The Salad Spinner
Translated by Neil Smith from Philippe Chagnon
About two to four weeks before I went to live for good in our storage room, I was spinning lettuce in the salad spinner. Margot had asked for a hand with supper. I didn’t feel like it, kept stalling, and she flipped out at me (I wanted to help, but at my own pace). The day after this latest blow-up, I made a decision: I’d start gradually moving my things into our junk room behind the kitchen.
When I first hit on the idea of turning the junk room into a practice space, I didn’t expect to spend so much time there. Margot had to knock twice before entering to talk to me. The room was my hideaway, my secret little garden, a nice space to play music, which was my passion and my profession. We’d agreed she wouldn’t come bother me with trivial matters—ask what I wanted for supper, for example—but knock only in true emergencies, knowing that they’re few and far between in everyday life.
I could spend a lot of time doing scales and arpeggios, often over two or three hours a day. Margot assumed that this was my way of avoiding her, but I was simply practicing for the many performances I’d be giving with different ensembles (I had to keep up my skills to earn a living). As for Margot, she paid her half of the rent by working at her father’s bike shop—where I’d never go bother her (I had my reasons).
In a feeble attempt to soundproof the space, I nailed bedsheets to the four walls of the little room. It took me a whole afternoon to put them up, but I ran out of sheets to fully cover the left wall. On that wall, hung from nails, were a shovel, a two-step stool, a folding shopping cart we never used, and tote bags with logos from different grocery stores. Stacked against the back wall (which faced the alley) and the right wall (which had a door into the backyard) were plastic storage bins filled with things not useful enough to keep inside the apartment, but not useless enough to discard (out of sight, out of mind). On the last wall, the one shared with the kitchen, I hung a large mirror to watch myself practice and hone my skills through repetition. The rest of the space was taken up by a sheet music stand, a music stool, my instrument, as well as a plastic bin used as a side table where my laptop sat open at all times. I had to be careful not to procrastinate too much; though the Wi-Fi signal was weak in that little room, the risk of wasting time was great.
That same morning, I mustered the courage to move all my job-related stuff to the junk room. Margot came home from work to find my office empty (my office was a spare bedroom I’d taken care to convert into a practice space). Seeing the room empty, she maybe thought I’d left her for good, but I hadn’t. To discover what I’d been up to, she only needed to follow the music and open the unlocked door to the junk room. She didn’t knock; it was her first time after all, and we didn’t have our system in place yet. Too busy practicing scales with my bow, I didn’t hear her come in (while repeating notes, I’d often fall into a kind of trance). I jumped, and she emitted a sigh as deep as the ocean. She’d never seen the ocean, but she knew the depth of it thanks to the web and a few years of schooling.
Margot rolled her eyes (she knew I hated when anyone did that), then shut the door. She went to phone her mother, which I knew because it was always the first thing she did when she was upset—and she was definitely upset.
One day, maybe the next day, maybe not (time flies), her mother came over while I was poring over some difficult scores in my practice room (Margot still called it the junk room). The two of them sat at the kitchen table, just a few feet from the door to my room, but the sound of their conversation didn’t bother me as I worked. It was like a low, steady hum. Maybe they were whispering about me, what did I know (though I had my suspicions). Out of curiosity, I finally came out after twenty minutes, pretending I wanted a glass of water and a snack. The look her mother threw me made me lose my appetite, but I was suddenly parched. I said hello, my mouth like chalk. I noticed she’d brought Margot a cake, which sat on the table. Did she plan to stay for supper? I filled a glass with water and said I had to get back to work. No response. I kept my nose buried in my sheet music till her mother left the apartment after supper.
The other door to the junk room opened onto a small backyard. If I wanted, I could take my instrument out that way, which was much easier than lugging it through the apartment. The back door also allowed me to sneak out through the alley, a handy option for times when I wanted to steer clear of Margot, who was always watching TV in the living room (when she wasn’t at work).
On occasion, when I was alone in the afternoon, I’d cut my practice sessions short to watch TV. I’d set my bow on the music stand, lay my instrument gently on the floor, and go sprawl on the couch in the living room. Sometimes, I’d bring along sheet music to feel less guilty. I’d study it while watching sports. I’d be lulled by the voices of the commentators as they ran down the stats, made predictions, and called the plays when there was some action. Afterwards, I’d go back to my practice room—either happy or disappointed depending on the game I’d seen (I’m easily influenced)—and wait for Margot to come home. She’d never ask what I’d done with my day.
By this point in our story, I was no longer sleeping in the bedroom. A few weeks before my move to the junk room, I’d started spending nights on the sofa bed in the living room. Our relationship had soured on account of laziness, anger, money, tedium, et cetera. It seemed the more Margot saw of me, the more she hated me. I’d really tried to help more with the chores, but it was too late. Nothing was ever good enough for her, including me.
One evening, a female friend of mine dropped by unannounced. Margot informed me with a look of disdain because she didn’t like me being around other women, apart from her mother (a woman I didn’t like being around). I came out of my lair to join them in the living room. My friend told us the singer of her band had run off with the money they’d saved up to record their first demo. She was in tears. I passed her some tissue and invited her for supper. Margot glared at me; I’d better come up with another idea. My friend was still crying. When I told her that if she wanted, she could crash on our couch that night (in a pinch, I could sleep in the junk room), Margot got up and shut herself in the bedroom. My friend finally calmed down, but she declined my offer—good thing for me. She blew her nose hard, then got up and kissed me on the cheek. Ouch, you’re prickly, she said (I couldn’t recall the last time I’d shaved). I didn’t see Margot again all evening.
It wasn’t unusual for me to spend the whole day in my pajamas since they were both practical and comfy. I’d get up, put the coffee on, then disappear into my practice room. I’d warm up my fingers, stretch my arms and back, then go get a cup of hot coffee. Often I wouldn’t eat till noon. On rare occasions, I’d get too hungry, my stomach growling for food before its usual time, and I’d have a bowl of cereal with milk. One of those mornings, the front doorbell interrupted me while I had a mouth full of Frosted Flakes. The mailman was dropping off a package. Mr. Chagnon? he asked. Yes, that’s me, I said without thinking (it wasn’t me, but rather the old tenant, who’d moved out the previous July without bothering to forward his mail). The mailman just needed a signature, which I gave him on his touchscreen using a little plastic stylus, my writing a blurry scrawl, but good enough for him to hand the package over. It was a box about twelve inches wide, six inches deep, and six inches high. A sticker on it warned that its contents were fragile. The box didn’t ring any bells, which was normal since it wasn’t addressed to me. Later, mulling it over, I still couldn’t figure out why I’d taken that box.
One late afternoon, I sat on my stool listening to Margot lecture me about my absence and growing lack of involvement in our home. True, I’d leave my lair just to eat, watch TV, and sleep in the living room (if even that), but I didn’t understand the real reason for her anger. After all, I was holing up in my room most of my free time because I increasingly got on her nerves—and things didn’t seem to be getting any better. I didn’t know where to go to get some peace, a strange problem to have.
The package still sat in the middle of the kitchen table. I’d left it there as though it had to decide its own fate (in fact, I’d just casually left it there so I’d feel less guilty). Margot didn’t know what was inside it any more than I did, and apart from the fact that the box cluttered up her table, she couldn’t care less.
Johanie would spend a few nights at our place, Margot informed me over a plate of spaghetti. What? I said, confused. And she again said Johanie would sleep over a few nights—so I’d heard correctly. But if Johanie came, I realized, she’d surely take the sofa bed (it was handy for overnight guests, but since I was now using it all the time, I wasn’t too thrilled with giving it up to go sleep in the junk room).
Margot woke me up as she made coffee, the grinding of the beans an assault on my ears. Don’t forget Johanie’s coming this afternoon, she said when I was barely up. I reassured her I’d remembered. And make sure not to keep her waiting when she rings the bell with her bags, Margot went on, because I know you often lose track of time out in your fucking junk room. I didn’t reply, just rubbed my beard and headed to the bathroom. I wanted to be alone to revive and relive the dream I’d been immersed in before I was startled awake. I had the feeling it had been a good one, though I couldn’t quite remember it. Unfortunately, the harder I tried to recall the dream, the more it slipped away. My stream of pee ended just as Margot yelled to ask—and deep down she must have known the answer—if I wanted coffee. And I yelled back, over the flush of the toilet, that yes, I did want coffee, thanks.
Margot rushed out of the apartment without kissing me goodbye (those days were gone). She did remember, though, to tell me to take out the recycling after hearing the truck at the end of our street. I put on a jacket and carried the green bin out (we kept it in a handy spot in the kitchen: to the right of the door to my room). At the other end of our street, I spotted Margot on her bike. She was heading in the opposite direction of the recycling truck. She looked to be talking on her phone, only one hand on the handlebars, which was dangerous, especially in early winter when a thin layer of snow covered the road. At that moment, I didn’t want her getting hurt; I only thought it would teach her a lesson—well maybe—if ever she did have an accident (it seems the harder you fall, the better you learn). I set the bin down on the sidewalk and went back inside to wait for the truck to go by. I sat on the bed in our (her) room, that lovely bed, and stared at the bike path outside the window. Six reckless cyclists had time to ride by before the truck came into view. A man of indeterminate age, a garbageman, grabbed the bins lined up in front of the apartment building, emptied them into the hopper, then threw them on the sidewalk like they, too, were trash. I waited another three or four minutes, just long enough for the truck to turn down the alley, then I went outside, retrieved my bin, and put it back in its place in the kitchen. Only then did I fully register that Margot’s friend Johanie was arriving that day, and I wondered what time she’d come (not that it made any difference).
Bach’s cello suites are relaxing to listen to, but not to play. To make things harder, I had to transpose them to my instrument, no walk in the park. For an hour, I played the same eight bars over and over, but all in vain: the fingering wasn’t what was shown on the original score and the bowing wouldn’t stick in my gestural memory. Though I watched myself closely in the mirror, my movements lacked fluidity and I botched the slurs. I couldn’t get it right. The joy of playing ebbed away; weariness set in. The front door rang, ending the deadlock and making me jump. It was probably our eagerly awaited guest. I laid my instrument down and went to open the door. It was indeed Johanie. She came in, kissed me on the cheek (why?) and said my beard was prickly (original), then headed straight to the bedroom (first door on the right). She threw her suitcase on the bed, opened it, set about unpacking, even seemed to know her way around. I offered her something to drink, she politely declined, and I told her not to be shy if she needed anything (I felt it was to my advantage to be nice). She asked if I had an extra set of keys to the apartment, her reasoning being that they’d come in handy. No, sorry, though we did have a selection of beverages in the kitchen should she change her mind.
With some courage (and nothing else to do), I started playing scales again, but plucking instead of bowing (pizzicato). I went up and down the neck to the rhythm of a metronome set at sixty beats per minute. I also could have stared at the second hand of a clock—as my roommate back in CEGEP used to do after smoking a joint—but I had no clock or weed in my practice room. Anyway, for a while, I’d been obsessed with playing in perfect symbiosis with something. It gave me an indescribable feeling, which I couldn’t quite decipher (a bit like my dream that morning). Johanie apparently didn’t understand it any more than I did. She turned up the TV so loud I could barely make out the sound of my instrument. Whenever I’d stop playing a moment, she’d lower the volume, and once I’d start again, she’d crank it back up. A silly game, but I had to take breaks between my exercises, so I played along. At one point, the upstairs neighbor banged repeatedly on his kitchen floor (our living room ceiling) since he must have been sick of listening against his will to our futile war of sound. Johanie threw in the towel first, so I was the big winner. But any real desire I had to practice was long gone, which was only fair.
Through the door to the junk room, I heard the microwave start up. I hoped Johanie wasn’t heating the leftovers of my mother-in-law’s lasagna.
I cracked open the door to the junk room after I heard the microwave door close. Johanie was sitting in the living room eating the leftovers of my mother-in-law’s lasagna.
I hoped Margot wouldn’t come home too late from work. The three of us needed to have a talk to set things straight. Johanie knocked on my door to ask to borrow my bike to run errands. After what she’d done, I didn’t feel like helping her out, but I said yes anyway. She also asked if I had an extra key to the bike lock, which I did have and gave to her. She closed the door, and I waited for her to leave before I came out to inspect the apartment (especially the bedroom).
At first glance, everything was in order. I should say that Margot was a bit of a neat freak—and that I no longer did much housework. The kitchen and living room were spotless, but the door to the bedroom was closed, so I’d have to go in and see. I walked in to find that Johanie had finished unpacking and all her clothes were already in the dresser drawers. In the bathroom, new products had been set inside the shower and a new toothbrush had appeared in the glass to the right of the sink. I had a feeling she’d be staying longer than expected.
To calm down, I jerked off to porn on the computer in our kitchen office (it had a much bigger screen and a better internet connection than my laptop). I was quick in case Johanie got back early from shopping. I came on four squares of toilet paper folded in half, then flushed them down the toilet. One time, I’d forgotten to flush and Margot had asked me about the slimy blob of tissue in the toilet bowl. I’d made up a good excuse (the blob had looked like an old wonton), and I’d never again forgotten to flush. I cleared my browsing history and went back to the junk room, my hard-on still visible in my black sweatpants.
I no longer felt like practicing and didn’t know what to do to pass the time, but I didn’t want to be around when Johanie came back with her shopping bags. Giving her a hand was out of the question, and the best way to avoid that was to keep out of sight. So it was while doing nothing in particular in my practice room that I realized I was attracted to Johanie. I came to terms with it. Her beauty was what had first thrown me off when she’d kissed me, and, perversely, what made me want to keep away from her. I still didn’t know how she’d fit in here, but one thing was for sure: my role was about to totally change.
Freezing rain began to fall. I noticed when the drops started drumming on the stove’s air duct, which ran through the junk room. For a long while, I stared out the only window in the room and watched the rain in the backyard, which slowly changed to sticky snow, big flakes coming down. I wondered if we might have a thunderstorm. The snowfall picked up, the sky turned ominously dark, then the snow changed back to rain. Were thunderstorms scientifically possible in winter? I googled it on my laptop. According to a weather site that looked fairly reliable (but don’t they all?), thunderstorms could occur this time of year but were rare. What did I care, really, about this phenomenon? The only thought that came to mind was that it would be a shame to get caught in this storm on a bike with bags of groceries. Just then, the power went out as the first flash of lightning tore across the grey sky.
Johanie came home while it was still dark in the apartment. I’d come out of the junk room to light candles in the kitchen so I could see something (there weren’t many windows in our ground-floor apartment). Johanie was soaked. She threw her coat and bags in the bathtub so the floor wouldn’t get any wetter. Sitting at the kitchen table, I watched her. It was the first time I saw her as a real person; I mean, it was the first time she looked human, that I realized she wasn’t merely our new roommate (with possible benefits). The heating had been off for almost an hour, so the apartment was growing cold. I got up to bring her a clean towel. She’d need to change out of those clothes or she’d get sick.
Margot came home while it was still dark in the apartment. I lay naked on the bed in our room, and it was clear I’d slept with Johanie, but since our guest was now unpacking her groceries and putting them away in the kitchen, it was less clear for Margot. She looked at me coldly—we still had no heat—and asked what I was doing there. I was doing absolutely nothing, which only made her angrier (well, not quite nothing: it had been ages since I’d lounged around in a real bed, so I ran my hands over the sheets a bit to feel the tingle in my palms, which I loved). I think it would be better for everyone if you moved out, Margot said, her voice trembling (with sadness? rage?). I was surprised, but not terribly. I tried convincing her I could change and that everything could go back to normal between us—though this wasn’t true and didn’t even appeal to me. She shook her head, it was a no go, we’d need to come to some compromise. We decided that, from then on, I’d keep strictly to the junk room, venturing into the rest of the apartment only to use the kitchen (to make my meals alone) and the bathroom (for basic hygiene). It didn’t seem like a great arrangement, but I didn’t want to move out and start looking for a new place. The power was still off when I slipped on my black sweatpants and headed back to my lair, groping along the dark hallway. In the shadowy light of two candles, Johanie was spreading out a game of solitaire on the kitchen table. I took two candles and a lighter from a cabinet, and when I turned around, she gave me a little wink. I knew that a part of me had pooled inside her; it was very strange to have started this scalene love triangle.
In the days after the blackout, I realized Johanie was more than just a roommate; she was Margot’s new relationship (so I hadn’t been told everything!). The talk I’d wanted to have to set things straight never happened, but I got used to the situation, and to my little life in the junk room, better than I’d expected. Even though I’d had a lot of time to think, I still couldn’t figure out why Margot had originally wanted to break up (or was it me who’d wanted to first?). Anyway, I was now sleeping with her new girlfriend while Margot was at work: the pendulum had swung back.
L’essoreuse à salade was originally published by Hamac / Les Productions Somme toute.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Neil Smith has written three books, including the novel Jones, which comes out this August. He’s won the Hugh MacLennan Prize and the QWF First Book Prize. He’s also been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Translation, the Sunburst Award, and the Journey Prize. He was born in Montreal. @neilwordsmith on Instagram.
Philippe Chagnon was born in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1986. He’s written three novels and four books of poetry. In 2017, the radio show Plus on est de fous plus on lit chose him as a young author to watch thanks to his poetry collection Arroser l’asphalte. His latest novel, À reculons, came out in March this year with Hamac.