Nancy Huston - Black Dance

“You’re puttin’ me on.”

“. .”

“You just had a baby. Even my mom had a few months’ breathin’ space between kids. You can’t get pregnant again right off the bat.”

“I didn’ give suck.”

“Wha?”

“Can’t get knocked up again if you nurse de baby.”

“So anyhow. So okay. So why you tellin’ me ?”

“It’s your kid.”

“Ha. Fat chance.”

“Listen, Mister Cleaning-Fluid. You and me had plans, remember? Even dough I learned ages ago you should never believe a guy wid a hard-on, I let you talk to me ‘bout love and livin’ in the woods and stuff. You ask me what’s de difference tween you and a john? Answer: no john ever got into my body widout a safe on.”

Declan runs his hands through his red hair a couple of times. Glances up at the seagulls, perhaps envying them their freedom. Takes a swig from his whisky flask. Finally mutters:

“My kid. .”

“Simple as dat.”

“We gonna have a kid together, Nita?”

“ I gonna have one, dat for damn sure.”

“Well, let’s get married, then. . eh? Listen. Come up to the farm and meet my family.”

Close-up on Declan as he briefly imagines bringing a pregnant Indian woman home with him. We see the scene in distorted color in his mind: Neil raising his eyebrows, turning to him and whispering, Does she even know how to read? ; Marie-Thérèse frowning and pursing her lips; the little boys, Jean-Joseph and François-Joseph, snickering and pointing at his fiancée’s parti-colored hair.

“Naw, forget about that,” he says. “Jus’ les get married.”

He’s beginning to slur his words.

“Sure, Deck. I’ll marry you. . minute you get a job.”

“I’m lookin’, I’m lookin’. . It’s not easy to find work, specially now I got a police record.”

“You know. .” says Awinita, “once dere was an Attikamak chief who said he’d give his daughter only to de best hunter of de clan. De girl, she was in love wit a strong young brave named Yanuchich. He had a good reputation as a hunter, but her fader want to make sure. He tell Yanuchich he can marry his daughter only if he bring back a hundred hides. So de brave, he go off into de forest. .”

Long silence. A cargo ship glides down the river in front of them, and a moment later wavelets lap at their feet.

“Yeah?” says Declan, bored, taking another swallow of his cheap bourbon. “Then what happened?”

“Nuttin’.”

“What do you mean, nothin’? Somethin’ always happens in stories.”

“Not dis time. The girl wait. She wait and she wait, and she wait and she wait, and Yanuchich never come back.”

“That’s it?”

“Dat’s it. She wait so long she get old, and turn to stone, and she still waitin’ today. Dey say you can see her stone head out near Shawinigan. Dat how the town of Grand-Mère got it name.”

“Aw, who gives a shit. That’s a boring story, Nita.”

“Yeah. I don’t like dat story, either, Mister Cleaning-Fluid. Just to let you know, I’m not gonna wait till I get old.”

“Okay, I got the message. Listen, I’m lookin’ for a job, okay? I’ll find one, don’t you worry. There’s so many strikes these days. . Maybe I could check out Imperial Tobacco.”

“Strikebreaker not reg’lar work, Deck. An’ meanwhile. .”

“Okay, don’t rub it in. Meanwhile I’m still living offa you. But somethin’ll turn up, I promise you. . Now that I’m gonna be a dad, I’ll clean up my act and start earning good money.”

With Doris Day’s “Shanghai” on the sound track, CUT to the visiting room at Bordeaux Jail a week later: Awinita and Declan talking to each other under a glass partition.

Same music (a big hit this summer; the radio plays it constantly). Awinita shooting up in the tiny bathroom next to the cruddy bedroom above the bar. When she emerges, swaying slightly, a client is sitting on the bed waiting for her. In his mid-seventies, with scant white hair, a heavy paunch, and trembly flesh on his jowls and arms, he’s already naked except for his glasses, watch and socks. Awinita glances at the Formica table — the money is there.

Hands shaking, the man takes off his watch and glasses and sets them on the bedside table. Keeps his socks on. Lies down and holds his arms out to us. We move toward him, melting, partly because his myopic blue gaze seems kind, but mostly because of the drug rush in our blood.

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Nita.”

“Hey. I’m Cal. How old are you, Nita?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Really? You look about fourteen! Must be because I’m so very old. . Let me tell you a secret, Nita. Are you listening? Nobody can believe they’re really old the way their grandparents used to be old when they were young. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Deep down, you feel young your whole life long.”

“What can I do for you, Cal, baby?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. Don’t know when I last managed to get it up. Just come here, that’s it. . just let me look at you. . Just let me touch you, honey. . oh, you’re so lovely. . So beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful. Oh. . that is amazing. . Oh my God. . Oh. . Oh. . Oh …”

In shades of gray and black, swirls of paint coalesce into patterns, slide out of them again, and finally crystallize into the black remains of a fire: charred, smoking ruins with the harsh taste of death. But then. . unexpectedly. . time passes backward over the scene. The burned beams and boards become whole again, climb onto each other, fit together and slowly form the little shack in which Awinita grew up. Moving around the shack, we come upon. . Awinita herself, age eleven, sitting on the front steps and watching the sun rise.

“Oh my God!” gasps the old man, who has just come in her hands. “Oh, I don’t believe it. That was astounding, Nita. Thank you so much. . You’re a lovely, lovely girl.”

Awinita doesn’t answer. Engrossed in her vision, she lies on her side and stares out the window.

“Thank you, Nita,” the white-haired john says, picking up one of her limp hands and covering it with kisses. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” A while later he puts his clothes back on, adds an extra bill to the one that’s already on the Formica table, and leaves the room. .

(Don’t cry, Milo. Yeah, I know you never cry, but don’t cry anyway. Let’s try to think of a funny scene that might have happened as, curled up in your junkie mother’s womb, you evolved from junkie embryo to junkie fetus. .)

That extra bill came in handy — Awinita’s hair is blond again.

Neil Kerrigan walks into the bar and glances around. He catches sight of Awinita’s blondness. Magnetized by it, he comes to sit next to her at the bar.

You’re right, it wouldn’t be funny for Neil to be one of Awinita’s clients that summer. Not totally improbable — the erotic life of sixty-year-old widows in rural Quebec can’t have been terribly exciting, and on some of his day trips into the city to visit bookstores and stock up on rare editions, Neil might well have stopped off in the red-light district for a bit of pleasure. So, not impossible, but not funny, given that Awinita is currently pregnant with his grandson. Too kinky for our film.

“What can I get you?” the barman asks him.

“A Molson would be lovely, thanks. And if the young lady doesn’t mind, bring her another glass of whatever she’s drinking. I need help to celebrate.”

“Do you mind, miss?” Irwin asks Awinita, as if he hadn’t seen her several hundred times before.

When she turns to Neil, some part of Awinita’s brain probably registers the fact that his eyes are the same shade of green as Declan’s. But the heroin muddles her thinking, and besides, she’s had johns with eyes of every color in the rainbow, even a couple without eyes.