Bilingual Being (24 page)

But unlike the case for human beings such as my father, it was apparently too late for dead streets. My childhood street, St-Cyrille, bypassed the revision entirely and went straight to René Levèsque Boulevard. Yet it wasn't too late to fix millions of maps and street signs, to rectify every name from the Fleuve Saint-Laurent to Sainte-Foy – and from Sainte-Brigitte-de-Laval to Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier.

To be honest, I don't mind so much about the split into
Saint
and
Onge
. Being canonized to honour a bureaucratic vision of tidy rows and columns, a Cartesian cross. I wouldn't expect the powers that prevailed because of «la conquète anglaise» to recognize my name's claim to ancestral land. It's par for the course for conquerors, after all – practical imperialism. What I find harder to grasp is that with the current retrofit of heritage, its reappropriation, the powers that prevail in modern Quebec didn't take my name right back to what it was supposed to be, grammatically and logically:
Saintonge
. Surely that would make sense to those who know well that there was never a personal name
Onge
. Why not change it all the way? Would I need «un avocat» for that? Or
would that make it (me) too French – a name not sufficiently «québécois» – too «français»?

Because there isn't any question that this is another strong wind that blows through Quebec: the need to be francophone on its own terms – not on anyone else's. There's no desire to be reassimilated into a French identity. No sense of needing a mother again, if or when independence is achieved. And there's that strange quandary I'm in again: not French enough, and yet too French. It's tough being Goldilocks.

EL PATOIS

At any rate, this name business was the focus of my colleague's argument one afternoon, as we tidied up the displays on the floor and brought out the big ladder to dust and change the highest prints hanging on the back wall. («Ah, non. Moi, je ne mets pas un seul pied sur cette échelle. Ce n'est pas du tout mon obligation. De plus, c'est toi qui est la gérante. En fait, on devrait former une union ici.» [Ah, no. I am not putting a single foot on that ladder. It is not at all a job requirement. Besides, you're the store manager. In fact, we should all form a union here.]) I climbed up slowly, fuming as I went but saying nothing back.

The truth was that I'd been abbreviating my name all of my life, as all of my (English) family had been doing for generations. Inadvertently, we'd accepted without protest the loss of a few letters, the too-quick hyphen, the heritage interrupted. Turned out, there was no need for me to change anything at all if I wanted to reclaim my “unbranded” name, except for the minor matter of my choice to think, live, breathe, and just
be
in English. «Pourquoi ton chum est un anglais?» [Why is your boyfriend an Englishman?] And so on. I can't say those were my favourite shifts at the mall that summer.

So I give my imaginary linguistic accuser – my separatist shadow-figure –
her
voice. But am I really the «personne sans éducation» she accuses me of being, despite several university degrees (with honours), including one in linguistics and a post-graduate degree in education? Am I really what she calls me, a traitor to my heritage? A loser of language? One who's gone over to the English side? It's true that I find myself checking dictionaries, unsure if something is French or not. But I realize, as I explore the idioms and expressions etched in my mind,
that not just my outlook but even my French is all wrong by current Quebec standards. Her French diction is textbook perfect, of course, a testament to the best language programs and policies. Yet it's not authentic to the ancient history of Quebec, which embraced for centuries a far more modest “brand” of French – the patois that represents French for me. I wonder, then, who's the real traitor in this skirmish of roots and stock?

In patois, the French I grew up with it, it's normal to feminize what is supposed to be masculine according to modern standard French, saying «une autobus,» «une avion» [plane], and «une pétale»; and, as a speaker of patois, I refuse the feminine on what is supposed to be feminine, according to linguistic authorities, insisting on «un introduction,» «un espèce» [species], and «un entrevue» [interview]. I never ever use the particle «ne» in negative constructions unless I force myself to self-correct. Its absence actually seems to be a sort of rule-based marker of patois. As a result, I naturally say «t'en as pas» [you don't have any] instead of «tu n'en as pas» and «a'est pas fatiguée» [she's not tired] instead of «elle n'est pas fatiguée,» and so on.

I invert the article «le» [the, masculin] to «el», saying «el moteur» and «el chien.» That's apparently a legacy of Spanish influences on the medieval French of a migrant population that became cut off linguistically from the original homeland, western France. I also open all of my vowel sounds more than the standard, smoothing out their differences, so that when I say «va» and «vais» (conjugations of «aller,» the verb “to go”), they sound exactly the same. And, for the same reason, I say «mial» instead of «miel» [honey], and so on. This is seemingly commonplace in rural regional dialects in parts of France even today.

I reverse the unstressed first syllable of every verb that begins with /re/ followed by a consonant – saying «ermarier» and «erjeter,» instead of «remarier» and «rejeter» [remarry, reject]. On the other hand, I add an /ré/ sound at the beginning of every verb that begins with /re/ followed by the vowel /e/ – saying «réempaqueter» instead of «rempaqueter» [to repack], or «réenforcer» instead of «renforcer» [to reinforce]. I almost always soften a /v/ to an /f/ sound, saying «ch'feux» and «ch'fal» instead of «cheveux» [hair] and «cheval» [horse]. Likewise, I soften /j/ to an unvoiced /ch/ in front of unvoiced consonants, so that I say, «ch'peux» and «ch'fais» instead of «je peux» [I can] and «je fais» [I make/do], and
so on. I also overuse «on» – a someone/everyone pronoun – to such an extent that hardly any other is needed. It's not that there aren't rules – there are. It's only what I thought, and was taught, that French was as a child. Yet it's closet French now, spoken only «din rangs d'Sainten-arrière» [in the back woods/agricultural lots of Saint-way-out-back, “from the sticks”] – a double swipe at language and faith.

Some of my favourite words from childhood are gone for good. Like s'abeaudir» [to makes yourself beautiful], «s'aboutonner» [to button yourself up], «amancher» [to fix or set up], «apitchoumer» [to sneeze], «décrocheter» [to unhook], «écrapoutiller» [to squish or flatten], «inventionner» [to invent], and «pigrasser» [to fiddle around] – plus the whole irreplaceable series of «s'abrier» [to cover yourself with a blanket], «désabrier» [to uncover by removing a blanket], and «rabrier» [to cover up with a blanket again]. And how many more? Seems like a lot of loss in less than fifty years, no? They're not even listed as «populaire» – slang or colloquial – anymore. Where did they go?

I realize, painfully, that I'm not teaching French from my own place of origin. I am, in fact, pretending to be a teacher while I'm actually a student of standard French. I can't help, then, but question my own legitimacy. Are these reflections in my pedagogy of the identity crises that frame my entire life? Am I a fraud? And even further within, my insecurity festers, for I have to wonder how is it that someone with this kind of heritage is unsure of what it even means to be French.

Party

My black ballet leotard and tights.

Bunny ears from the Kresge store.

A blob of cotton balls pinned to my butt.

A box you'd put a board game in

strapped right at my waist level.

The display is fully loaded – Player's,

Export A, du Maurier, Craven A,

a few cigars, some pipe tobacco.

I am eight years old – one of

three pretend Playboy bunnies.

My cousin, S., who's ten, has a box

of chocolate bars, peanuts, and candy.

My cousin, X, who's twelve, has a box

of spare ashtrays and a lighter.

I am the “cigarette girl” because

it's the lightest box, I'm told.

It's «une p'tite soirée, un p'tit

parté,» one among many.

My costume is my story

in a nutshell. My metaphor.

Olfactory triggers of my horror:

men, smoke, tobacco, nicotine.

Psychic death infects my nostrils,

imprints an indelible symbol

of interminable injury which is

at once my very own, and

at once a product of culture twisted:

«Bin, viens-t-en-donc. Y'a rien là.

C'est juste drôle, ça-là.

C'est juste pour faire un peu d'fun.»
*

This from my mother's tongue –

my mother tongue.

Everyone is happy, having fun –

«Y sont dans leur élément.»
†

But I am not elemental here.

I do not belong, do not enjoy

handing out pipe tobacco

and cigars to the Elder –

and family-friendly priests

pretending their embarrassment,

at taking what I am now

offering them in public.

A movie could not make up this shit

any better than I live it.

Forget the withering soul,

the faultering ego,

a man is snapping his fingers,

and my job is to «faire un beau

sourire pis servir les hommes.»
‡

I am being socially constructed as a slut.

Compliant in my best smile,

I vomit only on the inside.

But in moments when

the men are «satisfaits,»

I lean up quietly against a corner,

flip the cardboard tops wide open,

move cigarettes into little lines,

smooth out tiny bits of foil neatly,

reorganize packages into tidy rows

and arrange cigars by label colours.

I want to keep my own display

as clean and sensible as I can.

My limited sphere of influence

hangs around my neck.

__________

*
Colloquialism for «Bien, voyons-donc. C'est drôle, c'est tout. C'est simplement pour le plaisir.» The meaning is, “Come on now, there's nothing to it. It's funny, that's all. It's only to have a bit of fun.”

†
Colloquialism for «Ils sont dans leur élément.» The meaning is literally, “They're in their element,” which signifies that they feel at home, they're comfortable.

‡
“Make a pretty smile and please the men.”

13

FRENCH ROOTS

LES GENS D'LA SOUCHE

My paternal great-grandfather, Joseph St-Onge – who was a “railroad man” just like my grandfather – had a home in Lévis with his wife, my paternal great-grandmother, Eugénie de Champlain. In her memoirs, my granny refers to Grand-grand-maman de Champlain, her new mother-in-law, as a “dear soul who did not speak one word of English.” Further towards the mouth of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent along the south shore, in Mont Joli, lived my great-grandmother's sister, Odile de Champlain, who apparently also “couldn't speak English.” It was at the home of «Arrière-arrière-tante Odile» that my grandparents lived for a month when Granny first crossed the Atlantic at twenty-one years of age, “very pregnant,” to meet her new husband, and found herself terribly sick from the voyage. And it was in this very home that there was a framed geneological certificate issued by the government of Quebec attesting to my grandfather's descent, through his mother, from Sieur Pézard de la Touche de Champlain.

The certificate has been passed down through Odile's children and was last reported in Charny. According to Granny's subsequent research, her new husband's great-grandfather had been Pierre St-Onge, a widower, who arrived in 1798 from La Charente Inférieure in the Department of Saintonge in Gascony. He married again in Canada, in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, producing two sons: Abraham Paillant dit St-Onge and Honoré Paillant dit St-Onge. I don't mean to
question their status as «des bons catholiques» when I say that these sound suspiciously like Huguenot names. In any event, two of Abraham's sons married «de Champlain» girls, and one of his daughters married a «de Champlain» boy. So it was that «les de Champlains» and «les St-Onges» held each other's strands like a thick braid.

Sieur Pézard was apparently a close colleague of Samuel de Champlain de la Touche de Brouage de Saintonge, who was born in 1567. For his part, Champlain was an upstanding soldier of Henri IV, né Henri de Bourbon, considered Le Roi de Navarre and Le Roi de France – himself a former Huguenot chief converted to Catholicism. Champlain would become the founder of New France in 1608, according to the bronze sign that hangs below his world-famous statue next to the Château Frontenac. It was at the base of this statue, in fact, right on the stone steps there, that I often ate lunch those six summers I worked as a local tour guide in Quebec City. It was there, too, that my photographer and I had exchanged our first kiss one warm evening in our early twenties.

My ancestors are spread between Kamouraska and la Beauce, with the greatest concentration in the rural areas within a few hours of Quebec City and along la Rive-sud eastward towards the open ocean. My maternal «grand-grand-maman» was named Marie Émilie Blais née Brochu dit Raisin. Through the «dit» [said to be] name system, my grand-grand-maman is returned mythically or biologically – seems the family history rides a fine line here – to the relations of Marie Raisin, a literate sister and teacher with the Ursulines of Quebec. Arriving in 1659, she became the assistant mother superior in Montreal, second in command to Soeur Marguerite Bourgeoys – in her lifetime, the most respected woman here.

The great «soeur» was actually a lay woman born in 1620 in Troyes who arrived in 1653 to found a secular order in honour of Notre Dame. Her organization became an influential network for women that ran trade schools for girls to promote literacy and financial independence, and opened halfway homes for young, ill, poor, or elderly women throughout New France. For the settlers, this tireless woman inspired by the idea of «el bon secours» – the compassionate rescue – would always be «la mère d'la colonie.» It would take more than three
hundred years for the Catholic Church to catch up with her and make her a saint.