No Other Life (9 page)

In a large suite of offices closed off from the rest of the palace I saw a group of people, some at computer terminals, some talking urgently on telephones, some holding discussions in conference rooms. They were the new nucleus surrounding Jeannot, a mixture of professionals and cranks, chartered accountants, environmentalists, civil servants, and a handful of economists and lawyers who had returned from exile in New York and Paris to help build the new Ganae. There was among all of these people a group camaraderie and sense of mission, a carry-over from the recent election campaign in which I had taken no part.

Pelardy appeared, waved to me and led me at once to an inner office where Jeannot was holding audience with whoever was next on his agenda.

Two sergeants of the Garde Présidentielle, big, burly men who had probably been the dictator’s bodyguards, sat on cane chairs outside the shut inner door. Pelardy nodded to them and one rose to admit me. Inside, the room was large with an ornate ceremonial desk facing a double set of french windows that looked out on a hedge of pink-and-white hibiscus blossoms. Jeannot sat, not at the desk, but on a small stool in the corner of the room. A ring of empty chairs surrounded him and he was listening to an old woman, possibly a street merchant, who sat facing him. He leaned towards her, his head bent, his right hand covering his eyes as though he were hearing her confession. The old woman talked agitatedly, her voice high and angry, the Creole words jumbled so that I could not hear what she was saying. Was she denouncing someone? Jeannot leaned close and whispered to her, stopping her tirade. Rising, he put his hand on her head in a gesture of benediction. Stiffly, she got to her feet. Obedient, she took her leave of him. As she went towards the door, she saw me, stopped, and whispered, ‘
C’e Mesiah, c’e Mesiah. Deu même, t’entends
?’

Jeannot came towards me, smiling. He looked at the old woman who was now going out of the door. ‘What did she tell you?’

‘That you’re God Himself. What’s the matter,
Petit
? Isn’t it enough to be President?’

He laughed and led me across the room, seating me on the chair facing his little stool. ‘I suppose you’ve come about the nuncio?’

‘The nuncio?’

‘You mean you haven’t been told?’

‘No. What?’

‘He left for Rome on Saturday. I thought he’d gone on holiday, but now I hear he’s been recalled for good. Which means the Vatican isn’t going to recognise my government.’

‘But that’s incredible.’

‘Not at all. Rome has been told that if I remain in power I’ll start a heretical, breakaway church. Any day now, I expect the Vatican will announce that I’m no longer a Catholic priest. And what will I do then? I can fight the Army, I can fight the elite, but I can’t fight Rome. The Pope may be my enemy but still – he’s the head of the Church.’

He rose and walked to the window. Outside in the morning sun a tiny green hummingbird, its wings beating at invisible speed, poised immobile over an hibiscus flower. As Jeannot moved to the window, the hummingbird switched its tiny head, saw him, and flew off into a blaze of sun.

He stood, his back to me, looking out of the window. ‘This is the worst possible time for me to have trouble with Rome,’ he said. ‘We’re just getting started here. The first thing is to try to improve people’s working conditions. And to do that we must make the employers afraid of us. Otherwise they won’t change a thing.’

‘Is that why you sent mobs into the streets last week?’

He turned away from the window and asked angrily, ‘
What
mobs in the streets? Is that what they’re saying? I didn’t put mobs in the streets. The people have taken to the streets themselves. They see that those who helped the dictator are still in power. They’re asking that these people be punished. I was elected by the poor. I must heed their demands.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means arrests. And trials.’

‘Jeannot, listen to me. Arrests and trials will not put food in people’s mouths. What will you do if foreign investors pull out of Ganae? You need trade, you need tourism, you need new investment, new jobs.’

‘I see,’ he said bitterly. ‘Now, we will have the American aid lecture. Calm down. Let the poor be exploited. Aid will follow. I don’t want that sort of aid.’

‘Neither do I. But you won’t change conditions here through denunciations and revenge. It’s going to take a lot more than that.’

‘Paul,’ he said. ‘I thought you were my spiritual advisor, not my campaign manager. What do you know about politics?’

‘Not a great deal. But perhaps more than some of those dreamers I see sitting in your outer office. You’ve been given power, Jeannot. For God’s sake, use it wisely.’

‘For God’s sake?’ His eyes, those extraordinary eyes, widened in anger. ‘Was I elected to do things for God’s sake, or for the sake of the poor of Ganae? Aren’t they the same thing?’

‘That’s simplistic.’

‘Maybe.’ He was silent for a moment, then bowed his head, covering his eyes with his hand, rocking to and fro on his stool. I recognised the signs. I went to the door and opened it. The presidential guards rose from their chairs. Behind them I saw Pelardy talking on the telephone. I told him what had happened. At once, a flurry of people began moving in and out of Jeannot’s study. Sister Maria, a nun who had trained as a medical doctor, gave him some tablets and a glass of water. She ordered the shutters drawn. I waited outside with the others. Telephones rang. Pelardy was postponing Jeannot’s appointments. After a few minutes, Sister Maria came out. ‘He’s asking for you.’

When I went back into the room he was lying on a couch, well away from the light. ‘Come, sit by me,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about this.’

‘Did I bring it on?’

‘The migraine? No. It’s been waiting for me all morning. Paul, please forgive me for speaking to you like that. But there
is
a plot to bring me down. Can you imagine the range of our enemies? Archbishop Pellerat, King Coke, the elite, Macandal. What a team! And now they’re going to bring the Vatican into it. If the Vatican strips me of my role as a priest it could do me more damage than any other factor in this mess. Is there any way you can find out what’s happening in Rome?’

‘I could try.’

‘Will you?’

‘Of course.’

As though he had been listening outside the door, Pelardy entered the room to say that Ganae’s ambassador in Washington was on the line. I took my leave.

At the residence that evening Father Bourque confirmed that the nuncio had been recalled to Rome. ‘I only heard of it yesterday,’ he said. ‘Something’s going on. I was told that the Archbishop also went to Rome last weekend.’

‘Do you think this means the Vatican will move against Jeannot?’

‘The Archbishop will certainly advise them to disown him.’

I went up to my room that night, planning to ring Jeannot in the morning and tell him about the Archbishop’s departure. I had undressed and was getting into bed when Hyppolite knocked on my door. ‘There is a Monsieur on the phone who say he is your brother.’

I thought it would be Jeannot calling incognito. But when I went downstairs, the voice on the phone was Henri’s, far away in Ville de la Baie, Quebec.

‘Paul,
Maman
has had a massive coronary attack. The doctors say there’s no hope she’ll survive it. She keeps asking for you. She told me to ask you to come at once. Is that possible?’

‘Yes. Where is she? What hospital?’

‘She’s at home. She wanted to come home and the specialist says at this stage it won’t make any difference. She’s conscious, though, quite clear in her mind. And, as I say, she keeps asking for you.’

I told him I would leave in the morning. I went back to my room and took from under my bed the flat tin trunk that contained my winter clothing. The black serge suit and heavy winter overcoat looked as though they had once belonged to some larger, more confident man. As I laid them out I remembered that the flight was at seven a.m. I must reach Jeannot tonight to tell him about the Archbishop and about my leaving.

And so I went back downstairs and rang the palace. After a delay, Sister Maria’s voice said, ‘He’s asleep, Father. Is it urgent?’

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘I’ll wake him.’

A few minutes later the silence of the telephone line was broken by a whispered voice. ‘What is it, Paul?’

‘I have to go to Quebec first thing tomorrow morning. My mother is dying.’

‘Oh, Paul, I’m sorry.’

‘I just wanted to let you know that Archbishop Pellerat left last weekend for Rome. I don’t know why.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘Father Bourque. He also said that Pellerat will advise the Vatican to disown you.’

He was silent. Then he said, ‘Is there any hope for your mother?’

‘I’m afraid not. But she’s asking for me. I feel I must go.’

‘Of course. Paul, hurry back. I’ll need you.’

And was gone.

Next morning, wearing the heavy winter clothing that no longer fitted me, I was driven to the airport by Hyppolite. There, I bought a return ticket to Miami with ongoing connections to Montreal. When I handed in my passport at the desk of the Police de Sécurité the policeman checked it against a list and then, to my surprise, asked me to wait. I watched him go to an inner office and speak with a sergeant. The Sergeant came out to the front desk.

‘May I see your tickets?’

I gave him my tickets.

‘Are these all of the tickets? No other destination?’

‘No.’

He went back into the office and picked up a phone. I watched, but could not hear what was said. He returned to the counter, stamped my passport with an exit visa and handed passport and tickets back. ‘
Bon voyage, Mon Père.
’

As I waved goodbye to Hyppolite at the departure gate I told myself that Doumergue was dead and the junta was no longer in power. This was Jeannot’s Ganae. Why, then, was my name on a list? Why was I asked about my final destination? Did he not believe I was going to visit my mother? Even under Jeannot, would nothing ever change here?

My plane, turning in an arc, passed over the abandoned buildings of the Bicentennial Exposition Grounds, that symbol of Ganae’s efforts to imitate other, more fortunate lands. But the people of Ganae know no other lands. They live in a world apart. Even to me as I flew away from it, its endless struggles, its cruelties and despairs seemed a tale so frightening that, if I told it, no one would believe that such a place existed. My plane, as though confirming this, flew over the white froth of surf that rings the fouled beachfront, leaving the island behind us, wiped out like a chalk mark on the great green blackboard of sea.

That evening I was met in Montreal by a young seminarian from the Collège St Luc where I had studied when I was his age. I was driven through well-lighted, snow-swept streets, past tall gleaming buildings and an affluence of every sort, to the grounds, chapel and classrooms of the seminary where my fellow-Order priests were waiting to give me supper. Next morning, shivering in sub-zero temperatures, I flew to the town of Chicoutimi, two hundred miles north of Montreal. On the plane, listening to the familiar French accents of my native Quebec, my life’s choice came back to haunt me. What if I had stayed in Ville de la Baie and become a doctor like my father and my brother? I thought of that life I would never know, a life lived with a woman, a life with children of my own. And then, as though presenting me with my alternative self, the first person waiting for me at the arrival gate was Henri. We hesitated. We were never demonstrative in our family, but was a handshake enough after sixteen years? Awkwardly, we embraced.

‘How is
Maman
?’

‘She’s still conscious, still waiting for you. Frankly, we think that’s what’s keeping her alive.’ Suddenly he broke off and pointed to my shoes. ‘Don’t you have snow boots or rubbers? Your feet will be soaking.’

And with that remark he established our long-held positions. He, the older brother, responsible, provider for his mother, his wife and his children. I, the impractical younger brother who have lived my life under the protective shelter of a religious order. I knew at once that he would drive us to the nearest shopping mall where he would select for me heavy socks and boots and would expect to pay for them.

‘How much is that?’ he asked, handing his credit card to the salesman.

‘Wait. I’ll get it.’

‘What’s happened to the vow of poverty?’

‘Times have changed.’

‘You mean the Order pays you now?’

He intended no insult. To Henri, religion is part of the social contract. I would guess he has not thought of God in many years. I smiled and took a hundred-dollar US bill from my wallet. At once, he warned me. ‘Be sure they give you the proper rate of exchange.’

Twenty minutes later, driving on the road to Ville de la Baie, we reached the great snow-covered fjords that enclose the Saguenay River. It is a road I remember well for at the end of it is the lumber yard founded by my grandfather. As we passed by I looked for the old sign:
bois de charpente
–
michel
, but instead saw a new and ugly billboard:
quincaillerie de la baie
.