“Très bien, merci, Madame Yvonne. Vous changez des vies aujourd’hui! You’re changing lives today!” He placed the bag in his giant backpack, careful not to crush the contents. He already had several thermoses of sweetened tea in there, and the packing had to be careful. Isaac Blum made his way out the door of the Atwater winter market, nodding to a few clerks at the specialty shops lining the long corridor. Le Boulangerie de Babette was the only one of them who generously offered him food for the homeless every Monday and Thursday. Of course, the bread was at least a day old, and the charcuterie older than that, but Isaac took what he was offered. To the people on the streets that he served, the food sometimes made all the difference. Before he stepped outside, he pulled his thick woolen tuque lower over his ears, put on his enormous mittens, and zipped his jacket up so it covered his nose. The key to surviving winter in Montreal, especially on his rounds, was excellent winter wear. As he stepped onto what seemed to be the sidewalk, he took a moment to take in the day. The sky was so perfectly and cloudlessly blue that the massive blizzard that rampaged through two days earlier seemed like a hallucination. Of course, its aftermath was everywhere—the temperature plummeting to minus 25, the still unplowed sidewalk with the furrow down the center where people struggled to walk in each other’s single tracks, the glistening snowbanks, the roofs of the buildings almost sagging under the weight of the snow.
Isaac headed towards the tunnel. So far, he was relieved to see none of the usual suspects—the storm must have driven them into whatever shelter they could find. It was unusually quiet for a Monday morning, as though the storm had given everyone a day’s reprieve from the quotidian. It was so quiet, the only sound apart from muted traffic was the squeaking of his boots as he walked on the snow, compacted by the frigid temperature. Isaac decided he would check the area around the tunnel, then make his way up Atwater to Cabot Square Park. Once he had distributed all the sandwiches and emptied the thermoses of tea, he would treat himself to a little McDonald’s breakfast sandwich at Alexis Nihon.
Isaac had to put his hand over his eyes to protect them from the glare of the sun off the snow, so white it was almost blue. He scanned the area at the west end of the tunnel. Nothing. That was good news. When he turned to make his way back towards the market, something got caught in his peripheral vision. When he looked again, he spotted what looked like a garbage bag and peered at it again. Probably a dead dog or coyote; he knew they frequented this area at night. But as he drew closer, he felt a visceral dread. He began to run, his breath bursting out of his lungs in white puffs hovering in the frigid air. Isaac dropped to his knees. What he’d seen was not a pile of discarded clothes. Not a dog. Not garbage. It was a human being, so small he thought she was a child at first. Then he looked closer at her face, her eyelashes frozen shut, thick white frost lining her lips, eyebrows, and nostrils. Isaac gently broke away her scarf, so frozen it was rigid, from the tiny neck. He checked for a pulse, but he knew she was dead. Isaac put his mitten back on but remained on his knees. He covered his eyes, and began to recite the kaddish, the ancient Jewish prayer for the dead.
Isaac took out his phone. He looked at the woman again. She lay peacefully on her side, one outstretched frozen arm under her head. One boot seemed to be missing. Why was she here of all places? Where had she come from? Isaac hesitated, then he took off his huge mittens and checked her coat pockets for identification. She had none on her that he could find, and no money. Maybe she carried something in her pants pockets, but he couldn’t bring himself to look there. At the bottom of her deep coat pocket were what looked like a few dog biscuits, a tiny carving of some kind of deer, a creased photograph of a very pretty woman—maybe in her forties—standing beside what looked like Beaver Lake. On the back of the photograph, a name was written, with a phone number. Isaac quickly took a snapshot of both sides of the photograph with his phone and returned the picture to her pocket. Experience had taught him that the police often don’t bother to investigate the deaths of the homeless, especially Indigenous ones. All people are definitely not equal in the eyes of the law. Justice was anything but blind when it came to people who weren’t white. He would at least have some information himself in case he needed to use it later. Isaac touched her forehead for just a moment and felt an empty sadness. He then took his phone out once more and took several close-up photos of her face from different angles. He stood by the woman’s side, closed his eyes, and lifted his chin towards the sun. It was a dazzlingly beautiful winter day. Then he picked up his heavy backpack and headed to where he knew was one of the last working payphones in the area to call 911.
Nine
Tuesday morning
January 29, 2019
“MAMAN, ON PEUT manger un croissant au chocolat? S’il vous plait? S’il vous plait?” She was walking with her daughter to the local bakery, Chez Amandine, known for the best patisserie this side of the Atlantic. She held her hand very tightly, as the traffic was heavier and faster than usual. They chatted away with each other, and she felt perfectly at peace with the world. She didn’t think it could get much better than this. They stopped at the red light and waited for the little white figure to tell them it was safe to cross. She felt her phone vibrate, and paused to check it, letting go of her daughter’s hand just for a moment. Julie ran towards the bakery across the street directly into the oncoming cars. Danielle screamed at her to stop, but there was a sickening screech of tires, and the excruciating sound of shattering glass. It was too late. Danielle screamed and screamed, but no sound came out of her. The driver jumped from her car, and people gathered to stare, but she was paralyzed, frozen to the sidewalk. She couldn’t look. She couldn’t look. Danielle Champagne woke up soaking in sweat. Her night dress was drenched, as were her freshly laundered sheets. She looked around her bedroom, now filled with delicate early morning sunlight, and reminded herself that her daughter, Julie, was seventeen years old and very much alive. It was just another terrible dream.
Danielle took a few minutes to bring herself back to the real world, and peeling off her wet nightie, headed straight to the shower. She had a huge day ahead, and she would have to gather every bit of her energy to get through it. As the water poured over her body, she realized she was still very shaken by the collision with whatever animal was in that tunnel. She hadn’t really slept much all weekend. Danielle examined her face in the enormous bathroom mirror. Those bags under her eyes wouldn’t go away, no matter how much of that stupidly expensive cream she applied. Someone once suggested she try Preparation H hemorrhoid cream. It would be a lot cheaper. Although she inherited great legs from her mother, she also got her eye bags. Danielle applied even more cover-up and powder, and overall, thought in the right light she’d be okay.
She selected a salmon-colored power suit for the insanely busy day ahead. It was a bold choice, and very feminine. She wanted them to know she wasn’t afraid to be a woman. That morning she had a critical meeting to discuss the expansion of her company into the northeastern United States, and then an interview for a local TV station. Then she was flying to Toronto for meetings in the afternoon and catching the red-eye home that night. It was the kind of day she lived for. Danielle headed straight for the espresso machine and started to prepare a triple. On the breakfast peninsula lay the remains of Julie’s breakfast—a half-eaten bowl of granola and yogurt, and an empty coffee cup. She’d already left for school but had written her mother a note—à bientôt, hasta luego, arrivederci, bis später, see you later, alligator!! xoxo. Julie wanted to study linguistics at university and already spoke four languages fluently. Danielle wanted her to study at the Sorbonne or Oxford and couldn’t quite believe that was even a possibility, but it was. Julie was a brilliant student, and at this point in her life, Danielle could afford it. She wanted to make everything possible for her daughter.