Maikan and Édouard give each other a high five. A crow’s harsh cry interrupts the moment of grace. Half-crying, half-laughing, I call out to the bird perched on the tall birch tree, “Wachiya, Noumoushoum Mistenapeo, tchi mieutan’ha?”
“Caw … caw … cawww!” the crow replies, indifferent to the barking of my shepherd mutt.
35
THE SECRET
NOVEMBER 2004
SCREWING UP MY COURAGE with the first snowfall, I start clearing out Daniel’s office on this Saturday. Despite an urge to keep a few rare and precious books from his collection that I’d offered to give to Maryse—his friend who teaches literature—I file the volumes in cardboard boxes. I do keep any with a writer’s dedication to me. Slowly I empty the bookcases, leafing through works by my favourite authors. I linger over the torrid, sensual pages of La robe rouge by our friend and neighbour Laure St-Laurent. A note falls out. I watch the yellowed piece of paper flutter to the floor before picking it up.
“To the flame of the love we make … M.”
Incredulous, I stare at the words like so many bullets piercing me. I look for something to protect myself from being torn apart like some fragile fabric. The novel was published four years ago. Maryse’s handwriting! Stunned, I collapse onto the footstool I use to reach books on the top shelves. My heart is racing like a panic-stricken hare inside the prison of my breast. I deny the reality of the anguish hashing me fine with its sharp pitiless blades. My thoughts race wildly like a herd stalked by wolves.… Good God! This can’t be true! Maryse … Maryse and Daniel? My good friend who hugged me saying, “I love you! Daniel’s so lucky!”
I’m consumed with rage. What had Daniel tried to tell me, lying in the ditch, when I couldn’t hear a thing because of those damn sirens? “…Didn’t tell all … that love….” Had he wanted to confess before dying? Every time he went to her place, claiming they had work to do, literary discussions, were they actually sleeping together? What a windfall for them all my out-of-town invitations—poetry readings, conferences on First Nations authors! Gorgeous Maryse, single and, in her own words, “incapable of finding herself a man.” She’d borrowed my man, why would she bother looking elsewhere? I’m choked with fury.
My first impulse is to destroy each and every book and file on regional literature so patiently collected by Daniel. A childish impulse that I’m quick to repress since, knowing me, I’d be the only one to suffer. Slowly, the tornado inside dies down and its violent gusts taper off to be replaced by the salty waves of my sorrow. Crouched with my back to the wall, I grieve for the pathetic love I’d felt, thinking it perfect and unique, whose loss dug such a deep chasm that it frightened me at times. Behind the door, Mouski keeps up his whining. The poor dog is beside himself, alarmed at my sobbing. I am a desert of bitterness.
“My dog, let’s walk.”
His ears at half-mast, Mouski doesn’t quite know how to respond. My aura worries him; he can tell there’s something different about me. I pull on my jacket and the tuque Sibi knitted during less tumultous times. November’s cold sweeps into my lungs, its contact reinvigorating. With long strides, I head to the far end of the territory, to the forest whose wisdom and silence have always been my saving grace no matter the blows blind fate has rained down on me. I know that on my return, I’ll have found the words I need to confront Maryse and the others, who must have known about her affair with Daniel.
Staring at the phone, I still harbour the hope I might be wrong, that the affair took place well before Daniel and I were together. But Daniel would have told me. It’s better to know. Maryse answers on the third ring. She exclaims she’d just been thinking about seeing me about the books.… My icy tone stops her short. I invite her to meet me in a café on the main street. On neutral ground.
Mouski is still on guard. He watches from the corner of his eye as I get ready to go into town. He doesn’t bother wagging his tail the way he usually does when he senses a car ride coming. He’d rather keep his distance, I must give off a smell of sulphur. He stations himself on the porch and watches me leave without budging.
Seated by a window, Maryse is wearing an ochre sweater that sets fire to her red hair. Her face reveals nothing. Yet I sense that she has an inkling why we’re meeting in this out-of-the-ordinary place. Not at her house or mine. Her posture betrays her discomfort. I lay the yellow note down in front of her. “Since when?”
Unsurprised, she gives it a glance then looks deep into my eyes. I can read there affection, vanity, and shame. Tears glisten. I lock down my heart and wait, glued to the chair. The server brings us two cups of coffee and beats a quick retreat. Her survival instinct must be as well-developed as my dog’s.
“Since a long time ago….” At last, she makes up her mind to speak. Tells all in a hushed voice. How the free love generation went in for couple-swapping despite the shattered hearts. Their group of friends threw themselves into the movement headlong. “You must have been part of it, too, weren’t you?” she asks. I remain ice-cold.
When Carmelle was expecting her first child, Daniel gave up his extramarital activities. He took his role as a father seriously. Couple swapping soon lost its attraction for a generation exposed to family responsibilities like their parents before them. “When Carmelle left him ten years ago, Daniel’s heart was broken, really broken. He’d thought he’d live out his days with her, you know? At a party at Laure’s one night, he and I made love. I should point out that everyone was partying hard that night.” Between Daniel’s various lovers, they resumed their lovemaking, as necessary as their years-long friendship.
Isn’t there some saying that you never really know another person fully? Daniel shared my life for five years and I either saw nothing or didn’t want to see. I imagine what his friends must have thought of me. I’m overcome with an urge to scream and yell. I head for the washroom, lock myself in. The mirror reflects the image of a raving lunatic. I splash my face with cold water and take several deep breaths. There’s no choice but to follow this bullshit through to the end. Making especially sure that I don’t go under, that I keep my mind clear, breathe. Think of Humbert, Malcolm, Patricia, and my father—secret, loyal guardians, the healers who will help get me back on my feet—but let’s hope this is the last trial before my path continues.
Our cups have been refilled. I find passing comfort in the bitter, scorching coffee. Marye cries unashamedly, tears she wipes away with the sleeve of her sweater. A wave of compassion leads me to hold out a package of tissues to her that I’ve pulled from my purse. No matter her age, a child is suffering before my eyes. I can imagine what she’s been through all these years. In love with a womanizer who falls unexpectedly for others, but never for her. She who deluded herself about her freedom and told herself lies about her affairs that led nowhere and involved zero commitment.
“When Daniel met you five years ago, it was never the same for me. It looked like he’d fallen hard, even though he denied it, claiming he felt no need to be faithful to you. Yet it would seem that’s the first thing you told him after your first night together. That you wouldn’t share … his dick! Otherwise, you’d just be friends, nothing more. Since you didn’t live together for that first year, we did, if you will, hook up a few times, but only a few despite my insistence. The note you discovered was after one such time. Laure had just published her book and I gave it to Daniel. He loved you and didn’t want to lose you for anything in the world. He hadn’t touched me for over four years but was always afraid that one day you’d find out the truth.… You can take such a hard line sometimes!”
A fearful glimmer in her eye.
“That’s right,” I say softly, “I do tend to protect myself too much at times.… But how do you explain the fact he didn’t break up with you when I came onto the scene?”
Her answer is immediate, unequivocal. “Like you, to protect himself! Love is unmistakeable when it hits you. But that too can be frightening whe
n you’ve already loved and lost once.…”
Her suffering merges with my own, I lay my hand on hers. Her humanity touches me beyond my own wounded love, and the truth she’s just disclosed dilutes any resentment I’d felt. That dark energy that sent both Mouski and the server fleeing. She smiles, her face—the colour of her red hair from all the crying—grows calm, her expression one of gentle sorrow. At last she’s able to give free expression to her grief. We speak of Daniel, his qualities, his flaws, and of our love for him. Of what tormented him and the heavy silence of his that weighed on his life.
When I take my leave of Maryse, I’m buoyed with new vigour. A few kilometres from home, I veer off to Laure’s house. I want to ensure her loyalty. She’s about to take Tobi, her Newfoundland, out for a walk. Her daily regenerator as she calls it. Laure is a dynamo, always inventing words that she sets to paper. I keep pace with her, the dog running up ahead.
“Laure, did you know Maryse was sleeping with Daniel?”
She stops, grabs me by my coat sleeve and exclaims, “Where did you hear that?”
“It doesn’t matter, Laure. Did you or did you not know?”
She looks at me with motherly eyes, not knowing just how her answer will change things between us. Yes, she did know as did all Daniel’s friends.
“I’ve loved you for a long time, Victoria, who knows why! I love your humanity, your writing, and the suffering you manage to transcend. When I heard you were dating Daniel, I spoke to Maryse and asked her to stop fooling around with him. At one point, I asked Daniel pointblank if he was doing right by you. I know he knew what I meant. Listen, my love, it was up to him to tell you, not me, not Maryse, or anyone else. Do you understand?”
I sense she’s on the verge of tears. I know from experience there’s nothing else she could have done since I’ve been in a similar situation myself. I hug her to me and reassure her, “I understand. Maryse told me everything, it’ll be okay! My friend, my sister, my little mother.…”
Back home, Mouski watches from the snow-covered porch. He doesn’t race ahead of the car as usual. He waits patiently. When I call out, he runs and leaps into the air, signalling his delirious joy. I nuzzle my face into his thick fur, he yaps happily.
I turn on the living room lamp. Clarisse must be back from work by now. I dial her number. In response to her calm, gentle voice, I hear myself say, “I’ll need a place to stay between my upcoming trips. Does your invitation to share your house still stand?”
Then I phone the Kanatawets, hoping they’re in Mistissini. As I listen to the ringing of the phone, Patricia’s words come back to me, “You’ll be a true medicine woman the day you stay centred in compassion.”
I can’t wait to tell her she can be proud of me—I have passed the test.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The translators would like to thank both Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau for her insightful answers to our questions, and Luciana Ricciutelli of Inanna Publications for entrusting us with the responsibility of bringing Virginia’s seminal work to English-speaking readers.
Photo: Christian Leduc
Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau is an internationally-recognized visual artist and author of Cree origin. She has published three novels and two poetry collections in French. Born in Rapides-des-Cèdres in 1951, of a Cree mother and a mixed-heritage Québécois father, she holds a Fine Arts Baccalaureate and has participated in numerous exhibitions in Quebec, United States, Mexico, Denmark, and received several awards for her art. In 2007, she published her first novel, Ourse Blue. Her collection of poetry, De rouge et de blanc (2012), was awarded the Abitibi-Témiscamingue literary prize. Her subsequent novels include L’amant du lac (2013) and L’enfant hiver (2014). She lives in Abitibi, in northwest Quebec.
Susan Ouriou is an award-winning literary translator, fiction writer and conference interpreter. Among her co-translations is Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau’s first novel published in translation, Winter Child, and Emmanuelle Walter’s non-fiction book Stolen Sisters: The Story of Two Missing Girls, Their Families and How Canada Has Failed Indigenous Women, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s award for translation. An earlier translation, Pieces of Me, won that same award. She lives in Calgary, Alberta.
Christelle Morelli is a literary translator and teacher in Calgary’s Francophone school system. She has translated works of poetry and fiction, including Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau’s Winter Child, and was short-listed for the Governor General’s translation award for Stolen Sisters. Born in France, she has lived in Quebec and Western Canada.
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