Louise still isn’t answering her telephone. There’s been no sign of her since Friday. Gaétan walks around in circles in the empty apartment. What a strange Sunday. It’s the day of Montréal’s municipal elections. His father is an official at a polling station; he’ll be there all day. His mother left with his little brothers to go vote and then take a walk up Mount Royal. Gaétan has no doubt of her support for Mayor Drapeau.
Gaétan is restless. He sits down in front of the television but doesn’t turn it on. On Sunday afternoons there is never anything to watch. Instead, he watches the movie that is playing in his head. It seems as if he’s just lived through the past week in fast-forward motion. As if he isn’t quite the same person who, a week earlier, had casually ridden the bus to the factory for the first time. Is life really all about working for wages that are spent in a flash? He thinks of Louise studying, of his father selling his soul to put food on the table, of Luc languishing in prison.
“And where do I fit in all of this?” he wonders.
He is overwhelmed by a wave of helplessness. Fortunately, the ring of the doorbell pulls him from his thoughts. He jumps off his chair and bounds down the stairs, opening the door. In front of him stands a police officer.
“Mme Simard, please.”
“She’s not here.”
“Who are you?”
“Her son.”
“Ok. Well tell her that she can come pick up her husband at the station.”
“At the station? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. Pass the message on to your mother. Tell her to come by before eight o’clock, or he’ll spend the night in station 22.”
The police officer hands him a ticket. He can barely make out the words scrawled on the page: obstruction of justice and injury to a police officer.
By the time he looks up, the police car is already gone.
Gaétan walks back up the stairs and lets himself drop onto the sofa.
“Should have expected that from Pop! He can never keep quiet. Looks like he’s jealous of all the others who were arrested for no reason,” grumbles the boy.
He’s now tied to the house: he has to wait for his mother to come home to tell her the news. Even if Louise were back he couldn’t go see her.
After cursing his father, he decides to turn on the television in order to pass the time. A man and a woman are standing on a small bridge, talking. The actors have a funny accent and use expressions that he’s never heard of. In the background he can make out the name of a run-down hotel: Hôtel du Nord.
Apparently the French don’t all speak like schoolmarms. These two must come from the Faubourg à m’lasse of Paris, he reasons.
Gaétan is sleeping on the sofa when Richard and Patrick, his two brothers, jump on top of him. Their hands are like ice and their cheeks are rosy.
His mother is already in the kitchen making hot chocolate for everyone. Gaétan gets up and runs after his brothers, pummelling them good-naturedly. The two younger boys scamper into the kitchen where they run rings around the table before ending up hiding behind their mother’s skirts.
“Scaredy cats! Scaredy cats!” Gaétan taunts them, happy to be surrounded by family.
“Get out from there, you little rascals! And go sit down, I’m about to pour the hot chocolate. Careful, it’s boiling hot!”
Everyone immediately grabs a seat around the table. With almost religious silence, the three boys bury their noses in their mugs.
“I’m gonna get supper ready. Your father should be home soon.”
Gaétan almost chokes on his last sip. He gets up and goes to find the ticket he left lying on the sofa.
“Here. The police came and gave me this earlier. You have to go get him at the station.”
“Goddammit! He couldn’t just keep his mouth shut, could he? I don’t have time to go before you have to leave for your shift. I’m not leaving the children all alone.”
“I could maybe stay and watch them.”
“There’s no way you’re missing work because of your father’s antics. I’ll go tomorrow morning when the boys are at school. Anyway, a night in there might set him straight.”