“You’re a friend, Gilles,” he said gravely.
I pretended not to have heard and, now at a loss for words, turned around, leaning towards the window which sucked in the bracing air. I exhaled a plume of smoke into the cold air devoured by the metal, and what I saw took my breath away. A long stretch of countryside paraded by against the trains undulating side, and beyond the tight rows of spruce gathered like mourners beside the railway. And above, oh above, a flurry of frozen stars filled the ether with its milky light. The ink had receded everywhere, space had vanished, millions of light years had changed into confetti for my sole pleasure. I was becoming a puff of smoke. Head tilted back, as the sky filled with the satin stream of the aurora borealis, mouth open, throat burning, I was inhaling this astounding night, like Brel’s sailors blow their nose in the stars and, intoxicated by the benevolent power of the locomotive, speeding along its iron furrow like a prehistoric mole, I understood that the real night was here, at the bottom of this large gold-bearing cauldron and in these earthly smokes mixed with the amoebic masses of the galaxies, and that I was already a part of everything that would happen under the darkness from now on. The train howled as it swept me along towards the north of the night.
2
SAINT-JEAN-BAPTISTE
GILLES IS ON DUTY THAT NIGHT. Hanging glasses upside-down above his head. Sometimes, a drop falls on his forehead, with an impact of lead. He fills other glasses. Full glass, empty glass. Full glass. The men are thirsty. Full glass, empty glass. Rinsed and suspended to that large light above his head. Another drop hits his forehead. An already high forehead, which he wipes. It’s hot. To make yourself invisible. A glass barman.
His mother has gone to his sister’s in Montreal Squabbling’s in the air. She usually takes care of the hotel The Americans are shooting pool at the back of the hall. Drinking since late afternoon and blind drunk. At the other end of the room, Romeo Flamand and his girlfriend quietly sip drinks. Flamand, his girlfriend. Flamand deflowered Giséle when she was sixteen; she’s already near the peak of her charms. Gilles looks at her and sponges his forehead. Flamand orders two more beers. His long hair is very dark and shiny, tied back in a pony tail He breathes like the bellows of a forge. His chest seems made of copper. Gilles keeps a low profile, is flattened and transparent. A glass barman. He looks ahead. Raoul Legris, hairy and evil-eyed, is leaning on the bar Straddling a stool, he crackles banknotes on the bar. American money. He pivots, turns towards Flamand and Giséle, over there.
Another drop hits Gilles, sliding along the arch of his eyebrow, plunging over his orbit, going around a nostril, then following the curve of a dimple, softly moistening the corner of his closed lips. The men are drinking at the back of the hall. Full glass, empty glass. Full glass. Americans playing American billiards. Gilles is in charge of everything. His father, as well, went fishing this morning with a trollop from Montreal who has lots of money and an impotent husband. An old couple that’s loaded. He’s stingy and wasted; she’s decent and generous. She’s overflowing. Full glass, empty glass. A full stomach. Boisvert promised to return by nightfall Gossips say that when he guides up there, it’s because the woman has the requisite charms. It’s July and Gilles is hot. These walls and that half-open door. Balls collide on the pool table, and the barman sponges his forehead.
With Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day drawing near, the Old Man said he had to make a trip for supplies. He actually intended to get a decent load of beer. Rail transportation was too expensive for such imposing consignments. The Old Man would head to town and rent a truck, loading it with enough beer to set a Guinness record. He’d been talking about the deed for a good fortnight when, sometime in mid-June, he decided to go into action.
That morning, at the front of the store, we were a small and sleepy group. Benoît looked at us tirelessly with glazed eyes. The Muppet emerged by intervals from another station in the cold room. Big Ben was trying to hitch his perfect rotundity to some sufficiently solid support, repeating to whoever would listen, “Oh, the sun, the beautiful sun, Ooh.”
Near the entrance, Legris showed off by fingering the perimeter of his most recent wound, sniggering up his sleeve. He wanted to tell everyone that, although he was as gregarious as the others down deep, also needing to hear a human voice in the morning, he’d never be fooled by the old swine’s play-acting. The latter, at that very moment, was exerting himself among them, rebuking Legris, “You were seen hanging around Crazy Sam’s trailer, you devil!”
Legris expectorated a gob of undefinable hue. The Old Man was walking towards him, hand raised, but the swipe got lost in swirls of luminescent particles created by the rising sun through the window pane. Legris didn’t even bother protecting himself.
“Crazy Sam promised he’d hire me as a guide this year, ves sir!’
The Old Man sighed. Oh, he personally knew the solution to all their problems! Only thing needed was for his advice to be taken. Before these few captive souls in the grips of boredom, his words defied destiny, addressing Grande-Ourse’s shaky posterity above all their heads. He was on the verge of dizziness as he spoke, like someone walking at the edge of a cliff. He spoke ceaselessly. Everyone knew he’d disappear like the simple iridescence on water drops at the first stop. He’d sometimes leave a phrase dangling almost as he’d started it, picking it up again, seeking what followed, soon looking for what he ought to have sought first, looking for himself all the while in the gaping void that swallows bankrupt memories. His entire world suddenly sank into a swirl of silence. He was already dying a little between his words.
The Muppet emerged from the cold, room, shaking a head that could barely be distinguished from a neck as wrinkled as an old shoe. He said to the Old Man that he ought to hurry and bring his truck back, since the beavers were really busy around the small bridge at the Seven Mile Point, threatening to flood the road at any moment. The Muppet hadn’t failed to notice changes in the water level, nor the distressingly low quantity of our beer supplies.
The Old Man gave neither a positive nor a negative reply. The only beaver he cared about was the one stamped on the nickels he could pocket. He disappeared and immediately returned, holding a 30-30, ashen-faced with rage, cursing the great boss of the confederal bestiary, that damned emblem of Canada, I won’t stand for it, and that, henceforth, this meant war! He commandingly placed the weapon in my hands, pushed a khaki cap down over my eyes, and ordered me to follow him.
Legris sniggered and Big Ben said: “Oh, Oh,” and an accordion’s squeal could be heard coming from Mr. Muppet’s neck.
The Old Man insisted on driving a precious-looking vehicle along these totally broken-down roads. A Dacia, made in Romania no doubt to travel over peaceful and rustic landscapes. It hadn’t cost much, but its eccentric shape clashed with this hostile territory and its occupant was the laughing stock of the village.
I climbed aboard and, laboriously clutching in, the Old Man got us under way. A favourable incline immediately helped the departure’s success and the movement that followed. My driver missed a shift on the large hill, the engine stalled and the vehicle began to back up while the Old Man looked for the brakes. Bystanders were slapping their thighs in front of the store.
“Damned beavers!” the Old Man grumbled.
After wrestling with the stick shift, he finally managed to get us back on track, and we reached the scene of the showdown at a snails pace. The road narrowed abruptly there; two dull-surfaced lakes swelled on either side, as though anxious to meet, their waters marbled with foam. A brook, hidden by the small bridge, joined them. The structure dated from the days of the Company, and foresters were in theory responsible for its maintenance. It was now on the road to decrepitude and wavelets had already started lapping the narrow decks belly. Looking worried, the Old Man leaned on a pillar where crude notches registered changes in the water level. He immediately concluded that the suspects were extremely active and I awaited the launch of a visibly imminent punitive action, weapon