For Sure (20 page)

Acadians still use the verbs
sourdre
,
ressoudre
, and
ersoudre
rather than the more standard modern French
jaillir
, or
surgir de
meaning “to come up” or “arise from,” for example, someone coming up out of nowhere. Citing the French novelist François Mauriac, the
Grand Robert
dictionary includes
sourdre
used in this way. As for
ressoudre
, though it is unacknowledged by the
Robert
, Acadian author and winner of the Goncourt literary prize, Antonine Maillet, taking its pronunciation into account, has spelled it
ersoudre
. All these usages might ultimately produce an Acadian version of Lacanian concepts in the following variations: for Lacan's “erring-in-discourse,” “
ersoud-la-parole
” instead of “
errent-sous-la-parole
”, while “the non-duped-err-in discourse” becomes “
des non-dupes-ersoud-la-parole
” instead of “
des non-dupes-errent-sous-la-parole,
” and finally “
des Noms-du-Père sourd la parole
” for “from the Names-of-the-Father discourse arises.”

Back home with the children at the end of the day, Carmen found a note from Terry reminding her that he was having supper at his parents' that evening.

“I'm hungry . . .”

Once again, Étienne's appetite was reassuring to Carmen. She was still fearful that he might get his back up and refuse once and for all to go on with the film.

“Where's Dad, Mum?”

“He's havin' supper in Dieppe, with Granny and Grandad.”

Étienne looked disappointed not to be having supper in Dieppe, too.

“We'll go anudder time. It's good for Terry to be eatin' on his own with his mum and dad sometimes, just like you two're eatin' on our own with yer mum.”

The prospect of “eating on their own with their mum” did not seem to be cause for great celebration to the children, but Carmen wasn't the sort to let that bother her.

In the alphabetical listing of streets in
L'Indispensable
map of Paris, rue Sébastien-Bottin falls under
b
for Bottin. This short street in the seventh arrondissement, is an extension of what becomes the rue de Beaune south of rue de l'Université, then changes to rue de Montalembert, and merges with the rue du Bac. On a very ordinary plaque on the varnished wooden door of number 5, the letters
nrf
are engraved in Rondes Italic.

“Sure, but how's a body to know if de real is de real fer real, an' not nuttin' more dan de imaginary or de symbolic?”

In North America,
thériaque
is a candy usually sold in the form of long red twists. The black version in the form of pipes and cigars is disappearing. Other varieties in different shapes, colours and flavours come and go on the market.

Carmen couldn't sleep, thinking about the morrow:

“I'm thinkin' 'twasn't such a bright idea sendin' the wee ones to make that film. You should've heard Étienne after supper. Tossin' English all over the place.
Candy
over here an'
puddles
over there, and dey put
cement
in it, and that was
awesome
, and now the boy wants a
skateboard
fer his birt'day.”

Terry, too, was beginning to worry about his son's language:

“I knows it.”

“The whole thing's discouraging.”

“Well, jus' tell yerself der's naught but two days to go . . .”

“Luh! 'Tis only gettin' started! Folks say, once they set foot inside the schoolhouse, you can ferget it, it's over!”

Terry thought Carmen was being overly defeatist.

“Don't go takin' it so hard, girl. Is it yer period yer expectin' sometime soon?

And finally, where the perfection of 7
3
meets the plenitude of 12
3
:

“So I'm wonderin' did ee stab 'im fer real.”

. . .

“Lucky ting me own dad was a great guy. Only me mudder had a notion to kill 'im a couple o' times.”

“An' why's dat?”

“She tot ee was flirtin'.”

“An was ee? Flirtin', I mean.”

“Yaa. Turns out me mudder was right.”

. . .

“I guess ee wasn't nice fer nuttin'.”

Marianne isn't quite two years old. She was born May-one-two, as she puts it. She enjoys being Étienne's little sister, and he takes his role of big brother seriously, making sure she doesn't hurt herself, and teaching her to play.

And so it was that the responsibility for transforming the rocky wasteland behind the children's playground into a vegetable garden fell to the celebrated artist Étienne Zablonski. He'd volunteered during the monthly meeting of the lofts, residents and shopkeepers. On the first Tuesday of every month a more or less official — depending on the circumstances — meeting was held at the Babar. In the absence of items requiring serious discussion, the meeting would become purely social, which was the case most times, because Zed did an excellent job as manager, and all the residents felt comfortable raising any issues with him as they came up. If things ran smoothly in the building, it was also because no one harboured unrealistic expectations. As a result, the first Tuesday of every month, a good-neighbourly evening accompanied by libations was held at the Babar, a gathering to which were also welcome friends from outside who were linked in one way or another to the dynamics of the lofts.

The science and wisdom of numbers have more to teach us than the elementary principles of arithmetic. Why, for example, is the number PHI, 1.618033989, considered to be the most beautiful numeral in the universe? And how do we get from PHI to the golden ratio, which is based on the relation between 3 and 5? And does this golden ratio really exist, or must we be content with striving toward it, as does the Fibonacci sequence?

Later, Terry regretted having insinuated that Carmen's hormonal fluctuations had influenced her perception of Monctonian French.

“Hey der, Marianne? In French, we says
sauté
, not
jumpé
.”

Marianne looked at Terry, not entirely sure what her dad was getting at.

“
Sauté
?”

“Dat's it,
sauté
.”

And Marianne threw her arms up over her head and jumped:

“
Sauté
!”

“Dat's it, Marianne,
sauté
. Alright den, now we all gets in de car.”

But her dad was willing to bide his time while Marianne did a bit more jumping.

“Alright, Marianne, dat's it, den. All aboard, now.”

Finally, Marianne stopped jumping and let Terry strap her into her seat.

“Dad, de
trunk
's not closed!”

“
La valise
, Étienne, we says
la valise
.”

“Lots of folks says
trunk
.”

“Dat may be, but we say
valise
. Get it?”

A little while later:

“Dad, I know we say
sauté
fer
jumpé
, so how come we say
trippé
when we wants to make
someone fall down?”

In spite of the inexhaustible variety of languages and boundless nuances that each permits, one truth remains: human beings desire clarity and simplicity. This is evidenced by the word that introduces the largest number of titles in
La Bibliothèque idéale
, the word
histoire
in French, which can refer to the stories of people or to the history of nations but, whether these histories or stories are ordinary or extraordinary, true or imaginary, that word
histoire
sets the human psyche in motion. Oddly, although the genre is promising, we cannot say the same for historians, because only two titles in
La Bibliothèque idéale
begin with that word.

In spite of his good will, Étienne was beginning to run out of ideas to fill his work week. His collection of new words was not being well received at home. And yet it was an interesting game.

“Are you comin' over der, den?”

The other boy peppered his sentences with English words:

“We can
stamp
our feet in de
cement
an' bring de
slab
home!”

Though he hadn't quite understood what it was about, Étienne followed the boy.

“
Sure
, beats sittin' 'ere wid dis
boring puzzle
.”

The fact that he could employ the same language as the other boy added the thrill of adventure to their activities. Incursion into the territory of the Other.

Even psychoanalysis has taken up the subject of numbers because, as Lacan put it, “speaking beings count and account for themselves.” We can deduce from this that people suffering from neuroses (obsessional, hypochondriac) and psychoses have certain things in common when it comes to their relationship to numbers, but Lacan warns against a simplistic use of the arithmetical metaphor.

While running an errand for the bookstore, Terry noticed a van for sale parked in a vacant lot owned by the city. The vehicle looked to be in good shape, so he did a U-turn to take a closer look. He liked the van's resilient attitude, a quality that corresponded to the image he had of their little family. He took down the telephone number written on a piece of cardboard in the front windshield: 383-8383.

Letters and correspondence offer humans near as much interesting material as do stories. The titles of
La Bibliothèque idéale
beginning with the words
letter
and
correspondence
are almost as numerous as those announcing one or more stories. Entirely subjective, letters and correspondences probably function as a counterweight to the stories so painstakingly designed by authors, and to history, which historians study so assiduously.

The need for an organ of standardisation and preservation of the Acadian language is nowhere more pressing than in the case of the word for “this,”
cte
pronounced “
ste
.” This demonstrative article, which replaces
ce
,
cet
and
cette,
leads to the necessity of clarifying a whole battalion of deictic expressions:
sticit, sticitte, stilà, stelle-là, stelle-cit, stelle-citte, stelli-cit,
and
stiya-là
— most of which originate in the vernacular Latin — culminating in the famous
ceuses-là.

“Dat way, dem's dat might be wantin' to say dis 'ere dis way, could go right ahead an' say: ‘
De cte wé-là, ceuses-là qui voudriont le dire de même pourriont itou
.'”

Recipe for carrot cake. Bof.

Despite her profound conviction, Carmen did not want to be intransigent:

“I'll wait to see it before I make up my mind.”

Terry had already phoned the owner of the van and obtained some information. The owner agreed to meet them with the keys to the van in the vacant lot at six o'clock that evening.

“How is it he didn't come over 'ere with it? Would've been a whole lot simpler, seems to me.”

Terry agreed with her, the best course of action under the circumstances.

“Dat's true. Shall I call 'im back, den?”

On second thought, Carmen realized that she did not want to inspect the vehicle under the noses of her neighbours, considering the touchy discussion that was likely to ensue. Nor did she relish the thought of every Tom, Dick, and Harry butting in with his opinion on the vehicle.

“Naw, never mind. Since we're goin' out, might as well stop over at the Dairy Queen with the kids. Been a long time since we did that.”

(Perhaps) the (supposed) opposition between Freud and Lacan stems from their different linguistic cultures. Freud, for his part, tried to describe (inscribe) as clearly as possible his research, and the ideas and conclusions that followed from it. Any yet, once these were written down (and many times rewritten), Freud still felt he had failed to do justice to the marvels of psychic nature he had witnessed. For Lacan, the unconscious is revealed first and foremost in speech. Hence the surprising gaps (traps) opened up by puns and word play (ploy) typical of Lacan's methodological choice (voice).