For Sure (58 page)

“But Mum! You said! Dat's why we take trips. To see new tings.”

On the subject of Wall Street, the beef tail in retail?

“Chico's gonna get a cat.”

“Is that right?”

“Dey's fetchin' it tomorrow.”

“Dey're fetchin' it tomorrow? Where?”

“At de animal shelter.”

“At the animal shelter?”

“You does dat all de time!”

“What's that?”

“You says de same words I do. It's irritatin'.”

“Well, I only do it so you'll learn to say de right words.”

“Only I doesn't know all de right words yet!”

“I know it. But sometimes de ones you do know are right fine. Like animal shelter. That's a wonderful nice phrase. You ought to tell it to yer dad. Could be he'll be wantin' to write it down in 'is notebook.”

. . .

“What's wrong then?”

Étienne dragged his feet.

“I'd like fer us to 'ave a dog.”

It's always pleasant, relaxing even, when coming to a fork, to go toward the right. The opposite of an irritation.

Zed could not have imagined it.

“I had rather grim plans for you.”

He looked at me with those tender eyes I recalled.

“Wot does dat mean, den?”

I tried to think of another way to put it.

“Well, after you finished the lofts project, I thought you might be committin' suicide.”

!

“No, I know, it makes no sense.”

“Well, why den would I've gone an' done dat?”

“Don't know, really. 'Twould've been a kind of mystery.”

. . .

“Only I know it made no sense.”

Zed sat silently fiddling with a packet of sugar.

“Does it bother you?”

“Well . . . 'tisn't exactly comfortin' to tink you didn't 'ave any more use fer me dan dat.”

I certainly understood how he felt, and tried to redeem myself.

“In any case, 'twas in an effort to try'n turn it around dat I sent Élizabeth yer way.”

Zed frowned, as though it had not been the cleverest solution.

“You don't think so? Well you sure looked head o'er heals at the start.”

He forced a laugh.

“I was, too.”

“I know it.”

“Were you really tinkin' you was gonna get me embroiderin'?”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Then he too started laughing.

“
Phew
. I's afraid you was givin' up on me.”

I'd never imagined that my characters could be conscious of my expectations of them. Did I really have expectations? The waitress arrived:

“Does you want sometin' else den?”

Zed ordered a second coffee, and I a tea.

“I don't want to say too much, only there's sometin' proper nice comin' up fer you.”

“Sometin' or someone?”

“Awh! You'll see!

Names of Moncton disc jockeys: DJ Bing, DJ Bones, DJ Bosse (fictional character), DJ Bu'da, DJ Cristal, DJ Cyril Sneer, DJ Leks, DJ Lukas, DJ Marky, DJ Pony Boy, DJ Sueshe, and DJ Textyle (or Tekstyle).

“Strange how when we wants to say ‘die a slow death' in French, we say ‘
mourir à petit feu
,
'
like ‘dying by small fires, an' den we calls a dead person: ‘
feu
,' like ‘
feu
Tilmon Arsenault, fer example, meaning ‘de departed.'”

. . .

“Are ya asleep, den?”

In lieu of a reply, Carmen merely squeezed Terry's forearm. After all these years, that was still a satisfactory answer.

CHAPTER 9

. . . [S]tories are found things, like fossils in the ground . . .

Stephen King
,
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,
Scribner, 2000

One day, a man Terry had never seen before entered the bookstore. The customer had some difficulty opening the door, which normally posed no problem. Once the sexagenarian was in, Terry watched him getting all tangled up trying to close the door behind him.

“
Don't mind me. Some mornings I just can't manage doors.
”

The man was no less contorted as he moved toward the counter and addressed Terry:

“Françaisse,
I suppose
?”

He did not give Terry time to reply, but continued in his best attempt at French.

“It is ze fantastic town! Vary much nice!”

The man took his time removing his gloves and scarf before truly taking in the atmosphere of the shop.

“Agh! You are selling ze youzed books also?”

“Dat's right. Well, only dese shelves 'ere.”

His interlocutor seemed to be waiting for further explanations, so Terry obliged.

“We only started a short time ago. Folks brings 'em in an' we decides which ones we wants an' which we doesn't. Mostly, we don't take de ones we's sellin' in de shop.”

The man was listening so attentively that Terry, unsure what more he could add, felt obliged to continue:

“We's sorta gotta 'ave a feelin' fer de book if we's to put it up on de shelf. Udderwise, if it don't sell, der we are, stuck wid sometin' we doesn't really want.”

Terry shrugged, indicating that he had nothing more to add.

“Zat is the good idea, a varry good idea, truly! And why knots?”

The standard Italian alphabet contains 21 letters, including five vowels and 16 regular consonants, all of which are also found in the French and English alphabets. Italian also contains five supplementary consonants, which are
j
,
k
,
w
,
x
, and
y
. They are used in words borrowed from foreign languages:
jeans
,
karate
,
whisky
,
xenophobia
,
yogurt
. Occasionally, the
v
and
z
will be used as regular letters (Italian can be slightly confusing). Conclusion: the
alfabeto
is made up of 21 letters, but the language is not adverse to using letters from other languages when it borrows their words.

The new customer was relentless:

“Because, in truth, ze margin of profits is what is counting, is it not so?”

Terry wondered where the man had learned his French to speak it this way.

“Dat's right. An' we does sell a good number. Enough, anyway, to make it wortwhile.”

The man studied Terry closely for a moment, before approving:

“Ze important for a bookstore, is zat ze peoples comes, am I not correct? Even if only to selling a book and not to buying.”

And the customer leaned closer to Terry, as though to impart a confidence:

“Ze books do not leave anyone indifferent, you know. Even zose zat are not reading, zey are affected. Zis I am knowing deeply.”

As he said this, the man tapped his middle finger against his chest.

In his introduction to
Précis de l'histoire moderne
, M. Michelet sums up three and a half centuries of history in three paragraphs. Essentially, agglomerations of fiefdoms form large States, which tend to swallow up smaller entities than themselves by force or marriage. Monarchy and heredity take precedence over the republic and elected leaders, but the “System of Equilibrium” restrains their power. At the same time, commercial interests overtake religious ones, and commerce gradually supplants war as the main form of communication between different parts of the globe. Thus the great maritime powers have a clear advantage. Europeans, for their part, are unable to resist the temptation to “civilize,” i.e., subdue and dominate, distant lands. The West European nations of Latin origin in particular have the means and leisure to dedicate themselves to this “civilizing” mission, the East Europeans — the Slavs — being occupied in beating back the “barbarians,” which results in their slower political development.

The man removed his coat and put it down on the nearest wing chair.

“I live in zen You York State, on a farm.”

Terry exprienced an auditory lapsus, imagined a ring of crosslegged Zen masters hovering over New York State.

“A mag-nific piece of land!”

The man drew a large circle with his right arm as he described his land. Then, laying his hand very gently on Terry's arm and gazing into his eyes, he repeated:

“Troully. Mag-nific.”

Alright, Terry thought, I guess his land is magnificent.

“I ham vizit my daughter.”

Once again the man moved closer, as though this time he was about to reveal a deep secret:

“She haz merried a kook.”

Terry wasn't sure what was so special about “merrying a kook,” but his customer seemed to think it was a very clever move by his daughter. So Terry laughed:

“Does she enjoy eatin' all dat much, den?”

Again the man looked very closely at Terry, smiling now and nodding.

“Yes, it iz exactly what I thought.”

True or false: Jean de LaFontaine is the author of the expression “A pitcher that goes to the well too often eventually breaks.”

Étienne was busy building a hangar for his mini-cars with the new slats of wood his grandfather Thibodeau had given him. Carmen was watching him work. She liked to see him play with such rudimentary objects.

“Mum, wot's me name in English?”

The question took Carmen by surprise.

“Chico says dat at school, der's a boy dey calls Antoine in class. Only in de yard ee's called Tony.”

“You don't really 'ave an English name. Étienne is a French name.”

“I knows it.”

. . .

“Only, just in case somebody was wantin' to call me in English?”

“Really, I don't know any English name for Étienne. Must be the same in boat English an' French.”

Carmen tried to pronounce the name Étienne in English, but any difference was barely detectable.

“See now, 'tisn't so hard to be sayin' yer name in English. You pronounce it pretty much de same.”

Étienne remained sceptical, even though Carmen did not go so far as to claim that his name would flow smoothly off an English tongue.

“Well, Dad, ee's called Terry . . .”

Carmen could already guess what was coming.

“An' 'ow 'bout you, lot's of folks call you Carm . . .”

“Well sure, that's troo. Only we didn't ask fer those names, now did we. Folks just got started callin' us that a while back, an' it stuck. Now, feels like 'tis too late to change. Yer name's more French on account of dat's who we are, more French.”

Étienne did not reply, momentarily preoccupied with looking for a satisfactory piece of wood to complete the roof of his hangar. Carmen took advantage of the pause to shift the conversation a bit:

“Do you like yer name?”

Étienne thought a bit, then seemed to make up his mind:

“Yes, I like it.”

“
Ouf
! I'm happy.”

“On account of?”

This was an easy question for Carmen:

“I wasn't all that fond o' me name when I's a wee girl. I would've liked to be called Dominique.”

Étienne raised his head to look at Carmen. His mother, a Dominique?”

“I liked Martine as well.”

Well, this was all news to Étienne. He stood up and walked up to Carmen to look at her more closely, trying to see his mother in these other names. Then he huddled against her for a caress, thinking of the bronze fly.

But where does a language begin, where does it end? When does a language become a different language? Isn't all speech an interpretation of reality, hence a kind of translation, a fleeting attempt of language, a lalanguage? And whether French is old or contemporary or standard or hybrid, isn't language, like life, nothing more than a long processs of uninterrupted hybridization?

Finally the man had begun to look at the books. First at those on the tables near the counter, then those on the shelves. He would pick up a book delicately, take the time to examine the cover, then turn the work slowly round to study the spine and the back cover. He studied all these from three angles — over his glasses, through his glasses and under his glasses — and seemed to decode useful information at each stage. When he finally opened a book, apparently at random, he took the time to read a bit on each page before returning to the first pages or leafing toward those at the end. From time to time, he seemed to experience a kind of spasm. At first, Terry thought these spasms were somehow linked to the man's infirmity, but he began to suspect that that they were caused by something the man was reading. Often, the man smiled.

“Youse can sit yerself down, if you like.”

And the customer accepted the chair Terry had carried over.

(
Bescherelle
found.) The new rules of the Académie also simplify the plural of compound nouns: when the first word of the plural of a compound word is a verb or a preposition, the second word must now end in
s
; for example, snowdrops are
perce-neiges
and afternoons are
après-midis
. (In the past, the second word was invariable.)

“Hallo der. Are yer mum or yer dad around?”

“Me dad's 'ere, only ee's in de toilet.”

“Awh well, let's not disturb 'im den. We's volunteers fer de Red Cross. We's collectin' money an' household tings like furniture or dishes to lend a hand to de folks whose apartment buildin' burnt down last week. I'll leave you dis 'ere flyer, wot explains de whole ting. Der's a telephone number if youse have any questions. Can you give dis 'ere to your parents, OK?”

“OK.”

Once the man was gone, Chico slid the sheet under the bathroom door.

“Zed?”

“Yah?”

“Val O'Tears left dis 'ere fer you.”

“Who'd ya say?”

“Val O'Tears.”

“ Val O'Tears? Am I supposed to know who dat is?”

“Ee came by on account of de fire.”

“Fire? Wot fire?”

The Académie has also decided to drop the hyphen in many compound nouns and allow them to be written as single words; for example, bat becomes
chauvesouris
, centipede
millepatte
, undertaker
croquemort
, picnic
piquenique
, rickshaw
poussepousse
, corkscrew
tirebouchon,
and purse
portemonnaie
. Perhaps you are thinking we could write snowdrops as
perceneiges
and afternoons as
aprèsmidis
? As a matter of fact, lexicographers are encouraged to follow suit and practice fusion.

The man stayed for so long among the rows of shelves of Didot Books that Terry completely forgot about him, and continued to leaf through the newly arrived publishers' catalogues. It was only when the customer accidentally pushed several books onto the floor while trying to reach up to the highest shelf that Terry remembered his presence. Seeing the man in difficulty, Terry hurried over to lend a hand.

“Agh! I am zo sorry, really . . .”

“Believe me, youse not de first to be tumblin' de books offa dis 'ere shelf. She's too high fer most folks. We oughtta be rearrangin' tings 'ere, only we never takes de time. Which was de book you was lookin' fer?”

The customer took a book out of Terry's hands, and then another, while he was at it.

“If der's any little ting yer wantin', you only 'ave to shout.”

“Yes, this I will do. Thank you.”

Back behind the counter, Terry saw the man studying what appeared to the
Poems of A. O. Barnabooth
, a work that had been gathering dust on the shelf for several years now.

A word one would expect to be yellow, but is definitely not:
lemon
.

Élizabeth stood in the doorway and cast a last look over the apartment she was preparing to abandon. The sun was lighting the room exactly as it had the first time she'd seen it. The similarity lifted her spirits. She was leaving without regrets, with a feeling that this was a fine day to turn the page.

True or false: another initiative of the Académie Française was to agree that all compound numbers are to be written with hypens, since even the best intentioned cannot always master the writing out of a number like 251,697, or two hundred fifty-one thousand six hundred ninety-seven, which will henceforth be written in French as
deux-cent-cinquante-et-un-mille-six-cent-quatre-vingt-dix-sept
.

After a few days, Carmen decided that just because he had a cold was no reason to keep her son locked up in the house.