Neighbours, Friends and Acquaintances

We're getting kind of spoiled. It's still not as cold here as it should be for this time of year. Early this morning light snow fell, and for a brief period of time the world looked as it should approaching the Christmas season, as a bright white frosting lay over everything. By the time we had our breakfast and launched ourselves into the ravine for our daily ramble, the snow had all but disappeared, even though it was still cold enough to stick around.

Going to and then from our walk, we came across old neighbours; Said, who looked a trifle grumpy, quite unlike his normal self. But after all, this is not his holiday swiftly approaching, and he's so bundled up despite the clement weather he betrays his Bangladeshi origins. Mohindar tells us, walking up to the post box, that he could feel better and he too is not his usual cheerful self. Not his holiday either, since he's a Sikh, our very good neighbour.

But then there's Susan whom we've lived beside for almost sixteen years. She looks as young and beautiful as when we first met her. And Susan is always cheerful, never down in the dumps even when she has cause to be. What's this? She's complaining about the damp getting into her bones - and not a word about the pleasure she feels because her parents are set to arrive late this week from Windsor to share Christmas.

We're feeling pretty good ourselves, awaiting the arrival two days hence of our youngest child, from Vancouver, to spend almost two weeks with us before he shoves off for a conference in Montreal. The sun comes out and we decide it would be a perfect day to head off downtown to Byward Market, pick up a load of hefty Jewish ryes, terrific export cheese, and the bi-monthly art magazine that has surely arrived at the magazine shop.

It's a pleasant drive, tootling along the Parkway, beside the Ottawa River. Some days we do that drive and the river is dark and brooding, vastly uninviting, but this day it is calm and broadly pacific. We wonder why there are so many cars parked at the Aeronautical Museum; note there are no sleek black horses out at the RCMP pasture, and pace a runner on the roadside soon outdistanced by our car.

We secure a fairly good parking space, feed the meter, settle Button and Riley into their bags and set off first to the magazine shop where the magazine is indeed in, along with another we always enjoy. Added bonus: we pick up several cards of postage stamps, since I've still got a few charitable donations to send off, a few more cards, and a responding letter to Angelyne.

The usual market stalls are open and full of intriguing-looking items; I feel like moseying here and there to determine exactly what is on offer at various stalls, but I'm urged on to the business at hand and give them a reluctant pass. There's more than enough people wandering about in the never-ending search for something that's different, something they really must have, to keep or to gift someone with.

At the shop where we usually get all of our cheeses we prowl about and finally make our selections. The result is a fairly heavy bag, so he carries that and I take the magazines. Then across the street to the shop that sells all things oriental and we get our heavy bag of kokua rose rice. Time's up! Back to the car, to drive the several blocks to the Rideau Bakery. I sit in the car with the dogs, and he goes in, that's the drill.

A few minutes later I pull my eyes away from the sign that reads "halal meats" and "ethic foods" (has no one ever noticed?) in the windows of the shop next to the bakery, just in time to see a large hulking, hunched figure leave the bakery. He looks remotely like someone I once knew and I wince at the memory. And there's my husband on the other side of the door, causing me to think what's he doing there rather than at the back of the store, making his bread selections?

The man shambles further up the street with the assistance of a cane, stops at the traffic light. He's much too far for me to see his face, although I strain to see if I can make out his features. He crosses to the opposite side, then makes his way slowly in the opposite direction. I could almost swear he turns his head a few times in my direction, but surely that's just me, thinking. It's a wide, broad street and not at all reasonable to think that he might know I'm sitting in a car, opposite.

When finally my husband emerges, arms rigid at his side with the weight of the bread-filled bags he's carrying, he nonetheless switches all the bags to one hand, raises the other in a victory sign indicating his satisfaction with his haul, so close to seasonal party-time. Then, as he opens the driver's side door to release the car trunk he tells me I'd never believe who he just bumped into.

Oh yes, I would, I certainly would. If there was any single human being with whom I had the misfortune to work closely whose very proximity I found troublingly loathsome it was that man. "Aharon", I said, as my husband glanced up in surprise. When he unloaded his treasure and got into the car he said how surprised he was at entering the store to see the man who had been a working colleague almost two decades ago.

This man whose gross physical features and troglodyte shape always revulsed me, but not nearly as much as his grovelling, ingratiating, demanding, sneaky, nasty manner did. I worked directly with this man and found it took a dreadful toll in patience and forbearance to do so. The man was a social climber, an elitist, a religious nutter, a skinflint of the highest order. All elements of character that found no favour with me.

I somehow tolerated working in fairly close proximity with this man for several years, and was happy to be able to sever working connections when we were re-assigned elsewhere. Toward the end of my working relationship with him, however, I found it increasingly difficult to remain openly friendly, and my distaste emerged, which served to confound the poor man, for he obviously could see no reason for me to remove myself as I did from what he obviously felt was his circle of friends.

So when my husband hailed him, asked after his health and whether he was still working for the same institution, he responded in kind, informing that he had acquired several law degrees, was still working and why wouldn't he be? Well, for one thing, with the kind of repulsive personality that he had, his propensity toward self-enrichment at a cost toward others, his subconscious belief in his superiority, socially, intellectually, religiously, he was never what one might assume to be a sterling representative of the working group he represented.

And how is your lovely wife? was the query that came back at my husband. To which he responded that I was just down the street, sitting in the car, and if he liked, he could just walk by and say hello. To which invitation this old friend stiffened and responded with the well-justified hurt of an old grievance: well, why should he, I never took the opportunity to bid him farewell properly, I treated him like dross, so for all he cared I didn't exist...

Thank heavens for small mercies.