For Sure (73 page)

“Anyhow, to look at ya, I's pretty sure my surprise won't be half as excitin' as yers. I mean, I wouldn't want you to get yer hopes up . . .”

Carmen assumed Terry was simply trying to lower her expectations, so that the surprise — the party! — would be all that much more satisfying. And yet, he did seem awfully serious, not to say worried.

“To tell the truth, I think I know your secret.”

“Dat would surprise me.”

Terry's reply was perfunctory, but Carmen saw this as more pretense.

“If we don't stop talking about it, we'll ruin everything.”

Carmen was right, Terry could see that. He searched for an amusing way to conclude.

“Give me one guess . . . Yer pregnant!”

“No!”

A superstition gains strength when it comes time.

“Thanks fer givin' Étienne 'is bath.”

Normally Terry and Carmen's day off included a reduction in domestic and parental responsibilities, but this particular day Carmen had forgone that privilege.

“It's nothing. I enjoy it, an' I don't get the chance to do it all that often.”

Carmen spread the blanket over Terry and cuddled closer on the sofa.

“So den, 'twasn't just a strategy . . .”

“Wot do you mean?”

“Well, a way to be softenin' me up fer . . . you knows . . .”

“To make you talk, you mean? Never in me whole life would I do such a thing!”

Carmen's exaggerated tone made Terry laugh, but it did not appease his curiosity.

“We ought to be givin' ourselves a time limit.”

Carmen played innocent:

“A time limit for what?”

Terry played along:

“To be tellin' each udder wot we's not tellin' each udder.”

The movie was about to begin. Carmen pretended she didn't want to miss anything. And, now that she was convinced Terry was preparing a surprise party, she thought she might keep her own secret a little while longer. But not without teasing Terry a wee bit more:

“You're a big boy. When yer ready to tell me what you've got to tell, I guess you'll do it.”

A reply that seemed to place the ball squarely in Terry's court.

Luck.

“Does it 'ave anyting to do wid . . .”

But Carmen stopped him right there.

“No, you already had your question, now we change the subject.”

“Alright den, alright . . .”

Not to leave it at that, Carmen took the lead:

“What do you tink, den, about the Queen havin' to apologize for the deportation?”

Terry burst out laughing. For a diversion, this was a hell of a big one.

“Well, what?! Dat's about all anyone's talkin' about at the bar!”

Terry acquiesced:

“Well, fer one ting, de whole story's gettin' a wee bit old, an' fer anudder, 'tisn't really Élizabeth II's fault it happened, now is it?”

“Only that doesn't matter. It's still her role to be apologizin'.”

“I knows dat, only . . .”

“Shh, it's starting.”

German proverb: he who grows onions does not notice their odour.

At the next commercial break:

“Was yer family one o' dem wot was deported?”

“Really, I don't know. Yours?”

“Don't know fer a fact, only der's Thibodeaus down in Louisiana. Dat probably means dey was, I suppose.”

. . .

“Me dad an' mum was never talkin' 'bout all dat when I's a boy. I doesn't tink it boddered dem all dat much. 'Tis only since folks won't stop talkin' 'bout Acadia dat dey's become Acadians, seems like.”

. . .

“I mean, we was eatin' poutines an' chicken stew an' all dat, only 'twasn't on account of we's Acadian, 'twas just dat we liked dose tings.”

“Exactly! It's on account of you were Acadians that you liked dem. If you hadn't eaten poutines when you were little, you'd have trouble eating it now. Look at de Québécois! An remember 'ow we had to get Étienne used to eatin' it. At the start, ee was eatin' nuttin but the sugar!”

Terry did not entirely agree.

“Well, we eats Madawaska ployes, an' we was never eatin' dat before.”

“That's different. Buckwheat pancakes are good for real.”

Catherine's dream. Catherine is lying in a quiet corridor in a hospital. The lighting is slightly bluish. Her bed is raised so that she's reading by the light of a sylized wall lamp about a half metre down from the ceiling. A childhood friend, Louise, is resting nearby, in a room in the hallway perpendicular to hers. Catherine visits her occasionally, but without leaving her bed; instead she moves the bed along on its wheels. From time to time, the two young women read together in the same bed; the bed is Catherine's, in its assigned place in the corridor. They agree to exchange books, but this seems complicated. A nurse comes to inform Catherine that the surgery she underwent was successful. However, she will require treatment for another disease, and is to be transferred to the floor above for that purpose. Louise, on the other hand, is released.

Terry poured them more coffee, and took up the conversation:

“I's tinkin' 'bout dat last night . . . I enjoys meetin' a real anglophone who's nice and makes an effort at speakin' French. In me head, ee's almost not an anglophone.”

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

“So den, wot I's wonderin' is wot're de English 'round 'ere gonna do? I mean, dem dat doesn't want to understand. Dey's de ones dat ought to be apologizin'. Or changin' der attitude,
at least
.”

“
Au moins
.”

“Yes, Dad, you ought to say ‘
au moins
' not ‘
at least
'.”

“Alright, alright den,
au moins. Au moins, au moins
. . . I tink' I won't be fergettin' now.”

Carmen looked at Étienne, and winked.

“Hey, you two, are youse
gangin' up
on me now, or wot?”

Visit the King Cole's teahouse in Sussex and strike up a conversation with the owners to find out where Acadian's attachment to this particular brand comes from.

“Well, if de Queen 'erself apologized, I suppose dat would get de English to tinkin' at least. She'd 'ave provided a good example.”

Carmen nodded, and took up the argument:

“If you ask me my real opinion, I tink we'd like it at the time, only in de long term, I'm not so sure.”

“Wot does you mean?”

“Well, now, on account of she's not apologized, we can still be sayin' dey did dis an' dat to us, stole our lands, burned our houses, shipped us out on boats, half of dem drownin' . . .”

Listening to Carmen, Terry felt it was perhaps the first time he'd imagined what the Great Upheaval had actually and concretely meant.

“The fact is that something really bad happened to us. If the Queen apologizes, well, that'll provide some comfort fer a while, an den afterwards, we'll have to change our story, change our attitude. Things wouldn't be the same anymore, would they?”

Terry protested:

“On account of why not? Wouldn't be erasin' de Deportation. Apologies doesn't erase de fact!”

“No? When a person apologizes, aren't we supposed to be fergettin' the harm they did us?”

Terry was not sure of the weight of a pardon. Were apologies and a pardon the same thing? But Carmen quickly added:

“In any case, wedder it erases or not, 'twould change things all de same. Once we've had der apologies, we won't be able to say, awh, all de misery we suffered, blablabla. Really, to be honest, in de end, we'd have to add: an' then dey apologized.”

But Terry didn't see how an apology from the British Crown would deprive Acadians of their right to complain.

“Only, an apology dat comes like two hundred and fifty years later, dat's way too late to change anyting!”

“Exactly. Which is why der's folks dat wants money along wid de apology. So dat sometin' really changes. So dat we can catch up economically.”

Carmen's reasoning reminded Terry of their first meeting on August 16th in the Parc de la Petitcodiac, when Carmen had tried to prove that the Petitcodiac River could be considered the opposite of a delta.

“Well, what do you tink?”

Terry realized that he'd drifted, and returned to the present:

“An apology wid money? Well, sure, an' why not?”

Even Carmen was not opposed to money in this case, but she knew that there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.

“In any case, even widout the money, if the English changed, startin' with the Queen apologizin', we'd end up seein' and understandin' things differently, too.”

“You means to say we'd no longer be de real Acadians we is today?”

Yes, that's exactly what Carmen meant.

“An' would dat be a good ting, den?”

Carmen wasn't sure. Terry took a bite of his toast generously covered in jam, chewed, swallowed and, after licking a limp strawberry off his thumb where it had fallen, concluded:

“No, de Acadians won't be changin'. I can't see dat happenin.”

The
Robert
dictionary includes a separate entry for the
y
as the popular substitute for the third-person personal pronoun
il
, in addition to the entries for the pronominal and adverbial
y
, and the algebraic
y.

“Zed, are you gonna marry Catherine?”

Chico's question made Zed smile.

“I'd like dat, only I don't know if she's willin'!”

Chico did not dare tell him he knew more.

“Me too, I'd like dat.”

“Wot? You want to marry Catherine?”

Zed's teasing made Chico laugh.

“No! Not me! You!”

Zed put a browned minced-beef patty in Chico's plate, beside the mashed potatoes and creamed corn.

“Most times 'tis the boy dat asks de girl if she'll marry 'im, only der'd be nuttin' wrong if de girl was to ask de boy.”

Chico began by tasting the potatoes, but he burned himself and spit the mouthful back into his plate. Zed pretended not to notice, and continued:

“One way or de udder, 'tis best to ask when yer close to sure dat de udder person'll be sayin' yes.”

“You doesn't tink she'll want to?”

Zed measured his words:

“Well, I tink she might, only I's waitin' a wee bit longer to be sure sure.”

Chico had wrapped a mouthful of meat in creamed corn, and was all set to eat it.

“I wouldn't want 'er to be sayin' no. 'Twould hurt me feelings, like dey say.”

His mouth full, Chico nodded to indicate he understood.

“So, you'd like it too, if Catherine came to live wid us?”

No question that we do not want to be only French. Especially if that would mean being content with a kind of bondage. Become doe rather than docile, American eland.

“Well, giving them these wasn't such a great idea.”

“Wot's dat?”

Terry had replied more or less mechanically, before looking up to see the two magnifying glasses dangling from Carmen's extended arms.

“Awh, dat.”

“I mean really, 'twasn't your best idea ever.”

Terry took it with a smile, and tried to minimize the possible dangers.

“Well, every kid learns dat sooner or later. It whiles away de time during de long summer days. You start by burnin' a circle on a bit o' wood, den you try to burn some paper or hay.”

Terry had thought it prudent to mention the latter risk, but he quickly went on before Carmen could react:

“Only nuttin' ever really catches fire, on account of 'tis too slow. A kid's only got de patience to make a few black spots 'ere an' der, an' den you sees a bit o' smoke.”

Carmen tried to remember at what age she herself had learned the trick, trying to decide if she was being too severe, or if it might be reasonable to let Étienne and Chico play with magnifying glasses.

“An' anyhow, if dey really wants to make a fire, matches're a whole lot simpler.”

“Sure, only accidents happen. If they leave the glass lying about somewheres, an' de sun starts beatin' down? You know how kids are . . .”

Terry hadn't thought of this possibility. But did they have to be so careful all the time?

“'Tis a bit wearisome to be always tinkin' of all de pros and cons. It breaks de
spur of de moment
.”

“The spontaneity.”

“Breaks de spontaneity of life, don't you tink? Our parents wasn't all de time worryin' like dat 'bout us, now were dey?”

Carmen didn't really have the strength to insist. Instead, she left Terry with the impression that she was perhaps a bit of a mother hen, and decided to simply make those magnifying glasses disappear.

Ancient frescos show the Egyptians line fishing along the Nile. The Jews and the Romans are said to have fished with a line for relaxation. As for artificial lures, they appeared later, during the second century BCE.