The Years of Fire (3 page)

“Am I not correct, Thibodeau?” the principal repeated, smiling a pitiless smile. “Answer me! Am I not correct?”

“I thought they were going to be thrown in the garbage, sir.”

“You thought
what
were going to be thrown in the garbage?” asked the principal, feigning surprise.

“The books I found in the basement yesterday afternoon, sir. Isn’t that what you called me in to talk about?”

“Oh? You found some books in the basement, did you? And what did you do with them?”

Charles stared at a small crack in the base of a plinth at the far end of the principal’s office. He would have liked to have been able to shrink, like Alice, and escape through the crack forever, and never again have to see this terrifying man who was taking so much pleasure in his humiliation.

“I took them home,” he said, barely able to speak. Then added, when there was no response from Doyon, “Sir.”

“You took them home?” said the principal, holding his chin in his two open hands, a gesture Charles hadn’t seen him use before and which made him look both clownish and menacing. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I just told you, sir. I thought the books were going to be thrown out, so I thought I might as well –”

“Let me see if I’m getting this right,” the principal interrupted. “It seems to me there’s still something I don’t understand. Hmm. I wonder what it could be. Is it, by any chance, that your father has bought the school and no one bothered to tell me about it?”

Charles said nothing. A drop of sweat slid slowly down his left cheek. He felt as though his feet had caught fire and were swelling up and splitting his shoes. His stomach churned.

“Answer me, Thibodeau. I’m awaiting your response.”

“He has not bought the school, sir.”

“No, I hadn’t thought so. So then nothing in this school belongs to you, or to him, except of course your own personal effects. Is that right, Thibodeau?”

“Yes, sir. That’s right.”

“In other words, you stole those books.”

Charles stared at the floor, his fists clenched. His teeth grated against one another, emitting loud cracking sounds that echoed in his head.

“Answer me, Thibodeau.”

“Yes, sir, I stole them.”

“Good. Now we know exactly where we stand, do we not? Where do you live?”

“Nineteen-sixty-seven rue Dufresne, sir.”

“Go home and get them. You’ve got ten minutes. I suggest you hurry.”

Seven minutes later, Charles was back in Doyon’s office, completely winded. He set a paper bag on the principal’s desk. To his great relief the house had been empty, saving him from having to give embarrassing explanations.

The principal examined the bag’s contents. Slowly his expression softened. As he had little interest in reading, none of the books was familiar to him, but their old, worn condition and the names of some of the authors, which conjured in his mind vague scholarly memories, suggested to him that they belonged in the category of “serious literature,” even though all that meant to him was that they were stuffy and boring. It was also clear to him that they might as well have been thrown in the fire, since they were of no conceivable use to the school. Doyon raised his head and an incredulous smile spread across his thin lips.

“And you say you were going to read these things?”

Charles nodded, looking thoroughly fed up.

The principal continued examining the books and following his own reflections. But the dust made him sneeze, and with a brusque gesture he shoved them to the edge of his desk. Then he spent a long time clearing his throat. Suddenly his eyes lit up and began rolling wildly, a sign that he had hit upon a pedagogical opportunity.

“In principle, Thibodeau,” he said, stretching out his hands and leaning forward in his chair, “I have no objection to your reading these books. But
remember one thing, my friend: trying to educate yourself through theft, as you have just done, is like trying to nurture a plant by pouring boiling water on it. It won’t work. Are you with me?”

Charles nodded in agreement.

“Good. Here’s what we’re going to do,” he went on, picking up one of the volumes of Corneille and flipping through it. “You are going to study, hmm, let’s see,
Le Cid
, a very good play, in verse, and tomorrow afternoon, at four o’clock, instead of going down to work in the basement with your two friends, you’re going to come up here to my office and recite to me, from memory, the first one hundred lines.”

Charles’s head and shoulders slumped.

“The first hundred lines?” he murmured, horrified.

“The first hundred lines. By tomorrow at four o’clock. Now you may return to your class.”

Charles, however, did not move. He seemed not to have heard the principal. The hundred lines flooded through his brain like an ocean too vast to drink.

A surge of anger suddenly welled up from somewhere deep within him, fury against this imbecilic dictator who amused himself by torturing his students, as his own father had tortured him for years; the anger rose and swelled with such relentless force that it swept away his fear like so much dust. Charles turned scarlet, and he shot at the principal a look that the latter had never, in his eighteen-year career, seen aimed at him before by a student. It was not a look of fear or resentment, it was an unleashing of the most scathing contempt. He opened his mouth to put this young imp of a student back in his place, but before he could speak Charles stepped forward, placed his hands on the desk, and spoke in a stifled, trembling voice.

“This is stupid, sir. I have an exam tomorrow afternoon. I won’t have time to study for it, and I’ll fail.”

For a few seconds, Doyon felt as though his head were full of bubbles. The bubbles bounced crazily around, tumbled into each other, and burst, leaving nothing but emptiness. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

But his calm quickly returned. His lower lip protruded until it almost touched his moustache, and a fierce expression appeared on his face.

“What’s that you say, Thibodeau? I didn’t understand you.”

“I said that it’s a stupid idea,” Charles repeated, in a somewhat less confident voice.

“Stupid, is it? Hmm. That’s the first time anyone has spoken to me in such a manner. But I suppose you have your reasons. I might even concede the point. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe you to be right, at least in this case. Of course your studies must come first. As you say, it was stupid of me to deprive you of the time to prepare for your exam. I will therefore change your punishment. You will have three days to memorize your lines. But you will memorize three hundred lines, not a hundred, and instead of reciting them here in my office, you will give a little performance of them to the entire school, in the auditorium. On stage, naturally. That will be much more … amusing, don’t you think? I’ll make the arrangements. Now get out of here.”

And he handed Charles the Corneille.

It was a deflated Charles who returned to his class. He was so caught up in his anguish that he didn’t hear a word spoken by his math teacher, Monsieur Tousignant, who had to call his name three times to get his attention, to the great amusement of the other students. So great was his need to unburden his heart that after class he went up to Monsieur Tousignant, a large, boring man with the eyes of a dead fish and a completely monotonous voice, and told him what had happened. Monsieur Tousignant listened to his story carefully without making a single comment, but by his expression it was clear that he found Charles’s punishment cruel and out of proportion.

“I’ll speak to the principal later,” he promised the boy. “But next time, keep a rein on that tongue of yours.”

Doyon had a great deal of respect for the math teacher, whom he deemed to be “serious and businesslike.” But he bridled with anger nonetheless
when the teacher began speaking on Charles’s behalf, threatening to add another hundred lines if he heard any more interference from the staff.

The next day Charles blew his geography exam like a complete dunce, because he’d spent the entire night studying
Le Cid
. The fear of humiliating himself in front of the entire school gave him cramps from his stomach down to his calves. He knew that that was the real goal of the principal’s punishment: public humiliation. He saw himself standing on the stage, trying to give his lines despite the howls of laughter coming from the assembled students, and he was overcome by a kind of vertigo that robbed him of all his strength. But he lowered his head, forced himself to be calm, and applied himself to memorizing the play.

At first it all seemed like so much gibberish, and he despaired of ever being able to memorize something he couldn’t understand. Gradually, however, he began to make inroads into the text. He guessed that “flame” was another way of saying “love,” and that “lovers” were simply people in love with each other. He was amazed to learn that at that time in Spain the father chose a husband for his daughter, and that an Infante (the daughter of a king) could cause a lot of trouble by falling in love with a simple knight, even though he was the most handsome, intelligent, and courageous knight in the world.

Finally the quarrel between Count Gormas and Don Diego impressed itself on his mind like a scene from a cloak-and-dagger movie. He began to hate the jealous count who was wicked enough to challenge a poor, old
man who’d been given a position he wanted for himself. Certain of Corneille’s lines, despite their somewhat bizarre turns of expression, began to resonate in his head like bronze gongs being banged together.

In his effort to memorize the lines, he didn’t realize that the heroes of the play were in fact Rodrigue and Chimène (what an odd name!), and that the play was a love story. Often the impassioned spirit that ran through
Le Cid
took hold of him. But so many words to learn! So many plot twists to untangle! Such a torrent of curses falling on the head of Doyon, who was resting in his comfortable bungalow a few dozen blocks away in Cité-Jardin.

Charles spent the whole weekend stuffing his head with the three hundred lines, which formed the whole of Act I. Five or six times a day he would leave his room and grab the first victim he came across; whoever it was had to drop everything, sit down in front of him with a copy of
Le Cid
, and be his prompter. He became a stranger to them; he’d turned sour, his mouth twisted, and he jumped at the slightest sound. He even aimed a kick at Boff, the first time he’d ever done anything of the sort, then fell on the poor dog in tears and begged his pardon, while the rest of the household looked on in stunned silence.

Sunday night for Charles was a series of sudden awakenings, deep sighs, and groans. Corneille’s lines cut through his head like the blade of a circular saw. Sitting up in bed he repeated them over and over, eyes wide with nervousness, seeing himself standing on the stage, legs shaking, voice thin as a piece of string. He’d told Blonblon, Henri, and Steve about his misadventure; the whole class was behind him. But what good would that be when the rest of the school was mocking him?

In the morning, during breakfast, Lucie found him calmer, imbued with a kind of stoicism. He’d spoken in the hallway to Henri, who had replied with great, approving nods of the head, and the two had gone down into the basement and come up with a large paper bag into which no one was allowed to look.

“Leave them alone,” Fernand advised his wife. “What do you think they have in there? A bomb? Let them have their fun … within limits, of course.”

And he looked warningly at the two boys. Then he leaned over and whispered to Lucie, “That damned principal has gone a bit far, if you ask me. He must have Nazi blood or something …”

“Good luck, Charles,” murmured Céline, taking his hand.

“Bah! Nothing to worry about,” he boasted. “It’ll be fun.”

And he opened the door for her with a chivalric flourish, as he imagined Rodrigue would open it for Chimène. But his throat was as tight as a noose and his heart was thumping in his chest as he walked to school with Henri, who did his best to comfort him. His worst nightmare was the appearance of his horrible “fish-face” twitch in front of the entire assembly of fellow students. If that happened, he decided he would leave the stage immediately, come what may.