Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  FIRST CAMPER

  He’s asleep! Hurry! Get in! We’ll go through the fridge.

  SECOND CAMPER

  You grab the roadkill steaks. I’ll get the jam.

  FIRST CAMPER

  Hey, you think I’m crazy?

  SECOND CAMPER

  (Points to the cook.) Shh! You’ll wake him up.

  (They tiptoe to the invisible fridge and open the door.)

  FIRST CAMPER

  Wow! Wieners!

  SECOND CAMPER

  Nothing I like better than a good wiener.

  (Tittering in the hall.)

  FIRST CAMPER

  Come on, we’ll eat them outside. (Points to the cook, who is still snoring.)

  He could wake up any minute.

  SECOND CAMPER

  Good idea. Let’s go down to the lake. No one will see us there.

  (Much amusement in the audience. Brother Marcel’s eyes widen in puzzlement; Brother Martin smiles; Brother Albert brings his hand to his mouth; Father Beaucage looks stern; the two monitors exchange surprised looks.)

  FIRST CAMPER

  Let’s go.

  (A stagehand pours water from one bucket into another, imitating the sound of waves; the soundman, hidden by the curtain, howls like a coyote.)

  SECOND CAMPER

  Yum, yum. These are good wieners.

  FIRST CAMPER

  I’ll say.

  SECOND CAMPER

  Hey, your wiener is bigger than mine.

  FIRST CAMPER

  Yeah, but yours is cuter …

  (Guffaws from the audience, although the jury members react in various ways. Stimulated by their success, the actors risk a few suggestive gestures, to the increased enjoyment of the audience. Meanwhile, Charles, who had saved the role of Camp Chaplain for himself and was anxious to take his turn under the lights, pulls on an immense black overcoat that trails down to the floor and appears at the far end of the stage, a prayerbook in his hand.)

  CHAPLAIN

  My, what a lovely evening … The Good Lord is good indeed to send us such good weather. I think I’ll take a good stroll … (He walks about the stage taking deep breaths. Suddenly he stops, puzzled.) What’s that strange sound I hear? I’ve never heard sounds like that before. I’d better go take a look.

  (He turns towards the lake, lifting his feet as though walking through burning embers. Thrusting his head forward, he spies the two campers.) (In a deep, wrathful voice.) What are you doing with those wieners?

  (Huge laughter.)

  (Paralyzed with fear, the campers say nothing.)

  FIRST CAMPER

  (Terrified) We’re just … playing with them.

  CHAPLAIN

  And who gave them to you?

  SECOND CAMPER

  (Whining) No one … we stole them.

  FIRST CAMPER

  We like playing with our wieners. It feels good.

  (Silence falls in the hall. Father Beaucage jumps up as though stuck in the behind by a pin and sweeps out of the room. Charles is too caught up in his role to notice.)

  CHAPLAIN

  So help me God, I’ll teach you two a lesson. Go from this camp. I never want to see you here again! You can steal wieners in the city. But remember one thing: one day your wieners will fry in Hell, you pigs!

  The actors remained at centre stage for a moment, bowing self-consciously, amazed and a bit daunted by the audience’s reaction – the spectators had recovered from their shock and were shouting, whistling, hooting, stamping their feet, and banging on their chairs. Radiant and triumphant, the team returned to their seats, enthusiastically slapped on the back as they passed the other campers.

  Brother Marcel had hastened to join the chaplain outside. The two men came back in just before the start of the fourth sketch. Father Beaucage had recovered his composure and sat down, a tight smile on his lips and his eyes darting furious looks about the room like poisoned arrows; one of them lodged in Charles’s cheek without his knowing it.

  In fact, Charles was oblivious to nearly everything. He would have been embarrassed if anyone had asked him what the fourth sketch was about. He watched it without seeing it, still exhilarated by his success, his lips already smacking at the thought of Brother Albert’s dinner of desserts that surely awaited him and the other members of his troupe; he could imagine sitting at the table, stuffing himself while acknowledging the congratulations of the entire camp. He knew he was the one responsible for the triumph, but good diplomat that he was, he was prepared to share the limelight with his co-actors, Jean-Louis and William, whose talent was nearly equal to his own.

  The final sketch ended in a burst of warfare so intense that the sheets forming the stage’s wings fell off their rods. While the actors struggled to extract themselves, the jury members retired to the back of the hall to make their deliberations.

  After a few minutes, the audience began to be impatient. Henri came over to sit next to Charles.

  “They can’t agree on a winner,” he whispered into Charles’s ear. “But you’ll win for sure. That bit with the wieners, man, I nearly bust a gut. Nadeau was sitting behind me, and he almost fell off his chair he was laughing so hard. Save me a piece of cake, okay?”

  “Your sketch was pretty good, too,” Charles replied, although in truth he’d found it fairly humdrum. He turned to watch the back of the room, where the jury was still talking in low voices.

  Charles and his team did not win the prize. It was Henri’s team that was crowned. But the festival was to continue the next day, and the Grand Prize would be awarded the day after that, so as to give Brother Albert time to prepare his dinner of desserts.

  Charles walked back to the dining hall for evening snack with the other members of his team, feeling like a dog with a broken leg. The others were muttering to each other. Other campers came up to them to offer their condolences, saying that if it had gone to a general vote Charles’s sketch would have won hands down.

  “We’ve still got tomorrow, eh, Charles?” said Patrick Ricard, putting on a brave front. “We’ll win the next one for sure.”

  Henri promised his friend he’d save him three portions of dessert if his team won the Grand Prize. Charles couldn’t even manage a smile. He was sitting alone in his corner, nibbling on a cookie and looking downcast, when Father Beaucage appeared before him, flushed, fresh and smiling, and handed him a glass of apple juice. Charles turned his head.

  “Uh-oh! In a bad mood, are we, my little altar boy? Sore loser?”

  The child turned bright red and said nothing.

  “Your sketch showed a certain amount of imagination,” said the priest, suddenly serious, “but you and I should have a little talk. There are certain things we have to get straightened out. Tomorrow morning after breakfast all right with you?”

  “I have nothing to say,” Charles murmured.

  The priest laughed aloud.

  “No matter, I have a lot to say to you, as you can well imagine! See you tomorrow.”

  Charles left the dining hall and crossed the rain-sodden field to the bunkhouse, where Henri found him fifteen minutes later.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m reading.”

  Henri leaned against a wall and watched his friend stare at a book with somewhat suspect intensity. He sighed two or three times, changed position against the wall, and scratched his neck.

  “What are you reading?” he finally asked.

  “None of your business.”

  Henri leapt forward and grabbed the book from Charles’s hands. “Okay,” he said, “but you don’t have to be mad at me. It wasn’t my fault you didn’t win! I promised to give you three desserts, what else do you want me to do?”

  Charles sat on his bed with his arms crossed, staring at the tips of his shoes. He heard the rain pattering on the bunkhouse roof. He felt something break inside, and something else rise to take its place, something sad and familiar; he thought the feel
ing had gone for good, but no, there it was again, tagging along beside him with cruel fidelity. Seeing how unhappy his friend was, Henri felt his own anger subside. He sat down beside Charles and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s because of the wiener story, Charles. Everyone in camp knows that’s what it was. The priest was fit to be tied. He’s the one who made sure you didn’t win. If you ask me, I don’t think he’s all that fond of you.”

  Charles looked up. “You think I don’t know that?” he said.

  And to hide his tears from Henri, he shrugged Henri’s hand away, got up, and, opening the lid of the trunk at the foot of his bed, began rummaging through his clothes.

  Although not particularly religious, Charles had taken communion almost every morning since his arrival at Camp Jeunenjoie. Partly because it was part of the routine, partly to blend in with the others – and partly out of hunger, because every morning when he woke up he was ravenous, and the small, delicate-tasting flake of white biscuit that melted so agreeably in his mouth was like an hors-d’oeuvre to the hearty breakfast he knew would follow the mass. But this morning he remained in his pew in the chapel, casting disapproving glances at the members of his team who dutifully waddled up to the Holy Table and opened their beaks like little nestlings for the chaplain, who in his black soutaine looked for all the world like an old crow. All during mass he stared furiously at the priest, promising himself he would not show up for their little talk.

  As soon as breakfast was over he gathered his team together, determined to get his revenge, and hurried them into the community hall to get down to work. Two surprises awaited them: Jean-Guy, their supervisor, had been replaced by Michel-Noël, one of the “old” monitors – he was eighteen – who had been working at Camp Jeunenjoie for three summers. Their new supervisor immediately announced that, “in order to give everyone an equal chance,” they would be rotating responsibilities within the team; from scriptwriter/director, Charles was moved to sound man. It quickly became apparent that the new director would be none other than Michel-Noël himself.

  This Michel-Noël was not popular among the campers; tall, dry, and blond, with black glasses, he was about as much fun as a funeral notice. He always managed to sit beside Father Beaucage at mealtimes, gazing adoringly up at the priest with his magnified cow’s eyes, drinking in his attention, nodding in agreement at everything he said, laughing first and loudest at his idiotic jokes and constantly on the lookout to pass him the salt or the pepper or the butter. The campers called him the Beadle.

  When he was told of his demotion, Charles turned pale, but out of pride said nothing. For fifteen minutes the meeting dragged on, dull and boring as dishwater, with the Beadle vainly trying to instill a bit of life into the group. Then Father Beaucage appeared at the door and signalled to Charles to join him.

  “Our meeting this morning?” he said to Charles, smiling broadly.

  “I forgot,” Charles lied, blushing.

  “I’m going to borrow him for a few minutes,” the priest called to his disciple.

  He gave a small laugh, took Charles by the arm, and marched him out of the building.

  Their progress to the priest’s lodging was interrupted several times. On each occasion the priest stopped, asked a question, said something he thought was funny, gave a pat on a shoulder, always with that air of false and over-familiar cordiality that reeked of condescension, an air that Charles, for reasons he couldn’t explain, detested with every fibre of his being.

  The priest opened the door and stepped back. “After you, my little altarboy,” he said.

  He directed Charles to a divan near the back of the room. The priest’s eye fell on the partly opened door of a side cupboard, behind which glinted a row of bottles, and he hastily stepped over and closed it. Charles had also seen them.

  “Well, my little altar-boy,” the priest said, sitting down in an easy chair across from the child, “are you having a good time here at our camp?”

  Charles’s face darkened; his lips tightened and he stared down at the floor.

  “I don’t like you calling me your little altar-boy,” he said quietly, after a moment.

  “Whyever not?” Father Beaucage laughed. “It’s not just a joke! Things like that are part of camp life. But okay, no problem, you don’t like it, fine. I’ll stop. No more nicknames. I’ll even ask you to forgive me. Happy now?”

  Charles nodded.

  “You see, my lad, how important it is that we have these little talks, you and I? Something I was doing was bothering you. If we weren’t having our little talk this morning I never would have known about it, and I wouldn’t have been able to rectify it. Now there’s something I, too, would like to mention.”

  Charles’s attention was drawn to a small table behind the priest. On it lay a large book bound in black leather. Sticking out from between its pages was a red bookmark, like a blood stain.

  “Are you listening to me, Charles?” asked the priest with a tinge of impatience.

  Charles nodded again. His heart was beating so wildly he felt as though someone were pounding under his chin with tiny fists. He could barely swallow. Never again would he set foot in this room. Never again would he talk to this man. He lowered his head and stared down at his forearms; he imagined them growing bigger and bigger, and sprouting huge, black feathers. He had turned into one of the crows that sat at the top of the pine trees all day, cawing loudly. Spreading his wings, he flew through the priest’s window and high up into the sky, way above the camp whose buildings now looked like tiny matchboxes. He glided, then beat his wings and climbed higher, away from everything, where nothing at all could ever reach him.

  “I’m told that it was your idea to mount that little sketch your team put on last night,” said the priest. “Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  The priest’s lips tightened. He was no longer smiling. His glowing, pink skin, his shining blond hair so carefully combed, his cold, blue eyes, even his earlobes, had taken on an extraordinarily hard and impenetrable look, as though all the life had drained out of him and left nothing but its glistening shell behind.

  “Well, I didn’t like your sketch, Charles. I didn’t like it one bit. Do you know why?”

  Charles shook his head.

  “Oh, yes you do. You are far too intelligent not to know why I didn’t like it.”

  “Because of the wieners?” Charles ventured, fighting off the beginnings of a smile.

  “Exactly that. Because of the wieners. And what, exactly, was it about the wieners I didn’t like?”

  “It was just to make people laugh.”

  “That’s right, to make people laugh. To make people laugh at sin, Charles. Because you and I, we know very well what those wieners were meant to represent, don’t we? You knew from the very start, and you left no one in any doubt about it, neither the other members of your team nor anyone else in the audience. And so you see, Charles, with your little sketch, you were making people laugh at sin, and not just any sin, but the most serious sin of all, the sin of impurity, which enters into us like a worm and ends up rotting our bodies and our souls. Your sketch was an occasion for sin, first for yourself, then for the others in your team, and then for all the other campers. Do you appreciate the seriousness of your act, Charles?”

  Charles remained silent, not knowing how to reply. He hated to admit his guilt because he was not sorry for what he had done. At the same time, a disquieting feeling was building up inside him at the thought that he had done something reprehensible. But what seemed most obvious to him was that the man sitting in front of him, despite his paternalistic and protective airs, did not like him and knew that the feeling between them was mutual. He therefore decided to play his cards carefully.

  “I never thought about any of what you’re talking about,” he said. “We were just having fun.”

  The priest gave a tight smile, one that expressed such haughty, disdainful disapproval that Charles became frightened and lowered his ga
ze.

  “You’re still young, Charles. You probably don’t know yet what terrible power sin has, even though it is at this moment acting inside you – as it acts inside all of us. But I’ve been watching you for some time now, observing your attitudes, your behaviour, because I saw right away that you are a special child, interesting, a strange boy, in a way. And I have come to the conclusion that you are not as innocent as you would have people believe. You didn’t take communion this morning, did you?”

  “No,” replied Charles, his cheeks burning.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t feel like it,” he said, averting his eyes.

  The priest leaned over and stared deeply into Charles’s eyes, and with an oily, velvety voice full of sickly sweet insinuations that gave Charles the impression that a warm, thick viscid liquid was running over his body, spreading in putrid streams.

  “Wasn’t it more likely that you didn’t take communion because you knew you were not in the proper state for it? Because you were afraid of committing sacrilege?”

  At the word sacrilege, of whose meaning Charles was only dimly aware, Charles shuddered. “No! It wasn’t because of that,” he blubbered. “It’s because … because I was in a bad mood.”

  “A bad mood?” said the priest, surprised. “About what?”

  Charles’s face hardened; he wanted to get out of this, but he couldn’t back the words.

  “About you!” He swallowed, then continued. “Because it was you who wouldn’t give us the prize last night.”

  The priest laughed loudly, but not with real laughter; it was unpleasant to hear.

  “Is that so? Well, I must say, you don’t mince words, do you. What are you going to be like when you’re old enough to grow a moustache!”

  Charles wanted to reply that he would never grow a moustache because he didn’t like them, but he kept that thought to himself. He felt he had already reached the limit of his freedom of speech, and that for the time being it would be better to listen.