Document 1

by François Blais

  “But it has nothing to do with our project.”

  “So what! We can always cobble a connection together after the fact. But we wouldn’t even need to: unrelated titles are artistic. Think of Ray Bradbury’s I Sing the Body Electric, or anything by Amélie Nothomb, or even The Death of the Pterodactyl by our friend Sébastien…

  “I don’t find Spelling Mistake Cookies very artistic. It sounds more like a children’s book for five- to eight-year-olds.”

  “So you’re rejecting my suggestion?”

  “Er…did you say you’d given the chapters titles?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Well, if we had to, we could use it as a chapter title.”

  “Yeah, okay. But have you got anything better to suggest?”

  “Not right now. But, you know, I don’t think we’ll come up with something just brainstorming cold. We both need to think about it and then compare ideas later. Better still, let’s set up a “titles” file on the computer, and when we get an idea we’ll add it to the list. When we’ve got a decent number, we’ll sort through them. What do you think?”

  I agreed it was sensible, so we did that. To kick things off, we both had to come up with a title, preferably bad, so that it would be easy to improve on it. I christened the file with The Atheist Horsewoman and Jude carried on with The Evil Post-It Note. Yes, it really could only get better. Dear reader, as you have in your hands the finished product, with a beautiful cover, a beautiful ISBN number, and gushing thanks to the Arts Council, you must already know the title we chose. Admit it, it’s a pretty impressive title! I have no idea what it will be, but I know we’ll find something spectacular, I have faith in us.

  Ò...19...Ò

  An Impossible-to-Refuse Offer

  Sébastien was apparently convinced by my theory that the best way to get over his infatuation was to spend time with me. Not only had he brought his business back to us (take that, Auger!), but he had noticeably increased his sub consumption in order to spend more time in my company. The things love makes us do! Fortunately, his shyness prevented him (at least for now) from asking me out. He contented himself with hints so discreet I could ignore them. But the whole frontman thing gave us something to talk about. So, how’s the masterpiece coming along? Full speed ahead, buddy, better start thinking of something clever to say for when you’re on the radio. And I hope you’ve got nice clothes, because you can’t go to an award ceremony wearing your work things. I hid my ambition behind a wall of jokes, pretended to take it offhandedly; his surprise would be all the greater the day I waved a letter under his nose saying, “Yes, yes, Mr Daoust, we’d like to publish you, no doubt about it. Your earlier works were interesting, granted, but this one is frankly genius. Contract to follow by next post.”

  He was, however, a little too involved in the project for my liking, gathering information about Bird-in-Hand, bursting with childish delight when he taught me some detail about the Amish’s secret life. Obviously, I couldn’t send him packing. And I have to admit he proved useful when it was time to fill in the grant application. He’d already been through it and he knew exactly what the people who sit on the selection committees wanted to hear, knew the buzzwords that turned on the literati, and knew how to create that fake depth that takes in even people who’ve seen it all before. I have to give him that: he knows how to write. If he’d bullshitted with as much panache in his books, he’d have permanently been in Renaud-Bray’s recommended reads. (Because what is a good novelist, if not an ace bullshitter?) I didn’t let myself reread part C (“Description of Writing Project”) of our application, with its references to Goethe, Cormac McCarthy, and some unknowns, and fancy words like intertextuality and paradigm. The worst part was that he’d done it all off the cuff, without even a rough draft, at a Subway table. Of course, any resemblance between part C and the manuscript I’m in the process of writing is entirely coincidental, but who’d notice that? Do you really think there are civil servants at the Arts Council whose job it is to trawl through published novels to make sure they match the descriptions in their funding applications?

  In short, everything was tootling along nicely until the day before we posted our application, when we read the conditions one last time to make sure our file wasn’t missing anything. That’s when we spotted a detail that had escaped us: there’d be a waiting period of four months after the deadline before we’d receive a response. Since we were still a month away from the deadline, that meant five months before the cheque landed in our mailbox—or rather, Sébastien’s mailbox. That took us to early August. Shopping for a car, renewing our driver’s licences (you had to take another test if it expired too long ago, we’d discovered), and preparing for it all would take, we reckoned, between two and three weeks. We’d therefore be lucky if we managed to set off before the first of September. We tried to look on the bright side (Pennsylvania must be very beautiful in autumn, and since it would be the off-season we could take advantage of better prices, and the restaurants would be less busy), but for people like us who aren’t used to thinking about the future (what’s the point? Our lives are as repetitive as wallpaper designs), September seemed incredibly far away. Virtually a figment of the imagination. But we didn’t really have much choice.

  With that in mind, Jude proposed revising the total of our grant application downwards. Since we had five months before we left, it would give us time, as long as we worked hard, to gather a good thousand dollars, maybe more. Moreover, by coming across as less greedy, we would increase our chances of a favourable response. In theory it wasn’t a bad idea, but I pointed out that working hard had never been our strong suit. It was then that he pronounced this completely implausible sentence: “Yeah, but if I work too, it’ll happen without us even noticing.” It took me only a few seconds to convince him that this was a bad idea (Subway probably wasn’t going to welcome me with open arms when we got back, and until I could find something else, his welfare cheque would be our only source of income), but his lips truly had formed that sentence, he really had conjugated the verb to work in the first-person singular! I tried to form a mental image of him going to meet managers and team leaders, a stack of CVs under his arm, shaking hands and proclaiming in an enthusiastic voice his desire to cook French fries or clean toilets, but my imagination couldn’t make it that far. I had to admit, though, that the second part of his idea was sensible: by asking for a little less money, we’d be less likely to scare off the bureaucrats. So we did it: we brought out the Wite-Out, we read everything through one last time, and off we went to drop the letter in the mailbox.

  The next day, at Subway, I told Sébastien how disappointed we were at the idea of being forced to hang around for five long months before weighing anchor. After listening to my lengthy grievances on the topic, he made the following suggestion: “You should buy the car and pass your test now. Then you’ll be all set to take off when the cheque shows up.”

  “Um…if I could get my hands on four or five thousand dollars just like that, I wouldn’t need to bleed the Arts Council.”

  “I can lend you the money. I’m not worried about you paying me back: don’t forget the cheque will be made out to me. I’ll just keep what you owe me and give you the rest.”

  “Do you have money?”

  “A bit.”

  “From rowboats or royalties?”

  “Neither. Definitely not royalties. When my mother died, I got her life insurance. I also sold her house.”

  “Your mother’s dead?”

  “Well, she’s ashes in an urn… I don’t think she’s going to pull through.”

  “I never know what to say when—”

  “Don’t worry. Think about my offer instead. I can easily lend you a few thousand dollars without going into the red. Interest-free.”

  “I don’t know what to say about that either.”

  “Accept. It would make me happy.”

 
“There’s just one detail you’re forgetting.”

  “What?”

  “On the Arts Council website they point out that there isn’t enough dough for everyone who comes begging. In fact, they only say yes to around twenty per cent of the requests they get. I think our application is good, but there’s no guarantee.”

  “True. Without the grant it would just take you longer to pay me back. But I’m in no rush. I have confidence in you, either way.”

  At the moment some customers came in, which got me out of replying straightaway. The offer was tempting, and I suppose came at least partly from a good place. But only partly, because I couldn’t help guessing his motive: if we didn’t get the grant, I’d have to pay him back in instalments of $200 a month, which would link me to him for at least two years. In an ideal world I’d be his girlfriend, and we’d spend all our free time together, eating in restaurants, going to the theatre, doing projects, having sex, but he recognized that this scenario was unrealistic, so he was prepared to lower his sights, being content with my friendship, maybe having coffee together in town or watching a film in his living room, my head in his lap, and perhaps once in a while, after a well-lubricated dinner, I might let him do things to me, but he knew I wasn’t on board with that plan either, so he really wanted to downgrade even further to a creditor–debtor relationship, if you could call it a relationship. Keeping me in his life one way or another. Wouldn’t accepting his offer be abusing the situation? (From a strictly literary perspective, I must say this works out well: Mr Fisher points out that it’s good for a character to experience a moral dilemma; it helps the reader identify with them. “Quickly confront your main character with a choice, put him or her in a state of conflict or crisis” [Advice to a Young Novelist, page 85].) For five minutes I served customers and weighed up the pros and cons. The idea of finding myself at his mercy (okay, maybe “at his mercy” is a bit melodramatic) for the next few years gave me no small amount of anxiety, but the loan would give us the chance to get going instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting for the Arts Council response, and that could be worth a bit of anxiety. In any case, if we didn’t get the grant, we wouldn’t be going to Bird-in-Hand, in which case we could sell the car and pay Sébastien back that way, at least partially. “Yes, okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I would like you to advance us the money for the car. If you’re sure it’s not a problem.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, uh, thanks.”

  I ran all the way home, keen to tell Jude the news, but he wasn’t in. He’d left me a note: “Gone to my mother’s to do laundry. Hoping to get invited to stay for dinner. See you later.” To kill time while I waited for him to come back, I thought I’d take a look at the classifieds websites for a vehicle, but I soon realized I didn’t even know what to search for—make, model, body type, year, mileage, price, etc. What did we want, exactly? Would this 2003 four-door Mazda Protogé5 with 89,150 kilometres on it (AM/FM stereo, air conditioning, CD player, hubcaps, passenger airbag, fabric interior), sold by someone in Saint-Nicéphore, suit us? Who knows? It appeared to be fitted with a 1.8 litre engine. Is that good? I’d vaguely imagined rolling up at the dealership and announcing, “I’m looking for a good car between four and five thousand dollars.”

  “What colour, little lady?”

  “Green, sir.”

  “Well, here’s my best green car in your price range.”

  “It’s perfect. Here’s the money.”

  “Here are the keys.”

  But apparently it was going to be more complicated than that. We were probably going to have to ask Jude’s father to negotiate for us, otherwise we were highly likely to get screwed over. So I decided to abandon the search for the moment and to have a shower while I waited for Jude. As I got undressed, my gaze fell on the copy of 13 Mechanical on my dresser, and I was suddenly filled with a painful feeling toward its author, a mixture of guilt and pity, with perhaps a hint of inexplicable anger. Something unattractive. I said earlier I wasn’t the biggest bitch around, but right then I had serious doubts about that. In a completely irrational way, I thought I might feel a little less wretched about Sébastien if I gave his book another chance. I opened 13 Mechanical and started to read the first story in the collection, “Puppies for Sale.” Maybe this time, if I made an effort, if I read carefully, if I focused on every nuance, I’d manage to see the text’s beauty.

  Puppies for Sale

  Do you think I’ll manage to sell my dachshunds before they get too old? Is this your first time here? Don’t you think it’s a funny name for a bar? Do you think it’s easy to kill someone? Do you remember, in Heavenly Creatures, the trouble Kate Winslet and her friend had beating the woman to death with the brick? You’ve never seen Heavenly Creatures? Aren’t you taking your coat off? Does blood come out in the wash? Do you want to get a big pitcher? What should I do with five dachshunds in a one-bedroom apartment? Who are they playing tonight? What’s the score? Why is the waitress giving them peanuts at the next table but not us? Are you sure you want to commit a murder tonight? Wouldn’t we have been better off going with a blunt weapon? Will you be brave enough to stick a knife into a human being? Do you think Nana will get depressed when her puppies have left? Who just scored? Don’t you think that big guy next to the jukebox looks mean? Who’d miss him if he was found dead in an alley tomorrow morning? Have I told you already that you are ridiculously beautiful? In your opinion, what’s the rate of solved murders in real life? Have you noticed that it’s always an earthling who wins Miss Universe? Do you think it’s fixed? How about a vodka to warm our hearts? Do you think people will realize they aren’t purebred?

  Oh, screw it! I just can’t do it. It looks like I’m going to be the biggest bitch around, after all.

  Part Two

  By Jude (with comments from Tess)

  Ò...20...Ò

  Tess’s Instructions

  (Anything to Slack Off)

  Okay, I’ve already told you this, but I’ll write it down for you as a reminder. My last chapter was number 19, so start with 20. You can start again at 1 when you start a new section, obviously, but I think it’s better to keep on with the momentum we’ve got going. Read over what I’ve written a couple of times and try to go on in the same sort of style so that rewriting isn’t too tricky. By that, I don’t mean just imitate me brainlessly and shut off your own creativity, but, for example, I’ve used “on” instead of “nous” for “we,” which is borderline wrong and is giving me all sorts of grammatical issues, but in the end it came naturally, so carry on the same way, for better or worse. I’ve also decided, completely arbitrarily, to address a theoretical reader, so when you talk to your audience, write “reader” or “dear reader” in the singular. Also, finish Mr. Fisher’s two works as quickly as you can, if possible without getting mad at him when he cites the classics without having read them. I saw the page you’d turned down in Advice to a Young Novelist and frankly we can’t exactly say you’re going at it at full steam. (Gogol will wait; he’s dead and you’ve already read him ten times.) What else? Chapter titles in bold, two line spaces at the end of a chapter, one between the title and the chapter, italics for long quotes, etc. Anyway, if in doubt look back at my section or ask me for clarification. I know I’ve scared you a bit with how intensely I’ve been working on this, but it’s because I need to set the scene, as they say in the business. But now that the scene is set and the narrative has reached the present moment, you’ll only need to write on days when something important happens. Oh yes, and while I think of it: if it works out, write something about how we met the neighbour—I promised to do it but didn’t have a chance. I suggest you start your section by introducing yourself using the same little questionnaire I did. The address is in the favourites. Good, now that’s all done and dusted.

  And there I have a very low-effort first chapter. [Yeah, now get on with some work!] />
  Ò...21...Ò

  Introducing tess

  What time is it? 2:28.

  First name. Jude.

  Age. 32.

  Height. Six foot, according to my driver’s licence, but in reality a little less.

  Eye colour. Brown.

  Hair colour. Brown.

  Star sign. Capricorn.

  Hometown. Grand-Mère.

  Brothers and sisters. One brother.

  Have you ever been in love? Yes, every two weeks. Currently in love with the girl in the white coat who plays with her dog in the yard at Laflèche College. [That’s because you haven’t seen her up close: she’s got a big nose.]

  Do you think anyone has ever been in love with you? I’d bet my life that the girl in the white coat is secretly in love with me.

  In your opinion, what do people think when they see you for the first time? I live in Grand-Mère: nobody ever sees me for the first time.

  Favourite film. Two Evil Eyes, by Dario Argento and George Romero.

  Favourite book. A Raw Youth by Dostoyevsky.

  Favourite song. “Leave a Light on for me” by Belinda Carlisle.

  Favourite TV program. Hockey Night in Canada.

  Best quality? Flexibility.

  Biggest fault? Crudeness.