5
1 March 88
I
know, I know, my journal. I have neglected you for almost a year. I should have
confided in you sooner.
But, you see,
for most of that time I was torn in half, with feelings of the kind that is
difficult to put on paper. George wanted to continue our relationship when he
came back to Montréal in August, and so did I, but I didnt. Like Zerlina:
vorrei e non vorrei. I am not in love with George, but then I will never be in
love again the way I was with Miki. But I like George. A lot. Je laime bien.
He is fun to be with. But he is still living with Doris. He says that its only
because of Amy. The older kids, Flora and Joel, are already out of the house.
Amy was, as he put it, an afterthought. Like me, I suppose. (When I first
learned the word afterthought I thought that it meant arrière-pensée and
I would say without afterthought when I meant without reservation.)
Amy and Betty
seem to be still friends, but not as close as before. Bettys crowd now is
what is known as fast.They talk about
boys incessantly, and in particular about how, once they are in Grade 9 and on
the main campus, they will be surrounded by older boys, practically men. Then
Betty might say something like Yeah, like my brother and the girls burst into
giggles. I am curious about Ds reputation among the girls at NAA. Do they
wonder why a good-looking guy like him is not interested in girls? But asking
Betty about it would be too delicate, wouldnt it, my journal?
Betty and her
friends have no inhibitions about talking when they are at my house, probably
because Betty has assured them that I dont mind, unlike some of the other
mothers. But then how could I mind, having been a fast girl myself? And back
in the 60s, which in Rimouski were still the Dark Ages?
But I am
digressing. Last night was Gs 48th birthday party. He was born on 29 Feb 1940
and celebrates his birthday only in leap years, probably as an excuse to make it
a big bash (dixit Tina), though he says he will make an exception for his 50th
and celebrate on 28 Feb 1990. And it was a big party and he came on to me
stronger than ever. Doris was there but with her own little group and didnt
seem to be involved in any of Gs doings. When we sang Happy Birthday she
only mouthed the words half-heartedly. I had to admit that what G had been
saying about his marriage being dead was true. So I gave in. I would like to
say that perhaps I had too much to drink but it would not be true. I was
perfectly sober, unlike most of the people at the party. Anyway, my journal,
the party was in a ballroom of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Because it was on a
Monday night it was pretty much over by 11 and then G took me up to a room he had
rented. What if I had said no? I asked him in the elevator. Would you have
taken someone else? He laughed but when he brought me inside the room there
was a bouquet of red carnations (he knows that they are my favourite flower)
with Mireille written on the wrapping.
But today I am
feeling guilty and ashamed. I am not sure why. Perhaps because he took it for
granted that I would say yes. When I told him that he denied it, he said that
he just took a chance.
G knows that I
love opera, so he proposed taking me to the Opéra de Montréal, perhaps next
month. I didnt say no. I have not yet been to the Opéra de Montréal, but I
have heard that it will be getting much better with the new director who has
been named. I miss the Live from the Met television broadcasts on CBC. There
havent been any since Daniel and I watched les Noces the Marriage of
Figaro together, more than 2 years ago, but I understand that later this month
there will be one of les Contes dHoffmann. I wonder if Daniel will watch it
with me. Probably not.
Speaking of
Daniel: he seems even more content at NAA this year than last year. Less
excited, perhaps the novelty has worn off but more content. He is happy to
be learning German, most of all, preparing himself to read Mikis writings in the
original. He complains that he is not progressing as fast as he would want to,
but his grades are excellent, so he must be doing something right. He is also
concerned that, with the school not offering a third year of German that he
could take in Grade 12, he will get rusty before he gets to Columbia. I tried
to reassure him, telling him that if he keeps up his reading he will be all
right.I hope so, he said. He will
take French literature instead. I am glad. Perhaps he will learn that there are
other poets worth reading besides Jacques Prévert. Verlaine or Apollinaire, for
example. I have fond memories of them. Miki loved them, and recited their
verses to me from memory. Baudelaire and Rimbaud, not so much.
Band
Grade 11 became in Daniel Wilners later memory something
like Lake Champlain, ripples seen from a train as it speeds past. There were
highlights along the way, to be sure, but they were made blurry by the
inexorable forward rush of the engine that led him toward adulthood.
Academically,
it was once again German that took up most of his interest. Every so often,
when visiting Fela, he would test his progress by reading, or trying to read,
the shorter articles that were in the collection called In meiner Zeit.
But it took him much of the first semester to forge his way through the first
one, titled Deutsche, Westdeutsche, Deutschländer, whose thrust was that
there ought to be a distinct term, Deutschländer (Germanian in
English), for those who were citizens of Germany regardless of ethnicity, while
Deutsche (German) ought to refer to those of German ethnicity regardless
of citizenship. It was an interesting idea. But Michael Wilner made an
assertion that troubled Daniel: that people who were ethnically French but not
citizens of France, like the Walloons of Belgium, the Romands of Switzerland
and the Valdôtains of Italy, did not call themselves French. That may be true
in Europe, Daniel thought, but French Canadians like him did not hesitate to
call themselves Français.
It
was much easier going with the simple pieces of literature, carefully chosen
for accessibility, that the class was reading. One of them was a romantic
novella titled Germelshausen by a writer that no one had ever heard of,
Friedrich Gerstäcker.
Daniel
remembered that in New York he had seen, among the posters for Brigittes
films, one with that very title. He asked her about it in the letter that he
wrote in reply to hers. She wrote back telling him that the idea of making the
film had come from his father. A famous American musical called Brigadoon
was based on the story and Brigitte was in a stage production of it about the
same time that she made the film. Because of the Brigadoon tie-in, the
film was chosen as the German entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. It was not
among the final five, but Brigitte went to Hollywood for the Oscars anyway,
partly because Mikis book had just come out in America and he began his book
tour at the same time in Los Angeles.
Daniel
had read his fathers book in English and French, but now he wanted to read it
in the original. Fela didnt have it in her house, but he found out that a copy
of Der lange siebte Tag was at the McGill library. Since he could not
check out books from the university library, he went there with Mireilles copy
of the English edition, which he would consult instead of a dictionary
whenever he had trouble with the German.
The
experience was frustrating. The book, he was now discovering, seemed to be
written in two different styles: vivid, anecdote-packed journalistic reporting
of the situation in Israel and Palestine around the time of the Six-Day War
this was the part that he remembered from his reading of the book a couple of
years before and lengthy, convoluted philosophic-historical-linguistic
reflections, rife with obscure literary references (explained in endnotes) and
with metaphors whose English versions were far from literal translations of the
originals. As an Anglo-French bilingual Daniel was, of course, familiar with
this. When his mother described her falling in love with his father as un
coup de foudre, she would certainly not have said a stroke of lightning
in English. It would have been interesting, he thought, to use the French
edition of the book as an alternative, but Mireilles copy was especially
precious to her, and she would not have given him permission to take it out of
the house. It was autographed à Mireille, affectueusement, Miki on
the date of their first meeting, and Daniel called it le livre de ma
conception, though of course he didnt know if he was conceived on that
very date.
Nonetheless,
he found it enlightening to be reading his fathers book just as the Intifada
in the Occupied Territories was beginning. In the book Michael Wilner had
predicted, two decades before, that something like it would happen sooner or
later.
In the Current Affairs class taught by Mr. Klein, an
American expatriate who was a naturalized Canadian, a discussion of the
Intifada took place as it unfolded in mid-December, after Glasnost and
Perestroika in the USSR, the Iran-Contra Affair in the USA, the Meech Lake
Accords in Canada and the violence in Northern Ireland had been covered. In the
course of the discussion Daniel mentioned The Long Seventh Day. It
turned out that Mr. Klein remembered the book from his days as a graduate
student in political science at Northwestern. So youre Michael Wilners son!
he said to Daniel after class. I remember when he came to Chicago on his book
tour.
Did
you meet him? Daniel asked, suddenly feeling agitated by the possibility of an
eyewitness account of his father.
No,
but I remember a silly newspaper article about him. I remember it because it
had nothing to do with the book and was all about his views on marriage and
stuff like that. He called himself an old-fashioned romantic in the German
sense. Wasnt he married to a German movie star or someone like that?
Thats
right. But he divorced her after he met my mother. Daniel laughed, and Mr.
Klein joined him. Do you think, Daniel asked, it might be possible to find
that article?
Well,
Im sure the paper probably the Sun-Times, not the Tribune
has it in its archives, and if you were to go to Chicago they might dig it up
for you. But by the time youre a journalist Mr. Klein knew of Daniels
career plans such archives will probably be all computerized. You might as
well wait. Mr. Klein paused, as if trying to remember something, before going
on. But there was a line there thats stuck with me. He said he was a fanatic
against fanaticism.
That
was just the kind of aphorism that Michael Wilner would say, Daniel thought.
Extracurricular activities, social and individual, kept
him busy after school. He played soccer, of course, in autumn and spring. The
moves that he and Harvey had practiced since childhood made them into a
formidable combination on the school team, and though there were other boys who
individually were better players, the Berman-Wilner duo set up far more than
its share of goals.
On a rainy October day
in the cafeteria, when Daniel and Harvey were discussing over lunch their
project of forming a band, Leslie Twigg joined them. How about a string band,
she said. I could play fiddle.
What kind of music do
you have in mind? Harvey asked.
Canadian and American,
I guess. Theres Cape Breton, Quebec, Acadian, Ontario old-time, bluegrass,
Cajun
For Cajun you need
accordion, Daniel said. Do you know anyone who plays accordion?
Harvey and Leslie looked
at each other blankly. Scrap that, Harvey said.
If we stick to
strings, Leslie said, theres Ellen and Alex. Ellen Morelli and Alex
Crawford, who were a dating couple, played banjo and mandolin respectively,
occasionally performing at school assemblies as a duo. Alex was also one of
Daniels friends.
I
guess weve got our band, Harvey said.
From the
beginning of the school year Daniel also took driving classes so that, once
he got his learners license, he could eight months
later according to Quebec law get a probationary
drivers license in time for his formal completion of secondary
school. Mireille had agreed that at that time he could buy himself a car, and
he decided that there was no point in getting a new car he would most
probably get rid of it when he moved to New York but that the car that he got
would be German. He wondered what make of car his father drove, and he wrote
Brigitte to ask her, explaining his reason. She wrote back telling him that he
was partial to Opel, but that he hated BMW and, indeed, anything Bavarian,
probably because Axel Hemme had spoken with a Bavarian accent. She listed all
the cars that Miki had driven, and in addition as part of her ongoing account
of her life with him described the two apartments where they lived in Hamburg
before moving to the house in Blankenese, including an unexpected fact that
gave Daniel a start: his father, after moving out of the house in Blankenese
and taking an apartment in Hamburg, never had time to move his library there,
so that his study was still intact.
He
decided to honor his fathers prejudice in car matters and on that basis ruled
out Audi as well. A used Opel would have been very hard to find in Montreal,
but the Volkswagen Jetta had by then been on the market for several years and a
good used one would probably not be hard to find. Once again, he did not tell
his mother the reason for his choice of make.
The topics that had been discussed in Current Affairs kept
their relevance through the winter and spring, but a new one arose: the
Presidential campaign in the United States, especially the race for the
Democratic nomination, which Michael Dukakis won just as the school year was
ending (to the great disappointment of Mr. Klein, who had favored Jesse
Jackson). Another winner about the same time was a singer named Céline Dion, a
francophone Montreal girl representing Switzerland of all places! at the
Eurovision Song Contest.
A few months before
these victories, at the beginning of spring, the North American String Band
suddenly became popular, not only at their school but at several others,
anglophone and francophone. The kind of music that they played seemed to be in,
and they were asked to play at some school dances and private parties. The
unexpected success, coupled with the end-of-school stress, proved too much for
their teenage egos, and dissension set in. The apple of discord was an original
song for which Ellen had composed the tune and Alex had written the first
stanza of lyrics:
Lady, I now must leave you,
I dont deceive you
When I say that Im a man
Who just does the best he can,
And the love that I had for you
Was always true.
The words referred to
the breakup of Alex and Ellen, who wanted to stay friends. Each of the other
band members was expected to contribute an additional stanza, but bitter
disagreement arose over the order in which they would be sung. By the end of
the school year the band broke up, and Daniel put his guitar away, at least for
the time being. His contribution to the song, which he had intended as the last
stanza, was unwittingly prophetic:
Nothing
endures forever.
Were
not so clever
That
we can control our fate,
And
we dont appreciate
How
the gifts that we get from life
May lead to
strife.
His bandmates,
especially the girls, ribbed him for being unromantic. He accepted the ribbing
self-deprecatingly, but inwardly he chafed. Me, unromantic? The son of an
old-fashioned German romantic? Just give me time!
What they really meant,
he thought, was that he was unsentimental, and he would readily admit to that.
His favorite poet was the thoroughly unsentimental Jacques Prévert. But werent
Préverts wonderful screenplays Le Quai des brumes, Les Enfants du Paradis
quintessentially romantic? Cest tellement simple
lamour, as Garance said. Garance! Garance!
No
longer occupied with folk-style music, Daniel went back to practicing classical
guitar pieces, including a set of variations on La ci darem la mano.
When Mireille heard him playing she asked if he wanted to see Don Giovanni
with her at the Opéra de Montréal; the (unnamed) friend with whom she was to
see it had to cancel. A couple of years
earlier he had watched with her a television broadcast of Le nozze di Figaro,
from the Metropolitan Opera of New York, and enjoyed it immensely. It was, to
Mireilles chagrin, the last program of the Live from the Met series,
except for a performance of Les Contes dHoffmann which had been aired
recently, and which he did not watch with her.
Sure, he said, and
prepared for it by reading the libretto of Don Giovanni in Italian, with
an English translation beside it.
The preparation helped
him enjoy the live performance even more than he had the telecast. He could
watch the action on the stage with only minimal glances at the supertitles.
Moreover, since the title page of the libretto called it a comic drama (dramma
giocoso), he treated it as a comedy, and found it very funny. His favorite
character was Leporello, sung by a visiting American bass with a great knack
for physical comedy But he also laughed at the scenes that were meant to be
serious or even frightening, such as the one between Don Giovanni and the
statue. Mireille at first seemed uncomfortable with his behavior, but by the
second act she joined him in his enjoyment.
Shortly after getting his probationary license, Daniel
found a three-year-old Jetta for a little under four thousand dollars, most of
which he expected to recoup when he sold it before going to New York. He spent
much of the summer taking camping trips, some alone and some with friends, to
various parts of Quebec. The last trip, to the Gaspé
Peninsula, was ten days
long. On the way there and back he made a point of bypassing Rimouski.
During
that time Mireille made a two-week getaway to the Magdalen Islands with Betty.
The rest of her free time she was at home, supervising the installation of a
new, energy-efficient water heater.
Meanwhile,
Ms. Casey had helped him arrange some informal interviews with the admissions
office and with some faculty members at Columbia, particularly in the German
Department, during the orientation week just before the Labor Day weekend. This
would be the occasion for his second trip to New York.
It
was on this trip, three weeks before Daniel turned seventeen, that sex came to
him with the proverbial bang.
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