Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [37]
“I don’t have to sit here and listen to your homophobic prejudices.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“I will not do anything to compromise my comrades.”
“Spartacus has spoken.”
“Darling, listen to your father. You won’t be asked to compromise anybody.”
The judge, I found out, would be Mr. Justice Bartholomé Savard of St-Eustache, who was reputed to be something of a womanizer and bon vivant. John had once introduced me to him at Les Halles. “I am a great admirator of your people,” he said. “For sure mine could learn a lesson from yours on how to stick together, come water or high hell.”
I hurried home to comfort Miriam with the news. “We’ve struck gold, my love. The judge just happens to be the brother of my onetime saviour, the good Bishop Sylvain Gaston Savard.”
But she did not respond as I had hoped. “I would like you to tell me why,” she said, “you have never admitted to anybody the real reason why you were responsible for the English translation of that idiotic book about his appalling aunt. Don’t think I’m never asked about it.”
I had not only paid for the privately printed English edition of that little monograph in praise of Sister Octavia, but I had also been obliged, at the time, to contribute a goodly chunk of the cost of raising a statue to the bitch in St-Eustache. Bishop Savard hoped his aunt would be beatified one day, if not for her noble work among the poor, then at least for her 1937 campaign to get her people not to buy from Jew shopkeepers “who had cheating in their blood.”
“Because,” I said, “if the truth were known it would only make matters worse.”
“You’re not being honest,” she said, clearly irritated with me. “It’s because after all these years you’re still trying to please Boogie. He would be delighted to know you had created a scandal. ‘You see, Boogie, appearances notwithstanding, I’m still capable of épater le bourgeois, just like you taught me.’ ”
“You’re taking a sleeping-pill tonight.”
“No, I’m not.”
I drove to Ottawa, where I just happened to run into Graham Fielding, the lanky deputy minister of justice, in the lobby of the Château Laurier, and the two of us repaired to the National Arts Centre restaurant across the street. Fielding was the scion of an immensely rich Montreal stockbroker family. His wife, who cut his hair and darned his socks, was not allowed to shop for clothes on her own: instead, he accompanied her once a year to the Oxfam Nearly New store. We had first met and knocked back a couple of beers together one night many years ago in Paris, when he was studying at the Sorbonne. Nudging fifty now, constantly prodding the bridge of his hornrimmed glasses with his forefinger, Fielding still had the appearance of a precocious schoolboy, the class snitch. We were well into our second round when he summoned the waiter to bring him his very own box of Montecristos. Isn’t that nice of him, I thought. Then I watched him select a cigar for himself, allowing the waiter to snip and light it for him before waving him off. Amused, I told him how deeply I admired his wife’s geometric paintings, all of them done in different shades of yellow, and how it was a damn shame that she had not yet exhibited in New York, where her work was bound to fetch big bucks. If she would be good enough to send me some slides, I would pass them on to the great Leo Bishinsky, an old pal of mine. Then I told him about Saul, burnishing the tale to make it as entertaining as possible.
“You do realize,” said Fielding, withdrawing his long legs from under the table, “that prosecutions by provincial authorities are a world unto themselves.”
“Graham, I would never have mentioned the case to you if I thought you could influence the proceedings in any fashion. That would be most improper,” I said, calling for the bill. I left him my card. “And please don’t forget to send me those slides.”
Next I imposed on an old friend to take me to lunch at the Mount Royal Club on a day I knew Calvin Potter, Sr., would be there. Stopping at his table, I congratulated him on his