Combat Journal for Place d'Armes. Scott Symons
amidst La Place Ville Marie, Sun Life (no hawk in sight) and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel (Fr-Cdns call it Le Reine Elizabeth — even the Queen has changed sex in this goddam country!)
Quebec Hydro — Christ, pull yourself together — Hydro Québec: that’s what the “nationalization” was all about — the provincialization, the French Canadianization of the hydro, three yrs ago.
Taxi drops me at edge of La Place d’Armes. Proceed on foot — to reconnoitre. Not much snow — fortunately.
Don’t want to see too much yet. Not till I dig in, get some sort of control centre for Operation Place d’A. Otherwise might shoot the whole venture prematurely. Phtt … 10 years out the window. Mortal expenditure — & nothing to show for it. Except the notes kept while in training, intermittent, these past 7 years, & they are, at best, sketches — undercover sketches!
just take an oblique glance, out the side of my head … yes — still there! A few changes — one big one :Who is it?
retreat down sidestreet, right under the nose of Target — & set out to find quarters. Sthg nearby — not more than 5 minutes from the Square. I’ll have to scout the quarter, foot by foot this next fortnight:reinterpret every map — translate them. All out of date — & more dangerous — all deceptive, deliberately — hiding the Place. Know that from odious experience (that night, in ’61 …)
Ethg will be disguised! Masked.
I’ll have to devise my own map … prerequisite for safe encounter with Target. Will be tricky — every foot of the way mined.
Can’t find right digs — ideally a small pension over the Square. Best facing the body of Target — bull’s eye!
Small hotels — five blocks East (Old Directions) … several — in a sub-Square: La Place Jacques Cartier (meaning?) What is relationship between Square & sub-Square — Big Place & Little Place.Conniving. I’m wary tho. Make sure to find out. Excellent proximity.
Question of hotel … which one? Comes down to two: one faces City Hall (Old Style) & the old Market & the belltower of Sailors’ Church. The other faces La Place — tho I can’t see it from here.I’ld rather face forward blind, than backwards visual. Moreover the seamstress on the second floor reminds me of … no matter
Hotel Nelson. Why? Aside from its relationship to Monument in the Little Place it confronts.
Kick me all day for choosing this hotel. Too much like an old hen. But it is the right one — the one that 1st engaged my attention, my loyalty. Besides, each time I go out I’ll interrogate the view from the other, wondering why I didn’t take it, & that way get best of each world.
If I’m wrong I’ll move (tho I never will! Besides it would attract too much attention.)
Installed by nightfall. Try to read; fail.
Why have I come? I would give anything to know & more not to know!
Squander remaining energy on this why for. Flee to dinner, across La Petite Place. Buy conscience off with spaghetti, soup. Slink to sleep.
Hugh awoke slowly — dredged himself from bed, and installed himself at his portable typewriter, duty-bound. It had been his faithful comrade-at-arms for eight years. An Olivetti Lettera 22; it had never failed. He had written his first book on it. And ever since. He opened his briefcase, reached in for his Journal, and started to type.
“The morning is deep downcast in me, numbskulled, and my brain bloats against greysky. Catch my dreams by the tail … reach out to prey upon them. But they are gone even as I reach … Well, if I can no longer feel, at least I do have time to think. I have reached shelter, a hide-in, and I think I am undetected. No one knows I am here. I’m not even sure I realize I’m here yet. And certainly no one knows why (I like to think that I don’t know why — but I know deep in my bone I do, that’s why I’m here.) If anyone did know then my Disaster would be disastered. The important thing now is to keep a meticulous record of the assault, so that if I fail at least the ground will have been broken. If I succeed then others can follow; the results will be self-evident. In either case a day-by-day account, in detail is essential. For the novel — and for the Real Thing. I’ll keep on taking notes. And then write them up as I can in this journal. Flesh them out … flesh me out!
Irony: I bought this journal six years ago, when I was still in Montreal, with CBC … meant to keep a daily record. Never did. And now I’m here, writing it, because I didn’t dare then … didn’t dare me. Serves me right. Remember the day I bought it — after lunch with George Carter, at Delmos Oyster Bar, walked along la rue Notre Dame and down-dropped in to an antique shop … one of his clients. All that Canadiana (little did I suspect then it was my culture in the raw). It was lying in the bargain pile on a gate-leg table. Picked it up unthinking, uninterested … perhaps to look interested, perhaps to protect me against other purchase — the redflare of cover caught my eye I guess, the red and black while George talked shop … balancing the book in my hand — an old-fashioned journal and notebook — my hand tested by its heft, substantial. With a good spine to it. None of that paperback stuff (a paperback culture has no tiger in its tank — must needs make one up). And open to the marbleized end-papers … curls my coil (there’s the rub).
Plus a pocket for papers … containing one reproduction map of old Montreal and a couple of postcards — one of the Bank of Montreal, the other of Notre Dame’s gut …
Bought for $1.
George laughed — “You’re a symbolist.”
“Why?”
“The date — 1867!”
I hadn’t even noticed … But I never wrote a word in it: fled to the respectability of Toronto instead.
Stop yapping and write!
7:46 a.m. Waking this morning and even last night I was aware once again that my novel is in fact some deeper assault on reality than I care to admit. It is … it is a war — between reality and me. Maybe it’s a Holy War. I can’t tell (stop lying — of course it’s a Holy War!) Alright — it is a Holy War — so this journal which is a diary which is my log-book is really a Combat Journal. It couldn’t be anything else. I should type it in red.
Must keep a duplicate. In the hotel strongbox to be forwarded to Eric in case of emergency. I know he’ll see to it that it is published. (Don’t let me down Eric — you have no right to. What I say belongs to my community — to what is left of it, that is. It is all I have to give. All! And if they don’t want it … well at least they can never say they weren’t told.)
Between my notebooks, my Combat Journal, and what I manage to write of my novel, the picture should be complete. As complete as I can make it. And if I succeed, then I’ll have my novel from it. Then the rest can be set aside….
But I’m not going to fail. I have no right to do that either. I am honour-bound to succeed … And I must bind me to my word. Screwed to the sticking point! I’ve rubiconned every river that ever ran, bombed every bridge — just to make sure I’ve cornered my cowardice. For the rest, ten years of meticulous preparation. Of training. Maybe fifteen, if I include those first years, at the University of Toronto … when I furtively, almost unwittingly, protected my counterpoint to the Amurrican Dream. Ten years anyhow. Ten years of tacking back and forth — but always to the same end. Always the same preoccupation.