19
25 May
91
It
seems that lately I have begun your pages more often than not, my journal, with
the words Daniel is back in Montréal. This time he is here because he will be
going to Cuba and there are no flights to Cuba from the US. He will stay for
Bettys birthday party.
She is looking
forward to the party not only because she is turning 17 but because it will
also be a farewell to her friends at NAA and to her anglophone phase. She has
been accepted by the cégep de Saint-Laurent and will be going there in the
autumn, like Gérard, who is in the music program there.
But Gérard may
no longer be relevant. During the past year she has become close to Paul Berman,
who stayed at NAA for Grade 12. Yes, Paul Berman, whom she has known since they
were infants. He had planned to go to university in Toronto, as Marcia did, but
now is thinking of staying in Montréal and going into the second year at Vanier
College, as his brother Harvey did. If that happens he and Betty will still be
practically going to college together, since the two campuses are next to each
other.
But she is not
changing her mind about going to a French college. She says that she needs
better grounding in literary French because she wants to be a bilingual writer.
Not simply to write something in French and something else in English, but
books and poems that are actually bilingual. I asked if there would be a public
for such a literature, except for the few true bilinguals like her and Daniel.
Not so few, she said, look at Trudeau and Johnson and Mulroney, and there will
be more in the future. She believes that the destiny of Québec is bilinguismalism
and she wants to help it along. For her it is not a pragmatic fact of life as
it is for Daniel (who is in effect quadrilingual, now that he knows German and
Spanish) but an integral part of her essence. Her identity, as she would say:
cest mon identité, une Québécoise bilingue. She would like to see bilingual
Quebeckers officially recognized as such, alongside francophones and
anglophones, and she hopes that some day they will be a majority. She hates
Bill 178 and all other laws that restrict language freedom.
I admire her
enthusiasm but I cant help feeling a lack of realism. Still, we are all
entitled to our youthful follies. Nos folies de jeunesse. And I am glad that
she is not of the génération
désenchantée (tous mes idéaux, des mots abîmés) that Mylène Farmer sings about
in her latest song.
As for Daniel,
I dont even know if he still thinks of himself as a French Canadian. Perhaps I
will ask him the next time that he is here.
But his folly
is another matter; it frightens me.
A couple of
weeks ago I finally spoke to Greg about the exhumation business. He told me
that Daniel, as an adult, has a right to request it, and if he can find a
lawyer who can convince a judge to order it, then it would be difficult to stop
it. And if the body turns out not to be Mikis then there is the slight very
slight, Greg emphasized possibility that someone, somewhere in the world,
might question the validity of the inheritance. If, for instance, Miki had not
died in the Yom Kippur War but went into hiding somewhere and wrote another
will. After 18 years, Greg assured me, the chances of that are astronomically
small, and he only felt obligated to mention it as an attorney.
For several
nights after the talk I had to take some estazolam to be able to sleep. And at
least one of those nights, maybe two, I again dreamt about Jean-Marc. Why? Is
it because of Bob, who is my first francophone lover since J-M? It is true that
on a few occasions I thought about J-M when I was with Bob, but it was because
the language we used reminded me of old times. I already told you about that,
my journal, and that it was different with Miki. So why did the dreams come
back right after talking with Greg about Miki? Why, my journal?
Toronto to Havana
Finals were over. Cici and Daniels last date of the
spring celebrating the end of the academic year and Daniels having signed,
two days before, the papers that made him the owner of his apartment was on
the eve of their respective morning flights from La Guardia to Miami and
Montreal, flights that were to depart within a half hour of each other.
They
shared a taxi to the airport. Inside the terminal, as they were parting in
order to walk to their respective gates, they bade each other farewell with
See you in August, I guess. Years later, Daniel was to remember those words
of farewell when he read a short story by Gabriel García Márquez titled En
agosto nos vemos.
He
spent three weeks in Montreal, culminating with Bettys seventeenth birthday.
Megan was out of town she had a summer job somewhere in Ontario, he was told
and Daniel didnt mind.
He
discovered that in order to fly to Havana he would need to take a very early
flight to Toronto first. He decided, instead, to go to Toronto by train he
had never taken that quintessentially Canadian train ride before and spend
two nights there, including a day for visiting the Royal Ontario Museum.
I
wish I could go with you, Betty said when he informed her and Mireille of his
plan, but I still have school. Finals are coming up. Her English was as
fluent as ever, and Daniel wondered if anything had happened with Gérard.
Well,
he said, maybe you can. I plan to leave the day after your birthday, which
will be a Saturday, and you can come back Sunday afternoon, or even evening, if
you fly. Cant she, maman?
Bien
sûr, Mireille said. Of course, she added.
Okay,
then, Daniel said. Ill take care of the booking.
Mister
World Traveler, Betty said with an affectionate smirk.
Betty
was in fact quite busy with schoolwork during Daniels stay. She spoke, for the
most part, English with him and French with Mireille. She was about to graduate
from North American Academy with a Secondary School Certificate, and her plans
to attend the French CEGEP had not changed.
Gérard
did come to Bettys birthday party, but she didnt seem any friendlier with him
than with some other boys, none more so than Harvey Bermans younger brother
Paul. Amy Kenner was there too. The various cross-related couplings rolled
through Daniels mind: himself with Vivian and Vivian with Harvey, himself with
Leslie and Leslie with Harvey, himself with Megan Kenner and his mother with
George Kenner, and now, possibly, Betty with Paul. What about Amy? She was
already seventeen she was four months older than Betty and seemed quite
receptive to Daniels flirting. There was no time to start anything with her at
that point, but the next time he was in Montreal, why not? And it probably
wouldnt matter would it? if she had a boyfriend, being a Kenner.
To say that Betty had matured in the almost two years
since Daniel left home would have been a major understatement. In many ways
in her poise, judgment, thoughtfulness she reminded him of Cici, who was
almost four years older. It struck him as counterintuitive, but gratifying,
that two young women as beautiful as his girlfriend and his sister would turn
out to be the opposite of spoiled princesses.
As
the train sped through the Quebec and then the Ontario countryside, they talked
about their academic and cultural interests, their plans for the future, and,
surprisingly for Daniel, about politics. Betty was concerned about the failure
of the Meech Lake Accord, for which she blamed Mulroney (unfairly, in Daniels
opinion), and looking forward to voting Liberal in the federal elections two
years hence, hoping that that the next government would not be in bed with the
United States as Mulroneys was. Her mild anti-Americanism was typical of their
crowd, and Daniels lack of it was an exception. Betty actually showed
familiarity with American politics, only occasionally betraying the fact that
she had received some of her information in French, as when she referred to the
Democrat Party, a calque of parti démocrate. In the States, Daniel
told her gently, its considered hostile to speak of the Democrat Party.
Then
whats the nice way?
Democratic
Party.
After
the train left Kingston they went to the dining car for lunch. When it passed
Trenton Junction, where it did not stop, they went back to their car, and soon
afterward Lake Ontario could be seen intermittently from the window, until they
reached Oshawa. Toronto was half an hour away, and they began to discuss plans
for visiting the big city.
Daniel
had reserved tickets for a performance of Romeo and Juliet by a local
theater company that had been well reviewed by the Montreal Gazettes
Toronto correspondent. He had also made a point of booking a separate room for
his almost-adult sister, for the night that she would be in Toronto, in the
no-frills downtown hotel that Harvey Berman, who went there frequently, had
recommended to him.
After
checking in they went for a walk to the Eaton Centre, a few blocks away. It
turned out to be much bigger than the one in Montreal, but in Daniels eyes not
very different. Betty, on the other hand, seemed awed by the centers vast
scale and its endless shopping opportunities. Ill come back here next year
when Im rich, she said with a laugh.
The
mood turned sour when they sat down for dinner in a pizzeria, and something in
the conversation led Daniel to mention what he had learned about DNA analysis.
Youre
still on that kick, Betty said as she bit into a wedge of pizza.
Her
almost sneering tone took him by surprise. Yes, I am, he said defensively.
How do you know about it?
Betty
did not answer him directly. You know, she said instead, there might be
problems if the body turns out not to be papa.
How
do you know?
Paul
told me. Maman told his dad about it, and he said that if our dad didnt
die when he was supposed to, then he may have written another will, later, and
our inheritance would be in jeopardy.
Daniel
was taken aback. It was he, after all, who had floated the possibility that his
father may be alive, but only as a prisoner in an Israeli, or perhaps a Syrian,
jail. That Miki Wilner would be free, somewhere in the world, with perhaps
another family to whom he would leave his wealth, was unthinkable. Inquiring
journalist that he was, surely he would have known that a court in Montreal had
given his legitimate wife, Mireille Bouchard, control over his assets in
accordance with his will. No, Daniel thought: Greg Berman had probably sensed
Mireilles misgivings about the project and fed her some lawyer talk to affirm
her feelings. The argument didnt even make sense logically: the putative
existence of such a will had nothing to do with whether the bones were
analyzed.
Did
maman ever say anything to you about this? he asked his sister.
Not
in so many words. You know that she doesnt like to talk about papa.
How
about indirectly?
She
once said something about Daniel et ses folies I think this was what she
meant.
Elle croit que je suis fou? She
thinks Im crazy?
Betty
giggled. No, not really. Sometimes when I talk to her about my future shell
say Cest comme mes folies de jeunesse. I think shes having a hard time
with us growing up. But I think youre crazy. She giggled again.
You
do? Why?
Its
its like waking up the sleeping cat. Another calque from French, Daniel
thought, but chose not to correct her this time. The cuteness of the expression
temporarily masked the irritation that was growing inside him.
What
does maman think is crazy about your future?
For
example, my idea of being a bilingual poet.
That
sounded perfectly reasonable when you told me about it on the train.
Maybe
thats because youre, like, crazy. More giggling. Seriously, I dont get
what youre trying to accomplish with this DNA stuff. I dont really care to
me papa, or Michael Wilner or whatever, is just a name. But I think it
would be very painful for maman if the body turned out not to be his.
She would lose her feeling of closure
I
dont give a damn! Closure! My girlfriend Cici was with this self-centered
jerk, but she couldnt leave him till she had closure. What is this with women
and closure?
You
wouldnt understand.
Are
you going through closure with Gérard?
Betty
was silent for a while. Speaking of self-centered jerks
she began.
Is
that what he is?
No,
not Gérard. Hes sweet, though Im not in love with him any more. It was a
revelation Daniel had been waiting for. I meant you.
It
took a while for the missile-like second-person pronoun to find it mark and
sink in. Is that what you think of me? he finally asked.
Not
usually, Daniel. But this
this quest of yours, it
its all about you.
He
had nothing at the ready to say in reply. And perhaps she was right. Maybe,
he said.
Did
you ever ask me how I felt about it? Or maman? Or Fela?
But
you just said that you didnt care!
Thats
my point, Daniel. You didnt know if I cared or didnt care before I told you,
but you didnt ask me.
Youre
right, he said.
Sometimes
youre like clueless. Like, you probably dont even know that maman has
a boyfriend.
No!
Have you met him?
I
met him when she met him, last summer on the flight back from England, though not
since. His name is Bob, but hes French.
So
he hasnt come to the house or anything?
No.
So
how do you know theyre still together?
Betty
answered with a condescending smile, as if to say girls know these things.
Daniel shrugged his shoulders.
They
were finished with their pizza, salad and soda, and sat in silence for a few
minutes. Wed better get back to the hotel and change, Betty said suddenly
after glancing at the restaurants wall clock.
Change
what?
Change
foh the theatah, my deah brothah.
What
for? Its just a casual little theater.
Are
you crazy? Yes, Daniel thought but didnt say, you just told me that I am. Go
to the theater in jeans? I brought a dress, just for this.
It
was natural that Betty Wilner, having inherited Mireille Bouchards beauty,
would also acquire her sense of style. And she was right. Most of the women in
the audience, young and old, wore summer dresses or skirts and tops. And few
looked as good as Betty did in hers, a sleeveless high-necked dress in royal blue
that set off her auburn hair and the tanned skin of her radiant face and her
full bosom and her athletically molded arms and legs. In the crowded vestibule
of the former church that served as the playhouse, as they were filing into the
nave, she elicited stares even among the supposedly subdued Torontonians. Had
she been his date, Daniel would have felt proud of being with her, as he had so
many times with Cici. But what was to keep him, he asked himself, of being
proud of his beautiful sister?
In
the play, while the leads and their relatives were white, several other
characters the Nurse, Mercutio and some of the servants were played by
black actors. During intermission Daniel remarked that they could have been the
descendants of children that Othello fathered before he took up with Desdemona.
But
he was in Venice, and this is Verona! Betty said.
It
belonged to Venice in Shakespeares day. I took Italian history last semester.
And people moved around. Anyway, I was joking.
Oh,
Betty said. Evidently she was not as sophisticated as she had seemed up to
then. Cici would certainly have laughed.
It
was also evident to Daniel, to judge from their conversation as they were
walking back to the hotel, that while they had both enjoyed the play, their enjoyment
flowed from different sources: his from the performance and the production
values, hers from the story and the emotions it stirred in her.
Their
aesthetic differences were confirmed the next day at the Royal Ontario Museum,
where they spent most of the day. They agreed to do their gallery-hopping
separately, and only rarely did their interests in the exhibits coincide.
When
it was time for Betty to go to the airport, she declined his offer to accompany
her there. I can manage just fine, she said. She let him carry her bag for
her to the shuttle stop, in front of a big hotel a few blocks away.
Is maman
picking you up at Dorval? he asked her as they began walking.
No.
Is
anyone?
Yes.
She
was playing a guessing game, but he did not play along. Who? he asked.
Paul.
Another revelation, if only partial.
Are
you in love with him?
I
dont know yet.
Is
he your boyfriend?
He
will be tonight, she said, looking at her brother with wide-open eyes.
Tonight?
If
love be blind, it best agrees with night, Betty recited.
So
thats how Romeo and Juliet affected her, he said to himself.
Just
before boarding the shuttle, she gave him a brief hug and said, Have a great
time in Cuba or wherever!
He
had dinner in an Irish pub. The food and the beer were good, and the people
were pleasant, but he had a hard time getting involved in a conversation.
Thoughts of Cuba were invading his mind, and some part of him made him think
them in Spanish.
The first thing that struck him at the Havana airport was that
the clocks showed the same time as his watch: Cuba was in the same time zone as
Toronto, Montreal and New York, daylight saving included. It was noon.
Then,
as he began to listen to the sounds around him, he realized that he had been
overly optimistic in estimating his facility in Spanish. The feeling remained
throughout the taxi ride he attempted a few phrases with the driver but gave
up when he could not understand the replies and after he got to his hotel, an
old two-star place in Vedado, near the University of Havana. He thought that he
was used to the s-dropping Caribbean variety of Spanish from his New York
neighborhood, but in Havana people seemed to drop more than just esses: many
words seemed to be made of nothing but vowels. As he was waiting at the hotel
desk to register, a clerk hollered Gutao to a bellhop whose name tag
identified him as Gustavo. And so, when his turn came, he spoke in English, in
which the staff appeared quite fluent.
Only
one night? the clerk, a middle-aged woman, asked him, for that was what he had
booked.
For
now, he said.
Well,
if you wish to extend your stay, you must inform us by tonight.
Of
course I will.
Welcome
to Cuba, Mister Wilner, the woman said as she handed him his passport, his
room key and some papers to sign, including the open credit-card slip. He used
his Canadian card, of course. She then called out something that sounded like Roeto
and a bellhop named Roberto came to carry his bag up to his room. Daniel was
not used to two-star hotels with bellhops, especially ones who were twice his
age, but he accepted the mans services, tipped him a dollar and said Mucha
gracia, trying to sound native. The bellhop said what Daniel understood to
be De nada, but it sounded like Ená.
After
lunch bistec en salsa, very much like the way it was served in New
York he went back to the lobby to look at the newspapers that were available.
He heard a male voice from behind him ask Are you American? with a
pronunciation indicating that the speakers fluency in English was not of the
same caliber as the hotel staffs. Daniel turned around and saw a mulatto in
his mid-twenties.
No, he said. No soy gringo. Soy
canadiense francés.
Bonjour
ami, the man said. His accent in French seemed no better than in English.
¿Estás solo o con un grupo? He pronounced all the esses, as Pablo
Milanés did, probably in an effort to make himself understood by a foreigner.
Daniel told him that he was alone. The man then reached his hand out to him,
and Daniel took it.
Soy
Gustavo, the man said, once again pronouncing all the consonants.
Yo soy Daniel.
¿De Montreal?
Sí.
Gustavo
then asked Daniel if he was booked for a long stay at the hotel. When Daniel
said no, only one night, Gustavo told him that he could stay in the house of
his relatives Daniel thought at first that Gustavo meant his parents, until
he remembered the meaning of parientes in a room of his own, with all meals, for
half the price that he was paying at the hotel for room alone. Daniel hesitated
for a moment, but quickly told himself that in a police state like Cuba he
would be quite safe in accepting the proposition, and that whatever might
happen, it would be an experience. He briefly toyed with the idea of going to
the house with Gustavo in order to check it out, but decided that it would be
more of an adventure to go there cold. He therefore told Gustavo that if he was
in the lobby at ten oclock in the morning, he would check out of the hotel and
go with him. Gustavo seemed pleased. Hasta mañana a las diez,
he said as they shook hands again. ¡Chévere! Daniel said, making Gustavo laugh. Then
Gustavo remembered something. En
la casa hay algo más, he said.
When Daniel asked what that something else might be, Gustavo laughed again and
said ¡Ya verás!
Daniel
spent the afternoon exploring Old Havana on foot. He was surprised by the great
number of seemingly idle people hanging out in the streets. The city was quite
dilapidated, though charming, and he wondered why all that available manpower
was not mobilized to renovate it.
The
next morning Gustavo was in the lobby as arranged, and had a friend with a car
waiting for them outside the hotel. He insisted on taking Daniels bag and
putting it in the cars trunk.
The
house was in an outlying neighborhood of Havana, with modest but
well-maintained houses. When Daniel asked Gustavo about payment for his and his
friends services, Gustavo told him not to worry: his aunt, who was to be
Daniels host, would take care of him out of Daniels payment to her.
The aunt,
who introduced herself as Eva and was a shade darker than Gustavo, showed
Daniel to his room, telling him that it was her daughter Marisas room. Marisa
was a student, she told him in carefully enunciated Spanish, like Gustavos,
and Daniel assumed that Marisa had moved out of the house to attend university.
Eva accompanied him to the bus stop, two blocks away, where he could take the
bus that would take him to the center. Going the other way, she told him, the
same bus would take him to the beach.
He
went back to Old Havana for more exploring, this time with his camera. He
returned to the house around five, covered in sweat, and showered in the only
bathroom in the house. As he was drying himself, he heard someone come into the
house, and then a younger-sounding female voice talking with Eva. When he came
out of the bathroom, wearing only shorts with a towel around his torso, he saw
a young woman, also mulatto, sitting with Eva in the living room. She looked up
at him and waved at him with a big smile. She was quite pretty. Hola,
she said, soy Marisa.
Perhaps,
then, Marisa was the algo más that Gustavo had mentioned. And it now
seemed clear that Marisas room doubled as the guest room. It was probably
standard procedure for her to sleep in another room, perhaps Evas, when a
guest was in the house.
Marisa
left the house shortly after arriving but was back in time for dinner, in the
course of which she and Daniel told each other about their studies. Marisa was
studying chemistry and expected to go either into industry or secondary-school
teaching, depending on the countrys needs en función de las necesidades
de la patria at the time of her graduation, which was two years away,
just like his, though she was twenty-two already. The course of studies for the
licenciatura was five years long, and she had taken a year off after her
second year in order to work.
After
dinner she would do some studying her final exams were a few weeks away,
since the semester went into July but afterward, she told him, she would take
him to a club where they would listen to music or dance, as he wished.
He
didnt feel like going dancing until he got more used to the sweltering heat,
and he opted for music. Marisa asked him what kind of music he liked. Me
gusta Pablo Milanés, he told her. Ah, she said, la Nueva Trova.
They took the bus a strange articulated contraption called camello, in
which she insisted on paying his fare back to Vedado and she led him to a
place called Casa de la Trova, where a number of musicians only slightly
older than they, white and mulatto, took turns performing songs that were in
fact similar to those of Pablo Milanés, though with a more modern, rock-like
sound. They seemed to form a kind of collective, since many of those who had previously
sung would play instruments with other singers, and vice versa. He thought that
Cici would like this kind of music. It was the first time that he thought of
Cici since arriving in Cuba, and the thought produced in him a vague sensation
of desire.
Marisa,
as expected, knew many of the people in the audience, and she introduced him as
mi amigo Daniel, un canadiense francés, invariably adding él habla
español. There seemed to be a lot of casual flirting among the crowd,
Marisa included, but people seemed to be wary of displaying any openness toward
someone perceived as a foreigner, even a friendly one. The music was heavily
amplified, and conversation was difficult.
After
eleven the place became more and more crowded, and the atmosphere became
stifling. He asked Marisa if it was all right to go home. Claro que sí,
she said. After they relieved themselves in the toilets, she led him by the
hand through the crowd, but dropped his hand as soon as they were outside,
where the slight breeze wafting from the Caribbean made him feel better. She
told him that buses at that time were not very frequent, and perhaps they could
take a taxi. It was understood that he would pay. Claro que sí, he
said.
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