who harbour a secular suspicion of any vegetation. The more omnivorous ones had been prescient and had already reserved their ration of this weekly heap of pulp, fibre, and scraps, with the assurance of securing the best pieces. The remainder would moulder on shelves, giving off the usual smells.
A little farther on, boastful and cynical Grande-Ourse residents secretly slipped their grocery lists to some shifty attendant. The trains staff, however, were concerned about relations with local authorities. An employee always managed to toss us an issue of the Journal de Montré al, tightly wrapped around a high content: of shock value and sleaze, and no fresher than the alleged scoops it had travelled with. It would lie imposingly on the table several days, before collecting potato peels or shrouding a fish.
The Indians used the train as much as they could to get around, since their socio-political status provided them economical access to it. They’d often be seen looking for an authorization, a permission written by a nurse or bureaucrat which they used as a free pass, They travelled a little everywhere that way, stopping along the line, visiting relatives scattered between Sans-Terre and Tocqueville, where many had modest apartments. They were railway nomads, suddenly disappearing, returning after three days, then leaving straightaway in the opposite direction.
Following the train’s departure, a small crowd inevitably gathered in front of the store. The establishment’s location in the middle of the woods made it the only dispenser of bare essentials, of which speech wasn’t the least. In this backwater the need to communicate created genuine emergencies. People had to show they still existed despite everything; it was particularly meaningful to show it here, right in the face of Grande-Ourses new masters. They had to talk, because to talk was to endure. Moreover, where else could they slake a northerner’s honest thirst for a good price when, having risen early, they’d just thrown up their breakfast?
The Muppet was Grande-Ourse’s most punctual boozer. I’d labelled him as such due to his habit of wriggling about and dusting the air with his pointed tuft of hair planted on a conical head placed directly on his shoulders. He was retired and lived alone in a small house, receiving a generous pension for services rendered to the administration, devoting it exclusively to savouring pints. That pastime had spared him the anguish of dealing with the gaping void which usually follows an active life. Each morning, with the reliability of an old cuckoo, he’d turn up smiling on his motorized tricycle, like a kid on his toy. We’d greet him with resigned sighs and the lethargy which overcame us so easily after breakfast. He came to renew his supply of brown bottles, especially hoping to escape the tyrannical silence of the night and the suffocating cage of his old bones. Benoît and I, dedicated to the higher interests of trade, lent an ear to this pathetic babble reeking of hops.
The Muppet had devised a clever scheme to get around the restrictions of the store’s alcohol permit. Since the state strictly forbade him from slaking his thirst within our walls, the old blockhead had got into the habit of leaving an opened bottle in the cold room facing the counter. At any moment, mired in mid-sentence, he’d shake himself and casually head to the tiny refrigerated room, disappearing to have a gulp or two. He seemed to think nobody would notice his ridiculous puppets game, nor realize that he looked more stupefied when he emerged from his glacial alcove. He eventually gave the impression of going in there to can himself in small doses.
Furthermore, everyone in the region was a pothead. When it wasn’t alcohol, it was juice from fruit, vegetables, concentrates, pigments and chemicals, and soft drinks, mineral water, large-size Perrier avidly raised to the lips, Pepsi, which ruled over the area, while Coke conspired in the shadows, and milk, the healthful milk of families. Eyes closed, they’d fervently bring their lips to whatever contained liquid. Pegged to their bodies, the people of GrandeOurse had a collective desire to wrap their lips around a bottleneck; they couldn’t help it.
One morning, when I’d just finished reading for five hours through the fissures of my swollen eyelids, a small native family got off the train. The man was wizened and could’ve been either thirty or sixty years old; he was followed by a short woman who was withered and drunk, trailing her large posterior in a flowery dress, and a ravishing young girl no older than fourteen, throwing fire everywhere she lay eyes. They headed towards the store while, already inside, I was placing milk cartons in the fridge, carefully turning containers so prospective buyers couldn’t see the expiry date: a trick the Old Man had taught me. He was eager to make a real shopkeeper out of me, showing me how to place fresher products out of reach behind the others, to get rid of dubious cases first.
The region’s natives knew and feared the Old Man. He was cut from the same cloth as the trade artists who’d been our first settlers, and who were peerless in their ability to swap a pile of beaver pelts for a little firewater and a handful of trinkets. He was at his best with the Indians, finally able to give the full measure of his business acumen: funny as anything, sly as a coyote, quick to take advantage of the least hesitation, ruthless with gullibility, always ready to shoot you in the back.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the shy young girl Hanked by the strange couple. Meanwhile, the old woman was striving to mumble something in an exotic French moistened with several sputters. Beneath a madder shawl, her face was ravaged by age and pox, and marked by great sincerity. Old coloured rags dangled with some elegance from her twisted bust. Her husband was stoic and seemed to judge her outgoing mood with severity, quietly giving her meaningful looks of reproach. The Old Man turned towards me. Half his face was an amused grimace, “These are good people, Gilles! César Flamand and his charming wife Fernande!”
The Old Man was always able to muster the precise quantity of warmth for necessary effusions. He could appear totally affable when the game was worth it. But when the Indian woman proffered an expectant mouth, gaping and horribly humid, he couldn’t help from jumping back and muttering excuses. He would’ve had the same reaction had someone shot him between the legs.
Cowboy had just slipped through the door and was observing the scene, a sphinx smile sheltering his moods. I saluted him with my fingertips before returning my attention to the young Indian girl. I was taking notes:
perfectly round cheekbones impeccably curved mouth eyelids in the grips of a crisis of sensual awakening a brand new little body filled with so much freshly discovered fragility
The trio soon left the premises, armed, on the Old Mans advice, with an entire selection of dubious acquisitions. In passing, they saluted Cowboy, who was blocking the entrance, stiff as a post. I approached him to observe the teenaged girl disappear.
“Who’s she?”
Cowboy was smiling.
“Gisèle’s daughter. Salomé.”
“Where’d she come from?”
He shrugged.
“Social services. Her mother didn’t take proper care of her.”
The Old Man was already rushing towards us.
“Come with me, Ti-Kid Gilles, I’ve got a contract for you! Did you see old man Flamand? He’s a good Indian, a hard worker!
Not a drop of alcohol in twelve years! We need more like him! His old lady, however.... Misery me.... Did you see the little girl? Shell do a lot of damage!... Hmmm.... Hey, Ti-Kid Cowboy!... Wanna work?”
Totally wound up, he was thrashing about and poking at us, a tangle of nerves and knots. Cowboy and I had our minds on something else.
That morning, I was dispatched to help repair a shingled roof. Unprotected from aerial attacks, I quickly fell prey
