Just Fine (7 page)

3
Gallimard . . . Hot Stuff

XIII

É
LIZABETH IS LYING
in the arms of Hans in an unmade bed. Dawn fills the white-walled room. In the distance the sea rumbles, or perhaps it's just the wind. Elizabeth isn't quite ready to open her eyes. Hans, on the other hand, is wide-awake.

“So, you don't like labyrinths?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“They're complex universes.”

“Is that why one ought to like them?”

“It's not required. Some people like them naturally.”

Hans had hesitated a while before initiating this morning conversation. Now that it was started he saw no reason to hold back. “Do you like chickens?”

“I like that they peck and lay eggs.”

Hans uses the formal
vous
when he addresses Elizabeth. In a way, he dreads the moment when they will lapse into the familiar
tu.
For now, he enjoys this formality of love between them. “Do you like volcanoes?”

“Not especially. But, yes, a bit.”

“And deltas?”

“Yes.”

“Even though there's something labyrinthine about them?”

“Yes. I like them on account of the water.”

“Do you like diamonds?”

“No, not really. They're too shiny.”

*

One night at the end of August, Terry Thibodeau walked alone into one of the town's billiard parlours. Establishments of the sort had sprouted like mushrooms lately, turning the once suspect game into a perfectly respectable pastime for everybody, including women. There were even more and more children in the pool halls. Some were learning to play; others, who were still in swaddling clothes or recently out of diapers, simply tagged along with their parents.

This broad democratization of the game annoyed Terry, who chose a table out of the way, out of sight of the crowd, not because he was a poor player — on the contrary, he'd been a champion — but because he didn't like the attention his skill attracted. He barely had time to break before a waitress was at his table.

“And would you be wanting a drink, then?”

Terry instantly recognized the voice. “Oh . . . well hello! No, I've only come to play a few games.”

“. . .”

Carmen Després didn't seem in any hurry to move on.

Terry felt the need to say something. “I didn't know you worked here. I come in sometimes when I've got nothing to do.”

“I've only just started. I worked in Shediac before.”

All of a sudden the walls began to shake to some particularly tribal music. The bass and drums drowned out everything else. Carmen rolled her eyes. “The worst is the music. I'll go change it. Is there something you'd like to hear, then?”

Terry thought for two seconds. “Have you got any Tom Waits?”

Carmen nodded her approval and left.

*

Under the sign of Leo, the fifth astrological house is the house of vital energy extended into the next generation through either children or artistic, literary, or scientific works. It includes political life and social affairs as well as the fine arts. The fifth house is the house of individual originality and the need for creative self-expression. The house of children and procreation, it also extends to education and the emotional life, and to all affairs of the heart, including love affairs. A sense of play, the ability to choose frivolity, to let yourself be distracted and forget the serious side of life, is also highly present in this house: sometimes it is manifested in small pleasures, hobbies, sports, or vacations and sometimes simply through attending the theatre or a concert or a social gathering. Gambling and games of chance can also be found in this house, along with financial speculation, donations, and gifts. House of risk, the fifth house also fosters experimentation in the realms of power. It pushes one to dare, to develop one's creative powers beyond simple ardour and the primal drives and in spite of initial awkwardness, shyness, or lack of savoir-faire. Through the pleasure of creation, the fifth house calls on us to risk our ego and learn to shine.

*

Carmen Després had been closely linked to the pool craze. Her father, a businessman, had seen it coming and begun to manufacture billiards equipment in Grande-Digue. Over fifteen years, the Diamond Billiards brand had gradually made its mark throughout North America, and its mastermind had been crowned businessman of the year at least six times in the process.

Carmen Després played a part in her father's success and prosperity. She had sat as youth representative on the committee responsible for renovating the Grande-Digue parish centre. The committee had valiantly defended the purchase of two pool tables, despite conservative parishioners who opposed the idea and feared the game would foster corruption and idleness. After the centre opened, Carmen prevailed several times upon her father to join her in a game of billiards, even though he had never so much as laid a hand on a pool cue before in his life.

Carmen, who had by then already received and read
The Great Deltas,
noticed, each time she broke, that the balls separated in a traditional deltaic pattern, the result perhaps of not quite having the knack others had of firing the balls off in all directions. After her first stroke of the cue, the balls came apart without much vigour, rolling here and there lazily, some of them remaining entirely unmoved by the break. And each time, Carmen wondered aloud at the jagged triangular shape her shot had produced, and each time, her father paused to contemplate with her the deltaic shape laid out over the cloth, moved as he was by his daughter's naive joy in the midst of a room decorated with Metallica posters and little, knitted, woollen hearts of Jesus.There would have been posters of the rock group Slaughter, but they had been categorically rejected by a majority of parishioners.

*

The most brilliant of all precious stones, the diamond shines even in the dark, or almost. The slightest flicker of light is sufficient to set it ablaze. But it is probably the diamond's hardness that has made it the symbol of love: a diamond is unalterable; only its own dust can wear it down and then just to a degree. Diamond cutting, which renders the diamond even more brilliant, is accomplished by vigorously rubbing the gem with diamond dust, an operation that requires a great deal of time and precision. Diamond cutting attained a level of perfection with the brilliant “modern” cut of fifty-eight facets that was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century and was based on the “full” cut of the previous century. Other factors come into play in evaluating the excellence of a diamond: its limpidity (more poetically called its water), its colour, and, of course, its weight. The weight of a diamond is measured in carats. The diamond carat, unlike the gold carat, is a quantitative rather than a qualitative measurement.

*

Terry Thibodeau found Carmen Després more docile that evening than she'd been in his boat on the Petitcodiac. Although this was reassuring to a point, he kept an eye on her nonetheless, in part because there was something about her slightly rebellious attitude that appealed to him. He watched her from the corner of his eye as he sank balls. She seemed to be doing everything: waiting tables, handing out the racks of balls, tidying up behind the counter, barking out orders, disappearing, reappearing, so that it was hard to tell exactly what her role was in the place. Having lost sight of her, Terry focused on his game and momentarily forgot her.

“Nice shot!”

Terry tried not to blush but failed. “Where did you come from? I never saw you coming.”

“Oh? So, you were looking out for me, were you?”

Terry felt his blood rise to his ears. He didn't usually blush for so little. “I wanted a beer all of a sudden.”

“And what sort of beer?”

“Oh, I don't know. There're too many sorts these days. Why don't you just bring me what you like, makes no difference to me.”

XIV

I
T WASN'T THE
overwhelming brilliance of the diamond that impressed Hans. Several times, he'd held the small stone between his fingers and let it drop on the cloth the merchant had spread over the counter. Each time, the stone flashed a thousand flames but, in the end, this game became dull. No, it was something else that interested him. Something that had nothing to do with the stone's aesthetic value. He dropped the stone again and this time Hans had the impression of throwing dice, which made him think of the chance workings of light and wealth. Now he felt he was getting somewhere. Holding onto this notion of the chance workings of light and wealth, he left the shop feeling happy.

*

Carmen Després returned with a Moosehead Green on her tray. Not being particularly partial to all the new brands of beer herself, she hadn't made much of an effort. But she liked the green bottle with a touch of red; it reminded her of Christmas.

Terry didn't have time to get money out of his pocket.

“Nope, it's on me. A gift.”

Nor did Terry have time to protest, for Carmen was already serving the people who'd started playing at the table next to his.

*

The idea of the chance workings of light and wealth stayed with Hans. It was as though the concept had somehow opened the world to him, prompting something new, something entirely original. A feeling of lightness had come over him. Strangely, that tiny diamond he'd held between his fingers had simplified everything. Life had changed. The thing that was missing had appeared. Had he been searching for it a long time? Hans couldn't say. Had he hoped for it or had he given up hoping? He had no idea. He'd been occupied, preoccupied. His mind had been elsewhere. Today it had all come together. It had become something else within him. He had become. The becoming had taken place, had taken hold. As though by some miracle. As though it were possible.

*

Carmen and Terry began to see each other more often.

“Yesterday, on my boat, there was a fellow by the name of Absence Léger.”

Carmen eyed Terry skeptically.

“I'm telling you I didn't believe it either. So I listened real close, and I'm telling you, they were calling him Absence all day long.”

“Must have been Absconce. Absconce Léger. There was a woman down our way by that name.”

“No, I tell you. I'm sure this was Absence. Absence Léger.”

“. . .”

“It sure is bugging me. I can't stop thinking about it.”

*

Afternoon dream in the living room of an apartment whose windows are wide-open to a gentle summer rain: an enormous dark granite cube balances on the peak of a mountain. The edges of the cube are rounded but granular, like the rest of its surface. My gaze somehow penetrates the opacity of the stone. In the centre of the block is a huge uncut diamond. From the outside there is no hint of its presence. And yet there it is, an unseen treasure. What's striking is the contrast between the massive and perfectly structured cube and its interior, all angles of light and lightness. What's striking is the progressive transformation of the granite, the secret reconfiguration that has taken place.

When a diamond appears in a dream, its clarity, solidity, maturity, and perfection become somewhat petrified qualities. In the dream, the diamond seems to take on the properties we associate with crystals, living matter capable of growth. Its limpidity seems to have the ability to contain and engender everything. The dreamer then becomes aware of a repressed energy, as the diamond symbolizes the tension between a rush toward perfection and the promise of an explosion. This awareness is like a readjustment of poles, particularly those of fixedness and flexibility, of perfection and simplicity.

*

In the beginning, Terry and Carmen had a rather odd way of speaking to each other. During the day, listening to them, one might have concluded they were getting on each other's nerves.

“Hey . . . you're wearing red today!”

“You've got good eyesight.”

“It's the first time I've seen you in red. Suits you.”

Later, in the midst of a September silence, as he sat on a sunlit terrace, Terry added, “Acadians have always fancied red. Only, not having much of it to spare, they took to wearing it in little bits and pieces. Sometimes, they wove it into other materials just to make it last.”

“. . .”

“Well, that's what I read, anyhow.”

With a slightly exasperated look, Carmen hauled on her cigarette and sighed, “I'm not looking forward to winter. Not one bit.”

At night, the subjects they had touched on during the day resurfaced.

“Well, and what colours did they wear then, if there wasn't much red?”

“The only dyes they had were green and black.”

“And how is it they had no red, then?”

“Don't know. When they did get some, it was from the English. The redcoats. Could be they tore those coats right off English backs.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“Have you read the Bible?”

“No. Tried once. Pretty much unreadable.”

“Well, do you suppose a person could live their whole life without reading the Bible? I mean, without knowing what it all means, the road to Damocles and the sword of Damascus?”

“Sure looks that way.”

XV

A
ND THEN, AT SOME POINT,
one gets fed up with personal growth. There's a limit to always trying to improve or surpass oneself. It's exhausting and eventually useless. So I told myself I might as well give up and accept my limitations instead of making myself sick over them. Accept the insurmountable. Accept not being able to go farther. And be content. Be proud of having come this far and leave it to others, our sons and daughters, to take up the baton and break new ground in their own ways. Accept the slow progress of human evolution. Accept my place in that slow progress. Let it be simply a condition of existence, and let that condition be good too, and not always negative, a diminishment of myself.

That day, I set out with my water jugs for the spring, but I halted resolutely in the middle of town at a hardware store that had recently installed a spring water dispenser. I was proud of myself, my decision, my cunning, my delinquency. I could justify it all, explain it all: it was right to encourage those resourceful folks who'd actually succeeded in bringing the spring closer to town and in enabling more people to benefit from it; here was a useful service that deserved to survive, and I'd be a fool not to make use of it myself; I had better things to do than to waste my time panicking over wild imaginings in the empty countryside, I ought instead to make it my duty to partake of the communal fountain in the company of my fellow citizens. It would bring me a lot closer to putting an end to my fear than would setting myself more or less insignificant challenges. And that's when, a full jug in one hand and an empty one in the other, I saw Camil Gaudain.

*

Under the sign of Aquarius, the eleventh house of the astrological chart deals with the ability to make friends and to handle non-emotional relationships, like those with teachers and counsellors, masters and protectors, and colleagues within associations or social groups. It's also the house of wishes and desires, of life's expectations and goals. It's the house of generosity and solidarity, of great humanist visions, of ideals and projects. Under its influence, we find mutual support, the protection of partners sharing common ideas and helping each other establish roots in society. The eleventh house is the house of experience and responsibility, of working to improve society. It's the house of sharp wit, humour, and popularity. It's also the house in which we gain our independence by refusing limitations.

*

I'd known who Camil Gaudain was for a long time — people who alter the common spelling of their names tend to draw some attention. But, although we'd said hello from time to time, this was really the first time we'd ever spoken to each other. He offered a pleasant smile:

“I hear your next book is coming out with Gallimard? . . . Hot stuff . . .”

Now there was a wild notion if ever I'd heard one, although I confess I found it amusing. I took my time to savour each syllable before correcting him. “Nice rumour. And where did it come from?”

“I heard it on
CJSE
yesterday, round suppertime.”

Well, that beat all! Some literary fanatic had taken over the airwaves of the community radio station. It was too perfect. I was in no hurry to burst the bubble. Maybe I needed a bit of just this sort of fantasy, a kind we don't get too much of in these parts. I tried to drag the thing out a bit without seeming to. “My next book isn't even written, I can't imagine how Gallimard could be interested in publishing it.”

“All it takes is a good agent. They also said you were going on French television in the fall.”

News sure travels fast. I was launched.
Bouillon de culture
had staked its claim to me. Worst of all, they had me crossing oceans while I was still struggling just to get out of town.

*

Over time, the impression Terry had formed of Carmen during the excursion on the
Beausoleil-Broussard
softened. Far from always asking questions, Carmen turned out to be a quiet young woman. Although, like anyone who's lived by the sea, she showed great single-mindedness.

“What do you know about the Bouches-du-Rhône region?”

Terry thought for a second. “If it's what I think, my uncle's got some in his cellar.”

Carmen couldn't help laughing. “And who might your uncle be?”

“Alphonse Thibodeau.”

“The cabinet minister?”

“Uh-huh.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“And what's he minister of, again?”

“Culture.”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“Bouches-du-Rhône is a delta in France. Ever seen a delta?”

“You sure got a thing for deltas, eh?”

“. . .”

“. . .”

“You ever seen a delta?”

“Nope.”

“. . . “

“There's the Mississippi, too.”

“I know.”

*

Listening to Camil Gaudain it occurred to me that he couldn't have read my books. What's more, I was afraid he was getting the wrong idea, that he imagined they were better than they really were.

“No, I'd be mighty surprised if Gallimard was interested in my books.”

“Why? Your books are good!”

He seemed so sincere that it warmed my heart. But I stopped playing along, for fear of ruining it. Everything was happening too fast; I decided to set things straight right away. “To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly overjoyed about this trip to France. I don't tell this to everyone, but, well, I'm agoraphobic.”

Camil Gaudain seemed to understand. He lay his hand on my shoulder and said, laughingly and without really lowering his voice, “Don't worry about it, I've got
AIDS
.”

*

And what would I say on
Bouillon de culture?
That death, or at least nonexistence, is inscribed in our genes? That everything depends on the way, the art, of accepting this? That everything's a matter of legitimization? Legitimizing what we are in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. To appear to be, to be to appear. To see and to be seen. Recognized. That not everything depends entirely on chance, on the invisible and the unfair. To retrace the course of history, to descend into the unconscious in search of causes, explanations, justifications, interpretations of one's own existence in places where there is sometimes no other way to be, to exist, to see and be seen, recognized. And finally, perhaps yes, for all these reasons, to write.