Serafim and Claire Read Online Free Page A

way to pay for her weekly dance classes at the École de Danse Lacasse-Morenoff, and attended every recital to clap as loudly as he could. He was also the only parent who would whistle, piercingly, with his thumb and forefinger in his mouth. Whenever talk in their house, especially with visitors from church, began to seethe about the gravest of issues — infant mortality among francophones reaching the highest in the Western world, the patent dismissal of their every concern by Ottawa, or the grisly scene of a horse-drawn trolley carting away corpses of those who had succumbed to the Spanish influenza, with one or two of the bodies still in their death throes — Claire’s father would pull her close to keep her from hearing any more, asking her about the dances she was rehearsing, or even taking her to another room, where he would wind up the gramophone and close the door behind him, leaving her to practise in peace.
    Claire was fifteen years old and in her last year of school when, on a mild day in November, the news rippled through the city like a tsunami of cheers: the war was over. The school bells were suddenly ringing continuously, following the students out into the streets, where the chimes spread into the urban distance, infectiously, to church bells, firemen’s sirens, the klaxons of vehicles, descending all the way to the St. Lawrence and the harbour, where ship horns could be heard yawning and bellowing above the boom of cannon fire. Claire, thinking of her father, headed to St. James Street, where he was a lowly record keeper for a small accounting firm. Along the way, the traffic at intersections was sometimes clogged and stagnant, people in the crossroads playing instruments, groups of singers and dancers flocking around them, and annoyed drivers leaving their vehicles only to join in the revelry a few minutes later, clapping their hands with their heads thrown back. The war was really over.
    Claire bumped into her father as he was heading towards his favourite tavern. Upon seeing her, he picked her up, swung her in a circle, and kissed her cheeks ecstatically before leading her by the arm through the crowd that was amassing in ever-greater numbers. Inside the tavern, an accordion player stood on a table, his back to the wall to make room for a few more people to dance, while a fiddle player carefully stepped onto another tabletop to do the same. Two navy men, bristling with elation, swung each other by the arms in the centre of the room. The circle of people closest to them, mostly men in straw hats, clapped in unison, cigarettes clamped between their lips. Claire’s father ordered drinks, a whiskey for himself and a cocktail for her, and they had just clinked glasses and taken a sip when Claire’s father straightened up and exclaimed, “Why, Dr. Bertrand!” and hailed the man to come over.
    Dr. Bertrand was a much-respected physician who, everyone knew, had gone to London and Paris just before war had broken out, where he had learned to perform surgical operations. His status in the francophone community was of the highest, and the Audettes were among the few lucky enough to be able to call him their family doctor. Claire’s father vigorously shook his hand, clasping the man’s shoulder as if to steady him, a dribble of whiskey spilling from the glass in the doctor’s left hand. He kissed Claire hello, and all three of them clanked glasses, drinking to the end of all wars.
    The two men exchanged small talk for a few minutes, watching the sailors dance. Then, looking into his glass, and half under his breath, Claire’s father uttered, “You know, about Daniel, I have never thanked you.”
    Dr. Bertrand, draining the last thimble of whiskey from his tumbler, continued looking out into the tavern. “With much respect, Mr. Audette, I didn’t do it for your gratitude, or anyone else’s for that matter. I was just staying true to my own code of