by Loren Edizel
Tale Three: Lapsang Suchong Tea
Thirty-five years ago, when I walked into the tiny teahouse in Westmount, I knew very little about the many varieties of tea. I cannot say that I know much more about them today, except that I got to taste everything the small shop had to offer while I lived around the corner from it. I only had Lapsang Suchong once.
In those days, Westmount was a very quiet place. Dead is more like it. Perhaps it still is today, I wouldn’t know. Up the hill were large houses with no lights on, manicured lawns minus children, tennis courts where no one played, and expensive cars without drivers. I used to wander around those large rich houses and tennis courts, hoping to see people having tea and biscuits on that lovely grass where the sprinklers were hard at work even when it rained. I never saw a soul. Not in the summer, spring or autumn, not in winter. I’m lying. Once, I saw a woman in her forties with blond hair and a long horsy face, her white legs sticking out of safari shorts. I could imagine her voice on the phone going, “Daarling, I just planted the most spectaacular tuulips!” She was digging a hole; there was a wheelbarrow nearby and a dainty watering can. For a moment I imagined she may have been planting something more sinister than a bulb, but the fantasy faded. I walked around those streets hoping to hear laughter, or fights, a booming voice, children giggling. All I heard were the barks of dogs if I walked too close to the deserted gardens.
This was in Montreal. I was there for a couple of semesters as an exchange student at McGill University. I spent the entire time in one of those stately brick houses with many rooms rented out by a widow who could probably no longer afford to live in Westmount. The place was somewhat run down. The lawn was patchy in front and the backyard was chaotic with junk she probably could not afford to have removed. Her name was Mrs. Greene. She had her big, rectangular black telephone hanging on the kitchen wall. It looked like a payphone, except it wasn’t. At the end of the month, she would tally everyone’s phone calls and give each their share of the calls plus tax: $4.28, say. And if you rounded it up to $4.30, she would disappear in search of two pennies to give you back. Nothing ever got rounded up. There were five of us renting rooms there. An engineer from Windsor, a law student from Lyon, a girl from Halifax who just wanted to get away from her family, an Arabian prince studying Political Science, and myself.
When Christmas came, the Canadians went back home and Mrs Greene invited us, the international students, for Christmas dinner. She roasted a stuffed turkey and placed her silver and china, and her exquisite crystal wine glasses on an old embroidered tablecloth that had a distant scent of mothballs. Before that, we had sherry. She offered the Arabian prince orange juice, but he went for the sherry instead, saying “When in Rome…” He had wine too. The one who asked for orange juice during supper was the law student from Lyon. He whispered to me in French that the wine was not even good for vinaigrette.
Mrs. Greene, with her perfectly curled white head and pearl necklace, was a most gracious host, making light conversation to keep us entertained while we chewed a somewhat undercooked turkey accompanied by some kind of marmalade. Cranberry sauce, I believe it was called. None of us had ever eaten this combination. The Lyonnais was discreetly pushing the marmalade aside before dissecting his rubbery turkey breast while taking large gulps of orange juice and saying, “Very delicious, Madame Greene, very original recipe.” The Arabian prince was forking chunks of iceberg lettuce into his mouth in a state of advanced inebriation. He smiled and nodded every time he heard someone uttering something, to cover his bases, I suppose. I was luckily sitting by the bread basket and finished the slices of baguette. I ate some bread with butter and spread the cranberry sauce on top, making a sort of continental breakfast, and then I surrounded the morsels of turkey with pieces of bread in my mouth to help me swallow. We all knew we had to finish everything on our plates. The Lyonnais who kept saying how delicious it all was seemed to have the hardest time removing the food from his plate. The orange juice was all finished. His pale slice of turkey glared from one side of the plate, the cranberry sauce from the other. He had no bread left for his own continental breakfast and kept Mrs. Greene busy with chatter while taking microscopic pieces of food into his mouth. The prince was smiling away at his own private jokes, and that night he seemed to have quite a few in mind, because at one point of the conversation when Mrs. Greene was telling us about her father’s misfortunes during the Great Depression, he let out an odd guffaw. The Lyonnais tried to cover it up with a cough and I hastily added that the prince had evidently caught a cold and was giving it to everyone else. The prince nodded in beatitude. When I got up to offer him some water, he finally burst out, sending bits of lettuce all around. Laughter was rolling out of his chest into his mouth, tears were running down his cheeks as he swayed back and forth with the sheer force of the hilarity that had taken over him. He turned aside in his seat and bent down holding his cramped stomach, going “ahh … ahhh” as he tried to breathe. Mrs. Greene was perplexed. The Lyonnais explained, “You know Madame, he has never had any halco-ol before. I do not sink it agrees wiz ’im.”
“Oh dear, what should we do now?” Mrs. Greene’s face was guilt-ridden. “Do you think he needs a doctor?”
“I don’t sink so,” said the law student from Lyon who quickly reverted to his heavy French accent when he got excited. “He just needs a bit of fresh hair.” With this, he grabbed the Arabian prince by the arm and walked him toward the front door. “Fresh hair, yes, fresh hair, Mahmud?” Mahmud was nodding and laughing going “hiii … hiiii…” as he was pulled along till they disappeared.
I was left alone with Mrs. Greene. “How are your studies going?” she asked me as if nothing had happened.
“Not too badly, thank you. Next term is likely to be more difficult, though,” I replied.
“How is Montreal treating you?” she continued.
“Well, it is all right, I suppose. Westmount is very quiet, though, isn’t it?” I tried. She nodded without saying anything in response. “You’re the smartest and most serious of all my tenants. This is my impression. I have a favour to ask of you now that we’re alone.” She leaned forward. I thought she was going to ask me to pick up groceries, or take out the garbage, which I gladly did for her most days. “My niece is coming for a few days. She will leave after New Year’s Day. She is about your age, studies in New York. Her parents live in Japan now, so she decided to come and spend some time with me during the holidays. Last time she came, she was still a child, and now that she is a young lady I’m afraid she will be bored spending her evenings with an old woman in Westmount. I thought you might like to show her Montreal a bit. You’ve been studying too hard. Live a little!”
“Sure,” I replied not entirely sure I would want to still do this later. “I mean, I have nothing much to do anyway, might as well…” I continued, leaving myself no other option by being truthful. Later on, I regretted this honesty fully, thinking I would likely be stuck with a dull, mousy girl day after day, sightseeing places I knew by heart.
Mrs. Greene asked me to pick her up at the airport, on Boxing Day, as she was unable to drive at night due to her failing eyesight. The girl was arriving at 11:00 p.m. I was given the keys to Mrs. Greene’s car and sent off. The Arabian prince and lawyer from Lyon were not aware of this errand. Mrs. Greene had asked me to keep mum about her niece as long as possible. She was going to stay in the empty room rented by the Halifax girl. Mrs. Greene changed the sheets, vacuumed the place, and dusted the furniture in a flurry of activity we were not used to seeing in the house.
I got to the airport at 11:05 p.m., noting with dismay that her flight was delayed by half an hour due to weather conditions. I sat and waited. I had prepared a cardboard welcome sign, with her name on it. “Linda Greene” it was. In those days, everyone’s name was Linda. I expected a chubby blond girl with braces and lip gloss. I waited and waited, seated at a table with a stale coffee and my sign in front of me.
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nbsp; “Did my Aunt Gerry send you? Gertrude Greene?” A husky voice awoke me from my state of absentminded boredom. When I looked up, I must have remained there frozen, in stupor, long enough to qualify as ill-mannered. She stuck out her hand and shook mine with a mocking smile that lifted only one corner of her mouth. She had very short dark brown hair, a slight figure, olive skin, full lips, high cheekbones, no make-up. She seemed a couple of years older than I and was nothing like any Linda I could have imagined. I mumbled something unintelligible.
“Do you want to try that again?” she smiled.
I did, and it was better. We got into the car. She took out her pipe from her handbag, with a tin of tobacco that smelled of chocolate. “Do you mind?” she asked. I was too dazed to say anything; I moved my head vaguely from side to side, still wondering about the incongruity between her name and her appearance.
“So, how’s my auntie?” she smiled, taking a puff that filled the car with a sweet aroma.
“Fi … fine,” I bleated. “She is very well, I think. Such a charming lady … reminds me of my own aunt,” I lied. Mine had a moustache and thick ankles. There was nothing else to say, so we spent the rest of the trip in silence. When we approached her aunt’s house I thought I saw a transparent little smile on her face, the kind that carries over from a moment in childhood suddenly remembered, and I felt inexplicably light-hearted. Something was coming alive for me in Montreal, something really small, much like a dandelion in early spring.
The next day, as we walked around the Museum of Fine Arts from lack of something better to do on a frigid day, she started whispering a story about the time she went to the North Pole to watch the aurora borealis, among other things, in front of a painting by Riopelle. “Don’t you love these bold strokes of colour?” she threw in, between the aurora borealis and a polar bear sighting.
“How long ago was this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Oh, I think about five years ago … yes, that must be it.” She nodded with finality.
“You were seventeen, and you went to the North Pole? Who took you? Your parents?”
“I went by myself.”
“Sure you did.” I smiled sarcastically.
She shrugged. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because,” I started, “I find it hard to imagine a teenager going to her parents and saying, oh and by the way I’m going to the North Pole to watch the northern lights, and the parents replying, sure honey, wear your scarf and mittens. Really not very believable, as far as stories go. Especially from a Westmount kid. Kids in your old neighbourhood don’t go anywhere, apparently. Or have they all gone up there?”
“See,” she nudged with a wink. “Your stutter from the airport is all gone now.”
“So, tell me,” I took on a professorial air, “what are you studying in New York?” I shoved my hands into my coat pockets in an effort to look superior.
“Oh don’t tell me you’re the boring kind. You seriously want to know? Who cares? Genetics. Whatever.… Let’s go for a drink.”
I was puzzled by “Genetics. Whatever.” In my view, Genetics was quite far from Whatever. I did Whatever. Genetics was not at all part of that.
She rushed me through the Group of Seven painters and we literally ran out of the museum. “I remember a cool little place where we can have a warm drink. Unfortunately it’s in Westmount.” It was like a million glass leaves tinkling in the wind, her laughter.
The day was inhumanly cold — minus 25 degrees Celsius with the wind chill factor. I had chosen not to wear a toque in an effort to keep my hair fluffy. She wanted to walk along Sherbrooke all the way to the cool little place she had in mind for her hot little drink. I did not dare suggest the bus for fear of appearing weak and walked alongside her on Sherbrooke Street.
We finally reached a small teahouse. I caught sight of my forehead in the mirror as we got in. It was the colour of eggplants and my ears were burgundy. There were sharp stalactites coming down my nose. I sat her down and excused myself, rushing to the washroom where I proceeded to slap my forehead hoping to thaw out my brain. Someone walked in going straight to the stall while anxiously staring at me.
When I went back to the table she had already ordered us jasmine tea and a piece of nutty rum cake that we were supposed to share. She used to come here with her aunt when she was young, she explained. Her aunt made her taste all sorts of tea, and the first she ever tasted was jasmine. She had a blast with Auntie Gerry in those days. I nodded, not able to picture the woman sitting in front of me and the proper lady at home having a “blast” together. We drank our jasmine tea, she talking about New York and I, guiltily dreaming of making love to her.
The next afternoon, I took her to Old Montreal. Once more, we walked around until my brain froze, and after a candlelit supper that cost me the entire month’s grocery and transportation budget we decided to go to a bar highly recommended by one of my French Canadian classmates. It turned out to be a beer hall of sorts where they sang Québécois folk songs, clapped hands and thumped feet accompanied by a fiddle. Everyone was jolly except for the two of us, who took sips from our lukewarm beer feeling sheepish.
“Come on!” She rose, pulling me from my sleeve, “let’s get out of here.” She whistled for a taxi and took us home in less than ten minutes. Clearly in control of the rest of the evening, she led me to the kitchen on tiptoe, took two glasses from the cabinet, opened the pantry door and pushed me in. She squeezed in after me and in the dark, easily found her aunt’s bottle of scotch. We were giggling like children. I could feel her body underneath our coats and felt faint with desire in that obscurity. “Here, take the bottle.”
“What if your aunt…?” Before I could finish my question she had already removed my coat. After a lot of awkward groping in the dark while I held on to the scotch, unable to see the shelves, my pants were around my knees and her arms were holding my bare waist. I held her with one arm as we crumpled onto the narrow, frozen pantry floor in one heap.
Her bedroom was adjacent to her aunt’s and mine to the Arabian prince’s. We decided to continue our callisthenics in my room, during which she intermittently laughed, wept, and held me close. When I awoke, the mattress was half on the floor, the sheets were wrapped around our feet and we were enlaced on the slanted cold mattress with nothing but our socks on. The bottle of scotch was empty and in one night I had apparently made up for all those years of frustrated sexuality. I inhaled her almond-perfumed hair, gazing at her lovely skin, her shapely breasts and buttocks, all apparently mine to enjoy within the confines of this room. I had already decided I was not going back home at the end of the term. I was going to finish my studies in Montreal, get a scholarship, or beg my parents to pay for an additional year of school overseas. I was going to take a bus to New York once a month to visit her. These plans of a new life were rushing through my mind all night long as we made love. Life, that juicy pomegranate, had finally broken open for me in Mrs. Greene’s home.
We snuck out of the house before anyone could see us that day and went to the tea shop where she ordered us cups of Lapsang Suchong. I tried to touch her hand over the table and look into her eyes, but she already seemed elsewhere, inattentive. “I’m leaving today,” she announced, looking away.
“What? But the New Year? It has not arrived yet!”
She loosened her scarf and took her cup in both hands inhaling the tea that smelled of wood shavings. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“Was it something I did?” I was panic-stricken.
“You never believed my North Pole story,” she shrugged.
“You can’t be serious!”
She smiled and took a sip. I couldn’t read her at all.
“So?” I insisted.
“Have you tasted it?”
“Who cares about the blasted tea? Did last night not happen? I don’t deserve this! How can you shut me out like this suddenly?�
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“Where do you come from?” she asked.
“Who cares?” I was steaming. “Tangier, what difference does it make?”
“There will be an ocean between us, and so much more. We’ll write a few letters, maybe a few long-distance calls and it’ll be over. Right? Might as well do it now.”
“I’ll find a way to stay here in Montreal; it’s a lot closer to New York. We can work this out. If you can go to the North Pole you can come to Tangier. Why did you cry last night?”
She nodded, as if to appease me. “I’ll come visit you in Tangier sometime. But I really must leave today. You’re wonderful. Really, you are … and I’ve had such a good time. Now have a sip. Do it to please me.”
It was like drinking the juice of a pinecone, a wooden stick, smoked meat. The tea was there somewhere, too, if only in spirit.
“Why are we having this?” I grimaced.
“Because it is like nothing else, and you will never forget the taste.” She snuggled close to me and kissed my lips slowly, languorously. I was helpless with lust. I wanted her more than anything else in the world. My life that she had suddenly rendered so colourful was ending. So it felt.
She left that night. I returned to my room, took a long look at the displaced mattress, the empty bottle of scotch, the sheets on the floor and wept. As weeks and months passed I tried to hold on to her with calls she never returned and letters she never answered. I asked Mrs. Greene to help me; she said no one could change Linda’s mind once she’d made it up and told me the story of the North Pole, that she went there even after her parents forbade her, years ago. “I’m sorry,” she said, “best to go on with your life now.”