Exceptional Circumstances. James Bartleman

Others wanted to end Third World hunger. Still others wanted to save the planet from environmental ruin. Nobody said they wanted to be an intelligence analyst reading the private mail of other countries or a secret agent spying on Latin American revolutionaries.

      It was at one of those parties toward the end of the summer that I met Charlotte Lefidèle. She wasn’t a Foreign Service officer and I don’t know who brought her, but as we sat around a campfire on the beach, I saw her looking at me. I smiled and she smiled in return. I got up and joined her, asking her in English if she was alone. She answered in French saying she was. When I answered in French, she said she’d been looking at the Foreign Service officers to see if she could identify the Quebeckers by their appearance. “And you,” she said, “are a Quebecker.”

      When I asked her why she would waste her time that way, she said it was just for something to do. “I don’t know anyone here, and the person I came with left without me.”

      “Well you’re wrong … I’m a francophone Métis from Ontario.”

      “Then I guess Quebeckers look like francophone Métis,” she said, laughing. “I’m not a Quebecker either. I’m Franco-Ontarian from Ottawa, although my mother comes from Quebec City. But let’s drop the subject. Tell me, what do you do? Are you a Foreign Service officer?”

      The light wasn’t good and it was hard to read her expression, but I had the impression I had just passed some sort of test when I said yes. “Could you give me a ride back to the city,” she said. “I’ve no way to get home.”

      A few days later, we had lunch together in a small restaurant in the market area of the city, and I saw her in the light of day. She was older than I had initially thought, but made up in sophistication what she lacked in good looks. She ordered escargots for her first course and I did the same, even though I wasn’t enthusiastic about eating the slimy little things. She ordered steak tatare with a raw egg yolk on top, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating raw hamburger and ordered a well-done steak and french fries. She told me a Beaujolais would go well with escargots, steak tatare, and steak. I ordered a bottle and she drank most of it.

      I told her I had gone to the University of Ottawa before joining the Department. She said she had attended the same university “a few years earlier,” had written the Foreign Service officer exams, but had not received a job offer, and had settled for a job as a nursery school teacher. I told her I had lived in Penetang before Ottawa, and she said she had once visited Martyr’s Shrine to pray at the Stations of the Cross, but hadn’t had time to visit my hometown. She told me she had lived in Ottawa all her life but her passion was travel, especially to Mexico and Cuba, which she had visited many times, learning Spanish in the process.

      I told her my dad was a stevedore on the docks and my grandpapa had traded in furs with the Indians in the early days. She said her father was a judge, her grandfather and great grandfather had been judges. I told her I was an only child, and she told me she had a brother who was a lawyer married to a former teacher who had given up her career to raise a family. She also had a sister who had wed her childhood sweetheart who was now a superintendent in the RCMP. In reply to her question, I told her I was a practicing Catholic, and she said she went to mass every Sunday and didn’t believe in taking the pill because the pope was opposed to birth control. I told her I was working as an analyst in the Department and was scheduled to be posted to Colombia in the fall of 1968. She told me she had always wanted to live in Colombia.

      In the weeks that followed, we saw a lot of each other. Most days after work, we met for drinks at a neighbourhood pub, sometimes going back to her apartment to spend more time together. She made it clear from the outset, however, that she didn’t believe in premarital sex and told me to keep my hands to myself. About a month into the relationship, she invited me to meet her family at Sunday dinner. The evening was a great success. Everybody went out of their way to make me feel welcome. The judge, it turned out, had many friends in the Department, many of them ambassadors, several of whom I had even heard of. The RCMP superintendent, corpulent and red-faced, who had married the oldest daughter, knew Longshaft professionally and said he was a “know-it-all snob.” The lawyer son said he had considered applying to join the Department after he had been called to the bar, but Foreign Service salaries were low, his then fiancée was afraid of bugs and poisonous snakes and foreigners, and wanted to live in Ottawa, close to her mother.

      It turned out that Charlotte had told everyone that I was a Métis, and to make me feel comfortable, Madame Lefidèle said her great-great grandmother had been a Huron from Loretteville, the Indian reserve near Quebec City. Not to look pedantic, I didn’t tell her the Hurons originally came from the Penetang area and some of them had sought refuge with the French colonial government at Quebec City after their wars with the Iroquois in the mid-seventeenth century. The meal was served by a uniformed maid on porcelain dishes and eaten with sterling silver cutlery. The judge opened bottles of fine imported French wines and took the time to explain to me the differences between a Chateau Angelus grand cru classé and a Vosné Romanée. I went home with the distinct impression that the family approved of me. I was francophone, Catholic, a Foreign Service officer, and unmarried — a perfect catch for the youngest daughter who was no longer young. My Métis identity was irrelevant.

      In the months following the dinner, the Lefidèle family welcomed me into their circle. Every Sunday, dressed in a well-cut navy blue suit, a freshly pressed white shirt, and an elegant silk tie — purchased from the Timothy Eaton Company with my first paycheque — I accompanied the family, grandchildren and all, to Sunday services at the Basilique Notre Dame. Afterward, I went back for Sunday lunches and tried to look interested as the family complained about the absence of Latin in the mass, the use of guitars during the hymn singing, and the unseemly familiarity displayed by the priest to the congregation — all unnecessary reforms imposed by Pope John XXIII. After lunch, we took coffee in the parlour and as the others meandered on about family affairs, I nodded and listened as if I was already married to Charlotte.

      When the family left on weekends for their ski chalet in the Gatineau Hills that winter, I accompanied them. I bought a pair of skis, ski boots, and poles, and Charlotte gave me calf-skin gloves, a stylish ski jacket, and a white sweater for après-ski. I gave her a Métis sash, which she wore for the rest of the winter. She introduced me to classical music, taking me to performances of Handel’s Messiah at the Basilique, to string quartets from visiting groups at churches throughout the city, and to performances of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. I didn’t enjoy myself but pretended I did. She included me in the small dinners and cocktails held by the members of her close circle of friends. She enjoyed herself but I didn’t. The highlight of the summer was a visit we made to Ile Sainte-Helene in Montreal to take in Expo ’67, the world’s fair hosted by Canada to mark Canada’s centennial year. We visited the La Ronde amusement park, Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, as many national pavilions as we could, and an open-air Ed Sullivan show featuring the Supremes and Petula Clark. We had a ball.

      As the summer of 1967 turned into fall and then into winter, Charlotte and her mother made clear that it was time I proposed. But I was in no hurry. I enjoyed Charlotte’s company, but recognized there was no spark, no passion, no love in our relationship. If we went ahead and got married, it would be a marriage of convenience. She was bored with teaching nursery school children and wanted to experience the life of a diplomat’s wife abroad. I was more attracted to Charlotte’s family and their lifestyle than to their daughter and hers. On the other hand, she understood the art of making up seating plans, arranging flowers, preparing menus, giving orders to servants, receiving guests, and knew which wine went well with fish and which one with game or steak. She could provide the social graces I lacked, build up my self-esteem, and help me deal with the nagging sense that I had been hired only because I was a Métis.