Return of the Sphinx, page 27
“What was your real father doing when he was away?” he said.
“I never knew till afterwards because my mother hated what he was doing. His life was a tragedy of poverty. He was a prize-fighter because he was too independent to work like a slave in the mines.” Ainslie smiled wryly. “It’s as strange for me to know this as I expect it is for you to hear it. That must be where you got the cut of your shoulders from. You remember meeting Joe Lacombe, don’t you? My old friend from the Air Force? He was talking about you only a few days ago and he told me that the first time he saw you, the slope of your shoulders made him think of a middleweight fighter. You’re very strong, you know. Much stronger than I ever was.”
Daniel looked at the ground. “So you’re telling me that my grandfather – on your side – was a prize-fighter who killed my grandmother?” He laughed soundlessly. “What was his name?”
“Archie MacNeil. Just before the First War he was a contender for the world’s championship.”
“Did they hang him for what he did?”
“No, he died. I don’t think they’d have hanged him anyway.”
“Did you see this happen?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence and Ainslie broke it finally. “He just went insane for a moment. Men do, sometimes. I saw it happen more than once in the war. I think it might easily happen to me.” He concluded lamely, “Anyway, Daniel, I thought the time had come for you to know this.”
Daniel was frozen with a mixture of sensations he could not understand.
“Why didn’t you tell me this long ago?” he muttered.
“I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
Daniel muttered again, “There’s no sense in anything.”
He got to his feet and Ainslie saw his son’s stubborn profile against the lingering light in the west.
“Above everything else,” he said, “I’ve wanted you and Chantal to feel sure of yourselves – to feel that you belong to something permanent. You see, when I first met your mother, I was like a man from nowhere. As a matter of fact, your Uncle Jacques once called me ‘Le Survenant.’ Both of my foster-parents had died by that time, you see. Your mother’s family was very kind to me. Anyway, I hoped that belonging to them would give you and Chantal something I never had. That may be why I never told you this before.”
“Did you tell Maman?”
“Of course. I just said I did.”
“What did she say?”
“She was sorry for me.” Ainslie gestured slightly. “I’ve been very lucky, you know. Dr. Ainslie was childless and he treated me like his own son. I suppose he drove me pretty hard, but he gave me every chance. Sometimes I’ve thought that if this had happened earlier – I mean when I was too young to remember it – it wouldn’t have made any difference to me at all. It need not make any to you and I’m sure it won’t. After all, what are our grandparents? Sometimes, what are even our parents? Dr. Ainslie believed that education could cure everything. He was a Victorian, of course, and all the Victorians believed that.”
He hoped that his son would say something. but Daniel stayed mute.
“How would you like to go abroad next fall?” he suggested. “I’m not a rich man, but your mother was a wonderful manager and she had a small legacy when we married. We had just enough capital after the war to make investments at a time when even a fool couldn’t help gaining. Of course, I lost a good deal of that with the magazine, but I’ve had a pretty good salary ever since the war. Chantal is practically self-supporting now and you” – he smiled – “you’re practically self-supporting too, aren’t you? I could easily manage a few years abroad for you. I was thinking you might like a university in France. It would be fun to talk about some of them together. As a matter of fact, I’ve already talked a little about them with Uncle Gabriel. Even though he went to the Sorbonne himself, he thinks someone from here might do better at Aix or Grenoble or Bordeaux.”
Still Daniel kept silent.
Ainslie smiled wistfully, “I hope you’re not thinking I’m offering you a bribe to get you out of the way.”
“If you had to pay for that,” Daniel said, “you’d have to hang onto your job in the government.”
“No, that wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”
Daniel gave a slight shrug. “Anyway, as you just said, I’m earning my living now.”
“That’s splendid and I’m proud of you. But that can’t be a permanent thing at your age. You must complete your education.”
Daniel swung around, his voice suddenly high-pitched. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a man I want you to meet. His name’s Aimé Latendresse. He’s older than me and he’s going to become one of the great men of Quebec. He wants to meet you very much. He wants a discussion with you on my show.”
“What does he want to discuss?”
“The only thing any of us wants to discuss.”
Ainslie smiled. “Separatism?”
“No. Independence.”
Ainslie shook his head. “Daniel boy, you know I can’t do that.”
“Do you think it will fold up and die just because you put your head under the blankets?”
Ainslie smiled faintly again. “As they’re so fond of saying here, I’m by way of being a minister of the Crown.”
Daniel looked away. “I thought you’d say that.”
Ainslie rose and they began walking together in the twilight toward the hotel.
“My show with Aimé comes on the French channel next Thursday night,” Daniel said.
“I know it does and no matter who you’re interviewing I intend to look at it. The only thing that could stop me looking at it would be an unexpected cabinet meeting.”
They walked in silence for several minutes before Daniel asked, “Why did you call that book of yours Death of a Victorian?”
“Have you read it yet?”
“Some of it. The early part doesn’t mention what you’ve just told me, though. But why did you call it Death of a Victorian?”
“If you read to the end you’ll find out for yourself.”
Feeling the resistance in his son, Ainslie wondered if they would ever be able to understand one another again.
“Tell me something, Daniel – do you talk much with Chantal these days?”
“Why do you ask me that, Dad?”
“I just wondered.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Daniel shrugged. “She wouldn’t even try to understand what I was talking about. She likes older men anyway. A lot of the girls her age do.”
“It was all that time in New York,” Ainslie said. “Almost the only people she had a chance of meeting there were solemn bureaucrats from the UN. She didn’t meet enough people her own age. That’s one of the things these days, Daniel. The way families are shunted from place to place in government and the corporations – it never used to be like that. No wonder everyone’s so restless.”
They had reached the square now. It was practically dusk and very little life was showing in the streets. After dark the murmurings of the bureaucrats ceased with the murmurings of the pigeons.
“So I take it you intend to stay on with Bulstrode?” Daniel said.
“I never said that.”
“Well, just what are you going to do, Dad? I wish you’d tell me. You aren’t Minister of Trade or Transport or in one of those purely executive departments that stay the same no matter what the government’s policy is. Your department is mixed up in the very same thing I’m mixed up in. So that’s why I asked if you’re intending to continue letting Bulstrode push you around. I think I have a right to know whether it’s your department or whether you’re just his henchman.”
Ainslie looked at the blunt profile and thought, Is this my own son? Is this really my son speaking to me that way? He winced, and then anger came to him.
“You’re talking like a fool,” he said, “and like a very young one. You’re my son whether you like it or not, and I’m your father whether you like it or not. As I respect you, I expect you to respect me.”
“That would seem to be obvious.”
“You haven’t the slightest idea of what you’re getting yourself mixed up in. Hasn’t it crossed your mind that these new friends of yours may be interested in you for one reason only – that you’re my son?”
Daniel turned on him in fury and Ainslie’s anger answered his.
“You can take this or leave this, Daniel – the first wave of every revolution there ever was, especially if it takes to violence, is used and destroyed by the second wave, and the second wave’s used and destroyed by the one that comes after that. Movements like this one of yours are so full of sell-outs and betrayals that their enemies just lean back and let them ruin themselves. All history is there to prove it.”
“History – that’s the excuse you use for everything you fail in.”
In angry silence they reached the portico of the hotel and Ainslie was wounded by his son’s deliberate avoidance of his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Daniel,” he said gently. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Why not spend the night with me here? There’s a spare bed in my room.”
“And listen to more of this?”
“I apologize for talking too much. It’s always been my weakness. Will you shake hands with me?”
“Why not?”
They shook hands and their eyes met. “There always has to be a government, Daniel, just as there always have to be older men.”
The boy laughed bitterly. “Poor old Dad! There you go again. You just can’t help it, can you? Well, in the States they’re tearing up government draft cards and pretty soon this old man’s government of yours is going to find itself with nobody left to govern. And what will the robin do then, poor thing?”
Daniel turned and left his father and Ainslie watched the thick, fighter’s shoulders move away in the dim lights and disappear around the comer to the parking lot. Then he went in and up to his room and panic came on him and he reached for the whiskey bottle. The whiskey was hot and raw and when he lay down on the bed he immediately had to sit up for fear of being sick. He knew the impulse to vomit had not come from the drink, though the drink had triggered it. His legs felt dead, but nevertheless he knew he must go outside and walk in the fresh air. He locked his door and went down to ground-level by the staircase for fear there would be strangers in the elevator who might examine his expression or even smell whiskey on his breath. He left the hotel by a side exit and began to walk about the city, and while he walked a jumble of ideas and insights kept flashing on and off in his mind like signal lights contradicting each other. If he had had to tell anyone what he had just told Daniel, why had it not been Chantal? Why had he become so shy with Chantal since Constance died? Why was he sometimes half-afraid even to look at her?
It was an hour before he returned to his room, and though now he was clear-headed and wished to speak to Chantal, he was afraid to call her up …Run, run, run till you die! Fox at your heels and crow in the sky!
FIVE
The next day in Montreal on his way to the studio to prepare the next program, Daniel met one of the young men who had interviewed his father in Ottawa the week previous. He was a shy youth, a student of philosophy with a pure and troubled expression. He was very fragile, and there was a desperate eagerness for justice in him.
“He’s one of the nicest and finest men I’ve ever met,” he told Daniel. “He’s the only Anglais I’ve ever known who really understands how we feel.”
“Well, I’m glad he made such a good impression on you,” Daniel said. “But what difference does it make, after all? What can he do up there?”
“He’s enormously cultured, Daniel.”
“So are quite a few of them. Too many of you have the idea that all the Anglais care about is business and engineering. Not all of them do.”
“I wouldn’t feel right if I was opposed to a man like your father.”
Daniel made an impatient gesture. “Listen, Jean-Claude – you’d never understand a man like him in a thousand years. I know – Iknow – if all the other Anglais were like him there’d never have been this situation in the country.” Looking at his friend, he thought with wonder what a change had taken place in himself during the last week. Only a week ago he and Jean-Claude had been equals; now Jean-Claude seemed like a child to him. “I’d do anything to get him out of that government, but he won’t budge. Bulstrode’s using him for bait. But he’s not sold out.” Daniel added fiercely, “That’s something he’ll never do.”
They parted, and as Daniel walked on he felt gas on his stomach. At the studio he was met by the producer of the show, who handed him a packet of letters. The producer had counted them at just under two hundred and was delighted. They had come from every part of Quebec and there were even some from Ontario and northern New Brunswick.
Daniel took the letters into a cubicle where he had a desk, a phone, a typewriter and a filing cabinet and began reading them. As he read on, he felt an incandescence growing inside of himself. If a response as tremendous as this had come from only two programs in which he had barely skirted the main subject, he must have touched something as deep as an ocean. He would be famous and financially independent inside of a month.
Reluctantly he put the unread letters aside and concentrated on the list of questions for his next program. He worked until one o’clock before he went out for lunch, and on the street he noticed a few passers-by looking at him with recognition. At the lunch counter a stranger addressed him by name and asked to shake his hand.
People were listening. In the warrens of shabby apartment blocks, in company towns where they worked for the unseen bosses of another race, people were listening to what was said on his show. Men and women in debt to the loan companies were listening. Young men who had not been able to learn perfect English but who wanted to succeed in an English-dominated world were listening. People who had felt inferior for years, not because of any native inferiority but because they were born into a minority with the weight and pressure on them – these people were listening and saying, “No, it doesn’t have to be that way forever. We must have something better than that.”
On Thursday morning Latendresse telephoned to ask whether his father had agreed to debate with him and when Daniel said he had refused, Latendresse said, “Don’t give up. After tonight he may change his mind.”
Daniel told him about the letters he had received.
“There’ll be five times more letters after tonight.”
Eagerly Daniel kept him on the phone. “Listen, Aimé, I wish you’d forget about my father. He’s harmless. He’s just a good, old-fashioned Anglais liberal who’s lived too long and doesn’t know the kind of world he’s living in any more. You can’t expect anything more from a man of his age.”
“Men of his age happen to be the ones who are ruling the country.”
“I’m thinking of bigger game than him. Listen, Aimé – these letters make it perfectly clear to me how this show’s got to develop. What people are hungry for – what they’re famished for – is just to hear things said out loud in public that have been taboo here for centuries. That’s how I see this show developing – one taboo killed after the other – boom, boom, boom! The next show’s lined up already, but right after that I want to start in on the Church.”
There was a silence on the line so cold that Daniel could almost feel it.
“Have you lost your senses?” Latendresse said.
“What’s so crazy about that?”
“The clergy are our own people. Later, we can deal with them if they make it necessary, but they’re still our own people and always will be. What is necessary now is to concentrate on one single point – independence. There must be no fighting among ourselves. The English are as dumb and slow as oxen. They’re so arrogant and self-confident they’d go on eating their dinners even if somebody told them there was a bomb in their cellars. They’re not reacting the way I want them to. They and our own bourgeois swine will patch things up if they have the smallest chance. The English will learn just enough French and become just polite enough to us to make our own bourgeois believe they’ve won a great victory. Men like your father aren’t unintelligent. Some other Anglais like him – not many but a few very influential ones – are working overtime on their own people to make them willing to accept enough of our demands to soften the rest of us up. We’ve got to make the English so enraged they’ll go crazy and want to fight us. Otherwise we’ll be sold out again. There’s got to be an open split – one there’ll be no chance of healing – and I know exactly what you can do to start it.”
Daniel felt fear. “Tell me what it is.”
“The Queen,” said Latendresse. “She’s practically their Pope. She must be publicly insulted.”
Daniel sucked in his breath.
“I want you to get some woman,” Latendresse went on, “some woman with prominent front teeth to impersonate the Queen on your show. Get her to lisp and speak French that will make everybody laugh.”
“But the Queen speaks very good French.”
“Your Queen won’t. ‘Mon mari et moi, nous aimons très beau-coup nos braves sujets, les Canadiens-Français.’ When she says that, ask her why French Canadians should have to pay for all these royal visits she makes and then have her say, ‘Mon mari et moi, nous sommes toujours très fiers des deux grandes races qui sont nos sujets ici.’ Ask her why, when the Seaway was opened here at our doors, the Queen of England and the President of the United States opened it without a single one of us being invited to the ceremony. Then have her say, ‘Mon mari et moi, nous sommes touiours très heureux de penser que nos sujets Canadiens sont si bons amis de nos très bons amis Américains.’ After she says that, ask her if she and her husband still enjoy pillow-fighting. Reserve a spot for the Queen on show after show till the English get the point.”
Daniel almost drew back from the telephone. “Aimé, you’re wrong.”
