by John Brooke
Bruce, caught in the middle of a difficult day trying to shield the firm’s accounts from seriously dipping South Korean markets, grabbed a taxi as soon as the message reached him. But the police had been and gone and the lunch-covered door was clean. The only evidence left was the flag itself. He stood in tiny rue Godbout, briefcase in hand, looking up at it: a red and white maple leaf flag fluttering peacefully in the three-o’clock breeze.
It’s just a flag, he thought.
Then he thought, Not just a flag. Look what it has caused.
And he thought, Yes, but if it has caused that, it must be worth defending.
In truth, Bruce had doubted that his flag would even last through Saturday afternoon.
He went in and climbed the stairs. “But what happened exactly? Come on, Gen, dis-moi…”
It was tricky when she was both angry and busy. All he could gather was that it was probably Patrice Painchaud, the former FLQ bomber. Bruce felt he should phone his dad and talk about it, but dared not because Geneviève made it very clear: “That stupid flag has to come down this instant! I don’t have time for this nonsense. I am trying to earn a living here. I have lost three hours!”
So he changed and went back out — to the garage this time, for the ladder and his tools.
While Bruce was getting the ladder positioned, Pacci, his neighbour, appeared at the garden fence. Pacci was long retired and generous to a fault when it came to handing gifts over that same fence, things such as fresh vegetables from his garden or samples of his wife Marisa’s pizzas, sausages, sometimes those deep-fried breaded zucchini things. The down-side of Pacci was his need to get in on everything, a quality the WASP in Bruce could scarcely abide. That day, Pacci looked over the fence and told Bruce, “If me, I tek carabine and…” He mimed the action of shooting a rifle. Bruce shrugged, unwilling to comment. If it really was Patrice Painchaud, it was serious — not a matter for idle braggadocio. In any case, Bruce had no weapons so it was moot. His father had a weapon or two, but Bruce had never gotten around to having any. He’d always put it down to never having been in a war. He secured the ladder and climbed.It was only when he had ascended to the roof, tools in hand, that Bruce realized the flag on the balcony on the top floor of the maison was no longer there. He stood there watching for a good half-hour, looking for some kind of sign, no inkling as to what, but something. But the blue and white flag was definitely gone, and, it appeared, the old woman with it — her lawn chair, her headphones and radio, her bottle of candy-red stuff…no more curtains on the windows. And there was, at one point, somewhere inside Bruce, a fleeting moment of wanting to yell “Victory!” across the evening sky. If it was flag warfare, it looked like he’d won: he had chased the old woman and her flag away. But this passed, and he was not sure how he should feel about it. Was it flag against flag? Or himself against an old woman? And how was she connected to Patrice Painchaud? If it was indeed him.
Thus Bruce on the roof in late afternoon, standing by his flag.
Then moving away from it, over to the edge of the roof, to see it better. Feel it better.
This sense of a kingdom, an absolute place that is him, in the middle of an amorphous world.
Instead of dismantling the flag forthwith as ordered by Gen, Bruce climbed back down and went to Thu’s depanneur for a can of beer.
Later, the sun glowed brilliantly golden for two minutes at 7:30 before disappearing behind the mauve edge of the northwest skyline. Bruce was hunkered at the base of the staff, screwdriver loose in his hand, working on another beer and looking up at the flag. The breeze had died and it was lifeless. But he was still not ready to do it. Looking down, there was Pacci, now at his back door, squat, stolid, holding a rifle in two hands, gesturing, as if ready to toss it to Bruce like some old sergeant major. He nodded to Pacci, then lifted his eyes, staring dumbly out at the neighbourhood, at lights in windows beginning to sprinkle the twilight. Lots of lights were coming on over in the maison de retraite; but the old lady’s place remained dark.
He also had a sausage sandwich, a thermos of coffee and a good supply of biscotti, courtesy of Marisa. It looked like Geneviève, always so têtue when pissed at him and determined to make up those three lost hours, had succeeded in ignoring both their supper and his vigil. But Pacci and Marisa had not stopped watching him. It was turning into a vigil, all right.
A bit of a dream too, eh, Bruce?
Well, yes. But what else does one do when keeping watch?
1. Bruce calls for the rifle. Pacci loads it and passes it up, with ammo to last all night. Bruce spots Patrice Painchaud on the old lady’s vacated balcony. He picks him off. Patrice spins over the railing and drops to the lawn six floors below. Two adolescent henchmen rush Bruce from their position three roofs east. Bruce drops them with two sure shots. The police show up with their swat team and dogs. He hears the relentless noise of a chopper approaching, a bright light shines from the sky. Voices tell him to give it up. He fires back, defiant. A burst of automatic fire through the darkness — he dies. Geneviève weeps as he is lowered with honours into the National Field of Honour in Pointe Claire…
2. Bruce refuses Pacci’s gun. He chews sausage, chomps biscotti, alternates between coffee and beer, pisses off the roof, defiant, in front of everybody. Geneviève, disgusted, goes back to France. Bruce remains on the roof, camping out with his flag until the Premier personally climbs the ladder and promises never to hold another referendum. Bruce is a hero; but it’s March by then, and he dies of hypothermia. Geneviève comes back from France in time to weep as he is lowered with honours into the National Field of Honour in Pointe Claire…
3. The old woman reappears on the maison balcony. She waves her flag and calls to Bruce, “We should be lovers!” Bruce realizes her old age is a disguise and agrees; his French is good enough, her English is wobbly but will be fine. Geneviève ignores it and thinks only of making money…
“Hey! English!”
Bruce stood, alert. Beside him, the flag was sleeping. Below, on the garden side, Pacci sat alone on his porch with his gun. Next door, Vic, Bruce’s other Italian neighbour, was sitting in darkness on his porch, nursing wine and singing his bel canto softly, tenderly, through the quickly cooling night. Bruce took a step the other way, toward the street, and peered down. “What?”
“Ici.” He was standing by a van at the corner, well away from the street light’s glow.
Bruce could only see a silhouette. He called, “Who is it?”
“Not your friend.”
“What d’you want?”
“To make awareness.”
“Awareness?”
“T’informer, tu vois?”
“Qu’est-ce que tu veux dire?”
There was no reply. Bruce could make out a movement, as if the man was pointing. Directing the movements of someone off in the darkness? Patrice Painchaud was known to travel with his followers. Geneviève had counted four boys. As Bruce leaned out, trying to get a better vantage, something flew past his ear and thudded against the garage roof in the alley behind him. Bruce threw himself flat on the roof.
Pacci called up, “Trouble, you?”
Bruce rolled onto his back, stared at the stars and stayed silent. The last thing anyone needed was Pacci in the street with a gun.
Pacci called again. “Hey, Bruce — you nid carabine?”
“No! Go to bed, for Christ’s sake!”
A moment later Geneviève called, “Bruce? Qu’est-ce tu fais là?”
“Nothing.”
“Alors, t’es fou? Descends and come to bed!”
“All right, all right. Relax!”
Then the first voice said, “Oui, Bruce — go to bed! And take your flag with you.”
Bruce called, “I won, you asshole!”
“You cannot win, monsieur. It is a simple matter of numbers, n’est-ce pas?”
Geneviève screamed, “Bruce!”
Within a few tense minutes the flag was down, he was down, the ladder put away,
doors secured, and he was lying beside her. As the fear subsided, he relaxed into sleep.
Where he replayed his dream of a hero’s death with variations:
4. Bruce hovers on the roof’s edge. He sees his chance — leaps! His hundred and fifty pounds take Patrice Painchaud’s head into the pavement hard enough to crush his skull. But Bruce’s body is also mortally shattered and he dies in Geneviève’s arms. Geneviève weeps as he is lowered with honours into the National Field of Honour in Pointe Claire…
Marcel Beaulé’s people took care of everything in arranging a fitting funeral: Marie-Claire Lamotte was laid out in a top-of-the-line cherrywood casket. Her children were flown in. Flowers were chosen, pallbearers selected, the service scripted out. Two police officers and a squad of cadets would be on hand to direct traffic. Father Martin was told to expect a full house; all that remained for him to do was set his alarm for 4:30 because the technical crew would arrive at 5:15 to make final preparations for Marcel’s sign-on at 6:08. Marcel would do his entire show “remote,” as they called it, from a booth set up in the transept. The service would start after the nine o’clock news and fill the final hour of the broadcast. Wine and refreshments were ordered for the wake, to be held in the garden of the maison de retraite. Miriam Poirier had had a change of heart and told Marcel’s representative, “By all means. Is there anything I can do?”
The first three hours of the show ran as usual, although all contributors, from the sports to the movie review to René Bonenfant in the chopper, did their bit against muted strains of organ music. Only one caller was gauche enough to want to change the subject — a complaint about commercial property tax. “What planet are you calling from, madame?” inquired Marcel in a quiet, dignified way before cutting the line. For the rest, it was commiseration, condolence, lots of talk of pride, patience, love and dedication.
Outside, the mourners began to arrive shortly after eight, and soon a line wound from the church steps, around the corner by Monsieur Hot Dog, and all the way to the bicycle path on rue Boyer. Cyclists heading downtown were rerouted through the schoolyard onto rue Christophe Colomb. Police cadets politely marshalled the mourners into columns of six, since each mourner carried a blue and white flag of one size or another and they feared this could prove problematic as they moved through the door into the chapel. Madame Lamotte’s three children and their spouses were also supplied with flags. The hearse pulled up at five to nine. While the news played, Marcel was hooked to the wireless mic. He left his booth and went outside and surveyed the crowd. There was a legless man in a motorized wheelchair parked by the hearse. He did not look to be dressed for a funeral…no, he turned and rolled away, continuing north. Marcel saw the sign on the back of the man’s chair: Last Days of Montreal… This shored up Marcel’s resolve. Back on-air at eight minutes past, he described the sky: “a perfect Quebec blue”; the scene: “a sombre but celebrating sea of blue and white, as Marie-Claire would surely have wanted”; and he dwelt for a moment on the spray of fleurs-de-lis which had been fixed to the lid of the casket: “One bright flower attracts many to the glade where all can flourish, n’est-ce pas, mes amis? Is the life of Marie-Claire Lamotte not a poem within a symbol, and is the symbol not a mirror of our nation’s heart?”
Then the pallbearers lifted the box from the hearse and led the procession up the stairs and into the chapel. Sadly, shamefully, there were no dignitaries to talk about during this interlude because none of those contacted had had the guts to attend. The only person of any note who had come to bid farewell to Madame Lamotte was Patrice Painchaud; but Marcel had promised his producer that Patrice’s name would not be mentioned. (Nor had Patrice’s boys been included amongst the pallbearers, despite an offer made in no uncertain terms.) So, in lieu of the tears of the famous, Marcel described the exquisite glasswork in the church windows, the statue of Our Lady watching from the spire, and all aspects of the pervasive blue and white motif, extending to the veil and corporal, and the hem of Father Martin’s alb. A muted Gens du pays segueing into In Gloria Transit set a tone to aptly echo Marcel’s themes of celebration and gravitas.
Finally everyone had settled in.
“Now,” intoned Marcel, returning to his place beside his producer, “Father Martin Legault, who saw Marie-Claire Lamotte through her last days, will lead the service.”
The priest timed it well, then called upon the morning man to give the eulogy. Stepping to the front, Marcel looked out and told them how he had spent the most important years of his life sitting in a glassed-in booth in a radio studio looking at his reflection and being nasty to so many people who nevertheless had stayed tuned in and continued to love him. “Oh oui, oui,” confessed Marcel, “méchant… j’suis pas mal méchant.” That out of the way, he told them of his drives into the city every morning, of his Eldorado and how it was getting creaky, and the flags of unknown people here and there along the way. He confessed that he had peered in windows and gazed at sleeping faces… Each time he paused, Marcel made an instinctive move toward the cup of coffee that wasn’t there. He smiled about it, hoping they would understand that today he had become transparent. He told of his summer holidays spent driving to every corner of the greater Montreal community. He touched for a few minutes on days like the day he was lost in Laval, on suburban mothers who didn’t seem to know him and the boys and girls of the new Quebec who could seem so careless with their lives and how the future was too fragile to be entrusted to politicians…“or even to people like me.”
Only one man appeared to get the joke. From his raised position Marcel could see Patrice Painchaud chuckling quietly. Patrice understood him; they had worked together well. Could they have actually become a team, shared the booth, inspired the people? Perhaps that had been wishful thinking. Marcel made eye contact with Patrice and nodded. Then he went on, outlining the basics of the Quiet Revolution. This led him to his belief that it took all kinds to make a revolution and how that revolution’s legacy was theirs. When he saw his producer flashing the four-minute sign from behind the control board in the transept, Marcel turned to the casket with a last sad smile and said, “Marie-Claire Lamotte, these are some of the things I wanted to tell you. But you never called.”
With a nod, he indicated the end of the eulogy.
Father Martin had to hurry through his benediction, after which there was just time to mention the family’s request for a private interment and give directions to the celebration in the garden of the Maison Villeray, two blocks west of the church. “Please, do join us,” he said.
Then twenty-three seconds of music and it was another wrap.
It was coming up noon and markets were steady when Bruce left the office in another rush, responding to Geneviève’s call. As the taxi turned down St. Gédéon, he saw it. The maison garden was overflowing with blue and white flags, and people drinking wine. He found Geneviève at her desk with the binoculars glued to her eyes, rotating slowly in her chair, surveying the party
“He’s there,” she said, and pointed.
Taking the binoculars, Bruce followed the line along her finger to a man who looked like a cross between Vladimir Lenin and René Lévesque. A cigarette dangling from his lower lip helped the outlaw-intellectual effect. A lightweight olive-coloured suit (which Bruce knew to be worth $900) provided counterbalance, making him not only respectable but chic as he chatted amiably with a woman whose tanned arms blended perfectly with her smart slate-grey dress, but whose face was obscured by the brim of a Panama hat with a royal blue band bearing a silver fleurs-de-lis. “That’s him?” Not having had a decent look the night before, Bruce could only know him by his voice.
Geneviève said, “Even if I was not certain, I would not forget those four ugly boys.”
“Oh, right…”
Four bulky youths, reduced to an ageless, ominous similarity by their shaved heads, hovered at a polite distance from the man in question, casually handing leaflets to anyone who approached.
“What about the old
woman?”
“Laquelle?”
“From the apartment.” Now looking at the balcony above the party. It remained empty.
“I didn’t notice.”
Bruce scanned the gathering again, but finally put the binoculars down. “You’d think she’d be the honoured guest…her birthday or something. I mean she’s the only one in the whole place with a flag. I wonder where she went.”
Geneviève was not interested in Bruce’s obsession with the old woman and her flag. She said, “I think we should call the police.”
“Not a great idea,” mumbled Bruce, then hastened to add, “He was just standing there. It was those goons who threw the milk. Could you tell which one?”
Geneviève rolled her eyes. “Bruce, this man is a menace. We have to confront him.”
“Now?”
“Yes. If only to embarrass him.”
“I have a feeling his friends will defend him.”
“We have to do something.”
They watched the party. Indeed, Patrice Painchaud moved from one guest to the next, and all seemed delighted to see him.
“I have a better idea,” said Bruce, “if you’ll let me back up on your roof.”
Geneviève shut her eyes and sighed, long and heavy, through her nose.
Bruce let her think about it while he changed his clothes and got the ladder.
He watched them from the roof as he worked. All they had to do was turn and look across the lawn and alley; anyone with a gun would have a clear shot. But they were all turned the other way because a man with wavy silver hair appeared to be making a speech. Patrice Painchaud was listening carefully. Soon Bruce had the flag pole back in place. All his knots were firm. He made sure the maple leaf was right side up. Then he raised the flag and stood beside it.
