Alabama.
In bold type: Freedom riders: political protest against segregation.
Around the bus are young Black people and White people, in shock, refugees from the flames. A young woman is on her knees. She looks like me.
You had to die for me to take an interest in you.
For you to turn from a ghost to a woman. I don’t love you yet.
But wait for me. I’m coming.
The dead are us, that is certain, there is a mysterious link through which our life nourishes itself from theirs.
George Sand
We don’t fall from the sky. We grow on our family tree.
Nancy Huston
For my mother, For my daughter.
Lower Town Ottawa. LeBreton Flats.
Little houses with peeling paint bow their heads, the bells of Saint Anne’s church ring, and the men are coming home from the factory with heavy hands and empty stomachs.
It’s hot and it smells like wet dirt.
The river is overflowing. It’s made it as far as the cemetery this time. The water is above the tombstones. The river has left its bed, lapping at the homes and the feet of the hurried, chasing anything that moves, awakening the dead. You wonder whether coffins are watertight. And you imagine the dead doing breaststroke.
You stand tall on your long legs. Your face is all eyes, and you have jagged bangs that get caught in your eyelashes.
They hide your prominent forehead. Your mother feels as though your brain wants to pop through it. She contains it as best she can, cuts your bangs to form a lid. If she could let you grow them down to your chin, she probably would, to filter your words at least, since she can’t control your thoughts.
The water laps at your feet, soaks through your white stockings in your nicely polished shoes. You want to taste it, to see if it tastes like death. You dip your finger in and bring it to your mouth.
Apparently this is why the French cemetery was placed near the water. Because the French don’t mind their dead being underwater. The English, well, they would never let that happen.
It is tasteless. You’re disappointed.
‘Get it! Get it!’
You turn. On the other side of the street, a group of children are chasing a rat.
‘Come on, Claire. Let’s go!’
You drag your little sister along behind them.
You cross the street, water up to your calves. You don’t hear your mother calling, trying to hold you back, again. She lives in hope of succeeding one day.
You take long strides, your face intent. You are off to war.
You dive onto your belly after the rat, which you catch with both hands, holding it firmly, brandishing it like a trophy, your eyes sharp and your face like an animal’s.
‘Got it!’
Your sister Claire looks at you, impressed. You turn to face the English kids, the rat in hand, your dress dirty. You stare at them, a rebel.
You are four years old.
Mass is starting in five minutes.
You have mud in your underwear.
You look out the window. Walking at a leisurely pace, people are already cramming into the church on the corner. Everyone is clean and pressed, at least down to their knees.
Below the knees, everything is grey and wet.
‘Suzanne! Hurry up!’
Claudia, your mother, is calling from downstairs. You finish putting on your white blouse and go down.
Madeleine, Paul, Pierre, Monique, and Claire are clean and waiting sensibly at the door. Your mother is seated, thin and pale. She looks you up and down, severely.
She has given up on words, doesn’t even look for them. She hides behind her sharp eyes. Eyes that scrutinize you and condemn you to your core. You avoid them, glide above them.
The dried mud in your underwear itches, but you don’t show it.
Your brothers help your mother up, then you leave.
As you walk by, you graze the keys of the old piano with your fingers and gather the dust. Your mother catches you. You’re not allowed to touch the piano. You say you’re sorry in a clear voice.
You have always had a voice that carries. Even when you whisper. You don’t know how to tone things down. Words move through your throat in a coarse, precise stream, a diamond, an arrow.
It’s a good piano. A Heintzman, wood. Its front is engraved with scrolls that chase each other, swirling, never meeting.
It came into the house twelve years ago. Claudia, your mother, loved it. She played piano as a teenager. Her aunt taught her scales. Claudia found scales more musical than most pieces and played them one after the other with heartfelt enjoyment. She could have played only scales.
It moved her deeply that the pressure of her slender fingers could make such passionate sounds, filling the space. She liked to touch the piano keys; they gave her power. She felt alive.
Later she took lessons with a woman who wore pretty flowered dresses and sheer stockings with no runs.
With her, Claudia took off her shoes when she played, to feel the crisp cold of the pedals on the soles of her feet.
She played Chopin, because it sounded like the sea.
She had talent.
Then she met Achilles. He was a teacher, knew a great deal and didn’t speak much. He had the sort of presence that leaves an impression. Someone you feel has been there several minutes after he leaves. Claudia wanted to swim in his wake, bathe in what overflowed from him.
They got married. They found a big house, on Cambridge Street, in the working-class quarter of Ottawa. It was across the street from the church, which was handy.
Claudia wanted to take her piano with her. Achilles carried it there with his bare hands.
They picked a nice spot for it in the house, so that Claudia could sit there, like a queen on her throne.
But Claudia had her first child and never again sat down at the piano.
When Achilles asked her to play, she would smile inside. An evasive smile.
One day, she simply told him she no longer knew how.
Achilles stayed,
