He gave the grandfather a surreptitious look.
“But you know, Mama, I believe that I’ll soon be walking by myself.”
The mother lowered her head and bit her lower lip. In the intervening silence two gunshots could be heard.
“They’re killing the songbirds,” the child sighed.
The father grew pale and Paul clenched his fists.
“Have you gone to see that lawyer?” his grandfather asked him.
“I have a meeting with him this morning.”
Taking his hat, the father got up as soon as he said this.
“Come on, let’s go, Rose,” he said.
“Where is she going?” the grandfather asked.
“She’s coming to the lawyer with me.”
“Why?” Paul asked him.
Embarrassed, the father coughed without answering, and the grandfather suddenly scowled and began to tug at his beard.
“I think they’ll show more consideration if Papa is with a lady. That’s all,” Rose said.
She got up and, arching her legs and waist, grabbed her handbag.
“Don’t wiggle your ass too much,” her brother advised, scowling like the grandfather. “It could cost you dearly.”
“If we’re successful, I’ll expect you to speak to me otherwise,” she answered, diving at him and pulling on his hair playfully “Do you know what could happen to you without my ass-wiggling? Rotting here and never discovering what a bench in an overseas university feels like.”
“Settle down,” the grandfather yelled, hitting the table with his fist.
The child immediately imitated him.
The mother closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at her husband for a moment. A slight grimace of disgust disfigured her lips. She lit a cigarette that Rose took from her hands with a smile.
“Come on, Papa, let’s go,” she said.
The mother lit a second cigarette and looked at her husband again.
“You are always right about everything,” she said to him slowly. “You’ve always been right, but this time you better be careful, be very careful.”
She watched them leave without adding another word. Pushing away his chair, Paul got up from the table. He remained standing across from his mother, looking at her for a long time in silence.
“If I was strong like you!” the invalid sighed, staring at him with admiration, “if I was strong like you!…”
The young man spread his legs and leaned over the child.
“What would you do?” he whispered.
And when no answer came:
“What would you do?” he yelled.
And he left, slamming the door.
Although the house was rather isolated because of the land around it (Jacob being their only immediate neighbor on their side of the street), he immediately felt as if he was being watched by the whole neighborhood. He walked quickly without looking around him. “If they think I’m afraid, they’re wrong,” he told himself. And with broad strides, he kept putting more and more distance between him and the house. He reached one street, then another, and walked to the house of his friend Fred Morin, who was on the soccer team with which he had been training for two years. He noticed Mme Morin’s face seemed strained, unusually so. He felt like he was standing before a stranger he was seeing for the first time. She nevertheless invited him to sit and called her son. Fred shook his hand and inquired what was new in a voice that seemed as false as his mother’s. Mme Morin had slowly pulled in the front double doors. A gust of wind opened them slightly and she glanced over anxiously.
“What brings you here?” Fred whispered shyly and, as soon as he had spoken his eyes returned to the door, behind which whispering could be heard.
He got up so clumsily that he knocked over an ashtray. He went to lock the door this time and instead of returning to his seat, he remained standing before Paul, looking round for his mother and grinning so falsely and stupidly that Paul also got up.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he whispered in a choked voice. “They are on our land and you know it. As far as all of you are concerned, we’ve been marked and therefore best avoided.”
“I don’t understand you,” Fred answered in a cynical tone.
They stood facing each other for a second without Fred daring to add another word.
He had come to talk to him about the soccer team, about the next game they were to play against the international players expected the next week, and he had been hoping for a warm welcome to free him from his anxiety.
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” he simply repeated and opened the door himself.
As soon as he had, he bumped into a crowd of people who had gathered on the porch and who now closed in to have a better look at him in their curiosity.
“That’s him!” was what he heard. “That’s Normil’s son!”
He walked away quickly barely avoiding the cars that seemed to brush past him on purpose and from which unknown heads leaned out. A woman’s voice called to him. He stopped and recognized Dr. Valois’ daughter. He was about to join her when a stream of cars separated them. He waited. When the cars had moved off, she was gone, and in the spot where she had been standing a moment before were three men in black. He couldn’t help being startled and doubled back to a stone bench covered by the shade of the flamboyant trees.
He let himself collapse there.
“They’re multiplying then!” he heard himself say out loud.
He had rested for a few minutes when he heard their boot steps. He shot up like a coiled spring. Wanting to run away, he almost crashed into them before quickly walking backward and withdrawing behind the trees. Thousands of men in black uniforms, black boots and shiny helmets were marching to the sound of fanfare. Preceded by two men bearing banners painted with skulls and weapons, they walked in tight ranks, cheered on by the crowd. A horde of emaciated beggars waved their arms wildly, screaming and cheering.
Upon returning home, he was astonished by the hopeful shiver that came over him when his father and sister appeared in the living room.
“What did the lawyer tell you?” the grandfather asked his son without preamble.
“He wasn’t able to see us,” the father answered pathetically.
“So they had no consideration for my sister,” Paul pointed out with a sardonic chuckle.
Rose avoided responding, but she slipped her father a look so strange and mysterious that her brother was unable to interpret it.
The door to the dining room was closed, so the noise from outside was muffled. They ate in silence, slowly, as if forcing themselves, abandoned to a common anguish that each of them inwardly rejected, sensing a heavy invisible presence spying on their every move. Paul called for the maid, who didn’t answer. He got up to get the water pitcher from the pantry and saw her near the stakes serving water to the uniformed men. She was bowing and smiling filling glasses, breaking up ice. He waited for her to return, and, taking the tray from her hands, smashed the glasses on the floor.
“Oh! Monsieur Paul,” she said in dismay.
The noise brought the family to the pantry.
“She let them drink out of our glasses,” he muttered, trembling with rage.
“But,” the father said, casting an anxious glance at the maid, “if they are thirsty and ask for a glass, isn’t it more reasonable to serve them?”
The invalid curled up in the grandfather’s arms as if he were in pain. He stared at his father with immense black eyes that took up most of his face and suddenly brandished his fist in his direction.
“Not in our glasses, Paul is right, not in our glasses.”
“You can go,” Rose yelled at the maid, who was giving them an ugly look.
