Free A Good Death by Gil Courtemanche Page B

campaign, and questions me about my last trip to France, casting a worried look in Bernard’s direction, knowing that if there is a silence Bernard will fill it with more talk about our father. Be more like Mother. Beat a dignified retreat. I stand up. Another present is announced. Another baby cries.
    HE’S LYING half-naked on the quilt, having taken off the shirt and his undershirt, unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them down around his knees. He’s breathing heavily. When he sees me come in, he turns his head into his pillow. There’s nothing sadder or more disgusting than an old man lying like an abandoned doll on a bed, all his secret diminishments exposed. Or more pitiful. I don’t know how the jovial Haitian woman who comes in once a week to give him his bath can stand it. Much less how she can wash twenty people like him every week.
    I should undress him and get him into bed so that he’ll be more comfortable. That’s what the filial piety I do not feel would have me do. I have no intention of doing any such thing. I should at least cover him, maybe take off his shoes. I should go through the motions, not for him or the others, but for myself. So that I don’t have to look at his flaccid body, splayed out so hideously on the bed. And what about him? How does even a passive racist like him feel about having those plump black hands washing and rinsing him, squeezing his flesh, running over his body? How does he meet her foreigner’s gaze? What does he think as she washes his ears? How does he hide his sex? Is he completely naked in the bathtub? I can’t even bring myself to imagine it. The bit of nudity I might discern in the shadows not only disturbs me, the whole thing is indecent. His jacket has been tossed onto a chair. I pick it up with the tips of my fingers and cover him with it, careful not to touch his naked body.
    He might go to sleep.
    In the family room the children are comparing their presents and the adults have fallen into my mother’s trap. They’re discussing the electoral campaign. My mother isn’t really following the conversation, but she knows that when we talk about politics we are more likely to argue only about little things. She asks me what my father is doing. I say he’s sleeping. She produces a smile meant to say, No wonder, he’s eaten so much and drunk so much. She feels better knowing that he’s asleep. It distances him.
    “What about you, what do you think about the elections?”
    “Mother, you know I’m not interested in politics.”
    “But you’re an artist, you should be interested in politics. Many artists have spoken up…”
    Yes, I know, Mother. But not me. I have nothing to say because I believe in so few things. She lowers her head to hide her disappointment. She goes up and down the street distributing pamphlets for the Parti Québécois, she never misses a chance to demonstrate against the war in Iraq or some other injustice. To make her feel better, I eat some of the orange mousse.

VENISE-EN-QUÉBEC IS A VILLAGE ON MISSISQUOI BAY FILLED WITH VACATIONERS WHO CAN’T AFFORD TO GO ANYWHERE ELSE. From here you can see across to the United States and imagine how rich everyone is over there. I’m thirteen, but I know that Venice is a city in Italy with a lot of canals, governed by doges wearing funny cone-shaped hats. In Grolier’s Encyclopedia there is a photograph of the Piazza San Marco, showing the cathedral and pigeons swooping over the heads of visitors. I remember thinking about all the pigeon shit that must have been landing on all those well-dressed visitors. My parents are becoming increasingly worried about me, an adolescent who thinks about bombarding pigeons. But that’s only a passing thought; in fact, I also think about cathedrals and history and the concept of a republic. Which is odd for a kid my age. I detect in my parents a mixture of pride in my academic achievements and dread, especially from my mother, when at supper my father says