Black Bird

by Michel Basilieres

The ugliness and humiliation of having her friends arrested on their own national holiday, while celebrating their ideals and dreams, was simply too great an irritation for Marie to endure. To have been chastised and put down by their own police force, their own brothers! It was unspeakable. They were being suppressed openly now, for the crime of clamouring for their own freedoms, for their own rights.

  It was a bitter pill for Marie to swallow, that her brother was so firmly lined up on the other side—les autres—even though he denied it. It was infuriating that it was her real brothers—her brothers-in-arms—who’d been arrested.

  She was furious; she doubled over in a cramp; she bled into the toilet. Our blood is being flushed away, into the toilet, she thought. Something must be done.

  “It’s clearly a fantasy,” said Jean-Baptiste. “Can’t anyone see that?”

  “Ah, you’ve touched a nerve, my boy,” said Woland. “Stick with me and I’ll make you famous.”

  “God, you’re making me infamous. Half of what my family objects to wasn’t even in my play when I wrote it. If this is fame, you can have it.”

  “How about wealth?” asked Woland.

  Hubert lay in a private operating theatre surrounded by machines to which he was connected by tubing and wiring. His chest rose and fell. Now he had a new set of lungs which breathed by themselves. His left hand grasped the rail of the hospital bed like a baby’s.

  Just how does the heart connect to the brain? wondered Dr. Cameron Hyde. Is it a real, physical connection? Does this connection get stronger or weaker with age? Is this connection itself the answer to the search, the seat of the soul?

  Could there be a soul at all? Does it need to occupy a space? If you lose, say, a finger, do you lose a part of your soul?

  He carried the shuddering lump of meat in gloved hands to the operating table. Hubert’s chest was held open by a device like an animal trap in reverse: a rib spreader. Hubert was breathing but he knew it not. And he was thinking, after a fashion, but with so much of his original brain gone, his synapses pulsed at the ends of broken chains like water pouring from the exposed pipes of a ruined building after an earthquake: pointlessly, wastefully.

  Never again would he be able to close an argument, to wrap up a discussion, to come full circle and conclude a thesis, even to himself. But if the life of the mind was no longer to be his, he would have something perhaps more important. Soon he would smile at children, be generous to the elderly and frail, be patient with the lonely and comforting to the distressed.

  Hubert was getting a new heart.

  Angus felt scattered. It wasn’t right to be bodiless: he couldn’t do anything.

  He suspected Grace knew he was there. She kept looking at him, clacking her beak and flying right at him. And out the other side, it seemed. Somehow it felt as if she were trying to get his attention, but when he responded she’d just ignore him, like the others. He tried to follow her down the hall but she sailed away as if she were trying to outrun him. If only he had wings, like hers; it must be nice to fly. He should have flown when he had the chance, he should have taken a vacation in some other country just for the excuse. He’d never get a chance now. The closest he’d ever got to flying was a vague memory, almost a dream, of a split second in which, as his head sailed into the sky, his torso tumbled into the street and his arms and legs ran off in four directions. He shook it off. He wanted to run that one in reverse, collect up those scattered parts of himself and take control once more, be able to act, wake his daughter, do anything at all.

  The debacle at the theatre raised the controversy over the play from a sidelight on the entertainment pages to a major news story. “New Meaning to Jean-Baptiste Day,” went the headline. As a result, Jean-Baptiste’s poetry reading in a small café was mobbed. Nationalists came out in force to continue the denunciations, and Anglos flocked in to support their shrinking culture.

  Although he was nervous and decidedly did not like the kind of attention he was getting, still Jean-Baptiste had the foresight to bring along some of his backlog of poetry chapbooks, in the unlikely event that he might sell a few. Originally he was to be only one of several people reading, but as the crowd refused to be silent for the other poets, they all skulked from the stage one by one and stood fuming by as Jean-Baptiste, formerly a totally unknown element in their coterie, commanded all the attention. At the bar they nursed their wounded egos and whispered to each other their scathing criticisms of this juvenile’s infantile poetry.

  And they were right: Jean-Baptiste was a terrible poet. Nevertheless, an audience knows what it likes—or what it hates—and why, and rarely does a poet’s opinion count with the public. So Jean-Baptiste was alternately applauded by Anglos who’d never been to poetry readings before in their lives, and booed by francophones who couldn’t totally grasp the sentiments of a romantic adolescent’s extravagant English. But both were content with the opportunity of reacting in a particular manner for the sake of their political leanings, and consuming as much alcohol as possible in the meantime.

  Woland was there, of course, championing his discovery and leading the applause with great shouts of “Bravo! Bravo!” Beside him was the journal editor who’d invited Jean-Baptiste, looking nervously about the bar, wishing this had turned out just another slow Wednesday night like all the previous readings. Especially since the local TV stations were videotaping the event, and now the entire city would think this was the calibre of the talent he approved of.

  For Mrs. Pangloss a trip to Boulevard St-Laurent was a trip to another world, even though it was mere blocks from the Desouche house. It represented to her all the things she disliked about the world: foreigners, Jews, students, artists—those who were able most easily to best her in an argument. St-Laurent was the crossroads of Montreal, where East and West met, where immigrants from so many countries formed the safety zone between English and French. The street was a veritable babel of tongues, a profusion of unreadable signage and inscrutable merchants, peddlers, beggars. To be going to this Sodom on the St. Lawrence after dark was her own personal trip to purgatory. Mrs. Pangloss got off the bus at Park Avenue and stood looking eastward along Prince Arthur, to the darkness beyond the churches on opposite corners of Jeanne-Mance. Streetlights glittered in the distance.

  It had been any number of years since Mrs. Pangloss had been in a bar, though she’d been a sprightly lass, even if she said so herself, in those years before marriage and ungrateful children had so ruthlessly left her a bloated and overperfumed housewife. And certainly the bars she’d frequented even then were not of this type at all: dank and rundown and painted in dark, filth-obscuring colours. In a word, Bohemian. That’s what she thought as she looked about the crowded, smoky sub-basement on the Main. Bohemian, meaning artistic, romantic, even intellectual, but somehow with that unspoken undertone of danger, of illicit activity, of free speech and free love—and, worse, freethinking. She was not unaware of the rebellious turn of the younger generations these past twenty years: the beatniks, the hippies, the drug-addicted yuppies. She was a parent, after all. Her own children too had resisted the wishes of their elders, had ignored all sensible advice. Had actually gotten married, taken credit cards, travelled to Europe.

  And although Jean-Baptiste seemed to be following this new trend of shamefully repudiating his parents, her curiosity combined with her sense of duty towards his mother—that is, her duty to perform as a stand-in for her friend in her time of sickness—led her to this dubious den she’d otherwise never have glanced at.

  She wondered whether poetry readings always drew such crowds. That certainly wasn’t the impression she’d been given from television or the movies. The exposed brick walls, the cigarettes, the tight sweaters and long straight hair of the young women: these were things she expected, and it gave her comfort to find them here. But where were the berets and the guitars? Where was the poster of Che Guevara, and where the circle with the upside-down Y? Why was there so much beer and so little of that bitter espre
sso, and didn’t anyone at all play those funny little drums in pairs?

  And the crowd certainly didn’t behave in the manner she expected. None of them seemed to be listening at all to Jean-Baptiste’s poetry. She wondered if he knew he was being largely ignored. Was he soldiering on bravely in the face of the excited table talk going on around him? How could he not realize he might as well be talking to himself? And as for the audience, why weren’t they listening in respectful silence, waiting for the proper moment to begin snapping their fingers appreciatively? She couldn’t hear him at all.

  No matter. She’d come to show her support, and if she wanted to see what his poems were about, she’d just pick up one of those little pamphlets they were selling after the reading. It was a shame, however, that so many of these drunken French louts kept shouting about maudit anglais and calling for Jean-Baptiste to read in French. Who did they think they were? If people chose to speak English, that was their business, wasn’t it? It was still a free country, wasn’t it? And where was the waiter with her crème de menthe?

  Mrs. Pangloss had decidedly mixed feelings about the French. For one thing, there were two different kinds of French: there were those in France, and then there were the local pepsis. She would gigglingly refer to either group as “French pea-soups,” and she certainly decried the foolishness of the youth of both camps: atheists, communists, troublemakers on campuses both at home and in France.

  On the other hand, they were at least Catholics. And if the local pepsis were ignorant, loud-mouthed clods who didn’t understand how much the English in Canada had done for them, at least they weren’t the snobs their European cousins were. And give them credit: they understood living without, just as the Irish did (Mrs. Pangloss was proudly Irish and cultivated her temper to prove it), and if she had to point a finger (though mind you, it wasn’t her habit to do something like that; she believed in letting people be and not casting any stones—glass houses and first sins and all that) she’d have gladly admitted that at least in Montreal, it wasn’t these French peasants who were the snobs and hypocrites, it was rather those heathen Protestants of Westmount.

  But lately this separation thing had been getting out of hand. It’s one thing for a few kooks on the outside to make fools of themselves in public, marching with signs and disrupting people’s lives. But now, with an actual separatist elected as premier, look what it was coming to. More and more of these people were taking over the newspapers and the radio stations, more and more of them were demanding a referendum, were daring to speak their minds in public. Even here, where poor little Jean-Baptiste was just trying to read his poetry. Why should they pick on him? Wasn’t he allowed to be a poet?

  Although, from what little Mrs. Pangloss could hear over the rising din, it didn’t seem like anything was rhyming. Take it from her, if you wanted poetry, Robbie Burns was your man. Not like this modern stuff, either all about sex and body parts, or about God knows what, without rhyme or reason or any shape at all, and all too often all too personal, as if you were listening to confession instead of poetry. Not that it’s bad for anyone to make a confession, but you see what happens without religion: public confession. It only proved the need for priests, after all.

  After three crème de menthes and too much smoke blown at her from neighbouring tables, Mrs. Pangloss was decidedly in a bad mood. She still couldn’t hear any poetry, and now it surely seemed like the incessant chattering amongst the French at all these tables was a deliberate tactic to keep Jean-Baptiste from being heard. Now that was almost sacrilegious: didn’t he have the right to cleanse his soul, even if he was probably an atheist? Even if he didn’t realize that’s what he was doing? Who could claim the right to keep anyone from their God? Wasn’t it a sin even to try?

  Wherefore she would show them.

  Mrs. Pangloss rose from her table and forced her way across the room. No one took any notice of her. The air was laden with cigarette smoke and the smell of cheap beer. Those at the front, near the stage, were doing their best to lead the hall in a filibuster of French to drown out the pariah onstage. The television crews were taping panning shots across the room, Woland was nervously contemplating once more calling in the police, and Jean-Baptiste, bewildered, was simply reading to himself.

  Mrs. Pangloss reached the rear of the room, where Woland stood beside the table with Jean-Baptiste’s boxes of poetry. She reached in to take one.

  “Madame,” said Woland. “That will be three dollars.”

  “Oh, no,” said Mrs. Pangloss. “I’m a friend. He won’t charge me.”

  Woland began to argue, but she ignored him. He shrugged. It wasn’t his business, after all. She pulled a chair over and used it as a step to mount the table.

  “Madame!”

  She steadied herself on the wobbly surface. Was it the table, or her three drinks? No matter, she’d be all right in a second. A few faces were looking towards her in curiosity. She cleared her throat. She opened the pamphlet, and began to read.

  Since she believed she was reading poetry, she started in an attempt to capture a kind of rhythm. She soon realized there was none; Jean-Baptiste was just like all the other contemporary poets. No respect for the traditions of his art, no sense of what’s pleasing to the ear. She abandoned her attempt to force the words into an aural pattern, and thought it safer just to read them out as best she could.

  Around her now, people were actually listening. Their chattering stopped, and a circle of attention opened up. She noticed she could hear herself speaking. She looked around and saw surprised faces staring at her. She continued.

  By the time the audience had quieted enough for her to notice that the only other voice she could hear was Jean-Baptiste’s at the opposite end of the room, Mrs. Pangloss finally realized she was reading in French. It seemed odd to her: she’d assumed Jean-Baptiste wrote in English. She was still too drunk to listen to her own voice—perhaps for the only time in her life—and would have been quite shocked at herself if she had.

  Even the audience listening to her was shocked. Here was a drunken, aging anglo woman, publicly declaring, in a highly accented but perfect joual, a revolutionary separatist manifesto. Even Jean-Baptiste finally gave up reading and stood watching her in silence. The camera crews quickly swung into action and flooded her with light. She looked up dazed, but when someone in the audience cheered her on, she returned to the text. When she reached the part where she was declaring that we in the felquiste movement will never cease our struggle, by any means necessary, a few people were drunk enough to cheer. Some were smart enough to get up and leave while they had the chance. And finally, remembering the violence at the theatre, Woland called the police.

  Jean-Baptiste was wading through the crowd. He didn’t understand what the hell Mrs. Pangloss thought she was doing, or even why she was there, but he knew instinctively that neither did she, and that she was in a dangerous position. He intended to rescue her from her perch and put her in a taxi home. But when he reached up to help her down, someone at a nearby table denounced him as “that anglo bastard,” and several people jumped him at once.

  To his credit, Woland leapt into the fray to help Jean-Baptiste.

  By the time the police arrived, they were in fact needed to rescue Jean-Baptiste and Woland, who were being soundly beaten despite the screams of Mrs. Pangloss.

  In sorting out the punch-up it came to light that the boxes of pamphlets had been brought into the club by Jean-Baptiste himself. On further inspection they were found to contain a large number of various illegal publications, of the type that had lately been distributed in mail slots around town. The remaining nationalist sympathizers were puzzled by this turn of events, but the police clearly saw their duty and arrested Jean-Baptiste as a member of the terrorist separatist cabal, and threw him into a cell at the Parthenais detention centre.

  When Jean-Baptiste finally drifted off to sleep that night on his hard, narrow bunk, his cellmate pulled a rope out of his own bowels and hung himself from t
he bars on their window.

  Aline set pancakes on the table. Grandfather stared at his plate dubiously, adjusted the patch over his right eye and cocked his head for a better look.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Who’s going to visit Jean-Baptiste?” she asked.

  Father said, “Fuck him. Little bastard.”

  She looked questioningly at Marie, who only shrugged in response and forked another dripping bite into her mouth. She didn’t bother to ask Uncle.

  “Someone has to go,” she said.

  Grace cawed from the porch.

  Jean-Baptiste’s first visitor was Professor Woland. Although in his own way Woland believed himself to be acting charitably, his was not a visit that Jean-Baptiste could appreciate. It was Woland who’d helped put him here, after all, with his grandstanding in the press and goading of the Péquistes and their fellow-travellers.

  “Ah, Ti-Jean,” he began.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Forgive my avuncular enthusiasm. I realize it must be unpleasant for you in here.”

  “Not at all. It’s quite agreeable to wake up with a corpse swinging in the window. Cuts the light. You can sleep longer. Except for the yelling.”

  “All right, I’m sorry.”

  “And the screaming. Oh, and occasionally the sobbing.”

  “Okay, okay. But look at it this way: you’re a political pariah, a riot broke out at your play and you were arrested at your first poetry reading. Clearly, you’re a star. Why, this hasn’t happened to a writer in generations!”

  “I can see why they gave it up.”

  “You’re a rebel. You’re avant-garde. You’re engagé!”

  “I’m not interested, thank you.”

  “You disappoint me. Well, then, perhaps you’d be interested in your cheque?”

  “My cheque?”

  “Yes. We managed to sell enough tickets to pay back our expenses, and so you’re entitled to royalties. Of course, expenses were high …”