Barney's Version (61 page)

My father's manuscript created problems for us. Kate was for publication, Saul argued for both revisions and cuts, and I vacillated, distressed by his gratuitously cruel remarks about Caroline. But the truth is, there was nothing to be done. Barney had already come to an arrangement with a publisher in Toronto, and a codicil in his will absolutely forbade any changes or cuts being made. It also stated, surprisingly, that I was to be responsible for seeing the manuscript through to publication. After protracted negotiations with the publisher, it was agreed that I could add footnotes, correcting the most egregious factual errors, a chore that obliged me to do a good deal of reading. I was also granted two other privileges. I was allowed to rewrite the incoherent, faltering chapters, dealing with Barney's discovery that he was suffering from Alzheimer's, after consultations with Solange and Drs. Mortimer Herscovitch and Jeffrey Singleton. I was also authorized to add this afterword, subject to the approval of Saul and Kate. But they were not pleased. We quarrelled.

“I'm clearly the writer here,” said a sullen Saul, “and I should be the one to handle the manuscript.”

“Saul, I'm not looking forward to this job. If he picked me, I have to accept that it was his ultimate putdown. Because, just as he wrote in that patronizing manner of his, I'm so punctilious. I could be counted on to correct his most glaring memory lapses.”

“I happen to know,” said Kate, “that many of his so-called errors, quotes attributed to the wrong author here and there, were actually traps baited just for you. He once told me, ‘I know how to make sure that Mike finally gets to read Gibbon, Auden, and lots of other writers. My system is foolproof.' ”

“As it happens, in spite of what he thought, I had already read most of those people. But we have a problem.”

“Boogie?”

“Here we go again.”

“Kate, please. Don't start. He was my father, too. But when he wrote again and again that he was still expecting Boogie to turn up one day, he was obviously lying.”

“Daddy did not murder Boogie.”

“Kate, we're just going to have to come to terms with the fact that Daddy wasn't all he pretended to be.”

“Saul, you're not saying anything.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit. How could he do such a thing?”

“The answer is he didn't.”

I put the question to John Hughes-McNoughton. “As a rule,” he said, “a lawyer doesn't ask his client. The answer could be unhelpful. But Barney volunteered more than once that the story he told O'Hearne was the unvarnished truth.”

“Did you believe him?”

“A jury of twelve honourable men adjudged him innocent.”

“But now there is new and damning evidence. We have a right to know the truth.”

“The truth is he was your father.”

Our father, before he was reduced to a near-vegetable state, cast a large shadow. Kate's husband, for instance, had always felt diminished in his presence, and did not enjoy his visits to Toronto. Barney's pathetic condition, and Kate's slow, reluctant acceptance of what he had done, not that she would ever acknowledge it, drew them closer together. But something within her broke and was badly in need of mending. Happily, however, giving birth to a baby boy did a good deal to restore her sunny disposition. She has named her son Barney.

In the months that followed the discovery of Bernard Moscovitch's bones on the top of Mont Groulx, my younger brother's politics took a surprising
U
-turn. He has reverted to the left-wing politics of his adolescence, his polemics now appearing in
The Nation, Dissent
, and other venues he once considered abominations. Saul strongly objects to my theory that his conversion came about only after he no longer
felt obliged to contend with our father. Miriam, who now walks with a cane, has asked to be spared mention in this afterword, beyond my saying that she and Blair have retired to a cottage near Chester, Nova Scotia.

Before his brain began to shrink, Barney Panofsky clung to two cherished beliefs: Life was absurd, and nobody ever truly understood anybody else. Not a comforting philosophy, and one I certainly don't subscribe to.

These lines are being written on the porch of our cottage in the Laurentians on what will surely be my last visit here. Any minute now the real-estate agent will arrive with the Fourniers, and I will hand over the keys. Here, where we were once such a blessed family, it is gratifying to be able to conclude on a note that has nothing to do with incriminating bones. I phoned Caroline to tell her what had happened. I was sitting on the porch, I said, remembering old times, when suddenly a big fat water bomber came roaring in. It lowered onto the lake and, without even stopping, scooped up who knows how many tons of water, flew off, and dumped the water on the mountain.

I wished I had brought my camcorder with me. It was an incredible, truly Canadian sight, and the children would have adored it. Certainly they'll never see anything like that in London. Benoît O'Neil explained that it was a practice run by forest-fire fighters in training. Years ago, he said, they used to fly over more often. Maybe once or twice in a summer, testing new airplanes. But I had never seen such a thing before.

“Oh,” he said, “for sure, I'm talking about before you were born.” Then the real-estate agent arrived with the Fourniers. After an exchange of niceties, I excused myself, driving off. I had covered a good ten miles before I hit the brakes and pulled over on the shoulder. Oh my God, I thought, breaking into a sweat, I'd better call Saul. I owe Kate an apology. But, oh God, it's too late for Barney. He's beyond understanding now. Damn damn damn.

Mordecai Richler wrote ten novels and numerous screenplays, essays, children's books and several works of non-fiction. His novels include
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
; Cocksure and
St. Urbain's Horseman
, both recipients of the Governor General's Award for Fiction; and
Solomon Gursky Was Here
, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He is also the author of the beloved Jacob Two-Two series. Mordecai Richler was a Companion of the Order of Canada. He died on July 3, 2001.