Washika (5 page)

Alphonse enjoyed this time of day. He sat on the stool with one foot resting on its highest rung and his back against the wall. He rolled a cigarette, working the paper over and over again until it was perfectly round, licking the glue side with one sweep across his tongue, and then rolling it a quarter turn to finish the job.

He looked out through the tall narrow windows, beyond the anchor and the open water, to Washika Bay. To starboard, he could see the steep bank of the log dump where Percy Dumont worked. Seen through the windows of the tugboat, it was the southern extremity of the long, natural clearing that was Washika Bay. There the expanse of beach sand ended and the forest continued with a narrow beach between it and the Cabonga. At the site of the log dump, the bank had been built up with large timbers and filled in with gravel so that there was deep water just in front of the bank. People even went there to fish for bass in the evenings since the water was so deep. Above the oil-blackened timbers of the bank, Alphonse could see Percy wheeling his tractor around. At first he saw only the pencil-yellow cab behind a great pile of logs. Then, as the logs came off the bank making a great splash in the water, he saw the tractor as Percy slammed her into reverse with her blade up high over the engine and her enormous black tires digging into the sand.

Alphonse was alone with his thoughts and his great joy. Only the beat of the
Madeleine
's six-cylinder engine penetrated his being. All of that moment lay before him through the narrow windows of the tugboat. It was all there in a perfect half-circle: from the log dump to the thick green forest with its tall, white birch and the sloping beach sand; to the green buildings of the camp and the wharf where they would dock; and far to port, the long, narrow, flat-roofed infirmary where Henri would visit
Mademoiselle
Archambault.

This was the one thing he had. As long as there was water and logs and he had this job with the Company, he would have it. There was really no necessity to approach Washika from the centre of the bay as he did. The other tugboats kept close to the southern shore after circling the point. It was the shorter route to camp. But, to have it as he did meant seeing it all at the same time, from one point and without tricks of vision or the imagination. Alphonse had it, he knew, and he never wanted to lose it. He reasoned, also, that few men of his lowly education and intellect could have such a thing. For this, he considered himself especially fortunate and thus never talked about it to anyone lest he should lose it; having this, in addition to his normal life, made him a very happy, contented man.

Alphonse opened one of the windows and felt the cool breeze on his face. He stared across the water, from port to starboard, from the infirmary to the log dump and back again. It was good to know something so well. He knew the camp better than he knew any of the twenty young students; better even than Francine, his wife, or their seven children. One glance at the Westclox they had given him four years ago and he would know almost precisely what was going on in each of the buildings at Washika Bay. Just as he had seen Percy working his tractor at the dump, he could easily imagine the expression on his face when the
Madeleine
first came into view. As he headed the tugboat east into the bay, Alphonse saw the trailer with its load of logs stopped at the truck scales in front of the cookhouse. In his mind, he could hear Emmett Cronier speaking to the driver from the window of his little hut: “Yes, it's a hot one all right. Christ Almighty!” Then Emmett would tilt back the tiny straw hat with the blue feather in its brim, a hat he had won at the fair in Ste-Émilie many years ago, and say, “Yes sir, too god damn hot for any man to be working on a day like this.”

To know each individual and each building at Washika, to get to know each one of his twenty young log drivers, to know Francine and their seven children, to know everything well in its separate parts was, to Alphonse, a most wonderful gift. Any man with eyes and ears and a willingness to learn could have it. The ultimate goal and supreme pleasure, however, was to see it all at one moment in time. This was very difficult. Although the difficulty lessened as he grew older, he had found it useful to devise little tricks to be able to do it well. There were times when he would imagine himself standing at the summit of a very high mountain where, looking down, he might see each individual part, each minute detail magnified a thousand times, where he might hear every expression uttered, and see every piece of action taking place. From this elevated position, Alphonse could see all of it, the whole, all at a particular moment in time.

Alphonse stood at the wheel. They were less than a quarter-mile from shore. Gently, he moved the lever and the
Madeleine
's engine began to roar, faster and faster, until the chugging of her six pistons became one and the same. At full throttle she rode the water high with her rounded stern only inches above water.

Everybody knew the signal. The two boys in the drive boats were awake and trying to find their shirts in the bundles at the bows. The students who had been sleeping on deck were doing up their shirts while others who had removed their boots and laid out their socks to dry in the sun were busily lacing up. Of the twenty-one people aboard, only one person remained unaware that they would all be ashore in a matter of minutes. Curled up like a dog in the lifeboat on the cabin roof, André Guy slept as soundly as if he were at home in his bed.

François stood to port, on the narrow section between the gunwale and the cabin wall. He was ready. He looked at the bundle in the lifeboat: the faded blue jeans, the green and black checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled past his elbows and the long, skinny sunburned arms wrapped around the yellow hard hat covering his face. François looked to stern for a place to stand when the time came. The timing would be important.

As the
Madeleine
approached the dock, her engine seemed to stop and then, as suddenly, speed up again as Alphonse shifted her into reverse to keep from ramming the wharf.

François looked around. Everyone was leaving the tugboat. It was time. He lifted his hard hat high above his head and, swiftly, whacked André's hat with his own. There was a dull sounding crack as the two hard hats met.

André rolled over onto his back. His face was pink and wrinkled from sleep. He looked down at the guys filing past him. They were laughing and shoving each other and, one by one, they jumped off the
Madeleine
and onto the wharf.

Henri Morin left the cabin holding his shirt out, away from his chest. Shortly afterwards Alphonse appeared in the doorway. He carried his lunch pail and extra-large thermos in one hand and his jacket draped over one arm.

Everyone passing the cabin door looked up at André. Everybody looked the same to him. No one wore that look of guilt André was searching for. Alphonse looked up at him as he came out of the cabin.

“Have a good snooze?” he said.

“Just wait,
sacrament
!” André stood up in the lifeboat.

“Another bad dream?” Alphonse laughed. “That's what you get, sleeping in the sun like that.”

André looked away. He could hear Alphonse laughing as he stepped off the tugboat. He could hear them all laughing.

He sat down on the wood seat of the lifeboat. Although his socks had dried—he had hung them from the gunwales of the tiny lifeboat—his boots were still wet inside. He put them on but did not lace them up. He looked for his jacket and gloves. They were not in the lifeboat. He looked to stern, to the drive boats where he had left his lunch pail. There, at the stern stood a solitary figure. André looked at the blond hair sticking out from the ridge of the hard hat and, immediately, he knew. He knew exactly what had taken place and, as quickly, reacted in the only way he knew.

Alphonse and the others heard the screaming as they reached the crest of the hill on the path to the camp. Beyond the knoll of fine sand and sparse tufts of short grass, they could just see the roof of the
Madeleine
's cabin and her tiny lifeboat. There, in the lifeboat on the cabin roof stood short, skinny André Guy waving his fist at the open water of the bay and screaming, “Gauthier! Gauthier,
mon tabarnacle
!”

H
enri removed his wet wool socks. He slid out of the damp jeans and underwear and replaced these with dry ones from his duffle bag by the bunk. He hung the wet clothes from a wire stretched across the room. After he had stored his hat and work gloves, he got a towel and comb from the orange crate shelves between the two bunks and left the bunkhouse-and-office.

At the main sleep camp Henri stood at the galvanized washbasin with the others. They were eight at a time at the basin. Henri was at the end and he could see everyone's grey, soapy water as it floated by him, circled and finally disappeared down the screened hole. He washed his hands and face and wet his hair to comb out the stiffness that came from wearing a hard hat all day.

He did not waste any time. Stopping only long enough at the bunkhouse-and-office to drop off his towel, Henri ran to the van. There he stood in line with the others and, when his turn came, he bought tobacco and papers, two chocolate bars, two soft drinks and a pair of bootlaces. He signed his name in the book and returned to the bunkhouse-and-office. He stored his things under the bunk, checked his hair in the broken piece of mirror on the wall and then left the bunkhouse-and-office. He was off for a visit with
Mademoiselle
Archambault.

Henri walked on the fine sand between the cookhouse and the bunkhouse-and-office. The windows of the cookhouse were open and he could smell the freshly baked bread and hear Dumas, the cook, barking orders at the cookee. Just beyond the cookhouse, he stopped at the truck scales to say hello to Emmett Cronier. The door to the small hut was open. Emmett sat on a low stool, sharpening his pencil with a penknife. He was wearing an athletic undershirt, the kind with no arms. Tilted back on his head was the straw hat with a blue feather stuck in the headband, the kind of hat that Henri had seen people win by swinging a heavy mallet and ringing a bell at the top of a high column. He had seen it at the annual farmers' fair in St-Émillion, a village northeast of Ste-Émilie.

“Hot one, eh?” Henri greeted the man.

“Yes, by Christ, you can say that again.”

“Wonder if the nurse's open?”

“Always open. Christ though, you can never tell with all them curtains.”

Henri opened his shirt and looked down at his chest.

“Not bad, eh?”

“Christ Almighty!”

Henri buttoned the lower half of the shirt but left all of it loose, outside his trousers. He walked across the heavy wood planks of the truck scales and on to the gravel road towards the infirmary. He kicked at the larger stones as he walked along the road.

Reaching the infirmary, he left the road and followed the sandy path to the verandah. The floor of the verandah had been painted grey, like the
Madeleine
. The screen door banged against the jamb when he knocked.

“Yes?” a voice called from inside.

“Hello,” Henri answered.

“Yes? What is it?” the same voice replied.

Henri cupped his hands around his eyes and his nose pressed against the screen trying to see inside. There, a short, stout woman stood before him. She was wiping her hands with a towel.

“Come in,” she said.

Henri opened the door and went inside. It was dark and cool in the room. There was a strong breeze coming in off the lake, whistling through the screens and making the long white curtains stand out away from the open windows beside each bed. He looked at the woman standing before him, at her spotless uniform, white like the curtains. She was staring at his boots.

“Just stand right there,” she said.

There was a smell of strong soap as she came closer. There was another smell but Henri was not certain what it was.

“Now, what can I do for you?”

Henri unbuttoned the lower portion of his shirt and as he held the shirt open he looked down at his boots. The sand that had collected around the soles of his boots had begun to dry and there was a scattering of it on the small square of orange carpet where he stood.

“Hold it open so I can have a look.”

Mademoiselle
Archambault scanned his chest with her little green eyes while Henri studied her face and the way her hair was combed back from her forehead, dark brown and shiny and twisted into a ball at the back of her head. She had slender ankles and her legs were not very big up to her knees but, from the hem of her uniform, they seemed to grow larger. He liked the sound her uniform made when she moved, and how smooth it was and how the plaits were long and straight and running parallel to each other.

“Painful, isn't it?”

“A little, yes.”

He looked at her eyes as she spoke to him. He had not noticed before. Perhaps it was because she was looking at his chest. Or, perhaps, it was because he was trying to imagine the shape of her breasts. But now, he could see it plainly as she looked into his eyes. He had seen it at a funeral once, in the faces of the people standing in the pews and watching the coffin being wheeled out, followed by the grief-stricken relatives who had sat at the front of the church. He had seen it one hot afternoon by a roadside when a crowd of grown-ups stood around looking at a little girl crying and hugging and caressing a long-haired collie that had just been run over by a truck.

“There is not much I can do.”

“It seems to be getting worse.”

“That is a very bad burn. I can apply a salve. That will ease the stinging a little.”

She left him and went into the back room. Henri looked around the clean white room, at the six empty beds with their white sheets stretched tightly across the mattresses, the white metal bed stands with their little wooden wheels and the thin black trim around the white bedpans placed under each bed. The floor had been covered with tightly fitted sheets of varnished Masonite and so highly polished that he could see the reflections of the beds on it.