The Boy Who Belonged to the Sea Read online

  * * *

  The apparition still haunted me when we went to visit Mama, and when I saw the dreadful wizened mask imprint itself on her face, it suddenly struck me that the dream was premonitory: I had seen Mama as she was going to be if nothing were done to wake her up. I knew right then and there that it would be a serious mistake to ship her off to Quebec City and we must pull her out of that bed without further delay or she would remain in limbo forever. We needed to bring her home; I was painfully certain of it, and my conviction was so strong I had no trouble communicating it. Luc declared the idea was simply brilliant and Grandmother rallied to it, too — what better place for Mama to come alive again than in her childhood home?

  Once we had tracked down Dr. Longuet at the outpatient clinic, we told him what we wished to do, but he put a damper on our enthusiasm. He didn’t think a premature discharge would improve Mama’s condition. He considered it necessary to send her to Quebec City where she would get the best treatment available. Oh, what a pill this bumptious medic was, speaking to us as if he were addressing a kindergarten class! But his words shook Grandmother’s resolve and, when we found ourselves back in the corridor, she was inclined to agree with the Stethoscopian: after all, how much value did a flash of intuition really have, compared to the huge amount of knowledge washing over representatives of the medical profession from morning till night? I wasn’t going to be fobbed off with these superstitions, though. I knew I was right, and gave Grandmother a good tongue-lashing, accusing her of letting herself be hornswoggled by the doctor. When she saw how angry I was, she seemed to waver and admitted she needed Grandfather’s opinion. While she went off to phone him, we headed for the cafeteria where we knocked back an orange pop, and I was relieved to hear that Luc agreed with me. We saw eye to eye: since the clinician’s unwholesome influence was paralysing Grandmother’s will, we were going to take action. And we mobilized our neuronal resources in order to work out an abduction plan.

  We would kidnap Mama at lunchtime. In some far-off corridor, Luc would rivet everyone’s attention by pretending he was having a fit of demonic possession, and I would take advantage of that diversion to seize hold of my mother. I would put her in a wheelchair and slip out through a basement door. The good old bungalow of my former life was only two blocks away and I still had the key: it would make a wonderful hideout. We were well aware of the hazards of such an operation. We knew we needed to fool the staff, that I might be recognized and chased after while piloting my mother through the premises. In a scenario worthy of a demolition derby, I already had visions of myself tearing along corridors that bristled with traps and narrowly escaping from our pursuers by leaping from elevator to elevator. I was propelling Mama across the packed cafeteria while lunch trays flew in every direction and a squadron of white-coated musclemen hunted us down. I pictured us being surrounded, cornered in the laundry room, entrenched at last between two rows of gigantic washing machines, hostile science-fiction Buddhas with gaping bellies. No doubt about it, the venture was fraught with danger, yet we needed to give it a try since it was vitally important. As midday drew near, however, and adrenaline flooded through our veins, Grandmother came back, and we saw that she had completely regained her fighting spirit. She announced that Grandfather supported us unreservedly. Invigorated by this approval, she marched us off to the administrative offices where we burst in on the director.

  He wasn’t exactly pleased to see us. He sent for Longuet as a reinforcement, and together they justified their rejection of our request by dishing up an indigestible stew of medical and administrative arguments. But we weren’t going to let them intimidate us, and Grandmother kept insisting that the fruit of her womb be returned to her. The explosive entry of a dishevelled Grandfather, who dictatorially clamoured for an ambulatory treatment, was all that was needed to tip the scales. Since Mama’s condition didn’t present any particular cause for concern in a medical sense, it was decreed we would be granted permission to look after her in our home environment and, after the signing of a great flurry of forms, she was given back to us. I had won.

  They delivered her to us by silent ambulance and we settled her in the room that had been her bedroom when she was a girl, which is next to mine. We are going to take such good care of her! We’ll show those medics and nurses what we’re capable of. They’ll find out what tender loving care can accomplish. In the warm bosom of her family, with our combined affectionate vibrations enveloping her, it won’t be long, I’m sure, before Mama opens her eyes again.

  14

  Mama’s homecoming has transformed the house into a quiet hive of activity. We take turns at her bedside. Her nearness boosts my spirits, to say nothing of hope, an added bonus. I take really good care of my beautiful rescued mother and try to awaken her senses. I have her smell the scent of her favourite flowers. I sit and chat, I read to her, play music she likes, and every morning I open her window so she can hear the refrain of the sea. Luc fusses over her with equal devotion. He would sleep at the foot of her bed if it were allowed. He surrounds her with mystical shells and whispers certain healing formulas to her in merman jargon.

  * * *

  On the verandah, Luc and Grandfather are discussing the weather forecast in teeth-clicking code with the earnestness of a pair of shrewd old salts. Luc managed to get himself invited to the smokehouse today, which just shows how much trust the old man puts in him. As for Grandmother, she still occasionally jumps when she happens to meet him coming around a corner of some hallway, but she offers him our unconditional hospitality: Luc is welcome to sleep at our place whenever he wants and eat here any time. In order to be worthy of this honour, he tries to become domesticated. He’s acquainting himself with the use of a comb and does his best to penetrate the mysteries of the rules of etiquette. He never lets an opportunity slip by to praise Grandmother’s cooking to the skies or make an appreciative comment on what she happens to be wearing. She is sensitive to such courtesies and gazes at him with an increasingly benevolent expression in her eyes, wondering, perhaps, if concealed beneath that crude attire, there might actually lurk a gentleman. Luc has a knack for worming his way into our daily habits. You should see him sipping his tea in the living room with Grandmother. He’s not being hypocritical — he really enjoys it, he says.

  * * *

  In spite of our vigilant care and attention, Mama continues to waste away. I had thought that, for her eyes to open, we only needed to replant her in a favourable compost, but I’m forced to accept that our titanic affection isn’t enough. Luc says we need to pray to the iguana. In his opinion, the dream about the mummy — that enlightening vision I had — was engineered by the saurian. He is delighted the dream machine worked despite the hummingbird’s ploys, and he views the iguana’s spontaneous demonstration of his powers as an exceptional favour. He feels it’s a sign of good will, an invitation to believe. I question this analysis but it seems foolish to rule out that the amphibian may have influenced things, and since I really don’t want to take any chances, I’ll begin stomping afresh tomorrow on the Cove’s cinnamon sands. My tongue may get sunburned, but I’ll keep chanting at the top of my voice:

  Hail Iguana full of straw,

  The dancer sweats with thee.

  Blessed art thou amongst animals,

  And blessed is the seller of thy hide, Mona.

  * * *

  Kilometre 54 caught me by surprise as it flung open a whistling gate onto its pitch-black squalls and slashed me with icy knives. The howling walls and the maze were gone, but it had to be the Kilometre since rails stretched out at my feet. Improbable lamps pierced the blizzard. I realized they were searchlights belonging to the rescue party. For, as I gathered from the bits and pieces of mechanical parts and snowmobile fragments that lay scattered about, I stood at the exact spot where the accident had happened. The train itself was nowhere to be seen, but I pictured it crouching in the heart of the darkness. Braving the storm’s throbbing blades, I followed the track like a haggard ra
ilway-man. Numb with cold, I staggered on in the gale, then I noticed a pink form in the snow. Pink like Mama’s Ski-doo suit. Her body lying in a snowdrift. I rushed over and knelt down beside her. She lay slumped like a doll tossed there by some giant child. I took off her helmet and her hair coiled around my wrists. She was asleep. I called her as loudly as I could, but she went on sleeping, and while I desperately tried to revive her, I suddenly felt a presence. A shadow eclipsed the searchlights. In the eye of the maelstrom loomed a figure.

  The unexpected visitor had no head, and magma of living ink oozed from his lacerated neck. It was my decapitated father. He towered at the Kilometre’s centre as if he were its soul, and the winds bowed down at his feet. He came nearer, displacing patches of darkness, but I drew back because of the blasts of terror escorting him and the furious whirlwinds rotating towards me. The ghost pushed me away from my mother, then positioned himself between us, shielding Mama with his body. Suddenly I knew. I understood he was the one who held Mama prisoner. He was making her stay with him, keeping her for himself. He made sure she didn’t wake up, didn’t go back to us. Bending down over my poor mother, he lifted her up as easily as if she were a pink flamingo, then carried her off, dissolving with his burden into the raging blackness. So Papa was the jailer of Kilometre 54?

  Luc was there when I surfaced in my icy bed, and I gave him a detailed report of my inner adventure. He wanted me to go back to sleep right away and return to that place so I might get to the heart of the matter, but the mere thought petrified me. Hadn’t the phantom made it clear he considered me an intruder? Hadn’t he barred me from entering the Kilometre? Who am I to challenge a father’s ghostly authority?

  * * *

  I would gladly revert to my old insomniac self, but Luc declares running away doesn’t solve anything. I know he is right. I have no choice. I have a mother to save. So I must return to the Kilometre since there’s no other way. I need to see the nightmare through to the end and have it out with the ghost. I must clarify his intentions and negotiate Mama’s release.

  Holy Iguana, with eyes so odd,

  Protect me, the dreamer,

  Now, from the fear of my dad.

  * * *

  I thought I had stepped into the wrong dream, for there was no blizzard whipping across the white plain. The sky was the bottom of a bottle that distorted the stars. I saw the ghost at once, standing in this wilderness of snow with Mama stretched out at his feet. He stood quite still. And remained still. And since he kept holding this immobile pose, I dared to go nearer. He continued to loom motionless. A deactivated robot. A statue plunked down in the middle of the great white void. Except for that condensing breath, that frosted mist rising from his jagged neck. As inconspicuously as I could, I crouched down beside Mama who slept in the shadow of this phantom tree, and I whispered her name. I called her softly so she’d wake up and we could run away together far from the terrible guard. Because she didn’t respond, I began shaking her, and this is when the ghost awakened. He grew to an enormous size, and from the gaping tunnel of his neck sprang the blizzard. I was knocked flat, sent rolling over the frozen plain, flung out of the dream, back to the hollow of my bed. Expelled. Punished for my audacity.

  Why this hostility? What happened to the affection, the closeness, the harmony there once was between us? Luc believes the ghost doesn’t recognize me, but I’m sure he’s wrong. Papa knows who I am; we just don’t see eye to eye anymore — that is the problem.

  * * *

  Two nights later. After a few disastrous experiences, I think I’ve found a way to mollify the ghost. It can be done, provided one doesn’t attempt to take Mama away from him. He lets me go near her, and I’m even allowed to touch her if I want, but when I try to wake her up, he cloaks himself in icy blasts and chases me from the Kilometre. Otherwise, if I keep quiet, he is tolerant. Indifferent, actually. He ignores me. He just sits there doing nothing. Or walks around us like a sentry. I know he is watching me even though he pretends he isn’t, but I don’t think I have anything to fear so long as I play by his rules.

  15

  Kilometre 54 is a myriad of snowscapes woven into one. It has a life of its own, a fluttering fringe. It is crowded with different moments — now gloomy, now peaceful, but always new, and sometimes fragrant as a December morning. The days can be pale, dim, overcast, the nights sparkling and silky. The blizzard is only the spot’s sternest face. I have an inkling the Kilometre responds to the ghost’s many moods, adapts to them, feeds on them. Unless it’s the other way around. There exists in any case an umbilical connection between the two, a symbiotic relationship. The ghost himself isn’t mean, after all. He looks terrifying but turns out to be harmless. He pays no attention to me, doesn’t seem to hear anything I say to him. He lets me trudge along by his side when he decides to carry Mama for hours on end in the shattered night, following the rails without ever reaching the scarlet moon, without ever arriving anywhere… This is what the ghost is like, he is the very image of the Kilometre: full of vast empty spaces — insane, lethal, but nonetheless, in his own way, magnanimous.

  * * *

  Not a puff of wind disturbed the stillness of the immaculate white expanse, and legions of airborne flakes drifted lazily down. The ghost held Mama in his arms and rocked her as if she were a little child. He stroked her brow, her hair, and his gestures were suffused with gentleness. I think he would have kissed her had he been able to, and suddenly his intentions were revealed to me in a new light. Could the motive for his jealous watch over my mother simply be love? Is my father incapable of parting from his beloved? Is that why he holds her captive? How can I hope to persuade him then to surrender her to me? And first of all, how am I to make myself heard by this melancholy phantom who has no ears to listen with, and even less a mouth through which he might reply? By what means are we to communicate? Using Morse code? Telepathy?

  * * *

  You’d almost think the ghost wants to take the initiative. Last night, when I reached the Kilometre, I found him waiting for me at the edge of the railway bed. He seemed agitated, singularly aware of my presence. Shedding the supreme reserve that had marked his behaviour until then, he addressed me through gestures. His arms spread in a helpless manner, encompassing the Kilometre, then his mittens fell off and his hands reached out to me. It was a gesture the son of the Guy who Runs the Show could have made when asking the little children to come to him, except that I happened to be the only kid around and rather reluctant to honour the invitation. Papa’s hands rose, flew up to the huge void of his face. Then, out of his gaping neck leapt a tongue of fire. This flame danced about on his shoulders and coiled within its own spiralling wreaths, taking on the crude shape of the head that had once been there. It was like a pulpy mass of molten metals in which emerged the grimacing shadow of an anguished face. The hands moved away from this burning visage and swept imploringly towards me. Insistent. Beseeching. Then they beat the frigid air like startled gulls and soared away moments before the dream evaporated.

  This was the first time the ghost shed his armour of indifference and tried to start a dialogue. His intentions remain unclear and the purpose of the dream unfathomable, but I have a feeling that a new chapter in the history of our phantom-and-son relationship has just begun.

  * * *

  I am visited by new bursts of night visions that are difficult to describe but must surely be coming from my father since they all conjure up the same thing: his hands, his face. I glimpse blazing features, mutant heads of lava, and other eruptive sproutings. Time and again, I am implored by hands that open and reach out to me. I think the ghost may be struggling to convey a message. What is the meaning of these cryptic pantomimes and insane cremations? What is he trying to get me to understand?

  * * *

  The visions are feverish. Some are quite horrifying, like that paternal face being gobbled up all the way to the bone by famished worms, while others are merely strange, haunting: Papa’s visage turning into an impossible
jigsaw puzzle whose pieces won’t stay in place and vanish one by one. A photo in which the features begin to shimmy, then become so muddled they are unrecognizable. His portrait chalked on a sidewalk washed by rain. The empty wake of his gaze swallowed up by the ocean…

  * * *

  The ghost is growing impatient. His appearances are no longer confined to the realm of dreams but encroach alarmingly upon reality. The visions poke through my lashes in the iridescent glow of dawn and assail me even in broad daylight. I hallucinate. I see hands forming on the white surface of clouds. Papa’s grimace hovers in a curtain as it billows in the breeze, looms up in the golden dust filtering from a window. Even the moon is mixed up in it, stretching out imploring hands to me with the hint of a gaze melting on its round face.

  Those hands, those fluid faces, those ill omens, images that whirl briefly in the wind and are gone…

  * * *

  I feel I’m being watched. I dare not look in the mirror anymore for fear of glimpsing a headless figure behind me. What is the point of these livid mime hands, as white as Mickey’s gloves, flitting about in black light, then opening out like poisonous flowers? What am I to make of these heads of dripping clay blazing up and writhing on my father’s bare shoulders? It is a code whose key eludes me. I don’t know what he is driving at. I just don’t understand, and that unnerves me. Luc doesn’t give up, though. He thinks there has to be a reason for these hauntings. He is convinced my visions mean something. He insists on my describing them in detail for him and analyses it all, doing his best to pull the main thread out of this tangled skein. Tirelessly, he struggles to sort out what to me is nothing but a jumble.