The Carousel of Life

By Herold Gyles

A teenage from Montreal, of humble origin, after a happy event found herself in possession of a fortune. That propeled her into a world of luxury, glamor, sensuality and a life of sexual debauchery. That also changes her not only physically but mentally. She thought her money can afford everything, including people. with money, education is not necessary to accomplish herself. She quickly discovers that fortune does not buy happiness, does not buy friendship, appreciation,... love. After many disappointments, betrayals, incidents and bankruptcy, can a kind, mature man help her to come back in the right track. Can she rebuild herself and look for the future with confidence?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503538658

Herold Gyles

Herold Gyles is living in Laval, Quebec, Canada. He studied business administration at INAGHEI and made a specialization in Public Entreprises at Universite de Paris XI, France. Herold is writing since he was 9 years old. Actually he already wrote six novels mainly characterizing teenagers behavior and stories. THE CAROUSEL OF LIFE is his first romance to be published. The author is expecting to publish the 5 other one in a very near future.

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Copyright © 2015 by Herold Gyles.

COVER PICTURE BY SHUTTERSTOCK

LES EDITIONS Serdah. © 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/31/2015

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CONTENTS

GWENLINE FROM MONTREAL-NORTH.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF GWENLINE

THE PLEASURES OF LIFE

GWENLINE AND MEN

JOY AND PLEASURE OF GIVING

BIRTHDAY, VENGEANCE, AND OTHER STORIES

NEVER TWO WITHOUT THREE

THE SUN SHINES AFTER THE RAIN

GWENLINE FROM MONTREAL-NORTH.

The day rose, and the sun appeared in the horizon like a red and yellow fireball striking the whole nature of its rays. The city seemed to awake under the gentle kiss of the heat of the day. Men, animals, and plants started to be driven after one night of alleviating sleep. Merrily, the birds sang and perched on the branches, and the leaves of the trees danced with the liking of the morning north wind. In this beautiful morning of summer, Montreal played a merry melody!

All breathed happiness: the bees gathered nectar and pollen while humming, the butterflies flew from flower to flower while this maid heard the first barkings, the cries and the tears of children, the noises of the utensils in the kitchens.

It resembled a ballet under a merry music where each and every one played his part to perfection. Everyone wanted to dance, laugh, and sing—except Gwenline of Montreal North, a young girl of Caribbean origin, with chocolate skin, fiery eyes, and black hair. Gwenline was stretched out in her bed, the sun rays infiltrating through the half-opened shutters of the window drawing stripes on the bed.

We are always faced only with problems. As far back she can remember it, she reminisced about the sad events that marked out her miserable life as a eighteen-year-old. At six years old, she recalled herself being so hungry that she had broken some plates. In her anger, she had even spoken in a riding way to her father who had spent his pay in a bar of the district. Completely stuffed, he had slapped her with such violence that she had fallen to the shift and knocked her head against the dining room table. She was reminded of having seen multicolored stars and candles dancing on the top of her head for at least two hours. She had been sounded but not unconscious. She remembered her mother threatening her father with an enormous kitchen knife.

If you continue to strike my child, I cut you the mug.

From this day forward, all went from bad to worse. The father became increasingly gruff and aggressive and started to stay out all night. The bars in the corner who knew their address and phone number often called around midnight to require them to come and bring him back home. In the beginning, the mother would go to seek him, supporting him with her frail shoulders; him, who had been a sportsman of an unquestionable level and with an athlete’s build. When that became a practice, sometimes she trailed him, even directly from the ground. And tired of war, she bought a large wheelbarrow and brought him to the house. On several occasions, she had been challenged by the police officers making their rounds and insulted or pitied by pedestrians. In the end, she simply refused to go get him. It was on the police to bring him back. Sometimes he spent the night in the gutter or the sidewalk.

On Gwenline’s tenth birthday, the father, after a large drink, gave a masterly smacking to the two youngest children because they were making too much noise. One bled at the arm and the other one at the leg. The mother this time had enough and calmly took a suitcase to put the father’s few clothes and trinkets then put it on the corridor. He wanted to react brutally, but she rebuked him and threatened him to call the police. She threw him outside without another form of lawsuit. He left grumbling, too drunk to remain in balance and to negotiate. He spent the night in front of the door of the apartment.

*****

The mother of the young girl called her to come down and have breakfast. That caused her to be brought back to reality. While all outside breathed joy, happiness, and life, the apartment appeared to her, poorer than usual: the carpet had this dusty odor which tickled the nostrils unpleasantly, and the stink of crackling left by the omelets invaded the kitchen. She felt a strong nausea. She composed herself and smiled to her young brother and sister while thanking her mother.

Will you work today, Gwen?

Yes, I start at three o’clock this afternoon at the supermarket after school.

Do not forget to bring bread, juice, and milk to us. Ah! I forgot, also some cereal for the kids.

I want multicolored balls, said Rodelie, the little sister.

No, cereals with chocolate, Igor insisted, filling his mouth with a large piece of his omelet sandwich.

Gwenline repelled this miserable situation. Her mother always tried to do overtime and to run between the hospital and the daycare, the shoppings, and domestic work. She never had time for rest, for a journey at the beauty parlor to make hair treatments, or to go to the movies or restaurant with friends. At sixteen years old, the teenager dreamed of another life: meetings of makeup, hairstyle, manicure and pedicure, massages, saunas, baths swirls, getting out in limousine, going in fancy restaurants, and eating succulent meals with exotic names and flavors and drinking champagne and good wine. She wanted to garb herself in exclusive discotheques in the company of young, handsome, elegant, and distinguished men.

Her mother made her leave the daydream.

Won’t you eat? You need strength.

Yes, Mom!

The young girl carried a piece of omelet to her mouth. She refrained from breathing to not inhale the raw odor of eggs. She drank much orange juice to facilitate the swallowing.

On Sunday, I would like all of us to go to your father’s tomb in the cemetery.

Mom, I am really obliged? Sherline, my Protestant friend, said that this is idolatry and superstition.

Leave Sherline alone with her gospel doctrine. We are good Catholics. And Catholics go to the tombs of their late beloveds on special occasions.

It has been four years since he died. We could let him rest in peace now.

Ayayay, my daughter! We will commune to ourselves at your father’s grave this Sunday.

Is it not hypocrisy? We did not like him because he was violent and abused us, and you threw him out of the house. Good for nothing!

The mother grew angrier.

Do not talk about your father like that, little ungrateful. He gave you life. He paid for your education. He made us all come to Canada. The case is that he was not ready for this hard life in a foreign country.

That’s what I said—a loser.

Can you imagine what it is like to go from being one of the most prestigious lawyers in his country, with a doctorate from the Sorbonne University, to ending up as a factory controller overnight?

Gwenline preferred to eat and drink her orange juice silently. If she continued to argue with her mother, she would hear for the umpteenth time the woes of Roland Nordier, one of the brightest of the Bar of Port-au-Prince, a distinguished professor at the Faculty of Law at the State University of Haiti and other private colleges. He was forced into exile after winning a lawsuit against an accomplice of the dictatorial regime of the time.

*****

Sunday was also a day of revolt for the young lady. She had a holy horror of wearing outfits purchased in thrift stores. Her mother almost killed herself in patching, fixing, and sewing them, but nothing worked. Shabby clothes remained in the eyes of the girl. While her younger brother strutted—his hands in the pockets—in his long pants and navy blue vest over a long-sleeved white shirt and her younger sister—very proud and happy—twirled in her chiffon dress with large folds, the girl was ashamed of her black and beige linen dress, which had been worn before her by a slightly necked rich lady. Her mother left the room decked out in a blue dress with a matching hat, bag, and shoes.

How do you like me?

Very well.

Only? I am telling you, you’re jealous because you see the old woman overshadowing you.

That’s Mom, she replied, suppressing a smirk. That’s Mom, the elegant, at fifty cents, she thought inside.

Come on. We must not be late. I paid so that Father Réal will pray for the soul of your late father.

Mom, we are struggling to meet ends every month and you gave money to the priest for a dead person?

The whole family was already in the street to the transit station. The mother almost choked with anger.

This is a blessing from God that I make it rain on us, on you, threw the weary lady when she saw the bus coming.

The Cathedral of Saint Gertrude, somewhere in Eastern Montreal, was mostly frequented by immigrants from the Caribbean and Latin America who were very Catholic, very religious. Some Italians and Portuguese were also there to celebrate mass and the Eucharist fairly regularly. Arriving at the church, Gwenline broke away from her family and crept near the nave to find her Italian girl friend, Chiara Farinelli. She liked to be found alongside the pretty brunette behind her parents.

She did not care for rumors that they were part of the