Serafim and Claire Read Online Free

feeble, begin to fail, until it was so much work to squint and decipher — hunched-over, magnifying-glass cryptology — that she began asking Cécile to read certain passages aloud to her, to give her eyes some needed rest. She would insist, however, after Cécile had painstakingly sounded out each word individually, that the girl reread the words as a coherent sentence, and once she had, she would get her to repeat it — without its sounding so wooden this time, she would say factually, without malice. Then the entire paragraph again, only with inflection and confidence, like an adult. When she was finally satisfied, she would murmur, “ Excellent, ma petite fille — impeccable . On continue ,” and on it was to the next paragraph, the next page.
    Soon enough, Cécile was charged with reading the entire journal, from cover to cover. As she got older, she was asked her opinion on what she was reading. Did she agree that the ruling class was grossly neglecting the rights of the working class? Did she agree that Canada’s responsibility began and ended with the defence of its own terrain, that it had no business sending troops to fight in British wars, as it had done in South Africa only a few years ago and seemed itching to do again? For her part, Cécile wasn’t exactly sure how one formed an opinion, though she became increasingly certain that an opinion was an important thing to have.
    She hadn’t quite gotten around to choosing her position on Canada’s involvement in British wars before troops were being sent in throngs to fight in Europe. At the outbreak of the Great War, Daniel was eighteen, and by the time he was twenty, several of his friends had either signed up or quietly moved out of the city to relatives’ homes in the country, where the army officers who patrolled the cities could be more easily evaded. Officers stopped young men at will on the streets, and handed them papers with instructions to receive a physical and report for service immediately. One spring day, Daniel, who stayed in Montreal throughout the war, working as a shop assistant for a grocer — and who was devout in his boycott of beer as a patriotic gesture, saving on grain while withdrawing his support of the German-dominated brewery sector — was stopped by one such officer and handed his fateful papers. He brought them home shrugging, a sheeplike grin on his face, obedient and oblivious to the danger he faced.
    He hadn’t taken his hat off at the door before his grandmother doggedly limped towards him, snatched him by the wrist, and dragged him back outside, down the steps, and up the street. They didn’t return to the apartment for hours, and when they did, it was with a note from Dr. Bertrand, with the somewhat shocking news that Daniel was suddenly found to have a rare, though minor, heart condition. Daniel moped around for weeks afterwards, sure he was going to be called a coward, insisting in a whisper that he’d even wanted to go and fight. Not die, of course, but fight. His mother, lowering her voice as well, would tell him, behind closed doors, that he could just tell the truth. “It was your grandmother’s doing. Her fault. Everyone knows what kind of woman she is, anyway. Now, stop fretting about it and set off for work. You’re needed here more than there . . .” Her words broke up as she smoothed the collar of her twenty-year-old son and pulled his jacket down straight.
    In Claire’s family, each child was, in a way, a favourite. Daniel was clearly their mother’s, while Cécile always had her grandmother and Claire her father. During the five years of the Great War, when Montreal was the scene of national turmoil and heated polemics, of economic hardship and individual sacrifice, Claire’s father was eager to keep her unconcerned and sheltered from it all. Despite being a luxury that the family could ill afford, he somehow found a