Boreal

FAREWELL POSTINGS

Regrets

Pestalozzi

(Abbreviated)

Unlike Kelowna, rent in Ottawa was prohibitively expensive, but there were alternatives for those short on cash. One option was Pestalozzi College, an urban commune named after Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi [1746-1827], the famous—or infamous, depending on your point of view—Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer.

It was a college in name only. Pestalozzi was a modern twenty-story apartment building on one of the National Capital's more famous streets: Rideau Street.

It was the layout of the apartments that made Pestalozzi special and the rent affordable. Most apartments consisted of three or four small, spartanly-furnished bedrooms featuring a bunk bed with pull-out drawers, a closet and a desk. In some configurations, you had two or three small bedrooms and one large bedroom with two bunk beds, two desks and one closet. The bedrooms opened into a central living and dining area. Depending on the number of bedrooms, you shared one or two bathrooms.

Unless you went to Pestalozzi as a group, you had no idea who your communal companions would be.

...

She lived alone in one of the smaller communal apartments. Her place was always a mess. Everywhere you looked, there was a piece of clothing—even underwear—strewn about. The kitchen counter was seldom free of empty packaging from takeout or a dirty pot or pan from the day before. The walls were bare except for what could pass for a child’s attempt at painting still-life: flowers surrounded by a smooth, cheap grey frame made of balsam.

How could a woman who always appeared impeccably dressed and groomed in public live in such a mess? I got to know and often shared a drink with the slender, Twiggy-like blonde living in that mess. We would sit at her kitchen table—a four-by-four vinyl and wood imitation of a butcher's block on stainless steel legs—drinking and talking about our impossible relationships.

I don’t remember what she poured in my glass except that it wasn’t wine, and it wasn’t beer. All I remember is that I did not like it that much. It was probably rye or whiskey, something my father drank.

She had the saddest blue eyes I had ever gazed into. I stared at her; she stared at the painting. Even when she looked at me, she was looking past me. She talked about the man she yearned to be with. The man whose company she craved she described as brilliant, a brilliant misunderstood artist. The man she talked about was confined to a state institution. Montréal is only 120 miles from Ottawa, but she was spending today’s equivalent of a thousand dollars a month on long-distance telephone charges.

Our short evenings together usually ended with, "Il faut que je fasse un appel" (I have to make a call).

It may have been the Twiggy-like figure with the sad, misty blue eyes who first mentioned seizing the moment before self-preservation interfered and spoiled it. It was just talk; we were just talking. Who has not talked or thought about leaving this world on his or her own terms, and not according to some mythical god's timetable?

Sometimes when I see a Minister on TV walking the Halls of Parliament or on Wellington Street accompanied by a good-looking blonde with a binder or a briefcase, I am reminded of her. She spent a lot of time with government movers and shakers and at least one Minister.

She was not from Québec City but somewhere else where English is a foreign language; it might have been Gaspé or maybe Rouyn-Noranda. Young Québec women with a college degree or even a high school diploma, who could not speak English but had a pleasant personality and good looks, easily found jobs with one of the many personnel placement agencies that specialized in providing ministers, members of Parliament and senior bureaucrats with private one-on-one tutoring in conversational French.

One evening, I found her in a much-improved mood. There was life in those beautiful blue eyes and the mist had dissipated. She said she had found a new job or something and that she was leaving. Before I left her that evening, she took the painting off the wall and gave it to me. “Pour toi; j’en n’aurai plus besoin” (For you; I won’t need it anymore).

She gave me a hug and held on for the longest time. Before closing the door, she said: “Tu sais, si pour toi la vie ne vaut rien, rien ne vaut la vie” (You know, if life means nothing to you, then nothing makes life worth living).

Back in my apartment, I turned the painting over and, in the most beautiful handwriting, I read: “Si pour toi la vie ne vaut rien, rien ne vaut la vie.” I thought the message was for me. How arrogant. How could it have been? It was not signed, and her giving it to me had been a last-minute decision. It was his message to her. Why did I not see it at the time?

The painting was her link to the man in Montréal for whom her heart ached, and she would not part with something so precious unless...

The next morning, someone made their way onto the roof of Pestalozzi and, as the sun rose, jumped. I was told that a body had been found on the stairs in front of the eastern entrance to the building, but nothing else. To the east was Montréal and the man behind the painting. It did not occur to me at the time that it could have been her, and that giving me the painting was her way of saying goodbye forever. How could I have been so clueless?

Try as I might, I cannot remember her name. Forgetting her has been the worst, reminding me of my own failings as a human being. With her name I might have been be able to find out what happened to her. Maybe it wasn't she who jumped, and I shouldn't feel guilty. It doesn't help that, more than a few years later, as I was cleaning out my garage, I came across the painting. It had suffered water damage and was so moldy, I had to throw it out.