For Sure (48 page)

Étienne and Chico exchanged a hesitant glance.

“Luh! 'Tisn't all dat easy to waste de water now you knows how it all works, is it?”

10. How much time to give yourself to find a lost ball?

a) I hate to lose a ball.

b) One lost, two found!

c) I like the underbrush.

d) I hate the underbrush.

e) At least 10 minutes.

“Wid me, it's
flossin'
me teet. Don't know how to say
flossin'
in French . . .”

“
Passer la soie dentaire
?”

“Dat's it,
soie dentaire.
I gots to do it tree, four times a day, or else . . .”

“Or else wot?”

“Or else she tinks she's gonna starve. After all, it's a meal all in
itself
.

(Laughter greets the play of homonyms)

“I don't get it.”

“
Soie
dentaire
is dental floss and
soi
means itself. De floss is a meal in itself!”

“Class, Class! Please!

“Sorry, Miss, I couldn't help it. Fer once, a joke makes more sense in French dan it do in English.”

Lacan thought of the human being as composed of “layers” of identity which, at one time, led him to compare the ego to an onion.

Étienne and Chico had taken up their miniature cars. They would have preferred to continue cutting up strips of toilet paper, but Terry explained that it was time to move on to another far more complicated stage:

“Now I got to do some multiplication and division. 'Ave you learned how to do dat in school yet, Chico?”

“De teacher knows how.”

“Does she now? An' is she keepin' it to 'erself?”

The idea that the teacher was keeping things she knew to herself made Chico laugh. Terry liked to hear Chico laugh.

Examination for Electroacoustic Music course (MUSI 4302): Describe the possible organization of the 22 musical operations essential to basic self-pollination of an electroacoustic work. Do not forget to indicate the emergence of the indicator (efficiency factor) and to determine the speed at which the work moves toward its own conclusion (repato, repepato, repepotato, etc.).

“Too high. I shoulda used me seven.”

. . .

“It does smell wonderful nice, eh, right after de lawn mowin', don't it?”

. . .

“Did you know dat de Acadian word
harbe
isn't such a bad word for grass as all dat?”

. . .

“In long ago France, when dey was takin' de animals out to pasture fer grazin', dey used to say “
mettre les animaux à l'harbe
.”

. . .

“An' don't dat make perfect sense? Why would Acadians be startin' to say
harbe
instead o'
herbe
all of a sudden? Folks don't go changin' der ways just like dat fer nutting,* now do dey?”

“Dat's de troot.”

Shepherd's pie (mashed potatoes). Rice and spinach (rice). Soup (ham bone, beef bone, pumpkin). Spaghetti sauce. Ratatouille (frozen). Frozen parsley, basil, chives. Strawberries. Rhubarb. Lobster? Bottled mackerel (Redge's recipe). Black cherry coulis. Jam and muffins with sugarleaf.

11. Did you know that a third of all new golf balls sold in the United States are actually old balls retrieved from water hazards and repainted?

a) Yes, I knew that.

b) Nothing surprises me anymore.

c) No, I did not know that. I'll fish out my own balls from now on.

d) Canada should close its borders to American golf balls.

e) Canadians are not any more honest than Americans.

When his calculations were done, Terry sat the boys down to present his conclusions:

“First off, de squares are exactly de size dat's written on de package. See 'ere, wot's written under de wee kittens: 9.9 centimetres by 10.1 centimetres. Well, I measured one o' de squares out o' dis pack to see if it were true.”

Terry did not merely explain; he demonstrated:

“You take de ruler like so, an' you measure just so: 9.9 centimetres by 10.1 centimetres exactly.”

Étienne and Chico approved.

“An' den I did de same wid a square from de clouds pack, an' a square from the lambs pack, an' all de measurements're right.”

Étienne and Chico believed him.

“Alright den. Now second ting we did was counted up de squares in a roll from each sort, an' der again, we get de same number o' squares dat's written on each packet: de wee kittens has 198 squares in a roll, an' de clouds has 187, an' de lambs, 185. Dat means wedder de paper's one, two, or tree layers tick, de number of layers don't change de number of squares in de roll. Got it?”

The two boys nodded. Terry chuckled to himself to see how seriously they were paying attention.

“De tird ting we's wantin' to know is which of all dese sorts is deliverin' more fer our money. Well, to know dat we has to figure how much each roll o' toilet paper costs. De wee kittens 'ere costs 35 cents a roll. De clouds o'er 'ere, well dey cost 41 cents a roll. An' de little lambs cost 39 cents a roll. Only not one o' dese brands has got de same size squares, or de same numbers o' squares. An' de worst ting is de tickness. Look 'ere now. Dis one 'ere has got two layers, only she's a whole lot fluffier dan de kittens dat's got tree . . .”

Neither Étienne nor Chico had ever imagined that the products on store shelves could contain so many nuances.

“So all dat means we gotta take de tickness of de paper into account as well. How I done dat is I weighed a roll of each sort of toilet paper, on account of it's near impossible to measure de tickness of anyting as tin as a square o' toilet paper. To do dat a fellow'd need precision tools, which we don't 'ave. Only before I weighed dem, I took out de cardboard in de middle, on account of we don't wipe ourselves wid de cardboard, now do we?”

Just as Terry expected, Étienne and Chico giggled at the idea of wiping themselves with the cardboard centre of a toilet paper roll.

“Well, all de weighin' an' calculatin' ends up dat the little lambs toilet paper weighs de least. An' on account of de little lambs squares was de smallest, an' dey wasn't de least expensive, I eliminated dem. An' dat means dose little lambs're not de ones we ought to be buyin'.”

Étienne and Chico seemed relieved that all their work had finally provided a concrete result.

11. Did you know that a third of all new golf balls sold in the United States are actually old balls retrieved from water hazards and repainted?

a) No, I had no idea.

b) Someone had a clever idea.

c) I am in favour of recycling.

d) Canadians are not any more honest than Americans.

e) This survey is racist.

Always that distant past retreating further and further into history to which Élizabeth was often recalled:

“Pelletier? The Pelletiers from Madawaska?”

Acadians often questioned her about her origins.

“No, they're from Ontario.”

Élizabeth could not get used to the manner in which the past here was not merely a useful concept, but rather a work in progress and a condition, a rock upon which one could gain a foothold.

“From Sudbury?”

“No, from Hearst. It's further north.”

“Awh. On account of I knowed a Pelletier hailed from Hearst . . .”

The Other is irreducible.

“Now we've still got de wee kittens and de clouds — an' here's where we finds out just 'ow important 'tis to do proper testin'! — on account of de cardboard in de clouds roll weighs more dan de cardboard in de wee kittens roll.
In udder words
, if a fellow'd gone an' done de test widout removin' de carboard core, ee'd 'ave got de wrong result!
Anyhow
, dat's someting you'll most likely be learnin' in school; I'm only showin' ya now in case dey fall behind in de program an' decide to
skip
o'er
dis part.”

“Dad! Yer sayin' too many words in English!”

Terry was stunned. Of course, he realized he'd said “in other words,” “anyhow,” and “skip over” in English.

“Yer right, my son. Sometimes it just comes out like dat, an' I can't seem to help meself.”

Chico couldn't see the harm in using English words.

“We say English words all de time.”

Terry tried to explain:

“Sure, an' we do too. Only we try to say as many French words as we can.”

“On account of?”

Terry sought a simple answer.

“Well, on account we's French, aren't we?”

“Awh.”

The Académie française's recent grammatical changes are logical. For example, to write
bonhommie
with two
m
's rather than one makes sense since the word
homme,
from which the former is derived, contains two
m
's;
combattivité
with two
t
's is consistent with
combattre
; and
charriot
with two
r'
s, as in
charrette
. Similarly, the Académie has dropped the last
i
in words like
joaillier, quincaillier
since this last
i
is silent. Hence,
joailler, quincailler
, etc. Also, we may now drop the
i
in
oignon
. The result is we have
ognon
, as the Acadians have always pronounced it.

“Once upon a time, a king sent word throughout his kingdom that he would give his daughter's hand in marriage to whomever managed to make her cry, because his daughter the princess had never in all her life shed a single tear.”

“Hihi . . .”

“Well, there were many nice young men in the kingdom who wanted nothing better than to marry a princess. So many of them tried to make the princess cry, but none succeeded.”

“Hihi . . .”

“One day a young peasant boy arrived, claiming he had a sure-fire way to make the young lady cry.”

“Pessan?”

“Pessan?”

“Pessan?”

“Absolutely. A handsome young peasant.”

“Hihi . . .”

“The king, discouraged by the failure of all those who had tried so far, was not very hopeful. But he opened the door to the young man anyway.”

. . .

“Once inside the palace, the . . .”

“Pawus?”

“Yes, a great big beautiful palace.”

(
Smile
)

“The young man asked to be taken to the kitchen along with the princess, where the two of them set to work peeling onions.”

“Pessan?”

“That's right. The peasant and the princess pealed onions. And naturally, the lovely girl's tears began to flow.
Sniff
,
sniff
. . .”

“Hihi . . .”

“And so, just as the king had promised, the honest and clever young man married the princess and became a good prince.”

“Hihi . . .”

“Isn't that wonderful?”

“Adain?”

“Again?”

“Adain!”

Visit Lisbon. 1755, after all.

Terry was beginning to think that this toilet paper affair had run its course.

“So den, if all me calculations're correct, de cloud toilet roll's more expensive dan the wee kitten rolls, an' wot's more dey's also better quality. Der ticker too, an' dat means it don't take as much paper to wipe yerself, an' dat means, in de long run, yer savin'. Not only dat, but it's softer. Luh, feel it . . .”

The two boys reached out to touch the two samples Terry held out, and both nodded their agreement.

“Mostly women are de ones dat tinks of buyin' de soft tissue, only if ever you find yerself widout a woman 'round, you can remember dat it's someting wert' tinking about.”

For Arabs and Africans, the onion is a symbol of duplicity because beneath all those layers one upon the other there is no hard kernel.

I confess I was nervous about this meeting. I was afraid that Claudia's youth would give her a net advantage over me, the advantage of fragility, and the brute force of youth. I wondered too how she might have changed since we'd met, more than 10 years ago.

“You come here often?”