Le Passager
Patrick Senécal
Note: The first edition of this novel was published in 1995 by Guy Saint-Jean éditeur, collection Noir: horreur. This edition has been revised, and now constitutes the definitive version.
(Excerpt: p. 42-51)
Friday afternoon, highway twenty, heading towards Montreal. To add to the enjoyment of the trip, a cold rain washes out the dreary landscape.
At around Saint-Eugène, I see my hitchhiker, just as motionless as before, his thumb at hip level. The only difference: he has pulled his hood over his head. I check my watch: one twenty, just like last week. It's true, he's punctual. Me too. Did I unconsciously look for him again?
Already happy with the idea of talking with him for the next ten minutes, I pull over on the shoulder. When he gets in beside me, soaking wet, he looks at me with surprise and amusement.
"Well, well... I think I've seen you somewhere before," he remarks pulling down his hood.
I extend my hand.
"It's funny, I have the same impression.
He squeezes my hand with a smile, looking pleased, as if he's really happy to run into me again, and I have to admit that I feel foolishly flattered.
I turn back onto the road. My passenger unzips his jacket with a sigh. He complains for a few moments about the cold autumn rain, but I can see that it doesn't really bother him. In fact, I have the impression that he's irrepressibly good humoured.
"Thanks for given me a lift for the second time, Étienne."
He remembers my name. I take the opportunity to ask him his.
"It's true, I didn't mention it..."
A short silence, then I hear him say:
"Alex. Alex Salvail.
Then I have a feeling that he is looking at me and I turn my head. In fact, Alex is watching me closely, his face calm but his gaze particularly penetrating.
"Does it sound familiar to you?" he asks me.
"No... Should it?"
"I think so..."
I think as I stare at the road. Alex Salvail... Does this name have some vague resonance in my memory? Or else am I simply trying to convince myself that he is not a stranger to me?
"No... No, I don't see..."
"He's the hitchhiker you picked up last Tuesday..."
And he laughs a deafening laugh, unsettling but sincere. I turn back to the road, amused.
We talk about mundane things for a couple of minutes, then he mentions my teaching:
"You know, your course on horror literature..."
"Fantastic literature."
"Yeah, fantastic. Do your students like it?"
I explain to him that young, seventeen-year-old students don't have much of a reputation for waves of enthusiasm, but that they seem to appreciate it, especially my literature group on Wednesday mornings.
"Are you interested in that, Alex, fantastic literature?"
"Me?"
He sniffles, wipes his nose with a handkerchief.
"I don't really read. I'm not very intellectual... But I imagine it must be interesting."
"Yes, very much so."
"The other day, you explained to me that you focus especially on, ummm...... children, I think?"
I agree and, once again, explain to him how rich a topic I find this. He asks me why. I can sense that he's paying attention, that he's interested. Really, I have never found it so easy to talk with someone I know so little.
"The contrast between innocence and horror," I answer. "I try to show my students how this contradiction is fascinating."
"Innocence?"
"Yes. The child is the very symbol of innocence."
"Really?"
There was a sceptical tone in his voice. I glance quickly at him. He is watching me with his ironic expression and, suddenly, a new echo reverberates in my skull, not triggered by his name but by his face, by that mocking expression.
"You really think that children represent innocence?"
I answer yes. "Isn't the child a kind of pure ideal, before the corruption of adulthood?"
"No, I don't agree."
He said this softly, but with such assurance that I can find nothing to answer.
"Children are cruel, Étienne. Very cruel."
The argument doesn't seem very convincing to me. Of course, young people are selfish, quarrelsome, competitive, but all that is really quite harmless, isn't it?
"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about real cruelty."
I wait for more. All trace of derision has disappeared from Alex's voice, which is now more serious.
"Children are curious about nature, and some are prepared to go a long way to satisfy their curiosity. What do you think is the most fascinating thing for a child?"
I stare at the road as if an answer was going to rise out of the middle of my lane. Strange situation. While I'm the teacher, I have the impression that Alex is the one teaching the class. This annoys me a little and I look for an intelligent answer.
"Death?"
He gives a chuckle that seems a little condescending, and I don't like that. However, I want to continue this conversation, even though it is eroding my self-confidence as a teacher.
"Not death," I hear myself answer. "That's the obsession of adults."
A short pause, then he continues:
"The biggest source of curiosity for children is evil, being bad. They hear about it all the time."
His voice changes, becomes suddenly nasal, caricatured. I realize he is imitating the archetypal controlling parent:
"Don't touch that, it's bad! Don't go there, it's bad for you! Don't say that, it's not good, it's a bad word! It's bad to be mean to your friends! He's a bad man, he always does bad things!"
I chuckle, amused by the imitation. I hear him continue in his normal voice:
"Telling a child something's bad is the best way to arouse their curiosity.
"Everybody knows that," I remark.
"Yes, but everybody does it the same way. Then if the child decides to try something that is forbidden precisely to see what there is bad about it..."
He sniffles, talks out his handkerchief.
"...that's when they can get cruel."
He wipes his nose. His idea isn't completely stupid. Alex may not be an intellectual, but he thinks, even though his theory is a generalization... let's say... that is more intuitive than scientific.
"But most children don't go very far in their cruelty," I feel obliged to add. "Their little experiments stop at the stage of dismembering flies, which is not really cause for alarm."
"Yes, that's true, for most children. But they're not the ones who decide to stop. All around the world, adults, society finally take these children in hand and tell them that they have to stop these little cruel games and be responsible. Then the children cease their exploration of evil, and gradually turn into well-behaved, conformist adults."
Now he's going a little too far! I even open my mouth to say it to him, but he continues his discourse:
"That is why people think that children are pure. Because they don't have time to go very far with their cruel games. Then there are those horror stories you love so much, and they're about children who do go farther than the others."
I ask him if he's serious, if he really believes everything he's just said. He assures me that he does.
"And there's something else I'm going to tell you..."
I hear the leather of the seat creak, as if my seatmate is shifting position, and when he starts talking again, his voice seems closer to me.
"I think that the psychopaths, the maniacs, the serial killers are all adults who are rediscovering their childhood curiosity. Now that they no longer have parents to stop them, they can resume their little games where they left off... and they go farther."
I almost feel like laughing because this idea seems so wild to me, but no sound comes out of my mouth. Alex adds:
"The children in horror stories fascinate people because they remind us what we all were... Or rather what we could have been..."
I don't feel like laughing anymore and I turn my head towards Alex, a bit anxious. But when I see him with his broad smile, his hands crossed on his knees, his happy eyes, any feeling of uneasiness leaves me instantly.
"What do you think?" he asks me proudly.
"I think that you should be teaching my class. You'd scare the students sick."
He laughs and the booming sound of his voice is a pleasure to hear. He insists he would be a crummy teacher: too muddle-headed, too disorganized, too impatient.
"And you've never read fantastic fiction?" I ask with astonishment. "After everything you just told me, it's hard to believe."
"I've seen a few horror films featuring children."
Then, after a pause, he apologizes for talking so much. Maybe he sounded pretentious. I assure him he didn't and I mean it: I no longer resent that little superior look of his before.
"I might even use a couple things you said in my class."
My own words surprise me. Do I really think that? Do I really intent to use my passenger's theories, which are interesting, certainly, but a bit far-fetched? He objects himself, as if aware of my own overstatement, saying there is nothing very rigorous about it, that it is only a personal opinion.
Two minutes later, I stop near the Saint-Valérien exit.
"Thanks again, Étienne! You've practically become my chauffeur!"
This remark gives me an idea that I leap on without taking the time to examine it. If Alex wants to, we can continue this little ritual twice a week, every Tuesday evening and every Friday afternoon. Just as long as we are always so punctual. But we wouldn't wait for one another: if a car picks him up before I come by, he would take the lift. And if I come by and he's not there, I'll keep on going. Alex rubs his chin, obviously interested.
"I warn you: I'm very punctual."
"Me too."
We shake hands, both delighted. There is warmth in that handshake, and Alex smiles, his teeth covered with incongruous braces. He opens the door. The rain has stopped.
"So... until Tuesday night?"
"That's right!"
When he is out of the car, he leans over and says to me:
"Just to finish our little discussion about the cruelty of children... Think about your own childhood. What were you curious about when you were seven or eight?"
He raises his right index finger and points to his forehead.
"At what point did the adults intervene to stop your games?"
His index finger then leaves his head, crosses the short distance between us and comes and touches my forehead. I'm too astonished to react. And at the moment when his finger comes in contact with me, the echo from before comes back stronger than ever. Alex stares at me with his intense black eyes.
"Try to remember."
His finger leaves my forehead and the echo disappears immediately. He gives me a little wave, smiling, then closes the door. Perplexed, I idly shake a hand in his direction, then turn back onto the road.
This kind of echo stirring up my memories perplexed me. It was particularly strong when Alex put his finger on my forehead. Could I have seen this guy before?
Strange fellow... but interesting and good company. Never have I gotten on with someone so quickly. And we did not have much in common. He obviously wasn't very educated, doesn't read, works in a hardware store...
Once again, I wonder if I haven't already met him. That, at least, would explain how fast we got to like each other. Besides, he looked at me a few times as if he was trying to remember...
After all, he'd once lived in Drummondville, so there was a good chance we had already crossed paths in a summer job or at a party at a mutual friend's. I would clear all this up the next time we see each other.
Then, Alex's last suggestion came back to mind: remember my own childhood games, when I was seven or eight. I sigh behind my steering wheel. A difficult task when the first eight years of my life had been erased from my noggin. This amnesia of childhood had always been a little inconvenient, but this evening I suddenly find it a real handicap.
Strangely, for the first time in three days, I think again of Manon.
I hurry to turn up the music...
© 2003 Éditions Alire & Patrick Senécal
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