Another Day's Adventures - Part II
Still Saturday, our daily ravine hike is over, and the day is yet young. We decide to take a trip downtown. Driving down our street we see a young man, the oldest son of a neighbour living some ten houses from ours and we wave in greeting, then decide to turn back to ask whether he too is heading downtown. He isn't, he's on his way to work at a large supermarket, in the opposite direction to where we're headed. But he's invited in anyway, it's too hot to walk that far, and we drive him over. On the way he explains it's a part-time job, he's in his third year at University, studying electrical engineering. His younger brother, now 20, adopted as a baby, is a sad case; brain damaged as a baby, he wanders the neighbourhood looking for someone, anyone, to talk with, and often ends up playing games with an 8-year-old neighbour who ditches him as soon as a friend comes into sight.
Now on our way to the downtown area, we enjoy the drive in air conditioned comfort. Riley is sitting on my lap, looking out the window at the passing scene, while Button is dozing, halfway on me and the bulk of her on the cushion we place between the seats for her comfort. We pass the Rideau River at Bank Street and look for waterfowl, but the city has decided to keep their and our valued swans safely out of the river in a more protected area, for fear of their contracting West Nile disease.
We decide to look first at Ashley's, to see what new and old items they've got in stock. It's an intriguing place where you never quite know what you may come across. They have old prints, antique clocks (always in dreadful and non-working condition) garden statuary, animalia bronzes, porcelain pieces, but mostly new items: furniture, ornately-framed mirrors and "oil paintings" (copies of traditional European-style paintings), marble sculptures, reproduction Tiffany lamps, all manner of interesting, and sometimes-worthwhile objects d'art. Needless to say, most if not all of the various reproductions, come from China, and their prices reflect their provenance.
Each of us carries an over-the-shoulder bag, and in each bag is deposited a dog; he carries Button, I carry Riley, and each dog settles down and snoozes off for the duration of the enterprise at hand. While I'm walking about looking at the offerings, a woman notices Riley and stops to exclaim how sweet he is. Little does she know. But this is not destined to be a pleasantly brief encounter with a stranger, for she launches into a monologue about how awfully, reprehensibly, people treat animals, and I think I'm listening to a clone of our daughter.
This woman carries herself very well, she has a slightly over-ripe, but good figure, wears relaxed summer clothing, has a refined, elegant, but time-worn face, and her voice is confidential in tone, vibrant with passion - and something else. I soon learn much, much too much. She met her husband when they were 16, he's dead now, of lung cancer. She works for Indian Affairs, a high-ranking job, but while working on site she personally rescued hundreds of abandoned dogs, and with the help of others found good homes elsewhere for all of them. That was on the downstairs floor.
I made my way upstairs to the second floor, after having perused the basement floor (with its wonderful Remington copies, its baroque and Empire pedestals, its heavily "carved" framed mirrors half-room sized, its statuesque bronzes, large and wonderfully detailed sailing ships), and then the first floor. Upstairs whom did I come across again? None other than Marianne, for such was her name. There I learned that her mother had recently died, her mother whom she so much adored, and I learned that her mother had been a child prodigy, ready for university at age 12, when nuns took her under their personal care and tutelage.
I learned that her own father had died when she turned 5, that her sister, older by 2-1/2 years, constantly beat her, actually tortured her, and for her protection her beloved mother gave her into the care of a wealthy Ottawa family to raise as their own. Her sister never forgave her for the fact that their mother loved her more than she did her sister. Evidently when Marianne became old enough to attend university she was sent to France, and her mother accompanied her there, where they lived at the home of a friend, a wealthy Parisienne whose daughter was a model. Her sister conspired to keep her from her mother's deathbed. Her sister hired her mother's lawyer to re-write her will, never telling the lawyer that the mother was in the throes of dementia and was legally incapable of making the decision to disinherit the younger child, Marianne.
In telling me all of this, Marianne became increasingly distressed, tearful, and I attempted to console her, to tell her she had much to live for, and that she should try to put behind her all the miserable events of her past. I felt great compassion for this woman, as who would not? Whether or not her story was true, whether her interpretation of events was true, whether she had truly experienced such a wrenching life, becomes irrelevant, since I was but a stranger, and could do nothing less than attempt to give her solace.
While I was thus entrapped by the emotional need of another human being, my partner entertained himself by thoroughly investigating all of the appealing items on display in that little shop of wonders. And he found an item that beckoned to him, particularly as its original price had been slashed from $500 (vastly overpriced to be sure) to under $200, and this item spoke to him, convinced him that its true place was in his home with his other and varied treasures. And thus was the deal made.
From that venue we made our way up Bank Street toward Wallach's Art Supplies. For my lover had been anguishing about the lack of opportunity to purchase decent paint brushes in our close vicinity for far too long. Button, Riley and I awaited his return, slurping fresh water of recovery, while he delved into the on-sale offerings of this art-supply emporium. Traffic on Bank Street was fierce. Our open car windows emitted dust and noise extraordinaire, aided and abetted by the constant rush of bus traffic up and down the street. But there was more than enough for me to watch. People bustling along the street, people representing in appearance every country in the world, adjusting themselves to their new home, taking, I would hope, as much pleasure from being here as I did living temporarily elsewhere in the world.
Later, as we passed the Parliament Buildings along Wellington Street, I marvelled as always at the hordes of tourists ambling along the street, in front of the lawn of Parliament, before the eternal flame, taking photographs of one another, pushing on further toward Byward Market and generally amusing and instructing themselves on the multitudinous opportunities the venue afforded them for entertainment, sight-seeing, picture-taking, eating. Watching these crowds of people I was myself entertained at the thought that they represent people from all walks of life, all come together for a common purpose. Don't we humans love to rubber-neck, to do the tourist thing, to absorb the sights, smells and sounds of places?
My, but it was good to get home.
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 29, 2006
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