My October

by Claire Holden Rothman

  She said his full name now. She said that she had loved him. She still loved him. He was the father of her child, after all, the man whose bed she’d shared since she was eighteen. Until a month ago, she’d thought she and Luc had built something new, something stronger and more inclusive than what people had managed before.

  And then she talked about Alfred himself. His closedmindedness regarding the Québécois. She fought off the urge to run.

  “You never liked him.” There. She had said it. She searched Alfred’s face. Not a flicker of expression.

  It had been visceral from the start. In the waning hours of 1976, Luc had walked into Alfred Stern’s house wearing denim. No jacket or tie. This would have been enough to provoke Alfred, who appreciated a certain decorum. But then Luc dared to speak.

  “He was too different from you.” Hannah looked into her father’s face. It wasn’t Luc she was talking about. Not him alone.

  “I’m too different from you,” she said quietly. Alfred Stern made a huffing noise, as if he were out of breath. He raised his good arm.

  “Dad?” she said, taking him by the shoulders to steady him. “Are you okay?”

  He closed his eyes and brought his hand clumsily to his face. “Oh,” she said, understanding at last, as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  He wept for some time. The huffing ceased, and it was just tears rolling down to his chin, where they hung in a quivering line on his stubble before falling onto his lap. She watched for a minute, then pressed her cheek to his chest to hug him.

  Was it Luc, or even Hannah herself, who was too different for Alfred to love? Or was it like a series of nesting vessels within one another, rejections within rejections, until you came to the source, Alfred Stern himself? Uprooted, everywhere foreign, a boy with a red circle on his back. Hannah felt her father’s heart beating fast and light against her cheek. She could hear it quite clearly. She held him close and listened.

  25

  The room was so hot that sweat had pooled in the dip of Hugo’s breastbone. He stuck his index finger into it experimentally. It was tepid and tasted like tears. He couldn’t see anything, not even the contours of his hand, which he’d raised above his chest in the darkness, stretching his fingers, making circles. The air felt like soup. He shut his eyes, picturing waves of it lapping against the dark shores of his body.

  The house was stifling. His grandmother had told him she needed to keep it warm for Alfred, who chilled easily, but this was ridiculous. Hugo kicked himself free of the sheet and sat up on the cot he’d been sleeping on since his mother took over the guest room. Before the stroke, when his grandfather had still been able to climb stairs, this room had been his office. Maybe he’d climb them again. There was a feeling of hope in the house. Alfred had improved in all kinds of unexpected ways since Connie had brought him home. For now, though, the office was Hugo’s.

  He felt at home here. He liked the faint sweet chocolate smell of his grandfather’s pipe. It had been years since his grandfather had smoked, but he still kept a pipe in the desk drawer, a memento of past pleasures. Hugo had checked out the desk’s contents with great thoroughness. He was curious about Alfred Stern, and this was the man’s most intimate space. There was a TV so old it had an actual dial for changing channels. There was a computer, also antiquated. But mostly there were books, shelves of them lining two walls, ceiling to floor. The lower shelves held heavy volumes from Alfred’s lawyer days: Martin’s Annual Criminal Code, Black’s Law Dictionary, and several books on the Canadian Constitution. His grandfather had had a highly successful career. He’d been a criminal lawyer, and later a professor of law. His McGill degree was hanging over the desk. It had occurred to Hugo more than once in the last couple of days that he himself might study law.

  He got up off the cot and went to the window. He was wearing white boxers, which glowed slightly in the velvety darkness. They were new, bought for him by his grandmother at the Eaton Centre that afternoon. They clung to his sweaty legs. In front of him, he could make out the contours of the venetian blind and the string at the side for opening it. He gave it a tug, but nothing happened. There was another string, so he pulled it too. Again, nothing happened. When he tugged them both together, the bottom of the blind rose up.

  He opened the window and stood for several seconds in the rush of cold air. There was no moon, but in the light from the street lamp he could see his stomach, pale and hard below the jutting ridges of his ribs. Farther down was the bulge of his genitals, the pale flesh of his thighs. He stood there for several seconds, surveying himself and thinking maybe he wasn’t so ugly after all.

  He lowered the window a little and walked back to the desk. His grandfather’s computer wasn’t new, but it had an internet connection. He pressed the On button. A green light blinked and the machine began to purr. Hugo pulled the keyboard toward him. He had found his essay topic, and it wasn’t Jacques Lanctôt. Lanctôt had been interviewed too many times to count. Hundreds of articles had been written about him, and by him. Monsieur Vien had even done a master’s thesis on him. There was no need for any more.

  It was his grandmother who had convinced him to change topic. They had been at the Eaton Centre on their underwear expedition. Until that moment, he hadn’t breathed a word about what was going on, and to his relief she hadn’t asked. He liked that about Connie. She could leave a person alone with his troubles, and yet Hugo didn’t feel alone the way he had in Montreal. Connie was a presence, just not in your face. Lyse was sort of the same. Maybe it was a grandmother thing.

  “I expect,” she said, picking through samples of white cotton socks in the discount bin, “they must be missing you at school.”

  Hugo didn’t answer.

  His grandmother looked up. “You needed a break, is that it?” Her hands were still now.

  “Did my mom say something?” he asked angrily. That had to be it. His mother had blabbed, and now Connie would see how mixed up and unhappy he was.

  Connie shook her head. “She hasn’t said a word. But it’s pretty obvious you two have a secret. And neither one of you is talking.” She gave him a sad little smile. “I’m in the dark, and I’m finding it pretty difficult.”

  That stunned him. Until that moment, he hadn’t stopped to think how Connie might feel. She was right. He was trying so hard to keep his own pitiful self a secret. Trying so hard not to upset her. Not to make her ashamed. His chin began to quiver. He tried to steady it, but that only made it worse. And then the tears came. A moment later, he was in her arms.

  In the food court in the basement of the Eaton Centre, over tall glasses of bubble tea, he told her the story.

  “But a gun, Hugo?” she said, after he finished. “What could you possibly want that for?”

  Hugo shrugged.

  The truth was, he had no answer. The moment he’d set eyes on it in Vlad’s apartment, he wanted it. A Luger. He had planted his feet wide the way a soldier would, the way his grandfather Lévesque must have, and squeezed the trigger over and over again. Even now, the memory of it made his blood stir.

  “My brother was like you,” Connie said as they carried their glasses to the trash can. “He liked to shoot. Became a fine marksman too. In the old days, when it was summertime in the Townships, you could shoot tin cans in the woods and nobody would raise an eyebrow. And then there was my uncle Percy. He was in the Olympics before the war. Pentathlon.” She counted the events on her fingers. “Fence, ride, run, swim, shoot.” She looked up. If she was ashamed of him, she hid it well. They made their way up to street level and he told her about the paper he had to write as punishment at school.

  “The October Crisis?” she said in surprise. “Oh, my. That’s ancient history.”

  When he told her his subject was Jacques Lanctôt, she made a face. “But he always gets so much attention, Hugo. Why not write about the other one? The one he kidnapped.” She paused, regarding him with her old blue eyes. “We knew him when we lived in Montreal.”

&nb
sp; Hugo must have looked shocked, because his grandmother burst out laughing. “Oh, it’s not so surprising, Hugo. Your grandfather knew everybody. He genuinely liked Mr. Cross, though. He was Irish by birth. From a modest family. Not an obvious choice to represent the evil British Empire. Your grandfather couldn’t believe it when he was kidnapped. It brought back the worst kind of memories.”

  The ancient computer finally booted up. Hugo logged on to his email account. There were two messages, one from Vlad, saying he was bored and hadn’t found a school yet, and a spam message about getting rich quick in Nigeria.

  Hugo hit New Message and typed in Serge Vien’s email address. “Monsieur Vien,” he began, and then stopped. He erased the name and started again.

  “Cher Monsieur Vien …”

  An English construction, but it looked more complete. He took a breath. The glow from the screen lit up the room. He could make out the frame of his grandfather’s law degree, although the words were a blur and the red seal in the corner looked black.

  Where to start?

  “Excuse me for disturbing you, but I need to know. Are there any books written about James Cross?”

  He hit Send.

  Half a minute later, the computer dinged, announcing an incoming message.

  “Salut cher Hugo!”

  Hugo was startled by the promptness of Vien’s reply.

  “How are you?” it read. “Where are you? I have been consumed with worry.”

  Nothing more. Hugo swallowed. It was strange to think of Vien thinking about him.

  “I’m in Toronto,” he wrote, “visiting my family.” He paused and gave his armpit a thoughtful scratch. That was enough, wasn’t it? Should he say he was safe? No need. It was implicit in the word family.

  The reply from Vien came in seconds. “Why Cross?”

  Hugo wrote back in kind. “Just curious.”

  The next answer was longer in coming. Hugo minimized the email page and began exploring what else his grandfather’s computer could offer. There wasn’t much, but among the icons on the left side of the screen was an encyclopedia. Hugo opened it and typed “James Richard Cross” in the search window. An entry popped up. “Born September 29, 1921, in Ireland.”

  Hugo reread the date. The man was certainly old. Older even than his grandfather, who was born in Austria in the spring of 1924. A vision of the bright-eyed, dark little man who kept massacring him at chess rose before him. The first time he’d done this, Hugo had dismissed it as a fluke. But the second game had been just as one-sided. And the third. His grandfather was still very much there.

  Hugo went back to the entry. “James Richard Cross was a British diplomat assigned to Quebec and abducted there on October 5, 1970, by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), a terrorist group fighting for Quebec independence during the October Crisis.”

  Hugo typed in “October Crisis.” Before he could push Enter, the computer dinged.

  It was Monsieur Vien. “Just like that? You just happened to feel curious about James Cross? It’s not the most obvious thing for a person your age to be thinking about in the dead of night. Do you know what time it is?”

  Hugo glanced at the bottom of the computer screen. Three thirty-eight a.m.

  “I could ask you the same question,” he wrote, and then erased it. Most mornings, Vien arrived in class looking weary and rumpled. Now Hugo knew why. “I couldn’t sleep,” he typed. “There’s a computer next to my bed. I didn’t expect you to be awake. What about Mr. Cross?”

  The computer flickered. Hugo rubbed his eyes. The room was less hot now that the window was open. Did getting old mean getting cold? Hugo drained the glass of water Connie had put beside his bed. His chest was still clammy with sweat. The encyclopedia page had a photo of Cross, the same one he’d seen in Vien’s folder of news clippings, taken on the day of his release. A long, pale face. Sad eyes. Greying hair. He was contemplating the image when the computer dinged.

  “If it’s for your paper, I don’t recommend it. Cross has given two interviews in the last thirty years. The first one in 1975, the second in 1978. Both times to the CBC. That is it, my friend. There’s almost nothing out there.”

  That was what Connie had said. Lanctôt, meanwhile, had given a ton of interviews. In Montreal, the journalists couldn’t get enough of him. Hugo pecked out a response. “Maybe it’s time to change that.”

  Vien didn’t answer for some time. After twenty minutes, Hugo was ready to give up. His eyes were dry and he was getting sleepy. Just as he was about to lie down, the computer dinged.

  “I’m sure people have tried. Cross is a recluse, Hugo. And he must be pretty old by now. If he’s alive.”

  Cross had celebrated his birthday the week before he was kidnapped. On October 5, 1970, he had just turned forty-nine. Hugo paused, doing the math. He’d be eighty now.

  “Can I try?”

  This time, Vien wrote right back. “An interview? Let’s be clear. You want to interview James Cross?”

  “Yes,” wrote Hugo. Why not?

  After he sent the email to Vien, he pulled on a T-shirt. The room had grown much cooler. It wouldn’t be all that hard to find Cross. He would be retired now, probably living in England. Or perhaps Ireland, where he was born. And if he’d died, there would be a record of it.

  He opened the web browser on the computer and searched for “British Foreign Office.” That was where Cross had worked all his life. They would know where he was. On the Foreign Office website, Hugo found a telephone number for their London headquarters on King Charles Street. Hugo checked the time. In London, it would be just past nine in the morning.

  He navigated a string of recorded messages and a few minutes later was speaking to an actual human being with an upper-crust British accent. He explained to her what he was after.

  There was a pause. “What did you say this was for?”

  “A history project,” he said shyly.

  “Are you a student, then?”

  Hugo looked up at the ceiling. The woman’s voice sounded suddenly distant. “Yes,” he said, beginning to regret his honesty. He would lie if she asked him his age. Monsieur Vien had done his master’s thesis on the October Crisis. Hugo could easily be in university. What business was it of hers, anyway? “He was a diplomat,” said Hugo, making his voice as deep as possible, “in the 1970s in Quebec.” He paused. “There was an incident.”

  The woman seemed not to hear him. “And you say this individual is retired?”

  “I think so,” said Hugo. “He’s eighty years old. Is there an age at which you have to stop working at the British Foreign Office?”

  On the other end of the line, the woman sighed. “I’ll put you through to our Records Department. Maybe they can help.”

  The woman at the Records Department was nicer, but had disappointing news. “I think he’s deceased,” she said after Hugo had spelled out the name.

  There was a brief uncomfortable pause. “Is there some way for you to check?” She probably thought he was American. Pushy.

  “We only keep records on current employees. Once they retire, the files are closed.” Another pause. “Is there anything else I can help you with today, sir?”

  Hugo stared at the notepad he had taken from his grandfather’s desk drawer. The pen was ready in his hand.

  “Will that be all?” the woman asked, trying to end the call.

  Hugo cleared his throat. “What do you think I should do?” He was doing his best to sound as if he were thirty instead of fourteen, but his voice chose that moment to crack.

  “Well,” said the woman, sounding kinder, “have you tried the telephone directory?”

  The operator at British Telecom gave Hugo three listings for the name James Cross: one in South Hampshire, a second in Sussex, and a third in Wales. Hugo scribbled down the numbers and hung up, elated. The one in Wales wasn’t likely, but the other two seemed promising.

  While he was in the middle of his second call, there was a knock on the study d
oor. His mother’s pale face appeared in the doorway. Her hair was mussed, and she was wearing a flannel nightie she must have borrowed from Connie. He put a finger to his lips. To his relief, she nodded and stepped quietly into the room.

  “Thanks,” he said into the telephone. He circled the hour he’d put down on his notepad and underlined it three times. “Yes, yes,” he said, nodding. “At noon, then. Right. Do tell him. Yes, please.” He hung up.

  “Who was that?”

  Beneath her nightgown, his mother’s legs were bare. Ordinarily, this would have irritated Hugo. Ordinarily, he would have told her to leave, or at the very least remained silent and refused to look at her, hoping she’d take the hint and go away. But this was no ordinary day. He swivelled the chair around to face her and got up, remembering as he did so that his legs were bare too, his skinny, hairy thighs exposed. He’d been talking to England in his underwear. He had a sudden urge to laugh.

  26

  The street lamp outside the window was still lit. Morning hadn’t yet dawned, but Hannah knew her night was over. Hugo’s too, by the looks of it. He was wearing a new red T-shirt that he and Connie had purchased the day before. And he’d pulled on a pair of jeans that fit him. She could actually make out the contours of his skinny body. It was not the body of a child anymore, she noted. There was a wiriness to him that had nothing to do with childhood.

  While Hannah had been sleeping fitfully in the guest room, Hugo had been telephoning England, repeatedly. He explained this once they were in the kitchen getting some breakfast. Apparently, he’d been up most of the night.

  “On your grandfather’s dime?” Hannah asked, alarmed.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Constance knows. She’s the one who suggested it in the first place.”

  Hannah studied him. He’d hoisted himself up on the kitchen counter. Since when did her son enlist the aid of adults? And since when did he call her mother Constance? She was making omelettes. The egg she was holding was cold from the fridge. It felt solid and smooth in the palm of her hand, more like a stone than something organic. She closed her fingers around the shell and held it over the sink. Then she shut her eyes and squeezed.