Authors: Louis Hamelin
No one had had any breakfast. One of the men, a young actor, suddenly produced a McIntosh apple that had somehow made it through the search without being taken away, and regarded it for a moment as if he were going to talk to it, like Hamlet holding Yorick's skull, before biting into it. No one said a word. No sound but the grumbling of a few stomachs here and there. They could hear the actor's teeth cutting through the apple's peel and crushing the pulp, making the acidic juice of October run down his chin. Just as he was about to take a second bite, he raised his head and, without a word, passed the apple to the man sitting beside him. This man bit into the apple and passed it to his neighbour. By the time it got to Chevalier, there was a little more than half of it left. Chevalier wasn't hungry, but nothing in the world would have kept him from biting into that apple.
In the middle of the afternoon, they were stood up against the wall and each given a baloney sandwich, a cup of some hot liquid that might have been tea or perhaps coffee, and three biscuits.
Called out into the corridor with two or three others. Placed under guard by a police officer. Taken into an elevator with a barred door locked with a key. Caged. Taken to a waiting room, also barred. Then into another waiting room. Called. Reweighed. Remeasured. Searched again. Questioned. Father, mother. Place of birth. Political affiliations.
“Independent.”
“You mean separatist
 . . .
”
“No. Independent.”
Ordered to undress and deposit his clothes on a table. Forced to wait, standing naked while they examined his underwear and the insides of his shoes. Allowed to dress again. Taken to another room equipped with aluminum benches. Joined there by other detainees. Back into the elevator. Brought down to the second floor. Given plastic utensils and a blanket folded around two sheets, a pillowcase, and a towel. Taken to cell number LAM25. LAM for Left Aisle, Mezzanine.
The loud, clanking door shut behind him. His new lodgings measured six feet by eight feet by seven feet high. Room for three paces. Containing a steel bed frame, a mattress, a metal dresser, a table fixed to the wall, a bench, a second table acting as a kitchen table, a porcelain toilet with no seat, a sink. And a mirror made from some kind of shiny metal, for obvious security reasons.
The detainee cells were situated on the top floors of the Parthenais building. Chevalier, unlike those occupying the lower cells, could see down through three ranges of barred cells. There was a thick layer of pigeon shit on the sill of a window reinforced on the outside by metal plates. His point of view gave him access to a thin slice of the
faubourg à m'lasse
, the former dockworkers' district. The two-storeyed buildings with wooden lintels, de Lorimier Park where Jackie Robinson had once played baseball for the Dodgers and Los Angeles farm teams. A church. A tavern. Small world.
At six in the morning the lights came on abruptly and the canteen came alive with a great clatter of utensils. Chevalier remembered where he was. At each end of the corridor, loudspeakers began emitting a torrent of rubbish from two popular radio stations, a different station playing from each speaker, which rivalled the stupidity of banging your head against the walls. The volume was turned up full blast. Outside it was still dark.
The previous night they'd been allowed the right to dine on more baloney sandwiches washed down with black coffee and the same three biscuits.
Just as the seven o'clock news was about to come on, the speakers went silent. No question of giving them access to the slightest information from the outside, there must be nothing that made sense. Only ordinary prisoners had television.
They communicated with one another by shouting at the tops of their lungs above the radio. That morning, Chevalier Branlequeue, the poet Michel Garneau in the next cell, and a few others were able to hold an improvised meeting that was more or less dominated by the historian Louis Villeneuve.
After having reflected on the situation, Villeneuve had at first hypothetically agreed with the proclamation of the War Measures Act by the federal government. He expressed himself in elegant, learned terms even if he did have to shout to be heard.
“I do not see,” he yelled, “what else it could have done. This law has been implemented twice before in the twentieth century, and each time in Quebec, to deal with troubles raised by the Conscription Crisis in 1917, and again in 1944. It must be admitted that the lack of enthusiasm felt by young French-Canadians at the prospect of going overseas to be eviscerated for the King of England represented a source of disappointment, even for those with a good loyalist conscience. It was implemented to deal with the lazy ones who clearly did not understand anything about strategic imperatives in defence of the British Empire. From Victoria, British Columbia, to the Orange bastion of Southern Ontario, and including the walled Rhodesian enclave of Westmount and the Town of Mount Royal, they were nothing but disgusting frogs sleeping on their field of battle
. . . .
“This War Measures Act, understand me well, signifies the suspension of civil liberties as recognized in the Constitution. In principle, we could be kept in this place incommunicado, without even the right to know what we're being accused of. And for as long as the authorities deem necessary. No lawyers. No visits. No telephone calls. No mail. No rights. Nothing.”
The sound of distant unlocked doors being opened.
The corridor.
The elevator with its guard protected by bars.
An interrogation room the size of a ship's cabin.
Two plainclothes police officers seated behind a table.
Another form to fill out.
First name. Last name. Occupation.
“Poet.”
“That's all? Poet?”
“Yes. I used to be a publisher, but you have taken everything that made me one. Poet is something that you can never take from me.”
Poet, wrote the policeman.
Father's name. Mother's maiden name. Place of birth.
“Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade.”
The officer who was taking an inventory of the large envelope containing his personal affects looked up.
“La Pérade?
 . . .
That place where they catch the little fish?”
“Where they catch the little fish,” Chevalier agreed. “Like here.”
“You're a real laugh. Do you know where John Travers is?”
“No.”
“Paul Lavoie?”
“No, officer, I don't.”
“Tell me about the Chevalier Cell.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“Why do you think they chose that name?”
“Because of Chevalier de Lorimier, the rebel leader who was hanged in Pied-du-Courant in 1839. Along with Hamelin, Hindelang, and a few others
 . . .
”
“Good.”
“I had a dream last night,” Branlequeue told them. “A classic professor's dream: I was walking down a corridor looking for the room where I was supposed to give my course, but I was lost. The class was about to start, my students were waiting, I was almost running, and in the end I arrived in front of a door. I went into the classroom, and when I looked at the windows they had bars on them
 . . .
”
The two police officers looked at each other.
“Let's move on and talk about your political affiliations, if that's okay with you.”
“Nothing to hide. I've been affiliated with the PSD, the RIN, and the PQ. At the moment, I am affiliated only with poor Chevalier
 . . .
”
“Do you approve of violence?”
“No. Because you know as well as I do that violence serves only your cause.”
“Your comrades on the mezzanine, what do they think about it?”
. . .
“Are they for terrorism?”
“It's not right, what you're asking of me. At least you have the excuse that you're doing your jobs.”
“If you'd like us to proceed some other way, then tell us how.”
“You could start by asking me to sign a paper stating that you recognize that you have seized my manuscript. I would like to see the colour of the second part of my
Elucubrations
. And then, my son's stamp collection
 . . .
”
“Stamp collection?”
“Yes. Someone took my son's stamp collection. If I think about that too much, I'm going to want to break someone's jaw.”
“If we return your papers and your stamps, will you tell us who is for the FLQ in your range?”
“No.”
“You'd get out of here faster.”
“I imagine I would.”
“Do you know why you've been arrested?”
“Because I entertain socialist ideas and am in favour of Quebec independence.”
“Is that all?”
“Because I have opinions. I sometimes even go so far as to express them
 . . .
”
“Ah, so you do understand. And what is your opinion of the FLQ?”
“The government is getting excited for nothing, if you want my opinion.”
“Do you know any members of the FLQ?”
“No.”
“Are you the leader of the FLQ?”
“No.”
“Tell us about the Chevalier Cell.”
“Never heard of it. Before October 10, that is.”
“According to information we received, you are one of its leaders
 . . .
”
“I want to see a lawyer.”
“One of the ones who writes pamphlets
 . . .
”
“No.”
“A form of moral authority.”
“No.”
“An opinion leader. You've said so yourself.”
“No!”
“You are the philosophical leader of the movement. The ideologue
 . . .
”
“Not true.”
“The Chevalier Cell's spiritual father. The thinker who hides behind
 . . .
”
“No. You must have a sycophant somewhere who is leading you up the garden path.”
“A what?”
“An informer.”
“What was that word you used?”
“Garden.”
“No, the other word
 . . .
Sicko-something.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fine. You can stretch this out as long as you want, we're in no hurry.”
Toward the end of the afternoon they were allowed to walk up and down the long corridor that separated the lower cells, which was about thirty metres by four. Picnic tables had been set up. Thirty minutes' recreation. A chance to put faces to all the voices that had been shouting during the afternoon. They were let out in groups of twelve.
The detainees talked about starting a hunger strike the next day. Among them were three Vietnamese and one Greek.
“Why a hunger strike?” asked Chevalier. “You don't like baloney?”
They looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“I was making a joke,” he said. “But seriously, I don't quite see the link between Vietnam and Quebec liberation
 . . .
”
The Vietnamese who replied held a Ph.D.
“There may be more rapport than you think, sir. We, too, are patriots, opposed to American intervention in our country.”
“I'd like to agree with you, but here it's not the United States
 . . .
”
The Vietnamese contented himself with a smile.
“Feels like home,” said the Greek.
Three years previously he'd fled the colonels' regime and embraced the cause of Quebec independence. He worked as a journalist, and somewhere in the three sacks of documents taken from his home were letters from his uprooted father among the olive trees of the Peloponnese. The Cyrillic alphabet had drawn the interest of the searchers; suspecting that the letters were written in code, they'd seized the lot.
Farther down the corridor a small group gathered in front of the cell occupied by none other than
Maître
Brien, the curly-headed D'Artagnan of the Courts. Forty-eight hours earlier he'd still been the official negotiator and flamboyant rouser of crowds before national television cameras. He had been thrown into the brig like a common criminal.
Incapable of not performing before a crowd, he was telling his captive audience that according to information in his possession, information he had received in confidence, the police had discovered and surrounded the two hideouts where the hostages were being held. They were coordinating their efforts for a final assault, and it was now simply a matter of time.
“Are you very certain of that, sir?”
“Absolutely positive, my dear friend. I have it from an honest businessman who has connections in the Cabinet. Well, Chevalier. How's it going?”
The rigours of the bars helped, their raised fists were more celebratory than expected. The others made a semicircle around them.
“
Maître
Brien, explain something to me
 . . .
You know who the kidnappers are, yes, no?”
“My dear sir, my lips are sealed over the bulwark of my teeth, which themselves are barred with double locks.”
“Yes, but you couldn't negotiate in the name of someone you have never met. Therefore, you know who the perpetrators are. And the police strongly think the same of me. My question: why aren't they grilling you?”
“Ah, Chevalier. They know me
 . . .
They know perfectly well that I'll never betray a professional confidence like that. No point in their even trying.”
“Do you mean to say that they can respect your professional practice and yet still throw you in prison?”
“That's it, yes.”
“So your secret is more sacred than our civil rights. This is not necessarily good news.”
Mortified, the lawyer shrugged his shoulders then picked up the thread of his story. Watching him sketch the air with his cigarette, one might almost forget that he was behind bars, speaking to co-detainees, and not in a smoky press room, putting on a show for the camera and the same old pack of reporters spiked with microphones, flashbulbs, and notebooks.