by Judy Fischer
On one of those autumn evenings, following my session with her and as it was already dark outside, I decided to walk up to my father’s place of business. Because Mme. Houle’s apartment was dusty, and the smell of mothballs permeated the air, going for a long walk afterward always helped me to breathe in some fresh air and to lose the pungent odour of the mothballs clinging to my clothes. The strong smell had crept into every fibre of my wool sweater. I always wore the same one to her place, on purpose. That way, only one item from my wardrobe took on the distinct stench of mothballs.
My dad’s shop was just below Sherbrook Street, on the east side of Boulevard St. Laurent. From Mme. Houle’s apartment on Crescent Street, it usually took me about one hour, walking at a steady pace. The shop, Photo Shoppe, was given the same name my paternal grandfather had given to his own business in Bulgaria before the Second World War.
My father started his business soon following his arrival in Montreal, Quebec, many years ago. The shop was not located in a first-class neighbourhood, it was the storefront of an old building ready for demolition. It was close to being condemned by the city and it was not in one of the best of locations either.
Harry had arrived from an oppressed country where having your own business was impossible, it was something special to him, regardless of its lack of glamour.
The shop was old and weathered on the outside and not the greatest on the inside either. The wooden floors squeaked, the walls had many cracks and the humid, crawl space beneath it was home to many rats, not to mention swarms of cockroaches that infested the whole city block, or even further.
There was also a vacant, tiny apartment above the shop. The windows of the flat were barred, and the awnings were dirty and torn. It had stayed vacant, because no one in their right mind would make it their home. The landlord had tried to renovate it without success and make it available for rent. Once, I vaguely remember, there was a student who had braved the attempt and the ordeal. Eventually, however, he gave up and moved away, escaped without notice during a stormy night.
My father had a key. The landlord needed someone to have proper and continual access to the flat just in case of fire or water pipe damage. Honestly, the landlord didn’t bother with the place. He gave up on it once the former tenant skipped town.
When I arrived on the night in question, the store lights had already been turned off and the chain-linked gate, erected between the two display windows, was closed and locked. I had missed them. We lived quite close to my father’s place of business, only a few blocks away. We also lived close to my school and close to the city’s centre. Coming back from my tutor’s apartment was a short detour I usually didn’t mind taking. My father usually counted on my visits, however he didn’t wait for me that night.
I noticed in the corner of my eye a shadow of an individual sitting on the steps, to my right, leading to the door of the upstairs flat. I stepped farther away, not because I was sacred, but to get a better look. I saw a young man sitting slouched down with his head in his hands. It was obvious he was trying to hide his presence. I didn’t see his face as it was already quite dark, and the street lights didn’t shine in his direction.
I assumed it was a homeless person needing shelter. There were so many poor people in my city living on the streets, homeless and begging for money. Walking on the streets of the city regularly, I saw many who looked at me sadly, with hope and hunger blaring from their eyes. I wished I could help them in some way.
I noticed in silence he was dressed in a relatively new pair of jeans, a grey hoodie and a decent pair of running shoes.
I was never in the habit of talking to strangers, but he looked as if he would not be a threat to my safety. However, I turned and started to walk away but something made me stop. I turned back toward his direction. I looked closer and I saw the face of a young, scared, boy about my age.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you okay?” I said, softly but loudly enough for him to hear.
“Yes, Missy, I am fine,” he said, softly in a broken English.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
“Please, just sit with me for a while, if you have some time,” he asked. His voice was soft, gentle and inviting.
I sat down on the step, in front of his, my back toward him and without saying anything, I stayed. We sat in silence for what seemed like minutes before he finally spoke again.
“My name is René, thank you for staying.”
“René, do you live near here?” I asked innocently.
“I used to, but now, I live here, there, wherever I can.”
It took me a while to fully understand his implications. I realized I was sitting with someone who was claiming to have no home. I felt sad because he looked lonely and in dire need of comfort and perhaps a friend. I almost reached out to embrace him, but I didn’t.
“Tell me about yourself,” I said, becoming braver with my questions.
“Missy, it’s a long and boring story. I don’t think you want to hear it.”
“Tell me,” I encouraged him to talk to me, it was obvious he wanted to.
He began to tell me his story in a broken English which, at first, was difficult to understand but the more I listened, the more his voice and speech pattern became comprehendible.
He told me, that due to some disastrous circumstances, he had lost his family and himself one day when fate had cruelly dealt his family the tragedy card. If I understood correctly, he said, “My father used to be a stockbroker, earning a substantial income to support his young family but he had a major problem with the consumption of alcohol. One night, two years ago, under the influence of a few beers, he drove his car to pick up my sister from a dance recital and on their way back home, he ran a red light on the corner of Sherbrook Street and Green Avenue. The accident had instantly claimed both their lives and the story appeared in the local newspaper the following day, describing the untimely death of a father and his young daughter,” he stopped talking. He looked into my eyes to see my reaction and then continued,
"What the news reporters didn’t mention, however, were the aftermath events driving my grieving mother to throw herself in front of the 7am metro bus at the Atwater Station, two days later.
“No one mentioned that all the tragic events that had happened to the three members of my family, had left one other member, me, alone in the world,” he said as tears were streaming down his weary face. I was lost for words myself. I stayed silent and thought about those unfortunate events leading this young man to lose his family, his home and everything else he had ever known or owned. There were no other relatives to turn to, he told me later, and he was old enough at the time to not allow himself to be snatched up by child services. “I came home from school on the day when my mother killed herself. I took a duffle bag from the closet, filled it with clothes, emptied the piggy banks, took the grocery money from the kitchen cupboard and left. The social services were never able to locate me. I ceased to be. Before this unexpected turn in my life, I was a senior in a private school for boys in Westmount, getting ready for graduation that year, attending one of the most elite schools in Montreal. My future was bright and full of positive goals. My grades were above average, my teachers loved my passion and my devotion. There was no place but up for me. I had many friends, I was welcomed in their homes until the day when I had really needed someone to hold me tightly and tell me that everything was going to be all right,” he said as he wiped the tears away.
As I listened carefully to his story, tears appeared in my eyes and I counted my lucky stars for never having had that kind of experience in my life.
“What now, René?” I asked in-between my sobs.
“Missy, don’t cry for me. I’ve been through much during the last two years. I am still here. It hasn’t been easy but I will find a way to survive. I am not totally broken. Maybe a little bit lost, but not broken.”
René was honest with me, there was no reason for him not to be. I was only a passer-by, som
eone who took a moment from her life to listen to a story which, now so many years later, I can say, changed my life forever.
I stood and as I turned to leave, he placed a hand on my arm.
“Thank you, Missy,” he said. Then he stood and walked the other way.
The Key
With the coming of another heavy winter in Montreal, I was worried about my new, special friend. After we parted, I went home and closed the door to my room and lay on my bed. I thought about the unfairness of life. I didn’t understand how a young man, at the start of his life, was thrown into such a predicament from which escaping was more impossible than breaking out of prison. He had no one until he met me. I swore to myself soon after meeting him, I would be his guardian angel, the one to save him from the grips of desolation.
I was only 16 myself, maybe a little naïve, but I found a soul to save and no matter how immense a task it could become, I vowed to do whatever I could do for the poor, lost boy. Although René begged me not to feel sorry for him, how could I have ignored his silent cry for help?
I spent years of my childhood caring for stray animals and mending sick ones. Not helping René was inconceivable. I had never heard of such a terrible thing happening to anyone, let alone someone I knew, no matter how short our friendship. Destiny put me onto his path and I felt a force pushing me to stay there with him, in any capacity that could be of some assistance. All the values instilled in me while growing up, obliged me to help him.
I called my best friend.
“Hey, are you still up?”
“Yes, Melissa, I am swamped with homework. I stayed out too long with friends and now I have to complete tomorrow’s assignments.”
“Listen, Beatrice, does your brother have any warm sweaters he doesn’t need any longer?”
Beatrice had an older brother, a little bit older than René but with the approximate same physique. I had other friends at school too who had brothers, so I intended to ask them as well.
“Why do you ask?”
“I am doing a charity clothes drive for a local shelter. My tutor volunteers there and she asked me to help her. Could you ask your mother, please? They need mostly male clothing, for someone the same size as your brother.”
“OK. I will do that, is it urgent?”
“As soon as possible. Thanks.”
We said goodnight and I went to do my homework as well, but the thoughts of René never left me for a minute. My dreams too were about him that night.
The following day, I spent time before and after school, searching my own home. I looked for possible items I could find for him. Having no home, no place to call his space, he couldn’t have had too many belongings; it was the clothes on his back and a backpack full of items I had only seen bulging from it.
During one of my classes, the day after my encounter with René, I conceived a brilliant idea.
The flat above my father’s place of business was begging to be converted into a temporary refuge for René, a place where he could hide from the harsh elements of the approaching Canadian winter.
It was not the greatest place, having been condemned by the city, but if we went in together, with the right attitude and elbow grease, we could shape it into a makeshift shelter. It could protect him at least during that coming winter. I decided to tell him the next time I was going to meet him, it being on the following Thursday, minutes following my next tutoring session.
I decided to keep him a secret from everyone around me. I figured no one would understand why I had a need to help this young man fate had mysteriously dropped onto my path.
I didn’t ask my father for the key to the upstairs apartment because I knew where he kept it. If I had asked, he would have asked to know the reason. I was not willing to share my secret with anyone, not even my beloved father. I didn’t want to hear his voice of reason, I didn’t want to listen to all his arguments. ‘Why should a girl my age interfere in someone else’s life, especially a homeless person’s life?’
What my parents wouldn’t understand, however, was that this chance meeting had touched me in such a profound way, I can’t describe it, not even now, after so many years.
The key, which the landlord had given to my father long ago, was not something my dad ever used. He had probably long forgotten about it. He was a very busy entrepreneur whose time was valued and devoted to doing more important things in his life. The key was available and no one had ever touched it, until I found this crazy need for it.
Late the next day, I dropped by the shop on my way home from the library I frequented on a regular basis. I had made it a habit from my freshman year and beyond to study at the public library for various reasons. The school library was not very spacious and it lacked a good variety of books. The mother superior closed the school library’s doors at five o’clock, every day. Besides, I loved the smell of leather-bound books at the library. It was filled with an array of new and old books and on every subject and topic one could dream of. The quiet nature of the magnificent halls of knowledge was the perfect location to concentrate and to focus on learning. Often, I read random books that were not even on my reading list to get ideas about the world I inhabited. One of my favourite subjects in school used to be History, and the city library provided me with thousands of books chronicling every decade, every century and every millennium in the history of every country around the world. The library was my favourite place in my city.
I arrived at the shop purposely at the exact time when I knew my father would be closing. When I went in, he was surprised to see me.
“What are you doing here so late, Melissa?”
“I wanted to walk home with you. I just finished my work at the library and I hurried here to catch you. Why don’t you finish up in the back and I’ll close the cash for you?”
He went away to do his final sweep of the place and I opened the cash drawer. Just as I expected, under the tray, I found the key. I placed it into my pocket and counted and balanced the day’s money. I placed the paper money into an envelope, as I always did when I helped him. By the time he came back to the front, I was ready to go home, with the key safely tucked away in my back pocket.
After the evening dinner, I asked for an extra helping claiming to be very hungry. I was always a slow eater as a young child and staying at the supper table was not out of the ordinary. My parents had long finished their meals, cleared the table and had even washed the dishes while I was still sitting there chewing my food and pushing the rest of it around the plate with my fork. I was stalling, I was waiting for the right moment to start putting aside some food for René. There was a piece of fried chicken on my plate I was intending to put away into a Tupperware and hiding it under some other dish in the fridge. I was collecting, accumulating food to give away to whom I thought was a very hungry boy.
My father’s business was open from seven in the morning until seven at night, every day throughout the year except for Christmas Day and Sundays. Every morning, very early, the two of them snuck out of the house quietly, not to disturb me. My school day started at 8:30am and it was a hop, skip and a jump away, well, almost. Most of the time, I just bounced out of bed at 8:15, quickly took a shower, dressed and then ran to school with wet hair.
Now that I had a mission to accomplish, the minute when I heard the door closing, I jumped out of bed, got ready and started to gather up the food I set aside. I also checked around each closet, looking for extra blankets, hats, scarves and also for the cleaning materials we needed to make the flat liveable. I wasn’t even sure René was going to accept this offer from me, but I needed to be ready, if he did.
I placed all my findings hurriedly into a big garbage bag and brought it down to the dark and dingy garage. There, under a massive blue tarp, slept my father’s Nissan Altima. He never used his car in the winter, it is one of the reasons why we had moved so close to his place of work. I placed the bag into the car, by lifting the covering and opening the trunk with the spare key I grabbed from the hoo
k in the hallway of our apartment. When I was pleased with my accomplishments, I took my schoolbag and left for school.
I met all my friends in the basement cafeteria of Thomas D’Arcy McGee High School. Beatrice, my best friend, had arrived before me and she was waiting with a black plastic bag. She proudly handed it to me and I could tell it was full of clothing.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
“There’s a few things my mom thought would be acceptable. My brother is a slob, most of his stuff isn’t wearable. I was lucky to have found a few decent ones. He might miss them, but hey.”
Other girls stood around us as the bag exchanged hands and they were curious to know what was transpiring. I told them about the clothes drive and they all promised to bring something from home too. I had great friends.
By the end of the week, I had six bags of clothes for René.
The day of tutoring arrived at last and all along I was thinking only of the lost boy who was waiting for me in the same place, at the same time as on the previous Tuesday night. I put the key on an old key chain I found in one of my drawers and placed it into my schoolbag, into an empty compartment I never used.
During my classes, I was haunted by the thoughts of René and his depressing tale. I didn’t listen to the teachers, I didn’t pass notes to my friends, I just sat there in silence and tried to put on an interested look on my face. If, however, anyone looked more closely, they saw only the blank stare of an otherwise preoccupied young girl’s foolish mind.
The hours and minutes crawled by extremely slowly on Thursday; time seemed to have stood still. I kept looking at my watch, but when I noticed there were only minutes between my glances, I gave up and tried to let the time have its way.
Lunchtime was even more stressful, everyone carried on with their usual mealtime conversations and I couldn’t bring myself to engage in any of them. All I wanted was the day to end, to run out of there so I could help my new friend. I pictured him walking aimlessly through the streets of Montreal, lost, without a friend. I couldn’t even empathize with his dilemma. I knew nothing of that part of society or of the people who fall under the cracks, to be ignored, to be unloved and, worse, to be left to die alone. My heart ached for him and the others as well. I thought that if I could help only one of those less fortunate human beings, my reward would be a thousand-fold. It was not charity work I was looking for, it was a need to be a human being helping another human being to find dignity in his life. Finally, the school bell rang to signal the end of the day and after I quickly said my farewells to my friends, I ran down the front steps of the main entrance and made my way to the bus stop. In good weather, I usually walked to my tutor’s apartment, however, I was in such a hurry. I wanted to get there much faster, even if it meant waiting outside of her door until my scheduled time. Arriving earlier had never given me free access to her time. She always made me wait until 5pm, even when there was no one else there. I used to sit outside her apartment, listening at the door for any signs of movement within. Through the door, I heard the shrill sound of the steaming tea boiling on her stove. As usual and as I walked in, it was steeping in its pot and a plate full of fresh cookies was set out on the table waiting for me. While Mme. Houle was making her way slowly back from the kitchen, I grabbed a handful of those freshly baked goodies and placed them into my bag next to the other bag of food. I felt ashamed, I had never stolen anything before. To ease my guilt, I praised her. I told her again and again, her cookies were the best I had ever eaten. From stealing to lying, what was I going to do next?