The Years of Fire (4 page)

Three or four of his classmates were waiting for him by the Sacred Heart statue, and they clapped him on the back encouragingly.

“I’ve worked it out with Steve and Robert Parent’s gang,” Blonblon whispered to him. “We’re going to applaud like mad. What’s that in the bag?”

“A surprise,” Charles said, moving towards the class.

The principal, standing outside the door to his office, plucked him out of the hallway and told him that his presentation would take place after
lunch, at one o’clock sharp. Charles spent French class plunged in Corneille, with the tacit approval of Jean-René Dupras. Some teasing came his way from time to time from the others in the class, but generally the students laid off, as though they wanted to help the unhappy actor prepare for his performance.

“My dear friends,” began Robert-Aimé Doyon in a voice meant to imply humour but which inspired only dislike, “as an exception to the rule, I have assembled you here today in the auditorium because I want you to admire the talent – and, I hope, the memory – of our friend Thibodeau.”

Here he turned towards Charles, who was standing on the stage next to him, his face drawn and pale, but staring firmly at the audience nonetheless. When he had walked onto the stage his courage had failed him momentarily, and he had dropped his paper bag in the wings.

“As many of you may know, our friend Thibodeau here has a certain facility for language – even, at times, impolite language. But still, in order to help him improve his vocabulary, I have asked him to learn a great number of new words by heart – all of them polite words – in the hope that in the future, such as the next time he is addressing a figure of authority, he’ll have a better pool of polite words to draw from and will not have to rely on coarse language. Our friend Thibodeau is therefore going to recite from memory the first three hundred lines of a very beautiful and very old play. That is to say, from Corneille’s play
Le Cid.”

“What’s a ‘cid’?” some wag called out. “You mean, like in Sydney, Nova Scotia?”

“Or acid indigestion?” replied a rival.

Ripples of laughter ran through the assembly. A student made a loud farting sound with his lips. Another began singing “Only You” in the voice of a young male in full rut. Steve Lachapelle contorted his body so violently that he jabbed an elbow into one of the teachers and had to say “Excuse me.” Ordinarily punctilious in matters of protocol, Doyon merely
smiled, arms crossed on his chest, while Charles, obviously terrified, hung his head like a felon awaiting execution.

“You will notice,” continued the principal, “that the characters in the play always express themselves in an extremely polite fashion, even when they disagree with one another. I hope that will serve as an example to certain people. All right, Thibodeau, you may begin.”

He left the stage and took a seat directly in front of Charles, in the first row.

“Louder!” came a cry from the audience.

“We can’t hear!”

Charles shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and, seeing that he had nothing further to lose, decided to throw himself into the text like a swimmer caught in a riptide that was trying to drag him out into the ocean. He recited for two minutes. Calmness was slowly restored to the room. The students were amazed at the confidence with which their comrade delivered lines that might as well have been in Chinese as far as they were concerned. They looked at one another and nodded in admiration.

A frown began to spread across Doyon’s lips. This little upstart was acquitting himself with distinction. This wasn’t punishment. He suddenly saw himself having to get up on the stage to congratulate the little bugger in public. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re wanted on the phone, sir,” his secretary whispered. “It’s urgent.”

When Charles saw the principal leave the room, he stopped reciting, suddenly overcome with a wild joy.

“Just a minute!” he called to the audience.

He ran to the wings, retrieved his bag, and returned with a huge, plumed, felt hat left over from an old Hallowe’en costume, which he placed on his head. It had been Henri’s idea, a way to get the scoffers on Charles’s side.

Charles had come to his favourite passage: the altercation between Count Gormas and Don Diego, the central exchange of the whole drama.

He jumped to the left, then to the right, changing positions and voice with each line, taking off and replacing his hat to give the illusion that there were two actors on the stage. A profound silence ruled the auditorium. Even little Lamouche, usually incapable of staying still and quiet for more than thirty seconds at a time, as though coffee ran through his veins instead of blood, sat staring at Charles with his mouth hanging open, paralyzed by surprise and admiration.

Charles, his hat askew, was contemplating an imaginary sword lying on the ground when Doyon re-entered the room and saw at a glance the measure of his defeat. Silently he took his place in the first row and watched the young adolescent on the stage, carried away by a kind of drunkenness, certain now of turning the trial that the principal had so maliciously imposed upon him into a veritable triumph, unaware even that his judge had returned to the room.

“That’s enough!” Doyon suddenly shouted, pounding his fist violently on the stage. “What is the meaning of this ridiculous disguise, Thibodeau?”

Six hundred eyes were fixed on Charles. Some with amusement, others with anxiety, still others with a cheeky delight. Slowly, Charles removed the hat and let it slip from his hand: the feather could be heard brushing the stage floor as it fell.

“I.…I thought …”

“You thought
what
, Monsieur Thibodeau?” spat the principal, whose empurpled forehead seemed to have sprouted a number of curious protuberances.

“I thought,” babbled Charles, “that since the play … er … took place … uh … in the past … I mean, in the time of kings … well, I thought …”

“I’ll tell you what you thought. I know exactly what was going through that stubborn head of yours, but which you now don’t have the courage to admit, Thibodeau. You thought that turning your punishment into a farce would give you a fine opportunity to ridicule
AUTHORITY
. Well, I’ve had enough of your insolence!” And he banged his fist again on the stage, which was unfortunately once too often for his watch strap.

A light tremor, composed of desperately stifled giggles, ran through the room.

“So that you will have time to reflect on all this, my friend, I am inviting you to remain away from this school until next Monday. Do you understand? And as for you lot,” he said, turning towards the students, who were becoming restless in their seats, “get back to your regular classes. Immediately!”

“That was bloody good,” murmured Steve as he passed Charles. “You should be in the movies!”

“Way to go! That was the best!” called Blonblon, with a wink. Others surreptitiously shook his hand or clapped him heartily on the shoulder. He had become a hero. Henri would never have to defend him again. From now on, his status would be his shield.

He left the school still absorbed in the scene he’d been playing on the stage. He sat for a moment on the school’s front steps, partly out of bravado but also because his legs were shaking and he needed a rest. It was the beginning of December. Although there was still no snow, the chill in the air soon made him stand up.

“You stupid old idiot!” he mentally shouted to the principal as he walked down the street. “You can keep me out of your stupid school for a month for all I care. Blonblon and Henri will lend me their notes, and it’ll be a holiday!” He was filled with a sense of pride and freedom, which quickly gave way to a feeling of anxiety. How would Lucie and Fernand react to his being suspended from school? The hell with it. He’d tell them exactly what had happened, and the principal would appear as odious in their eyes as he already was in his.

I
n his haste to leave the school he had forgotten his gloves, and by the time he neared home his hands were numb from the cold. He saw an ambulance parked in front of Chez Robert, its roof light flashing, and a small group of people huddled around the entrance to the restaurant. He started to run, seized by sudden alarm. A wheeled stretcher came through the restaurant door, pushed by two ambulance attendants. He had time to make out Roberto’s face on the stretcher, tomato-red, cheeks deeply creased, his head wobbling from side to side as though attached to his body by the thinnest of threads; his large, hairy arms also seemed to have been chopped off, so white were his bloodless hands even against the sheet.

“Rosalie!” Charles shouted when he saw her coming out onto the sidewalk. The bright, flowery print of her yellow dress was a painful contrast to the dismal scene. “What’s happened?”

She climbed into the ambulance behind the stretcher and turned towards him with a defeated look. She seemed not to recognize him. Then the rear door closed and the vehicle pulled quickly away from the curb.

Charles hurried into the restaurant. Liette was crying and dabbing her eyes with her frilly apron, and Monsieur Victoire had his arm around her. The new waitress, Marie-Josée, was stroking Liette’s hair while puffing on a cigarette, with a grave expression that made her round, open face seem curiously old.

“GIVE THE MAN SOME AIR! GIVE THE MAN SOME AIR
!” yelped

Edward the Parrot, perched on a shelf that was splattered with its droppings.
“WHERE’S THE BLOODY AMBULANCE? NOT HERE YET! SON OF A BITCH!”

A customer Charles vaguely recognized was serving coffee all around with a tragic, important air. The kitchen door was partly open, and looking in Charles saw the multicoloured makings of a pizza trampled into a mess on the floor. Bits of pepperoni were stuck to the linoleum in front of the counter.

“Charles, my boy, come over here,” called Monsieur Victoire, the taxi driver, still comforting the waitress as she wiped her nose with her apron.

And in his deep, solemn voice, seemingly able to soften even the most terrifying words, Monsieur Victoire told Charles of the tragic event.

Roberto had been complaining all morning of a pain in his stomach, saying it felt like a drill bit was boring into him. But he absolutely refused to be taken to the hospital, despite Rosalie’s insistence. About eleven o’clock he said he was feeling a little better.

“You see, Lili?” he told her, holding up a bottle of Fermentol. “Nothing but a little indigestion. You women, you’re always thinking the worst.”

Meanwhile he’d got a bit behind in his work and lunch hour was coming on, so he began banging things around in the kitchen like a bull who’d just spotted the cow of his dreams.

Rosalie was still worried, though. She checked in on him two or three times, sticking her head into the kitchen and saying, “How do you feel now?”

“Fine, fine. Like I tole you.”

But his voice was strained and a bit breathless, and it was clear he was not fine at all. Noon came. The restaurant filled with a happy roar, punctuated by the clinking of knives and forks on plates and the shrill calls of waitresses giving their orders. Customers ate and talked, exchanged greetings, flipped nervously through newspapers, excited by the smell of good food, looking enviously at the plates of those who’d already been served. Trays of food were trotted out of the kitchen in a steady stream. At the cash, Rosalie was her usual welcoming, motherly self.

Liette had just been coming along the counter with a tray piled high with plates of beef and veg when they heard a dull thud from the kitchen and felt the floor shudder. Setting her tray on the counter, she ran back through the door and let out a scream:

“Madame Guindon! Madame Guindon!”

A deathly silence settled over the restaurant. Everyone stopped talking or moving.

Rosalie had been handing change to a customer. She ran into the kitchen and a second later they heard another scream, this one even more hair-raising than the first.

“Mercy upon us, for the love of God! He’s had a stroke! Roberto! Roberto!”

The poor man was lying on his stomach on the floor, his face in the pizza he’d just taken from the oven, making little gurgling sounds. Rosalie tried to lift him up as the doorway filled with heads staring mutely in. A few minutes later they heard the sinister sound of a siren, and the ambulance arrived. By this time Roberto had lost consciousness. They gave him an injection and put an oxygen mask over his face. Someone said the word “infarction” and Rosalie gave a groan of horror. Something about the word, the way it sounded like something broken or cracked, made her feel suddenly dizzy and she had to sit down.