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Authors: Lise Bissonnette
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patients, and New Yorkersâ taste for white cars, a sea of cars that seemed to fascinate him endlessly. He told her about life here as if he knew it, he didnât envy the rich, didnât look longingly in store windows. He dreamed of being swallowed up every day in the crowd that rushed to work as to a riot, through the inner mazes of the big buildings, insidersâ shortcuts that he claimed to know. He covered the side streets, Grand Central took two hours, and that was where they stopped, in one of those cafeterias where trays are pushed at you before you even have time to read the menu. He laughed, heâd eat anything, even pastrami.
It took them two days to get near the park, some fifteen blocks from their hotel, and Marie made him walk there. He hadnât come here to marvel at the last flowerbeds that were lingering into October, or at the green that was only now turning to gold on low hills or in small valleys, or at scenes of mothers walking dogs along the southern paths, past the reassuring row of luxury hotels.
Marie would have liked to stay longer, to exorcise her memories of a summer that could never have occurred here, where you were never alone on a bench, where dogs must be kept on a leash, where the park opens onto the street, where if an unknown woman approached her, it would only be to ask the time. New York took its water from the big reservoir towards the northern tip of the park, a water tower would be impossible here, it would be padlocked. Here no one would be able to intrude. And sheâd have liked to live here with Ervant, who would have been busy with something else. Sheâd have taught French to children who would arrive through the entrances on Fifth Avenue, she would come here at noon to read novels, perhaps even â finally â Theodore Dreiser.
Close to the deserted zoo, a young man stood over an old woman collapsed on a bench. He was dark-skinned with a poorly trimmed beard that frayed onto his thick neck, boots over jeans, a bomber jacket with metal studs. He was shouting in a foreign language, she moaned in reply, she had a flowered dress and legs covered with varicose veins, and she wore shoes with laces. In a flash he had struck her face, his anger soon vented, her moans even louder than before. Ervant was there at once, grappling the man from behind, shouting two or three words in the same language, then bashed him into a low wall. No one turned around, the old woman fell silent, Ervant was already dragging Marie towards the exit. The man wanted the money she sent over there, he explained, the people in his country didnât know how to behave in their misery. Ervant was irritated as much at the mother as at the son, you have to learn how to go away by yourself, you can always write, you shouldnât be surprised when the old people transposed here miss their other children. He knew every detail of their story, he pictured girls still young enough to go out bareheaded, standing outside the public wash houses, married to fearful village men, wishing they had the currency that would buy them sandals or delicate soaps. The evening was ruined in spite of the movies.
And the next day, too, because they had to visit the cousin and his wife, who were expecting them. They lived at 135 39th Street, between Third and Lexington. It was an ochre brick building with windowpanes surrounded by black metal like the ones you see all over the neighbourhood and that looked old to them. Air conditioners still wheezed on the upper floors, but according to the sign inside the door the cousin lived on the ground floor. The cautiously opened door, then the embraces. Only two connected rooms could be seen, the one window gave onto the yard and the back of the house next door, an iron grille lay crumpled across it, padlocked on the left. The janitorâs quarters, and his cousin seemed to be happy here.
Ervant was tense throughout the meal, but he conversed willingly, she would
It took them two days to get near the park, some fifteen blocks from their hotel, and Marie made him walk there. He hadnât come here to marvel at the last flowerbeds that were lingering into October, or at the green that was only now turning to gold on low hills or in small valleys, or at scenes of mothers walking dogs along the southern paths, past the reassuring row of luxury hotels.
Marie would have liked to stay longer, to exorcise her memories of a summer that could never have occurred here, where you were never alone on a bench, where dogs must be kept on a leash, where the park opens onto the street, where if an unknown woman approached her, it would only be to ask the time. New York took its water from the big reservoir towards the northern tip of the park, a water tower would be impossible here, it would be padlocked. Here no one would be able to intrude. And sheâd have liked to live here with Ervant, who would have been busy with something else. Sheâd have taught French to children who would arrive through the entrances on Fifth Avenue, she would come here at noon to read novels, perhaps even â finally â Theodore Dreiser.
Close to the deserted zoo, a young man stood over an old woman collapsed on a bench. He was dark-skinned with a poorly trimmed beard that frayed onto his thick neck, boots over jeans, a bomber jacket with metal studs. He was shouting in a foreign language, she moaned in reply, she had a flowered dress and legs covered with varicose veins, and she wore shoes with laces. In a flash he had struck her face, his anger soon vented, her moans even louder than before. Ervant was there at once, grappling the man from behind, shouting two or three words in the same language, then bashed him into a low wall. No one turned around, the old woman fell silent, Ervant was already dragging Marie towards the exit. The man wanted the money she sent over there, he explained, the people in his country didnât know how to behave in their misery. Ervant was irritated as much at the mother as at the son, you have to learn how to go away by yourself, you can always write, you shouldnât be surprised when the old people transposed here miss their other children. He knew every detail of their story, he pictured girls still young enough to go out bareheaded, standing outside the public wash houses, married to fearful village men, wishing they had the currency that would buy them sandals or delicate soaps. The evening was ruined in spite of the movies.
And the next day, too, because they had to visit the cousin and his wife, who were expecting them. They lived at 135 39th Street, between Third and Lexington. It was an ochre brick building with windowpanes surrounded by black metal like the ones you see all over the neighbourhood and that looked old to them. Air conditioners still wheezed on the upper floors, but according to the sign inside the door the cousin lived on the ground floor. The cautiously opened door, then the embraces. Only two connected rooms could be seen, the one window gave onto the yard and the back of the house next door, an iron grille lay crumpled across it, padlocked on the left. The janitorâs quarters, and his cousin seemed to be happy here.
Ervant was tense throughout the meal, but he conversed willingly, she would
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