The story : a teenage girl has gone missing in the small town of Solace in northern Ontario. Rose ran away from her parents, leaving her younger sister, seven-year-old Clara, confused. From then on, Clara’s life is organized near the window from where she watches for the return of her beloved big sister. But from her window, Clara also sees that the house of her neighbor, Mrs. Orchard, is occupied by a mysterious usurper. From then on, the little girl will organize her investigation, and have confirmation that the adults are hiding certain things from her… souls consoledby Mary Lawson, translated from English by Valérie Bourgeois, was published by Belfond.
It’s a small town where everyone knows each other. So, when Rose, 16, disappears, the breaths are held back, and the doubts settle. Where could she have gone? Who did she meet on her way? From this disappearance, Clara retains only one thing: whatever happens, Rose will return, and she must watch for her. Her parents, devastated, will make this concession to their little girl. Never mind, they will bring him his dinner every evening, in front of the window.
And a window is like in Hitchcock, the place where the world looks like a silent movie screen. The neighbour’s house will be that world. The little girl has promised Mrs Orchard, who she still thinks of in the hospital, to feed her cat until she returns. She therefore leaves her window from time to time to go and feed the feline, and these two solitudes keep company for a moment. When one evening, Clara sees a man appear with his boxes which he places in the middle of the living room, she clearly takes him for an intruder, and watches for his absences to continue carrying out his mission: “She knew going to Mrs. Orchard was risky, of course. The man could change his mind and return at any time. Only she had no choice if she wanted to keep her promise to take care of the cat.”
Mary Lawson’s novel is constructed like a waltz, in three beats. The chapters Clara, Liam (the unknown), and Elizabeth (Mrs. Orchard) follow one another in order or disorder, thus weaving the story of another mystery, a past disappearance, which will be superimposed on the first, while we will tend towards its resolution. These three characters, with whom the stories of the past and the present action alternate, have in common intimate wounds which make them suspicious of the outside world, as if locked up, without the possibility of communicating. Each, for the other, will be a source of openness to the sensitive world, of these small steps which are made the great passions which sometimes overflow.
With a soft, simple writing that adapts to each story, Mary Lawson takes us back to her Canadian memories that seem to emerge from a long dream. The story unfolds little by little before our eyes, each character knowing only part of it. The reader, who therefore finds himself in the situation of knowing much more than each of them, is however held spellbound by the unpredictable outcome of the past and present stories which overlap each other to reach to their outcome.
“Consoled Souls”, by Mary Lawson, translated from English by Valérie Bourgeois, was published by Belfond editions on February 17, 2022 (272 pages, €20).
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Extract : “A light came on in Mrs. Orchard’s vestibule, illuminating the porch for a moment before the man closed the door. The living rooms of the two houses were mirror-positioned, each with a window on the side that faced the other, as well as a second facing the street. Clara rushed to the first one (Rose wouldn’t care where she was watching as long as she kept her eyes open). No sooner had she changed observation post than Mrs. Orchard’s living room lit up, in turn. From where she was, nothing escaped her. She saw Moses emerge from under the sofa (his favorite hiding place in the presence of strangers) and slip out of the half-open door at the other end of the room – so quickly that the man had no time to notice him. No doubt he would then cross the shoe room to reach the garden. There were three doors in the room in question. One opened onto the living room, the other onto the kitchen and the last, equipped with a cat flap, onto the outside. “He got away with it,” Ms. Orchard reportedly said. She was the only person Clara had ever heard of using that word, ‘dragging’.
She herself had gone to feed Moses about an hour earlier. Morning and evening, she allowed herself to leave her place by the window for a few moments in order to keep the promise made to Mrs. Orchard to watch over her cat during her stay in the hospital. Rose would understand.”