Just Fine (2 page)

III

O
N FIRE NIGHTS the world was full of energy. Our parents never tried to keep us at home on those nights, even though they knew we'd return blackened and full of smoke, our eyebrows singed, and our hair stiffened by the fumes. They would not deprive us of the magic that operated on those nights. It was as though they knew we were going out to do something important, essential even, like exercising our power. For that was indeed what was happening: whether we were spreading the fire or putting it out, opening or blocking the path of the flames, it was in our way, in each one's own way, of combining these two complementary acts that we measured our power and relished the crackling fire, the smell of the smoke, the spectacle of fire consuming a tuft of grass in a flash, the thrill of leaping through the flames, and the exuberant camaraderie of our friends and the others who took part in this sublime and savage ritual. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, participating in an identical and spellbinding experience of the self.

It always began with a whispering back and forth at school. By suppertime, the entire neighbourhood was feverish and rife with murmured questions about the identity of the boy — what girl would have dared? — who would drop the first match. This single act of bravado unleashed a chain reaction; the scent of smoke spread and signalled the ultimate call to action. Soon after, the station siren and the flashing emergence of the fire trucks from the station confirmed that fire night had indeed been launched. Not a single field was spared. We got as close as we could to the houses where the firemen were stationed. In a way they were our accomplices, for they knew they could never stop what was a kind of collective release and so they were content to put out those flames that came too close to private property.

Late at night, after they had blackened all the fields in the interior, the fires moved quietly away from the town centre to burn freely in the swamps, advancing in long orange rays to their eventual extinction along roads, waterways, and other natural barriers. The next day, they often continued to smoke in the distance. It was sad to see all those burned fields around us in the light of day, but our good humour returned quickly enough when we remembered the marvellous energy of the night before. Besides, since we knew the fields would soon bloom again with fresh green grass, we convinced ourselves that we had helped renew nature. The sight of those charred fields never prevented the fiery delirium from taking hold of us again the following season.

*

Under the sign of Aries, the first astrological house is that of birth. There's an art to birth, a way to become and to grow that lends itself to a good life. This is evident at birth, by a baby's reaction to its environment, to its own body, and to that of others. The first house offers clues about the initial impression we make on the world and vice versa. It's the house of the individual prior to any external influence, of natural dispositions and tendencies, of heredity, of idiosyncrasies and style. It's the house of beginnings, of vital energy, of youth focusing on itself. It gives us an idea of how we present ourselves to the world, how we put ourselves forward. It's the house of what we do for ourselves and the place where we feel good when we are alone.

*

Although we paid little notice to the river because it played no particular role (you could neither boat on nor swim or fish in it), the Petitcodiac nevertheless had a place in our lives. It was always there; large, brown, dammed, and inescapable, due to its colour, its wide low-water sludge marks, and its famous tidal bore. Yet we never cared much for this flat, slow-moving river, on the same level as everything else, hidden most of the time by its own high banks. It gave off no odour, ran without a sound, and paid no more attention to us than we did to it. But this quasi-absent river would take on surreal dimensions every time an Irving oil tanker came to replenish the enormous white reservoirs located at the river's bend, at the mouth of Hall's Creek. Just when we'd all but completely forgotten the river, a supertanker would appear without warning, looking for all the world as though it were floating on the marshes, sounding its foghorn only once it was well in sight. These sly arrivals have left an indelible mark on me. I remember wandering innocently in the fields, and glancing by chance over my shoulder only to see a giant oil tanker coming up behind me. To this day, when I go to my therapist, I can never decide whether to lie on my back or my stomach. I never know which, my spine or my chakras, needs more attention.

*

There are many true deltas other than the one the Ganges and the Brahmaputra produce together in the Bay of Bengal and the one formed by the Mississippi, which is probably the most famous of them all. In Africa, the Niger River forms a vast delta where it plunges into the Atlantic Ocean at Port Harcourt and conceals an important interior delta, just as the Senegal River does. The Nile, the Rhone, and the Ebro form large deltas at their mouths in the Mediterranean. In Italy, the Po creates a great delta as it empties into the Adriatic and the Tiber creates a classic triangular delta as it flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Wide deltas appear too at the mouths of Europe's two longest rivers, the Volga and the Danube, which empty into the Caspian and Black seas, respectively. The Amu Darya, which runs through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, flows into the Aral Sea through an extremely broad delta, whereas the Lena River, in Siberia, creates a delta typical of cold, high-altitude regions and resembles our own Mackenzie delta. In hot, damp latitudes, such as in Asia, we find a great many of the world's largest deltas: the Godavari and Indus deltas in India, the Irrawaddy in Burma, and the Yangzi Jiang and Huang He in China. The Huang He, or Yellow River, carries huge quantities of alluvial deposits and produces annual floods which, because of the dense populations found in deltaic zones of humid tropical regions, become deadly. In North Vietnam, the Song Hong, or Red River, combines with the Song Da, or Black River, to form the Tonkin delta; in the South, the Mekong flows into the Cochin China delta. Some islands of Indonesia also have remarkable deltas, particularly at the mouth of the Mahakam in Borneo and the Solo in Java. In Tunisia, the Medjerda delta is a veritable museum of recent geomorphology and is rich with lessons on the consequences of human intervention upon delta formations.

*

There were four vegetable gardens in the immediate neighbourhood of our family home. I can still see Madame Pinet, Monsieur Bourgeois, Monsieur Gallant, and old Mina Gauvin bent over their rows. For the most part, the neighbourhood vegetables that graced our table came from the garden of Madame Pinet, who lived next door and gave them to us. We also bought a few from Mina Gauvin, mostly rhubarb and beans, but sometimes beets, carrots, and cucumbers, too. Though we occasionally ate the Bourgeois's and Gallants' vegetables, their gardens were mainly beautiful landscape paintings evolving before our eyes, through the windows of our kitchen.

*

I'm talking about the Dieppe of Bruegel the Elder, where everyone erects their own interior monuments. I'm talking about the Dieppe of the
Census at Bethlehem,
of its inhabitants flooding into the Green Crown Inn to pay their taxes to the emperor. I'm talking about that little Flemish town where people come from surrounding villages to exchange the contents of their baskets, their demijohns, and their crates of fowl. I'm talking about the peasant who slits a pig's throat in plain view of everyone, about his wife who collects its blood in a pan, and about the other animal awaiting its turn, for there are suddenly many mouths to feed. People, bent beneath their loads, are coming on foot across frozen rivers; others have been here for some time. They've arranged their barrel-shaped wagons for all to see, filled them with grain or wine, and now they're discussing, negotiating, arguing, sharing news. I'm talking about the chickens pecking at the ground at the feet of the artisan who's in front of the inn making and selling his chairs, three-legged straw seats also used as sleds by parents to pull their kids along the frozen river. I'm talking about a woman sweeping snow, a man lacing up his skates, children having fun spinning tops or tussling on the ice. Soldiers have gathered in front of one of the many buildings; nearby, a small crowd has collected around a fire, probably seeking its warmth. Maybe they're roasting wheat. Elsewhere, a few people are seated in the trunk of a not-quite-dead tree converted to receive other tired travellers. Here and there, people are pushing, pulling, taking care of business, building a cabin, carrying wood. In the courtyard of a small cottage, a peasant woman is bent over her cabbages, half-buried in the snow. There's a dog and several crows. Carrying a long saw on his shoulder, Joseph leads the donkey on which Mary sits, pregnant with Jesus. A bullock accompanies them. They are as much a part of this sixteenth-century winter landscape as the others, and are about to relive the drama of Christianity. Two individuals are also arriving, carrying objects that resemble the gifts of the Magi. They walk by a child seated on a sled who pro-pels himself forward with small poles he thrusts into the ice. In the centre of the painting, an abandoned wheel stands straight up, frozen in the snow and ice. It has twelve spokes.

IV

G
OOD YEAR OR BAD YEAR
,
Hard Time Gallant would buy all our wigglers. His store, the Marsh Canteen, was located at the other end of town, near the marsh that was fed by Hall's Creek and that separated the town of Dieppe from the city of Moncton. For a long time, his canteen was no more than a collection of shacks, only one of which could be heated and kept open in the winter. Short and fat and wearing thick glasses, Hard Time Gallant never spoke much, but he sold a bit of everything in his store, including produce and local foodstuffs such as oysters, salted and smoked fish, lard, Acadian poutines, and samphire greens; in short, food that wasn't particularly attractive to children.

With each spring thaw, Hard Time would sell fishing worms again and we would become his suppliers. When we needed money, we'd spend an hour or two digging, and then bring him a can containing a respectable number of lovely wigglers all tangled up together. Whether our can was large or small, and whether it contained worms that were fat or thin, shiny or earthy, Hard Time would take it in his hands, shake it slightly to make sure we hadn't padded it with too much dirt, and, glancing at us through his thick glasses, he'd pull a few coins from his pocket or the cash register. He rarely gave us less than ten cents, and sometimes he'd give us up to thirty-five or forty cents. There were those who dared to quibble over the price. Sometimes you got more or less than you expected. It was difficult to determine what had, on a particular day, played for or against you. Each time we went digging, we tried to take into account our previous experience, Hard Time's last look, his last gesture; but at no time did he ever refuse our worms. I have no idea if he managed to sell all the worms we brought him.

*

Under the sign of Libra, the seventh astrological house is the house of one-to-one relationships, whether marital or professional. Upon entering a house situated above the horizon, one passes from the private to the public, from night to day, from adolescence to adulthood. This passage prompts a search for partners to help accomplish or obtain together that which is beyond the grasp of one alone. This is the house of marriage and family, of contracts and clients, of minor lawsuits and adversaries. Here we learn to compromise, to deal with others and with the public. In the seventh house, we see ourselves through the eyes of others; thus, the importance of making the right impression, of presenting ourselves in a good light, a light that does us justice but does not blind others. Hence this house's emphasis on moderation and balance, harmony and prudence.

*

I don't recall how old I was when I first read
The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank, but I remember very well that it plunged me into an incredible imaginary adventure in which I replaced the characters in the book with my own parents, brothers, and sisters. Unable to picture clearly in my mind the layout of the house where the four members of the Frank family and four of their Jewish acquaintances hid from the Nazis during the Second World War, I imagined the whole story taking place in our family's attic, a far smaller space than the three-floor annex in which at least five rooms had been modified to harbour the fugitives. And so, confined in a space as close as I could imagine, we moved, mostly on all fours in near total darkness, through tiny hallways bordered by trunks and cardboard boxes. A few slits let in the light in daytime and the cold in winter. There was no room for any furniture; at night we slept curled up most of the time because there was insufficient room for everyone to stretch out. Neighbours brought us food secretly and we tried not to be too hungry. We were very brave. Our parents were in charge, and we, the children, put our trust in them. For once, we managed to be truly reasonable. When conflicts arose we didn't allow them to fester. Each of us had to swallow his or her pride; it was the only way. The big difference, for me, was the cat. Its name was Kitty. In fact, Kitty is the name Anne Frank gave her diary, which she regarded as a confidante. The young writer rarely mentioned the annex cat, Mouschi, whose task it was to catch the rats that raided the food stocks at night. I turned Kitty into a real cat that I imagined walking and leaping with great agility here and there among the boxes of our cramped shelter. For my own comfort, I turned the two rats Kitty was charged with attacking into cowardly creatures that wouldn't dare come near so long as there was the slightest movement and, in our perilous hideout, there was always someone moving about.

I can't recall how old I was when I first read Anne Frank's
Diary,
but that book took me directly to Moody Shaban of the Palm Lunch, the first real-life Jew I ever knew. For months, if not years, I watched him to uncover what was particular about him, how he might differ from us non-Jews. Just that. Just an open gaze, a desire to understand.

*

I'm talking about the Dieppe of the Landing, of that disastrous expedition whose only positive outcome was the cautionary lesson it provided for future operations. Dieppe, August
1942
: only perfect synchronization could have saved the gigantic amphibian assault from catastrophe —
237
warships of every sort and size travelling at different speeds, and
67
squadrons mobilized for the aerial attack. I'm talking about the importance of darkness, of surprise, and of a coordinated approach at the hour of the setting moon. I'm talking about yellow, blue, red, white, green, and orange beaches and of more than
6,000
men, a good number of whom knew they were going to their death. I'm talking about the fortress of Dieppe, the impenetrable ramparts erected by the Germans to counter any attack from the sea, the kilometres of barbed wire and the enormous concrete barriers mounted with rifles, machine-guns, and cannons of every kind. I'm talking about the deafening silence in the commander's cabin, far out at sea, as he waited for the troops to report their advance, not realizing the extent of the massacre, unaware that the Germans had made a priority of targeting communications equipment and its operators. I'm talking about the battle they couldn't chart on the enormous military strategy maps because key words were garbled in the few, confusing messages that did come through. I'm talking about thousands of men who failed even to set foot on land because the enemy's ferocious attack riddled the landing crafts and their human cargo with bullets, and left hundreds of men in the water and thousands more dead on the beach at the foot of the cliff. I'm talking about those who were able to desert before they could be captured by the Germans, made prisoners of war, and forced to endure the long agony of famine and humiliation. I'm talking about a boy on the outskirts of a village named Belleville-sur-Mer who helped the only truly victorious Allied troops that morning by providing them with information about German guns deployed in the village. I'm talking about an ordinary soldier, killed as he crossed an orchard. I'm talking about the guts of Dieppe, the stink of defeat, the hero complex, and the delirious workings of our strengths and weaknesses.

*

Of all the abstract concepts we were required to grasp, eternity was the one I found most difficult. Mainly because nothing we were offered in the way of a Heaven satisfied me. I could see no pleasure in floating endlessly on a cloud, and, besides, I knew it was impossible to do so. I had to imagine a more plausible paradise, one that was equally simple and just as monotonous. All I could come up with was a small dirt road, like the kind you find by the sea, a two-track path with a band of grass down the middle. I liked walking barefoot along such beaten paths because they were covered in a thin layer of very fine dirt, even finer than sand. I loved that almost-blond dirt; I loved to set my foot down in it and to lift my foot and let the tops of my toes trail just a little in it. That was all my imagination could muster as a simple Heaven. As for spending eternity there, I saw myself walking hand in hand with a beautiful Jesus all dressed in white, each of us in a track. To make our journey eternal, I projected a long curve in the road, so that its end was never in sight. Great concentration was required so as not to succumb to fatigue and boredom at the prospect of a walk that was likely to become tiring and dull. Because the company of Jesus did not exactly set my heart pounding.

*

Charles-Édouard Bernard, commonly known as Chuck Bernard, was Dieppe's first official biker. He earned his stripes in Toronto with the Satan's Choice gang and caused quite a stir when he returned one fine May day, decked out in his filthy clothes and on his equally demonic Harley-Davidson. Instantly a nervous feeling spread through town; it would last for weeks. People said he was capable of anything. Some even claimed that Chuck had been spotted in the parking lot of the Palm Lunch greasing his long black hair with motor oil from his Harley. Personally, I never saw him do it, but anything is possible.