You choose the nicest restaurant on Place de Brouckère. A warm little alcove, a rift in the damp winter.
The young waiter gives you a seat in the window. You cross your legs under the table. You are putting the finishing touches on a graceful choreography, your gestures worthy of the moment.
You read the menu like a first novel. Delighting in pronouncing each syllable. Enjoying the words they form and the invitation they extend.
Peter wants to laugh: the romantic menu, the warmth of the place, the white tablecloth, the refinement of the waiters, you sitting up straight and intently happy.
You order pan-fried foie gras briochette, followed by guinea-fowl suprême with a porcini mushroom sauce.
You are moved by the splendour of the dishes placed before you. You breathe them in first, devouring the exquisite, astonishing odours.
You pose, then stick your fork in, consider the texture, the layers that give under the pressure, then you put what you’ve gathered in your mouth, alert to the flavours on your tongue, against your palate.
After months of cod and black tea, you feel like you are on an incredible journey. Peter savours the dishes with you and enjoys watching you enjoy them.
The waiter hovers over you occasionally.
‘How is everything?’
You just smile at him. It is heavenly.
You enjoy the meal together, which you stretch to include dessert.
You finish your fresh fruit sabayon, slowly put on your scarf, then your black coat, and with Peter on your heels, you tell the waiter that you are going out for cigarettes. He smiles at you. He has a cousin in Canada.
It’s cold outside.
You walk away slowly, gradually speeding up.
You run through the streets of Brussels, your stomach full and your mouth still excited at having tasted so much.
Winded in the stairwell of your shabby building, you kiss Peter, who is taller than you, whom you love but don’t need.
You make love in your dark room, and you tell him that tomorrow you will find a job.
The next day, you knock on doors. You offer your services as a secretary. You know how to handle ink, and you have to pay the rent.
But you don’t find a job.
Peter asks for an advance from his parents, who send him a bit of money and two train tickets to London. They miss him. Come while you figure out what to do next, they say.
You leave your room in Belgium and head for England.
Liz and Arthur live in a small apartment on the sixth floor of a tower on the outskirts of London.
They are old and laugh a lot, both together and apart.
Liz likes fish. She collects aquariums, which are scattered around the house.
Arthur likes to sing. He is in the neighbourhood choir, something he takes seriously, and spends five or six hours a day rehearsing his parts.
They are happy to be reunited with their son and delighted to meet you.
You have tea with Liz and help her fry the meat she serves at every meal.
You sleep in Peter’s boyhood room. There is still quite a collection of comic books in it. He dives into them, first with a quick glance, then with undisguised pleasure.
You soon feel the need to extract yourself from this family that wants to become yours. You buy a bus pass and explore London.
You get lost a few times before finding your home away from home: the National Gallery.
The museum is huge and brightly lit. You breathe easier here than in the rest of the city.
You spend entire days in it.
The lanky man who guards the entrance knows you now. He greets you by name: ‘Hello, Suze.’ You don’t put anything in the cloakroom because now you are a fugitive. You leave no trace.
On your first few visits, you gave each piece equal attention, lingering over the name and the artist’s ideas, but now you forge a free, anarchic path. You walk through the museum to the end, where you spend hours in front of The Tempest. 1862. An overcast sky. Filled with threatening clouds, an impending storm contained within. You find the promise of a cyclone restful. The fact that someone, the artist Peder Balke in this case, was willing to wait for it, patiently stationed below it, makes you love people. You would have happily waited for that storm by his side. You could have plastered your back against the artist’s, and neck to neck, you would have taken on the sky.
Sometimes you bring a book with you, flipping through it distractedly while sitting on a bench, and sometimes you fall asleep. Some days, nothing. You just sit there, in the vast, echoing space, where you feel almost at home.
You bring fruit and bread with you. You station yourself under Cognoscenti in a Room Hung with Pictures to eat slowly. Young people, paintbrushes in hand, are spread out in an atelier. Their frozen bodies in the midst of the painting. The lively space reminds you of Borduas’s living room. You think of Marcel. But not for too long.
You think about what you would have painted if you really wanted to. But not for too long.
One afternoon, Peter joins you. It’s noon. He knows he will find you under the Flemish painting, in front of the vibrant atelier that reminds you of your other life. He has nougat.
He tells you that you should paint. You make a face. He laughs.
That evening, he brings you a piece of blank canvas. A real one. Without any traces of motor oil.
While his father sings and his mother fries supper, you shut yourself in the boyhood bedroom of this man who is taking care of you, and you paint for the first time in a long time.
You paint for hours, and they leave you to it.
You open the door at around midnight to go to the bathroom. Peter has fallen asleep on the coach. You walk by him without looking at him. Then you stop and lie down on top of him. You run your paint-stained hand over his freshly shaven cheek. You want to make love to him because you don’t know how to say thank you.
You want to make love to him here, in the middle of his family’s living room, amid the aquariums and begonias.
You take out his cock and put it in your mouth.
In Peter’s childhood bedroom there is a painting that later you will name Le pont Mirabeau and that will be exhibited at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.
One morning in 1956, you run to take refuge at the museum.
Peter finds you there that night, under Cranach’s Charity. The one you practically run by. The one you studiously avoid.
Now, under the image of this young, prosperous woman, a child at her breast, two others thriving at her feet, you tremble.
You don’t bother lifting your eyes to Peter when he leans over you. You tell him in a surprisingly clear voice that he has to find money.
You are thirty years old. You are pregnant.
Abortion is still illegal in 1956. There are a number of ways around that.
Alcohol-soaked parsley, which is inserted into the vagina, until the fetus is expelled.
Violently jumping up and down for twenty-four hours, until the fetus is expelled.
A long knitting needle inserted in the vagina and turned to the left, then the right, to expel the fetus.
They are all common methods. You can do them alone and risk death or pay someone to do them for you and risk death slightly less.
Peter asks his parents for money for a university class, and you pay a backstreet abortionist to empty your belly.
You go to her house. The wind gusts through it. Or else it’s howling inside your body. Behind your messy hair, your face is smooth. Expressionless. This ability of yours to disassociate, to detach from your body. Your stomach is a war zone, but your eyes are blank. The lights are out.
She points to the couch, and you lie down. It is rough against your skin. A texture that takes you back to Peter’s living room. Where you swallowed him. You think about that. Fast. You take refuge around Peter’s long, hard cock.
She sticks the needle in your body.
You think about the trembling that start
s at the top of his thighs, which you brush with your fingertips.
She rotates the needle. She is fishing.
You think about the flash of red in his hair. The briny taste that gradually coats his penis.
She is speaking to you, but you don’t hear her.
It burns.
You think about the grateful animal breath. You run your tongue over his cock. You leave no trace. Never leave a trace.
She says it’s over. She brushes your cheek with the back of her hand to wipe away a tear. She washes a rag red with blood and continues wiping along your thighs. She pulls your panties back up and slips a rolled towel inside them. She goes over the possible complications, which run through your mind like a song. She puts your coat over your shoulders. She asks you whether you have anyone to help you. She asks you whether you want a cup of tea. She opens the door. She helps you navigate the stairs.
Outside, Peter is waiting for you, smoking. He takes you by the hand. You would have liked him to say something, but he doesn’t.
You don’t stay in bed. You don’t even cry. You change your underwear, and you tell Peter you’re going home.
Montreal hasn’t changed. But after London, the city seems younger. Childlike, unfinished. The naïvete feels good. You feel like you’re starting out too.
You find a couch at the friend of a friend’s, and you come ashore there for a few days.
It’s spring and the city is waking up. But you just want to sleep.
One morning, the wilted buds on the staircase make you think of your daughter. She is eight or nine now.
There is a phone booth at the corner of the street. You take refuge in there. You dial the number almost without realizing it. Janine or Pauline answers.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. It’s Suzanne. Suzanne Meloche.’
‘Suzanne! How are you?’
‘Is Mousse there?’
‘Yes, she’s here.’
Mousse comes out of her bedroom. She is nine years old. She is tiny, her hair is jet black, her face is round, her eyes are piercing. Her front tooth is loose. She hopes that tonight the tooth fairy will be able to come and collect it. Mousse believes in the tooth fairy, even though she is nine years old. She also believes in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. By choice. Mousse likes magic. She needs it.
Frozen in the middle of the kitchen, she is hanging on the lips of her Aunt Pauline. Her mother is on the phone. She has a drawing for her. No, two drawings. She knows a new song too, which she learned at school. And she got a good grade on her French composition.
‘London? Lucky you. You must have loved it … ’
Aunt Pauline looks at Mousse. Smiles at her. Aunt Pauline is nice. When she wears her pink flowered nightgown, she seems even nicer.
‘She’s right here. Do you want to talk to her?’
Mousse wants to talk to her mother. She has wanted to talk to her since she was a little girl. She left before she could really talk to her. And now she speaks well. She knows plenty of words, and she uses them well. They tell her so at school. Mousse wants to speak to her, but her steps retreat rather than advancing toward Pauline, who is holding out the receiver.
But Pauline is nice and she waits.
Mousse makes the decision. Walks as if she were walking along a wire. What word should she start with? She has missed her mother so much. She missed everything. There is so much to tell.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello … Mousse?’
Silence.
‘How are you?’
‘Okay.’
At the other end of the line, there is graffiti in the phone booth. Eat shit written in marker. Motherfucker. There should be lace. There should be a carpet and velvet curtains. You need a chair, a chair to sit down on.
‘Mousse, it’s me. It’s Suzanne.’
Your daughter’s voice. You want to smell her breath. As a reflex, you press your nose up to the phone. Your mouth too.
Mousse asks you whether you had a nice trip. She is articulate. Her words sound pretty spoken in her voice. You tell her that yes, you had a nice trip. She asks whether you are coming to see her. You hold the phone with both hands. You press it to your face, want to melt inside of it. You tell her yes. In her silence, you hear that she is happy and scared. Like you. Aunt Pauline takes the phone back.
And you tell Pauline that you want Mousse back. You want her with you. You want to learn the song of her voice by heart. You want to see her hair grow too long and trim her bangs, trying hard to get them straight. You want to know the depth of her dimples and the curve of her forehead. You want to touch the texture of her little girl tears when you comfort her. You want. Right now.
In the small apartment that smells of cottage pudding, Aunt Pauline turns gently toward Mousse. She looks her right in the eye. She asks her, since she is a big girl, whether she wants to go back to live with her mother.
Mousse is nine years old. She is not a big girl. Aunt Janine arrives in the doorway. She is wearing blue pyjamas. Aunt Pauline stares at Mousse. Aunt Pauline is nice. Aunt Janine too. In the morning they smell like cottage pudding with cinnamon. Mousse puts her hand in her mouth and wiggles her tooth. Back and forth back and forth back and forth.
In the phone booth you are waiting you are cold all of a sudden it’s winter Motherfucker screams in your face.
The tooth gives way in Mousse’s hand. Mousse holds the tooth in her hand.
Aunt Pauline repeats the question.
Mousse says no. And she runs to her bedroom to put the tooth that has just fallen out under her pillow.
You hang up. You leave the phone booth. Your shoelace is not untied but you tie it anyway. You try to figure out where to go. You are falling and you don’t know when it will stop.
You take the train to get your balance.
You take the train to New York, a city you don’t know.
1956–1965
Her voice slides through you like sand slips through an hourglass. It creeps in, then winds up inhabiting you. You open your eyes. You wake up.
You are still on the park bench. Night has fallen.
There are young Black girls in front of you. You notice her among the others. She reigns. Her endless legs make her sway gently. Her body is a swollen, proud sail, her neck arched like a tree trunk, her eyes so black that they get lost in the night. She is looking at you.
You surface. You sit up.
You fell asleep in Central Park. The city’s laboured breath around you reassures you.
The young woman approaches you, shouting at you in English.
‘Who are you?’
Yet her bitter presence reveals a tear. A queen unhinged, crowned with scrap iron, who is offering you a swig of beer. Asking you what you are doing there.
Your throat is dry. The beer feels good.
You answer. You arrived from Montreal. You took the train, got off, and this is where you find yourself. You don’t know what’s next.
She smiles. She likes your story. She introduces herself: Selena.
The other girls have drawn closer. A small sparkling herd around her, the alpha female. She tells you to follow her. She knows a place you can sleep.
You stand, draw up to her side, step into her delicate aura. You want to follow her. You join her crew, and you all follow her.
You head into Harlem.
Two thirty-seven 122nd Street. Harlem is Black. Exclusively. You know it. You feel it as you head in. And once again you are an intruder. A role you know well. The feeling of not belonging. You’ve had it since childhood. You know it so well it reassures you. You feel like you are in familiar territory: different.
Selena is delighted with the situation but takes it seriously. She has brought a young white woman into her neighbourhood. She looks out for you.
She opens door 237, which leads to a staircase, which the peeling grey walls make look as though they’re narrowing as they climb.
Several floors rise up in the darkness. Selena knock
s on the first door in front of her. An old Black man, with a gaunt face and half-closed eyes, opens the door.
Selena hugs him affectionately. She reaches toward a series of hooks and grabs a key.
She takes you upstairs.
The stairs creak under your feet. Behind closed doors, a burst of wailing from a television or a heated discussion. Hoarse, burnt voices combine in a language that brings you back to the wet soil, your feet sinking into it, to your tumultuous river.
Selena opens the door to number 18.
A group of junkies used to exist there. They are dead or disappeared. You can stay there.
A cursory cleaning was done, but the odour of excess and despair still hangs in the air.
There is a mattress in the middle of the room.
In a corner, there is a small aquarium where an iguana is resting.
Selena holds her hand out, asking, victoriously, for a share of the rent. Clearly, she’s given you white woman’s rates. That will pay for her next binge.
Then she hesitates a little, scanning your face. And as if she found motivation in your features, she warns you.
‘It’s dangerous for a white woman here.’
You tell her that’s fine with you.
You’re not afraid.
That’s not quite the case. It’s more that you accept being put in danger. You almost want it. Deserve it.
Selena, royal and ungrounded, stares at you. She understands. An uncomfortable connection passes between you.
She smiles at you. Wishes you good luck.
The door closes. Shutting you in.
You pull on the sheet hung as a curtain, revealing the street. A couple is walking down it with their arms around each other, a hand slipped in the other’s pocket, as one.
A few kids are hanging around a garbage can in which a fire is crackling. Its black smoke splits the sky.
You have deserted. You pulled on your roots. There’s blood. But you don’t bandage the wound. You will swim in your blood until you bleed out.
Suzanne Page 11