by Magali Favre
“A mother can try! At your age, you should be paying more attention to girls than to your father’s crazy ideas.”
Gaétan slips on his coat and runs to the phone booth on the corner. Bell cut off their phone service two months ago because of late payments. With his next paycheque, the family might get the phone line back.
It rings several times. No answer. But Louise had told him that she’d be there this morning. He walks back home a bit disappointed. He’ll call back later.
Instead of going into the house to listen to his mother grumble, Gaétan decides to pass by Luc’s to see if someone is still in the apartment. He hasn’t been there since Tuesday.
As usual, he takes the back lane, which looks forlorn at this time of year with its empty clotheslines. Gaétan likes to see all the colourful clothes flapping in the wind. It makes the neighbourhood seem festive. He sneaks around some children who are playing street hockey. Two large cardboard boxes serve as goals. Each Saturday morning, the lanes are alive with the shrieks of children pretending to be Jean Béliveau or Yvan Cournoyer. Tonight, they’ll all be sitting in front of their televisions to watch the Canadiens play the Philadelphia Flyers.
When he gets to Luc’s balcony, Gaétan notices that the door pane has been replaced. He looks through the window. Everything is in order. Is Paul still living here? He goes in and walks around the apartment. There isn’t a trace of him anywhere. He’s disappeared.
Although he has no news of her son, he heads over to see Luc’s mother and tell her that Paul is no longer in the apartment.
“I heard on the radio that the people who were arrested without warrants are beginning to be released,” he tells her. “Luc should be getting out soon.”
“I dunno. There are new raids and new arrests every day.”
Gaétan doesn’t reply. He doesn’t tell her about the drawing of the Patriote he saw lying on the counter or that Paul is supposed to be in Abitibi. He doesn’t want to worry her.
“You staying to eat? I made a tourtière.”
Gaétan doesn’t dare say no—and anyway, there’s no turning down Mme Maheu’s tourtière. She gets out a jar of homemade pickles. He bites into a tangy pickle, all crunchy and delicious.
In Mme Maheu’s house, as in all the other neighbourhood houses, the radio is constantly crackling in the background. When they hear the theme song to the news, both listen attentively.
“The Montréal police have just announced that a message from the FLQ has been found. Its authors demand the immediate release of union leader Michel Chartrand, lawyer Robert Lemieux, and Patriotes Pierre Vallières and Charles Gagnon, or Montréal will pay.”
The woman and the young man look at each other, bewildered. The announcer adds that the police are questioning the document’s authenticity.
“And with the elections tomorrow,” Gaétan sighs. “It’s not looking good!”
* Free translation: “His trousers a bloody shame/ It’s where he got his name/ Bozo-in-Britches/ Never learned to hold a pen/ Could hardly count to ten/ Bozo-in-Britches/ In English he’d jabber away/ Worked all night and slept all day/ Bozo-in-Britches/ Though he barely went to school/ He knew that English was a handy tool/ Bozo-in-Britches.”
11
Sunday, October 25
Louise still isn’t answering her telephone. There’s been no sign of her since Friday. Gaétan walks around in circles in the empty apartment. What a strange Sunday. It’s the day of Montréal’s municipal elections. His father is an official at a polling station; he’ll be there all day. His mother left with his little brothers to go vote and then take a walk up Mount Royal. Gaétan has no doubt of her support for Mayor Drapeau.
Gaétan is restless. He sits down in front of the television but doesn’t turn it on. On Sunday afternoons there is never anything to watch. Instead, he watches the movie that is playing in his head. It seems as if he’s just lived through the past week in fast-forward motion. As if he isn’t quite the same person who, a week earlier, had casually ridden the bus to the factory for the first time. Is life really all about working for wages that are spent in a flash? He thinks of Louise studying, of his father selling his soul to put food on the table, of Luc languishing in prison.
“And where do I fit in all of this?” he wonders.
He is overwhelmed by a wave of helplessness. Fortunately, the ring of the doorbell pulls him from his thoughts. He jumps off his chair and bounds down the stairs, opening the door. In front of him stands a police officer.
“Mme Simard, please.”
“She’s not here.”
“Who are you?”
“Her son.”
“Ok. Well tell her that she can come pick up her husband at the station.”
“At the station? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. Pass the message on to your mother. Tell her to come by before eight o’clock, or he’ll spend the night in station 22.”
The police officer hands him a ticket. He can barely make out the words scrawled on the page: obstruction of justice and injury to a police officer.
By the time he looks up, the police car is already gone.
Gaétan walks back up the stairs and lets himself drop onto the sofa.
“Should have expected that from Pop! He can never keep quiet. Looks like he’s jealous of all the others who were arrested for no reason,” grumbles the boy.
He’s now tied to the house: he has to wait for his mother to come home to tell her the news. Even if Louise were back he couldn’t go see her.
After cursing his father, he decides to turn on the television in order to pass the time. A man and a woman are standing on a small bridge, talking. The actors have a funny accent and use expressions that he’s never heard of. In the background he can make out the name of a run-down hotel: Hôtel du Nord.
Apparently the French don’t all speak like schoolmarms. These two must come from the Faubourg à m’lasse of Paris, he reasons.
Gaétan is sleeping on the sofa when Richard and Patrick, his two brothers, jump on top of him. Their hands are like ice and their cheeks are rosy.
His mother is already in the kitchen making hot chocolate for everyone. Gaétan gets up and runs after his brothers, pummelling them good-naturedly. The two younger boys scamper into the kitchen where they run rings around the table before ending up hiding behind their mother’s skirts.
“Scaredy cats! Scaredy cats!” Gaétan taunts them, happy to be surrounded by family.
“Get out from there, you little rascals! And go sit down, I’m about to pour the hot chocolate. Careful, it’s boiling hot!”
Everyone immediately grabs a seat around the table. With almost religious silence, the three boys bury their noses in their mugs.
“I’m gonna get supper ready. Your father should be home soon.”
Gaétan almost chokes on his last sip. He gets up and goes to find the ticket he left lying on the sofa.
“Here. The police came and gave me this earlier. You have to go get him at the station.”
“Goddammit! He couldn’t just keep his mouth shut, could he? I don’t have time to go before you have to leave for your shift. I’m not leaving the children all alone.”
“I could maybe stay and watch them.”
“There’s no way you’re missing work because of your father’s antics. I’ll go tomorrow morning when the boys are at school. Anyway, a night in there might set him straight.”
12
Monday, October 26
“Drapeau re-elected with 92% of the vote.”
On the front page of the newspaper, the headlines are relentless. The opposition hasn’t won a single seat. The fear campaign orchestrated by the two governments as well as by the mayor himself worked like a charm.
Gaétan doesn’t want to go home this morning. The mood in the house must be unbearable. After a night spent in jail, coupled with the election results, his father is surely in a foul mood. Once he has left the factory he calls Louise, wh
o finally picks up and invites him to come by her house.
He walks along Cherrier looking for number 928. There it is: a big grey-stone house with ornate wooden doors. He climbs the steps leading up to the porch, but hangs back a moment before ringing the doorbell. A real doctor’s house, as his mother would say. The door opens, and a young man wearing ripped jeans and an army jacket comes out, brushing past him.
“’Scuse, man!” says the tall bearded man, leaving the door wide open behind him.
Gaétan throws a curious glance inside.
Before him, there’s a long hallway that leads to a dining room. The floor is waxed. Gaétan takes off his boots so as not to get it dirty. On each side of the hallway, doors open onto rooms lined with posters of celebrities, the mattresses resting square on the ground. There are newspapers and magazines strewn everywhere. He sees a guitar in one corner, a djembe in another, a turntable hidden underneath a stack of LPs, clothes thrown about haphazardly. Complete chaos!
An old wooden table fills up the entire dining room. The remnants of breakfast are still scattered everywhere. A number of plants sit on the windowsill overlooking a small backyard. On the wall, someone has painted Flower Power in broad strokes, surrounded by peace signs and small bright flowers. Louise comes out from the kitchen, still wearing pyjamas, coffee in hand.
“I’m sorry… Someone let me in,” stammers the boy, uncomfortable that he has surprised her this early.
“Do you want some coffee?” she replies, not in the least unsettled by his presence.
“Sure, thanks. You don’t live with your parents?”
She goes back into the kitchen, where he follows.
“My parents are in Magog, in the Eastern Townships. I wanted to study art at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal. They finally agreed to let me go, as long as I live with my brother. That’s where I was this weekend, at their place. I forgot to tell you.”
“How many of you live here?”
“In the double room there’s my brother and his girlfriend. I’m in the room behind the kitchen. And there’s two guys in each of the other two rooms. All together, our rent is cheap. And it’s more fun than being alone in your own apartment. Here’s your coffee.”
“I don’t know if I’d like living with so many other people,” says Gaétan, thinking that if he wanted to move out it would be so that things would quiet down.
“No one asked you to move in,” Louise answers curtly. “Come on, we’ll go in my room.”
The boy feels that he should have kept his mouth shut. Again. He follows her.
The mattress is covered with a duvet and many colourful pillows. A bookshelf mounted on bricks covers the length of one wall. The shelves sag dangerously under the weight of the books. In one corner, a barn door supported by wooden frames serves as a desk. On the wall are posters of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Between the two, on a large sheet of white paper running from floor to ceiling, a poem has been recopied by hand. The title, Speak White, written in red, looks like a bloodstain.
“Does your brother study, too?”
“Yeah, at Université du Québec.”
“And what do the other guys do?”
“Nothing!”
“They don’t work?”
“No, they don’t want to participate in consumerism. They refuse to become either the exploited or the exploiters.”
“But then how do they have enough money to live?”
“They live on love and fresh air,” she answers in a mocking voice. “They’re hippies. But their father has a lot of money. That helps.”
“Well I don’t have the choice not to go work. My mother needs my paycheque to make ends meet. I don’t know how I could do that.”
“It’s not the same thing. You’re a factory worker.”
“Anyway, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t work. Seen this?”
Gaétan hands Le Journal de Montréal to the girl.
“You see what terrorism does? In early October, the opposition was at thirty percent. Today, it’s evaporated.”
“That’s what you came to tell me? The governments would have found some way to eliminate the opposition anyway.”
“We don’t have to feed their fire.”
An awkward silence follows. The boy has been there barely fifteen minutes and already they have a hard time understanding each other. He is beginning to wonder why he continues to see this girl.
“You know this record?”
Louise pulls an album from under a pile of papers on the desk. She wants to lighten the mood.
“Listen to it while I get dressed. I just bought it.”
She places the vinyl on the turntable, delicately drops the needle onto the outer edge, and leaves.
A woman’s voice, quiet and mournful, fills the room. She sings of a black eagle rising into the night. The tension and crescendo of her voice, both deep and fragile, trouble Gaétan.
Louise returns just as the song is ending. She has put on a long pastel-coloured Indian dress and large earrings. A huge smile lights up her face. “In the end,” Gaétan thinks, “it was a good idea to stay.” This girl is beautiful, full of life, and she has introduced him to a world far from the Faubourg à m’lasse.
They sit on the bed and chat for a while. Then she tells him that she has class at eleven o’clock.
“You can stay if you want.”
“I don’t want to bother anyone.”
“You’re not bothering anyone. You can keep listening to music.”
The offer is tempting, and Gaétan accepts. He doesn’t have the strength to go back home. And he feels so good here.
Once Louise leaves, the boy digs greedily through the stack of records. He’s never seen so many! He stumbles upon Québec Love by Charlebois; he recognizes this one.
He sits down on the bed, lulled by the rhythm of the first track.
Suddenly, light is blinding him. Louise is standing in the door frame.
“You’re still here!”
Outside, it’s dark. Gaétan panics.
“What time is it?”
“Nine at night.”
“I fell asleep and I didn’t see the time passing. I gotta get out of here, or I’ll be late for work.”
Dazed, Gaétan gets up and splashes some cold water on his face to wake up. Louise brings him his coat and, laughing, says, “You’re my Cinderella! Wait, give me your phone number.”
“I don’t have a phone. I’ll call you tomorrow. See you!”
As he runs to the Sherbrooke metro station, he realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything all day. He doesn’t even have a lunch with him. It’s going to be a long night at the shop.
13
Tuesday, October 27
“Where’d you sleep last night?”
He is barely in the door when the unavoidable question hits him.
“I’m starving! Can I get some bacon and eggs?” Gaétan responds, ignoring it.
“You’re not getting anything until you tell me what you were thinking, not calling last night. I was worried to death. Your father’s still in prison, you know?”
“Why’s that? You were supposed to go pick him up yesterday morning.”
“If you’d a’come home last night, you’d know that the police decided to keep him a while longer. They wouldn’t even lemme see him, and I don’t know when he’ll get out.”
Gaétan should have known that with his father, nothing would be simple. Feeling sheepish to have abandoned his mother at such a time, he tries to explain.
“I went to see some friends and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was too late to come by the house.”
The boy is purposely vague. The plural allows him to avoid specifying—without lying—that he had slept in a girl’s room. If his mother knew, she would hit the roof.
“Gaétan, you’re the oldest and you know I count on you when your father isn’t around. Don’t ever do that again!”
It hits him like a ton of bricks. He wants to hand over his w
ages to his mother to help make ends meet, but taking care of his brothers is a different story … yet he knows that when you come from the poor side of town, you can’t afford to spend the day in bed listening to music. Reality washes over him, and he realizes just how serious things are.
“Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday, but I had no way of knowing … I know someone who has some contacts with lawyers,” the boy continues, trying to calm his mother down. “I can talk to them.”
“You of all people know that we don’t have a penny to spare for things like that.”
“I know, but they can do it for free when you’re in a tight spot like us.”
“Promises are a dime a dozen! Eat your eggs, and until your father gets back, try to spend more time around the house.”
That evening, Louise and Gaétan walk down the church steps to the basement of Saint-Louis-de-France. The room is full, and there is hardly a pause between speeches. Louise explains that this is the first meeting of the Prisoner Support Committee. She grabs Gaétan’s hand and they weave through the crowd to a table where they are asked to sign a petition demanding the release of the political prisoners.
Gaétan recognizes the young man Louise had been so happy to see at the Cégep assembly.
“This is my brother, Mathieu. He studies law. Tell him about your dad, maybe he can do something.”
Gaétan recounts the circumstances of his father’s arrest. He also describes his father’s stubborn and rebellious personality. He had probably hurled a volley of insults at the police during his arrest, which no doubt explains why they’ve kept him so long.
“Write down his name, address, and where he was arrested. Explain the circumstances of his arrest in a few sentences.”
“I also have a buddy I haven’t heard from since October 16. He was arrested at his home at dawn. Could you do anything for him, too?”
“Name, address, and circumstances. Write all that down,” answers Mathieu, handing him a sheet of paper.
