Nicole squealed when Marie told her (Lucien could not make himself do anything more than nod) she might invite the doctor for supper. Georges said, “Ah, so I am to have an American brother-in-law, n’est-ce pas?” Nicole’s face turned the color of fire. She threw a potato at him. It thumped against his ribs. Grinning still, he said, “I am wounded! The doctor must cure me!” and thrashed about on the floor.
Charles, his older brother, said nothing, not with words, but the look he sent Lucien said, Father, how could you? Galtier’s shrug showed how little true choice he had had. Nicole’s three younger sisters couldn’t seem to decide whether to be horrified or fascinated by the news.
Galtier went through the next day’s work as if he were a machine wound up to perform its tasks without thought. His mind had already leapt to the evening, and to the meeting with the American, O’Doull. In his mind, he ran through a dozen, a score of conversations with the man. Whether any of them would have anything to do with reality he had no idea, but he played them out all the same.
He looked up in some surprise to see the sun near setting. Time to go in, he realized, on most days a welcome thought but today one so much the opposite that he looked around for more chores to do. Talking with the American in the privacy of his own mind was one thing. Talking with the man in the real world was a different, far more daunting prospect.
He wiped his boots with special care. Even so, he knew he brought the aromas of the farmyard into the house with him. How could he help it? Knowing he could not help it, knowing he was not the only one on the farm who did it, he thought nothing of it most of the time. Now-
Now, there in the parlor sat a tall, skinny stranger in town clothes; he was talking with Nicole and doing what looked to be his gallant best not to be upset at having her brothers and sisters stare at him. He sprang to his feet when Lucien came in. So did Nicole. “Father,” she said formally, “I would like to introduce to you Dr. Leonard O’Doull. Leonard, this is my father, Monsieur Lucien Galtier.”
“I am very pleased to meet you, sir,” O’Doull said in good French, the Parisian accent with which he’d learned the tongue overlain by the rhythms of the Quebecois with whom he’d been working. Galtier took that as a good sign, a sign of accommodation. He could not imagine Major Quigley sounding like a Quebecois if he stayed in this country a hundred years.
O’Doull’s hands were pale and soft, but not smooth. The skin on them was chafed and reddened and cracked in many places, some of those cracks looking angry and inflamed. Doctors had to wash often in corrosive chemicals to keep their hands free of germs.
As for the rest of the doctor, he looked like an Irishman: fair skin with freckles, sandy hair, almost cat-green eyes, a dimple in his chin so deep a plow might have dug it. He was unobtrusively sizing up Galtier as the farmer examined him. “I do thank you very much for letting me come into your home,” he said. “I know it is an intrusion, and I know it is a”-he cast about for a word-“an awkwardness for you as well.”
He was frank. Lucien liked him the better for that. “Well, we shall see how it goes,” he said. “I can always throw you out, after all.”
“Father!” Nicole exclaimed in horror. But one of O’Doull’s gingery eyebrows lifted; he knew Galtier hadn’t meant that seriously. Again, against his will, Galtier’s opinion of the doctor went up.
Marie served up potatoes and greens and ham cooked with prunes and dried apples. Lucien got out a jug of applejack he’d bought from one of the farmers nearby. He hadn’t expected he’d want to do that. O’Doull, though, even if he was an American, seemed a man of both sense and humor. He also made appreciative noises about Marie’s cooking, which caused her to fill up his plate once more after he’d demolished his first helping. The second disappeared as quickly.
Georges made a show of looking under the table. “Where does such a scrawny fellow put it all?” he asked.
“I have a secret pocket, like a kangaroo,” O’Doull answered gravely. Georges blinked, unused to getting as good as he gave.
When supper was done and the womenfolk went off to wash and dry, the American handed cigars to Lucien and Charles and Georges. Lucien poured more apple brandy for them all. “Salut,” he said, raising his glass, and then, experimentally, before drinking, “Je me souviens.”
I will remember: the motto of Quebec in the face of many difficult times, this one more than most. He was not surprised to see that Leonard O’Doull understood not only the words but also the meaning behind them. The American doctor drank the toast, then said, “I understand how hard this is for you, and I thank you again for being so hospitable to an outsider.”
Galtier had had enough applejack by then to loosen his tongue a little. He said, “How can you understand, down deep and truly? You are an American, an occupier, not one of the occupied.”
“My homeland is also occupied,” O’Doull answered. “England has done more and worse for longer to the Irish than she ever did to Quebec.” He spoke now with absolute seriousness. “My grandfather was a starving boy when he came to the United States because all the potatoes died and the English landowners sold the wheat in the fields abroad instead of feeding the people with it. We are paying back the debt.”
“The Irish rebellion has not thrown out the English,” Galtier said.
“No, but it goes on, and ties down their men,” O’Doull replied. “It would be better if the U.S. Navy could bring more arms to them, but boats do put in at little beaches every now and then, in spite of what the British fleet can do to stop them, and machine guns aren’t so big and bulky.”
“You say this here, to a country that might rise in revolt against the United States as Ireland has against England?” Even with applejack in him, Lucien would have spoken so openly to few men on such brief acquaintance: fewer still among the occupiers. But while the doctor might disagree, Lucien did not believe he would betray him to the authorities.
O’Doull said, “You will be freer with the United States than you ever were in Canada. It has proved true for the Irish; it will prove true for you as well. This I believe with all my heart.”
Charles, who usually kept his own counsel, said, “Few countries invade their neighbors for the purpose of making them free.”
“We came into Canada to beat the British Empire,” O’Doull answered, blowing a smoke ring. “They and the Rebels stabbed us in the back twice. But I think, truly, you will be better off outside the Empire than you were in it.”
“If we left Canada, if we left the British Empire, of our own will, then it could be you are right,” Lucien said. “Anyone who forces something on someone and then says he will be better for it-you will, I hope, understand me when I say this is difficult to appreciate.”
“It could be you said the same thing when your mother gave you medicine when you were small,” O’Doull replied.
“Yes, it could be,” Lucien said. With dignity, he continued, “But, monsieur le docteur, you are not my mother, and the United States are not Quebec’s mother. If any country is, it is France.”
“All right. I can see how you would feel that way, M. Galtier.” O’Doull got to his feet. “I do thank you and your wife and your enchanting family for the fine supper, and for your company as well. Is it possible that I might come back again one day, drink some more of this excellent applejack, and talk about the world again? And we might even talk of other things as well. If you will pardon me one moment, I would like also to say good-bye to Nicole.”
She was one of the other things the American would want to talk about, Galtier knew. He felt the pressure of his sons’ eyes on him. Almost to his own surprise, he heard himself saying, “Yes, this could be. Next week, perhaps, or the week after that.” Until the words were out of his mouth, he hadn’t fully realized he approved of the doctor in spite of his country and his ideas. Well, he thought, the arguments will be amusing.