He came back, finally, following an older man with gray hair and a small mustache. The older man said “Come with me, please” just as the younger one was saying “You will please go with him.” We did. The gray-haired man led us down a corridor to a small room with an armed guard in front of it. Minna held my hand and did not utter a sound.

There was only one chair, a rather severe wooden affair behind the desk. The gray-haired man sat in it and we stood in front of the desk and looked over it at him. He had our passports in front of him, along with a batch of papers that he shuffled through.

“I don’t understand this,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

“Evan Tanner,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Evan Michael Tanner of New York City.”

“Yes. I don’t-”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Perhaps you might tell me, Mr. Tanner, just why you are so intent upon separating the Province of Quebec from the Dominion of Canada?”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.” He played again with the pile of papers. “You are not Canadian,” he said. “Nor are you French. You have never lived in Quebec. You have no family here. Yet you are a member, as I understand it, of the most radical of the separatist organizations, Le Mouvement National de Québec. Why?”

“Because differences in language and culture constitute differences in nationality,” I heard myself say. “Because Quebec has always been French and will always be French, Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm notwithstanding. Because two centuries of British colonialism cannot change the basic fact that French Canada and British Canada have nothing in common. Because a house divided against itself cannot stand. Because-”

“Please, Mr. Tanner.” He put his hand to his forehead. “Please…”

I had not meant to say all that. I hadn’t meant to say any of it, really. It just sort of happened.

“I do not require statements of political philosophy from you, Mr.