My October (15 page)

Luc made a show of listening. He folded his left hand into his right, and then he squeezed. Hard, as if cracking a nut. It was an unconscious gesture, a gesture Hannah had seen many times before, a gesture that made her heart sink. Manny Mandelbaum described his method. Basic human needs. The perfectly natural strategies we use to get them. Core values. Hannah found it impossible to take it all in. She was watching Luc's hands. His fingertips had gone dark from the pressure he was exerting. His knuckles had whitened.

Mandelbaum fell silent. He bent forward and pulled something from under his chair. A piece of wood. This got everyone's attention. The wood was almost black, mahogany or something. It looked varnished. It had two blunt ends and
a small indentation in the middle, where Mandelbaum held it between thumb and forefinger.

“The talking stick,” he said, holding it up for everyone to see. “We'll go around the circle. Only the person holding this stick is permitted to speak. That is the sole rule you have to remember. The others must listen until that person is completely done. Then, and only then, will the person pass the stick back to me.”

Luc was no longer even looking at the therapist. His fingertips were still purple. Hannah sat there wondering what she would do if he stormed out. She was caught off-guard when Mandelbaum held the stick out to her.

“You start.”

Her face went hot. She really didn't want to—not after the fiasco at the school. But Mandelbaum had pressed the stick into her hands. Her fingers curled around it. It still bore the warmth of his touch. Luc was watching her. His contempt—for this place, for this New Age shaman she had forced him to consult, for her—was palpable. She could feel herself shrinking before it.

“It's okay, Hannah,” said Mandelbaum encouragingly. “Safe space, remember?”

Hannah took a deep breath. It didn't feel safe. But she was the one who had put this in motion. She was the reason they had come to this office. She couldn't refuse.

“Why don't you start by telling us why you're here?” Mandelbaum suggested.

She stared at the tufts of chest hair poking out of his shirt. She wanted to cooperate. Truly, she did, but the words were hanging back, cowering like shy children. The last time she'd spoken, Luc had walked out on her. She didn't know if he'd ever return.

“I—” she began, and then closed her mouth. She looked up from Mandelbaum's chest. His eyes were hazel. The left one had a dab of blue. A pretty colour, she thought. A recessive gene speaking out. Without warning, tears were pouring out of her. She hid her face in her hands. She knew without looking that Luc would be mortified. Her son too. Not half as mortified as she was.

Mandelbaum held out a box of tissues. She blew her nose and pulled herself together, then picked up the stick again, gripping it tightly in both hands. She looked again into Manny Mandelbaum's strangely coloured eyes and began to speak. Not about Hugo. Not even about Luc, although she was devastated by what was happening in their marriage. What she found herself talking about was her father, this colossal presence in her life whose words had so recently and cruelly been extinguished.

Mandelbaum listened, never taking his blue-brown eyes off her, holding out the Kleenex box when she needed it.

“Sounds to me like a heavy time,” Mandelbaum said when she paused.

Heavy time.
What a throwback. She hoped Luc's English was too poor for him to notice. He was looking out the window, probably wishing he was anywhere but here.

Manny Mandelbaum smiled at her, the blue in his eyes gleaming like a little patch of sky. He leaned forward and reached out a hand, and for a crazy second Hannah imagined he might stroke her thigh. But the hand stopped in front of the stick on her lap. “Are you finished with that, Hannah?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, giving the talking stick back to him. “Yes, of course. I'm sorry.”

Luc crossed his arms, tossing his head when Mandelbaum
held the stick out to him. “I do not need that. I do not need a stick to speak.”

Hannah was surprised at how thick his accent was. It was much stronger than she remembered. But in truth, she couldn't actually recall the last time she'd heard him speak English.

Empty-handed, he told the story of the gun, and the suspension, and the disciplinary hearing. No mention of her outburst or her exchange with the head of the parents' committee. It was Hugo who received the brunt of his anger.

“He lied,” said Luc. “You want violence in a broad sense, Dr. Mandelbaum? Telling a lie in public to your own father. Bringing shame on him. This is violence.”

“Sounds to me,” Mandelbaum said, “like honesty is one of your core values.”

“It is a value for most people,” Luc snapped. “Not for you, Dr. Mandelbaum? Not for my son, either, I think.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that,” said Mandelbaum. “In my experience, sons are frequently similar to their fathers. Hugo may very well attach a lot of importance to being honest.”

Luc exhaled audibly. “Not my son. I do not think so.”

“In this instance,” said Mandelbaum, “he may just have valued something else more. You say another boy was involved?”

“Vladimir,” said Hugo, taking all three of them by surprise.

Mandelbaum held out the stick, which, again to everyone's surprise, Hugo took.

“Hey,” Luc objected. “You ask me the question, no?”

“I did,” said Manny Mandelbaum. “That is true. Is it all right if your son speaks?”

Hugo leaned back in his chair, rolling his eyes. “I don't need his fucking permission.”

Luc's eyes hardened.
“Voilà,”
he said. “
La violence
. He cannot articulate a single sentence without these, how do you say,
gros mots
?”

Mandelbaum crossed his legs. “Do you mind if Hugo takes a turn? I think it's important, Mr. Lévesque. He has something to say.”

Hugo leaned his elbows on his knees and rolled the stick between his palms. Despite his claim about not needing permission, he did not speak until his father nodded.

“I wasn't going to rat him out.”

“No,” agreed Mandelbaum. “Vladimir was the student who sold you the gun, correct?”

Hugo nodded.

“It belongs to the father,” Luc broke in. “The boy stole it. They are alike, this Vladimir and my son. Two drops of water.”

Mandelbaum nodded at Hugo's hands. “He's got the stick now, Mr. Lévesque. It may seem arbitrary, but it's important.” He turned back to Hugo. “Go on, Hugo. Please continue.”

But Hugo had apparently said all he was going to say. He passed the stick back to Mandelbaum. As he let go of it, however, he turned to his father. “I'm not a liar, for your information. I just don't like to rat.”

Hannah saw uncertainty on her husband's face. She began to translate:
“Il ne voulait tout simplement pas—”

Luc gestured dismissively. “I know what he say.”

“What I'm hearing,” Manny Mandelbaum broke in, turning his clear, calm gaze on Hugo, “is that loyalty is really important to you right now. Loyalty and honour. In some cases, these values might be more important than honesty, especially at school.”

Hugo was staring at the rug, but his body language suddenly changed. His arms loosened. His shoulders released and dropped an inch or two.

“He lied,” Luc said angrily. “To me. To his father. Not just to some teacher at the school.”

“No,” said Mandelbaum, unfazed. “The adults he spoke to first, right after being caught with the gun, were at the school, if I understand correctly. From then on, Mr. Lévesque, the story was set. By the time he spoke to you, he couldn't have changed it if he'd wanted to.”

Mandelbaum's point was a sound one. Hugo spoke again.

“He's Russian.”

“Who is?” said Mandelbaum. “Vladimir, you mean?”

Hugo nodded. “He's not French.”

Luc made a noise with his throat. “It is not important where he comes from. He is a troublemaker, Vladimir. A thief. And a liar, like you.”

“That's enough,” said Mandelbaum sharply.

“But it's the truth,” said Luc. His face was flushed, his eyes sparking. The d'Aulaires' Zeus, thought Hannah. Lightning bolts were about to fly. “Truth is good, no?” he thundered. “It's better than a lie?”

“Not necessarily,” said Mandelbaum. “In Hugo's case, at least, lying was understandable.”

Hannah glanced at Luc, who looked ready to explode.

“Understandable?” he cried. “I don't believe what I am hearing! He lied to me. To his own father!”

“Yes,” said Manny Mandelbaum.

“It is unacceptable.”

“You find it unacceptable?”

“This is what I just say. Yes.”

“And why is that?”

Hannah winced. Either Mandelbaum failed to see how angry Luc was, or he had a strategy she could not fathom. She'd rarely seen her husband so irate.

“Do you always repeat the words of others like an echo?” Luc asked coldly.

“And you, Mr. Lévesque,” Mandelbaum answered, “do you always speak so loudly, interrupting the words of others?”

There was a pause during which time seemed to stop. Mandelbaum's chin was jutting aggressively. Hannah didn't dare look at Luc.

“I didn't interrupt you,” Luc said, his voice cool. Almost nonchalant.

“Not me,” Mandelbaum said. “Your wife and son. You've cut them off repeatedly.”

“You mean I did not have the stick.”

Hannah felt sick. She couldn't take much more.

“I do not care about the stick,” Luc said. “The stick is
entièrement idiot
.”

Mandelbaum's hands made a birdlike movement as if they were wings. He waved them at Hannah. “Aren't you even curious to hear what Hannah has to say?”

“I know what she will say,” said Luc. “We are married. We talk all the time. We do not need a third party to help with this.”

Hannah shook her head.

“Your wife appears not to agree,” said Mandelbaum.

“So you speak for her now?” He turned to her. “He speaks for you?
Vas-y. Parle
.”

But Hannah couldn't. Even with her husband so obviously in the wrong, she couldn't open her mouth.

Luc began to speak in French. Rapidly. Not caring if Mandelbaum could follow; hoping, probably, that he couldn't. He looked straight at the psychologist and in a cold rage let the words fly.

Honesty was one of his foremost values. How could it not be? He was a writer. He had dedicated his entire life to the truth. You couldn't be ambivalent about something like this if you were an artist, but even as a plain human being it was the same. Either it was important or it was not. When a person lied, either that was a bad thing or it was okay. Never both, as Mandelbaum seemed to imply. That was the trouble with the world today. People no longer believed in things. There were no values anymore, nothing was absolute. Luc had absolute values, and honesty was one of them. Always and everywhere, truth was better than falsehood. Any other way of seeing things was contemptible. Dr. Mandelbaum held truth to be a relative value? That was his prerogative as a thinking member of the human race, so long as he kept this thought to himself. But he wasn't capable of that, was he? No, Dr. Mandelbaum felt entitled to share his views with the world. No, not share them, impose them. He had the gall to preach his moral relativism to a fourteen-year-old boy. What kind of therapy was that?

Luc leaned toward the therapist. Nonviolence? Was there not violence in encouraging a boy to lie?

“These are lives you are playing with, Dr. Mandelbaum,” Luc said, “not just hypothetical cases. Your words have consequences.”

Mandelbaum's silence was like a goad to Luc. Therapists were parasites, he continued. They were the real liars. Fraudsters, all of them, preying on the sick and the troubled, the credulous. They were the false priests of a false god at whose altar weak people knelt down and rose up again relieved of their money, not their troubles.

Hannah knew where this was coming from. In the aftermath of Roland Lévesque's suicide, Lyse had taken her sons to a succession of psychotherapists. All were well-meaning; all did what they could. But none could extinguish the fire of humiliation and rage burning in Luc. If anything, their efforts, like his mother's despair, stoked the flames. That fire had turned him into an artist. She had never pointed this out to him, of course. But in her mind, it wasn't an entirely bad thing.

Mandelbaum listened in silence to Luc's tirade. After it finished, he asked, straight-faced, if Luc would repeat it again for him … in English.

Luc's jaw went slack.

“I am sorry,” Mandelbaum said. “I want to understand.”

Luc cleared his throat. “How long have you lived here, may I ask, Dr. Mandelbaum?” He was still speaking French. When there was no answer, he repeated the question a second time, his voice very quiet and low. “How long have you made your life in this city?” Then he stood up, looming over them. His face was pale and composed, deeply regal.

“Did you fail to notice that the language we speak here is French? You are not a prisoner, after all. You can go back to California any time you wish. You can move to New York, or Toronto, or Halifax, or Calgary, all very pleasant locations. But
if you stay in this one, if you choose to live in my city, in my nation, you will have the courtesy to speak to me in my language. Or you will not speak to me at all.”

Luc nodded curtly at Mandelbaum and then, without a glance at his wife or son, walked out of the room. They listened to his proud footsteps descending the stairs, neither hurried nor slow; they heard the front door open and close. And then there was silence.

“Well,” said Manny Mandelbaum.

“It's a sensitive issue,” Hannah replied. She was about to say more when Hugo got to his feet.