“We are a little quiet tonight, so you can sit wherever you like. Can I get you something from the bar?”
“A pint of Bass, Midhat.”
The Bass came with a plate of pappadum, and Vanier drank and began to relax. He munched on the pappadum and inhaled the aromas. Sitar music played in the background, and Christmas was a thousand miles away. The waiter came, and Vanier ordered batata wada to start, followed by lamb dopiaza, mixed vegetable bhaji, rice and nan.
Midhat returned from the kitchen, pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite his friend. They had met years ago when Vanier, still in uniform, had stopped in for a meal after a long shift. As Midhat was presenting the bill, Vanier asked him what he thought of the execution of Prime Minister Bhutto in Pakistan. It had happened years earlier, but Vanier had been fascinated by what amounted to a judicial murder. His question struck a chord, and Midhat, who had recently graduated from Concordia and had been thrown into running a family business serving strange food to an even stranger population, sat down and unloaded. Born in Pakistan and educated in the West, he had a lot to say and was happy to have a Quebecer to say it to. Vanier had tried to explain that he wasn’t a native Quebecer, but it didn’t matter, the restaurateur was happy to have any connection to the society he and his family were living in.
On that first night, Vanier learned about the corruption of Pakistani politics, the revolving doors of civil and military governments, and a people cursed to be ruled by criminals whose main ambition was to suck everything of value from the poor country. Vanier kept coming back to Ganges, and kept learning.
After a few years, they began to call each other by their first names. Then Vanier’s son Alex was born, and Midhat and his new wife Jamilah showed up unannounced at the Vanier house with a hand-made vase from Pakistan for the baby. Vanier reciprocated a few years later, bringing a selection of OshKosh baby clothes to the new parents of Samir in their first floor walk-up in Park Extension.
“So how are the children, my friend?” asked Vanier.
“Wonderful. A real blessing. Samir is working with some of the best doctors in blood diseases. I can’t believe it but in three years he will be a fully qualified doctor and a specialist. And it’s not too soon. He’ll be able to take care of the aches of his poor father. And Aliza, bless her. In her second year in law, and what a mouth on her! She would argue with you over the colour of the sky. She is brilliant, and what a sense of justice she has. Just think Luc, if I am ever run over by a bus, I’ll have my son to look after me and my beautiful daughter to sue the son of a bitch who drove the bus — and the City for letting the son of a bitch drive the bus!”
They both laughed.
“And yours, Luc? How are Alex and the beautiful Elise?”
Midhat was one of the few people Vanier had told about Marianne’s leaving, and he did it only after Midhat asked one time too many why Vanier was eating so often in the restaurant.
“Alex tells me that he is doing important work in your part of the world. He seems to think that he is making a difference,” said Vanier.
“Making a difference? If only you could know, Luc. He is changing the world and making it better. I wish you Canadians knew how important it is. You should be bloody proud, Luc, a son like that.”
“I am, Midhat. But you know how it is with fathers and sons. We can’t say what we want to say. We think a nod is a paragraph and a sentence is a book, and, in the end, all that’s important is left unspoken.”
“We keep a lot inside, Luc, that’s true. Too much, maybe. But you tell Alex when he comes back here to get his skinny Canadian ass down to Ganges, and we will fatten him up, all on the house. I don’t think they serve good Indian food in the military.”
“They probably don’t serve any Indian food in the army. I’ll bring him down myself.”
“And Elise? Tell me, how is Elise?”
“I spoke to her this morning. It seems like a long time ago. She called to wish me Merry Christmas. She’s with her mother in Toronto. Still studying. She goes to university next year. Journalism. Maybe one day we’ll be looking at her on television. I can just see it now. Alex fighting in some foreign war, and Elise reporting on it, and me down on my knees in front of the television praying for both of them.”
They laughed again.
“Already, they are adults.”
“It happened too quickly, Midhat. Twenty years in a heartbeat. One moment, you’re building sandcastles in Kennebunk, and the next you’re waiting for a phone call from Kandahar.”
The food arrived, bubbling in stainless steel bowls on a hot plate with two candles. Vanier had ordered for one, but Midhat gestured for an extra plate, sitting with his friend through the meal, and helping himself to the comforting food of a homeland he hardly knew.
When they had both eaten their fill, they sat in silence listening to a plaintive sitar solo. A waiter took away the plates and came back with a brown bag with the leftovers. Vanier left a fat tip, because he knew that when he got home he would be amazed at how much food he had been given to take home. Enough for two meals during the week, even things he couldn’t remember ordering.
A honking noise broke through the sitar music and brought them back to Montreal. Tow trucks were cruising up and down the street, blaring their horns as a warning that any cars on the street were about to be towed to allow the plows to remove the snow. Vanier rose slowly, lifted the bag from the table, and reached for Midhat’s outstretched hand.
“You take care of yourself, Luc.”
“You too, Midhat, you too. Give my love to Jamilah and the children.”
“To be sure.”
Vanier walked out into the night, accelerating with each step, as he pondered the possibility of his car being towed. It was still safe. He opened the back door of the car and put the brown bag carefully on the floor, snug between the seats. Settling into the driver’s seat, he turned on the radio. Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.” He turned off the radio and drove home in silence.
FOUR
DECEMBER 26
5 AM
Vanier was nervous, preparing himself to talk to a boy who was a man. Not a man, a soldier — a different kind of man. Vanier knew soldiers. On his mother’s side they were all farmers, tied to the same patch of land for generations. But his father and his father’s father had been soldiers. His father had dragged the family to every military base in Canada. Often to leave them waiting while he served overseas. More often to leave them waiting while he drank with his soldier buddies. Then one day he left them for good with an inconvenient bullet that entered his brain through the roof of his mouth and left a red splash pattern on the living room wall for Vanier’s mother to clean off. Vanier had watched while she did it.
All Alex knew of his grandfather were the photos and medals, a hero his father never talked about or explained.
The phone rang at 5 minutes after 5 a.m.
“Alex?”
“Hey. Merry Christmas, Dad. How’re you doing?” Vanier tried to picture his smile.
“It’s me should be asking that. I’m fine. Stuck in the snow and the cold as usual. Hey, Merry Christmas, Alex.”
“It’s got to be better than here. Fucking desert gets to you pretty quick. So what’s new with you?”
“You know how it is Alex, crime’s a growth business. Close one file, open another. There’s always something going on. For everyone we put away, there are two more getting out. And there are always the kids following in the father’s footsteps. I guess we’re fighting our own war over here.”
“Yeah? They got IEDs in Montreal?”
“Well no, it’s not a war, Alex. Not like what you’re doing. Sorry. I just meant…”
“Yeah, I know.”