River City (113 page)
The priest shrugged. “Same birthday, those two—a year apart, but oceans apart politically, despite the natural sympathy of one for the other. Duplessis was a quaint potentate, no worse. In the fifties, we were learning more about the tyranny of Stalin, and that dashed a few lefty illusions. When I reflect upon how the young people we recently dispatched to Cuba think, I know that there but for fortune, go I.”
“Really?” He was not surprised that Father François would vouch for them.
“I might have been persuaded, in the right company, or the wrong company, to commit such acts. Trying to acquire the dagger—I assumed there’d be no violence. I could not imagine that two men would die. There I was, a naïve priest, involved in an illicit enterprise that came to a tragic end. Idealism walks
on the wild side and gets crushed by the real world. Is that so different from the experience of those now in Cuba?”
“Speaking as a policeman, they committed the more heinous crimes. Your crime, and it is a failing, has been to be a closed-mouthed witness.”
“I don’t disagree with you. Yet there, but for fortune.”
Cinq-Mars adjusted his weight in the chair and moved a hand down his jaw and neck in the midst of his contemplation. “But how,” he asked, “does that make you at all like the count? Are you suggesting that he was once an idealistic young Nazi, deserving our sympathy?”
“He was never deserving of a sympathetic nod from a soul on this earth. God may find the capacity to love such people. Mortal men need not bother.” He chuckled mildly, making his large belly quake. “All right. So the socialist in me is talking, not the priest, but life is jam-packed with contradictions.”
“I’ll forgive you, Father.”
“Thank you, my son. And yet, I tell you, de Bernonville and I were more alike than I care to acknowledge. You see, the count
recognized,
as have I, belatedly, that those who aspired to one movement or another—my left, or the right of Houde and Laurin—were innocent in the ways of the world. This society’s eminent names, Abbé Lionel Groulx and Henri Bourassa, and that slew of followers and potentates, many of whom should’ve known better, all enchanted by the rise of some great leader to reshape their existence, to reconstitute their paltry lives as men—infantile! Philosophically, socially, psychologically, politically—infantile! The count wanted to make that point. He’d grown weary of aimless discussion. What uprising could there be without action, without death, without carnage, without murder? And so, he
murdered
poor Roger, to deliver us from our innocence, to stain our lives and our souls for all time, to
demonstrate
the difference between our idle chatter and pathetic posturing and what it really meant to be a Nazi.”
Cinq-Mars was finding knots amid the threads that were difficult to unravel. “Are you suggesting, Father, that we’d be better off if we all went around killing each other?” He was trying to lessen the other man’s earnestness.
The priest didn’t seem to mind the question, initially. “According to de Bernonville, yes.” He wet his lips. “But the glory of our people, our greatest
blessing, which is something that a man like him could never appreciate and would only seek to destroy, is that we’ve remained peaceful. Our penchant for rioting and outbursts aside—you know, for a Latin people, we’ve stayed within the bounds of decorum, don’t you think? Especially when you consider that we derive from rowdy stock, Émile. We’re not a nation of clockmakers. Of priests and nuns, perhaps, and of farmers, but our forefathers also explored every nook and cranny of this continent, long before the Americans knew it was there. Lewis and Clark go west, and who do they find? Indians and Frenchmen. They ask, ‘Where do we go?’ And a French guide says, ‘Follow the trail I marked.’ So no, my son. Guard your tone in the future or you’ll be served no more port—we should not go around killing each other. We’ve managed to do very little of that and must stay the course. For the sake of all humanity, I suggest it. At this point, if
we
can’t be peaceful, who can? Now, you’ll forgive me for preaching, but what has happened here, Émile, while hard won, has all been
forming.
We don’t know our way. Partially because we lie to ourselves, and defeat ourselves, and do not accomplish enough on our own, and partially because it’s all been so difficult and—I know, I know, the Church, despite its extraordinary history has also gotten in the way of our progress. And the English, well, I’m not one of those who blames them for everything, for that
is
infantile, but there’s so many more of them on this continent and they’ve only been forming, too, finding their way. Canadians would probably be Americans if not for our influence. So I say, Émile, let’s accomplish a whole lot more. Learn more and do more so we won’t always act out of weakness. We have driven down a few dark roads, but we have miraculously avoided the great tyranny of war. We can build on that. Let’s accomplish much, then, out of our potency, if a priest may use such a word, and out of our strength—the opposite of Laurin’s vision—we can decide how things will be with us. Soon enough we’ll know what to do with our rugged, cold, astounding homeland.”
The priest had begun sermonizing, and respectfully, Émile assumed a meditative posture to reflect upon his words. He was impressed by the sense of time and long struggle, the wrestling with processes, and ideas, and one’s own conscience embedded in the man’s acquired wisdom.
Experience,
he thought, might be the word he was searching for. The priest had perhaps not accomplished so
much in his time upon the earth, but he had been involved in many projects, and had examined the world, at least as it had been presented to him in his vicinity. Cinq-Mars admired that in the man.
The young cop had taught himself—and his mentor, Touton, had underscored the lessons—to lose neither the objectives nor the threads of a conversation. He felt obliged to pull the priest back to the raw core of this discussion.
“Father, you are both a material witness, and, arguably, an accomplice, in the death of Roger Clément. Would you not agree?”
Reluctantly, the priest did. “We heard that de Bernonville has expired, although no one knows for sure. So I doubt that your investigation will result in a trial. If it comes to that, then yes, Émile. As the English say, the jig is up.”
They sat in the gloom of the afternoon awhile and continued to sip port. As he stood to depart, Cinq-Mars thanked his host, then suggested that he owed him a few words of apology.
“Why’s that, Émile? We only speak truth today. What apology is required?”
“We’ve spoken truth, Father. But I’ve not been thoroughly forthcoming.”
“How’s that?”
His boots on, Cinq-Mars adjusted his coat over his shoulders and fixed the collar, which had gone inside out. From the pockets, he retrieved his hat and gloves.
“Forgive me, Father, but I must tell you that Anik Clément was in the closet, and heard everything that passed between you and the late mayor.” “As you said,” Father François noted.
“I asked Anik to tell me nothing of that conversation. To keep it between herself, you, Mayor Houde and God. That’s what she’s done.”
The rotund man stepped back and cast his glance away to consider this report. When he returned to gaze upon the aspiring detective, a smile bent the corners of his lips. “So you have tricked me, Émile.”
“I have, Father.”
“But I don’t understand. How did you acquire a confidence, shall we say, in my guilt? You told me that I sold the knife.”
“Trudeau let slip that part. He also told me that when he met you during the riot, you were physically exercised. Your coat was unbuttoned. To me, it
sounded as though you might have been running. You’ve never been a jogger. What had occurred that night, I asked myself, to burn a fire under the seat of your pants?”
The priest blew out a gust of air and smiled again. “I should be enraged. Instead, our talk today has left me strangely unburdened. I will deny it, of course, in a court of law,” he said, but he was enjoying the game now, “but you have proved yourself today, twice over, and require no forgiveness.”
“Twice over, Father?” He pulled his wool cap onto his head and donned his gloves for the frigid burst of air soon to assail him.
“You’ve succeeded in your work as a detective, Émile. You’ve succeeded also in the work of a priest, in allowing me to unburden myself after all these years. Thank you. But next time, I’ll be sharper. I shall not drink port with you so early in the day again.”
The cat bolted past them once more, and again the policeman made the arrest, depositing Teilhard back from where he came. “I don’t think he’s too bright.”
“Right you are. I would never allow a smart cat into my house. You’ve been the only exception, and look what’s happened here.”
Cinq-Mars went on his way, hunching his shoulders to fend against an Arctic howl.
T
IME HAD PASSED, YET ÉMILE CINQ-MARS STILL NEEDED MORE TO
bolster himself for his next planned encounter. He pored over files and notes, rehearsed set speeches, and did his best to anticipate any countervailing argument. He revisited witnesses to harangue them again with the same innocuous questions he asked previously, until he could detect them lapsing into the onset of comas. Gaston Fleury, the director of the Department of Research and Strategic Planning, threw him out of his office four times, although on the fifth attempt he examined the substantive details with him and gathered up the pertinent information. On the young cop’s third visit to interview Captain Sloan, he caught a glimpse of the the retired cop skipping out through the back door of his rural home, jumping into his pickup and driving off. He was a widower now, but his housekeeper, in for the afternoon, reported that she didn’t know what had gotten into him.
“He was complaining about a tummy upset. I guess he’s gone to the doctor’s.”
Instead, Cinq-Mars found the truck parked outside the local watering hole.
An end to his period of preparation and procrastination had to be broached. He felt ready, and if that meant being prepared to kiss his career goodbye, so be it. What good was he as a cop, or as a man, if he was not willing to lay everything on the line? The time had come. But he still needed to think about things a little more, sift through further possibilities.
Then, one day, he woke up early and knew that the time had come.
Do or die.
That night, wearing casual attire, including a much-loved leather bomber jacket, he knocked on the open door to his boss’s office and found him sitting with both feet up, his face a vaudevillian act of pained twitches.
The captain’s shift had commenced ninety minutes earlier. Touton had dispatched his detectives, while Cinq-Mars had the night off.
“Let’s get out of here,” he advised his mentor.
“I’m working.”
“You need a drink.”
Touton reached for a lower drawer.
“I don’t drink on the job,” Cinq-Mars reminded him.
“You’re not on the job.”
“You are.”
“Cut me some slack, twerp. Special dispensation.” He pronounced the words as a cascade of syllables. Touton, it appeared, had already imbibed that evening.
“Captain,” Cinq-Mars said.
“What, laddie?”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Why?”
“These walls have elephant’s ears.”
He was all set to take him for whiskey or beer when the captain decided that he was famished, opting for pizza. The parlour was crowded, and they spent most of their time talking hockey. Did
les Canadiens
have enough to win the Cup? Few around town thought so, it wasn’t their year, but Touton had not given up hope. “They’ll pull it out, laddie.”
“Will you quit with the ‘laddie’ stuff? Why are we speaking English anyway?” He had chosen a Hawaiian, which caused Touton to sneer.
“Will you tell me why we’re here?” The captain had ordered extra pep-peroni with extra cheese.
“Not in here, I won’t,” the young cop told him.
“What a gripe. I suppose you want to join my squad again. I see guys like you every day. You’re a dime a dozen. Walking the beat’s too hard on your toes? We all walked the beat, laddie.”
“Some walked less than others,” Cinq-Mars grumbled. “You got promoted pretty quickly.”
“I was promoted through a department decimated by war and corruption. Get that straight. Times have changed.”
“That’s not what I want to talk about anyway.”
“I walked out of Poland all the way to Germany in the dead of fucking winter.”
“Sorry I brought it up. Actually, no—
you
brought it up.” “I had no boots.”
“That was tough. A winter with no boots.”
“Tough? Tough? What do you know about tough?”
Cinq-Mars sighed. Perhaps he hadn’t chosen the best night for this.
“Out with it, laddie,” Touton commanded, chomping down on a fresh slice. After he chewed and swallowed, he snarled, “I have things to do. Some of us work for our salary, you know.”
“That’s not all you work for.”
The tone took the captain aback. He smiled, to have seen this burst of nettle from his young friend. He enjoyed getting under Cinq-Mars’s skin. The country boy was always so calm, so aloof. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cinq-Mars stared back at him. He could feel his heart beginning to thump. He wondered if he’d still have a job by the end of this talk. Either he’d stake his ground as an investigative policeman, or fall—
kerplunk
—upon his face.
“It means,” he said, then hesitated. The lights were bright. “Let’s take a walk.”
“More with the walking,” Touton complained as he hauled himself out of the booth. At least the young guy was paying for dinner. They were released to the mild evening and this particular March night was the first three weeks in which the temperature was forecast to ride above freezing through to dawn. Spring, finally, while not causing much of a disturbance, was at last making an entrance.
They strolled down Rue St. Jacques, past the great stone banks with vaulted ceilings and gold-leaf trim and the stolid office buildings from another era. Every time Cinq-Mars glanced through a window and noticed high ceilings and vast open spaces, he thought to himself,
a bugger to heat.