Our finances, as I understood them, were based on the same principle as the black box: it was enough to know what went in, what came out, and to always establish an equivalency between the two amounts.
But the machines keys refused to line up in the right sequence beneath my fingers. I added up gaffs faster than the price of goods multiplied by their number. Each new blunder stared my supervisor in the face, breaking his heart, as he leaned over the distressing white ribbon which was an insult to all mathematical rigour. When Benoît was out of sight, Id settle on noting any calculation that didn’t add up on a piece of paper which I then concealed under the cash, without losing my cool, whispering to myself, like an incantation: Benoît will manage. Benoît will balance.
It was important to show unflappable confidence before the shrewd and paunchy humanity that regularly filed through our establishment. I couldn’t afford to hint at the least blunder in the eyes of those large woodsmen on welfare, bearded poachers with piercing eyes, brawny and griping lumberjacks on unemployment, and other friendly barbarians inclined to stinginess whenever it wasn’t a question of eating or drinking. They would’ve pulverized me for less. Id sometimes see their eyes bulge after they’d glanced the price of an item. They’d cry robbery just to test my resolve. I tried to remain calm, taking their money, recording transactions. I was gradually learning to figure them out.
They all seemed more or less cut from a pattern that took up space and was draped in abundant flesh. Midriffs were rather rotund. Local custom flaunted a joyful disregard for public health standards regarding consumption, and no restraint mechanism could’ve prevented those flabby paunches from spreading out and dangling around waistlines. Around here, stomachs were the last refuge of wealth.
Mornings when the heat wasn’t too intense. Big Ben, a Metis, would show up on the horizon above the tracks, his four limbs making short and comical rotations around his pudgy body, like a locomotive’s connecting rods in slow motion. Not much of him had been seen during Mr. Administrator’s stay: Big Ben belonged to that race of honest idlers, unable to feign efficiency only to dazzle. Though not among the heaviest of his counterparts, he did carry about an imposing and impeccably circular mass.
When the Old Man introduced me to him, the enormous factotum stretched out his hand uselessly, in an uncertain gesture halfway between a handshake and a simple vague sign, a result of his arm’s limited reach and his obvious reluctance to move his feet without a compelling motive. Quiet and modest, he gazed at the ground, its immediate view being forever denied him due to his corpulence. This fat boy, who was the perfect audience for any compulsive chatterbox, had mastered the art of tolerating the flapping of lips in others. He seemed intoxicated by the infinite variations in voice tones.
“What’s happening with you, Big Ben?”
“Um Well UhWell.”
Perhaps to confront the contradiction inherent to his being Métis, Big Ben had created his own dialect which rested on purely iterative rhetoric. It always drew on the same monosyllabic repertoire reduced to a minimum, and borrowed from a level of evolution barely beyond the grunt. This lexical impoverishment seemed perfectly deliberate. Big Ben had everything of the friendly gorilla who’d accidentally discovered the principle of mantras.
“What’s new, Big Ben, old buddy?”
“Well Um Well Uh.”
He liked to examine shelf contents, walking along the aisle, hands on his stomach, getting excited over nothing, over the tiny breeze which, filtered by the half-open door, stroked his pathetic sweat-drenched carcass, or over a bag of potatoes delivered by the train that very morning and destined for the corner restaurant’s foul-smelling fryer. Leaning with all his weight on the potato bag, he repeated, amazed, “Oh the nice potatoes! Oh Oh! Oh the nice potatoes!”
With his mouth in the shape of a heart, he’d catch his breath, lift his head, sponge his brow, “Oh the nice breeze! Oh! The nice little breeze...”
He’d come back down to earth, then, “Oh! The nice potatoes! Oh the nice potatoes....”
Big Ben nodded at everything the Old Man said, chanting his lone syllable, lovingly rocking it on his tongue. He was a fan of all-out approval, and could say yes sixteen times without changing pitch.
“Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes.”
Big Ben was also the volunteer fire chief. One day, wonder of wonders, he showed me Grande-Ourses fire truck. The antiquated vehicle, stored in a garage and forgotten by everyone, hadn’t seen action in three or four centuries. Big Ben pampered it.
Raoul Legris was another notable character whose actions I’d carefully study. He was small, hard-hearted, sinuous, ageless. His greying mop, ruffled by an eternal night of partying, had two very stiff locks that gave him a pair of horns. Something bad and consciously crooked emanated from the grimace that was always on his lips. Legris was a rogue and didn’t pretend to be anything else, which gave him an advantage over many of the people around him. He played his role as a villain with a fervour that could only make him sympathetic in the long run. He wasn’t a Grande-Ourse native. His migration was the reverse of the tendency generally observed in rural regions: one day, he’d left his mediocre suburb in the Lower Laurentians, ending up in Grande-Ourse, at the end of the road and that of his resources. He worked for the Forestry Company at first, then for whatever required his dubious services here below. He had a good deal of pride for a bootlicker. This region had pleased him, having no law but the jungles. He’d removed the licence plates from the vehicle he’d stolen in Saint– Thérèse-de-Blainville, disappearing into the landscape on the double. He quickly specialized, among other expedients, in establishing questionable friendships, especially with American tourists, who always wanted to buy lessons in local behaviour. Legris used his smile like others use a beggar’s cup. Another pool of shady relations had been provided by the Indians. He went from one group to the next, acting as a contact point. I here were Metis with brawn and Metis with brains. The mixed blood Legris had was in his brain. He was crafty as anything.
The first morning I saw him, he was in a rather sorry state and suffered from a crying need: a pair of ears, no matter whose, to be filled with the sound of his complaint. Posing as a victim with obvious satisfaction, he railed against a legion of nocturnal aggressors and, filled with meticulous self-pity, caressed the purple bruise adorning his forehead. Having merely got what he deserved, he rejoiced in having touched the Old Man with the moving tale of all his misfortunes. The latter was beside himself as he ran up to him.
“You, Legris! You! I knew it was you! You were behind the ruckus last night! I should’ve known! Legris is back!”
His counterpart awaited the rest, quiet and sarcastic.
“Same old story!” lamented the Old Man, calling on me as a witness. “The typical scenario: Legris gets the Indians to drink, buys beer all night, gets beat up in the morning and afterwards, has the gall to show up and complain!”
So much for the proceedings. The affair was understood.
“And now,” the Old Man went on, “you’ll ask me to call the Tocqueville police again? As if they weren’t already on to your little number?”
Legris, who’d seemed distracted, straightened up completely, like an actor who’s just been prompted.
“You think I’ll let the shirt be taken off my back? They broke into my trailer and made off with a hundred pounds of meat! My freezer’s totally demolished!”
The Old Man, secretly gratified by his role, was heading to the phone on the wall near the counter, fulminating. A determined Legris was on his heels, shouting, “Come on! Dial the number! I want the whole bunch locked up! Bastards!”
The Old Man dialled, affecting a solemn attitude. Receiver in hand, Legris interrupted the account of his misfortunes to collect himself for a moment. Something then clicked in his mind, and he abruptly hung up, burning with rage, “Don’t need the pigs for that! I’ll personally take care of the Siwashes! Without us, they’d still cover their asses with animal