My October (6 page)

The man in the raincoat leaned forward, resting his elbows on muscular thighs. He was tall, beefy under the coat. Definitely an athlete in his youth. “Used to?”

“My father is dead,” Luc explained.

“Where is his gun now?” the man asked, his chin lifting.
His gaze, which was trained on Luc's face, was uncomfortably direct.

“How should I know?” answered Luc. “The last time I saw it was in the 1960s.” He looked away. A single plant sat on Bonnaire's metal computer table. The leaves were two shades of green, shaped like arrows.

“What was your father doing with a Luger?” asked the man.

Luc turned, unable to hide his annoyance. “May I ask who you are?”

The man glanced at Bonnaire. There was something going on here, some plan being followed.

“This is Detective Sergeant Audet,” Bonnaire said. “Of the Montreal Police.”

Luc's heart started to race. “My father fought in the Second World War,” he said, struggling to sound calm. “He brought the Luger home when he returned from overseas.”

The detective regarded him with professional blandness.

Luc felt his face redden, as if some ugly secret had been laid out before them on Bonnaire's scrupulously clean desk. His right shoulder began to twitch. He reached over, trying to keep his hand steady, and picked up the gun.

The contraction in his shoulder unwound itself. The Luger was smaller and lighter than he remembered. He pressed his palm painfully into the grip. He had held his father's gun only once, when he was ten years old. It had been kept in a locked strongbox, the only key to which was on his father's key chain. One day, Luc had stolen the key.

“There are quite a number of them in Montreal,” Detective Sergeant Audet said, almost casually. “You'd be surprised to learn how many. Collectors' items. Souvenirs.”

Souvenirs. A memory of the big dark basement of the Laporte Street triplex sprang up, uninvited, in Luc's consciousness. As kids, he and Rémi had played there with their father's souvenirs: a mildewy gas mask and a canteen that made tap water taste like rust.

“You didn't keep your father's gun after he passed?” asked the detective.

Passed.
Luc hated that euphemism. And from a man who had no doubt seen a corpse or two in the course of his career. “No,” he said.

“A valuable item like that?”

“Valuable?” Luc looked at the thing in his hands.

“People pay thousands for them.”

Luc didn't know where his father's Luger had ended up. He had no desire to know. “I've never had any interest in guns,” he said.

Audet was staring at him openly now. “So you don't own one?”

Luc shook his head.

“And your son?”

“You think this gun is Hugo's? Is that what this is about?”

Neither man spoke. Audet's eyes narrowed. He was making his mind up about Luc, and the verdict didn't appear to be positive.

“Look,” Luc said, struggling to sound calm, “I'd like to help you, but I can't if you don't tell me what's going on.”

Bonnaire finally took pity on him. “That gun was found in your son's knapsack at ten o'clock this morning.”

Luc tried to absorb this piece of news. A gun. In Hugo's knapsack. The two things refused to conjugate in his mind.

“So, to your knowledge …” began Audet.

Luc straightened his back and took a deep breath. “To my knowledge, my son has never set eyes on a real gun, let alone owned one.” That felt better. The bewilderment was starting to dissipate. A welcome sense of righteousness had taken its place. Luc was a pacifist. It was implicit in every book he had written. Did this man not know who he was?

“Just to be clear,” said Audet. “You yourself have never seen this firearm before?”

“Of course not,” said Luc sharply. “And even if Hugo somehow managed to get his hands on a weapon like this, why would he bring it to school?”

“That's the question,” said Bonnaire. “That certainly is the question.” The little man was smiling at Luc through tented fingers.

Luc met the condescending gaze. “Where is he?”

Bonnaire didn't answer. This was obviously part of some insulting game plan.

Luc felt a prickling heat in his face. He had a sudden comic vision of himself with steam puffing out of his ears. “I want to see my son.”

“Monsieur Lévesque.
Je vous en prie
. Hugo is fine. He is with our vice-principal.”

“You've questioned him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bonnaire. “Oh, we've questioned him. But he hasn't given us answers. That is the problem.” The tone was calm: the calm of a petty sadist. A tiny Bonaparte presiding over a tiny empire. Luc could imagine his son hating this man. Small hating small.

He turned to Detective Sergeant Audet. “We're talking about a crime here. Carrying a gun around in a knapsack. He's underage, but it's still a crime, right?”

“It is a criminal offence, yes,” said Audet.

Luc felt the air go out of him. Hugo liked guns. A lot. This was a surprise, but not a shock. Not an inconceivable thing.

Bonnaire retrieved the gun delicately from his hand. “We've brought you in today, Monsieur Lévesque, to try to avoid laying criminal charges.”

“As far as we can tell,” Detective Sergeant Audet said, “your son had no intention of firing the weapon. It was wrapped in bubble wrap when it was discovered. It was not loaded. There was no ammunition on his person or in his school locker. If there had been, this would be a much, much more serious case.”

“How are things at home?” Bonnaire asked.

Luc remembered the fight. The tears and humiliation. His son, fragile as a bird in his grip. He looked up and saw Bonnaire staring.

“Why did you sigh?”

Had he? He felt his face grow hot again.

“Monsieur Lévesque, I know this is hard, but any information you can give us will help.”

“His mother's out of town,” Luc said, his voice surprisingly plaintive.

“Monsieur Vien mentioned that to me,” said Bonnaire, eyeing him thoughtfully. “I gather you and he are friends.”

Luc nodded.

“And your wife is an anglophone.” Bonnaire's face was neutral, but the remark was so blunt it left Luc at a loss for words.

Bonnaire spoke again. “I only mention it because it seems to be a matter of importance.”

“A matter of importance,” Luc repeated blankly.

“For your son. He seems very proud of his English heritage.”

“His heritage is also French,” Luc said, bristling. The language of his wife had always been problematic, but rarely did people push his face in it. “I hope you don't doubt my allegiance to the language of Quebec.”

The principal allowed himself a smile. “I'd say you've proven that allegiance admirably to the entire world, Monsieur Lévesque. But not all sons share the attachments of their fathers. I don't know what was in your son's mind this morning when he walked into this building. I only know that language is a sensitive subject for him, as it is for many of us. And I know what we discovered in his bag.” He nodded at the gun, now lying between them on the blotter. “This is the first time in the entire history of Collège Saint-Jean-Baptiste that someone has brought a firearm onto school grounds.”

“You think it was because of language?”

Bonnaire let the question hang in the hot air. Luc's thoughts were spinning. His own son, engaging in political violence—on the wrong side?

Bonnaire cleared his throat. “Rest assured, Monsieur Lévesque, we're well aware that you are one of our most distinguished
anciens
. You have shown nothing but respect for this school, and we hope we have returned the favour. This could simply be a youthful error of judgment on the part of your son. Energy diverted into an unfortunate channel. Hugo may not be an outgoing boy, but his behaviour has never been cause for
undue concern in the past. Still, it's a concern today. I have a thousand students in my charge. Two thousand parents to keep happy. Surely you can sympathize.”

He hadn't offered Luc a direct answer. But then, in Montreal, language was, as Bonnaire said, a matter of importance, too volatile to address head-on. Bonnaire was in his element now: a shepherd guarding his flock. “I'm pleased with the way the staff responded when the gun was brought to our attention by one of the students,” he said, his face composed and serious. “They acted quickly and with courage. No drama, no hesitation. And thankfully, no one was hurt. But people could have been hurt.” He shook his head at this alarming thought. “We have been extremely fortunate.”

He paused, scrutinizing Luc from across the table. “What happens now depends on you, Monsieur Lévesque. And on your son, it goes without saying. I will require absolute cooperation from both of you. The alternative is disaster. For you, for Hugo, for all of us here at the school. I'll tell you honestly, I would like very much to avoid a disaster.” The shepherd's guise wavered briefly, and Luc saw a small, round, middle-aged man, a tired, anxious man. The sort of man he could find it in his heart to sympathize with.

“There will be a
conseil disciplinaire
,” Bonnaire continued. “If this turns out to be worse than it seems, if we find a conspiracy, or ammunition, or any proof of an intention to cause bodily harm, Detective Sergeant Audet will be back and criminal charges will be laid.”

Two diplomas hung in black frames on the wall behind Bonnaire's head. Beside them was a photo of the principal shaking hands with Lucien Bouchard, who had resigned the
previous winter as Quebec's premier. It was an old picture, taken before the last referendum. Before the amputation of Bouchard's leg. He looked absurdly young and hopeful. Luc stared at the picture. His head felt scooped out, like a melon rind.

There was a knock at the door, and a bearded man poked his head in.

“Monsieur Ducharme,” said Bonnaire. “Please come in.”

Monsieur Ducharme entered, followed by Hugo, whose school uniform swamped his skinny frame. After they were seated, Bonnaire addressed Hugo. “Your father has been told about this morning's events.”

Hugo gazed at his hands. He never glanced at his father—a fact the other men noticed. His expression was sullen, unhappy. His ear was scabbed and red.

“We have shown your father the gun,” said Bonnaire. Still no reaction. Luc squeezed his hands together, stifling an urge to reach out and shake the boy.

“For now,” Bonnaire continued, “no criminal charges will be laid, although that could change.” He leaned forward, pausing for a moment, but Hugo kept staring at the floor. “This is a serious thing you have done, and there will be consequences. At the very least, there will be a disciplinary hearing here at the school. Possibly sometime next week, unless we find that the police must be brought in. In the interim, you are suspended. Do you understand what that means? You have been told about suspensions?”

Ducharme nodded on Hugo's behalf.

“You will not set foot in this school again until you are formally summoned to appear. You have your books and things with you? You have emptied your locker?”

Hugo nodded: his first and last communication of the meeting.

Luc was trembling with emotion. He managed to shake Bonnaire's hand and state more or less coherently that he would take care of things. He shook Detective Sergeant Audet's hand too and, enveloped in shame, led his son out of the principal's office.

As they walked through the familiar corridors, he did not say a word. They descended the worn steps to the main hallway, passed the receptionist, and went out the front door.

On Sherbrooke Street, he finally spoke. “How could you?”

The sun had already started its descent and cast shadows before them. The boy didn't answer. The only sound came from his shoelaces, which flapped undone on the pavement with every step.

5

T
hat evening at her parents' home, Hannah cooked a squash soup, filling the house with familiar, calming smells. Connie had stayed late at the hospital, and Hannah wanted to have something hot for her when she returned.

She had turned on the radio and tuned in to Radio-Canada's suppertime newscast. Hearing the news in French gave her a feeling of the habitual, of being in her own home. A report had just come on about Jacques Lanctôt, one of the instigators of the 1970 October Crisis. Hannah stopped what she was doing. She wanted to hear this. Luc's most recent book, the one she was now contracted to translate, was about Lanctôt. Or rather, inspired by him.

According to Radio-Canada, he had written an open letter to the newspapers condemning the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. A sentence struck her as the news reader quoted the letter:
“Au nom de toutes les victimes innocentes, je crie vengeance.”
She stood there, feeling her blood rise. Jacques Lanctôt was speaking out for the victims of terrorists? The previous year, on the thirtieth anniversary of the October Crisis, Lanctôt had given numerous interviews, visibly enjoying his notoriety, acting as though people had lost their memories. And perhaps they had. Jacques Lanctôt had been transformed, by wilful forgetting, into some kind of prophet.

Hannah switched the food processor on. Good thing Connie wasn't here, or, worse still, her father. Quebec was a forbidden topic of conversation; it had, after all, caused the estrangement. Her father blamed Luc, of course, but Hannah and Alfred had disagreed about Quebec long before Luc came on the scene. Luc may have been the most pressing reason for her decision to stay in Montreal when her father decided to leave, but the conflict had begun years before, in the fall of 1970.

That September, she'd started high school. A month later, life in the Stern household went off the rails.

Outside the house, life had turned equally crazy. Highprofile kidnappings were committed by the Front de Libération du Québec, the FLQ. One of those kidnappings resulted in the murder of Pierre Laporte, Quebec's minister of labour. The federal government declared martial law. Five hundred people were arrested.