And the thin little man with cheeks framed by two vertical creases that made him look austere and bitter rolled his dark eyes and wagged his thick, work-scarred fingers.
2
Charles had just turned three when his mother became pregnant for the second time. He was still as rambunctious as ever, extremely clever for his age, with a huge capacity for making friends and an equally marked propensity for dropping them whenever, in his opinion, he had been treated unfairly.
On weekdays, on her way to work, Alice would drop him off at a neighbour’s on rue Lalonde, a woman named Catherine who had turned her basement into a daycare and, with the help of a young woman named Mélanie, looked after a dozen children. Charles loved going there and quickly made a conquest of both women, who found him adorable and exasperating. He would throw himself into games with enthusiasm and imagination that could suddenly turn into terrible fits of anger when things didn’t go his way; hugs and punches succeeded one another with a sometimes dizzying swiftness. With an excess of generosity he would happily share half his lunch with a friend, but woe betide any poor playmate who pinched one of his carrot sticks or a handful of raisins!
His unstable character caused him to perfect the art of asking forgiveness. He understood instinctively that what he needed first and foremost was charm.
“Mélanie,” he would murmur to the daycare helper, his eyes lowered after a particularly explosive episode, “are you still mad at me? I’ll be good from now on, I promise …”
And with a calculatedly woebegone expression on his face, he would sidle up to her and wrap himself around her leg.
“Oh, Charlie,” Mélanie would say, smiling despite herself, “it really would be good if you controlled yourself a bit more …”
But when she saw his tearful look (and detected the slyness underlying it) she would break out laughing, pinch his cheeks, and kiss the tip of his nose:
“You little manipulator,” she would say. “That’s what you are, you know, a manipulator. I pity the poor woman who falls in love with you, you charmer, you.”
Another thing Charles learned to develop was his power of persuasion. Alice would get him to the daycare every morning around seven o’clock. It was only two blocks from their house, and every day they were escorted by a canine delegation that had been waiting for them at the bottom of the apartment stairs from the first glimmers of dawn. The delegation consisted of anywhere from a dozen to fifteen representatives, all of them brimming with exuberant joy at being reunited with their long-lost friend and benefactor, from whom they had been separated for such an interminably long night. Their number would diminish somewhat if it was pouring rain or intensely cold, or if there was a heavy snowstorm, but there were never fewer than five of them, and while they walked the two blocks to the daycare Charles would feed his companions crusts of bread or other leftovers from the table that he had kept overnight in a plastic bag. His mother fought off the more insistent among them as best she could, sometimes getting runs in her stockings for her pains. She asked him many times not to feed the dogs, but Charles silenced her objections with an argument that was as irrefutable as it was simple. It was broken down into three major points:
1. If they weren’t going to let him have a dog in the house, they had to at least allow him to play with dogs in the street.
2. The bread crusts and table scraps would just go into the garbage, which didn’t need them; why not give them to the poor dogs, who were always so hungry?
3. If Alice were a dog, wouldn’t she want him to play with her?
One morning in November, Alice and her son were making their way with difficulty to the daycare, assailed by gusts of heavy, wet snow; the huge flakes pelted their eyes and blew into the sleeves and collars of their coats, where they oozed and spread like tiny glaciers. The storm had buried the city under a thick, melting layer of slush, and tramping through it was like stepping into buckets of guts. In spite of it, Charles was busily feeding the few courageous dogs that had ventured out into this opening act of winter when he suddenly saw a new face in the pack. It was a small dog, thin and yellowish, with huge, protruding eyes, limping painfully along with the others, jostled by this one, snarled at by that, trying without success to snap up a crust but keeping at it just the same, despite his desperate condition.
Charles stopped and, pushing away the other animals, knelt down by the yellow dog and opened the plastic bag. The dog barely had time to grab a morsel of food before Alice grabbed her son by the shoulder and dragged him quickly towards the daycare.
“Maman!” Charles began crying. “He’ll die if I don’t give him some food! Look how sick he is!”
“This is no time to be feeding dogs! What are you trying to do, catch pneumonia? Will you listen to me, now? You’ll just have to stop giving scraps to the dogs altogether if you can’t show me you can be reasonable about it!”
His face glistening with tears and melted snow, Charles moved reluctantly on, pulled by his mother but turning back to look at the yellow dog, which was trying its best to follow, wagging its rear end and falling further and further behind.
Before going inside, Charles had time to see his little protégé push itself through the half-open gate into the daycare’s small play area.
“You drive me crazy sometimes, you really do,” Alice sighed as she took off his heavy, wet coat amid the confusion of the other arriving children.
Then she kissed him hurriedly and left, since the factory did not tolerate its employees being late.
As soon as she was gone Charles found a chair and dragged it over to a window, climbed up, and looked outside. Dogs came and went in the play area, sniffing the ground and casting envious looks up at Charles, who was safe and warm indoors. The little yellow dog was sitting apart from the others, near the seesaw, looking sadly up at the window, shaken every now and then by a violent shudder, his bedraggled coat white with snow. The other dogs appeared to be avoiding it, as though they already knew the terrible fate in store for it.
“Poor little thing,” thought Charles. “It’s going to die for sure.”
“What are you doing over there, Charles?” asked Mélanie, enmeshed in a whirlwind of arms, legs, boots, and snowsuits.
“I’m looking at my dog,” the boy replied, his voice quavering.
“Your dog? What dog? Is there only one out there today?”
“No, there are lots of them.”
“Well, which one are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at my yellow dog,” he said, sounding sadder and sadder.
“What’s wrong with your yellow dog?”
“He’s going to die.”
“Who’s going to die?” asked a small, hairy boy with a bare right foot and a boot in his left hand. He ran to the chair and tried to climb up, but Charles pushed him off.
“Be careful, children, careful!” Mélanie said, coming over. “Be nice, you two.”
She bent down and looked through the window:
“You may be right,” she said. “He doesn’t look too happy, does he?”
Charles looked her straight in the eye:
“We have to let him in, Mélanie,” he said. “When he gets warmed up, he’ll be better.”
“Yeah,” said Marcel, who had succeeded in climbing up on the chair. “He’ll be much better, that’s for sure. It’s too cold out there.”
And nodding his head in approval he placed his hand on Charles’s shoulder to indicate a united moral appeal.
“Sorry, kids, no can do. It’s against the rules.”
“What are rules?” asked Marcel.
“Rules are what tell us what we can and can’t do in the daycare.”
“Do the rules say we can’t help a sick dog who is dying from the cold outside?” asked Charles.
“No, the rules say we can’t let any animals in the daycare because they might have diseases that would hurt the children.”
“Phooey! I kiss dogs all the time, all the time, all the time, and
I never get sick. The rules are stupid.”
“Maybe,” Mélanie said, a little embarrassed. “But we have to follow them anyway.”
Bright red spots appeared on Charles’s cheeks, always a bad sign, his eyes crinkled, his mouth tightened, and a tremor ran up his arms.
“I want the yellow dog to come in and get warm, Mélanie,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “If you won’t let him come inside, I’m not moving from this spot.”
And he clung stubbornly to the back of the chair.
“Come on, Charles, be reasonable,” Mélanie pleaded, in a voice that betrayed her guilty conscience.
“If you don’t let him in, I’m not moving from this spot,” Charles repeated through clenched teeth.
“Me too,” chimed in Marcel, although with much less conviction.
Mélanie had to leave then because other children had arrived and a kerfuffle had broken out at the back of the room.
Charles kept looking through the window into the play area. The dog pack had disappeared, but the yellow dog was still shivering beside the seesaw, its caved-in body now all but buried in a snowbank.
Suddenly Charles jumped down from the chair, crossed to the vestibule, and ran out into the yard. A few seconds later he came back in carrying the dog, which lay listlessly in his arms, head hanging heavily down, eyes half closed, paws dripping, and body wracked with violent fits of shivering.
Through the door, which was slightly ajar, heavy snowflakes slowly spiralled into the room and landed on the floor, where they instantly became puddles of water.
Mélanie planted herself in front of Charles, a boot in each hand; anger showed on her face and from her half-opened mouth and trembling lips came the dry, pinched voice that she very rarely used and which the children feared more than anything; Charles burst into tears:
“Mélanie,” he cried, tears running down his cheeks, “please, Mélanie, let him come in. He’ll die if we leave him out there!”
Four young girls came up and stood beside Charles and they, too, began to cry.
Mélanie, stymied for a second, glanced uncertainly at the dog. She seemed almost about to give in when the animal, shaken suddenly by a violent spasm, opened its mouth and a long stream of greenish liquid shot out and splashed onto the floor.
“No, out of the question!” she said, grabbing the dog from Charles. “This dog is sick and it’s staying outside!”
She opened the door and deposited the dog on the step.
Charles climbed back up onto the chair, wrapped his arms and legs through the bars and rungs like an octopus, and closed his eyes, determined not to move again until his protégé was saved.
Mélanie left the room and returned with a roll of paper towel and began wiping up the mess on the floor; the children watched for a moment, then little mocking smiles appeared on their lips and they began slowly circling the chair, teasing and poking at Charles who, much to their surprise, made no response.
“Come on, children,” Mélanie said, taking two of them by the hand. “Let’s leave Mr. Sulks in peace.”
A few minutes later she looked back into the room to see how Charles was doing. His hands were still gripping the chairback. He hadn’t moved a hair. But his eyes were open and he was staring furiously through the window.
Half an hour went by. Then Catherine appeared. She was a woman in her thirties, with plump arms and impressive thighs that bulged out the material of her black trousers. Her expression was pleasant and full of energy. When she stood before Charles a gentle shiver passed through his body and he blinked, but he continued staring through the window in silence.
“What’s the problem, Charles? Mélanie tells me you’ve got a case of the sulks.”
“I’m not sulking.”
“What are you doing, then?”
“I’m sad.”
“What are you sad about?”
“I’m sad because I want to help a sick dog and Mélanie won’t let me.”
“Where is it, this dog?”
“Outside. Where he’s dying of cold.”
Catherine glanced out the window and a small frown settled into the corners of her mouth.
“I can’t let it inside, Charlie my boy,” she said. “It’s against the rules. It could bring in all kinds of diseases.”
“The man who made up that rule is stupid,” Charles muttered, unmoved. “He never had a dog, or else he hates dogs. When a person is sick you don’t leave him outside to freeze to death. It’s the same with a dog.”
He looked at Catherine and saw that he had scored a hit. He got to his knees on the chair, his eyes bright and pleading, his lips trembling, his hands pressed together:
“Please, Catherine, let him come in … Put him in a cardboard box and keep him in your office until he gets warm. He’s too sick to move anywhere, I know he is. No one will see and I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Will you, Catherine? You will, won’t you?”
Catherine placed her hands on her thighs and slowly nodded her head, trying to think of some way out.
“I don’t have a box, Charles.”
“Yes, you do! I saw one yesterday. It came with the stuff for the kitchen.”
Catherine, feeling more and more trapped, dug her fingernails into her pantlegs, filling the silence with quiet scratching sounds.
“All right, you win. My God, you’re a stubborn little mule. Go ask Mélanie for the box, and I’ll try to find some rags to put around him. But not a word to anyone, do you understand?”
Charles came back joyfully with the box, and Catherine lined the bottom of it with rags. Then he raced for the door, but she grabbed him by the arm:
“No, you don’t! I’ll get the dog.”
When she opened the door, a fresh flurry of snowflakes zigzagged their way into the room. The dog was huddled on the doorstep, its head drawn back into its shoulders, its muzzle between its paws, desperately trying to preserve as much body heat as it had left. Catherine lifted it up and carried it inside, kicking the door shut with her heel.
Charles, mute with joy, jumped up and down and clapped his hands together.
The few seconds during which it was suspended in the air in Catherine’s hands was a terrifying experience for the little yellow dog. Its vision, blurred by melting snow, had suddenly become clear and fixed automatically on a small crack in a kickplate a foot or so away. The crack had then suddenly zoomed in towards him crazily, enveloped him in an impenetrable darkness, then returned just as suddenly to its former size and place as though nothing had happened; the dog had then understood within its soul that it was going to die very soon and that nothing was going to save it from its fate. A terrible sadness spread through its chest, as though someone had pierced it with a long needle; it gave a terror-stricken groan and began to struggle. Charles threw himself towards it, tore it from Catherine’s hands, and held it against his body, where the animal curled up into a trembling ball.
“Don’t be afraid, little puppy, we’re going to take care of you.”
He held it away from him and looked deeply into its eyes.
“We’re going to take care of you, I said. Stop shaking, okay?”
The dog gave another groan, but soon it was placed in the cardboard box on a bed of rags, and someone picked up the box and carried it to a place where the voices of children were little more than a distant murmur. It stretched its legs straight out and began sniffing at the rags. Slowly its hair dried, and the exhausting shivering that was killing it began to subside.
The little dog died just before noon. Charles, faithful to his promise despite an almost uncontrollable urge to know what was happening, did not go into the office once all morning. When Catherine came to tell him that the little yellow dog was dead, he asked to see it one more time. Curled up into a ball on its side, its forepaws stretched out and stiff, it was staring up at the ceiling with a haggard eye, its jaws slightly parted. A small child began whining in the next room, and Charles had the horrible impression that it was the dog th
at was making the pitiful noise, reproaching him for having failed to save its life.
He began to sob:
“I wanted to help him, but I didn’t do it fast enough … He was outside too long … I was too late … Now he’ll never be my friend, never, never!”
Catherine caressed his hair and then, to help lessen his grief, suggested that they bury the dog in the yard, under the old cherry tree. That way he’d still be with Charles, sort of. Charles thought that was a good idea. During rest time, he helped Catherine dig a hole in the still-soft earth. But once the box was placed in the bottom of the hole he ran back into the daycare as fast as he could; he couldn’t stand the sight of shovelfuls of dirt landing loudly on his poor friend.
Days passed and he recovered his good spirits. But from time to time, during the day’s activities, he would leave the others and go over to the foot of the old cherry tree and stand there for several minutes, his hands behind his back, looking down at the ground with a thoughtful expression on his face.
3
On June 4, 1970, Alice Thibodeau gave birth to a baby girl, whom they named Madeleine. Charles thought she was very red and extremely ugly. Her screams made the glasses in the kitchen cupboard rattle, and she suffered from a condition that had a long, complicated name. Her wails followed Charles everywhere, piercing his eardrums. No matter how many doors he closed or how loud he turned up the television, the voice was always there; it filled the apartment like a hand filled a mitten. Only in the bathroom – which was at the other end of the apartment from the baby’s room and filled with street noises that came in through its partially open window – could Charles find any relief from it, and could even at times forget it was there. But the room was tiny. He could barely spread his arms in it. After five minutes he wouldn’t be able to stand it any more, and would have to come out.
And so he took to spending his time between coming home from daycare and supper in the small, paved yard behind the building their apartment was in. Most of it was taken up by an enormous truck. It was separated from the neighbouring yard by a high, chain-link fence through which he could see two enormous green plastic garbage pails, which sometimes smelled so awful he had to stay away from the fence.
Charles the Bold Page 2