him on his languorous, psychedelic voyage. I rose from my bed, opened the door to my room, and announced, “Okay, Mrs. L, I’ll go.”
My decision set in motion nine weeks of shopping and packing, warning and lament. I didn’t mind; my mother’s focus on the great event coincided with my own impatience. I daydreamed more than usual at school; I drew log cabins and pine forests in the margins of my notebooks. The school year dragged on, until one fine morning our teacher, a tough little mouse of a woman, marched into the classroom with a stack of report cards, handed them out, and sent us home.
The next day my mother packed the last three items on her list: toothbrush, hairbrush, a tin of Bubby’s pastries. The Camp Bakunin pickup spot was a side street in the St. Henri district, just south of downtown; from there a bus would take us to the campgrounds. I kissed Bubby goodbye and extracted from my mother a promise to translate my letters home into Yiddish. Bubby was happy for me, and she waved from the window as we set off.
Lugging our new four-piece green nylon luggage set, my mother and I boarded a city bus. My mother grabbed the sideways seats up front, retrieved the address from her purse, and harassed the driver with continual reminders to let us off at the right stop. He finally turned around and asked her to be quiet. Fanya wasn’t offended— such little lambs these Canadians— but she mistrusted people in charge, even if they were little lambs. When we reached our stop, the driver suggested we leave by the back door, and as we struggled with our suitcases my mother called out for all the world to hear— wait wait mister don’t close don’t close—
Sweaty and out of breath, we made our way towards the meeting place. There were large sections of Montreal I’d never seen, and I was enchanted by the little clapboard houses, with their skewed stairs and toy shutters, all happily sinking into decline. This was exactly what I wanted for myself, I thought. I wanted to live here, or at least know someone who did. The shutters and doors were cobalt blue, cherry red, sun yellow, or had been left to weather, and the layers of peeling paint had faded into a montage of floating colours.
The counsellors were late, and we all stood in awkward silence with our awkward parents. We were an odd lot. A heavily built boy whose eyes were nearly invisible behind the thick lenses of his glasses was singing “Yesterday” to an imaginary audience. He spread his arms in that old-fashioned Paul Anka way, a showy display of humble magnanimity. His friend, who seemed to be his mirror opposite—skinny, with a sharp, clever face—urged him on with a peculiar mixture of mockery and affection. A wisp of a girl dressed in black sat on the sidewalk reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra . Her twin sister straddled their navy aluminum trunk with a bemused expression on her face; for some reason, she was wearing a tiara and a superhero cape. Across the street from us, a frail boy held his mother’s hand and muttered advertisement slogans to himself: Try it, and see for yourself. A few extra pennies, a lot more value .
My mother was no less conspicuous. When the bus arrived, she changed her mind and clung to my shirt, begging me not to go. It was too late. I hopped onto the bus and blew kisses through the open window as she wiped her eyes.
Our counsellors stood at the front of the bus and introduced themselves. Just as I’d thought, they were hippies. You could tell by their long hair and extravagant hats, their bead necklaces and leather wristbands. Olga had drawn sunflowers under her round, earnest eyes; Bruno was nervous but kind; Sheldon had Arlo Guthrie hair and a Bob Dylan smile. Jean-Marc, bearded and headbanded, was the oldest (forty-two) and in charge—if anyone could be said to be in charge. Until recently he’d been Jonathan Markowitz, but he’d taken up the Québécois cause and had changed his name in an act of solidarity.