Élise Turcotte
translated by
Rhonda Mullins
Guyana
Coach House Books, Toronto
English translation © Rhonda Mullins, 2014
Original text copyright © Élise Turcotte, 2011
First English edition. Originally published in French in 2011 as Guyana by Leméac Éditeur. All rights reserved.
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Turcotte, Elise
[Guyana. English]
Guyana / Élise Turcotte ; translated by Rhonda Mullins.
Translation of French book with same title.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77056-373-5
I. Mullins, Rhonda, 1966–, translator II. Title. III. Guyana. English.
PS8589.U62G8913 2014 C843'.54 C2013-907674-3
Guyana is available in a print edition: ISBN 978 1 55245 292 9.
Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook, please email [email protected] with proof of purchase or visit chbooks.com/digital. (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.)
About This Book
Ana and her nine-year-old son, Philippe, are grieving the loss of Philippe’s father when their beloved hairdresser, Kimi, dies in an apparent suicide. Driven by an obsession she can’t quite come to terms with, Ana starts digging into Kimi’s past in Guyana, drawing violent connections between north and south, past and present, with the Jonestown Massacre as backdrop. A stunning translation of a winner of the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, a masterful novel by one of Quebec’s most important novelists.
‘Guyana reads like a poetic mystery novel, from its claustrophobic beginning and building to the finale, which is frankly so astonishing that I don’t dare give anything away.’ – La Presse
She became a ghost. What is a ghost? A being that puts you under its spell? That you can’t escape? How did she disappear? Is there even an answer to that question?
– Åke Edwardson
The Wings of Invention
There was still something I needed to sort out.
School was ending soon, my year of battle would end with it, and I wanted everything to be perfect. But there was something nagging at me, making me feel like I hadn’t finished my homework. The slightest stumbling block can foretell dark days to come. But I was born to survive, as others are born to thrive in absence or in the hereafter.
I dialled the number, swearing it would be my last try.
I had been calling for three days, with no answer, not even Harriet’s recorded voice. I was starting to get annoyed. It was a business, after all, and I was a good customer.
Why weren’t they answering?
One last try. Then I would hang up for good.
Except I couldn’t.
I listened to the ringing with the attention of a soldier awaiting orders.
And then the dread of something more final started to insinuate itself in me. The ringing started to reverberate inside me as if I were in an empty room, on the eve of a departure.
Maybe the hair salon was closed, but that didn’t seem likely. I realized that if anything had happened to her, I would never know. If she had gone to work somewhere else, I wouldn’t be able to find her. I didn’t even know her last name. I had never asked.
Philippe wanted an appointment with Kimi and that was that. His hair was sticking out in tufts at the back of his neck, and he didn’t like it. His obsession was going to take him over, and soon he would feel like a metamorphosis had begun. His own body was a source of so many questions: his body, the world – leaving him feeling like he was being sucked up by an unknown force.
That morning he had asked me to call one more time.
‘My hair, Mom,’ he pleaded.
I was dreading the moment when I would have to tell him that we might have to find someone else.
Philippe’s hair is a serious matter. More serious still is accepting the touch of a stranger. Kimi understood that at our first appointment. Her gestures naturally moulded to Philippe’s standoffish ways. We were both grieving, and Kimi had a gift: with just one look, she wrapped us in gentle certainty. She immediately became one of the new markers we were counting on to help us get on with our lives.
The scene had unfolded the same way for over a year:
She would sit him in the chair, gently drape his shoulders in the black cape that he would pull down over his thighs to smooth out the folds while she fastened the snap at the neck. I would stand behind them, and she would shoot me a glance in the mirror, smiling, and make a comment about Philippe’s big eyes. The haircut had to bring out his eyes. Once she started cutting, I would sit down beside them. I would swivel in the chair and flip through magazines. Hair would fall onto the beige linoleum. Philippe would relax. I would talk to Kimi. Was Philippe listening? I didn’t know. He would study his face in the mirror, watch the hairdresser’s gestures, sometimes show a hint of a smile. He would sit up tall and stay quiet. More like concentrated, really, as if on a math problem. At the end, when Kimi would take the electric shaver from the drawer, we would both be silent. How I would have loved to run the shaver over his whole head. Philippe would brace himself a bit at the buzzing. Things slip, don’t they? Hands can grow weak, and composure can vanish under a drop of blood behind the ear. But then, no, the haircut was done. Kimi would warm the gel a little in the palm of her hand. Despite Philippe’s wary eye, she would ruffle his hair. This was too much for him, but he was too proud not to let her. Then he would remove the cape, suddenly in a hurry to be off. Aside from Kimi, nothing could keep us in the salon. I would go on talking to her while she swept up the fallen hair. This was my favourite part: the broom gliding gently over the floor, the hair gathered into a pile, a compact blotch you want to touch. But you don’t. Touching it would be like sullying your hands with something freshly dead. I prefer things that are properly done, clean, in a neat pile. This was why I didn’t like hanging around too long in the salon, which was anything but neat and tidy. When the ball of hair was neatly tucked against the wall, I would pay and follow Philippe out.
This scene was an enclave of peace in a series of more complicated efforts for Philippe and me: the decision, the phone call, the bike ride, how to position the bike locks, who should open the door . . . People have no idea the discussions that can go on in accomplishing a series of mundane tasks with a child. We also had to walk through the wall of young locals hanging around on the sidewalk in front of the salon, or sitting lined up in chairs, as if in a movie set in a village in the West Indies. I say this because of Kimi. I can almost see the colour of the weather change, from grey-white or cold blue to a warmer hue. I’m arranging the landscape of history a little.
But the landscape I’m creating seems truer today than it did before. The hair salon with its uninviting storefront, the little dead-end street: a storyline was already moving in a certain direction. Of course, the young men were