Montreal: Part II

I am behind. On everything. (Commentary and this week’s fairy tale will be up this weekend, I promise!) The reason for this is Montreal, or, more specifically, the trip back from Montreal.

We originally arranged to stay at the Doubletree from Saturday until Wednesday. But when Tuesday’s storm warning came through for QC and the Northeast, I immediately set about renewing our room and moving the commitment I had on Thursday.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Joe in that special tone men reserve for Of course I’m not lost, Of course you’re not fat, and Of course I’m going to eat that extra burrito, I have one of those great metabolisms[1]. “You’re over-reacting. It’s just a little snow. We’ve driven in it before. We’ll be fine.”

So, come Wednesday morning, we packed up and headed east through the Canton l’est for a little light shopping and sight-seeing.



Leaving Montreal, it’s a quick ride into the Wide Open Spaces and farmland of Quebec. Thin, empty silos dot the landscape while cows and horses stare balefully at our cherry-coloured car and the sudden scent of exhaust. Great snowdrifts line the road’s edge; trees bow down beneath a heavy dredging of snow. I feel as if I’m in a Christmas card set in Bedford Falls.

Horses stare balefully...

Nothing much in the Cantons is open. At a small deli, we order a sandwich, pain au chocolat, and coffee in French. In the city, everyone assured us the Cantons were very, well, provincial, with not even two words of English to mumble together. For someone who’s never been in a non-English speaking place, the idea is rather thrilling.

“Bonjour,” say I.
“Bonjour,” says the lady.
“Bonjour,” says Joe.
Then we move into the harder stuff, the words we’ve been reciting on Pimsleur, the verbs we’ve been hitting over and over on the DS Lite.
“Avez-vous croissants?” I ask, my tongue stumbling over the rolled r.
“Oui. Au chocolat, ou au beurre?”
“Chocolat. Et un café filtre, sil vous plait.”
“Oui.”
Joe’ turn. “Je voudrais un…sandwich with chevre?”
The lady laughs—then out pours a thickly Canadian accented stream of English. For the most part, I'm relieved. My French doesn’t lend itself to much conversation. But I'm a little disappointed, too. I think she noticed—moments later we're back to French, Joe and I struggling to work out how to ask if we could take cheese across the border (Est-il tres difficile de porter le fromage en l'Etats-Unis?)

Soon, we were on the road again, wending our way through small villages, pausing to post cards and stamps and take pictures by the side of the road. Snowflakes dawdle about our windscreen, sometimes sticking, sometimes drifting across the road like dry desert sand in a hot wind. It’s pretty at first, but as we grow farther and farther away from the towns, it’s a little alarming. Our GPS, Karen (the name of the Australian voice), is guiding us toward a small border-point, past a few outlying houses and up a small hill. We cross the bridge and drive up the slope easily—at first. Then, about ten feet from the “Entering the United States” sign, our little Echo pauses. And pauses. And pauses some more.

I get out. Joe revs the car. The wheels spin. Flecks of orzo-shaped snow flutter forward. I laugh. We’re stuck in our very first snowdrift. (I wish I had taken pictures but my mind was elsewhere.)

Being stuck in a snowdrift is a unique experience. My hands, my ears, my teeth are cold, my scarf is dancing in the snow-littered wind, and I’m excited. This is a story I can tell at family reunions—the day Joe ignored my warning and got us stuck near the border. Our new circumstances immediately light a fire in my loving, wifely heart.

Of course, it doesn’t occur to me that we're actually in trouble. A fair bit of it, to be exact.

Half an hour later, I’m on my knees, shoving a tarp beneath our traction-less wheels. Then I’m up in front of the car, shouting instructions and attempting to push. In the car, Joe is panicking, certain that we’re about to die, but trying to put on a brave face. Sweetly, he’s decided that he’ll die first, leaving me in the car’s diminishing warmth while he walks the few feet to the nearest house and attempts to ask for help in French (Pouvez-vous m’aider, sil vous plait? Ma voiture est dans la neige. Or something thereabouts.)

But now my obstinacy that kicks in. Not only are we not going to die, we’re going to get out of this without help. He’s stronger than me, so we’ll swap. I’ll sit behind the wheel, he’ll push. Never mind the fact that I’ve had a grand total of two driving lessons and am somewhat fuzzy on the concept of the clutch. I’m a quick learner. I know how to order coffee in French after only three days in an open, kindly-peopled bilingual city!

So we swap. Readying myself for hard work, I shuck my jewellery and await instructions. It’s relaxing to be the one receiving instructions.

“Okay,” he says. “Put your foot down on the clutch.”
I hesitate, torn between admitting my ignorance and my actual desire to learn. I stare down at the floor. There’s a bit of black over by the door on my left. That must be it. Very lightly, I slide my foot over it and start to press down. Nothing. Nothing!

Before I can say anything, Joe snorts. “That’s a footrest. You want the long thin one on the left. Right, now, put your hand on the handbrake and push the button in. As you put down the accelerator, you’re going to let the clutch and the handbrake off. Got it?”

I nod. I mean, I can rub my belly and pat my head at the same time. I can write with both hands. I can read upside down and back to front. Co-ordination’s my thing as long as it doesn’t involve walking in a straight line or navigating around a dishwasher. He runs around to the front of the car, digs his feet into the snow, and shouts, “One! Two! Three!”

The clutch lifts; the accelerator goes down; the handbrake stays put. My right hand is clutching the bar and my fingers are curled around the button, but nothing is happening. I push harder, willing my hand to let the brake off, but my finger stays put. Something strange is going on—oh! Realisation dawns. My fingers have frozen. I knew I should’ve kept my gloves on.
[Update: Confused by my inability to shift the handbrake, I had another go tonight. Turns out it wasn’t all me! Joe failed to mention that the bar has to be pulled up slightly before the button is pushed. Ah, I feel good about myself tonight!]

“Turn it off!” Joe shouts. I let the accelerator up. “The clutch! You have to put on the clutch!” Clutch goes down too slowly, the car lurches as the engine stalls. Hand remains stuck.

We try the hill-start a few more times then give up. My fingers still won’t move and Joe is growing even more panicky. We switch back. I push. I pull. I dig. I shove the tarp under the wheels again, supplementing it with my paper grocery bags and swearing in three languages. Then, miracle of miracles, the front right tyre starts to move. I fiddle around the left one. It starts to move. Five minutes later and we’re out. Out, and heading back down the road. We’ll try building some momentum by coming up the road again.

Or so we think.

Just as we reach the bottom of the slope, the wind picks up. The car begins to swerve. Joe begins to swear, yanking on the wheel. I pat my door and try not to pray. Praying’s the last resort. We’re not up to that yet. We coast another metre or so, then bank to the left. Into three feet of snow.

Leaving Joe to curse, I climb out of the car. It’s not good. There’s no damage, but we’re tilted and his door is entirely blocked, snow reaching almost to the window. Sighing, I pull out the shovel, tarp, and bags.

About twenty minutes later, we’re still stuck. The wheels aren’t moving and I can’t get enough traction to push. This time, there are houses in sight, but they all seem quite far away. Trapped inside, Joe is getting quite pale and snappish. Trying to tune him out, I promise myself that I’m buying kitty litter at the next service station then start trying to think of things that will create some much-needed traction. Mats! The mats in the footwells! Glowing with the joy that comes with a definite plan I start dragging our well-worn mats out, arranging them with great care (i.e. banging them into place with the shovel). The wheels start to move a little—the car starts to move forward! Inch-inch-inch-whack! We’re back in the snow.

Another twenty minutes of digging and I realise we’re completely up the creek. The car is definitely in a gutter and, even if I can get that clear, we can’t completely lift that side of the car because it’s the driver’s side. One more go at getting out, then I’m going for help.

I’m down by the wheels raking out the snow when I hear it—the rumbled-scrape-rumble-scrape of a plough. The giant yellow beast pulls up just ahead of us. Worried he needs us to move, I run forward, trying to think of the appropriate French. No matter. “Stuck?” says the driver, a saintly forty-something man of middling height. I nod. “I’ll give you a tug.” Then, just like that, he’s out of the cab, crawling beneath the chassis looking for somewhere to attach the chain.

Five minutes later we’re free. The world’s most wonderful Canadian—possibly the world’s most wonderful man—has towed us, made sure we’re all right, told us that the borderpost we were trying to get to has been closed for twenty years, and helped us sort out the best, safest way to get back to the US. And now I’m in the car, snuggled into my coat, my hands warming in front of the heater. Time to go home.

Except…

While we spend an hour in immigration, the storm picks up. At first, it seems like nothing—we chug on down to the petrol station, get some coffee, chips, and kitty litter—then head on to the highway. We’re a couple of hours behind schedule, but everything’ll be right soon enough.

Except…

Karen leads us through the mountainside, up and around Mt. Washington. It’s dark now, and we pass through a ‘dangerous wind area’. A couple of metres ahead, I can see lights weaving back and forth. My stomach is churning and I feel as if I’m going to throw up, like the whole car is swaying. “I’m just tired,” I think. “It’s nothing.” But the weaving grows steadily worse, until it finally hits me: it’s not the car ahead of us weaving. It’s us.

Silent, I glance at Joe. He’s frowning, and his hands are quite tightly wrapped about the wheel. I look out the window. In the snow, I’d been okay—there were things to do, things to keep fear at bay. But now, strapped into the passenger seat, I’m helpless. And terrified. But I’m still not going to pray. It’s not that bad. It’s just not.

Slowly, we creep out of the wind and toward the flatland. The car is still rocking, but it’s a gentler rocking, the movement slow and steady like a swimmer’s stroke. Suddenly we’re out on clear, gorgeous highway. Joe’s hands relax.

We drive on in silence then, my hand resting lightly on his leg. Snow swirls in front of us but we’ve got decent visibility. As far as I can tell, we’re somewhere in New Hampshire.

Later, Joe starts to look tired. “I’m going to need a break soon,” he tells me. “I need to stretch my legs, get a cup of coffee.”
“Hand me Karen. I’ll try and find a shopping centre or a Wal-Mart or something.”
No shopping centres. No Targets. But yes! There’s a Wal-Mart about twenty kilometres ahead, roughly in our path. I hit the ‘insert as via point’ tab and we’re off. Heat, coffee, food. I’ve never been so happy to go see the evil giant that is Wal-Mart.

“Turn right at the next exit,” drones Karen. We do. “Follow road --- kilometres.” We do. “Turn at the next right.” We do. It’s been about ten minutes. No Wal-mart. “Continue for --- kilometres.” Houses trickle by—the road is littered with frost heaves and we have drive slowly. “Continue --- kilometres.” Still no Wal-mart. We’ve been on the way for twenty-five minutes. Signs for a new town, “Meredith”, start to appear. But still no Wal-Mart.
“Maybe we should turn back,” I say.
“It can’t be much farther. It’s got to be here somewhere.”
Outside, the snow is growing heavier. Trees start to shake.
“We could stop, you know. We’re only a couple of hours from home. There’ll be a hotel around, then we can do the rest of the drive in the morning. We’ve got the clothes.”
“It’ll be right. We’ll just find this Wal-Mart, have a walk, then we’ll be set to get home.”
“I suppose…oh! Oh! Flag! Flag! Karen’s got the flag we must be nearly there!”
And so we were—once we made it up the slope.

*

Finally, blissfully, we see signs for Boston. Boston—85. Boston—73. Boston—52. More cars appear, small flickers of light heading out of town, backed up, backed up, backed up. More snow appears, flying into the windscreen. The road is hidden, buried. Cars crawl along. Joe tries to stay in the make-shift tyre-tracked lane. Hazard lights flicker at the side of the road; blue police lights slice through the night as one, two, three cars, all dinged up, await inspection.

The cars ahead pull off the highway, heading for an exit. Joe drives resolutely on.

Boston—41. Wind whirls about us. Snow sticks to the wipers. Suddenly, the car starts to swerve. Joe swears—the car shifts rightward, heading for the railing. Instinctively, I throw my weight to the left, a reflex born of many games of corners and sandwich. It does nothing. We continued coasting ‘til whack! My side of the car hits the rail and we slide, slipping, swerving, swearing, high grating sounds rending the dark, blocking out the music, our sharp quickened breaths. The car settles. We return to the road. Finally, at this moment, I pray. We’re safe. Now. But that’s three tries. I’m terrified. God, please let Joe be okay. Please let one of us get home. The ferrets need us. The budgie needs us.

Boston—30. Boston—22. We take a Somerville exit. The roads are worse. Snow teases us, hiding the other cars, wreaking havoc with the lights. Somehow, we get on to Mass Ave. Joe creeps along like an old man in a hat. The plumbing van ahead of us starts to slip, then spins, once, twice, until the driver gets it under control. We’re just blocks away now. I want to ask him to park, say we’ll walk the rest, but I don’t. I just scrunch my eyes up and stare out the window.

And then it was over. We pulled into our street, into the same parking spot we’d left. We mounted the stairs and made tea. Then we slept. Travelling in a snow storm is quite exhausting, you know.

[Update: last night, my phone rang at quarter to twelve—the guest who took our room after us had just been woken by the ring of Joe’s phone, forgotten, along with a pair of dress shoes, both tucked up under the bed.]

[1]If you’ve never actually seen a man say that in a self-deluded way, check out Colin Firth’s character in Love Actually. It’s funny because it’s true.



A few more pictures...

Les papillions, from the new exhibit at the Botanical Gardens of Montreal

Birches, Cemetery on the Montreal Plateau

Snow, Ice, and Branches, the Vermont side of Lake Champlain