Coming Soon

By Pierre Turgeon

A war film is gradually being made in the streets of Montreal. But is it really a film? An investigation is organized on three missing persons: the first, whose death is projected daily on the Commodore's screen in Cartierville; the second, a discoverer of America, murdered on a beach in Sept-Îles; and finally, a filmmaker who dreamed of a revolutionary film without artifice. These characters have decided to make their death so obvious that it will mark the memory of the world. The expression "enigmatic novel" takes on its full meaning with this live performance.

Excerpt

Jack takes a mint from the saucer next to the money, then crosses the street and enters the theater. A padded wall of faux leather, topped with velvet curtains, separates the lobby from the movie theater. He climbs the stairs. In the mirror that covers the wall at the top of the stairs, he watches his reflection approach him, like a tilt shot taken with a zoom lens.

The film's heroine cries. "Erik is dead," she says over and over. Jack knows the scene by heart: a black pigeon has taken up residence on one of the fortress towers, causing Brünnhilde to grieve; it's the prearranged signal that Erik the Viking has fallen to his doom. But how could this bird have flown the distance between America and Norway in one night? How could you commit suicide so quickly that the reflection of the act would be so delayed that you could not watch yourself die?

Review

Never will we have read a book so violent and so restrained. In a classic prose because it was the only one that allowed him to play, Turgeon lies from the first to the last page, pretends to look for the assassin he knows well because he is in each of us like the stifled and drowned violence of our taverns. - Jacques Godbout, L'actualité.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cogito
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201122638

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I

Intermission. Jack gulps down two more valium tablets with the cold dregs of a cup of coffee. A man is standing in front of the restaurant window, cradling in his arm a teddy bear that he won in the shooting-gallery at Belmont Park. He climbs onto the bus; when it departs, the sidewalk is deserted. Soon, the patrons will begin to emerge from the movie house. For a moment, their silhouettes will be etched against the two giant posters on the building’s façade, one of which depicts the head of a tyrannosaurus with long, studded jaws, the other, the slender prow of a drakkar. The headlights of cars will flash on in the parking-lot, casting on the dentist’s house across the way a series of luminous circles, which will stretch into ellipses and disappear.

Jack takes a mint from the saucer beside the cash, then crosses Boulevard Gouin and enters the movie house. A padded wall of imitation leather, surmounted by velvet curtains, separates the lobby from the auditorium. He climbs the stairway. In the mirror covering the wall at the top of the stairs, he watches his reflection approach him, like a tilt shot taken with a zoom lens.

The heroine of the film is weeping. Erik is dead, she says over and over. Jack knows the scene by heart: a black pigeon has settled on one of the fortress’ towers, provoking Brunhild’s grief; this, the pre-arranged signal that Erik the Viking has fallen upon misfortune. But how could this bird have covered the distance between America and Norway in a single night? How could you kill yourself so rapidly that the reflection of the act would be delayed to the point that you would not observe yourself die?

His torso bare, Jack rewinds the second reel of the feature-length film by hand, while in the other projector the final reel slowly unwinds. Wiping his face with his shirt, he raises the volume of the cabin’s loudspeaker and leans toward one of the windows. He is watching this film for the tenth time, a repetition that deprives the scenes–skulls staved in with axes, kisses exchanged in the light of the setting sun–of all dramatic or narrative value, purifying the universe before consigning it, when the lights are turned on in the cinema, to the empty expanse of a bare white screen, 1000 square feet in size.

Unknotting her blond braids, Brunhild leans out of an aperture in the tower, high above the glittering ocean that stretches between the dark bands of sky and cliff. Are you still thinking of him? murmurs her maidservant, who is preparing her mistress’ bed. Meanwhile, far away, in a gulf of what will one day be known as America, Erik stands on the narrow prow of his drakkar and addresses his oarsmen: We have found neither gold nor cattle here, but only tribes of hostile people. I propose that we leave to others, more numerous or more insane than we, the business of settling this land. The Vikings strike their shields with the flat of their swords as a sign of assent. Now, Erik will return to Norway, to Brunhild, and will punish the traitor by hurling him over the cliff.

The End.

Pivoting on his stool, Jack unfastens the clasp holding the curtains. He has never seen such a badly made film: the pistons beneath the platform are clearly visible during the rolling of the boat in the storm at sea; the waves that spray the crew spout from hoses manipulated by technicians; the jungle in which the Vikings make camp contains a polar bear and an elephant; the Indians, red circles painted about the navels of their distended bellies, wear ostrich feathers and throw spears with aluminum tips.

Jack moves to the other projector and lifts the hood: the lantern fills the air with a blinding, white light, more impenetrable than the shadows that shroud the hall. Turning a dial, he extinguishes the lamp. The two carbon filaments whose contact produces the light are almost totally calcified, but they will hold out for another four or five screenings.

Back in the lobby, the usher and cashier having left for the night, Jack sits slouched in a chair that he has placed at the end of the centre aisle. Little by little, the darkness between the screen and his gaping eyes begins to shift, to undulate slightly, giving birth to a myriad of forms. Suddenly, a match is struck in one of the first rows and the glowing tip of a cigarette moves up the aisle toward Jack. He flips the switch.

II

Bravo! I exclaim. You didn’t slip up on a single change! Then, to forestall any questions, I quickly go on: No, I wasn’t sleeping, I was waiting for you. I hope I didn’t alarm you. I’m looking for your brother.

Jack drops a coin into the candy machine and removes a chocolate bar.

It’s been a long time since I saw Bernard, Monsieur... ?

Jean Jolin.

His chin cupped between his thumb and index finger, he gazes at me over the top of his round glasses. Somewhere behind us, the seat of a chair rises with a thud. A second person steps into the light. He’s wearing a string tie and tight pants, which go well with his beak-like nose and the hair slicked back on his pointed skull.

Denis works here as a projectionist, says Jack. In the daytime, he has a more dangerous job: he dies before the cameras.

The boss means I’m a stuntman, says Denis, a note of irritation in his voice.

Jack stares at me as if he were trying to recall where and when he has seen me before.

I need some air, he says. The ventilation system in the cabin isn’t working properly, I’ve been breathing carbon dust all evening.

You want to be careful, I reply, moving toward the exit. That could dull your wits, even leave you feeble-minded.

Outside, I find myself subject momentarily to the malaise that results from emerging suddenly into a three-dimensional world, with roads along which you can move, which do not rush to your encounter and suck you into a vortex of immobility. Feeling the earth fall away on all sides of me, I close my eyes to clear my head of the sudden dizziness.

What do you want with Bernard? asks Jack,

Complying with my invitation, he and Denis follow me out to the parking-lot, which is filled with potholes and covered with broken glass and that rises steeply at one end to a taxi stand, from which can be heard the crackle of radiophones. I rummage among a heap of papers and clothing on the back seat of my Mustang and emerge with a file folder.

This is a copy of the script your brother commissioned from me and which I submitted to him last fall. I’d like to know if he has begun filming it yet.

I haven’t the slightest idea, replies Jack.

He lowers himself onto a swing at the top of a high mound, its red-and-white candy-cane poles glowing faintly in the lamplight. He makes several revolutions, causing the chains to grate against the rusty crossbar, then sits and gazes at the big house across the way, a legacy from his father: the façade of artificial stone, the doorstep partially hidden by little fir trees planted in pots and arranged to form a balustrade, the frosted windows at ground level of what was once the dentist’s office.

Did you like the film? he asks. "Totally insignificant, don’t you agree, that tale of the