Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  “No, sir. It’s about something a lot more important than that.”

  He led the boy through the waiting room, with its chairs, its newspaper rack, and small table stacked with magazines, into a large, sombre-looking room with an enormous carved-oak desk at the centre, like a casket. Drab beige curtains flanked a large window through whose Venetian blinds Charles could see rue Bercy. A sullen row of olive-green filing cabinets lined the left-hand wall. On either side of the door, framed diplomas solemnly declared the competence of the master of the premises.

  The notary brought over a chair for his young visitor, sat behind his desk, and, steepling his long fingers, pronounced the ritual opening phrase of any client interview: “What can I do for you?”

  Charles reddened and shifted slightly in his chair.

  “I want to get a divorce from my father,” he said.

  “You want to … Can you say that again, please?”

  “I want to get a divorce, from my father. I have enough money …”

  And he took a fistful of banknotes from his pocket.

  The notary considered the boy’s lively, intelligent face, his polite manners; he had just withdrawn a seemingly large amount of money from his pocket, and Michaud wondered how on earth he would approach such a curious affair.

  “I’m not sure I understand you … By the way, what’s your name?”

  Charles gave him his name and forestalled what was obviously the next question by telling him his age.

  “But I’ll be ten in one month,” he explained.

  “Fine, fine … First of all, Charles, you should know that a divorce can take place only between a man and his wife. I gather you no longer want to live with your father, is that the way of it?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “And what about your mother?”

  “My mother’s dead. She died six years ago. My father lives with Sylvie. She’s a waitress at Chez Robert. She’s not so bad, but I don’t want to live with her any more, either.”

  “I see. Good. You don’t get along with your father, Sylvie hasn’t been able to settle things between you, and so you’ve decided you want to live with a different family.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

  A look of profound relief spread across Charles’s face, and he slid the money under his thigh in order to have it handy when the time came to pay the notary.

  Michaud parted his lips and tapped his teeth with the nail of his index finger, as was his habit when presented with a particularly knotty problem. He would have to proceed tactfully; it seemed a serious matter, and he had little experience with such cases.

  “I must also tell you, Charles,” he said after several small coughs, “that notary publics don’t, as a rule, handle these kinds of problems. It’s usually up to lawyers.”

  “Oh,” said Charles, with a little pout. “Do you know a lawyer?”

  “Yes, of course, I know several. But first, with your permission, there are a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

  Charles clasped his hands together and rested them on his knee, waiting for the questions. His pleasant, forthright manner, and the clearness of his gaze, pleased the notary very much, and the furtive idea flitted through the latter’s mind that if he had had a child, despite all the inconveniences such an occurrence would entail, his life would have been a happier one; but the time for such an undertaking had obviously passed.

  “May I inquire,” he said, nervously scratching one of his elbows on the arm of his chair, “as to what it is that has come between you and your father?”

  Charles blushed again. “We don’t get along,” he said.

  “I can see that. Does he hit you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Is he … does he show violence towards you?”

  Charles looked away and frowned. “Sometimes,” he said. Then he looked down and murmured, in a voice that was both overwhelmed and brave, added: “I don’t like my life.”

  A moment passed.

  “I see,” said the notary.

  The rubbing of his elbow against his chair arm had become audible. On the porch, Boff gave a sharp, imperious bark, signifying that his waiting had gone on long enough.

  “It’s just that the law is very clear, Charles,” Michaud went on. “A child cannot leave his parents without very good reasons. Do you understand? Reasons that put his health or his life in danger.”

  But Charles was becoming increasingly guarded, and Michaud knew that for now he could go no further. He reached out his hand towards a porcelain candy dish, then leaned forward and offered it to the boy.

  “Would you like one? Raspberry-flavoured.”

  The speed with which Charles popped a candy into his mouth made one thing perfectly clear: the boy was starving. The notary laughed.

  “Have you had breakfast, Charles? You look like you could eat a horse!”

  “No, not really. I wanted to see you first.”

  “Well, what would you say to some toast, or a bowl of cereal? Come on, I can tell you’d like something but you’re too shy to ask for it. Nevermind, we’ll go into the kitchen.”

  Charles slid off his chair and followed the notary. They went through a door with a frosted pane on which a very self-satisfied-looking peacock was spreading its fan of feathers. They passed through a large room with burgundy walls, which Charles took in with a respectful gaze, then an even more impressive dining room, with its long walnut table surrounded by a solemn circle of chairs, and entered a kitchen lined with huge walnut cupboards, an even nicer and bigger room than Madame Fafard’s kitchen, which had been until then Charles’s ne plus ultra of kitchens. A corridor opened to the left down which he could make out a door that was slightly ajar.

  The notary pulled out a chair and Charles, feeling shy, sat down at a large table of blond wood.

  “So what do you feel like?” Michaud asked. “Toast? Cereal? Both? Maybe with a cup of hot chocolate?”

  “Who’s here?” asked a woman’s voice.

  “A young friend who has come to pay us a visit, Amélie. His name is Charles. He didn’t have time to have breakfast this morning, so I’m making him something.”

  “Bring him to me.”

  Michaud made a sign for Charles to follow him, and together they went through the half-opened door. At first all Charles saw was a heap of blankets and quilts on top of a huge bed, then a head appeared with black hair and a red nose; it raised itself up and peered at him intently for a second with large round eyes.

  “A nice-looking boy. Don’t come too close, for mercy’s sake, or you’ll catch my cold. And it’s a doozy, believe me. What did Parfait say your name was?”

  “Charles Thibodeau, Madame.”

  “And why are you here, Charles Thibodeau?”

  “He has come to consult me about a small problem,” the notary replied, “but for the moment he’s too hungry to concentrate, I believe, so we’re going to have breakfast together first.”

  “Bon appétit,” sighed the woman, then let out a sneeze that ended in a high, resonating wail like that of a muted trumpet.

  Charles ate five slices of toast spread with peanut butter or strawberry jam; he also downed all of two large cups of hot chocolate and a bowl of Rice Krispies generously sprinkled with brown sugar. While sipping his own cup of hot chocolate, the notary chatted with him about nothing in particular. From certain allusions dropped by Charles, Michaud understood that the boy was very much afraid of returning to his own home, that he would rather sleep on the street than go back to his father’s apartment. But he could not find out exactly what had taken place between the boy and his father; Michaud had the impression that the child was too ashamed to say. But it must have had something to do with the pile of banknotes Charles had brought with him.

  As for where he’d got the money in the first place, Charles was much more loquacious. He happily recounted the story of his misadventures selling chocolate bars, and the way in which he had taken his revenge, whi
ch in the notary’s considered opinion was not a question of robbery – at least not in the usual sense of the word.

  “Well, what’s your plan, Charles? Where will you sleep tonight if you don’t go back to your own house?”

  Charles replied that he would be all right at his neighbours’ house, a family called Fafard, which was like a second home to him. Except that that was where his father would certainly look for him. That was why he had thought of getting a divorce.

  “I could call Blonblon,” he said worriedly. “He’s one of my friends. Maybe his parents will put me up for a while. Does it take a long time to separate from your parents?”

  “Hmm … I’m not sure. I suppose in serious cases things can be moved along fairly quickly. But you still haven’t told me your exact reason for not wanting to go home, Charles. Nothing says you have to tell me, of course,” he added quickly, seeing the child’s face cloud over.

  Charles looked down at his empty cereal bowl for a moment as though he hoped something would leap up out of it. They heard Boff give a long, mournful howl from the porch.

  “I have to go,” he said, getting up off his chair. “My dog is tired of waiting. Can you tell me where the lawyer is who can help me?”

  “You won’t be able to see him today, unfortunately. It’s Sunday, you know. I think I mentioned that earlier.”

  He brought his hand up to his mouth and coughed two or three times.

  “Tell me, Charles … I don’t mean to interfere, and as I say you are under no obligation to answer me, but … how much money do you have on you?”

  A look of pride spread across the child’s face.

  “Three hundred and forty-eight dollars and twenty-five cents.”

  “That’s a lot of money for a nine-year-old to carry around.”

  “I’m almost ten,” Charles told him again.

  “Yes, of course, but even so … What would you say, Charles – you know you can have complete confidence in me, I can assure you – what would you say to letting me keep some of it for you in an envelope with your name on it? It’s not a good idea, you know, to go about the city with such a large sum …”

  Charles thought about it for a moment, then said: “I’d like that. It’s a good idea.”

  And while Boff broke into a long, lugubrious serenade that seemed to express all the accumulated sufferings of his life as a dog, Charles took the wad of bills from his pocket, extracted a twenty for walking-around money, and gave the rest to the notary with a wide smile.

  “Whose dog is it howling like a banshee out there?” Amélie called from her mound of quilts.

  “It belongs to our young friend,” replied the notary. “Don’t upset yourself, my dear, Charles is going out to him right away.”

  “At least let it into the vestibule. I find the noise terribly upsetting. You know very well a dog’s barking has always given me the shivers.”

  Charles hurried towards the front of the house, followed by the notary, and opened the door. Boff burst into the vestibule in an explosion of delirious joy.

  “Well,” Charles said when he’d got the dog to settle down, “so when can I see the lawyer?”

  “Tomorrow, probably. I’ll have to make some phone calls first. I don’t want to send you to just anyone. But before you go I want you to give me this Blonblon’s phone number – that’s his name, isn’t it? The home you’re going to? We may have to get hold of you between now and tomorrow. And while you’re at it you should probably give me the number of those neighbours of yours, the ones you like so much.”

  Charles gave him the numbers quickly. He felt as though each number were a life-line tossed between himself and this tall, thin man, who talked a bit strange but was also very kind, and who was going to rescue him from the huge emptiness he’d been drifting in since the previous night.

  Michaud watched from the vestibule as Charles disappeared down the street, Boff leaping wildly and licking the boy’s hands. His fingernail tapped on his front teeth with a low sound that rose into his skull and reminded him of his visits to the dentist. What was his responsibility in this affair? Should he call the police? A priest, perhaps? The Sisters of the Convent of Transubstantiation? But he had no precise facts to give them, other than that the boy had run away from home, refused to go back or provide any reason for his flight. On top of that, the whole business was complicated by the theft of a fairly large sum of money. There was clearly much food for thought here.

  Whistling the overture to Lohengrin, he went back into his office and began flipping through the telephone book, every now and then reaching his hand out to the candy dish.

  As he walked along the sidewalk, Charles chewed his lip thoughtfully. What was he going to do with Boff? He didn’t dare try taking him back to the Fafards for fear of running into his father. And to turn up at Blonblon’s with a dog and ask him to take them both in would surely be asking too much.

  Arriving at the corner of Ontario, he turned in the direction of home, walking more and more hesitantly, feeling more and more distraught. Suddenly he gave a shout of joy: Henri had just turned the corner of rue Poupart. He called his friend and waved his arms wildly.

  “What’re you doing out here?” Henri asked, trying to catch his breath. “You’re supposed to be sick. I was just at your house, and your father said you were in bed with the flu.”

  Charles told him about the fight he had had the previous night with his father, and his decision to spend the night outside. He evaded most of his astonished friend’s questions about the incident, and asked him to take Boff back to his yard, because he had decided to spend the next few days at Blonblon’s, until he had had time to make other arrangements.

  “Why don’t you come to our place?” asked Henri, a bit put out.

  “My father would find me there in two seconds!” Charles replied.

  Henri watched him walk off for a moment, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth, holding the poor, whining spaniel by its collar. Boff, too, stared after his master, devastated by this second desertion in less than an hour.

  Boff’s mournful cries were still in Charles’s ears when he turned the corner of rue Bercy and headed towards Frontenac Towers. He was in for a setback: there was no answer to his ring at Blonblon’s apartment. He left the building not knowing where else to go. He was beginning to feel the effects of his nocturnal escapades; his legs were weak, his eyelids drooped, and he dragged himself along the street looking in every direction for somewhere to sleep.

  At the Frontenac station he had an idea. He bought a few metro tickets, boarded the subway and found a seat in one of the corners. Within minutes he was dozing off, lulled by the rumbling of the wheels that enveloped him like a down-filled blanket; loudspeakers announced each stop, the subway doors slid open and closed, the movement of the car rocked him gently; passengers, respecting his look of exhaustion, the slight twitching of his lips, kept their distance. He felt and heard nothing, plunged as he was in the most blissful sleep, finally shielded from the most terrifying day of his entire life.

  Fifteen minutes later a young woman shook him gently by the shoulder and told him they’d pulled into the Atwater terminal. He got out, took the train going the other way, and thus began making the journey from one end of the line to the other, staggering from one stop to another like a sleepwalker, finding a seat in which he could fall asleep for another precious quarter of an hour. He was reassured by the sense of being in perpetual motion, and therefore in a continuous state of flight. His only concern was to gain enough time for his friend the notary (for he now counted Monsieur Michaud among his friends) to get him out of this predicament.

  The previous night’s scene filled him with shame, as though he had somehow been the cause of his father’s behaviour. In a sense, he was. Maybe he should have reported Guilbault instead of stealing his money? It didn’t matter anyway, though, because his father would have found fault with him no matter what he did, would always take the other’s side against him, the s
ide of that fat thief in his Sunday suit who lived like a millionaire on money belonging to poor children. Why couldn’t he have a decent father like other kids? What had he done to make his father so bad? Alice had never been like that. Alice had loved him, simple as that. When he had been with her, he had felt like a normal kid, no better and no worse than any other kid, and that had made him happy.

  But at the thought of his father a black and ugly feeling spread through him, which made him terribly afraid. He would never reveal to anyone, not even to the lawyer, what his father had tried to do to him that night. But what had his father wanted to do, really? Kill him? Him, Charles? It hardly seemed possible, and yet that was the word Sylvie had used after giving out that terrified scream: kill. And that was the word that continued to fill him with insupportable shame, as though he had been the one to put the paring knife in his father’s hand, and then pushed him beyond all endurable limits, until that ugly toad’s look had appeared on his father’s face.…

  He was having trouble sleeping now, his head was so full of disturbing thoughts flashing endlessly through his mind. He was also opening his eyes at every stop to make sure he didn’t find himself alone in a car that had been taken out of service, which would surely land him in another mess.

  Sometimes, however, sleep overcame him; his head would flop forward onto his chest, his arms would relax, and he would slip into a profound sleep. On one such occasion he suddenly felt a hand rubbing his knee. He opened his eyes and there, hovering above him, was the smiling face of Monsieur Saint-Amour. The car was nearly empty.

  “Leave me alone, you old pig!” Charles screamed at him as loudly as he could. And he pushed the man away with his foot.

  16

  Parfait Michaud sat looking about his office for several minutes, his fingers tapping on the telephone directory, then decided that the first thing he had to do was find out more about Charles. He called the Blondin number, then, receiving no response, dialed that of the Fafards.

  It was Fernand who answered, wearing slippers and a bath robe, a copy of La Presse tucked under his arm, still in a state of indignation over Trudeau’s remark about the Québécois “tribe,” and the “separatist dreamers” among them. A half-hour earlier Henri had told him about his encounter with Charles on rue Ontario. The carpenter’s lie about the boy’s illness had intrigued Fernand, as had Charles’s decision to ask the Blondins to put him up for the night. He, too, had tried unsuccessfully to connect the two puzzles, and was looking for an excuse to go over to the Thibodeaus’ to find out what was going on. The news he was now hearing from Michaud raised his anxiety to an even higher pitch. Charles’s visit to the notary’s office, the amount of money he’d been carrying around, and the terror the thought of going back to his father seemed to have inspired in him, all convinced Fernand of the seriousness of the situation. The two men agreed to meet in Michaud’s office. Fernand had used the notary’s services in the past, and knew him to be an eccentric and even slightly absurd character, but amiable and competent for all that.