It's entirely possible that Paul had a crush on his aunt and that she excited him physically. Rosanna could have easily become the object of an adolescent's fantasy. My own memories of her cease at an early age. Despite her talent for hairdressing, I do not recall that she ever opened a shop of her own, in either Canada or the United States. She seldom returned to Frenchtown and I have no distinct memories of her visits. She was never a topic in my parents’ house. No one in the family knows whether she is dead or alive.
I have been frank in my remarks about Rosanna and I hope it does not seem as if I have spoken ill of her. I think it is important, however, to show how Paul idealized his aunt in the narrative and I make mention of this to support my belief that his narrative is fiction and that he was making use of his standard approach to his writing; that is, taking actual people and places and coloring them with his own brushstrokes, rendering them finally as figures of his imagination.
Regarding Rudolphe Toubert:
While hardly a paragon of virtue—as our police records indicate—he was not the vicious person Paul depicts in the narrative. He was less than heroic and often strayed beyond the law. He cheated on his wife, which Paul reports, and carried on affairs with women only a stone's throw from his home. Yet, his wife, who deserves sympathy because of the illness that confined her to a wheelchair, was not the most likable person in French-town and not the easiest woman to live with. (Her illness today would probably be considered psychosomatic.) She was sharp-tongued and never had a kind word for anyone even before she became a prisoner of her wheelchair. This does not excuse Rudolphe Toubert's extramarital affairs, of course, but it does help explain his promiscuous ways.
It is true that Rudolphe Toubert served the people—however, illegally—of Frenchtown in the Depression era. It must be remembered that French Canadians were still considered poor immigrants in those days and were not highly regarded by bankers and business leaders. Rudolphe gave people hope through his various lotteries. (Sold them hope is a more accurate way of putting it, as Paul's father said in the narrative.) But Rudolphe Toubert never welshed, always paid off the winners, and regularly lent large amounts of money to the people of Frenchtown without collateral, asking people to simply pay off the debt at interest rates that, while high, were not prohibitive.
In the matter of Rudolphe Toubert's cruelty, it is a fact that he arranged for the man Paul called Jean Paul Rodier to be taught a lesson for refusing to pay his debt. Without punishment, his entire system would break down. However, Rudolphe Toubert ordered his goons to merely shake Jean Paul up a bit, give him a slap or two. But the goons got carried away with their assignment. Jean Paul was among the most disliked persons in French-town, had a big mouth, was known to beat up his wife, who weighed no more than ninety pounds, and did not pay his debts. Few people mourned the assault on Jean Paul Rodier.
I realized that all of this makes me sound as if I'm apologizing for Rudolphe Toubert just as I realize that I have painted an unflattering portrait of our Aunt Rosanna. But my purposes are different from PauPs. He was writing fiction and I am trying to devote myself to fact. I also believe that I am in a better position than Paul was to know the facts and to recognize them as such.
I once had a conversation with Paul—after the publication of his second novel, Come Home, Come Home— in which we talked about the old family celebrations, particularly New Year's Day, which the French Canadians call the Jour de l’An, The family always gathered at my grandfather's house, and there was much food and drink and singing of old songs. It was, in a way, a bigger celebration than Christmas.
At any rate, Paul and I began to reminisce about the celebrations of our childhood and ont Jour de l’An in particular, during which he and I stole away in the barn to smoke some forbidden cigarettes and accidentally set fire to the hay. We had to scramble to extinguish the flames and were fortunate to do so before they spread. I will never forget the panicky whinnying of my grandfather's old horse, Richard. The horse sounded almost human in its terror of the smoke and flames.
Paul fell into silence after we had discussed the incident. “That really happened, didn't it?” he finally asked.
“Of course it happened,” I replied. “Why? Don't you remember?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “But you know, Jules, I have fictionalized so much of what happened in those days that sometimes, rereading my books and thinking of the past, I'm not sure what's real and what isn't.”
That's one of the reasons why we cannot trust Paul to write factually. His imagination, which was one of his great gifts, not only ran wild but enabled him to take the ordinary events and people of his life and make them larger than life. The father in Bruises in Paradise was a memorable character whom critics compared to the fisherman in Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, while my uncle, Paul's father, on whom the character was based, was an ordinary man, a good man, but hardly the tragic figure Paul created out of his art and craft.
I was once told by the chief of police here that I had little or no imagination. I took the remark as criticism until he told me that he was, in fact, giving me high praise. He said that my strength as a detective was my ability to see the facts as simply facts, to be always logical in my investigations. He said I was seldom thrown off the track or went off on a wild-goose chase because I was able to separate clues from false leads or red herrings. I think these same qualities allow me to judge Paul's manuscript accurately. I am also justified in making the observations about Frenchtown and the events Paul writes about not only because I have been a lifelong resident but because of my position as a police officer. A great amount of information comes in and out of police headquarters in a small city, information that concerns the past as well as the present. We have a complete file, for instance, on Rudolphe Toubert, including the fact that he received citations from the city for his activities on behalf of the youth of Frenchtown. Paul takes a dim view of Rudolphe Toubert's monopoly of the newspaper routes in the story. While Rudolphe Toubert may have enjoyed his power over the youngsters, he also gave hundreds of Frenchtown boys their first opportunity to earn money during the hard days of the Depression. He provided them with protection (the paper boys in the other sections of town were often beaten up or intimidated by older boys and a timid one like Bernard, for instance, would not have survived the rough-and-tumble world of downtown Monument). Paul also fails to note the annual Christmas parties Rudolphe Toubert held for the boys and the gifts each of them received. I believe that for dramatic purposes in his novel Paul needed a villain and Rudolphe Toubert served ideally in that role.
That leads us to Rudolphe Toubert's death. We still carry his death here in our files as an unsolved murder.
His body was found in his office on December 19, 1938, with a number of stab wounds. That same night, one of Rudolphe Toubert's employees, Herve Boisseneau, left town (was observed by a reliable witness boarding the B&M train for Boston). Rudolphe Toubert's safe had been rifled (Boisseneau knew the combination). Herve Boisseneau was never seen again and the murder weapon was never found. Rudolphe Toubert and Herve Boisseneau had been engaged in a fierce argument the day before the killing. Boisseneau was a huge man, capable of overpowering Rudolphe Toubert and inflicting the fatal wounds.
It is important to note that in the narrative Paul does not actually describe Rudolphe Toubert's murder. Why this omission when he did not hesitate to describe so many other scenes in detail?
The events of that tragic night are matters of fact. Paul's father was wounded in the skirmish and rushed to the Monument Hospital. Although he lost a great amount of blood, his wound was not considered critical and he made a complete recovery. At no time was his life in danger, according to police reports still available here in the files. Paul obviously exaggerated his father's injury to provide a climax for the events of that night. It is also tragic that his brother Bernard died three weeks later, suddenly and without apparent cause, according to Paul's narrative. In reality, an autopsy was performed and rev
ealed his brother suffered from a congenital heart defect of which his family was unaware. As so often happened in those days, Paul's brother was considered “delicate” and this was given as the reason for his lack of vigorous appetite and low energy level.
As to the sudden death of our uncle Vincent years before— which Paul attempts to link with the fade and Bernard's death— I am using the resources of my own memory as well as my interrogation of Uncle Edgar to corroborate the fact that Vincent was besieged by illness from the day of his birth, seldom went out of doors to play, and was a grade behind other children his age because he missed so much school. His death, which naturally plunged the family into sadness, was not entirely unexpected.
It amazes me that Paul took so many disparate events and forged them into a narrative that smacks of reality until one inspects each incident and character separately and sees how Paul distorted them for fictional purposes.
One further note on the now famous strike at the Monument Comb Shop. Paul describes the strike in very simple terms without going into any details of a complex situation. An important omission is the complete absence of Howard Haynes, owner of the comb shop. Howard Haynes dealt directly with the strikers and his office at the factory was the scene of the negotiations. He passed through the picket lines every day and was booed soundly on occasion. He was never the object of violence, because Howard Haynes had always been a fair employer. The time of the unions had arrived, however, and industry was in an era of change. Men like Howard Haynes soon parted from the scene.
Why did Paul not mention Howard Haynes at all or deal with the strike issues? I believe there is a simple answer. He ignored Howard Haynes because he wanted to focus on Rudolphe Toubert as the villain of his manuscript. This is only my theory, of course, but I am convinced that there is merit in it.
I must deal now with my own relationship with my cousin Paul, although I have only a minor role in this narrative. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find that my character was so bitter about Silas B. Thornton Junior High School when I remember my one year there and my subsequent years at Monument High School as among the happiest of my life. It is true, of course, that I was apprehensive about Silas B. Most of the students who arrived there in the ninth grade from parochial schools were latecomers—the public school system in those days operated on a three-year junior high system (7th, 8th, and 9th grades)—and we all felt lost and abandoned in our first contacts with public school teachers and students. Most of us adjusted quickly. It is possible, however, that I warned Paul about his writing and my fear that his work would not be accepted because he was a Canuck. This rings true. However (and again I emphasize), I do not remember making the statement. Isn't this what Paul has always done—made use of a real emotion for fictional purposes?
Let me point out that Paul disguised only slightly the identity of the teacher who rejected his story. That story, very much revised, later was included in the Baker collection of best short stories of the year (1949) and eventually became the first chapter and gave the title to Paul's first novel. (In his introduction to his later short-story collection, Paul paid tribute to this teacher for her honesty and candor.)
Paul and I were not close for the remainder of our year at Silas B. and did not become close again until our senior year in high school when Paul was chosen as Class Poet and I was chosen as Most Friendly in a poll of our classmates for the school yearbook. Two Frenchtown boys given praise and homage by their classmates, a kind of landmark for our time! In celebration, Paul and I sneaked into our grandfather's cellar and toasted our triumph with his homemade elderberry wine and pledged our undying loyalty to each other just before we both vomited onto the dirt-covered floor. Paul went on to be more than a high school poet, of course, while I eventually joined the Monument Police Force.
Along with 90 percent of my class, I was drafted into the World War II army in July of 1942, only five weeks after receiving my high school diploma and a few months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Paul was rejected because of a perforated eardrum, a minor affliction that caused many military rejections on the basis that no one with an ear defect could withstand the booming sounds of battle.
Paul was shattered by his designation as a 4-F and actually wept tears one night as we sat on the back porch at his house. It is difficult for people today to appreciate the wild patriotism of those years and how young men (and women) were eager to serve their country even at the risk of dying.
Many from Monument died during the war, either in battle or in war-related accidents. Their names are inscribed in bronze letters on the World War II Memorial in Monument Park, across from headquarters, a statue I see whenever I look out my window here in the office. Among the names on that Monument is that of Omer Bâtisse, whom Paul identified as Omer LaBatt in his narrative. Omer lost his life on Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles of the South Pacific, a member of a Marine detachment that assaulted the island on the second day of fighting. Although he died a hero, I remember him as a big stupid hulk of a boy (this does not mean he could not die a hero, of course) who hung around the streets and picked up money doing odd jobs (probably strong-arm stuff) for Rudolphe Toubert. Thus, it's entirely possible that he bullied and chased Paul through the streets and alleys of Frenchtown, although Paul gave no indication of those happenings to anyone as I recall. As to the boy Omer accosted in the alley, I have been unable to verify any part of this incident. Since it involves the use of the fade, I take it as fabrication.
I must now address the topic of sex in the narrative, particularly as it applies to the store owner Paul named Mr. Dondier and also the twins he identifies as Emerson and Page Winslow. To Paul's credit, he used completely fictitious names for these characters and I am inclined to regard them as altogether fictional, although they are based loosely on actual people. I have little firsthand knowledge of the real twins he portrayed in the narrative, but I knew very well the man who might have been Mr. Dondier and I am frankly stunned at Paul's revelation and feel very strongly that he invented the entire episode. That store owner (it was not a meat market, incidentally) was above suspicion. The girl is nobody whom I can identify. If the fade is fiction—can it be anything else?—isn't it logical to accept everything connected with the fade, instances of spying, in particular, as fiction?
This same logic applies to the characters Paul named Emerson and Page Winslow. The act of incest Paul describes is shocking to me, although he was not explicit in his details and he has dealt with more explicit sexual scenes in his earlier books.
Page Winslow (to use Paul's pseudonym for her) stands out vividly in my memory because of one moment in my life. I saw her coming out of the Monument Ladies’ Apparel store one winter afternoon in brilliant sunlight, her hands hidden in a fur muff, a long brown fur coat enclosing her body. She stepped out of the store and through the snow and slush and into a waiting automobile like a princess passing through her subjects. She was probably the most beautiful girl I had ever seen and I felt my jaw dropping as I stood dazzled on the sidewalk watching her passage.
Her brother, known as Emerson Winslow in the narrative, remained in our class at school until his junior year. I knew him slightly, enough to greet him with a casual hello as we passed. He always looked—the word we would use these days is cool. Never ruffled. He did not move in any clique but could have been the leader of his own clique if he chose to. The scene Paul wrote in which the brother and sister made love was all the more shocking to me because of what happened in the future. The girl Paul called Page Winslow died at the age of sixteen in a boating accident off the coast of Maine. Later that year, Emerson, who was a junior, left Monument High School. There were reports that he enrolled in an exclusive prep school in northern Vermont. Someone later said that he became a conscientious objector during World War II and served as a medical aide in a hospital in England. I know this much to be certain: The boy Paul named Emerson Winslow is now a contemplative monk in a Roman Catholic monastery in the foothills of the Sm
oky Mountains in Tennessee.
It is now 2:43 A.M. by the digital clock on my desk and my back aches and my eyes are on fire.
A moment ago I read over what I have written thus far and, frankly, do not like the way I sound on paper. The police reports I write are impersonal and there is a specific vocabulary available for your use with certain words serving as crutches—perpetrator, warrant, incarcerate, unlawful possession, etc. In writing this report, it was necessary for me to develop an instant and completely new vocabulary. I have tried to be objective, as if giving testimony in court, where the only impression I have to make is one of honesty and competence. Have I accomplished this at the cost of sounding less humane and compassionate than I really am?
Thus, this report provides no clue to the high regard I have always had for Paul, how proud I and his family have been, our concern for the happiness that always seemed to elude him. He never married, never knew the bliss of wife and children. He never took advantage of his fame, never traveled to foreign places (he turned down dozens of speaking engagements and invitations to visit places like the great cities of Europe). He avoided interviews, did not allow his picture to be taken, devoted himself completely to his writing, and to his family—his parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces. He was loyal to old friends. I have not mentioned Pete Lagniard and how, as a silent partner, Paul set Pete up in a printing business. (Pete, who was perhaps the only character in the narrative portrayed with utter truth and no fictional touches, died of a heart attack in 1973 while attending a Red Sox baseball game in Fenway Park.) Paul seldom left Monument or Frenchtown, always lived alone, gave most of his money away (he supported his parents). His only pleasures aside from his writing (if writing was a pleasure for him) seemed to derive from his nephews and nieces, whom he obviously adored and who visited him often, making his apartment their headquarters in Frenchtown.