Praise for BLACK BIRD
“Black Bird rocks! An exuberant new Quebec voice that speaks for all of us who live in the spaces in between.” Susan Swan, author of The Wives of Bath
“A work of terrific accomplishment. Basilières spent a long time writing Black Bird and it was worth it. The book has the unmistakable feel of an intelligent, gifted man who has found his voice.” David Gilmour, author of Lost Between Houses
“Black Bird is a great, wonderful monster of a novel [and] ushers in a new, hilarious, wildly imaginative, powerful and heartfelt voice.” Edward Carey, author of Alva & Irva
“Basilières’ comic sensibility is as black and shining as a crow’s wing. I believe Lovecraft must be sitting up in his grave and grinning.” Gail Anderson-Dargatz, author of A Recipe for Bees
“Basilières’ debut is a stronger, more original book than most novelists ever manage to write. Malicious, riotous, and moving, Black Bird is an anarchic Two Solitudes for the 21st century.” Amazon.ca
“A giant mulligatawny of a novel … Wild and unpredictable, crammed with black humour, it reads like a very entertaining fairy tale gone wrong.” Books in Canada
“An original novel with antic energy … Acutely observed … The powerful grappling of these characters with eternal human mysteries is what converts the magical fantasy from absurd to meaningful.” Literary Review of Canada
“A funny, dark first novel.” Flare
“[Basilières’] Montreal is indeed compelling. It’s a gothic, violent, complicated, surreal Montreal…. At its core [Black Bird] feels more authentically Montreal than so many novels that strain to get it right.” Montreal Mirror
“An outrageously Gothic novel … Basilières has created a Swiftian work of art, a novel that is both uproariously funny and devastatingly satirical.” The Sun Times (Owen Sound)
“Black Bird is a macabre, funny and wonderfully malicious text that unhesitatingly moves between farce, black humour, satire and magic realism.” The Edmonton Journal
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Readers with long memories or a command of Canadian history will complain that the following pages contradict known facts. Facts are one thing but fiction is another, and this is fiction.
FOR
Vivian Beryl Stephens Basilières
beloved mother
Montreal, an island, placed a cemetery atop its mountain, capped that mountain with a giant illuminated cross and wove streets along its slopes like a skirt spreading down to the water. In this way, its ancestors hovered over the city just as the Church did, and death was always at the centre of everything.
Grandfather had one foot in the grave and the other on the shoulder of his spade. He pressed his weight on it; nothing. He stood on it, lifting himself completely from the earth—still nothing.
“No use,” he said to Uncle. “The ground’s already frozen. The season’s over.”
Grandfather eyed the lights of the city below glowing through the leafless trees ringing the cemetery. A single large flash winked at him like a bulb or a star going out; seconds later a sound like an enormous kettledrum drifted up through the cold air. The revolving beacon of a skyscraper swung overhead, and then came another flash, and another boom. There was silence after that, except for the wind in the trees. And then sirens. Grandfather watched the regular flashes of police cruisers and ambulances progressing along the lines of light that shone out of the darkness. Cops. They were never anything but trouble. At least tonight, he thought mistakenly, they were someone else’s problem.
Cold and disappointed, the two men began the long walk home. Even if they could have paid for the bus that ran over the mountain, they couldn’t board at the cemetery gate, in the middle of the night, with shovels and sacks. As Grandfather watched Uncle preceding him, he realized the snow was just as much an impediment to their work as the frozen ground: Uncle was leaving a trail of footprints, and Grandfather must have been too.
The season had definitely come to an end. What would they do now? This winter wouldn’t be as easy as the last, when Grandmother’s death turned out to be a boon to him in so many ways, large and small. Small, because it meant one less person to feed. Large, because it allowed him to indulge his hostilities, his grudges against the neighbours, and his fondness for drinking, all under the guise of his grief. But that lasted only through the summer, for as soon as Labour Day passed, the anniversary of her death, everyone began to remark that it was time to return to business as usual; the holiday was over, get a grip. In fact they might have allowed him a longer period of licence if he hadn’t made it clear, after a certain amount of beer, that he’d not really been fond of her anyway, and what a relief it was turning out to be, being a widower.
This reaction surprised no one in the immediate family, but it was only after Grandmother’s death that his true nature became obvious to the neighbourhood. She’d spent most of her life covering up for him and keeping him from them. After all, she was one of them, born and bred in the quarter, where her family was known and liked. He was the outsider, the stranger, the unknown quantity. Which caused a great deal of curiosity in the beginning, and a great deal of trouble for her.
He’d never shown any respect for her friends or relatives, for anyone on the street, for anyone who might give him a job, or even for his own children. She’d married him because he’d made an effort to impress her and convince her of his sincerity, and she’d never before been shown that sincerity was as easily discarded as an empty cigarette package. The rest of her life had been spent trying to make up to her children for so carelessly choosing their father, and overcoming her own disappointment, which he seemed to insist on reinforcing daily. He had the habit of reading aloud from the newspaper the story of some other family’s tragedy and laughing at the details; of carelessly leaving pornographic magazines around the house where the children, her friends, and she could see them; of not replying to her questions.
She should have left him early on, but that would have meant returning to her parents’ house, since she had no resources of her own. And return was impossible, because although they would have taken her in gladly and quickly, never asking why, they’d silently assume they’d been right, that she was returning in failure and despair. She could fight her husband’s cruelty and indifference, a miserable struggle that would justify her life, but she couldn’t fight her parents’ certainty that she was incapable of a life without them. And in the end, the example of her strength in the face of his power was the legacy she would leave her children.
After Grandmother had received the last rites from Father Pheley, she summoned enough strength to look her husband in the face and, heedless of the presence of so many others, gave him her last words:
“Your heart is so cold it will lead you to hell. At least I don’t have to fear meeting you again.”
Grandfather couldn’t bring himself to scowl or scoff, as he always had at any remark of his wife’s. Not because of the presence of the others, or because she was dying, but because he still harboured his childhood fear of priests. The ensuing moment of silence, as her spirit left her with a smile on her face, gave him the chance to absorb one of the great lessons of his life: even in the presence of death and the entry into heaven, disagreeable people remain disagreeable.
Because he needed a cook and a housecleaner, Grandfather remarried quickly enough to cause eyebrows to raise, especially considering the difference in years between himself and his second wife. If his children had objections, in any case they kept silent. And the neighbours’ speculations, typical in such cases, were off target. Grandfather had not been having an affair behind Grandmother’s back—not that it was beyond him, but he’d never bothered to hide his infidelities—nor had he lost his head, as foolish older men
have been known to do. Neither had his new wife married him for his money, since he didn’t have any. But it wasn’t surprising that some might think so; although the family was never seen to spend lavishly, none of them were ever seen to have a job, either. And whenever the neighbours couldn’t understand how someone could live in complete poverty, they assumed that person must be secretly rich after all. Under the mattress, in secret bank accounts, buried in the backyard: there was no limit to the hiding places, no matter how far-fetched, suggested by those unwilling to take the evidence at face value. Once the idea was planted, all common sense was discarded in the effort to bolster their belief, because nothing is harder to let go than the suspicion that someone else is guilty of hiding something.
Grandfather thought he remarried out of remorse. It occurred to him, in a rare moment of self-reflection, that he had devoted his life to his late wife’s misery, and that wasn’t enough. A man’s life should count for more than one woman’s. He would spend the rest of his days making up for this disappointment by ruining the life of another. He chose a woman from a neighbourhood where he was unknown, and won her by the simple process that worked on his first wife. He paid calls on her, smiled at her, told her amusing stories, looked her directly in the eye, gave her small presents, affected shyness and modesty. He lied and deceived with a practised hand, which a more sophisticated woman would have seen through. But a more sophisticated woman would have been a harder conquest and a tougher opponent. Grandfather chose his second wife precisely because she was unused to the attentions of men, unfamiliar with the real cruelty that exists outside of television, and unlikely to be self-assured enough to refuse his offer of marriage.
It’s true that when invited to family dinners, she was puzzled how more than one of his own relatives, who seemed as well-meaning and kind as he was, took her aside to warn her he wasn’t what he appeared, that he could only harm her. But she reasoned that they, like so many people, must be unable to understand the kind of friendship that she and Grandfather had found together despite the difference in their ages—a common prejudice that was hard to overcome. And if it were true that he was normally not as outgoing, friendly and generous as he seemed, mightn’t that just be a sign that she’d brought him a kind of happiness? Couldn’t he have fallen in love with her?
He couldn’t. Despite his best efforts, his first wife resisted being driven to the grave long enough to die of natural causes; he saw this as a failure on his part, and for his second attempt he chose an easier mark. He considered this act as a kind of penance for the work to which he’d devoted his life: grave robbery. He felt that since death provided for his livelihood he might return at least one corpse. He was always attempting the least in everything. If he were a lumberjack, he might plant a single sapling on the same principle: an eye for an eye. When he proposed to Aline, he thought he was making up for an earlier error, nothing more. And when she moved into the Desouche house to live the claustrophobic, uncertain and oppressive existence he laid upon her, with his small insults, sharp words, disappointed looks and everyday denials, he thought he was just being himself and could find no reason to put himself out on her behalf.
Now he worried how they would manage through the winter. Not that he was eager to work, especially since the digging got tougher every year; and then, the markets were drying up at the same time, what with so many people donating their bodies to science. Still, a living had to be made somehow.
The two men padded through the light snow to the unlit road. With the tall, empty trees overhanging the gravel path, they might have been in the country. Except for the continuous screaming of the sirens, the woods blocked the sounds of the city, and the sense of isolation was almost complete. Grandfather removed his gloves, brought cigarettes from his coat and silently offered them to Uncle. The lighted ends shone red. The men let smoke out through their nostrils, like dragons.
The road led them down to the lights and noises of the city, where it was warmer, but less comforting.
Once Aline Souris became Stepmother Desouche she quietly took over the kitchen. Although she was neither fond of nor good at cooking, it gave her an immediate and definite position in the house and kept her from feeling underfoot. Her natural shyness was brought out by her surprise at Grandfather’s change in attitude towards her now that they were married, and reinforced by the Desouches’ habit of speaking English, a phenomenon that made her feel as if she’d landed in a foreign country. In her previous life English had been as distant as England itself. It was the language of employers, bankers and politicians, not the language of friends or relatives.
The Desouche household was a fixture in its neighbourhood for several reasons, not the least being the sheer number of years they occupied the same building (much to the consternation of their landlord) in a city where families commonly packed up every July to move across the street or around the corner. Aside from legal responsibilities, because everyone eventually occupied everyone else’s former premises, it was held sacred that the buildings not be abused or endangered by the tenants.
The Desouches were freed from this obligation by their immobility. They neither owned the property nor intended to leave, and practised a game of paying the rent just frequently enough to avoid a visit from the bailiff. All the landlord’s efforts to have them legally removed were thwarted by the local laws protecting tenants, which the Desouches learned to manipulate to their benefit. The rental board was forced to rule in their favour even in cases where it was clearly reluctant. So the Desouches felt at liberty, over the years, to do to the house as they pleased, without the worry of any consequences.
Doors were moved, walls were struck down or created, windows bricked up, staircases added, balconies enlarged or destroyed. All this work the family undertook themselves because they couldn’t conceive of paying the costs of unionized labour. So the neighbours became used to seeing deliveries of lumber, wallboard, sacks of plaster or other materials, and to hearing the sounds of power tools and hammering, not just during working hours, but at all times.
Of course, though each project began with a burst of enthusiasm, as soon as the inspiration had lost its novelty, work slowed to a crawl. Jobs that should have taken a few days stretched into weeks—even months. Simple tasks like putting up a new shelf consumed a week; repainting the kitchen was a month’s toil; refinishing the living-room floor had been going on for a year. And there were even unfinished schemes older than Jean-Baptiste and Marie, who by this time were considered adults.
Aline found herself floundering in this ménage. The bared walls and rolled-up carpets had not been a surprise, but she’d assumed they were temporary and forgiven them accordingly. And now she realized, too, that her new relatives had been making a special effort to speak in French on her previous visits. As happens so often, special efforts were abandoned when the visitor became an in-law. She was hardly spoken to at all, and even then most often in English first. Only when she presented her pleading, puzzled face would they repeat themselves in French.
One exception was Marie, who hated speaking English even though her own mother was as Anglo as Aline herself was francophone. For this reason, Aline developed a certain fondness for her new granddaughter, who after all was not so very much younger than herself—a decade? More? Less? She excused in Marie habits and actions she wouldn’t tolerate in the others. Although she would never express criticism of anyone, she took her revenge by leaving them out of her nightly prayers. But for Marie she’d make special allowances and requests to the Lord, minimizing her rudeness to the family—especially to her brother—her neglect of common decencies, and even her blasphemies. “She is young,” Aline murmured into her fingertips, “and has endured unpleasantness. I am sure, just as for anyone else, enough success and encouragement would develop into happiness and then kindness. Do not forget her, Lord, and I will be grateful.”
For the sake of the Lord, Aline prayed in formal French, not the joual in which she lived her daily life. It was som
etimes hard to remember the elusive constructions that had been rapped into her head through her knuckles at school, but as her father always pointed out, only hard work earned results. She felt free to speak more colloquially with Marie, whose familiarity with vulgar phrases was astounding, and who expressed political opinions Aline had been used to hearing from her father. Both were summed up in the motto Marie cited most often: “maudits anglais”—damned English. However, Marie was less fond of Aline, whom she considered a yokel precisely because she was so astounded by common expressions, and because although she never disagreed with Marie on political issues, she seemed only to be avoiding discussing something she really knew nothing about.
Aline would have had more luck bonding with Marie’s mother, who was now actually Aline’s stepdaughter, though she was older by almost two decades. The two were alike, not only in temperament but also in situation, and Mother was the reason English had been adopted by the Desouches. Her case proved that the family didn’t consider themselves above adapting to suit the needs of a new member of the clan, but also that they sometimes refused. Both of the women had married into the house, both were accepted only as necessary additions, neither was happy or comfortable. But the barrier of language kept them apart at home, just as it would have if they’d met on the street or in some shop. The two seemed to have an intimation that they were in some ways kindred spirits. They exchanged smiles and awkward hellos in each other’s language, occasionally asked simple questions while pointing, helped one another carry things or fold sheets, even felt sympathy when the other was fighting with her husband. Aline and Grandfather, or Mother and Father, the scene was the same: the husband was angry and loud, the wife offered a moderate rebuke and then suffered an explosive retaliation that left her near tears and acquiescing in silence.
But neither could overcome the embarrassment of remaining ignorant of the other’s way of speaking. Although each felt the possibility of a real friendship, comforting and fun, lying just beyond that linguistic horizon, neither could overcome the feeling that learning the other’s tongue was a task too hard for her.
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