. A crying shame.”
The Longest Year Page 3