My October (32 page)

“Can I try?”

This time, Vien wrote right back. “An interview? Let's be clear. You want to interview James Cross?”

“Yes,” wrote Hugo. Why not?

After he sent the email to Vien, he pulled on a T-shirt. The room had grown much cooler. It wouldn't be all that hard to find Cross. He would be retired now, probably living in England. Or perhaps Ireland, where he was born. And if he'd died, there would be a record of it.

He opened the web browser on the computer and searched for “British Foreign Office.” That was where Cross had worked all his life. They would know where he was. On the Foreign Office website, Hugo found a telephone number for their London headquarters on King Charles Street. Hugo checked the time. In London, it would be just past nine in the morning.

He navigated a string of recorded messages and a few minutes later was speaking to an actual human being with an upper-crust British accent. He explained to her what he was after.

There was a pause. “What did you say this was for?”

“A history project,” he said shyly.

“Are you a student, then?”

Hugo looked up at the ceiling. The woman's voice sounded suddenly distant. “Yes,” he said, beginning to regret his honesty. He would lie if she asked him his age. Monsieur Vien had done his master's thesis on the October Crisis. Hugo could easily be
in university. What business was it of hers, anyway? “He was a diplomat,” said Hugo, making his voice as deep as possible, “in the 1970s in Quebec.” He paused. “There was an incident.”

The woman seemed not to hear him. “And you say this individual is retired?”

“I think so,” said Hugo. “He's eighty years old. Is there an age at which you have to stop working at the British Foreign Office?”

On the other end of the line, the woman sighed. “I'll put you through to our Records Department. Maybe they can help.”

The woman at the Records Department was nicer, but had disappointing news. “I think he's deceased,” she said after Hugo had spelled out the name.

There was a brief uncomfortable pause. “Is there some way for you to check?” She probably thought he was American. Pushy.

“We only keep records on current employees. Once they retire, the files are closed.” Another pause. “Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?”

Hugo stared at the notepad he had taken from his grandfather's desk drawer. The pen was ready in his hand.

“Will that be all?” the woman asked, trying to end the call.

Hugo cleared his throat. “What do you think I should do?” He was doing his best to sound as if he were thirty instead of fourteen, but his voice chose that moment to crack.

“Well,” said the woman, sounding kinder, “have you tried the telephone directory?”

The operator at British Telecom gave Hugo three listings for the name James Cross: one in South Hampshire, a second in Sussex, and a third in Wales. Hugo scribbled down the numbers
and hung up, elated. The one in Wales wasn't likely, but the other two seemed promising.

While he was in the middle of his second call, there was a knock on the study door. His mother's pale face appeared in the doorway. Her hair was mussed, and she was wearing a flannel nightie she must have borrowed from Connie. He put a finger to his lips. To his relief, she nodded and stepped quietly into the room.

“Thanks,” he said into the telephone. He circled the hour he'd put down on his notepad and underlined it three times. “Yes, yes,” he said, nodding. “At noon, then. Right. Do tell him. Yes, please.” He hung up.

“Who was that?”

Beneath her nightgown, his mother's legs were bare. Ordinarily, this would have irritated Hugo. Ordinarily, he would have told her to leave, or at the very least remained silent and refused to look at her, hoping she'd take the hint and go away. But this was no ordinary day. He swivelled the chair around to face her and got up, remembering as he did so that his legs were bare too, his skinny, hairy thighs exposed. He'd been talking to England in his underwear. He had a sudden urge to laugh.

26

T
he street lamp outside the window was still lit. Morning hadn't yet dawned, but Hannah knew her night was over. Hugo's too, by the looks of it. He was wearing a new red T-shirt that he and Connie had purchased the day before. And he'd pulled on a pair of jeans that fit him. She could actually make out the contours of his skinny body. It was not the body of a child anymore, she noted. There was a wiriness to him that had nothing to do with childhood.

While Hannah had been sleeping fitfully in the guest room, Hugo had been telephoning England, repeatedly. He explained this once they were in the kitchen getting some breakfast. Apparently, he'd been up most of the night.

“On your grandfather's dime?” Hannah asked, alarmed.

“It's okay,” he said. “Constance knows. She's the one who suggested it in the first place.”

Hannah studied him. He'd hoisted himself up on the kitchen counter. Since when did her son enlist the aid of adults? And since when did he call her mother Constance?
She was making omelettes. The egg she was holding was cold from the fridge. It felt solid and smooth in the palm of her hand, more like a stone than something organic. She closed her fingers around the shell and held it over the sink. Then she shut her eyes and squeezed.

Hugo was looking at her when she opened them. “What are you doing?”

She told him about an article she'd read in a women's magazine once, explaining that an egg is impossible to break with your bare hand. It was something she had kept meaning to try. Hugo jumped off the counter, and soon they were both at the sink, squeezing with all their might.

“Cool,” he said.

The egg's shape, Hannah had read, accounted for its strength.

Hugo brought his hand down with sudden force on the side of the mixing bowl.
“Par contre,”
he said, switching to French and expertly manipulating the shell so a bright yolk slipped out, perfect and intact,
“pour faire une omelette, il faut casser des œufs.”

He had learned that art—the art of breaking eggs—from his father. As Hannah whipped them into a yellow froth and poured the froth into the pan, and Hugo made toast, she knew there would never be an easy time to raise the subject that must be raised.

“Hugo, your dad and I …” she began.

Hugo stopped buttering. “There's no need, Mom.”

He was looking straight at her, holding her gaze. “I know you know,” she said. “You're a smart kid.” She stopped, already annoyed at herself. “Not a kid. What I mean is, you're old enough to know how people can get into trouble. Love's not an easy thing.”

Hugo's face had darkened. His eyes had slid away from hers.

“We do love each other,” she continued hastily, but he had turned away. All she could see was the red back of his shirt. But he hadn't left the room. She pressed on. “Your father needs space right now, Hugo. You know that place he rented? The office on Saint-Augustin Street? He's living there.”

The red T-shirt still didn't move.

“For now, anyway, it's his home.”

Hugo's shoulders were hunched. Hannah reached out to touch him, but he pulled away. “You'll still see him. I promise you. You mustn't worry about losing him.”

He turned on her. “You really don't get it, do you? I
want
to lose him. I'd be perfectly happy never to see—”

He didn't get any further. Connie had appeared in the doorway. There was an uncomfortable silence, which Connie broke by stepping into the room. “I thought I heard voices down here. Good heavens, you two are early birds.” If she noticed Hugo's distress, she gave no indication of it. She walked briskly to the kitchen table, which Hannah had set for two, and sat down.

Hannah busied herself at the stove. Hugo was in a turmoil, and there was nothing she could do about it with Connie here. Perhaps she could lead him upstairs on some pretext and continue the discussion behind a closed door. Or perhaps she should inform her mother that she'd interrupted a delicate conversation and ask her, politely, to leave. She was trying to come up with a better option when Connie started speaking again, asking about the project and about England. Hugo answered, reluctantly at first, then warming to his subject.

Hannah looked at the old woman in the pink bathrobe whom she had always thought so meddlesome. This morning, she had shown dignity and tact. And calling Cross had been her idea.

“Fantastic!” Connie said, hugging Hugo after he told her he'd managed to track Cross down. “Did you speak to him?”

“No. He was out walking. He takes his dog out on the cliffs every morning and walks for miles, his wife says.”

“Barbara,” said Connie.

“Yes, Barbara.” Hugo nodded. “She's the one I spoke to.”

“Poor, dear woman.” Connie sighed.

Hannah stared. Connie was talking as if she knew her.

“She certainly remembers you,” said Hugo. “Both you and Alfred. She said to send her regards.”

“I must phone her, now that you've got their number.” She laughed her breathy little laugh, looking thoroughly pleased with her grandson's triumph. “Will he agree to do an interview?”

Hugo shrugged. “Barbara said I would have to ask him. He doesn't usually speak to journalists, but I'm not a journalist, am I? She liked the idea of the project, and also the fact of who I am. She told me to call back at noon.”

“That would be British time,” said Connie. “Five hours ahead of us, right?”

Hannah glanced at the clock on the stove. “You've got ten minutes.”

Hugo nodded. He didn't seem angry. He gave Hannah a quick, excited smile, hugged his grandmother, and hurried away to his room.

“Good luck,” Connie called after him. She turned to Hannah. “What is it they say in French?”

“Bonne chance?”

“No,” said Connie. “The dirty one.”

Hannah smiled.
“Merde.”

“Right,” she said, and shouted the word after her grandson.
She turned back to Hannah. “Your son is a remarkable young man. If he can get Jasper to talk—”

“Jasper?” Hannah repeated.

Her mother nodded. “That's what James's friends called him.”

“You're his friend?”

“Okay,” said Connie, “maybe not his closest one, but we certainly saw them socially. He and Barbara came to the house for dinner. You must have met them. You don't recall?”

Hannah shook her head. She dimly remembered parties her parents had thrown, festive affairs that contrasted sharply with Stern family suppers, but she'd stayed upstairs most of the time, hiding away.

“What they did to Jasper Cross was nightmarish. From what I heard, he never really recovered.”

Hannah said nothing. They were on dangerous ground. It was the longest conversation they'd had about Quebec in twenty-five years.

“I know you don't agree,” said Connie. “But he was someone we knew, Hannah. He wasn't just a symbol to treat any which way. I have to say, I don't think it's ever been properly addressed by anyone in Quebec.”

Hannah found herself agreeing. Entirely. How odd that her own son seemed bent on righting this historical wrong. The omelettes were ready. She brought them to the table and put the one she'd prepared for Hugo in front of Connie. “You want some breakfast?”

Connie smiled up at her, nodding. “Good ploy to shut me up.”

They ate in silence. Hannah was hungry. The eggs were light and buttery, lifting her mood. Her mind, however, kept circling back to the autumn of 1970. She remembered certain things
clearly. Bomb scares at her high school. Trooping out with her class to the armoury across the street until the all-clear bell sounded. She and the other students had treated it as a joke, a lark, a welcome excuse to leave their desks. She hadn't felt a sense of danger. No bombs were ever found. “I don't remember much from that time,” she said.

“You were ten years old, Hannah.”

“Twelve,” Hannah corrected. “I'd just started high school.”

“Twelve, then, darling. You were young is my point. You're in a bubble at that age. You of all people should understand that. Your son's just coming out of it.”

Her mother was gazing at her food, chewing thoughtfully. The skin around her eyes was scored with fine lines, like a sheet of paper scrunched up and then flattened again. Perhaps Hannah's bubble had lasted longer than most. Hugo wasn't the only one who appeared to be awakening.

“I overheard you, by the way,” Connie said. “When you and Hugo were discussing Luc's office.”

Hannah put down her fork.

“Hannah?”

She couldn't lift her eyes. Her father had predicted it. He'd said her marriage would not last.

A hand reached across the table and stopped just short of her own. It was a familiar hand, veined and sturdy. “I'm so sorry,” said her mother.

Hannah took the hand. They sat for several seconds in silence, contemplating the unlikely sight.

There was a yell from upstairs. Then a second yell, full of joy. The two women were on their feet when Hugo came running into the kitchen with his news.

27

L
uc lay on his back on the futon, listening to his pipes bang. Trapped air. He kept forgetting to bleed them, which meant not only that the heat was spotty, but that they made this infernal racket just before dawn. He squinted at the digits on his alarm clock, which he'd placed strategically on the floor near his head. Three fifty-five.
Merde.

He'd been lying here for two hours. He got up, felt his way to the bathroom, and pissed in the dark. Then he groped with both hands like a blind man for the medicine cabinet. It contained two items: a small box of Marie-Soleil's tampons and Sweet Night, a sleep remedy he had bought a couple of days ago at a health-food store in Mile End. He flipped off the plastic cap and shook two capsules into his palm.