The Goddess of Fireflies Read online

  THE GODDESS OF FIREFLIES

  GENEVIÈVE PETTERSEN

  The Goddess of Fireflies

  A Novel

  Translated from the French by Neil Smith

  Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts,

  the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the

  Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC).

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada

  through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an

  initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018:

  Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.

  Esplanade Books editor: Dimitri Nasrallah

  Cover design: David Drummond

  Special assistance: Anne Dardick

  Photo of author: Christian Blais/Le Quartanier

  Typeset in Minion by Simon Garamond

  Printed by Marquis Printing Inc.

  Originally published as La déesse des mouches à feu

  by Le Quartanier, 2013.

  English-language translation copyright © Neil Smith 2016.

  Dépôt légal, Library and Archives Canada and

  Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, first quarter 2016.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Pettersen, Geneviève, 1982-

  [Déesse des mouches à feu. English]

  The goddess of fireflies / Geneviève Pettersen;

  translated by Neil Smith.

  Translation of: La déesse des mouches à feu.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55065-437-0 (paperback). – ISBN 978-1-55065-443-1 (epub)

  I. Smith, Neil, 1964-, translator II. Title.

  III. Title: Déesse des mouches à feu. English.

  PS8631.E875D4413 2016C843’.6C2015-907345-6

  C2015-907346-4

  Published by Véhicule Press, Montréal, Québec, Canada

  vehiculepress.com

  Distributed by LitDistCo in Canada www.litdistco.ca

  Distributed by IPG in the U.S.

  Printed in Canada on FSC® certified paper.

  To all the little brats.

  And especially Anne-Marie.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  It happened on July 18th, 1995. I remember because it was my birthday. On July 18th, my dad crashed my mom’s Grand Cherokee into a tree at the end of our driveway. Our property was so big the previous owners had built two tennis courts in the front yard. You drove up to the house on a gravel road and then along a tulip-lined circular driveway that curved past the veranda. The house was big, Victorian-style, and Granny Smith green with gray metal gables and an in-ground pool in the backyard. My dad had the tennis courts ripped out after he’d bought the place. They were for show-offs, he’d said. Besides, my mom had wanted flowerbeds put in.

  It was about six in the evening when my dad smashed into my mom’s favorite tree, a hundred-year-old oak. I’m not sure what kind of oak exactly because my mom knew nothing about trees. As for my dad, you couldn’t even mention trees to him he despised them so much. He had to rake up a zillion dead leaves scattered across our property in the fall. It took three days even if I gave him a hand. Actually, I wasn’t too helpful. My dad would complain that I was slacking off. He’d fill ten garbage bags for every bag I filled. Eventually he’d get fed up and tell me to beat it and go play Nintendo. That summer, I spent almost every day trying to save Princess Peach from Bowser’s Castle.

  My dad had bought the jeep for my mom the year before. She chose fire-engine red. It’d be easier to find in the parking lot at the mall was what she told my dad at the car dealership. She wanted the red that was in the catalog, not the red of the demo that sat on iron beams in front of the store. The salesman told my mom her red had to be specially ordered. A jeep would need to be sent up from Montreal just for her, and it would cost my dad five thousand extra. She stared at the salesman and asked when her red jeep would arrive. She liked being special, and above all she liked having my dad cough up his money.

  She was ecstatic when they left the dealership. My dad, though, was fuming. He asked what was wrong with the color of the store model since it was the same freaking red. My mom rolled her eyes and explained how the red in the catalog was brighter than the other red. There was an obvious difference. And she’d be the only one in Chicoutimi with a jeep that color. My dad shut up. He knew how to pick his battles. Anyways, he likely called the salesman behind my mom’s back to cancel her special order. My mom would get the standard red, and she wouldn’t even notice because she was dumber than a Chihuahua.

  My mom fell out of love with her jeep pretty fast. My dad bought himself a second car that same year, a yellow Corvette, which my mom liked way better than the jeep. It was a sports car. My mom couldn’t stand sports, but she went crazy over sports cars. She’d take me for drives on the highway in the Corvette. Once we’d hit the first curve, she’d put on her Dirty Dancing CD. At “She’s Like the Wind,” she’d crank up the sound and push the pedal to 160. Meanwhile, I’d grip the door with all my might and wait for her goddamn song to end.

  My mom wasn’t in the jeep when it slammed into the tree. Only my dad was—my dad and his can of Labatt Blue. The Labatt was an accident, though. My dad would never drink and drive, but he just happened to have a beer in his hands when he decided to total the jeep.

  I remember that on the afternoon of my birthday, the kitchen table was piled high with like forty-two different things for my party. Styrofoam cups, paper plates and matching napkins, balloons, plastic tablecloths, party hats, bags of chips. My mom had gone nuts at the dollar store—no surprise there. I checked in the fridge to make sure she’d bought some Sunny Delight. It was basically the only thing I cared about for my party. Me and Vanessa Dubois needed our SunnyD. I’d finally get permission to go to the mall on Thursday nights. My parents thought thirteen-year-old girls that hung out at Royal Plaza were little sluts, but apparently once you turned fourteen, it was no biggie. At the mall, we’d empty out half the SunnyD and fill the bottle with vodka. Vanessa had seen in some murder mystery on TV that vodka was the only booze that couldn’t be smelled on your breath.

  On the morning of my birthday, my parents got into a huge blowout. My dad had come in at four in the morning because he’d taken some clients of his to a strip club. My mom was royally pissed. She hated strippers. They were cheats who’d rob men blind. My dad claimed he’d ended up there because of his clients. It was always the same story. The guys from Montreal wanted to see strippers when they came up to the Saguenay without their wives. How could he say no? They were big clients. My mom had better stop her bitching right then and there, he said, because thanks to those big shots we got to travel south three times a year.

  My mom jumped my dad. While they were wrestling around, she clawed at his arms and called him an asshole. She had long fingernails like in fashion magazines. Her beautician had told her all the girls in Europe had a French manicure, and my mom had hers done every week. Nails like that required tons of upkeep.

  The salon was in a tiny mall on Racine Street right under Gagnon Brothers. My mom would leave her car in the parking garage. She’d hurry in because she was terrified of the bums who slept on the staircase near the entrance. There was always at least one, and it’d smell like piss. That was why she wouldn’t cut through the inside and instead would go down in the elevator for the handicapped way at the other end. At the same time, she could check if the waterbeds were on sale at Gagnon Brothers. She’d told me she was shopping for one for Christmas.

  By the time my dad had my mom under control, he had a tear in his shirt, a swollen eye, and scratches up and down his arms like he’d been attacked by a wolverine. He was used to my mom’s hysterics. He said she’d go apeshit like that because she had native blood in her. These fights always played out the same: my mom would jump my dad, he’d let her freak out and pummel him a bit, and then he’d push her up against a wall to make her stop. Then she’d go even crazier. She might spit in his eye and call him names. After a couple minutes, she’d finally cool down. Then my dad would let her go. He’d slowly ease his grip because sometimes she’d pretend to calm down just so she could smack him again. Afterward, she’d lock herself in her room and bawl for an hour or two. When I couldn’t hear her whimpering anymore, I’d bring her a glass of water. My dad would send me. He’d first warn me to be careful in case she mistook me for him, but I wasn’t scared of my mom and her fake native blood. That story about her Innu grandma was bullshit. The lady at the welfare counter had told her so when she’d tried applying for an Indian status card to pay less tax.

  That morning, my dad went off to run errands while my mom was shut up in her room. Usually after a blowout, he’d stick around just in case. After a family party, my mom had
kicked in a closet door and broken a mirror. She’d come out of her bedroom with a big shard of glass in her hand and chased my dad around the house threatening to shove it up his ass. My dad had slept with his secretary, and my mom had caught him. Ever since then, my dad would stick close to home.

  But the morning of my birthday, my dad was furious with my mom. It was true she’d gone too far. She never managed to seriously hurt my dad though, except maybe the time when he’d set her terrycloth underwear on fire while she was doing the dishes. My dad snuck up behind her with his lighter while she was scrubbing a pan. He lit a thread that was hanging down her thigh and then the little nubs of terrycloth all got singed at once. My mom turned around and walloped him with her cast-iron pan, splitting his forehead open. The doctor who later sewed him up gave him a brochure on domestic violence, but my dad threw it in the trash on his way out of the ER.

  My mom came out of her room around ten o’clock. She looked a mess because her mascara had run and her lipstick had smeared across her cheeks. As she wiped off and then reapplied her makeup, she wondered how my dad could be such a jerk on my birthday. I liked watching her put on makeup. While she did her face, she’d tell me stories about her modeling days. She’d been prettier back then. At age eighteen, she’d modeled in Los Angeles, which she called “L.A.” In L.A., she’d seen Elvis Presley buying a motorcycle at the end of her street. The whole neighborhood went to crowd around Elvis, but not my mom. She knew she was pretty, but not pretty enough for the King.

  When she finished her makeup, my mom started setting up for my party. She laid the plastic tablecloth over the patio table and put out the paper plates and matching cups. I’d asked her to make Chinese food. I helped her marinate chicken cubes and hot dogs in VH sauce to make skewers. We’d grill them at around five o’clock, and Vanessa Dubois would even be invited over. I didn’t know if she liked Chinese food, though, and I remember I was worried about that. I kept thinking if Vanessa didn’t like Chinese skewers and Uncle Ben’s rice, my party would be a drag.

  Around three, my dad came back from shopping, but with no shopping bags. He’d obviously just gone to the bar and spent the day there. When my mom saw him, she pretended everything was normal. She didn’t give a fuck that my dad had been out drinking, especially since the two of them had gotten into a brawl that morning. She was more forgiving at times like that. My dad trudged down to the basement. He came back up with a six-pack of Labatt Blue, wished me happy birthday, and handed me a can of beer. Awesome. I wondered if I’d get lots of new privileges. Just then, Vanessa showed up, but my dad didn’t offer her a beer because he was afraid her parents wouldn’t approve. She didn’t care. I gave her a few quick gulps of mine while we were in the swimming pool. The beer tasted pretty lousy, but I drank it to make my dad happy. My birthday would turn out okay after all, and Vanessa loved Chinese food. She told me and my mom just before we served the skewers. Plus, it was beautiful out, like every July 18th.

  After dinner, it was time to open my presents. I couldn’t wait to unwrap the gift with the polka-dot paper and the big stupid bow. My mom kept a box of bows in the basement and was always bringing bows home. At my godmother’s birthday the year before, my mom had nabbed a big one and stuck it in her purse, and now it was on my present. Vanessa whispered that my gift was probably a Discman. It had to be since I’d been begging for one for like six months. My dad was slumped in his patio chair and looked sloshed. He kept shooting my mom weird glances, and I wondered if he was still pissed at her. Vanessa was right: my gift was a yellow Panasonic Shockwave Discman. I quickly unwrapped my other two presents, which were less impressive. One was an ugly pair of pajamas covered in teddy bears like what a six-year-old would wear. The other was a book: Christiane F. I actually couldn’t wait to read it, but how strange that my mom gave me a book about a thirteen-year-old junkie hooker. I thanked my mom and dad. My dad stood up and said there was one more present coming, and my mom got this confused look on her face. My dad came to the table and took out his checkbook and then his Montblanc pen, which he used for signing his big business contracts and my report cards. He ripped out a check, wrote on it, folded it in half, and handed it to me. Vanessa didn’t know what to do with herself. She stood up to clear the table, but my mom snapped at her to sit back down. I unfolded the check. My mom asked how much it was for. A thousand bucks. I was totally stunned. With that kind of cash, I could buy like anything I wanted at the mall. All kinds of makeup, every Nirvana CD, the dress in the window of Le Château, fishnet stockings, a pair of burgundy Docs, bikinis to wear down south, a bomber jacket. If I had any money left, I’d even buy a couple movies. Me and Vanessa had been dying to see The Evil Dead. Maybe my dad would let us watch it on his new big-screen TV.

  It wasn’t the first time my dad had given me money while he was drunk, and my mom wasn’t happy one bit. Was he out of his fucking mind? You didn’t give a thousand dollars to a kid. It was insane. My dad muttered that my mom was the insane one and that she was just jealous of me because I was prettier and she wanted the thousand bucks for herself. He stormed inside without closing the patio door.

  Not long after, a loud crash came from the front yard. Me, Vanessa and my mom sprang up and ran to see what had happened. At the end of the driveway, my mom’s jeep had bashed into the huge oak tree next to Mrs. Sorensen’s property. My dad pulled himself out of the wreck, blood running from his nose. He staggered around. Then he pointed at the jeep, smiled at my mom, and gave her the finger. The jeep was totaled. Me and Vanessa went and holed up in my room and let them fight it out. I really didn’t give two shits. I had my SunnyD and I knew I’d be going to the mall on Thursday.

  My parents gave each other the silent treatment till the end of August. They tried not to cross paths at home. My dad was working crazy hours and taking on extra cases at his law firm. Meanwhile, my mom kept inviting her sisters and her ditzy friends over for girls’ night, which would drag on really late. My dad hated those ladies and would sleep at the office whenever they came over. I think my mom invited them just to teach my dad a lesson.

  My mom had been calling my dad an egomaniac and an alcoholic since I was like four years old. My dad, though, would never badmouth my mom to me. In fact, he didn’t talk to me much at all. Sometimes I’d be fed up hearing my mom call my dad a drunk and a manipulator, so I’d go sit with my dad in the living room. We’d watch The Hunt for Red October, his favorite movie. He’d rent it like six times a year. One time, this clerk at the video store had suggested my dad buy it instead of renting it. When my dad asked why, the clerk explained that buying the video would cost less than renting it six times. My dad was insulted. He didn’t buy the thing. We even went to another video store and opened an account there. No way would he go back to the first store with that fucking snarky little bastard. In fact, he’d gone to school with the clerk’s father and planned to go see the man the next day to tell him his son had no manners. The guy owned the Ultramar gas station in our neighborhood.

  My mom waited till my dad was off hunting moose in September to announce to me that we were moving out. I was surprised because her and my dad had started talking again and going out to dinner together. I’d even heard them having sex the week before.

  My parents didn’t make love too often. I’d overheard my dad complain about it a while back. It was around four in the morning, and they’d gone to a restaurant that night. I knew they’d had a few rounds of Brazilian coffees because my mom told my dad it was the brandy talking. My dad said he was so damn tired of beating off and that if my mom kept holding out, he’d sleep with another secretary. My mom laughed and called him needle dick. That shut him up.

  My mom had already started looking for an apartment for us and said she could use my help. We didn’t need men in our lives, she insisted. She’d get a job. She hadn’t worked in like fourteen years, but a friend’s husband, an accountant, needed a secretary and was willing to hire my mom. If she worked for the accountant, we could still travel to Florida three times a year like before. We’d move into a place that was smaller than our house, but just as luxurious. Everything would be the same, only my dad wouldn’t be around to hassle us.