A Frog Is Born
St-Exupery was right when he said: "love is not staring at each other, but looking together in the same direction." Until now, we had been inseparable companions looking at each other while engaged in going in the same direction. The summer lectures and vacations were over. Time had come for the inseparable to separate a bit, to complement rather than imitate each other. Danielle would still listen eagerly to all my philosophical speculations and pedagogical remarks concerning my classes, but she would no longer be with me in class. On the other hand, I relished hearing about her honing new skills on the homefront. We were of one mind as to the kind of home we wanted to build for our children.
Freedom for Danielle was a dream come through. After years under the able and ever-present guidance of her parents, Danielle found herself queen of the house. In the morning, we would rise for early Mass and breakfast, and then I was off to my desk at college unearthing permanent pearls of wisdom from fugitive thinkers which I then served, hot or cold, to cultureless students.Meanwhile, back on the homefront, Danielle would wonder, "What will I do today?" She had plenty to choose from — laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, and even learning to sew. She could read, write letters, keeping in touch with new friends, or suddenly decide to pop over to see me at college. She could do whatever she wanted. Danielle has this wonderful gift of loving whatever she has to do that enriches and fosters the commitment we made to each other. The best was discovering that she loves the art of cooking. She enjoys orchestrating symphonies pleasing to the palate. Needless to say, I enjoy her orchestrations.
At times she would be giddy with all this new-found freedom: not the freedom from but the freedom for. She had tried teaching with its harsh requirements, and made a success of it. She could make a success of her with the requirements of home-making: but, while she had been a constant servant in the classroom, she discovered herself to be a true mistress in the home. She welcomed her man to play with her toys, she was every bit the "Minister of the Interior".
I was learning to be someone important. St. Boniface College was a small educational institution. It served a French-speaking minority in an overwhelmingly English-speaking province. Each teacher was therefore the specialist in his branch and master of his classroom. Though another teacher taught philosophical ethics and yet another a part of the first year introduction to philosophy, I was the full-time philosopher of the institution, teaching Metaphysics 101 and the optional courses that were either Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Modern Philosophy or Contemporary Philosophy. I was Mister Philosophy himself. In general, what I taught was considered by our small groups to be what philosophy is all about, in the same way that they were under the impression sociology was their sociology teacher's opinions.
When I had been a student at St. Boniface College, the institution was run by Jesuits with the exceptional layman on the teaching staff. The phenomenon was now inverted, with laymen forming a majority and the occasional Jesuit still around.
Somehow my students and I clicked. The majority were there because they had to be, but common respect prevailed and a minority gladly took up the challenge of ideas.
St-Exupery's Little Prince helped me illustrate the challenge of the philosophical adventure — to leave one's self, one's planet, and visit various worlds with a fresh look, and finally to return to one's self so much the wiser. So much for introduction. In Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, we breezed through the Greek philosophers and then mixed some common sense and Thomas Aquinas' treatise "On the Kingship" and "The Prince". We understood how society was not the impersonal structure to which the social sciences are limited but really the place for the "socii", the associates, the companions. Metaphysics is the seat of philosophy, its fundamental wisdom. In this field I tried to distinguish its insight from those of science and theology and show how it made us understand that life must be stronger than death, and how intelligent things must be brought into being by Intelligence. As Aristotle said: "Thus when there appeared a man who said that there is in Nature, as in the animals, an Intelligence, that is the cause of the universal order and arrangement, he seemed to be the only man of common sense before the wool-gathering of his predecessors" (Metaphysics A, 3, 984 b 15).
This time, I limited my contradictory approach to a short text by Auguste Comte which suggested that the mind of man evolves from infancy to adult life through theology (images) and philosophy (abstractions) to science, which would be the only wisdom. After that, I immediately showed how this theory simply mutilated knowledge and life, as each facet of knowledge existed to allow us to take in different aspects of reality. Limited as this approach would be, I noticed that, at the end of the two-term course, some students were still caught in Comte's simplification as if it were a divine truth. Such is the major challenge of teaching common-sense philosophy. Showing trees to be trees seems boring; but starting out with the mind-awakening suggestion that trees are not trees, only imagination or whatnot, drives this novelty opinion into the otherwise empty minds of some students with such force that it can no longer be dislodged. Luckily, the fighting thinkers' minority among my students revelled in this attempt to rediscover the evident world in which they had always lived and yet had hardly noticed. The common majority took notes and disgorged them fairly well on the exam papers. As for the confused minority on the other end, their confusion suggested that ideas had little sway over their lives and they would be allowed any vagaries on words.
I had then a prejudice against modern fashions, for I was, myself, quite fixed in whatever was fashionable when I was born. So what if I changed my hairstyle only once in my life. Someone told me that my hair tended to flow to the left side of my head rather than to the right. I decided to part my hair on the right rather than on the left side. I also wore a suit and tie for years long after the other teachers had dropped that style of dress. I eventually adapted to this change just as suits and ties were creeping back. I had become so used to an open-necked shirt as to find a tie unbearable. This does not mean that I am attached to an old fashion style as opposed to a new one, but that I am detached from the imperialism of fashion as such. I live elsewhere.
My bias was shaken when I noticed that the bright fellow in the metaphysics class was a long-haired guitar-strumming original at a time when that kind was disreputable. But he was the one who asked the pertinent and even impertinent questions that rocked the boat. Thanks to Gerry, I learned early on that brains have nothing to do with the abundance or scarcity of hair on one's head nor were to varying hairstyles a good reference. Teaching seemed, to me, the perfect bridge between generations. However, this line of thought can make teachers unpopular among adults as they are perceived to indulge the students; and unpopular among the students as they impart their knowledge to their teachers.
Gerry's honest impertinence nearly did me in on one occasion. I had prepared a fifty-minute class with the idea of presenting a problem, exploring its intricacies and then solving it in the last five minutes of class. I had barely formulated the problem that Gerry had his hand up... with the correct solution. Would I simply give up, tell everyone that Gerry had the answer and that class was over? Otherwise, could I admit the correct answer and bore everyone for forty-five minutes in giving them what could have been the wrong answers? Only my superior training — I had a three-year university edge over Gerry — allowed me to disturb his assurance and blur the impertinent pertinence of his answer. After which, I cruised through my prepared course until I could give him back his own answer.
A few weeks after the beginning of the term the students organised an evening of entertainment. Danielle accompanied me to it. That was when we discovered Gerry's incredible talent for popular singing as he strummed his guitar and sang to the chills and thrills of the crowd. I proudly told Danielle: "He is my best student."
She gasped.
And we had Gerry over for supper. One time. Two times. Each week. He became, with Maurice, our second regular student-friend and visitor.
If Gerry was the brains, it was Ernest who finally stumped me in class. Ernest was a shy, self-effaced young man with a common sense rooted in a discerning heart. Whereas some students loved to challenge my positions, by way of a game, and would invariably be vanquished, Ernest's only preoccupation was understanding. Thus it happened that one day he offered an objection to a position I had presented. The objection was only a difficulty he had seen, and he wanted an answer he already anticipated with satisfaction. As blankety blank will have it my mind went blank. I knew my position to be correct. I knew the objection to be wrong. But I suddenly could not grasp its error. I remained silent for a moment. This attracted attention and may have wakened some of the students. It was unusual, to say the least. Then I surrendered: "Congratulations," said I. "I cannot give you an answer. I can only tell you that your position is not correct. You've got me."
The students rejoiced. Everyone applauded my victor, while poor Ernest turned crimson — a combination of embarrassment and shyness.
If Gerry was the first musketeer in the metaphysics' course and Ernest was the second. "Mouse" was the third. "Mouse" was a student with a notable snort, an intelligent but wandering mind, and horrible penmanship. He gave his teachers two-aspirin papers. He had also taken the optional course in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. He claims to have once cornered me in class, though my memory disputes this allegation.
Maurice was still around. His Metaphysics done, he was taking his last year's Ethics with another teacher, but he had also enrolled in my Ancient and Medieval Philosophy class thereby nurturing a certain liking for philosophy.
* * *
Among the college teachers, there was a Frenchman who had chosen to teach away from home as a substitute for his military service. He taught history. Bernard taught me, belatedly, a rule of social intercourse I never forgot, though rarely used: people have names. I had tried to get on with him, but I always felt a barrier between us, until the day I greeted him with "Hello, Bernard", instead of my usual "Hello". The barrier was no longer there. Naming him, recognizing him, had won him over. Unfortunately, the practicability of this discovery has always remained extremely limited for me due to my inability to retain names. I have a tough time remembering the names of people close to me. I have to dig for their names before being able to address them by their names. It is a major problem for me.
For an altogether different reason, a few weeks after our marriage, I spontaneously addressed Danielle as "Monique". Danielle knew a Monique who was a girl I had once dated going out with her. She froze. As the mix-up in names had been unattached to any person's image in my mind, I did not feel the least speck of guilt and laughed at my mistake. Danielle forgave me but did not laugh. Which, I felt, made it all the funnier. She never did.
* * *
The day after Christmas, Danielle and I boarded the train for a short visit back East with her parents. Danielle had imagined herself cooking the occasional meal for her mother and father. But her mother's kitchen proved to be as impregnable as before, which allowed her a more leisurely vacation, while we profited from the usual delicious meals which Danielle could now rival but not surpass. Her father had imagined his child assailing her mother for recipes and cooking advice. But his child proved to be no longer a little girl.
When we returned home, the cold outside was so intense that our train's suspension froze. Each rail link would make us bounce up and down. My head was uncontrollably "yessing" unless I made a deliberate effort to stop its movement.
Then Carlos visited us. His family was now back in Argentina where he had found a teaching position. But he had accepted to keep on teaching for the winter term in Quebec. As Argentinean weather, on the other end of the world, is contrary to ours, he worked there all his winter and, as spring came along, he flew north to our winter for his teaching term at Laval University. As it did not cost him any more to make a stopover of a couple of days in Winnipeg, he willingly accepted our invitation. He arrived during what seemed to us as a delightful January thaw that he found rather wintry.
Because of the fine weather, we joked that some silly student would probably go around dressed for spring and become ill. Two days later, Gerry was not in class. He phoned that he was down with a cold and fever.
In all probability, Carlos' interlude with us coincided with the conception of the child for whom he would be the godfather with Maria-Martha as godmother.
We consider godparents to be friends to whom we would willingly entrust our child if ever we were incapacitated. Carlos and Maria-Martha were the embodiment of parenthood. Needless to say, we were not aware of the child's presence while Carlos was with us. When the time came to ask them to do us the honour of accepting to be the godparents for the child we were expecting, we discovered that Carlos had one shortcoming. This was a minor shortcoming that was magnified by distance. He is an inveterate procrastinator. We wrote him seven times before Maria-Martha finally answered, apologised for her husband's slowness in responding and happily accepted We would later learn that Carlos had written to us after our fourth letter but then forgot to mail it.
Sometime after Carlos' departure, Danielle once again felt dreadfully tired, somnolent. Her breasts became very sensitive. Her appetite wakened. Her period seemed late in coming. There would be no scrubbing the floors at this time.
The same doctor gave the same good news: "You are pregnant."
We pullled from memory the names Michael and Christine. But we wanted a name for the time being, until we saw our baby's gender. So we called him/her (?) "Tom Thumb". "Tom Thumb" now filled our days, our thoughts and conversations. "Tom Thumb" entered our lives and that of our family and friends.
We rejoiced at TT's presence, but remained prudent in our expectations We now knew distinctly what a miscarriage was. But as the weeks and months went by our confidence grew proportionately with Danielle's blessed belly.
* * *
At the college, during that winter term, I got my first experience as a union member. The college had recently been passed on by the Jesuits to a governing board largely under diocesan authority. The teachers, now of diverse origin and lay people for the most part, deemed it time to unionize and negotiate a new contract.
We tried to be as impersonal as possible and create a class system: workers versus bosses. This took a lot of imagination in such a small institution. I happened to be on the negotiating team for the teachers. We chose an arbitrary percentage we would seek as pay increase, which seemed reasonalble. While some insisted that we be ready for strike action if our demands were not met, no one really felt, deep down, that there was any real possibility of such a thing. We just didn't have such feelings in us. The talk was battle talk, and only talk.
In browsing through a document of government statistics, I suddenly found the master argument to back our demands. The inflation rate was the same as the raise we sought. In those bygone days, inflation was a minor fact of life and its rate was known only to a small number of specialists in unimportant matters. We all decided to ride this argument, when, just in time, our teacher in sociology noticed that the inflation rate mentioned in our document was for a two-year period and not for a one-year period. We would be asking for a raise twice the inflation rate. Logically, we chucked the document, and stood by our demands.
The governing board's negotiator was as ill at ease as we were in our common role-playing. He first proposed a lower pay increase. I countered naively: "Do you honestly believe that our own demands are unreasonable?"
That was naive as naive can be. I thought we were all reasonable men. I had not realized how long we would be actors in this drama. My colleagues told me afterwards that my attack had been devastating, almost mean. I certainly helped disarm our opponent by appealing to his moral judgement rather than to the laws of confrontation. His cracked and admitted what the pay increase ceiling was that he had be authorized to grant. It was less than what we had asked for. As we were no better actors than he, and as the offer did seem reasonable, we took it. And so ended our union activity. We could start to breathe again without fear. We had learned our lesson.
* * *
The previous summer, Danielle had marvelled at the Manitoban weather. Every day, the sky had been blue except for the occasional shower needed for lawns, gardens and crops. For the most part these came at night. Danielle had invented the theory that the sky was simply too large to be covered by clouds, save for a few fleeting moments. As I had never noticed the weather on my own, I let myself be caught up by her enthusiasm. So we wrote to her parents, insisting that they come out during the summer. We would rent a cabin at Albert Beach on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. The beach was owned by a corporation of St. Boniface parishioners. The sand was soft and abundant, there were no stones and was rarely crowded.
More attracted by their daughter as a mother-to-be, yet pleased by the prospect of a delightful summer vacation, they willingly drove all the way from Quebec City. They even brought along their golf carts and clubs, just in case. These were now their main diversion since Danielle's exile.
After hugging and kissing and shaking hands, mutual congratulations for the coming baby, visiting proudly our apartment and the small city of St. Boniface, we all left for the beach in the Quéloz car. We didn't own a car. As the car had limited space, we first unloaded the non-essentials to load our baggage. I told my father-in-law that there was unfortunately no golf course in the wilds where we were going. He left their carts behind, at our apartment, but took the clubs with which they could still practice the occasional shot.
By this point Mother Nature had learned to sow bigger cloud fields. Luckily, she generally respected our week at the beach. But for the rest of their stay, Mr and Mrs Quéloz were not given the promised weather. There were more cloudy, cool humid days than blue skies and warm sun we had promised. Manitoba was not the Garden of Eden after all.
Danielle had purchased a bathing suit fitted to her altered form. We nestled in our rickety cabin which was equipped with an authentic back-house: there, on our second day, Danielle dropped one of her contact lenses. She searched for it on the floor for a few distressing minutes. Then she called for help. We came to her rescue.
"Where did you drop it?"
"Down here on the floor" she said.
We vainly strained our eyes, tolerated the smell, for some ten minutes. Would we have to drive all the way back to St. Boniface for a new lens?
"Are you sure that is where you dropped it?" I asked.
"Well", she said hesitatingly, "I think so."
Then I dared. I looked directly and boldly into the hole. There lay the lens, intact and unperturbed, resting on an unstained piece of paper atop the mound. I plucked it out, got out and handed it back to Danielle.
"Didn't you know it had fallen there?" I asked.
"Well, I thought it might be a possibilty. That would have been too awful, so I figured it just must have fallen on the floor."
I was the acclaimed hero of the day for courage beyond the call of duty. As the Quéloz sense of smell (and propriety) is far more sensitive than mine, my action had seemed incredible.
As tastes go, mine were now well acquainted with theirs. But there persisted a difference in emphasis pertaining mainly to the theory of nutrition. I thought food was simply a matter of eating. My mother-in-law considered it an integral part of a philosophy of life. She regularly expounded universal principles of nutrition whereas I was content to like or dislike what I was fed. As my intellectual nature is rather combative, any universal pronouncement invites a challenge. One hot day, I was offered a cup of steaming tea, I declined, suggesting that I was already warm enough. I was then told that calories alone make us hot. As there was no sugar in the tea, there were no calories there. It could not affect my body heat. I had never studied the biology of hot summer days, but I loved the challenge. I drank the cup of tea in a gulp. A gush of sweat flowed from every pore of my face.
"You are right," I said. "There are no calories in the tea. But my body doesn't know that."
My mother-in-law is a woman of great moral strength. She loves and forgives me.
Mr Quéloz was not a man to be dismissed. He asked around and learned that there was a golf course at Victoria Beach, a short distance from Albert Beach. Each day, that week, Mr and Mrs Quéloz had to carry their golf bags on their shoulders as their carts lay useless some sixty miles away, resting from a fifteen hundred mile trip. He also forgave me. Danielle and I occasionally rented our own clubs and accompanied them. The photographs of my golfing are worthy caricatures of the art.
Back home, we visited the usual tourist attractions: the Winnipeg Parliament, the zoo, the St. Boniface cathedral. The cathedral was known for its "Way of the Cross". I swore to myself that one day I would photograph it. I missed my chance. One day as I was returning home from the dentist I saw a dark cloud of smoke rising on the other side of town. Closer than I, my in-laws witnessed the cathedral burning. As I neared, someone told me the cause of the cloud. I simply shrugged, certain that modern fire-fighters could handle anything. They could not. Eventually the cathedral was engulfed in flames. It was quite a sight. And again the cultural difference between the rooted and rootless cultures of Old and New countries became evident. Danielle's parents were aghast before the monument going up in flames and smoke. But they were especially shocked by the nonchalance of the crowd of onlookers, who seemed generally to make a picnic of the event. What was felt as a disaster by Danielle's parents was simply a mild incident for the people who watched. Unfortunate, no doubt. But not tragic. After all, there would be the insurance money to help rebuild.
As her parents drove away towards the East, at the end of their stay, Danielle and I knew that the difficulties of yesteryear were now bygones. Her parents had seen their daughter's happiness and the warmth of everyone around her. That alone bridged whatever differences there remained between their ways and ours.
And as the summer vacation ended, Danielle and I were proud to learn that Maurice had decided to plunge into philosophy. His college degree was over. He would leave for Laval University, following in my footsteps. We were happy that he could be more fully acquainted with the Eternal Wisdom given there. The pride was ours, but the happiness we felt was for him, certain as we were that the adventure would be as beneficial for him as it had been for me.
* * *
As the academic year began, Gerry, "Mouse" and Ernest had moved on to Ethics with a part-time teacher. They nonetheless remained faithful to the weekly study group at our home. Gerry and "Mouse" took my course in Modern Philosophy, a renewed encounter for me with René Descartes. This time I trashed Descartes from the start. I allowed myself a brief defence of his first two paragraphs and then proceeded overturned his applecart. Each paragraph was soundly analysed, criticised, trashed, and laid to rest. The pleasure became excruciating after we had criticised the Cartesian Method. It was then possible to demonstrate how the following paragraphs did not stand up to Descartes' own criteria, before indicating that they did not measure up to common sense either.
Gerry would always be the brilliant one. Each one of my students was given a paragraph to demolish. Each was invited to take the teacher's place while the teacher became an ordinary student, free, after the exposé, to raise his hand delicately and ask the questions a good student might ask. The game, of course, was to have the student drop down along side Descartes dead body. One after the other, they fell. All done in good spirit, of course.
Then came Gerry's turn. He felt more fortunate than his predecessors as his paragraph was the summary of the preceding ones. Was it not sufficient to retain the proper criticisms that had been previously authenticated? So, with pompous assurance, the young "professor" took his sword and artfully dismembered Descartes' text in little cubes of intellectual meat and cooked each in hot, bubbling oil. When all was said, I raised my hand.
"Yes?" said he said in a condescending tone.
"Sir," I said, "does Descartes not reject likelihood and probability as invalid knowledge?"
"Yes."
"Well, sir, in this paragraph, Descartes starts off with: "In all likelihood..."
Gerry gasped, looked down at his text, looked up at me, and capitulated. All his discourse had been a needless rehashing of past argument. One sentence was enough to pierce the text through and through to death. The joy I felt as a college professor trashing a young college student is a measure of my esteem for Gerry.
During the same course in Modern Philosophy, I was also given occasion for gratitude by "Mouse". I owe him the rare pleasure of the challenge one can find with the manipulation of ideas. I had presented a particular Cartesian proposition as evident nonsense and backed this judgement up with appropriate reasoning. Then "Mouse" suddenly challenged me with the contrary. "Descartes was right", he said. I was wrong. So, I asked him one question on the subject. Then a second, and so on. He kept answering back with passion. Finally, I offered a difficulty resulting from his last answer. He challenged this difficulty, countering in a decisive manner, almost word for word, the position he had first attacked. I looked at him and said: "But that is precisely what I said."
"Mouse" does not recall that encounter.
* * *
One afternoon, Danielle came back from a walk with laughter in her eyes. A young man, more of a boy, had slowed his car behind her and whistled. Driving past, he noticed her huge belly and had drove off somewhat embarassed. Danielle was amused. I was mildly insulted that another fellow would go after my girl and relieved he had been embarassed.
Danielle's bedside book was one on preparing to give birth. It was written with tenderness by a French woman doctor by the name of Pernoud. Maria-Martha, while we were still in Quebec, had recommended it. Thanks to a vivid description of baby's growth month by month, then week by week, we gained a keener insight into the mystery now unfolding within Danielle and could participate better in our maturing responsibilities. The book also helped the husband to care more for mother and child during the months of pregnancy. Most important, Danielle was given specific instructions in the breathing and relaxation exercises needed to give birth in a natural painless manner. Thanks to her parents' ceaseless efforts, Danielle had acquired the strong will and persistence needed to practice the daily pre-natal exercises. Doctor Pernoud's book proved invaluable. Danielle's doctor, experienced but elderly, was not into the birthing revolution which allowed women to bypass birth-pains and their companion, anaesthesia.
According to the book and our doctor, TT would be born around October 12. We joked that Danielle's Swiss precision assured us that TT would be there on the given day, no sooner, no later. The baby was alive and kicking inside Maman. How we cherished that baby. We also realised how distressing Maria-Martha's ordeal must have been. Pure undiluted horror. And we thanked God for TT's apparent good health.
As October swept in, Danielle was physically slowed down by all that extra weight she lugged around day-after-day. At the same time, this increasingly weight brought us closer to the day when the miracle of life would slip into our lives. Danielle would speak tenderly and affectionately to our child. While I would chuckle nervously about anything in pent-up, undisciplined and unsure paternal expectation.
Friday, October 11, I entered our apartment at noon, expecting lunch. Danielle was smiling.
"Tuna salad for lunch," she said. "I mustn't eat too much myself, because I must go to the hospital afterwards."
I was thunderstruck.
"Do you mean...? How do you know? What's going on?"
"Yes," she answered. "TT is coming. This morning, my water broke. The liquid was pouring out. Don't be nervous. All this is normal. I phoned the doctor. He told me to go to the hospital this afternoon."
She spoke calmly, clearly taking pleasure at the effect the news had upon me. My silence was evidence of the turmoil going on inside me.
"I've got to let my students know that I will be away from class this afternoon," I said.
As this was lunch time, the best thing to do was to have Gerry tell the others that philosophy was out for the rest of the day. It was superseded by life.
On the phone, Gerry seemed to be as shaken and overcome by the news as I had just been. He promised to call the class off and inquired about Danielle's health and morale. I gave her the phone. She gleefully calmed him down as she had done with me.
I gobbled up my meal in a curious haze, though Danielle assured me there was no need to hasten. Still, who hasn't heard all those stories of women being rushed to the hospital in a taxi or police car? This was different, the expectant mother explained. There were no contractions yet. We could be leisurely about it. She had already prepared the suitcase with her things and baby's also. Baby's things! Baby's clothing! The thought was spell-binding. Danielle had felt Tom Thumb's presence every moment these last months, weeks, days. To me, Tom Thumb was nearly an abstract thought except for Danielle's beautiful big belly. I knew our child was there and loved him or her already. But I could not feel Baby in any way. Now, in a few hours, we would have a son or a daughter who would be very, very real.
By early afternoon, we were settled in a hospital room. Danielle was dressed in hospital white, waiting for something to happen. A nurse came by regularly asking if any contractions had begun. No. All was calm.
At four o'clock, Danielle felt a slight spasm. She proudly proclaimed that the contractions had begun. She dutifully began her rapid and light rhythmic respiration and relaxed herself, as Doctor Pernoud had taught her. Haunted by the numerous horror tales about childbirth, I worried, needlessly, that Danielle was in pain.
The spasms were still irregular and seemed inefficient. Danielle's spirits were high, and consequently so were mine, though I felt so terribly useless. As time passed, Danielle ordered me off to supper at my parents' house not far from the hospital. Baby was still a good while away.
My parents were as excited about becoming grandparenthood as we were by our becoming parents for the first time.
Back at Danielle's bedside I found that nothing much had changed. Her spasms would come and go. She would relax and do her rhythmic breathing in and out each time. In between she smiled and we chatted.
The nurses were unaccustomed to Danielle's birth preparation. We were pioneers of the natural childbirth method, which seemed to us to be the only way to go. The doctor's ignorance in the matter had already made us conscious of its novelty. But novelty itself had nothing to do with our use of it. We only felt it was better to forgo pain than to invite it.
Time passed, and still no noticeable progress was being made. Baby was certainly taking his time. We joked that he was waiting for the next day to come, in order to arrive on the prescribed day, October 12. Danielle finally sent me home to get some sleep. The nurses promised to 'phone me as soon as there was real progress underway.
After such an emotional day, I slept soundly. Around midnight Danielle felt her insides suddenly tighten up in an intense contraction. Now, this was indeed a contraction. It had nothing to do with the light spasms of the previous day. She instantly relaxed and started her rhythmic breathing exercises. She offered no resistance to the work of nature within her body. There was no pain, just the effort to push baby down and, eventually, out into the world. The nurse was accustomed to deal with real contractions by offering an oxygen mask. But the mask interfered with the rhythmic breathing. Danielle finally convinced her attendant that she was better off without it.
The contractions became regular. One every ten minutes. But Danielle's relaxation was so successful that she slept in between contractions.
When I arrived in the morning, astonished that I could have had such a long uninterrupted sleep, I was able to notice the distinct difference between a spasm and a contraction. I was impressed and a bit scared. However, Danielle's calm and self-discipline reassured me somewhat. I gave her the final test. In the midst of a strong upheaval, when she was totally absorbed by her breathing exercises, I raised her right arm by the wrist and let it drop. She was completely limp. The magic of life worked freely within Danielle. There was no pain.
Noon came and went. I reported Danielle's fine health and spirit to my delighted parents and came back to her bedside. The uterus was now opening up very slowly. Suddenly, at about four o'clock, everything began to give way. The expulsion contractions shook Danielle violently, though painlessly. The nurses rapidly wheeled her to the delivery room. I was sent to the waiting room. It was still customary to exclude the husband from the delivery room. As the doctors generally insisted, ours in particular, that the mother be put to sleep for the last moments, the husband's comforting presence was useless and his nervousness could be troublesome.
There was another expectant father in the waiting room. He was a veteran, as this was his second child. Yet he seemed the more nervous. I felt calm. We talked a bit. He was smoking. Not me as I am a non-smoker. A nurse arrived. I went towards her. She bypassed me and told my companion that he was the lucky father of a new baby boy. I congratulated him. He seemed overjoyed.
After a short while, another nurse arrived: "Mr Allaire?"
"Yes?"
"It's a girl, Mr Allaire."
I was surprised by my astonishment. Why had I expected a boy? Probably because I unconsciously equated baby and boy when my companion had been told of his good fortune. Maybe I hadn't been all that calm.
"Christine!" I thought. "Christine."
I was shown Christine — one glimpse. I could not notice any detail.
Danielle greeted me with a smile. She smiled and talked. She talked and talked. She was inexhaustible. She never let up. And all the while she smiled. Her faced glowed with happiness. Her eyes smiled. And her loving mouth poured out words of joy.
She said the doctor had ordered her put to sleep only lightly. Christine's first cry had instantly awakened her. And Danielle had burst into uncontrollably happy tears as she saw our baby girl. Our joy was spectacular!
Our Christine was arrived.
* * *
I let Danielle rest and rushed out of the hospital to my parents' home. I told my mother and father that they were now the grandmother and grandfather of a beautiful baby girl. Though full of pride and joy, my father felt it strange that the baby should be a girl, as he had never had a daughter. But he adjusted very rapidly to the situation. My mother was at Danielle's side, with me, as soon as visiting hours allowed it. Danielle was still marvellously expansive, spreading her joy to us and to the whole world.
When I returned to our apartment, I phoned Quebec City to tell the good news to Danielle's parents. My mother-in-law's voice shreaked as emotion swept over her. She fretted as I told her that her daughter's contractions had lasted from midnight to four in the afternoon. Even though I explained how all had been marvellous and painless, she could not relate to that at all. Her own experience of birth had been one of excruciating pain, fighting against contractions as women did then, and ending up a nervous and physical wreck. They had only that horrible experience to fall back on when they instinctively sought to feel Danielle's own experience. They believed me. They wanted to. But they could not really believe it.
Christine was born. For them, the baby was a girl. They let this news overcome their anxiety and were comforted and overjoyed. They promised to fly out the next weekend. My father-in-law would even take the Monday off to stay over longer. My mother-in-law would remain with us the whole week to give Danielle a helping hand.
* * *
Danielle was learning to breast-feed Christine. In those days, it was still a social oddity, but seemed natural to us. We figured that breasts were not just for Dad, but also for Baby. Accordingly, Danielle asked that the baby be brought to her every four hours for feeding. The hospital staff complied willingly with this exceptional but not unique case of maternal originality.
For Danielle, Christine instantly became her "darling little Frog". A new-born's legs and arms are folded against his body, a position which gives the fleeting impression of a little frog. Whenever Danielle would pull the legs down, up they went again. Thus, in this mystery of love, "frog" became a term of endearment and an expression of total devotion.
I brought Danielle a dozen roses... white roses that made the mother's eyes twinkle. We both admired our baby — of course, the most beautiful baby in the world. I once told a friend who was about to be a father: "It is a pity you are about to lose your sense of objectivity."
"How's that?", he asked.
"Well, you'll think your baby is more beautiful than ours."
In fact, I was surprised to see how small and inexpressive our daughter was. She was an ordinary newborn baby, but so unlike the big smiling babies used on commercials. Christine, weighing in as a big eight-pounder (7 lbs 14 oz, to be precise), yet appeared so tiny to my eyes and so light to my inexperienced arms.
We marvelled at Christine just being there. Where did she come from? What living power made her present there, in front of us?
She was not just a sum of components haphazardly thrown together only to separated later. There was more in our arms than flying molecules and multiplying cells. She was and is a loving, living person. This is beyond science, more real than physics and biochemistry.
There she was, a fact. And yet, before, she was not. She simply did not exist before Danielle and I met. All the stuff we stuffed her up with and which she animates may have been lying around. But Christine was not they nor they, she; she was not there before. She was new and unique. We were awed.
Sure, Danielle and I met. There was no stork flying in with a parcel nor a cabbage patch where was Christine suddenly found. Danielle and I met according to the best rules of courtship, love, and fusion of two persons into one. But neither she nor I could create a consciousness other than ours, a free thought, a free love which could act on its own, be of us yet not us. We may have pro-created, as the expression goes. But we did not create. And, as we both looked adoringly upon our child, we knew that only the Great Love could create this bundle of love; only the Eternal Life could give the present and presence of life; only Total Intimacy could lend us this intimate person. By God, the Father in the Highest was in her before us; He fathered us — and her through us This is beyond theory, abstraction, and numbers. For Christine exists.
* * *
God had freely given life to our daughter. We wished to give her freely to Him. But times had changed. Children were no longer baptized at birth; hospital policy allowed baptism there only in cases when the child's life was in danger. So we chose the first hours after we all left the hospital together. Danielle and Christine came home on Thursday afternoon. Thursday evening, Christine entered into the living God by the waters of rebirth. The proud paternal grandparents, my father and mother, stood in for Carlos and Maria-Martha. A colleague of mine, who also taught at college, was the priest who poured the water upon Christine's forehead "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit", as prescribed to us by Our Lord when He was about to return to the Father. Christine cried. The cold water should have been warmed for the occasion, but we were in a convent chapel not really used to baptisms. The chapel was a temporary substitute for the burnt-down cathedral.
We then went to my parents' home. To mark these historical moments that were the birth and baptism of his granddaughter, my father bought his first bottle of champagne — also in honour of his daughter-in-law, and her finer European palate.
Danielle laid Christine down on a bed and retired momentarily to deal with biological constraints. We waitrd for her return to open the bottle, but my dad decided to undo the wire around the cork. Well, what should, happened but the "Pop" of the cork, flying away while the bubbly liquid started spraying across the floor. As she mopped up a half-bottle of Champagne, my mother joked washing her floors with nothing best! When Danielle joined us again the other half of the Champagne was served parsimoniously to all present and enjoyed in awe.
* * *
Our friend Laval, priest, Baptist, and educator, had formulated a principle of education with which Danielle and I concurred. He had realized that the calm periods in a person's life are not to be squandered in self-satisfaction. They are the times of alertness, training, and storing energy, love and experience in preparation for the inevitable upheavals and challenges that are ahead. The adulation of a darling child which relaxes requirements only softens him up and delivers him into incapacity when maturity calls.
Must we resist admiring our child, then? There was no fear of that. At the moment of birth, our world became Christine-centred. She was divine, superb, lovely, charming, enticing, enchanting, beautiful, intelligent, perfect, and more. Because she was so enthralling, we wanted her to have the best, to be the best, to love best. Not that we would planned her life for a particular career or success. Rather we wanted her to grow into her personal freedom, capable of self-control, of making intelligent choices, perseverance in her undertakings and faithful commitment to whoever she freely chose and to God. This meant a tempered athority bent towards her needs and not necessarily towards her wants. Autocracy: Until she could control her own emotions and choose the direction she wanted her life to take, we had to see and decide for her. Tempered: by love. Our decisions would not be for our satisfaction but for her own ultimate freedom. Her success would be our joy; her failures would be reasons for persistent love and greater generosity.
Danielle and I had discussed these principles as far back we could remember. We had witnessed families where parents adored their children and spoiled them rotten. We had seen others whose authority seemed to us to be tyrannical and repressive, dictated more by the parents' whims and convenience rather than by their child's needs. We had seen, we had judged, and were sure we knew better.
We did not always do better.
Back home that evening, after the Baptism and champagne, Christine was now in her little bed near the master bed where she had been conceived. She did what new-borns are apt to do: she cried. Some years later, a friend of mine summarised a similar experience by saying: "I felt like opening the window and throwing the baby out."
Well, my feelings were not yet so radical. But I did consider it improper for a decent, lovely little girl to be so unreasonably tempestuous.
We checked everything. Christine could not be hungry, as our paediatrician had proclaimed her to be in fine shape and not in need of the usual feeding in the middle of the night. And the night had only just begun. Her safety pins were closed and the diapers dry. If only I could explain to her that she had no reason to be crying and we had reasons to wish to be asleep. But she was not up to listening, much less understanding.
Her mother and I had decided that Christine would get total personal attention when it was time to feed her, wash her, clothe her, carry her. But her sleeping periods would be scrupulously respected through whatever tantrums she might try. This was the only possible way to teach a child devoid of comprehension the meaning of her own good. Thus, no rocking her to sleep. In fact, the idea was to prove correct. But from theory to practice, there is need of experience.
I thought that perhaps our daughter simply needed a firmer explanation. A good little whack on the bottom.
"Maybe," said her mother who was no more in control of events than I.
Oh, this first spanking was not murderous, as it was inexperienced and well cushioned by diapers. It was mainly silly. An ineffectual act upon a five-day old baby who could not yet grasp the difference between the various hustles and bustles it felt. And it is definitely true that it hurt us far more than it hurt her.
The cries kept on. Danielle would find that she was gifted with the enviable capacity of sleeping through these cries, as soon as she was sure they were insignificant. I had no such gift.
Our first solution was to move Christine's bed into the kitchen for the nights and shut both the kitchen and bedroom doors. The distant wail, which finally faltered, bothered us no more.
Then Danielle's parents arrived for the week-end. The first time they picked Christine up, they held her like precious fragile china, hardly touching her, yet fearing to drop her. We, as newly experienced parents, giggled at their attempts to become dignified grandparents.
On Monday, Mr Quéloz reluctantly left for Quebec and for work, leaving his wife behind as household help. Mrs Quéloz took over the daily chores. But she was so emotionally unnerved in becoming a "grandmaman" that she had to be taught how everything should be done: even cooking steaks. This was certainly a rare lack of confidence on her part. Finally, she regained her proficiency and allowed Danielle a healthy and welcome rest, freed to care only for baby and self.The week ended. We were then on our own.
* * *
During the following weeks, our tempered authority earned us a mixed reputation among relatives who were more of the rock-a-bye-baby generation. When a darling aunt was over for lunch, Christine started crying in our bedroom on the other side of the corridor from the kitchen.
"I'll get her", the aunt instantly offered.
"Oh no", Danielle answered. "There is no need."
As the crying persisted, my aunt tried another approach: "I feel like picking her up".
"It is not yet time", Danielle said. "This is Christine's time to be in bed and rest. You can be sure that she is in need of nothing."
A little later, the tortured kind-hearted person reiterated her desire to console our child.
"There is no problem", said Danielle reassuringly. "The baby is fine. She is simply exercising her vocal cords."
Suddenly I got up. My aunt nearly sighed with relief, feeling the father to be the tenderest of the two parents. I crossed the room and shut the door, to mute the cries. Then I sat down again to finish my meal. Eventually, the cries subsided and baby fell asleep, as expected.
Persistence paid off. A while later, we went over to the same aunt's house. My uncle greeted us at the door as my aunt was busy in the kitchen, preparing our meal. Danielle put the baby on an assigned bed and went to kiss my aunt "hello". My aunt, surprised, asked: "You didn't bring the baby along?"
"Yes, we did", Danielle answered.
"Where is she?"
"She is sleeping on the bed."
"But she's not crying", my aunt argued.
"No. It's time for her nap."
My aunt was aghast. She had successfully mothered many children, but she could not imagine a baby going to sleep on her own.
In fact, Christine was soon a smiling baby. She had learnt that crying got her nowhere and she could rest when it was time to do so, rather than nervously plead to be taken into someone's arms. This policy also had its requirements for adults. No one was allowed to disturb the baby's rest period just for the pleasure of playing with her. One time we were invited over to an older couple's home for supper. The day had been trying. We knew that Christine was exhausted. Danielle carefully laid her down to nap on arrival and, luckily, Christine instantly fell asleep. We moved over to the living-room, chatting with members of the household. Suddenly, in came the woman-of-the-house carrying none other than our child: "Look whom I found in the bedroom", said the lady in a charmed tone.
Our eyes must have betrayed our wanting to kill. The poor woman stammered excuses as Danielle rapidly took the baby back to bed. But it was too late. For the following two hours, our baby cried her head off and our ears in. We all tried to act as if the meal was delicious (it was) and all was fine (it wasn't).
Eventually, our approach got high scores from everyone. Though we prided ourselves for our successes, there were some failures we would rather forget. There was Christine's undernourishment during her first month. That was when we got a lesson in maternal vulnerability. The mother of a newborn feels herself so inadequate that she is tempted to give up her own judgement in favour of experienced or professional judgement. So, when the paediatrician told Danielle that our baby was healthy enough to forgo the middle of the night feeding, Danielle rigorously obeyed. Though Christine would begin crying and Danielle's breasts would correspondingly contract in answer to these cries, Danielle was firm. The doctor had said there was no need for nourishment in the middle of the night. There would be none. She let the baby cry herself to sleep, even if it took a full hour. Reassured by the medical verdict, Danielle had instantly gone back to sleep.
At the first month's check-up the verdict had changed.
"This baby is undernourished", said the paediatrician.
Danielle winced at the thought of the suffering her daughter had endured. She hastily followed the doctor's advice and added a bottle of milk after breast-feeding the baby. The next time, Danielle could show a fine healthy baby to the doctor, but the count of bottled-milk taken by our child simply proved that breast-feeding had become useless: there was not enough mother's milk to make it worthwhile. Danielle sorrowfully ended it, feeling a bit of a failure as a mother.
Our inexperience also showed up when the time came, at three weeks, to have Christine eat solid foods in addition to her milk. Danielle put great love in preparing some tasty mashed potatoes. Christine refused to eat them. Her mother was not one to be refused. The potatoes kept being offered. After two hours of fighting on and off, Christine had eaten all her potatoes. Later experience would tell us that solid foods must be introduced more gradually in the child's menu. On the first days, these should be almost liquid and gradually made more solid. No harm came of this mistake: some good may have even been done, as Christine learned to face vexations and live with them, while remaining a remarkably happy child.
One of our most painful failures followed a correct evaluation of Christine's cries one evening. She was neither lamenting nor crying: she was screaming. We rightly concluded she had a stomach-ache. The solution, I suggested, was a warm water-bottle. It was. But Danielle had never seen such a thing at her parents' home. As for myself, mother had been the expert. So Danielle filled the bottle with the tap's hot running water and placed the bottle on Christine's stomach. Then we retired to bed. Christine was still crying loudly, more than usual. I wondered whether we should not go and see. Danielle's conscience was at peace, or at least very sleepy. She told me off. As she was our expert, I trusted her.
The cries got worst. I insisted we go back to see how the baby fared. Danielle grunted and grumbled, but we got up. We were horrified to find that the skin on Christine's stomach was burned red by the excessive heat of the bottle.
There was only one thing to do, and fast. Potatoes! We cut slices of uncooked potatoes and put them on the burned flesh. Christine instantly stopped crying, as the pain disappeared. Then we 'phoned the doctor, getting him out of bed. In those days, it was still expected that the individual doctor could be bothered. He didn't like it very much. He simply said that we should let the burnt part of the baby be naked.
Dared we? Danielle reasoned that we must not have wakened the doctor needlessly. She tried to comply, taking one slice of potato off: Christine screamed. Danielle hastily put it back. Christine stopped.
In the morning, the burn was receding. There would remain only a small blister, from which Christine would retain a scar. But we were glad to have been potatowise, when the doctor, upon examination of the baby, was impressed by the degree of the burn. He added that, had he known this, he would have told us to take her to the hospital. We asked what the hospital would have done.
"They would have left the burn naked."
We shuddered at the thought of the torture she would have endured instead of having been soothed by potatoes. Of course the doctor laughed our potatoes away.
* * *
The president of the college's governing board was told, a month after Christine's birth, that we had a new-born baby.
"That's why Georges seems so tired out these days", he chuckled.
As soon as Danielle stopped breast-feeding, I got into the act and we took turns feeding the baby and even in changing her diapers. We certainly learned that parental love must go beyond the call of collective-bargained duties. Caring for the baby was a full-time job, far beyond the eight (or seven) hour day and five (or four) day week. It was more like a thirty hour day in an eight-day week. We noted this only in retrospect when things eased up in the following months. While they were in full swing, we did not have the time to take notice.
As Chistine made progress, our pride grew and glowed, as happens to proud parents. We must have been terribly boring to acquaintances. But as we knew so few, that didn't matter much. Our friends shared our personal preoccupations and pride.
If experience had been lacking in our child-rearing, it was our theory that the grandparents were at fault. Danielle and I had decreed that we must watch my parents carefully, because they had been very liberal with my education: they would no doubt turn out to be rocking-chair grandparents who would spoil our baby. On the other hand, we had nothing to fear from Danielle's parents, since they had always been made of sterner stuff. Yet, my parents scrupulously respected our instructions concerning Christine, even when we occasionally left her in their care. Though she cried at times, they let her be. And then, when the next summer came and we visited Danielle's parents in Quebec, we were stunned that they tended to be downright unreasonable and spoil their granddaughter. Of course, this made sense. My liberal parents were used to letting me set my own rules. Though they felt tenderness of grandparents, they still respected our freedom to live our lives our own way. Danielle's more authoritarian parents were used to laying down the rules, and when tenderness was called for, they gave in to it in spades.
Either way, Christine was the rising sun of our days.
A full day. We rose early. Danielle mixed our breakfast in with Christine's. After which, I left for the college while our unfrogging froglet had her bath. Only after that could her mother manage to think of herself and dress. Christine returned to bed. Danielle washed some diapers and occasionally our clothes and sheets, and did household chores. It was already time to make lunch, change, clean and feed Christine, set the table, kiss the husband upon his arrival, feed him and send him off to work again. A short nap for mother and daughter. A walk to the store or elsewhere with Baby in the carriage. Come back home. Prepare supper. Change, clean, feed and bed Christine. Supper served. Short evening with the study group or, as more often than not, as love-birds. Then Christine had to be changed, cleaned, fed and bedded. To bed for all, until morning and a new day...
Breast-feeding was over after the first two months. This meant that Danielle would now be fertile again. Were we were ready to let our love flow into life once more? Should we postpone the next miracle? This was no longer a lovers' day-dream for a far-off future. The future was here. We willingly, cherishingly carried the continuous burden of responsibility for Christine. Could we add to it? Dared we add to it? Danielle had barely come out of the physically trying experience of child-birth and was enmeshed in childcare. Our shortcomings had hurt our morale and lessened our conviction that we should be perfect parents, though we felt responsible to try to be. Occupied full-time, weakened, tired and humiliated, conscious of our duties towards the baby, we feared the next one.
So we thought, prayed and talked. Wasn't our love bound to giving loving life rather than seek the comforts of life? Of course. Didn't this imply that we liberate the flow of life? In due time. Was it now possible? Well... did we feel up to it? Absolutely not. Were we up to Christine? No. Did we really believe the Lord was the better Father, that He would help us help Christine, that He would even help Christine benefit rather than lose because of our shortcomings? This, we firmly believed. Could we not also believe that He would care with the same total endearment for another child born out of selfless love? Of course. Well?
We charged ahead with trust and total love. We never regretted it. It would seem that children are not the only ones for whom wants and needs must be understood. The Father on High bends His will towards our fulfilment as we bend ours towards our child's fulfilment, though we may be as uncomprehending as a child facing certain requirements. Christine cried the first time she was given a bath. We fretted when we were confronted with the sequels of love.
* * *
That Christmas, the mystery of the birth of a divine child filled us with great wonder. We felt some insight into the unimaginable paradox that the weakness of love moves with greater energy than the power of force: how a baby will beget a total commitment and action beyond anything money or violence or even legitimate power will generate. We had experienced this. We were now embedded within the secret of the Universe and of Life: that God is Love.
Then Carlos came from Argentina to see, hold and caress his goddaughter, before going on to Laval University for the winter term. He brought her a large medallion of the Virgin Mary. It was lovely and we thanked him for it. Yet my unconscious, calculating and selfish-self had expected something more impressive and expensive. It was only a few years later that I belatedly realised that the medallion was made of gold: a good slap in the face for my censure, however slight and unwilling as it had been.
I asked Carlos to give a lecture to my students in Modern Philosophy. He had just come through Brazil where he had given a talk on Thomas Aquinas, the philosopher, the man of Faith, the friend of kings and the man for all times. He was willing to summarise this at my students' level of comprehension. I was proud to show off my friend, the professor, and happy to be free from preparing and giving that hour of class. But I really did not expect the outcome of this course.
After a year and a half of philosophy, Gerry and Mouse suddenly realised what they had been doing all this time. They became aware of the long trek we had made together as it was presented in another man's words and encapsulated in a short time. They understood that the vagaries of life had ended for them some while back and that they were now set on a road that brought them pleasure, insight and freedom. And they liked what they saw.
They chose to follow Maurice to Laval and Philosophy the following academic year. A year after that, Ernest, disgruntled with the impersonality and shallowness of Biology, would join them there with two other students who were presently engaged in the course in Metaphysics. Quebec would be invaded by the "Manitoban". A small invasion compared to the population of Quebec; but a large one on the scale of our minute college.
* * *
During my second year of teaching, I felt myself getting repetitious, which was understandable, since I was giving, with slight modifications, the same courses, Introduction to Philosophy and Metaphysics. The sense of novelty was being blunted. Danielle's maternal occupations diverted her in good part from the constant psychological support and appreciation she had given me for my courses. We grew estranged from the college social life because of family requirements. I felt drained of the knowledge I had battled for at University. My student loan had been paid off, and we were putting money away. I had expected to teach three years before going on to a doctorate. in Philosophy. Why not go now?
The reader may recall the friend of mine I woke the day I asked Danielle's parents for her hand in marriage. He was also from St. Boniface, and he might be persuaded to take over my job at the college.
And why not a bit of adventure? — One morning, Danielle was asked the most unforeseen question in her life, excepting the one about loving me: "How would you like it if we went to Fribourg for two years?"
Fribourg, Switzerland. The University of Fribourg department of Philosophy was under the teaching responsibility of the Dominicans. As for Laval University, it was founded mainly on the teaching of the Ancient and Medieval Philosophers, especially Plato, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. I figured that a change of teachers with the same fundamental thinkers would offer an interesting challenge, the novelty freshening up the continuity.
Danielle stared at me, not believing what she had heard. Had I said "Fribourg"? Did I mean Switzerland? I added this was only a hypothesis. I was not sure of the practical possibility. But the idea seemed fun.
For her, more than fun, joy!
She wholeheartedly agreed to the unexpected turnabout. We had previously intended to go back to Laval, where I would get my Ph. D. After that, as her parents had given up their own country to be with her, we would logically remain permanently in Quebec. That last part of the plan was unchanged. But, in between now and then, there would be two years in Switzerland, among her relatives, with her immovable hunk of a Georges, with her beautiful Christine. Oh yes, the idea was great!
Gradually, things were arranged. My friend would take over my job in Manitoba. A professor from the University of Fribourg accepted me as his student and would supervise my doctoral thesis. I wished to work on Aquinas' view of politics, in much the same way as I had taken on Chesterton's view of society for my Master's degree. I could even obtain the benefit of financial help from the Quebec government. Indeed, St. Boniface College, being a French-speaking institution, had itself managed to get some financial help from the Quebec government: a part of my salary had been paid by Quebec, and I had thus been considered as a Quebec graduate (which I was) teaching outside Quebec under some sort of cultural arrangement. Being a Quebec teacher, I could thus address myself to the Quebec government for student financial aid for further studies. And I got it.
* * *
On Saturday March 8, I became an elderly man: twenty-six. I was no longer in the social-statistics bracket of those from 15 to 25. But my heart was still young, and Danielle organised a birthday party to be held at my mother's house. The meal was hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, bubbly Pepsi and other soft drinks. I do not recall what there was for desert, as I think no one ever got to it because of the over-abundance. Or, maybe "Mouse" did. The three musketeers and a few other students were invited over. They were told everyone had to bring a gift: a comic book. Everybody over-ate. We laughed and played games. And when all was over, I marvelled in reading Superman, Action heroes and all.
May came. Danielle's period did not. Our anxieties had been forgotten. Christine was now a big seven-months old baby. We had grown accustomed to her needs, which were also becoming more reasonable. Danielle took a pregnancy test, though we knew the good news aforehand. The afternoon Danielle visited her doctor to get the results, I went to my parents' house where, as soon as Danielle arrived, we would tell them they were to be grandparents twice over. I ran up to her as I saw her approaching.
"Nothing", she said simply.
"What do you mean?"
"There is nothing", she repeated. "The test is negative. I've simply missed my period. These things happen, you know."
I knew. But we were disappointed. The menses flowed two weeks later. There was nobody there.
During the month of June, we visited our friends and relatives for emotional good-byes. We had a huge family picnic at Saint Rita at my uncle's farm. Danielle remembers the laughing and talking, but she especially recalls gorging herself on my cousin Marie-Jeanne's home-made doughnuts. Christine, the endearing centre of our life, slept beneath a tree. Whenever she cried a little, we scrambled to satisfy her needs. She was our beloved mistress, charming everyone with her smiles while her mother outwardly and her father inwardly glowed with pride.
All these final meals, appreciated with special gluttony by Danielle, on whom it became physically noticeable... but this slight overweight was easily lifted in the air as we flew away to Quebec and then on to Switzerland.
