Lightly Steamed Asparagus
with melted Fleur des Monts cheese, Serrano ham, caramelized tomatoes and soft quail egg, summer truffle Banyuls dressing
Creamy Butternut Squash
ribbons of smoked Charlevoix emu and black trumpet mushrooms, walnut and balsamic-glazed walnuts with zabaglione
Turlo Farm 28-Day-Aged Squab
delicately pinked breasts scented with cardamom and confit thighs stuffed with foie gras, smothered in a savoury jus
[This was the main course I had!]
Veal Rice and Wild Prawns
roasted butternut squash gnocchi, buds and leaves of Swiss chard, creamy Samos muscat sauce and morels
Caribou Leg
roasted with Sarawac pepper, pan-fried
with wild mushrooms, spiced scarlet pear, pepper sauce with fruits of the forest and Chicoutai butter
La Boutique
rum passionfruit baba, macaroon in a cream puff with strawberry chocolate nectar, lemon cream cheesecake, served in a delicate glass bowl
[This was my dessert!]
Cognac
frosted pyramid of crisp sugared almonds, Romias biscuits, caramelized filberts and maple butter
Pretty, am I right? We let ourselves be guided by euphony as far as wine goes too, ordering a bottle of Vouette et Sorbée Extra-Brut Blanc d’Argile. Later on, a sommelier came over to blather about wine–meal matchmaking. We told him (politely but firmly) to take a hike. For example, with my main course he wanted to have me drink a wine with the banal name of Burgundy Saint-Aubin 2007. I went for a 2003 Fiefs Vendéens, La Grande Pièce, Domaine Saint-Nicolas, and without wanting to cast aspersions on the sommelier, this Fiefs Vendéens and my squabs were as thick as thieves. It was the same with Jude’s Magdalen Islands scallops, which were BFFs with his 2006 Lieu-dit Clavin from the Domaine de la Vieille Julienne. And our respective desserts got on so well with the excellent 2001 Autumn Grain sweet Muscat du Pays d’Oc that we couldn’t help ordering a second bottle. When Caroline (as our waitress was called) brought us the bill, I went to pay it, taking care to leave it turned over on the tray (what you don’t know can’t hurt you). Jude asked how I’d worked out the tip without knowing the total of the bill.
“I gave more than not enough… In fact, going by Caro’s smile, I gave a lot more than more than not enough.”
To be perfectly honest, we were dead drunk when we left Le Guéridon. Going home was unthinkable. Just getting the key into the ignition seemed an impossible task. We could have walked for half an hour toward Trois-Rivières West to find some horrendous motel where we could stay for a few dollars, but we could barely stand up, so we crawled to the Delta. People don’t feel especially affectionate toward you when you show up at their hotel stinking of alcohol and asking for the cheapest room (which was still $132!), but with all the love we’d felt that day, we could manage without any from the Delta receptionist. I collapsed on the bed, leaving Jude the task of phoning the neighbour to ask him if he would be so kind as to stay at our place until the next day.
Ò...30...Ò
Timing Belt
We got up right before the maid came to tell us that our stay was over. We showered speedily and, after a quick jaunt over to Rue Notre-Dame to make sure the car was still there, we went to Morgane for breakfast (not the one on Notre-Dame, the one on the corner of Royal, to give us a chance to stretch our legs). We felt a bit rough, but less awful than you might have expected after our state the previous evening. We’d got off lightly. After our coffee and brioches, we were as good as new. We took another coffee for the road and went out to get some air. We wandered for a while around the fancy neighbourhoods, but since that label applies to an area of around a hundred square metres in Trois-Rivières, we also wandered round the ugly neighbourhoods. When we hit the river, we retraced our steps and bravely took Sainte-Marguérite up the hill to Cooke Hospital. That brought us to the edge of the university, and, without either of us suggesting it, we somehow ended up sitting outside Gambrinus with two pints of stout. We didn’t really even want to: we mostly wanted to convince ourselves that we weren’t feeling too morning-after-the-night-before. All the same, we stuck to just the one pint.
When we left Gambrinus, we decided to go back to the car along Des Forges, to change things up. That’s how we came to go past Gosselin Photo’s window, where the same idea came to us both at the same time: you can’t go on holiday without a camera. And if that last sentence seems familiar, it’s because I’m coming full circle with my flashback. (Take a few seconds here to be fully dazzled by my impressive command of narrative structure.) I’d never have expected it, but choosing a camera turned out to be as confusing as buying a car. In both cases you take a perverse pleasure in being engulfed in a tidal wave of technical terms, with the barely concealed intention of letting yourself be screwed over. We’d hardly finished saying that we were in the market for a camera when the guy behind the counter started jabbering on about megapixels, shutter speed, lenses, focal length, depth of field, and a whole host of other things. At one point, he interrupted himself to ask us, “By the way, are you looking for an SLR or a point-and-shoot?”
“We just want to take photos. We’re going on holiday and we’d like to bring back some memories. We just need a camera that gives a pretty good representation of what you can see when you press the button. We don’t want to break the bank either.”
A brief flash of disdain passed over his face, as if I’d just confessed to doing it with animals or reading Nora Roberts, but, good salesperson that he was, he rapidly conquered his revulsion and started talking to us about the Canon PowerShot S90, on sale right now. He even (just about) conceded that we were human beings when I waved my debit card under his nose as I announced that I’d take it. We also bought a carrying case and a two-gigabyte memory card, which we managed to fill on the way back to the car. “It takes fucking good pictures, our camera, we didn’t get screwed over.”
“True. And people bang on about ten megapixels…”
“Yeah, that’s a lot of megapixels.”
It was right at the Burrill exit in Shawinigan that we first heard the noise, a noise reminiscent of Russian mountain trains going up their first hill, like tak tak tak tak, know what I mean? Then it stopped for a moment before starting up again, louder this time, just before the downtown Grand-Mère exit. I could see that the Monte Carlo was struggling (although my foot was on the floor, we were still losing speed), but I was trying not to worry. We’ve always dealt with our problems like this: ignoring them in the hope that they’ll end up resolving themselves. That works about two or three per cent of the time, I’d say. (Like with my debt to the Ministry of Education: in the end they stopped hassling me.) But apparently engine troubles aren’t in the category of problems you can wait out. We managed to get to the Irving on the outskirts of the city purely on momentum. “We didn’t choose you, but our car just wouldn’t go any farther,” Jude said, trying to be witty, to the man who came to ask what he could do for us. While two of his henchmen pushed the Monte Carlo inside, we explained what had happened, imitating the noise as best we could. We must have been pretty good because he put forward, on the sole basis of our performance, a provisional diagnosis: “The timing belt must have snapped.” He added that we shouldn’t have carried on driving after the first tak tak; it would have been better to call a tow truck right then and there. He put that in his own words, obviously. We didn’t reply, just mumbled, “Yes, sir,” and stared at our shoes.
While we waited for the Irving guys to come up with their official diagnosis, we packed our things into our wheelie suitcases and took them home. Steve was wild with joy at seeing us again. She really wanted to give us the cold shoulder to punish us for abandoning her, but she wasn’t strong enough. And she forgave and forgot completely when we announced we were going for a walk. The neighbour, who was playing Splinter Cell and drinking beer, asked where we were going
so soon. “To the garage. Our timing belt is broken.”
“Is it just the timing belt?”
“Well, we don’t know yet. We’ll know more soon enough.”
“I hope for your sake that it’s just the timing belt, because if the pump’s gone too it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.”
“Oh.”
On our way to the garage, we made a quick detour to let the dog run around in the hospital grounds. “I wonder what it is?”
“What?”
“A timing belt.”
“I guess we’d call it ‘une ceinture de synchronisation’ in French.”
“So what does it synchronize?”
“Search me. Anyway, it’s a pain in the ass.”
“Sure is, but look on the bright side: if the timing belt was going to snap, better now than during our trip.”
“That’s true.”
“And we can make the most of the car’s being at the garage to give it a checkup. Change the oil, pump up the tires, check if anything else is about to break, etc. Then we’ll be able to set off without any worries.”
“I’m just afraid it’s going to cost us a lot. I mean, we did have quite the splurge yesterday…”
“We did, but I forget to tell you: we’re richer than you think. Sébastien thought it would be a shame to go with just six thousand bucks, so he lent me an extra thousand. He gave it to me in cash.”
“Pretty nice of him! But you didn’t leave a big wad of moolah in the apartment when we were out? I don’t like to question the neighbour’s honesty, but—”
“No, I didn’t leave it at home, I was carrying it in the pocket of my…”
“What?”
“Fuck!”
“The pocket of your what?”
“My jeans…”
“Um…not the ones you chucked into the river?”
Ò...31...Ò
Erratum
The French for a timing belt isn’t “ceinture de synchronisation” but “courroie de transmission.” Although timing belts look very ordinary, they are actually extremely rare objects. At least, so I imagine. How else could we explain their exorbitant cost?
Ò...32...Ò
I don’t much like replaying all this, so I’m going to keep it short. We were in the little park on Tenth Avenue, Jude and I sitting on the swings near the bowling green while Steve burned off her excess energy by running aimlessly. She saw a squirrel on the other side of the road, froze for a second with her ears pricked, and then she was off like a shot. We yelled her name, but apparently her predator instinct had got the upper hand; she didn’t even slow down. To be completely honest, I don’t think the truck was much over the speed limit. Seventy or seventy-five in a fifty zone, pretty standard. Basic courtesy should have led him to stop after he ran over our dog, but maybe he didn’t have time, maybe it was a question of life or death, maybe he was driving a badly injured person, or his wife was going to give birth, who knows. In any case, it doesn’t count as a hit and run when it’s a dog.
We stayed frozen idiotically on the swings for a good minute before we raced toward the road (even for problems that have zero chance of resolving themselves, we can’t help testing it). She was lying on her side, breathing rapidly. Her eyes were open wide but she didn’t seem to see us. If the man who lives across from the park hadn’t come out of his house and helped us to get her to the vet in the back of his pickup, we’d probably have stayed there, totally stunned, until she died. We were spaced out, horrified in a way we’d rarely experienced, and as ineffectual as always. When we came out of our torpor, we were in an office and some lady in a white coat was listing all the injuries Steve had suffered, some ribs broken, others cracked, two fractures in her left hind leg and one in her pelvis. “Can she be fixed, madam?” (She must have been five years younger than me, but what with her white coat and the diplomas on the walls, the “madam” seemed obligatory.)
“Yes, we can operate, and if everything goes well she’ll come through it without any serious consequences. Maybe a slight limp. I’ll give you a few minutes to discuss it.”
“Why would we need to discuss it?”
“Well, it’s a pretty expensive operation.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred dollars, assuming there aren’t any complications. Call it a thousand with taxes and overnights. That’s not including medication.”
“Yeah…but we don’t really have a choice. We could hardly operate on her ourselves, could we, madam?”
She operated on Steve the same day and kept her in for observation for forty-eight hours in a big cage that she shared (albeit with a grille between them) with an extremely anxious pug who’d swallowed a bunch of keys. At first, she seemed too woozy to even notice we were there, but on the second day she thumped her tail on the ground when she heard our voices. When it was all over we went to pick her up. The vet certainly seemed pleased with her work. She strongly advised us to not let our animal do any intense exercise for the first week, not even walks, but just put out some newspaper on the balcony for her to do her business on, make sure she took her medications, etc. Once we were home, we settled her on the cushion we’d bought for her the day she arrived (and which she had always scorned, but now she was too weak to protest), and treacherously concealed in her food a dose of the medicine for which we’d just paid through the nose at the clinic, and we left her to sleep. We’d done our part—it was up to nature to do the rest. It was only then that we felt the stress fall away, leaving an enormous weariness. Jude collapsed onto the couch, swearing and letting out a great sigh. I went to the kitchen to get us some beers, but we didn’t have a single one left. I stood in front of the fridge for a few moments, wondering if I had the strength to go out and buy some. Then I remembered that we were nearly out of TP and I was going to have to go out anyway, so I might as well get it over with now. Once at the convenience store, I realized I was starving (we hadn’t eaten much the last few days). On top of the two-four of beer and the TP, I picked up a whole bunch of crap—Party Mix, popcorn, jerky, cheese strings, etc. I handed my card to the cashier.
“Oops! It’s not working…”
“What’s not working?”
“It says insufficient funds.”
“No, that’s impossible, try again.”
“Hmmm… No, it’s saying the same thing again.”
“Uh…okay, maybe I’ve got cash.”
I had a few dozen dollars in my wallet. I was a bit short, so I had to put the TP back. Once I got back to the house, I made us a snack and opened us each a beer. We drank and ate in silence. Steve was sleeping soundly at our feet, knocked out by painkillers. At one point she woke up, and Jude seized the moment to give her a lecture: “I hope that’s put you off hunting squirrels for a while, you great fool! If you ever do such a stupid thing again, I don’t know what we’ll do to you…” She listened to Jude’s speech all the way through, more out of politeness than anything else, then her head dropped and she went back to sleep. The threat made no difference to her; she didn’t seem overly worried by what we might do to her. I think she was starting to figure us out: she knows we’ll never do anything.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Christopher Dummitt, François Blais, Hazel Millar, Jay MillAr, Stuart Ross and Pablo Strauss.
—J.S.
About the Author
François Blais is one of the most exciting contemporary voices of Quebec literature. Considered an underground superhero of French writing, he is the author of 9 novels and a collection of short stories. Document 1, which was released in French in 2013 to great critical acclaim, is his first novel to be translated into English.
...
Jc Sutcliffe is a writer, translator, book reviewer, and editor. She has lived in England, France, and Canada.
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