6   29 Aug 88   Once again it is half a year since the last entry. Why? George and I got together a few times since the birthday party. As he had promised, he got us tickets for Don Giovanni at the Opéra de Montréal in April, but he had to cancel, so I went with Daniel instead, and it was lots of fun. But there were a couple of medical conferences out of town, and in July I went back to the islands for two weeks. This time it was only with Betty, while Daniel was driving around Eastern Canada with his new driver’s licence and his Jetta, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends. And each time I felt, again, guilty and ashamed. I wanted to tell you about it, my journal, but I could not find the words. I did not really understand what I was guilty or ashamed of. My weakness in giving in? (Lust?) Not wanting to be somebody’s other woman? (Pride?) Wanting a man all to myself? (Av Greed?) Wanting more than he can give? (Gluttony?) Not doing anything about it? (Sloth?) Resentment of him for having his way? (Wrath? Envy?) You see, my father journal, I have not completely forgotten my catechism. To you I confess my sins. Tina has not been much help. She has no scruples compunctions about sleeping with married men (she says she does it to get back at Louis, who cheated on her), and doesn’t see why I do. But I felt terrible after the fling I had with Greg, in 1977, when Marcia and the boys went to Israel. Sam had just gone back to the US and I said to myself, why not three Jewish men in a row? After all, I had hoped to meet Leonard Cohen when I moved to Montréal, but he had already moved to New York when I got here. Yes, my journal, I could be very stupid at times. And stupidity, though not one of the seven, is in my personal catechism the deadliest sin of all. But George has been calling again since he got back to Montréal, and this time he is saying that he plans to move out, maybe even divorce. “Not because of me,” I said. He hesitated but finally said “no, not because of you.” The only thing that has kept him at home, he said, is Amy, and he is trying to work something out about her with Doris. ––––––––––––––––––––– Back to the present. Daniel is in New York again. I am in Rimouski. It is late at night. Everybody is asleep, except me. I checked my answering machine. There was a strange, surprising message from Daniel. “Hello, maman, I am having a great time in New York. Don’t try to call me at Sam’s. I am not staying there. I met someone. I love you.” My God, has it finally happened, now that he is almost seventeen? I hope he tells me about it. And I hope he took precautions. Papa is in a coma. Irreversible, it seems. His doctor told the family not to expect a recovery. And who should his doctor be but Etienne Palombe, my boyfriend in Secondary V! He went to Laval and returned to Rimouski to join his father’s practice and eventually took it over. And Dr. Palombe and papa couldn’t stand each other! That is probably what attr drew me to Etienne, now that I think about it. What irony! Papa will never talk again. What a relief! No more of those insults and threats! I spent half an hour alone with him. Maman thought that I was making peace with him! It was with myself that I made peace, finally saying to papa all the things that for the last thirty years I have wanted to say. I don’t know if he heard me. Medical science doesn’t know these things yet. But as I spoke I believed that he heard me, listened to me even. When we first came I was worried about Betty. (She no longer wants to be called Zoë.) All these years I was under the illusion that she was close to her grandfather. But Betty told me that she did not love him, that she was just pretending because papi was nice to her, but she didn’t like how he spoke about Daniel. It’s true: papa was always gentle with her, said nice things to her, never called her la petite juive, though she is just as Jewish as Daniel, mayb. I am tired. I must get some sleep. It was a long drive yesterday, and there will be another one tomorrow. But it will be nice to be home. Yes, home. Montréal. Not Rimouski. Bang!   On the morning of the last Sunday in August, when Daniel was to take once again the overnight bus to New York, Mireille received a call from her mother, telling her that her father was seriously ill and asking her to come for a visit as soon as possible. Reluctantly Mireille agreed, and took Betty (who by then was no longer Zoë) with her. Alone at home, Daniel ate a hastily made pasta dinner while listening to jazz on CBC Stereo. A top-of the-hour newsbreak told of a horrifying accident: at an air show at an American air base in Germany: three airplanes had crashed, killing all the pilots and dozens of spectators. While Daniel did not think of himself as believing in omens, the report somehow reaffirmed his decision to travel to New York by land. After dinner he packed. The backpack that he had used on his camping trips proved quite adequate for what he would need in New York. When he was ready he took the metro to the Central Bus Station, bought his ticket and, after checking his backpack, boarded the bus, which this time was quite packed. Most of the passengers seemed to be Americans returning home from a Quebec vacation. He found an aisle seat next to one that was occupied by a woman who gave him a friendly smile when he stopped in front of the seat. She seemed about ten years his senior, and in a strange way she made him think of Brigitte. She was a blue-eyed blonde, but that was just about the only resemblance. By no stretch of the definition could she be called pretty, either in face or in figure. Her hair was short, and she was casually dressed in sweatshirt and jeans. Yet he perceived in her some of the sensuality with which Brigitte had struck him. “Hi,” she said as he sat down. “I’m Jen.” She reached her hand out to him. “Hi,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m Daniel, but not Dan or Danny. Are you Jenny or Jennifer?” She laughed. “Actually I’m Genevieve. It’s G-E-N. Genevieve McGrath. From New York.” As the bus started to pull out of the station, they began a conversation in which he told her the purpose of his trip, while she told him that she was coming home from a three-week vacation of hiking and water sports in the Laurentians. She was a teacher in a middle school, which she explained to him as being like a junior high school without a ninth grade. “So it’s grades seven and eight?” he asked. “Yes,” she said. “It’s cute the way you Canadians say ‘grade eight’ where we in the States say ‘eighth grade.” “Well,” he said, “in Quebec it’s officially called secondary one and secondary two, and normally they’re a part of secondary school, but in my school they’re on a separate campus, so it’s really just like the middle school and high school of Western Canada and the States. My school even has a grade twelve, which high schools in Quebec normally don’t.” “They don’t? Wow! But tell me, is there any health education in the middle-school grades, whatever they’re called?” she asked with a laugh. “I didn’t go to my present school for those grades, and I didn’t get any. But my sister just finished grade eight at our school, and I don’t think she had any either. Why do you ask?” “Because it’s what I teach,” she said. The conversation flowed smoothly. Hardly any time seemed to have passed when they reached the border crossing, well past one o’clock. Daniel showed the agent his Canadian passport and Gen her driver’s license, from which he was able to read, by a cursory glance, that it was from Connecticut, not New York, and that the year of her birth was 1961. His guess about her age was right. Once the bus rolled down Interstate 87 Daniel began to yawn. “You’re sleepy,” Gen said. “I guess so,” he answered sheepishly. “Put your head on my shoulder,” she said. It seemed a strangely maternal invitation from a woman who was older by only a decade, but he felt very tired and agreed. He fell asleep immediately, and did not awaken until the bus was entering the Albany terminal. Gen was awake. It was not clear if she had slept during the two and half hours that Daniel did, but when he opened his eyes she was smiling at him. She excused herself to get past him and off the bus into the terminal, probably to use the toilet. She came back just before the bus started. When she was back in her seat she said, “Let’s go back to sleep. Do you like sleeping with me?” “Yes,” Daniel said, trying to ignore the double entendre and wondering if he was blushing. This time they let their heads touch each other lightly. Daniel found that Gen’s hair and face smelled good. He wondered if she had applied anything to them during her powder-room visit. He woke up again just before the Lincoln Tunnel entrance, a little before seven. This time Gen seemed also to be just waking, and as she opened her eyes she looked squarely into his. She brought her face close to his and kissed him. It was Daniel’s first sensual kiss. It felt wonderful, better than he had ever imagined, and they held it for the entire time that they were in the tunnel. As the driver was maneuvering into the parking space she asked him, “Where are you staying in New York?” “With a friend of my mother’s,” he said, “or rather at his place, since he’s on vacation.” “Would you like to stay with me instead?” He already knew that she had a place in Greenwich Village. “Sure,” he said. They took the subway down to the Village. Her very old apartment house was a short walk from the station. They climbed the two flights of stairs, she unlocked her door and beckoned him in. She dropped her bag on the hallway floor, motioned for Daniel to do the same with his backpack, and as soon as his hands were free she pulled him into the bedroom. She undressed quickly and he followed suit. “Was this your first time?” she asked afterwards. “Yes,” he said. “I thought so. Lucky me,” she said. “But lucky you, too.” “What do you mean?” “I didn’t tell you that one of the things I teach kids is sex ed. And I will give you a free course, not the classroom way but the workshop way.” And so she did. In the course of five evenings Daniel learned about foreplay and positions, about timing and afterplay, about lubricants and condoms – just for practice, she said, since he didn’t need them with her. She taught him what to say and what not to say to a girl he was interested in, depending on her verbal or nonverbal cues. She even told him what to say to his mother when he informed her that he would not be staying with Sam. The first part would be to call her and just tell her that something had come up, and that it was good. Daniel did just that. Monday evening there was no answer. She must still be in Rimouski, he concluded. He left a message with the words suggested by Gen and the promise to call back the next evening. When he did so and she answered, her response to his “Hi, maman” was “J’ai écouté ton message. Ton grand-père est très malade. Il… he’s in a coma.” It was the first time that he heard her refer to Pierre-Joseph Bouchard as Daniel’s grandfather, rather than as mon père. He wondered if she felt remorse over that fact that her son and her father had never met. It had been her choice, after all. “I’m sorry,” he said. “How’s Betty taking it?” “She’s okay. How’s it going at Columbia?” “So far, so good.” And indeed the interviews at Columbia went very well. The people that Daniel talked with, both in the Admissions Office and in the German Department, told him that if his scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test were good, as they expected them to be, he could skip the formal interview process and apply for admission under the early decision program. He also discovered that the Columbia Library had copies of all three of his father’s books in German. The discovery meant that he could put their perusal on hold for a year. Between his days at Columbia and his evenings and nights with Gen, it was a heady five-day week. When he took the train on Saturday morning he felt pleasantly exhausted, but not at all ready for the start of senior year the following Tuesday. He spent the journey partly dozing (he had not had much sleep the night before), partly reading The New Yorker and partly gazing at the late-summer scenery of the Hudson Valley and the Adirondacks. The train had several delays, and by the time it reached the customs stop at Cantic it was an hour and a half behind schedule. By this time it should have been in Montreal, and he called his mother to inform her of the delay. He also told her not to wait for him with dinner. He was hungry, and he went to the lounge car, where he had previously had lunch, for a snack or a sandwich. He decided, after very little hesitation, to order a hamburger, which would be his third one that day. As far as he could remember, it would be the first three-hamburger day in his life. While the lounge had been busy at lunch, at this time there were very few people. Most of the tables were free, but at one of them there was a woman with long, wavy black hair sitting with her back to Daniel. Perhaps as a way of testing his newly achieved manhood he asked her if she would mind his sitting with her. She looked up at him, startled at first but then pleasantly surprised, and said, somewhat uncertainly, “Yeah, sure.” She was thin and seemingly tall, in a loose-fitting dress that displayed no curves whatsoever, and decidedly not pretty, but, as had happened with Gen, Daniel found himself interested. She looked about thirty and was eating a sandwich. He asked her if she was American or Canadian. “Both, I guess,” she answered with a nervous laugh. “I’m from Albany, but I live and work in Montreal.” They introduced themselves. Her name was Angie Accorso, and she was a pediatric nurse at Montreal Children’s. She had just spent a week in Albany visiting family, and had made two day trips to New York in order to visit galleries and museums. “I just love art,” she said, showing some animation for the first time. “Do you like art?” “Yes, I do,” he said. “I wish I’d had time to go to some museums while I was in New York, but I didn’t. But I expect to be living there when I go to university, so I’ll make up for it.” “That’s nice,” Angie said quietly. Daniel was informed that his hamburger was ready and went to pick it up. “As a matter of fact,” he went on after sitting down, “I haven’t been to the Museum of Fine Arts in quite a while, not since the Leonardo da Vinci show last year, and I was thinking of going tomorrow. Would you like to go with me?” She looked even more startled than when he asked to sit with her. “You mean…” she began, but didn’t seem to know how to continue. “I mean, it would be nice to go with someone who appreciates art. Are you free?” “I guess so.” They agreed to meet in front of the museum at two o’clock, and, after getting off the train, shook hands to say good-bye. Angie lived downtown, a fairly short distance from the station, in a flat that she said was halfway between her hospital and the museum, and said that she would take a taxi home. Daniel decided that, since her place would not be very much out of the way if he also took a taxi, he would do so. “Let’s take a taxi together,” he suggested, “and I’ll drop you off.” “Okay,” she said, “but I’ll pay my share.” “No need for that,” he said, “since it’s on my way.” Angie and Daniel did not talk during the short ride to her place. A as she stepped out of the taxi, he said, “See you tomorrow!” She smiled back at him and said something that he didn’t hear because a truck was just driving past. The driver handed her her suitcase and she went inside. During the ride home Daniel felt a welter of elation and exhaustion. The Indian music that the driver played on the sound system suited Daniel’s mood just fine. He gave his mother a brief summary of his week, at least the part dealing with Columbia. “You’re tired,” she said to him when he yawned. “Tell me more tomorrow,” she added with a sly look and a sideways glance at Betty. Gen had been right: Mireille had understood the meaning of the hint he had left on her answering machine. Daniel did not share his mother’s view that his fully developed fourteen-year-old sister – who, at least at school, did not try to hide her interest in boys – needed to be sheltered from the facts of life, but he respected it. She was, after all, their mother. He slept late. After brunch, once Betty was away with a friend, he told his mother not only about Gen but also Angie. “T’es tout un homme,” Mireille said.   He took the metro to the museum and got there about ten to two. Angie was already waiting for him. “I thought I’d be here just in case you were early,” she said with a shy smile. “It’s nice to see you,” he said. She was wearing, as she had on the train, a loose-fitting long-sleeved dress – light blue this time – that seemed to have been chosen to hide the thinness of her torso and her arms, but not the relative fullness of her hips. In the sunlight her complexion looked darker than it had looked on the train. If she wore any makeup, Daniel did not see it. They did not talk much as they ambled from one gallery to another. After about an hour and a half he felt sated. She seemed to notice his state. “Shall we call it a day?” she said. “Yes,” he said. “Would you like some coffee?” She hesitated for a moment before saying, “No, I need to get back.” “Another time, then,” he said. “Let me walk you home. The walk from the museum to Angie’s place took only ten minutes. Along the way the chatted about some of the art works they had seen, the weather and not much else before they reached the apartment house. She reached out her right hand, but he took it with his left, and then took her left with his right. Holding both of her hands and squeezing them gently, he said, “I’d like to go to bed with you.” Gen had encouraged him to try the direct approach when the situation felt right, and he couldn’t think of a reason why this one did not. Angie looked at him as though in shock, then looked away and said nothing. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked. She slowly turned her head to face him. “No,” she said at last. “It’s just that… that I’m not used to a good-looking guy like you wanting to go to bed with me, when you can have any pretty girl you want.” “What makes you think I want any pretty girl? I like you,” he said and gently began to pull her toward him. She resisted. “I like you too, but we’ve just met. It’s so soon…” “I’m not asking you to marry me,” he said. She laughed, and her resistance to the pull lessened. She moved a few inches closer to him. “But if you’d rather wait,” he added, “it’s okay. You’re worth it.” That seemed to be the right thing to say, since she now let herself be drawn to him till they were almost touching. He kissed her softly on the mouth. “Come on in,” she said. Later that week there was another letter from Brigitte. This one spoke of her and Miki’s social life in Hamburg, and especially their friends Helmut and Margot. Helmut was a fellow actor who had been her co-star in her first film, and Margot had been Miki’s fellow student and later his editor. They met when they came, with their respective spouses – Helmut’s a television actress, Margot’s a university professor – to a dinner party at Brigitte and Miki’s apartment. They fell in love and moved in together, though they never married. They were great fans of The Beatles, and when they had a daughter they named her Rita, for the meter maid in the song. Rita was about Daniel’s age and was lovely, as in the song. Brigitte hoped that he could meet her some day.