“The nurse, here, went to school with Armand Frappier. I hope I look a little younger.... No, I work at the hotel,...
With those words, my boss dragged me off while, in our wake, the Muppet pedalled in the dust,
He left the following afternoon, other business requiring his attention farther south. He was made for managing from a distance, not for waging battle on the front. He needed a safety margin, a few hundred kilometres between himself and the source of his problems. Deep down, Mr, Administrator was a dreamer. Unlike the two others, he wasn’t continually tormented by an energy that was pitifully down to earth. He needed that distance to maintain his illusions. From the top of an office tower in downtown Montreal, or from a patio lined with uniform flagstones and equipped with a volcanic barbecue, Grande-Ourse could still seem like the reflection of that resuscitated village, that playground for the rich he’d dreamt about one night, covered in his eiderdown.
CITY COMFORT IN THE MIDDLE OF NATURE
In fact, Mr. Administrator asked only to be reassured, and was never happier than when his alleviated concerns finally joined the other certainties in his personal collection. When his van disappeared over a nearby hill, the Old Man was beaming, feet firmly rooted to the ground.
“Sooooo... long! Sooooo... long!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, making useless wide gestures.
As soon as the vehicle disappeared around the first bend, he breathed more easily, becoming more effusive, settling in more firmly. When his opinion wasn’t asked, he’d crop up behind you, turning the screws in your back. He was everywhere at once, had five hands, bustled about like four monkeys! You’d feel like scratching whenever he wandered nearby. A capuchin, a marmoset, a ringtail monkey, a squirrel monkey! He smelled of suint. Often, while continuously talking to the walls behind which he’d grown proficient at finding us, he’d move slowly, imperceptibly, gently drifting towards the shower stall, his own stench having finally got to him. He took two or three steps backwards, turned around, procrastinated. The idea of leaving the conversation in our pathetic care offended him in the highest degree. He’d cling to his verbosity, it was his wall of protection against the insignificance of the inanimate world, against the outside night.
“Don’t tell me he’s gonna take a shower?”
“Course not...” replied Benoît.
And he came back towards us, went off again, dithered about, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, then jumped on the spot, then backward and forward, following the steps of a complex choreography understood by him alone, moving from the passacaglia to the paso doble without transition and, in the end, as though to yield to a carefully prepared effect, slapping his forehead, totally excited, “Oooh! I forgot to tell you!...”
The following second, he again gesticulated, throat trembling like a bell, chattering abrasively, spring fully wound, a ridiculous hybrid produced by a deaconess and a leprechaun. He’d stand before us, spewing threats in all directions, choking on his moans, vilifying the thoughtlessness of some, pillorying others. The flow of his words greatly exceeded that of the shower head. He, at least, had no problems with flies, being so well coated with his own sebaceous layer.
I listened very carefully. In their eyes, I was a kind of likeable lost cause, a young thinker out of his element who spent most of his time daydreaming, opening his mouth, like a fish, only to breathe. I didn’t miss any of the Old Man’s words, that prolific gossip where each sentence, like a roof tile, partially covered another. I took advantage of the peace and quiet they allowed me to spy with impunity. I secretly scribbled notes, feeling the rest of the story would throw me into a role for which I had to prepare immediately. I soaked up all those ceaselessly repeated words, discharged with heavy throat clearings. I’d become a sensory sieve, a selective strainer. When the lump 1 imagined to be necessary would crop up amid all this mash, my prospector’s ear would go off like a valve. I’d then be able to grasp that dark nugget hidden in the passage of time, and extricate it from the sand, exposing it to the light, making it the jewel which, one day, would redeem all.
Folks in Grande-Ourse always returned to the same story, the famous one nobody said much about, but which was deeply repressed in everyone’s psyche. The Affair ate at Grande-Ourse’s social fabric, and Salome somehow sprang from the tragedy which tormented the village like a burning thorn in its paw. The hotels threshold had been the cradle of the curse which poisoned exchanges. It was a delicate topic, a build-up of explosive forces that had been swallowed by the darkness. The embers still glowed, watching over like a scar; even the Old Man, when broaching the subject, displayed a temperance that contrasted surprisingly with his customary frenzy.
An Indian man and woman drive up to the front of the hotel in an old pickup. It’s night and they re drunk. The man heads to the door, unsuccessfully trying to open it. He knocks. No one answers. He insists with heavy blows. His companion stayed behind. He wants one more beer, despite the late hour Behind the door, a voice urges them to leave. The discussion is animated. The Indian man finally heads back to the pickup, shouting imprecations. He threatens with his fist. He’s lost sight of his girlfriend. He fiddles around the vehicle for a moment, and heads back towards the hotel wielding a heavy axe whose sharp head shines in the darkness. Swinging the tool, he deals a terrible blow to the door. The crash of broken wood echoes in the night. And he repeats the manoeuvre, enraged. Blows thunder in cadence, slow and heavy. Soon, he opens a breach. Then the door topples over, torn off its hinges. The only sound from the interior is an oppressed silence. The Indian now utters incoherent words. Someone hands him a beer through the demolished entrance. He grabs it and drinks without asking questions, still belching a string of hazy words. He turns back, walking unsteadily, beer in one hand, axe in the other. He walks with difficulty, shouting his head off, bellowing wild chants. As he’s about to reach the door of his vehicle, the first shot rings out. The Indian doesn’t fall right away, only staggers a little more. Several gunshots will be needed to bring him down and stretch him out properly. The salvo then rattles the night, shaking his back with heavy shivers. He finally tumbles forward, spreading out full length, trying to hang on to the opened door.
Grande-Ourse hasn’t finished hearing those gunshots. The door is summarily put back into place. Not a trace is left of him. Nothing. His silhouette can be seen lying on the ground, legs stretched out as though making a final broad stride and trying to enter the earth itself
The Old Man was informed and came over. He picks up the body. A dead man is heavy, he thinks, slipping his hands into the armpits. Destination: the cold room, beneath the Outfitters storehouse.
That’s what happened.
That’s what would’ve happened, if a long story could be cut short....
They could be seen approaching at a snails pace across the railway, the entire band piled into an old verdigris pickup specked with rust. The scrap heap’s contrasting candy-pink hood was touching to behold. The head of the clan, César Flamand, was holding the steering wheel. He was fascinating to observe up close: totally wizened, ugly as three sins, taciturn as a grave. His features were always twisted by elaborate twitches and scowls, as though he’d wanted to keep flies away from his face without using his hands. His shoulders had portaged numerous summers and he was easily twice as old as the age anyone might’ve given him. Romeo, the young man who’d fallen under the bullets twelve years earlier, was his son. Salomé was the daughter of this Romeo, and, therefore, César’s granddaughter. He’d
