The Lonely Hearts Hotel(117)

Rose’s cry woke up the whole of the building.

A child on Saint Dominique Street, in a building in the alley opposite, sat up in his bed, certain that she had heard someone yell in terrible pain. But when she went in to see her parents and wiggled her sleeping mother’s toe, they told her to go back to sleep.

? ? ?

PIERROT’S BODY WAS RETURNED to Montreal to be buried in the cemetery on top of the mountain that was in the middle of the city. The funeral was held in the tiny church where Pierrot and Rose used to go to get free soup during the Depression and where they were married. The clouds seemed heavy that day, like a pregnant lady rolling in a pool. Pierrot didn’t have any family at the funeral. He was obviously related to people all over the city. He had cousins and aunts and grandparents. He had not just dropped from the sky. But there was no way anybody could find his family. The H?pital de la Miséricorde had made sure of that twenty-five years before. All anyone knew was that there had once upon a time been a girl named Ignorance who didn’t follow rules and was so many millions of miles away from being a saint, and who had played a foolish game with her cousin.

So the church was instead filled with the clowns to whom Pierrot was closest. And, of course, Rose, who sat in the front pew with a veil over her face, unable to say a word. She had wept for three days.

Hundreds of red roses lay across Pierrot’s coffin as it was carried down the steps by six strapping clowns. Rose followed the coffin and walked down the narrow stone steps of the church. To the people outside staring at the door of the church, waiting for the funeral party to exit, Rose looked like she had aged ten years. She always said later that her hair started to turn white that day—afterward, people found it difficult to tell exactly how old she was because her skin and eyes had an impish, youthful glow but her hair was white.

Fabio was at her side. You would never know that he had been a clown, however. He looked like a fat, serious businessman. You would never know that he had been any sort of artist, as he betrayed no emotions. He was the type of person you would have trouble imagining as a child, even. Occasionally, in a very stressful circumstance, he might take off his hat and wipe his bald head with a handkerchief and then put his hat back on. That was just what he did on this occasion after stepping out of the church and witnessing what was going on outside.

The streets were filled with all sorts of people who had come to show their respect. The sounds of car horns could be heard in the distance. People were crowding the streets for blocks, preventing traffic from moving. People stood on stoops to get a glimpse of the casket. People perched on the roofs of buildings—it looked as if all the gargoyles had come to life.

There were adults from all walks of life. Some had come from the wealthy neighborhoods in their fur coats, and some had come from the poorest neighborhoods in their threadbare ones. People from all backgrounds had been touched by Pierrot.

There were loads of little children, who had gotten permission from their parents to put on their Sunday clothes and go to the funeral. There were some that had single flowers they had plucked from their yards or had begged the florist to spare. They followed the clowns. Many of them wept openly at the death of their hero.

And scattered everywhere in the crowd were young men in military uniforms. Canada had declared war on Germany that week. Before going overseas, they wanted to pay respect to Pierrot. It was as though they were kissing their wonderful and broke-ass and big-hearted and unpredictable Montreal childhoods good-bye. They were burying them with Pierrot. Many of them, like him, would never grow old enough to understand that you only go from one hardship to another. And that the best we can hope from life is that it is a wonderful depression.

The coffin was loaded into the hearse. The clowns climbed into the limousines parked behind it. None of the men were in costume. They were dressed in black suits. But there seemed to be a little detail on each one of them that betrayed that they were clowns. One had a cloth carnation in his lapel that would squirt water in your face. Another had a small trembling Chihuahua in his inside pocket. One had black shoes that, although recently shined, were at least six sizes too big for him and turned up at the toes.

A black, squat bulldog waddled after a clown and jumped into the limousine. But before hopping in, the dog turned to look at the crowd. There was a round white circle around his right eye, like an eight ball.

? ? ?

THE FUNERAL PROCESSION moved slowly down the street. The clowns didn’t care that they were blocking traffic. When the limousines began to move hesitantly through the crowd and down Saint Catherine Street, a woman sitting on the sidewalk pulled on her accordion and started to play Pierrot’s tune, and it made everyone feel wonderful. It brought out their feelings and made them more intense, the way spices do to the flavors of meat. And Pierrot, who had been terrified of the feelings that accordions gave him, seemed to no longer mind. And the people in the crowd felt terrible and full of woe that Pierrot had died, but they also felt grateful that he had been in their lives. He was from Montreal, and he had proved that they all had beauty and art inside them as much as any other person anywhere in the world. They felt happy about exactly where they were in the universe.

All the children in the city put candles in their windows that night. The Milky Way became for one night a tiny island in the Saint Lawrence River.





71


    FINAL CHAPTER



It was late in the afternoon and Rose was walking down the street. She wore a long, straight navy blue dress. It had different layers, different rows of lace that had been sewn together—it looked like a multistoried apartment building. She had a giant white pouf attached to the side of her head.