The Years of Fire Read online

  And it was there, clinging to a doorpost, his eyes turned heavenward and his mouth gaping open, that the poor man gave up the ghost, while his four-legged murderer sat down below on the sidewalk barking like it was trying to rip out its own throat.

  De Bané stopped, his eyes moist, his lips trembling. To his grief at losing a much-loved uncle was added the pain of losing a contract, since he knew full well that whoever took over the ownership of the building would never take him on. There followed a moment of silence.

  “Are you going to the funeral, René?” someone asked.

  De Bané gave the questioner a look that clearly showed how pained he was by such a question.

  “When is it?” asked another listener. “I’d like to go too.”

  “Family only,” sniffed De Bané. “By his own request.”

  “What I find most amazing,” Steve breathed in Charles’s ear, “is that he believes his own bullshit.”

  Just then a group of kids burst loudly into the room and came up to the cash to get a table. Everyone went back to their games. De Bané smoked two or three cigarettes while pacing up and down beside the bar, then took a table himself. Telling the story seemed to have calmed him down. He even began humming to himself as he played.

  The owner leaned on the bar and watched him for a while. Then, tauntingly, a bit scornfully, he called over to him.

  “Tell me, René, doesn’t anything normal ever happen to you? You know: you cross a street and don’t get run over by Santa Claus, or you go to a movie and a fire doesn’t break out in the theatre, things like that?”

  “All the time, my friend.” And he burst out laughing. By dint of constant little attentions, an unlimited supply of cigarettes, judicious counselling in matters relating to pool, and endless rounds of beer, De Bané succeeded in winning, if not Charles’s and Steve’s friendship, at least their tolerance. He even took them and their girlfriends out for meals to a nearby restaurant famous for its club sandwiches. Charles couldn’t figure out how someone who seemed to live hand to mouth had so much money to throw around.

  “He must have a racket,” Agatha said. “I’m going to try to get him to tell us about it.”

  But neither her cleverness nor her charms were able to pry anything out of him but evasive pleasantries. The pool-hall regulars she quizzed couldn’t tell her much either. Out of desperation she sought out the owner, despite his reputation for having no time for gossip. His only reply was a smile and a slight shrug of his shoulders, with his eyes focused on an indefinite point somewhere in the middle of the room.

  Charles worked at his game like a man possessed and was on the verge of becoming something of a shark. He’d been beating Steve regularly for some time, and he was at least as good as players who were twice his age, some of whom he’d already sent to the showers; a few of them had even suggested he register for the next tournament. At the Orleans he was considered a regular; Nadine sometimes gave him credit, and the distinct impression that with a little effort on his part she would gladly give him a lot more than that.

  One night in early June, however, when a stretch of fine weather was keeping most of the regulars away, an event took place that knocked Charles out of his habitual routine. He was playing with Marlene, Steve, and De Bané when the downstairs door banged open and he heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. A man appeared in the doorway, red-faced, hair dishevelled, shirt half unbuttoned; he leaned against the door frame and his eyes swept the room as though he was looking for someone. When Charles saw him he turned pale and crouched down behind the pool table, to the astonishment of his companions.

  “Go back and open the door to the storeroom,” he whispered to Steve. “I’m going to sneak back between the tables. I don’t want that man to see me.”

  His friend thought he was joking, but a hard punch on his thigh made him realize that Charles was serious.

  Steve made his way to the back of the room, followed by Charles crawling on all fours between the tables. Marlene and De Bané, sensing the seriousness of the situation, went on playing as though nothing were amiss.

  “What’s going on, buddy?” Steve asked when they were alone in the back room with the door closed.

  “That’s my father who just came in. I don’t want to speak to him.”

  A slight tremor passed through Charles’s jaw, and his eyes began leaping frantically around the room from one object to another – old pieces of furniture, tables piled with cans of soup and bottles of cleaning products – as though he were looking for a crack to hide in. They could hear Wilfrid Thibodeau laughing loudly at the bar, his strange, high-pitched cackle breaking off sharply, making him sound pitiful.

  “Your father?” Steve exclaimed, surprised. “He’s the guy who owns the hardware store?”

  “He’s not my real father, that’s him out there, I’ve already told you,” replied Charles angrily. “Now go, hurry up, get out of here before the owner comes in. He might’ve seen us. Go and tell him I’ve got to hide here, and no one is to come looking for me, for the love of God! When my father leaves, come and knock on the door.”

  Wilfrid seemed to be in a jubilant mood that night. Recognizing a drinker sitting at the bar, he sat down beside the man and began talking and laughing loudly at everything, every so often banging his fist on the counter. He laughed so hard and so long that two of the players put down their cues and joined the party. De Bané, smelling fresh blood for his ludicrous stories, left Steve and Marlene and went over to the group, which was already settling in to do some serious drinking. Wilfrid’s laughter cranked up a notch and filled the four corners of the pool hall so full the room could barely contain it. Marlene went home, put out by the way the evening had turned sour.

  Sitting on a broken chair in the dark, Charles stared at the line of light coming in under the door and rubbed his mouth and jaw. He remembered his father as a taciturn man, always grumpy, hardly ever laughing except when he was drunk, and even when he’d had a skinful his brief bouts of hilarity would suddenly turn into fierce anger at the slightest word from his mother, who had done her best to be a good parent. Never had he heard his father laugh like this, so uncontrollably, almost dementedly. His laughter echoed in Charles’s ears like a threat. After a few minutes he could barely stand listening to it, but he forced himself to remain seated, his eye fixed on the thin band of light, trapped in this storeroom that reminded him of the bleak day he’d survived only by acts of courage and ingenuity, and the kindness of little Alice, who had allowed him to follow her through Wonderland. Tonight, however, Alice would not be able to help him. Alas.

  Wilfrid decided he wanted to play pool, and he challenged De Bané to a game. A bet was laid. The game was even for the first few shots, then De Bané began potting balls with a nonchalance that made a few of the onlookers start to chuckle. The carpenter remained silent, chewing his lips, becoming more and more sullen, and he tried to use all the skill left to him in his drunken state. Suddenly he became angry and began insulting his opponent and accusing him of cheating. When De Bané, supported by the spectators, denied the charge, Thibodeau broke his cue on the table and threw it at him. The next moment the owner was grabbing him by the shoulders and throwing him out. For several minutes they could hear him shouting down in the street. The mood in the pool hall seemed to have darkened.

  “He’s gone,” De Bané announced, leaning out one of the windows. “He’s a total pain, that one.”

  A few customers left. Steve knocked on the door of the storeroom. When there was no response he stuck his head in and was met by a current of fresh air. Charles had found a small window hidden at the back behind some boxes and had succeeded in getting it open and crawling outside, where a fire escape had let him climb down to the street.

  Charles stayed away from the pool hall for the next two weeks. His excuse was that he had too much work at the pharmacy, and in fact Monsieur Lalancette had asked him to add Thursday nights to his work schedule. But no one believed this
was the real reason. He had made Steve and Marlene promise to keep the scene at the Orleans a secret, not wanting anyone else to know what a loser he had for a father. The two friends kept their word, though as much from indifference as from friendship, since such situations were not uncommon in the neighbourhood and few people would have been surprised by this one.

  To the great relief of Fernand and Lucie, Charles began spending more time at home, falling back into some of his old habits. Once again they would find him reading in his room, or in the living room, or even in the bathroom (which he monopolized with the egocentric insouciance of a typical adolescent); he spent Sunday nights watching TV in his pyjamas, often in the company of Céline. He went back to visiting Parfait Michaud, to borrow books or simply to chat when the notary wasn’t swamped with paperwork or tied up with clients.

  One thing Lucie and Fernand didn’t know was that the day after the incident at the pool hall, Charles had gone to Amélie Michaud and asked her if he could spend a little time in the Christmas room. He was only in there for ten minutes. The sickly sweet, artificial atmosphere in the room failed to have its usual effect on him; the magic didn’t work; he was bored by the whole thing. Greatly disappointed, even shaken, by this failure, he left the house and headed towards his old daycare in the hope that the soul of the little yellow dog would still be hovering above the ground near the cherry tree, and that it would help him to find himself again, to see himself clearly once more. But he stopped after two or three blocks. The idea was absurd. He thought about phoning Blonblon, who always had a sympathetic ear to lend to his friends, but he couldn’t find the courage to talk about his troubles, so he returned home, more downcast than ever.

  The incident at the pool hall had thrown him for a loop. Not so much because of his father’s behaviour (he wasn’t his father any longer, after all), but because of the similarities he had discerned between the carpenter and himself. It was no accident, he thought, that the two of them had found themselves in the same pool hall at the same time. If Charles were a bit older they might have met in a bar, or a tavern, or a nightclub. He’d been drinking beer fairly regularly for months now, and the distaste he had always had for it was wearing off bit by bit. He was even beginning to like it. Like father, like son, as the saying went. Was he sliding down the same slippery slope, one that would take him into the nether regions where Wilfrid was now festering? Would he share the fate of a man he detested and for whom he’d never felt anything but contempt? Was there an escape hatch somewhere? Who could he find to help him? And how?

  Well, he could confide in Boff. Lying on his bed one night, his hands resting on the dog’s flanks, and gazing deeply into his eyes, he talked in a quiet voice about the things that were tormenting him inside, things he had never been able to tell anyone else. He emptied his heart of everything that had been eating away at him. Forgotten memories resurfaced, and once again he was four years old sitting at the kitchen table with his father, his father’s red face spitting curses at him as he tried to force him to eat a plate of reheated spaghetti, while Alice sobbed in her bedroom with the door closed. He was engulfed again by a terrible sadness, as intense as it had been at the time, and tears rolled down his cheeks. Boff regarded him with an air of powerless sympathy, then licked the end of his nose and the corner of his left eye.

  Days went by. One afternoon after a biology class he waited until the classroom emptied, even looking out into the hall to make sure no one could hear him, then went up to the teacher, who was gathering his papers and putting them in his briefcase; a cigarette in his mouth, his throat tight, his ears burning, for the tenth time rewording the question he had resolved to ask, he waited for the teacher to look up.

  “Yes, Thibodeau?” asked Léon Belzile. His voice was grave and a bit hoarse, but his look was friendly. He considered Charles to be one of his most brilliant students, even if he was a bit of a smart aleck. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got a strange question to ask you.”

  Belzile saw that Charles was genuinely troubled and guessed how difficult it had been for him to come forward. He assumed the nonchalant air usually employed to make timid people feel more at home.

  “Strange questions are quite often the best kind. What’s it about?”

  “It’s about … er, heredity, I guess, or something like that, anyway.”

  “Let’s go for heredity.”

  “We know that if a man has a big schnozz there’s a good chance his daughter will also have a big schnozz, right? The same with hair colour, body type, shape of the hands and feet, and certain diseases, like diabetes, for example …”

  “Right. We know all that, Thibodeau. It’s called the transference of physical traits via the genes. The subject is thoroughly covered, you may perhaps recall, in the fourth chapter of your biology text.”

  Charles hesitated. His eyes left the teacher’s face and drifted over to a half-erased word on the blackboard.

  “Is it the same for … a person’s character?”

  “Ah, well now, that’s a bit more complicated, because, as we’ve known for some time, education and environment are important influences on character. If you take an Inuit baby living in poverty and transplant it to a family of millionaires in Arizona, it certainly wouldn’t develop the same character as it would have if you’d left it to grow up among its own people.”

  He gave a short laugh, pleased with his example.

  Charles nodded, thoughtful, but the expression on his face showed that he hadn’t found the answer entirely satisfying. He tried to think of another way to pose the question, and suddenly it came out all at once.

  “What about alcoholism, sir?” he asked, turning red. “Is that a hereditary disease?”

  Belzile’s eyes widened, his nostrils twitched, and he pursed his lips; the pain and anguish he saw behind the question were quite disconcerting.

  “Hmm. How can I put this, Charles? To be honest, no one knows the answer to that. There are those who believe alcoholism to be a genetic deficiency, but so far I find their studies unconvincing. Let’s say it’s still at the hypothetical stage. Why, is there something worrying you?”

  Charles took on a serious air. His troubled look had almost entirely disappeared, as though he felt better for having resigned himself to making a clean breast of it.

  “My father is an alcoholic, sir. I mean my real father. I don’t live with him, I live with another family, where things are fine.… I don’t want to become like him, not at all. And yet I’ve been drinking beer for some time now. At first I didn’t like the taste, it even made me sick. But lately it’s like I’ve gotten used to it, and now …”

  He gave a pitiful smile and looked away.

  Belzile was touched in a way he hadn’t been touched for a long time. He came around from behind his desk and put his hand on his student’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, Charles. In my opinion, you’re getting upset for nothing. In any case, the very fact that you’re worried about it is reassuring. And of course, if you do discover that tendency in yourself, there’s a solution, isn’t there? You could … well … exercise your willpower, as it were, decide not to touch it again. Simple as that! I have a friend who used to have a terrible problem with alcohol, and I mean terrible. His wife left him, he lost his job, his health was starting to go down the tubes. No question, he was bottoming out, this friend of mine, the very bottom.… And then one day he decided to quit, and he took steps to break the habit. It’s been ten years now since he touched a drop, and he’s been living a normal life, as happy as I think it’s possible to be in this world. Of course, you’re not bottoming out yet, are you?” he added, patting Charles on the shoulder.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Charles replied with a weak smile.

  A feeling of relief washed over him and, at the same time, a strong desire to end this conversation, which he now regretted having started.

  “Thank you,” he said, making his way to the door.

  Bel
zile lit a cigarette and watched him go, not knowing if what he had said had been enough. The problems that had driven his student to confide in him could very well be more serious than they seemed. Should he have got the boy to open up more?

  “Charles …”

  Charles stopped and turned, already thinking about something else; the look he gave his teacher was tinged with indifference.

  “Don’t be too hung up about it, eh?” he said with an embarrassed smile. “At the end of the day, we’re all the masters of our own destinies. Good luck.”

  Charles’s face brightened for a second. He gave a brief nod and left.

  “Is that true, I wonder?” the teacher asked himself, stroking his chin and leaning against his desk. “Are we the masters of our own destinies?”

  Charles lost much of his interest in playing pool and drinking beer – activities that even without his private fears had provided him with only a limited amount of pleasure. The fear of finding himself once again in the same room with his father, and worse, developing the same habits as his father, made him avoid hanging around with Steve, who took to calling him “Gramps” and “home-boy” and “a cool turd.” But he still kept seeing Marlene. In a way, he couldn’t help himself. He was fond of her, despite her crudeness, and didn’t take offence at her sluttish ways, mostly because he benefited from them. But the pleasures of sex alone didn’t account for his attraction to her.

  Marlene possessed the evenness of temper and spontaneous generosity of all good-natured voluptuaries: uncomplicated, seeing only the surfaces of things, easily satisfied because they demanded so little of life. Charles liked her easy, rippling laugh, a laugh that reminded him of Christmas bells, and above all the heart she put into it. When he was with her, he found himself resorting to all sorts of buffoonery in order to hear her laugh. In short, he enjoyed her company immensely. She introduced him to the mysteries of the female anatomy in ways that he would remember for the rest of his life. She taught him how to cook, which he would also find useful later on. For her part, her contact with Charles refined her slightly. She no longer thought of Harlequin Romances as the ne plus ultra of literature. She had her first taste of wine with him – an inexpensive Valpolicella that Charles had had before at the Michauds’ – and she no longer thought that men with a vocabulary of more than four hundred words were effeminate.