“It’s a paradoxical case,” the appellate judge says to the gallery. “Both the plaintiffs and the defendants desperately want to be heard. One claims injustice, the other seeks to defend their actions and point of view. The court has already determined that a class action suit is not the best way forward for a complex matter such as this one. There does remain the inalienable right of each plaintiff to pursue individual recourse, but this task, to my mind, is next to impossible.”
Elodie’s body is rigid, bracing against the blow of another disappointment.
“I think we’ve reached the end of our judicial limits here,” the judge concludes. “While I do respect your right to address the court, I believe this is not the appropriate venue to resolve this issue.”
Outside the Palais de Justice, Elodie gropes around in her purse in search of a cigarette. Her hands are shaking.
“Elo!” Véronique calls after her. “Wait!”
“I’m sorry,” Elodie says, lighting her cigarette. She sucks on it to calm herself down, expels a breath, and takes another drag. “I couldn’t stay in there another second. The judge didn’t even consider our appeal!”
“I know.”
“What if no judge ever will? Are we stupid to think we might get justice in any of the courts?”
“No, of course not. That judge was awful,” Véronique says. “But it’s not over.”
“He didn’t even consider our appeal,” Elodie repeats, pacing in front of the building.
There are no cameras here today, just another quiet loss. The public is far more interested in the referendum these days than in the ongoing misfortunes of the Duplessis orphans.
“Why don’t we go out for lunch?” Véronique suggests.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Come on,” she insists. “Let’s go to Old Montreal and walk around like tourists.”
Reluctantly, Elodie lets Véronique lead her by the hand along Rue Notre Dame. “What do you want to hang around a middle-aged woman like me for?”
“I guess I’ve got a middle-aged soul,” Véronique says, and they both laugh.
They turn onto Place Jacques Cartier, which is full of people milling around the artisans’ tents. “My mom and I used to come here and get our caricatures done,” Véronique says. “I’d always send mine to my dad instead of real pictures.”
“I’m sure even your caricature was pretty.”
“Let’s get one together.”
“A caricature? Of me? What do I need that for?”
“It’s a fun souvenir. Come on.”
Once again, Elodie lets herself be pulled through the square, weaving through all the tourists, until Véronique stops at an orange-tented booth wallpapered in caricatures of famous people—President Clinton, Madonna, Jacques Parizeau. A sign above Barbra Streisand’s face says: 5 MINUTES—$10.
They sit side by side on two stools while the artist sketches quietly, his head tipped to one side, his lips parted slightly in concentration. His hand moves like a conductor’s, flicks and strokes and flourishes, and when he’s done, he rips the page from the easel and proudly holds it up for them to see.
They both burst out laughing at how ridiculous it is—Véronique with her messy hair, nose piercing, and doll’s face; Elodie with the long, droopy features of a basset hound. Véronique pays the artist and gives Elodie the sketch.
“He made me look so sad,” Elodie says, studying her exaggeratedly forlorn eyes in the drawing.
“It’s just a caricature,” Véronique says. “It’s supposed to be exaggerated.”
They decide to have lunch at La Grande Terrasse, a tourist spot in the center of the square. They sit beneath the red awning on the heated terrace, reveling in the fall weather. They order burgers and beer. The beer arrives in frosted mugs, just the way Elodie likes it.
“You know what pisses me off?” Elodie says. “When the judge said the court is not the ‘appropriate venue’ for resolving this issue. Where the hell is the appropriate venue then?”
“You have other options, you know.”
“Like?”
“He said you could seek individual recourse.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You can sue privately.”
“With what money?”
“Maybe you could find a lawyer who would do it for a percentage of the damages.”
Elodie moves the French fries around on her plate.
“There are other ways to get justice,” Véronique says. “You could confront the nuns who abused you.”
“Isn’t it obvious after the past couple of years that the nuns don’t think they did anything wrong?”
“What about the doctor who sent you to St. Nazarius? You know where he lives.”
“We already picketed in front of his house. He wasn’t even there. He went into hiding.”
“He can’t hide forever,” Véronique says. “Stake out his house. Make him listen to what he did to you.”
“He knows what he did to me,” she says, remembering how cold a man he was, how aloof he’d been when he interviewed her. “It’s been all over the news. Bruno even wrote a book about it.”
“He doesn’t know your story, Elodie. It would be cathartic for you to tell him.”
“I don’t know, Véro. You have to understand, when you’re a bastard, people from his generation think you’re subhuman. In their eyes, we’re all worthless. They don’t think they did anything wrong treating us the way they did.”
“Don’t you want to ask him why he made up that false diagnosis?” Véronique persists. “What was in it for him? Did he know what he was sentencing you to? Doesn’t some part of you need to know?”
Yes. No. Of course she wants to know, almost as much as she doesn’t. “I’m not sure I’m brave enough.”
“Yes, you are,” Véronique says. “You’re the bravest goddamn person I know.”
Maybe Véronique’s right. She’s come this far. Maybe she should continue to attack from all sides.
After lunch, they stroll through Old Montreal while Véronique tells her about her volunteer work for the Yes campaign, her new friend Louis, and her courses at school. The levity of the afternoon is a gift.
They stop at a souvenir shop on Rue St. Amable, and Véronique buys Elodie a blue-and-white key chain that says TABARNAK. They continue on past the train tracks to the Old Port, where they lean over the guardrail and watch the boats in the harbor.
“What’s that ugly building?” Elodie asks, pointing across the water. “It looks like St. Nazarius.”
“Silo 5. Boats used to transport grains into this port. It closed last year.”
“What are they going to do with it now?”
“Who knows? Condos, probably.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe I grew up in this city,” Elodie says, gazing out at the St. Lawrence River. “I had no idea it was so beautiful, that this river was always flowing. Boats were coming and going, tourists were walking along these cobblestone streets eating ice cream cones and getting caricatures. I had no idea anything existed outside that place.”
“Well, you’re in the world now, my friend.”
By the time Elodie arrives at the deli for her night shift, the sky is dark and her mood is brighter for having let Véronique distract her all afternoon. The caricature is tucked inside her purse, and the TABARNAK key chain is already hanging from her keys.
She changes into her uniform and pours herself a cup of coffee. She’s working with Rachel today, Lenny’s grand-niece. Rachel goes to McGill University and only works part-time. She has an attitude, like she’s better than everyone else, or at least better than Elodie, even though she’s only nineteen. Elodie will only speak with her in French, to remind her who has seniority.
“Are you voting Yes?” Rachel asks her as soon as Elodie emerges from the back room.
“I’m not voting.”
“How can you not vote?” Rachel says, indignant. “Don’t you realize how important this referendum is?”
“I’m not sure Quebec should separate.”
“That’s exactly why you have to vote NO!”
“But I respect the people who think it’s for the best.”
“Elodie, seriously? That can’t be your reason for not voting?”
How can Elodie explain to this brat that even though she is a forty-five-year-old Quebec-born woman, she does not feel qualified to vote in such an important referendum? She doesn’t understand enough about either side’s motivations to cast her vote. She doesn’t even get the full implication of what separation would mean, and she’s too embarrassed to ask.
Besides, she’s not invested in any outcome. She doesn’t consider herself to be a proper citizen of the province. These language squabbles have never mattered to Elodie. In fact, caring about this sort of thing has always struck her as a luxury.
“My dad says the economy will collapse if there’s a separation,” Rachel says. “You don’t seriously want Quebec to break away from Canada, do you? Forget keeping your job. This deli won’t survive.”
A customer walks in then, and Elodie is relieved when he starts heading toward her section. He’s old and frail, leaning heavily on a cane as he shuffles over to a booth. He’s wearing a Red Sox baseball cap, which is not unusual in Montreal. He settles into the booth with some difficulty and looks up, presumably in search of a waitress. They make eye contact.
Elodie approaches him, hands him a menu. “Can I get you a drink?” she asks him. She knows to start off in English when she sees a Boston cap. No Montrealer would ever be caught dead in one.
“My God,” the man says.
“Are you okay?” she asks. He looks unwell, pale and weak.
“I . . . My God. I don’t . . .” He shakes his head, removes his glasses, which are fogging up. She can see he’s crying. “It’s you.”
She’s blank. Doesn’t recognize him.
“Elodie. Like Melody without the M.”
She nods, glances down at her name tag.
“You’re still here.”
This sort of thing happens when you’ve worked at the same place for more than two decades. She has no idea who he is, but she tries not to be rude about it. “Twenty-five years,” she says. “They give me a free smoked meat sandwich on my anniversary.” Her standard joke.
“I’m Dennis,” he says.
Dennis? It means nothing to her at first. Dennis. Dennis. Her mind is churning. And then it comes to her. “Mon Dieu,” she breathes. “It can’t . . . Dennis?”
He’s bobbing his head, wiping his eyes. “We met right before I left for basic training.”
Elodie calls out to Rachel that she’s taking a break.
“You just started your shift,” Rachel mutters.
Elodie ignores her and sits down opposite Dennis, trying to steady her breathing. “I didn’t recognize you,” she says. “I’m sorry.” All she can think is, Are we this old?
He can’t be much older than forty-five, but he looks closer to sixty-five. Drawn, feeble. He removes his cap and sets it down beside the napkin dispenser. He’s completely bald. His cheeks are sunken, off-white. She remembers the boy with the clear blue eyes, round pink cheeks, impeccable white teeth, and buzz cut. How cruel time is, she thinks.
“I’m dying,” he says, as nonchalant as if he’s just asked her to pass the ketchup. “Stage 4 soft-tissue sarcoma.”
Elodie winces out loud, not meaning to.
“My job in Vietnam was loading herbicides onto airplanes and choppers,” he says. “You ever hear of Agent Orange?”
“No.”
“They don’t know for sure that’s what caused my cancer,” he says. “But I do.”
“My mother’s father died of cancer, probably from pesticide,” she tells him, in her terrible English. “He had a seed store.”
Dennis nods sadly. “They stopped using Agent Orange in ’71, but only after I’d been handling it for most of my tour.”
“I’m sorry.” She doesn’t know what else to say.
“Hey, the way I look at it, I should have died in ’Nam. God gave me an extra twenty-five-year bonus.”
“How do you still believe in God?”
“I didn’t for a long time after I got back from Vietnam. But eventually, after my daughters were born, I started to believe again. My wife’s been dragging me to church for twenty years. I guess it’s rubbed off.”
“How many daughter you have?”
“Four.”
“Four.” She smiles, genuinely happy for him. “What are their names?”
“Katy, Finn, Jennifer, and Denise. All redheads.”
“There’s so much I want to ask you,” she says. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Ask. Now’s your chance.”
“What’s your full name?”
“Dennis Finbar Duffy.”
“And your wife?”
“Suzanne. She’s back at the hotel. I had to beg her to let me walk the few blocks over here by myself.”
“Why you came back here now?” she asks him, trying to keep her emotions in check as the memories of that weekend come flooding back. Memories of his kindness, his playfulness, the tender way he took her virginity. The gift he gave her. Nancy.
“I’ve been back once before,” he says. “I brought the whole family. Must have been spring of ’84 because we came to see Boston play Montreal in the playoffs. We lost. Ended up getting swept that series. I brought them here to the deli for smoked meat, but you weren’t here. I didn’t expect you to be.”
“Did you tell them about me?”
“Are you kidding? No. But I’ve thought about you many times, especially during my tour. When I first got back, I thought about coming to see you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I just never got around to it. And then I met Suzanne. I guess I didn’t want to ruin my memory of our experience together, you know?”
She nods.
“It was such a magical weekend,” he says. “I didn’t want to discover that we actually had nothing in common. We probably would have tried to have a long-distance relationship and it would have fallen apart, as they do. It would have been too disappointing.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Instead, I have this perfect memory of a beautiful French Canadian girl. It’s really special to me.”
He doesn’t know how special, she thinks.
“It was the last time I was . . . myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was never the same obnoxious, carefree kid again,” he says. “The guy you met that weekend? He didn’t come back from ’Nam. Which is kind of why I came back here today. This was the last place I got to be that kid.”
“And for a Montreal smoked meat sandwich.”
“That, too,” he says, chuckling. “It’s good to see this place again, relive that memory. Never in a million years did I expect to find you here.” He shakes his head, incredulous. “If this isn’t one of God’s little miracles, I don’t know what is.”
“How long you have to live?” she asks him.
“Not more than two or three months. Maybe weeks even.”
She was better off believing he’d died over there.
“I’ve had a really good life, Elodie. I promise.”
She wipes her nose with a napkin from the dispenser.
“Have you?” he asks her. “Had a good life?”
She looks up at him. For a split second, she almost tells him about Nancy. But then she thinks about Nancy in all this, about how painful it would be for her to discover her father didn’t die in Vietnam after all, but that he’s dying now. What if he passes away before she ever gets a chance to meet him?
“Yes,” she answers. “I’ve had a very good life.”
“I’m glad,” he says, smiling. He still has the nice white teeth and freckles. “Any kids?”
“One daughter,” she tells him, leaving it there. Maybe it’s the wrong decision to keep it from him, but it feels like the only way to protect Nancy. Besides, he’s already got four girls; he doesn’t need another.
“How about that smoked meat?” he says. “I’ve stopped treatment. My appetite is coming back.”