Of Vengeance Read online

  Copyright © 2019 Dundurn Press. Originally published in French under the title De vengeance. Copyright © 2017 Les éditions de L’instant même. Published by Dundurn Press Limited under arrangement with Les éditions L’instant même, 237 rue Louise, Longueuil, QC, Canada. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The translator, Pablo Strauss, thanks Aleshia Jenson for an illuminating first edit, and Kate Unrau for her copy edit.

  Acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Kate Unrau | Cover illustration and design: Sophie Paas-Lang Printer: Marquis

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Of vengeance / J.D. Kurtness ; translated by Pablo Strauss.

  Other titles: De vengeance. English

  Names: Kurtness, J. D., 1981- author. | Strauss, Pablo, translator.

  Description: Translation of: De vengeance.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190053348 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190053364 | ISBN 9781459743755 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459743762 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459743779 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8621.U785 D413 2019 | DDC C843/.6—dc23

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  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013–2019: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

  Printed and bound in Canada.

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  Revenge is sweet.

  Contents

  1 Standard Introduction

  2 Fiset

  3 Spray-Foam Insulation

  4 Early Days

  5 Good Dogs

  6 Big City

  7 Walks

  8 Out on Parole

  9 Humidex

  10 Indian Summer

  1

  Standard Introduction

  Let’s be honest: Who hasn’t fantasized about shooting someone in the face with a hunting rifle? It doesn’t matter why. In the heat of the moment, one reason’s as good as the next. When the reasons still seem good after enough time has passed, I take action.

  Every day I look a murderer in the eye. There she is, through the looking glass. An inverted image of the same person standing on my side of the mirror. I’m a murderer; the murderer’s face is my face. Voilà. I know exactly what a murderer looks like. Hey, friend.

  I look myself in the eye, hands resting on the rim of the sink, and perform my daily affirmation. “I’m a murderer.” It’s my own personal version of “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. I can do this.” My lips move and, depending on the words I say, a few teeth appear. The same ones that show when I smile.

  I recite each word slowly, either in my head or ever-so-quietly out loud. Sometimes I take a chance and say it slightly louder, in my normal speaking voice. I like the sound of my own voice. It’s a murmur in my silent apartment, slipping out of the bathroom only to be drowned out by the electrical hum in the walls. I listen to the irregular clicking of the baseboard heaters, generating heat without the slightest concern about who I am.

  Another reason for this daily ritual: I’m scared of forgetting who I am. Sometimes life is good, and I take breaks.

  It’s a summer afternoon. I’m twelve, finished with elementary school. I’ve been on summer holidays for three weeks now, and I’m hanging out down by the river. There’s nothing I enjoy more than spending entire days outside, coming home only to eat. Sometimes I even skip meals, though my parents disapprove. I come home when evening falls and it gets hard to see. Get some sleep and head right back out the next day. Eighteen hours of daylight is my version of bliss.

  I’m in a place I think of as my spot. There’s a tree that’s perfect for climbing, with three branches in all the right places: one under my ass, one to prop up my feet, and a third to rest my back on. Together they form a chair of sorts. I have a nice view of the little river flowing through a ditch down below. I can also see the opposite bank. If I stretch, I enjoy an almost unobstructed 270-degree view all the way to the cemetery, where the trail runs. I can’t see behind my position, but that’s no big deal; all that’s out that way is forest too dense to play in this time of year. Beyond the forest is a city park, but no one really bothers with it — why would you, with all this pristine nature, teeming with life?

  Up in my tree, no one can see me. Sometimes I pack a lunch. I make my own. My parents think I’m responsible and have stopped worrying that I’ll starve to death. I’m almost a teenager, so it only makes sense that I’ve more or less stopped talking to them. That’s their theory, anyway.

  I wrap my food in nonreflective packaging. No aluminum foil, no plastic bags. I watched a movie once where the murderers caught sight of a witness because of a ray of light that reflected in the lens of her binoculars. That won’t happen to me. I also steer clear of sunglasses. They’re just one more thing to carry around, one more thing I’d probably lose anyway. Noise isn’t such a big deal up here. It’s okay to open a container, move around, let out a sigh. The river drowns out most sounds. Except for screams.

  I found my spot last week. I was out early to do a little scouting before anyone else showed up. Sometimes I arrive too late, and there are already people at the river bank or the path leading up to it. When that happens, I turn right back.

  One morning, eight days ago to be precise, I got here early enough one day to find a nice quiet spot. Just the kind of place no one would think to look. Eureka: the perfect tree. Next to it was a large rock that I could stand on to reach the higher branches. It was a massive balsam fir that had by some miracle survived an entire century without being massacred at the altar of Christmas. An old, almost dead tree with barely any remaining trace of scent and not a lot of sap to stick to my clothing. Sap smells great, but it’s hard to get off your clothes, so I stay away. I don’t want hassles with my mom.

  I’ve been counting the days since I found my tree: eight. I count a lot of things. The number of kids down below, the tiles on my ceiling, the holes in my runners, the exact number of seconds it takes an egg to cook so the yolk is still a little runny but not slimy. Careful planning minimizes the chances of nasty surprises.

  My first time was a stroke of random luck. I responded with sound reflexes, and discovered the sheer pleasure of it. Now I come mentally and physically prepared, and bring all the equipment I could ever need.

  I’m still startled every time I catch a glimpse of myself in a window, a mirror, or a photograph. My face
is all wrong. Some might put it differently; they’d say I have the perfect face. My theory is that I was born with someone else’s face, and my real one is off somewhere else, attached to the wrong soul.

  I just don’t look the part. My face should be angular, striking, and slender, with that sickly pallor certain men find irresistible. But the allure of the mysterious femme fatale, that image we’re bombarded with day in and day out, just isn’t me. I’m fresh-faced, with the most innocuous features imaginable. I emanate innocence and wholesome pleasures, like farmers’ daughters advertising milk or girls on the packaging of anti-acne medication. Just like them, my pores breathe healthily. I have slightly rounded features, a ready smile, straight teeth, and smiling eyes. Even the beginnings of crow’s feet, if you look closely. My pale skin turns rosy in the wind, or in the cold, or when I exert myself. My cheeks are like scrumptious fall apples. People have been saying it since I was a little girl. All the hours I spend outside, plus these freckles: How could anyone imagine I’m not an exemplary young woman?

  Where did that other face end up, the one that should be mine by rights? What happened to that pointed jaw, those big feverish eyes and salient cheekbones? Who got that intimidating head of hair? Was my soul mixed up with another in some limbo, like babies switched at birth in a Latin-American hospital?

  I wonder if ugly people feel the same way: startled by their own reflections in the mirror, disgusted by an unattractiveness no amount of torment will ever inure them to. Do they feel the same confusion I do after performing certain acts? Are they, like me, unable to believe that the symmetry of their faces remains unchanged? If my outward appearance reflected my inner self, I’d look dangerous, like the bad guys who get killed off at the beginning of the movie: dark-skinned cannon fodder, balding villains, disfigured hoodlums, random henchmen. I might also give off that whiff of danger, but I have to face facts; I just don’t. My pheromones collide with those of other people without causing so much as a ripple. Yet the real danger is her. This woman I spy from the corner of my eye in every window I pass. She’s there in the bathroom, just above the sink. She’s the one staring at me innocently.

  I look like a nurse, or a librarian, or a soccer player. My face is my best alibi.

  I guess I should start at the beginning. But I don’t even know who I’m speaking to. Let’s assume you’re a creature of the future since the present is already past. I’m going to call you a creature; why not, since woman and man are two categories on their way to joining the theory of humours in the dustbin of history. Perhaps you’re nothing more than a puddle of lipids. Or a brain in a jar. Maybe my text has been converted into electrical impulses, predigested by an intelligence unconnected to any other organ, floating in a nutrient-rich, conductive liquid medium. Are you a child? A citizen of the People’s Republic of China, our world’s reigning superpower? An intergalactic refugee?

  Or maybe nothing has changed — yet. In that case you may be a reader in the near future. You could be my neighbour, my employer, my friend. I’d still prefer to imagine a reader from another era. I don’t want to hurt anyone I know. No one chooses to dump bodies where they might poison their wells.

  I choose to live dangerously, and one day I’ll push it just a little too far. Statistically speaking, my life will be a short one. But then, it’s all relative: if we lived in the time of the Black Death, I’d already be in the twilight of my life. Or dead from childbirth, or from the pneumonia I had when I was five. Without modern medicine we’d all be dead, with our flabby bodies, giant heads, and feeble eyesight. Not to mention our rampant anxiety.

  At any rate we’ve got no more than ten or fifteen years until every one of us is monitored, from egg to cremation urn — and even before, even after. Unless you take precautions, that future is here. I take precautions. My goal is to have fun while meting out a little justice here and there before we get to the ending where we all get swallowed up by the all-seeing omnipotent System.

  So let’s begin our story on that particular afternoon — an afternoon that also marks, I now realize, the end of my childhood. The sun is still high in the sky, but it’s not too hot. Maybe twenty-four degrees. There’s a cool, gentle breeze blowing in from the north. I can feel the sun through my clothes and on the back of my neck, where it’s filtering through the leaves of the trees all around me. It’s all so pretty. And everything smells so good: the wind, the old fir tree, me.

  Even back then, perched in my tree, I was thinking about you, people of the future. I try to put myself in your shoes, imagine I know everything. Like other kids my age, I watch TV, and I believe I’m witnessing something big, the end of something precious: the earth as we know it, fresh air, clean running water, the birdsong slipping through my window. All this is going to disappear because we’re not recycling enough and we’re pillaging the Amazon rainforest. And because some crazy bastard set a giant mountain of tires on fire in Saint-Amable, Quebec.

  Describing our own era is never easy. We focus on what seemed important at the time. We leave out the fabric of everyday life, which reveals much more than our philosophy. The example I give, in my imaginary conversations with entities from other places (other times, spaces, space-times), is that virtually everything we eat has at one point been wrapped in plastic. The seeds in their packaging. The plant roots in the tarp that keeps them moist and warm. The produce in its little transparent plastic bag, which is then placed in another larger plastic bag along with the rest of the food, and then under a layer of Cellophane if there are leftovers, or to be reheated, before finally ending its life in the little kitchen garbage bag, whence it is transferred to the larger plastic garbage bag. Meat’s no different. It comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in multiple layers of Cellophane; sometimes the cut is squared away between two thick layers of plastic melted together and sealed sous-vide.

  Let’s not forget our bottles of juice, and water, and soft drinks. Some people have even had the nerve to put milk in plastic bottles, rendering it undrinkable. Families usually get their milk in three-packs of clear plastic bags, which are, of course, enclosed in a fourth coloured plastic bag printed with all the vital information the smaller plastic bags omit.

  There’s more: our cookies and crackers, ice cream, pasta, and myriad other products that have all been processed in one way or another before making their way into our pantries, after being shrewdly arranged on the shelves in the aisles we walk down with our metal shopping carts because carrying our own food over any substantial distance has become an impossibility. We no longer have the willpower or the muscle power.

  Back then I was certain that, no matter what the reassuring pamphlets said, our Gentilly power station would be the next Chernobyl. The CANDU company that made our friendly neighbourhood reactor came to our school to tell us all about the marvels of nuclear power. Their technical knowledge was so advanced they were certain no accident was possible. The radioactive waste was being dumped under our impenetrable Canadian Shield, well-protected from even the worst catastrophes. I didn’t believe a word of it. I was equally convinced that acid rain would eat away at everything and destroy our lakes. Today we’ve almost stopped talking about it. News is, by definition, a break in the continuity. When people are constantly dying, and have been for generations, the media gets bored. And so do we.

  But look on the bright side: I live in an age of wonders, with a plethora of technological marvels and the leisure time to accomplish great things, should I so choose. We’re still free, still entitled to privacy. People with something to hide can still do so. I can deceive and lie with impunity. I frequently put these few powers of mine to the test. The one I’m most proud of is my invisibility.

  I make my living exercising a profession that will one day be as obsolete as log driver and telegraph operator. I’m a translator. The day will come when computers will learn to understand irony, context, everyday life, humour, and the other wonders of human nature. Then we translators will go the way of the dodo. For now, though, even ba
d translators like me can still earn enough to eat and pay rent. Like everyone else, our days are numbered.

  2

  Fiset

  Let me get to the point of my story about the fir tree and the river. His name is Fiset.

  There was a drowning in Dupuis Creek that summer. I should mention that I only learned that the trickle of muddy water snaking through the ditch was called Dupuis Creek by reading the newspaper story. We always just called it “the River.” Just like the other river, which we call “the Other River.” Passing on the finer points of local toponymy isn’t a priority of parents around here.

  So as it happens, “the youngster Fiset” was in my grade-six class. Another error missed by the newspaper’s fact checkers: see, the boy in question was actually known as “Fat Fiset.” At least, that’s what everyone in my grade called him. As for the older kids, I doubt they had a name for him at all since they had a Fat Fiset of their own. Our Fiset was his little brother.

  In elegiac prose the daily paper informed us that one Dave Fiset, five foot eight, drowned in a three-foot-deep creek. Which is accurate. Dupuis Creek is thirty-eight inches deep at its shallowest point, and it doesn’t really have a current. “An unfortunate incident that should give the entire community pause and make us reflect on the importance of never letting young children play alone near a body of water.”

  I remain convinced to this day that no one will ever drown in Dupuis Creek again. Not without a little assistance.

  I go down to the river for a little peace and quiet. It’s been raining all morning and it just stopped, so there’s still no one there when I get to the riverbank. Thanks to the wind, the mosquitoes aren’t even that bad, for such a humid day.

  I have a book to read in case there’s no one to observe, and my plan is to spend the afternoon in my tree. From the moment I get there and start tying my backpack to a branch, I hear them coming down the trail. I look over to the cemetery, and who should I see but the Fiset brothers. I have plenty of reasons not to like these guys. To name three, they’re ugly, they smell, and they’re constantly yelling, a habit they must have picked up from their equally obnoxious mother. You can hear her all the way across the supermarket parking lot.