21 Days in October (3 page)

“Feels good to sleep?” his mother calls from the kitchen. “There's some coffee left, want some?”

Gaétan joins her.

“Yeah, and I'll take some bacon and eggs too. I'm hungry. Are the boys already in the back lane?”

“Yeah, lucky kids. I need some air, too. I can't listen to the news any longer. Your father hasn't moved from his damned TV since the kidnappings. The sooner they find them, the better. This is all just ridiculous.”

Gaétan doesn't answer. He doesn't want to get caught in the middle of his parents' argument. Lately there's been an explosion at every turn.

His father has been part of a neighbourhood association since last spring. There have been so many demolitions in the
Faubourg
that it seems the residents are living in a war zone or going through their own Acadian Depor­tation. Businesses are dropping like flies. Monsieur Pintal's grocery, at the corner of Sainte-Catherine and de la Visitation, is also on the verge of closing. Countless families are having to move. Even Delorimier Stadium, where the neighbourhood used to go watch the Royals play baseball, has been torn down.

His father often recalls how during Expo '67 Mayor Drapeau had billboards put up to hide the slums from the tourists, just waiting to have them destroyed and sell the land off to developers. It's the same old story: the working-class neighbourhoods get no consideration.

“They're ashamed of us!” he says over and over.

Since he's been unemployed, he spends all his time working to bring down the mayor in the upcoming elections, which are to be held in a few days. Now with the recent events, he's always on edge.

But all this energy spent campaigning doesn't put bread on the table. And for Gaétan's mother, times are tough.

“My man does nothing but build castles in the sky,” she often sighs.

As soon as he downs his breakfast, Gaétan heads to Luc's mother's house to see if she has heard anything new. A note is stuck to the door:
Luc still isn't home. I'm going back to Parthenais.

Knowing Mme Maheu, Gaétan has a feeling that she'll be going back every day. Until she has news of her son, they haven't seen the last of her.

The boy walks down Sainte-Catherine, the neighbourhood's most commercial street. The shop windows are decorated with pumpkins, witches, and skeletons stuck to cobwebs. In two weeks, it will be Halloween. Gaétan hasn't worn a costume in two years—he's too old—but he wouldn't miss this night for the world. So he helps his two brothers prepare their costumes and takes them around from door to door. It's Gaétan's favourite holiday of the year. He's already drooling, thinking of the mountain of Kisses he'll devour.

In front of the Beaudry metro station, four soldiers stand guard. “It looks like they've already found their costumes,” he says to himself. “Candy will have a funny taste this year
.
”

At the newsstand in front of the metro, the headlines of the
Journal de Montréal
catch his eye: “250 Arrests in One Day!” and “Pauline Julien Jailed Too.”

“A singer! They've gone mad!” he thinks.

Until Luc's arrest, Gaétan hadn't paid attention to what was going on. Suddenly, it all seems crazy to him. He had just started working when the first kidnapping occurred—the British diplomat, James Cross—and he hadn't fully realized what was happening. And since he works nights and sleeps during the day, the opposite of everyone else, he hasn't seen things getting worse.

For the first time in his life, he decides to buy a newspaper.

“Ten cents to try to understand what's going on won't break me.”

The CSN building stands at the corner of Saint-Denis and Viger. That's where Paul works, Luc's friend that he was told to warn. But it's Saturday and the receptionist isn't there. Gaétan walks over to the elevator.

A list of the officers is posted, but Gaétan realizes he doesn't even know Paul's last name. At any rate, there is no Paul on the list.

Recently Gaétan ran into Paul at his friend's house. Luc told him that he had met the union leader on a picket line. Paul was distributing leaflets demanding the right to work in French, so Luc got it into his head to switch unions from the FTQ to the CSN. But since it wouldn't be so easy to convince the other workers, Paul asked Luc to come along to the union training sessions to get a better grip on the labour laws.

“It's normal to want to work in your language,” Luc often argued.

Two men suddenly walk out of the elevator, whose doors stand open in front of him. He enters without thinking, but where should he go? Which office on what floor? Gaétan turns around and runs after the two men.

‘“Scuse me, do you know someone named Paul?”

“There are loads of Pauls, kid.”

“I don't know his last name, but he has red hair.”

“Ah, that one! I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks.”

“I think he's gone to Abitibi to organize some workers,” his colleague explains.

Disappointed, Gaétan leaves the building and goes across the street to sit on the steps of the Saint-Sauveur church. He opens his newspaper.

He is so absorbed in his reading that he doesn't notice the young woman who sits down behind him. She cranes her neck to read over his shoulder.

“So, what's your newspaper say?”

Gaétan whips around and blushes when he sees that the girl is so close to him. Big black eyes, short, cropped hair and a cape that swallows her whole. She looks ripped from a picture book.

“Cat got your tongue? Québec's finally moving! You don't think it's too much, do you?”

“Soldiers in the streets and all, does that excite you?”

“That's just to scare us. Me and the other students, we're striking to show our support for the political prisoners.”

“Political prisoners?”

“Where have you
been
?”

“I live in the
Faubourg à m'lasse
and I work at Dominion Textile. That ok with you?”

“I didn't mean to give you a hard time!”

“Yeah well, too late!”

Gaétan folds his paper and continues up Saint-Denis.

“She might be cute, but she thinks she's hot stuff,” he grumbles to himself, walking.

He turns around at the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Berri, just in time to glimpse a piece of black cape slipping through the door of the metro.

S
till half asleep, Gaétan pushes open the door of the convenience store. He was barely out of bed when his father sent him to buy a 24-pack. The boy drags his feet, his mind blank.

The radio spits out an aggressive advertisement for Kik Cola. Then comes the news report.

“
CKAC reporting, with the latest developments on the kidnappings. The body of Labour Minister Pierre Laporte was discovered yesterday around midnight in the trunk of a car on the Saint-Hubert military base. CKAC received an anonymous call in the evening revealing that a statement had been left in the lobby of the Port-Royal Room in Montréal's Place des Arts. Our reporter Michel Saint-Louis was sent to the area and found the statement confirming the execution of the minister and indicating the place where his body could be found. The document was immediately delivered to the Sûreté du Québec. At precisely 11:45 p.m., Sûreté explosives experts opened the trunk of a green Chevrolet. A body identified as Laporte was found inside. The car had been abandoned on the Saint-Hubert military base, on the South Shore. A special program honouring Minister Pierre Laporte will follow this report. Stay tuned to CKAC, your number one news station.”

Behind his counter, Mr. Pintal, the owner of the grocery store, remains unruffled, surrounded by the colourful boxes of penny candy. He's already had time to digest the news: the report has been running all night.

A group of dishevelled youths enters the store rowdily, one of them carrying a stack of leaflets. He hands one to the grocer and puts the others on the counter. Mr. Pintal is shaken from his silence.

“Take that garbage off my counter. You've come to the wrong place.”

“You support the War Measures Act? A government that denies democracy? Mass arrests? You don't support freedom of expression?”

“That's enough! Get out of here, you rotten kids. I'll have you know that I don't support people who murder ministers.”

The young man doesn't argue the point, and the group leaves to hand out their leaflets elsewhere. Gaétan watches them walk away through the window. They slip their papers in each mailbox along Rue de la Visitation.

The boy discreetly picks up a leaflet that has fallen on the floor. It advertises a public meeting Monday evening at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal theatre. While he reads, the old radio starts broadcasting a special report:

“In the interest of public information for our listeners, CKAC has decided to broadcast the content of the statement found last night at Place des Arts: ‘In light of the arrogance of the federal government and its servant Bourassa and due to their blatant hypocrisy, the FLQ decided to take action. Pierre Laporte, Minister of Unemployment and Assimi­lation, was executed at 6:16 this evening by the Dieppe cell (Royal 22nd). You will find the body in the trunk of a green Chevrolet (9J-2420) at the Saint-Hubert military base. We shall overcome! FLQ.'

“The authors of the statement added a postscript, declaring ‘Those who exploit the people of Québec had better watch out.'

“To clarify, we wish to point out that the authorities still have no word about Mr. James Richard Cross, the kidnapped British diplomat.”

Still red with anger, Mr. Pintal gives Gaétan his change.

“At least you work. You're not like those snot-nosed students who let their hair and beards grow long. A bunch of bums, trying to tell us what to do! They support terrorists, they want a revolution. Luckily the police and the army are doing their job. I'd send them all to jail, if it was up to me!”

The boy takes the case of beer with both hands and leaves without a word.

Suddenly, doubt creeps into his mind. Could Luc, his best friend, be mixed up in this business? Why did the police arrest him? He thinks back to the rare political discussions they had together. Luc, outraged by the exploitation of French Canadian workers, had explained why an independent Québec was so important.

Gaétan racks his memory for a clue that might connect his friend to the FLQ. But he doesn't find any. Luc is just a victim of the many arbitrary arrests. “If they're arresting singers, they wouldn't stop at a factory worker
,
” the boy tries to reason.

Gaétan deposits the case at his father's feet.

“Here are some reserves, Pop! Hear what they did?”

His father shoots him a dirty look.

“It's barbaric,” he continues.

“Talk to me when you've had thirty years in the factory behind you and they give you the boot.”

“That's no excuse!”

“No, but it's an explanation.”

“But kidnapping people doesn't make sense!”

As Gaétan turns to leave the room, his father holds him back.

“Stay!”

Looking his son right in his eyes, he speaks to him in a strangely calm voice.

“You know, I have a different way of taking care of you than your mother. I've felt rebellion creeping all through me ever since I haven't been able to feed my family right. I'm not heartless, you know. But when you're forced to swallow your pride and scrimp and scrape the bottom of the barrel to get by, it gets to you. I've had odd jobs. What I want is a real job. I'm a worker, not a beggar. So I fight my way through. When I see you heading to the factory, following in my footsteps, it hurts. I don't know what'll come next. To me, a guy planting bombs is just a guy who's been workin' in the shop for twenty years and who's just been given the boot. He's just had enough!”

He stops. Gaétan is speechless. It's the first time his father has spoken to him like this. For the past two days, the boy has been feeling as if he's being forced to grow up too quickly. His childhood is disappearing, and he's not too sure where that leaves him.

Gaétan runs into his mother as he leaves the house to head to the factory. She has just come from the courthouse, where the body of Pierre Laporte is exposed in the chapel. She's brought along his brothers.

“It was so moving! Me and the kids prayed for the poor man. He didn't deserve that. I hope the little ones will learn a lesson. Violence brings nothing but tragedy. Like Trudeau said, the FLQ is a cancer we must destroy.”

Gaétan feels like a slice of baloney stuck between two pieces of bread. And it's getting more and more uncomfortable.

A
large grey-stone building towers over Sherbrooke Street. Gaétan hangs back before entering. This place doesn't feel like it is meant for someone like him, someone who never even finished high school. The building he walks into every day is red brick with big chimneys.

He is still holding the leaflet that he picked up from the grocery store. He has decided to get a closer look at the wild-haired students who have been flocking in greater numbers to his neighbourhood.

A group of young people arrive. They all look like the gang of toughs at the grocery store. They speak loudly and wave their arms. Gaétan follows the crowd towards the room where the meeting is being held. It's already packed. All of the comfortable red-velvet seats are already occupied. Some people sit on the floor in front of the stage, others remain standing, spilling out into the aisles. Even the balconies with the wrought-iron railings are jammed. Gaétan takes a moment to admire his surroundings. There are big, ornate iron girders supporting the ceiling. A thick red curtain frames the stage where the speakers are seated, looking over their speeches behind a table. Behind them hangs a faded backdrop of an exotic landscape, no doubt left there from the last student performance. The room is noisy, with plumes of smoke rising to the ceiling.