She stopped suddenly in front of the three-decker at 111 Fourth, bent over to straighten the seams of her stockings, then patted her hands around her waist as if to make certain her blouse was still tucked into her skirt. She fluffed her hair and the rings on her fingers caught the sunlight. I knew who lived at 111 Fourth and my spirits sank as I crouched behind the bushes across the street.
Make her walk away, I prayed. Make her change her mind.
But my prayer wasn't answered.
She marched into the driveway, her high heels kicking up small pieces of gravel. She passed the steps leading to the back door and headed toward the garage at the rear of the three-decker. A sign on the garage proclaimed: TOUBERT ENTERPRISES.
Not him, I cried silently as I watched her knock on the door, tilting her head like a child about to ask for candy. Even in my despair, she melted my heart with that tender inclination of her head.
The door opened and she stepped inside and I caught a glimpse of waiting arms.
Of all the people in the world, I thought, why did she have to choose Rudolphe Toubert?
Rudolphe Toubert was the closest thing to a gangster in Frenchtown and yet no one ever spoke that word aloud. He was known as “the man to see.” The man to see if you wanted to place a bet on a horse or a football game. The man to see for a loan when the Household Finance Company downtown rejected your application. The man to see if you needed a favor. It was well known in Frenchtown that if you were faced with trouble of some kind—at the shop, on the streets, even in your family—Rudolphe Toubert was the man to see. Of course, you paid for his services in more ways than one. For instance, people still changed the subject when the name of Jean Paul Rodier came up. Jean Paul was found bruised and bleeding in Pee Alley one morning and it was said he had not paid back a loan he had taken out with Rudolphe Toubert. But there was no proof. And no witnesses.
Rudolphe Toubert was a dashing figure who commanded instant attention. Tall and slender with a movie star moustache on his upper lip, he always wore a suit with a vest and drove a big gray Packard that rolled majestically through the streets of Frenchtown, a pretty girl sometimes at his side. My mother said he was cheap-looking with his slicked-down hair and his pinstripe suits, like someone in a B movie at the Plymouth. My father said it didn't matter whether he looked cheap or not—he was a success at what he did. My father bought a lottery ticket every week from the runner at the shop who worked for Rudolphe Toubert. A twenty-five-cent ticket of hope, my father called it. Old man Francoeur on Ninth Street had once won fifteen hundred dollars on one of Rudolfe Toubert's tickets, and Mr. Francoeur's name was still spoken with awe and wonder by people who remembered his good fortune and had memorized the winning number: 55522. But it never came up again.
Rudolphe Toubert controlled all the newspaper routes in Frenchtown, including the delivery of the Boston newspapers—the Globe, Post, and Daily Record— as well as the Monument Times. He paid the boys a flat fee for each route instead of a commission. As a result, Frenchtown newsboys earned far less than the boys who delivered papers in other sections of town. He arranged the routes to suit his own purposes, giving the best routes to boys he favored. The routes everyone wanted were those that covered a small territory of three-deckers where papers could be delivered quickly and the customers always paid on time and gave big tips.
My younger brother, Bernard, was struggling that summer with the worst of the routes, the longest, least profitable, and spookiest route in Frenchtown, which Rudolphe Toubert always gave to the newest and youngest boy. Although the route consisted of only twelve customers, it stretched more than two miles from the railroad tracks at the edge of downtown Monument along Mechanic Street to the small cottage of Mr. Joseph LeFarge at the gate of St. Jude's Cemetery. Mr. LeFarge was the parish bedeau, which meant that he was the church janitor as well as in charge of the cemetery, where he dug the graves and cut the grass. He was a silent, forbidding man with thin lips that never softened into a smile and eyes that seemed to contain secrets. He could have stepped out of a Boris KarlofF movie, although my father claimed he was actually a gentle man who wouldn't harm a fly.
But then my father didn't have to deliver papers to Mr. LeFarge's house day after day, especially during the fall and winter months when darkness had already descended or was threatening by the time you arrived there, the tombstones visible from his front walk. Not only was his house isolated, a quarter mile from the nearest three-decker, but it was located across the street from the city dump, where clouds of smoke from smoldering rubbish rose like pale ghosts against the sky. The worst time of all was Friday, collection day. Instead of flinging the rolled-up newspaper to his piazza and hurrying away, you knocked on the door and waited an eternity for him to respond, while trying not to look toward the cemetery and those lurking tombstones. He never hurried to answer your knock and he never gave a tip.
I sympathized with Bernard when he set off each day on the route because I had undergone the same ordeal a few years before.
Bernard was only eight years old. I, at least, had been ten. He wanted to quit after the second day but knew he couldn't. Every penny was important to the family. I worked afternoons packing potatoes and doing errands at Dondier's and Armand did odd jobs at the comb shop.
“I don't mind the long walk and the dogs,” Bernard said as we sat on the piazza steps after supper. He was trying not to cry. “But it's …” And his voice faltered.
“Mr. LeFarge's house, right?” I asked.
“It's summer, for crying out loud,” Armand said. “It's not even dark when you get there.” Armand spoke with the bravery of his 145 pounds, the strength of his muscled arms and legs. He did not believe in ghosts and never woke up at night from bad dreams.
Later, when we were alone, I struck a bargain with Bernard. I told him I would deliver the paper to Mr. LeFarge's house every day after I finished my chores at the market. I bragged that I was the master of shortcuts and assured him I could easily do the delivery and be here in time for supper.
“What about my part of the bargain?” Bernard asked.
There was nothing Bernard could offer me. “I'll think of something,” I said.
His smile was beautiful to see, almost like a girl's. It was no wonder my sisters Yvonne and Yvette envied his good looks and his hair that curled without the touch of a comb or a curling iron.
So, every day that summer, I delivered the Monument Times to Mr. LeFarge's house. Bernard left the newspaper at the market and I raced after work to Mechanic Street, cutting through backyards and across empty lots, avoiding houses with dogs in their yards and always on the lookout for Omer LaBatt. Despite my thirteen years and all my experience, I was still uneasy as I approached the bedeau ‘ s house, averting my eyes from the cemetery and trying not to inhale the fumes of burning rubbish from the dump across the street.
Now I stood across from Rudolphe Toubert's house, thinking of my aunt Rosanna inside the garage with him. I tortured myself with images of his long, tapered fingers caressing her flesh, his lips on hers, their mouths opening to each other the way it happened in the movies.
Scanning the windows of the three-decker, I searched for the figure of his wife lurking behind the curtains. She was confined to a wheelchair and never left her tenement and spent her days, they said, wheeling from one window to another. Sometimes I caught glimpses of her thin pale face as she peered out at the street or watched people in their comings and goings as they did business with Rudolphe Toubert. Women visited him at odd hours as my aunt was doing now, and this flaunting of his love affairs seemed to me the worst thing about him.
Finally, my aunt Rosanna emerged from the garage, closing the door slowly behind her, lingering a moment in the yard. Did she look disheveled? Was her hair a bit mussed and her orange lipstick hastily put on? Or was jealousy feeding my imagination? How could I be certain of anything as I crouched miserably behind a hedge across the street, worried that a dog would find me there and bark me out of my hid
ing place?
As she left the driveway, tugging at her skirt, she surprised me by turning left instead of right, which meant that she was not going to my grandfather's house. She was heading in the direction of the Meadow down at the end of Spruce Street. The Meadow was a place for family picnics on the shores of the Moosock River, which meandered without design among stands of birches and pines, in the shade of elms and maples, and on through the long, open fields. The Meadow remained unspoiled despite constant rumors that the city's rubbish would be carted to the place once the city dump was filled. The kids of Frenchtown frolicked there on occasion, building bonfires at night, swimming naked in the river, playing games. Boy Scouts often pitched their tents on the grounds and pursued their merit badges in camping and nature studies and such. I often visited the place with pad and paper and tried to write poems as I sat with my back against a tree trunk or dangled my legs on the banks of the river, watching the changing colors—red or green or a murky brown, depending on which dyes had been used that day in the shops.
I remained safely behind my aunt as she left Spruce Street and walked quickly across the narrow footbridge that led to the Meadow. It amazed me that a woman could move so fast on high heels without wobbling or tripping. I was glad for my rubber soles as my feet glided over the wooden bridge with barely a sound.
As she made her way toward a picnic bench under a cluster of birches, I paused, watching her, struck as always by her beauty. The sounds of summer filled my ears, birds scattering in the trees and the high buzzing of the sewing needles, which I used to believe could sew up a person's lips before you had time to cry out. A dog barked, but far away, too far to be a threat.
The Meadow shimmered in the sunlight, my aunt and I alone in that vast expanse, and I felt exposed suddenly, wondering if I could find a place to hide before she realized I was there.
Suddenly, she turned.
And saw me.
She didn't appear surprised as our eyes met. As usual, whenever I was in her presence, I blushed and grew flustered and didn't know what to do with my hands. And now it was worse than ever, because I was racked with guilt, from having both followed her and spied on her but most of all for that other day when she had seen me in my shame, my pants stained, my lust exposed.
She beckoned to me, her expression inscrutable.
And I went to her, helpless to resist, although a part of me wanted to run away again.
“Why are you following me, Paul?” she asked.
“I don't know,” I said, the blood rushing to my face, my temples throbbing. Then in desperation: “Are you still mad at me?” And cursed myself for asking that question because it was a reminder of that other day.
She sank to the picnic table, her arm trailing along its surface. “I'm not mad at you, Paul. Mad at myself, maybe. Are you mad at me?”
I wanted to cry out yes. Because she had visited Rudolphe Toubert of all people, had probably made love to him while I waited outside and his wife watched his office from the window. And I wanted to shout no. Because my love for her forgave everything and anything.
Shaking my head, I said: “How could I be mad at you?”
She motioned me to the bench.
I sat down carefully, as if my body would fall apart if I moved too suddenly. I was immediately caught up in the scent of her, made almost dizzy by the closeness of her body.
“I was wrong from the start,” she said. “Flirting with you like that. Ah, not flirting, really. Since you were a baby, Paul, you were special to me. You always had a kind of shyness about you. A gentleness. I always loved to pick you up and cuddle you.” She blew air out of the corner of her mouth as an errant strand of hair brushed her cheek. “You still are special to me, Paul. But sometimes I forget that you aren't a baby anymore, not someone to toy with….”
“It was my fault,” I cried out, not wanting her to take the blame for anything between us. “It's still my fault. I was the one who was wrong….”
“Wrong? About what?” she asked, puzzled.
“Wrong because I spied on you. Sneaked into your room when you weren't home. Followed you today. It's none of my business what you do.” And then I plunged. Like leaping from the highest steeple of St. Jude's Church, not caring if I crashed into a million pieces. “I love you….”
“Oh, Paul,” she said, her voice catching as if her throat hurt. “It's not love—”
“Yes, it is,” I said, ready for her. “I know I'm only thirteen, but it's love. It's not a crush. It's not puppy love. I know all about those things from books and movies. I love you. With all my heart. I will love you forever.”
The confession freed my spirit and my soul. I wanted to run and shout to the sky, join the birds in their singing. But then I saw the sad look on her face, and I drew back.
She reached out, touched my shoulder and my shoulder burned sweetly.
“That's the nicest thing anybody ever said to me,” she whispered. “And I'll never forget those words, Paul. But you mustn't love me. I'm your aunt. I'm too old for you. You're going to love a dozen girls before you finally find the right one. Then you'll look back on your old aunt Rosanna and wonder: What did I ever see in her?”
“Don't say that,” I cried, tears springing to my eyes, my chin beginning to tremble, the chin that always betrayed me. “I'll always love you. I'll never love anyone else.”
She reached for my hand, and I hesitated, drew away a bit, because my palm was wet with sweat. She took my hand in hers anyway, didn't seem to notice the embarrassing moisture, locking my fingers with hers. I felt so close to her that I took my courage in my hands and asked the question that had always been on my mind.
“Why did you leave Frenchtown, Aunt Rosanna?”
She looked away, toward the far horizon where old barns, hazy in the heat, seemed like ancient animals pausing to rest.
“A lot of reasons,” she said absently.
“Please. You said I wasn't a child anymore. So don't talk to me like I'm a child.” My boldness surprised me, but her hand still clutching mine gave me courage.
“Okay,” she said, looking directly at me, a challenge in her eyes. “I left Frenchtown because I was pregnant.”
I had never heard that word said out loud before. Once in a while I overheard my mother and other women describe someone as being “in the family way” or “expecting” and even those words were spoken in hushed tones. On the street corners, girls got “knocked up.” Pregnant was almost a street corner word, a shocking sound on my aunt's lips.
“Does that shock you?” she asked.
“No,” I said, trying to hide my shock.
“I wasn't married, Paul, but I wanted to have the baby. I knew I would have to give it away but I wanted it to be born.” She breathed away the wisp of hair that had fallen again across her cheek. “Oh, I suppose something could have been arranged so that I didn't have to have it. But I could never do that. I always loved children. …”
I knew at that moment that I would love her forever.
“So I left town before I began to show.”
“Where did you go?”
“Canada. To my aunt Fiorina and my uncle August. They were very good to me. They asked me no questions and I told them no lies. They still live in St. Jacques, on a small farm there. They took good care of me. They arranged everything. With the doctor, an old man from the parish. But the baby was born dead.”
I did not say anything. Everything was silent around us, as if the birds and the small animals in the woods were holding their breath.
“A girl. I saw her only once,” she said. And then, with a small laugh: “You know, all the new babies I've ever seen, Paul, have been red and wrinkled, but not my baby. She was like a rose, all pink. I held her for a few moments and then they took her away. She's buried in the cemetery at St. Jacques. I never go there.”
Her voice was a whisper now and it was as if she were not talking to me at all but to herself. “The plan was for me to give her up. The doctor would
see to it, place the baby with a good family. I agreed, although I wondered as she grew inside me if I could do that. And then she died …”
She shook her head and slapped the bench. “Enough of that, Paul. It's past and gone.”
We sat for a while without saying anything, so close that I could smell the peppermint of her breath.
“Did you stay in St. Jacques all the time you were gone?” I asked finally.
“I'm not the farm type,” she said. “I got to Montreal, worked in a beauty shop there. Then, last year, to Boston. Know what's the matter with me, Paul? I don't belong anywhere. I don't belong here in Frenchtown. Your Mémère and Pépère took me in when I came back because they never shut the door on anyone. They let me live there but I'm like a tenant who doesn't pay rent. The girls I knew at St. Jude's are married now, have children. Those who aren't married work in the shops. I don't fit in. I'm not the shop type anyway.” She said this last with a kind of pride in her words.
“But why did you come back?” I asked.
“Good question,” she said, frowning. “I came back because I got tired of rooming houses, cheap hotels, being picked up by strangers. Even my closest friends were strang-ers….
I ached for her loneliness, for all the things that had gone wrong in her life.
“Let me tell you something, though, Paul. Strangers sometimes treat you better than your relatives. They judge you by what you're doing today, not what you did yesterday. So, I'm ready to go again. To leave Frenchtown. There's nothing here for me anymore.”
But Vm here, I wanted to shout in protest even as I knew that I could only offer her a thirteen-year-old boy's love and nothing else. No protection from the pickups. No money to dress her in the fancy clothes she loved.
“When are you going?” I asked, even though it was better if I did not know when.
“It depends,” she said.
The afternoon began to alter, changing almost imperceptibly, glowing rather than shining, pewter suddenly instead of silver. The trees were limp and weary now, leaves closing on each other, branches bending as if in genuflection. The birds had fled, leaving an emptiness in the air.