“Everything’s okay,” Fernand cut in. “Right now we’re taking care of Boff. He doesn’t look as though he’s going to do much running around, poor guy!”
And taking the dog in his arms, not without a slight grimace, he made his way down to the basement while his two children stayed upstairs, looking at Charles with some concern but without speaking; Charles followed their father, still fighting back tears.
As soon as he was placed on a blanket, Boff fell asleep, his muzzle resting on his forepaws. While he slept, Monsieur Fafard telephoned the veterinary clinic on de Maisonneuve – the doctor there was one of his customers. Their conversation was rapid and friendly. Both men shared a sense of humour, a love of efficiency, and a horror of small talk.
“Has he thrown up at all, your Boff?” the hardware-store owner asked Charles when he hung up. “No? Good. We’ll give him something to drink right away, since his bowels must be as dry as baking soda. Lucie, go look in the bathroom cabinet and see if we have any Kao Pectate. That’ll coat the lining of his intestines. And Imodium, too; that ought to put a cork in him.”
Gendron, the veterinarian, had said that if the dog was still sick after twenty-four hours, it would require treatment, but that would mean taking it down to the clinic.
A few minutes later, Boff was able to swallow two tablespoons of a grey liquid that he didn’t seem to like very much; a bowl of Seven-Up made him forget it soon enough. Meanwhile, Henri ran to the corner drugstore for a package of Imodium.
Charles began to feel better himself; he sat in a rocking chair watching Madame Fafard finish preparing supper. From time to time, when her back was turned, he brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his sore cheek.
Lucie Fafard was as taken aback by the look of profound sadness in Charles’s eyes as she was by his face. Smoothing the pan of mashed potatoes with a spatula, she tried to sort out the welter of contradictory thoughts that kept springing up in her head, in order to come to at least a temporary solution to the problems that the boy in her kitchen was facing. He was clearly being put to more tests than one child should have to undergo.
“So, Charles,” she said, turning towards him, “would you like to stay for supper? I know how much you like chicken pot pie.”
A hungry smile spread over the boy’s face, making him forget his swollen jaw, but it soon disappeared.
“I have to ask Sylvie or my father, first,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure they’ll say it’s okay.”
“Would you like me to phone them?”
He nodded his head vigorously.
“Just a minute, please,” Sylvie said dryly when she heard her neighbour’s voice on the phone, “I’ll ask Wilfrid.”
She put her hand over the receiver.
Lucie tried to make out the ensuing conversation between Sylvie and Wilfrid, but to no avail. She kept her eye on Charles, who was watching her with an anxious look.
“It’s all right, he can stay,” Sylvie said, “but only if he gets back here by seven o’clock sharp to do his homework.”
And she hung up.
“I’ll bet he’s over there spilling his guts out to the Fafards,” Sylvie said to Wilfrid, who, standing at the kitchen window, had just noticed that Boff was gone. “Some reputation we’ll have after this! You should learn to control those fists of yours one of these days, eh?”
Two days later, Boff had completely recovered and was able to move back into his doghouse. A truce was again in effect between Charles and his father. To Madame Cotruche’s amazement, Charles was a model student for a week. With Boff out of danger, Charles’s naturally calm nature returned and with it some of his enthusiasm for school. But the smack across the face and the rescue of his dog through the good graces of the Fafards marked a change in his life.
He began to eat more and more of his meals at their house and even, one or two nights a week, got into the habit of doing his homework and going over his lessons with Henri, under Lucie’s discreet but efficient eye. After some initial misgivings, Sylvie and Wilfrid ended up accepting the new arrangement. If nothing else, it relieved them of a huge burden.
Fernand and Lucie could easily see that the child was unhappy at home and had probably been the victim of a great many other abuses they couldn’t bear to think about. But Charles was incredibly secretive and wily for a child his age, and assiduously avoided their questions. Without proof, they were hesitant to lodge any specific complaints.
Weeks went by. Charles suffered through the inferno of Madame Cotruche’s class as best he could. Slaps to the back of his head and banishment to the hallway alternated with scoldings, detentions, all endured to the tune of the teacher’s incensed, high-pitched, eternally dissatisfied voice, the voice of one who regarded her tenure as a teacher as a kind of penance, and who had decided to pass her own misery on to her pupils. At times, however, she could achieve an almost miraculous, Sargasso-like calm: for an hour or even two the acid that usually flowed through her veins seemed to have been transformed into human blood. Her voice came down a few decibels, and she seemed patient with and even attentive to her charges. At such times she even displayed a sense of humour!
Thus it was that one morning, on a Friday in March, she brought into the classroom an enormous book with a stiff cover held together by chrome rings, and the children discovered to their stupefaction that their teacher was a passionate stamp collector. “I am a philatelist,” she announced with pride. “That means a stamp collector. I collect all the stamps I can find, especially those that interest me.”
The previous day, after school, the janitor had placed a large cardboard box on her desk that had had the pupils guessing. Now she opened the box and took out a projector. She asked one of the children to plug it in, then drew the curtains on the two classroom windows (the resulting darkness did not impair in the slightest her ability to see everything the pupils were doing, and everyone knew it), and took the entire class on a voyage around the world and through layers of history that held each of them motionless until recess. Charles bombarded her with questions throughout the whole film, and she even took one or two of them seriously. When the lights were on again, Charles approached her desk.
“When I get bigger, I’m going to collect stamps, too,” he said.
“Well, good for you. If you could manage to interest yourself in something intelligent for a change, it would be a pleasant surprise to us all.”
“But I am interested in something intelligent,” Charles replied, crushed by her remark.
“Oh? Such as what?”
He hesitated, asking himself whether this loud-mouthed slapping machine deserved to be taken into his confidence; then someone called him and he turned on his heels and ran off without bothering to give her an answer.
That afternoon, when he left school with Henri, he was seized with such joy at the thought that the school week was over that he invited Henri into the Chez Robert for a treat.
“On me,” he said.
His friend looked at him incredulously:
“You have money?”
“I’ve only got twenty cents, but watch me. I’ll fix us up.”
Walking ahead of his friend, he pushed open the door to the restaurant and went in with that air of nonchalant pride that children often show when they have gained a measure of familiarity with certain generous adults. At the far end of the room two women in their forties were leaning towards each other, talking together in low and mysterious tones. Near the window, an elderly man in a tie and with a large birthmark on his right cheek, his coat propped up on the chair across from him, was playing solitaire beside a cup of coffee. Monsieur Victoire was sitting at the counter chatting up Liette, guffawing loudly while she washed dishes, blushing with pleasure. Sylvie, her mind elsewhere, was wiping the counter with a cloth, making large circular movements as though they were part of a dance. Charles walked past her as though he didn’t see her, went up to the cash where Rosalie was adding up a pile of receipts, and started a brief convers
ation with her.
Her eyes opened wide in surprise, then she began to laugh:
“Really?” she said. “The same as you?”
He nodded.
“What does he want?” Sylvie asked, turning towards the restaurant owner.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Rosalie replied. “We’re making a deal here.”
A few minutes later, when the boys had taken their seats across from each other in a booth, she brought them two cups of hot chocolate and a plate of oatmeal cookies.
“And here’s a little something extra,” she added, giving Charles a conspiratorial look. From her apron pocket she extracted two Mars bars. “You’d better eat these outside, though,” she said, lowering her voice, “or else Sylvie will be after me for spoiling your appetites before supper. When you’re finished up here, Charles,” she said, speaking loudly again, “would you mind going to the grocery store and getting me a gallon of vinegar … and five boxes of toothpicks? After that I might have a pizza delivery you can make, just to the corner, for Monsieur Saint-Amour.”
“You see?” Charles said to his friend when Rosalie had left. “I do a few errands for her, she gives me stuff to eat.”
Henri was so impressed that when they left the restaurant, he invited Charles to have supper at his place, even to stay the night if he wanted to, an invitation he also extended to Boff.
They would have to ask their parents for permission, of course. But before that the two boys headed off to the grocery store for the vinegar and toothpicks, then they delivered the pizza. In order to get the pizza to Monsieur Saint-Amour when it was still hot, they ran down the street with Charles holding the large, flat box in front of him. Monsieur Saint-Amour was known for giving good tips. Delicious odours issued from the box as he ran. The old man opened the door before they had even rung the bell. He was a retired hairdresser, living in a minuscule two-room apartment in a shabby building on the corner of Frontenac and Bercy; three or four times a week he ordered a pizza with anchovies that Roberto prepared according to his own particular instructions.
“Ah, good. What’s this!” he cried in a curiously strained voice. “Two of you now making deliveries?”
Henri blushed. “No, sir. I’m just tagging along.”
“All good, all good,” replied the old man, looking from one boy to the other with an expression of deep contentment. “Come in, boys, I left my wallet on the dresser.”
Charles put the pizza on a table while the old man shuffled over to the dresser. Henri looked in astonishment about the room, which was jam-packed with boxes, pieces of furniture, and knick-knacks of all sorts. Perched atop an enormous china cabinet was a red, plastic rooster, its eye bright with fury, as though it were waiting for an opportunity to throw itself at the television set that was dominating another corner on a mahogany stand.
“There you go,” said the old man, handing a five-dollar bill to Charles. “That’s for the pizza, and this, this is for you, and for you,” he added, handing each boy a quarter.
“Thank you, sir,” they said in unison, amazed at such generosity.
Saint-Amour gave them a wide smile, his small grey eyes never leaving the children. “My pleasure, boys,” he said. “See you next time.”
And he gave Charles’s buttocks a quick, furtive caress through the boy’s snowsuit.
Henri easily obtained permission to ask Charles to stay for supper and also to spend the night.
“But I’m not the only one who gets to decide,” Lucie warned them.
To his great delight, Charles also had no trouble getting Sylvie’s approval. It would be the first time in his life he had slept over at someone else’s house. A feeling of elation spread through him, as though he were setting out on a marvellous adventure. He had always admired the Fafards’ house, with its high ceilings, polished wainscotting, and spacious rooms. It was beautiful compared to his own apartment. He quickly ran home to get his things, and a few minutes later presented himself at the Fafards’ doorstep, face shining with happiness, his dog at his side and a plastic grocery bag serving as a suitcase.
“Let’s go, let’s eat. Quick, quick. Sit down!” cried Fernand. “I could eat a whole horse and its cart tonight. Charles, put Boff in the basement, or he’ll be bothering you all through the meal.”
His hairy forearms resting on the table, Fernand greedily eyed the roast beef surrounded by a ring of carrots and turnip cubes, flanked by a huge plate of mashed potatoes that gave off a delicious odour of nutmeg and melted butter.
Everyone took their place at the table, and the room was soon filled with the sound of clicking silverware. Fernand chewed thick slices of beef with a loud smacking of his lips, talking all the while, obviously in an impish mood, presiding over the meal with a benevolent, patriarchal air – a bit overdone, perhaps, which brought a tolerant smile to his wife’s face.
“Quite the appetite on him for a little fella,” he said, watching Charles empty his plate. “He does honour to my wife, who has been doing me the honour for twelve years now. Go ahead, Céline, give the boy some more potatoes, it looks like he’ll make short work of them, too. What about you, Henri? Go fetch us some milk, this one’s about empty.”
Céline jumped up and, smiling sweetly at Charles, scooped an enormous spoonful of potatoes onto his plate.
“What have you got for us for dessert, Lucie?” Fernand asked after a moment, leaning back in his chair, his hand covering his mouth to smother a small belch that made no more sound in the room than a passing train would have.
“Chocolate cake.”
“Bring it on.”
“I’d wait if I were you. You’re going to explode. Why don’t we have dessert in an hour or so. We’ll enjoy it more.”
“All right, whatever you say,” he sighed. “You’re the one who wears the pants in this family. You just roll them up a bit so they don’t show under your dress.”
“Mama wears pants under her dress?” Céline asked.
“He’s just kidding,” Henri drawled, looking at his sister condescendingly.
Charles swallowed his last morsel of cake, heaved a long sigh, and turned to Lucie:
“Thank you very much, Madame Fafard. It was delicious, the best supper I’ve ever had in my life!”
Everyone burst out laughing.
“Well, I can see he’s a kid who knows his manners,” exclaimed Fernand. “Anyone’d think he was brought up in a palace.”
“You can come here for supper any time you like, Charles,” said Lucie, ruffling his hair. “There’ll always be a place for you here.”
When Charles left the table with Henri to go to his friend’s room, he was in such a state of bliss that he forgot all about Boff, who was still in the basement; curled up near the furnace, his ears perked, the dog followed each of Charles’s footsteps on the floor above his head, tortured by the wish to bark but not daring to do so, knowing he was in foreign territory.
Fernand had set up a camp cot for Charles beside his son’s bed. Charles stretched out on it and closed his eyes.
“I’m going to get a good night’s sleep,” he said to himself after a moment. “I feel better here than in my own bed at home.”
He sat up sharply and slid a hand into his bag of overnight things. “I brought something special,” he told Henri, his face taking on a serious expression.
He pulled out the copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that Mademoiselle Laramée had given him the previous year. It was an abridged version of Lewis Carroll’s book; the full-colour illustrations took up most of the space, but there were about ten pages of text. The story of Alice had for some time been part of his interior world. He had flipped through the book any number of times, lost in contemplation of the pictures, which were executed with a blend of fantasy and high realism. Then bit by bit, line by line, he had worked his way through the text. The huge blocks of type had at first daunted him, but he’d persisted until he’d mastered them all, one after the other, sometimes asking Sylvie, rarely
his father, to help him when he became stuck on a word. The pages containing illustrations with only five lines of text beneath were like colourful oases rewarding him for his efforts. The delirious logic of the story completely carried him away, although he didn’t quite understand why.
It gave him a great deal of pleasure to think of Alice as his mother when she was a young girl, even though it was difficult for him to imagine her that way. He envied the young heroine her extraordinary adventures and secretly hoped that one day he, too, would run into a rabbit sporting a waistcoat and a pocket watch who would drag him down his rabbit-hole to the centre of the Earth. Several passages had particularly appealed to him, and he returned to them often: Alice’s slow descent down the well whose walls were lined with cupboards and bookshelves; the time she almost drowned in a pool of her own tears; the episode of the Cheshire Cat, who disappeared into thin air leaving nothing behind but his smile; and her meeting with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.
He was particularly taken with the Cheshire Cat. He had convinced himself that Boff, who was extremely smart, could with a little training be taught to smile. Several times he had sat in front of the dog and pulled faces, contorting his lips and uttering the most ludicrous sounds, in the hope that Boff would do likewise. One day he even took off his shoes, and with his socks in his mouth crawled about the room on his hands and knees. The dog watched him, its eyes overflowing with tenderness, but contented itself with wagging its tail. “Don’t smile with your tail, Boff, smile with your mouth, like this.” He demonstrated, spreading wide the corners of his mouth. But Boff, despite the obvious pleasure he took in Charles’s shenanigans, did not once smile.
“If you’d like, I could read you some of it,” Charles said, opening the book.
After a moment’s hesitation Henri nodded, sensing that his friend’s offer was more like an order.
Twenty minutes later, Lucie, intrigued by the quiet coming from her son’s bedroom, tiptoed quietly to the door.
“He reads like a grown-up,” she said to herself after listening for a minute. “A lot better than Henri. With a bit of luck this child will have a future, as sure as God made little green apples.”
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