The Dishwasher

by Stéphane Larue

  THE DISHWASHER

  STÉPHANE LARUE

  Translated from the French

  by Pablo Strauss

  BIBLIOASIS

  Windsor, ON

  Biblioasis International Translation Series

  General Editor: Stephen Henighan

  1. I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuściński (Poland)

  Translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba

  2. Good Morning Comrades by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  3. Kahn & Engelmann by Hans Eichner (Austria-Canada)

  Translated by Jean M. Snook

  4. Dance with Snakes by Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador)

  Translated by Lee Paula Springer

  5. Black Alley by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Dawn M. Cornelio

  6. The Accident by Mihail Sebastian (Romania)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  7. Love Poems by Jaime Sabines (Mexico)

  Translated by Colin Carberry

  8. The End of the Story by Liliana Heker (Argentina)

  Translated by Andrea G. Labinger

  9. The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by David Brookshaw

  10.For As Far as the Eye Can See by Robert Melançon (Quebec)

  Translated by Judith Cowan

  11.Eucalyptus by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  12.Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  13.Montreal Before Spring by Robert Melançon (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald McGrath

  14.Pensativities: Essays and Provocations by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by David Brookshaw

  15.Arvida by Samuel Archibald (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  16.The Orange Grove by Larry Tremblay (Quebec)

  Translated by Sheila Fischman

  17.The Party Wall by Catherine Leroux (Quebec)

  Translated by Lazer Lederhendler

  18.Black Bread by Emili Teixidor (Catalonia)

  Translated by Peter Bush

  19.Boundary by Andrée A. Michaud (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  20.Red, Yellow, Green by Alejandro Saravia (Bolivia-Canada)

  Translated by María José Giménez

  21.Bookshops: A Reader’s History by Jorge Carrión (Spain)

  Translated by Peter Bush

  22.Transparent City by Ondjaki (Angola)

  Translated by Stephen Henighan

  23.Oscar by Mauricio Segura (Quebec)

  Translated by Donald Winkler

  24.Madame Victoria by Catherine Leroux (Quebec)

  Translated by Lazer Lederhendler

  25.Rain and Other Stories by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

  Translated by Eric M. B. Becker

  26.The Dishwasher by Stéphane Larue (Quebec)

  Translated by Pablo Strauss

  For Marlène

  To Bébert and to Bob

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Translator’s Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About the Translator

  Copyright

  Prologue

  The snowplow’s rotator beacons light up the buildings’ white-coated facades as it slogs up Hochelaga pushing snow. We finally manage to pass it and turn onto a small, dimly lit street. Low-hanging cottony clouds fill the dark sky. The comfortable warmth of the car interior is almost enough to put me to sleep. You can just hear the dispatcher’s voice on the cb. Mohammed turns down his music the moment you get into his black Sonata. He keeps his car immaculately clean. No crumpled-up newspaper floor mats, no old coffee cups or leftover food in the compartment under the radio. Just a small Koran with an illuminated cover and a receipt book. The leather seats are good as new. A fresh, minty aroma suffuses the car.

  We pull onto Rue Ontario. Tall snowbanks line either side of the street.

  Mohammed ignores a call on his cell. He never answers when he’s with a customer. In the extra rear-view mirrors he has mounted on each side of the windshield, I can see his serene face and wrinkled, baggy eyes under bushy eyebrows. We keep driving to Sicard, then turn right. I don’t have to give him directions. Mohammed knows the route by heart, has for some time. Mohammed, Car 287, is senior driver at the cab stand on the corner of Beaubien and des Érables. Mohammed is the cabbie who nightly takes home half the bar and restaurant workers who ply their trade in Rosemont. Mohammed is a fifty-four-year-old Algerian. He’s owed favours by every taxi driver working the area between Saint-Laurent and l’Assomption from west to east, Jean-Talon and Sherbrooke north to south. Even the old guard, the holdouts still driving for Taxi Coop, respect him to a man. Half the time I catch a taxi at the stand, I don’t have to say where I’m going; every third time I don’t even give my address. It doesn’t matter who’s driving. They know me because I’m a customer of #287. Mohammed is as generous as they come. The kind of guy who’d pull over to help two people moving, stuck under a fridge on their outdoor staircase.

  I remember one time two or three years ago. We were driving down D’Iberville, getting close to my house, must have been 1:30 in the morning. The moment we turned onto Hochelaga I had a nagging doubt. This was back when I was closing by myself. At the end of a busy night I’d be so spent I’d sometimes forget some of the closing jobs, like making sure the heat lamps were turned off, or that the cooks hadn’t left the convection oven on. That night I just couldn’t remember if I’d locked the back door of the restaurant after taking out the dining room garbage. Mohammed stopped in front of my place. He looked at me in one of his mirrors. I still wasn’t certain, but I convinced myself I must have done it automatically. I got out of the cab. I stood there next to the car, hesitating, with my hand on the open door. Mohammed turned around and said:

  “Get back in, my friend. We’re going back.”

  He didn’t turn the meter back on. It turned out I hadn’t locked the back door, and the meat order hadn’t been put away in the cooler. When we got back to Aird and La Fontaine, where we’d started, I held out sixty dollars.

  “No no, my friend. The usual fare.”


  He wouldn’t take more than twenty.

  “It was my pleasure. You’ll sleep better tonight.”

  Sometimes, in the depths of the night, you come across people like Mohammed. After years of night shifts, years of going to bed at four in the morning, I’ve gotten to know all kinds of characters, from young kids so jacked up on coke they chatter uncontrollably to hard cases content to ride their downward spiral all the way to rock bottom. The night sadly doesn’t belong to the Mohammeds of this world. But they’re out there, making it a more hospitable place for its denizens.

  So we’re heading down La Fontaine. It must be midnight, maybe quarter past. The taxi stops on the corner of Aird. The tires squeal in the snow tamped down by the plow. I pay. Mohammed says bye, bids me goodnight. He has the powerful voice of a Russian lumberjack. I get out of the taxi with a final glance at the back seat. The streetlights gleam orange. The vehicles parked on either side of the road have disappeared under snow. I close the door. The cab drives off, turns onto William-David and disappears. The night is hazy and mild. I leave my leather jacket unbuttoned. I’m the only living thing for miles around. You can tell the snowplow did a pass an hour or two ago. In the distance I hear metal scraping on sidewalk. I look up at the dark windows of my apartment, as I pull out my keys. The steps up to my house are covered in snow. It looks like icing sugar.

  I steady myself to throw a leg over the snowbank and clamber onto the sidewalk. That’s when I get a feeling: something disturbing the calm of this night. It’s coming from the other side of the street, probably the apartment directly across from mine. I don’t turn around. Someone is hurtling down the staircase on the second floor, really stomping. There’s another grunt, clearly intended to get my attention. It’s not the first time I’ve been accosted in the middle of the night. It must have happened a hundred times since I moved to Hochelaga. An addict trying to sell me a TV picked off the sidewalk; some girl far too young to be out, barefoot, asking if I have a smoke, five bucks, a place to crash. So as I’m getting ready to go up the stairs I hear a “Hey!” that sounds like a challenge. I stop. I recognize that voice. It hasn’t changed. I heard it for the first time maybe twelve or thirteen years ago. I turn around. It’s him. I feel a big smile forming on my face.

  Now he’s coming toward me, this big stocky guy with a shaved head walking right out of his building, right out of my past, bundled up in a Canada Goose parka. He blows out a puff of smoke and flicks the butt. I zip up my jacket and greet him.

  “Bébert. Jesus, man . . .”

  He chuckles. His laugh is deep and contagious and he holds out a massive hand. I let a few seconds go by, as it sinks in that it’s really him. Then I shake his hand. He almost unjoints my shoulder, seems he’s just that happy to see me. His palm is callused. I start laughing too.

  He’s a little fatter, and though it’s a touch rounder he still has the same face of a cartoon alcoholic punk. If he’d been born in another era Bébert wouldn’t have lived long, carrying on and partying the way he does, never stopping to catch his breath. His cheeks are puffed up and red from the cold and the booze. It’s hard to believe that a whole slab of my past is standing there, more or less intact in the lamplight, solid as a stone stela or barrel of rum.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve lived across from you for weeks, man. I’ve seen you walk by a bunch of times, but never caught you.”

  “Where are you going like that?”

  I still can’t believe it. Bébert has been living across the street from me for weeks. His sugary breath condenses into little curls of cold air. He passes me a bottle of St-Leger whisky. It’s two-thirds empty. His smile takes on its full bloom. The guy hasn’t changed a bit. He hasn’t been to the dentist. He’s still missing the same eye tooth he lost, after the worst ass-kicking of his life, somewhere in the middle of a three-day bender.

  Bébert lifts the bottle up toward me. Its green neck gleams. So do his eyes.

  “You’ve got time for one drink with me.”

  “I was on my way to bed, man.”

  He shakes the bottle in my face. I laugh loudly.

  “And I don’t drink hard liquor anymore.”

  “Get lost!”

  I pick up the bottle and take a healthy swig, then wipe my mouth on my cuff. I’m expecting it to go down like bleach—but it feels nice, lights a little fire in my throat. I take another sip and give the bottle back to Bébert before I start hiccupping.

  “Give me a minute.”

  I climb the stairs to my apartment. Push the key into the lock and carefully turn. Go in and gently close the door behind me. Even the hallway is warm. Pale yellow light trickles in from the living room. The whole apartment smells like cumin and coriander. I go into my office to put down my bag and my cat comes up to rub its face on my snow-covered ankles. I cross the living room and pick up a cup of tea left out on the coffee table, take it to the kitchen sink. A pot of dahl is cooling on the counter. I’m hungry, a bowl would be nice. I go down to the bedroom. It’s pitch dark, but I can still see Isabelle sleeping. She’s pushed the covers away and is lying on her side with a pillow under her thigh. I take a long look at her, then remember Bébert waiting for me outside. The endless nights we spent together all come flooding back. Twenty-four-hour benders, party-hopping across the city. For a moment I contemplate leaving him out there. I feel like taking off my boots and crawling into bed with my girlfriend. I turn the bedroom thermostat down a notch. Look at her for another few seconds. Then I retrace my steps back through the apartment, careful not to make the floor creak. I head out and lock the door behind me.

  I go down the stairs to meet Bébert on the sidewalk. The storm has blown over, leaving only the odd flake drifting between snow-covered branches. The cold is getting sharper.

  “All right. Where we going?”

  Bébert polishes off what’s left in the bottle and tosses it into the distance. It lands soundlessly in a snowbank. He turns back toward me, expressionless. For a second his face seems to tighten up, as if shot through by a sharp pain. His smile soon returns.

  “You okay?”

  “Let’s go. Plenty of time till last call.”

  Bébert gets walking, weaving slightly. He’s got Etnies on his feet, an unzipped jacket, and nothing on his head. A halo of condensation rises from him, like when you pour water on a hot rock in a sauna.

  This was around the time when all the old bars in Villeray and Petite-Patrie were being bought up by younger people, fixed up and modernized. But the wave of renewal that had crashed and washed up all the way to Boulevard Masson hadn’t yet reached Hochelaga. We’re talking back when Brassette Letourneux was on its last legs, the Crazy was boarded up, and the Davidson still had no competition on Ontario—the exact moment when the face of this street begins to change, abandoned factories start turning into condos, greengrocers move into former pawnshops, and young families move in.

  We grab a table. The lights are bright as a dentist’s waiting room, the furniture looks like it got auctioned off when the factory cafeteria shut down. Six or seven old timers are shooting pool in the back. Sleeves rolled up, forearms a jumble of faded tattoos, knuckles ringed with skulls and crossbones. They all kind of remind me of my ex-girlfriend Jess’s dad: a party guy who never really made it out of the seventies. He worked as a welder when he managed to sober up long enough. Kind of guy who’s a little too sketchy to really go straight, but too lazy to make it as a real criminal. He may have had a biker gang after him, but the person he feared most was his landlord. He’d go in and out of his apartment through a window to avoid running into him. You know, the type who just keeps trying to fend off bad luck by stuffing it away in the back of his closet or under his sink. The bartender here is the same age as his customers: late-fifties, early sixties. Everyone is on a first-name basis with Réjean, who wears a white shirt and a black leather change-purse around his
waist. There are salt-shakers on the yellowed linoleum tables and the walls are like a basement rec-room, covered in wood panelling and decorated with neon signs for beers that were already off the market when I drank my first Bull Max. Two tvs hang from the ceiling. One shows a hockey game, the other a baseball documentary. I sit down in front of the baseball. Catch a segment with the Yankees up to bat. That was my dad’s favourite team in the American League—the only team besides the Expos I paid attention to when I was a kid. Yankee Stadium is sold out, and the packed stands make me think of the nearly empty ones at my very last Expos game at the Big O. For once, it was me who brought my dad. A customer at my restaurant had given the owner two free tickets. I’d just done two double shifts in row, and he wanted me to do two more. I almost told him where to go, but he won me over with the tickets. The Padres slaughtered the Expos. But it was worth it to sit in those stands one last time, with my dad who had taken me so many times as a kid. We used to see ten games or so a summer, sometimes more. It was one of those summers when he gave me his softball mitt. We’d while away hours playing catch after dinner, talking away, until it got dark.

  I pour my big Tremblay into a small glass, like the other patrons. Bébert drinks his straight from the bottle. He’s taken up a position with a view of the whole room. His eyes dart from the bar to the tv to the front door to the pool players. Suddenly he looks nervous. I take out the book I’ve been carrying around in the back pocket of my jeans and put it down on the table next to my beer.

  “So this is your spot?” I ask.

  “No. Second time I’ve been here.”

  “Like the neighbourhood?”

  “It’s all right, I guess. If you’re into hookers and shooting galleries.”

  He scratches his stomach. The Yankees hit a homer, which captures his attention for a while. It cuts to an interview with Derek Jeter.

  “C’mon, it’s not all that bad anymore. It’s getting cleaned up a bit.”

  You hear stories about landlords setting shitty old buildings on fire and building condos in the ashes. Not a week goes by without some gang of crack dealers getting busted up. The other day they took down a doorway on Aylmer: battering ram, swat team, the whole shebang. Bébert tells me not to worry, there’s still plenty of drughouses left in the neighbourhood. Says he found himself in a lovely crack house a couple days ago, just a few blocks from us. People who don’t know Bébert well think he’s full of shit. His girlfriends call him a good-for-nothing liar. But over time I’ve learned that the more improbable whatever comes out of his mouth is, the more likely it is to be true.