Breakthroughs

Muttering under his breath, Galtier tore the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of paper, again printed in both English and French. Marie snatched it out of his hands and read it aloud: “ ‘All citizens of this occupation district are cordially invited to gather in the market square of Riviere-du-Loup at two in the afternoon on Sunday, the fifteenth of April, 1917, to hear an important a

“There! Do you see? I am not in difficulty with the authorities for any reason whatsoever,” Lucien said triumphantly. “It is not a letter to me or even about me. It is a general circular, like a patent-medicine flyer.”

Marie took no notice of his tone. She’d had more than twenty years’ practice taking no notice of his tone when that suited her purposes, as it did now. She said, “For what reason do they send this out? They have never done anything like it before.” She regarded the paper with deep suspicion.

Charles nodded vigorously. “They cordially invite us,” he said. “They call this a festivity. They say we do not have to come to it. They have never done anything like this since they overran our country.” Galtier’s elder son was probably the quietest member of the family, and also the least reconciled to the U.S. occupation.

“It could be,” Lucien said, “that Nicole will know more of this, working as she does at the hospital with so many Americans. For now, and until she comes home, I do not intend to worry about it, as I have plenty to do in the fields if we are to put in any sort of crop this year.”

“Yes, go on, get out of the house,” Marie said. “I also have plenty to do.”

“And who called me to the house?” he asked, but he might as well have been talking to the air.

Even as he worked, though, he wondered about the peculiar a

Despite that suspicion of change, he would have been glad if Nicole had brought Dr. O’Doull home for supper. But she returned to the farmhouse by herself, and proved to be as startled by the flyer as the rest of the family.

“How are we to find out what it means?” she asked.

Georges spoke up, as i

His older sister glared at him. He beamed back, mild as milk, which only made her more furious. Before the row could go any further, Lucien said, “That is exactly what we shall do.” Marie gave him a look that was anything but altogether approving. Once he had made his intention so plain, though, not even she saw any chance of getting him to change his mind.

The highway up to Riviere-du-Loup was more crowded than usual that Sunday morning, as many families from the outlying farms came in to the town to go to church and then stay. The big, snorting U.S. trucks always on the road had to use their horns again and again to clear the slow-moving wagons from their path. Many of the men in the wagons took their own sweet time about getting out of the way, too.

Splendid in his new vestments, Bishop Pascal officiated at the Mass. “Please stay for the afternoon’s a

When Galtier emerged from the church with his family, he found one more change: the market square had been draped with bunting, some red, white, and blue, some simply white and blue, the colors of Quebec. “What are they going to say?” he asked the air. “What are they going to do? Are they going to say we are now a part of the United States? If they say this, I say to them that we shall be a troubled part of the United States.”

“We are here,” Marie said. “Let us wait. Let us see. What else can we do?” There, Lucien found nothing with which to disagree.

They waited, and chatted with neighbors and with folk who did not live close by the farm and whom they saw but seldom. At precisely two o’clock, Major Jedediah Quigley and Bishop Pascal ascended to a bunting-draped platform a squad of U.S. soldiers had set up not far from the church.

An expectant hush fell. Into it, Major Quigley spoke in his elegant-his too-elegant-French: “My friends, I should like to thank all of you for coming here today and becoming a part of this great day in the history of your land. As others are a

“The what?” Lucien frowned. “There is no such thing.”

“There is now,” someone behind him said. He nodded. He did not know what to feel: joy, fury, bewilderment? Bewilderment won. Quebecois were a separate people, yes, assuredly. Were they a separate nation? If they were, what sort of separate nation would they be?

Quigley was continuing: “I am pleased to a

From this, Lucien thought, we can see that the United States and their allies recognize this so-called Republic, and that no one else does. That left him anything but surprised: the Entente powers would hardly acknowledge that one of their own would be, could be, torn asunder. The Entente powers did not recognize the Poland the Germans had erected on soil taken from Russia, either.

As if on cue-afterwards, but only afterwards, Galtier wondered if it was on cue-a soldier came ru

That made the buzzing even louder, and changed its note. Lucien did not buzz, but he did raise an eyebrow. Italy was a member of the Quadruple Alliance with the USA, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, but a backsliding member: she had been neutral since the war began. And the Netherlands, though bordered on her entire land frontier by Germany and German-occupied Belgium, still carried on what trade with England she could. She was a true neutral, and she had recognized this republic.

“I am greatly honored to congratulate Quebec on achieving her independence, even if it was far too many years delayed by British contempt,” Major Quigley said, “and I am privileged to offer this salute to you, Quebecois free at last: vive la Republique de Quebec! ”

“Vive la Republique!” Not everyone in the square shouted it. Not even a majority of the people in the square shouted it. But a surprising number-surprising, at any rate, to Lucien, who kept silent with his family-did shout it. Everyone looked around to see who shouted and who did not. Would feuds start because some had shouted and some had not?