A Very Bold Leap (29 page)

It was beside this poor cherry tree that Céline had met him three years before, to prevent him from making a terrible mistake. It was there, in fact, that their love for each other had surfaced. But above all it was there where the little yellow dog lay, his faithful friend, whom he had perhaps not known well, and who, although he was dead, had brought him so much more comfort than most of the humans he had had to do with.

He had come to tell him about Boff.

He found an old wooden crate, emptied of its contents, in front of a sheet-metal shed, and dragged it over to the tree to use as a bench. He thought about lighting a cigarette but decided against it. To smoke in front of the little yellow dog seemed a mark of disrespect. He looked around the area, now in the fading daylight. His old daycare centre had indeed changed for the worse. All of Montreal, in fact, had become uglier. All of life.

A sort of muffled silence reigned over the city, the silence of a huge city slumbering under its winter blanket, interrupted from time to time by the snore of a passing automobile or the internal rumbling of a truck. He was buffeted by a damp breeze that brought with it the smell of woodsmoke and grilled meat. It made him feel slightly nauseous, or perhaps that was merely the effect of his sadness, a heavy melancholy he didn’t seem able to shake off.

His eye fell on the spot where he thought he remembered burying the dog. A small mound covered in snow, nothing more. Maybe he had the wrong spot? It had been such a long time ago.

Ah! If only he’d been as demanding of himself, as headstrong, with Boff as he had been with this little yellow dog… But why keep going back to the same recriminations? How could he get rid of this mill wheel of remorse that kept turning in his heart, slowly poisoning his thoughts? Who could help him? No one. Despite what he had said to the notary, not even the story of Argos had been able to sweep away his pain. Was he going to lose his mind over a dog? Wouldn’t that be raising one folly on top of another?

He took the glove off his right hand, bent over, and patted the snow-covered mound a few centimetres from his feet. “My poor dog, do you still remember me? Do you remember all the trouble I went to to save you from
the cold? Well, I’ve failed again. My dog Boff died, too. I’ve buried him in Fernand’s backyard, which was a difficult and miserable business, I can tell you. The ground was frozen solid. Now I have to try to forget him, but I don’t seem to be able to … What am I going to do?”

He felt a kind of warmth arise from the ground he had cleared with his bare hand, and heard,
in his head
, but with astonishing clarity and precision, the sound of a dog barking joyfully, a sound he recognized because he had heard it a thousand times before: it was Boff, speaking to him from the Other Side, telling him all was well, that everything was fine, that he, Charles, could get back to the business of living.

Charles remained seated on the wooden crate for a long time with a myriad of thoughts running through his head, oblivious to the dampness that was settling at the end of the day, until finally the cold forced him to leave.

That night at dinner, Lucie thought Charles appeared to be in a better frame of mind, and was happy to see him eat once again. He teased Henri about putting on weight, and Fernand made him laugh out loud with a story about a crackpot customer. After dinner he announced that he would return to his own apartment the next day, since his ankle was healed enough that he could walk almost normally.

He had another reason for wanting to go to his own place, but it was one he could hardly mention to Fernand and Lucie. Despite the open-mindedness, laboriously acquired, of his adopted parents in matters of sex, he and Céline would feel infinitely more at ease about making love in the apartment than they ever would in the house.

C
harles had been back at work for five weeks. He had rejoined Father Raphaël and his other assistants in Granby, where the small team had been preparing for a large meeting in a room in which auction sales were usually held. The preacher and the two others were staying in the Grandbyen Hotel, on the city’s main street. Charles had arrived in the middle of the afternoon and immediately called up to the preacher’s room. The welcome he received from his boss completely floored him.

Father Raphaël was alone. He seemed thinner, nervous, and tired, although he appeared to be in an excellent mood. He asked after Charles’s health, and insisted that he be told in great detail about the ordeal in the forest that had led to Boff’s death, a story that Charles told with great reticence because he was still deeply affected by it. The preacher gave Charles his complete attention, nodding his head sympathetically.

“God sometimes sends us His message in cruel ways,” he said when Charles had finished, “if I may be permitted to interpret His intentions. Still, we must be able to understand them! Maybe he was telling you it was time to give up certain attachments. What do you think, Charles?”

Charles gave a sarcastic smile.

“I would have preferred it if he’d done so by letting my dog die less stupidly.”

Father Raphaël continued nodding his head thoughtfully Then his expression changed abruptly and he proposed that they share a bottle of wine that someone had just given him. Stunned, Charles declined the offer. The preacher took the bottle from the armoire anyway and poured himself a glass. He sniffed it, and his eyes crinkled with appreciation as he took a drink.

“It’s not a bad thing to allow ourselves the occasional luxury,” he said, smiling. “It improves our mood and makes us more charitable towards others.”

He took another drink and smacked his lips with a satisfied air. Then his thoughts took another turn, and he looked at Charles with eyes filled with emotion and seriousness.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, Charles. I had almost convinced myself that you wouldn’t come back. Yes, I was sure of it. It pained me a great deal, because I consider you to be an exceptional human being.”

Charles felt his face become red. Was the preacher courting him for some reason?

“Where are Maxime and Marcel-Édouard?” he asked, to change the subject.

“Marcel-Édouard has just gone to make the final arrangements with the owner of the room where we’re holding tomorrow night’s meeting. And I sent Maxime off on an errand a couple of hours ago, and as usual he’s taken the opportunity to spend some time on his own. But I see I have made you feel ill at ease,” he said, laughingly. “Please don’t misunderstand the nature of my comments, in any case. We are all exceptional human beings in the eyes of God, because he made us all unique and irreplaceable. But certain among us, through His goodness, are more richly endowed than others. You are one of them. Count yourself lucky. You are, however, going to allow me to profit from your gifts by going off to help Marcel-Édouard, whom I probably should have accompanied myself since the owner of this blasted room is a difficult man to get along with, and loves to make everything as complicated as possible. But your charm and good nature will smooth everything out, I’m sure. Here’s the address. Take a taxi.”

He quickly explained the problem to Charles, and gave him explicit instructions. Charles left the room still in a state of astonishment over this bizarre meeting, during which he had had the impression that he’d been talking to two or three different people.

The next few days confirmed that a profound change had taken place in the preacher. Sometimes he would invite Charles to eat with him alone in his room, which he had never done before. During these sessions Charles learned that Father Raphaël was a great devotee of fine food — and knew how to get it no matter where he found himself — and a connoisseur of fine wines. Charles was able to eat only in moderation in his presence, despite the man’s insistence that he help himself. More and more it seemed to Charles that the preacher’s entire attention was directed at him. Maxime and Marcel-Édouard might not have existed. Strangely enough, the pair didn’t seem to feel any
jealousy about the situation, and even occasionally displayed a kind of snide amusement at the whole thing, which Charles was unable to explain.

In his dealings with Charles, Father Raphaël would suddenly become solicitous, almost caressing, all the while somehow maintaining such an aristocratic distance — with his air of ironic self-absorption that gave others the impression that he was amusing himself by pretending to have certain feelings — that Charles would interpret the pose as the expression of a superior knowledge of life, one that belonged to a different era, and that seemed a bit strange only when viewed from the perspective of modern vulgarity.

But he remained on his guard, without precisely knowing where the source of his mistrust lay. He had heard, of course, of the case of the famous preacher D∗∗∗∗, who had been convicted as a pedophile some years before and who, having served his time in prison, had since been wafted away somewhere and was no doubt now working as a fireman or a taxi driver, sighing over memories of his opulent and voluptuous former life. But there was nothing in Father Raphaël’s behaviour suggestive of the disturbing actions of the other, as they had been minutely discussed in the newspapers. In any case, Charles was no longer a child, and had only to keep his eyes open.

Although even he felt the idea was ludicrous, he began to sleep with a knife under his pillow. At times he also thought about resigning, but then he would remember his growing bank account and put off making a decision from one week to another.

The two meetings in Granby were phenomenally successful.

Marcel-Édouard, who was forever coming up with bright new ideas, had suggested they “work the room” by opening with the witness of a musician whom Father Raphaël had used on earlier occasions, mostly because he liked the man’s playing. After a brief introduction (electronic keyboard, drums, saxophone, and guitar), the man recounted the moving story of his battle with drugs. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he accompanied his story on the keyboard. He told about his miraculous salvation after he had accepted Jesus into his life. Then he told the even more moving story of two young men who had confided to him that they were hovering on the brink of suicide but were still locked in their sinful ways, and were trying to find the road to redemption.

There followed a rousing version of the hymn “God Will Find You in the Storm,” and then Father Raphaël came on and delivered his sermon, with an
eloquence that was new to Charles; his deep, wrenching voice took on the tones of a cello and sent shivers down even Charles’s spine, although he had heard it all before; the preacher brought his audience to delirium and was kept in the hall until after midnight by the pumped-up crowd, who didn’t want him to stop. Exhausted, sweat running down his face, he shook hands, gave blessings, allowed himself to be touched and stroked, listened patiently to everyone’s confidences and secrets, and gave advice to anyone who asked. He took a Down’s-syndrome child in his arms and whispered a few words into its ear, and the child responded with a smile — “For the first time!” the child’s mother exclaimed in a state of jubilation. The take surpassed all their hopes, and was the jewel in the crown of a magnificent night.

Nonetheless, one passage in the preacher’s long sermon had made a strong impression on Charles.

“My brothers,” Father Raphaël had declared, raising his arms slowly above his head to silence the crowd, “God does not confer useless gifts. Intelligence, youth, and beauty — these gifts carry with them responsibilities, they come with duties; don’t forget that! The more we receive from Him, the more we are called upon to give in return; the happier we are, the harder we must work for the happiness of others. The law of God’s love is a holy law! Without love, my brothers, man becomes nothing but a wreck in human form. He despises himself and abandons everything. Love does not calculate; it does not make comparisons; it does not judge. Love transcends gender and all forms of prejudice; it holds itself above custom, tradition, and usage; it obeys nothing but its own vocation, which is to give! Remember, my brothers and sisters, the words of the prophet: ‘My love is so great that I no longer see people as men or women, or as young or old, or as rich or poor. I see them only as creatures of God.’ Creatures of an all-powerful God, my brothers, filled with such great goodness that He thinks of nothing but our greater well-being. Never forget, never forget for a moment, that if God has given us a fleshy envelope, it is for the sole purpose of allowing us to manifest our love for one another. But He has done much more than that: by giving us free will, He has made us part of His own will. It is through His free will that man can see what is good for him and good for his neighbour. Inspired by the grace of God, man makes his rules and makes his choices. And there is not
one
way of doing good, my brothers and sisters, there are
thousands
of ways, and each one of us must discover those that are best for each of us. Throughout history, my
dear friends, men of closed and controlling minds have tried to find — and too often have indeed found — ways to restrict the many possible ways there are to do good, by imposing false rules, grievous and obscure machinations, apparently inspired by the Bible but owing nothing to the true Word of God. Do not listen to these men, my brothers, listen only to your hearts, illuminated by the grace of God. Be free, my brothers and sisters, be as free as the children of God, let love invade your lives, ignore the false and nefarious rules of man. Think only of your own happiness and that of others, as God has intended us to do.”

Charles, hearing these incendiary words for the first time, wondered what they could possibly mean. He could find nothing in them but a frank and open incitement to complete immorality. He asked Maxime and Marcel-Édouard for their reactions, but received nothing in return but disdainful smiles.

And so Charles, deeply displeased and disquieted, decided it was time for him to look around for another job.

The day after the Granby meeting, Father Raphaël and his assistants left for La Tuque, where one of the pioneers had recently opened a church. La Tuque was a small town in the Mauricie, apparently bursting with the faithful waiting impatiently for a visit from the preacher, who had been described to them almost as the reincarnation of Christ.

Upon their arrival, they went first to the home of the pioneer. Robert Brodeur lived in a large, dilapidated log house at the edge of town. He was a short man in his thirties, with large, moist, trusting blue eyes and the air of a man who was constantly deep in thought, as though unable to tear himself away from contemplating the mission that God had conferred upon him. He and Father Raphaël had met on several previous occasions, and Brodeur obviously held the preacher in high, almost beatific, esteem.

When tea was served, they discussed the spiritual health of the La Tuque community, which apparently left much to be desired. The town had been wracked by an attack of religious fervour some thirty years before, when a certain Abbé Côté, on orders from the archbishop, had come to exorcise two young girls, the Labrosse sisters, who had been possessed by demons; one of them had twice been seen dancing in the air off the balcony of the family
home; the other, hospitalized after falling into a catatonic fit, had been found levitating above her hospital bed, and had had to be strapped down with heavy leather belts. No one had dared go near either of them.

After nine days of fasting, self-flagellation, and public prayer, the Abbé Côté had successfully purged the Evil One from the girls’; bodies. But Satan had not left without a fight: the victims had been seized with violent convulsions; they rolled on the floor and ground their teeth in such a terrifying manner that they had afterwards had to be fitted with dentures.

When the Abbé Côté left La Tuque, the town had organized a party in his honour. It was held in the Community Club, which was later renamed the Knights of Columbus Hall. For a long time the town talked of those nine epic days of struggle against the Spirit of Evil. A retired notary even had a brochure printed up that related the extraordinary and edifying events. But that had been a long while ago, and time had done its work. Memories of the great occasion had become faded and diluted, indifference had set back in, and almost no one in La Tuque spoke any more of the Labrosse sisters — who, for their part, had left town the day after their deliverance.