Mavis Gallant - Varieties of Exile

Raymond behaved correctly at the funeral, holding his mother’s arm, seeing that everyone had a word with her, causing those relatives who did not know him well to remark that he was his father all over again. He was dressed in a dark suit, bought in a hurry, and one of Louis’s ties. He had not worn a tie since the last family funeral; Berthe had to fasten the knot. He let her give his hair a light trim, so that it cleared his shoulders.

Marie would not hold a reception: The mourners had to settle for a kiss or a handshake beside the open grave. Louis’s people, some of whom had come a long way, were starting back with the pieces of a break beyond mending. Marie didn’t care: Her family feelings had narrowed to Raymond and Berthe. After the funeral, Raymond drove the two sisters to Berthe’s flat. He sat with his mother at the kitchen table and watched Berthe cutting up a cold chicken. Marie kept on her funeral hat, a black straw pillbox with a wisp of veil. No one said much. The chicken was not enough for Raymond, so Berthe got out the ham she had baked the night before in case Marie changed her mind about inviting the relatives. She put the whole thing down in front of him, and he hacked pieces off and ate with his fingers. Marie said, “You wouldn’t dare do that if your father could see you,” because she had to say something. She and Berthe knew he was having a bad time.

When he finished, they moved down the hall to Berthe’s living room. She opened the doors to both balconies, to in-vite a crossbreeze. The heated air touched the looped white curtain without stirring a fold of it. Raymond took off his jacket and tie. The women had already removed their black stockings. Respect for Louis kept them from making themselves entirely comfortable. They had nothing in particular to do for the rest of the day. Berthe had taken time off from the office, and Marie was afraid to go home. She believed that some essence of Louis, not quite a ghost, was in their house on Boulevard Pie IX, testing locks, turning door handles, sliding drawers open, handling Marie’s poor muddled household accounts, ascertaining once and for all the exact amount of money owed by Marie to Berthe. (Berthe had always been good for a small loan toward the end of the month. She had shown Marie how to entangle the books, so that Louis need never know.)

Raymond stretched out on Berthe’s pale green sofa, with a pile of cushions under his head. “Raymond, watch where you put your feet,” said his mother.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Berthe. “Not today.”

“I don’t want you to wish we weren’t here,” said Marie. “After we’ve moved in, I mean. You’ll never know we’re in the house. Raymond, ask Aunt Berthe for an ashtray.”

“There’s one right beside him,” said Berthe.

“I won’t let Raymond put his feet all over the furniture,” said Marie. “Not after today. If you don’t want us, all you have to do is say.”

“I have said,” said Berthe, at which Raymond turned his head and looked at her intently.

Tears flooded Marie’s eyes at the improbable vision of Berthe ordering her nearest relatives, newly bereaved, to pack and go. “We’re going to be happy, because we love each other,” she said.

“Have you asked Raymond where he wants to live?” said Berthe.

“Raymond wants whatever his mother wants,” said Marie. “He’ll be nice. I promise. He’ll take the garbage down. Won’t you, Raymond? You’ll take the garbage out every night for Aunt Berthe?”

“Not every night,” said his aunt. “Twice a week. Don’t cry. Louis wouldn’t want to see you in tears.”

A quiver of shyness touched all three. Louis returned to memory in superior guise, bringing guidance, advice. “Papa wouldn’t mind if we watched the news,” said Raymond.

For less than a minute they stared at a swaying carpet of jungle green, filmed from a helicopter, and heard a French voice with a Montreal accent describe events in a place the sisters intended never to visit. Raymond jumped to an English channel, without asking if anyone minded. He was the male head of the family now; in any case, they had always given in. Vietnam in English appeared firmly grounded, with a Canadian sergeant in the Marine Corps — shorn, cropped, gray-eyed, at ease. He spoke to Raymond, saying that it was all right for a Canadian to enlist in a foreign army.

“Who cares?” said Marie, fatally. English on television always put her to sleep. She leaned back in her armchair and began very gently to snore. Berthe removed Marie’s glasses and her hat, and covered her bare legs with a lace quilt. Even in the warmest weather she could wake up feeling chilled and unloved. She fainted easily; it was her understanding that the blood in her arms and legs congealed, leaving her brain unattended. She seemed content with this explanation and did not seek another.

Raymond sat up, knocking over the pile of cushions. He gathered his hair into a topknot and held it fast. “They send you to San Diego,” he said. What was he seeing, really? Pacific surf? A parade in sunlight? Berthe should have asked.

When Marie came to, yawning and sighing, Berthe was putting color on her nails (she had removed it for the funeral) and Raymond was eating chocolate cake, watching Rod Laver. He had taken off his shirt, shoes, and socks. “Laver’s the greatest man in the modern world,” he said.

“Ah, Raymond,” said his mother. “You’ve already forgotten your father.”

As Marie had promised, he carried the garbage out, making a good impression on the Portuguese family who lived downstairs. (Louis, who would not speak to strangers, had made no impression at all.) At five o’clock the next morning, Berthe’s neighbor, up because he had an early delivery at his fruit store, saw Raymond throw a duffel kit into his mother’s car and drive away. His hair was tied back with a white leather thong. He wore one of his rodeo outfits and a pair of white boots.

Before leaving Berthe’s flat he had rifled her handbag, forgotten on a kitchen chair — a century before, when they assembled for the funeral feast. Before leaving Montreal he made a long detour to say good-bye to his old home. He was not afraid of ghosts, and he had already invented a father who was going to approve of everything he did. In Louis’s desk he found the gold watch and one or two documents he knew he would need — among them the birth certificate that showed him eighteen. He took away as a last impression the yellowed grass in the backyard. Nothing had been watered since Louis’s death.

Berthe has often wondered what the Marines in the recruiting office down in Plattsburgh made of Raymond, all silver and white, with that lank brick-dust hair and the thin, cracked English. Nothing, probably: They must have expected civilians to resemble fake performers. There was always someone straggling down from Montreal. It was like joining the Foreign Legion. After his first telephone call, Berthe said to Marie, “At least we know where he is,” but it was not so; they never quite knew. He did not go to San Diego: A military rule of geography splits the continent. He had enlisted east of the Mississippi, and so he was sent for training to Parris Island. The Canadian Marine had forgotten to mention that possibility. Berthe bought a number of road maps, so that she could look up these new names. The Mississippi seemed to stop dead at Minneapolis. It had nothing to do with Canada. Raymond should have turned the car around and driven home. (Instead, he left it parked in Plattsburgh. He could not remember, later, the name of the street.)

He has never been back. His excuse used to be that he had nowhere to stay in Montreal. Marie sold the duplex and moved in with Berthe. The last thing he wanted to see on vacation was another standard motel unit, and he knew Berthe wouldn’t have him in the house.