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Authors: Michael E. Rose
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with many Irish Quebecers, and this, along with his Catholic background, made him more or less acceptable to Deniseâs family, if a somewhat odd specimen for her to have brought home. His role as a hustling young journalist also made him a bit of a specimen as well, but eventually he was accepted simply as â lâAnglais. â
Deniseâs parents, he guessed, had also likely thought that as a social worker she was in the habit of bringing home strays. He hadnât been to Lachine for years, however, since long before his marriage had suddenly, unceremoniously, ended. He preferred to think that the main reason for that had been that his wife simply tired of playing social worker to himself and the crowd of maladjusted media people he ran with in those days. There were other reasons. But he didnât want to think of those today.
The Church of the Resurrection of Our Lord, and its convent and school, stood on a giant walled parcel of land granted to the Catholic Church by the French colonial administration in the seventeenth century when land like this was next to worthless. Its venerable hewn-granite buildings showed no signs of having been allowed to decay, and Delaney observed that parts of the green copper roofing glowed with burnished sheets of new metal where they had been recently repaired. The paintwork was gleaming, if uniformly grey. The drives and walkways were all carefully plowed and shovelled. The church, like most French-Canadian Catholic churches of the era, was massive, too large, built in the hope that pious Quebec habitant farm ers would do their duty and produce the hundreds of parishioners required to fill it.
The convent building was equally imposing: four stories of straight grey walls, surrounded on all sides and all levels by high wide balconies. Long lines of heavy wooden rocking chairs, the only recreation of generations of French-Canadian nuns, were marshalled on each balcony to take in the view of St. Joseph Boulevard, the abandoned canal, and the wide stretch of the St. Lawrence River that separated this part of Montreal island from the rich plain of farmland on the south shore.
The heavy bronze gate was not shut, and Delaney drove into the main courtyard. A morethan-life-sized crucified Jesus regarded them balefully from a cross in the centre. His halo and crown of thorns featured an array of small electric light bulbs, now not illuminated. There was no one around. Delaney paused for a moment and then made for a smaller stone house that was almost certainly the priestsâ residence. He pulled into the one space marked â Visiteurs, â shut off the engine, and sat for a moment listening to it tick as it cooled. In the deep shade beside the house the air was still winter cold. Natalia, too, sat quietly and made no move to get out.
âThank-you,â she said for some reason. She seemed distracted, lost in her thoughts.
âThank-you for what?â
âFor agreeing to help me out,â she said. Delaney looked at her closely.
She appeared nervous, uncomfortable. He realized, more clearly than before, just what position she was in: here in the car of a near stranger, about to go into an old church building to question other strangers about matters of which she knew little and of which she might wish to know even less. He realized how major had been her recent loss, that the old man who apparently constituted her entire family was now dead, that she was still grieving for that loss, that she was more than likely intensely lonely and afraid. He saw a sort of desperation about her.
She would not have come to me unless she were desperate for someone to help her along in this, Delaney thought. This sort of thing is the last thing she would normally want to do .
He wondered, as she smiled wanly at him, what she might be thinking about why he was sitting in the car with her in this chilly place, what she saw as she looked and waited for some sign from him that
Deniseâs parents, he guessed, had also likely thought that as a social worker she was in the habit of bringing home strays. He hadnât been to Lachine for years, however, since long before his marriage had suddenly, unceremoniously, ended. He preferred to think that the main reason for that had been that his wife simply tired of playing social worker to himself and the crowd of maladjusted media people he ran with in those days. There were other reasons. But he didnât want to think of those today.
The Church of the Resurrection of Our Lord, and its convent and school, stood on a giant walled parcel of land granted to the Catholic Church by the French colonial administration in the seventeenth century when land like this was next to worthless. Its venerable hewn-granite buildings showed no signs of having been allowed to decay, and Delaney observed that parts of the green copper roofing glowed with burnished sheets of new metal where they had been recently repaired. The paintwork was gleaming, if uniformly grey. The drives and walkways were all carefully plowed and shovelled. The church, like most French-Canadian Catholic churches of the era, was massive, too large, built in the hope that pious Quebec habitant farm ers would do their duty and produce the hundreds of parishioners required to fill it.
The convent building was equally imposing: four stories of straight grey walls, surrounded on all sides and all levels by high wide balconies. Long lines of heavy wooden rocking chairs, the only recreation of generations of French-Canadian nuns, were marshalled on each balcony to take in the view of St. Joseph Boulevard, the abandoned canal, and the wide stretch of the St. Lawrence River that separated this part of Montreal island from the rich plain of farmland on the south shore.
The heavy bronze gate was not shut, and Delaney drove into the main courtyard. A morethan-life-sized crucified Jesus regarded them balefully from a cross in the centre. His halo and crown of thorns featured an array of small electric light bulbs, now not illuminated. There was no one around. Delaney paused for a moment and then made for a smaller stone house that was almost certainly the priestsâ residence. He pulled into the one space marked â Visiteurs, â shut off the engine, and sat for a moment listening to it tick as it cooled. In the deep shade beside the house the air was still winter cold. Natalia, too, sat quietly and made no move to get out.
âThank-you,â she said for some reason. She seemed distracted, lost in her thoughts.
âThank-you for what?â
âFor agreeing to help me out,â she said. Delaney looked at her closely.
She appeared nervous, uncomfortable. He realized, more clearly than before, just what position she was in: here in the car of a near stranger, about to go into an old church building to question other strangers about matters of which she knew little and of which she might wish to know even less. He realized how major had been her recent loss, that the old man who apparently constituted her entire family was now dead, that she was still grieving for that loss, that she was more than likely intensely lonely and afraid. He saw a sort of desperation about her.
She would not have come to me unless she were desperate for someone to help her along in this, Delaney thought. This sort of thing is the last thing she would normally want to do .
He wondered, as she smiled wanly at him, what she might be thinking about why he was sitting in the car with her in this chilly place, what she saw as she looked and waited for some sign from him that
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