PIERRE

LOOKING UP FROM HIS BEER in the Berri-de-Montigny Tavern, Gode saw François come in from the bus station. He was wearing a London Fog raincoat, his feet stuck in galoshes, and he was carrying a suitcase. Now his best friend was sitting across from him with a glass of beer, and it was like they were picking up a discussion they’d started maybe two years earlier, in the Flore or the Mabillon or the Rostand. Except that now they were talking less about literature and more about revolution. His big, soft eyes lit up behind his Coke-bottle lenses. Langlais wore his hair longer and was calling himself Pierre Chevrier. He’d kicked around Paris and London for a while before travelling to Switzerland, Spain, Morocco, Algeria. Luc Goupil, the pretty boy from Old Navy, had introduced him to other exiled FLQ members. Some of them were busy getting a foreign delegation together that would get training in Algiers. Others were in Cuba. Pierre had met up with the group from the Fisherman’s Hut at the exact moment when they’d decided to get away from the Gaspé winter and establish a base of operations closer to Montreal. It was the beginning of 1970 . . .

“Call me Pierre,” François said every time Gode called him François. He’d always been tight with words, and now more than ever looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. The Little Genius.

“I’ve got a book for you,” he said suddenly, and leaned over to rifle through the dirty laundry and magazines crammed into his suitcase.

“I think my suitcase was searched at the airport,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? Why do you think that?”

“It took a hell of a long time for me to get it. Don’t you ever feel like you’re being watched?”

Gode shrugged his shoulders. Pierre shoved some malodorous socks aside, brought out The Urban Guerilla Manual by Carlos Marighella. He put it on the table.

Gode raised two fingers to the waiter.