Following the Summer (5 page)

Eight

I
N AUGUST THE WOLVES DON THEIR SUNDAY
best. Because she has no grandmother nearby and her mother knows none either, Marie doesn't know where she picked up this saying. But it comes to her at the approach to meetings that are never arranged, that are always kept, that bring her to the park near five o'clock. The grass is decaying from the sun, the dog is falling apart from arthritis and the heat, she holds on to her white knitting. The night shift now begins when the sun is still high, when Corrine goes back to the Union Hotel in time for the men's liquid suppers.

She has been taught beige, white, loose, she has learned parsimony in her choice of clothes for summers that are too brief. Corrine always looks different, squeezed into close-fitting blouses, skintight camisoles, slacks that fit tightly at ankle and hips, in blue, green, orange, in black streaked with red. She clashes with the grey rocks that they lie on. Marie avoids both the shade of the park and other people's looks at the two women, one of whom has neither purse nor dog nor necklace. On the flaking stone the sun is not so harsh now, the bicycles have disappeared, transgressing other boundaries outside the properties owned by the mine. The vast wrinkles in the solid dunes form hollow beds. They talk, Corrine always louder and longer.

Nothing about herself, or very little. Stories about people who live.

The big-breasted little prostitute who can't leave town because the morality officer reserves her for himself. She is in love with a college boy. She sets him ablaze in the early morning, he helps her make the bed and change the towels before her daily rounds. She is still pink and, already, absolutely alone.

The big bully who has refused to leave his room since his beloved returned to Montreal to go back to his wife and children. He weeps over a bag full of love letters and a fishing photograph that shows them with their arms around each other's shoulders.

A locksmith dressed in black from head to toe behaves like a curate in the face of bashed-in doors, yesterday's vomit, broken glass in the corridor. But he can be seen lingering outside those rooms where the new girls are always slow to awaken. He can get it up any time, any place, they say, as they leave him high and dry.

They all come from another north that can only be reached by the roads of the south, they've escaped from chapels and spider-mothers, except for the eldest who is from around here. From the house with four additions in back of the graveyard. Her mother was the guardian of a mental defective whom she married last June in white, in the church. The daughter followed the priest's every move and spat at his feet before she moved into the hotel, with no baggage. She is ardent and insists on silence from her men.

Corrine knows nothing of the many forlorn men who never venture from the upper floors, who welcome the echo of bodies quick and drunk, sounds she pursues when she goes to her room, that give her the urge to make love. Pietro often turns her down now, and she laughs angrily. She says it's like hunger: she feels wide open and she must be filled, and she hates to do it herself. She leans across to Marie, still laughing. “There,” she says, “and there.” She has touched her pubis, her groin. A burning inside the white cotton. Marie wasn't afraid. And while Corrine is already at another story, she parts her legs a little, invents for herself the memory of a woman she would have fucked, who will not be. Strong, the stone beneath her back.

At the edge of the town's burnt-out area, that night or another, they walked through the fence around the former water tower. It was gaping. The building hummed, they imagined the gurgling of pipes and pumps, invisible through the series of filthy tiles on the north side. Recumbent remnants strew the yard: a rusty tractor, snow scrapers, tires, sheets of metal that may have fallen from the roof. The water tower seems to have a solitary life, to swallow its own refuse: they brushed against it, whispering.

The entrance gave onto a bend in the lake to the west; it, too, was gaping. They had only to step inside. Machines gleamed, polished as if by a domestic sun, garlanded with vines, brushed by palms, by giant flowers that embraced their waists. All the green of the burnt summer was hidden there, now oozing the wet sweat of greenhouses inside a place of steel. The jungle opened out on two levels, darker inside the innermost recesses of the roof. Mist hauled itself along a blind wall, a serpent of fog that stopped at their feet. They were rooted to the spot. Everything sparkled under the white lights, even the cement floor painted silver grey, made to keep the dew inside and banish odours.

Corrine grabbed Marie by the elbow, spun her around to the right, to a recess behind a curtain of vines that clung to barbed wire. Lying on his back in a khaki hammock, a fat man slept. He was gasping, his face was waxen against a black sweater. The dog, tied to the fence, barked feebly. At a squirrel, perhaps, or a toad that had come with the calm weather. The women left.

Nine

I
T APPEARS THAT THE ORGANIST RAN OUT
screaming, that she tripped on the square in front of the church, that she took her time before telling it all to a child. A child who was slow to notify the firemen, on the other side of the Butte du Portage, who were playing cards in the shade, and there were those who claimed that one was asleep.

She wasn't playing the organ, she was drawing up the program for the choir at high mass, she was stacking the scores. Some claimed that she hung around the sacristy, where she had been found before, smoothing surplices and smelling the cold incense, unbuttoned and distraught. And it's true that her hair was loose, her collar open when they sat her down, hysterical, on the one bench in the presbytery yard, where the fire's progress could not yet be seen.

She had been stacking sheets of music, she said, when she heard a crackling sound that she thought was the struggling of a bird held prisoner in the vault. The sound left and returned, she saw nothing. And in the time it took to identify the yellow ribbon licking at the frieze above the staircase in the choir loft, the wall had suddenly burst into flames. She had always said it was unwise to decorate a church as if it were a living room, with frescoes painted on cardboard, flammable glue. For her, churches must be white as surplices, with plaster that would tolerate nothing but gold leaf. On her native island, which she never should have left, they had been made in that manner for three hundred years, and only the uneducated would decorate walls between stained-glass windows already crammed full of errors, secular intrusions like those poppies side by side with fleurs-de-lis on the rose windows. She knew the church better than anyone, knew its smallest nooks and crannies, hated it in its entirety. And it was her possession that was burning.

Children were clustered on the sidewalk across the street, between the two hoses with inadequate pressure, the church having been built on the only hill in town. Now it is being consumed from above, a pyre in reverse, a witch whose brain would burn before her possessed body. One after the other the trompe-l'oeil gave way because their wood was dry. The arrow painted to look like silver, the first cornice painted to look like stone, the underpinning of the roof that had been painted like copper. Flickering fireworks blown towards the back, charred hunks of wood invisible in daylight. Now they're beginning to gnaw at the slates, false as well, that people always talk about replacing because their grey colour doesn't harmonize with the pale lemon siding on the walls. The ridgepole is burning all along its length, gleaming like a funambulist's wire, inaccessible to the streams of water, as though traced by a delighted god.

No alarm bell has sounded, but the crowd grows to watch the steeple fall, chimes of the poor that soon will shatter, in a puddle of water. It is a man, not the women, who is weeping now; they are busy herding the children out of the way. If he was the one who built the shell of the steeple, this is a sad business. But how can anyone know, the priest is on his annual journey to the Holy Land and the vicar won't return till late tonight from the far-flung parishes whose penitents require his presence once a week. The body, in any case, is burning more cheerfully now. And it's over, some brave soul has gone in through the basement to save the holy vessels and most of the objects in the sacristy. In the inferno, no one can see the vanished varnished pews, tomorrow only steel hooks will remain. It was a church without statues, and so with nothing to regret.

Marie climbs up the southern slope of the hill where the more opulent houses provide a view of the fire from a distance, in the event that the wind should drive it towards her. The summer has been so dry. But smoke and sparks continue to drift towards the back, near the grounds of the former boys' school, which is made of brick and empty now. Water is trained on the presbytery, trickles, cool, down the stucco, it will be saved.

She looks for sadness but finds none. The door had to be closed one day on the pale copies of the mystic emotions fostered in places like this, with their monotonous chants and promises of a peace as impracticable as it was offensive. She will only miss the giggles in the choir loft at the organist's trembling legs as she pumps away at the country harmonium. From up there, unless some lost soul blocked your view of the nave, you could see every detail of the twelve cardboard saints mounted on the walls, twice as large as life, some bearing the symbols of the evangelists, but most of them martyrs. All had the same face, the face of men-women indifferent to the flesh; they looked God in the eye and turned more pallid still as a result. Skeletons under the pastel robes. She will remember them more than the confessionals, though their terrors had more meaning, you entered them with your guts in a knot and left them a little less of a child, until you left them for good when there were other places to feel guilty in.

Her mother joins her by the fire, hypnotized for a moment. She has few memories in the rubble. It is the place where one enters a different age, from time to time. Women wore hats when she first came here, now they go bareheaded and soon her daughter was to be married there. The square outside the church is black with soot where confetti should have fallen. It is cement, it will survive, with enough room for the entire wedding party.

She sees Marie in the satin dress they've chosen, straight, short, with no lace. Only the back is to be bare and there will be no veil. A simple cap on her pulled-back hair, and pearls at the ears. A dress for a still-warm autumn, but able to defy the rain. It sleeps in plastic, it is perfect, it will always be.

Ervant will be upset. He rather liked this tacky church with its faint smell of northern mildew instead of old stones, wrapped in pastels instead of running, as it would have done in his country, into shadows propitious for women's moans. He had chosen the angle for the photo he'll send home, on the left where it would show the street and cars, including the rented convertible.

But now on the right a charred ruin stands, like a hotel that went up in flames one night because a drink was refused or a woman turned down. The steeple is a thousand pieces now and some people are gathering them up, already relics. Afterwards, next Sunday and on other Sundays still to come, the church will move into the old boys' school, so rumour has it.

Rumour has it, too, the following day, that the organist did not set the fire. That she had been in the sacristy, smoothing surplices. That the fire had been smouldering since the day before, that around midnight a neighbour had seen two shadows run away, shadows of a boy and perhaps a girl in a long beige car like the one that belongs to the sect with the crescent flag, which survives precariously somewhere near Bellecombe. Their children are brought to school by force and they refuse to kneel for prayer. In her class, Marie left them to their own people. She saw the mystery elsewhere, in their drawings of serpents and huts from which inner suns emerged. They came from the East.

Until the end of August, she goes by the Portage; every day a little more of its ruin has gone, leaving very little else. The ground is turning grey. Ervant is consoled, he studies the new houses. She goes to her appointments by way of the close-cropped knoll, she feels drained, she no longer knows how to come down.

Ten

T
HE DAYS ARE GROWING SHORTER FROM
the middle. Marie's reason is restored from ten a.m. till noon, in the classroom where stuffy summer air lies stagnant despite wide-open windows. Traces of paste have been washed from the walls, the desks smell of bleach that never dries, textbooks are stacked in a corner, some will be left, there will be fewer children this fall. There's no exodus, says the principal who amends lists, refashions groups, and gossips from one class to the next. But the springs are drying up. The mine will soon shut down its underground development, nothing will be seen, the blast furnaces will continue to feed the chimneys. The men will no longer come. And the women who were born here will no longer provide. It will be September tomorrow, none of her colleagues is pregnant, they say that children are expensive but Marie hears summer creaking in their words. She's not the only one who merges with the rock, the crumbling clay, who goes by way of the dwarf aspens. Fate has brought them together.

And there's no other place to go. School, home, the park. If only there were a tavern where a woman could be alone in the dimness, to quench her thirst, to laugh softly at her ghosts, dispatch them in alcohol that really does dissolve them. What she knows about drunkenness is funny. Ervant taught her how to toss back vodka in one gulp, and you can see it clearly all the way down your back as you feel it go down. The table becomes solid, Ervant's shoulder, too; it's easy to start drawing a garden or living room furniture, a big living room like those in the new houses, in the addition to the old Townsite which has just been authorized. Easy to long for saucepans, china, silverware, and sheer curtains.

What she would see if she drank alone would be, perhaps, the road that leads out of here. Straighten its curves, repave it before winter, and soon you could save half an hour over the four hundred miles. She would drive, she would get there.

But at home there are only the sour wines her father cultivates in stoneware basins, that have to evaporate before they can be drunk; you don't sample them till winter, and then such a small amount.

From school to park takes twice as long if you go by way of the Portage. One last time Marie gives in, because it looks as if tomorrow there will finally be storms. She will draw out her walk along the main street, at least she can have lunch at Kresge's, alone and elbow to elbow with the old maids who watch the ballet of waitresses between the tubs of margarine, the production line of toast, the deep-frying vat, the coffeepot that starts up over and over. The place used to smell of breakfast all day long, it was the reward for hours of shopping on the Saturdays of her childhood. Unknown women in their thirties will certainly come here today, dragging their children to the stationery department just beside it. Strange plastic knapsacks have replaced flat bags this year, even leatherette has disappeared. There, hesitating over the schoolbags, will be a pupil destined for her class next week, whom she won't recognize once his mother shines him up. In her eyes they all resemble one another, despite what's said by those who like to think of themselves as pedagogues. You filter them through yourself as best you can, their affection is never sincere, no one is more duplicitous than a half-grown child.

The bookstore window has been changed, a new paperback collection she'll explore briefly, classics that she ought to tackle. But those can be kept for old age, a way to guarantee that you'll arrive there. Under its hardcover jacket the latest American novel offers the true story of a cold-blooded killer whose only motive is his hatred of quiet folk, of farmers and married couples. She takes it and the bookseller disapproves, she can tell from the way he gets rid of her.

She is alone at the outer limit of the park, with no dog or knitting, it's three o'clock, much earlier than usual, and if Corrine doesn't show up she'll be free of her, the interval will suffice, summer will have ended, a simple misunderstanding. Some willow leaves have already turned inside out, the storm will come slowly but it will come, before five o'clock, and then she'll have to run away at last.

She walks jauntily now. It wouldn't take much to make her feel the chill in the wind that is brushing against the rock at the edge of the park. From green and ochre, the poisoned water is turning black at her feet. Look, now the scar is a mere thread, not even wide enough to hold a secret. She wonders what colour the ice will be in January, when no one comes to this place where they dump the only old snow that is picked up in town, along the three commercial streets. Mauve, perhaps, like those plum-flavoured drinks that taste like artificial pectin. It's cheerful now, with the sun that plunges into the black water and does not resurface. You can resist all the lights come from elsewhere, make an opaque square for yourself and still be warm. She can't wait to read about the crime, that will be for Ervant's next night shift, the last one before the wedding.

Corrine isn't there, Marie would have to wait for an hour that she is wary of granting her. She advances firmly now, she knows every knoll, every patch of dried mud under the dead ferns, she will even walk by herself around the water tower whose fence seems to be permanently open. She wishes she could speak to the guard there, learn where he finds the cuttings and whether he knows all the names in his jungle. He is not like the foreigners, he has a belly and shoulders like those priests whose only abstinence is from women. Perhaps he too travels to the Holy Land, or to the Christian Americas of the south, with their forests of perpetual rain. There is coolness between his machines, she will go farther inside it today, the water tower belongs to the town after all, it's not a private house.

Vapour falls almost in a mist as soon as she crosses the threshold, a great milky flower has burst on a stem that returns to the earth, she doesn't recognize it. An orchid, most likely, the only exotic flower Marie can recall, from a plate in some encyclopedia. Their names must be in Latin here, a mass of vowels that give even more grace to the green. There are palm trees that ooze a kind of oil, as if it was born from the vibration of the pumps.

And brief groans, a soft, regular hiss. She sees, then hears them. Underneath the hammock, directly on the cool earth, they breathe heavily with their exertions. The man on his back, stomach slumped across on either side, arms along his body, eyes shut, naked to the knees which are imprisoned by his clothes. The woman straddles him backwards, buttocks offered to his unseeing face, riding the penis that is visible down to the root, she is masturbating, her eyes howl. Her breasts sway inside the blouse she hasn't shed, a red spot where the sweat is darkening. There was wetness in her groan, she's coming hard.

She's finished before the man and now it's he who can be heard, she is making a spectacle of him for Marie, eyes locked on hers, contented. With both hands she spreads her buttocks, forcing him a little more, he comes in their mingled bushes. Corrine wipes herself with her underwear, unfolds herself, sways the hammock to fan herself, stretches, puts on her clothes. She is there, very close, closer even than the first time. Flings an arm around Marie's neck, plasters her sweat against her hips. “That was good, nice and juicy, I wouldn't mind starting over.” Her loud laughter as she pinches Marie's thigh. “Come here.”

The storm will wait until five o'clock on the rock where they lie to talk about flesh and folds. It is Corrine who says everything, Marie who learns. There are some men who give more pleasure, often those who sleep in strange places, who have no woman. You have to be able to guess who they are and be quick to take them. They laugh at his flaccid belly, his hissing groan. No matter, he is sleeping now, satisfied, and they are here and they've survived the summer.

A wave on the lake, then two. The rain will stop before their hair is even wet. Thunder booms, an Angelus.