‘What are you talking about, chiquito?’
‘When you fell in love with Mum, you turned your back on your country, your culture and your language. You rejected your whole identity for her.’
‘No. That’s not true. I didn’t turn my back on anything.’
‘You never listen to Latino music.’
‘I listen to lots of different kinds of music.’
‘You lost your accent for her.’
‘No. I changed my accent for my job. I was a cop and I was fresh off the boat from a country of drug traffickers. You get the picture?’
‘You let her walk all over you and did everything she wanted.’
‘Appearances can be deceiving, chiquito. You thought you saw something, but you didn’t. It was just a figment of your imagination.’
Moralès had explained this theory dozens of times to his investigation teams – that people crafted their own fiction and convinced themselves it was the truth. Could his son have done precisely that – modelled his love life on a lie?
‘That’s what you taught me – to be submissive.’
‘I never taught you that, or asked that of you. I was never submissive. I loved your mother.’
There it was. He’d done it. Joaquin had conjugated his love in the past tense. He knew his son had heard what he’d said. He held Sébastien’s gaze. Then he walked over to the sink and dropped his son’s phone into the dish water.
‘Chiquito…’
Joaquin found two foil trays and put them on the counter. He took a moment to savour the aroma of the perfectly cooked meal. In each of the trays, he placed two tortillas and topped them with fish, yogurt, chopped cabbage, kiwi salsa and fresh coriander. He fitted the lids, stacked one dish on top of the other and put them in a plastic bag, which he held out for his son to take.
Some days you have to take it all, and others it’s better to let it all go.
Sébastien looked at his father, reached for the glass of rum and downed the amber liquid in one. Then he snatched the bag and left the kitchen.
There was enough food left to feed an entire family, grandchildren and all, but Joaquin Moralès had lost his appetite.
‘Right, well I wouldn’t say no to fish tacos!’
Moralès jumped and turned around. Lefebvre must have slipped into the auberge as Sébastien was leaving.
‘Help yourself.’
The constable wasn’t going to wait to be asked twice. He grabbed a plate and filled it generously.
‘I’ve got photocopies of the case file for Firmin’s death,’ he said, tasting a spoonful of salsa somewhat apprehensively. ‘Mmm … This saucy little mix of yours is quite something. Is it a Mexican family recipe?’
‘No. It’s a culinary experiment.’
Moralès picked up a spoon, scooped up some of the salsa and tasted it with his eyes closed. It was the first time something concocted by his son had tasted so good.
‘Aren’t you having any yourself?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You’ve got a face like a prison guard’s, Moralès. Come and sit down.’
Holding his plate in one hand, with the other Lefebvre grabbed the bottle of rum, two clean glasses and cutlery and made his way over to a booth by the window, offering the sea as a backdrop. He sat down, poured the rum and tucked into his first taco with gusto.
‘I saw your son hoofing it out of here like someone had lit a fire under his behind. What’s been going on here?’
Joaquin sat down too, and took a swig of rum. ‘Sébastien’s angry at me.’
‘It’s every kid’s prerogative to declare war on their parents. But yours is a bit old to be stomping around like an angry teenager.’
‘He accused me of being submissive.’
‘Are you a submissive man, Moralès?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Listen, you know I wouldn’t think twice to get down on one knee in front of a woman like my Teresita, but I suppose that’s not the same thing.’
‘He accused me of abandoning my Mexican roots.’
‘Is that true?’ Lefebvre struggled to ask through a mouth full of taco.
‘I left Mexico in 1976. Five years after the paramilitaries opened fire on students in Mexico City. In June.’
Lefebvre stopped eating.
‘I was studying to be a police officer in a country of drug traffickers then. If I’d stayed there, I’d have been dead before I turned thirty-five.’
Lefebvre leaned against the backrest of the booth, took a swig of rum and waited for the rest of the story.
‘I met Sarah by chance. She had flown to Mexico to meet up with a guy, but she ended up at the wrong airport and didn’t speak a word of Spanish. I was patrolling around the airport and found her in tears.’
‘Ah, so you took it upon yourself to play the tour guide and show her a good time. I knew you were the type to do whatever it takes to serve and protect,’ Lefebvre said with a wink, diving back into his plate.
Moralès smiled in spite of himself. ‘Yes, but I got her pregnant.’
Érik Lefebvre nearly choked on his fish tacos.
‘So I did the decent thing. I came up to Montreal and married her.’
Lefebvre stopped coughing and pulled himself together. ‘How old were you?’
‘Twenty-two.’
Joaquin Moralès turned his gaze to the window and contemplated the gulf as it disappeared into the evening shadows.
‘One of Sarah’s uncles was a police officer with the Sûreté du Québec. He pulled some strings and got me into police-training school here. I had to repeat what I’d already studied down south, and perfect my French.’
Lefebvre pushed away his empty plate, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took a swig of rum.
‘In the early eighties, all the law-enforcement agencies – the Mounties, the SQ and the municipal forces – were waging war on the narcos of Latin America. So being a Mexican in the SQ back then was as sketchy as being undercover. After a while, I’d had enough.’
‘Of being undercover?’
Moralès had lost sight of the sea. The moon was yet to rise, and in the window all he could see were the reflections of the lights in the dining room, the bottle of rum, and his hands cupping the empty glass.
‘Of seeing the worst Latinos doing the worst things. Of feeling ashamed. Of listening to the same music as them, hailing from the same continent and hearing their accent on my lips.’
‘So you decided the Quebec accent wouldn’t be as bad? It’s not often you hear that.’
Joaquin mustered a smile.
‘So what’s your son holding against you, exactly?’
‘He thinks I sacrificed my Mexican identity to please my wife.’
‘And if that were the case, how would that be a problem?’
‘He says I’ve passed on the gene of male submissiveness to him.’
Lefebvre opened his eyes wide, whistled between his teeth and poured two more shots of rum. ‘And I thought my mum had her head in the clouds.’ Lefebvre raised his glass to his lips and downed it in one. ‘So where’s that son of yours gone now?’
‘To see a woman he’s met.’
‘Didn’t you say he was living with someone?’
‘Yes.’
Joaquin didn’t tell him Maude was expecting another man’s child.
‘It’s a good way to exercise his freedom from male submissiveness, I suppose. And who’s the girl, anyway?’
‘No idea.’
Lefebvre slipped his way out of the booth. ‘We all take turns playing someone else’s tourist here in the Gaspé. Do you miss Mexico?’ he asked.
Moralès didn’t answer. He just sipped his rum as Lefebvre cleared his dishes and took them to the kitchen. On his return, the constable picked up the file he had brought with him and slid it across the table to the detective.