21 Days in October (7 page)

“How many of you live here?”

“In the double room there's my brother and his girlfriend. I'm in the room behind the kitchen. And there's two guys in each of the other two rooms. All together, our rent is cheap. And it's more fun than being alone in your own apartment. Here's your coffee.”

“I don't know if I'd like living with so many other people,” says Gaétan, thinking that if he wanted to move out it would be so that things would quiet down.

“No one asked you to move in,” Louise answers curtly. “Come on, we'll go in my room.”

The boy feels that he should have kept his mouth shut. Again. He follows her.

The mattress is covered with a duvet and many colourful pillows. A bookshelf mounted on bricks covers the length of one wall. The shelves sag dangerously under the weight of the books. In one corner, a barn door supported by wooden frames serves as a desk. On the wall are posters of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Between the two, on a large sheet of white paper running from floor to ceiling, a poem has been recopied by hand. The title,
Speak White
, written in red, looks like a bloodstain.

“Does your brother study, too?”

“Yeah, at Université du Québec.”

“And what do the other guys do?”

“Nothing!”

“They don't work?”

“No, they don't want to participate in consumerism. They refuse to become either the exploited or the exploiters.”

“But then how do they have enough money to live?”

“They live on love and fresh air,” she answers in a mocking voice. “They're hippies. But their father has a lot of money. That helps.”

“Well I don't have the choice not to go work. My mother needs my paycheque to make ends meet. I don't know how I could do that.”

“It's not the same thing. You're a factory worker.”

“Anyway, I don't know what I'd do if I didn't work. Seen this?”

Gaétan hands
Le Journal de Montréal
to the girl.

“You see what terrorism does? In early October, the opposition was at thirty percent. Today, it's evaporated.”

“That's what you came to tell me? The governments would have found some way to eliminate the opposition anyway.”

“We don't have to feed their fire.”

An awkward silence follows. The boy has been there barely fifteen minutes and already they have a hard time understanding each other. He is beginning to wonder why he continues to see this girl.

“You know this record?”

Louise pulls an album from under a pile of papers on the desk. She wants to lighten the mood.

“Listen to it while I get dressed. I just bought it.”

She places the vinyl on the turntable, delicately drops the needle onto the outer edge, and leaves.

A woman's voice, quiet and mournful, fills the room. She sings of a black eagle rising into the night. The tension and crescendo of her voice, both deep and fragile, trouble Gaétan.

Louise returns just as the song is ending. She has put on a long pastel-coloured Indian dress and large earrings. A huge smile lights up her face. “In the end,” Gaétan thinks, “it was a good idea to stay.” This girl is beautiful, full of life, and she has introduced him to a world far from the
Faubourg à m'lasse
.

They sit on the bed and chat for a while. Then she tells him that she has class at eleven o'clock.

“You can stay if you want.”

“I don't want to bother anyone.”

“You're not bothering anyone. You can keep listening to music.”

The offer is tempting, and Gaétan accepts. He doesn't have the strength to go back home. And he feels so good here.

Once Louise leaves, the boy digs greedily through the stack of records. He's never seen so many! He stumbles upon
Québec Love
by Charlebois; he recognizes this one.

He sits down on the bed, lulled by the rhythm of the first track.

Suddenly, light is blinding him. Louise is standing in the door frame.

“You're still here!”

Outside, it's dark. Gaétan panics.

“What time is it?”

“Nine at night.”

“I fell asleep and I didn't see the time passing. I gotta get out of here, or I'll be late for work.”

Dazed, Gaétan gets up and splashes some cold water on his face to wake up. Louise brings him his coat and, laughing, says, “You're my Cinderella! Wait, give me your phone number.”

“I don't have a phone. I'll call you tomorrow. See you!”

As he runs to the Sherbrooke metro station, he realizes that he hasn't eaten anything all day. He doesn't even have a lunch with him. It's going to be a long night at the shop.

“
W
here'd you sleep last night?”

He is barely in the door when the unavoidable question hits him.

“I'm starving! Can I get some bacon and eggs?” Gaétan responds, ignoring it.

“You're not getting anything until you tell me what you were thinking, not calling last night. I was worried to death. Your father's still in prison, you know?”

“Why's that? You were supposed to go pick him up yesterday morning.”

“If you'd a'come home last night, you'd know that the police decided to keep him a while longer. They wouldn't even lemme see him, and I don't know when he'll get out.”

Gaétan should have known that with his father, nothing would be simple. Feeling sheepish to have abandoned his mother at such a time, he tries to explain.

“I went to see some friends and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was too late to come by the house.”

The boy is purposely vague. The plural allows him to avoid specifying—without lying—that he had slept in a girl's room. If his mother knew, she would hit the roof.

“Gaétan, you're the oldest and you know I count on you when your father isn't around. Don't ever do that again!”

It hits him like a ton of bricks. He wants to hand over his wages to his mother to help make ends meet, but taking care of his brothers is a different story … yet he knows that when you come from the poor side of town, you can't afford to spend the day in bed listening to music. Reality washes over him, and he realizes just how serious things are.

“Listen, I'm sorry about yesterday, but I had no way of knowing … I know someone who has some contacts with lawyers,” the boy continues, trying to calm his mother down. “I can talk to them.”

“You of all people know that we don't have a penny to spare for things like that.”

“I know, but they can do it for free when you're in a tight spot like us.”

“Promises are a dime a dozen! Eat your eggs, and until your father gets back, try to spend more time around the house.”

That evening, Louise and Gaétan walk down the church steps to the basement of Saint-Louis-de-France. The room is full, and there is hardly a pause between speeches. Louise explains that this is the first meeting of the Prisoner Support Committee. She grabs Gaétan's hand and they weave through the crowd to a table where they are asked to sign a petition demanding the release of the political prisoners.

Gaétan recognizes the young man Louise had been so happy to see at the Cégep assembly.

“This is my brother, Mathieu. He studies law. Tell him about your dad, maybe he can do something.”

Gaétan recounts the circumstances of his father's arrest. He also describes his father's stubborn and rebellious personality. He had probably hurled a volley of insults at the police during his arrest, which no doubt explains why they've kept him so long.

“Write down his name, address, and where he was arrested. Explain the circumstances of his arrest in a few sentences.”

“I also have a buddy I haven't heard from since October 16. He was arrested at his home at dawn. Could you do anything for him, too?”

“Name, address, and circumstances. Write all that down,” answers Mathieu, handing him a sheet of paper.

Gaétan looks helplessly at Louise. She immediately recognizes his predicament and takes the paper from her brother.

“Go ahead, tell me. I'll write.”

Gaétan gives her a warm smile. He's always had to struggle to write more than three words without making a mistake. She's getting him out of a tight spot.

While Louise finishes taking down Gaétan's information, the boy glances around at the assembly.

He listens to the speaker, who is denouncing the harsh government measures. But his mind wanders, reminding him of his school days. As the teacher explained cross-multiplication, his head would be filled with thoughts about the upcoming hockey game. Back then, the blackboard would be covered in meaningless symbols. Today, the words are reduced to simple background noise.

Louise finishes writing and hands the sheet to her brother. She stays near the table to help others sign the petition. Gaétan decides to wander a bit.

Suddenly, he recognizes a face several metres away. Paul! With his red beard, he is unmistakable.

Gaétan inches closer, but can't bring himself to address him. This older man intimidates him. He is standing, broad-shouldered and straight as an arrow, listening carefully to the speeches.

According to what Luc has told him, Paul grew up in Ville Jacques-Cartier, a particularly poor area of the South Shore, where he had fallen into the life of a bum.

“It's easy to find money if you've got guts,” he had told Luc. “You buy a gun and rob the first bank you see. Where I come from, you've got a choice: either you become a bum or you work yourself to death for peanuts. But my days as a bum didn't last long.”

What made him change his ways wasn't so much the fear of ending up in jail as it was the idea of making it on his own. He couldn't accept the notion of having money and living the good life while watching others suffer. Making money itself isn't that difficult but wanting to change one's ways is another story. He wanted to make sure there were no more Ville Jacques-Cartiers a few kilometres away from the Town of Mount Royals. That's why he became a union leader.

“I started fighting to get us some sidewalks in Ville Jacques-Cartier,” he had told Luc, laughing.

“
But what does he really do today?” Gaétan wonders. “Maybe he's up to his old tricks?”

“What's your problem? Why are you staring at me?” The man's tone is cutting.

“You don't recognize me? I'm Gaétan,” stammers the boy. “We met once or twice at Luc's.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. You were going to start working at Dominion.” Framed by thick eyebrows, his gaze is both driven and warm.

“Exactly. I was wondering if you knew that Luc's been arrested,” the boy replies.

“No, I didn't. With everything going on, I haven't seen him for a while,” admits the man, visibly irritated by the boy's presence. He throws anxious glances around the room.

He doesn't seem to appreciate that he's been recognized. With a tight smile, he cuts the discussion short. “Look, I'm sorry, but I gotta go.”

Without further explanation, Paul slips into the crowd and heads towards the exit. Intrigued, Gaétan falls in step behind him. Once out on the street, the man walks towards the Sherbrooke metro station. Without hesitation, Gaétan passes unnoticed through the turnstile after him. A train arrives. Paul jumps into one of the cars. Gaétan gets on the next one.

The metro pulls out of the station. It's incredibly hot. Gaétan discreetly watches Paul, who is reading the newspaper and trying hard to look relaxed. The stations fly by and the boy remains alert. At the Sauvé station Paul rises quickly, like someone who has forgotten he has reached his stop, and steps onto the platform just before the doors close. Gaétan doesn't have time to react and he watches, powerless, as the man disappears.

His surveillance was short-lived. He's been had. He thought vaguely that if he discovered where Paul lived he would learn more about him. Now he's come up empty-handed, realizing to boot that he's ditched Louise without an explanation.

At the Henri-Bourassa station, he changes direction and takes the metro back towards the assembly. The speeches are over. Few people remain in the room, and Louise is gone. He searches in vain for a familiar face. Discarded pamphlets mixed with cigarette butts litter the floor. The room has the stale feeling of a party that's just ended.

”
W
hat'd you do, go AWOL?”

“What do you mean?”

Gaétan is shivering inside the phone booth. He called Louise as soon as his shift was over, despite the early hour.

“It's a figure of speech. You've got nothing to say to me?”

“I'm sorry about last night, but something came up.”

“You ran into a pretty girl?”

“Don't be ridiculous! I'll explain tonight. I need to see you. It's important.”

“I have a lot of work today. I need to study every once in a while, you know. And I have a paper due on Louis Riel. It's fascinating!”

Gaétan can feel that his disappearance last night has hurt her. How can he regain her trust? Then, he has a sudden idea.

“Louis Riel! My father used to tell me about him.”

“So?”

“My great-grandfather knew him.”

“Is that a joke?”

“No, it's true. He went out West as a settler.”

“Come by the Chat Noir tomorrow night and you can tell me all about it.”

“Alright. See you!”

“And rest up so you're in shape. Expect an interrogation.”

Gaétan hangs up. His hands are blocks of ice, but he's just won a small victory. Now that he's sure to see Louise again, the boy hurries directly home. He promised his mother he would be there to take care of his brothers.

The two boys, just back from school, jump on his bed to wake him up. Gaétan looks at them through half-opened eyes. The sun is already beginning to fade away. These days, it seems that the sun is always angry with him. Gaétan goes to bed and it's barely light out. He gets up and it's already dark.