Wonder

by Dominique Fortier

  “I’m glad you came,” she says.

  “Me too,” he replies, in a tight little voice. He looks tense, runs his hand nervously through his hair to lift a blond lock that has fallen over one eye. His thumbnail is bitten to the quick.

  He remains at her bedside all evening and all night, as if he must at all cost prevent sleep from stealing her. He tries to distract her by reading from some gossip magazines he unearthed in a nearby waiting room, then from his ever-present treatise on geodynamics, telling her every story he can think of, asking her the craziest questions, seeking a better way to get to know her than by interrogating her about her past or her sickness:

  “If you could only eat one fruit in your lifetime, what would it be?”

  “What colour can’t you stand?”

  “Do you have a favourite star?”

  “Do you think it’s true that dogs can predict earthquakes?”

  After doing her best to answer as honestly as possible (an orange, purple, Stella Maris), she looks at him, astounded.

  “I should be asking you that, shouldn’t I? There must be something about it in one of your books.”

  “The truth is, scientists have no idea. What’s certain is that dogs detect the first vibrations before we do, as if they have a kind of particularly precise seismograph …”

  “How do they do that?”

  “No one knows exactly. It’s assumed that they are more sensitive to variations in magnetic fields, so they’re more acutely aware of the movement of the magma under the earth’s crust. Some believe that perhaps they can pick up very high frequency sounds coming from inside the earth.”

  “What if they are simply more attentive?”

  “Maybe.” But he doesn’t seem convinced.

  “My turn now,” she says, raising herself up on her pillows. Her cheeks are tinged with pink, her eyes shining. In the corridors, nurses in rubber shoes go past like ghosts, and pretend not to know that visiting hours have been over for a long time.

  “The vegetable you hate?”

  “Salsify.”

  “Favourite animal?”

  “Salamander.”

  “They’re supposed to have nine lives, right?”

  “No, isn’t that cats?”

  “You’re right. But then how many lives does a salamander have?”

  “I have no exact information on that question but I would suggest, without too much fear of being mistaken: just one.”

  “But aren’t they supposed to be legendary animals that are reborn from their ashes?”

  “That’s the phoenix.”

  “What about the phoenix?”

  “It’s the phoenix that is reborn from its ashes. It was said of the fire salamander, Salamandra salamandra, that it lived in flames. In The Travels of Marco Polo, we read that the shroud of Jesus Christ was preserved in cloth made of salamander.”

  “How horrible.”

  “He meant asbestos.”

  “Why didn’t you say so before? Though now that I think about it, that’s no more reassuring.”

  “It’s said that salamanders produce a kind of animal asbestos, or maybe asbestos is a sort of plant salamander. The point is that a particularly shrewd scientific mind one day took it into his head to throw a dozen salamanders into the fire to see if they would be magically transformed into some substance dear to the alchemist, if they would produce a fire-retardant thread, or if they would acquire some supernatural power.”

  “And?”

  “They were roasted to death.”

  “Sic transit gloria mundi.”

  “They say the same thing was done with witches way back in history. If they were able to avoid being burned at the stake it was proof that they had allied themselves with the Devil. If they burned without a fuss, that proved their innocence and the kingdom of Heaven was theirs.”

  “And how do you know all that?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  She looks doubtful, then pensive for a moment. The lights of the city sparkle in the window pane, blurred by the rain that has started to fall and to trace long trembling paths on the glass. She suddenly remembers a report she’d seen on TV after a deadly earthquake in China.

  “A few days earlier, thousands of frogs had come down from the mountains and overrun the streets. People had to close doors and windows to avoid being infested. The authorities talked about a particularly large migration, about a more abundant population that year, I don’t know what other idiotic explanation to reassure the citizens, but of course the frogs were right …”

  “Appropriately, the first instrument that made it possible to identify the origin of an earthquake was perfected by the Chinese.”

  “Was it a frog?”

  He laughs.

  “No … Well, actually, yes. More precisely, it was a number of frogs. We had one of those things, very old, at home when I was little; I never knew exactly where it came from or what happened to it … Whatever the case, it was a device made up of a kind of big, bronze amphora; all around its sides were eight dragons, heads down, each one with a metal ball in its mouth or, actually, each dragon was supposed to have a ball but it was incomplete and there were only seven. Beneath each dragon was positioned a frog, mouth wide open, ready to receive a ball.”

  “And the dragons dropped the balls when there was an earthquake?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why eight? Wouldn’t one dragon have done the trick?”

  “No: the beauty of it is that not all the dragons opened their mouths at the slightest vibration: inside the amphora there was a kind of inverse pendulum that reacted to seismic waves by striking the dragon exactly opposite the direction in which the earthquake was happening.”

  “So it was one ball that fell …”

  “Yes and no … When the pendulum came back it would also hit the ball directly across from the first one—”

  “But tell me, unless there’s someone posted permanently in front of it, how could you know if the quake’s epicentre was, say, due north or directly south?”

  “They didn’t know, so the emperor would send riders out on reconnaissance in the two opposite directions, at the same time.”

  “So the one who found the origin turned back to warn the emperor, that’s all right, but how did the other one know that he had to come back?”

  “Who said that he came back?”

  “You mean he kept galloping non-stop, always moving away from what he was looking for?”

  “More or less, yes.”

  The sun has come up for real, nurses and doctors have started their morning rounds, the shadows of the night have dispersed; he is finally able to believe that she is out of danger.

  When he leaves the hospital, without realizing it he takes the road to Saint Joseph’s Oratory though he has never gone there before. Once he gets to the enormous grey structure that perches nearly on the summit of Mount Royal, he begins slowly to climb the steps to the crypt. There, he pushes the door to enter a long room, its walls lined with votive lights flickering in their red, green, and yellow glasses, rows of them in tiers like spectators at the circus. The thousands of tiny, guttering candles give off an unpleasant warmth and the smell of wax. Here and there someone slides a coin into a wooden box and the clinking echoes through the room. On the walls between the platforms where the candles are burning hang dozens of wooden crutches and canes, no doubt left by lame pilgrims cured by the Frère André’s salutary attentions or the restorative action of Saint Joseph, to whom the sanctuary is consecrated. He shivers at the sight of this collection, unable to stop himself from imagining the mountains of eye-glasses and shoes that inevitably evoke Auschwitz. He reminds himself that this church was built earlier, in a completely different world, where similar mounds were synonymous with miracles rather than the Holocaust. At the base of one of the walls of crutches that have acquired a time-worn sheen, a worker has left behind a pair of work gloves that lie, empty, on the floor.

  At the exit from t
his room there is a door, above which can be read Information/Benedictions. Glancing inside, he sees a peculiar silver object, half-cooking pot and half-samovar, crowned by a panel declaring Holy Water. Next to it is a box filled with miniature plastic bottles like those allowed on airplanes.

  He wanders aimlessly through the maze of corridors and stairs that lead from one room to another, and soon finds himself in a hallway where, tucked deep in an alcove cut into a wall and protected by a grille, a brownish object that might have been a stone is exhibited in a small glass reliquary. On the heavy metal doors can be read:

  Here rests in the peace of God the heart of Brother André, C.H.S., founder of the Oratory, 1845–1937

  At the foot of the marble pedestal holding the glass box are a few scraps of paper with prayers or thanks scribbled on them and some coins, as if thrown by someone making a wish at a fountain. Not far away water is flowing. Letting the sound guide him, he comes to a long, concealed corridor that seems to have been dug out of the mountain and sees that he is standing opposite a rock wall covered here and there with green moss. Droplets fall from the rock face as if from an immense stone cheek, one by one with a sound like rain.

  A series of escalators similar to those in shopping malls leads to the basilica, which he eventually reaches though he doesn’t know it, for want of reference points. He hasn’t seen a window to the outside for a long time and he feels as if every footstep is taking him deeper into the heart of the mountain. Finally he pulls open some heavy doors to enter a room so vast that for a moment it takes his breath away. There is no natural light here either, aside from some scarlet rays darting in through stained-glass windows that seem to have been shattered and stuck back together in a hurry. He advances towards the choir, his footsteps ringing out on the floor. Here and there he can make out a stooped figure seated on a long wooden bench. The entire nave, seemingly made of cement, is reminiscent of the architecture of early twentieth-century dams whose double purpose was to subjugate nature and to declare loud and clear man’s superiority over everything around him. No doubt here it is meant to exalt the greatness of God, but the effect is the same. He recalls that Brother André was a small man, five feet tall at most, a humble porter.

  On either side of the choir the apostles stand in groups of three, looking aghast and inevitably suggesting the three monkeys who see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing. Behind the altar rises a monumental wooden cross; the tortured Christ is flanked by Mary and Mary Magdalene, faces downturned, hands raised, apparently lamenting some tragedy that has occurred on the ground during the execution of the Saviour. Huge rectangular light fixtures hanging from the ceiling cast a cold light into the apse. Going closer, he notes a bouquet of red roses at the foot of the altar and he kneels in front of them: of all the things in this place, they alone are still somewhat alive. The paving under his knees is icy and when he gets up he limps a little.

  It is on his way back down, upon turning onto a corridor, that he discovers Brother André’s tomb, an enormous black marble sarcophagus, perfectly plain, concealed in a peculiar semicircular room lined with brown bricks. He stops in front of the dark block, trying to imagine the body resting there, with a hole in place of the heart.

  THIS MORNING, THERE IS A SMALL CROWD outside Lili Lady’s house. She is being escorted by two middle-aged women who might be her daughters or social workers, she can’t guess from their manner, at once professional, efficient, and somewhat appalled. Each is holding one of the old lady’s elbows; Lily Lady is pretending to try to free herself but seems nearly happy at the attention.

  “Martha!” she exclaims, spotting her across the street, “Martha dear, I’m going on vacation! On a transatlantic liner, no less. They’ve promised me a cabin with all the modern conveniences.”

  One of the women slowly shakes her head while the other rolls her eyes. “Come now, just another few steps,” whispers the first one, pointing at the car that’s waiting, door open. The old lady gets in, smiling broadly, waves through the window with a small dignified gesture, fingers slightly curled, palm cupped, like the queen in her carriage. Just then there is barking from inside the house and Lili Lady’s face contorts first in surprise, then in sorrow. She opens her mouth in a silent cry, rests her forehead on the window, and closes her eyes while the car moves off.

  The door to the house is still open; a man comes out, moustached, carrying an attaché case and holding a leash with Lili at the end of it, straining, standing on her hind paws, struggling and producing high-pitched yelps.

  “Where are you taking her?” she asks the man, who is busy locking up.

  He looks at her for a moment, then says grimly:

  “Where d’you think? A luxury dog hotel?”

  “Not the dog, the woman, where are you taking her?”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “You heard, it’s Martha.”

  “Martha what?”

  “None of your business.”

  She holds his gaze. He has brown eyes and one eyelid that quivers faintly when he speaks.

  “And the dog – where are you taking her?”

  He stares at her without replying, furious, his moustache trembling; it’s almost as if he is taking pleasure in this exchange. She tears the leash from his hands and turns around before he can say a word. Lili, head down, obediently follows.

  For the first time they are side by side facing the river, and being together in front of the promise of this immense expanse is both dizzying and reassuring. The wharves are deserted, everything is soaked in a fine grey rain that forms a ghostly halo around the huge rusty ships, some seeming to have been anchored there for years, looking like part of the landscape; the huge empty hangars; the nearby bulk of the old grain silo with broken windows from which flocks of slate-coloured pigeons emerge; and Île Sainte-Hélène where you can barely discern the outline of the condominiums piled one on top of the other with no apparent logic, like wooden cubes stacked by a child. The entire Vieux-Port is deep in the heart of a cloud.

  The water laps gently, licking the low cement wall they are leaning against in the hope of spotting a fish she thinks she saw flash silver. But the river is murky, opaque as milk, and grey. They stay there for a long moment, now and then the haunting cry of a gull pierces the silence and gives a fleeting impression of the seaside. When they raise their heads the fog has cleared.

  “The cloud has passed,” she notes, surprised.

  “Or we have,” he retorts, surprising her even more.

  The rain has stopped, leaving the asphalt gleaming like a mirror. In Old Montreal they take streets paved with small, round, uneven cobblestones, walking past the Bonsecours Market, its silver dome, pierced with windows, resembling a stocky lighthouse, then they start the climb towards the mountain along St. Lawrence Boulevard, which begins at the river of the same name and joins the Rivière des Prairies at the far north end of this strange island where water is rarely visible. River and boulevard have been baptized in honour of an iconoclastic third-century martyr, abducted as a small child, then found under a laurel, the tree to which he owes his name. At the end of his life, laid out to be roasted on blazing coals by his torturers, instead of shedding useless tears, Lawrence announced after a few minutes that he was well done on one side, they could turn him over. Against hatred, stupidity, and death he set the quiet strength of his clear laughter, silencing his executioners’ hilarity with the fearsome laugh of the victim. In an irony so great that it can also be seen as a kind of homage, he was named the patron saint of rotisseurs. Be that as it may, in 1672 in this land of New France, they had actually named what was still just a modest dirt path “Saint Lambert’s Way,” not, as one might think, in honour of Saint Lambert – who had died in the year 700, with a lance through his heart, when standing at the altar in the chapel of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Liège – but rather in memory of Lambert Closse, who lost his life
in 1662 while defending Ville-Marie against an Indian attack, with the help of his dog, Pilote.

  Since the eighteenth century, it has united and separated the city at once, just as the arteries starting at the lungs irrigate the body besides delimiting the main zones. Still today, Saint Lawrence Boulevard is the dividing line from which, going both west and east, street numbers are counted starting at zero, a kind of Greenwich meridian, Montreal style. That “Main” (for a time known as Saint-Lawrence-of-the-Main, which a particularly ill-advised translator of Mordecai Richler once rechristened “rue principale”) acts as the demarcation line between the two halves of the island: affluent Anglos on the west, perched on the hills of Westmount, and working-class French on the east, whose poverty spread in the past to inner suburbs similar to those described by Gabrielle Roy in The Tin Flute. Both territories are now mixed, hybrid, confused, though the border is still there, memory or warning.

  At the corner of de la Gauchetière, lacquered ducks, red and glossy, hang by their necks, heads falling gracefully to the side as if they were asleep. In the windows are stacks of small wooden and porcelain cases, flasks and flagons, roots, dried leaves, powders, balms, and ointments whose mentholated odour spreads to the street. Crates of oddly shaped fruit, some with brown spots, others bristling with sharp spines, are unloaded at the doors of shops that sell blue-and-white teapots, dried shrimp, bubble tea, and smoked eel.

  Beyond René-Lévesque (which, a few kilometres west, in Westmount, is still called Dorchester) is a new country, no more than a few blocks long, where only yesterday the Frolics, then the Roxy, the Midway, and the Crystal Palace were established; now all that is left to bear witness is the Café Cléopâtre. As early as 1819, this section of the street counted twice as many taverns as grocery stores. Girls teetering on high heels, some of them not exactly girls, will spend the night in the doorways of snack bars where hotdogs, steamés or toastés, are cheap, waiting for a car to stop near them, hearts pounding from withdrawal and fear. Inside, the leatherette banquettes and the orange tables where people sit to eat poutine are bright under the fluorescent lights; outside, the street is grey where shadows glide.