The Town Below. Roger Lemelin
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 Having exhausted their unemployment compensation, the women would frequently sell him an old corset or an out-of-date hat to get the price for the movies or a bingo party.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 the wonderful jobs which the government could provide. Their ambition, as artisans or day labourers, had narrowed to the following in the footprints of their deputy. The only thing they could think about was a permanent job, and they saw but one means of attaining that end: to become some kind of rivet, bolt, or wheel in the party organization. It was commonly said that the quarter was ridden with poverty and hunger, but the truth is that it was suffering from a more dangerous affliction: the poison of machine politics. The inhabitants of Saint-Sauveur were divided into three classes: the separatists, the blues, and the reds. When one of the parties came to power, the vanquished inevitably fell into want and the result was unemployment, feverish looks, a succession of brawls, and the prolonging of enmities. If a blue was elected to city hall or the Legislative Assembly, a red lost the place that was coveted by every Conservative.
This ebb and flow, this clean sweep, this joyful coming in and gloomy going out took place regularly every five years. The separatist or independent workers, always discontented, were forever trying, one after the other, the two political colours. For ten traffic policemen who sped around happily to the rhythmic chug of their motorcycles there were ten ex-policemen who watched them go by with hate-filling glances. The same rancour existed among the street sweepers and the elevator “conductors.”
It was in little clubs such as this that the decadent mysticism of the bureaucratic spirit found a shrine.
Tit-Blanc and his friend were greeted with jovial exclamations.
“Monsieur le Président,” said Bison Langevin, father of the twins, “I’d like a word with you.”
Tit-Blanc clapped Denis on the shoulder. The young man looked him over. “You’re brave, aren’t you, seeing you’ve got your gang here? That doesn’t worry me.” Tit-Blanc spat on the floor at Denis’s feet by way of showing his contempt. If he were only a Mulot six feet tall!
“Here’s your fifteen cents,” said Bédarovitch, “and the next time wash them out.”
Denis was about to leave when from the corner where the young Liberals were engaged in a discussion he heard Lise’s name. They were laying bets, each wagering that he would be the first to kiss her. It was all Denis could do to keep from egging them on as he thought of how annoyed Jean would be. And then, suddenly, he felt like breaking their jaws. He went on back, his hands in his pockets, lightly kicking their chairs as he passed. No one spoke, for they could tell that he was looking for an argument. But he was satisfied and strolled over to lean against the frame of the door.
Seated on long, low benches close up against the wall, the men were enveloped in smokehouse atmosphere from the fumes of their pipes, and through this fog their eyes gleamed like marbles. Over to one side, near the Sacred Heart, sat Gus Perrault, his black horn-rimmed glasses on his nose, his hair carefully smoothed down, a cigar in his hand. He was listening to Bison Langevin, who was whispering his request and his hopes. He would wrinkle his forehead at moments and at other times would contrive to interject a word or two — “I’m looking after that affair of yours” — between a couple of “Monsieur le Président” preambles on the part of his interlocutor. Broko Lallemand, father of ten children and out of work, was shouting the loudest of any of them. If he had no work, it was because they suspected him of being a blue.
“Pipe down, you fellows! We can’t hear what you’re saying,” Paul Ménard, the wood vendor, called out. He was closing a little deal with Tit-Blanc.
The air was laden with chicanery. Méo Nolin, jealous of the lads who had learned their trade at the technical school, was seeking to pick a quarrel with Bison Langevin. He wished to place his sons in the Parliament Buildings and as a red believed that he was in line for it, but he did not propose to have them taken on as do-nothings, loud talkers who pretended to be plumbers, like Bison, for example. But these bursts of anger died down almost at once. The Mulots were plotting against Denis and were having fun with their “bully,” the club’s strong man, who was afraid of him. Voices rose and fell, and Tit-Blanc, who believed that he was whispering, was the loudest of any of them.
Denis studied them all, searched their faces, and wondered why it was he felt such a distance between these men and himself. Yet he had hit upon no theory, had formulated no new order of things! Did he at least have convictions? A vague anxiety gripped him, but this environment prevented it from attaining any depth. Did he know where he was going? It tired him to discuss the subject, and far from being drawn to this or that opinion over which the others argued, he was rather inclined to burst them all like bubbles and show up their ridiculous aspects. Did this feeling of superiority come