Revolution

Part Six

Part Six

Turning off Sherbrooke Street and walking through the Roddick Gates onto the McGill campus Nicky shrugged in her leather jacket and easily blended into the crowd heading towards the demonstration going on at the other end of the lawn in front of the Redpath Building. 

A young woman, a girl really, maybe twenty, only a few years younger than Nicky but seeming so much younger, held a placard and said, "Stop helping the butchers." 

Nicky kept walking and the girl grabbed her arm, saying, "Help us, sister, we're going to make the world a better place," and Nicky said, "Of course you are, dear." 

Her placard had the words, 'Dow Chemicals Kill Babies,' in block letters and Nicky saw other signs with similar messages and she was thinking that it felt different now, no longer the summer of love when the signs were all about making peace and loving your neighbour. Now it was all about murder and war. 

A group of about a dozen long-haired students marched by arm-in-arm chanting, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," and Nicky noticed the line of police on the edge of the football field, waiting. 

Yes, the summer of love was definitely over. This looked like the winter of our discontent, all right. 

Inside the auditorium Nicky took her seat and listened to Dr. Berezin give the usual speech about the world changing, the power of youth, the new direction to be taken and the kids lapped it up. Berezin was a fifty year old, grey-haired, physicist but the kids listened as though he was Che. Nicky smiled to herself thinking how outraged the hippies would be if they knew how integral Berezin had been in building the bomb for mother Russia. 

She had to admit, though, he sounded good, going on about how, "Now is the time to realize that once the propaganda has been stripped away, the naked eye, the naked heart," Nicky liked that bit especially, "will always gravitate to a way of life that is humane." It was essentially the same speech he had given in Hamburg and Manchester and it would go over well here but Nicky knew he'd have to spice it up for the American audience as they aren't so interested in gravitational pulls or 'humane.' No, the Americans think they defy gravity. 

But these Canadian kids, they clapped long and hard when Berezin finished with, "And soon the marauding ways of capitalism will meet its fate like the dinosaur. It is unavoidable, my friends."  

He took a bow and said, "Thank you for such a warm greeting on such a cold night," and Nicky thought he was getting better, loosening up a little, relaxing. He even chatted a little with small crowd that came up to the stage but when a young man said, "Dr. Berezin, please join us for a drink at the faculty club, there's a staunch group of us that would be honoured to sit with you, even for a few minutes," Nicky caught his eye and Berezin said, "I truly appreciate the invitation, but I am desperate for sleep." 

The young man said, "There's nothing we can do to change your mind?" and Berezin said, no, "I am sorry, but an old man like myself needs his bed." 

Two men in suits who'd been standing by watching everything and not saying a word stepped forward and one of them whisper to Berezin. The scientist nodded and thanked the few remaining students one last time, then walked away with two bodyguards. 

Nicky watched them go thinking how clumsy the KGB agents looked, how out of place in Montreal they were and then she thought how they probably hated the place, what they'd think of as the messiness, the protestors outside in their jeans and long hair, their rock'n'roll and the students with their questions and no firm hand in charge. She smiled thinking, well, freedom's not for everyone. 

Outside on Dr. Penfield Avenue Nicky watched the two KGB agents get into a taxi with Dr. Berezin and head down the hill towards the lights of Rue Ste. Catherine.