I was born to refugee parents who spoke almost a dozen languages between them, paid their taxes with pride, teared up when they caught sight of the Canadian flag, and put on their best clothes when they went to vote. Considering who they were and where they came from, it is understandable that my parents would respond strongly to a cosmopolitan and charismatic leader, when he appeared in the form of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Trudeau’s passion for social inclusiveness appealed to my mother. Trudeau’s principles and his straight-shooting gunslinger stance appealed to my father.
As a child growing up in Montreal in the late 1960s, I was of the generation that came to be called “Trudeau babies.” Trudeau babies were expected to speak two languages, bridge two solitudes, and blend into a multi-cultural mosaic. It was Trudeau’s vision of our future, and it became ours.
In challenging a journalist, he challenged us. “Just watch me,” he uttered defiantly. And that is what we did. We watched, in wonder, as our Justice Minister transformed divorce and abortion laws. We watched, in awe, as our Liberal candidate, turning steely eyed, stared down a mob pelting him with rocks and bottles on the eve of his first election.
In the wake of a political assassination we watched, with relief (most of us, anyway), as a grim leader ruthlessly clamped down and stamped out terrorism. We watched, mystified, as this middle-aged bachelor plucked a flower child and took her for a wife.
We watched with delight, as our P.E.T. became a first-time father on Christmas Day. We watched, astonished, as P.E.T. became a father on Christmas Day AGAIN, as if he had a contract with Santa Claus!
We watched, with amusement, when P.E. T. traveled to London and playfully pirouetted behind the back of the Queen. Then we watched him get down to business and bring home the Canadian Constitution.
We watched sadly, and from a respectful distance, as an aging and chastened husband endured, in dignified silence, the agony of divorce. We watched our P.E.T. come back from defeat to welcome us into the nineteen eighties and then we watched, with mixed emotions, as he relinquished the reins of power and returned to private life before the nineteen eighties were over.
Back home in Montreal, Pierre Trudeau took up residence in his mansion on Pine Avenue. At the time I lived in a studio apartment on Penfield Avenue, which is located one block below Pine. Though I heard tales from neighbours of what came to be called “Trudeau sightings,” I had yet to experience one. My turn would come.
It was Friday afternoon in mid-January of 1990, at the traffic hour. The Christmas break was over, and the city had returned to work. I was antsy to get outside, after being shut in by a blizzard that hit the city the day before. I stepped out my door, planning to take a walk around Penfield and Pine. The air was mild and the snow that had taken the city by storm was fresh and—snow white.
At the corner of Pine and Cedar, where the crags in the boulders off the mountainside catch falling snow and petrify it into stalactites of ice, a teenage girl swung down the street. Her hair was thick and dark and flying from her hatless head. She wore a short vinyl jacket, thin white tights, and a faded jean skirt that stopped above her knees. It isn’t that warm, I thought. Watching the girl, and experiencing the sense of vibrancy a crisp winter’s day infuses into me, I had to remind myself that it was still, only January.
I continued along Pine, to the long and steep staircase that connects this elegant and sloping avenue to the entrance of the Russian consulate, at the top of Avenue du Musee. The snow that had banked seemed to favour the right side of the steps, so I sat down on the left. A man appeared at the bottom of the landing, directly in front of me. He started to climb the staircase. Well, I thought, when he reaches the top he’ll just have to move, because I’m not going to.
In admiration, I gazed at the view. Ropes of snow rimmed the bare branches like sugar frosting. Caps of snow perched on spiked fences, like ice cream in cones. As the light began to fade the street lamps switched on, as though ignited by an attentive elf.
A sudden gust of wind whistled at the snow, startling it off the rooftops. Particles of snow, transformed into silver sequins, pirouetted under the illuminated lamps. Headlights and taillights twinkled on cars in the distance, down the hill. They inched along the downtown streets like dinky toys. Smoke curled out of chimneys in pearl gray and crayoned swirls. Dusk smudged the sky, and the scarlet red of the stoplights were the only spots of colour in a magical, monochrome world.
I felt myself smile. The man who was climbing had reached the halfway mark on the black metal staircase. He was wearing a high sheepskin hat, and the tails of his long coat, rimmed by a sheepskin collar, flared out and away from him, lifted by the wind. In one hand, he was clutching a briefcase. If not for the briefcase, he might’ve been taken for a father of confederation stepping out of a 19th century daguerreotype.
The anachronistic-looking gentleman looked up and smiled at me. That is when I recognized him. My heart leapt and my brain froze. The smile on my face was frozen, too. Pierre Trudeau reached the last steps before the top. He was now so close that I could’ve reached out and touched him, had it entered my mind to dare.
“Phew!” Trudeau took a deep and visible breath. He was almost an old man, and it had been a long and steep climb. Then he spoke, in a voice as familiar as my own. “Can I sit with you?”
“Suuuure.” I was still smiling. By now, my smile had become so frozen that it was fixed.
In response, Trudeau smiled a warm and natural smile. Then he bent over and touched my shoulder with his free hand. He looked down at the right side of the step I was sitting on. It was laden with snow. Reconsidering his original idea, Trudeau stepped into the snow, instead of sitting in it, and continued on his way, to the family mansion. Before reaching his door, Trudeau was approached by the teenager I had first seen sauntering down Cedar. They seemed to know each other. Was she a family friend? Trudeau stood outside the entrance of his home chatting with her, a nearly mythical figure in his high sheepskin hat, his long flaring coat with the sheepskin collar, and his briefcase, still in hand.
I leaned against the railing and, one final time, I watched. I took in the icicles forming sculptures on the boulders off Cedar, the rush-hour traffic whooshing, like toboggans, down Pine, and the elder statesman standing in the twilight who had paused, in his climb, to touch the shoulder of a dreamy young woman and who still took time, in the fading light, to stop and chat with a pretty young girl.
About the author
S. Nadja Zajdman is a Canadian author. In 2022 she published the story collection The Memory Keeper (Bridge House), as well as the memoir I Want You To Be Free. In 2023 Zajdman followed up with a second memoir, Daddy's Remains. In 2024 Bridge House brought out her essay collection, Between Worlds.
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