October 1970 (53 page)

ON THE GROUND

ROLAND LANDRY, THIRTY-NINE YEARS OLD,
and young Lessa
rd, both active agents of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, backed up a step as the trunk popped open. The moment before, Landry had taken the key out of the Chevrolet's ignition, and he'd just used it to open the trunk.

They examined its contents in silence.

“Poor guy,” Roland murmured.

“Is he
 . . .
”

“Without a doubt. Is he your first?”

“Yes
 . . .
”

They both heard the sound of the military jeep coming from the base behind them, and turned to meet it.

“What are we going to do with this?” Lessard asked, meaning the trunk.

“Let's not close it just yet, these guys are going to want to see what's inside
 . . .
”

Landry slipped the Chevrolet's key in his pocket and reached in for his badge. He was going to show it to the two soldiers before shaking their hands.

A BEAUTIFUL DAY

A BREEZE BLEW THROUGH THE
m
osquito net. Samuel looked up from the Fabio Martinez novel he was reading on the bunk bed, far from the reach of the
cucarachas
, army ants, and scorpions. At the window stood the ghost, like an emanation from the iridescent saline spatter that rose from the unending ocean. Lavoie was wearing a small sky-blue cotton hat and an open Hawaiian shirt. Around his neck, a flower collar had replaced the ichorous furrow the religious chain had left in his flesh. He carried a golf bag over one shoulder.

Sam pushed the mosquito net out of the way.

“Would you please tell me
 . . .
”

“I thought I'd stop by to say hello.”

“And where are you going, exactly?”

“I heard there's a twenty-seven-hole course that isn't too bad at Barra de Navidad, near Manzanillo in the Colima. I'll start there. After that
 . . .
I might try Brazil. I hear that even Amazonia has a few courses now. I met some golfers who'd been bitten by venomous snakes while looking for their ball on the woods. Jaguars are another hazard
 . . .
”

“You're pulling my leg
 . . .
”

“How have you been?” Lavoie asked, after a pause, pointing to Sam's arm in a sling.

“Except for the fact that I've got to hold the book and turn the pages with the same hand, not too bad. You? How are your hands?”

“Good as new, more or less,” the ghost replied, showing his scars. “I just need to find my putting form.”

Steps sounded on the wooden ladder that led to the room, and the ghost was startled.

“Well, then. I'll let you get back to it
 . . .
You know what we should do? Toss the old pigskin around one of these days. When your arm is better, I mean.”

“Around here, people go more for frisbee
 . . .
But sure, that'd be fun
 . . .
”

“In any case
 . . .
thanks,” Lavoie said.

Sam opened his mouth, but the cat seemed to have got his tongue.

“No, no
 . . .
It's me who
 . . .
”

As the door opened, Lavoie lifted a friendly hand, thumb up, before flying out right over the coconut trees with a light clacking of woods and irons. The golf bag seemed to be as light as a feather.

Marie-Québec, in her short cotton dress of whatever colour, came in with a coffee, black, very sweet, in a small white cup. In her other hand, papaya pieces set on a plate.

“Marie
 . . .
Am I dreaming?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You're up and out of bed before me. And you don't even look as if you're in a coma!”

“Must be Mexico. What are you reading?”

“A Colombian
 . . .
Marie?”

“What?”

“Do Dora for me, please.”

“Stop it!”

“Dora Dora Dora.”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

Dora

Perhaps. It's sublime love, solitary and pure, he's the one who burns me clean. Sometimes, for a moment, I ask myself if love is something altogether different, if it can cease to be a monologue, and if there isn't an answer, sometimes. I imagine this, you see: the sun shines, heads bend softly, the heart loses its pride, arms open
 . . .

Climbing down the path toward the sea, she met a young Mexican, dark brown face, very white teeth, holding an orange. His face turned toward her as if she were an apparition.

“Hola
,” she says.

He offers her the orange without a word, as if this gesture were the only thing that came to his mind, the only possible thing to do. She took the fruit, thanked him with a nod, and continued on her way.

“This is where I want to live,” she told herself. The orange smiled in her hand.

She had just removed her sandals and was beginning to walk toward the sea when, from the corner of her eye, she saw the old Indian woman on the edge of the beach, bent under her daily burden, her lower back crushed under the weight of the enormous pile of wood tied to her forehead.

Marie-Québec walked toward her; she'd been preparing her sentence for a long time.

“
Con permiso, señora
 . . .
Déjame ayudarla.
”

The woman turned to her, and god only knows what she saw. Marie-Québec dropped the bag filled with her belongings to the sand at her feet. To lessen the friction of the rope, the old woman tied her own sweat-stained scarf around the young woman's forehead. She then helped her slip under the weight, balancing it on her back. And as Marie-Québec began to rumble forward, the old woman bent down behind her and, one hand on her ruined back, held up the multicoloured cotton bag.

And the weight, on her back, the weight of the wood, the weight, felt good. As Marie-Québec bent forward, sand to her ankles, and walked, it was as if the weight had always been there. Like the heat of the sun, and the cool breeze on her face, coming from the sea to rise against the cliff face and keep rising, keep rising up toward the heavens, where the magnificent frigate birds circled slowly on the thermals, effortlessly, on invisible highways of warm air, where vultures also flew, the carrions eaters, light as air. A beautiful day.

EPILOGUE

ÏLE AU FESSES,
JUNE 24, 1974

BONNARD AND BRANLEQUEUE, NOW GOOD
frien
ds, got there in the crooner's big Riviera in time to witness the christening. Coco, who'd never been a resentful man, came to greet them near the entrance to the launch site. He was hyperexcited, already high as a kite. He shook Chevalier's hand.

“So? Still writing?”

“Always. And you, from what I hear, you've been deep in Mao's
Little Red Book
, eh? The Great Helmsman?”

“Ah, shut up,” Coco answered, smiling.

The
Patriot
's nose was already in the water. Chevalier was impressed despite himself: it's not every day that you see a schooner sail on its maiden voyage.

And since the ceremony was held among good Quebec pals, a bottle of beer blessed the ship's hull instead of champagne. Coco, in water all the way to his bulging stomach, did the honours. Then he gesticulated wildly to the driver, who slowly began backing up toward the water while the two-master slowly slid into the sea. Applause.

The
Patriot
was afloat. Almost immediately, it began to heel, and
 . . .

Coco, in the muddy water up to his neck, was floundering near his schooner, which, masts and all, was itself foundering.

“Noooooo! No!”

AUTHOR'S NOTE

OCTOBER 1970 IS A WORK
of fiction
. A reconstruction in which imagination took the place of historical investigation. The unofficial history was the novelist's mortar when faced with the patchy official version, which barely stands up to the slightest prodding.

One of the liberties offered by fiction was to drag Wikipedia's invention a few years back in the past. It was easier, and had fewer consequences, than changing the date of the great Zapatista march in the spring of 2001.

It's important to me to honour a few works without which my own would have been impossible. For military inspiration, General Jean-V. Allard's
Memoirs
, as well as Dan Loomis's
Not Much Glory: Quelling the FLQ,
among others, were of great help. As for the October Crisis itself, I'll simply mention a few indispensable books:
F.L.Q.: The Anatomy of an Underground Movement
, was both exceptionally useful and insufficient; and Francis Simard's
Talking It Out: The October Crisis from the Inside
, was also notable for its deafening silences.
The Execution of Pierre Laporte
, the classic by Pierre Vallières, is worth it for the questions it asks, as well as the exceptional photographs at the end.
FLQ 70: offensive d'automne
, a work in French by Jean-Claude Trait, contains all the unedited communiqués by the kidnappers.
A Special Kind of Friendship
, drawn from the epistolary relationship between Jacques Ferron and John Grube, contains, as an appendix, George Langlois's
Octobre en Question
, and was a necessary read. Finally,
Kidnappé par la police
by Dr. Serge Mongeau remains the best available documentary of the arbitrary arrests of October 1970.

However, the most consistent documentation came from the archives: court records, newspaper articles, and so on. In particular, the important media review put together and annotated by John Grube, of Toronto, was given to me by the cinematographer Jean-Daniel Lafond at a time when he was supposedly investigating the “official truth,” political plots, and other darker corners of the story.

I'd like to thank the following people for the help they've given me over the years: Francine Bégin, at the Montreal courthouse, Pierre Bastien in the air, Claude-Jean Devirieux, Benoit Perron, Éric Barette (unyielding hunter of Colonels), Carl Leblanc, Paul Hamelin for the land register, Michael Macloughlin, Jean-François Nadeau, Philippe Marquis, Solène Bernier, Denis Cloutier for his Octobrist library, Lorraine Déry, Laurent Hamelin in the field, Bruno Cloutier in Percé, Gilles Prince and the team at Sporobole for their technical support, Luc Gauvreau, Pierre Cantin. As well as Claude and Carmen, and Hélène Girard.

The Quebec Arts Council offered invaluable help more than once throughout the life of this project, which took a few years to flourish. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

As for the witnesses and actors of the October events, those who agreed to speak with me, please accept my wholehearted gratitude.

L. H.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LOUIS HAMELIN IS A NOVELIST
and academic. His novel
La Rage
won the Governor General's Literary Award for French Fiction in 1989. He is a literary critic for
Le Devoir
and
Ici Montréal
. He lives in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

WAYNE GRADY IS A GOVERNOR
G
eneral's Literary Award–winning translator, and an editor and author. He has published works of nonfiction, short fiction, and a novel,
Emancipation Day.
He lives near Kingston, Ontario, with his wife, novelist Merilyn Simonds.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS WAS
founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”