Nancy Huston - Black Dance

Here we can zoom in on his dialogue with the priest.

“What did you do, son?”

“None of your business.”

“This is serious, Milo. I’m asking you if you’ve sinned in thought, word, or deed.”

“And I’m telling you to mind your own business. No way I’ll ever tell you what goes on inside my head.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way to a man of God, Milo.”

“I didn’t ask to talk to you.”

“You’re under our authority here; you can’t do just anything you please.”

“Neither can you!”

“If you go on talking that way, my son, I’ll have no choice but to punish you, you realize that?”

“I’m not your son, for Chrissake!”

“And on top of it all you take the name of Our Lord in vain!”

Milo detests priests and finds it hard to tell them apart. They all seem to wear the same glasses, have the same phony smile, the same cruelty masquerading as virtue. . Preferring brutality to hypocrisy, he’d rather deal with his cousins any day.

The holy sisters drag him out of bed before dawn and force him to wax the hallway or sprinkle the skating rink for two hours. But he sleeps little anyway, and would rather wax a floor or sprinkle a skating rink than have nightmares. He finds the work soothing, does it carefully and well. Loves being alone. The sisters yank him away from early Mass and send him down to the kitchen to make toast for 150 breakfasts. . But he can dream while making toast — far better than in church, where organ music, incense smoke and priestly prattle clog his senses within minutes.

Throughout the long winter months he deals patiently with his fate. But as April begins to wane, as the snows melt and the river ice breaks up and the sluices open and the juices run, an atavistic urge rewakens in his veins. . and, suddenly, no. No. None of this. He must be gone.

In the dorm one night at half past twelve, he sneaks over to Timide’s bed.

“You awake?”

In his upper bunk, the fat boy flops over and struggles to focus.

“Here. Put on your glasses, we’re hightailing it out of here. Just you and me, okay?”

“Where to?”

“Montreal. Get dressed.”

“Montreal! You must be nuts! It’s a hundred miles away!”

“Take your blanket and stuff a few clothes in your knapsack. I’ll wait for you in the hall. It’s the perfect night, there’s a full moon. Everyone’s asleep. .”

“Everyone but the wolves.”

“You and I are the wolves now. Come on, Timide, get your ass in gear!”

As Timide reluctantly descends from his bunk, Milo notices Augustin, the tall blond snotty boy, archest of his archenemies, feigning sleep in the bunk below. Has he overheard their plans?

Hiking Timide’s pudgy, clumsy, terrified body over the high wall of the institution is no mean feat, but Milo is all-powerful tonight. Free! Free! his mother’s voice sings softly in his brain. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. . By one in the morning they’re on the road: full moon, springtime, owl calls, river thundering down below, good graveled road underfoot. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. . Milo’s knapsack is packed tight with food stolen from the kitchen and his heart is high with hope.

Timide’s step, however, is less buoyant.

“What are we gonna do in Montreal?”

“Find my mom.”

“I thought you were an orphan!”

“No, my parents are alive, I just haven’t met them yet. But I know where my mom lives, on Saint Catherine Street. We’ll surprise her. You’ll see, she’ll be thrilled! And then she’ll help us out. . But first we’ll stop off at the house of a girl I know.”

(This next scene, Milo, is one of the least glorious episodes of your life. .)

Two or three days have elapsed, and while Milo’s enthusiasm is unabated, Timide is in bad shape: exhausted, sweating, smelly and scared, his feet covered with blisters. The runaways arrive at Edith’s place after dark.

“Where’s your friend?” whines Timide.

Milo pulls him around to the back of the darkened house and picks up a pebble. CUT to Edith at the window. At sixteen as at twelve, what she lacks in beauty she makes up for in warmth.

“Milo, wow! This is fantastic! The police are looking for you guys. My parents heard about it on the radio. They’re combing the whole area. And here you are, wow! Hang on, I’ll be right down!”

CUT to the woodshed half an hour later. A flashlight propped amidst the stacks of wood and kindling gives the place an eerie glow. Edith, dressed only in a nightgown, drops to her knees on the dirt floor and slowly bares her breasts. Timide’s eyes pop out of his head. He backs away in terror, repeatedly making the sign of the cross and whispering, “Non, non. .” but Milo constrains him, gently pushing him forward.

“Look, Timide. . Look how beautiful they are. . Come closer! See the way a girl’s nipples harden when you stroke them real gently?. . See? Come on, give it a try. . Hey, you’ve seen titties before, haven’t you? You sucked your mother’s titties when you were little like everybody else! It’s okay to like it, you know. .”

Edith laughs. She draws the two boys toward her, then purposely falls over backward so that Timide finds himself on top of her, his face squashed between her breasts. He jerks away, beside himself with fear. Edith laughs again.

“Hey, take it easy, big boy! I won’t bite!”

“N-no. . n-no. .”

“You getting hard down there. .? Nope. . soft as chicken liver. Don’t you know a thing about love, hey, Timide? Watch your friend Milo, he’ll show you the ropes. .”

And Milo, whether as a grotesque reenactment of the previous summer’s antics with Kim and Sherman or an involuntary replay of his violation at the hands of Jean-Joseph, tries to include poor Timide in this his first copulation with Edith, forcing the boy despite his tears and protestations to remain not only with but virtually between the two of them as they work themselves up, Milo’s boots scrabbling amidst rakes and brooms and Edith’s head banging up against the logs, Milo’s hips thrusting and Edith’s heaving, Milo’s throat emitting grunts and Edith’s squeals, finally attaining orgasm (Milo’s) in the sawdust.

When Milo comes to his senses, Timide is sobbing uncontrollably.

Edith helps the two of them to their feet and dusts them off, then hands them a box of cookies and a tin of sardines: “This is all I could find.”

CUT.

A long, depressing shot of the two boys walking through forest in silence: “I’m sorry, Timide. . I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

CUT TO: The boys’ dead campfire early in the morning. They’ve spent the night huddled against a hillside. As chill dawn whitens the sky, Milo scrambles to his feet.

“Let’s go,” he says, bending over the bumpy lump that is Timide’s body. “Today’s the big day.”

“Let me sleep, you bag of shit!”

“No, let’s go. Come on, Timide, let’s go. This is no time to fall apart. We’re almost there, I can feel it. Can’t you? Can’t you feel the big city right nearby? Come on, get the hell out of bed or I’ll finish the trip without you!”

As there’s nothing Timide dreads more than finding himself alone in the middle of nowhere, he angrily rises and gets dressed. The boys scramble up to the crest of the hill. . And there it is, shimmering and scintillating in the pink-mauve softness of the spring dawn, white ribbons of smoke rising from its chimneys and early sun rays glancing redly off its skyscrapers, rippling down from the mountain at its heart to the river whose long arms hold it in a tight embrace, stretching beyond mountain and river as far as the eye can see: the island city of Montreal.

Awed, Timide and Milo lie flat on their stomachs and gaze down at the unfathomable cement-and-glass beast.