Free Augustino and the Choir of Destruction by Marie-Claire Blais

The-Island-Nobody-Owns, it seemed catastrophic to Mère that she had dreamed about two opaque travel bags someone had put on that rough, back lawn in autumn and winter that had gone unmown for a long time, what was the figure two that ran through some of her presentiments, or that confrontation between Mélanie and her mother, two women telescoped into one when death made its entry, the faded condition of the garden had moved Mère to call Julio, Jenny and Marie-Sylvie to help her with the clearing of it, and where were they all, why weren’t they answering, an icy wind whipped at the windows, they’ve all run off and left me alone, even my daughter, she’d thought, when just at that moment, Augustino appeared with one of his birds sitting on his shoulder, not Samuel’s parrot, but an odd sort of parakeet that moved bizarrely on his shoulder, you called me, Grandmother, he asked, look at our garden, where did all this rain come from, the frost on the palm-leaves, and why are the trees so bent over, as soon as Mère and Augustino were outside, the parakeet flew off its familiar perch but seemed to have forgotten how to fly, don’t let it get away, Grandma, Augustino yelled, where’s it going anyway, it might break a bone, whose travel-bags are those, Mère asked him, two, always the figure two, and as she awoke from her nap, she saw Augustino next to her with the parakeet sitting meekly on his shoulder, could you keep an eye on her Grandma, I’m going for a swim, isn’t too cold, said Mère still in her dream environment, then she felt the bird’s plumage on her cheek, saved again, she thought, she had been saved, and those bags were there ready for her visit to her sons in California, it reassured her that Augustino had woken her up before dinnertime, she’d have time to get dressed before the evening meal, it seemed that whenever his grandmother insisted they all get dressed for dinner, Augustino went out, she’d put the parakeet back in its cage, it bit everyone with its pointed beak, except Augustino, whom it loved, yes, those travel-bags would come in handy, she thought, if ever she decided to visit her sons; what a magnificent night it was in Chuan’s gardens for Mère’s birthday, now just bury the thought of those bad dreams, nightmares actually, she smiled and spoke to everyone but was concerned that Caroline was not among them, there were very few friends of her own venerable age, some did not seem to change over time, like Suzanne or Adrien in his black jacket and white pants, listening to Daniel with polite coolness, what was it they were talking about, the lengthy follow-up to his novel Les Etranges annees , ah yes, said Adrien in his professorial tone, I’ll be most curious to read you soon, a lie Daniel paid no attention to, thinking he would retreat to his monastery in Spain, worn out by this boring socializing, he’d only gone along with this party to please Mélanie, his book was his whole life, so why did he let himself get torn away from it so easily? Yes, he thought, if he had let off Hitler’s dog, why not also exculpate the children of treacherous, reprobate officials, what would he, Daniel, have done if he had been the son not of one of history’s victims, but of one of its executioners like Himmler or Göring, if his birth had been in that apocalyptic shipwreck? If his parents, his father, had held macabre sway over the execution of so many innocents, they would have revolted him, but he and his offspring, what would they have done? He’d have been the son of a man hanged at Nuremberg whose vicious ghost would have tormented him everywhere, destitute, he would not have hesitated to sell his father’s story for food, even if he knew nothing of it except what they told him — though would he believe it, missing his guilty suicide-father, hanged in some murky past, he’d have been like all children,