The atmosphere of the house had suddenly grown unbearable.
"I'm just goin' to take a little turn outside, Mother, if that's the way it is."
Nothing.
Outside, he had automatically turned toward The Two Records. Now, in the warmth, he was calming down. He was in his element here. They'd listen to him in a minute, when he started talking. Sam would contradict him, but he'd listen. And above all he'd hear the sound of his own voice reaffirming his confidence in himself.
"How's things at your place?" asked Anita.
Azarius started. He managed the shadow of a smile.
"Well, not bad, not bad ay-tall, thank you, ma'm."
"You gave up the taxi business?" asked Sam. "Your boy Eugène was sayin' so the other day he was in. So he's in the army now, your boy! What do you say to that?"
"As far as I'm concerned, it's fine. He did well, Eugène. He's young and smart. I wouldn't mind bein' in his place."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, and quick about it."
"Well now. And look at the mess the Russians have got into with the Finns, eh? And not much new apart from that. You'd think both sides is scared to take a hold. The French are playing cards in their forts and the Germans on their side too, looks like."
He stroked his chin and sighed. "It's a phony war, for sure, eh?"
Azarius had his turn to sigh:
"Yes, she's a phony war, all right."
Then, looking up, he said, "The taxi business, it don't pay at all. Six or seven dollars a week! There's a limit. A man's not goin' to go on workin' for nothing just because he's short of cash." He was warming up, and by the end of his speech had recovered his assurance.
But suddenly he seemed to hear the hollowness of his own words and his shoulders slumped. He went on:
"Besides, you're just as well off not to work and stay on relief."
Sam had left his chair and was striding up And down in the lighted part of the shop. "Yes, but don't forget they're going to put an end to that. There won't be no relief anymore. They'll stop it cold," he said, clasping his hands behind his back.
"We asked nothing but a chance to work," Azarius replied vehemently.
"Of course! And that's just the trouble. You and a lot of others like you wanted nothing more than a job and a bit of a salary just to keep body and soul together. Instead of that you were doin' nothing and the rest of us who were making a dollar, well, we were paying for that. We paid to keep you doing nothing. In Canada, here, it got so that two-thirds of the population kept the other third idle!"
"An' yet there was no lack of work to be done," interrupted Azarius. "People still needed new houses."
Sam Latour laughed and pulled at the collar tight around his thick neck with the impatience of an ox straining at his yoke.
"Well I should say! Houses and roads and bridges too!"
He finally loosened his tie and went on, relaxed:
"There never was a lack of work. Or men neither. I've seen fifty men, by gum, after the same job. I wonder what we did lack."
"Money," said Azarius.
"That's right, money," thundered the owner. "There was none for the old folks or for schools or orphans. And none to give people work. But just take a look right now, there's money for the war. It's there now, all right."
"Yep, there's money there for the war, sure enough," said Azarius.
He tipped back his head to finish off the bottle, then looking down he murmured:
"I figure we're bound to get our hands on some of it."
"Could be," said Sam, sitting down again.
There was a pause, broken only by the crackling of the fire in the big iron stove. The little man at the back of the room, a stranger to Azarius and Sam, suddenly spoke up.
"Business is picking up," he said, "but mostly in armaments. Now, that's a good line to be in these days. If I could start over again, that's what I'd take up. But I'm a builder by trade. I'm a mason. And do you know how many years it's been since I practised my trade? I don't mean just odd jobs patching a hole in a wall — they don't even pay you to go there and back. I mean a real job, do you know how long it's been?"
He was speaking quietly, seated at his table in the back, his hands flat on the table-top, staring ahead of him in a way that was at once pitiful and comic because of a twitch that afflicted his right cheek and his chin.
"I'll tell you: eight years. Eight years since I worked at my trade." His voice was calm and unexcited. "But I've done a pile of other things. I've done gardening for the nuns, I was a paper-hanger and I was a bed-bug exterminator once when there was a plague of them, disinfecting lousy mattresses."
Unaware that his deep voice and timid manner had a comic effect (did he think it was his words?), he went on:
"An' that ain't all. If you want to see a fellow that's been a jack of all trades, just look at me, I'm your boy. After I worked on those mattresses I had an idea. An' it was a good one. You'll laugh, 'cause you can see I'm not the kind of a good-lookin' fellow for door-to-door work. Anyway, I turned travelling salesman just the same. You can't name something I never tried to sell: insurance policies — you always start out like that, you think you're smarter than you are — then vanilla extract, green tea, Christmas cards, floor brushes, rupture belts, horse medicine and whatever you care to mention! I used to tell them. . . "
And he stood up suddenly and drew Sam Latour aside as if he were going to put over a big sale, looking small and puny beside the big man. Then he went into his spiel:
"So you don't want any powder, mamzelle. Well, perhaps your mother, there, that fine, big lady I see behind you, maybe she'd like to see my new baking powder, it raises your cakes four times as high. And you, sir, what about trying my corn remedy? You got no corns? What about heartburn? Try one bottle and if you're not cured in three days. . . What! No heartburn neither? Well, now, you can always use a little floor brush. Maybe I'll be back next year. . . "
He waved good-bye half-heartedly, with mock discouragement, and went back to his table.
"There ain't no work I haven't done," he said to no one in particular. "No work except my own work. Mason. They say you've got to specialize to get work these days. Well, I can tell you a trade nowadays it's no good anymore. You spend half your life learnin' it and the other half forgetting how to do it. No, sir, the good days for a man with a trade, they're gone. The only way you can get along, it's doin' little jobs. ..."
The touch of comedy during the man's demonstration was forgotten, and gloom settled on the group again.
Azarius stared at the stranger, whose life was so like his own.
"There's something in what you say," he said. "Now, me, I'm a carpenter by trade. Yes, sir, a carpenter," he repeated, as the little man looked up with interest. "When building dropped to nothing, I had the notion of earnin' a living by making small furniture. The smallest things, stools, smokers' sets, they sold pretty good at first. But one day I realized I wasn't getting paid for my time. Like my wife, she's a first-class dressmaker. When we got married she was making dresses, and that's a lot of work, she was makin' them for two bucks each. Nowadays she can't even get that much. You can buy a silk dress ready-made for a buck and a half. A buck and a half for a silk dress! Now what are they paying them there in those factories if they can sell a dress for a buck and a half!"
"Why, sure," said the mason. "It's the same whatever you go to do. The skill's disappearing. No experience. Everything's mechanized. But just the same. . . "
His grey eyes under the thick tufts of eyebrows began to blink compulsively, as if his myopic vision had been riddled by a series of blinding rays.
"Just the same, there's nothing as fine on this earth as the builder's trade! Now you take your mason, there, plastering a nice new wall with a good, well-mixed solid plaster, eh, mister, I'm goin' to tell you!" he said, half smiling at Azarius.
"Yes siree!" said Azarius, as enthusiastic as the other, suddenly filled with memories of his working days and warmed b
y the man's approval.
He had taken a step toward this mason who could have been a fellow worker in the good times gone by. He lifted his hands toward the light, carpenter's hands that had loved the feel of bare wood, and his wide nostrils quivered at the fine smell of the fresh-cut boards just beyond his grasp.
"Just to be up on a scaffolding," he said, "between the sky and the ground, and hear the hammers going the whole day long! And you see the wall go up straight as a die, all of a piece on a good strong foundation, and first thing you know there's a house there by the sidewalk where there was nothing but a field of weeds. That's the life all right."
"Yep, that was the way to work," said the mason.
"The way to work," echoed Azarius.
There was silence.
After a moment Anita made a sign to her husband.
"Hey, Sam, wasn't there somebody here just this morn- ing lookin' for a man to drive his truck? Who was that now? Do you remember?"
"You're right, that was Lachance, Hormidas Lachance. Why don't you look him up, Lacasse?"
Azarius' face grew dark red.
"Lachance!" he grunted, with a disgust intensified by his train of thought so suddenly interrupted. "There's a big shot that's earned his name. I know him, all right. He's one of those guys that thought he could hire a man for next to nothin' a few years ago. He liked getting a fellow who was on relief, they'd work for peanuts. And then if they quit he'd turn in their names and they'd lose the relief."
"Well, who knows," said Anita gently, "maybe he's not so cheap nowadays."
"We'll see about that," said Azarius with a roughness that was unlike him.
He took off his cap and jammed it down tighter on his J head. He seemed to hesitate. Then, suddenly, looking at the clock on the wall, he whistled between his teeth:
"By golly, the time goes fast. Well, I've got to get goin'. Good night. And thanks just the same for the tip, Madame. Good night, Latour. . . "
On the threshold he turned and looked back, staring at the mason who had returned to his paper, holding his head in his hands, appearing once more as the image of the little, quiet man you'd take for a retired clerk, totally satisfied with his life.
"A good night to you too, friend," said Azarius, a shade of distress and commiseration in his voice.
Brusquely he opened the door and disappeared into the dark.
Usually so easy-going, tonight he strode along at a great clip, muttering bits of angry phrases. He suddenly felt resentful toward the mason. Now he saw him bitterly as the personification of his own wasted life. He was angry at Sam Latour for mentioning Lachance, because now he might be put to the embarrassment of thinking about applying, though he knew he was incapable of doing so. Like all indecisive men, he put up a little fight, just for form's sake, against what he knew was an irrevocable refusal by his conscience. Perhaps, too, he was more angry at himself than at anyone else for having looked back with nostalgia on other days. He had lived for so long in this sluggish state, renouncing his regrets and keeping going on the strength of vague hopes! And now he'd have to start over again, struggle to figure things out and regain his peace of mind. He walked along energetically, his head hunched down between his shoulders. The storm was quieter, exhausted by its own violence. A few rare stars shone through the gaps between the clouds.
When he reached Beaudoin Street he forced his pace still more. His anxiety at having left Rose-Anna alone with sick children on her hands had grown acute on his way home. He went in the house as if he had a presentiment of disaster.
"Rose-Anna! Are you there?" he shouted. "Is everything all right?"
She was in the kitchen, sorting the children's washing. The things that were not too dirty she put on one side, and tossed the others in the sink. She glanced, astonished, at her husband, and looked away again without speaking.
"The washing could wait till tomorrow," he said. "You're killing yourself, Mother."
He had these sudden revelations of her fatigue and ill-health, at times when he himself felt the pangs of discouragement.
"It's got to be done," she replied curtly. "They have nothing else to wear, you know that very well."
Sitting at a corner of the table, he began unlacing his boots. He took one off and let it fall heavily.
"I saw Sam" he said after a moment's silence. "He said ! something about Lachance wanting a man to run his truck."
Knowing how Rose-Anna had hated Lachance, he hoped to hear an instant protest from her, as well as credit for his near-sacrifice.
But she whirled on him, her eyes bitter.
"All right, what are you waiting for? Go and see him!"
"But Mother!" He was surprised. "Don't you remember what he did to us? Have you forgotten how he made us lose the relief?"
A small voice called "Mamma!" from the next room.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Azarius, struck by the whining, exasperated tone of the child. "That's Daniel again. Isn't he any better?"
"I don't know what's wrong with him," said Rose-Anna. "He had a nosebleed just now. We've got to get him to the doctor."
She went out with a glass of water for the child. Azarius heard her exhorting him to go to sleep. A moment later he saw her watching him, leaning on the door frame. He couldn't repress a twinge of shame as her clear gaze took in him and his weakness.
"Listen, Azarius," she said, her voice implacable for once, "this is no time for getting all proud. Not when the kids need things to wear and maybe medicine next. Dear Jesus, no! Go and see him just the same, Azarius!"
"You can't mean it, Mother!"
The wind moaned in the cracks of the window. He added evasively:
"I'll go tomorrow, early. But I almost think it's nonsense, Rose-Anna. Something better might come up, and if I've signed on with Lachance I'll miss out. If you really want, I'll go tomorrow. First thing in the morning."
"No, Azarius, if Lachance is in a hurry he'll have some- body by tomorrow morning. And I know you! You'll .have changed your mind again. You go there right now."
"Right now! There ain't all that hurry! It can wait."
He saw her untie her apron strings and quickly smooth her hair.
"Then I'm going," she said.
"Hey! Are you crazy? On a night like this?"
She went into the next room. He thought she was testing him, that she'd just gone to get her sewing and in a minute she'd be sitting beside him in the kitchen where it was warmer, and they'd talk it all over more calmly. He pulled off his other boot and sat there silently, one elbow on the table, staring vaguely. Maybe I'll go tomorrow, he thought, but I'll try my luck first with Holliday, the contractor. Anyway, I'll think it over.
And there was Rose-Anna in front of him, dressed to go out, slowly tying the inside belt of her coat. Instinctively he got up to bar the way.
"You're not going out in a storm like that. I'll go, I tell you."
"No, let me go, Azarius."
He caught her eye. She had the same grave, energetic expression she had had in the days when she went out doing housework and sewed for others and, from corning till night, struggled to alleviate their poverty, he bowed his head.
"You know right well it's better if I go," she said in her quietest voice. "Lachance is bound to feel ashamed of himself when he sees me there. I'm going to rub his nose in everything he did to us. I'm going to explain everything to him. I'm going to make him give you a job. Don't you worry."
"Tomorrow's soon enough. . . " Azarius began.
But Rose-Anna already had a firm hand on the doorknob. She said:
"Fill up the tub and put it on the stove, if you want to help. I'll finish the wash when I get back."
And she said something else which was lost in the storm.
He saw her almost lose her balance outside, caught in a gust of wind as she closed the door. Then there was no sound but the slow, measured dripping of water from the tap.
He reached behind him for the chair-back and sat down. His arms hun
g loosely as he stared at the pile of dirty clothes that overflowed the sink. His physique had not suffered from the years of unemployment and odd jobs. His hair was still as bushy as a young man's, his wide smile came easily, his complexion was fresh and he was a fine figure of a man. He was a good talker, he knew how to carry on a discussion, he made a good impression when he went after work, and he wasn't really lazy. What had happened to him then?
He buried his face in his hands.
What on earth had happened to him?
He saw his life pass before him rapidly in images sometimes precise and clear, sometimes blurred as by a fog. He saw his early days as a carpenter, building houses in the neighbourhood. In those days Rose-Anna would make him a lunch and pack it in his tin lunch box. At noon, sitting high on a beam, he would open the box, which invariably held some special surprise — a fine, rosy apple whose seeds ! he could spit down into the street, or a meat pie wrapped in layers of wax paper and still holding some of the oven's heat. Or a bunch of green grapes, or some of those buckwheat cakes of which he never tired. Those high-flown snacks in the burning midday sun, its heat beating down on his neck, formed a clear, well-defined part of his memories. He couldn't understand why so many insignificant details stuck in his mind, such as the sound of the hammer, the taste of nails in his mouth, the squeaking of a new door opened and shut for the first time, and those tasty lunches. . . . Then came a sudden break in his life. He felt that he had to get back to that very moment in his existence if he wanted to know what had become of him. . . . But then the images began to come thick and fast, implacably.
He wasn't building now, and saw himself vaguely in a series of jobs that had nothing to do with him. He saw a man that must be Azarius, but was not. He sat high on the driver's seat of a delivery van, climbing down to leave bottles of milk at door after door. Then the man quit this monotonous chore and started looking for something else. The milkman became an iceman, then a clerk in a neighbourhood store. The clerk faded away, and there were no more little jobs, just single days' work here and there for a dollar, for thirty cents, for ten cents a day. Then, nothing. A man sitting by the stove in the kitchen, stretching his legs lazily. "Might as well let them pay us to live, Mother, till something turns up. So long as I can't work at my own trade!"
The Tin Flute Page 14