Nelson, or wander along St. James Street, and enjoy the great Victorian palaces of commerce. Don’t forget to stroll down to the harbour (only one block south from St. Paul Street) to the great grain elevators and freightyards. To the west stands the Harbour Commission Building, a handsome Victorian fantasy, to the east the Jacques Cartier bridge, while just out of sight is the Ile Ste-Hélène, site of Canada’s International Exhibition — Expo 67.
La Place d’Armes — heart of Montreal, old and new. La Place d’Armes — heart of Canada!”
Thus Hugh Anderson tried to imagine how a tourist blurb of La Place d’Armes might read. He sketched it out in full — and then gave up; it revulsed him. Partly because he couldn’t really bring himself to do it well, and partly because he could imagine it only too well. He decided to concentrate instead upon his own memory of La Place d’Armes … trying to recall it as he had known it during the four years he had worked within a block of it, on St. James Street. He remembered the domed Bank of Montreal Building well. Then he had to admit he had never been in it. No, he reflected, not once … only in the new section. It was virtually the same for the Church of Notre Dame. It had always stood there, as some magnificent Gothic scenario — a fine backdrop for prestige office buildings. Like having the façade from Westminster Abbey, or Notre Dame de Paris, dropped into La Place as guarantee of quality: Episcopal Approval — an Imprimatur for La Place. But he had never been in it … oh he had visited in it — once, maybe twice — and he always told friends who were visiting Montreal that it was a “must.” But he himself had never been to a service there. He had meant to go that Christmas, to the Midnight Mass …, but he had gone skiing instead. Odious recollection … (besides — the snow went soft). And he couldn’t remember anything precise about the Church inside, save that sensation of Olde Golde everywhere … the Sainte Chapelle bloated beyond belief. As to the rest — well, the new buildings of the New Montreal hadn’t been built: La Banque provinciale, La Place Ville Marie, La Place des Arts. He had only heard about them. And he had to admit that he never, not once!, strolled the Old Quarter. Oh, he had visited the Chateau de Ramezay once by accident; it was a hailstorm. As for the rest … he really only knew about them through history textbooks, by implication.
With that he stopped, acutely self-conscious, embarrassed … turned around to see if anyone was looking at him, at his smug self-assertive ignorance.
No one was looking. He laughed small consolation: how the hell could anyone see what he was thinking anyway? His guilt was a private matter. But he had to face the truth: all he really knew about La Place d’Armes and its entourage was what he could have put into a bad tourist blurb. He was victim of the very thing he mocked! To save further discomfit he turned his mind to the job at hand, unwilling to resolve the contradictions already becoming apparent.
The assignment he decided in fact was simple: a short novel on La Place d’Armes in Montreal. He knew exactly what it was that he wanted to do with it. Namely present La Place as a centre of life and vitality in the Montreal metropolis. It was La Place that would, of course, be the Hero. Of that he was certain … the novel would grow out of that fact. All he had to do was live La Place and he would end with what he needed — a novel that glowed with love, with his own love of his community, his nation, his people. A novel that glowed with love in a world whose final and last faith seemed grounded in hate. He wanted to share that love, and to show that only by that love do people live, really live. With any luck the essential experience would be achieved in a fortnight, perhaps less. In either case he would be home by Christmas. He planned to arrive in Montreal on December the first.
He thought again of La Place … yes, it was ideal: a historic square, perhaps the most historic in North America, or in the New World for that matter. Three-and-a-half centuries of history ending in 1967 as the heart of a giant empire — Canada — and the site of the first International Exhibition that had ever received world sanction in the New World. No — decidedly there was no other square to equal it … and he counted off the competitors — Boston, Boston Common, the Liberty Route, the birth of the American Dream and all that. Well, Boston had gone dead. And so had the Amurrican Dream for that matter — (his facile inherited contempt of the Americans — the mere Americans — was all contained in that slurred pronunciation “Amurrican”) Or New York — Times Square, for example. Centre of the World. What about that? Somehow it didn’t do. It didn’t have a heart, or a soul, or something … something was wrongside-up about it. If nothing else his novel would prove that, by contrast. That left Philadelphia — which had been displaced by New York — and Washington. Same argument all over again for these then. And for Chicago, the Second City. Or San Francisco — excellent also-ran. What about Mexico City? Surely it was a contender. Well he didn’t know Mexico City — so it was easy to rule out. That left only his own city, Toronto, with its claim to be the “fastest growing city in North America.” Which meant the fastest growing “white city” in the world. Perhaps that was what was wrong with Toronto!
Nor could he find any heart to Toronto … no central Place … unless one took the new City Hall and its monolithic Phillips Square. Anyway, La Place d’Armes had a two-century headstart on that … and any sense of dimension in time in Toronto was about to be extinguished by the destruction of the Old City Hall which gave all the conviction and perspective to the New — torn down to make room for a department store. Well that told the whole story. He grimaced. No, it was Montreal’s Place d’Armes all the way. He felt relieved, and settled back in his seat aboard the Rapido — “fastest commuter train in the world … 360 miles in 4 hrs. and 59 minutes!” For a moment his own smugness conjugated with this triumphant smugness of the train and taking out his little black notebook he began to make his Novel Notes — some for the Novel, but some for himself. The latter would, naturally, be the best — after all he wouldn’t be able to present the complete truth in the Novel. So it was important to have complete notes for his own private edification. A kind of private revenge against the restrictions of the Novel itself — a sort of intimacy. The intimate privilege of the first person.
“… spent the weekend skiing — a sort of final outing before Montreal. Left Mary & the two children to return with friends to Toronto. She is in good spirits & can handle the home easily enough till I’m back…. It all makes good sense. Ran into Jackson on the daytrain from Collingwood … haven’t seen him for two years. We exchanged supercilities last time — each politely contemptuous of the other — he of my publishing house respectability; I of his success in the mass media — a televisionary … mass mediocrity! Now we sat together like old buddies, confessing our faults … the vacuity of the media (Toynbee is right — TV is “the lion that whimpered!”) & the constipation of the business world. As though each of us had seen through ourselves in these last two years. And come out divested — & afraid. Things have changed. Everything has changed — absolutely. The very nature of reality has changed. Maybe that’s why I let Jackson quiz me overtly…. Jackson —“well, you’re a square in revolt. We’re all squares in
this country … I’m a square. But I still don’t
understand you.
You didn’t need to get fired. Your training was unique.
Experience with that Montreal publishing firm. A book of excellent critical essays on Canadian culture. A Governor General’s award. A powerful family name, a beautiful wife — & you say, two kids. Bilingual.& an appointment at the University of Toronto for special lectures. You were made, man. & we needed you. You didn’t need to capitulate….”
I laugh, and remember his public criticism of my essays.
“I can’t explain it. But I know what I’m doing. I simply know I had to demission
