18
24 March
91
Daniel
came back to Montréal for spring break after all. He explained it frankly: he
didnt want to be alone in New York while Cici was in Florida. And he wouldnt
mind doing a little late-season skiing.
But New York
has been having mild weather and he was unprepared for a Québec winter. Within
two days his sinuses were inflamed, then his throat too. There was no fever. It
could be either a cold (that he might have picked up on the train) or an
allergy reaction (I was a little slow in changing the air filter of the heating
system). I gave him a decongestant, an antipyretic and an antibiotic to prevent
a secondary infection but I doubt that it made much difference. It was a
situation of take it and youll be better in a week, dont take it and it will
take seven days. I think that what it really was, holistically speaking, is
his body needing a pretext for some rest, which it got. So we did not get to
talk very much. All I know is that he is still dating Cici, that his studies
are going well, and that he has been talking with Ora (his first-year biology
TA whose mother Nili had been Mikis girlfriend!) about DNA testing. He didnt
tell me what he learned that was new, and I didnt ask him. He also didnt
mention Miki. Perhaps he knew that it would upset me.
In fact he
spent most of his time resting and reading. I asked him if he missed skiing and
he said no, not really, and I believed him. By yesterday he was mostly better,
but I dissuaded him from taking the overnight train back to New York in this
weather and in his condition, and took him to Mirabel instead, so that he could
sleep in his own bed.
Betty
submitted her application for admission to cégep de Saint-Laurent in the
autumn. I had thought that her going to anglophone secondary school might
present a problem, but they assured us that since she took French every
semester there should be no difficulty.
Tina has a new
lover, a francophone pharmacist named Michel (married, of course). Bob and I went on a double date with them. Of
course we spoke French, since we francophones were 3:1, and Tina is practically
bilingual. The film we went to see was in English (The Doors by Oliver Stone)
but afterwards we talked about it in French. Tina had quite a few criticisms of
the film; she spent some time as a groupie with The Doors when she was 18, and
she thought that the portrayal of Jim Morrison was all wrong. When she knew
him, at least (moi jai baisé avec Jim
Morrison en 1967 was how she began the
conversation), he was gentle and funny and sober, nothing like the arrogant
drunk in the film.
But I have
seen Tina a few other times and we have spoken English. It was she, not I, who
occasionally lapsed into French. She likes Bob but doesnt expect it to last.
(Do I? I am not sure.) Michel, she says, is so-so, but better than nothing. The
best thing about him is that he doesnt hide his philandering ways, from his
wife or from anyone else, so there is no need to sneak around. When she was
younger she didnt mind it, but now its too much trouble. For a middle-aged
slut like me, she added. And then: So here we are, two middle-aged sluts who
happen to be doctors.
I laughed
along with her, but I will tell you, my journal, that I am not a slut. Je ne
suis pas une traînée. (At McGill we francophones used to make fun of the
students in special programs who in English were called trainees.) If I were a
slut then I would not have gone through all that conflict about GK, or the
remorse about my fling with GB. I like men, but one at a time (mostly) and for
some length of time. It has now been 9 months with Bob. For Tina that would be
an eternity, but I feel fine.
Tina likes to
say that I am just like her, but she is who she is, and I am who I am.
Maple Leaf Rag
At the end of March Ora called him. I have some news
about DNA testing, she said. The results are pretty good. Would you like to
hear some details?
Well,
you of all people should know how much or how little biology I understand, but
Im interested.
They
agreed to meet for coffee at the Israeli-owned place on April Fools Day, a
Monday. In the morning, just before Cici left his place, he told her about the
upcoming meeting
Id
like to meet her too, Cici said.
Really?
April
fool!
No,
really, its fine if you meet her.
Ill
tell you what. Ill just walk by the coffeehouse and wave hello.
Okay,
if thats what you want to do.
First of all, Ora began, even before Mengele, there was
a case in England, where a girl disappeared ten years ago in Cardiff
Thats
Wales, not England.
Excuse
me. Wales. Her smile made him blush. Two years ago a body was found, mostly
bones, that the police suspected that it might be the girls. A woman in Oxford
named Erika Hagelberg shes the one who wrote the paper about skeletons that
I told you about in class extracted some DNA from a bone and sent it to
Jeffreys for analysis. It was only a little bit of DNA, but she used PCR do
you remember what that is?
Uh
polymer
polymerase chain reaction?
Very
good, Daniel. She used it to make more DNA out of it. They compared it with the
girls parents, and the match was so good that just a few weeks ago the court
accepted the evidence. It was the first time!
Then
there is Mengele he drowned twelve years ago but for him also they were
able to extract a little bit of DNA and amplify it with PCR. As far as I know
Jeffreys is still looking for relatives to match him, though he may have found
them by now. The problem is that the DNA can get contaminated, with bacteria
and things like that, and PCR is sensitive to contamination. And the older the
remains, the greater the chance of contamination. With the body thats supposed
to be your father, lets say that somebody in Montreal will be able to extract
some DNA maybe a year or two from now, then the body will be
twenty years old,
right? From the Yom Kippur War?
Yes.
What
you will have to count on is that the technology will make faster progress than
the decomposition of the body.
Thats
quite likely, isnt it?
As
a scientist, I think so. By the way, when they get the DNA from the body, they
will also need samples from you and from your mother.
From
my mother? Why? Out of the corner of one eye he saw Cici walking past the
coffeehouse, wearing a parka with the hood over her head it was drizzling and
looking at them through the window. She waved at Daniel discreetly and walked
on.
You
forgot already? Because you get half of your genes from each of your parents,
so
I
get it. So theyll use my mothers DNA to eliminate whatever I have thats not
from my father.
Correct.
Thats why with Mengele they are looking both for his son and his ex-wife.
So
my mother will have to agree to the whole thing. That will be a challenge, I
think.
In the evening, during a lull in his studies, Daniel
called Cici.
Why
didnt you come in and say hello? he asked her.
I
just wanted to take a look at your friend Ora. She pronounced the name as
though it were Spanish.
So
what did you think of her?
It
doesnt matter. What did you think?
What
do you mean?
Youve
been fucking her!
What!
I
recognized her. I saw her coming out of your building about a month ago when I
was jogging in your block. I had never seen her in this neighborhood before,
let alone your building.
But
she could have been visiting anyone!
Thats
why I wanted to see her with you. Are you going to deny it?
No,
except that it was just that one time. You have to believe me.
I
have to? On April Fools Day? Cici said with a laugh, but for the first time
in Daniels memory her usually joyous laughter sounded bitter.
Well,
there was another time, but
Maybe I should tell you about this in person.
No
way! I never want to see you again!
What?
No! I
I
April
fool! Cici laughed again, cheerfully this time. Ill be over in fifteen
minutes. Make some tea.
While
he waited for her, once again he felt himself a mere boy beside this mature,
fully formed, sophisticated woman una mujer hecha y derecha, as he had
learned to say who was only eleven months older than he was.
How
do you say April fool in Spanish? he asked her when she came in and gave him
an all-is-forgiven kiss on the cheek. Her lips were cold the day had been
chilly, and she was wearing the same parka as in the morning over her jeans and
running shoes. She was evidently not treating this visit as a date.
We
say ¡inocente!, except that Hispanics dont do it on April first, but on
el día de los Inocentes, Holy Innocents Day, a few days after
Christmas.
Really?
Yes.
We also dont have a superstition about Friday the thirteenth, but Tuesday the
thirteenth. Martes trece. What else do you want to know thats different
about Hispanics? she asked as she sat down on the sofa, without removing her
parka, and began sipping from the mug that was waiting for her on the coffee table,
unzipping the parka with the free hand.
What
makes you such smart-asses? he asked in turn as he sat beside her.
Because
were smarter. Weve got all the wisdom of the Greeks and the Romans and the
Arabs and the Jews and the Indians. Okay?
Didnt
you forget the Iberians and the Carthaginians?
I
dont know about them. She was serious now. But some of the wisest people of
all time were Spanish, except that the world doesnt think of them as Spanish.
People think of Seneca as a Roman, Averroes as an Arab, Maimonides as a Jew,
which they were, but they were all Spanish. She seemed to be reciting a lesson
she had been taught with the aim of instilling ethnic pride. In fact, they all
came from Córdoba, like my grandfather. And when it comes to Greeks like
Aristotle, people in Europe didnt know about them until some Christians,
Muslims and Jews in Spain translated the books. So, you see, we are smart. Now
tell me about your other time with Ora.
It
was over a year ago. I had just come back from Cyprus, and I had some pictures
of her mother to show her, and I went over to her place, and it happened, even
though she had a boyfriend at the time. So this time she turned the tables on
me.
Look,
Daniel. Far be it from me to put myself up as a model of
of fidelity. Cici
hesitated before going on. And anyway, you and me
we dont have a long-term
commitment. Just one semester at a time, and this is only our second one.
Daniel nodded but said nothing. She put her hand on his for a moment and then
withdrew it. Still, she went on, I think we have an obligation, if only a
human one, to not hurt each other
Of
course, he interjected.
And
if youre fucking someone, not when youre on vacation but right here in New
York, when Im in town, and I find out about it by accident, then that hurts.
It hurts like hell. She put both of her hands around the warm mug, as if
seeking comfort for the pain. Dont say anything, she added, though he had
not given a sign that he was about to, just take it in. She now drank the tea
slowly and steadily, holding the mug to her lips in a manner reminiscent of a
kiss. Daniel would have liked nothing better at that moment than a kiss from
his beautiful girlfriend, but he did not dare ask for one. Cicis eyes
alternated between looking at the tea inside the mug, perhaps following the
motion of the leaves floating in it, and glancing sideways at Daniel.
Finally
she put the mug down and zipped her parka back up. Okay, she said as she
stood up, Ive had my say. End of drama. Now Ive got to go home and learn
some psychology. She giggled. Daniel stood up with her, and she gave him
another kiss on the cheek, her lips warm this time. Daniel reciprocated. As
much as he wanted to, he didnt put his arms around her. Bye! she said with a
dazzling smile as she walked away from him and out the door.
Soon
he was back in his studies, writing notes for a paper on Kafka. The drama had
not ended; there hadnt even been one. Thoughts of Cici were receding from his
mind till they were no more.
Soccer play resumed with the advent of spring, and Team
Canada won the first match, 1-0, against a Colombian club. Fred Maillet, the
teams other French Canadian (an Acadian from New Brunswick), scored the goal
on a pass from Daniel.
It
takes Latinos to beat Latinos, Fred said over beers after the match.
What
do you mean? Bill McKenna asked, a ring of suds around his lips.
We
French Canadians are Latinos too, Fred explained. French comes from Latin,
just like Spanish and Portuguese. In case you didnt know, the term Latin
America was invented by the French as an excuse for France to meddle in
Mexico.
Thats
true, Daniel confirmed.
I
had a teacher in secondary school, Fred continued, who insisted that we were
Latinos. Nous sommes des Latinos, she used to say. Short for Latinoaméricans.
What
was she a teacher of? Daniel asked. Latin?
Thats
right! Fred roared. Everyone laughed.
We
should now sing our team song, Jason Arnold proposed after the laughter died
down.
If
we had one, Bill said.
How
about Maple Leaf Rag? Daniel suggested.
Does
it have lyrics? Hugh Barron asked.
Something
about I came from ole Virginny, Alan Silver said. Is that appropriate,
or what!
We
can make new ones, Daniel said. How about this: Canadians doin the Maple
Leaf Rag
and so on. I could write us a set of lyrics.
Do
it, man! Fred said. There was more laughter. Just make sure you dont rhyme
it with Maple Leaf Flag, Hugh said. Ill do my best, Daniel said.
Daniel and Cici never did get to go to the ballet together
that spring. Indeed, in what was left of the semester in April and May, their
need to study real or pretended allowed them only five dates, barely one a
week.
Daniel
did, however, treat himself to some performances at the Met that semester.
Opera was something that Cici didnt mind listening to, but going to the Met
didnt interest her, so he went alone, three times, each time to see Plácido
Domingo: singing Rodolfo in La Bohème and Parsifal, and conducting Tosca.
In La Bohème Mimì was a beautiful Korean soprano who reminded him of
Carol Choi in German class, and Musetta was black, as was the famous Jessye
Norman who sang Kundry in Parsifal. There he also noticed that one of
the Flower Maidens was the same sexy blond soprano about whom he had fantasized
a year before. This time Cici was so much on his mind that he had no room for
such fantasies.
Cicis
lessons on Hispanic culture served as the catalyst that crystallized his plans
for the summer vacation: he would travel to Latin America. The chats with the
people of his neighborhood and the post-game banter with his soccer opponents,
many of whom were Latinos, made him feel sufficiently at ease in speaking
Spanish to make such a trip a pleasant experience.
He
would start by going to Cuba, then Mexico, and once there he would decide where
to go next. He told Cici about his plan on the date that followed his decision,
as they were walking to the subway.
How
are you going to go to Cuba? she asked.
By
getting on a plane in Montréal he made a point of saying the name of
his hometown with a French sound and getting off in La Habana. Have
you forgotten that Im Canadian?
Sorry,
she said.
To
you Im just a gringo, huh?
I
know youre not, but you dont seem any different, so I forget. She laughed.
You dont say about like Canadians do, not to mention that you dont have a
French accent.
Would
you like me to ave one?
She
laughed again. That would be cool, she said. Sería chévere. You
French, me Espanish.
If
you didnt always remind me that youre Hispanic, I wouldnt necessarily know.
But
thats the point, dont you see? Youve got to assert your identity!
Whats
my identity? A half-Polish-Jewish French Canadian who mainly speaks English?
How do I assert that?
I
dont know how to explain it, Daniel. I also mainly speak English, but Im
Hispanic, and specifically Puerto Rican. I just am. Its part of my
consciousness. Im not saying you have to have it, but if you dont then as far
as Im concerned youre a gringo. Not that theres anything wrong with that.
Another laugh. Its not like Im sleeping with the enemy. It was now Daniels
turn to laugh, at the reference to the title of the movie they were going to
see. But if someone is Jewish American, or Italian American, then to me
theyre not a gringo. Thats all.
You
may not know this, Cicita, but on my Canadian soccer team here at
Columbia I was the only French guy, and now Im one of two, and we sure as hell
assert it to our fellow Canadians who are English, that is. Its an
intra-Canadian thing. He decided not to share with her Fred Maillets notion
that they were Latinos. Maybe some other time, he thought.
Well,
good, Im glad you told me. So youre not a gringo. They had reached the
subway station, and she gave him a quick kiss before slipping her token into
the turnstile slot. The downtown train came quickly, and it was too noisy to
keep talking. There were no seats, and, holding on to the straps, they put
their free arms about each other.
It took Daniel until the end of the semester, just in time
for the last game against the Jewish Student Union team to fulfill his
commitment to write the lyrics for Maple Leaf Rag as Team Canadas team
song. He brought his guitar to the pre-game practice, on the last day of
classes, and during the break before the game he played the bass line on it
in E, so that it would fit most guys voice range while singing to his
teammates:
Although
our life may be startin to drag,
We dont let the
secret out of the bag,
Well
make a joke or well do a gag.
Remember, remember,
remember, remember,
Were Canadians, were
Canadians doin,
Were Canadians doin
the Maple Leaf Rag.
Were Canadians, were
Canadians doin,
Were Canadians doin
the Maple Leaf Rag.
Youre on the old
highway, drivin your Jag,
You see the headliner
startin to sag.
Just do a zig and then
do a zag.
Remember, remember,
remember, remember,
Were Canadians, were
Canadians doin,
Were Canadians doin
the Maple Leaf Rag.
Were Canadians, were
Canadians doin,
Were Canadians doin
the Maple Leaf Rag.
In
the second stanza Alan who was a music major helped out with his falsetto
on the last remember, whereupon everybody joined in for the refrain.
Congratulations
on leaving out Maple Leaf Flag, Hugh Barron said.
It
was a struggle, Daniel said. Satan was at my shoulder, whispering Maple Leaf
Flag, Maple Leaf Flag
But I resisted.
You
and Mulroney, said Fred Maillet, who was one of the teams more
political-minded members, amid general laughter. But I like the line about the
headliner starting to sag. Its about Trudeau, isnt it?
There
was more laughter. He just became a dad, you know, Jason Arnold, who was from
Newfoundland, remarked.
With
whats her name
Deborah Coyne? Tom asked.
Yes,
Jason confirmed.
Whos
she? Daniel asked, realizing that he had been out of touch with Canadian
gossip.
A
lawyer-politician type in St. Johns, Jason said.
Not
an actress or a musician, for a change?
No,
but shes pretty enough, Tom said.
How
much younger is she than him?
The
usual, thirty-some years, Bill McKenna said.
Exactly
half his age, Jason pinpointed.
I
wouldnt mind sagging like that when Im seventy-plus, Tom said. There was
more laughter, in the midst of which the referee came over to announce the
start of the game. It was a mild, breezy spring day with scattered clouds, and
Team Canada beat JSU, 3-1. Daniel scored the second goal, on a cross from
Jason. It was his first and only goal of the semester, and the teams third
win, alongside two draws and four losses. But it was a satisfying way to end
the season.
While
he walked home after the game, he thought about the middle-aged and by now
old Pierre Trudeaus penchant for dating much younger women. Will that happen
to me? he asked himself. He had enjoyed the company, and the bodies, of
women who were older than him by a decade, starting with Gen McGrath and
continuing with Angie Accorso and Ora Rozen, but then a woman of thirty une
femme de trente ans was still in the flower of her youth dans la
fleur de sa jeunesse and there was no reason why he would not find such
women attractive when he was, say, in his forties, when such an age difference
would not be inappropriate. His father, after all, was fifteen years no,
fourteen older than his mother. But what happens to men at forty-five or
fifty or so? How about Greg Berman, for example? Marcia Berman was an
attractive woman, but she was getting rather plump, and Daniel had noticed some
flirtatious goings-on between Greg and his secretary Francine, who was not as
pretty as Marcia but definitely younger.
What
if his father were alive and as she had hoped, according to Greg, though not
by her own admission living with his mother? If he was faithful to Brigitte
all through his young years, would he have been so to Mireille also an
exceptional, youthful beauty in his middle years?
Is
there such a thing as male menopause, as the papers and magazines seem to
suggest? And why, at nineteen, am I thinking such thoughts? The questions were
still buzzing in his head when he reached his building.
|