Tanner’s Tiger

A few days’ worth of beard and mustache wouldn’t hurt, I decided. I tried to obtain the same general effect by rubbing dirt on my face, but this didn’t work too well. Maybe I wasn’t using the right sort of dirt. At least I wound up with my face and hands as filthy as my shirt and trousers and jacket and cap.

I think the clothes helped. It was not merely that I looked and smelled like a wino, but that, garbed as I was and reeking as I did, I damned well felt like a wino. Perhaps Stanislavski knew whereof he spake. I hence-forth began walking like a wino, with the same rolling gait, the same slow, hesitant movement. I had to ask direction en route, and I slurred my words like a wino, and if I didn’t have the Quebecois accent down pat, the mumbling covered it. No one wanted to spend any time with me – my odor guaranteed as much – but neither did anyone seem to suspect that I was anything but the cruddy old bum I pretended to be.

The sun was on its way out by the time I reached the old quarter. I found Rue des Poissons (which had, as far as I could tell, no fishmarkets upon it, its name notwithstanding) and managed to locate the address where Emile Lantenac received his mail. I didn’t know if he lived there or not, or if anybody lived there, but Emile was quite important in the MNQ and he and I had met before, and got along well.

His building was three houses back from the street. I made my way to it, drawing more attention than I wanted on the way; the district was quite respectable, albeit ancient, and I was shuffling along looking like a horrible example from a training film on venereal disease. This Man Was Ravaged By Syphilis, that sort of thing.

I found Emile’s building. I shuffled down a flight of steps to the basement entrance. The door window was obscured by a thick accumulation of grime; it looked rather like I felt.

There was a doorbell. I poked it, but I wasn’t sure that anything had happened. I couldn’t hear it ring within. I knocked on the door, loud. Nothing happened. I knocked again, louder, and nothing happened again. I put my ear against the window and listened very carefully for sounds within the darkened basement. I couldn’t make out anything. I knocked one last time, listening intently. Nothing, nothing at all.

I used a finger to wipe grime from my ear. There were other names and addresses I knew, other places I could seek shelter, but now that I had managed to reach Emile’s quarters, I wasn’t happy with the thought of returning once again to the streets. I had the feeling, too, that I might have gone somewhat overboard with my protective coloration. I now looked so disreputable that I might get arrested by mistake.

If Emile still used the basement, sooner or later he would turn up. And, if it was now abandoned, at least it would be a place to hide for the time being, whether anyone ultimately came to my rescue or not. I listened again at the door, and again I heard nothing, and then I looked over my shoulder in the traditional furtive fashion of someone who is about to commit something illegal. No one was looking my way.

I tried the door. It was locked. I put a little muscle into it and couldn’t break the lock that way. I took off my jacket and my shoe, wrapped the latter in the former, and broke one of the panes of glass. I opened the door from the inside, then hopped in with my jacket and shoe still clutched tight in my hand. I drew the door shut behind me and stood motionless in the darkness.

The sound of glass breaking did not seem to have drawn any attention. I stood silently, one shoe off and one shoe on, feeling like diddle diddle dumpling, my son John. It was impossible to see anything in that inky gloom. I fumbled around for a light switch and couldn’t locate one. I took a step away from the door, and another, and someone took me by the shoulders and pulled me forward.

I stumbled. Other hands lay hold of me. I said “Wha-” and a hand fastened itself over my mouth. I tried to wrestle free. It was useless; my arms were held, and somebody had an arm around my ankles. I went limp and let them ease me back onto the floor.

I could see nothing in the darkness. Then suddenly there was a light, but it didn’t do me a bit of good. It was beamed straight into my eyes, blinding.

In French a voice said, “He reeks of the sewer.”

“Who is he, then? Just a sot?”

“Perhaps.”

“N

“Throw him out.”

“First render him unconscious. What an extraordinary odor! We must get him out of here.”

“N

An arm briefly interrupted the flow of light. Overhead, a hand held a leather-covered sap. Like a dog, I bit the hand that muzzled me.

“The bastard has bitten me!”

“Hit him! Knock him out!”

“Emile! Emile, for the love of God!”

The sap stopped halfway to the crown of my head. “Mon Dieu,” said an increasingly familiar voice. “Can it be-”

“For the love of God and the glory of Quebec, Emile-”

“Evan? It is you?”

“It is I.”

Another voice cut in. “You know this wretch, Lantenac?”

“Fool! It is Evan Ta

“In such clothes? And with such an aroma?”

I blinked at the light. Emile said something, and it was turned out and an overhead fixture switched on. I looked around the cavernous basement room at a sea of unfamiliar faces. At my right a tall skeleton of a man was rubbing the palm of his hand.

“I am sorry I was forced to bite you,” I said.

“You have teeth like a serpent.”

“I trust I did no damage.”

“The teeth of a cobra-”

Emile went to him. “The skin is not broken, Claude? No? Then, you will live.” To me he said, “Let me look at you, Evan. Ah, it is really yourself, is it not? I long to embrace you, and yet-”

“I could use a bath and clean clothes.”

“Indeed you could. But it is good to see you nevertheless. How did you find us? How did you know to reach us in the first place? We must have developed security leaks of which I am unaware.”

“The address-”

“Oh, of course you know of this foul place.” He sighed. “But that you should appear at such a crucial moment, that is remarkable. We had heard you attempted to enter Canada and were refused. Then we heard of your illegal entry, and there were rumors the police had captured you-”

“I escaped.”

“We had heard that as well, but one is never certain what is to be believed. But it does not matter now, does it? All that is important is that you are here.” He lowered his voice. “At a most opportune moment, my old friend. We can make good use of you.”

A major propaganda campaign, I thought. A rally, a demonstration. Or perhaps a more dramatic effort. Last time it had been mailboxes; I wondered what would be this month’s target.

Emile stepped back and turned to the rest of the group. “This is Claude,” he said, pointing to the skeleton. “It is he whom you maimed with your serpent’s teeth, but I am sure he will find it in himself to forgive you and that you will not hold it against him for treating you so roughly. In the dark we did not know who you might be, Evan. A police spy – that was the immediate suspicion. They have been very hard on us ever since the Expo first opened.”

“I can imagine.”

“And do you know any of the others? This is Pierre Martin, I am sure you know his articles, yes? And Jacques Berton, and beside him his brother Jean. And Lucie Gerard, and Carole Phideaux, and Louis…”

Emile, his face deeply lined and his hair already white, was the group’s senior member. He was not so old as he looked, about forty-five, perhaps. The others were all considerably younger, most of them in their twenties. They were all quite conservatively dressed. The men wore ties and jackets except for Claude, who had on a turtleneck sweater. The two girls, Lucie and Carole, were clean and neat and rather plain. The third girl was not.