The Keeper's Daughter by Jean-Francois Caron

Author:Jean-Francois Caron [Caron, Jean-François]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Canadian Fiction, Lighthouse, Quebec, memory, family, dementia, senility, solitude, fishing village
ISBN: 978-0-88922-921-1
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 2015-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

I’m the child Rose before her sinking mother, her singing mother, the essence of sadness, maluron, lurette.

I know war waged inside the head. It’s grounded in rampant despondency, in Mama’s untimely sadness. When she sings songs about war and about swallows:

Tell me what’s amiss, Françoise,

élongué

Tell me what’s amiss, Françoise,

Why are you weeping so?

maluron, lurette

Why are you weeping so?

maluron, luré

Mama weeping like a forsaken Françoise. Baking bread, or a pie. Cooking a hare. Doing the washing. Hanging out the sheets in a strong wind. Weeping as she sings:

But when he was at sea

élongué

But when he was at sea

Sluicing down the floor. Giving me my bath, scrubbing my back and armpits, cleaning out my ears, brushing my hair. Rubbing me all over as if I was dirty, an incorrigible child, a filthy little thing. As if I was a speck of dirt.

I heard the sad bell toll

maluron, lurette

Another meltdown, it’s pouring through every orifice of her face as she chokes on the thought of her soldier dying. Maybe no one could have heard the last lines, which would have had to be read from her lips:

I heard the sad bell toll

maluron, luré

A fit of viscous coughing, with mucus on Mama’s lip. She abandons the basket and the white sheets that will never dry there. And the good-smelling food. And her daughter soaking in a basin of dirty water.

Mama giving up.

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