The first three weren’t too much of a mess and I had no trouble recognizing them. There was the little old lady on the first floor, and the wife and daughter of the guy with the beard. I didn’t know their family names and the guy in charge wasn’t going to tell me. But seeing those photos really hit me, especially the little girl. Josée. The only name I knew. She was three years old. She used to say bonjour to me sometimes, from her window or the balcony, when I climbed the stairs. She was the only neighbour I’d actually talked to. A beautiful blonde girl. Her mother used to dress her up like a princess in clothes from the K-Mart. And now: nothing, a tiny thing, pale as a ghost, with plaster dust in her hair. I’m not the kind who goes gaga over children. To me they’re just trained seals, as dumb as their parents, future consumers of soap operas, talk shows, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, dull civil servants in the making. A few escape that fate and invent penicillin or write Pot-Bouille instead. But little Josée? We’d never know. Life’s shit.
As for the others, there was a man and a woman, both in their forties; I’d never seen them before. And a young woman, impossible to recognize: her head was crushed. I said what had to be said, signed what had to be signed, and left with Angéla. I was bummed out. It was the old lady and the little girl. Especially the little girl. I took it personally. I’d done everything to hasten my own death, short of jumping off a roof or shooting myself in the head. But here I was still alive. And they were dead.
I drove Angéla back to the Bien Bon. We didn’t say much. When she got out of the car, she asked my name. Then she said:
– One day at time, Gérard. Un jour à la fois. Take care of yourself.
A sister in the struggle.
All of a sudden, life became too much to bear. Just like that, for no particular reason. Because there was a child’s corpse in the fridge on rue Parthenais. Because I had to start all over again from scratch, one more time. Because I had rolled my rock to the top of the hill and now it was rolling back down again. All the times before, I’d managed to put on a brave face. But there comes a time when you just don’t feel strong enough to look for another place to live and go shopping again for clothes and dishes and cutlery and scouring pads and toilet paper. This was one of those times. When I got back to the hotel, I asked the Barbie at reception for the key to the mini-bar. It burned in the palm of my hand. I slapped it back down on the counter and ran out. I had to find a meeting.
I pulled myself together in a church basement in Verdun, at an English meeting. French, English, Tamil, or Algonquin, it really doesn’t matter: all AAs have the same story. Sometimes I tell myself that’s all it means to be AA: to invent a story that makes sense of the wreckage of your life. To make up a story and tell it to a group. You pluck up the courage, you get up, you walk to the front of the room, you look at the gathering, ten, twenty, fifty losers just like you, and you say:
– Hi. My name is Gérard and I’m an alcoholic.
Then you tell your story. It’s the same story the woman before you told or the guy after you. A story everyone’s heard a hundred times before but it still feels good. A story with a beginning (the downfall), a middle (hell), and no end. Because when you’re an alcoholic you walk a tightrope and even if you stay sober for ten years you’ll never know how the story’s going to end. So you keep digging hard in the corners, you keep practicing the Twelve Steps, and you know it’ll never be easy. One day at a time, every day. 24/7, 365.
Stories are sacred.
I’m unsure about a lot of things in life, but I know stories are sacred. L’Assommoir, Germinal, the Bible, or an AA story, they all serve the same purpose: they impose order on chaos. Telling a story is like whistling in the dark when you’re afraid. It’s making music in the void. We tell stories so we don’t kill ourselves. Three hundred thousand people a day used to read my stories in the Journal de Montreal and I’m ashamed to say that not once in 30 years did I give them a true story. All my stories about rapes, murders, kidnappings, accidents, and disasters left my readers with nothing but fear, emptiness, and a sense of powerlessness. Placed end to end, my collected works would have made a good advertising campaign for suicide.
That night in Verdun I didn’t speak. I listened to my suffering brothers and sisters. I admired their strengths and feared for their weaknesses. And I went back to the hotel sober. One day at a time. I went straight to bed but after six cups of coffee I couldn’t sleep. I kept saying over and over to myself: stories are sacred, stories are sacred. I think it was that night I got the idea: to write a story about the explosion on rue Darling, just for me. To try to make sense of the absurdity of it. To bring back to life those six people who’d died for nothing, like I bring back to life my own dead for a while, my mother and father, when I think about their life of poverty and try to convince myself it was a good life (even if it’s not true). Stories are the only eternity an agnostic like me can believe in.
For once in my life, I was going to make a good story out of the news. So I wouldn’t drink. So I wouldn’t kill myself.
u
The next morning I got up excited for the first time in a long time. It’s amazing how having a purpose greater than yourself can change your outlook. For seven months I’d been completely focussed on my problems, on staying away from the bottle and moving forward in my understanding and practice of the Twelve Steps. That and just taking care of myself, eating better, keeping myself and my apartment clean. I’d also read Les Rougon-Macquart twice from beginning to end. I’d been going in circles. All of a sudden, it was as if all my old reflexes kicked back into gear. I phoned my old contacts at the fire department and the coroner’s office. Then I made an outline of what I knew:
Six dead.
Four identified: Adrienne Dumas, the old lady on the first floor (identified by a friend); little Josée and her mother Denise (identified by Denise’s mother, a Madame Laperrière, who lived in the neighbourhood); and the mother of the student, a woman by the name of Diane Demers.
Two unidentified: a man in his forties, found near Madame Demers; and the mystery woman with the squashed head. No one was even close to identifying her.
Besides the dead, there was one tenant missing: my neighbour on the third floor, a sales clerk in a store. There was no trace of him.
And there was no news, either, of the guy with the beard. His name was François Gravel. He’d checked out of the hotel where they’d taken us after the fire and left no forwarding address.
I went to the Bien Bon for breakfast. I told Angéla what I had learned but she didn’t seem very interested. I told her I was starting to get a hunch about the student’s lie and why she had run away from us at the morgue. Then she cut me off:
– It’s none of your business, Gérard. Let the dead lie in peace. You’ve got no right digging around in other people’s lives. Besides, what good is it going to do you? You’ll only hurt yourself. And you’re going to hurt other people, too.
It was the longest speech I’d heard from her in seven months and it knocked the wind out of my sails. All my high-minded reveries about stories and truth didn’t seem so high-minded anymore.
– I just want to know, that’s all. They were my neighbours.
– I bet you never even talked to them.
She turned her back on me and started stacking dishes. She was deliberately ignoring me. Fine. End of conversation. I opened the Journal and scanned the obituaries. Madame Adrienne Dumas, age 88, widow of the late Paul-Émile Potvin, survived by her nephews and nieces. Visitation at the Sansregret funeral home on rue Ontario. It was almost next door, I’d drop in later. There was also a photo, très chic, of a woman in a short black dress with a pearl necklace: Madame Diane (Pilon) Demers, MD, age 46, from accidental causes. Wife of Monsieur Claude Demers. Sadly missed by her daughter Hélène, her sisters Paule and Juliette, and several brothers-in-laws, nephews, and nieces. No visitation. Funeral service to be held at Saint-Viateur d’Outremont church on Wednesday, October the 12th, at 10:00 o’clock. Wow!
The major leagues! The Demers of the National Bank and the Quebec Liberal Party. Now why would this guy’s wife have died in a shabby apartment in Hochelaga?
At that moment Lieutenant Geoffrion walked in, head down, looking like a beaten dog. He ordered a toasted cinnamon bun with butter. He didn’t notice me sitting there. Obviously I wasn’t making much of an impression on anyone that morning.
– What’s up? I said.
He swung around on his stool.
– What are you doing here?
– It’s my chez moi. I took up residence here after my place blew up.
– Oh yeah, right. You lived on Darling.
He stuck his nose back in his cup and waited for his cinnamon bun. Not much for small talk, our Boomer.
– How’s the investigation going, lieutenant?
– Nada.
– What do you mean, nada?
– Nada. Nothing. Rien. Ziltch. I’ve never seen one like it. Absolument rien. It’s like a gas explosion, except there was no gas. The building wasn’t even hooked up to the main.
– An underground leak?
– You want my job?
– Non, non.
His bun arrived. I let him eat in peace. Then I asked him:
– How much longer are you going to stay on the case?
– As long as it takes.
Lieutenant Geoffrion got up and pulled on his coat, then muttered under his breath:
– What I don’t get is the streaker.
– The what?
– The streaker. Just before the place blew up, the woman across the street saw a guy running on the roof, stark naked.
The Boomer walked out.
He didn’t have to tell me which woman across the street. She was in her fifties, a beanpole with flaming orange hair. She spent her whole life on the balcony (in summer) or at her window (in winter), just watching people. A human surveillance camera. I left the Bien Bon, walked over to Darling, and climbed the stairs to her place.
– Bonjour Monsieur Langlois, she said with a big smile as she opened the door.
I was astounded.
– How do you know my name?
One simple question and she was off and running.
– I’ve known your name for years! When you moved in across the street I couldn’t believe my eyes. I read your stories every day in the Journal de Montreal. Your photo was always above your column. You really had a way with words when it came to murders. That young guy who replaced you isn’t half as good. That explosion was awful, eh? If you ask me, it was something to do with drugs. The Hells Angels were after the guy with the beard, I’m positive! Have you found another place to live? I have a room to rent if you’re looking. Just say the word. Come in, come in, entrez! What can I do for you? Welcome to my little museum!
She took me into the living room. It was overflowing with elephants: porcelain ones, cuddly ones, bronze ones, plastic ones; big ones, little ones, and a few gigantic ones. There was one made out of shells (a souvenir from Atlantic City), one made out of popsicle sticks, and one painted on velvet. There were ashtray elephants, candy dish elephants, and one that could have been a telephone. Maybe it trumpeted instead of ringing.
– I collect them. People give them to me. My big dream is to own a real carved tusk, but that’s a no-no, eh?
Seen up close, she didn’t look in her fifties anymore. I gave her at least seventy. She was wearing houndstooth tights, a fuchsia mohair sweater, and cats-eye glasses that sparkled. She chain-smoked Export A’s (unfiltered) and coughed like she was going for a Guinness world record. On the table beside the window were a pair of opera glasses. The telescope was probably stashed under the sofa. A real nut case.
– Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.
– Madame Kovacs. Marie-Rose Kovacs. My family name was Durocher. Monsieur Kovacs died in 1958. We were married young.
I had a flash of Monsieur Kovacs escaping back to Hungary, preferring life under Communism to living with Marie-Rose.
As it turned out, she had seen – “by accident, you understand” – a naked man running across the roof a few seconds before the explosion.
– It’s pretty strange, eh? I mean, in the middle of October.
As if it’s more common to see streakers on the rooftops in the middle of summer.
– Completely naked? You sure? Not a stitch on him?
– Ah oui, I could swear to it.
With her opera glasses, no doubt.
– You didn’t happen to recognize him?
– It was dark, you know. And besides, he was running fast.
– So he got blown up, too?
– Non, non. He made it to the next building in time.
– What was that you were saying about the Hells Angels?
She’d been dying for me to get to that.
– The big guy, you know, your downstairs neighbour, the guy with the beard, he sold drugs. Un dealer. I’m sure of it. He went out three or four times a night and always drove off in his big red sports car with no muffler. He wasn’t going to deliver pizzas, garanti!
– You actually saw that?
– Every night. Without fail. And look, come on, he didn’t buy a new sports car every year with his welfare cheque.
I didn’t ask if she got any sleep at night.
Madame Kovacs was certain the Hells Angels had bombed the house to bump off the guy with the beard, in her estimation a moron who beat his wife (“a nice, friendly woman – I don’t know what she was doing with a guy like that”) and shouted at his kids (“it’s the drugs, eh? – it makes them crazy”).
-– Hang on a minute, Madame Kovacs. If what you’re saying is true, you’d have seen something suspicious, wouldn’t you?
She was offended.
– Do you think I spend my whole life loitering at the window?!
OK, bad choice of words. I toned it down a bit and tried again. I asked if she had noticed anything unusual in the building across the street.
– Apart from the guy with the beard, no. I mean, you, you’re always reading your Bible. And you don’t eat at home much. The guy beside you on the third floor seems to be really quiet, but his curtains are pretty thick. The young woman on the second floor, the student, she seems to be pretty quiet, too, but... ah ...
– Ah ...?
– Well ... when she’s not there, sometimes a woman goes in. And a man joins her. Une femme riche, with a big car. The man arrives in a taxi. When they’re finished, they leave separately.
– And you’re pretty certain that ...
– Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday! But I didn’t see anything, you understand. They drew the curtains.
– Of course. And the old woman on the first floor?
– Madame Dumas? A saint, une sainte femme! What a shame ...
u
Lieutenant Geoffrion was sitting in his Fire Department van when I left Madame Kovac’s. He had a smirk on his face.
– A fruitcake, eh?
– A fruitcake, lieutenant. Did she tell you her theory about the Hells Angels?
– Oui.
– What do you think?
– It was no bomb. I’ll bet my life on it.
Betting his life: the Boomer didn’t use words like that lightly. Before he got promoted to investigator, he was a firefighter, a rank-and-file, bottom-of-the-heap grunt. One Christmas Eve he got trapped by a fast-moving blaze and had to jump out a third-floor window in flames. There’s more titanium in his legs than bone. They used skin from his ass to patch up his hands. He’s made of strong stuff, our Boomer. And he believes in miracles.
– Still no idea what caused it?
– Still no idea. Salut.
Lieutenant Geoffrion isn’t happy not knowing the cause of a fire. It puts him in a bad mood. He rolled up his window and drove away.
I went back to the Bien Bon and started going through the classifieds. I only had one more free night at the hotel and it was time to find a new place to live. Angéla was watching
me out of the corner of her eye.
– Are you still looking for a place around here? There’s a two-and-a-half for rent above my place. It looks pretty clean. An old lady used to live there.
– Where’s your place?
– 3465 Lafontaine.
If someone had told me that a street address could trigger an adrenalin rush, I’d never have believed them. But that’s what happened. 3465. I could picture exactly where it was: right across the street from my childhood home, my old yard, and the old plum tree. 3465 was an apartment building, built in the fifties after a fire levelled a row of old houses. We’d spent the night on our balcony watching the firemen at work. Maybe that’s when the seed of my illustrious future career was planted. 3465. When they finished the new building my mother went over to look at the apartments, out of curiosity. When she came back, she said:
– They’re clean.
For her, that was the ultimate compliment. For me, it didn’t matter: clean or not, I was going to rent that apartment.
The janitor was a thin, sickly man with a runny nose and glassy eyes. He took his time looking me over from head to toe. When he decided I wasn’t the type to open a shooting gallery in his building, he showed me the apartment. It was perfect: from the window in the all-in-one-living room-dining room-kitchen I could see my old family home. The rent was high, but doable: three-twenty-five a month heated, fridge and stove included. That meant two less things I’d have to buy. I wrote a cheque on the spot and the janitor left me alone. I went over to the window and looked out.
8:17 pm rue Darling Page 3