Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  “Come back any time, my boy,” he said. “But try the house next time!”

  There was a small welcoming party waiting for Charles at the camp. They raised a shout of joy, a few of them clapped their hands. His little adventure and the business with the cognac had made him a hero. Everyone wanted to speak to him at once. Heads were thrust through the car windows. He smiled, a bit taken aback, replied to a few questions, but refused to get out of the car. Standing a few feet back, Little Foot, gesticulating more than ever, declared to a monitor that having grand principles was one thing, but they weren’t worth a pinch of raccoon shit if you didn’t have the judgment to know when and where to apply them.

  Brother Albert rang the breakfast bell and everyone hurried off to the dining hall. A few minutes later a boy came out carrying a small cardboard box, a gift from the cook, which he handed through the car window to Charles. But the young fugitive, exhausted by his night on the run, fell asleep in the back seat without even opening it.

  Meanwhile, Fernand was waiting for the chaplain in the director’s office. He sighed loudly in his chair, his obstinacy and anger having returned full force, much to the chagrin of Brother Marcel, who tried to calm him down by singing Father Beaucage’s praises – his dynamism, his devotion to duty, his unalterable cheerfulness, the enormous efforts he’d made to adapt the teachings of the Church to the mentality of modern-day youth. All to no avail. It was like trying to put out a forest fire with an eye-dropper. In the end he resorted to commiserating on the frailty of human nature, appealing to Fernand’s generosity and his great experience of life.

  “Anyone can make a mistake … Put yourself in his place … It’s not easy … I’m certain he was acting in good faith …”

  “Oh, you think so, eh? You really think he was acting in good faith?”

  And stretching out his hand to the biscuits, he began devouring them one after another, his face still twisted in anger.

  Just before ten, the phone rang. It was Father Beaucage, wanting to know about the search for Charles. Brother Marcel told him that the boy had been found, that he was safe and sound, and that his father had come to collect him; he did not add that the father was sitting right there in his office, waiting for him.

  Fernand smiled; he now realized that the camp director was on his side, even though he would never admit it. Brother Albert, who had an ever-ready ear and whose kitchen adjoined the director’s office, would be able to testify to the chaplain that Brother Marcel had done everything in his power to avoid a confrontation.

  “He’ll be here in three-quarters of an hour,” Brother Marcel said when he had hung up.

  “Thank you very much for your understanding.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what your talking about. I have done everything in my power to dissuade you. From now on, it’s out of my hands.”

  But the sly curve of his lips told Fernand that, on the contrary, the monk was still taking a great interest in what was about to unfold.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m afraid,” continued Brother Marcel, getting to his feet. “I have to see to poor Father Beaucage’s mattress; if it isn’t replaced he’ll have to sleep in town again tonight.”

  Left alone, Fernand eyed the biscuit plate for a while. There remained only a few crumbs. Then his eye wandered up to a large, pastel print pinned to the office wall, on which Christ appeared to have recently undergone open-heart surgery. He stood up, paced back and forth for a while, then went out to the car to see how Charles was doing: the boy was sleeping soundly in the back seat, the box on his chest. Fernand returned to the office, sat down in his chair, and also went to sleep.

  The sound of the door opening woke him. Father Beaucage was standing in the doorway, looking at him curiously.

  “HA!” Fernand thundered, rising. “YOU AT LAST!”

  Meanwhile, Henri had gone out to the car to join Charles. Charles was awake, and the two boys decided to take a last look at the lake. The beach was deserted, the sand dry and deliciously warm. They took off their shoes and socks and sat in the sun. A few feet away, two wasps were zigzagging around a soft-drink can that had been left by a rock, attracted by the sugar but not daring to enter the opening.

  Charles told Henri about his adventure. He had felt nothing but pleasure as he anointed Father Beaucage’s bed and the sofa: the priest was “an alcoholic, like my father,” he declared in a tone that brooked no appeal. His flight through the rainstorm had been somewhat less pleasant. The cold that had got into him when he had had to lie down in the ditch made his teeth chatter for the rest of the night. But the worst had been the apparition of a huge, black beast (he never knew exactly what it was) that had charged at him from a stand of trees when he’d sat down on a rock to rest. Whatever it was that had come at him, it had sounded like a huge board being smashed in two. He’d jumped to his feet in terror and taken off as fast as though his legs had suddenly become two metres long. Never before had he run so fast!

  After running a kilometre or more he’d come to the top of the steep hill that Fernand’s car had had so much trouble climbing. He’d felt like he was standing at the edge of a huge gulf that went right down to the centre of the earth. In his terror, still believing the beast to be at his heels, he’d started running down the slope, caught his foot on something, and begun rolling in the mud so fast that he almost lost consciousness. He had no idea what was happening to him. Then his fall ended when he rolled into something soft and wet. He got up, shaken but unharmed except for a pain in his neck and a scraped elbow, and was relieved to find that the beast had abandoned the chase. He could make out the shape of a barn rising on the other side of the road. Through its partly open door he saw some kind of farm machine and, at the back, a big pile of straw. He was so caked with mud from his tumble that he decided, despite the shivers that still wracked his body, to wash himself off under the stream of water that ran off the barn’s roof. Then he hung his clothes on the tines of the machine and nestled into the straw. At first the straw made his entire body itch, and he worried about mice, but eventually a sweet warmth crept over him and he slept like a cat in the sun until the farmer – a very nice man, as it turned out – woke him up with a start in the early morning.

  Charles told his story, augmenting it with a few embellishments that brought out his nerve, his determination, and his resourcefulness, and Henri listened through to the end, from time to time nodding his head in admiration.

  When he finished, they sat in silence, contemplating the lake which was covered in places with sheets of flame from the sun, and which lapped at their feet with a friendly, submissive sound. One of the wasps had become impatient and flown into the can and was now trying desperately to find its way out, throwing itself against the aluminum top like a crazed battering ram and making a noise like an electric razor.

  Henri turned to his friend and asked a question. He didn’t take a moment to filter his thoughts, and the question leapt from his eyes as much as from his lips, which were bent in a slightly mocking smile.

  “Are you still upset?”

  Charles stared at him for a second. His face turned pale; he took a short breath that seemed to stick in his windpipe, then suddenly he drove a hard punch into Henri’s stomach.

  “And you are?” asked Father Beaucage with a slight tightening of his features. He stepped two paces forward.

  “I am Charles’s father,” replied Fernand, to simplify matters.

  “Ah, good … very happy to meet you, sir. Because I wanted to bring you up to date on … certain things … regarding your son. I’ve been concerned about him for some time, now. In fact, not to put too fine a point to it, he exerts an unhealthy influence over his companions.”

  “Don’t give me that! I know what’s been going on here! I’ve been told the whole story! And, if you’ll pardon my saying so, it’s my opinion that so far as this matter is concerned you have behaved like a crow with his ass stuck in the molasses.”

  “Which is to say?”<
br />
  “Which is to say! Oh, so you’re going to throw a ‘Which is to say’ at me, are you? Do you think you impress me with your high-falutin’ words? Do you? Well, I assure you, sir, you impress me about as much as a fly! Which is to say,” he repeated, to give his confidence a boost, the priest’s cold demeanour having begun to have its effect, “not at all! Good gracious, man! What were you thinking? It’s as if you leave all your brains on the pillow when you get up in the morning. You set everyone against one poor child because he made a joke about wieners? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life! Nor so despicable! I’m just speaking my mind,” he thought he had better add, so as to give himself time to calm down.

  Father Beaucage had closed the door behind him and, leaning against the edge of his desk with his arms crossed, was listening to Fernand with a faint smile of superiority on his face. Which only served to inflame Fernand’s anger even further.

  “You are treating the boy’s behaviour rather lightly, my dear sir,” he finally murmured.

  “I’m treating it the way it deserves to be treated. A little boy tells a naughty joke! So what! You’d have to have a twisted mind yourself if something like that’s enough to get you so worked up!”

  “I’ve quite a few years of ministering behind me, my friend. Easily enough to allow me to say that evil can sometimes come disguised as innocence in young souls. It’s my duty to protect them.”

  “Let’s be frank here,” Fernand exclaimed. “I’m a simple man. So what are you saying? That my boy is a pervert? Is that it? Rotten to the core, as you so nicely put it?”

  “I never said that.”

  And a small spasm ran across the priest’s left jawbone.

  “Well then, it must have been someone who looks like you. Anyway, forget that. There are more important issues here. Like this one: which one of us knows this child better. And that’s me, not you.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “And I know that he is not a pervert!”

  “Who said he was?”

  “According to you he exerts a bad influence on his companions. It’s the same thing. You think I don’t understand what you’re saying? Those fine words of yours mean something!”

  Fernand’s face turned an even darker shade of purple. The priest looked down and heaved a deep sigh, either of boredom or commiseration, it was difficult to tell.

  “You know, my dear sir, sometimes we think we know a person very well – and we really only know part of him. Habit dulls the senses. We fail to see what we look at every day.”

  “What’s that, some kind of religious mumbo-jumbo? Is that the sort of twisted thinking they teach you in the seminary?”

  “No. It’s simply the fruit of my observations.”

  “Well, fine. Keep your rotten fruit to yourself! I don’t want any of it! Gives me the trots. You don’t know the first thing about that boy, not the first thing! When you talk about him, you’re talking in a void, and it sounds hollow! You don’t know, for example, that he’s not my son!”

  “Oh?” said the priest, suddenly showing interest.

  “No, sir, he is not! My wife and I took him in because his own father nearly killed him. There, that sets you back a bit, doesn’t it? There’s something you didn’t learn in that seminary of yours, what can I say. And we have never regretted our decision for a second. Not that it’s always been easy – have you ever met a kid who was always easy? – but when you look at the big picture” – and here Fernand stretched his huge arms out to each side – “he’s been very, very good. He’s intelligent, obedient, affectionate, and a good worker. Could you say as much for yourself?”

  The chaplain said nothing to this, but contented himself with closing his eyes before such an affront.

  “So much so,” Fernand continued, carried away by his enthusiasm, “that I intend to adopt him!”

  “That speaks to your credit, sir.”

  “Thank you very much!” he sputtered. “But I must set you straight about a few things before you bury me with your ministering and your good intentions. Have you seen what state the boy is in? I’d be ashamed if I were you! The things I’ve been hearing! I hear you discouraged him from reading … now there’s genius for you! Education, my dear chaplain, is the key to the future, it’s the goal of society, the gateway to progress … In fact, you might say education is everything these days! Very soon a man won’t be able to get into an elevator or order a bag of nails without an education. You’ve probably got more education than me, my wife and all my neighbours put together, so why do I have to remind you of how important education is!”

  He had to stop to catch his breath. The shuffle of a heavy foot in the next room indicated that Brother Albert had not missed a word of this relentless diatribe.

  “Is there anything else you wish to say to me?” Father Beaucage asked coolly, looking at his watch.

  “Oh, I could go on for a while yet, but I’ve got to get to work. Thanks to you I’ve already lost half a day.”

  Relieved to have been given this out, Fernand turned towards the door. But Father Beaucage caught his sleeve.

  “Just a moment, if you please. I’ve let you have your say, now you’re going to give me thirty seconds to have mine. Your son – since that is what you choose to call him – has no shortage of ability, no one’s disputing that. But it is my duty to warn you that he is following a dangerous path. Don’t forget, he’s almost an adolescent! You haven’t seen anything yet! Everything gets complicated, amplified. If you truly love the boy, you must protect him from himself – or rather from the forces of Evil that have already begun to act on him as they act on each one of us, and feed on us, if I may put it that way, for their own purposes. And if I may be permitted one last comment: without the help of God – and His representatives here on Earth, imperfect though they be – you will fail in your task, because Evil is much stronger than the strength of one man.”

  Fernand took a step towards the priest, his face exhibiting a curious blend of fury and supplication.

  “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of it, do you hear me? You’re going to make my head explode! I’ll put my fist down your gullet! And most of all, most of all, stay away from children! You’ll never understand a thing about them! Go work with old people! All the damage you could do to them has already been done. When I think of what you … my son rotten to the core! It’s all I can do to keep from smashing your face in, you … you pisser of holy water!”

  His massive hand with its large, hairy knuckles, white from being contracted into a fist, wavered a few centimetres from the chaplain’s face, shaking only slightly, as though its quivering strength had been diverted at the last second into a hasty detente.

  Father Beaucage hadn’t moved a hair. Only a tiny hardening of his jaw muscles hinted at his fear.

  “Calm yourself, sir,” he said deliberately. “And leave this place. Before I lodge a complaint with the police.”

  Fernand stared him full in the face, looking almost dazed, then grabbed the corner of the desk, lifted it into the air, and let it drop noisily back to the floor. A cacophony of pots answered from the kitchen. But Fernand hardly heard the noise; he was already on his way back to the car.

  26

  The first to react to Charles’s footsteps coming up the sidewalk was Boff. The dog dashed into the hallway, barking and squirming and charging against the door so hard he made the windows rattle. Lucie hurried from the kitchen, where she’d been cooking her first meal since coming out of the hospital, but had to stop in her tracks, her hand on the doorframe and her legs suddenly turned to rubber. Charles burst through the front door, dropped his travel bag in the vestibule, and began shouting with happy protest at the assault of his dog who, paws on the boy’s shoulders, was licking his face in a fine frenzy. Henri tried to intervene but was submitted to the same treatment. Then came a shout from Fernand. He stamped his foot on the floor and silence reigned.

  Charles walked hesitantly up to Lu
cie. He saw how thin she was, her washed-out pallor, the frailty that emanated from her entire body, even in the way she looked at him.

  “Are you feeling any better, Lucie?” he asked.

  “Much better, my boy. The worst is over.” She stroked his hair as he pressed himself against her.

  Henri pushed Charles aside and hugged his mother, asking her to tell them about her stay in the hospital.

  “All in good time, my dear. I have to see to supper first. My potatoes are probably sticking to the bottom of the pan by now.”

  “You’re going to go sit quietly in the rocking chair,” Fernand ordered, “while the boys set the table and I finish making dinner.”

  She smiled at him and picked up the morning newspaper, which had been lying on the kitchen table.

  “Are you happy?” she said, holding it up to Fernand. “It’s done. They just passed Bill 101. Come September, all immigrant children will have to go to French schools, just like us. And businesses have five years to change their signs from English to French.”

  “Well, well, that calls for a celebration! Henri, off to the bakery with you and get us a Boston Cream Pie, a big one!”

  Boff made another assault on Charles and succeeded in knocking him to the floor. The boy ruffled the hair behind his dog’s neck, murmuring into its ear and then looking into its eyes, then ran his hand down its back from its head to the end of its tail, overjoyed at being reunited with his old friend, the sole witness to his earlier trials and tribulations. The dog drooled in ecstasy. But Fernand’s increasingly loud sighs finally had their effect, and the dog slunk off to the back porch.

  The smell of turkey scallopini simmering in mushroom sauce assailed his nostrils; lying with his muzzle resting on his paws he stared at the bottom of the back door, grinding his teeth. But he knew that any attempt on the food would lead to a dead-end, and probably gain him a few cuffs into the bargain.