Read Passages: Welcome Home to Canada Online
Authors: Michael Ignatieff
Passages: Welcome Home to Canada (20 page)
7. Here I am in the city. In Montreal. People are celebrating. The Olympic Games represent the most important event (both social and sporting) since the Universal Exposition in 1967. I’m very happy to come across a city in full effervescence. The obvious joy that I see on the faces of the
Montrealers is a nice change from the Haitian drama. It’s the middle of summer. The girls are wearing such short skirts, it puts me on edge. Young people are kissing each other on the mouth in the streets. It’s so new. To tell the truth, everything is new for me. And even today, twenty-five years later, I’m still stunned by this change. I had just left a country so closed sexually, so harsh politically, so terrible socially (hunger, health, education), to come so abruptly to the Montreal of 1976.
The first thing that impressed me was the absence of Tontons Macoutes, those hoodlums armed by the state. I will always remember the first time I witnessed an altercation between a policeman and a young hippie. The aggressive hippie was almost insulting (in fact he was only defending his rights), while the policeman kept his cool. Finally, the policeman left without having been able to make the young man leave the park bench where he was lying. I didn’t understand this country where a young hoodlum (in Haiti, anyone dressed this way could be nothing but a hoodlum) could thwart the police. At the end, the smiling hippie made a sign that could have been Churchill’s V for victory or the peace sign. Was it to let me know that he had defeated
the dragon or to welcome me in a brotherly way to his territory?
8. Scarcely two weeks later, I was walking calmly down a dark little street when a car stopped abruptly behind me. When someone started shouting at me quite harshly, I turned around to see two guns pointed my way. In an instant, I was spread out on the hood of a police car, legs apart. Standard procedure. My situation was complicated by the fact that I didn’t understand what they were saying. They spoke with a thick
joual
accent. Well, I said to myself, the only way to act in front of a policeman, no matter where in the world, is to be silent and keep your head down. Here’s the first big lesson that I learned instinctively in North America.
One of the policemen got into the car while the other continued to keep me in firing range. The first came back out a moment later and told me I could leave. He said it in a tone that was still aggressive, as though he were truly devastated to let a criminal go free. I walked a little before turning around to face them. I know it was reckless on my part, but I couldn’t let it end this way.
“Why did you call me over?” I asked in a polite tone.
The two policemen gave me a surprised look. As I wasn’t moving, one of them said, “We’re looking for a black man.”
And the other added, “Don’t play cute with us!”
I didn’t exactly understand the expression, but I knew he wanted to make me understand that I had, by asking the question, crossed a boundary.
I went over the two events with a fine-tooth comb for a good day in order to understand, beyond racism, what the difference was between them. With the young hippie, it happened during the day and in a busy public park. Maybe the policemen who work by day in the Latin district are different from those who operate at night in the dark alleys. Or if they’re the same, they have different mandates. So the same hippie, at night, in a dark alley, with two policemen searching for a criminal, would have behaved differently than he did in the park (he wouldn’t have been so sure of his rights). Another point caught my attention: the accent. I hadn’t quite understood what the policemen were saying. Of course, I had adopted the universally accepted behaviour in front of a policeman: silence. But it wouldn’t be sufficient in future. I would have to plunge into Quebec culture right away, not only to understand what
was said around me, but also to be able to quickly decipher the gestures, the signs, everything left unsaid in this new culture. Otherwise, I was a man in danger.
9. I get into a taxi downtown.
“I’m French,” says the driver. “I’ve been living here for forty years now.”
“Do you like it?” I ask shyly.
“If I didn’t like it, old man … I like the winters, people are very friendly, but from a cultural point of view, it’s the desert.”
“I arrived barely a few weeks ago …”
“Your French is good. I don’t understand how people can massacre such a beautiful language like they do here. I’ve been in this country forty years now and I’m still not used to their accent. They have an atrocious accent, don’t you think?”
I don’t dare tell him that, as I see it, all accents are of equal merit. Let’s just say I find it scandalous that, after forty years in a country, someone can still have such prejudices. For the moment, the people here are still “them” to me, but I’m anxious for “them” to become “us.” Because if I’m here, it’s really my choice and not theirs. So it’s up to me to adapt.
“Montreal has changed a lot, I believe, since your arrival …”
“A lot. When I first arrived here, in ’36, there was nothing. Now there’s the metro, the stadium—a very nice stadium—Expo 67, it was quite an expo … It must be said that everything started with the Expo.”
“I see it’s a big city today.”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. I’m used to finding all kinds of things at any time in a big city, and we’re not there yet in Montreal … New York is a big city …”
“Paris too,” I say.
“Ah, Paris,” he says. “Paris is … Paris. But I like the people here. They’re not pretentious like they are in Paris. I go back to France less and less often. I don’t like the life back there any more.”
“Here, it’s only the accent that bothers you, if I understand correctly …”
A pause. He seems to think about it.
“I’m ashamed to say it, but I miss the real bread too. Especially when I’ve finished working around five in the morning, if I could find some good bread, I would never think about France again.”
“Some real bread, an interesting cheese and a good bottle of wine …”
“I don’t ask for all that—only some bread.”
“One day it’ll happen …”
“I don’t despair.”
10. I arrive at the home of a friend I knew in Haiti. He lives in a small room on Saint-Hubert Street, just behind the Terminus Voyageur. He is cooking. I look at him a moment. It is the first time I have seen a Haitian man cooking. He’s been in Montreal for eleven years.
“Who taught you how to cook?”
“You’ll never guess,” he answers. “A Quebecker. She had married a Haitian and her mother-in-law had taught her to cook Haitian food.”
“It’s not like in the United States, here. The Quebeckers, I see, marry Haitians easily.”
“They don’t think we’re black. Here, we’re Haitians instead. Actually, Quebeckers call themselves the White Negroes of North America.”
“Yeah? You mean they’re not racist?”
“Not at all. One of the reasons I left Haiti is the racism. I didn’t understand such violent racism between people of the same race. Each spits on the one who’s more black than him.”
“It’s the colonial heritage.”
“When someone sinks a knife into my back, I don’t want to know if it’s because of his unhappy childhood.”
“Meanwhile, it was a white Quebec woman who taught you how to cook Haitian food.”
“Exactly. They love Haitian cooking. And since they’ve been eating Haitian dishes, they’re starting to get Negro bottoms. And, old man, that’s all they were missing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I arrived here, the girls were magnificent—face, hair, legs, all perfect. But no bottoms. From behind, they looked like Chinese taxi drivers. Then they started to eat yams, plantains, pork, sweet potatoes and lots of rice. So, as the years passed, they started to get bottoms. Real white Negro women.”
“And the Haitian women weren’t happy?”
“They went into a terrible rage, but the harm was already done.”
“I don’t understand why you prefer a white Negro woman, as you say, to the real Negro.”
“The Haitian woman, before this competition, had an unbelievable arrogance. You had to marry her to be able to kiss her, and when you married her, you had the added responsibility of a
large and demanding family overnight. But since the Quebec women have joined the game, they had to start taking it easy. There’s nothing like a little competition to ease the game.”
“I’m hungry.”
“We’ll eat in a minute.”
11. I discovered the well-to-do suburbs of Montreal with Paul, a friend with whom I did Canada World Youth. His parents were friendly. The father was a fierce Péquiste. The mother was interested in nothing but her family. It was in this house that I learned about politics in Quebec. I thought people here didn’t discuss politics; that the head of state was a good father, Catholic, who ran his country like his family. I quickly learned that it’s much more complex than it appears. Don’t trust the innocent face, the country fragrance or that kind of farmers’ honesty (at first I thought Quebeckers didn’t know how to lie) that floats in the air.
Upon arrival you get the impression that this is a country without a past. But no, they too had a strong man who dominated their conscience (for me it was Duvalier senior; for them it was Duplessis). Duvalier reigned in Haiti with the
help of voodoo, by playing on the people’s ancestral fear; Duplessis counted on the help of the Catholic Church. Duvalier often relied on nationalism to stay in power; Duplessis as well. Fortunately, Duplessis didn’t have any Tontons Macoutes. The difference lies in the methods used by each of the two peoples to get through this era of great darkness. Haitians, obsessed with history, wanted to deal with the problem only on the political front. Quebeckers carried out a Quiet Revolution based on education and the secularization of the public authorities—and on culture too. They ended up opening the windows wide. Fresh air rushed into the house. Haitians are still wading through the mud of dictatorship.
12. This morning, I am sitting in front of Paul’s father at the breakfast table. Paul is sleeping off last night’s drinks.
“But really! Really! I never would have believed this: Claude Ryan asking us to vote for the Parti Québécois in his editorial in
Le Devoir.”
Le Devoir
is Quebec’s big intellectual daily newspaper. Someone has recently explained to me that
Le Devoir
is to Quebec what
Le Monde
is to France. Paul’s father passes me the newspaper.
A long, copious editorial full of nuances and reservations, saying he is opposed to the raison d’être of the party for which he is asking people to vote (in the pure Jesuit tradition). In Haiti, you think of nothing but physically eliminating your political adversary. Here, you’re asked to vote for him if it seems reasonable:
reason
. In Haiti, a political adversary is an enemy:
passion
. Good Lord! I’m not going to fall for Senghor’s formula which asserts that “Reason is Greek, and emotion, black.”
“What’s the importance of an editorial like this?” I ask.
“Huge. When your worst enemy comes around to your side, there’s no better propaganda.”
“And what will happen when the Parti Québécois comes into power?”
“They’ll finally ask the question. They’ll ask Quebeckers if they want to live in an independent country or stay a province.”
“Well, in Haiti we had a national war to gain our independence. I never thought a country could become independent simply by asking its citizens: do you want to be independent?”
He looks at me worriedly. I have just spoiled the pleasure the editorial in
Le Devoir
provided
him. What a misunderstanding! I am in total admiration of the founding work done by the Quebec people. I prefer the calm morning to the bloody twilight.
13. A Haitian woman, about forty-five years old. Chickens on sale in a local supermarket. Very good price. Only two chickens per customer. She had taken five, and it seemed impossible to make her understand the rules of the game. The manager of the supermarket had called the police.
“Madame,” said the policeman calmly, “you can’t take more than two chickens.”
“Really, sir, I’m not taking the chickens, I’m buying them.”
“Fine. You can’t
buy
more than two chickens.”
“I’m not stealing, I’m paying with my own money, and I don’t know why a policeman should get involved. We’re a democracy here.”
Note that people who’ve lived under a dictatorship are always very sensitive to the idea of democracy, especially when it’s in their interest.
“If you aren’t happy, madame, you can return to your country.”
And the retort came instantly. “At least I have a country.”
The policeman lightly stroked his cheek. I felt he was within an inch of exploding. The problem is, this woman has only one thing in life, but it’s the one thing that so many Quebeckers would love to have: an independent country.
14. I spent Friday night with Paul’s friends. We went to a small island with a few cases of Molson beer, some marijuana and a little music. Guys and girls. It took me some time to understand that for the guys, the point of the night wasn’t to sleep with the girls. We mostly talked about Surrealists. Poets: Breton, Éluard. Painters: especially Dali. I didn’t understand. The father completely obsessed with the coming election; the son saturated with Surrealism. Where’s the link? I tried to smoke a bit. It was no use. It did nothing for me. I’m told that the first time, it doesn’t happen right away; you have to wait. I waited. Nothing.
So I started to look at the girls and to listen much less attentively to the debate about the difference between Dali and Picasso. I quickly spotted a tall, thin girl who also seemed not to care about Dali. I went to sit beside her. She was sweet and kind. I took her hand, like that. I pretended to read her heart line. At a given moment she bent over to
kiss me. My whole body was trembling. It was slightly chilly, mid-November. We kissed for a long time. My first Quebec kiss. I liked her smell. We had made a fire, and her hair smelled of smoke. And also that smell that I couldn’t determine. The smell of the other. I myself must also have a particular smell. The accent or the smell—nobody can escape it. No perfume can mask your intimate smell. She started to caress me. I felt a bit embarrassed in front of the others, who were watching us.