are, teacher — the scientists who started all this messing around with genes. My friend put it this way:
Watson and Crick
performed a neat trick.
They got the world keen
on exploiting the gene.
They showed how a suture
could sew up our future
and made “Mother Nature”
extinct nomenclature.
“That makes good sense to me.”
“Well, you’re going to have to talk to Daniel about it. And by the way, Sam, take it easy on Daniel. He’s been under a lot of stress recently. He’s not — well, he’s not exactly himself.”
Sam gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean by that?”
Clara shrugged her shoulders; they walked on, and when she spoke to him again it was in a much softer voice, one that Sam found curiously vulnerable.
“You know what a sweet-tempered, placid guy he is, ever since he gave up drinking and started to use more pot. Well, he’s still like that. Only recently he’s been given to outbursts.”
“Go on.”
“He seems to have a very short fuse. He screams and yells sometimes and even throws things around. He’s just not himself these days.”
“Since when?”
“Since he started working on this show. He seems almost possessed. To tell you the truth, the show’s not as funny as his exhibitions usually are. I told him that, and he burst out at me, accused me of not understanding him, of trying to put his imagination in a box. He’s never talked like that before. I think he’s —”
Sam interrupted her, stopped and pointed ahead. “See that block of stone sitting all by itself on the grass over there, just beyond that tree. It’s a monument. Not Joan of Arc this time. The Berthelets thought I should look at it …You were saying?”
“I’ve told you just about everything. I wouldn’t hold back on you.”
“But you were going to say something about Daniel.”
Clara took his hand. “I don’t see any reason to mention this to the police, not even to Paul. But Daniel’s been doing some new kinds of meditation and physical training recently. Every now and then he disappears, which is very unlike him. He tells me he goes out to some lake in the Gatineau to ‘re-immerse in nature.’ I have an idea, but only a vague idea, of what that involves. He told me the other week, ‘I’m trying to be the warrior I always should have been’.”
Sam nodded. “A lot of us would like to be that.”
They walked in silence toward the monument, a tiny outcropping of stone standing by itself on a small bed of flowers on the brilliant, empty greensward.
“A discreet monument this,” Clara said.
Sam nodded. They walked around the carved stone and he read the French inscription:
MONTCALM
VAINCU
BLESSÉ À MORT ICI
LE 13 SEPTEMBRE 1759
“My God!” Clara said. “Your namesake. So this is where he died. Montcalm vaincu — Montcalm defeated.”
Sam stared down at the shining stone, at the white irises growing up around it. He felt her probing glance, and pressed his lips together as she spoke to him.
“C’mon, Sam. Cheer up. It’s not the family curse. You’re not defeated yet.”
He shook his head and managed a smile.
“You know, Clara, I’ve heard a lot about this spot. But my dad always refused to bring us here. He talked about it sometimes in California. He wanted to revisit this city, and walk around the Plains, but he claimed it might bring us bad luck. He was very superstitious. So he hemmed and hawed and never got back here. I guess he realized too late that California brought us much worse luck than old Montcalm could ever have delivered. Even so, it took me all this time to get up the nerve up to come here.”
“And you feel okay? There’s no lightning going to strike you from the blue heaven?”
“No, I guess not. That’s what comes of arriving with my invincible black bitch, I guess.”
Clara laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Shut your white face, and walk with me.”
They moved on across the wide expanse of green. After a long silence Sam said, “You know, with some women you remember only the bad times. With you, Clara, I only recall the fun we used to have.”
“That’s because even the bad times were fun — in a way.”
“Yeah.”
They followed the path that curved down toward the old city. The great, foursquare copper-roofed tower of the Château Frontenac dominated the horizon, the low ramparts and roof of the Citadel were visible on the far right. They couldn’t see the river, but Sam sensed its presence; a ribbon of light that curved around the promontory of Cap Diamant, opening up history and the past, giving shape to the plains and the city.
He couldn’t help thinking of his father, who had never returned to rediscover and reclaim all this, and of Teddy, who had missed it altogether.
They crossed Saint-Denis, a long street, just then surprisingly empty, its plain facades looking chaste in the sunshine, and walked down De Brébeuf to Sainte-Geneviève.
“Daniel and I found a good place,” Clara said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll get to enjoy it much, though.”
“You’ll be off the hook before you know it.”
Clara stopped and pointed to the dormered upper level of an elegant brick building some way down the street. “The apartment belongs to an architect. He’s going to be surprised to have the police around.”
They drifted along in a pleasant maze of churches, gardens, and distinguished old houses; the Château Frontenac loomed nearby. A few tourists hoofed past. Sam spotted a man lounging almost opposite the building they were approaching; the fellow was clearly going nowhere and trying hard to look inconspicuous — a plainclothesman.
The brick house was elegant, its front door of glass and oak; there were lamps of antique brass, and boxed pink roses. The place was divided into flats. As they thumped up the steep stairs a figure appeared above and a familiar voice greeted them. Paul Berthelet stood waiting, looking even more than usual, Sam thought, like François Truffaut, with his slender compact strength, his intelligent eyes, and dark good looks.
“So you two connected … very good. Hope you didn’t miss your breakfast, Sam,” Paul said.
“No, I found that excellent café you recommended. But Ginette isn’t going to be happy
