Washika (39 page)

“No. That's finished for me,” the cookee stood by the table, his hands in his pockets. “I didn't pass the exams and, besides, I don't really like school. With Dumas this summer I learned so much. And I really like cooking. Dumas refers to me as “
la relève
,” that I might be the person to take his place someday. He says that if I work hard and pay attention to what he teaches me, I could become a very good cook. And now that Dumas is getting married, he'll probably be gone more often. They'll need someone to cook while he's away.”

“Well Richard,” Henri began. “I'm very happy for you. That's really something. You know what you want and, already, you have someone who'll teach you. And you have a job at the same time. Boy, you're really lucky, Richard.”

“I guess!” Maurice said, nodding his approval. “I tell you, I wish I knew what I wanted to do.”

“Well, I won't keep you,” Richard turned to leave. “I may not get to speak to you in the morning so, good luck in your studies. Maybe we can meet in Ste-Émilie someday.”

Both St-Jean and Henri extended their hands to the cookee and wished him well. As he reached for the door, Richard stopped abruptly and turned to face Henri.

“I almost forgot, Henri,” he said. “Lise Archambault, the nurse, asked me to deliver a message. She asked if you could go to the infirmary. She'd like to speak to you.”

As Richard Gagnier closed the door behind him, Maurice St-Jean looked up at Henri, a teasing smile on his face.

“Careful, Morin,” he said. “I hear that Dumas keeps a shotgun under his bed.”

“Don't worry,” he laughed. He was laughing, but he was also a little worried. Why would she want to see him at the infirmary? And what would Dumas think if he saw him going there? After all, they were almost husband and wife. “She probably just wants to take a look at my burn. She's a very good nurse, you know.”

H
enri walked on the fine sand, between the bunkhouse-and-office and the cookhouse. The cookhouse was in darkness. Perhaps Dumas was at the infirmary with Lise. He tried not to think about that. Still, he wondered why Lise had sent for him. To say good-bye? Hardly. There were enough good wishes expressed during supper. Perhaps it was his silence that she wanted. But he had promised, and he planned on keeping that promise. If ever he discussed it with anyone, he would never mention her name or where it had taken place.

As he reached the truck scales, Emmett Cronier waved to him from his little hut.

“Quite a surprise, eh?” he looked at Henri through the open doorway. “Who would have thought that Dumas had it in him? Christ almighty, wine and everything.”

“Yes, that's for sure.”

Henri did not want to linger. He was worried, that was certain, but he was also curious. He had not spoken to the nurse since that morning they had made love together. Not counting, of course, what drunken words he had spoken to her at La Tanière in Ste-Émilie.

Henri kicked at the stones on the road as he went. Finally, he left the gravel road and walked down the short path to the infirmary. The screen door banged against the jamb as he knocked.

“Yes?” the familiar voice sang out. The tone was more cheerful than he remembered.

“Oh Henri,” she said, opening the door. “I am so glad to see you. Come in. Come in and sit down.”

She had changed since supper. She wore a plain white T-shirt and jeans, and her feet were bare. Henri noticed how tanned her feet were, like her arms and face. She walked ahead of Henri as she led him into the back room. Henri tried to think only of Sylvie, of their ride on the Ferris wheel and her hands squeezing his arm, the touch of her hand in his, her kiss. Lise walked ahead of him and, silhouetted against the bright lights of the room was the roundness of those hips that had swayed above him like waves upon the sand, and those firm bulges that had given him pleasure the likes of which he had never imagined. It was not going to be easy. But, he would be strong. He was a ‘have' now, and he would be leaving in the morning.

“You would like a coffee, Henri?”

“
Non, merci
.” Henri felt awkward, for no reason that he could tell.

“Please sit down, Henri,” the young woman pulled out a chair and sat down by the table.

Henri sat facing the nurse. He tried not looking into her eyes, but he could not avoid it.

“Lise,” he began.

“Wait, Henri,” she said. “Before you say anything, I would like to speak. Please. There are things that I must say to you.”

She had changed. Especially her eyes were not the same. She looked into his eyes, like she had when he had come to see her with his sunburned chest. But the look was different now.

“Henri,” she began. “I think that you are old enough for us to have this conversation. After all that has happened, I think that it is necessary to speak of it. We made love, you and I, and Henri, I want to tell you that it was wonderful. It was wonderful, and warm, and loving. But, most of all, Henri, it lighted a kind of fire in my heart. A long time ago, when I graduated from the nursing school…I was about your age then. I was young, like you, and very much in love. But that love was suddenly taken away from me. There was an accident, a terrible, horrible accident. My love, the man I hoped to marry, was dead, drowned in a lake.”

Henri looked at her. Those lovely green eyes had tears in them now. Still, she did not look away, or try to hide her tears.

“I do not know if you will understand this, Henri, but I will try to explain. After that night, when François died, I was not the same. I could never be the same again. I believed that. After a while, my friends stopped calling to invite me out, to join them in their outings. I could not see life any more. It was difficult for me, even to smile. For me life was over. It was just a matter of time before I would also die. That is why I came to Washika: to work and be alone and wait for my time to come, for my time to leave. My position here as camp nurse was exactly what I needed for my solitude. But then, Dumas Hébert came along. I am not blind, Henri. I know that I am attractive to men. And Dumas certainly tried very hard to convince me that he was the man I needed in my life. But I was not convinced. I was certain that my life could never be; that I could never feel desire or a need for it. My body in that sense was already dead. There remained only for my being alive to end. Do you understand, Henri?”

Henri was beginning to understand much more than Lise was trying so desperately to explain. He recalled how he had tortured himself with the idea that he was a ‘have-not,' that life had stolen love from him and left him dead, without hope of ever living again. And that had poisoned his life. Somewhere Shannon was still young and alive. But to me, Henri remembered vividly, she was dead. Shannon was dead and so was I. Now, as I listen to Lise, it's all becoming so clear. Neither Lise nor I were ‘have-nots.' Both of us had love taken from us, that's true, and for Lise, much more tragically so. But still, in our hearts, we both felt that our lives had been shut down, that everything left had been contaminated and had little interest for us.

“Yes, Lise,” he said. “I understand. I understand more than you might think. Please, go on.”

The woman placed her hand softly upon Henri's. She left it there as she spoke and Henri could feel the warmness, the intimacy of her touch.

“That day,” she continued, ”when you came to see me here, you were just another patient, another injury that I had to care for. But, when you returned the next morning, there was something about you, something intense for such a young man, the way you spoke to me, how you looked into my eyes. When you asked to join me in my room, it seemed so natural that I could not refuse. There was a kind of innocence in your being there, in the way you made love to me, how softly you touched me. After, when I helped you, when I made love to you, believe me, Henri, I had never done that before, ever. Not even with François. Something was happening to me. I was becoming alive. I did not think about it then. But later, when you had gone, I realized that I was alive again. Life suddenly had meaning for me, for the first time in several years.”

Henri felt her hand tighten around his. He wanted suddenly to take her into his arms, to hold her tightly against him. But there was another feeling. As he listened to Lise pouring her heart out to him, he realized, suddenly, that he could be doing exactly the same with a certain young lady serving tables at the Café D'Or. Henri's thoughts turned to Sylvie. Sylvie's given me life, in a sense, he mused. She's managed to convince me, in her way, that I'm alive and that I'm not a ‘have-not.' I'm a ‘have'! Now, have Lise and I been caught in the same trap? Did misfortune in our respective lives convince us that it was over, that there was nothing left? Were we just lying there with one foot in the trap, waiting for the end to come?

A chill came over Henri as he remembered the barred owl he had seen once. The bird's leg had been caught bet
ween the jaws of a leg hold trap, a No. 4 steel trap often used for the capture of wolves. The bird had pecked and chewed away at its leg, trying to escape a certain death, trying to stay alive. Without help, without antibiotics, the owl would surely die of infection or starvation even if it did escape from the trap. But the proud bird did not think of that. There was only one thing on its mind and that was to rid itself of this ugly piece of metal wrapped around its leg, to be free, and to stay alive.

“Henri,” she said, as tears swelled in her eyes once again. “Henri, you have saved my life. After our time together, I began to understand more, to know what Dumas was trying to say to me, years ago, when I first arrived here. But I was not able to hear then. I could not feel. I love Dumas very much, Henri. This is why I have asked you to come here. I wish to thank you, with all my heart, for making it possible for me to love again, to be able to love Dumas, and to love life again.”

That evening, a northwest wind pushed whitecaps up onto the beach at Washika Bay. The sun slowly descended below the grey, dead trees making them appear as silver slivers sticking up out of the water against a stark red background stretching from north to south. In the darkened infirmary, the curtains stood straight out from the opened windows. The whistling of the wind filtering through the window screens was all that cut through the silence. That, and the cries of ecstasy coming from the back room of the infirmary.

Definitions in this glossary are limited in scope and are provided as a guide to readers.

 

French swearwords

 

During the 1960
s
when the action in this novel took place, the people of Quebec were gradually withdrawing from the Catholic Church. One result was the adoption of Ecclesiastical words as everyday swearwords. Instead of taking the Lord's name in vain, as was common among the English-speaking population, French Canadians began to use the names of articles used in the celebration of mass to vent their anger. Some of these expletives appear in
Washika
. We have chosen to spell the words phonetically and to put them in italics.

 

Calis: calice
(chalice) is the correct spelling of this French but it is pronounced as though written “
calis
.”

hostie
: host, the bread or wafer used for Holy Communion (Eucharist).

sacrament
:
sacrement
is the correct spelling in French, but it is most often pronounced
sacrament
.

tabarnacle
:
tabernacle
is the correct spelling. However, the expression “
tabarnacle
” is most commonly heard. The tabernacle is a receptacle (often ornamented) used for storing and, often exhibiting, the Eucharist.

 

Other French Words and Expressions

 

Acadia
: a small tugboat with its engine at the centre of the hull.

ah bien, sacrament
: well, sacrament!

allez mes petits canards
: to work, my little ducks!

allo
: hello.

banane
: banana. The canvas fire hose folded into two-foot lengths looks somewhat like a curved banana.

bain de minuit
: skinny dipping (swimming naked) at midnight, often men and women together.

brochet
: a northern pike.

brûlot
: sandfly, a small, bloodsucking, dipterous insect of the Order Diptera, genus Phlebotomus. The insect tends to cause a burning sensation in its victims hence the name “brûlot” most probably based on the verb,
brûler
 – to burn. This insect is often found on sandy beaches and, thus, the name, sand fly.

chambre à louer
: room for rent.

chicot
: tall, dead tree, often found standing in water. Grey in color without, or with very little bark left.