In the previous story, we have Harold’s mother reminiscing about her earlier trips to the mountains, when it was just her and her husband, Harold’s father.
She observes that it was one thing to think of skiing down the slopes into town when she was a young woman; now that she has returned, with her son Harold, and she is in her fifties, such an act would invite an injury.
Here, in “April Fish”, readers meet another woman in her fifties. She is actually celebrating her fifty-first birthday on April 1st, April Fish (poisson d’avril).
If you don’t know about April Fish, take a moment to search out the vintage postcards once exchanged to mark the occasion (in French-speaking communities outside France, as well): they are delightful and strange (to my eyes).
There are quite a few short short stories in Mavis Gallant’s repertoire (particularly in the collection The Cost of Living, like this one) and this is the shortest – just four pages – in this collection. (The next shortest is the title story, only one page longer, but because there are two couples at the heart of it, it feels longer.)
Readers barely get acquainted with April (Avril, they call her, in Switzerland) and barely time to witness the gift-giving with which her three children commemorate the date. Each of these children has been “left behind by careless parents, dropped like loose buttons and picked up by a woman they call Maman”.)
The pile of dogs asleep at the foot of her bed are similarly rescued creatures. And she seems even more protective of them, when it comes to the way that the three children – home for Easter – are teasing them.
The one spot of joy in the woman’s day (spoiler – it doesn’t come from the company of or the gift from the three children – as if you hadn’t already guessed that) is a collectible item which her brother has sent to her: a letter from Sigmund Freud’s collection.
It’s written in German – so, incomprehensible – but clearly prized by the woman all the same. The children press for more information. And April is at a loss. She doesn’t want “the children to feel de trop or rejected”, but Maria-Gabriella comes into the room for the breakfast tray and discretely intervenes to direct the children out of the room.
She doesn’t want the children there. She doesn’t want the dogs to bark. She doesn’t want to speak to her solicitor on the telephone. She doesn’t want the fish that the children have brought. She doesn’t even really want the letter – only just a few moments after she has prized it so.
What she does want is a young Vietnamese girl, one of those who have suffered from the bombing in the war. But her solicitor has rung to say that the girl will not be forthcoming.
And what are we to make of that? What a contemporary comment on the way that a privileged person might use the another’s misfortune to compensate for what they lack. What a sharp realization of how one can opportunistically seize upon the possibility of doing/being something/someone worthwhile without expending any real effort themselves. What a sad and lonely birthday. What a great number of us need rescuing.
Either Mavis Gallant is playing a joke on her readers or she is allowing us to contemplate the ways in which we play jokes on ourselves, all year ‘round.
In Transit‘s stories: By the Sea / In Italy / An Emergency Case / Jeux d’Ete / When We Were Nearly Young / Better Times / A Question of Disposal / The Hunter’s Waking Thoughts / Careless Talk / The Circus / In Transit / The Statues Taken Down / Questions and Answers / Vacances Pax / A Report / The Sunday After Christmas / April Fish / The Captive Niece / Good Deed
Note: This is part of a series of posts on Mavis Gallant’s stories, as I read through her short fiction. This is the seventeenth story in In Transit. Please feel free to check the schedule and join in, for the series, or for a single story; I would love the company. Next story: “The Captive Niece”.
April Fish has an estimated reading time of three minutes, far briefer than is typical of her work.
The story is narrated by April, a fifty five year old single woman living in Switzerland. She says she only there to avoid high income tax in her home country, to which she wishes she could return. We do not learn where she is from. We do learn she is affluent, seems to live of Family money as her affairs are managed by a solicitor. In Switzerland they call her Avril.
She has three adopted sons, now all young adults but still dependent on her.
There is a mystery of character at the center of this story. Is April a kind caring person or is she an adult spoiled brat who has a fit when she is denied her way, or a bit of both? She seems now bored with her sons and is outraged when her request to adopt a Vietnamese Baby in Switzerland for burn treatments (1968 was height of The Vietnam War) is denied.
The reason the story is called April Fish in related to Venice. Where i hope to be this summer.
Isn’t it interesting how many of the characters in this collection are dependent on someone else (usually far away) for their income/prosperity/survival. I suppose this is another way of expressing the idea of transition, with the assumption being that their support will be limited (or, at least, is always in jeopardy).
It’s hard to tell whether she is simply lonely and looking for a sense of meaning in her life, or whether she is leading a kind of parasitical existence, drawing her satisfaction from the pain of others (even though she does relieve it in some ways too). Maybe that’s the kind of dilemma we are always faced with, when it comes to understanding: there are always a myriad of ways to understand a situation. Maybe how we understand it is more of a choice than we like to think. Maybe it says more about us than the situation actually expresses on its own terms.
You’re hoping to be in Venice this summer? You mean, in the way that everyone hopes to be in Venice in the summer? LOL Or, actually BEing in Venice? That would be amazing!
Yes The Family is going to,Italy to celebrate The fact that all three of out daughters Will have completed College.
Wonderful! Congratulations to each of your lovely girls! So much hard work (and I can’t believe that even the youngest is finished now – we have known each other quite some time)!
Well you’ve taught me something. I knew April the 1st as April Fool’s day only, I hadn’t heard of poisson d’avril. I just looked it up.
I learned it from Mavis Gallant myself! And now I’m thinking that the title is a broader commentary on how we are tricked as human beings into ideas about happiness that fail us in the end. A universal theme.
This story confused me. I hardly know what to think of it. The main character was so pitiful and unhappy. I’m glad it was so short because I didn’t like her at all!
It’s funny, isn’t it? You’d think that the shorter stories would be more straightforward, but sometimes they are a little baffling. Postcard/Flash stories often leave me that way too.