Day of Epiphany

Foreword

This novel is a fictional account set against the historical backdrop of Québec’s Grande Noirceur—Great Darkness—a period from 1944 to 1959 characterized by the despotic reign of premier Maurice Duplessis and the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church over all aspects of every day life.

Even before Duplessis, the Church held a stranglehold on all matters pertaining to health, education, and social services in Québec, which included hospitals and orphanages. These institutions were, more than anything, extremely profitable ventures that made millions of dollars for the religious orders who ran them. Then, in a manoeuvre designed to redirect federal subsidies earmarked for mental hospitals, Duplessis facilitated the deliberate misclassification of some 7,000 orphans as “mentally ill”. Many of these children were sent to psychiatric facilities or, alternatively, the orphanages themselves were converted into asylums.

These orphans, often the children of unwed mothers pressured by the Church into relinquishing custody, had no rights under the law. Medical orders were forged or fabricated, birth records were altered, identities erased, and children were subjected to experimental drugs, confinement, straight jackets, electroconvulsive shock therapy, lobotomies, and unspeakable levels of abuse.

These children would come to be known collectively as les Orphelins de Duplessis.

Note: Although this is a fictional account, the treatment and instances of abuse as described in the novel are based entirely on cases as reported by the surviving victims themselves.

Part 1

Orphanage

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

Confession (1959)

On a Saturday afternoon in early March, 1959, Father Marius Normand follows a single set of fresh footprints up the steep, winding walkway to the front entrance of Église Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours, known by the locals as NDPS. Three, maybe four, earlier sets that he can discern have had their detail dulled and rounded by the new snow. There might be all of half a dozen people in the pews right now waiting for afternoon confessions to begin, probably fewer.

Father Normand sighs. Ten years ago, they’d have been lined up out the door.

He has reason to feel disappointed. He’s just spent six excruciating days hosting Father Léonidas Charbonneau, whom the diocese sends every year to rile up the faithful during Lent. Charbonneau is a père prédicataire, an old fashioned touring preacher who travels from one parish to the next, where he holes up at the rectory and gives three sermons a day to a rapt and terrified audience. He’s been doing it for decades. The themes never change: sin— mortal and venial—, contrition, Christian life, judgement, death, Hell, confession, marriage, spousal obligation, charity, the sacraments, suffering, perseverance, and sacrifice. Even Father Normand thinks he lays it on a little thick.

Charbonneau left town yesterday, a full three days early, when he heard that half a foot of snow was on the way. A bit of a relief, really. He could be a handful: extremely conservative and vocal about it, the kind of person about whom the expression more Catholic than the Pope may have been originally coined. The old man makes no secret of his disdain for what he called ‘reformers and bleeding hearts’ within the Church, and is quite ready to levy his accusations upward along the Catholic food chain. Charbonneau is a dinosaur, a holy pain in the ass for the Church and an insufferable prick overall, but the diocese puts up with him, figuring he can’t do too much damage in backwaters like Saint-Jolain, and his sermons—filled with the wrath of God and the eternal torment of Hell—usually ensure generous contributions to the collection plate and decent turnouts at Confession.

That is, maybe until a few years ago. These days, the good people of Saint-Jolain have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon, even at this time of year. These days, everyone has a car and televisions are more common than indoor heating.

Father Normand walks around the church, pushing a path through the fresh snow toward the south entrance. The heavy wooden door thuds to a close behind him, and the brilliant silence of the outside world is overwhelmed by the dim silence from within. He stands in the south vestibule, kicks snow off his galoshes and hangs up his coat and hat, taking a few moments to let his eyes adjust to the gloom and patting himself over for warmth.

Turning left at the south transept toward the confessional, he surveys the pews: Monsieur and Madame Lapierre kneeling together in the second row, Mlle Morin a few rows back and closer to the south aisle, and the widow Desjardins, eyes closed in deep contemplation, halfway back to the main the entrance. Four people today.

No, there’s a fifth: a lone figure, barely visible at rear of the church, the only one on the north side of the nave, and the only one not kneeling. A smallish figure, a woman, clad a dark coat and hat, she seems to be staring straight at him: from this distance Normand can discern no more, but she doesn’t look like a regular.

Mademoiselle Morin is the first one through: might as well get her out of the way. She’s the town gossip, seemingly more interested in discussing everyone else’s sins than confessing her own, a person who takes no small amount of righteous satisfaction in giving Father Normand a preview of what’s coming.

“I have it on good authority, Father, that Ephrem Lafrenière’s oldest daughter Astride was given too much change when she bought her new toaster at Lévesque’s Hardware store on Tuesday, and wouldn’t you know, she pocketed it. Just like that! Made off like a bandit, not a word to the cashier, just a wave and a smile and a ‘see you next time!’ like everything was perfectly normal. I mean, the nerve! Well, after Father Charbonneau’s sermon this week on how poverty is better than dishonesty, I’m sure she’ll be in here to tell you all about it if she hasn’t already, pleeeeeading for absolution.”

On his side of the confessional screen, Father Normand sighs through his nose. He has long abandoned explaining the basics of the sacrament of confession to Estelle Morin, who by this point is only picking up speed.

“—from Father Charbonneau himself, that Ovide and Alice Paquette’s youngest son, Jean-Yves, is going to the University of Montreal next year to study engineering! Engineering!!! Can you imagine? There they are, the ‘model’ Catholic family, 14 children, 11 boys, and not one of them destined for the priesthood! I’m telling you, there’s something going on there. Father Charbonneau suspects it too, but he won’t say what, God bless the man, such grace and discretion! I for one wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Monsieur Paquette’s cruel way of getting back at the diocese for that time the Bishop arrived at the Collège Saint-François graduation ceremony back in ’46 and cancelled the dance on the spot. I mean really: blaming the poor Bishop and depriving the Church of even one of his many able-bodied sons, all because he cancelled one evening of dancing and God-knows what other kinds of debauchery and ungodly behaviour. I still hear them whining about it you know, Father: Oh, the students had been looking forward to it for years! Oh, the whole community had been invited! Oh, it was only a dance! ‘Only’ a dance. Well, I don’t know if you have any idea what goes on at these things, Father, but…”

Normand absolves her of the sins she hasn’t gotten around to confessing yet, suggesting she endeavour to look a bit more inwardly next time, and closes the partition.

Coach Lapierre and his wife Béatrice are next, followed by Madame Desjardins; Normand feels a bit like a marriage counsellor listening to the sins and grievances of husband and wife in sequence, while the poor widow reminds him of a nervous seven-year-old, new to the sacrament, making up little sins just to have something to say. As Madame Desjardins steps out of the confessional booth, Normand closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and gathers his thoughts.

Yes, change is in the air. He’s been sensing it for some time. Despite the efforts of the Church’s old guard and the turgid ramblings of the provincial premier—‘progress through stability!’— Québec is on a track that can’t be reversed. The Church is caught up in something much larger, something it didn’t see coming, and the dwindling attendance at mass is just the beginning. Earlier in the year, in an attempt to move with the times, the new Pope, John XXIII, had announced the planning of a Second Vatican Council, an opportunity, he proclaimed, to “open the windows” of the Church and “let in some fresh air”. With his views on aggiornamento—bringing the Church up to date—falling well in line with those of his Holiness, there were already whispers that Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger, the archbishop of Montreal, was going to be a moving force at the Council. Closer to home, Léger had raised a few eyebrows for suggesting that conjugal love should be the primary purpose of marriage over procreation. Some called this statement progress; others—like Father Charbonneau—called it heresy.

Normand has never thought of himself as a reformer, but he is well educated and clear-eyed enough to know which way the wind is blowing. Oddly for a priest of his generation, he’s taken one particular lesson from the Darwinists to heart: those who survive are not necessarily the strongest or the swiftest or even the most crafty, but the ones who are best able to adapt to change. After everything he’s been through over the past 25 years, Normand likes to think of himself as one of the latter.

The sound of the door opening and closing to his right snaps Father Normand out of his reverie. There is someone in the confessional booth; he can hear soft breathing and the squeak of someone’s weight as they kneel on the hassock. For a moment he is puzzled; he expects to be finished hearing confessions for the day, then he remembers the solitary figure at the northwest corner of the church. He slowly slides the screen to the open position. Despite the low light, the relative opacity of the lattice partition, and the fact that penitents are positioned to look at their confessor’s profile and not vice-versa, experience and familiarity with his parishioners are usually enough for Father Normand to recognize the person to whom he is giving absolution. Not this time. The face on the other side of the reed lattice is unfamiliar.

“Hello, Father.”

Not ‘Forgive me, Father’ or ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned’. A simple hello. And, judging by the tone, a familiar one. Whoever this is, she knows him.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

Normand decides this is not a conversation to have in the confession booth. Nip it in the bud: business first.

“How can I help you, my child?” He doesn’t normally use the term, it sounds condescending, but a bit of formality doesn’t feel out of place under the circumstances.

There’s a short pause.

“It’s Sandra Lalonde, Father.”

Normand’s mind races down a mental list of his parishioners. One family of Lalondes, only five children, no Sandra.

“Uhh… I’m sorry… I —”

“It doesn’t matter.” Another pause. “It’s been… a long time since my last confession.”

A longer pause. Normand resists the urge to prompt her again. Heaven knows he has time. When Sandra Lalonde speaks up again, it’s with a voice like shattered crystal.

“I have been carrying a terrible sin in my heart for a very long time. I fear I may be beyond redemption, Father.” A beat. “If I don’t speak of it now, it will consume me and I will become truly lost. Please…”

It is a voice that has aged far beyond its apparent years. There is a vulnerability to it and such desperate fear that Normand’s heart is moved in a way it hasn’t been since he can remember.

“Don’t worry, my child. God is with us right now. He sees your soul. Whatever sin you have committed, you may speak it here in the warmth and safety of His love.” After all, what could this poor young woman have possibly done? This is still Saint-Jolain.

“Thank you, Father.” A pause. She breathes deeply. When she resumes, her voice is on the verge of coming apart. “Four years ago, a young girl put her trust in me. She was an innocent, a child, alone in the world, and she put her entire trust in me and me alone. I was all she had, and I promised to protect her, and… and…”

“Yes?”

“And I betrayed and killed her, Father.”