Lin Diran, right, father of Lin Jun, and translator Anna Liu, left, leave the courtroom during a break in the trial. (Dario Ayala / THE GAZETTE) There were moments during the long trial where I think all of us regulars at the Montreal courthouse wanted to hug him.
Most of us resisted most of the time. It would have been taking a liberty. Lin Diran is a dignified man.
He’s graceful too.
Several days, a rather odd woman showed up wearing a sort of makeshift Mao uniform, presumably in some sort of Universal Chinese Solidarity with him, and clasped Lin in a bear hug. Lin didn’t linger, but neither was he rude. After all, she meant it kindly, if weirdly.
Photos from the family of Jun Lin in a file photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Lin Family
He went out for smoke breaks with Katie Kempster and some of the others in the public lineup.
Katie is 19, smart as a whip, tall and gorgeous, with a heart the size of the Prairies. She has a Mandarin-speaking boss and from him got, and practised, a few phrases.
“Ni hao,” she would greet Lin with a smile. She started to tap out longer phrases using Google Translate and would show him the result on her phone; he would smile and nod with delight. Then she started baking at home — delicious, and of course duly vegan, treats — and bringing them to court, for all of us.
I think it was Katie who got Lin out of his shell. Most of us were a little in love with her by this point, Lin included.
He arrived one morning and announced himself with a hesitant “bonjour,” the next day with a splendid “hello”: He has the instincts of a perfect Canadian.
We needed him to know we felt for him; he needed us to know that he knew, and appreciated it. It’s the loveliest thing, the universal human longing for community, for contact, and how it leaps language and cultural barriers as if they weren’t there.
By the time the trial of his son’s killer began last fall, Lin already had been to Montreal — a place he’d never even heard of until his only son, Lin Jun, announced he wanted to go to college there — twice, once in the aftermath of Jun’s murder, once for the preliminary hearing.
Thomas Murphy, rear, is escorted by a SPVM investigator after giving his testimonyin this file photo. (Dario Ayala / THE GAZETTE)
A lot of people knew him from TV and media. They’d approach him on the street, desperate to show him kindness.
“A lot of them talk to me,” he said through translator Siqi Zhang Monday, at a news conference arranged by the big law firm, Borden Ladner Gervais, Lin’s chief benefactor, protector and bottle-washer. “But I cannot talk (in English or French). Warm-hearted people hug me.” He paused. “We can communicate by heart. They touch me. I can understand what they want to say.”
Zhang is one of four volunteer translators, one of whom was always with Lin throughout the 12-week trial. The others were Yvonne Lo, Weinan Wang and Anna Liu.
Lin and Zhang produced poetry of uncommon clarity together on Monday. When he was describing his sorrow, he said at one point that “between the sky and the land, the world cannot take this.” At another, he said, “I will burn in the sadness in my whole heart.”
He was uber-respectful about the Canadian justice system, but when asked if there was anything that struck him as peculiar, he replied quickly. “The accused keeps silent,” he said, wonderingly. “He did not say anything. We ask questions of witness. We don’t hear anything from accused from beginning to end.”
Feng Lin, a boyfriend of victim Jun Lin, leaves the courtroom after testifying at the murder trial for Luka Rocco Magnotta. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
Asked about his son being gay — Jun had been married to a woman once, but in Montreal, had a serious boyfriend — Lin and Zhang were brilliance.
“I never heard about this sexual preference, this concept of sexual preference before,” he said. He heard about it when he came after Jun’s death, he said, but only after Lin Feng , Jun’s boyfriend, testified did he fully understand. “So after his testimony, I knew this happened,” Lin said. “I hope myself as a father, I can be a happy father. I told my son ‘get married,’ and he had girlfriend, he obeyed us.
“But I think sexuality has no relationship to this case.
“I will respect his (Jun’s) choice, and no matter what his sexual preference, I love my son. I respect his freedom.” And he has had dinner with Lin Feng , and stays in touch with him and some of his son’s other friends.
Lin Diran will leave Montreal next month and return to China.
Lin Jun (pictured). in a file photo.
Now 60, he has no job. He used to work in post-production auto logistics; he was a manager, organizing the drivers and truckloads of cars from factory to delivery points.
His former wife is too heart-broken to work, and their daughter Mei Mei is left to try to put the Humpty-Dumpty of their family back together.
I fear he may feel somewhat a fish out of water back home, a bit between places, as it were. I hope he is warmed by the memory of all of those in this country who wish him well, who, as he put it, “care about me,” as indeed we do.
Lin Jun, who was killed by Luka Magnotta, is shown as a child in a photo provided by his family. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HANDOUT/LIN FAMILY
The law firm has set up The Lin Jun Family Trust, made possible by the pro bono work (inspired no doubt by the firm’s own magnificent contribution) of WebCakes, Pivotal Payments, Digital Days and HSBC. Donations can be made online at the secure website http://www.linjunfamily.com
As for me, I am warmed by the memory of the day he first showed up wearing his ridiculously cute fur hat. Katie wanted a picture, so I took one – the tall young Canuck, her friend Amanda who was in town for the day, and Lin.
They communicated by heart, just as he said.
Postmedia News
cblatchford@postmedia.com
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