La Guerre:Yes Sir

by Roch Carrier

  LA GUERRE, YES SIR!

  BOOKS BY ROCH CARRIER

  available from Anansi

  La Guerre, Yes Sir!

  Floralie, Where Are You?

  Is It the Sun, Philibert?

  They Won’t Demolish Me!

  The Hockey Sweater and Other Stories

  Lady with Chains

  LA GURRE, YES SIR!

  ROCH CARRIER

  TRANSLATED BY SHEILA FISCHMAN

  Copyright © 1968 Éditions du Jour

  English translation copyright © 1970 Sheila Fischman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in French in 1968 by Éditions du Jour

  Published in English in 1970 by House of Anansi Press Ltd.

  This edition published in 2004 by

  House of Anansi Press Inc.

  110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801

  Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4

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  HarperCollins Canada Ltd.

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  Distributed in the United States by

  Publishers Group West

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  12 11 10 09 08 8 9 10 11 12

  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Carrier, Roch, 1937-

  La guerre, yes sir!

  ISBN-13:978-0-88784-626-7

  ISBN-10:0-88784-626-2

  I. Title.

  PS8505.A77G82 1998 C843’.54 C98-094487-9

  PZ7.C36Gu 1998

  Cover design: Brant Cowie/ArtPlus Limited

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  I dedicate this book, which I have dreamed,

  to those who have perhaps lived it.

  R.C.

  The translation is for my teacher, T.J. Casaubon.

  S.F.

  Translator’s Note

  The reader may be surprised to see words, phrases and even whole sentences left in the original French. The title, to begin with. Although a literal translation would have been simple enough, The War, Oui Monsieur! just doesn’t have the same force, and Roch Carrier’s brilliant title is a succinct comment on the English–French situation in Quebec, particularly as it existed during the second World War.

  The swearing has also been left in French. Aside from the war and the conflicts that arose from it, the relationship of the villagers to the Church is perhaps the novel’s single most important theme. The people are unquestioning Catholics, faithful churchgoers, for whom the parish priest is the most influential person in the community. The relationship is not always a happy one, though, and there is an underlying resentment of it, a desire to escape in some way from its strictures. This rebellion is achieved in a figurative way by the use of a most amazing collection of oaths and curses, which call on virtually every object of religious significance to Roman Catholics, from the wood of the Crucifix to the chrism (Saint Chreme) or sacred oil. These words, uttered in despair or grief or anger – or sometimes in affection — have the same emotional force as some of the Anglo-Saxon expletives. To translate them thus, however, would have been to distort the values of the people who use them; on the other hand, literal translations would have been at best perplexing, more often simply absurd. A “chalice of a host of a tabernacle” just doesn’t produce the effect of “calice d’hostie de tabernacle” — pronounced calisse and tabarnaque. “Maudits Anglais” — goddamn Englishmen — is probably only too familiar already.

  In a way, the people who used these oaths literally to challenge the Church’s authority could be considered the first Quebec revolutionaries; now, of course, the words have lost their strength and revolutionaries have other tactics, other targets.

  Then there are the prayers. The villagers’ unquestioning attendance at Mass and their observance of the rituals does not preclude an ignorance of what the formulas they faithfully repeat are all about. The result is some marvellously mangled prayers, even the most familiar, that are, unfortunately, completely untranslatable. James Joyce did something similar in his “Hail Mary full of grease, the lard is with you.”

  A brief glossary may be helpful. “Christ,” pronounced “crisse,” is one of the strongest expletives; others include “hostie” (host), “ciboire” (ciborium), Crucifix, “Vierge” (the Blessed Virgin), “bapteme” (baptism). Nor is the Pope spared.

  Anyway, whatever the results of attempts to make Canada officially bilingual, a little personal bilingualism never hurt anybody. Learning to swear in the other language may be an unorthodox way to begin, but it could stir up some interest. And create some understanding that might even help to eliminate one of the most frequently used expressions - “maudits Anglais.”

  S.F.

  Joseph wasn’t panting.

  He approached like a man walking to work. Which hand would he put on the log, his right hand or his left? His right hand was stronger, better for working. His left hand was strong too.

  Joseph spread the five fingers of his left hand on the log.

  He heard breathing behind him. He turned around. It was his own.

  His other fingers, his other hand, seized the axe. It crashed down between the wrist and the hand, which leapt into the snow and was slowly drowned in his blood.

  Joseph did not see the red stain or the hand or the snow. When the axe cut through the bone Joseph felt only a warm caress; his suffering began when it was buried in the wood. The cloudy window separating him from life gradually became very clear, transparent. In a moment of dizzy lucidity Joseph was aware of the fear that had tortured him for long months:

  “Their Christly shells would have made jam out of me…” He drove his stump into the snow. “They’ve already made jam out of Corriveau with their goddamn war… They won’t get me… me, I’ll be making jam next fall: strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries, red apples, raspberries… “

  Joseph burst into a great laugh, which he could hear going up very high, up above the snow. He hadn’t had so much fun since the beginning of the war. The villagers heard his voice. He was calling for help.

  Amélie rapped on the ceiling with the handle of her broom. It was code. She listened. There was a whispering movement in the attic: a man accustomed to moving around silently. Nothing stirred. Then a mewing sound could be distinguished. That meant: “Is it dangerous? “

  Then Amélie called out, “Come on down, gutless! “

  Some heavy objects slid, a trap door opened in the ceiling, a boot appeared, then the other, and the legs. Arthur let himself down, a rifle in his hand, a coat folded under his arm.

  “No, you don’t need all that stuff… Come and get into bed,” Amélie ordered.

  Arthur turned around, looking for a spot to lay down his things.

  “Come to bed Arthur,” Amélie insisted. “Hurry up. Men! They’ve got their feet stuck in molasses. I can’t figure out why we need them so badly. Arthur, throw your package in the corner and come to bed.”

  Another head appeared in the opening. Henri.

  “It was my turn to sleep with you tonight,” he muttered
.

  “You,” she flung the words at him, “shut up! The kids can’t get to sleep.”

  “It’s my turn tonight.”

  “You’ll get your turn. Go and hide.”

  “It’s never my turn,” Henri protested. “Are you my wife or aren’t you? “

  Amélie planted herself in the trap-door of the attic, her hands on her hips, and started spitting out insults. Henri heard nothing. He was dazzled by the swelling breasts he could see in the neckline of her dress.

  “Yes, I’m your wife,” Amélie assured him, “but if I wasn’t Arthur’s woman too I wouldn’t have had kids by him.”

  “There’s no more justice,” Henri wept. “Ever since this goddam war started there’s been no justice.”

  Henri had been obliged to dress himself up like a soldier. He had been pushed into a boat, and let out in England.

  “What’s England?” the gossips used to ask Amélie, who was more than a little proud to have her husband a soldier in England. “England, it’s one of the old countries. First there’s the sea. The sea is as big as the world. On the other side, there’s England. It’s at the end of the world, England is. It’s a long way away. You can’t even go there by train. Oh yes, my Henri is in England. He’s fighting the Germans. Then when there aren’t any more Germans Henri sweeps the army’s floor, in England.”

  This was how she used to interpret Henri’s letters. But with her feminine intuition she knew that Henri was spending his time in England drinking and stroking women’s behinds.

  “A man on his own,” she used to think, “is a tomcat, and besides in those old countries they don’t have any morals or religion…”

  In her prayers Amélie often used to ask the good Lord that if Henri got himself killed by a German his soul wouldn’t be dirty like his boots. The good Lord couldn’t refuse her that.

  Henri had been gone for more than a year. One night someone knocked at her door. Amélie, worried, hesitated to open it. You don’t knock at night on the door of the wife of a soldier at the front in England without a very serious motive. Finally Amélie decided to open the latch. It was Arthur, his rifle in his hand.

  “Don’t kill me,” she pleaded, closing the neckline of her dress, which scarcely contained her bosom.

  Arthur stared for a moment at the closed hand and the swelling dress. “I want to hide. Hide me.”

  Amélie stepped aside to let him in.

  “Is it on account of the war? If it goes on very long all the women are going to have a man hidden under their skirts.”

  Arthur laughed. “The military police have got their dogs on my trail. They came to my place, the cops and the dogs. I ducked out the door. I killed one of the dogs. I don’t want to go to their goddam war.”

  “Henri’s at the war… “

  “I don’t want to get my face torn up in their goddamn war. Did they ask us if we wanted this goddamn war? No. But when they need men to fight, then they like us well enough. As far as I’m concerned I’m not going to lose a single hair in their goddamn war.

  It seemed to Amélie that Arthur was much more right than Henri. Her husband always let himself be taken in by someone or something.

  “I don’t want to go to their war. The big guys have decided to make their war. Let them do it alone, without us. Let the big guys fight each other if that’s what they want; it doesn’t hurt them. They always start again. Let them have fun, but let the little guys enjoy themselves the way they want.”

  Amélia agreed. Arthur was right, Henri was wrong.

  “It’s the end of the world.”

  “My God, is it possible?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “My God,” sighed Amélie, raising her arms in a gesture of supplication. A breast popped out of her open dress. Amélie pushed it inside. “You’ll sleep in the attic,” she said.

  Arthur slept in Amelie’s bed. When they woke up at dawn she said to him, “There are cows to milk.”

  “That’s my job.”

  Arthur got up, got dressed, and on his way out took Henri’s jacket which was hanging up near the door. He came back with the milk.

  “Those cows were sure glad to see a man.”

  “How about me; you think I wasn’t glad too? “

  The children came and sat around the table, and Arthur talked to them about the war that was killing little children, about the Germans who were cutting little children into pieces to feed to their dogs.

  The cross-eyed child said, “If a German comes here I’m going to stick my fork in his eye.”

  “I,” said a little girl, “am going to throw a stone at his glasses and the glass will bust his eyes open.”

  The eldest said, “I’m going to put a snake in a glass of milk and he’ll drink the snake.”

  “I’m going to war like my father,” said the youngest.

  “Shut up, all of you,” Amélie interrupted. “Just be happy you’ve got something to eat.”

  “I don’t like the war,” Arthur explained, “because in a war little children are killed; I don’t want little children to be killed.” With these words Arthur became the children’s father.

  Amélie beamed with joy. Henri, their real father, had never known how to talk to the children. Arthur, a bachelor, did. No one thought he should leave. One morning nine months later the children found, in the little bed, two twins, crying and hungry. Amélie laughed happily. “The others are more mine than yours, but the twins are ours.”

  Arthur kept busy with the chores and the animals; he was never completely free, however, but always afraid that the army dogs would leap on his back. The farm was no longer abandoned. Amélie spoiled Arthur like a favourite child.

  One evening Henri appeared in the doorway.

  “It’s about time you came back,” Amélie commented. “We were starting to forget you.”

  “I’ve only come for a few days. I’ve got to go back.”

  “Why did they send you back here? “

  “I was tired. The war wears you out.”

  “Who’s going to fight the Germans while you’re here? “

  Henri dropped into a chair. “It’s tiring, the war.”

  “You think I’m not tired too, when you’ve left me here with the kids? Everybody’s tired. The twins wear me out, but you don’t hear me complain about being tired.”

  “The twins? “

  “Yes, the twins.”

  Henri didn’t understand at all. At the war he had often thought of his children. How could he forget a pair of twins? Perhaps they had been very young when he left. He couldn’t have forgotten that he had twins. A man who has twins doesn’t forget them.

  “Twins,” explained Amélie. “Two sets of twins. I have two sets of twin boys. Because the gentleman travels, because the gentleman goes for walks, because the gentleman thinks he’s obliged to go off to war, the gentleman thinks the earth stops turning. I’ve got twins; two sets of twin boys. It’s simple. I lugged them around in there,” she tapped her belly, “and then they came out.”

  “What interests me is how they got in.”

  “I’ve got twins,” she cut in finally, “and they’re alive and well.”

  That evening they bickered, they fought, they swatted the whimpering children, they kicked and punched. When they were worn out they made peace.

  After his long absence Henri deserved to be well received. Henri, then, would sleep with his wife. In the future, both Henri and Arthur would have their rights in turn, for as long as the soldier was on leave.

  On the last day of his holiday Henri refused to leave Amélie to go back to the war.

  “Two men in a house is too much for one woman,” Amélie insisted. “There’s a war. Somebody’s got to do it. There have to be men at the war and men in the house. All the men can’t stay at home. Some of them have got to go away. The bravest ones become soldiers and go away to fight.”

  Arthur added his arguments in a reproachful tone. “The Germans will come along with those boots
of theirs that fall on the floor like the blows of an axe and you, you want to stay here and smoke your pipe.”

  Henri banged his fists on the table; children were crying everywhere in the house. “You,” he shouted, “you, are you going to war?”

  Arthur lit his pipe and answered calmly, through the smoke. “You’re a soldier…”

  “Germans! I’ve never seen an hostie of a German.”

  “You’re a soldier; you’ve got the uniform, you’ve got the boots. Me, I’m a farmer and the father of a family. I’ve got two sets of twins and Amélie’s expecting again. You’re a soldier. Soldiers have a duty to protect farmers who are fathers of families, and the children and the cattle and the country.”

  Henri didn’t go back to the front.

  “Since this tabernacle of a war there’s been no more justice,” he whined, his head hanging in the opening of the trap-door. “It’s never my turn. I should have ended up like Corriveau. Corriveau doesn’t see anything any more.”

  “You’re men,” said Amélie with a purr in her voice, “and you’ve got to behave like men and not like children. Listen to each other peacefully. It’s not worth it for you two to fight about it — both of you gets his turn in my bed, that’s the rule. It’s not hard to understand. Each one has his rights. I can’t always know whose turn it is. I can’t always know if it was Henri who was with me yesterday or Arthur. Shut the trapdoor, Henri, and don’t make any more noise. You know they’re looking for deserters, and they find the ones that make too much noise.”

  She grabbed Arthur by the arm.

  “Come on. When you get right down to it it’s not much fun for my poor Henri. He’d like to spend days in my bed. It’s tough, the war.”

  With his eyes Henri followed his wife and Arthur until they had disappeared into the bedroom.

  “Calice d’hostie de tabernacle! I’ll be glad when this war is over…”

  He closed the trapdoor and slid some heavy objects over it.

  Turning her back to Arthur, Amélie unbuttoned her dress. Arthur watched her. He resisted the desire to leap onto her and crush her breasts in his hands. She let her dress fall; the soft flesh of her back and hips, white and gleaming, blinded Arthur. That back: he could never get used to it. She bent down to take off her pants which she let fall against her legs. Then she turned towards Arthur. He was trembling at the realization that he was about to make his nest in that flesh.