The Town Below. Roger Lemelin

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      “Father!” exclaimed Gaston. Joseph Boucher was making signs to his son, good-naturedly tapping the extended pockets of his coat. As men came home from work the Jewish peddlers were to be seen decamping from the houses with their merchandise, for it was only with the womenfolk that they bargained effectively. Denis was gazing toward the Upper Town, picturing to himself a gang so powerful that he would have to exert all his strength to remain the leader. But Jean would follow him, he could depend on that.

      Chapter Two

      When the elder Boucher had finished emptying his pockets of the grain he had brought back from the elevators, he came into the house and washed himself thoroughly, taking pains not to leave any of the dust behind his ears. Denis kept hanging around him. What was the use of asking his father for money? He would only start making a speech about how they had worked their fingers to the bone to put him through school. The youth clenched his fists, and when he spoke it was in a sharp tone of voice, for it humiliated him to be intimidated like this.

      “I’d like to go to the entertainment tonight.”

      “That’s your business.”

      “I need fifteen cents. I’ll give it back to you.”

      “No loans. We give you twenty-five cents for Sunday, that’s enough! Look at your brother; he knows how to get it. Stay at home with him and amuse him.”

      Gaston protested, but still he had a vision of Denis reading him the illustrated stories in the newspaper. Flora Boucher did not like Denis to go to these affairs, for she sat in the reserved seats next to the churchwardens and people looked at her when her son created a disturbance. She now put in a word, her hands upon her hips.

      “Joseph,” she began, “do you know what he did this afternoon?”

      Taking the offensive, Denis came back at her: “It’s all on account of Noré,” he said. And he went on to mimic his mother, whom he had overheard reminding the gendarme of their past: “Ah! Those were the days! Do you remember when we went cherry picking?”

      Flora turned pale, but disconcerted as she was, she did not fail to note the arrival of the Abbé Charton, who appeared as a kind of Providence. “Monsieur l’Abbé!”

      “Dear Madame Boucher! And how are you?”

      “Thanks to the good Lord, my family and I are all well. Did you find the canvas for my son’s brace?”

      Joseph Boucher went out to give the hens some grain, and Denis had a sudden idea. To go to the cupboard and take three empty milk jars and stuff them in his shirt was the work of a moment. Then whistling nonchalantly, he made for the door. The Abbé Charton, a charming smile on his lips, greeted him cordially, for Denis possessed a fine bass voice and was a possible recruit for the choir at high mass. When the young man saw that he was no longer being noticed, he ran out and hastened to Bédarovitch’s place.

      The junk dealer was occupied with unharnessing his decrepit horse, which he called his “old nag.” The poor beast was so skinny that one had the impression that the shafts served him as a pair of crutches. The cart, perched upon its limping wheels, was of a pale yellow hue, as if someone had endeavoured unsuccessfully to give it a coating of gilt. It was overflowing with bits of copper wire, old rags, bottles, and old bedsprings. It was, in short, a catchall for objects worth nothing to anyone save to the Jews of the ghetto. The only thing was, could one definitely assert that Bédarovitch was a Jew? There were all sorts of arguments pro and con. For example, his sunburned skin afforded no clue, for his was not the olive-brown complexion of the Oriental. Moreover, Jean-Baptiste did not have a long beard to twist in his right hand in the manner of his pseudo-ancestors. Semitic or not, he had one characteristic mannerism: while he was talking to you he would clack his false teeth with every sentence. This was not a whim on his part, as he tried to make it appear, but was due to the fact that his plate was not one made to order; the explanation was simple enough: he had found it in the dust-bin of Monsieur Folbèche, the parish priest. People did not know what he was talking about when he remarked mysteriously: “You may take my word for it, what you hear is not out of the Curé’s mouth.” And he would clack his plate once more.

      Bédarovitch was said to be of French-Canadian descent. It was whispered among the parishioners that his grandfather, a certain Bédard, was a real Frenchman whose reasoning had run somewhat like this: “All the Jews succeed in business here. I will make myself a Jew.” He had accordingly set up shop in Quebec, being at pains to add to his name the profitable termination; and proudly decorated with this “vitch” that so many Jews sought to hide, he had prospered. Jean-Baptiste, who clung to traditions like a career patriot, had kept up his grandsire’s deception, and his shop had become a true museum of rags, old bottles, and broken-down beds. Old clothes, copper wire, watches that no longer ran — he took all that the quarter had to offer; his cart was the gulf into which all cast their odds and ends in return for a few pennies. Having exhausted their unemployment compensation, the women would frequently sell him an old corset or an out-of-date hat to get the price for the movies or a bingo party. And who could say whether, with those Mulots, he was not to a certain extent a receiver of stolen goods?

      “Still the same price for three empties, Père Baptiste?” Denis inquired.

      “Wait inside at the counter. Ah, greetings, Tit-Blanc! Greetings, Bison Langevin! How goes it?” said Baptiste to the pair that had just arrived. He returned to the shop with a set of bedsprings over his shoulders, forming a sort of collar about his neck. The door was low and one would not have thought there could be so many things behind it. Upon an ancient chest of drawers that had shed its paint and now served as a counter stood an apothecary’s scale in forlorn state. One wondered if it was for sale, too.

      It was a roomy enough place in the back. On one side of the partition could be seen a heterogeneous heap of old iron. From the other side came voices to which the odour of tobacco smoke seemed to cling. Pictures hung from the walls. There in effigy were Wilfred Laurier, Ernest Lapointe, Mackenzie King, and at the far end was a photograph of Cardinal Villeneuve, next to the image of the Sacred Heart. The heart of the statue was heated by electricity while its toes were warmed by a well-trimmed lamp. The image was painted red, for Providence is on the side of the Liberals. Big sheet-iron letters which one of the members had patiently cut out of the empty canisters swayed opposite the entrance, announcing: LAPOINTE LIBERAL ASSOCIATION.

      Like the big organizations, this suburban club had its president, its vice-president, its sergeant-at-arms, its little banquets and celebrations. And all this was conducted by the master hand of Gus Perrault. It was fine to hear the members address him as “Monsieur le Président.” A city-hall functionary, he was king among the workers, who were more obsessed by the myth of steady employment than they were concerned with political principles. He held a diminutive court at which all lent him an attentive ear and readily fell into the proper fawning attitudes. For Gus Perrault, who loved to make speeches, found every occasion a suitable one for “mounting the rostrum.” By way of getting off to a better start, he would first emit a formidable “Ha.” Like certain poets, he had his own little tricks in summoning inspiration. A prudent man, he spoke in a loud voice, almost shouting, for otherwise he could hear himself thinking, and that disturbed him; and so, he bellowed and chewed over his sentences. The deputies, aware of his prestige among the workers, handled him with gloves, and from time to time they gave jobs to members of his club. The fortunate one who was chosen then had the right to address Monsieur le Président as “Gus,” and later, by way of celebrating the event, they had in some fiddlers and the guest of honour paid the expenses.

      This little association lived by the mirage of a cavernous bureaucracy. The workers, glad to see their party take power at last, had come to believe in nothing but СКАЧАТЬ