Rising Abruptly (16 page)

Jacques at home, climbing his gym walls, viewing Maddie's creations exhibited in glass bowls: I'm impressed, ma grande.

More. I want more. Perle noire, Jacques. The ultimate chic cocktail onion.

Another sleepless night. Jacques sleeping, Maddie searching. How do I get black pearls, Mom?

Lillian takes her time sending this postcard:

Perle noire, Madeleine? It reminds me of the black pearl of the Chinese empress dowager, placed in her mouth immediately after her death. Black lacquers? Deadly. Crushed kalonji seeds? Would the black of the wild onion seeds leach into the solution? How about squid ink? You are the empirical one, Madeleine. I can only theorize.

Jacques is out climbing again. Will be gone for days. Went to a region called the Bugaboos, a place, he told her, of rock spires and hanging glaciers. Maddie goes back to basics. Amber, coral, black are mere distractions. Since she has been using her glacier water, she has often observed that the salt solution in which her pure white pearls steep is cloudy. She has refused to admit it, and yet, the evidence is clear.

Mom, help me. What should I do? I'm at my wits' end.

Lillian sends this postcard:

My poor Madeleine, no wonder. Your glacier water is no good for pickling. Before sending you to Calgary, I should have anticipated the problem of hard water. But then, you would
not have met Jacques. Is he careful? Soft water is best for pickles.

Maddie's vision blurs. How could Mom be so wrong? Maddie knows, empirically speaking, that glacier water makes a tastier pearl. She has even reconciled herself with the water from the Athabasca. Recognized her imagination had tricked her. Jacques is a roofer, Mom. He lives on the high ground. Ancient water. Maddie knows she is right.

Her vision clears. She reads on:

However, if the mineral salts are in solution, you may have to distill the water. Will you go so far as to acquire a still or a retort? I feel for your difficulties in your
Allium
world. I'm reading
Ulysses
and I'm turning insomniac too. An uphill struggle that your gentle bookish climber may know well. Oh, les montagnes et les Irlandais!

A day later, Lillian sends this postcard via Priority Post:

I don't want to interfere with your onions or your personal life, but I just read that a young Québécois was killed in the mountains last week. The ancient Greeks believed garlic strengthened warriors before a battle and athletes before a contest.

Jacques comes back from his mountains, as always, bringing her a few litres of precious water. But he returns from the Bugaboos with no voice. During his multi-pitch climbs, his vocal cords suffered tiny tears from shouting in the cold against a howling wind.

Silently, he forms the words: Communication is paramount, ma grande.

When he had a booming voice, he did tell her that clear communication between two partners during a climb was more important than good communication in a relationship, unless, he went on with his head cocked to one side, a grin on his face, unless the couple in question also climbed together. In climbing, elliptic talk could be fatal.

Fatal? She asked him to explain further.

You're the lead climber. So, off you go making your way up a route while your partner belays you from below. Along the way, you put in pieces of protection, so if you fall, the last piece of protection will hold you—if it is placed properly—but only if your partner has you on a firm belay. All's going well. You get to the top and have not yet secured yourself, but, for some reason, your partner thinks you yelled secure and he takes you off belay. The rope becomes academic and the final word of the day is splat. Clear communication, ma grande. So, wind or no wind, you yell your little lungs out.

Yes, she could see that. On this night of Jacques being voiceless, an ancient lore lurks in the back of her mind. She spots the right postcard high up near the ceiling and she eyes the leeks languishing in the window boxes. She knows what she must do.

Wait. I'll be right back.

She rushes to the supermarket. Brings home, not the bacon, but leeks. Before he left, she had failed to give Jacques garlic. She will never forget again. From now on, he will eat garlic galore. Otherwise, what? This time, his vocal cords tearing? Next time, the climbing rope tearing? And then, and then. She can't bear the word “splat.” And so, tonight, she will fortify him and will give him back his voice.

No spoon, Jacques. Hold the bowl with both hands, like for the tea ceremony. Drink slowly. Do you like it?

He articulates silently: Best vichyssoise I ever tasted.

It's not vichyssoise. No potato in it. Pure leeks and cream and water. Water from the Saskatchewan Glacier. Potage glacé du glacier. Does it help?

Jacques is not saying. Rather, he melts. Gestures for more potage aux poireaux. Swirls the tender green cream laced with the mild onion juice against his damaged vocal cords. Breathes in the bouquet to augment the wonderful palate expanding in his mouth. Feels the swell of scented smoothness sliding down his throat, silk and velvet both, soothing. He licks his bowl, he licks his chops, his eyes become languid, his hand softens on hers. Oh, he is beyond mere desire.

You see, Jacques, the power of your glacier water. Despite containing mineral salts. Your mouth is the living proof that the water gave my leek brew its character. I suppose Mom is wrong. The mineral salts don't harm my pearls. I must be imagining things again. Now, practise your calls. Be clear, if not loud.

Secure. Off belay. The words grate against the still irritated vocal cords: On belay. Climbing. Tension. Great soup.

Bah! it's all folklore, Jacques.

He looks for one of Lillian's narratives. Finds it pinned high above the western window. He climbs up and reads in a husky voice:

The ancient Egyptians, Romans and Celts were great admirers of the leek (
Allium porrum
). The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that “Egypt is a country where onions are adored and leeks are gods.” The Romans, not to be outdone in the leek mystique, believed the hardy, biennial herbaceous cousin of your beloved pearl was beneficial for the vocal cords. Nero, ma chérie, drank leek soup to clarify and deepen his voice for speechmaking. I am left to wonder if French chef Louis Diat's American creation, vichyssoise, ever had or still has as far-reaching political ramifications in Washington, DC. Has the leek ever set the town on fire?

As he downclimbs, Jacques rattles on his vital calls in a shaky singsong: On belay. Secure. Climbing. Once safe on the ground, he pins the postcard closer to his climbing gear.

They fall into bed. Jacques loving Maddie. Maddie loving Jacques. He moves with a grace that always surprises her. Around her curves or on his climbing walls, he is all feathery grace. Grace despite a short, stout body with thighs the size of cedar posts. His blood belongs to the sturdy race of coureurs des bois. His ancestors may very well have survived on a diet of wild chicagou, as père Marquette had on the south shore of lac Michigan. Jacques Lachance with his roof-tar hair and raven eyes will always come back from his mountains with glacier water and tales of glory. On Mondays, after his weekend climbs, he will always be up on someone's roof laying asphalt shingles and nailing them down with his big nail gun.

She will not sleep and she will make the perfect pickled onion yet.

Early this morning, Maddie went to market and bought a twenty-pound sack of pearls from her Hutterite man. He winked at her, the sweet man in black, the country man staring at the women in the city. His face smooth as mother-of-pearl under his rough oyster-shell clothing. She paid and winked back.

Back home, she blanches batch after batch of pearls to loosen the skin. Considers the tedium of the work ahead, and the day so hot.

Standing at the counter, Maddie skins, glancing at a postcard propped against the backsplash:

Ah, the French with their idées reçues! Hear Anatole France babble: “Les poireaux sont les asperges du pauvre.” Didn't he know about the Welsh? In 640, ma chérie, they wore leeks on their caps and triumphed over the Saxons. I hate to imagine what their fate would have been if they had worn asparagus.

Maddie is skinning onions and Jacques is climbing hard rock in a canyon where, he told her, Indian petroglyphs of hunters on white waters are still visible on the rock walls. She should have fixed a leek to his climbing helmet. She wonders if, last night, she didn't go overboard with the onion feast she served in bed.

They began with Gibsons. She judged her cocktail pearls not perfect. Not yet.

Forget the pearls, Madeleine. Get tipsy. You need a good night's sleep. You need a thousand good nights' sleep.

While sipping gin and vermouth, they nibbled on tiny onion sandwiches made with slices of brioche and rolled in chopped parsley.

Parsley, good for the breath, ma grande. I'm fed up with roofers' jokes about onion breath.

Jacques is away climbing. Maddie is peeling, the silvery skins clinging to her fingers. She concentrates on her onion repast.

Then, she brought flamiche, a leek pie, which she garnished with roasted cloves of garlic. Jacques's eyes shone less bright.

Then, she served onion soup à la Casey, the beef stock for which, she told him, had to simmer eight hours a day for three days, before the final simmering with a quantity of thinly sliced…

Onions. Tomorrow, I'm climbing a rock route that is 5.13.

Is that difficult?

I've never climbed above 5.12. To give you an idea of 5.12, think of circus acrobats or contortionists. To give you an idea of 5.13, think of Spider-Man without his spider silk. 5.13 is pretty close to the edge of defying gravity.

Does the soup taste a little bitter to you?

I'm excited, but nervous. This might end in bitter disappointment. He grinned rather grimly. Sipped his soup.

La pièce de résistance was caramelized shallots with brochettes of lamb. Jacques's spirit rose as he sank his teeth into the red meat.

Tomorrow while you climb, I'll go to market. With so many onions, I'll be able to sort them precisely by size. I'll measure the diameter of each pearl. That way, when they're ready to be cooked, I'll be able to calculate more accurately how many seconds each batch must stay in the boiling water.

Jacques bared his teeth at her.

She smiled a tight little smile: I'm entering my 5.13 phase, Jacko baby. Measuring the diameter of pearls before cooking them is pretty extreme.

They rinsed their mutual apprehension and palates with a red onion and orange salad, heavily laced with Italian parsley.

For your breath, Jacques. So tomorrow, while belaying you, your climbing partner will spare you disparaging remarks. And will resist the temptation to drop you. Splat. I will not hear of it.

He narrowed his eyes: And for dessert, Madeleine? Garlic ice cream?

Don't laugh.

Who's laughing?

They do it in California.

Figures. I'll make black coffee. You, have more Gibsons. Tonight, I want you to knock yourself out.

If Maddie slept, it was in a fitful gin-induced stupor. And heard him sneak out of the house at dawn, knowing he didn't have to leave that early. Is Maddie hanging herself with her rope of onions while Jacques climbs? While Jacques is exhibiting signs of onion fatigue? Or, last night, was he truly experiencing the jitters about today's climb? She rinses the onion skins off her hands and goes for a run, leaving the naked pearls strewn about the kitchen counter. Damn it, she's gonna sleep a real sleep tonight.

Maddie's nuits blanches in Bowness are getting colder. Even in August. Jacques sleeps with reckless abandon in the monkey hang position, as if his bed were the smooth, overhanging monolith of his last climb and his pillow the bulge, he told her, the crux he failed to climb over. No matter how often he tried and tried and tried, he kept falling and falling and falling. While Jacques dreams of climbing success above his level of competence, Maddie shivers. She touches the small of his back, her cold hand on his warm skin. Jacques doesn't so much as stir. For lack of dreaming, Maddie's brain hanging on the edge of the precipice of wakefulness will invent hallucinations. No longer will the warmth of Jacques Lachance's strong-agile body abandoned to the night save her from plunging to the ground of terminal exhaustion.