DÉPARTEMENT DES LETTRES ET COMMUNICATIONS

Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines

Université de Sherbrooke

BELLE-MOUE/BLESSED MOTHERHOOD

traduction par

Suzanne O'Connor

Bachelière ès lettres en études anglaises

(rédaction professionnelle)

de l'Université de Sherbrooke

MÉMOIRE PRÉSENTÉ

pour l'obtention de

LA M~TRISEES LETTRES

(LITTÉRATURE CANADIENNECOMPARÉE)

Sherbrooke

Janvier ZOO0 Natianal Libraty Bilioihèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Senfices senrices bibliographiques 395 W~YhgGonSbee! 385, nis Wellington ômwa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON KlAON4 cana& Canada

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accord6 une licence non exclusive licence aiiowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distn'bute or seîi reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelfilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this ihesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Composition du jury

Formal and Human Aspects of Translation

Blessed Motherhood traduction de

Belle-Moue (Huguette O'Neil)

Par Suzanne O'Connor

Ce mémoire a été évalué par un jury composé des personnes suivantes :

Professeure Pamela Grant, directrice de recherche Département des lettres et communications

Professeure Patricia Codbout, membre du jury Département des lettres et communications

Professeur Winfried Siemerling, membre du jury Département des lettres et communications 1 wish to dedicate Blessed Motherhood to my twin children, Westley and Stephanie (as per coin toss), wiih the hope that they will aiways be inspired to strive towards their individual lifelong goals.

Be ivho y014 are! Love what yoic do!

Sincere thanks to Professor Parnela Grant for her professional guidance and contribution as my thesis director. Thank you to professors Patricia Godbout and Winfried Siemerling for their invaluable editorship.

A speciai note of appreciation to Professor Ronald Sutherland for his genuine support and inspiration. Cette dissertation se veut une analyse approfondie des normes de traduction propres à une oeuvre littéraire dite conte véridique ou mémoires, soit le récit québécois

Belle-Moue, de Huguette O'Neil. Elle consiste en une introduction générale, suivie d'un résumé biographique et d'une étude détaillée des défis qu'impose la traduction de ce genre de littérature. L'oeuvre en question raconte une période de l'histoire québécoise où religion et politique dominaient le peuple. L'auteur retrace sa vie et la vie de sa mère à rebours jusqu'au début du XXe siècle. Le lecteur y retrouve des personnages et lieux réels, et certains faits saillants qui ont marqué cette période de l'histoire du Québec.

La thèse développée est que ce genre de littérature historique rédigée à partir d'ivénemeiits passés etlou présents exige du traducteur des choix a faire quant à la fidélité au texte de départ et au texte d'arrivée. Elle soutient que le traducteur d'une oeuvre littéraire a l'option de préserver Ie texte, c'est-à-dire privilégier l'oeuvre originale. ou d'adapter le texte, c'est-à-dire privilégier Ie lecteur visé. L'analyse inclut des critères

énoncés par des théoriciens du domaine de la traduction. Elle soulève les difficultés et les piéges auxquels se heurte tout traducteur. Entre autres : les titres et noms propres de personnes et de lieux géographiques; les titres d'oeuvres ou de recueils jamais traduits; les expressions familières et les jeux de mots; les différents niveaux de langue et les techniques littéraires particulières; enfin, un titre fidèle au titre original et a l'oeuvre traduite.

II est anticipé que Belle-Moue devenu Bfessed 1i4otherhoodplaira aux lecteurs de langue anglaise qui s'intéressent à l'histoire et aux thèmes de la vie et de la mort. INTRODUCTION

"Traduire,c 'est trahir." The cornmonly known dictum. from the Italian proverb

Traduttori. Traditori, carne to me in the course of writing the prologue for my translation of Belle-Moue, memoirs by Québécois author Huguene O'Neil. With this purist adage working against me. could 1 still hope ro have translated O'Neil's récit "faithfully" into an English-language tem? With guidance. and rcference works at hand, 1 carried on. 1 took panicular pleasure in reading Douglas R. Hofstadter's Le ton beau de Maror: In fraise ofthe Mirsic of Langiracpe ( 1997). His candid. human. yet knowledgeabie approach to translation suggests there is conUnued hope for translaiors. Who studying translation theory has not heard of the expression used to describe the free adaptations that were so popular in France. in past centuries: les belles infidéles.ïhe German writer. Thomas

Mann. commented: "Lorsqu 'elles sont belles. elles ne sont pas fidèles :et lorsqu 'elles

sonrfidèles, elles ne sont pas belles. " Hofstadter translated it by "When they are beautiful they're never dutiful; and when they are dutiful. they're never beautihl" (Hofstadter

394), and added:

Actually. 1 believe this rernark goes back much furcher than Mann (though to

whom to attnbute it 1 don't know). and was originaliy prefaced by these words:

Les traductions sont comme des maitresses ('Translations are like mistresses').

The plural pronoun elles is thus doing double du., with both an animate and

inanimate referent-very cute. but stupid and insulting to both referents at the

same tirne. (Hofstadter 394) Hofstadter takes the issue a step fürther with his remarks on umsIators dirninishing translation as a whole:

1 get tired of hearing this type of thing, frankly. 1s this false modesty, ar is it some

kind of misplaced reverence for the original text? .. .hm off to the &estof

translators, who. whether lesser rnortals or not. work every bit as hard and give

every bit as much of their soui as does rhe musical virtuose. ro render the full

power and poetry of their esteerned author. (Hofstadter 395)

My thoughts exactly. The 'art of translation.' as linguistic scholars now increasingly refer

to it, is defined as rendering a text from a source language to a mget Imguage. Theorists

in the field, such as Vinay and Darbelnet. differentiate between approaches to tmsiation

on the basis of the type of text to be translated. Translations range from the pragmatic to

the literary translation. each governed by a particular set of noms. At one end of the

spectrum. the translation of a generd text involves a relativeiy straightt'urward passage

for the purpose of informing, with the translation bcing as clear and accurate in its

transmission of the message as the originai. nie technicd or scieniific text is also

pragmatic. requiring at lest some knowledge of the discipline. and adherence to the

teminology and conventions of the field. Such matter-of-fact forms of transiation are by

far the tvpe most cornmoniy undertaken by professionai translators todsiy; in Canada and

Québec, this is in part due to the introduction of language charters in recent yem. In her

essay entitled "The Language of Cdtural Difference: Figures of Alterity in Canadian

Translation," Sherry Simon states: "Various language Iaws have created the necessity for

translation. .." (Simon 174). "Necessity being the mother of invention." professional rranslators, in ment years. have proliferated. Translations of this type allow for little creative licence. Professional translators typically take on such works for the sake of remuneration.

The art of translating the titerary text is at the opposite end of the specuum. Once solely the domain of scholars. it remains for man? translators rhe most poetic, challenging and gratifiing fom of translation. culminating in the undeniable hope that the translated literxy work will result in an acicknowledged. and possibly lucrative. labour of love. Even the Iiterary translator cannot alwliys sunlive on love alone.

Linguists rnaintain that in order to translate a liteiary text. the translator must be more than simply bilingual. aIthough a command of both languages and an understanding of the two cultures concerned are undeniable prerequisites. The source lruiguage (SL) narrative is naturally steeped in a panicular culture. history. tradition. belief. and. at tirnes. spirituality or religion. ail expressed in the SL's panicdar set of paradigms. A translator cannot render the tone. mood. viewpoint and essence of the SL text without a profound understanding of the underlying nature of the original work. From there. ideally, the translator mut find a balance between preservation of the SL essence - pnvileging the SL in order to provide insight into the nature of the originai language and culture - and adaptation to the TL spirit - privileging the TL readership and its expectations. Sherry Simon. referring to two classic rurn-of-ihe-century translations -

William Hume Blake's translation of Louis Hémon's Maria Chapdelaine and Charles G.

D. Roberts' transiation of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé's Les Anciens Canadiens - says of the two translations: ". ..both devote much care and considerable writerly skills to twning their books into inspiring works of prose that confonn superbly to the noms of the receiving culture" (164). Although both translators wanted very much to express theit liking and reverence for French Canada. they opted for opposite approaches in doing so.

Blake chose to privilege the SL in his translation of Maria Chapdelaine. Simon States:

"In Blake's translation. much more than in Roberts', we are in a worid cleariy marked as different" (163). He maintained names. poetw, song and such in French. thus retaining the French flavour of the original work. Roberts. on the other hand. in translating Les

.dnciens Canadiens. gave himself creative licence and took pleasure in adapting die original text for a very ethnocentric anglophone readership. In Simon's words:

He chooses therefore to eliminate the documentary material appended to the

original. informing the reader in the preface that he has done so. French songs and

poems are given English form and content: François becomes Francis. idiomatic

expressions are often drawn from the banter of British schoolboys. (Simon 164)

Simon adds a very telling comment: "Roberts emphasizes that he has chosen to treat the book as a work of Iiterature and not as a document" (Simon 164). Language levels and thematic considerations - whether the theme is universai or regional - and therefore appeai. must be weighed. Uhimately, the translater must ask whom and what he or she tvants to privilege before taking on a literary translation.

Postmodem. postcolonid literature encompasses works beyond conventiond fiction. as does Belle-Moue. Literature now inctudes historiography. meta-fiction and biographies. to name a few. Belle-Moue, part biography, part autobiography, is a blend of facm1 content and fictional style. It is a true account of a parent-chiid relationship, beginning with the detaits of the death of the author's mother. Belle-Moue, and tracing her history back. c hapter by chapter. to the birth of Belle-Moue some decades ear!ier. 1t reads li ke modem-day fiction which has been scored with factual information. The theme is universal. Authors from different cultural backgrounds have written about the life and death of a parent: Simone de Beauvoir and Michael Ipnatieff, among others. have recounted the mother-to-daughter. mother-to-son legacy. The seaing for Belle-:Lfoue is regional: it is the life story of a Québécoise. in la Belle-Province. from 1988 back to

1909. The plot includes a distinct dimension - the veritable influence of religion and government on French Canada and women in particular. in the twentieth century.

Author. joumalist and educaror Huguette O'Neii was born. tvas educated and has spent her Me working in the province of Québec. She has written three novels - Propos sur la vie (1 987). Belle-!Cloue ( 1992). and Fascinante IV& ( 1996), as well as poetry and countless newspaper ruid magazine micles. She has taught. at the Université de

Sherbrooke. has hetd government posts. and was ~sponsiblefor the changes to the

Québec Government's poiicy on maternity leave in 1978. She continues to write. sits on literary boards and resides in the Eastern Townships. Her second book. Belle-Moue

(Tryptique 1992). ramed her literary recognition - the Prix Gasron-Gouin in 1992. and the Prix Juge-Lem- in 1993. Literary critics. such as Pierre Salducci of Le Devoir newspaper. have praised her for her knowledge of the analyticai and for her sensirivity, insight and abiiity to put such a delicate topic on paper. Circumstance and timing brought this author and this transistor together in the fa11 of

1992. Belle-Moue became a catharsis for me as my own mother had recendy passed away. The universdity of the narrative, as well as its close-to-home theme, stmck a chord. At the time. 1 was searching for a book to translate for my MA thesis at the

Université de Sherbrooke. After mulling over many possible thesis subjects. 1 chose

Belle-Moue; fominately. my project was accepted. not only by the University, but also by the author. From the time O'Neil approved my request to translate her recir. we have met frequently, which 1 found to be an indisputable privilege.

Much has been witten on rransiation theory, and the aurhor/translator correlation. Phiiip

Stratford. reflecting on his translation of Antonine Maillet's Pélagie-La-Churrerre, likened the relationship between author and translator to that of two individuals walking side by side. ideally in stride: it is not an obvious exercise. One of the two walkers. in this case the translator. has to adjust to the gait of the other. the author. -4s he States:

It is not a question of suppressing one's own individudie: there are always two

walkers. One rnust rernain perfectly natural oneself and yet îïnd the motion.

gesture and respiration in oneself which best accommodates the personality of the

other - that is the challenge. (Stratford 128)

In the course of transiating Pélagie-La-Charrette. Stratford avoided establishing too close a relationship with the author. and instead ". ..submitted to the rule of the mange alchemy of separateness and difference.. ." (Stratford 129). 1s this logicai? Yes. in some cases. Most translators do not have the lumiry of probing the author's mind. like a dictionary, in order to fmd the truest meaning of a word, expression or passage. And if the translator is afforded such a pnvilege, will the author whose book has long since been published, in every instance return with the sarne conclusion? Who cm say? Authors, like al1 people. \ive their daily lives with their ve. own perceptions of reaiity and varying interpretations of what they see. If an author were asked to rewrite even a single page from a previously completed novel. it is highiy unlikely that she or he would restate that page word for word. Not because of a memory lapse alone. but also because the mind set changes with tirne and outside intiuences. Similarly, there is little chance that a translator will render an original work in its purest sense. As is the case with the author. there will aiways be variations.

AS 1 translated the first twenty-five pages of Belle-Moue for my Séminaire de mémoire. i considered the target readership: Would 1 faithfully retlect the Québécois culture of the

réci;? Would 1 adapt it to anglophone readers? 1 chose to emphasize the transmission of

factual content set in a difficult penod of history in French Canada. Yet throughout the

translation, the human element in the book governed my thought process. This becarne

apparent when the true meaning of a sentence in the opening paragraph becme the object

of a discussion during the Séminaire de mémoire. The following is the passage in

question:

Juillet 1988. Le vendredi ij. ma mère est décédée à 1 'hôpital où. deur jours plus

tôt, on lui concédait un lit d 'obsewarion en salle d'urgence. La canicule d'une

implacable intensité est venue à bout de ses forces. Le médecin a dit a ma soeur

Marthe :(( Vous préviendrez la famille, nous débrancherons le respirateur vers les

dix heures demain matin.)) (O'Neil 1 1)

vii Originally, 1 had translated the passage as:

Juty 1988. My mother passed away on the fifteenth. a Friday, in the very hospiai

where she had been placed under observation in the emergency room just two

days earlier. The epitome of strength itself had corne to the end of her rope.

The doctor told my sister Marthe: "Please let the farnily know that your mother

wiil be taken off the respirator at around ten o'clock tomorrow moming." (my

onginai translation 3)

That is how my mind interpreted the words within the context of the opening paragraph.

So emotionally involved was 1 in the death of the mother that. in my reading. canicule was a metaphor for her. The translated passage was not accepted by the jury. Not convinced of my mistake. 1 did further research and discovered that no dictionary offers a sensjgrrré to the word canicule. 1 realized that I had been caught up in the emotional impact of the novel. and had projected my own meaning into the passage. 1 retranslated the sentence into: "The unrelenting heat wave had finally had the better of her" (my final version 3).

Later. another event revealed how rny reading was blinded by emotian, Men i contacted the author to tell her that 1 had completed the first drafi of the transiation. she was grateful. I had given her a wonderfil birthday gift. 1had called her exactiy one day after her birth date. lanuary 6?which she clearly States on page 72. paragraph three. ofthe book. Facts. such as this date. had not registered neariy as much with me as the underlying human element of her memoirs, and my interpretation of them. In the introduction to his Le ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the ~Llusicof Language, Douglas R.

viii Hofstadter states it in a nutshell when. commenting on the various translations into

Engiish of a poern by Clément Marot. Mu mignonne, which he submitted to a nuniber of

translators for analysis (his book is a compilation of the various translations), he

concludes: "Each one enriched my vision of the deep hurnanity that lies behind true

translation" (Hofstadter xxi). If 1 had continued to overlook the obvious. what would the

outcome have been? Trahison? Yes. I suppose. Yet, my first choice in the translation of

the opening paragraph. in its variance. was an apt description of Belle-Moue under the

circumstances. So much said about so few words. but that is the essence of translation.

One major change had to be made to my 25 pages of translation. As 1 had begun to

recount Belle-Moue in English. 1 had retold the story using the narrative past tense. For

instance. 1 had translated the author's: "La gorge nouée, les yeux secs. je m'enfonce dans

la nttit" (O'Neil 1 1) into: "1 drove on into the night. dry-eyed. with a lump in my throat"

(rny original translation 3), and so on wherever 1 thought it to be appropriate. Such a

change of tense - from the narrative present in French to the simple past in English - is

cornmon in a pragmatic translation of documentary material. A very clear and valid point

was made during my Séminaire de mémoire. Although the pst tense was standard for

retelling past events. it diminished the situational impact of the narrative. 1 had not

considered how tenses affect a story. 1 realized at that moment how the reader would be

more effectiveiy drawn into the story with the present tense. 1 retranslated the passages in

question and throughout the book have made a conscious decision to render Belle-hfoue

with as much drawing power as did the author. One final important point on these issues:

editors are an invaluable resource. The week 1 was just about finished editing my first completed version of the translation. I received a cd1 from the author. She asked if she could have a copy of the translation to cake with her to Boston. She was going to visit her son who is a restaurateur just outside the ci., and at the same time to meet wirh a literary agent. an acquaintance of her son, who had shown interest in reading Belle-Moite in English. Of course 1 agreed! But later. it came to me that 1 had translated the book for an English-Canadian readership. 1 had made a conscious effort to keep it "in the family." as they say. 1 had been trained to *te using Canadian-style English spelling: favour not favor, anaesthetised not anesthetized.

(My cornputer is underlining American spelling as 1 write). This realization prompted me to retlect more deepiy on readership and to resolve some outstanding issues. 1 had been undecided about how to render in English the names of geographic locations and other

French proper names - whether to retain the French. and thus retain the flavour of the original. or whether to adapt to English usage. thus privileging a predominantly English readership. The question focused my attention on an underlying theoretical issue: using

Venuti's terminology (passim) was 1 iû "domesticate" the translation. producing a seamless. fluent Engiish text that contained few surprises for the reader. or was 1 to

"foreignize." using language that would evoke the foreign by encornpassing non-standard and unexpected elements. Initially, 1 had planned not to translate key French names and tems. yet 1 had also made a conscious decision to make the translation as "reader fnendly" as possible. The question was a fairly critical one. as the text is full of proper names and names of geographical locations. To Mercomplicate the issue, the story takes place over the course of almost a centuy. in which standard usages and designations of places in Québec have changed. I decided to suike a balance between readability and foreign flavour by using a hybrid form for some proper names of geographic locations. 1 would translate generic terms such as rire. chemin.fleuve, so that the meaning would be clear to the English reader; however,

I opted to retain traces of French spelling of proper names. even if in conventionai

English usage these names would be anglicized. So. rue Sainte-Catherine became

"Sainte-Catherine Street." andfleuve St-Laurenr became "St-Lawrence River." Monrréal and Qirébec would remain as is. retaining their accent aigu Of course, with Québec I had to constantly specil if it was the city or province. In French it is understood that à

Québec refers to the city and uu Qitebec refers to the province: literally, both in Engiish are transiated by "in Québec." I decided to refer to le Québec as "the province of

Québec" and Québec as "Québec City." 1 retained the French spelling of al1 reverent proper names where i considered the meaning was clear - the feast of St-Jean Baptiste

DayISaint-Joseph. Saint DenidSainte-Catherine Street. Sacré-Coeur church. Saint-

Sauveur parish. and Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Coeur chapei. to narne a fcw. in order to strike a fair balance. For Huut Québec and Bas Qirébec 1 chose "lower Québec" and "upper

Québec" without caps. 1 sense that. in English. the implication of living on the "lower" or

"uppef' side of a city or community is understood. 1 made the same decision with parishes. churches. chapeis. cemeteries. maintaining the French proper name with English qualifies. 1 translated ecclesiastic titles such as aumônier. soeur, monseigneur. vicaire. abbé. into English equivalents for the most part. but kept French titles as such and capitalized them - Mère Marie de 1 'Immaculée-Conception.Mère. Tante. Oncle.

Madame. hfademoiselle: they provided a situational French touch throughout the translation without hindering the target readership. As such. there were instances of indecision over the ciarity of the English translation versus the essence of the French original. In most cases, they becarne the most trying aspect of the translation. To main or to adapt? When. how? Consistency. readability. tlow. Finding the right balance proved to be a recdng exercise throughout the novel.

[ thus focused more clearly on who my readership would be. The increased number of cross-culturai readers of books translated into English has opened up the TL market.

Men a text is translated into English. it can be adapted to a particular target dialect or community. Would 1 adapt my translation for a distinct regional readership and dialect?

For example, I could have the option of translating Belle-e cloue into an Irish "slice of life" memoir: the theme being universal and the influence of the Catholic Church not being foreign to a portion of the Irish population, it could work. This being said. the following excerpt from Belle-Moue could have been translated for more than one audience.

Juin 1939. La naissance de sa detlrièmejille est espacée de trois ans et demi de la

première. Ceci avait de 1 'importance pour Bertha. Elle considérait les femmes qui

accortchaient une fois par année comme des . :Va mère etait en

amour avec ses deux bébés et ne voulait les partager avec quiconque, méme pas

mec son mari. leur père (O'Neil65)

1 translated the passage for a broad English-speaking readership.

June 1939. The binh of her second daughter occurs three-and-one-half years after

the first one. This meant a lot to Bertha. To her way of thinking women who had

babies every year were "dimwitted." My mother adored her two little ones and

wouldn't share them with anyone. not even with her husband, their father. (54)

xii 1 could have translated the passage into Irishese.

Tis June of 1939. The second child. another girl now?cornes into the world three

years and çome only after Mm's first. It means a lot to Bertha it does. Tu her

rnind. the women who bring them into the world year deryear are "eejits" they

are. Marn. she loved her two Meones. wouldn't share them with no one. no. not

even with her old man. their Pa.

1 suggest this Iast transiation simply to illustrate one of many possibiiities open to a translater. 1 chose to write for a wider range and more standard readership. As Stratford put it when he undertook the translation of Pélagie: -7 was not a dialectologist" (Stratterd

125). To render a translation into a dialect - into Edinburgh Scots, as was done with

Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-Soeurs. or into Québécois jouai, as Michel Garneau did with Shakespeare's Hamier. or into another dialect - was not an option.

As 1 stated earlier. the author's voice. in generai. guided me throughout the translation of

Belle-Moue. [ had heard her speak when i met her and discussed the book with ber pnor to getting into the translation. and then again at the launch of her book Fascinante Nelly.

Having heard her speak in English on more than one occasion. her refined speech form inspired me soon into the trandation, At first. I wondered whether 1 should be trying to imitate the author's voice. then reflected on the question more so when 1 read the following passage by Philip Stratford in his analysis of Plagie La Charretre:

Speakiag of voices. was it a heip to meet the author? Yes, though it was not het

voice I imitated. Stili her vivaciousness. her style! her Iaughter - projected

xiii through her person, not just through her text - did contribute greatly to getting the

voice right. (Suatford 126)

The opportunity to meet the author of the original work can be beneficial in more ways than one. Meeting Huguette O'Neil influenced. but did not govern. my approach to the text. 1 soon determined that her speech in Belle-Moire was elegant. although seasoned with colloquialisrns which 1 found made the story more endearing and more meaningful. 1 think the balance she struck between the laquage levels was very appropriate to the nature of her work. Here. a quote by Stratford expresses the complexity of the author/translator relationship: "There's that contradiction again. Translation depends on the very closest of syrnbiosis and, yet, it depends absolutely on distance and difference too" (Stratford 128).

On the subject of voices. it might be asked if Belle-Moue is the product of a ferninist writer. 1 think not. Although a number of the experiences related are distinctly those of a woman. the emotional thread of the book and the author's style transcend the boundaries of gender. Some time ago, 1 wote a comparative essay on Huguette O'Neil's Belle-itloue versus Michael Ignatieff s Scar Tissue, a book which was also praised for its reaiistic and pmfound approach to the universai theme of losing a close one. Universal theme of losing a close one are key words. 1 believe, to explain the events in life that transcend affiliations. The following are excerpts from O'Neil's and Ignatieff s books respectively, on the first pages:

xiv 1 do not want to remernber her last hour. 1 do not want to be etemdly condernned

to think of her as she was in those finai moments. when we held her hands. rny

brother and 1, and she fought for life and lost. her mouth stretched open. gasping

for breath. her eyes staring sightlessly up into the lights. (Ignatieff 1)

L 'infimière retire les appareils a 11 h 25. Marthe tient la main gauche de

maman et moi, la droire. Louis. cru pied du lit. compte les minutes. .. .On la

regarde respirer. on suit le mouvement de son souHe. fOJNeil15)

and the last pages:

What 1 know now. what 1 have learned from her. is that there are two fonns of

death. not one. In one fonn. everything which holds us in this worid. everything

we love. may remain precious until the last insrant. (Ignatieff 198)

La première injustice de la vie. c'est qu'elle nous est donnée sans qu'on la

demande. La dernière injustice de la vie. c est qu'elle nous est enlevée le plus

souvenr sans notre consentement. (O'Neil 94)

and in between:

. .. her eyes which had been shut and which. by being closed. made her seem

completely out of our reach. suddenly opened. Blue-grey eyes, with a hint of

yellow in the iris, eyes now beyond sight, staring up into the ceiling above her

sons' heads, upwards, ever upwards. fixed like an exhausted swirnmer on the

shore. Then her eyes closed and she took the largest. most violent breath of ail, and we watched and waited, stood and looked at each other, felt for her pulse and

stowly, as seconds turned into minutes, realised she would never breathe again.

(Ignatieff 172)

Vers Il h 40, maman ouvre les yeux et fuie le plafond. L'infirmière dir :({Elle

plafonne, ce ne sera pas long maintenanr. )) Elle baisse ses paupières yu 'ellefuie a

l'aide d'un sparadrap. ((C'estmoins épeuranr ainsi)),dit-elle. Louis nous prévienr

que le rythme des respirations est plus lent et que la fin est proche. ibhman

pousse son dernier soupir a 11 h 50. 11 s'est écoulé vingr-cinq minutes entre Ir

débranchemenr du respirateur et le décès. (O'Neil 16)

If. in both novels. the daughter became a son and the son becarne a daughter. the narrative voices would not alter the universality of the experience. Again. a quote from

Hofstadter:

Carrying the "accent" metaphor into yet more remote temtoy. 1 ask: When a

male writes fiction. has he necessady a "masculine accent"? Matif he writes a

SION featuring a femaie protagonist? What if he empathizes enormously with her?

What if his entire novel is written. as was Norman Rush's Maring, in the first

person fiom a female point of view? Or. to tum this around, suppose a femde

reads a novel that was written, like Catcher in the Rye. by a male with a male

protagonist: Must her understanding of the events and emotions therein inevitably

have a "ferninine accent". or can she conceivably understand such a book "like a

native"? Must we read so much into so very little? (Hofstadter 4 1)

xvi Less noticeable, but still consciously seiected. some terminology in Belle-Moue and how to render the language levei became issues. On page one of Belle-Moue, the expression salle de soins inrensifs was cause for reflection: «La pluie er le venr s 'acharnenr à ralentir notre progression vers cette salle de soins intensifs ou repose ma mère» (O'Neil

1 1). "Rain and wind work against us. my husband Louis and 1. slowing down our joumey to the intensive-care room where lies my mother" (my translation 3). I opted for "room" rather than "unit" because I could hear the author's elegant English. rnuch like her elegant French. Although terms such as ER (emergency room) and ICU (intensive-care

unit) are regularly used in both Arnerican and Canadian hospital settings (in Engiish), 1

could not imagine my author using these particular expressions unless she had made a

conscious decision to do so in order to make a point. When she has made use ofparois

French. or colIoquialisms. she has done so for the purpose of realism: in Belle-Mour she

has spoken using the true Québécois voice of the twentieth century.

Because of the distinctly Québécois flavour of Belle-lbloue. 1 reflected at length over a

number ofexpressions: arnong others: de 5-10-15)) (O'Neil 76),a close translation in

Arnerican English being "the five and dime" (store). It is interesting that the author used

the French expression that she did. I have never heard it in speech form: perhaps it has

been cornmonly used in witten form. The French expression 1 remember distinctly, as do

other Québécois/Monrréalais. my mother included, is the French version le quinze-cenne

(15 cents) which my mother rendered into English as the "1 5-cent store." 1 enjoyed the

little backward trips to my own childhood while reading Belle-Moue. 1 can recdl my

xvii mother asking a daughter-in-law (three of hem were unilingual English, this particular one British): "Jean, do you want to go to the 15-cent store, 1 need to get a few things;" my mother was Québécoise de languefiançaise, born and raised on a farm just north of

Montréal. So, i opted for the "1 5-cent store" (65).

Another expression, pârk chinois, (O'Neil29), resonated from my past. My mother called it pâte chinois in French. but increasingly called it shepherd's pie in English in order to accommodate English-speaking members of the fmily. However, my recollection of the question: "Mama. what do you put in yourpafay shrnuah,"(as it was often pronounçed in

English), got me thinking more deeply. An article on French-Canadian dishes in the

English-language Montréal newspaper. The Gazette. contributed to my decision to keep pdi chinois in the English translation. According to the article. the Québec recipe originated in the American town of China, Maine. decades ago; as such. the name had historical roots. So many words about so basic a dish. but essential considerations in translation. Translation and translation theory need not be totaliy dy. caicuiated matters.

So, "1 5-cent store" and pâté chinois were lefi as such in the final translation. with my understanding that they might not be immediateiy intelligible, buthat they might be interpreted as local chann. In such cases, I made a conscious decision to privilege the source language.

O'Neil effectively situates expressions which are distinctly English. Certain passages of

her novel dating back some decades ago wheri English wideIy influenced French in

Québec -des jobines sur la slide ("jobs on the sly"), "Jack of al1 trades, master of none."

xviii "Pea soups" and "Blokes" - 1 lei? as is; they are now clichés. but because of the period of time in which the auhor makes use of them. they bring home the very strong uifluence of

English back then. In recent years. French has continued to borrow from English. but

English has also borrowed hmstandard word usage in French. For instance. 1 translated the word awroroure. which O'Neil uses in Belle-Moue (33). as such: "We retum home by way of the Eastern Townships autoroute" (24).

Moreover. since the 1960s. French-langage literature in Québec has increasingly included colloquial French. over which there has been much controversy and criticisrn. 1 took particular ppleasure in trying to render in English the meming of expressions such as une muuvaise passe. le ventre par-dessus la tête, s 'accorder. Yu. moi pis roé, putaraphes,

les vues, premier lit. and so many others. The challenge vas not merely to find a

translation for the words or expressions. but to tind an equivalent language level as well.

Belle-!\loue was so well wriaen. so well balanced that it would not be a simple task. The

following are sarnples of the many expressions found in Belle-tLioue.

- In a passage where she speaks of fiequent visits she made to church. as a child. with her

mother and sister. the French is as follows: ((Quandnous étions toutes petites. Marthe er

moi, maman nous y amenait souvenr. Quand elle traversait des mauvaises passes, nous

pouvions y aller jusqa 'ù troisfois par semaine» (O'Neil 21). I took into considemion

the colloquiaI flavour of naverser une mauvaise passe. and the passe/passage image of

the expression, and translated it into English by: "Maman would often take us there when Marthe and 1 were little girls. Wben she was going through hard times, we sometimes found ounelves there as many as tbree times a week" (13).

- 1 gave the same consideration to the following colloquiai French expressions:

((. . .madame Caron accroche ses couches routes jaunes sur la corde a linge avec un oeil au beurre noir en plus de son ventre par-âessus la tête>>(O'Neil69), which 1 rendered with: "...Madame Caron hangs out her yellow diapers to dry sponing a black eye in addition to her once again fat-with-cliild belly" (58). using an expression that would equal the denigrating implication of the original expression.

- The author chose to set apart the expression s 'accorder in brackets in «Ma mère critiquait sur tout et sur rien et n 'arrivait pas (à s'accorder) avec son entourage.. .))

(O'Neil68). to indicate that it was colIoquia1 and dated: I opted for "My mother found fault with everything and nothinç and was always 'Irard to gtalang with' .. . (57). 1 also set the expression in quotation marks because of its less fomal speech level in cornparison with the text in generai: 1 could have rendered the expression with "to get on with," which sounds slightly more formal but would not as accurately reflect the style of the original text.

One word which was particulariy challenging to translate was the mono-syllabic yet rnulti-functional expression Va. Possibly a vdgarization of voilà, it is a means of emphasizing or of surnming up a situation and cm be mlated many ways: "Oh yeah!"

"For sure!" "Yes indeedy!" "Yup!" "Uh-Huh!," and so on. 1chose to render the French passage of inner dialogue (( . ..tu collais ù lui comme une ventouse incapable d'autonomie pauvre maman va» (O'Neil57) with ". . .you stuck to him like glue incapable of being independent oh God poor you maman" (47). Here 1 am reminded of a passage by

Hofstadter on the Yiddish 0-y!,where he expounds on what some might coin

"untranslatables:"

Sometimes borrowed words can give us a whiff of the unique alienness of a

remote epoch or culture. Yiddish's Oy! comes to mind. Mereiy hearing that one

syllabie conjures up to me a whole raft of imagery: voices. faces. hair. modes of

dress. senses of humour . attitudes. houses. foods. smells. and so forth. If one

thinks ofevery single word in every language as being this deeply irnpregnated

with flavor. then one would have to conclude. most pessimistically, that nothing is

ever translatable. not even one word. not even one cognate. The Itaiians say it

best. of course: 'Transducersrraduce'. (Hofstadter 438)

He further adds:

...as you move up from the very local, to the intemediate to the global scale. you

find that ideas do corne across. In some sense. there is a grand cancellation - a

humongous cancellation - of the myriad minute flavor differences. and the result

is, at least in the best of translations. an efficient and deeply faithful transmission

of experience and attitude. Eppur si rraduce. (Hofstadter 428)

I took painstaking pleasure in translating al1 words and expressions of the kind. because they are totally comected with rny own upbringing; I had to find the ciosest approximation possible. In Duff s words:

xxi What I am suggesting here is that words have associations. that the native speaker

or reader intuitively grasps these associations. and that they aiso affect the way in

which language structures and organizes reaiity. .. . Le. distinctions exist because

there are words for them , . ..the reaiity of one language may not match that of

another. (Duff 1 1 1)

Duff speaks of the difficulty of trying to combine the 'underground' world of associations and implications with the 'above-ground' worid of clear de finitions in order to corne up with the best possible translations. In other words. the translater's challenge is to transfer the SL's underiying message, stated in that language's particular syntax and words, into a faitfil TL message that reflects the TL'S distinct style. The key word for tramlators is "choices." which cm be most clearly illustrated with a passage tiom Belle-

Moue:

Les foyers-garderies pour gens âgés sont des ghettos de morts en sursis à courr

terme. Les vieux sont là, un peu comme en entreposage avant la livraison a

l'incinérateur. Des condamnés à mort mis en situation de vivre plusietrrs morrs

par personnes interposées. A intervalles irréguliers mais sans manquer de

s 'arrêter dans sa rournée. la grande faucheuse réduit u néant les dernières

amitiés nouées non sans d~flcultépar des coeurs qui battent au ralenti.

(O'Neil3 1)

A literal translation could read as follows:

Care centres for elderly people are short-term ghettos for death on hold. The aged

are there, as if in storage before being delivered to the incinerator. They are those

xxii condemned to die and put into the situation of reliving many deaths by the

intermediary of other people. At irregular intervais but without stopping on its

path, the great reaper reduces to nothing the last difficult links of fiiendship by

hearts beating at a reduced pace.

The message is somewhat accurate. but the style is less than eloquent. My translation, the result of a series of choices. reads the following way:

Homes for elderly people are ghettos offering a short-tenn respite from death. Otd

people are kept there as if on hold before being shipped off to the incinerator.

Condemned to die. they are subjected to reliving death over and over again

vicariously through others before them. Irregularly but without fail. the Grim

Reaper severs ail frai1 ties of friendship that remain between ailing hearts. (20)

The paragraph in question contains a human element which defies literal translation.

Here. the translater must stand back and look at the overall sombre message and underiying emotionai thread that bind the passage. There are explicit yet distinct words and expressions in the TL to render the meaning of the SL text. As such. rather than use

"care centres" or other similar expressions. 1 opted for "homes" because the terrn is more colloquiai and its meaning widely understood in English within the given context. 1 chose

"old people" because it is as denigrating in attitude as the French les vieux. 1 chose "on hold" simpiy because it was less literal, and "shipped off' because of its demeaning connotation. again fixing in the given situation.. In the next sentence, 1 chose the verb

"subjecied to" because. again. the intention is generally negative. and the adverb

"vicariously" because it is instinctively appropriate to the situation at hand. FinaiIy, 1 opted for the "Grim Reaper" which. although it is not inciuded as an equivalent in al1 bilingual dictionaries, renders the underlying message accurately in the TL, and "ailing hearts" because the message is both physical and emotionai in nature. This version. although certainly not the only possibility, is as faithful to the English language as it is to the original French language.

One cannot translate words aione. Literai translations rarely result in good reads. As Duff asked:

How does the translator corne to be trapped in this third language? Often it is

because. having read - and understood - the original text he assumes both that

everything said needs to be said and that nothing has been omitted in the source

language that might be required in the target language. In other words. he sees the

originai text as being complete. and hesitates to add to or reduce it in length.

(Duff 1 16)

Duff warns against succum bine to the omnipotence of the source language. The reader of a "close" translation. he maintains. "would conclude either that the original was badly

written or rhat the translator lacked feeling for his own language" (Duff 1 16). This type

of translation is what he refers to as the "Third Language," a hybrid text, faithful to

neither the SL nor ïL.

In addition to using varying levels of language, O'Neil resorted to another effective

means of recounting her memoir: the "stream of consciousness." In J.A. Cuddon's

Dictionas, of Literary Terms and Literary Theory it is detined as: "A term coined by

xxiv William James in Principles ofPsychoiogy (1890)to denote the flow of inner experiences" (Cuddon 91 9). Many authors have adoptai the suearn-of-consciousness technique, among others. Marcel Proust. Henry James, Dostoievski, William Faulkner. and Virginia Woolf. but James Joyce is credited with having used the technique to its limit, or in Cuddon's words: ". ..to a point ne plus ultra in ülysses. " Cuddon adds: "The climax to ths extraordinary work is the forty-odd page interior monologue of Molly

Bloom. a passage which has onIy one punctuation mark" (Cuddon 919). In stream-of- consciousness passages in Belle-Moue. O'NeiI chose to eliminate punctuation and most capitalization altogether. and to set the text in question in itaiics:

nefaires pas de brriiir restez rranquille ce ne sera pas longfermez les yeux fuites

une prière dites merci ci la sainte Vierge cessez de vous chicaner déboutonnez vos

manteaux il fair chaud ici usso-vez-vous levez-vous sortons (O'Neil2 1) which 1 translated by:

don 5 make noise be qiiier ir won I be long close your eyes say a prayer sqv rhank

you to the BIessed Virgin s~opfightingrrndo your coats if S ivarm in here sir down

get up let s go ( 13)

O'Neil reflects the thought process by elirninating the puncniation. setting the parqraphs apart. and using itaiics to incline the words as if they are blowing in the wind, The resulting light flow of words and lines lends a sophisticated air to the monologues and is effective in easily txansrnitting the plethora of thoughts that run through one's mind. Iier

method ties in well with her overaii graciousness in rendering her subject matter. Blessed Motherhood. These are the words 1 chose to cap my translation into English of

O'Neil's Belle-Moue. How did 1 arrive at this title? 1 didn't. It came to me, "out of the blue" as they Say. Since the beginning of the translation, 1 had mulled over some possibilities, brainstonned at one point, considered hîorherhood. Morherhood in Québec,

Ode ro Motherhood, Ode ro Québec Mothers, (Mother Dearesr was not an option, it was too close to Mammy Dearest. a wracking novel written on a former celebrity by her adopted daughter). Translating the title Belle-Moue literaily was never considered; it is a tenn of endearment for Belle-1Mouman/hfaman/hlère.Mother-in-law. a hybrid which works well in the SL. but becomes one of what Duff refers to as Weores'

"impondérables," words or expressions dificuit to assess (Duff 1 1 1). When a title is not literaily tramlatable, the translator must delve deeper into the original text in order to find a passage, an expression or an image that embodies the essence of the novel. For instance. the title of Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion, literally "second-hand happiness," was translated as The Tin Flure. a reference in the original novel to a toy given to a sick child by a nurse. perhaps the only toy he ever had. For Belle-lbloue it was a question of searching for a title that would best represent the theme of motherhood under church and governrnent scnitiny. Blessed (venerable, spiritual, and cursed)

Motherhood (a much praised but little valued life cornmitment) - it also echoed the initiai

leners B for Belle/Blessed and M for Moue/!Morherhood, the aurai dimensional sound of

the onginai. I believe Blessed Morherhood embodies Huguene O'Neil's Belle-Moue

accurately and with due respect for the novel as a whole. A final thought goes to Duff on constraints of time: "One of the translater's senous problems is, of course, the lack of time. It takes far less time to translate a text without thinking of possible cuts or additions than it does to think through each paragraph to arrive at the right sequence of thought in the target Ianguage" (Duff 1 17).

1 can think of no better way of concluding than to borrow from the author's flowing

sequences in Belle-Moue:

have i said enough have / rendered ail aspects of the original work have I been

foithfui to the forger readership ivhere do Igoj-om here rhank you Hugirette

O 'Neilfor your inspiring Belle-ihue rhank you IO al1 who have grided me

personally and through iheir wise worh thank you dear parentsfor making me

bilingual possibly some day 1 will be trilingual polyglotte somerime in the firture f

trust rhat I will read BIessed Moiherhood and prociaim Traduire, c'est enrichir!

(O'Connor) TRANSLATION

Blessed Motherhood

a translation of

Huguette O'Neil's Belle-Moue

Translated b y Suzanne O'Connor There is no such rhing as a natural dearh: norhing thar happens ro a man hvoman) is ever narural. since his fher) presence calls rhe world inro quesrion. Al1 men (womeni musr die: but for every man (womani his (her) dearh is an accident and. even ifhe (she)kno~vs ir and consenrs ro if. an iinjusrifiable violation.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

(the parentheses are ours) July 1988. My mother passed away on the 1SIh, a Friday, in the hospital where she had been placed under observation in the emergency room just two days earlier. The unrelenting heat wave had finally had the better of her. The doctor told my sister Marthe:

"Please let the family know that your mother will be taken off the respirator at around ten oTcIocktomorrow morning."

As 1 hung up the phone, 1 thought about how we had an appointment with death.

Was Belle-Moue, the epitome of dependency, one capable of instilling guilt for her suffering in everyone, to disappear forever from the portrait of my life?

1 push on into the night. dry-eyed, with a lump in my throat. The drive from Cape

Cod to Montréal takes seven hours. Rain and wind work against us. rny husband Louis and 1, slowing down our journey to the intensive-care room where lies my mother. Louis asks me: "Are you al1 right? How do you feel?"

1 feel numb. Anaesthetised, as if ready for surgery. After all. 1 am about to lose a part of myself. The nwse motions straight ahead. 1 push back the cumin that divides the cluttered room. Maman is like a pnsoner tied dom to her bed. Her restraints consist of variaus needies and tubes attached to her head. arms and legs. A machine is blowing air into her lungs, so tbat she may breathe.

She has never iooked so bioated. so swoUen. Her flesh hangs loose from her body.

The bags under her eyes sag to mid-cheek. and jowled cheeks reach to her collarbone.

The si& of her is pititûl and offensive. I tum to Louis: 'Tm glad the children didn't corne wiih us."

1 move closer to her and touch her hand. She doesn't respond. 1 speak to her: "Tt's

me. Muguette. Louis is here with me. Both of us are right here next to you." Again. no

reaction. Her every heartbeat is rnonitored. The respirator maintains it at a steady pace. A

srnail screen telIs us that. by the grace of technology, Belle-Moue is still alive.

She has no idea that she has only a Cew remaining hours left to live. or rather to

take her final breaths. She is oblivious to the fact that she has corne to the end of her 79

more often sad than happy years. She lies there in a deep coma which is just as well. For

once. she won't fiet over sornething or other.

As 1 sit by her bedside. holding her hand. 1 recall the most distant image of my moher's presence in rny life.

iMaman Maman hur? please corne rescue me corne ger me quick I 'mdroivning my pail is pulling me down I'rn wallowing warer too much warer I can I brearhe I'm choking Maman Maman

I'm jusr a litrie girl the currenr is pulling ar me I'm holding on righr tighr ro m*v pail wry tight as ifro an anchor the warer is coming rrp rrp up the rvarer is over my head

Im going ro die I'm dying Maman

maman Maman you saved me comforred me hugged me I ivas so afiaid rime ujkr rime the nighzmare has come back I wake up cwing again and again and again yu come back CO sme me

When Louis and 1 showed up far the meeting scheduled for us by Maman's ultimate death, Marthe was already there. She had been waiting for us dong with others who, like us, stood by helpless over the imminent passing on of a close one. Obviously beside herself, Marthe collapsed into our arms. Her escalating sobs resounded down the corridor. She cned a lament, a requiem of sorts for a dying rnother.

My sister, closer to Maman than 1 was. was overtaken with grief. Always part of our rnother's everyday life, she took care of her. saw to her personal needs, and knew her most intimate secrets. One day she told me: "Are you aware that Maman's bladder has sagged so low that it hangs between her thighs?" Belle-Moue had a blind feu of les docrezrrs. as she referred to them. Her first-ever stay in hospital since the rime she had corne into this world had been only ten years before.

The physician cornes for us and together we approach Belle-Moue's bedside.

"Your mother went into cardiac arrest sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday rnorning and hasn't regained consciousness since. even though she's been on a respirator.

Her vital signs indicate that she's clinically dead. If you insist. we can attempt to resuscitate her, but 1 don't advise it. Chances are she'll Iinger on in a vegetative state like others in this hospital. 1 need your consent to tum off the respirator. Would you like to talk it over among yourselves?" Marthe and 1 look at each other and gesture that we do not. We are decided: the respirator is to be turned off. The young physician had asked for our consent merely as a formality.

1 can hear Maman's voice far in the distance. Her first haemorrhage had left her in a desperate state.

ifonly 1had died if would be done with 1was reaày to die 1had resigned myselfto the fact I wus dying slowly as the bloodjlowed this gentle death suited me ifoniy les docteurs had understood that I wanted norhing to do with their rreatments ifonly they didn 'r have this bad habit of'saving everyone even those who jirsr wani to die I would be dead and it would be over wilh

Never before had Belle-Moue shown siens of heart trouble. She seemed co have a strong hem. It would never have occurred to us that she suffered from medical conditions such as cardiac hypertrophy, aortic stenosis and myocardiac fibrosis. Afflicted as she was. how could she have hoped for a good quality of life?

Louis asks Docteur Durand: "How long will she linger once you've tumed off the machine?" "lt's difficuit to say," answers the young physician. "A half-hour, an hou. a half day, the night, it ail depends."

The nurse unhooks al1 of the equipment at 1 125 a.m. Marthe is holding Maman's left hand. and 1: her right hand. Louis, standing at the foot of the bed. is counting the

minutes. Maman's breathing fills the room. That is it, al1 that can be heard. We watch her breathe, follow her every movement. Every breath of air she takes is noted: another. another still. 1 feei rny heart swell. tears fil1 my eyes. They flow gently, quietly.

Marthe is speaking to her: "We're here with you. don't be afiaid." In case she can hear us.

At approximately 1 1 :10 am. Maman opens her eyes and stares blindly at the ceiling. The nurse tells us: "She's almost gone. it won't be long now." She lowers

Maman's eyelids and covers them with adhesive tape. "It's less disturbing this way." she says. Louis warns us that her breathing has slowed dowm. that the end is near. Mman breathes her last breath at 1 150 a.m. Twenty-five minutes have passed from the time the respirator was shut off until Maman's final moment.

[ medto Marthe: "As of this moment. your life and mine have changed forever."

the telephone the ringing telephone an infernal noise for Marthe a constant obsession Belle-Moue at the other end three fotrrfive times a day especially Saturdays and Siindays whar are you doing ivhere are the kids 1need cigarettes cough drops roo you haven 't le3 yet I 've been cvaiting since this morning corne and get me let's go eut ar

Sr-Huberr BBQ you Te neglectingyour mother the days are long

A denurse has clipped off Maman's wedding band and the diamond ring that she had never taken off the third finger of her left hand. "Papa had bought his girlfiend's engagement ring in a tavem fiom a forsaken lover for twenty-five bucks," recalls Marthe.

Docteur Durand asks for our consent to have an autopsy perfonned. He suspects

Maman had lung cancer. What about the bump on her back? The truth is that Belle-Moue was first and foremost a victim of osteoporosis. a sometimes hereditary disease. characterized by her hurnpback.

Once the necessary forrns are filled out, we glance at Maman's body one last time. then make our way to the cafeteria.

What to do now? Where to start? The ihree of us sit there. hunched over our cups

of coffee. 1 hold back my tears. 1 want ta avoid having Marthe dissolve into sobs and

draw attention to us in the cafeteria. We rnust be discreet in our grief: this is not the right

moment to dispiay our emotions.

Marthe suggests that we go back to her place. have something to eat, as we look through the yellow pages of the telephone book. First we must contact a mortuary to handle Maman's remains. Then, notiQ our family and friends.

Louis, who had gone through the same ordeal two years before at the time of his father's death, suggests that we use the services of a fimeral CO-operative.1 sigh with relief when Marthe offers to go with him. By nature 1 have always been one to bction in a sort of stupor when too overcome with emotion. 1 go into a transfixed state. a form of suspended animation.

It looks to be a pleasant day and not too warm, for the first time in two weeks.

While 1 wait for them to get back from their meeting with the funeral director, 1 stretch out on a lounge chair on the veranda. Events are muddled in my head. 1 desperately need to take stock of the situation. to understand the meaning of death.

Maman's body had shown signs of decomposing as much as forty-eight hours before her death. Swollen as she was. her appearance had changed: she was no longer the same person. Tornorrow. at the morgue. her body, on the verge of decay, will be piaced on a coid slab for the autopsy. Using a scalpel. the pathologist will make a long incision from the neck to the pelvis. Cut dom the middle. Maman's body will be little more than a rnass of flesh, fat and entrails. For the purpose of research and family medicai history, the doctor will examine the heart. lungs, intestine, liver. kidneys, biadder. uterus and genital organs. In Bertha

L.'s file he witl list minor and major afflictions that had made her life so dificult.

cardiac symphysis adenopothy hemungioma diverticulmis polyiithiasis hydronephrosis arrophy fibromyomu

t'rn not sure that they bother to sew the pans back together before sliding the

body into a disposai bag. When my father-in-Iaw. Louis-Couillard. passed away, the sight

of his body in a plastic bag shed light on a truth I couid no longer dismiss: it was indeed a

mh bag that went into the incinerator.

''The director of the CO-opentivecannot cremate Maman's body for another three

or four weeks. For the time being, the crematoriums in Montréal aren't able to keep up

with the demand. Elderly people have been dropping Iike flies since the heat wave

began." explains Marthe. "LM1 then. he'll keep the remains in the refngerator at the

morgue. "

1jumped up when they came in. Right then my mind flashed back IO the famiiiar

scene of Louis answering the phone in a jocular manner: "Hello,this is the morgue: our

specidity is cold cuts." He ofien played this joke on hiends of our teenage children when the phone lines seemed to be overheating. He has a gift for dark humour.

One day my youngest daughter. Lucie. asked me: "Why did you marry Papa?"

"Because he made me laugh." said 1.

Marthe. who has kept in touch with family members she likes to visit once in a while. insists on giving them the news. "Poor Bertha what a sad life! Maybe it's bener this way. At the very lest. she won't suffer anymore." With linle exception. the aunts and uncles have the same reaction.

Most of them are on their summer vacations and preparing to leave the city for the cooler countryside. In truth. it isn't a good time to invite anyone CO a funeral. Besides. we wouidn't be getting Maman's ashes for another three or four weeks. Also. Louis and 1 want to give our second daughter. Christine. the time to get here fiom the Indies. We haven't seen her in four years. Would this be the happiness that inevitabiy follows the sadness? We don? dare believe it.

Marthe and 1 both agree to postpone the funeral untii the beginning of the fall. We

will invite famiiy and friends to corne and say a 1st goodbye to Bertha. We could have a

low mass in the Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur chape1 in the ofd sector of Québec City. Maman wouid ohen take us there when Marthe and 1 were linle girls. When she was going through hard tirnes. we sometimes found ourselves there as many as three times a week. Each time. we two little girls wouid be sure to light a candle. As chiIdren, we never ceased to be enchanted by the glow.

don 't make noise be quiet ir won 'r be long close your eyes say a prayer say thank you ro rhe Blessed Virgin sropjghring undo your coars it 's warm in here sir down ger up

ler S go

It ofien saddened me that since my father's death Maman had stopped practising

her religion even if, for her as for many other Québécois, it served as nothing more than a

cmtch. She would have been bener off had she sought this kind of help for the

insurmountabte pain she felt at losing her husband so young - in his early fifties - than to

reson to the habit she adopted and maintained until a few years before she died: alcohol.

My mother becarne an alcoholic when rny father died. It tvas the only inheritance

he bequeathed to her.

Bertha had an innate fear of living. Rollo May, the Arnerican psychoanalyst,

refers to this "life fear" in the foilowing way: "This is the fear of living autonomously,

the fear of being abandoned, the need for dependency on someone else. It shows itself in the need to throw one's self so completely into a relationship that one has no self lefi with which to relate. This fear of self-actualisation is most typical in women."'

1 always refwed instinctively to model myself after my mother. In rejecting the model. 1 rejected the woman. Over the years. 1 did everything in my power not to let myself be influenced by her. She was to me an obstacle to my i~ergrowth. My constant smving towards self-filfilment has had its driving force in my dirsatisfaction with the model proposed by my mother. md to this day, 1 am stiil striving to define myself.

Constantly oscillating between reason and sentimentah, the mother-daughter relationship 1 had livcd with for some forty years. from my adolescence mil her death. was nothing but a series of blatant or hidden conflicts. irreconcilable differences and responsibilities that weighed heavily on me.

Marthe's children turn down our invitation to take hem out for supper. They opt for micro-steamed hot-dogs in a rush to get to the gym. They faiI to realize that fiom then on, al1 St-Hubert BBQ restaurants will become shrines. Favourite places of worship that

1 O'Neii attributes the quote to Rollo May, whereas Qtta Rank, the early American 14 they were for Belle-Moue in the last years of her life. we go back to one, without her for the first the, the night of her death.

I can still see her eating her chicken with her fingers. her dentures carefully tuckeci into her pocket. "1 never got used to wearing my teeth." she would Say as a sort of excuse.

"And don't forget to order some white wine. it's good with chicken." Along with fish. chicken was her preferred food because it was easy to chew.

Sometimes. at the end of the meal. she liked to rerninisce about clever rernarks once made by her grand-children: "You remernber. don't you. the tirne that Bernard came home Frorn school and told us about his latest coup." She would already be laughing as she lit yet another cigarette. "When his teacher had asked him what instrument he piayed. he had answered: '1. sir, play the piccolo in Carmen S overture.' " He's Louis' son ail right !

We drop Marthe off at her home. Then. we make Our way to our motel. Tomorrow moming, we'll go back to Cape Cod where the children. Lucie. Bernard and his son

Kieman. are waiting for us.

Marthe takes on the task of cleaning out Maman's room. She plans to hire a mover and store everything at her place. "Keep it dl." 1 tell her. "1 don't want any of it."

psychoanalyst, is actually the source. 15 bed rnartress box spring chairs dresser armchair table lumps television knick- knacks prinrs ashtrays skirts blouses dresses shoes boots dippers overcoars hats sweaters stockings medication toiletries rowels shower curtain fan

"Whatever you do. don't forget anything." We'll probably be charged extra for the cigarette bms al1 over the linoleum and. who knows. for the yellow water stains in the

sin.and bathtub from leaky faucets not properiy turned off.

At the reception desk. the keys to our room are handed to us by B.. a former

rnember of the National Assernbly. He informs us that he is the proud owner of the said

motel-hotel. just opened for business. B. was recently implicated in a political scandai.

He was mixed up in a speculation deal involving land sold to a Swiss arms manufacturer.

Louis and 1 glance at each other. We think to ourselves: it is very naïve to believe that

crime doesn't pay.

After taking a nice hot bath to relax the muscles of my back, 1 stretch out on the

soft bed. 1 close my eyes. Sleep is slow corning. Little by little, the image of Belle- Moue's face becomes clear. Her disappointment is noticeable.

Maman Maman ir is al1 over rhere is no paradise no heaven no purgatory no hell

no Saint Perer ro greet you up rhere no Last Judgemenr jusr as rhere was no first judgemeni no God to granr yujustice no Lord as rhey said in rhe Middle Ages to granr

you favours

Maman Maman al1 the beliefi you nurtured in your mind are merely myrhs and fairy raies yes I know this trurh is very hard ro accepr bur so ir is

rime afrer rime afier rime these beliefs ,have made dying easier for individuois in

endless agony Maman Maman before morphine ivas discovered and intensive and

palliative care invenred dying was horrible the par of dying a horrid dearh led people to

seek the comforr of religion Maman Maman the belief in God wairing for rhem in heaven

gave [hempeace consolation security a father S protection dying Maman means reverting

to foeius and returning ro the earrh S womb

did you know Maman thar erernal lijie is found in the DNA that Papa and you have

passed on ro your nvo daughrers and this source of lijè has been rransmirtedflom

generation to generation since the very first unicellular blue algue 1 saw Maman for the 1sttime theweeks earlier. More precisely, on the weekend of St-Jean Baptiste Day. Our fiiends fiom Ottawa, Claire and Keith, had invited us dong with mutuai friends to a culturd getaway that weekend: a visit to the just-opened

National Gallery and to the Degas exhibit.

Of course Claire C. and the not. would have liked for us to join them on the

Lennoxville-Ottawa journey. However. 1 thought that on the remtrip we could stop in to see Maman if we had our own car. Louis agreed: "We won? see Belle-Moue again

before the end of August as we'lI be in Cape Cod," he pointed out.

Twenty minutes before arriving at the home for self-sufficient elderly people

where she had been living for three years. in the suburbs of Montréal, close to Marthe. 1

cail her: "Get ready, we're corning to get you. We'll go to a restaurant to eat," 1tell her.

She confesses that she isn't feeling very well. but chat she'll make an effort to get dressed

because going out will probably do her good.

The moment 1 get there. i notice how bloated she is. Her face in particular seems

distended. "1 think 1 beat a worid record geaing dressed; C've never done it so fast," she

tells us, between breaths.

To my utter surprise. Louis offers to take us to St-Hubert BBQ aithough the trip means retracing our steps three times over. He wasn't always willing to give in to

Maman's demands, particularly since they were not at al1 times reasonable. Later. 1 understood that he had no doubt felt that Maman was coming to the end of the road €aster than anticipated.

i notice that she's having more trouble eating than usual. She's so bent over that her chin almost drags in her plate. More than ever. we have to be careful not to make her talk whiIe she's eating to avoid her choking.

As she lights the last cigarette I saw her smoke. she goes on again about the same complaint. Marcel and Marcelle, the owners and directors of the home, are making life dificdt for her. "They make me wash my sheets every Tuesday. Wet sheets are heaw to carry fiom the washer to the dryer. Marcelle doesn't allow anyone IO help me. She wants

me to stay autonornous; otherwise, 1'11 have to leave."

A young couple in the prime of life, detemiined to enforce the criteria of self-

sufkiency for the elderly people they take in. Marcel and Marcelle fought relentlessly

against Maman's natural tendency to let things go. Her intrinsic dependency led her to be

served by those around her. Passive as she was. she pushed others to perfonn tasks that

were hers to do. Someone full of goodwill could quickly become her slave because, in

addition, she carried a weapon she now wielded well: pity. For the urnpteenth and final tirne, we stopped at the phannacy on the way home.

Maman loved to "do her shopping", as she would Say. The moment she sîarted pushing a cart down a store aisle. she would corne alive again. The children nicknamed her "the

Lazam of the shopping centre."

toiier paper facial tissue soap javel router talc powder vaseline carrons of cigarettes boxes of chocofares

Remarkably, Maman look very little medication; aspirin. milk of magnesia. calcium and valiurn sufficed. Alcohol long served as the cure for what aiIed her.

Marcel and Marcelle had been warned: under no circumstance is Maman to buy

Iiquor to dnnk alone in her room. Her one srnail glass of white wine with Sunday lunch is acceptable as long as the amount is controlled. Actually. Belle-Moue, who had stopped drinking out of fear of dying when she had her first haemorrhage a few years before. didn't put up rnuch of a fuss.

What was it that had pushed her at the end of the winter of '88 to convince her sister Cécile to bring her a bottle of cognac? We wiil never know. Maman did you want to commit suicide put an end to your boring life once and for ail stop dragging your bones ro the dining-room rhree rimes a day porridge eggs toast cofSee potatoes minced steakpeas tea biscuits pâté chinois jell-O you ivere fed up wirh being consripated then not constipared to the point of leaving rraces foo much prune juice rhen roo little prune juice heartburn sromach ache headache backache ache ache cognac ro forger it al1 to numb yoursevfor always

What we found out was that. in order to conceal the evidence. she had ernptied the

contents of the bottle into a plastic container. In less than twenty-four hours. she had consumed it al1 and, almost imrnediately, had started bleeding fiom the nose. Her iiver

could no longer keep up and so it stopped producing factor 8. Maman's blood no longer

coagulated. She ended up in the hospital in an overcrowded emergency room where beds

lining the comdor walls were not conducive to the peace and quiet normally prescribed

for patients. "I've never seen such a dirty place," declared Marthe.

1 don't think she ever recovered fiom the hard blow she had inflicted on her

system. The bafloon they had blown up in her nosuils to control the haemorrhaging had

caused injury. Wounds that didn't heal properly in her nose and the constant recurrence of

scabs made it difficult for her to breathe normally. In spite of it dl. she carried on

smoking more than a package of cigarettes a &y. The lac k of rational behaviour in my mother was always a pro blem for me.

Notably, her attitude towards smoking. For a good three months, she had managed not to smoke. following her stay in hospital after her tirst haernorrhage. Mien 1 asked her why she had started again, she told me: "It's the only pleasure I have left in Me." 1 Ied to understand, but her so-called pleasure cost her deariy in terms of side effects of al1 sorts: for one, shortness of breath. which hindered her walking.

Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst of German descent. explains that an individual unable to give up smoking is someone who constantly expects something from others. someone who has never been able to affin his or her personality and who. for that reason. is consumed by constant anxiety: smoking helps to salis@ receptive oral needs and to fend off anxiety. The description tits Belle-Moue to a tee.

Fear. Anxiety. Wony. Pain. There are a lot of synonyrns to describe the spinnial

state of an unhappy old woman constantly faced with death lurking in the shadows. A

roommate is rushed to the hospital to die from an overdose of valium and other

tranquillizers. Two close Friends she enjoyed chatting with at mealtime are smck by a

truck while on their way to the doctor. And so on. And so forth.

Homes for elderly people are ghettos offering a short-term respite from dearh. Old

people are kept there as if on hold before being shipped off to the incinerator, Condernned to die, they are subjected to reliving death over and over again vicariousiy through others before thern. Irregularly but without faii, the Grim Reaper severs al1 fiail ties of iiiendstiip that remain between ailing hearts.

Belle-Moue being the very opposite of an intellectual, it never occurred to her to give serious thought to the threat that weighed heaviiy on her. In other respects. her hyper-sensitivity certainly managed to keep her in a perpetual state of anxiery.

Escape. How rnany dream of escaping from these ghettos'? Alcohol. Pills. Sleep.

In short, ninning away. If only 1 had been able to put myself in her situation, I would have better understood her. Possibly.

The last time 1 kissed Belle-Moue - the terrn of endearment and shorter version of belle-mouman or belle-mère (mother-in-law), given to her by Louis - was when we retunied £rom the pharmacy the Sunday after the St-Jean Baptiste Day festivities. After helping her put away her purchases, 1 Say goodbye to her but not without noticing that there is less puffmess in her face. 1 think that some exercise has done her good. as is usually the case.

yes if's me Maman rhar I Ye always had trouble gerting close ro you caressing you kissing you my defnces wenr rhar far I \vas ajiaid of the trap of tendemess rhat ivould engulfme to keep me prisoner I \vas afiaid of you adhering to my skin bleeding me as you had dune with Papa I \vas afiaid of yoirr tentacles that would righten around my body iflgot too close ro yotr yes Maman 1)vas afiaid of the cannibalistic morher brooding in you

We return home by way of the Eastern Townships autoroute. Louis tues in to

Radio-Canada on the FM band. They are playing the last movement of Bach's

Brandenburg Concerto. A scene from my childhood takes form.

l am standing ar the window staring in the distance the school Z seefi.ighrens me i rvill never be able to learn to read to wite I cry powerless for the firsr rime in my life the feeling of despair rakes over my being ~blamanMaman you are there beside me you encourage me you are going to help me together we will learn don 't be afiard everyihing will go well I stare at the woman ironing at the convent across the way da, after day she irons clothes in a constant motion she never goes Our why musr she expiate her sins what did she do wrong she is going to have a child she is an unwed mother why is she being punishedfor having an innocent little baby later you will understand when you are big you will undersrand

Before going to bed 1 read Rollo May again. 1 look for the passage where he speaks of the fear of death that affects men mostly, as opposed to the tèar of life which. in mm, belongs to women. Belle-Moue included.

This is the fear of being rotally absorbed by the other. the fear of losing one's self and one's autonomy. the fear of having one's independence taken away. This is the fear most associated with men. for they seek to keep the back door open to beat a hasty retreat in case the relationship becomes too intimate."

How many unwed mothers have fallen victims of this fear. How rnany?

In this last week of June. final plans for the trip to Cape Cod and rny work as a journaiist - three articles to write between now and the end of the week - keep me

resolutely distanced from al1 concem regarding my mother's health. Why didn't 1 respond to her cry for heip? Why wasn't i able to get in touch with my mother when she asked Marthe to have me call her. one week before she died? Why?

Why ?

Because 1 had had enough. Enough is enough. And 1 had just started my vacation following an exhausting year af work. Article afier article. one after the other. week after week. wrirten quickly to respect deadhes. Then came the pubiicarion of my first book: organizing book launches. ming from bookstore to bookstore. sitting through long book signings, giving entenaining lectures. and whatever else.

And my back sending me constant signals that I'm tired. Keep on this way, my dear. and you're headed for a major bumout.

To call Belle-Moue. to ask how she is doing, would just add to the weight on my shoulders and my back was already givinp me too much grief.

1 had one wish only the first week of my vacation by the sea: to put aside my responsibilities. one by one, so as to lighten the load on my body which couldn't take any more.

What if al1 of this came down to mere excuses and self-justification? Am 1 or am 1

26 not guilty of neglecting my mother? Should I have agreed to take on her life as well as my own? Often the temptation to do that was great. Something unclear. uncertain. held me back. Saving myself was up to me and me alone. And in order to do that, 1 owed it to myself to take the necessary steps. even if it meant feeling guilty of not living up to my mother's expectation: that 1 would adopt her. A sixth child was more than 1 could handle,

A second long-distance cal1 cornes from Marthe: Belle-Moue is in one of her terrible States, She can no longer function auronomously at the home. Marcel and

Marcelle hoid their ground: their house is nor and will not be an infirmary. If things continue this way, we'll have to find her another place before long, hdBelle-Moue's

doctor is away on vacation. dong with 60 percent of the medical world. It's certainly not

the time to be sick. even less to die.

A heat wave has set in and won? let up. The thermometer fluctuates between 30

and 40 degrees Celsius. Maman is exhausted. She mostly stays in bed. She is forced to go

to the dining-room for meals. One day at lunch she shows up wearing only her underwear

and a shirt left unbuttoned. Outrageous. Residents voice their disapproval resoundingly.

Take her a uay to her room. they Say. Out of the question. reply the directors. Rules are

rules. Meals are to be eaten in the dining-room. nowhere else.

The following day? her soiled underpants. hl1 of excrement. are found undet her bed. She no ionger has the strength to make it to the bathroom. Marcelle and Marcei can't beiieve their eyes. They have never seen anything like it. It should be said that they are new to this sort of business. To open a home for the aged when in the prime of one's own life and to want to make money is one thing, but not to have planned for the unexpected borders on irresponsibility.

Marthe, not knowing what to think. asks for advice from a friend who works in a social-services centre. What to do? Doctors are dificult to tind. Showing up at an emergency room with Maman. even by ambulance. without medical authorization risks

being a futile trip. "And above dl, don't even consider taking her into your home."

advises her fiiend. "She wiii never be accepted at a respite centre."

Even Marthe. present and involved emotionally, did not realize that the days and

hours drifting away that early July were nothing less than a slow death for Belle-Moue.

And the respite centre was a useless alternative.

How is it that 1 refused to talk to her on the telephone one last time before she

died? Why? Why? Oh. why? One more time wouidn't have killed me, now would it?

Dam it dl, I should have, 1 should have.. .! Right now al1 the sins of the world, as weli

as my own, weigh heavily on my shoulders. According to Rollo May. al1 of us, men and women, are confionted with the fear of life and death. The former reaches out to the latter. seeking to live off the other's blood

like a parasite. The latter tends to protect itself from the other by retreating into a thicker and thicker shell.

Keeping one's distance from the other while maintaining an open ear. Not losing

sight of what's important. which implies listening more intently to one's inner voice. it

seems. is the key to overcoming the fear of life and death.

September 1988. We've made preparations for a personalized funerai service for

Belle-Moue. Marthe and 1 have put together a ceremony that suits both of us. Notices are

printed announcing the death of Bertha Lapointe-Tanguay to relatives and fnends. and

inviting [hem ta a mass sung by none other than a quanet composed of the Boutet sons. a

fmily of tenon greatly respected in Québec City. For the occasion. the Pères

Missionnaires du Sacré-Coeur agreed to allow the beral to take place in the chapel, as

space posed no problem. We would place the gold urn with Belle-Moue's ashes on the

altar rail together with a large photograph of her with her tirst great-grandson. Kiernan, in her arms.

When i called the chape1 to make the arrangements for the fimeral, the rnissionary father told me: "You know we can have the Boutet sons sing the hymns." At that moment an indelible, emotion-filled memory came to my mind.

At the beginning of my adolescent years. my father by himseif had built a fine- looking cottage along the St-Lawrence River. not far fiom the bridge to Québec City. with scrap material from the Québec grain elevator site where he worked. Nights when the moon was full. it was possible to make out a couple slowly and quietly walking am in arm by the cottage. A dark. slender young man was singing to an equally dark. slender young woman a French melody forever etched in rny mind.

Parlez-moi d'amour.

Redites-moi des choses tendres,

Votre beau discours,

Mon coeur n'est pas las de 1 'entendre.

This very romantic couple consisted of the tenor Pierre Boutet and Mademoiselle

Lépine. the daughter of a wealthy funetai business owner in the Old Capital. The Lépine farnily owed a summer residence close by. This scene as fiom a movie was playing itself out before our eyes and Maman and I were deeply moved by it. As is the custom in the province of Québec. and quite possibly elsewhere, funerals lend themselves to family gatherings. Uncles. aunts. cousins who haven't seen one another for years reunite in joy and sadness. Tears flow accordingly, either way.

The small chapel on Sainte-Ursule Street, filled with pots of gladiola purchased by Louis at the farm dong the road to the university and deposited in the choir area when we mived. bas not changed since Our childhood days. On this day, the chapel. full of people as it had been in the past for high mass on Sunday, appeared to me the appropriate place to take Belle-Moue back to one of the best periods of her life: that of a young rnother of two children, in love with her husband.

We fived on Saint-Denis Street. with the Citadelle de Québec as our neighbour across the street and its soldiers who frightened us. Maman. 1 can still hear you:

don 'r speak to the soldiers rhey are bad rhey rvanr ro hurr Iirrle girls don 'r accepr candy sr# on the sidewalk don 'r go fur keep your eyes openfor your father coming home

The apartment faced Alderman Street at the Saint-Denis Street intersection. From

the window, often and at length. I stared into the house across the street, where a

colourful pmtsat perched on a stand. When the weather was good. Maman would take

us to the park in the afiemoon. Wherever we stood. the river marked the distant horizon. what beauty you incorporated into my ive as a little girl Maman what ideas of rravel and adventure sproured in my child 's head ~Mamanfiomwarching the bouts corne and go on this ever-presenr river rhank you Maman for inciuding al1 this beau@ in my childhood

AAer the mass. we tormed a procession of cars and made our way towards the

Saint-Charles cemetery. There. we deposited the golden urn in a hole less than a cubic half-metre in size.

After twenty-eight long years of painhl widowhood, Bertha was finally going to join her Léopold. They found themselves on the same plot of land. bound together forever more in a rich humus of human remains found uniquely in cemeteries. The coming together of bodies in love as in death sets off a process of fertilization. Life and death are an inseparable entity very difficult to accept as an inevitable reality.

yes Maman I know the rragedy that your husband's myfarher S death rvos for you ir is as though they had cur offyour ieg arm halfofyour heurt and head he was no longer rhere for you to be nourished ivith his blood le4 to yourselfwithout this psychologicai susrenance you became perpetually anaemic you died with Paul somewhat a lot Maman rhis necrophiliac scenario must not repeot ifself in your daugh!ers In his book The Roud Less Trmeied. Scott Peck, in a single paragraph. explains the state of dependency on which rested my mother's unhealthy behaviour towards those around her. Having a clear picture of this attitude is of prime importance to me, as it seems to be the root of al1 her hardships. He States:

"In surnrnary. dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love: it is a form of antilove. It has its genesis in a parental failure to love and it perpetuates the failure. It seeks to receive rather than to give. It nourishes infantilism rather than growth.

It works IO trap and constrict rather than to liberate. Ultimately it destroys rather than buiids reiationships. and it destroys rather than builds people."

My mother never. but never. spoke to me of her mother with love. affection. care. or tendemess. If indeed parental love had lacked in her case. 1 couidn't prove it. She was the second child in a family of six and an orphan at the age of thirteen. Her mother was forever pregnant and ill. Her father. a carpenter tvith no formai education. worked long hours to support bis family and had little time to give to her. Back then. no one dwelt much or even at al1 on such things. Swivai was first and foremost.

Gide, a cousin and Marthe's fiend, served refieshrnents following the trip to the cernetery, later in the aftemoon. Gisèle was particularly grateful to her Tante Bertha who had taken her in so many times when she was an adolescent. When it came to children, young people, my mother had a sofi hem. She weicomed hem, consoled them. gave hem afkction and food. The situation was totally different with adults. For the most part, they were the enemy not to be trusted. Possibly because she had control of the situation with young people but couldn't impose her will on adults. she pushed them away with conternpt.

The cornmon room of the rnoderately priced apartments for golden agers in

L' Ancienne-Lorette. in a suburb of Québec City, had been opened to us for the occasion.

Belle-Moue had lived in the building a good ten years before moving into the home for autonomous senior citizens in a suburb of Montréal. following drarnatic tums of events.

The reception allowed the guests to catch up on binhs. rnarriages, divorces. the cornings and goings of family members, the situation with careers and fortunes. Belle-

Moue's famiiy, made up in part of women whose husbands belonged to the business middle class, project an air of respectability, clothed in the latest fashions, an obvious sign of their concern for keeping up appearances and displaying, in some instances. the state of their financial worth.

Léopold's family, their country origin still evident in spite of their long-ago migration to the city, lose themselves in past rnemories. The "Do you rernember when.. ." go on endlessly and are as such fleeting attempts to recapture youthful days with close ones and to rekindle iong-lost feelings.

Once the reception is over and the guests have left. we garher in the parking lot to say our Iast goodbyes. On rny left is the balcony to Belle-Moue's former apartment where she spent so many long hours reliving the past and taIking quietly with her Paul. In front of me there is an overall view of the conglomeration of apartrnents for senior citizens which often. when 1 visited my mother. appeared to me to be an immense open-air ravern.

you see Maman in order IO forgive one musi understand iftoday Im recounting your li/e ir is ro speak to you to iell you iuhat I didn 't sqin order to corne ro understand your iveakness your Iack ofpreparedness to face Ife S hardships to forgive you for having been a burdenfor me and an embarrassrnent 1also know rhat you could do noihing about it because yoti iveren 't ready to take charge ofyour ive you were powerless in the face of existence poiverless poweriess powerless rhar is the key word

Maman it explains it al1 On the trip back home. the series of events which had brought us to move Belle-

Moue to a suburb of Montréal. near Marthe's home, kept coming to mind over and over again. Of the ten years that she lived in a moderately priced apartment for senior citizens just outside Québec City, Belle-Moue certainly spent at Least five of them wanting to move. First of al1 across the way, to the other side of the corridor. then to the next building and finally to be closer to one of her two daughters.

Because Belle-Moue had been a restless type al1 of her life, Marthe and 1 knew frorn experience that as soon as she had changed apanments. she would already want to be somewhere else. She vas at odds ~4ththe neighbouring women and therefore isolated.

She hid behind drawn curtains to drink. Moreover. she always had a cup in her hands. never a glass. A means of fooiing the neighbours as tu what she was drinking. 1 don't know why but it never occurred to her that she wasn't the only one drinking al1 day long in this ghetto of idle elderly people who only wanted to drown their dreaded fear of death.

Scott Peck sheds a light on the situation. Again, in his book, he says: "As a matter of fact. it is no accident that the most common disturbance that passive dependent people manifest beyond their relationships to others is dependency on drugs and alcohol. Theirs is the 'addictive personality.' They are addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up, and when people are not available to be sucked and gobbled, they often tuni to the bonle or the needle or the piil as a people-substitute,"

Throughout my early childhood. we moved fiom one dweliing to another twice a

year. Once, on the first day of May, the renewal date for leases in the province of Québec

at the time, to go to a chalet in the country, and then. on October first, to return to the city

and yet another flat. This way my parents saved five months of rent a year. It amounted to

substantial savings for them.

So. we went tiom lower to upper Québec City a number of times. with al1 that the

in!!erent changes imposed in rems of adjustments to the different social classes. In no

time 1 learned that, in order to be accepted. I had to speak more colloquial moe pis roé

(me 'n you) French in the lower part of the city and more standard moi er roi (you and 1)

French in the upper part of the city.

1 was never in school for the year-end examinations. let alone for the allotment of

prizes. 1 was never in school for the beginning of the school year in September. which put

me behind the other students by one month. I never repeated a school year thanks to the

efforts made by my mother to convince the principal that I would make up the lost time.

For Bertha breathing in the country air for as long as possible was more important for her

children than class attendance. Savings and heaith took priority over education. The question of moving came up in conversation on a regular basis. Marthe and i looked at various options without ever reaching a final decision. It was understood that our husbands somewhat frowned upon their rnother-in-law coming to live close by.

Without admitting it to each other. Marthe and myself. we were tossing Maman back and forth. knowing that both of us were lingto avoid a long-terni domestic dispute.

Circurnstances were such that a decision was made for us. In keeping with a ntual established years ago, one Sunday morning. 1 phone Belle-Moue to find out the news of the week. In a voice 1 can barely understand. she informs me in gasps that she was robbed during the night of Saturday to Sunday. "1 was in bed. just about to go off to sleep when 1 heard noise for a while. followed by the sound of my door into the corridor being opened. t fioze. 1 couldn't move. A young boy came into my room on the tip of his toes. emptied the jewellery case 1 keep on my bureau. and fled out of the room. 1 was beside myself. It took me almost ten minutes to get out of bed and go to rny neighbour on the same floor

The thief left a trail of pearls from my necklace in the corridor. 1 was never so ftightened in my life."

Womed that it would cause a panic among his tenants, the manager of the building complex denied the whole incident. He repeated to one and al1 that Madame

Tanguay hadn't been robbed. That she had invented the story to draw attention to herself,

He led people to suppose that she was somewhat crazy. Such false accusations added to her ordeal; she was twice victirnized and it was too much for her.

From that day on. Maman reiüsed to stay alone at night. She 1ay awake for hours on end. unable to fa11 asleep. Her two sisters, Angela and Françoise. and neighbours al1 took turns keeping her Company. The situation couldn't go on forever. During that tirne,

Marthe separated from her husband. She took Maman in while she helped her find a new apartrnent. Marthe was pleased to do it. As it was. she was fiee to do something to alteviate the stress created by Maman's long-overdue move.

Marthe and 1 spent three days in Québec City packing up the contents of the aparunent. As we emptied drawers and cupboards. we found IO and 20-dollar bills that

Belle-Moue had forgotten under Iayers of undenvear or stacks of dishes. Just as Belle-

Moue asked us to do. we filled bags with elothes and kitchen items. no longer useful. to give to the neighbourhood ladies who. under the circurnstances. had been very helpful.

you were so happy Maman ro move into the new home brand new a big room rvith a cathedral ceiling a modern washroom a big clothes closet and a patio door for you to go out onto the grass no stairs to climb iip no stairs to climb down all your meals prepared for you no dishes ro wash a lady's life in fact how happy yoir were how happy we were also we know now that the last place where ouIived before dying couldn 'r have been more cornfortable yes I believe rhat you knew it and that you appreciated it ut least for a fime Maman

November 1976. Events. circumstances. places are factors of change in Belle-

Moue's life and in mine. Even at a distance. even in death. rny mother's life and rny o~m

are intertwined. We are both links in a chsin whose beginning and end are unknown to us.

Everyrhing is bound together.

The election of a new government formed by the Parti Québécois brought me

back to Québec City, which 1 had left when I married. At first. for the United States

where Louis was enrolled in çraduate studies. then. for the Eastern Townships of Québec

when he accepted a teaching position at the Université de Sherbrooke.

My cornmitment to politics and feminism led me to oversee communications for

the Cmncil on the Status of Women. At first. 1 lived with Belle-Moue weekdays and

returned home weekends. The arrangement didn't las1 very long. I soon discovered that 1

upset her routine. She lived in a four-room ffat in an old house on Lockweil Street. The fiont part consisted of a living-room and her bedroom, the back part, of the kitchen. another room and a balcony which was part storage shed and looked ont0 St-Jean Street. For the time being, the back room was rented to a student. 1 slept on the living-room sofa. 1 intended eventuaily to take over the rented room and pay a portion of the rent. But my mother didn't see it this way. For good reason.

Belle-Moue had taken up the daily schedule of an infant. She sucked on her liquor bottle every four hours and in between. she slept. The days. the nights. the weeks unfolded in the same way. Her grocenes were delivered to the house and her bouder shopped for her at the local liquor store.

Discovering her routine was the shock of my life. 1 knew she had a weakness for

liquor but not like this. Two or three rimes a year. she came to spend a few weeks with

me. 1 would hide the bonles of alcohol to control her intake and would give her a drink

whenever we had a cocktail. a glas of wine or a beer. 1 was totally unaware that. le ft to

her own devices, she would corne to this.

Life with her had becorne unbearable. She stubbomly refused any attempt to

change. 1 swn realized that it was a waste of tirne and energy. Besides, my mind was on a

very important project 1 wanted to put into motion. With the appointment of Lise Payette to the Status of Women, the possibility of moving ahead with long-overdue dossiers was becoming a reality. The one on maternity leave was pmicularly close to my hem. And 1 hlly intended to devote my whole being to it.

1 rented a room in a house on Ste-Anne Street. a room so srnail that cailed it rny

"anteroom." 1 lived a ten-minute walk from work. The daily walks in the old sector of

Québec City pleased me irnmensely. There. 1 rediscovered scenes t'rom my youth. narrow streets. stone houses. parks and the high winds of stormy days.

Belle-Moue and 1. each in our own way, were in a full state of regression. She had renimed to her infancy and 1 to my childhood. 1 retraced the steps of old itineraries. On the steep cliffs 1 rediscovered the exact same way of placing my feet tlat against the sidewalk pavement, the exact same way of slowly breathing in the air off the river. the exact same way of observing with astonishrnent the vastness of the horizon.

Whenever possible. 1 would invite Belle-Moue out to a restaurant for lunch. It was a way of getting her on her feet. out of the house. She would eat a good meal. usuaily fish, and would dnnk a lot of wine. During one of these lunches. she took the opportunity of sharing with me her plans to move. One more time.

This time, 1 listened closely. Her sister Angela lived in a moderately priced fiat for elderly people at L'Ancienne-Lorette. just outside Québec City. A brand new apartment would become availabie shonly for Belle-Moue in an adjoining building. 1 told myself that this chance to draw Belle-Moue out of her seclusion was not to be missed. It was a relief to me to get her closer to her sisters - Française also lived in the same area. Marthe and 1 felt she would be safer there. which in tum might take a weight off us for a while.

Maman how happy you were moving inro the newflar would bring change inro your life nor alivays rhe same rhing as pu would say for a while you wouldfeel alive ugain a new environmenr ro discover ulould keep you busy and your sisrers itauld visir

!ou because we have to admit Maman you had veryfew inreresrs your favourzre relevision progrum ivas Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous you never missed buyingyour iottery ricker every single iveek somerimes you won 10 or 20 dollars how sud Maman rhar you never artempred ro educare yoursevto learn to do something lrseful wirh your renfingers

Maman how miserable you were

During that sunimer. the 1st week of June to be exact. while at a conference on the Canadian Constitution held at York University in Toronto. 1 made the memorable acquaintance of Alfred Rouleau. president of the Mouvement Desjardins invesunent firm at the cime. We became friends. When he came to my home town of Québec. we would take long walks on Dufferin Terrace. and dong the Ramparts. While stxolling dong together. I would sometimes talk about Belle-Moue with

Alfred. They were both of the same generation. 1 would tell him of my concem for her.

Her escape into alcoholism and sleep sickened me and made me aggressive. 1 confided to

ALfied that at times 1 felt the urge to literaily shake her to death. Talking about it made me feel better.

In the course of this backward joumey to my childhood that 1 was exploring at the time. Alfred took the place of rny -'absentee father." of whom 1 talk about in no uncenain terrns in Propos sur la vie. an earlier book. 1 had the opportunity to cany on long discussions with one of the most remarkable men in rhe province of Québec. Alhd

Rouleau touched me profoundly.

In an article 1 published years later in L '..lcrualitê magazine. entitled "Le cerveau

des caisses pop," 1 wrote in my introduction: "There is a copper plaque at the entrance to

the Complexe Desjardins. on Sainte-Catherine Street, in Montréal: following the narne of

Robert Bourrassa. former premier of the province of Québec. cornes that of Alfied

Rouleau. president of Mouvement Desjardins." He commented. tongue-in-cheek. that it

was his cornmemorative plaque. He never spoke mer words. Today, at the same location.

is a bust. a little scaled down for my liking, of this man of significance for the province.

Someday, 1 might endeavour to write his biography. August 1977. Back from vacation - as usual we had spent a month in Cape Cod with the children - I jumped inro the saddle once again. 1 had to persuade the Québec

Goveniment to pass legislation without further delay guaranteeing paid matemity leave

for women in the work force. i had a fixed plan: a well-orchestrated press campaign

would exert public pressure wherever it was needed.

ïhe subject of maternity leave was popular in the media. The province of Québec

was primed ta endorse the plan and journalists were in on it. except for Claude Ryan. rhen

the editor of Le Devoir newspaper.

With the help of his secretary who wrote me in on his calendar without first

consulting him. to his great surprise. 1 showed up in his office. press file in hand. to

convince him to write an editorial on the subject. One week later. he penned an anaiysis.

a positive one on many points.

I was not prepared for the betrayal by the president of the Council for the Stanis of

Women. Laurette Robillard, who was in a precarious position because of her long- standing affiliation with the Liberals, and for the stmggle for power between the minister responsible for the dossier. Lise Payette, and the Minister of Finance. Jacques Parizeau.

For her part, Belle-Moue was living in a world so removed from mine that 1 could not open up to her, could not keep her informed of the important project 1 had undertaken.

1 was working to improve the lot of women in the province and my mother wasn't even in on it. She wanted to know as little as possible about anything even remotely touching reality.

In her book. Le pouvoir.? Connais pas!. Lise Payette writes: "When the members of the provincial cabinet. led by Jacques Parizeau. redized the importance that women's issues seemed to be taking, they began to react. T'hen complaints mounted. rnost often to the effect that we stiil didn't have a poky on family issues and that fmily issues should come before women's issues. In essence. what they would have preferred was a policy on the 'femmily.' "

Without admitting it openly, and much Iess publicly, Lise Payette was against legislating matemity leave because family was the issue. as advocated by Jacques

Parizeau. Further in her book she tiilks about Jacques Parizeau as the "Zeus of the treasuxv," of his "inherent machisrno," of the "omnipotence of Ministers of Finance." He was in her bad books, as Belle-Moue would Say. Al1 the while that i was canying on with my press campaign, granting interviews here and there. Belle-Moue complained. The initial stimulation provided by her new environment had faded and she had retreated once more. As usual, she had succeeded in alienating herself fiom everyone around her. She refused to play cards with the other tenants in the common room. Going for walks with her sister Angela didn't appeai to her in the lem. Worse still. she had again stocked up on alcohol. 1 found a cache of liquor of al1 kinds hidden in her bedroom. She was champing at the bit and living in the pst. back when her Paul would take her for drives in the country.

what a life the nvo ofyou hua' together Maman Papa and you hodfound the way ro go ro work wirh him every day you followed him evewvhere always in rhe car rvith him when he ivould go selling his farm equipmenr to farmers you waited in the car for hours while he rvent fiom barn to barn to close his deals you stuck to him like glue incapable of being independenr oh Cod poor you Maman

The press campaign was progressing at such a Pace that 1 couldn't jurnp off the

bandwagon. although 1 felt the support of the president of the Coud for the Status of

Women. my boss. waning fiom day to day. She knew something that 1 didn't: Lise

Fayette. our minister-in-charge, didn't agree with our approach. Léa Cousineau then

Madame Payette's 'go-between.' had let her know of her disapproval. 1 knew what the outcorne would be when 1 received a request by phone fiom

Jacques Parizeau's secret- to corne to his office. On the way to the Nationai Assembly,

1 had the distinct feeling that I was on my own with my file on maternity leave and that [ would pay the price.

As 1 went through the Porte des Sauvages entrance. 1 found myself in the rnidst of a group fiom the Union of Provincial Governrnent Employees who had taken over the premises. I was asked to srate my business there. Luckily, Guy Marchand. a tiiend. let me through. 1 feIt faint: 1 had stomach cramps that wouldn't subside. i went into the washroom only to discover that 1 was haemorrhaging. 1 grabbed two sanitary napkins quickiy enough to make it to the meeting at the designated tirne and not keep the Minister of Finance waiting.

He greeted me in his beautitùlly appointed ofice of white and gold. An enonnous

table dominated the middle of the room. he sining on the one side and 1. on the other. He

then told me: ''1 have been hearing positive comments about you. 1 was thinking of

inviting you to sit on the committee for fiscal reforrn; we need women with knowledge on

the subject." I looked him suaight in the eye and replied: "Unfommately, sir. 1cannot

accept; I have no knowledge of fiscal dain. However, since Iam here, may 1 Ieave a file

that 1 believe wiil be of interest of you: please do read it." 1 Ieft in a rush. feeling the blood dripping down between my legs and drenching my stockings. In my mind, I was talking to my mother.

I always took your advice Maman ro wear dark clothes when mensrruaring you rold me rhar if1 stained my skirt it wouldn 't show as much we 60th bleed heavily you and

1Maman especially under consranr and intense emorional srrain how many rimes in my life I was mortijied by disapproving giances ar my bacbide I )vas so ashamed rhar ail couid see my dripping fimale condition ~bfamanwe borh have known and shared lhis jèeling oj'shame

Saving face. as was good strategy under the circumstances. Lise Payene. again in

her book Le pouvoir? Connais pas!. provides the outcome of my press campaign on

maternity leave. "Jacques Parizeau." she writes. "was a jolly good sport. While in full

negotiation with government employees. he offered. no strings anached. one of the most

generous matemil-leave plans in North America."

In the spring of 1978, legislation on materni. leaves is passed at the Québec

National Assembly; it includes eighteen weeks of paid benefits to compensate for a

ponion of lost eamings for pregnant women. Aftet ten months away from my famiiy, 1

returned home. 1 didn't have the quaiities needed to become a good civil servant. In any case. during my brief stay in Québec City, the militant feminist that 1 was had put her position and influence to work advancing women's causes. 1 had simply followed my conscience.

No more. no less. Probably within the deepest recesses of my subconscious 1 had emulated. on a lesser scaie. the actions of the heroine from my youth. Joan of Arc of

Orleans.

June 196 1. My father passed away on a beautiful sunny morning. He died

"suddenly" as Belle-Moue would repeat. Doctors confirmed that it was hem failure. He was only 55. had al1 his hair and teeth. and was at the pinnacle of his career selling fàrm equipment. He had a late-mode1 car. an apartment hl1 of new fùmiture. and the previous winter had taken Belle-Moue to Florida for a few weeks.

Paul was a handsome man. Tall, blond. curly-haired and blue-eyed. He had just enough of an education to know how to count. In the course of his life he had worked at a thousand and one trades. Shy and gentle of nature that he was, Belle-Moue had him wrapped around her little finger. She would always instmct him on how to deal with farming customers but would never. for her part, lend a hand to help him with his paper work. My mother was good at pushing others to action without ever acting herself.

In order to succeed in his career as a salesman. my father had had to find a way of overcoming his shyness. Without a doubt. alcohol tumed oui to be his downfall. One ounce. two ounces of cheap gin and his shyness would be masked. First thing in the morning, if he had a sale to make before noon. he would rinse out his mouth with his gin.

The more customers he had. the more tractors he sold. the more he drank early in the day.

When he got back that morning, his lefi side beginning to be paraiyzed. my rnother made him lie on the bed, and cailed the doctor. Not knowing too well what to do while waiting for the doctor. she filled a hot-water bottle for Paul. In her newous state she neglected to tighten the cap properly. When she laid th= hot-water boale on him. it spilled out over his body. Belle-Moue had scalded her husband. He died on the way to the hospital. My mother never discussed the accident with me. Marthe rold me. Belle-Moue suffered remorse untii the day she died.

We had left Québec City a few days before with the three children, Marie-Josée.

Christine and Bernard, for the Mauricie region. Louis was conducting research for the

Federal Government on the jack-pine saw fly. Since the time we were married, we had spent the surnrner in the woods of the province of Québec and the other three seasons in Syracuse, New York, where Louis was pursuing his doctoral studies.

The news of my father's death came by telegram. An employee of the forestry tïrm that rented its site to the research Iaboratory brought us the news. Out in the middle of the woods there was no telephone. no running water, just three hours of electric power a day from a generator. and a gas-operated refngerator for four researchers. a technician. and their families. It was a basic way of life rather like îhe camping trips Louis and 1 had gram accustomed to during our adolescent years in Scouts and Guides.

A neighbour and fnend took care of our three children. al1 under the age of five.

More than two hours of bumpy grave1 road lay between camp "Chapeau de paille'' and civilization. Louis and I were &en the task of driving two "farnily-type" cars to Québec

City and bringing back various items and provisions on our way back from the funeral.

The two-hour trip is forever engraved in my mind. 1 was at the wheel of a huge car I wasn't familiar with. on an unsafe road, with no road signs. and where both big and small animals could dart out onto the road at any time. Tears kept coming, blurring my vision until. as if by miracle. happy thoughts of my father's last visit brought me comfort for a while.

It was May 20', and we were celebrating the first birthday of Bernard. our first son and Paul's first grandson. Our child was practising his first baby steps by holding on to the fùmiture as he went around the room. My father came in, knelt down and stretched out his arms to the baby who was across the room. coaxing him with a mile to corne to him. Bernard let go and bound straight across the room to the safety of my father's arms and to the clapping hands of the farnily. My father had just experienced a moment of profound joy.

My father's unexpected death - he had not been il1 - left Belle-Moue in a

"zombie" state. She was functioning on automatic pilot. Marthe. still living at home. was alone with Maman who, having lost Paul. unwiningly chose Marthe to assume his place.

Belle-Moue started ordering Marthe around as she had her husband. Marthe tned to find work for her. But Belle-Moue never even went to the interviews set up with prospective employers. She wouldn't hear of taking driving lessons. Marthe did the driving. Belle-Moue tent with her everywhere as she had with my father. Marthe soon found the situation impossible. With her salary as a librarian. she found herself an apartrnent.

Belle-Moue took dom her good drapes. packed her beautifil bedspread in rnothballs and. once more, moved into a small. nindown apamnent on Lockwell Street.

She started to drink, as 1 discovered later. She would stay in bed al1 day, or else hide behind the cumins staring at passers-by. As in the past, she made people feel sorry for her. It was second nature to Belle-Moue.

My mother was never aware of her passive dependency, nor that she victimized my father. In his book. The Roud Less Traveled, Scott Peck says that "children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security. Rather they have an imer sense of insecurity. a feeling of '1 don't have enough' and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving."

poor Maman why begrudge you anything you roo were a vicrim of your famify JUS( as this famify has been of itsfamily and so on&r generations probab(v us a smafl child you were denied the affection that was rightly yours now thar I understand Maman I can jbrgive you one question remains is it truly possible ro take one S desriny in hand and change its course

lune 1939. The birth of her second daughter occurs three-and-one-half years after

54 the first one. This meant a lot to Bertha To her way of thinking women who had babies every year were "dim-witted." My mother adored her two linle ones and wouldn't share them with anyone. naeven with her husband. their father.

Marthe and 1 were smothered with tendemess, cm, attention and even adulation.

Benha gave us everyhing she had been deprived of in her childhood. It is quite probable that out start in life broke the vicious family circle of passive dependency that had plagued our women in past generations. Our mother's devotion to us in our infancy has made of Marthe and myself. both in our own way, women of independent means. autonomous and successful.

Every year around Marthe's birthday. and more so since Belle-Moue's death. I replay the same scenario in my mind frorn bits of mernories she has Left with me.

Bertha is about to give birth to her second child. Her rnother-in-law. Grand-mère

Tanguay. is at the house for the occasion. The mother-to-be is rather big and uncornfortable. As with the first one. the infant will weigh nine pounds. Quite heavy for a woman of average weight and height Iike Bertha.

As he cornes in through the kirchen door. Docteur Caouette can hear the young mother moaning. Right away he goes into the bedroom. Grand-mère Tanguay has brought in containers of hot water, and rags. Paul is at the foot of the bed, holding the larnp in case the doctor has to resort to forceps.

It is the beginning of June, 1939, the seventh to be exact. In the midst of the heat brought on by an early summer. Bertha gives birth to a second daughter. She is red- headed and fair-skimed. and witnesses to the birth agree that she looks like the Lapointe side of the farnily .

Next day, comfonably propped up in bed. Bertha nurses her infant daughter. The

bedroom Fumiture of varnished ash has been set up at the end of the double living-room divided by a French-style sliding glas door.

The Young woman is within hearing distance of the grandmother cooking in the

adjoining kitchen. Bertha is restless. unabie to enjoy her temporq well-being; she is

disturbed and imtated by the goings-on in the kitchen.

Grand-mère Tanguay being a country type, and she from the city, they funciion in

very different ways, Grand-mère can put together a meal with maple sugar. thick fm

crearn and home-made bread. For Bertha a meal consists of meat and vegetabies. nothing

less. Matters such as these bother her tembly, especiaily when it comes to feeding her

Paul. As Bertha would put it. Grand-mère Tanguay is the queen of "blunders." Whether within or out of earshot. she rnakes a point of speaking her mind to whomever she is talking to without fear of wounding anyone's self-esteem. Bertha hypersensitive to a fault, is not spared fiom the grandrnother's insensitive nature. Years of suffering wiil make of Bertha the daughter-in-law who hates her mother-in-law the most in ail of the province of Québec.

In truth. Bertha was incapable of accepting that things be done any other way but her own. As if her way was the one right way of doing things. My mother found fault with everything and nothing and was always dificult to "get dong with." which hindered her throughout her life. She placed little value on compromise and mutual understanding in most aspects. She constantly lived in a state of inner conflict. Had she read Jean-Paul

Sarue. she wouid have agreed with him that %el1 is others."

Whatever pleasure the young mother found in taking care of her new-born child was mamd by her mother-in-law's presence, however well-meaning. Belle-Moue's selective memory mostly recalled the sad events in her life. Feeling soqfor herseif. she then instilled pity in others; it was second nature to her, of course.

Instinctively matemal, Bertha knew how to protect her little girls fiom mediocrity. She wanted them to get more out of life than she had. This is evident following the anecdotes fiom her life as a young mother that 1 have been able to piece together.

Sitiing by the window that looks out ont0 the neighbours' yard. Bertha is rocking her linie Marthe. now a few weeks old. She puts her to sleep by singing a Song she has heard on the radio. Actually, she is humrning the music and lyrics from a French commercial that went something like this: "She read Marie-Claire with passion. word by

word. its tales so very true. so very. very alluring."

Her infant daughter having fallen asleep. Bertha discusses the neighbours' goings-

on with her sister Cécile. who has just walked in. According to Bertha. the Carons' house

is a veritable pigpen. The children go outside half-naked. bare-footed and filthy dirty.

One night out of nvo, the old man cornes home drunk as a lord. The "fur flies" and the

next morning Madame Caron hangs out her yellow diapers to dry sporting a black eye in

addition to her once again fat-with-child belly. Yes, Madame Caron is a "dim-wit." If she

had any sense at ail, she would make sure not to get "that way" every year. Totally mad.

to her mind.

Cécile agrees with Bertha that the parish of Jacques-Cartier is no more suitabie a

place to raise her children than the Saint-Sauveur parish. She'll just have to find a way of

moving to upper Québec City. When and how she doesn't know yet, but she is indeed giving it a lot of thought. In fact. that's al1 she thinks about.

She has to push Paul to rnake more rnoney, that's what she has to do. But how?

Jobs are so few and far between that it's better to hold on to what one has even if the pay is rneagre. Paul isn't trained to do anything. As the saying goes. he's a "Jack of a11 trades, master of none."

Paui is a shy type not capable of taking the initiative on his own. He's a worker but needs constant prodding to do everything. And Bertha is the perfect one to tell hirn what to do. She's her husband's live-in foreman.

Whenever Paul comes home from the tavern "srnashed" and Bertha has "had it" waiting for him, or is bored. or the children are initable. she starts in on hirn and a fight

ensues. She accuses him of drinking his rnoney away on beer, money he can't afford to

waste in the first place.

What she has never realized is that the tavern is the ideal place to find out what jobs are available. Ttiat's where Paul lems frorn the men in the farnily, in particular

brothers-in-law and cousins, that the next morning the English-run pulp and paper

Company will be hiring day labourers as of seven a.m. Evey night after supper. Paul likes to sir in his red plush velvet chair and turn on the radio. He always listens to news broadcasts. Prophets of doom assert that once again

Germany is looking for a reason to declare war on its neighbours to the exit. West. wherever. Hitier is eager to go to war. and war it will be. Economics will teach us that by

virtue of the Second World War. North America swived the worst economic crisis in

history.

Whenever Private Lebrun's broadcast cornes on the radio. ail of the househoid

listens. He sings in a gumirai and nasal voice. "Far am 1 from you. rny sweet. far tfom

you and home. .." His westem-style laments make hirn the voice of the littte people

stmggling through the hardships oldaily life. Two of his most successful songs, "L 'adieu

du soldai" and "Je suis loin de roi mignonne." are constantly heard over the airwaves.

Bertha's plans to move to upper Québec City became reaiity a year later. in the

best interest of her two Iittle giris who would then rub etbows with the "right sort of

people." January 1936. Not only was 1 a "Princess RataI?a," as my mother called me, but 1 was also a queen, having been bom on the day of the Feast of Kings. My birthday celebration was aiways a happy day. Of course rny mother would always buy the traditionai 'Twelfth-night' cake at the Hetherington pastry shop on St-Jean Street. 1 was so crazy about this plain linle flat cake that, as an adolescent. I would go the next day and buy three or four day-old ones on sale and hide tkem under rny bed. Even stale. they tasted delicious slathered with buner.

My birth caused a lot of excitement. my mother told me. I was the first-born on the Lapointe side of the farnily. Cécile and Armande circled the cradle, gushine over the big beautiful Megirl that Docteur Caouene had just delivered.

At the conclusion of a nine-and-one-half-month pregnancy, Bertha finally gave binh in the early hours of January 6. 1936. The linle queen took her place in a kingdom rich with affection. tendemess, and the best of care.

Since the time they were married. Paul and Bertha have shared a flat with Cécile and Armande, two of Bertha's sisters. Benha keeps house while the other three try to

hold on to their jobs. The house abounds in affection. if not in wealth. Whatever: they do

what they can and take joy in the chiid's arrivai. Three or four days a week Cécile and Armande walk to their place of work. In the evening, aller they have spent the day standing behind a counter. they board the trolley car back home. They are both store clerks.

The Lapointe girls Erom a "first union'' have never worked in a factory. Bertha does not mince words talking about such places with her sisters. "You know factol girls are cheap. rude and vulgar. Worse yet, they're 'walking consurnption.' Factory girls. they contaminate everything in their path. Best that you stay far away from them."

They have little education and even iess money, but they are ambitious. Instinct has taught them that in order to climb the social ladder, nothing is more foolproof for a woman than to marry a man with money.

Angela has already married wek Rosaire Fiset. the son of a highly regarded famiiy. Cécile is keeping Company with Lee Ruelland. the son of a wealthy shoe manufacturer from Saint-Vallier Street. hande, the most resourcehl of them all.

invites Jean-Louis Dubé to the house and, to Bertha's dismay, serves him the best cuts of

"steak." an insidious way of hanging ont0 a merchant's son from Couronne Street. whose

family runs a pharmacy and a garage. Bertha is the only one not to have taken that route.

Paul cornes from a simple rurai family. lhree of the sisters have married out of the

working class into the business middle ciass. Maman remembered washing tlannelette diapers in the bathtub, twisting them by hand and then hanging them on the clothesline behind the oil furnace. Frequently she would cornplain to Paul. "It's terrible how my back hum. But no matter. t won't stop nursing my baby girl just for that. Even if my breasts are heavy with milk. 1 won't stop because babies who are fed with a bottle are more often sick. That 1 know."

Bertha stopped at nothing for her baby. She cannot escape her childhood mernories of babies dying of infant diarrhoea diphthena. typhoid and smai1pox. The fear of one of those horrors consuming her child has made her overly protective. Whatever love and affection she lacked in her infancy, she is lavishing on her small daughter two and three times over. She does so rnuch that not one day goes by without anviety and tension. She is constantly on pins and needles.

Of Bertha's two weekly outings, one is to a "show" on Saturday night. Whenever

Paul has a bit left over from his pay cheque and one of the sisters offers to take cmof the baby. he takes his wife to the Capitol or Cinéma de Paris theaue. Bertha's not "big on

French shows." Still. she lets him take her CO the Cinéma de Paris to see Maria

Chapdelaine by Duvivier staning Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin.

Men back fiom the "theatre." as Bertha puts it. she gets into bed with Paul and they make love, der saying their night-time prayers, of course: one "Our Father" and three "Hail Mqs."

The second weekly outing is Sunday mas. which she seldom misses. In her words, "Not going to mass on Sunday brings bad luck for the rest of the week." My mother's religion was one of superstition and social propriety. One had to be seen in church on Sunday in order to be in the neighbours' good graces.

rhank pu~lhan ~hank !ou for pur unconditional love rhar you yourself never received thankyou for making of me a happy baby thank yuu forfussing over me showing

me afection rocking me thank )?ou@ nursing me ar your generous breasr thankyou for

watching over me duy and nighr day and night rhank ?ou iCfamanfor giving me ihe

confidence I have in myselfroduy because of your ever-present love

October 1933. Paul and Bertha are in lave. We are in the depths of the Great

Depression. No one could pian for the future. Maman would tell me. Mode in general

cmot get any lower and the French-Canadian population sees no light at the end of the tunnel. The betrothed couple keep pushing back their wedding plans.

To buiid a house is unthinkable: even to rent a flat is a risky undertaking. How can one be sure of covering the rent rnonth after rnonth? Each day is a new challenge to find sornething to eat. Meals often consist of potatoes or bread with peanut butter.

Paul and Bertha are in love. They want to get rnanied but are told over and over to svait. For one. Paul. with his grade-three education. is unemployed. He sornetirnes lands odd jobs "on the sly." Xlso. if Bertha gets rnanied she'll have to give up her job at the

" 15-cent store."

Paul and Bertha are in love. One night. out of desperation. Paul tells Bertha that he knows how the farnily will agree to them getting married: they'll tell them chat Bertha

is pregnant and they have to get rnarried. "We'll have thern think that it's a shotgun wedding," says he. No way would Bertha ever go along with that kind of plan.

Paul and Bertha are in love. They are wed on Sanirday the 25'. in the Sacré Coeur

church in lower Québec City, the da? of the first snowstorm of the year. Their wedding

photograph shows Bertha wearing a fitted coat. fur collar. bell-shaped hat. and delicate

suede shoes half-covered in snow. There is no question of Bertha giving any thought to wearing a satin wedding gown and veil and tiara just for that one time. A simple woollen &ess is more practical and certainly more affordable.

Paul, sponing a hat in Humphrey Bogart Cashian and a mid-calf-length overcoar - a cuning-edge fashion statement - is quite debonair. He is a handsome man. tall and trim.

Bertha entered inro maniage without a notion of sema1 matters and tàr too timid to ask. But then. what information was there availabte at the tirne? What method of binh control did Bertha use to have two chiidren only? Without any doubt. some homernade method that she never reveated to anyone.

She never loved any other man but her husband. It is as though the words from her matrimonial book, "the wife, soleiy united with her husband. will not soi1 the nuptial bed by whatever iIlegitimate practice." had been carved indeiibly in her mind.

The obligatory "for bener and for worse" cliché uttered by the parish pnest that moniing never rang more tnie than for Paul and Bertha. They tived for and of each other.

The wedding celebration took pIace at her sister Angela's home. She, for one, had married Rosaire Fiset, a son of a weil-heeted fmily and one of the frrst aviation piiots in the province of Québec. Rosaire's father was the wealthy owner of a geneni store and of a holiday mort.

In his toast to the newlweds. his eminence the priest takes the opportunip to deliver a popular dictum of the day. "Let us not forget," says he, "that women who are emancipated. who no longer have to submit to patemal and marital authority, who are fiee to pursue their own goals and manage their own purse strings. wiil have little interest

in raising large families, the key to the suwival of the province of Québec." He knew by

hem the message contained in the latest pastoral letter from the bishop and never missed

an oppomity to deliver it.

The view held by the men of the cloth does not quite reflect the economic and

social realities of the 1930s. For one thing, Bertha, like many other French-Canadian

wives. will be the one to Wear the pants in the family. Next. her hem govems hcr

behaviour in bed: don't make babies if you can't afford to feed them. Bertha doesn't plan

to have too many children. To hell with the laws, and to hell with the Church leaders.

Ahthe meal. Cousin Abel plays the accordion and sings La Bolduc songs.

Fmily and friends join in singing the French melody "Toujours 1'R-100." nie caribou

keeps on flowing and giddy guests begin square dancing to the cousin's calls. Comfortably seated in the father-in-law's Model T Ford, Paul and Bertha leave on their honeymoon towards Montréal. The old Chemin du Roi, which passes by Angela's home. is the most heavily travelled road in the province.

They stop long before the city of Trois-Rivières. between Québec City and

Montréal. and spend the night in a small. giveaway inn right dong the river. Bertha finds nothing more beautiful than rhe shores of the St-Lawrence nor more enjoyable than the parade of boats floating by.

Paul and Bertha are in love. Lost in each other. they wiil live as one. night and day, for the rest of their married life. The meiding process has begun. The attachment they have for each other will tie them to the bars of the matrimonial cage, although unlocked. for life. The cage in question is the passive dependent relationship established by Bertha and from which Paul has no means of escape. Bertha will live life stuck to him like a parasite. until she sucks him dry.

yes Maman I remember how much you loved your Paul how yotc would wair for him how you would take cure of hirn how you ivould coddle him how you wouldyell at him how you so glowed in his presence yes Maman you loved your Paul in yoür orvn rvay (. ..) 1922. Little Bertha found herself motherless when she was 13 years old. Her

Maman, Élise, died of complications following the birth of her eighth child. Even as she grew old. Belle-Moue spoke of these sad events with tears in her eyes.

Maman Élise rilways had long post-delivery recoveries. "Ten days in bed and no cheating," her single half-sister Ida who was helping her out ar home. would tell her over and over again. "and don? give in to the ternptation of gening up on the ninth day.

Everyone will tell you, if you develop a fever, it will kill you."

After the first ten days corne another thiny: a woman must allow fony days following the birth of the child before starting to wash diapers: such habits are detrimental in many ways to the rnother's heaith. Phlebitis. notably, thrives on a lack of physical activity: the blood circulation slows down and. following childbirth. blood dots tend to form more easily.

Following the binh of Georgette. her eighth Md. a robust girl, Élise drags herself out of bed on the tenth day in a manner as IO cause concern. Little Bertha the oldest of the girls. is at the beck and cal1 of her mother who. her legs almost constantly propped up on a chair. is trying bit by bit to resume househotd chores.

The days become months and little Bertha senses that her mother's heaith is slipping from bad to worse. Élise's legs are so swollen and heavy to lift that she is taken to the hospital where little can be done for her. other than provide her with clean sheets and religious support.

As her mother Leaves for the hospital. linle Bertha breaks down inro tears. She knows her mother will never corne back home. No. never again wiil she see her mother dive.

The chaplain father just doesn't understand it. even though he is a well-educated man. No more than the doctor for that matter. who aiways places blame on those women who don't take adequate precautions before and after they give birth. The doctor also

notes that. uniike in other countries. women in the province of Québec lead the way in deaths following complicated births.

Bertha's father. Eugène. moumed at tength over the deatb of his wife and the

mother of his children. He dso shed tears over his inability to act other than according to

God's will, as instructed to do by the chaplain. It is t 922 and Élise was not yet 40 years

old. As was often the case back then, a mother's death leads to the break-up of the family. Eugene would place Roger and Georgette, mere babies. in the care of famiiy rnembers. Gérard. the oldest boy, a worker for the city of Québec. would live with his father. The four young sisters, Bertha Cécile, Angela and hande, always dressed in black. their hair in a blunt cut. would be tumed over to the Saint-Sauveur orphanage run by sistets.

To eam their keep. the linle girls have to do household chores. They go to class in the afternoon oniy, once they've tinished their work. Survival takes precedence over

education and. far fiom causing an uproar. the exploitation of child labour in

underprivileged areas is socially acceptable.

Because the mortality rate mong women in their child-bearing years is so high,

the nurnber of children in orphanages is high. They are boarded. fed. clothed and washed

on an irregular basis. All things considered. the four Lapointe siblings are lucky to have

the sisters teach them how to read. write and count just well enough to get along in life.

The four Iittle Lapointe girls do not lack food. But they do lack affection. The

sisters are not given to numiring. Could it be that they worry that they wilI become

attached to children that are not theirs to keep, and will miss them too much when they finaily leave the orphmage? Could it be?

Certainly, it is somewhat. a lot. due to religious taboos regarding touching. The body is a necessary evil, to be touched and looked at as littie as possible. The sisters insist that the children bathe in their night dresses.

The first signs of pube. and the begiming of the menstrual cycle give rise to the most far-fetched explanations and only serve to add confusion to the so-called mysteries of Me.

Mère Marie-de-l'Immaculée-Conception, who had the task of giving Bertha lessons on sex. explained it al1 to her. First. if her pubic hairs have grown in quickly, she has stood too close to the heat register in the refectory. Then. God is punishing her for being a woman by sending her a period once a month. and the more painful the cramps, the faster she will expiate her sins. No more. no less.

With this sort of knowledge at hand. Bertha entered into the world of women.

During the course of her fertile years. Bertha suffered intense menstrual pain for which she constantly left a reminder by way of a basin of red-tinged waters deposited in the bathtub. Mére Marie-de-1'Immacdée-Conception has taught her to use white rags as sanitary napkins. The rags, as she cdls them, are made of strips six inches wide by a yard long. tom t7om used sheets. Not having enough sheets or orher white pieces of cloth ta meet her needs, Bertha would wash the strips.

Three or four days of each month would be bloody ones for Bertha. These regular bouts of suffering provided an important element in fueiling her tendency to feel sorry for herself.

Maman rhe more I ivrire your life srory the more I redise how diflcculr lfe evus fur you and fur rhe people arorind you the Iack ofmoney the lack of adequate cure the psychological pain the feeling of powerlessness the lack of knowledge how to go about improving one 's loi in u wrJd where deuth seems more rhe ouicorne ihon life

Fa11 191 8. The Spanish flu was imponed into the province by renuning soidiers

who had contracted it in the trenches of northern France. The epidemic spread like

gunpowder and did just as much darnage, if not more. Bertha bad never known a worse disaster. When she spoke of it, it was with resignation. There was nothing to do but endure.

Camphor. Was it the smell of camphor or of the scapular. or both? The odour penetrated the skin right to the fatty layer, some would say right to the bone. The odour got into clothing, into underwear. It was an odour that spread fiom room to room and stayed. It was a sickly odour. It was the odour of the Spanish flu.

Maman Élise and Ida in a flash. had sewn small scapuiar-size pockets for pieces of camphor to be wom iiround the neck by the whole family together with their proper scapulars. Madame Dupéré, Élise's iîiend and neighbour, insisted that wearing the two together was the surest means of warding off the Spanish flu.

Little Bertha is staring out the window. Across the Street. in fiont of the

Guillemettes' house. a hearse awaits. Four men dressed in black cary out a plain pine box on their shoulders. Another Guillemette boy has just succumbed to the Spanish flu.

The third one in two weeks.

Four of the Guillemette sons, al1 in their 20s. had just barely been brought back home. They had landed by boat at Québec City, scraight fiom the front. unhurt but victims of gas poiso~ng.The Germans had resoned to drastic measures to mentally handicap the enemy. The Guillemene soldiers were carriers of the flu virus. The contagious disease had spread througb dl the troops in Europe who, once back in their own countries, passed it on to others.

By the fa11 of 191 8, half a million of the population of the province of Québec faIl victim to the Spanish flu. and more than 15.000 succumb to it in less than three weeks.

Young men between the ages of 20 and 40 are the first to contract it. Among them. a good number are soldiers returning from the front as well as workers in factories and on labour sites where the contagious disease spreads in no time. The wornen. devoted nurses. catch it in m.

The people are dropping like flies here. there and everywhere. and those still left standing have a deathly fear of catching the flu. As soon as Maman Élise spots Eugène ming the corner of the Street late in the morning, she immediately senses that something is wrong. As is the case. Eugène is pale and flushed at the same time. He feels nauseous and has trouble standing on his two legs. Élise helps him into bed.

She flies over to Madame Dupéré io ask her to use her influence with her sister who lives in upper Québec City and whose goverment-employee husband knows a former classrnate who is now a doctor. Could he corne right away and do something for

Eugène? Madame Dupéré. a good sort, carries out her instructions as fast as she can.

Whereby Docteur Giroux comes to the Lapointes' door at two o'clock in the moming to examine Eugène. The doctor is exhausted. As he sits down he explains to Élise that in the past two weeks, he has visited more than 300 sick people. He goes from house to house doing his utmost to treat them but knows that there is iittle to be done to cure them. The dmgs needed are not available.

The doctor's diagnosis: it is the onset of the Spanish flu and Eugène is confined to bed. Few people should approach him if any at dl. as his condition is contagious. The doctor applies cupping glasses to Eugène's back. gives him two spoonfuls of Mathieu cough remedy and asks Élise to apply a mustard plaster the next night. The doctor then accepts a mail glas of caribou in payment for his visit. but not before assuring Élise that it is strictly for the purpose of warding off genns.

Two days later, Élise in turn becomes bedridden. The fever has consumed what little energy she has left. She is pregnant with her fifi child and in poor health. The flu only adds to the weight of her problems. She is wom out.

Ida takes the children to Tante Nini, one of Eugène's sisters. who iives in the country. Bertha will stay home to take care of the two patients. She hasn't yet celebrated her tenth birthday. She lems how to prepare a mustard plaster: add water to a bowl of hot mustard to form a paste and spread it between two strips of plain white conon. Apply it to the patient's chest until it becornes too hot to bear, then repeat the procedure on the patient's back.

The following Sunday. Maman Élise sends little Bertha off to church with a request for his holiness the vicar to pay her a visit after mass. Since Eugène's illness,

Élise. a pious woman. has started a novena to Saint Jude. the patron saint of desperate causes. To her way of thinking, the novena has as much healing power as the mustard plaster.

That sarne evening, just before vespers. his holiness the vicar cornes to the house.

He enters through the yard. As soon as he sees lise sitting at the kitchen table. a cup of

Madame Dupere's chicken broth at her lips, he fooks her straight in the eye and assures

her that she isn't dying. "No, not you." he says. Bertha who was there when it happened.

insists that frorn then on Élise stmed to get bener. as well as Eugène. For Bertha a

miracle had taken place. All of her life she believed in miracles. and with reason.

Maman ali of if has meant a lot of sadness a lot offear a lot of anxiery for a little

girl who hasn 'tyet turned ten way too much responsibility way too soon to live with

illness way too soon to see death Iurking in the shadows Maman your childhood was destroyed by painfil events why be swprised that sadness fear have found a permanent place in your heurt joy ajèeling of well-being happiness were in such little supply that you never acquired a taste for them I know thar now

Spring 19 18. Recounting the story of ou closet uncle is always an opportunity for

Belle-Moue to relive an exciting period of her Iife. It is a senous tale and an arnusing one as well.

Bertha is nine years old. Her father Eugène. a cabinet-maker by trade, in the blink of an eye adds a back panel to the largest clothes closet in the house. One of Bertha's uncles. Eugène's brother, is being sought by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The motive for the search: his name is on the conscription list. In the course of the First Worid

War, at the end of four years of fighting in the trenches. the army is running low on soldiers. The anger begins to mount among the people of the province of Québec.

Utterances of "goddamn Frenchmen" and "bastard Blokes" fly from ail sides. They see no good reason to cirop on the battlefield for the sake of France or England. Bertha is given the duty of taking food IO the uncle hidden in the secret cornpartment at the back of the closet. and to clean out the chamber pot. The plan is to try to avoid having the uncle soi1 his pants. as he has a tendency to becorne unnerved and almost lose control of his bodily functions whenever anybody cornes knocking at the front door.

His fear is justified. The hunt for conscripts is oniy a few days old and already has left sorne dead. Resisters. encouraged by chaplains for the Montreal Catholic Youth

Workers, resort to violence by serting tire to some strategic buildings. Canadian Army servicemen fiom Toronto are sent in to restore order. The "Pea Soups," brandishing whatever arms they can find. corne face to face with the "Blokes" toting machine guns. In the end four demonstrators are dead. countless others are sent to hospital and more than fifty land in jail.

The First World War ends the following fa11 under circumstances that bring together the expected and the unexpected: the arriva1 of American troop reinforcernents, the French-Canadian 22" Regiment and the Spanish au. Men in the trenches die not only fiom enemy fire but also from the ravages of a fast-spreading epidemic. The Gennan my,defeated, will have to wait another twenty years for its much-wanted revenge.

One moonless night, Eugène. Ida and the closet uncie borrow a car and make their way to the border of Maine. Eugène's brother, by way of a path in the woods well known to fugitives fiom the province of Québec, will cross the American border. But not before giving his brother and sister-in-iaw one last desperate embrace. He will never see them again.

Maman so many rimes you told us ihe story of the closet uncle Maman you played a true hide-and-go-seekgame rvith your uncle you knew the chilling effeci ofjèar and lies by grorvnups to Save a member of the family kfarnanyou were small to take parr in such an adventure and you never forgot it

March 1909. The day Bertha Iarided on a feather mattress after Maman lise gave one strong push. the 19<",the feast of Saint Joseph. she had no choice as to her landing destination and arriva1 time.

Marie Bertha Régina Lapointe was the second child and first daughter of a carpenter father and baby-producing mother. Eugéne Lapointe and Élise Larochelle produced eight children, of whom seven survived. The family lived in a small two-storey wood house located in the lower Québec

City parish of Saint-Sauveur, and inherited by Élise fiorn her mother's mother.

Litt!e Bertha. who came from nowhere, was one in a plethora of births that year which set an all-time record in the province of Québec and even world wide: 4 1.2 children per 1,000 inhabitants.

One baby in five bom in 1909 became an ange1 in heaven before reaching its first birthday. The parish piest was rather pleased. Not only was the population of the province increasing at a steady rate but he was sending a suong delegation of cherubs up to heaven to serve God.

The question of demographic control was settled in the confession booth. Little

Bertha's mother. extremely pregnant. found herself being asked by her confesser if she was doing anything to "obstmct the course of nature" and was warned about committing such a mortal sin.

The psychological dominance by the clergy over this small, intellectually and materiaily underdeveloped people was such that it gave rise to an abuse of power where dishonesty, trickery and deceit were cmied out in the name of the Lord. The year Bertha was born. the one French-Canadian province in Canada had approximately two million inhabitants. Compared to the English provinces, it was in a socially and econornically reduced state. One quarter of that population could neither read nor write. A worker had to put in two hours of labour in order to be able to purchase a pound of butter, and more than three hours for a dozen of eggs.

The day Bertha was born she feil into a cesspool. A mess of gross ignorance. fear. exploitation, submissiveness. poverty and suffering. Pain, always pain.

If asked her opinion on being bom, would Bertha have agreed to come into this working-class family fiom lower Québec City? Would she have agreed to being born at dl?

The first injustice in life is that life is given to us without our request. The last

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