Across the Bridge Read Free Page A

Marie had fallen in love with one of the Greeks who were starting to move into their part of Montreal. There had never been a foreigner in the family, let alone a pagan. Her uncle interrupted to remark that Greeks were usually Christians, though of the wrong kind for Marie. Mme. Carette implored him to find someone, not a Greek, of the right kind: sober, established, Catholic, French-speaking, natively Canadian. “Not Canadian from New England,” she said, showing a brief ingratitude to Fall River. She left a store of nickels, so that he could ring her whenever he liked.
    Louis Driscoll, French in all but name, called on Marie for the first time on the twelfth of April 1950. Patches of dirty snow still lay against the curb. The trees on Rue Saint-Hubert looked dark and brittle, as though winter had killed them at last. From behind the parlor curtain, unseen from the street, the Carette women watched him coming along from the bus stop. To meet Marie he had put on a beige tweed overcoat, loosely belted, a beige scarf, a bottle-green snap-brim fedora, crêpe-soled shoes, pigskin gloves. His trousers were sharply pressed, a shade darker than the hat. Under his left arm he held close a parcel in white paper, the size and shape of a two-poundbox of Laura Secord chocolates. He stopped frequently to consult the house numbers (blue-and-white, set rather high, Montreal style), which he compared with a slip of paper brought close to his eyes.
    It was too bad that he had to wear glasses; the Carettes were not prepared for that, or for the fringe of ginger hair below his hat. Uncle Gildas had said he was of distinguished appearance. He came from Moncton, New Brunswick, and was employed at the head office of a pulp-and-paper concern. His age was twenty-six. Berthe thought that he must be a failed seminarist; they were the only Catholic bachelors Uncle Gildas knew.
    Peering at their front door, he walked into a puddle of slush. Mme. Carette wondered if Marie’s children were going to be nearsighted. “How can we be sure he’s the right man?” she said.
    “Who else could he be?” Berthe replied. What did he want with Marie? Uncle Gildas could not have promised much in her name, apart from a pliant nature. There could never be a meeting in a notary’s office to discuss a dowry, unless you counted some plates and furniture. The old man may have frightened Louis, reminded him that prolonged celibacy – except among the clergy – is displeasing to God. Marie is poor, he must have said, though honorably connected. She will feel grateful to you all her life.
    Their front steps were painted pearl-gray, to match the building stone. Louis’s face, upturned, was the color of wood ash. Climbing the stair, ringing the front doorbell could change his life in a way he did not wholly desire. Probably he wanted a woman without sin or risk or coaxing or remorse; but did he want her enough to warrant setting up a household? A man with a memory as transient as his, who could read an address thirty times and still let it drift, might forget to come to the wedding. He crumpled the slip of paper, pushed it inside a tweed pocket, withdrew a large handkerchief, blew his nose.
    Mme. Carette swayed back from the curtain as though a stone had been flung. She concluded some private thought by addressing Marie: “…  although I will feel better on my deathbed if I know you are in your own home.” Louis meanwhile kicked the bottom step, getting rid of snow stuck to his shoes. (Rustics kicked and stamped. Marie’s Greek had wiped his feet.) Still he hesitated, sliding a last pale look in the direction of buses and streetcars. Then, as he might have turned a gun on himself, he climbed five steps and pressed his finger to the bell.
    “Somebody has to let him in,” said Mme. Carette.
    “Marie,” said Berthe.
    “It wouldn’t seem right. She’s never met him.”
    He stood quite near, where the top step broadened to a small platform level with the window.