I did not tell Mrs. Waugh about my tent with Sophie Cotterill in Parc du Mont-Royal. Nor did I mention that the ideal place to leave me a note was to tuck it in a crack of the Mordecai Richler Gazebo in the park just below our tent, between the gazebo’s railings and its north pillar facing the park’s angel. I could tell her this later, should she choose to contact me. As it was, she gave me a post-box number belonging to one of the little rentable mailbox centres offered by all the Jean Coutu drugstores. Box 444.

2 His Flute

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3.

NIGHT.

Montreal, Quebec

AS I APPROACH, I SEE Soph’s silhouette inside the tent. I smell her bean tin brimming with scalding hot Labrador tea.

Everything in the tent is a bit damp: the sleeping bags, the tent walls. Sophie has a cozy little corner set up where, for our time together, she’ll commune with her emails between checking Facebook and insulting me. I hope my letter-writing notepad isn’t damp. She notices my hand sneak to it.

“Writing to your mama already? You haven’t even said hello.”

“Maybe.” This is a lie. I need, in fact, to get a note to Mrs. Waugh to inform her that I’m here. “Did you get the honey for my tea?”

“Here, pass me your quill and parchment. I’ll write that mother of yours a few home truths.” She grabs my pen.

“Dearest Madam Wolfe,” she announces. “Sweet Henrietta: Your son, Bigbad, is an unbelievable procrastinator, a real fusspot…”

“I’m not. I’m timely. I don’t vacillate and I’m not fussy. Ask anyone.”

“He claims he isn’t particular, but tomorrow he’s going to send me all over the Plateau looking for honey that simply must…Where the hell is your honey supposed to come from?”

“I need Minorcan honey.”

“He says he doesn’t vacillate but he swans in and out of Payons Comptant pawnshop gawking at the poor old flute he claims once belonged to him…”

“My flute saved me, you know that. Playing my flute protected me from untold horrors.”

Sophie can turn self-righteous and often claims to possess all sorts of attributes far more interesting than I’ve been able to discern. I mean, when I met her—eleven Septembers ago to this day—what was she doing? Plunging wieners in the deep fryer in Germain Medosset’s wagon on the crescent beach, just below Madame Blanchard’s house, where I first emerged from my hibernation, shivering and uncertain as to where to turn. She didn’t even sell cod or real chips, only corn dogs and prepackaged nuggets and onion rings, and flat Coke. “I’m not interested in having sex with a crazy soldier,” she said as I ordered a second cone of previously frozen fries. I had not solicited her at all! She passed me her business card:

SOPHIE COTTERILL

Short Order Cook