Dominoes at the Crossroads Read online

  DOMINOES AT THE CROSSROADS

  Dominoes

  at the

  Crossroads

  STORIES

  Kaie Kellough

  THE FICTION IMPRINT AT VÉHICULE PRESS

  ESPLANADE BOOKS IS THE FICTION IMPRINT AT VÉHICULE PRESS

  Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canada Book Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC).

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people or events is coincidental and unintended by the author.

  Esplanade Books editor: Dimitri Nasrallah

  Cover design: David Drummond

  Typeset in Minion and Filosofia

  Printed by Marquis Printing Inc.

  Copyright © Kaie Kellough 2020

  Dépôt légal, Library and Archives Canada and

  Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, first quarter 2020.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Title: Dominoes at the crossroads: stories / Kaie Kellough.

  Names: Kellough, Kaie, 1975- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190234709 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190234717 | ISBN 9781550655315 (softcover) ISBN 9781550655360 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8571.E58643 D64 2020 | DDC C813/.6—DC23

  Published by Véhicule Press, Montréal, Québec, Canada

  Distribution by LitDistCo

  www.litdistco.ca

  Printed in Canada.

  Contents

  La question ordinaire et extraordinaire

  Porcelain Nubians

  Shooting the General

  Dominoes at the Crossroads

  Witness

  Petit Marronage

  We Free Kings

  Navette

  Capital

  Ashes and Juju

  Smoke that Thundered

  Notes of a Hand

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Maître des trois chemins, tu as en face de toi un homme qui a beaucoup marché

  Depuis Elam. Depuis Akkad. Depuis Sumer.

  Maître des trois chemins, tu as en face de toi un homme qui a beaucoup porté

  Depuis Elam. Depuis Akkad. Depuis Sumer.

  J’ai porté le corps du commandant. J’ai porté le chemin de fer du commandant. J’ai porté la locomotive du commandant, le coton du commandant. J’ai porté sur ma tête laineuse qui se passe si bien de coussinet Dieu, la machine, la route

  –Aimé Césaire

  Simply, a Caribbean story could not really be told without reference to servants. Don’t forget that, after all, as a black person, I descend from the slaves, and the slaves were always silent, forced to be silent. They knew they were the real masters of the island.

  –Maryse Condé

  La question ordinaire et extraordinaire1

  From the Canadian Journal of Caribbean and Diaspora Studies, Issue 208.4.4, “Changes.”

  First published as “Notes toward a keynote address, on the 475th anniversary of the city of Milieu.”

  We gratefully acknowledge the Black Electronic Milieu Ontological Review for hosting and organizing the 475th anniversary event, and for granting us permission to republish this address.

  I. Thanks and Opening Remarks

  I would like to thank everyone for attending tonight. This event, with its holographic re-creation of Rockhead’s Paradise,2 inside of which we are seated right now, and its holographic performance by Oscar Peterson, giant of 20th century jazz, is a fitting way to celebrate the 475th anniversary of one of the oldest cities in North America, a city that is always reimagining itself. I am grateful to be in Milieu, once known as Montréal, and once—and still—as Tiohtiá:ke.

  I would like to thank the editors of the Black Electronic Milieu Ontological Review (BEMOR) for their commitment to thinking about Black history and the city, and for their generous invitation to speak at the launch of this issue. The question we will be examining today is one of belonging in the city of Montréal. The Black presence on these shores dates back to the origins of New France.3 Black belonging, which is arguably a dominant feature of today’s city, has appeared at other times as extraordinary, as contested, and even as undesired.

  Fortuitously, this event coincides with the 50th anniversary of the death of my great great grandfather, Kaie Kellough, whose name a few of you will know. Kaie was a 21st century author who wrote several books before the gradual collapse of publishing in the first half of that century. Today we experience tension between the older digital technologies and ID (Instant Dissemination), whereas during his time the digital world was challenging the older world of curated publishing, copyright, physical objects that one had to purchase to access “content.”

  Kellough’s content, much like mine today, often looked at place and identity. In the city of his day, he saw the various social, cultural, and economic positions navigated by Black citizens. He also saw the way Black histories were constructed as minor narratives, and as narratives that ran counter to official Québec histories. This allowed for the suppression and minimization of the contributions of Black Quebeckers to Québec culture, and for an erasure of their historical presence. Let us imagine for a moment that we are in the Milieu—then Montréal—of 150 years ago.

  In the late 1970s the English were in decline, and the French were gradually establishing their political dominance in Québec. The English continued to coexist, and they maintained their privilege (a telling descriptor in Kellough’s time) but they had relinquished their hegemony over the future. A new city was emerging from the ground, or from the street, up, as Kellough often emphasized in his fiction. The street, meaning public space in the city, was important to him as physical, and not as theoretical or virtual space. It was in the street, and not in a parliamentary bill, or a panel among culturati on Radio-Canada,4 where Montréal’s identity emerged.

  In Kellough’s early writing the street often meant downtown, but over time its definition broadened to encompass less central urban neighborhoods and even the near suburbs. Those areas were home to immigrant populations who visibly informed the diversity of the island, but who were relegated to the off-center boroughs, because housing was cheaper, and cultural communities, which could provide a source of support for newcomers, were established. The central and southern parts of the island were becoming wealthy enclaves, in a phenomenon opposite that of White Flight,5 another 20th century demographic trend. Kellough noted that in the early 2020s, this movement of wealth, both domestic and international, toward the center, and the movement of people seeking affordable housing away from the center, was evidence of Montréal becoming less oriented toward any traditional hub called “downtown.” The various boroughs were establishing themselves as unique, affordable, self-sufficient economic and cultural hubs. This trend was hastened by two factors.

  The first, in 2017, was the creation of the Royalmount urban megaproject. Initially a luxury development, it was locally maligned, and then rejected by the municipal administration. It languished, incomplete, as partners withdrew. It was eventually subsumed by a culturally mixed urban planning committee, called the Sepia Future Seers. The SFS proposed a development based on an amalgam of digital models of urban neighborhoods in New York, Montréal, Rome, Barcelona, Medellín, Rio, Berlin, and Beirut. The project would feature affordable rental units alongside properties for purchase, of varying values, and intricate commercial zoning to accommodate variety among businesses. Independent ethnic grocers would sit next to established café chains, fripperies next to upscale furniture stores, artisanal boutiques next to corporate franchises. This was jokingly labeled the “cheek by jowl” approach, and d
espite a media establishment that lambasted the idea as naïve, the idea transformed the derelict megaproject into a populous city center. Its residents successfully lobbied the city for a westward expansion of the public transit system, and Royalmount emerged as a rival to the traditional downtown core. The success of Royalmount shifted Mon-tréal’s demographic balance in one remarkable way. Media opposition to the project made it very difficult for the SFS developers to find tenants and on-spec buyers. The SFS decided to advertise exclusively in communities with high concentrations of immigrants. Royalmount was branded as a new beginning, whose prosperity would be powered by its diversity. Despite criticism that this branding was an attempt to monetize identity, the brand succeeded. The second factor was the climate crisis of 2040, to which we shall return.

  II. Historical Overview of Milieu

  Slide: Periods and Names of the City

  [Note: This slide is to stay up for the remainder of the presentation.]

  Indigenous Period: Tiohtiá:ke (Ongoing)

  Colonial Period: Ville-Marie (1642-1705)

  Old Port Period: Montréal (1705-1976)

  Urban Period: Montréal (1976-2055)

  Climate Crisis Period: Lamontagne (2055-2143)

  Post-Climate Crisis Period: Milieu (2143-present)

  [Reference the slide.]

  The history of Milieu can be divided into six distinct periods, four of which are identified by a change of name that coincided with a significant event. Although distinct, the periods still overlap. The Indigenous and Colonial periods, for instance, are ongoing in the Post-Climate Crisis Period. It is also argued that the Climate Crisis began well before it was officially declared. While these timelines can and should shift, the main point is that the city’s changing circumstances have informed how the city identifies and how it promotes itself.

  Each version of the city contains the previous. This is difficult to grasp in the context of the Colonial Period, because its proponents attempted to wipe out much that had previously existed on this territory. The same is true for the Climate Crisis Period. While there is debate about how deliberate the crisis was, the crisis did submerge sections of the city. These sections are unlivable; they are visited by explorers, adventurers, and marine research expeditions. Both periods share the experience of deliberate destruction, of loss. Expansion distinguishes the other periods. The Old Port Period expanded on the Colonial. The Urban Period began in the Old Port and expanded northward.

  In spite of the centuries that have passed, the shifting geography of the city, and its increasing and declining size, two figures from the overlap between the Colonial and Old Port periods resonate through all subsequent Montréal history. Those two were captured in this excerpt from an unfinished work of short fiction by Kellough:

  My name is Mathieu Léveillé. I was a slave in Martinique. I was transported to Québec as an executioner, and I was responsible for the torture and execution of the slave Marie-Joseph Angélique. Before I had any such duties to perform, I rode in a canoe with Angélique, from Québec to the port, along the St-Charles River.

  It was June, and daylight prevailed into evening. Angélique sat across from me, bound. She seemed to stare through me, as if her gaze were light itself. What could she see in me? All I wanted was to fill myself with rum, enough to blur the river, the canoe, the authorities, the entire colony. I was appointed to extract her confession, which would come with the application of les brodequins. If she survived, she would have only fire to anticipate, the same fire that the Conseil Supérieur found her guilty of lighting, and which destroyed the port.

  I thought of plunging into the river, diving to the bottom and drowning there. I have tried to drown before. I don’t know how to swim. I have always been sick. When I was in Martinique I became so ill I couldn’t work, but everyone must work, and I became the instrument of the sickness that is bondage. I was forced to perform a repellent job. My troubles are nothing in her eyes. My life is ash when illuminated by hers.

  Once we reached the port, whose ground was blackened by fire, we took Angélique to prison, where I fastened les brodequins tight to her bare shins, inserted the wedges, and lifted the hammer. I was doing what I was forced to do. It was declared in her sentence, it was declared that she should be tortured until she confessed to having deliberately lit the fire, and once confessed, she would be placed in a wagon on her shattered knees, with a torch in her hand, and the wagon would be driven through the streets of the port, and she would declare her guilt then beg forgiveness, and do this again and again until she had been seen and judged by all. She would then be hanged facing the charred ruins of the home of the widow de Francheville, and finally her body would be burned and her ashes scattered.

  Angélique does not see me. Or if she does, she doesn’t show it. I am nobody to her. The June sun beads on her forehead and she is sitting upright, with the chains around her wrists and ankles. Her chin is tilted up, ever so slightly, and her nostrils are flared, as if in defiance or—6

  Kellough does not explicitly write about a future Montréal, but in this excerpt, as in other works, his future city is implied. It exists in the cities of the past and of the present, and it is up to us to read this. He has elsewhere7 stated that he is not interested in futurisms, which for him involve projecting an aestheticized vision of a city that stands at the center of its culture. Rather, he wishes to examine the various urban properties that may one day emerge to shape the future. What are those properties? In Kellough’s writing, for instance in his novel Accordéon,8 they are the diversity that exists at street level in the city of Montréal, which is encountered every day in the public sphere, but is suppressed in official accounts and in official hierarchies. Kellough notes, in his personal correspondence,9 that the 375th celebrations of the “founding” of Montréal were marked by an advertisement that was filmed in various locations throughout the city, and that did not feature a single Montréaler of color. Yet, when Kellough visits those same locales on any given weekday, he is himself a person of color occupying public space, and he encounters others like himself. The advertisement and its perpetrators were part of an effort to theorize people of color out of belonging and participation, perhaps out of the future, perhaps even out of existence. The quotidian reality, as well as the historical reality, is different.

  In the above excerpt, the city itself is a charred, blackened ruin that will need to be rebuilt, but first it will need to be reimagined. Instead of focusing on the loss of property and the devastation caused by the fire, which was lit in 1734, he focuses on the common ancestry, class, and the improbable, tragic rapport between the two enslaved people in the canoe.

  And it is precisely those children of (im)migrants from the Antilles, from Africa, and from many other regions, who will arise not only to populate but to seize and shape the future. But the point is finer: those children have already populated, seized, and begun shaping. The future is already in their hands and minds. Today’s metropolis, Milieu, already existed in the pre-Climate Crisis Montréal that Kellough knew, but what this excerpt suggests, is that it also existed in a much older version of the city, one that was burned down by a woman of African descent, one that had to be radically reimagined. Kellough notes this in Dominoes at the Crossroads,10 where he also tells us that this need for radical reimagining was as necessary in the 1700s as it was in the 1900s. To what degree is it necessary now? Milieu is one cohesive island civilization, but it is also one in which there no longer exists a dominant ethnic group. No group can claim a 50% or greater share of the population.

  III. The 2040 Climate Crisis

  In Eastern Canada, the years following 2016 dawned with heightened anxiety, a political turn to the right, an emphasis on an overt language of ethno-nationalism in federal and provincial politics, plus a rise in the presence and number of right-wing hate groups. Some groups took vigilante measures, armed themselves, and attempted to patrol the border to prevent what they saw as illegal immi-gration.11 This turn to the rig
ht was interrupted by the climate crisis of 2040.

  As 2040 approached, the polar ice caps had undergone extensive melt, and water levels rose to the critical point. The Saint Lawrence River gradually overwhelmed its banks. Water seeped into businesses and residences along the southwestern-most part of the Island. Parts of Nun’s Island, Île Ste-Hélène, Île Notre-Dame, and Longueuil found themselves uninhabitable. Residents abandoned Habitat 67 and the Cité du Havre area, and received no compensation for the loss of their exclusive homes.

  Twenty years earlier, Montréal’s southwest had been transformed into a luxury riverfront borough, with condominium towers erected along its banks, and developers refashioning the late 19th century industrial buildings into exclusive loft housing. Severe flooding rendered the southwest uninhabitable. The Old Port was submerged.

  Insurance companies, fearing being bankrupted by claims, redrew the maps of areas they considered insurable. In this way they managed to avoid large payouts, but many formerly wealthy residents of Montréal became a displaced class, and were referred to as “domestic migrants”, in Milieu. Naturally this did not happen to everyone, and in spite of whatever lingering historical resentments, the residents of the northern boroughs opened their homes to their displaced neighbors in a display of civic generosity that the media celebrated. The northern boroughs doubled in population, the ethnic mix of these neighborhoods was transformed, and the economic balance that had once governed Montréal shifted in the new city of Milieu. The advent of the name change is a topic for another paper,12 but it is worth noting that much of the downtown core was abandoned, and the center of the city was erased. The name change was an ironic reflection of there being no center, or of every part of the city in fact becoming its own center.

  One of the radical changes that the city underwent, one that Kellough could not have foreseen, was the sudden spike in the value of homes that were further up the island. These areas, many of them lower income and home to (im)migrants and communities of color, became the most valuable areas on the island, and the resulting balance of financial power shifted into Haitian, North African, and Latin-American hands. Formerly wealthy descendants of Wolfe and Montcalm found themselves applying to Haitian landlords for apartments to rent in St-Michel, and many of them, left destitute after the flooding, failed their credit verifications.