The mineral soil was bare and the heavy sand seemingly wanted to hold back every step.
Cemeteries are usually fertile areas where rich lawns and flowerbeds thrive, thanks to the humus of decomposing bodies. But the soil here was sterile as the back of a dune, and the enclosure looked like an arena. I lingered over the inscriptions. Any soil filled with corpses seems attractive and studying societies through their final resting places is informative. In Grande-Ourse, industrialization still hadn’t reached the market of the dead. It was a far cry from society life. A raven cawed in the distance, and I thought of those platforms where Indians once placed their stiffs, abandoning them to the vultures.
Closer to thee, my Lord.
Among the meagre monuments, a peculiar corner quickly caught my eye. A rectangle of yellowed grass covering the exact area of a grave. In short, it was imported grass: two or three rolls of greenery which, in suburbs, are spread like carpets over freshly tilled soil. Tufts of yellow weeds clung to this patch of dried and crackled grass. A faded pink floret tilted its soft corolla over the site. The cynical sand, the patient mineral, triumphed all around, matter’s inert mask. This corpse was alone among his peers in not having been forgotten. With the help of vegetation, a semblance of life persisted beneath this final facade, He’d been honoured with a beautifully crafted grey headstone, decorated with a modest painting: a forest and water scene filled with fish and game. A canoe floated over the waters chalky course, and its occupant was armed.
You could say epitaphs are the most finished of literary forms. I was looking at something very succinct. For summaries of the hereafter, numbers speak best.
Two dates: 1956-1975. Life is a simple parenthesis, we are sandwich-souls. Romeo Flamand, dead before his twentieth birthday. Roméo Flamand. Shot in the back. That’s what should’ve been written. He’d barely reached manhood when he was buried in this large sand patch. The stone, with its rounded top, looked like a milepost the road to Grande-Ourse had led to over the last twelve years.
I felt strange, standing there motionless. I knew the Indian still wielded his axe beneath this bed of sorrow and this wilted flower. You could’ve rolled up the grass and taken it away, blown on the flower to extinguish its waning bloom. But you couldn’t have done the same with the past smouldering beneath the rebel grass, its roots sinking into blood.
Trying to find my way back, I detoured over a hill to get a bearing and stumbled on another kind of cemetery: the village scrap) yard. I decided to drift among the bodies for a while. Lacking a permanent police force, Grande-Ourse had acquired a reputation as an ideal hideaway for stolen vehicles. By limiting their travels to the immediate area, people could openly drive around without licence plates. But vehicles setting out on this Calvary rarely lasted long enough to hope to make the trip back. The car graveyard was densely populated.
I suddenly stopped before the remains of a hydroplane. The aircraft’s tail, deprived of its stabilizers, stood vertically, supported by the crushed cabin that formed its plinth. The paint on the fuselage was peeling, having carried off part of the lettering and identification number. I couldn’t help whistling in admiration. The plane seemed to have crashed right there. I was sure the pilot had survived; my only explanation being an impression: the structure standing above the cockpit exuded a defiance of death.
I headed back to the lake, but a densely thicketed embankment blocked my way. Lowering my head, I tried to weave through, but a root caught my foot and I nosedived, landing on my elbows, tumbling downwards while branches savagely whipped me in passing. I landed hard at the edge of a clearing, stunned and nearly out cold.
A purpling sky filled my eyes. The glistening blade of a large scythe swung over me like a monstrous wing. The setting sun sparkled blood-coloured reflections on it. I could see nothing else: a long curved blade filled my horizon. Dull and icy laughter greeted my astonishment. I rose to my knees; a man stood before me. His silvery hair betrayed his age, but his body was vigorous. He had a wizened and hard appearance, a sun-baked face, a very white smile beaming with sweat and sarcasm. He again burst out laughing. I became aware of my grotesque position, kneeling in front of him, and stood up. He held his scythe with both hands, with instinctive off-handedness. I couldn’t help but move back when he swayed it slightly.
I’d surprised him while he was clearing what could be called a yard. Wild stems proliferated near a mobile home at the edge of the lake. Farther on, hydroplanes dangled between the sky and a reflection of the forest on the perfectly still water. The man looked around, breathed, and quietly said, “Damned underbrush, grows back every spring! Oh, well.... If it wasn’t that, it’d be something else....”
He gracefully twisted his wrists, and a tiny section of greenery flew towards the tip of my feet. I held back a start, remaining calm. For a moment, he seemed only vaguely aware of my presence. Then he lowered his tool, observing me with interest.
“What are you doing here?”
The tone was sharp, but not excessively hostile.
I was about to explain that my sense of direction was defective when he cut me off.
“And who exactly are you?”
He again burst out laughing, as I opened my mouth. Then, no longer paying attention to me, he resumed his mowing, in large fluid movements, supple and relentless, It looked easy. At the end of one harmonious sweep, I had to break into a dance step to dodge the sharp point. He moved away, turning his back to me. A wooden sign on the house’s pediment bore the inscription, BOISVERT AIR SERVICE.
Pared back by budgetary restraint, the train consisted of one locomotive and two cars. When I climbed aboard, the ticket inspector discreetly pointed me to the back. Later, during the Tocqueville stop, in the middle of the night, the same man directed the Indians to the other side. A barely enforced segregation, a mild apartheid which seemed completely natural to the train’s staff. You didn’t need first and second classes: everything was subtly suggested. Aboriginal families, the mother nearly always accompanied by a swarm of children, and the husband, more often than not cheered up by recent drinking, made rather touching groups. They’d likely disturb the rest of the few solitary and sleepy business travellers whose heads nodded gently over the benches, in the quiet car reserved for Whites.
Drawn out of my drowsiness by a stop, I sat up and looked out at Tocqueville, a mid-sized industrial town pressed against the Company mill, beneath a smelly and blazing fire. The SaintChristophe Hotel’s tired neon sign could be seen in front of the station across the street. Indians getting off the train often went over directly, placing themselves in the protection of the patron saint of travellers, only leaving the sordid bar to climb into one of the large cars, heading for new adventures. There as well, racial compartmentalization was the rule. Boozers from both camps shared parallel haunts and habits.
I’d had to go to Montreal to deal with a family obligation (a wedding on the eve of Pentecost). Afterwards, I’d wandered a little through the city, sad and unsettled. No sentimental ties held me back and I was relieved to again have to quit the avid and glowing metropolis. I was returning to the simplicity of Grande-Ourse, to the complexity of its desires.
Since my train was only leaving Monday, I continued to roam the next day, detouring to the Café Central Musings on tradition wandered through my head, and I’d barely slept. A chap was seated at the bar to my right, flopped on his elbows, busying himself with familiar rantings. No doubt pushing thirty, the two deep ridges stamping bitterness on each side of his mouth made him look much older. He was drinking brandy, and an empty stool lay between us.
“This
