By eleven o’clock in the morning, Fernand having informed him of the carpenter’s curious (to put it mildly) behaviour regarding his son, Michaud had put forward two or three highly pertinent moral observations, but the affair had advanced not a whit since no one knew where Charles was. Fernand decided to pay Thibodeau a visit, to beard the lion in his den, face to face, and to pluck the whiskers from his jowls one by one until he was willing to talk. The notary, for his part, undertook to call the Blondin number in thirty minutes, in the hope that Charles would eventually show up there.
Stepping out onto the street, Fernand noticed a purple Lincoln parked in front of the Thibodeau building; a man in a maroon hat was descending the staircase; he was pudgy, wore a number of flashy rings, and had a red face and a crooked mouth.
“If he thinks he’s going to put me off like that for long, he’s got another think coming,” the man muttered menacingly to himself as he passed Fernand without looking up, completely absorbed in his anger.
Fernand returned to his own house and took up a position behind a curtain in the living room, but there was no sign of life in his neighbour’s apartment.
Lucie, who had been brought up-to-date on the affair and was extremely worried, put on her overcoat, put Boff on a leash, and walked with him through the neighbourhood, in the hope of running into Charles. Michaud sat in his living room listening to his record-player, trying in vain to concentrate on a Schubert quartet. He turned the machine off, brought dinner in to his wife (who was surprised at being served so early), got into his car, and drove down rue Saint-Denis to the National Library. A dispiriting light spilled from the wells of the reading lamps and windows in the huge room with beige walls, where the readers bent over the long oak tables seemed to have come to escape all the passions of the world. The notary settled under the halo of a brass desklamp and read meticulously through the Laws concerning the protection of children, got up a few times to call the Blondin number again, still without getting a response, then left the library, hardly any wiser than when he had gone in. As he turned towards his car, he suddenly felt a craving for a good, strong espresso, and went into the Picasso, a café across the street from the library. He was served by a beautiful petite waitress, as lively and jolly a brunette as he could have wished, with legs that would make a saint’s mouth water. Since the café was almost empty he struck up a conversation with her and got the impression that she didn’t find him hard to look at either. Half an hour later he left with her telephone number scribbled on a corner of his napkin.
Charles quickly left the subway at the next station, then got on another one a few minutes later that took him to the Berri-de Montigny station. There, hoping to lose the hairdresser, he changed lines, going down from the eastwest train to get on the north-south. He was less familiar with this line and made his first trip keeping his eyes open, figuring out how long it took to make the complete run and memorizing the names of the stations at each end, so as to be sure to get off at the right times. The trip took a bit longer, allowing him to stretch out his naps; he stayed out of empty cars and always sat near another passenger so that he would have someone to turn to if he needed help. Gradually the fatigue that had overwhelmed him began to fade. His mind cleared, and his situation began to seem almost pleasurable; he had become the hero of a kind of detective story, except that in his case it was he who controlled the action rather than being the victim … at least most of the time.…
Around two o’clock in the afternoon he was awakened by hunger pangs. He got off at Berri-de Montigny and went into a restaurant in the station, where he ordered a bowl of chicken soup, fries and a hamburger, keeping an eye on everyone who entered; he had already tried phoning the Blondins at least six times and was beginning to worry that some unexpected tragedy had forced them to leave the city. At three, however, Blonblon’s happy and triumphant voice echoed in the receiver.
“Aha, you at last!” he said. “Get over here right away! We’ve been waiting for you. Where the heck are you?”
Charles hardly had time to reply when he heard a man’s voice on the line.
“Hello, Charles? I’m Michel’s father. Are you okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No problems?”
“None at all.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Good. Michaud, the notary, just called. Everything is arranged. Don’t worry about a thing. Do you want my wife to come to get you?”
“There’s no need, Monsieur Blondin. I’m in the metro, only three stops from your place. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
As he was leaving the Frontenac station, he saw Blonblon standing beside the exit. He ran towards Charles and hugged him.
“Hello! About time you showed up! Everyone’s worried sick about you. My folks almost called the cops!”
Charles pulled away quickly, pleasantly surprised at his friend’s unusual display of affection. Blonblon looked at Charles closely. “Were you really in danger, Thibodeau?”
Charles nodded but almost immediately regretted it; Blonblon’s curiosity increased.
“What happened? Tell me!” he said, grabbing Charles by the arm.
Charles’s embarrassment increased; he tightened his lips and frowned. Blonblon wasn’t interested in him, only in what had happened to him. He wouldn’t tell him a thing. To hell with nosy busy-bodies.
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me?”
Blonblon stopped and stood in Charles’s way. Charles almost told him to get lost, and almost said “Get your nose out of my business!” But Blonblon’s eyes were fixed on him, and they shone with such emotion, such warmth, and his face expressed such sympathy and friendship, without a trace of pity, that Charles suddenly felt a kind of melting take place inside him; he felt as though the immense and frigid emptiness inside him was receding, and tears welled up in his eyes and his voice, when he spoke, trembled and cracked.
“My father tried to kill me, Blonblon.”
His friend kept his eyes fixed on his own with the same smiling intensity. Then slowly a look of incredulity and horror spread across his face:
“Really?” he said softly. “No kidding?”
“With a paring knife,” Charles added despite himself. “He was going to stab me with it, but Sylvie screamed and he stopped. Then the bitch grabbed him and made him sit down. That’s when I got out of there, fast.”
He gave a nervous laugh, then took his friend by the arm and shook it as hard as he could with a fierce expression on his face.
“Never repeat what I said to anyone, Blonblon, do you understand?” he said through clenched teeth. “If you ever tell anyone, I’ll smash you one and it’ll be all over between us. Promise me! Promise!”
“I … I promise,” Blonblon said, speaking like an automaton.
“It’s my secret, Blonblon, and you’re the only one who knows it. Don’t forget what I said. Not even Henri knows, and he never will!”
They began walking and for several minutes neither of them spoke.
“This isn’t a joke, is it, Thibodeau?” Blonblon said in a changed voice. “You’re perfectly serious?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a serious thing,” he said, adding, as though to himself. “You must never see your father again.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to see him again. Ever. I just came from Michaud, the notary, to ask him to separate us.”
Blonblon nodded with a faint smile; that explained the call from the notary that had so intrigued him. An idea occurred to him with such sudden force that it stopped him in his tracks.
“You know, Charles, you really must go to the police! He’s a dangerous man! He might try to kill someone else.”
They were at the entrance to Blonblon’s apartment tower. A fat woman in a red scarf pushed open the glass door and came slowly towards them pulling a white chihuahua on a leash. The dog’s mouth was twisted and it had a large welt under its left eye; pulling against its chai
n, the animal ran up to Charles, smelled his shoe, and tried to climb up his leg.
“Down, Martin!” the lady scolded. “Where are your manners!”
She gave a great tug on the leash and pulled the animal away. Turning its head towards Charles, the chihuahua gave a short, sharp bark.
Charles waited until the woman was some distance away, then put his mouth to Blonblon’s ear: “Let me worry about the police, all right?” he whispered menacingly. “This is my business, not yours. I’m not going to the police and I don’t want anyone else going, either, understand? You think I want to grow up a prisoner’s kid?”
And clenching his teeth to keep from crying, he turned his back on Blonblon and walked with determination towards the building.
A problem was waiting at the Blondin apartment, however. Fernand had just arrived, and absolutely insisted on taking Charles home with him. The notary’s phone call, the arrival of Fernand, and the excitement generated by Charles’s disappearance had made him the centre of attention. Edith Blondin, a tall, thin woman with elegant yet casual features and a loud laugh, who barely listened to anything anyone said and rarely stopped fidgeting, insisted that Charles spend at least a few days with them. Sitting slightly hunched in his wheelchair, her husband, Marcel, questioned Charles in a serious, calm voice about the reasons for his flight, without succeeding in breaking through the boy’s reticence. In the end Charles became annoyed and joined Blonblon, who was in the kitchen filling a bowl with potato chips for the guests. The invalid signalled Fernand to come closer.
“What we need to know, Monsieur Fafard,” he said with the pensive expression of someone who is used to spending all day thinking hard, “is what actually happened. My son will know how to talk to him. They’re great friends, and Michel is very good with people. We’ll keep Charles with us for a night or two. He’ll sleep in Michel’s room. That’ll give them a chance to talk on their own. I’m sure the whole thing will come out.”
Fernand, who was beginning to think of himself more and more as Charles’s second – and would soon come to think of him as his only – father, was unable to suppress a small frown of displeasure. In his opinion, the boy would be safe nowhere but in the Fafard household. He turned to Charles, who had just reentered the room.
“So tell us, my boy, what have you decided? Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“Stay, Charles, do,” Edith said in a tone that was half serious and half playful. “I’m making a big batch of spaghetti tonight and Michel will go out and get us a cake at the bakery.”
Blonblon smiled at Charles and nodded his head, gently encouraging him to say yes. Charles, who always wanted to please everyone, turned from one to the other, greatly embarrassed by the superabundance of attention he was receiving. He knew Fernand’s bland look hid his true feelings, and it made Charles feel even more uncomfortable. A thought came to him. He reddened noticeably and took the hardware-store owner aside.
“Has my father been to your house?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Fernand said, sensing the fear that lay behind the question. “And if he does come, I won’t let him in. No need to worry on that score!”
Charles looked relieved. He went over to Madame Blondin and said in his most gracious manner:
“For today, Madame, I’ll go with Monsieur Fafard. Tomorrow, if you like, I could come back here.”
“We can’t force you to do anything, Charles,” she replied a little coolly. “You do what you like.”
Wilfrid Thibodeau was terrified by the outrage he had almost committed the night before. He shut himself off from the world, refused to answer the telephone or the door, and hadn’t spoken five words the entire day. Sylvie stayed in the bedroom, either asleep or pretending to be. Stretched out on the sofa, he watched television in a distracted haze and hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since waking up, which went a long way towards indicating the state he was in. He figured his son had gone to seek shelter at the Fafards, and for hours after the boy’s flight he had prepared himself resignedly for a call from the police. No such call came, however, and he no longer knew what to think. Life seemed to have drained out of him, as though he were a barrel that had lost its bottom. Should he wait it out? Run away? Stay put? Try to forget the horrible events of that night? These were the only solutions that went through his chaotic mind. When, a few hours earlier, he had seen Gino Guilbault’s Lincoln pull up in front of the building, it was the final straw. The crooked salesman was all he needed to finish him off.
He got up and took a shower. Then he ate some leftovers in the kitchen, succumbed to a single beer from the refrigerator – but just the one – and stood for a moment staring at the bedroom door, which remained obstinately closed.
He went back into the living room and had just managed to evince a modicum of interest in a game show when the doorbell rang repeatedly. There followed the sound of fists pounding on the door. He knew who it was: that bloody Guilbault again. How could he get rid of him? Would he have to move?
The pounding continued for a while, then there was an ominous silence. The squealing of tires told him that the salesman had taken his anger off somewhere else. Shortly after that the telephone rang again.
“Tomorrow I’m gonna have to get outta here early,” he said to himself. “The bastard’ll for sure be trying again.”
He fell asleep on the sofa and found himself in a boat in the middle of a lake. His father was in the boat with him, and night was falling. He could no longer see the shore. The old man was wearing his mechanic’s cap backwards, for some reason, and was lying on his back in the bow, his long, thin legs stretched out in a V. The boat was rocking; the dry sound of waves smacking the hull were becoming louder and more menacing. He looked about for the oars, but there weren’t any.
“Papa, where did you put the oars?”
The old man neither moved nor answered. Then he realized with horror that his father was dead; a thin dribble of blood ran from his mouth onto his threadbare jacket.
The closing of a door startled him awake. He must have been struggling in his sleep, because he was lying crosswise on the sofa, his feet on the floor. Early-morning light filled the room, making the objects in it look curiously dusty and indistinct. It must have been six o’clock; Sylvie had no doubt gone out to work. He would see her again at the end of the afternoon, and they would talk this whole thing out. Her silence worried him, but the important thing for now was to get the hell out of the apartment before that goddamn chocolate salesman showed up again.
Without bothering to wash or even change his clothes, he put on his coat and left. Passing Chez Robert he thought briefly of going inside for breakfast; he might get a chance to have a word with Sylvie, find out what kind of mood she was in. But he wisely kept going. Who knew? Guilbault himself might drop in to find out where he was.
He’d barely turned the corner when Sylvie left the restaurant and headed quickly back to the apartment. Half an hour later a taxi pulled up in front of 1970 rue Dufresne. What followed looked like a hasty evacuation. The driver, who’d been given a ten-dollar tip, moved as though his life depended on it. The taxi was soon loaded to the brim with piles of clothing, suitcases, and garbage bags stuffed with everything the waitress could carry with her; all she’d left behind were an ironing board, a chest of drawers, and an old, dilapidated sofa chair. In exchange she took a toaster, the electric kettle, and the small television set, which was practically brand new.
By seven-thirty she was gone and Rosalie, fit to be tied, was on the phone looking for a new waitress.
Wilfrid returned just after five, having carefully inspected the street for the presence of his creditor. Sylvie was gone without a word of explanation. He wandered from one overturned room to another, shattered, furious with himself for having been the cause of her unhappiness, then took himself down to Chez Robert. He was received coolly; no one knew where Sylvie had gone to hide. He sought refuge in the Amis du Sport and didn’t get home until well after mi
dnight, bent over like a badly driven nail and drunk as a skunk that had fallen into a vat of beer. He spent another night on the sofa in the living room; the sight of the big, empty bed was too painful to contemplate. During the entire day the idea of finding out where Charles had gone had not occurred to him once.
The next morning, Blonblon woke with a pressing problem on his mind, one that needed to be resolved as quickly as possible. Hunched over his bowl of cereal, he reflected on it with all the intensity a nine-year-old could muster, his face contorted from time to time with unusual frowns. They finally attracted the attention of his father, who was sitting across from him with a cup of coffee.
“Something bothering you, son?”
Since his father had become sick four years ago, Blonblon had a ready answer for such a question.
“No, nothing’s bothering me, Papa.”
Blonblon protected his father. He had decided that multiple sclerosis was more than enough for one man to have to deal with, and that it was his job to shield him from everything else.
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