3
12 Feb. 87
Daniel
has been talking to me, very slowly, since getting back from New York. He seems
to have a hard time telling me what he learned from Brigitte.
Knowing that
he was meeting Brigitte brought back the memory of what Miki told me, with a
laugh, the first time that we met: that I was not the first French Canadian
girl in his life. (Tu nes pas la première Canadienne française dans ma vie.)
The first time that he came to Montréal, when he was 19, he met a girl from
Québec aboard the ship coming over. They danced and flirted together, and when
they landed in Halifax they spent the night in the same hotel but not together,
because he was faithful to Brigitte, not knowing that she was already cheating
on him, and would continue to do so, with all her leading men, until she told
him a few months before we met. That is why he was getting a divorce.
I am curious
if she told Daniel that part of their story. But I will not interrogate him.
Let him tell me when he is ready.
By on
the other hand he had no difficulty in telling me that he fell in love with New
York. I understand that: I had already told him that I fell in love with
Montréal the first time that I came here when I was 15, just as D is now. It
was in the spring of 1965, the first year of secularized education in Québec. I
was in Secondary IV. It was on a class trip with M. Daigle.
Some day I
will perhaps also tell him, and Betty also, what happened on that trip to Montréal.
I believe that it will be easier with Betty. At 12½ she is beginning to look
and sound like a young woman. In fact she seems to be developing faster than I
did. It may be a little more difficult informing Daniel that Mireille Bouchard
is not only his mother and the widow of his father but a woman with a past and
a present and a future.
But there was
something new that he learned from me.
He has decided
that he wants to go to Columbia, and he wondered if we could afford his studies
there. That is when I told him about the fortune that Miki left us, and
mentioned that there was no provision for Betty. He joked that it was like an
English novel, with the poor younger sister, but immediately, without
hesitation and with no prompting on my part he volunteered to let Betty have
one half of his share when he is 18. I was so moved that I could hardly speak.
I said a banality: you will be richer in your heart or something like that.
Of course I
wont tell Betty about it yet. She is only 12. But she will be 15 when D is 18.
So it fits.
When D is 18
he will already be at Columbia! And NAA is the right secondary school for him.
It seems to have been conceived for those, Canadian or not, who are not in
Québec permanently. No surprise: it was founded by American expatriates who,
like Sam Zucker, had escaped the Vietnam draft but, contr unlike him,
decided to stay in Montréal.
Daniel
tells me that the main campus, for Grades 9 (Sec. III) and up, is run just like
an American high school that one sees in films and on television. In addition
to the normal secondary grades of Québec there is a pre-University year that
serves as Grade 12 for those kids who will go to university outside Québec.
About half of the students stay for that year, and the rest go to cégep.
Laura
Casey, one of the English teachers, is American and serves as counsellor for
those interested in going to university in the States. I have talked with her,
and she seems quite competent.
The
kids who stay for Grade 12 but then decide to stay in Québec can usually go
into the second year of an English cégep. Strangely enough, Laura told me,
McGill and Concordia admit students from Grade 12 outside Québec but not from
here. I told her that it is not so strange. Québec is different. Nest-ce pas,
mon journal?
Lake
Champlain
After packing and cleaning up after himself he left Sam a
note thanking him for his hospitality, took a bus to Grand Central, had
breakfast in a luncheonette and boarded the Adirondack.
After
a couple of hours he became bored with the near-desolate December landscape of
the Hudson Valley. He set his mind to synthesizing what he had learned from
Brigitte with what he already knew about his father.
Aside
from the little that his mother had told him and she really, as she admitted,
didnt know her husband very well what he had learned over time from Fela was
that Miki Wilner and Leon Rozowski were Holocaust survivors and each others
only surviving relatives. Miki lost, among the rest of his family, his parents
and his little sister. (Daniel now knew that Axel Hemme was the villain in that
chapter of his fathers story.) He was liberated at Bergen-Belsen at the age of
ten; a short time later Leon, who had been liberated at Buchenwald and was in
very poor health, came to West Germany and became a substitute father for his
nephew. He had planned to move, with Miki, to Israel when his health permitted
it, and pending his recovery he sent Miki to live in a kibbutz. In the meantime
Leon met Fela and, having found that his health was too precarious for the
rigors of Israel, decided to move to Montreal, where Fela had relatives. When
Miki came back to Germany for Leon and Felas wedding, he was reunited with his
high-school sweetheart Brigitte, the daughter of his piano teacher, and decided
to remain in Germany; it was Fela who helped overcome Leons objections to
Mikis change of plans. Eventually Miki and Brigitte married. After graduating
from Göttingen with a doctorate in philosophy, Miki became a journalist.
Brigitte, a beautiful blue-eyed blonde (Fela liked to call her Aryan, but
Daniel knew that the true Aryans were the dark-haired, dark-eyed people of
Greater Iran), became a famous stage, film and television actress. They had no
children, but seemed very happy together. They came to visit Leon and Fela in
Montreal once, in the summer of 1962 (Daniel wondered if their happy stay at
the Plaza was a part of that trip). Miki had visited them there once before,
alone, in 1954, and he met Leon in London in 1958. He was also with them in
Israel in 1966 when Leon died. It was a curious coincidence, Daniel thought,
that the years when his father saw Leon were precisely those of the World Cup.
In
1970 he came to Montreal once again, alone, and told Fela that he and Brigitte
had separated. Fela did not know why. Daniel wondered if he should tell her
what he now knew. Its complicated, he might say, but I know why papa
and Brigitte broke up. And Fela, European lady that she was, would not pry.
When
Miki came back later that year, in December, it was to give an invited series
of lectures at McGill and Université de Montréal in their respective
languages in which he compared the situations of Quebec and Palestine. Though
by then his specialty had become the Middle East, specifically Israel and
Palestine, he had an abiding interest in Quebec politics (he had once
interviewed Jean Lesage). The twenty-one-year-old Mireille Bouchard was
fascinated by the topic, and even more so by the handsome man who spoke about
it bilingually.
The scenery outside became interesting again when the
train reached Lake Champlain. Gazing at the lake, its rippling waves lit by the
setting sun and skimmed by a flock of southbound cormorants, Daniel felt a
sense of completion and reflected on the chance event that led to his meeting Brigitte.
Shortly
after school started he happened to be reading the Toronto Star in the
school library and found out that a film starring the now mature but still
beautiful Brigitte Wilner had been shown at the Toronto Film Festival.
Excited, he called the Festival administration for information and found out
that the film, like all her other films, had not been picked up for North
American distribution. But somehow he got the address of the production company
in Hamburg and eventually managed to get a letter, with a photograph of himself
enclosed, through to Brigitte herself. Her reply came in due time.
It
was almost dark when the train reached the border. Daniel had his Canadian
passport ready for showing, but neither the American nor the Canadian agents
bothered to look at it. And so there would be no American stamps in addition to
the British, Belgian, Dutch, French and Canadian ones that it had received on
the European vacations he had taken with his mother and sister.
His curiosity about his father began growing, like a
gnawing hole inside him, when he turned fourteen. Until then, the vagueness of
his knowledge about him had not given him much concern. For Quebeckers born
after the Quiet Revolution, being raised in a fatherless household was no longer
out of the ordinary. But as he felt himself becoming a man it became important
to him to know more about the man from whom he sprang. Mireille did not
remarry, and though undoubtedly she had relationships with men, she hid them
behind her busy residency and medical practice, and her equally busy social
life with friends and colleagues. Daniel grew up without what is known as a
male role model.
That
hole was now filled, like a dental cavity, and as a result of the filling he no
longer felt its presence. But when the train stopped at Saint-Lambert, with
half an hour to go before Montreal, another cavity of curiosity began to open. What,
he wondered, did my father do during the three or four months between
leaving Brigitte and meeting my mother? He traveled, of course. But did he
now, freed from the bond of unreciprocated physical fidelity, begin to
capitalize on his attractiveness to women and embark on a string of sexual
adventures, of which the one that led to Daniels conception was only one? And
if so, were there other children? Probably not, Daniel thought, or at least not
as far as his father knew. The fact that he came back to Montreal, as soon as
he learned of his mothers pregnancy and his divorce was final, to legitimate
the union showed that he took fatherhood seriously. Besides, in places where
sexual liberation was further advanced than in French Canada, in all likelihood
by 1970 young women already took precautions. The pill had, after all, been
around for a decade, but in Canada it was only in the preceding year that birth
control was fully legalized.
At the Montreal Central Station which Amtrak had
recently begun using in place of the old Windsor Station his mother and
sister were there to meet him. It was dinnertime, he was hungry, and they went
out to eat at a Chinese restaurant near the station before going home.
Over
dinner Daniel tried to give an account of his trip, but he was tired and the
effort was disjointed, dashing between images of New York, descriptions of
Brigitte and discoveries about his father. He could not hold either his
mothers or his sisters attention.
After
Zoë retired to her room, Daniel told his mother about his new plan for the
future.
Thats
wonderful, darling. Mireille said, with a modicum of enthusiasm.
But
Columbias expensive compared to Canadian universities, he said. Can we
afford it?
We
are quite well off. Havent you noticed that we live very comfortably? That we
have a nice big house and appliances and a nice car? That we take nice
vacations, that
que ta maman shabille très bien? Indeed Mireille
dressed very well, and probably expensively. It was something he had taken for
granted without giving it any thought.
Yes,
but youre a doctor
A Canadian
doctor, she said with a laugh. Yes, that covers a part of it. But your father
left us well provided for, between the royalties from his book and, more
importantly, the money that he inherited from Leon. Also, the money has been
well managed, and its grown quite a bit since your father died.
Really!
Daniel said, surprised that he was hearing about their wealth for the first
time.
Actually,
Im glad that you brought it up, because theres a problem.
Yes?
The
last time that your father was here, he wrote a will, in which he left
one-third to me and two-thirds to you, to be administered by me until you turn
eighteen. He insisted on eighteen, not older.
So
Im going to be a rich student. Is that the problem?
No.
The problem is that at the time none of us knew that Betty would come along,
and so there is no provision for her.
Like
in an English novel, where the first-born son inherits the estate and the poor
sister has to find a husband.
Precisely.
Greg Berman he was your fathers lawyer, you know
No,
I didnt know.
And
before that he was in the firm that worked for Leon.
I
know that, of course.
Greg
faults himself for not anticipating the possibility of another child, but he
has researched the law, and theres nothing that can be done, unless you
relinquish a part of your share when youre eighteen.
Of
course I will. She can have half of my share, so we each get one-third.
Are
you sure?
Of
course.
You
will still be a rich student. Not quite so rich in money, but richer in your
heart, she said as she kissed him on the forehead. As she approached him he
found himself involuntarily sniffing for the kind of sweet womanly smell that
the beautiful Brigitte Wilner exuded. The beautiful Mireille Bouchard, as far
as her son could tell, did not. Somehow he felt relieved.
He
did not try again that evening to talk to his mother about his discoveries.
The time will come, he told himself. Le temps viendra.
It
was an altogether different experience telling about his trip to Fela Rozowski,
when he visited her during Hanukkah, which that year came right after
Christmas. Fela served him huge latkes while she listed with great interest to
his tale about meeting Brigitte and his plans for the future.
Fela
remembered Brigitte with great fondness. She reminded Daniel again that she was
the one who got Leon to agree to let Miki and Brigitte stay together in
Germany. They were so in love! she never tired of saying. She also remembered
her as an already famous actress during their visit to Montreal in 1962, and,
for the last time, in 1966 in Paris, where she and Leon stopped over on their
way to Israel, where Leon was supposed to get a miracle cure for his cancer.
She was such a beautiful girl, Fela told Daniel for the umpteenth time, but
now he knew at first hand that it was true. But so is your mother, she added
once again. I was so happy when he found someone right here in Montreal. Tell
me, Danik, did you find out why they broke up? She had long since stopped
asking if he minded being called Danik.
Not
exactly, he lied.
So
youre going to be a journalist like your father! Wonderful! But promise me
that you wont go to report about wars!
I
cant promise you that, he answered with a laugh, only that Ill try to be
careful.
Thats
what he said too. I told him that he should be careful and he said that he will
try. You are Miki Wilners son.
In time, as being Miki Wilners son became less of an
abstraction and more of a reality for him, Daniel came to appreciate the
significance of Lake Champlain in representing the satisfaction, at least
partial, of his curiosity about his father. What had felt like a stormy sea
inside him was now more like a gently rippling lake. His father no longer
seemed like a mysterious, disembodied presence. The disparate images that he
had formed of him from his mother, from Fela, from the photographs that were
scattered about the house (in the living room, in Mireilles bedroom and study,
in Daniels room) as well as a few at Felas house now coalesced in his mind
into a being of flesh and blood. The pictures that showed him with his son at
the ages of one and two, both with and without Mireilles presence, formed
themselves into a mental movie in two parts, and for the second part Daniel
could even supply bilingual dialogue, since at the age of two he already spoke
French and English fluently.
Brigittes
revelations were an integral part, indeed the skeleton, of this Miki Wilner,
his father, whom Daniel now felt that he knew at last. Some additional
revelations were to come in the course of the correspondence that they now
embarked on, at the rate of three to five letters or cards a year (greeting
cards and vacation postcards included), but they served only to flesh out some
details of the almost fully formed image in his mind.
The
first card that arrived was a New Years card with a panoramic picture of
Hamburg. It did not look like Montreal at all: in the foreground there was a
lake, and in the background half a dozen steeples. It was the lake the
caption on the card called it the Alster that suggested to him the symbolism
of Lake Champlain.
What
remained in his mind of that visit in New York, far more than the meeting with
Brigitte, was the memory of the trip itself, so pleasurable in all its aspects
that he resolved that when he went there again it would be the same way,
southbound by overnight bus and northbound by train, though by now he knew
that, should he choose to fly, the cost would not be a problem.
As the vacation ran its course and the winter semester
approached, Daniel, for the first time in his life, found the beginning of
school exhilarating. Not only was North Am the right school for a kid planning
to go to Columbia Ms. Casey had told him the school had an excellent
acceptance rate at Ivy League schools but its ethnic variety was heady stuff
for one who, for years, had been the only kid in most of his classes with a
non-French surname. At North Am there were not only the Canadian-born children
of American draft dodgers but also anglophone Canadians with all kinds of
backgrounds European, Asian, African as well as Americans and other
foreigners. There were even a few French Canadians who, like him, had somehow
managed to get out of the francophone system. The ethnic variety was matched by
variety in clothing, hairstyles, and demeanor. For the first time he saw girls
paying overt attention to boys. Most of the boys who received it were older,
but he found some of it directed at him. By and large, he ignored it.
When
Brigitte told Daniel that women would like him, he knew what she meant, and he
knew that she, a woman of great experience and many experiences, knew what
she was talking about. But he was in no hurry to put that knowledge to the
test.
He
had always known that he was good-looking. When he was little he steadily
overheard Quest ce quil est mignon, What a cute little boy, Vos
far a sheyn yingele. It seemed to him to be just something that people
said, and it was of no importance to him. His father, in his photographs, was a
very handsome man. Mireille was a very beautiful woman, as were most of her
female friends, as far as he could tell (she rarely had them over to the
house). It seemed to him that women tend to keep company with other women who
are more or less their peers in looks. His sister Betty/Zoë was a very pretty
girl (who hung out with other pretty girls), growing into a beautiful woman. He
thought that growing up amid feminine beauty had perhaps made him blasé about
it.
The
girls at North Am, especially the prettier ones, seemed to him to be playing a
game of who could get the most attention in return. He had no interest in
playing along and had no inclination for the sport known as dating. He was busy
with his studies, and when he was not studying or reading on his own, he
practiced the guitar or played soccer. He did make friends with some girls, but
they were among the less pretty but more studious or talented, and therefore,
to Daniel, more interesting.
One
of them was Leslie Twigg, who could be called almost-but-not-quite pretty. She
was American-born, plumpish and with wavy blond hair, and played violin in the
school orchestra. She spoke French and Quebec French at that, even Joual
surprisingly well, and was good at making up risqué Anglo-French puns.
Another
was Roxane Vanier, who was a native bilingual (anglophone mother, francophone
father). She was a medium-distance and long-distance runner, with an athletes
body and short-cropped black hair. She planned to go to university in British
Columbia, where the outdoor track season is longer than in Quebec. During the
long Montreal winter she kept in shape with cross-country skiing. Daniel
preferred downhill.
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