Читать книгу The Devil's Paintbrush - André Brochu - Страница 7

“Oh, you little pig!”

Lucie has just caught sight of Bernadette, the youngest, her cherished Babette. A long green string runs from Babette’s nose, and the rest of her face is unevenly spattered with dirt and jam. The spectacle moves her, calling forth a full complement of indulgence.

“Come here and let me clean you up a little.” She grabs the dishcloth and chases her daughter, who is terrified of the abuse inflicted by clean water.

“A pretty little thing like you can’t go around all covered in dirt! What would people say?”

She’s got her now and forces the rag’s smelly caress on her. Babette shrieks as if she’s being murdered, pummelling her mother with fists and feet, calming down as soon as the assault is over.

“Honey, why are you hurting mummy? Don’t you like being clean? You’re so pretty when you’re clean.”

“Don’t want to be pretty!” mumbles the child, her voice forced, sputtering like a string of hiccups.

“Come on, a little beauty like you! What would the Good Lord say? You know, not every girl has the good fortune to be a beauty. Would you rather look like a witch, with hair like a grey mop, a crooked nose, pointy teeth, and a face that’s all red and bumpy?”

“Yes!” announces Babette with a bold, mischievous laugh. Fernand has just stepped into the kitchen and he laughs, too, exclaiming, “Babette, you don’t have to turn into a witch, ’cause you already are one! You’re a real fart face!”

Mother and daughter howl in protest, and Fernand roars with joy.

“You, you’re a mental case, Fernand,” Babette sputters back, finally.

“If you ever say that again, I’ll strangle you!” Suddenly serious, the boy starts to carry out his threat.

“Mom, Mom! He’s hurting me! Let me go, you goddamn f ...”

“Fernand! Let go of your sister, right now!”

“She’s got to apologize first! Say you’re sorry, Babette, or I’ll kill you! Say it!”

“So ... sorry ...”

“Louder!”

“Sorry!”

Fernand lets her go, her face crimson with suffocation and rage.

“Mental case, mental case!” taunts the child from the safety of her mother’s arms.

“Mom! Tell her to stop or I don’t know what I’ll do to her!”

“Calm down, both of you! I’ve never seen anything like it! Are you Catholics or little heathen? What would Baby Jesus say?”

“Mom, Baby Jesus doesn’t exist.”

“What! What did you say?”

Fernand is gazing at her with that triumphant look he gets when he happens upon an idea that’s beyond his years.

“God’s just a bunch of lies they used to tell in the old days to keep the kids quiet. Like Santa Claus.”

“Fernand! Do you know what you’re saying?”

“Out of the mouth of babes,” says a placid voice that has a metallic ring to it.

“Father Lanthier!” The screen door frames the cleric’s plump silhouette. Instantly reconciled, Fernand and Babette duck out through the living room, and Lucie, disconcerted, splutters a string of vague apologies as she collects herself and hurries forward. “Come in, come in, Father! What a lovely surprise! You should have come to the front door.”

“I wanted to see the banks of your pretty river once more. And, of course, I love to surprise my parishioners, see them the way they are naturally.”

“The way they are! You can say that again, Father. If I’d known you were coming, I would have dressed up a little, done my hair ... You’re always doing us such good!”

“Well, exactly! I didn’t want to put you to all that trouble. After all, the Good Lord always sees you exactly as you are. Why should his priest have any extra privileges? The Church, you know, Lucie, has changed a great deal since Vatican II. It’s closer to the people now. All that pretense is over with! It is the soul that matters to the Church.” His voice sounds somewhat weary, with a hint of irony moderating his position’s mandatory inflexibility. He seems to live by rote, driven by a duty that time has adapted to fit any situation. “Little Fernand is giving you a catechism lesson?” he continues, feigning detachment.

“Oh, Father, that one is going to drive me crazy! Can you tell me where he gets those twisted ideas, which he trots out just to make us angry?”

The priest appears to ponder for a moment, then directs a cold stare at her. “Upon my word, my good woman, I think I know. In fact, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”

A little anxious, she keeps her gaze steady as he draws out an adroit pause. He opens his mouth just as she’s about to speak. “Sometimes, my dear Lucie, acts of charity can lead to precisely the opposite of what you’d be entitled to expect. If you’ll permit me to indulge in an analogy in the style of the great Lafontaine, if a mother dog brings two wolf cubs into her litter, even though she treats them just like her own puppies, one day she’ll be surprised and grieved to discover that not only are the two little adoptees actually wolves, but they’ve also had a bad influence on her children. There, I think that’s perfectly clear.”

Stunned by these brutal words, Lucie is at first speechless, then a gnawing anger begins to rise within her. This isn’t the first time the priest has voiced such observations, but this time he’s gone too far. With her most generous instincts under attack, she turns suddenly, like a cornered animal. “Do you mean to say, Father, that I shouldn’t have taken in those two children, children who were abandoned heartlessly, who suffered torture at the hands of their parents? Do you mean to say that I should have let them go to foster homes, where things could have been even worse? Aren’t you happy, Father, that these children now have a decent home, a home that has taken them in with love and not for money?”

“My dear woman, when it comes to charity, I believe I know a bit more about it than you do.”

Seeing her protector’s vexed demeanour, Lucie opts to defuse the discussion with her most inane titter. “Father, of course I didn’t mean to lecture you!”

“I am fully aware — perhaps, you will agree, more so than you are, since I am a priest — of our sacred duty to help our neighbours. However, while generosity is perfectly praiseworthy in and of itself, it shouldn’t blind a benefactor to the risks it can entail.”

“But really, Father! Children! Seven and eight years old! They don’t even know what sin is yet.”

“My dear Lucie, you’d be surprised to know how much iniquity and filth can be lurking behind those angelic faces. These little ones were born and raised in vice. Certainly, they aren’t responsible for the seeds of sin that were planted in them, but they’re dangerous nonetheless, just like a rotten apple that, carelessly left in a barrelful of good ones, quickly spoils them all!”

“I beg your pardon, Father! You’ve been here for five minutes and I haven’t even offered you a seat. There’s the rocking chair, you like that one. Just a second and I’ll clear it off.” The chair is covered with crumpled clothing, and she carries the pile into the next room. The diversion does not fool the priest, and he sits down, resigned. “It’s already quite warm out. What can I get you? I’ve got some nice cold lemonade. Here, let me take your hat.”

“No, thank you, I’ll just hold it. But lemonade now, some lemonade would be nice.”

“Right away, Father.”

His hat, a panama, lies on his knees. He can’t bring himself to put it down anywhere. Everything is so messy that the hat might get sullied, or even infested with vermin.

“Here you go, Father. It’s really quite hot out today.” The priest takes the glass, holding it by his fingertips as if he were afraid of getting dirty. He looks at it despondently, then deposits it on a nearby buffet. “Don’t you like it, Father?”

“I’m not thirsty anymore. My dear Lucie, I’ve come this morning —” He breaks off, appearing to examine his thoughts, organizing them the way he does when he is about to give a sermon. When he continues, his tone is as even as a mechanism that will drone on until it reaches the end of its wooden lament. “— to inform you of how dissatisfied — the word is not too strong — some people are with you. This is nothing new. When you were living in the village, I often had to act as your neighbours’ spokesman, tell you about their observations and even their complaints, which, by the way, were completely justified. I thought, however, that moving you here would make a difference. Moreover, you solemnly promised that you would mend your ways and do everything you could to make your generous benefactors happy, particularly the mayor, since I myself seem to have little influence over your decisions.”

“Father!” objects Lucie, fixing him with her large, limpid eyes. “How can you say that!”

“Please, don’t interrupt. I have a lot to say, and I want to get through it. Where should I begin? Oh, yes! The mayor, my good Lucie, is very disappointed. When he arranged for you to get this house by the water, a dream house, the perfect place to raise your children in peace, safe from bad influences — you know what I mean — he thought that you would maintain the place, if only out of gratitude, and maybe even improve it by taking care of the yard, putting in flower beds, that kind of thing. It’s clear that gardening is not your strong suit, but, like the mayor, I’m appalled at the fact that your lawn has become a wasteland of weeds and hay, and worst of all, that the yard is now a veritable garbage dump. That’s not too strong a word ...”

For the first few moments, Lucie attends to his remonstrances, but she slowly starts to daydream, though she pretends to listen deferentially to the priest. The pale hat on his knees distracts her, it is such a contrast to his dark garb — black pants and jacket, a deep purple shirt that reminds her of Good Friday. How can anyone brave summer like that, wearing night’s attire, with the heat of day blasting out like a furnace? Poor man! He must be really hot! She would like to take him into her room, undo his buttons one by one. His chest would peep whitely through his greying hair, then his belly button, a tiny baptismal font. Then she would undo his belt, and his pants would fall to his ankles, and she would uncover him completely, lay him bare, and he would let her, like a child. She would lay him on his back and, with the powerful femaleness that radiates from her bobbing nipples, her consuming abyss, she would transform this chubby fifty year old into a turgid, steaming prayer, perform the ritual sacrifice to the gods of pleasure. She would make this venom-filled preacher a happy man, ecstasy bubbling from his lips like milk. Sated, replete. He would hum, wearied, in a ravished, prone stupor. A true priest, purged by her expert care, as gentle and humble as an old-fashioned choirboy embarrassed by his robes.

“Are you listening, my child?”

“Yes, yes, Father, but ...”

“You’ll have your turn to speak, if you think there’s anything to say. I’m simply passing along the mayor’s warning. The complaints he’s received are very serious; I hope you understand that.”

“Well, complaints ...”

“Thoroughly justified complaints. Do you know what’s stopping some of your neighbours from putting their houses up for sale? For one thing, their value has dropped so much that they can’t bring themselves to take such a disastrous step. For another, they don’t know what kind of people would want to buy a house in such a rundown neighbourhood. Then there’s the risk of disreputable purchasers jumping on the opportunity to buy cheap and running their properties down as well ... The waterfront, the pride of the community, would become a disgrace, and whose fault would that be? Yours!” His reddening jowls tremble slightly below finely wrought white metal glasses. Lucie likes his anger, which warms his skin with feeling. “Do you understand? The church council and the town unite to get you out of trouble, and all you do is turn the home they gave you into a sty!”

“Father! If I could just say something?”

“I know what you’re going to say, so don’t bother. And I have lots more ...”

“Forgive me for insisting, Father, but you know quite well that I was moved here by force after being essentially thrown out of the house in the village, where my children and I were very comfortable. The house that was owned by my father-in-law, and which therefore belonged to my husband’s family.”

“That’s precisely the problem, my dear woman! You make yourselves unwelcome everywhere, you and your badly brought up tribe. You realize that we — the town — have ways of getting rid of you, do you hear me? To banish you if you don’t change your attitude and refuse to behave in a civilized manner!”

Stunned, Lucie stares at this bald, well-fed man whose eyes are as round as his glasses. He’s used a strong word — banish, banish — he’s threatening to send her to the devil, she who has, who should have some rights to this land in this country. All of a sudden, she realizes that the era of tolerance has ended, that the vague pity and affection that have always surrounded and protected her — probably because of her widely respected father-in-law — have evaporated. For a long time, the old doctor’s mantle lay over his descendants, over Chonchon especially, the youngest, who was forgiven for his bohemian ways, for having married such an unlikely girl. But now that has gone, and she’ll have to play hardball.

“Doctor Tourangeau,” she says, to verify her disgrace, “always told me that I could rely on my neighbours’ benevolence, when ... He knew that Chonchon wouldn’t be able to support me and ...”

“You should realize that that’s over with; it’s in the past. The good doctor has been gone for several years, and it’s useless to depend on his influence. He is remembered as a perfectly honest man, and people deplore the fact that his descendants are so unlike him. One look at you, at your home, at your badly dressed children, and it’s obvious that you are nothing like him, nothing at all!”

Shaken by these words, Lucie bursts into tears. “But Father, that man loved me. If it wasn’t for him, I would have left my husband and all the children he kept giving me. He told me that I was indispensable to them. He accepted my habits, my way of seeing things. He said that love was the most important thing, and he knew that, in spite of my shortcomings, Father, none of my children would ever go without and, most of all, they would always have the love that makes life possible.”

“Love is good, of course. I preach it every Sunday! But do you think it’s enough?”

Lucie is sobbing now. Broken, she collapses at his feet. She wraps her arms around his knees, her mumbled words half drowned in grief. He remains still, waiting for the crisis to pass, but still she holds on, and, little by little, becomes increasingly insistent. He becomes frantic as it dawns on him that he has fallen into a trap of foul affection, that this crying woman is capable of anything. He wants to get up, run away, but she is stronger than he is, and his resistance suddenly gives way to her infectious madness. He pales, his head spinning, and loses all sense of reality. For a second, he retains an instinct to fight, resist the terrible pleasure being offered to him, push off the hands that are so expert at gentle, efficient, motherly care. Then he yields, consents, lets himself be overwhelmed by the tender, smothering wave, suddenly finds himself in a large, moon-like bed, where life, with long arms and immense breasts, envelops his desire. Now it’s clear, and he, the priest, lies naked beneath her as she thrashes like a hundred demons, watching him, and he wants to lick her smile full of large, slightly yellow teeth. Her large brown eyes have no depth, yet are filled with foolish dreams, and they bewitch him bit by bit, with little shocks of boundless joy drawn from some unknown source, as if this miserable existence could secrete something other than misfortune and death. How smooth, like silk, this stomach against his own, this sharing of heat. And now he communes with the joy that seizes him, or the pleasure, since this is a base affair of flesh, of animal, almost vegetal rhythms, a vast rush of blood and juice, an utter distension — ecstasy!