LITMIR.BIZ

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don’t mind their dead being underwater. The English, well, they would never let that happen.

      It is tasteless. You’re disappointed.

      ‘Get it! Get it!’

      You turn. On the other side of the street, a group of children are chasing a rat.

      ‘Come on, Claire. Let’s go!’

      You drag your little sister along behind them.

      You cross the street, water up to your calves. You don’t hear your mother calling, trying to hold you back, again. She lives in hope of succeeding one day.

      You take long strides, your face intent. You are off to war.

      You dive onto your belly after the rat, which you catch with both hands, holding it firmly, brandishing it like a trophy, your eyes sharp and your face like an animal’s.

      ‘Got it!’

      Your sister Claire looks at you, impressed. You turn to face the English kids, the rat in hand, your dress dirty. You stare at them, a rebel.

      You are four years old.

      Mass is starting in five minutes.

      You have mud in your underwear.

      You look out the window. Walking at a leisurely pace, people are already cramming into the church on the corner. Everyone is clean and pressed, at least down to their knees.

      Below the knees, everything is grey and wet.

      ‘Suzanne! Hurry up!’

      Claudia, your mother, is calling from downstairs. You finish putting on your white blouse and go down.

      Madeleine, Paul, Pierre, Monique, and Claire are clean and waiting sensibly at the door. Your mother is seated, thin and pale. She looks you up and down, severely.

      She has given up on words, doesn’t even look for them. She hides behind her sharp eyes. Eyes that scrutinize you and condemn you to your core. You avoid them, glide above them.

      The dried mud in your underwear itches, but you don’t show it.

      Your brothers help your mother up, then you leave.

      As you walk by, you graze the keys of the old piano with your fingers and gather the dust. Your mother catches you. You’re not allowed to touch the piano. You say you’re sorry in a clear voice.

      You have always had a voice that carries. Even when you whisper. You don’t know how to tone things down. Words move through your throat in a coarse, precise stream, a diamond, an arrow.

      It’s a good piano. A Heintzman, wood. Its front is engraved with scrolls that chase each other, swirling, never meeting.

      It came into the house twelve years ago. Claudia, your mother, loved it. She played piano as a teenager. Her aunt taught her scales. Claudia found scales more musical than most pieces and played them one after the other with heartfelt enjoyment. She could have played only scales.

      It moved her deeply that the pressure of her slender fingers could make such passionate sounds, filling the space. She liked to touch the piano keys; they gave her power. She felt alive.

      Later she took lessons with a woman who wore pretty flowered dresses and sheer stockings with no runs.

      With her, Claudia took off her shoes when she played, to feel the crisp cold of the pedals on the soles of her feet.

      She played Chopin, because it sounded like the sea.

      She had talent.

      Then she met Achilles. He was a teacher, knew a great deal and didn’t speak much. He had the sort of presence that leaves an impression. Someone you feel has been there several minutes after he leaves. Claudia wanted to swim in his wake, bathe in what overflowed from him.

      They got married. They found a big house, on Cambridge Street, in the working-class quarter of Ottawa. It was across the street from the church, which was handy.

      Claudia wanted to take her piano with her. Achilles carried it there with his bare hands.

      They picked a nice spot for it in the house, so that Claudia could sit there, like a queen on her throne.

      But Claudia had her first child and never again sat down at the piano.

      When Achilles asked her to play, she would smile inside. An evasive smile.

      One day, she simply told him she no longer knew how.

      Achilles stayed, waiting for her to go on, and she couldn’t get away from him, so she said that she didn’t know how to touch the keys, because she had nothing more to give.

      That she felt as though the notes would crash into the walls and the ceiling, then fall to the ground.

      Achilles was calm and quietly told her that all they had to do was open the windows.

      Claudia loved him and cried a little. But she never played the piano again.

      The piano still sits enthroned in the middle of the living room. It gathers dust and that annoys her.

      One night, you saw her clean it. She rubbed it furiously with a rag. As if it were one big stain.

      On Saturdays, you used to go with your mother to the hairdresser’s. It was your outing. While she was having her hair curled, lightening up in a way she rarely did, you would line up for the telex. A small, seemingly ordinary machine, but one that helped the poor get rich. People would read stock prices, current up to the minute. The small machine sitting between two permed ladies was wired to Wall Street.

      That impressed you.

      Your father speculated like everyone else. After carefully noting the numbers on the palm of your hand, you called home and gave them to him.

      Often, a few days later, a new oven, fridge, or set of dishes, bought on credit, would find their way into the house.

      You deserved to be rich. Like everyone else.

      Before, you had your bedroom, which you shared with your sisters. You had your rituals, your secrets, your lair.

      You liked to sleep naked, your body in the form of a star, arms and legs open wide on the bed, while on the other side of the wall, the boys fought and snored.

      Before, every new year, your father would buy you a pair of new shoes. You would spend a week looking down at them, your neck bent, eyes glued to your shiny new feet.

      Then, the crisis.

      Your mother went to the hairdresser’s once or twice more. But she wouldn’t let you check the telex. The stock market didn’t seem to interest anyone anymore, and the impatient line had suddenly dispersed.

      You had nothing more to do at the salon; you didn’t have a mission anymore, and your mother’s reflection in the mirror, under the hairdresser’s hands, had gone dark.

      You had to drag your mattress into the boys’ room.

      Now you slept crammed together, no more secrets, odours intermingling.

      A stranger moved into your room, ‘the lodger.’ It was by order of the government: a room had to be freed up to make a place for the indigent. The lodger had lost his home. He was soaking up your space, your light, your memories. You didn’t like him. He was poor, and he had taken your place.

      And then you didn’t get new shoes. At the beginning of the year, your mother cleaned a pair that had belonged to your older sister. And they were handed down to you.

      That’s when you lifted your head. That’s when you started to look to the horizon.

      Claudia is finishing up ironing your skirt. Sitting in your underwear on a chair, you are focused on the rumbling in your stomach. The hunger comes in waves. Nothing, and then an empty tunnel that opens up between your belly button and your throat.

      ‘Put this on. Let’s go.’

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