Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [38]
Changing the subject, Potter inveighed against wanton destruction and wildfire radicalism, and insisted that Wellington’s young vandals, his son included, be taught a lesson.
“You’re right, but my concern is for innocent family bystanders. Should there be a prolonged trial the private peccadilloes of some of the offenders, a few of them obviously sexually confused — albeit temporarily, it goes without saying — would be magnified by the press, given their insatiable appetite for scandal among their social superiors.”
Calling in a marker here, and a marker there, I wangled an invitation to Club Saint-Denis, where I cornered the provincial minister of justice and argued passionately that Canada had no culture to speak of that wasn’t French Canadian. And that weekend I went on a retreat to the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, where I was able to renew the acquaintance of the good Bishop Sylvain Gaston Savard, the devoted nephew of the odious Sister Octavia. We embraced, as old friends should, and sat down to chat. The bishop told me about the sad state of repair of his cathedral in St-Eustache, and the dire need of funds to restore it to its former glory. “Now that’s very interesting,” I said, “because I am so grateful to this province — no, this nation struggling to be born — for the sustenance it has given me and my family, and I’d like to put something back into Quebec. But of course it would be improper of me to be of any help while your brother is to sit in judgment on my errant son.”
So even Miriam had to agree that I had done everything possible, and the trial itself started unnervingly well. As a matter of fact, to begin with, it was something of an anticlimax. Wellington’s lawyers did not go for the jugular, perhaps mollified because parents of the accused had promised to endow a chair of visible-minority social studies at the college. A subdued, appropriately pale Saul wore a suit and answered questions in such a timorous voice that Judge Savard had to ask him more than once to speak up.
On the morning that Saul and his comrades were to be sentenced, sympathizers gathered in front of the court-house. They wielded placards that read FREE THE 18TH OF NOVEMBER FIFTEEN. REMEMBER LES PATRIOTES. Fortunately the judge, who had never enjoyed such attention before, was in an expansive mood. Summing up, he recalled his own struggles as a rebellious youth in St.-Eustache. Coming of age, he added, at a time when you couldn’t be served in French in an Eaton’s department store and the recipes on macaroni boxes were in English only. He remembered the Great Depression. The Second World War, which he had watched in news-reels. He allowed that the times were calculated to try the souls of young men and women. There was the Cold War. Drugs. Pollution. Promiscuity. Pornographic magazines and movies. Unfortunate tensions between the English and French in Quebec. A lamentable decline in church and — he added, eyes atwinkle — synagogue attendance. So the young, he ventured, were obviously troubled, especially the more sensitive among them. But this, he pointed out, did not entitle them to run amok, destroying private property. Nobody was above the law. And yet — and yet — he wondered aloud, would it serve any point to incarcerate the sons and daughters of respectable, law-abiding families with common criminals? Yes, certainly, if they held to their radical beliefs. No, just possibly, if they had come to repent sincerely. Then, having given Saul his cue, he asked if — before he was sentenced — he had anything to say for himself.
Alas, Saul was now aware of the reporters, as well as his many admirers in the courtroom. Hushed, expectant. “Well, young man,” said Mr. Justice Savard, prodding him, his smile benign.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you sentence me to, you old fart, because I do not recognize