OCTOBER 1993
It’s his turn to meet Véronique’s parents. He’s had to wait almost a year for the privilege. He’s been patient with her, understands her reservations. It would be hard to introduce any boyfriend to your convicted-murderer father, let alone a reporter for the Canadian News Association.
So he hasn’t pushed. He knows it’s a big move for her, and big relationship moves are not her strong suit. But here’s the thing about her timing. The federal election just happened on Monday, and now, Friday, he’s on his way to meet her parents. He can’t help but think she was motivated by Quebec’s recent political victory—small but significant—to give her father some leverage. She’s denied any ulterior motives, simply stating, “I’m just ready.”
“You mean I’ve passed the test?”
“Meeting them will be the test.”
He’s sworn an oath not to interrogate Léo about the October Crisis or his time in prison. The name Pierre Laporte is never to be uttered. She’s given him permission to state his opinions about separatism and the constitutional debacle and the Bloc Québécois, but all conversation must stay in the present. The Past—capital P—is off-limits.
“It’s just a normal family dinner,” she said.
“With a terrorist who was at the center of the infamous October Crisis,” he quipped. “One of the most violent periods in Quebec history. Yes, a normal family dinner.”
At least they’ve been together long enough to be able to have that sort of dialogue. In the beginning, such conversations were a landmine; a joke like that would have set her off in a rage and ended in a terrible fight. Not that they don’t still fight. They do, just less frequently.
“You got the beer?” he asks her.
“Shit.”
She gets out of the car and runs back up to her apartment, returning five minutes later with a case of Labatt Ice. James would have opted for wine or at least craft beer, but Véronique said the Labatt Ice would impress them more.
The ride to Verdun is quiet. He can only imagine what’s going through Véronique’s head, but he assumes she wants everything to go smoothly, wants her parents to approve of him, wants him to like them and maybe even come away from tonight a little less judgmental about her father’s past. At the moment, James has nothing but contempt for Léo Fortin. What can the man possibly do over dinner to sway his opinion?
He loves Véronique. Wants to spend the rest of his life with her, except for that one nagging fear that she will turn out to be just like her father. He worries that the writing may already be on the wall. She is a professional criminal who shows no sign of contrition, nor any outward desire to change. She’s young, sure, and he hopes she’ll find her calling and leave the criminal life behind, but whether she absorbed the trade through osmosis or simply because she wants to please her father, this is what she chooses to be right now.
Lisette has made beef stew and potatoes. She’s tall and statuesque, with the same dark auburn hair as her daughter, and as she ladles out the stew, it’s easy to see where Véronique gets her looks. Léo has been polite and restrained so far, and is less gregarious than James was expecting. He finds himself wishing he didn’t know about Léo’s past; otherwise he could actually like the man, who seems intelligent and thoughtful, clearly adores his wife and daughter. He looks at them fawningly and is easy with his praise and affection.
The awkwardness is unavoidable as they sit across from each other at the kitchen table. They’ve covered a lot of the usual small talk—the warm fall weather they’ve been having, the shitty economy, his mother’s seed store and how impressive it is that she runs her own business, the still fresh Stanley Cup victory and the upcoming hockey season.
“Patrick Roy better earn that sixteen million dollar contract he signed,” Léo says, dousing his stew with salt and pepper. “Grab me another beer while you’re up, Lise.”
Lisette brings him a beer, asks James if he needs another. No, he’s still working on his first.
“I don’t know if the city can handle another Stanley Cup win,” James says, referring to the riot that erupted on Ste. Catherine Street after the final game.
“Never mind the city,” Léo says. “What about my heart? Ten straight overtime victories. I can’t go through that again.”
James nods in agreement.
“Did you vote?” Léo asks him, switching gears.
“I did,” he says. Here we go.
“The best thing for us was the resounding failure of those goddamn constitutional talks,” Léo says. “Support for separation has never been higher.”
At last, they’ve come around to the conversation James thought they’d be having as soon as he got through the front door.
“You can feel the tide changing again in our favor,” Léo effuses.
“You think Canada is going to take care of Quebec after a separation?” James asks him.
“We don’t need Canada,” Léo responds. “That’s the whole point. We’ve been exploited by the English for long enough, threatened with assimilation every step of the way. This has been the source of all our problems. Now it’s time for total independence.”
Véronique is watching James, waiting to see what he does next.
“I understand you’re not a separatist,” Léo says magnanimously. “And even though you work for the enemy, you’re still French.”
“I am,” James acknowledges, not sure if Léo is teasing him. “And proud of it.”
“Good. And your father worked at Vickers, and he was a nationalist.”
“I see Véronique has filled you in on the key points about my background.”
“I had to tell him something to redeem your politics and your job at the Canadian News Association,” she says, pouring her beer into a glass. Her father and mother drink from the bottle.
“Did you know that the CNA is owned by the Globe and Mail?” Léo says, not bothering to hide his disgust. “And based in Toronto?” He spits out the word Toronto.
“Yes, I know.”
Léo sighs. “Did your father ever talk to you about his job at the factory?”
“He did actually. He liked it.”
“Did he? Are you sure? Who likes working in a factory?”
James isn’t really so sure anymore. Gabriel used to say that when he was really young, thirteen or fourteen, he was proud of the fact that he was one of the people making the aircrafts for the Royal Canadian Air Force. But he eventually quit factory life and returned to farming, where he was happiest.
“You have no idea, do you?” Léo says. “Let me tell you, it’s slave labor, that’s what it is.”
James has to work hard to hold back a snide comeback.
“My mother used to work in an underwear factory,” Léo says, clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice. “She worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. She was paid by the piece, sticking panties on a metal form one at a time, so she couldn’t ever stop for a break. There were no unions. It was mostly women working there, and every night, the foreman would take one of the young ones up to his office and have sex with her. My mother was one of them. She never quit. She couldn’t. She needed the paycheck to pay for the room she shared with six other girls from the factory.”
“And that’s the fault of the English?” James says.
“Absolutely! They’re the goddamn minority, using our people—les habitants—for cheap labor. Does that remind you of anything?”
James doesn’t respond, can’t imagine where Léo is going.
“The blacks in America?” he says. “The slaves?”
“Oh, please,” James groans. “For Christ’s sake.”
“You’re young,” Lisette says, in a lecturing tone. “Why do you think you know better than we do? We lived it.”
“Your complaints date back to the Plains of Abraham!” James cries, frustrated. “And you can’t compare the Québécois to the slaves!”
“You tell that to my mother,” Léo says, lowering his voice. “You don’t know what slave labor is. You think it means only chains? It doesn’t. Our chains are symbolic.”
James sighs emphatically. Lisette gets two more beers for her and Léo. James has barely touched his.
“Don’t you drink?” Lisette asks him, noticing his still full beer. Her tone is accusatory.
“I’m driving,” he says, and Léo and Lisette both turn to Véronique with looks of unspoken disdain.
“You could have taken my side at some point tonight,” James says quietly. They’re in the car, driving back to the Plateau.
“But I don’t agree with you,” she says. “You’re wrong.”
“About everything?”
“We just see the world differently. You’ve never experienced what they lived through, so you can’t understand.”
“Neither have you. They’ve brainwashed you.”
“I have a mind of my own.”
“Do you?”
“Take me home.”
“Why? Because we’re having an argument? Every time we fight you’re going to bolt?”
Silence.
“Baby, I don’t want to fight about politics,” he says. “I want to sleep beside you tonight. This is ridiculous.”
“We fight a lot,” she says, staring out the window.
“It’s your fault.”
She cracks a smile. “You were rude to my father.”
“He’s arrogant.”
“So are you.”
“But I’m not a—”
“What? Say it.”
“No.”
“Just take me home.”
He’s too tired to fight with her, so he takes her home.