Golden Pants Roger Lemelin My parents were not far from poverty mh ‘hey had thee fist hl, me. And since T tra the frat born, was always older than my ‘brothers You might take te commonplace Ws ‘dam of this rear for» great ‘bot ow wil understand te fl signifies when {tellyou that my mother, when she marie, did ‘mediately. She studied patently, but she never Foal mastered the erat. ‘Toecame the unhappy guines pie for her ex. periments And the resus proved tobe ely ea Arapbie Trowsers, coveralls shirts, acts {hy were al igh askew in several deals ‘hvays made my fiends laogh, but which seomed {omy mother nothing bu minor leegulaetes in ‘ew ofthe overall harmony of he ereations. Just {ink she ha sucessfully made two arms holes; what matter if they were oo Ion, oF 0 aareow, or aiferea engias? Se was woman, ‘who was sate of hers mother ofa son who Tater on could bast of he same calm assurance ‘m ie thanks to pate af golden pants hat she sade for him a he heght of his excruciating public presetation when my mother exposed me Defore aunts and frends imprisoned in one of ter muastrpices Nataraly, when my brothers re inte ser Thad outgrown, they profited {rom her pas errors for is art say that my smother bad. certain ela sense and corrected Devselfon them. But a for me snes Iwas the oldest was my fate tobe "the ist by whom the ‘ach tne Freached one of those wen my clothes required new taterials forme that would not case er foo ‘much remorse fshe wasted them n bere shot ata no cot or par of trousers. A wave of Alscomfort sll weeps over me wher [remember ‘certain summer il fasloned out ofan old rey overcoat passed dawn from my unce the Teter earver Triste and squirmed ina my school des ice a ce-festd rnthercoc Stray horsehair sertched my week ad eked ‘Mi-ien of heaven atthe time wa tobe outed 5 Snspon's or Eaton's ike the other boys. Often sacristy atthe parish chureh. Tho parish priest ‘who saw in ber an exemplary mother ofa large any. would give her eld eassoeks, wors-aut religions banners, and all sorts of church tinea of which was immediately consumed by the Sewing etry txpected onrce of materials was opened the Inexhanstble seamstress ‘Two of my uncles arived from Detolt where ‘they had! be ni off by the Chaser pant. Teas the ack days of 1991. They opened a 2: rage at Quebec where they hoped ta put to use specialized in making ove interiors of igh lass ‘iwlomotiles One daa meaty cient browsht in bis 1020 Calc and several days later my tele came home in lump witha ples of heavy plush material that had eovere the back st of [De car. Fest my mother nearyfalnted: then she ‘Your great day has come!” I couldn't believe it ‘That pash Cadac upholstery was about six tmllimets tick and once must have been gold alusyl Bat dst and te had changed Init dome boven. With sreat aust my erst to beating the materia, Then she brushed and eebruthe i ambitiousy. The more fe lth took om ts orignal sheen, the more my mothers face shone with pleasure. Then fate Struck Turaing toward me, Mother sai, "Koger,everlasting." She was in her glory. I began to whine my disapproval: "Oh no, Mother! Every- one'll make fun of me. I'l look like a church or- nament." But Mother overruled me with the happy thought that her test model was now in the same class as the Cadillac, a gold one at that, and for a good long time to come ‘The golden pants, full and floppy, were fin- ished at 5 p.m. on the twenty-cighth day of May in the month of the Virgin Mary. Mother had me ‘ry them on at once. Holy Saints, but they were heavy and hot! Irefused to leave the house. I refused even though [heard shouts of my friends playing ball in the back yard. At supper I had no appetite. \1 felt as though T had my legs stuck through a couple of feather bolsters instead of a pair of pants. Icould see what agony was in store for me. This would be the pinnacle of my humiliation. ‘Thus T reached the fourteenth Station of the Cross" in the painful career of a child who is clothed by a mother who doesn't know how to sew. Until then I had endured the mocking smiles ‘of my schoolmates as I might have put up with a throbbing toothache. Now they would split their sides laughing, and Henri Fontaine would laugh louder than all the rest together. Tlurked in the house all that evening, but next day there was nothing for it but to wear the pants to school. Mother mounted guard at the foot of my bed and under her watchful eve I couldnt avoid gotting into the golden pants. She was a "Stations of the Cross in the Roman Catholic Church, asequence of fourteen paintings or sculptures depict- ing the Passion af Christ, before which prayers are said ‘woman who was determined to see her own ideas, triumph, even though she was obliged to go all the way to school with me for fear I might take refuge in the field next doce like a wounded animal Tweat into the classroom and reached my seat, overwhelmed by the whispers of my classmates My place was near the front and Fontaine, who used to copy over my shoulder, sat behind me. ‘The teacher, a just, severe man, began the catechism" lesson. He offen asked me tricky questions and liked to hold my answers up as an example for the rest ofthe class. "Lemelin, whea you die will you ge to heaven or hell? Stand up" ‘I got halfway up and stuttered out: "I don't | know. Itall depends ifI die in a state of mortal A burst of laughter. Deeply shocked. the teacher fixed me with the withering look a bishop might use oa a heretic. I had deceived the hope he had placed in me and I knew he would hold it against me. He went over to write on the black- troard, and as soon as he turned his back, bang! a piece of chalk thrown full Zorce hit him on the nock. He tumed around slowly and took us all in with an icy stare, "Lwant to know right now, who did that?" At first a leaden silence was all the answer he got. | almost felt like the guilty one myself. Be- cauao of my answer to his question on hoaven and hell, he couldn help suspecting me. "All right," ho lashed out at us, "who is it?” "Catechism basic Christian beliefs explained in question-and-answer formThore was a movement in the class and [ real- ized that behind me Henri Fontaine had stood up "Lknow who it was, Sir!” “Well then, what are you waiting for? Speak "It was Roger Lemelin who wants to show you his golden pants!” wi. 1 thought I would die. The class exploded in laughter but the teacher didn't even crack a smile. "Was it you, Lemelin?" "No-yes-" Iwas completely paralyzed; my mind went blank; I didn't have the courage to deny it; he wouldn't have believed me anyway. "Not surprising you're not so sure of going tohoaven," he burst out. "Come up here, and stand facing the blackboard.” He laid hold ofa loag oak ruler and sct to beating me furiously on the buttocks as hard as ho could. Usually one stroke of this euler was enough to start any child howling with pain. O wonderful surprise! I could hardly feel it. The ruler sank into the thick plush and thanks to the air cushion it hardly reached my skin. The teach- er, unaware of this phenomenon, redoubled his efforts, flailing me like a madman “Ouff! Ouff! Oui” he gasped. "Are you going to break down ar not? You hardboiled little brute! ‘You young thug, you!" Tremained unperturbed, even glancing back at my persecutor with a lock of embarrassed pity on my face which infuriated him all the more. ‘Then I felt on my back and well-scourged back- side a wave of admiration sweeping up toward me from the class. Suddenly a voice cried out: "Stop. Sit! It wasn't Lemolin, it was Fontaine!" ‘The teacher, by now pale with exertion, stopped in mid-swing and looked at me with an expression of such deep apology that I will never forget it. Slowly he laid the ruler o his deck, turned me around to face the class, and ordered Fontaine who was shaking in hie bocts to come forward. The teacher tried to get back his breath and 2s for me, I didn't know whether I should try to get back to my place or not. I moved off toward my seat "No, wait,” said the teacher. “I want to ask you another question. Do you want me to beat Fontaine For the first timo in my life someone implored me for mercy: my enemy. "No, Sir." “Apologize, Fontaine.” "I'm sorry, Roger." "Now go and sit down. And let this fine ges- ture be an example of charity and dignity to you.” ‘When class was over my schoolmates sur- rounded me like a hero and not one word was said about my golden pants, for deep down chil- dren admire courage more than fine clothes. I was famous! T had stood it without flinching, with- out moving a muscle. Thad even been noble enough to forgive Fontaine, to save him the pun- ishment that my posterior had unjustly suffered for his. I gloried in their admiration, but a vague feeling of guilt began to stir in my heart. Then some of the girls came over and suddenly: they began to examine my pants. I broke out in a cold sweat. But I was wrong; they just started twittering with admiration. The next day, thanks to tho spell of golden plush over all the girls and thanks to its incon- testable ruler-proof qualities, all the boys asked their mothers to make them golden pants like Roger Lemelin's Since that day I have always been sure of my- self, and at the most irying moments in my like Ttell myself that I have still got on a pair of golden pants ‘Tronslated from the French by Philip Stratford