ambos » Martin Michaud

Beneath the Surface

ambos — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 03:53:41 +0000

a review by David Warriner

Picture the scene: It’s a balmy Indian summer night in small town Massachusetts. Two teenagers in love are sitting on a railway bridge high above the river, feet dangling over the edge, talking about everything and nothing and stealing kisses, until he walks her home and says goodnight. It’s an innocent enough – and somewhat clichéd – scenario that ends on a note of foreboding: She had no reason to suspect they had just spent their last night together. Little does the girl know, but as she’s getting ready for bed, her boyfriend, walking home along the river, is being swept up in a tragic accident. A car plunges off a bridge into the murky depths of the Concord River – reminiscent of the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Ted Kennedy and a female passenger. A woman’s screams pierce the silence of the night. The boy abandons his backpack and jacket on the riverbank and is never seen or heard from again.

This is the prologue to Martin Michaud’s new thriller, Sous la surface, a clever page-turner that weaves the tragic tale of two young lovers into a web of intrigue that threatens to derail the race for the U.S. presidency. At first glance, you might be tempted to dismiss this novel as just another political thriller, but once you dive in, you soon discover hidden depths beneath the surface.

Flash forward twenty-five years to the present day. Leah Hammett, a successful novelist suffering from writer’s block, is working as a speechwriter for the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. Leah struggles to overcome her fear of flying as she jets from one corner of the country to the other with the campaign team and a throng of journalists. It’s the eve of Super Tuesday and the stakes have never been higher when the campaign trail leads Leah back to the hometown she turned her back on years ago. So the last thing she needs is a text message out of the blue that brings her past back to the surface with a vengeance. In Leah’s words: “Time passes and, as our illusions crumble around us, it transpires we all have something to hide.”

Leah is a complex character. Deeply uncomfortable with mingling and small talk, she musters up confidence, puts on her public face and does what she has to do. But as soon as the façade drops, her alter ego emerges and cool, calm Leah gives way to opinionated, introspective Lee, who would rather hide behind a keyboard than stand on stage smiling and waving. Writing in the first person through the eyes of his female protagonist is a real departure for Michaud, whose previous three police procedurals featured Montreal detective Victor Lessard. But he makes it look easy in Sous la Surface, which will have readers hooked in a matter of sentences.

Sous la surface stands out in the Quebec literary landscape because it isn’t set in the province. In fact, the only real connection is a note that Leah spent a part of her childhood in Montreal. But that’s not the only reason it stands out: Michaud doesn’t mince words. He writes in impeccable Quebec French, but his storyline and style are fit for the world stage. Sous la surface is an articulately written thriller that transcends the genre: it stands to appeal as much to bestseller book club readers as it will whet the appetite of Nordic noir fans. Be prepared to stay up all night reading. ≈

IN TRANSLATION

From Sous la surface

by Martin Michaud
≈ translated by David Warriner

I never open my eyes underwater. I am afraid of the forces that whirl beneath the surface, of the dark shapes that sway in the shadows; afraid of encountering a putrefied face, or that death might seize me by the ankle and suspend me in the silty depths until the last molecule of oxygen has left my lungs. This is a rule I also abide by at the pool, because you can never be certain what is lurking down below.

The women’s locker room was deserted on this fourteenth day of December, 1999. There was a smell of chlorine floating on the air. It cost an arm and a leg to be a member of a private club in the heart of Manhattan, but I loved the tranquillity that flowed through this place early on a weekday.

For several months now, every time I came to swim, every move I made was strictly in line with a pre-programmed routine: Place my bag on the worn wooden bench in front of my locker; undress and hang my clothes from the hooks in the metal wardrobe; slide my toes into the V of my sandals.

Next, to the sound of my heels clicking against the rubber, I would saunter over to the bathroom stall buck naked, taking no precautions to cover myself up. What would be the point? I never ran into anyone at that time and, no doubt because of my earlier career, nudity was not something that intimidated me.

When I was done urinating, I would head over to the mirror hanging on the tiled wall. With a practised flick, I would pull my blond locks into a high bun using the elastic around my wrist. Searching for signs of a first wrinkle, I would run my fingertips over the skin of my lower eyelids, below my green eyes.

This time three years ago already I had given up doing fashion shows. Although a few weeks later, the new millennium would propel me into my thirties, my body had not changed one iota in the last decade.

Swimsuit on, the final step in my ritual consisted of checking the contents of my bag — an envelope, my purse, and a few toiletries — placing it on the top shelf and closing the metal door. After taking a towel from the pile on the counter, I would push open the door leading to the pool.

Water glistening like a mirror under the flickering of the fluorescent lights, the sound of my breathing would be amplified by the chilling silence. I would take a deep breath in before I dove, my eyelids closed as I hit the water.

When I returned to the locker room, the envelope would have disappeared. This wasn’t the first time this charade had taken place, and it wouldn’t be the last. You cannot simply be a witness to your own existence. Sometimes, years later, your actions can end up taking you right back to where it all began. And when you’ve lost everything, even the name of the man you once loved can have a strange ring to it.

Life is no fairy tale, but let me tell you all the same…

PROLOGUE

Lowell, Massachusetts, October 20, 1991

“Kiss me again…”

She batted her eyelashes, nostrils flaring. Lying on her back on the slats of the railroad bridge, her head rested on the thighs of the young man running his fingers through her hair. Legs hanging over the edge, he lowered his face toward her, lips searching for hers in the darkness. It was a beautiful fall evening. Inky clouds masked the moon, but the shadows seemed to glow red.

Almost at the point of contact, she raised her palm to her boyfriend’s cheek and pushed him away in a burst of laughter.

“No, get rid of that first. It’s disgusting and it stinks!”

He drew one last drag from the cigarette he held between his fingers, then with a flick, sent it flying over the five-metre drop. Making contact with the water below, the incandescent butt let out one last sigh before disappearing into the river.

The boy started to tickle this girl he loved, teasing a long breath out right in her face.

“What’s that, Ratface? You say I stink?”

She twisted in his arms, shrieking like a banshee in her UMass hoodie.

“Stop! Stop it! I hate being tickled!”

After wriggling free, she landed a punch on his shoulder. The young man stopped and, with a more serious expression, he took her face softly in his hands.

“Calm down, I’m sorry, babe.”

He held her close, and she slipped her arms around his neck. Their lips interlocked in a long, slow kiss. They sat in the exact spot where they had met every night since they’d started seeing each other, four months earlier.

“I love you,” she murmured softly.

“And I love you more.”

The young woman shivered, trembling as much from cold as she was from emotion. Sitting up straight, he took off the checkered jacket he wore over his Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and covered her shoulders. Their bodies huddled together again, mouths connecting with urgency.

The wind, rustling through the leaves that had not yet succumbed to the grip of fall, ushered away the clouds. Intertwined, the couple now looked out at the moon reflected in the river below. Although it was close to one in the morning, a few windows in the houses on Billerica Street were still aglow. The young man hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to light another cigarette. His free arm curled around the young woman’s waist as she sat against him on their perch atop Six Arch Bridge.

“What are you thinking about?”

The question made him smile. She wouldn’t be happy with a vague answer, so he tried to be explicit about what he had in mind.

“I thought I might stop by the recruitment office this week.”

“You’re still thinking about quitting the National Guard to enlist in the Marines?”

He exhaled a mouthful of smoke.

“Yeah, I’m still thinking about it.”

She sat up and turned to face him.

“What about school?”

“We’ve already talked about that. I could take a break.”

The young woman tried her hardest to keep her cool.

“What for? The Gulf War’s over.”

“Exactly. My unit didn’t get dispatched, and there’ll be military operations all over the world in years to come. Being in the Marines will be the best way to make sure I get a part of the action on the ground.”

“It’s also the best way to get yourself killed.”

The young man smiled in the twilight and puffed out a chest that was already robust for his twenty-one years. Strands of hair cascaded messily from under his Boston Red Sox cap. It’s easy to feel immortal when you have your whole life in front of you.

“That’s impossible.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

He drew her face in toward his.

“Because if I die, I wouldn’t be able to see you anymore. And that, I just couldn’t handle.”

They kissed, then the young man spoke again:

“And you, what are you planning to do?”

“Me? If you join the Marines?” she replied like a damsel in distress. “Well, I guess I’ll stay here and wait for you in some scuzzy low-rise house on a military base somewhere and raise our flock of kids. And at night, while my man is off gallivanting all over the world, I’ll get drunk with all the other officers’ wives, and we’ll sit around crying, watching Ghost…”

They burst out laughing in unison, and she pointed to the young man’s backpack that lay next to them on top of the bridge.

“Do you have the card with you?”

He stroked her cheek softly.

“Yeah, wait a second…”

He grabbed his bag, dug around inside for a few seconds, and pulled out a card. Then, with a short flick of his wrist and thumb, he lit his Zippo.

In the light of the flame, they reflected over a postcard of Paris.

“One day, we’ll go to the Place des Vosges together, right?”

“That’s for sure, Ratface.”

A white streak tore across the sky, tracing a bright, circular path that vanished as fast as it had appeared.

“A shooting star! Quick, make a wish.”

He closed his eyelids for a moment, then reopened them. She seemed to sparkle as she said:

“I know if you want a wish to come true you’re not supposed to tell anyone…”

The young woman paused for a moment before she continued:

“Whatever. No matter what happens, my wish is for us to meet here again, on the bridge, in ten…”

The young man was about to respond, but she beat him to it:

“No, let’s say twenty-five years from now.”

He lifted his hand to his chest and made like he was having a heart attack.

“Twenty-five years! We’ll probably be dead by then!” She rolled her eyes skyward.

“Come on, you dumbass! Stop messing around and promise me.”

The young man raised his hand in the air and said in a solemn voice:

“I promise…”

He took the postcard, tore it in half and held one of the pieces out to her. The young women threw him a horrified look and squealed:

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“This way, we each have to bring our half of Paris to our rendez‑vous. What do you say, Ratface? High five?”

She slapped the palm he held out for her.

“High five…”

The young woman had been resting her cheek on the young man’s chest. In the doorway of the house she lived in with her mother, bathed in the halo cast by a streetlamp, they held each other without a word. Every evening, the time to say goodbye for the night had become an increasingly painful ritual. In a few seconds, he was going to leave and head home to sleep, but she held on to him a little longer to stretch out the parenthesis, to get high on his scent.

After a long moment, knowing she had to let him go, she gave him back his jacket, then raised her head to look at him. He was already pulling his headphones over his Red Sox cap and plugging them into his yellow Walkman.

“What are you listening to?”

“A band called Nirvana.”

“Never heard of them. Any good?”

“Awesome! You gotta see the video. Man, that singer’s something else.”

Coming up onto her toes, she placed one last kiss on her lover’s lips.

“See you tomorrow?”

The young man put on a nasal voice, in imitation of Arsenio Hall:

“Of course we’ll see each other tomorrow.”

She roared with laughter.

“I love you, you goof. Good night…”

He became serious again, cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.

“I love you too.”

Walking off down the street, he turned to her one last time. Bringing a hand to his lips, he blew her a kiss and gave her a smile.

“Good night, Ratface.”

To get home, the young man followed the flow of the Concord River along the strip of wasteland across from Billerica Street. Ears filled with Smells Like Teen Spirit, he made headway along the trail that wound its way through the trees. Hands in pockets, he couldn’t help thinking about her. His heart swelled with light, a broad smile spreading across his face. With Cobain hammering at his eardrums, he started to sing out loud.

He had just passed Six Arch Bridge when the Nirvana singer’s wailing was drowned out by a god-almighty crashing sound and a flash of yellow light burst through the branches before disappearing. He looked up, took off his headphones and looked toward the river. It was a few seconds before his brain registered and made sense of the scene. A car had smashed through the railing of the Lawrence Street bridge and was sinking into the depths of the Concord River.

Screams pierced the silence of the night. A woman’s voice, a blood-curdling cry for help. With narrowed eyes, the young man thought he recognized a face through the rear window.
After a moment’s hesitation, he started to run toward the riverbank. Abandoning his backpack and jacket on the side of the river, he was about to dive in when he saw two silhouettes emerge from the water, steam rising from their bodies.

There is always a last time. The moment before you’ll never see the one you love again. The day when life — sometimes death — decides to send you your separate ways forever.

Less than a kilometre away from where the drama was unfolding, the young woman was getting ready for bed. She thought only of her boyfriend, feverish at the idea of having to wait a few long hours before she saw him again. She had no reason to suspect they had just spent their last night together. ≈

Playing Hangman in Montreal

ambos — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:29:11 +0000

a review by David Warriner

Je me souviens. I remember. The official motto of Quebec is right there on every license plate in the province, and it’s carved in stone over the door to the Parliament Building in Quebec City. It’s also the title of Martin Michaud’s latest detective novel, his third, featuring Montreal Detective Sergeant Victor Lessard.

Je me souviens draws you in as soon as you read the back cover and the first few pages alone will send shivers down your spine.

Michaud weaves a clever – and thought-provoking – story from bare snippets of intrigue that appear unconnected. A man and a woman are found dead, their necks pierced by a medieval torture instrument. Before they die, they hear the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating JFK. A homeless man and serial psychiatric patient, who claims to have been involved in the FLQ’s assassination of Pierre Laporte during the 1970 October Crisis, jumps to his death from the roof of a building in Old Montreal, leaving behind him two wallets that turn out to be the victims’.

Victor Lessard is a detective sergeant with the major crimes unit of the Montreal police force. He’s down-to-earth and fiercely loyal to his mentors and the adoptive parents who raised him as their own. Like all good crime fiction detectives, he has a keen nose for sniffing out anything fishy and follows his gut instinct, which never fails. He’s the archetype of the forty-something Quebecer on the verge of a mid-life crisis, a recovered alcoholic with two teenagers from a failed relationship and a sexy girlfriend who can’t get enough of him. And little does Lessard know, but his son is going off the rails and threatening his career in the process.

Lessard is a loveable rogue who’ll break the rules if he has to, but you know his heart is in the right place. He stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that it’s winter, donning his trusty Converse sneakers and beat-up leather jacket whether he’s slip-sliding his way to a snowy crime scene in his Crown Victoria, scrambling knee-deep through the snow on Mount Royal in pursuit of a suspect on cross-country skis, or passing brown envelopes through car windows to mysterious characters in a shady part of Chinatown.

Lessard and his partner Jacinthe Taillon, a no-nonsense, loose cannon of a woman with a tendency to jump to conclusions, make a colourful duo. More often than not they rub each other the wrong way, and their disagreements and skirmishes sure keep things lively at the station. But no matter what happens, you know she has his back, whether she likes it or not.

Je me souviens tells a tale set in francophone Montreal, spoken in true Quebec French but peppered with anglophone characters and the English expressions and swear words you hear across the city today.

Michaud paints such a vivid picture of Montreal in the winter, you feel like you’re walking through the streets of NDG, hopping onto the Metro or riding in the squad car right alongside Lessard and Taillon.

Michaud hits the nail on the head with this one. He captivates the reader right from the beginning, and slowly but surely unravels a mystery that touches on popular conspiracy theories and major historical events. This ingenious page-turner transcends the crime fiction genre and will appeal to a wider audience both within and outside Quebec. Je me souviens is a skilfully crafted novel that will transport you to la belle province and leave you thirsting for more. ≈

IN TRANSLATION

From Je me souviens

by Martin Michaud
≈ translated by David Warriner

MAY 20, 1980

Referendum

I just watched René deliver his speech on TV, the ever-present cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“If I understood you well, you are telling me: Next time.”

It made me smile to see him using my very own words. I won’t see him again. I imagine I should be feeling some kind of emotion to do with this whole situation or the outcome of the vote, but I feel nothing. What really matters?

What I am, or the impression I have of it?

What’s going on in my life, or how I see it?

I am but a void, an abstraction. I am nothing of what I believed I was.

I have no identity. Somewhat like Quebec today.

One day, perhaps, somebody will come along who can read between the lines and tell me who I am.

≈ ≈ ≈

Chapter 1: The Iron Collar

Montreal
Thursday, December 15, 11:57 p.m.

Broken, emptied, reprogrammed, recovered.

The woman with frizzy grey hair knew everything there was to know about how the brain works, but never before had she treated any mind as twisted as this one.

The time of terror, screams, and tears had passed, and now she felt drugged by the pain.

The iron collar that had been placed around her neck was piercing her flesh, skewering the bones of her sternum and chin, forcing her to keep her head extended back fully.

She had been stripped of her clothes so she’d feel humiliated; she was barefoot, hands cuffed behind her back, legs immobilized so she couldn’t bend them.

Shining in through the window, the moon cast a rectangle onto the cement floor.

The woman knew she was being watched: she released her sphincter one last time and felt the satisfaction of the urine flowing down her thighs.

“Fu… fuck you!” she spluttered, forcing herself to swallow.

A thought brought a bizarre rictus of a smile to her face: those multi-coloured plastic numbers…

The woman reached over the red line and grabbed the key, roaring with laughter.

The laugh of a crazy woman.

Then, after struggling for a long time to slip it into the lock, she turned the key. For a fraction of a second, she thought the impossible had happened, that she had managed to free her wrists.

Then the spike whistled through the air, pierced the back of her neck and emerged from her throat.

The blood bubbled as it spurted out of the wound, spraying out between her teeth.

≈ ≈ ≈

Chapter 2: Snowstorm

Montreal
Earlier in the day, Thursday, December 15

The weather girl leaned her head to one side, touching two fingers to her ear, looking morose. Then when the voice in her earpiece crackled through that she was on air, her face came to life and she began speaking her prophecy with assurance:

“Snowstorm. Thirty centimetres expected. Blowing snow. Strong winds.”

The woman stood up and turned off the television; an impetuous, almost wild, smile crossed her wrinkled face. She rinsed out the bowl that had held her cereal in the sink and put it on the counter.

The liquid crystals on the stove indicated 6:00 a.m.

There was no better time to take a stroll than in a morning blizzard. Time was suspended and, under the milky dome that purified it of its soiling, the city would catch its breath.

The woman always walked the same way.

Bundled up in a down jacket, she left the building where she lived, on Sherbrooke Street, right by the Museum of Fine Arts, and walked down Crescent. Where on summer nights the bling-bling, look-at-me crowd would be spilling out of the bars, she now saw only her reflection in the windows. She then walked up De Maisonneuve, passing in front of Wanda’s strip club.

At Peel, the woman crossed the street at the light, her gaze following with amusement as a car slipped and skidded its way around the corner.

The snow was already piling up on the sidewalks. The wind whistled around her ears, snowflakes whirling around in the air.

She had already stopped on the esplanade in front of 1981 McGill College Avenue; adorned with lights, the trees lining the road were battling against the gusts.

She was admiring the sculpture, La Foule illuminée, when a hand on her shoulder made her jump. Fleece jacket, combat pants tucked into fourteen-hole Doc Martens, piercings galore, eyes made-up in black, dreadlocks spilling out from under a skull-and-crossbones toque—the young punk girl looked like she had come right out of a Sex Pistols show.

Afraid, the woman recoiled when, hands cupping her black lips like a loudspeaker, the angel of darkness came closer and spoke into her ear:

“I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir!”

Wondering whether she had heard properly, the woman wanted the vampire to repeat what she had said, but before she could react, she turned on her heels, straddled her bicycle, and was swallowed up into the storm. Wide-eyed, the woman stood rooted to the spot for a moment, scanning the street, her body buffeted by the squall.

The woman arrived home at 11:22 a.m.

She hurriedly kicked her boots off on the entryway carpet, sent her toque and mittens flying across the couch, and let her coat tumble to the tiles on the bathroom floor.

She relieved herself in darkness, letting out a long sigh.

Pressing the switch, she looked at the reflection of her face in the mirror, which had broken out into a broad grin, lips blue from the cold.

From downtown, she had walked up to Mount Royal, where she had spent hours winding her way through the paths, admiring the conifers bowing under the weight of the snow, and observing the city in transparency below.

Humming to herself, she went into the kitchen to make some tea.

The kettle was whistling when she felt that something wasn’t right. Something was out of place. She scanned her eyes first across the cluttered counter, over the sink, then along the cupboards.

Seeing the date on the refrigerator, she gasped.

When she had taken the milk out five minutes ago, the magnetic, multi-coloured plastic numbers had not been there on the door to the freezer compartment.

She had not given a second thought to the incident that morning. But right now, her whole body, shaking, was sounding the alarm.

From behind her came a voice that froze her to the spot, making her hair stand on end.

“I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir!”

She turned around and let out a sharp cry at the menacing sight of the pistol before her.

The darts crazed through the air, piercing her skin. The jolt of the Taser shot through her like lightning.

As she crumpled to the ground and her body shook with convulsions, she could not help but feel haunted by that voice, which she had recognized without difficulty.

The delicate voice of President Kennedy’s assassin.

The voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. ≈