OCTOBER 30, 1995
The polls close at eight p.m., in about half an hour. Véronique looks over at Louis. His expression is serious, in spite of the blue and white fleurs-de-lis painted on his cheeks with Halloween makeup. He’s wearing the Quebec flag as a cape, just like her father did at the rally for Charles de Gaulle and the St. Jean parade in the sixties. There’s a photo of Léo in the family album looking much like Louis tonight.
Véronique’s been holding her breath all day. She hasn’t spoken to James since they voted this morning. They were both somber through breakfast, then on their way to the polling station. They didn’t fight, but there wasn’t the usual light banter between them either, no affection or tenderness. James went straight to work afterwards. He’ll be covering the results at the Metropolis nightclub tonight, temporary home of the No headquarters.
Véronique went to see her parents in the afternoon. The mood at their house was equally tense. They’d already started drinking. There’s so much riding on tonight, she worries another failure will be too much for them.
She found her mother unloading groceries in the kitchen—bags of potato chips, nuts, plastic trays of party sandwiches, veggies, onion dip. Lisette chain-smoked while she bustled around, opening and closing the fridge, the pantry.
“I think we’re going to win tonight,” Véronique said, helping to put away the food.
“I hope so,” Lisette said, sipping from her beer. “We’re expecting half the neighborhood.”
“We’re still ahead in the polls. That’s a good sign.”
“We’re not ahead. It’s 50–50. I’d feel better if we had more of a lead.”
“The No side has blown a twenty-point lead in the polls in less than a month. The momentum is on our side.”
“I can’t face a déjà vu of 1980.”
“My generation will make the difference this time,” Véronique assured her. “Trust me, we want our own country.”
Léo came in from sweeping the leaves then. “What about your boyfriend?” he said, full of nervous energy. “Where’s he watching tonight?”
“The No headquarters.”
Her father pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Véro, what does that tell you?”
“It tells me we disagree about this referendum.”
“It’s more than the referendum you don’t agree on,” he said, his face right up close to hers. “You don’t agree on separation, or the future of this province. For that matter, you don’t agree on the past. Our beliefs are at the heart of who we are, Véro. I spent more than a decade in prison for those beliefs. We didn’t raise you to wind up with some federalist traitor.”
“He’ll adapt to an independent Quebec. Things won’t always be this intense.”
“He disagrees with everything you stand for. He works for the enemy, Véro. Christ, he is the enemy!”
“James is not the enemy,” she responded.
“He’s sure as hell not on your side.”
Inside the Palais des Congrès, the lights dim and the crowd roars to life. Bernard Derome, the news anchor from Radio-Canada, appears above them on the jumbotron TV, where Le Téléjournal is being broadcast live.
“Here come the results,” Louis says, staring up at the screen.
Véronique wishes James were here. She wouldn’t admit it to her father this afternoon, but she hates that he’s at Metropolis right now. It would be so much easier if they were in sync on this.
The first results show the Yes side in the lead. Everyone in the audience erupts. Véronique grabs Louis’s shirtsleeve in her excitement. In the first half hour, the Yes side surges to a 57 percent lead. The atmosphere is charged, the noise deafening. No one can hear Derome above all the chanting. When the jumbotron suddenly cuts to the silent, grim-faced crowd at the No headquarters, everyone inside the Palais des Congrés goes wild.
Véronique catches a snippet of what Derome is saying on TV: “The rest of Canada is stunned right now.”
Everyone is on their feet, singing, “Na, na, na, na, hey, hey, hey, goodbye!”
The Yes vote continues to climb. “Is this really happening?” she says to Louis.
“We just need the Montreal votes,” he says, knowing, as everyone in this arena knows, that Montreal will determine the outcome of the referendum. As they wait, a nervous tension settles over the crowd. Time slows, causing a perceptible mood shift. Ever so slowly, the gap between Yes and No begins to close.
“We may only win by a single percentage point,” Louis says.
“It would still be a win.”
On the jumbotron, a young separatist is being interviewed. “Sovereignty is a deep conviction for my generation,” she says. “Whatever the result is tonight, people across Canada have to understand that for us, our country is Quebec, and that will never change.”
An hour later, the results are dead even. The crowd has gone quiet. Véronique can hear the sound of nervous gum chewing behind her. Everyone is transfixed to the jumbotron, where scenes from the No headquarters are unfolding above them; people there are cheering and singing “O Canada” as they watch the No side creep up to tie the Yes side for the first time all night.
Véronique swallows a lump in her throat. She imagines James in that crowd, singing “O Canada.”
“It’s not over yet,” Louis says, seeing the look on her face. But she can feel it slipping away.
At ten, the No side officially takes the lead. All around her, shock and confusion.
“Nationalism is not done in Quebec,” a separatist is telling a reporter on TV. “The people of Quebec will continue the battle for recognition.”
The final results come in at ten twenty p.m., declaring a marginal win for the No side. It’s over.
“For the second time in fifteen years,” Derome announces, “a majority of Quebec voters have rejected the idea that Quebec should become a sovereign country, and have chosen for Quebec to stay in Canada. It’s a narrow victory, but a victory nonetheless.”
Véronique looks around the arena. People are stunned, shaking their heads in disbelief. Some are crying into their hands or on the shoulders of their neighbors. Louis is crying beside her, his tears smudging the blue and white fleurs-de-lis on his cheeks. She thinks about her parents.
“It always ends this way for us,” Louis says, wiping his face.
“Let’s get out of here.” She can’t stand the idea of being here for the political postmortem, the speeches and concessions, the false optimism. Next time! Parizeau will say. Next time! Bouchard will say.
This was their time and they failed. By less than half a percentage point, they failed.
She follows Louis out of the arena, keeping her head down. Outside, a crowd of frustrated Yes supporters is collecting in the street, their disappointment already turning to anger. It’s mostly young people; the older ones are still inside, grieving with their politicians. Louis grabs a case of beer at one of the dépanneurs and cracks a bottle open for each of them.
They start moving west with the crowd. Véronique realizes, after a few blocks, that the mob is heading toward Metropolis. No one had to give the order or let everyone else know the plan. They all just instinctively knew to go and find the No voters.
Louis is waving his Quebec flag in the air. Someone throws an empty beer bottle into a storefront on Ste. Catherine Street, and it feels satisfying to watch it shatter. Véronique finishes her beer and throws her bottle into an alley. “C’est pas fini!” she screams. It’s not finished.
The horde is swelling as more people spill out of the Palais des Congrès. Metropolis is only a ten-minute walk. Here we come, Véronique thinks.
Within blocks of the No headquarters, the two sides eventually come face-to-face on Ste. Catherine Street—the Yes side angry and grieving, the No side celebratory and gloating. Her people are yelling, “Quebec! Quebec!”
The other side: “Canada! Canada!”
She whips another bottle into the sky. Someone else throws one at a storefront, and she watches the glass shatter. She wonders briefly if the owner of the store voted Yes or No—she hopes No—and then moves on. “Quebec libre! Quebec libre!”
Someone hurls a rock into the oncoming No supporters. Véronique turns and realizes it was Louis. His face is pure hatred. “Don’t hurt anyone!” she cries, and then loses him in the riot.
English people are screaming in her face. She screams back in French. Someone from her side rips a Canadian flag out of a No supporter’s hands and lights it on fire. Everything is happening so fast. Bottles and rocks are flying back and forth, cars bursting into flames, store windows being smashed.
Véronique manages to throw her remaining bottles—full, exploding with beer—into the swarm of rioters before getting swallowed by the crowd. A helicopter flying overhead is the first sign of police. Soon, the street is full of them, lined up in riot gear, cordoning off the side streets, breaking up fights and making arrests.
She searches for Louis, but he’s long gone, vanished in the fray. More than anything else, she feels betrayed. Not by Louis but by the province, the politicians, James. She thinks about her parents and Pierre and Uncle Camil; about Céline from the volunteer office and Louis’s parents and Elodie. She thinks about everything they’ve all suffered by simple virtue of being poor and French, and she’s overcome with frustration. She will probably never see Quebec separation in her lifetime. Her parents certainly won’t.
She spots a brick from a nearby construction site, and without any hesitation or forethought she throws it at the rear windshield of a white Subaru with a McGill University sticker on the bumper. She watches the glass smash and lets out a primal scream. It feels good to smash things.
When two cops grab her from behind and push her to the ground, she isn’t afraid. She remembers the stories her father used to tell her, and she makes her body go limp. The cops cuff her and struggle to get her to her feet; she’s dead weight in their arms. They’re screaming at her to stand up and cooperate.
“Quebec belongs to us!” she cries.
They drag her to the police van. Her jeans are torn, her knees bloody, her boot shredded from the pavement. She doesn’t care anymore. She wants it out of her—the pain, the disappointment. The violence, she realizes, brings a reprieve from those feelings. Her father must have always known that. The straightforwardness of throwing bricks and destroying property is far more therapeutic than quiet complacence.
James keeps encouraging her to live by society’s rules and work diligently in her pursuits. She tried. She volunteered for the Yes campaign; she stuck signs in the ground, cleaned toilets, and handed out flyers. Look where it got her. She refuses to accept tonight’s loss. Her father had it right. She will smash and fight and rage until something changes.
When the cops finally manage to lock her inside the van, she folds over with her face in her lap and sobs. After a few minutes, she feels a hand on her lower back, consoling her. She lifts her head. It’s a woman, not much older than she, with a swollen bottom lip. “It’s not over,” the woman says, through her own tears. “We’ll win the next one.”