Charles the Bold

by Yves Beauchemin

  Nothing was heard from Thibodeau for several weeks. Then one afternoon, while Fernand was busy arranging for the very lucrative sale of twenty-seven brass doorknobs and locks, the carpenter phoned the store. After a long preamble involving a detailed comparison of the weather in James Bay and Montreal, Thibodeau finally declared that their letter “gave me quite a shock, there, eh?” considering that Charles was “my only kid,” but that what they suggested “could turn out to be good for the boy in the long run,” and he had “given their proposal a lot of thought.” In any case, he said, he was planning to move back to Montreal in a year or two, maybe sooner, and maybe they could discuss the matter then, “face to face like”; in the meantime, he thanked Fernand and Lucie for taking such good care of his son, and assured them that he “wouldn’t forget their kindness.”

  “I didn’t like his tone,” grumbled Fernand that night when he told Lucie about their conversation. “I’ve never heard him speak like that before. It’s like he’s gone into one of those religious sects that suck out your brains as well as your wallet. Or maybe he’s just a hypocrite. He’s trying to sell his son for as much as he can get out of us.”

  “Or worse, Fernand: he’s thinking of taking the boy back.”

  “I’d like to see him try! It’ll be over my dead body, and I’ll have the law on my side, too!”

  Purged of all rancour by his two acts of vengeance over the summer, and covered in glory by news of Monsieur Saint-Amour’s flight – which caused a sensation in the neighbourhood and explained to many people the old man’s queer behaviour – Charles knew nothing of the negotiations between his adoptive parents and his father. He was happy just growing up and leading the life of a young boy, eating enough for four, devouring books by the dozen, throwing himself into the Machiavellian intrigues of the schoolyard, where his reputation as a tough devil-may-care was supplanting that of Henri, and getting the best marks of his entire school career. With a few other friends he founded a newspaper, The Five B (his homeroom number), of which he was the publisher, editor, and proofreader. With ideas as original as its typography, the bi-monthly publication garnered praise from the parish priest as well as from the head of the local school board. Charles didn’t let his success go to his head, however, and always reacted to such elegies with a calm modesty, saying he and his team still had a long way to go before they could take on the city’s two major newspapers, La Presse and Le Devoir.

  In a shrewd editorial about the fighting that often went on at school, he wrote these lines:

  The big problem is that those who are weak are often mistaken for cowards. In my view, however, courage is not to be found in muscles, but in the head. It takes as much courage, maybe even more, to tell someone what you think of them when you know they’re not going to like it, than it does to punch out a kid who is getting on your nerves, especially when that kid is smaller than you.

  For his eleventh birthday, Parfait Michaud gave him an unabridged edition of The Three Musketeers; Charles read it in five days, to the detriment of his sleep and of an English assignment, which somehow was incomprehensible gibberish when it was handed in (to the stupefaction of his teacher, Madame Ouimet).

  Blonblon was still his best friend and confidant – Henri had to content himself with being entrusted with only second-rank secrets – and only he knew the full extent of the fear and aversion Charles felt for his father, as well as of the first timid, astonishing, almost shameful flutterings of emotion he had been feeling towards Céline for quite some time.

  She had celebrated her ninth birthday at the end of August and for some inexplicable reason Charles suddenly began to see that she was no longer a little girl; something other than the somewhat disinterested tenderness he’d felt for her until that moment came waltzing into his awareness. The warm, tender looks she sometimes gave him, slightly puckering her lips as though to prevent the tip of her tongue from appearing between them; the special way she had of smiling as she rubbed his arm; the silly, nervous laugh he always gave when she said something funny; all that seemed to have built a small nest in his brain, where her image shimmered softly in a delicate, shadowy light.

  One evening he went into the bathroom without thinking and surprised her; she was standing naked, her bum pink and chubby, examining her breasts in the full-length mirror. He laughed at her and left, closing the door behind him, but for quite a few minutes he felt his heart racing in his chest.

  There were other incidents, each one seemingly insignificant but added up giving him the sense that his life, or at least the version of it he thought he knew, was on the verge of being transformed into something totally new and of which he had only the most confused idea, as though he had advanced so far along a darkened corridor and suddenly come up against a closed door. He could sense that on the other side of the door was an immense room, and a thin line of light at his feet told him something was shining brightly on the other side, something that made his whole body quiver.

  One of these incidents made a deep impression on him.

  One night at about eleven o’clock, while he was surreptitiously reading a book in bed with his flashlight, he heard moans coming from Fernand and Lucie’s bedroom, across the corridor. He recognized Lucie’s voice; she sounded as though she were in great pain, but at the same time something him told him she was not suffering at all, far from it. He listened, partly out of anxiety but also with keen interest, with the confused awareness that Lucie was not merely a mother but was something else as well, something people outside the family called a woman – with all the restrictions, attractions, and mystery that went with the term. He felt as though he were being cheated, or having something torn away that had for a long time been a vital part of him. The moaning continued, joined now by squeaks from the bed, sharp gasps and truncated words mumbled in rapid succession (he now recognized Fernand’s voice). Then once again there was silence.

  He turned off his flashlight, put his book on the floor, and curled up into a ball with his hands between his legs, holding his rigid, pulsating penis as tightly as he could manage. All the dirty stories he had ever heard, all the risqué jokes murmured to him with suppressed giggling or told boldly in front of everyone, ran through his head; only now they took on a clarity and a reality that was totally new to him. Staring wide-eyed off into the darkness he smiled broadly at all his friends at Saint-Anselme Elementary.

  Eight months went by. It was the beginning of the summer of 1978. Charles was sitting in a chair facing Parfait Michaud’s desk, wondering why the notary had asked him to drop by.

  “Charles, old chum,” Michaud began slowly, folding his long fingers together and leaning his elbows on the desk. Then he stopped and gave a small smile: “Sorry about the alliteration, but it is nonetheless true that you are a dear friend. You know that, of course. Anyway, Charles, old chum, you have just completed your fifth year at school and completed it in grand style, I must say. You performed brilliantly in the school play last Tuesday. You are a handsome young man, well muscled, your mind is ever expanding and exploring …”

  He stopped again and frowned slightly, becoming emotional.

  “… and I consider it one of the luckiest days of my life when you came to me for advice, when was it, two years ago now?”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Michaud,” Charles said, smiling. “It’s very nice of you to say that.”

  “I say it because I mean it!” replied the notary with perhaps more force than he had intended. He pushed the candy dish towards Charles. “Please help yourself. They’re called Mocca Delights. Have you started drinking coffee yet, Charles?”

  “Lucie doesn’t want me to. She says I’m enough of a bundle of nerves already.”

  Charles slowly unwrapped the cellophane from the candy and slipped it into his mouth, letting it roll around in the saliva for a while before speaking, forcing his voice to sound casual. “So what is it you wanted to speak to me about, Monsieur Michaud?”

  “It was Fernand who asked me to
see you.”

  “I know. He told me earlier.”

  “It’s about your father.”

  Charles abruptly stopped sucking on the candy. His face went pale.

  “What does he want?”

  “Fernand wanted me to talk to you first because he thinks, however misguidedly, that my training as a notary will allow me to explain things more clearly and dispassionately than he could. Don’t worry, Charles,” he added when he saw Charles fidgeting in his chair, “I didn’t call you in here to give you bad news. Everything will work out just as you want it to. Fernand and Lucie love you very much and consider you as their own child. You know that as well as I do, in fact better than I do.”

  “What does my father want?” Charles repeated in a subdued voice.

  Michaud decided to take a candy himself, to ease the tension in the room. Like Charles, he let it melt in his mouth, while trying to assume an unconcerned air.

  “Your father and Fernand have been in negotiation for some time now,” he said finally. “Are you aware of that?”

  Charles shook his head.

  “It’s about your adoption. Fernand and Lucie want to adopt you. But your father is dragging his feet.”

  “He’s not my father any more.”

  “I understand what you’re saying. But in the eyes of the law, he is still your father. That is what Fernand and Lucie want to change. In order to do that, we have to obtain the written consent of … Monsieur Thibodeau. Or else we have to convince a judge to revoke his paternal rights. Do you follow me?”

  “Why won’t he sign the paper?”

  “Well, we’re not sure. He hasn’t exactly refused to sign, but he hesitates, he dawdles, he asks for more time to think about it, then more time, then more time again.”

  Michaud gave a sudden start, as though the candy had just caught in his throat.

  “Two days ago,” he continued, “he told Fernand that he was returning to Montreal at the end of the summer.”

  Charles jumped to his feet and, in a strangled voice, cried out angrily: “I will not live with him! Never! I’ll run away first! I’ll hide somewhere where no one will ever find me!”

  Boff, confined to the vestibule because of Amélie’s allergies, felt the need to support his young master by barking frantically.

  “What in the world is going on?” Amélie could be heard asking as she marched down the hall.

  “Nothing, nothing at all, my dear. Charles and I are discussing business, that’s all.”

  Amélie’s head appeared in the half-opened doorway, her ever-present turban above her dripping wet hair.

  “It looks like pretty serious business to me,” she said sternly after giving her husband, and then Charles, a long look.

  “Sometimes business does get serious, as you well know. If it didn’t, no one would need lawyers. Go dry your hair, my love, before you catch cold. And you, Charles, go out and calm down your dog before he shatters the windowpanes.”

  “If he tries to bamboozle you, come and see me,” said Amélie, winking at Charles before disappearing down the hall.

  Charles came back very soon. One word from him had been enough to calm Boff down, and the dog now lay sheepishly curled up into a ball, its nose between its paws.

  “What is it you’re trying to tell me?” he asked, his hands on his hips. “That I have to go back to live with my father?”

  “No, not at all. There’s never been a question of that. That would be irresponsible on our part after … what happened. Sit still and listen to me calmly, Charles, please. You’re old enough that I can speak frankly to you. Some of the things your father said made Fernand suspect that he wanted to … hmmm … how can I put this? – sell his permission. Do you understand? It’s as though he wanted to … well … in a way … get as much for you as he possibly could. This is only a hypothesis, mind you,” he corrected himself, seeing the change in Charles’s face, “one hypothesis among many others. It’s always hard to figure out what someone else is thinking, isn’t it? Another hypothesis, which has also been suggested by some of your father’s remarks, is that he’s become involved in some sort of religious sect that has managed to turn his mind into a complete muddle, as some sects know very well how to do. They may have convinced him that he must climb some sort of ladder to holiness (that’s the kind of expression they use), and that in order to do so he must take you back to live with him, as God has ordained. Do you follow all this? But I repeat, these are only suppositions, nothing more … It could be one of these, or it could be something completely different. We won’t really know what’s going on in his head until we talk to him in person. All we know now is that the whole thing is a bit complicated. Either we have to grease the man’s palm in order to get him to sign the paper, or else we have to go to trial to have him declared incompetent as a father. Either way it’s going to cost money. But one thing that you can do right now, because we probably won’t be able to prevent it from happening, is for you to go into court and tell a judge about the kind of treatment he subjected you to, and also about that … famous night … Sylvie will have to appear as well, of course, since she’s our only witness. You will both be questioned, and your testimonies will be compared, and after that … I know it won’t be very pleasant for you, but we will all be at your side. At any rate, Charles, that is why I asked you to come here, and what Fernand and Lucie couldn’t bring themselves to say to you, even though as far as I’m concerned they’re as capable of saying it as I am.”

  Charles’s face had darkened and he was staring at the tips of his shoes in silence. The candy he was sucking had suddenly lost its flavour and was sticking to the roof of his mouth. If he could, he’d have spat it out on the rug. Suddenly, under the startled gaze of the notary, he pursed his lips tightly and pressed his cheeks between his hands. The fish-face was trying to reappear. He jumped up from his chair and ran towards the door. A few seconds later he was fleeing madly down the street, with Boff at his heels.

  When he got home he went straight to his room and sat down on the bed for several moments, waiting; his fish-face had gone, no doubt to wreak its havoc somewhere else. Feeling better, he leaned his chin on his hands and, under the anxious gaze of the dog, which was lying in the middle of the room, tried to think. It wasn’t easy. All kinds of thoughts tumbled painfully into one another in his head. First there was all that money he’d have to come up with in order to escape from his father (this brought back his father’s face from that horrid night, with its haggard, blood-shot eyes and menacing, twitching, foam-flecked mouth). In his bank account there were only three hundred and fifty-two dollars. A lot for an eleven-year-old, but not nearly enough to settle a problem of this magnitude. Who would pay the bill?

  Something Fernand had said one night during dinner came to mind. It had been a few weeks back, and at the time he hadn’t paid much attention. Fernand had been complaining about a decline in sales since the beginning of the year. The brief spurt of business brought in by the Olympic Games in 1976 was long over, he’d said, unemployment was going up everywhere you looked, customers were so reluctant to spend money you practically had to pay them to buy anything. And as if that weren’t enough, there was that goldarned RONA store that had just opened on rue Ontario, almost at his doorstep, making things even worse. Throughout the meal, Lucie had gently reprimanded him for his pessimism: Fafard & Sons was celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, the store had weathered worse storms than this, and Fernand was a much better businessman than his father had been. He had turned a small, local hardware store into a thriving modern business. Everyone came to him for advice. Maybe they weren’t buying as much, but that was just the economic climate. Sooner or later his reputation, his good business sense, and his ingenuity would bring customers back into the store; all he had to do was be patient.

  Fernand had been moved and flattered. He’d reached across the table for his wife’s hand, nearly dragging his sleeve in the butter, and given her a tender smile. But it had been the s
mile of a sad, tired man.

  And it was this man, Charles now asked himself indignantly, who was going to pay to make him his son? The man who had already seen to his every need for the past two years? No, that mustn’t happen! He had to find the money himself. It was a question of honour. But how was he to do it?

  It was at this moment that Lucie, worried that he was being so quiet, tapped on the door to his room.

  “May I come in?”

  Charles took a few seconds to compose himself, then called out, “Come in!” a bit too loudly to sound natural.

  “So,” she said, standing in the doorway looking slightly embarrassed, “you’ve been to see Monsieur Michaud?”

  The boy nodded.

  Céline’s small face appeared in the doorway, looking curious and a bit worried. She leaned her head against her mother’s plump waist, and opened her mouth partway with a question playing on her lips. Lucie bent down towards her: “Go play outside, sweetheart, do you mind? I have to speak to Charles.”

  “Come and get me when you’re done, Charles,” she called as she skipped off down the hall.

  But after watching a grosbeak grooming itself on a fencepost for a few minutes, she slipped back into the kitchen and stood as still as a statue, with one hand cupped at her ear.

  Lucie looked down the hallway, waited a moment, then went into Charles’s room.

  “Did Monsieur Michaud … did he explain things to you?”