THE Child who dreamt of being a tree , livre ebook

Claude Daigneault
The child who dreamt of being a tree
Novel
Translation
Mathieu Daigneault
Layout
Pyxis
Picture of the author
Jean-Pierre Rivest
Illustration
Jocelyn Jalette
Catalogage avant publication de
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
et Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Daigneault, Claude, 1942-
[Enfant qui rêvait d’être un arbre. English]
The child who dreamt of being a tree
Translation of : L’enfant qui rêvait d’être un arbre.
Electronic monograph.
ISBN 978-2-924187-26-5 (ePub)
ISBN 978-2-924187-27-2 (PDF)
I. Daigneault, Mathieu, 1972-
II. Title. III. Title : Enfant qui rêvait d’être un arbre. English.
PS8557.A445E5413 2013 C843’.54 C2013-941605-6
PS9557.A445E5413 2013
Legal Deposit
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, 2013
Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2013
Éditions la Caboche
Phone: 450.714-4037 Fax: 450.714-4236
E-mail : info@editionslacaboche.qc.ca
www.editionslacaboche.qc.ca
Write to the author at :
cdaigneault@ilavaltrie.com
All rights reserved for all countries
Chapter one
T he smell of dry dust mixed with Lysol wafting in the parlor of the Sœurs Jésus-Marie de Sillery convent makes my eyes water. Ahead, perfectly aligned brown chairs are practically glowing from the layers of wax that countless hands have religiously applied to them over the years. In a scalloped pot of polished brass, at the centre of a pedestal covered with drab, peeling white paint, a fat fern sits in a corner, bathed in a warm ray of lemon-colored sunlight.
A young nun with a ruddy, round face, tightly wrap­ped in the garb of a novice, excuses herself from my presence, saying in a low voice as she passes:
“Sister Saint Mary of the Transfiguration of the Christ will see you shortly.”
The antiquated nun’s name really does not suit my aunt at all. For me, all of those outdated appellations repre­sent a form of tenderness without tenderness, a synonym of cold compassion that smells of ‘industrial’ floor wax, of orphanages, of boarding schools, and of benevolent priests, like those who paid for my classical education, all in the hopes that I would one day succumb to the call of the priesthood. My memories are like so many spider webs!
While I wait, I take out from my briefcase the notes for the Latin class I will be presenting in two hours at Saint-Jean-Eudes college, trying to summon the inspi­ration to convince twenty-eight pimply teenagers of the delicate beauty of verses such as:
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi...
“My DEAR Julien !”
My aunt comes into the parlor before I even have time to get up and greet her properly. Draped over her body, she wears one of those modernized nun’s garment, in vogue since the recent council of John XXIII.
Softly, I brush my lips against her cheeks, soft and white, like quality toilet paper. With a wave of her hand, she bids me to sit down on the same hard chair I had just sat on, then sits on the one directly to my right so that, in order to look at her, I must lean forward slightly to avoid the glare of the noonday sun hitting the window at an angle.
“I won’t be inviting you to my chambers, Julien; I don’t have much time, today. You are well? You look pale…”
“A little fatigued… The upcoming end of the school year, and all that…”
“How goes teaching?”
“Oh, it’s all right, I guess,” I answer with a sigh. “I don’t know, I still feel like I’m lagging a generation behind. I mean, teaching Latin , in today’s world?”
“Come now, dear Julien. Young people always need culture; it helps nurture their minds.”
“I should opt for Quebecois literature, instead. That way, at least I could teach these kids some joual .”
“Cynical as always. How can you ridicule so many young authors whose only wish is to rejuvenate literature, novels, theatre, and poetry?”
“But why go about it in such a roundabout way? I prefer beauty, perfection, straight lines, silence, Bach. That’s why I took to Latin so much. I still can’t fathom why the Catholic Church decided to abandon Latin in favor of what it calls the ‘vernacular language’. Dialects hold no interest for me. I sure did everything I could to forget my parents’…”
“Julien, Julien… Bitterness never solved anything. Sometimes, I think that the Fathers of the Très-Saint-Sacrement were wise when they decided not to let you take your last vows. I am not sure your religious vocation was as unwavering and resolute as you pretended it to be at the time.”
“Perhaps. In any case, that particular episode helped me realize that I didn’t believe in anything, really. But I can’t help holding a grudge against all of these people who robbed me of my childhood, of my youth.”
“All things change, Julien. One must survive evolution, lest its tides sweep us all away, like… like dried seaweed on a beach.”
“Like they did Baba…”
“You still think about your grandfather?”
“I knew happiness, thanks to him, thanks to his simple imagination, and his way of telling me stories that made me feel validated…”
“You were five years old!”
“That’s also what I liked about college. My old teachers were like so many grandfathers to me. They made life seem somewhat less… difficult.”
“You needed to be reassured.”
“And I was!”
“Enough to confront life head-on? Enough to deal with society, with challenges?”
She pretends to wait for my reply, but adds quickly:
“You have to stop sulking, nephew! It’s the middle of the sixties, a period of great intellectual turmoil that you are seemingly willing to ignore.”
“I don’t need anybody. I’m comfortable simply staying at home, in my own universe. With my books, my records, and my solitude…”
As the words leave my mouth, I know my dear aunt is about to hand out one of her usual admonitions:
“Life is also about being with others, Julien. You’re twenty-six years old, you should have friends. You should be having fun, traveling, thinking of starting a family…”
I smile in spite of myself. For a sexagenarian nun, my aunt flaunts a decidedly modern attitude that never ceases to amaze me. She’s been a part of so many battles, including the time she was on the Parent report preparatory com­mittee for education overhaul. She was almost banished from her community because of her avant-gardist ideas. I like her, very much, and I know I owe her not only my education, but also my survival; she’s the one who, year after year, always managed to find some ‘benefactors’ to pay for my classical education and my university studies. But her desire to see me lead a ‘normal’ life aggravates me.
“You’ll always surprise me, Julien. You hide in your apartment like you did as a child, when you wound up in the most incongruous of places… And those long forest walks when you forgot to even come home… How many calls did I receive from worried attendants over at the orphanage, and then later, at the seminary?”
“I no longer hide in attics and cupboards, if that’s what you mean. I did keep my love for long walks in the forest, though. And, with the help of a ninety-three year old surveyor I sometimes visit at the old folks’ home, I’m currently preparing a monograph on various tree species that were brought to the Charlevoix region by a settler from the Poitou, around the XVII th century.”
My aunt smiles, wryly.
“My, what devotion! Is that why you refuse all of my invitations to go to the restaurant, and why you spend all of your weekends cloistered in your lair?”
The sarcasm of her words doesn’t escape me.
“I do regret that, believe me. I love talking with you. A nice exchange in a refined language offers me much needed distraction from my students’ usual ramblings and musings. But I do crave my tranquility. Plus, I have a lot of work to do.”
“Oh, go tell another , Julien! You’re hiding, and you very well know it! This pedantic way you have of speaking is a perfect example of what I’m saying. But never mind; let’s forget all of that. I didn’t call you over here to preach your sermons, rest assured.”
She lowers her head slightly, contemplating her slender white hands, resting on her knees like two dead fish. Taking a deep breath to sum up some courage, she turns her head and stares back at me, straight in the eye.
“Your sister, Michèle, phoned me earlier. She would like to meet with you as soon as possible.”
Although surprised, my answer is cold and impassive.
“Why? I don’t want to see her again.”
“She spoke of a document concerning your family that some people have apparently discovered and wish to give to her. She would like you to be present for the occasion.”
“After twenty years, my dear sister finally remembers that I exist, and she thinks a simple phone call will make me run back to her?”
“Julien, she’s your only sister! Why are you always this harsh, this bitter? You know nothing of the circumstances surrounding the reasons why Michèle chose not to stay in touch with you.”
“When I was a child, she meant the world to me. She was the only faint glimmer in a sea of gray. And she knew it. Would it have been such a chore to just… write me a few words and explain her absence over the years?”
“Well, why don’t you go and ask her in person?”
Even the thought of going back to Sherbrooke makes my skin crawl. I don’t dare look at aunt Imelda. Suddenly overcome by so many repressed memories, I find myself quivering on the inside. A quick succession of visions assail me: Michèle sobbing, collapsed on her bed, my father, on his knees, his voice cracking as he