Across the Bridge Read online

  To make a short story shorter, his Aunt Berthe (she worked in an office full of English-Canadians) would have said Raymond was Heaven and Hell. Mother and aunt, the two sisters had thought they never could love anyone more than Raymond; then, all at once, he seemed to his aunt so steadily imperfect, so rigid in his failings, that the changing prospect of his moods, decisions, needs, life ceased to draw her attention.

  He’d had a father, of course – had him until he was eighteen, even though it was Raymond’s practice to grumble that he had been raised, badly, by women. His last memories of his father must surely have been Louis dying of emphysema, upright in the white-painted wicker chair, in blazing forbidden sunlight, mangling a forbidden cigar. The partially flagged backyard had no shade in it – just two yellow fringed umbrellas that filtered the blue of July and made it bilious. Louis could not sit in their bogus shadow, said it made him sweat. Behind the umbrellas was the kitchen entrance to a duplex dwelling of stucco and brick, late 1940s in style – a cube with varnished doors – at the northern end of Boulevard Pie IX. “Remember that your father owned his own home,” said Louis; also, “When we first moved up here, you could still see vacant lots. It depressed your mother. She wasn’t used to an open view.”

  Where Raymond’s sandbox had been stood a granite bird-bath with three aluminum birds the size of pigeons perched on the rim – the gift from Louis’s firm when he had to take early retirement, because he was so ill. He already owned a gold watch. He told Raymond exactly where to find the watch in his desk – in which drawer. Raymond sat cross-legged on the grass and practiced flipping a vegetable knife; his mother had found and disposed of his commando dagger. His father could draw breath but had to pause before he spoke. Waiting for strength, he looked up at the sky, at a moon in sunlight, pale and transparent – a memory of dozens of other waning moons. (It was the summer of the moon walk. Raymond’s mother still mentions this, as though it had exerted a tidal influence on her affairs.)

  The silent intermissions, his gaze upturned, made it seem as if Louis were seeking divine assistance. Actually, he knew everything he wished to say. So did Raymond. Raymond – even his aunt will not deny it – showed respect. He never once remarked, “I’ve heard this before,” or uttered the timeless, frantic snub of the young, “I know, I know, I know.”

  His father said, “There have always been good jobs in Boston,” “Never forget your French, because it would break your mother’s heart,” “One of these days you’re going to have to cut your hair,” “Marry a Catholic, but not just any Catholic,” “With a name like Raymond Joseph Driscoll you can go anywhere in the world,” “That autograph album of mine is worth a fortune. Hang on to it. It will always get you out of a tight spot.”

  In his lifetime Louis wrote to hockey players and film stars and local politicians, and quite often received an answer. Raymond as a child watched him cutting out the signature and pasting it in a deep-blue leather-bound book. Now that Raymond is settled in Florida, trying to build a career in the motel business, his whole life is a tight spot. He finds it hard to credit that the album is worth nothing. Unfortunately, it is so. Most of the signatures were facsimiles, or had been dashed off by a secretary. The few authentic autographs were of names too obscure to matter. The half dozen that Louis purchased from a specialized dealer on Peel Street, since driven out of business, were certified fakes. Louis kept “Joseph Stalin” and “Harry S Truman” in a locked drawer, telling Marie, his wife, that if Canada was ever occupied by one of the two great powers, or by both at once, she would be able to barter her way to safety.

  Raymond had a thin mane of russet hair that covered his profile when he bent over to retrieve the knife. He wore circus-rodeo gear, silver and white. Louis couldn’t stand the sight of his son’s clothes; in his dying crankiness he gave some away. Raymond stored his favorite outfits at his aunt’s place. She lived in a second-story walkup, with front and back balconies, a long, cool hall, three bedrooms, on the west side of Parc Lafontaine. She was unmarried and did not need all that space; she enjoyed just walking from room to room. Louis spoke to Raymond in English, so that he would be able to make his way in the world. He wanted him to go to an English commercial school, where he might meet people who would be useful to him later on. Raymond’s aunt said that her English was better than Louis’s: his “th” sometimes slipped into “d.” Louis, panting, mentioned to Raymond that Berthe, for all her pretensions, was not as well off propertywise as her sister and brother-in-law, though she seemed to have more money to throw around. “Low rent in any crummy neighborhood – that’s her creed,” said Raymond’s father. In his last, bad, bitter days, he seemed to be brooding over Berthe, compared her career with his own, said she had an inborn craving for sleeping with married men. But before he died he took every word back, said she had been a good friend to him, was an example for other women, though not necessarily married women. He wanted her to keep an eye on Marie and Raymond – he said he felt as if he were leaving behind two helpless children, one eighteen, the other in her forties, along with the two cars, the valuable autograph album, the gold watch, and the paid-up house.

  Louis also left a handwritten inconvenient request to be buried in New Brunswick, where he came from, rather than in Montreal. Raymond’s mother hid the message behind a sofa cushion, where it would be discovered during some future heavy cleaning. She could not bring herself to tear it up. They buried Louis in Notre Dame des Neiges cemetery, where Marie intended to join him, not too soon. She ordered a bilingual inscription on the gravestone, because he had spoken English at the office and French to her.

  Raymond in those days spoke French and English, too, with a crack in each. His English belonged to a subdivision of Catholic Montreal – a bit Irish-sounding but thinner than any tone you might hear in Dublin. His French vocabulary was drawn from conversations with his mother and aunt, and should have been full of tenderness. He did not know what he wanted to be. “If I ever write, I’m going to write a book about the family,” he told his aunt the day of Louis’s funeral, looking at the relatives in their black unnatural clothes, soaking up heat. It was the first time he had ever said this, and most likely the last. Poor Raymond could barely scrawl a letter, couldn’t spell. He didn’t mind learning, but he hated to be taught. After he left home, Berthe and Marie scarcely had the sight of his handwriting. They had his voice over the telephone, calling from different American places (they thought of Vietnam as an American place) with a gradually altered accent. His French filled up with English, as with a deposit of pebbles and sand, and in English he became not quite a stranger: even years later he still said “palm” to rhyme with “jam.”

  Raymond behaved correctly at the funeral, holding his mother’s arm, seeing that everyone had a word with her, causing those relatives who did not know him well to remark that he was his father all over again. He was dressed in a dark suit, bought in a hurry, and one of Louis’s ties. He had not worn a tie since the last family funeral; Berthe had to fasten the knot. He let her give his hair a light trim, so that it cleared his shoulders.

  Marie would not hold a reception: the mourners had to settle for a kiss or a handshake beside the open grave. Louis’s people, some of whom had come a long way, were starting back with the pieces of a break beyond mending. Marie didn’t care: her family feelings had narrowed to Raymond and Berthe. After the funeral, Raymond drove the two sisters to Berthe’s flat. He sat with his mother at the kitchen table and watched Berthe cutting up a cold chicken. Marie kept on her funeral hat, a black straw pillbox with a wisp of veil. No one said much. The chicken was not enough for Raymond, so Berthe got out the ham she had baked the night before in case Marie changed her mind about inviting the relatives. She put the whole thing down in front of him, and he hacked pieces off and ate with his fingers. Marie said, “You wouldn’t dare do that if your father could see you,” because she had to say something. She and Berthe knew he was having a bad time.

  When he finished, they moved down th
e hall to Berthe’s living room. She opened the doors to both balconies, to invite a cross breeze. The heated air touched the looped white curtain without stirring a fold of it. Raymond took off his jacket and tie. The women had already removed their black stockings. Respect for Louis kept them from making themselves entirely comfortable. They had nothing in particular to do for the rest of the day. Berthe had taken time off from the office, and Marie was afraid to go home. She believed that some essence of Louis, not quite a ghost, was in their house on Boulevard Pie IX, testing locks, turning door handles, sliding drawers open, handling Marie’s poor muddled household accounts, ascertaining once and for all the exact amount of money owed by Marie to Berthe. (Berthe had always been good for a small loan toward the end of the month. She had shown Marie how to entangle the books, so that Louis need never know.)

  Raymond stretched out on Berthe’s pale-green sofa, with a pile of cushions under his head. “Raymond, watch where you put your feet,” said his mother.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Berthe. “Not today.”

  “I don’t want you to wish we weren’t here,” said Marie. “After we’ve moved in, I mean. You’ll never know we’re in the house. Raymond, ask Aunt Berthe for an ashtray.”

  “There’s one right beside him,” said Berthe.

  “I won’t let Raymond put his feet all over the furniture,” said Marie. “Not after today. If you don’t want us, all you have to do is say.”

  “I have said,” said Berthe, at which Raymond turned his head and looked at her intently.

  Tears flooded Marie’s eyes at the improbable vision of Berthe ordering her nearest relatives, newly bereaved, to pack and go. “We’re going to be happy, because we love each other,” she said.

  “Have you asked Raymond where he wants to live?” said Berthe.

  “Raymond wants whatever his mother wants,” said Marie. “He’ll be nice. I promise. He’ll take the garbage down. Won’t you, Raymond? You’ll take the garbage out every night for Aunt Berthe?”

  “Not every night,” said his aunt. “Twice a week. Don’t cry. Louis wouldn’t want to see you in tears.”

  A quiver of shyness touched all three. Louis returned to memory in superior guise, bringing guidance, advice. “Papa wouldn’t mind if we watched the news,” said Raymond.

  For less than a minute they stared at a swaying carpet of jungle green, filmed from a helicopter, and heard a French voice with a Montreal accent describe events in a place the sisters intended never to visit. Raymond jumped to an English channel, without asking if anyone minded. He was the male head of the family now; in any case, they had always given in. Vietnam in English appeared firmly grounded, with a Canadian sergeant in the Marine Corps – shorn, cropped, gray-eyed, at ease. He spoke to Raymond, saying that it was all right for a Canadian to enlist in a foreign army.

  “Who cares?” said Marie, fatally. English on television always put her to sleep. She leaned back in her armchair and began very gently to snore. Berthe removed Marie’s glasses and her hat, and covered her bare legs with a lace quilt. Even in the warmest weather she could wake up feeling chilled and unloved. She fainted easily; it was her understanding that the blood in her arms and legs congealed, leaving her brain unattended. She seemed content with this explanation and did not seek another.

  Raymond sat up, knocking over the pile of cushions. He gathered his hair into a topknot and held it fast. “They send you to San Diego,” he said. What was he seeing, really? Pacific surf? A parade in sunlight? Berthe should have asked.

  When Marie came to, yawning and sighing, Berthe was putting color on her nails (she had removed it for the funeral) and Raymond was eating chocolate cake, watching Rod Laver. He had taken off his shirt, shoes, and socks. “Laver’s the greatest man in the modern world,” he said.

  “Ah, Raymond,” said his mother. “You’ve already forgotten your father.”

  As Marie had promised, he carried the garbage out, making a good impression on the Portuguese family who lived downstairs. (Louis, who would not speak to strangers, had made no impression at all.) At five o’clock the next morning, Berthe’s neighbor, up because he had an early delivery at his fruit store, saw Raymond throw a duffel kit into his mother’s car and drive away. His hair was tied back with a white leather thong. He wore one of his rodeo outfits and a pair of white boots.

  Before leaving Berthe’s flat he had rifled her handbag, forgotten on a kitchen chair – a century before, when they assembled for the funeral feast. Before leaving Montreal he made a long detour to say goodbye to his old home. He was not afraid of ghosts, and he had already invented a father who was going to approve of everything he did. In Louis’s desk he found the gold watch and one or two documents he knew he would need – among them the birth certificate that showed him eighteen. He took away as a last impression the yellowed grass in the backyard. Nothing had been watered since Louis’s death.

  Berthe has often wondered what the Marines in the recruiting office down in Plattsburgh made of Raymond, all silver and white, with that lank brick-dust hair and the thin, cracked English. Nothing, probably: they must have expected civilians to resemble fake performers. There was always someone straggling down from Montreal. It was like joining the Foreign Legion. After his first telephone call, Berthe said to Marie, “At least we know where he is,” but it was not so; they never quite knew. He did not go to San Diego: a military rule of geography splits the continent. He had enlisted east of the Mississippi, and so he was sent for training to Parris Island. The Canadian Marine had forgotten to mention that possibility. Berthe bought a number of road maps, so that she could look up these new names. The Mississippi seemed to stop dead at Minneapolis. It had nothing to do with Canada. Raymond should have turned the car around and driven home. (Instead, he left it parked in Plattsburgh. He could not remember, later, the name of the street.)

  He has never been back. His excuse used to be that he had nowhere to stay in Montreal. Marie sold the duplex and moved in with Berthe. The last thing he wanted to see on vacation was another standard motel unit, and he knew Berthe wouldn’t have him in the house.

  He enlisted for four years, then another three. Marie looked upon him as a prisoner, in time to be released. Released honorably? Yes, or he would not have been allowed to settle in Florida: he was still a Canadian in 1976; he could easily have been deported. When he became an American citizen and called Marie, expecting congratulations, she told him that 98 percent of the world’s forest fires were started by Americans. It was all she could think of to say. He has been down there ever since, moving like a pendulum between Hollywood North and Hollywood Beach, Fort Lauderdale and the stretch of Miami known as Little Quebec, from the number of French-Canadians who spend holidays there. They have their own newspaper, their own radio station and television channel, they import Montreal barbecue. Hearing their voices sometimes irritates him, sometimes makes him homesick for the summer of 1969, for the ease with which he jumped from cloud to cloud.

  Marie still believes that “Parris Island” was one of Raymond’s famous spelling mistakes. He must have spent part of his early youth, the least knowable, in a place called Paris, South Carolina. She often wonders about other mothers and sons, and whether children feel any of the pain they inflict. Berthe thinks of how easy it must have been for Raymond to leave, with the sun freshly risen, slanting along side streets, here and there front steps sluiced and dark, the sky not yet a burning glass. He must have supposed the rest of his life was going to be like that. When she and Marie ransacked the house on Boulevard Pie IX, looking for clues, imagining he’d left a letter, left some love, they kept the shades drawn, as if there were another presence in the rooms, tired of daylight.

  Florida

  BERTHE CARETTE’S SISTER, Marie, spent eight Christmases of her life in Florida, where her son was establishing a future in the motel industry. Every time Marie went down she found Raymond starting over in a new place: his motels seemed to die on his hands. She used to come back to M
ontreal riddled with static electricity. Berthe couldn’t hand her a teaspoon without receiving a shock, like a small silver bullet. Her sister believed the current was generated by a chemical change that occurred as she flew out of Fort Lauderdale toward a wet, dark, snowy city.

  Marie had been living with Berthe ever since 1969, the year her husband died. She still expected what Berthe thought of as husband service: flights met, cabs hailed, doors held, tips attended to. Berthe had to take the bus out to Dorval Airport, with Marie’s second-best fur coat over her arm and her high-heeled boots in a plastic bag. Through a glass barrier she could watch her sister gliding through customs, dressed in a new outfit of some sherbet tone – strawberry, lemon-peach – with everything matching, sometimes even her hair. She knew that Marie had been careful to tear the American store and union labels out of the clothes and sew in Canadian ones, in case customs asked her to strip.

  “Don’t tell me it’s still winter,” Marie would wail, kissing Berthe as if she had been away for months rather than just a few days. Guiding Marie’s arms into the second-best-mink sleeves (paws and piecework), Berthe would get the first of the silvery shocks.

  One year, when her son, Raymond, had fallen in love with a divorced woman twice his age (it didn’t last), Marie arrived home crackling, exchanging sparks with everything she touched. When she ate a peppermint she felt it detonating in her mouth. Berthe had placed a pot of flowering paper-white narcissi on Marie’s dressing table, a welcome-home present reflected on and on in the three mirrors. Marie shuffled along the carpeted passage, still in her boots. She had on her Florida manner, pretending she was in Berthe’s flat by mistake. As soon as she saw the plant, she went straight over and gave it a kiss. The flower absorbed a charge and hurled it back. Berthe examined the spot on Marie’s lip where the shock had struck. She could find nothing, no trace. Nevertheless Marie applied an ice cube.