For Sure (9 page)

“Up to you . . .”

Étienne marched right over.

“Sir, yer coffee cup fell on de ground.”

The paunchy worker, looking down at the small boy, made as though he hadn't understood.

“Eh? Wot's dat?”

“Yer cup fell on de ground back over der.”

“Well, no matter, she's empty.”

“How come den, you didn't trow her in de trashcan?”

“In de wot?”

“De trashcan . . .”

Étienne had used the proper French word,
poubelle
. Now he pointed to the trashcan to be sure the man had understood him.

“Awh! De dung bin.”

. . .

“Awright den, b'y. You go on over an' fetch her, an' I'll trow her in dis 'ere bin.”

“Awright.”

The worker waited for Étienne to bring him the cup, and then threw it in the trashcan.

“Der ya go! Are you proud of yerself now?”

Étienne looked up at the man and nodded. As the kid didn't seem to want to go.

“Well, an' wot's de problem now?”

“Nuttin'.”

“So, is it awright by you, den, if I gets back to work now?

Étienne nodded.”

“G'day.”

“G'day.”

Fourth coincidence: the day of the small impromptu survey on the perceived colour of vowels, there were a total of 102 students in four groups who agreed to participate. There could easily have been more or fewer. Now consider that the 102 is exactly the number of letters in a game of Scrabble, both in the French and English versions. Is it possible to ignore the link between the two blank letters in the game and the two participants who associated no colour with the letter
a
?

Carmen's position on the subject of language is not particularly easy to bear, least of all for her. As much as she would like her children to learn proper French, there are times when she can't help but smile at some particularly pretty Chiac phrase. But this is not, alas, always the case. More often than not, she feels the Chiac is a kind of laziness, a lack of curiosity, pride, or logic, especially when the proper French term is common knowledge and easy to integrate into everyday speech. In the Babar, for example, she'd like her employees to speak a slightly more elevated French naturally, without abandoning Chiac entirely. She has not yet found a way to raise the issue with them; she worries she might be judged or isolated simply by raising such a sensitive subject.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, when a thirst for knowledge spawned a demand for written works, an attempt was made to accelerate the production of books by engraving each page in wood and then printing copies. This process was unsatisfactory because of the problems arising from the use of wood.

At some point, thinking it might be useful, one of the customers in the Babar began tearing out the article about the survey on the colour of vowels.

“Hey, wot are ye at?”

The guilty party knew he'd been caught red handed:

“Well . . . I was tinkin' I might keep jus' de article . . .”

“Are you one of dose bright chuckleheads wot tears out de pages of magazines in de dentist's waitin' room? Oh me son!”

It was Demiéville who introduced Lacan to the letter toward the end of the '40s.

“How's it dey go on parkin' der? Don't dey see der blockin' everyone behind?”

Terry looked out the window, even though he already knew what he would see.

“As doh der wasn't all dat room right beside . . .”

Zed shook his head. Terry went to fetch another crate of books.

“I bin tinkin' on wot you said de udder day. More I tink on it, more it makes good sense.”

But when he turned around, Zed realized that Terry was no longer there; he'd spoken to the wind.

If there is a difficulty, perhaps it lies in the absence of guidelines, thus requiring each reader to figure out his or her own method to access the creative work, which simply proves that this really is a creative act rather than a tried and tested method. Does it make itself understood?

Later that day, Terry thought he'd look up what status
La Bibliothèque idéale
accorded Freud. The august personality was of course included, and not just for one but for three books, which Terry found both reassuring and exciting.
Birth of Psychoanalysis: Letters to Wilheim Fliess
— most probably interesting, but Terry didn't feel in the mood to tackle an epistolary work;
The Future of an Illusion
— Terry wasn't, for the moment, particularly interested in tackling the world of religion, although he hesitated because of the notion of God as father;
The Interpretation of Dreams
4
therefore seemed the best choice, especially since the entry also referred to
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
, one of the titles Ludmilla had mentioned. Terry added
The Interpretation of Dreams
to his order sheet, in three copies because, once he'd read a book, he generally found a few people to sell it to.

Find out who Demiéville was and to what letter he initiated Lacan.

Woke up with a start in the middle of the night, obsessed with the number of fragments. Got up, found a pencil and paper, drew the big cube in three dimensions, divided the surfaces into 12 by 12, counted the little cubes one by one. The problem arises with the edges of the big cube. Bizarre. Start again.

“Well that's normal. With age, the gums recede, and that exposes de roots.”

Ludmilla winced.

“This 'ere's the worst of 'em, far as I can tell.”

The dentist continued to explore the crowns of Ludmilla's teeth with his hooked probe, pausing on another tooth that seemed to cause her some pain, and examining it from all angles.

“This one 'ere, I might cover the base with this new product came in jus' now. Wouldn't cost you anyting, 'cause I never tried it yet, and don't know for sure if it'll do the job. S'posed to work, mind you, only sometimes what works for one body doesn't work for another. You take laser, for example. One feller told me it changed his life, but then, for others, it's like haulin' water.”

The dentist returned to the tooth with the most recession.

“This one 'ere, I'll 'ave to make a real filling, as though it was a cavity. That's all a fellow can do when de root's overexposed, on account of the gum's receeded. But I won't be goin' down betwixt yer teeth. If the gum's gone down 'tween this tooth and the two either side of it, most likely it will keep right on hurtin'.”

Once the examination was over, Ludmilla could finally speak again.

“Couldn't you try laser on both teeth?”

The dentist seemed reluctant. Ludmilla wanted him to say yes:

“
Allez, du courage
!”

The dentist smiled. Really, these French people . . .

Twelve cubed then, 1,728 fragments, in groups of 12 first, then in sections of 144. But can one write a novel with so many numerals?

While he was at it, Terry also searched to find out who Raymond Queneau was, and discovered that he too appeared three times in
La Bibliothèque idéale
.
Odile
, a novel about love;
Exercises de style
, a book of distortions and
Zazie dans le métro
, a novel intended to be comic but maybe not his funniest work, according to the description. Terry turned to his order sheet, pencilled in a three over the one in the quantities column beside
Exercises de style
.

Lacan, Jacques-Marie — Paris, 1901–1981. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, son of Alfred, a mustard merchant descended from a line of vinegar producers in Orléans. Career as a researcher, i.e., solitary, in spite of the fellowship of other major psychoanalysts. Reader-interpreter of Freud. His influence was such that many psychoanalysts declared themselves Lacanians rather than Freudians. In response, Lacan declared himself Freudian. Flirted with symbolism, penetrated the mystery of language and desire, and the roots of being in speech.

The pronunciation of
quante
instead of
quand
for the French word for
when
is generalized in the Acadian language. Standard French only allows for such a pronunciation when
quand
is followed by a word beginning with a vowel or a silent
h
. As a matter of fact, there are many variations in terms relating to time in Acadian:

“
Quand c'est qu'a t'a dit ça ?”

(When is it she tol' you dat?)

“
Ajeuve, quante que je passais en avant de chuseux.
”

(A while ago, whiles I was passin' by dat fella's house.)

“
Pis, quantaisse qu'y faut que tu donnes ta réponse ?
”

(Well den, when's it yer s'posed to give 'em yer answer?)

“
Mèque la lôde arrive. Par ce temps-là on saura si on ‘n aura besoin de plusse ou pas.
”

('bout de time de load comes in. By den we'll knows wedder we needs more or we doesn't.)

“
Y as-tu dit que ça se pouvait qu'on n'aurait pas même besoin de toute une lôde?
”

(An' did you tell 'er could be, we won't be needin' a whole load?)

“
Oui. Alle a juste dit d'y dire ãs sõon qu'on pouvait.
”

(I did. She only said to tell her
aussitôt
we knows.)

P
is the only letter that can equal the letters
a, b,
and
c
when it comes to the number of times they appear as the first letter of a real colour in pourpre.com's chromatic dictionary.
P
is the first letter of 28 colours, 5 less than
a
, but 2 more than
b
. Together the four letters,
a, b, c,
and
p
, which constitute 15 percent of the alphabet, are the first letters of 48 percent — might as well say half — of the 281 names of colours in the above mentioned dictionary.

Similarly, in Wikipedia's list of 869 English colours, the
c, p, d,
and
b
lead the way in the number of colours of which they are the first letter.
P
is the first letter of 90 colours, 1 less than
c
, and 15 more than
d
. Together these four letters,
c, p, d,
and
b
, which constitute 15 percent of the alphabet, are the first letters of 37.9 percent — more than a third, but less than half — of the 869 colours listed on Wikipedia.com.
A
is a distant tenth, being the first letter of only 36 names of colours, or 4.1 percent.

One evening, while reading a passage from Alphonse Daudet's
Letters from My Windmill
to Étienne, Terry came upon the word
rouf
signifying a small cabin on a boat, which Terry imagined resembled a lobster fishing boat. The word surprised him, but he read on. Two sentences further, Étienne interrupted:

“Dad, I don't understan'.”

“What is it you don' unnerstan'?”

“De words.”

Terry reread the passage silently, and realized that indeed the boy could easily feel lost in this universe at once familiar and yet unknown. He started over then, adapting a bit as he read.

“Dat schooner dey called Miss Emilie, from Cap-Pelé, was old and creakin' all over when I come aboard. Der was only a wee
rouf
to keep out o' de rain and wind and waves, a wee
rouf
wid two cots an' a table. We was on our way to Cocagne. De fishermen's faces was all wet, dat rain was beatin' down so hard . . .”

“Ya, Dad. Dat's a whole lot better.”

Since an alphabetical count of the French chromatic dictionary at pourpre.com yields 281 names of colours, it would be logical to assume that each of the 26 letters of the alphabet would begin, on average, 11 names of colours. But on that score, aside from the letters
a, b, c,
and
p
, only the
m
and the
s
score well above the average; they are the first letter respectively for 21 and 18 names of colours. The
f
is slightly above the average, beginning 14 names of colours. The letters
e, g, i, o, t,
and
v
lead within the average, while
l, n,
and
r
are far below average with only 6 or 7 names to their credit.
D, h, j, k, q,
and
z
are the first letter in 1, 2 or 3 names of colours, whereas
u, w, x,
and
y
are completely absent from this alphabetical order.

On Wikipedia's English list of 869 colours, one might expect, on average, each letter of the alphabet to begin the names of slightly more than 33 colours. Along with
c, p, d,
and
b, m, r, l, s,
and
t
also come in above the average.
A, f
,
and
g
are around the average, while
o, u, e, i, v, h, w
, and
n
are first in between 25 to 11 names of colours.
J
and
y
are first in eight names,
k
in 5, and
z
in 2.
Q
and
x
are the first letter in one name each.