Sticks and Stones Page 10

  Denise snorted and replied that it was more likely that Arno was keeping an eye on Grace given that they both might be sitting before the tenure committee in the spring. She had a point, though personally I was hoping for my theory. I had seen other folks get into major sycophant mode when tenure time came up, and it could get pretty ugly. It would be much nicer if there was romance brewing. Every now and then I get these really turgid matchmaking urges, especially when I’ve been touched in that department. I want everyone I like to be in love, too. Although I am calming down as I age, people I admire would do well to run and hide when I get into these moods. Of course, given my track record to date, love seemed to be a rather bittersweet thing to wish on people.

  I really admire Grace. She sits on three committees, teaches a full load, edits and puts out four issues of HYSTERICAL every year, mainly from her office, has three grad students already, and she hasn’t even got tenure yet. The best thing about her is that she treats sessionals as colleagues, when precious few others in the department even deign to recognize that we exist. She always hosts a Christmas party for the entire department on the Friday evening before the start of mid-term exams; usually only the younger members, sessionals and the heavy drinkers attend, but the parties are always a blast.

  I was using the thought of that upcoming party to come to keep me focused through the last weeks of teaching. It wasn’t easy. I’d known enough to schedule some short stories for pre-exam classes. My students would be too wired on caffeine to do justice to poetry, and discussions that could be contained within one class were more likely to be fruitful since most of them were cutting their more “expendable” classes every so often in order to study. There would be a three-day lull between the last class and first exam, but I suppose that's not enough for someone who has spent the first term drinking beer.

  The Tuesday session on Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” went well. Mind you, I could teach that story in my sleep; it’s so full of hooks on which to hang ­discussion. On the other hand, they hated Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” a story I adore. It was with a heavy heart that I started into the last lecture’s topic, which was “Boys and Girls,” the only Alice Munro that ever seems to get anthologized.

  It was like an early Christmas present. Most had caught the fact that the boy’s name, Laird, was full of meaning, and that the girl had no name. A couple of the more chauvinistic tried to make the case that narrators can’t call themselves by name realistically, but their arguments were quickly squashed by other members of the class. I was starting to have high hopes for the first work of the new year, which would be Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine.

  I’d saved the last ten minutes of the class for a quickie talk about mid-session exam writing. They’d already written one for me, but my first term mid-term is usually ten short snappers and two small essays, and for some of them it was the only university exam they'd as yet encountered.

  “Remember to bring more than one pen, and spend the first five minutes reading through the exam paper. There’s a story, most likely apocryphal, that goes around this time of year about a prof who gave out an exam with ‘PLEASE READ THROUGH THE ENTIRE EXAM FIRST’ printed at the top. Then there were about a hundred furiously difficult questions. The final question said, ‘Do not answer the above ­questions.’ ”

  Lloyd in the back row raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Any chance you'll be doing that?”

  “In your dreams.”

  The class laughed.

  “Two more things. I want Love Medicine read for the first class in January. Don’t groan, it’s a good read. I think you’ll enjoy it. In fact, if you’re in doubt, it makes a good present, too. Just don’t give away your copy. And second, for those of you who care to participate, there will be a candlelight vigil held tomorrow evening starting at six p.m. at the memorial garden in front of the Administration Building. This is to commemorate the death of the fourteen students the École Polytechnique on December 6th, 1989. You might have seen posters up around campus.”

  I checked my wristwatch against the clock on the side wall.

  “That’s it. See you on the sixteenth at nine a.m. in this room. No books. No snacks. Drinks allowed as long as you don’t intend to spill them on your exam booklet. Good luck with the studying.”

  The noise wall rose immediately. I had a feeling there was more discussion about last class blow-out parties than library study dates, but I could have been wrong. I’ve been wrong before.

  26

  IT WASN’T ONE OF OUR INFAMOUS COLD SNAPS, BUT I still think there is something intensely heroic about willingly standing out in minus 10 Celcius weather at six in the evening for an unspecified amount of time. I’d thought of quizzing Denise about how long things were going to be, but I didn’t feel right asking after she’d been going to so much trouble to make things meaningful and poetic. She looked like what I’ve always imagined medieval saints must have looked prior to one of their ecstasies: tired, harassed, and driven.

  She and Grace had planned everything. They had worried the consequences of each segment in the same way my aunt had planned my cousin’s $10,000 wedding. I felt a bit guilty, as I’d just run errands. Of course, I’d done about as much as any of the fellows had. I looked around for them. I could spot Greg on the other side of the stairs, handing out candles. Julian, I ­figured, would be with the sound engineer, since he had an affinity for that sort of thing. I couldn’t spot Arno anywhere, but it was a big crowd. So I had not contributed as much as Grace or Denise. That didn’t make me less of a ­person.

  The handbills around campus had done their stuff. The pavement in front of the Administration Building was filling up, mostly with young women in parkas and moon boots. A few young men were also in attendance, but not as many as I’d have wished.

  Denise had mentioned that she’d contacted the media, but I was impressed with the turnout. Both newspapers were there, as well as a camera crew from the CBC and A-Channel. Denise came over with Mark Paulson, the Edmonton Journal reporter, in tow. She had apparently promised him an interview after the scripted portion of the vigil was over. She handed him over to me, then made her way up the stairs of the Administration Building, where the sound system was set up.

  I could tell Mark Paulson was smitten with Denise from the way he kept his eyes on her even as he shook hands with me. What did I care? I’d already had the cold shoulder from Steve this week. Mr. Paulson could do his best to make me feel inadequate, but he couldn’t compete.

  “We can get a bit closer, if you’d like,” I said. “Most of the presentation will come from the steps, but there’s going to be something happening around the shrubbery garden after about ten minutes.”

  “I know we met before, but I never did catch your name,” he said, his reporter's instincts conquering the cold.

  “My name’s Randy. I’m just helping out.” I was remembering the chairman’s warnings about keeping out of the picture.

  “Randy?” His pen was poised over the ubiquitous notebook.

  “Craig,” I answered, checking his spelling. The universal quest for fame won out over my desire to keep a low profile to avoid risking McNeely’s wrath. Caution won out and made me continue. “Honestly I’m just a friend of Denise’s helping out. Denise and Grace are the real organizers. Dr. Grace Tarrant.”

  He gave me a look I recognized from my first-year students trying to remember trivial details like the name of the author of Paradise Lost. I had dubbed it the “mentally constipated countenance.”

  “Randy Craig. I know that name.”

  I wasn’t about to help him out. “You’re probably thinking of the hockey player. Gregg. It happens a lot.”

  “No, I know your name. Something to do with the Co-ed Murder? You were her prof, that’s right. I covered that story and the Poison Pen Letters. No leads anymore. I’ve tried to get on to the policeman in charge, Browning, but he doesn’t have the time o
f day for the fourth estate. Usually that’s a sign of a no-hoper.”

  Just hearing Steve’s name was enough to make my heart do a little flutter kick.

  “So what do you think?”

  I tuned back in to Mark Paulson, who had kept right on going, just like that annoying pink rabbit in the TV ads. How did he ever get any quotable quotes if he was always doing all the talking?

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, what would you say to an interview, your impressions of the victim as a student? I could couple it with some family reminiscences.”

  My look of horror must have telegraphed itself to him. Maybe Steve was right and I did have a see-through face.

  “Hey, it would be useful. Get an unsolved death back on the front burners where it belongs. It’s not ghoulishness”—Steve had to be right, this guy was reading my mind—“it’s a public service. You do want to see justice done, don’t you, Dr. Craig?”

  “It’s just Randy.”

  Paulson looked unnerved, and I realized that it sounded friendlier than I’d intended.

  “I don’t have my Ph.D. I’m not Dr. Craig.”

  Just then, the ceremony began, and Mark Paulson’s nose turned away from me and toward the news.

  27

  GRACE BEGAN BY WELCOMING ALL AND EXPLAINING the ­symbolism of the candles and the gong. She spoke about the memorial garden, and made a touching reference to its snowy, sleeping state. She ended with a short essay that I think came from Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, and then turned the microphone over to Denise. Even bundled up against the elements, she looked right out of Vogue. Mark Paulson edged closer though the sound system was more than adequate. Denise just has that effect on men.

  “In 1989, fourteen women died, because they were women. Marc Lepine didn’t know these women. He had nothing to fear from these women. These women had not snubbed him or scorned him. Yet, because these women believed that the world really meant what it said and that women were the equals of men, they had the temerity to choose to train as engineers. That is what Marc Lepine took to be their sin.”

  The tone from the gong sounded just as Denise paused to take a breath.

  “We must remember these young women every day if we are ever to get beyond the boundaries of a world where women are afraid to walk alone at night, where women are shackled to abusive husbands, where women must strive beyond excellence to compete with the merely satisfactory work of their fellows.

  “I am not suggesting that we claim these young women as martyrs. They did not wish to be martyred. They merely wished to live their lives as they chose to live them. This they were not allowed. Let us instead remember them with sadness, and pray for the day when all girls can sleep safely and dream whatever dreams they want.”

  The volunteers had silently passed through the crowd, handing out candles. Denise lit hers with the taper and turned to light Grace’s. Grace moved down the stairs and in turn lit the candle of one of the front row students. Candles began to flicker throughout the crowd, like a wave of fireflies passing over the assembly. It was an incredibly moving ­gesture, and I found myself sniffling a bit as I leaned toward the girl in front of me to shield my own candle from the wind.

  One of Grace’s graduate students was reading the names of the Montreal students. Those lilting French Canadian names hit at my heart the same way they had every year at this time. The gong sounded its melancholy death knell for yet another Canadian woman. Mark Paulson had edged away from me toward Denise, and I felt a momentary bitterness against his lack of understanding of the sacredness of the moment. It was like getting up to leave church before the minister has passed your pew.

  Just then someone touched my arm. Assuming it was another candlelighter, I cupped the flame and turned to see Steve, bundled in his EPS regulation parka.

  “I couldn’t find you at first. Who was that guy?”

  I marveled that he sounded jealous.

  “That was Denise’s reporter. I think he’s going to find it rough going if he interrupts her too soon, though. Have you been here long?”

  “Yep, very nice ceremony.”

  I nodded my agreement. I wasn’t sure I was up to a conversation yet, the moment was still upon me. Steve seemed to understand. He stood beside me, watching the lights bobble among the crowd.

  After a few minutes, and another note from the gong, I turned back to him. “You’re here officially?”

  “In a manner of speaking. There are some regular officers assigned, just as for any organized gathering. I just thought I’d come along, since it seems so much a part of the other stuff.”

  “You think there’ll be trouble?”

  “Well, there hasn’t been so far, and there’s not much left is there?”

  I tried to remember the agenda. “I think there’s just the anthem in a couple of minutes. Mind you, there’ll be people sticking around, holding vigil most of the night, I would guess.”

  “In this weather?”

  “Sorry, none of us were polled about when to hold the massacre,” I retorted sharply.

  Steve winced. “Sorry. That was thoughtless. Are you sticking around all night?”

  “No, I’m not up to the cold.” I allowed myself a smile of forgiveness. “I’m just here for the ceremony, and then I don’t know. I haven’t spotted Leo or Arno anywhere, and they were on the committee. Julian is over there behind the stairs, helping steady the sound booth’s baffles or some such.” I shrugged. “I really don’t know if anything is on for later, besides the vigil. I guess it depends on what Grace and Denise are up to. I hadn’t really thought much past seven-thirty, to tell you the truth.”

  Heather, one of the most marvelous voices to ever come out of the music department, was stepping up to the microphone. She didn’t stand too close. I’d heard her sing in Convocation Hall once and figured she didn’t even need the mike. She had the look of a tragic heroine from some opera as she began a spiritual, “All My Troubles, Lord, Soon Be Over.” The gong miraculously slid right into the music. Someone in the front of the crowd began to weep openly.

  Steve stiffened. I looked up at him questioningly.

  “Randy, meet me on the steps of St. Joe’s. Go now, please!”

  I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, but he moved off before I could speak. I started to move back across the bus route to the Catholic College. I wasn’t sure why I was letting a man dictate my movements on tonight of all nights, but there had been something in Steve’s voice that made me listen.

  It made no difference in the long run.

  While we had all been focusing on Heather, several figures in red jackets and full head masks had circled the crowd. The ones between me and St. Joe’s had on a gorilla mask and a Nixon mask, respectively. They were shouting, “Chill out, bitches,” so loudly that they were able to drown out Heather’s voice. Or maybe she had stopped singing anyway. The crowd turned toward their voices, and everyone began to scream at once. The masked offenders were letting loose cold water from huge, luridly-colored water rifles.

  Any other time it would have been offensive. On a chilly December night it was dangerous. People were getting drenched. The ground was quickly becoming treacherous. I wasn’t sure where Steve was, but his so-called crowd control folks weren’t all that obvious to me. I got off lightly with a quick spraying, since I’d already been moving out of range. The folks near the front weren’t as lucky. Denise tried to get to the mike to stop the panic, but the technician warned her away, since the equipment had already had a dousing.

  I saw one cop chasing one of the guys in red, who flung his water gun away and loped off toward the Education Building. Another couple headed for the entrances to the Light Rail Transit subway. They wouldn’t get away, unless there ­happened to be a convenient train waiting.

  People were milling toward the entrances to the Student Union Building, shivering and baffled by their brush with hatred. I stamped my feet to keep myself warm, waiting for St
eve.

  I whirled around when I heard someone behind me, but it was just a small priest in a raggedy black sweater opening the door for me.

  “Wouldn’t you rather step inside, dear?”

  “Thanks. I’m supposed to meet someone here.”

  “You can watch through the door. Just what on earth is happening?”

  I explained as best I could to Father Masson, who had asked a passing student to fetch me a cup of coffee. He tutted and shook his head. Coffee arrived at the same time as Steve.

  Father Masson brightened at the sight of him.

  “Steve Browning! How are you?”

  “Hello, Father. I see you’ve met Randy. Thank you for the sanctuary, as it were.”

  Steve turned to me.

  “I took a course on Christian Platonics from Father Masson. That must have been fifteen years ago. I can’t believe you remember the names of all your students.”

  “Only the argumentative ones,” said the old priest fondly. “So you are now a policeman?”

  “For my sins.” Steve grinned back.

  I was starting to feel left out. “What’s happening out there?” I asked Steve.

  “We managed to catch one of the pranksters, and he’s being hauled downtown now. Most of the vigil attendees are shivering in SUB, and some officers are in there taking ­statements. Your friend Grace has made a call for pizza, and said something about “blowing the hysterical budget,” but I’m not sure what she was on about.”

  “HYSTERICAL, not hysterical,” I explained, and then realized that they couldn’t be expected to hear my distinction of all capitals. “I mean the periodical. Trust Grace to do something like that. Are they looking for me?”