The one-bedroom apartment was luxuriously furnished in dark brown leather couches and chairs. The two bathrooms featured marble and glass, the kitchen stainless-steel and shine. In the dining room a long panel of windows looked across to the offices of La Presse, a Montreal newspaper. In the mornings I could watch journalists and staff hard at work while on the street below cars swished their tires through slushy snow. After breakfast I'd walk William to his office then go off to explore the city.
Michelle arrived to spend five nights with us. I'd asked the building manager if setting up a cot would be possible and Oui, madam was his response. However, housekeeping did not appear to be in on this plan and suddenly it was the day of Michelle's arrival and no cot was in our apartment. On my way to the train station I stopped in to see my new friend, the building manager, and he offered a better idea.
When I saw the top of Michelle's head bobbing up the stairs from the train platform I jumped and she cheered. We are both fans of Montreal and to be in it together promised adventure. I flagged a taxi and got us to Old Montreal in my perfectly adequate high-school French. I had learned the language in this country. What clearly would stymie Parisians and Moroccans was a cinch for me. I rattled off directions and we successfully pulled up in front of the correct address.
Once inside, I gave Michelle the quick tour of the apartment. She oohed and aahed but wondered where she would sleep.
Come with me, I said.
She followed me out the door and down the hall where I stopped in front of another door. I opened it with a flourish and announced: Your own apartment! The manager says he likes William so much, we could have this for you, for free!
Michelle and I jumped up and down like teenagers. Montreal was reaching her French-Canadian arms out to us in a welcoming embrace and we could do naught but snuggle in tight. So began five days of museums, art galleries, bags of hot bagels, lunches and dinners with delicious wines and hours of trudging in snow.
Michelle and I enjoy a shorthand when it comes to sightseeing. One of us will grab the other's arm, squeeze and stare until we both silently agree that the fold of that silk fabric, the arm of that chintz chair, the cut of that neckline, the blue of those shoes, the intricacy of that floral arrangement, the bending of that sculpture, the perfection of that berry pastry, the sadness of that old man and the glow of that child's red cheeks...was intended for us to see and share in that exact moment.
Friendship at its best in a Montreal winter. We sped our way to various neighborhoods on the Metro or on city buses. We strolled through a farmer's market scented with the pine of fresh-cut Christmas trees. We studied the unmoving river, its edges frozen like a photograph. We settled in, after a long day, into a restaurant as cozy as an eighteenth-century house because, for crying out loud, it was an eighteenth-century house. A fire crackled, heavy drapes kept in the warmth and we ordered soups and steaks and roasted potatoes.
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