It's good to be alive

I’ve already told you the story of a delicious recipe a sweet customer had given me back in the early days. Do you recall? Her husband, an Irishman, ate big wieners for breakfast. Almost every morning, he’d show up just before 8, sit down on one of the stools at the counter and order three sunny-side-up eggs, a mountain of potatoes and three large sausages he’d swallow in one go. I couldn’t quite understand why he refused to try our delicious omelettes or generous stuffed crêpes. But, like clockwork, he’d faithfully come in every morning to eat the same comforting dish. This customer, an anglophone, was called Maurice and I eventually named his breakfast order after him: “Eggs Maurice.” This dish appeared on our menu for a very long time and was a best-seller with hearty eaters. As a way to thank me for honouring her husband, his wife brought me a lovely plate of delicious date squares with her own recipe hand-written on a neatly folded, piece of white lined paper. Date squares are just the thing when you want to enjoy a comforting treat that’s both crispy and moist, nourishing and delicious. Read on for Maurice’s wife’s recipe, to which I’ve added my own touch based on some 37 years of experience as a self-taught restaurant cook. To make 9 big squares, you will need a well-buttered 8-inch square ovenproof baking pan. I always double the recipe and I wrap each piece separately before freezing, so I always have some on hand for an evening snack. True, I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but give me a cup of black tea, a good movie on TV and one of these squares, and I’m in heaven. I love dates and I often eat some because they’re rich in vitamin C, E, B2 and B3, and they’re apparently excellent for my old muscles and bones. Did you know? Dates contain zinc and iron and help reduce blood pressure and joint pain. It even turns out they’re rich in antioxidants and have anti-aging benefits. Hallelujah! And now, the recipe! Set the oven to 350°F. Place 2½ cups of chopped pitted dates in a pot with 1 cup of water, 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. My secret? I use orange juice instead of water and replace the brown sugar with a small can (398 ml) of crushed pineapple with its juice. Slowly cook the dates, stirring until you obtain a purée. Allow to completely cool. In the summer, I place the pot in a large bowl filled with ice cubes or in a snowbank if it’s winter. A snowbank is ideal for cooling fudge and caramel while you whisk or even a big pot of soup when you need to quickly serve a warm bowl to hungry kids. For the crumble, combine 1¾ cups of quick cooking oats, 1 cup of regular white flour, ¾ cup of brown sugar, a pinch of baking powder and ¾ cup of softened butter in a bowl. Spread half the crumble over the bottom of the well-buttered baking pan. Press down firmly with a fork or your fingers. Next, evenly spread the date mixture on top. Finish with the remainder of the crumble, pressing very lightly and taking care to completely cover the layer of dates. In recent years, I have been reducing the quantity of oatmeal in the crumble slightly and replacing it with slivered almonds. It’s a great idea that I got from a specialty magazine whose name escapes me now. It seems to always make the squares extra crunchy and every mouthful a bit tastier. The key is to make sure you divide up the crumble evenly. Make sure you don’t put too much on the bottom and run out for the top. Maybe date squares are a bit like life! Everything is a question of balance. “Knowing how to love is just as important as knowing how to work.” Oh, how those words hurt my ears: I’m certainly no master when it comes to balance. We can always improve, however, and it’s never too late to surprise yourself. Cook for about 50 minutes or until the crumble is nicely golden. Allow to cool at least 4 hours or overnight before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. I cut them up directly in the pan once they’ve completely cooled and use my egg spatula to carefully remove each piece. I then wrap each square of happiness individually and slip them into the freezer. I divvy up the squares as follows:  two or three for myself, two for my neighbour, two for my granddaughter and two for the beggar, like my Grandpa Frédéric, in Gaspésie, used to say. I thanked Maurice’s wife several times for introducing me to date squares. My Mother had never made any, probably because dates were hard to come by in the Gaspésie in 1950. After Maurice’s wife had shared her recipe with me, I began making them in my first small restaurant, following her handwritten instructions to a T. The customers loved them for a lunchtime dessert. The taxi drivers were the first to ask for a few to take on the road. I had to double the recipe just to meet demand. Recently, while perusing an old menu displaying “Eggs Maurice,” the famous date squares of the wife of Maurice, the Irishman, came to mind. I had to rummage through my memory, my archives and my old handwritten recipe books to find this famous recipe for date squares. I thought you might like this recipe so you can treat your family and friends over the holidays. You should double it too! From me, to you, with all my love. Cora ❤️

I believe that creating is more than a gift from heaven. After publishing some 250 letters, do I still have it in me to fight routine? Being creative is a state of mind I cultivate daily. Others do it while drawing, knitting or composing amazing music. Sometimes the flame inside me flickers, wanes or soars. Writing for me has become the soil of real transformation. To create, I have to take risks, open myself to the unknown, be empathic and advance slowly like a mouse from a cupboard. I feel my way forward, always worried I won’t be able to successfully pull together ridiculous lexical behemoths. When I was a businesswoman, my favourite hobby consisted of threading lovely beads on a string to make myself bracelets or necklaces I’d wear with pride. I love to create. Today, I assemble vibrant paragraphs to embellish the page. I employ beautiful words; golden agates colouring the meaning of each sentence. All my lines wish to rid me of fear. I’m training to be at peace with making mistakes, surprise myself and be the sole defender of my viewpoint if need be. So many letters have come from my fingers, so many hesitations, fears and perhaps contradictions. It’s as though I’m weeding a new garden every week; a modest harvest for my readers’ hearts. I love creating so much, adding my personal touch and grain of salt, like a brushstroke or springtime breeze. I’ve already told you about Julia Cameron, the well-known creativity coach who suggests we take a blank piece of paper each morning and note down by hand everything that comes to our minds in 20 minutes, without thinking or worrying whether it’s neat. As a result, ruminations, worries, small and big frustrations – everything that stops imagination and creativity from emerging – are ejected. By giving myself completely to this exercise every morning, I quickly realized I was also releasing things that didn’t have an outlet. At the mid or end point, ideas, desires and projects come to light too. Cameron also suggests to re-read our texts no more than once a month so as not to impede the momentum. Creativity experts are unanimous: it’s essential to put our mind to rest regularly, to relieve it from heavy thinking and the usual activities. Isn’t that what I did despite myself during my Alaskan cruise? Every morning, after two or three coffees, I tried to find a topic to write about without any result. Unconsciously, I suppose, I let my thoughts sail on the blue wave. Sometimes I’d desperately search for the heads of surfacing whales, other times I’d be ecstatic over a rose-purple glacier. Unable to translate so much beauty, my white pages remained empty of words. Recently, I wanted to empty my head and finally open my heart. I shared with you this period of my life in Greece, spread over 10 painful letters. Back in those days, I was trying to escape reality. I wanted to embellish it. I wanted to die. But my babies’ tears brought me back to the present moment, and to life. As I write these lines, my Zorba the Greek is 91 and still alive, but he no longer dances. He spent the last 30 years in his native land, in Thessaloniki. Our oldest son recently crossed the ocean to visit him at his bedside in a hospital. He was told that his father had contracted a highly contagious virus. What will become of him? Will I ever manage to forget all the miseries this man caused me? Before death carries him off, may my heart forgive him! Cora ❤️

This morning brings a furious sky like a stormy sea or battlefield, ink blue, black lines, holes in my head and my fingers hard at work, drumming on the keyboard. The days slip between these pages filled with words that make no sense. Through the café’s window, I observe an angel who’s busy cleaning the celestial vault. They colour the vastness of the sky with a single droplet of blue dye. It makes me forget about my dream, my age and the creaking of old bones. Starting out young and green like my favourite tree, I’ve become an ancient aspen that sometimes trembles. In the back of the lot, this majestic tree and I age together. Our spotted coat of bark is becoming more brittle, but our sap gets a bit wiser each day. There are a million words in my knapsack that assemble into half-decent stories with each passing day. My imagination has that power. Every morning, it knits a bit of warmth for me. It remembers old victories, deserved trophies and handsome faces I should have loved. “Writing is only possible by writing,” according to French Canadian author Robert Lalonde. All I wish for is for my mind to turn out nicely written sentences, egregious adverbs and remarkable words that link together to tell a story. I try to soothe my hesitation and fears; I’m afraid of ghosts that might refute me. This morning, the blank page before me is as vast as the Sahara Desert. Back at my kitchen table, I smell the sweat of the wilted September flowers. My old body trembles; I curse the damned ticking of time. Will I soon see the land promised to good women? I try to put my head to sleep, but it stubbornly insists on dreaming with eyes wide open. Could Morpheus leave me behind? After drinking a few cups of coffee to wake up, accompanied by one or two biscotti, I start to write while the clothes go around in the washing machine. Five or six times every day, I look for my magnifying glasses. Maybe they’re under a cushion, on a table buried beneath books, behind a couch or in my Mini. I’m always searching for something. Through the row of windows in my kitchen, I watch as autumn dries to shades of brown; I feel the wind getting colder. The birds have emptied all the feeders. Will they migrate, sleep in the hollow of a tree or in the needles of pine trees? Like I do each year, I’ll throw them a real feast before winter lays its coat on the ground. As a young girl, I remember writing in the basement, near the old washing machine. The grumpy wringer as background music and the bogeyman’s bright yellow eyes watching me through the window. I was 7 or 8 when I wrote my first poems. Dad sharpened the black lead of my pencil with his pocket knife. I wrote on the back of old calendar pages that Mom would save for me. I’d write new words and short sentences, the beginning of stories that I hid in my pillowcase. Seated at the kitchen table made from Formica, we’d cut out our drawings and stick them on the back of pages from the calendar using cooked potato skins. In the winter, we’d skate on the ice-covered stream; my nose ran, my young years floated away. Later, sitting at a park bench in the fall, I’d grab my blue pen and open my notebook. I’d jot down a sentence and then a second, just as wobbly as the first. With loose leaves at my feet and a few ants climbing my leg, waiting for the right word was unbearable, just like it is today. Lost in thought at my big kitchen table, another fragment of the past appears. April 2016, Kyoto. The cherry trees are in bloom, dressed in every shade of pink and white. I visit the geishas’ quarters on foot in Gion. Their faces and necks are entirely white, their lips a deep shade of red. Their makeup is an art form; their outfits as fine as the work of the Old Masters; their smiles indelible memories... I’m ending today’s letter with the extraordinary words of the great writer Nikos Kazantzakis in his last book “Report to Greco.” “My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.” I try to console this aging heart, to coax it to freely say YES! Forced to grow up quickly, I often get the impression I’ve toiled too much. I never learned to dance or to love. Sometimes I hear my heartbeat roar like thunder. Maybe it’s a bell that’s ringing or a fire truck siren sounding, or maybe, a handsome lover falling down my chimney? Dear readers, the sky this morning was heavy with debris and I struggled to write. Was it the raging sky? Was it me? Was it my aging heart, still determined to love? Cora ❤️

Dear Mireille Mathez, Thank you for reading my letter every Sunday! At the end of the summer, you asked for my famous lemon poppy seed cake recipe. Here it is, just in time for the Holidays! Of course, you may also try Ricardo’s version and compare the two. Since my friends love food, I always double the portions so they can enjoy seconds or thirds. Before you start, place the oven rack in the centre and preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Select a large cake or bread pan. The one I’ve been using for 50 years measures 14 inches long, 5 inches wide and 3 inches deep. You could also pour the cake batter into two smaller pans or two round ones, depending on what you have on hand. My life story has been, for the most part, about survival, and yet, at 77, I realize that living is a lot simpler than I imagined. I no longer try to understand those around me. I simply love them, spoil them and occasionally treat them to life’s simple pleasures. My offspring adore the lemon poppy seed cake, and I always double the recipe so I have some to give the children, my neighbour and, of course, my old friends from the coffee shop, who also love my homemade jams. First, dear Mireille, to make a double recipe, carefully wash 6 lemons and finely grate the zest. In a bowl, mix together 3½ cups of sifted white flour, 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds and 4 teaspoons of baking powder. In recent years, I’ve been adding a third tablespoon of poppy seeds. My good friend Eric, a skilled chef, taught me the virtues of this incredible seed. Rich in calcium, poppy seeds are said to strengthen bones and hair, and promote good cardiovascular health. People suffering from anemia can also benefit from their high iron and manganese content to fight fatigue. My friend the chef warned me that poppy seeds tend to become rancid. They don’t have time to go bad in my cupboard, however, because I regularly make this cake. If you get it right, trust me, you’ll find yourself making more. But back to our recipe. Using an electric mixer, combine the following ingredients in a large bowl until smooth and consistent: 1 cup of unsalted butter, 6 eggs, 2½ cups of white sugar, the finely grated zest and juice from 3 of the lemons. Next, add the flour, poppy seeds and baking powder mix. Squeeze the juice from the 3 remaining lemons and set aside to make a light glaze. When the cake batter is thoroughly mixed, carefully line the pan(s) with parchment paper, pour the cake batter in and place in the oven. The cake must bake for nearly an hour, but use the toothpick test to confirm whether it’s ready or not. Of course, I also use my sense of smell and sight to tell if it’s time. Practice will quickly make you an expert. While the cake is in the oven, mix the juice of the 3 remaining lemons with ¾ cups of icing sugar and a little bit of milk in a small saucepan. The glaze will slowly thicken as you stir. Once the cake has cooled, drizzle the glaze over it. Before you start, make sure you have at least 6 large eggs in the fridge. Last winter, in the middle of a snowstorm, after mixing the sugar and unsalted butter together in my large bowl, I realized I didn’t have any eggs. With 4 feet of snow in front of the garage door, I had to wait several hours before my neighbour was able to clear the driveway. I quickly drove to the nearest grocery store to buy extra-large eggs, which I eventually whisked with the butter and sugar, whispering a prayer to the baking gods for good measure. They heard me, because the cake was delicious! From one baker to another, dear Mireille: don’t forget the eggs, and make them extra-large! Letter after letter, like leaves falling in the autumn, I’ve openly shared my life story, my hardships, my challenges and my terrible singlehood which, thirsty as I am, I still carry like an empty pitcher in search of a well. Maybe I should invite my friend Claude over to grate the lemons? Cora ❤️

The calm sea was at odds with the thousand giant fish swirling in my head. What a crazy idea a cruise was! Especially right now, with the company’s office team hard at work refreshing our brand image, concocting new dishes and devising surprises to delight you. So why did I leave? Likely because I needed to let go and give all the experts around me room to do their magic. Despite the small balcony, the incredible view, the gentle roll of the waves, the king-size bed, six voluminous pillows just for me, and a TV almost as big as a movie screen, I missed my world. The morning coffee with my old friends, my iPad with blank pages to fill and the projects that would unfailingly stop to knock on my mind’s front door. Everyone around me had been encouraging me to set sail and take a break. Go and discover Alaska, they said, with its immense glaciers and magnificent totem poles, and enjoy the boat’s gigantic floating buffets, thousand and one enchanting pastries and armada of restaurants, where I could linger as if I were Her Majesty the Queen. It was all wonderful, and yet I found it hard to keep up with the endless delights at my fingertips. All my life, I've been hungry to live and thirsty to share my projects with my children, those close to me, my colleagues and all those who love my big yellow Sun. I walked the length and breadth of the great ship, but I was never tempted by the casino or evening shows. That kind of entertainment has never really interested me. On this massive moving palace, I tried out this thing called “vacation,” and I have to admit, I missed work, writing and my list of projects terribly. My drive to improve my lot in life is still very much alive. Perhaps being in business is like knitting: if you love it, you never stop. A stitch forward, a stitch back. Making progress, whatever the project at hand, keeps my old bones warm. Most of the passengers were couples, accustomed to cruising and living the high life on an all-included package. As for me, I turned in circles. Up and down I went in the elevator, stopping at the wrong level. I confused north and south. A young uniformed Pakistani explained the difference between “starboard” and “port.” Where were the musicians, the singers, the magicians? Where was I exactly, so many miles away from my Sun? The boat was huge, perhaps as big as Quebec City and its suburbs. On this floating island, I lost my bearings. Even when the moon came out accompanied by a thousand stars, the ship hummed like a fantastical city of dreams, games and feasting. The idyllic trip seemed popular with the white-haired crowd. There were certainly plenty of them. The biggest surprise, however, was the large number of Asian families, often with a patient grandmother in tow to look after the little ones. I too could have done with a nanny to tell me a bedtime story. Had I eaten too many sweets? After two consecutive days at sea, a group of us disembarked and walked more than three kilometres to the small village of Sitka. There we admired several totem poles and congratulated the local carvers as they worked. The tiny fishing village reminded me of the poorest village in my native Gaspésie: a wooden church, an unkempt, half-forgotten cemetery and old, dilapidated fishing boats. Of course, every time the boat stopped, tourists flocked to the trays of trinkets. Socks, caps and sweaters saying “ALASKA,” and miniature polar bears and whales of every description. I perused the wares, examined a beautiful shawl adorned with Inuit designs, putting it back to please a young American girl who had her eye on it. All the little villages we visited turned out to be similar; all served the same purpose: to attract tourists and earn a few dollars. In the evening, I’d meet up with my group for dinner, always at the same restaurant, whose menu changed daily. You already know my fondness for seafood, and I certainly made the most of the daily feast. I savoured onion soup or clam chowder and delicious fish plates almost every night. I was dazzled by the extraordinary service: the impeccably set tables, the baskets of tasty rolls, the perfectly rounded butter balls and the magnificent glassware. A member of my Quebec group informed me that the ship housed over 2,000 passengers, with some 1,000 employees at our beck and call. Everything, absolutely everything, was perfect. A seamlessly orchestrated affair, as if a magic wand were guiding the ship. On the fifth or sixth day at sea, we passed by giant glaciers. We were in awe of these icy mountains, captured in photos by everyone who got close to them. Wrapped up to fend off the cold, I took in the landscape from the boat’s highest outdoor deck. In front of me, majestic beauties, photographed countless times. The wind was blowing and my nose was running. A pod of whales appeared, and the ship’s residents cheered when the creatures poked their heads out of the water. Memories of this grandiose show are stored in my heart. Perhaps it was the first time I had been deeply moved by nature. The liner bade farewell to the blue-mauve glaciers, turned around and resumed its northerly course. Passengers who had stayed outside were treated to delicious hot chocolate or chicken ramen soup. I was part of a group of 32 Quebecers, all married except for Aline and me, who had remained single all our lives. I was of course very reluctant to venture off on my own. If I had had a lover at my side, the glaciers would have no doubt melted faster. In any case, let me take Caesar’s famous phrase from 47 BC – “Veni, vidi, vici” – and adapt it to my own story. I came, I saw, I returned. Cora ❤️

I was 20 and 153 days old the day I met the man who’d become my husband. I was a simple, shy and naive young girl who’d studied in an all-girls Catholic school. I was bookish and knew nothing about the pleasures of life. All I dreamed about was attending the Sorbonne in Paris, where I’d been accepted in the writing program. I wanted nothing more than to become an author. Now that I think of it, what in the world would I have written about if I’d never met this odious man who ruined 13 years of my life as a young woman? It’s true, his beauty swept me away. I had studied Ancient Greek civilization and had seen hundreds of statues of Adonis, but the man who pulled me onto the dancefloor was living. He was initially attracted to my friend, but once he settled on me, he looked me straight in the eye; my heart melted like snow in the warm sun. I’d never danced before in my life, and yet I let his arm encircle my waist and pull me towards him. I should’ve known better. In the Ancient Greek civilization I studied, Adonis courted Aphrodite and Persephone at the same time. Zeus, King of the Gods, had to intervene and sort out the rivalry. In the end, Adonis was to spend four months a year with each of them and four months with another person of his choice. A similar story to Husband’s, who kept his multiple goddesses a secret. While I was pregnant with my third child, Husband forced me to abandon everything in Montreal to move to Greece, where he thought he’d easily find work. The money was going to come in faster than we could count. Didn’t he know that all the men his age had left their village for more promising countries? We’d just spent nearly 10 months in Krya Vrysi and had nothing more than when we first arrived, except for an extra mouth to feed. My mother-in-law had finally convinced her son to return to his two brothers in Montreal, where she promised she and her daughter would join us so I could work while they minded the kids. My emotions were becoming clearer for me. My heart could finally imagine better. When Husband ultimately received the money transfer from his brothers, he hurried to Thessaloniki to book our plane tickets. My sister-in-law was crying, her mother was grumbling, and I couldn’t have been happier. The two oldest kids understood that we were going back to “Papy’s” (their Canadian grandfather). They were jumping for joy. I went to get bread and saw my friend Thanassis, who was replacing his father at the local bakery. I was thrilled to see him. — “When are you leaving?” — “I don’t know the exact date yet, but Husband promised me that it would be within 10 days.” — “Your husband,” said Thanassis, “will obviously take his time to haggle down the price of the tickets. Everybody does that with Olympic Airlines. Besides, for a man as pretentious and exceptional as he is, it’ll no doubt work!” I was just glad for my sake. My heart was racing because I was so excited to return to Canada. I would go back to having running water in the house, electrical heat, a telephone, a washer, and of course, a television. All those comforts would make up for the fact that we hadn’t bathed even once in the Aegean Sea. Canadian winters may swallow all the vegetation, but the thick carpet of snow allows us to take a sleigh ride. In Greek villages in 1972, most of the homes had flat roofs which featured one or two clotheslines, depending on the number of occupants. The last load of clothes before our departure turned out to be the most difficult. The November wind bit my fingers as I hung the damp clothes that had been hand-washed and hand-wrung. It was just another reason to leave as promptly as possible before my fingers became red and worn to the bone! What a relief to be headed home. In Canada, we’d be able to once again enjoy frosting on our cakes, pudding chômeur, steamed hot dogs, mustard, ketchup, French fries and mashed potatoes, shepherd’s pie, marshmallows, canned corn, mayonnaise, peanut butter, caramel, sliced bread for toast, large pumpkins and Halloween candy. If we hurried, we might get to see houses decorated with Christmas trees hung with colourful balls. When we arrived in Thessaloniki, getting on a plane was out of the question. Instead, we’d take a bus to Athens. The mere thought of it terrified me. I remembered the crazy gray-haired man who drove us straight into a truck filled with oranges. Thankfully, we had suffered a good fright and nothing more. This time, a young driver sat at the wheel and I calmed down. I had the two oldest kids sitting on each side of me and the baby asleep in my arms. I started to hum a French lullaby, but Husband quickly silenced me. I could only speak Greek to the children even when I sang! At the airport, the winds were gusting strongly, unnerving travellers. The crossing guards at the airport tried to reassure us with kind words. Husband had sat the two oldest kids in a large shopping cart with our two suitcases. The baby wouldn’t stop crying in my arms. In the waiting room, all the passengers seemed worried. Each time I caught a snippet of their conversations, my distress would rise a degree. A powerful wind by the name of “Bora” regularly terrorized the Aegean Sea, keeping the planes pinned to the ground. We were thirsty. We were hungry. We were afraid. Would we safely make it to Canada? Husband was chain smoking, and I prayed in silence. We had to wait until the next day to finally get clearance to leave. With the likely exception of the first-class passengers, everyone who was headed to Montreal had slept on small sleeping mats or the seats in the waiting room. We were finally going to leave Greece. Husband’s dream of barely lifting a finger and becoming rich would never come true. The next morning, we boarded the giant bird and I quickly thanked the great Manitou and pleaded for his mercy to help me get away from Husband. It was impossible for me to flourish in a hostile atmosphere where I was ignored and devalued. I aspired to live in a more noble environment, more virtuous and more generous. A world of goodness, kindness, love, courage and compassion. I was honest and hard-working and very capable of finding a job to feed my kids. As you may already know, I still had to endure Husband for a few more years. Until a certain day in November 1980. I’d been married for 13 years and, that morning, the kids and I found the courage to leave home forever. That was the day I finally emerged from my nightmare. What else can I say about this famous trip to Greece? The National Hellenic Tourism Office would tell you that “tourists from around the world who visit this magnificent country return home dazzled.” Visit and see for yourself! Cora ❤️

I’d been languishing away for nearly eight months at my mother-in-law’s house, with no running water or electricity, in the heart of a poor village that had been deserted by its young people. The angels create an immense quilt out of suffering and beauty, hope and confusion, stitching it together with wool in the colours of humanity. People are works of art that are never quite finished. This morning, I wonder what was the hardest pill for me to swallow: my errors in judgement, my misplaced convictions or this awful wedding I’d agreed to because a child was growing inside me. As a young girl, my faith in the future was inexhaustible. I remember setting traps with Grandpa Frédéric to catch hares for dinner. I loved our walks together in the forest! I’d become the hare caught in the trap of a marriage. Shortly after giving birth to my youngest, I started to feel nauseated. I knew why but I didn’t say a word to anyone. Then, 40 days later during my postpartum appointment, Husband had the doctor perform an abortion on me right there. I never forgave him. That man would slip into me like a small snake in a crack, smoke two or three cigarettes, get dressed and then head out for a good time. My heart was slowly dying. I was never able to oppose Husband’s decisions or go beyond the family’s basic needs to experience genuine happiness with the kids. I of course loved my children, I cuddled and cherished them, and they loved me like kittens in need of milk, warmth and care to survive. They kept me alive. After his mother’s sermon, Husband had only one thought: to pack up and leave. His mother, sister and I were surprised but delighted with his reaction. We would go back to Montreal first to find an apartment and then mother-in-law and her daughter would follow. Poor Husband. He was like an ice cube melting in life’s harsh heat. It turns out not all Greek gods give birth to a sunny “Zorba the Greek,” gyrating out his emotions on the dance floor. The movie was actually inspired by the larger-than-life character Zorba from the novel “The Life and Times of Alexis Zorba,” by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. When Husband partied and danced until the wee hours of the morning, he probably was just as happy as the fictional character, but I was never there to witness it. In my days, Greek men chatted, went out and danced among themselves. Most of them worked in the restaurant industry and partied like the great gods of Ancient Greece. Being much more realistic, it upset me to think that no one would be there to help us start over again once we were back on Quebec soil. Since Husband had gotten rid of the little furniture we had owned before setting his sights on Greece, we’d have to start from scratch again. My sisters-in-law in Montreal had predicted we’d quickly return to Canada. They suspected, and rightly so, that our large suitcases that followed us by boat had never been opened. Husband was going to have to return them to Montreal via the same route. Worry and fear were eating me up. I was wondering if Husband would have enough money to get us home. We had to book the plane and ship the recently delivered suitcases by boat. In addition, we needed to obtain the official documents for our baby who’d been born in Greece so he could leave the country. It couldn’t be a baptismal record; otherwise there’d be no escaping his mandatory military service. In early November, Husband visited the Canadian embassy in Athens twice and finally succeeded in adding baby Nicholas to his passport. “Between expectation and reality lies suffering, between hope and facts there is often disappointment,” wrote Carlos Fuentes. I was hoping for a better life, like rain in the middle of the desert. My friend Thanassis was keeping his distance since his catastrophic trip to Cologne with Husband, and I was left with no one to talk to. Husband was waiting for his brothers to send him money to buy our plane tickets. I felt a mix of shame and fear. While I was rocking my youngest, huge tears rolled down my cheeks, falling onto the baby’s thighs, and onto my life flooded with small daily misfortunes. Would we be able to find an apartment suitable for my kids and big enough to eventually welcome the in-laws? A school that would take the oldest one in January? I felt like a spinning top that never stopped, struggling to stay upright. Fold this, give away that, sew, iron… I even forgot to salt the soup a few times. My sister-in-law tried to calm me and, once the baby had nursed sufficiently, she’d throw me out of the house so I could take my mind off things. One Sunday, I seized the occasion; I borrowed my mother-in-law’s scarf and went to the village church. The Greek pope welcomed me. — “Koritsi mou (or, my girl), what can I do for you? I know you have three small children, a mother-in-law and a sister-in-law.” — “I also have a husband. A lazy man who thinks he was made from Jupiter’s thigh.” — “Your name is Cora, isn’t it?” — “Yes. My Catholic baptismal name is Marie Antoinette Cora.” — “It sounds like the name of the queen who was guillotined in October 1793.” I wanted to tell the pope that the halter placed on me by a shotgun wedding was already pressing into my neck but abstained. After a few exchanges, the man of the cloth dipped his finger in holy water, traced a cross on my forehead and whispered, “Go in peace, young woman.” Where on earth was the peace promised to good women? TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

We’d been in Greece for more than seven months. Husband still hadn’t found a job. He’d come home empty-handed from his trip to Cologne. I never wanted to be a prophet of doom, but I dare say that I had a sense of what was coming. A man like Husband doesn’t change easily. According to his sister Despina, he’d spent his youthful years chasing the county’s prettiest girls. The most handsome Romeo in the village, he of course caught them all. And after his mandatory military service, his seductive power only increased when he returned as an army officer. Shortly after our wedding, this Casanova even told me that the love of his life was a certain Helena, a teacher and mother of two, who had the distinction of being elected the most beautiful woman in her village three years in a row. Had he visited her since our arrival in Greece? Had he spoken to her once, twice, three times? I couldn’t help myself and asked my sister-in-law Despina if Husband had visited his old flame. She replied that yes, he had seen her, “but only twice because her husband Theodoros is still jealous of him like a tiger.” Husband had certainly forgotten to tell me. In any case, he hadn’t told me a thing since he’d returned from Cologne. What had he done there for three weeks? Had he found job opportunities? Highly unlikely. A pizza or souvlaki counter? Maybe a foreman at a manufacturer? Nothing would be good enough for his standards. Would he finally explain to me how we were going to live with two old women and three kids at home? There were no English or French schools in Krya Vrysi, and the two eldest ones barely spoke Greek. Did Husband really want to live in Greece? His clean hands would certainly not be dirtied helping the gypsies harvest cotton. I was at the end of my rope, morally exhausted, discouraged, broken and totally disappointed. Soon I’d have to sell something to buy onesies for the baby who was growing quickly. My wedding ring, perhaps? I no longer wanted to wear it anyways. I tried to calm down instead of dissolving into tears. I took the little one in my arms and sat with him in a rocking chair in the room upstairs. He babbled away and then fell asleep. The cold, rainy weather put me in a blue mood. Was it the right time to speak to Husband about our future? Was he still asleep? It was his mother who spoke first. — “Yavrum (or, my dear child), life in the village is more and more difficult. We don’t have enough money to install running water or electric heat. And even Despina is getting too old to chop wood. We have a garden that’s too big to weed ourselves. Our vegetables generally end up on the neighbour’s table because we have a kind heart. All the grandmothers head to America to help their children with the grandkids. We want to do the same! Despina and I want to live in America. Your two brothers earn good money there and they’ll help us. Yavrum, para calo (or, my dear child, please), let’s go to Montreal as soon as possible and Despina will cook a nice lamb to celebrate our reunion, all of us together.” And I, the good French Canadian wife, quickly added that I’d cook my Greek specialties. “I’ll make stuffed vine leaves, my traditional yuvarlakia soup (meatball and rice soup in an egg and lemon sauce), spinach puff pastries, delicious kourabiedes (almond and butter cookies) and baklavas. My sister-in-law didn’t miss her chance to go one further and said she’d be delighted to babysit my children. Husband stayed silent and smoked one cigarette after the other until his mother and sister stopped speaking. I, like Lot’s wife, transformed into a statue made of salt. Would mommy’s sweet yavrum agree to go back to Canada? My eyes teared up, my heart beat faster and the sky turned a beautiful purple. Is happiness a stroke of luck, a state of being that falls into our lap without warning? I remembered the quote by Goethe I learned in college: “The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.” Life saw fit to make me suffer; but happiness, I tried to convince myself, would surely come later. My eyes suffered, my heart suffered and even my intelligence suffered. I thought of everything I’d had to give up since our wedding: my scholarly studies, the writing I loved so much, my family, my liberty and my own agency. As the wife of this Greek god, under his yoke, I had no rights, no authority, no love, no real intimacy and no right to decide anything. What could I hold onto? This marriage was like a halter that kept getting tighter and tighter, preventing me from moving forward. TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

I didn’t know what to do! I still hadn’t heard from Husband, who was supposed to have gone to Cologne to find work. Our friend Thanassis, who was travelling with him, had come home a few days ago, but still no trace of Husband. Desperate, I decided to go back to the small village library to speak with someone who knew nothing about my life. Knock, knock. The old woman opened the door and recognized me immediately. — “What can I do for you, young girl? You were inquiring about Cologne the other day. Did you hear the big news?” Terrified, shivers went down my spine. My eyes teared up. Had something happened to Husband? Was there a sordid story I didn’t know about? I finally uttered, “Did something happen to a newcomer?” — “HENRICH BÖLL is no stranger. Born in Cologne in 1917, he’s considered to be one of the greatest post-war German authors.” He still lives in Cologne, the city you asked about a few weeks ago.” — “What about him? Why is this important?” — “Young girl, he just won the Nobel Prize for literature! Speaking of which, I have two or three of his books, translated into English, that I could lend you. — “Thank you, but I only read in French for now.” — “But you speak Greek very well!” — “I’m French Canadian, from Montreal. I speak Greek because I married a Greek man who’s originally from Krya Vrysi.” — “Are you here on vacation?” — “The truth? My husband came back to his village supposedly to settle, but he hasn’t found a job that suits him in the almost seven months we’ve been here.” — “Has he tried everything?” — “Shortly after we arrived, he wanted to export flokatis, but he quickly changed his mind. He’s lazy to be frank. He prefers to live it up and doesn’t like to work.” — “Oh, dear. Lazy men are all the same! Old ladies like me know them like the back of our hands. Certainly, many hard-working Greeks earn a good living in America, but all the laziest ones come back to cry on their mother’s shoulder, pretending to be homesick. Isn’t that what’s happened to you? How many kids do you have? The information about Cologne, was that for your husband?” I then poured my heart out to this old wise woman. Forget Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. I’d never learn to speak German. I’d never visit the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), taste an authentic “apfelstrudel” (apple strudel). I swore I’d never let Husband touch me ever again! Back at my mother-in-law’s house, the first thing I saw were Husband’s shoes. They were filthy and covered in dry mud, but I certainly wasn’t going to touch them even though I was expected to clean them. When I walked into the kitchen, my mother-in-law whispered that Husband was sleeping upstairs. He’d finally come home from his journey. After 20 days without a word, I had no desire now to hear how it had gone. To hell with him! My kids were at the neighbour’s with their aunt Despina. I fought the urge to go to the rooftop and throw myself off it. Instead, filled with love for the children, I ran to them in search of their affection. They were lying on the old flokati when I got there. They were screaming and playing. The baby was sleepy but wasn’t crying. I noticed a platter of galaktoboureko (a syrupy pastry filled with custard) and a large pot of tea on the kitchen table. Having barely eaten anything in two days, I devoured the sweet cake she offered me. Back at home, Husband was still sleeping like a log. I was curious but had zero intention of waking him. I ran to Thanassis’ home and found him there, thank goodness. He hadn’t much to tell me since he had gotten into an argument with Husband on the third night they were in Cologne. I could easily imagine why. Thanassis had quickly realized that Husband slept until noon every day. When he’d finally wake up, he’d shower, get dressed, drink four or five coffees and only go out at 3 p.m. in search of a souvlaki bar. “His day starts around 3 or 4 in the afternoon!” exclaimed Thanassis. The tale he told came as no surprise. I had hoped naively that, once back in his homeland, Husband would finally act like a man. — “I was worried he’d do the same thing as in Montreal! I’m at a complete loss. We’ve been in Greece for nearly seven months and the oldest one is already behind on his school year.” TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

Thirteen days without news about Husband, who was likely still in Cologne searching for a job. My mother-in-law was starting to worry about her son and Thanassis, the family friend who’d joined him. Would the two travellers run out of food? Despina, my sister-in-law, said she was certain they’d surprise us with good news upon their return. She’d discussed it with her mother: They’d agreed to move to Germany and live with us. Despina would babysit my little ones and I could get a job to help out. In early October, the gypsies who picked cotton were starting to arrive in our village of Krya Vrysi. They put up their tents a short distance from the houses and dug a hole in which the women and older kids kept a fire to cook and stay warm when night fell. What an experience I had! When they were all set up, I visited and brought them a dozen of the baker’s day-old pastries. The women and children had a feast! Even the smallest ones pulled on my skirt to get a taste too. After more than six months, the five suitcases Husband had shipped by boat, in which I’d put all our belongings, had finally arrived. Since Husband was out of the country, Despina and I arranged for the suitcases to be delivered to the house. I didn’t open them, however. Weren’t we going to leave any day, as soon as our two prospectors came back from Cologne with good news? The three of us women were worried and prayed in silence, but outwardly were waiting as if summer were around the corner. I’ve never forgotten this verse from Matthew: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” This worry, this cruel wait, destroyed any hope I had. Maybe Husband had met another woman? In 1972, we didn’t have mobile phones capable of saving a life (like my own). Suddenly, imagining the worst, I was overcome with dread, which I didn’t dare share with my sister or mother-in-law. One night, I tried sleeping snuggled with my kids, my breast warming the littlest one. A thousand horrible ideas flooded my head and I fought to keep them at bay. I wanted to escape and discover the promised land the Great Manitou was keeping for me somewhere. The next day, tired, battered and discouraged, I got up and warmed a big pot of water on the stove to wash my babies. I dressed and fussed over them and did their hair before asking my sister-in-law to watch over them for an hour. I went to the village baker to question him. He was dressed in his usual large white apron. I asked him if he had any word from his son Thanassis, who was travelling with good-for-nothing Husband. Did he know when the two travellers would be back? The baker remained mum, and only spilled the beans after I cried my eyes out. Thanassis had arrived home three days ago and was forbidden to let us know that he had returned. I felt my knees going weak. — “Please, sir, may I talk to your son?” — “He’s in Veria (neighbouring village) buying a new type of yeast for croissants.” While I wept, I told him that my kids and I really loved his croissants. I was very grateful to him that he had told the truth about Husband although he was sworn to secrecy, and for all the day-old breads and unsold buns he so generously offered me. Every family moves at its own pace, but mine was moving in reverse and was at risk of collapsing. As soon as I returned home, I went upstairs without saying a word and I went to the little one, who was sleeping like an angel, to hug him. Crouched down on the kitchen floor, my sister-in-law was washing hers and her mother’s bedsheets in a large bucket. Water was starting to quiver in the large pot on the stove. Once that was done, Despina would hang the sheets outside and wash the children’s clothes. Just like a real family, we helped each other. My spirits were low; I was totally dejected. I wanted to talk to my mother-in-law, but I stopped myself. Where on earth was Husband? I would have to wait for Thanassis to get back to the village to talk to him. I dressed the two oldest ones nicely and we went to a coffee shop on the main street to share a small baklava. The delicious treat raised our spirits a little. I loved my mother-in-law and her daughter, but I was fed up waiting for a man who wasn’t a husband or a father. I’d only ever seen him once with a child in his arms. There was only one conclusion: He didn’t love us. This man never cuddled me, protected me, encouraged me, congratulated me or loved me. I never saw him show affection to the little ones or spend time playing with them. It was the cold hard truth. I was simple and naive when I met him. He lost no time deflowering me and I was oblivious then about how babies were created… Nine months later a baby boy arrived. He wrongfully accused me, for the rest of our married life, of lying to him about being a virgin when we’d met because there was no telltale red stain that night he stole my innocence. He had wanted me to get an abortion, but I refused. So his two brothers forced him to marry me and I said yes. A yes I quickly regretted. Even 50 years later, it’s still like a drop of poison every time I think about him. My biggest regret is having met him. While I was languishing away in a poor, almost deserted village in Greece, what was Husband doing in Germany? Was he even there? Why had his travel companion returned home without him? Not only was I regretting some of my life choices, but I cursed everything he forced on me. TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

My friend Thanassis insisted so much that Husband finally accepted to take a short trip to Germany to look for a good job. Many Greeks travelled there to get acclimated and explore the opportunities; they’d settle in the country’s largest cities, where every street corner bustled with commerce. Newcomers were almost certain to earn good money either as factory workers, clothing store owners or fast-food operators. “What’s the best city to visit?” I asked. Thanassis replied that almost all German cities were thriving and attractive in their own way. One of his cousins had opened a souvlaki bar in Cologne in July 1965 and, 7 years later, owned a total of 8 and was now rich. I went to the small village library to try to learn more about the city of Cologne. I liked the name and I’d almost certainly like its smell. Knock, knock. An ancient-looking woman who must’ve been 100 opened the door. — “Ti thelis, koritsi mou?” (or, what do you want, young girl?) I explained the reason for my visit. The librarian took a piece of paper out of a wooden file cabinet as old as herself. — “Everything is decrepit in this old place, young miss, but our fact sheets are updated every five years for foreign countries. In 1970, the city of Cologne had 1,073,096 inhabitants.” — “Could you tell me, ma’am, how many kilometers do we have to drive to get from Thessaloniki to Cologne?” — “Ask the mayor. He goes twice a year to visit his daughter and 3 grandsons. I would have loved to accompany the two men on the trip, but it was out of the question. Three babies depended entirely on me at home! Thanassis informed me that the distance between Thessaloniki and Cologne was 2,157 kilometers – about a 20-hour drive – plus hundreds more kilometres more to visit the city properly. Moreover, the German language is unusual. It doesn’t come from the tip of the tongue, but rather from the throat. Its tonalities are hoarse, guttural, rough and rocky, like pebbles tumbling down a mountain. “Does Thanassis speak German?” Husband asked. Under my mother-in-law’s watchful eye, my sister-in-in-law Despina and I prepared a basket filled with food for our explorers. Spinach puff pastries, wine leaves stuffed with meat, roasted eggplant slices, pickled beets, feta, the basturma (thinly sliced air-cured beef) Husband loved so much, a dozen chicken oregano skewers and, of course, a large kilo of tzatziki I’d made myself with freshly grated cucumber. In that very moment, I experienced the strange happiness of realizing that my heart never gets discouraged, it’s only capable of hoping. I made the most of Husband’s absence to convince his mother little by little to come live in Canada with Despina. Life in the village was becoming very difficult without a man at home. The arms of neighbours and cousins were no longer enough to help maintain the old 2-story cement house. Each night, when I rocked my babies to sleep, I prayed fervently we’d leave this almost deserted village. If it weren’t for my kids, lightning could strike me and I wouldn’t care! But they were my flesh, my heart, my thoughts and my tearful eyes which, slowly, were becoming clear. With Husband gone, the three little ones and I slept in the middle of the bed and dreamt that we were in paradise. The following morning when Despina went to the post office, she learned that five large suitcases had arrived in town for Husband. After more than six months, our possessions from Montreal had finally arrived in Greece! I was immediately tempted to send them back home, but I hesitated. Would we wait for the baker’s old truck to collect our suitcases in which I’d hidden a few books in my undergarments, where Husband never looked? I was worried, I was crying and I was dying to write a few lines of poetry to unload my burden. Like open wounds that bleed and dry without healing, my needs were never satisfied. Seven interminable days had gone by since Husband and Thanassis had left for Cologne and I still hadn’t heard from them. Had Husband found an interesting, well-paying job? Perhaps at a souvlaki bar run by a Greek? Or a position as foreman in a fur coat factory? In Montreal, in those days, most of the Greek wives worked in fur coat factories. They’d skillfully sew the lining. They weren’t paid by the hour or the week, but by the number of coats they could line a day. The luckiest ones could count on the grandmother who lived with them to take care of the kids while they sewed away. And so these brave immigrant women would bring 2 or 3 coats home to sow after dinner, supporting their husbands until the restaurant took off. What could I have done to support this husband of mine who danced until the wee hours of the morning and slept until noon? Not to mention his penchant for seduction! Once, at my cousin’s wedding, I saw him in action on the dancefloor with the girls who practically had to fan themselves to keep from fainting from just watching him wiggle around. His absence was like an open door. Remembering that moment on the dancefloor, I was tempted to dress my babies and run! TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

On our way back from the hospital, neither Thanassis, my husband or I said a single word. The unease was so overwhelming, you could feel it in the air. I had woken in a puddle of blood on the stretcher and was asked to swallow two pills; I was in a state of shock. I’d given birth to a lovely baby just a little more than 40 days ago and now blood flowed between my thighs once again. The old doctor had damaged, butchered and aborted me. When Husband got me pregnant with my first child, my two brothers-in-law had convinced him to marry me because I was the first one of his conquests who refused to go through with the abortion he wanted. It was a shotgun wedding. I’d agreed to it then, but this time, I wasn’t even given a chance to voice my wishes. I was thirsty. On the backseat of the old car the village baker owned, my body was contorted in pain. In front of me, Husband smoked like a chimney and entertained himself by trying to keep the smoke in his lungs for as long as possible. In his empire of silence, he completely ignored me. I looked at my friend Thanassis in the rear-view mirror and my mood lifted. — “Please, Thanassis, open a window. My mouth is completely dry. I need to drink water.” Husband continued to ignore me and swallow cigarette smoke until we stopped at the only gas station between the city and the village, located almost at the halfway point. — “Let’s get out and stretch our legs,” Husband said. — “Good idea,” replied Thanassis. I opened the backseat door and did my best to get out. As I took a step, I noticed that I’d stained my dress and the backseat and that blood was trickling down my legs. — “Thanassis, please ask someone for a wet cloth so I can freshen up. And if there’s a woman around, I’d like to talk to her.” An elderly woman seated in a corner dropped her knitting and approached me. She understood the situation immediately when she saw my frightened eyes, my pale face and my legs glued together. The old woman wiped the blood from my thighs and handed me clean strips of fabric and suggested I go lie down while she cleaned the backseat of the car. Once inside, she led me to the back. That’s when I discovered that the gas station housed a small secret room from which the elderly lady provided nursing services as well as the occasional abortion for local women. She helped me onto her makeshift bed covered in old bedsheets. When we finally made it back, I immediately told Despina, my sister-in-law, that after the usual postpartum examination, I’d been put to sleep without my consent and that they’d removed the embryo of another child. “Men have no idea what women go through. I was happily married and I gave birth to a still-born son,” she told me.  After a few tears were shed, I told her about the old woman at the garage. According to Despina, it was a well-kept secret that everyone knew, but never talked about. Halfway between Thessaloniki and the few villages near Krya Vrysi, young girls who ended up pregnant illicitly visited the old woman at the garage. She’d remove the unwanted package and sew up the hymen so the young girl would be eligible for marriage again. This reminds me of a story from the time I lived in Montreal. I’d been married for just over two years and my belly was almost ready to deliver my second baby, a daughter. One of Husband’s good friends had invited us to his upcoming wedding. Mercifully one of my sisters-in-law lent me a maternity dress that fit me. Born in Canada to a couple of Greek immigrants, the 17-year-old bride worked with her father who’d become a restaurant owner on Park Avenue. She spoke English and French perfectly. In those days, believe it not, it was customary for the future husband to sleep with the bride-to-be a day or two before the wedding so that he could be certain of her virginity. Unfortunately, in this case, the promised girl wasn’t. When the groom’s mother found out, she promptly cancelled the wedding. The future husband who loved his bride dearly, ended up with empty arms and a broken heart. But let’s get back to the day after my follow-up visit at the hospital. Husband was up and he was holding the littlest one in his arms. He was tickling him to try and make me laugh, I guess. It was my third baby, but he was holding one of his children in his arms for the very first time. Did he want to be forgiven, exonerated, pardoned? Did he want me to believe that he’d done us a service the day before? Everything about his behaviour exasperated me. He was an uneducated, lazy, ignorant man who was full of himself, irresponsible, illogical and unpredictable. The latter terrified me the most. Did he still think that life in Greece was a lot easier than in America? It had been over six months, and he hadn’t yet found an opportunity to make a good living. Had he even actually looked for work? That month, the garden was exploding with vegetables. I’d harvested and stored them on the second floor of the house. We’d gotten so many onions that I had to teach Despina, my sister-in-law, how to make preserves. One day, I dispatched a big white chicken for dinner. The kids had fun playing with the bird’s feathers. The oldest loved chicken thighs with shoestring fries prepared in a cast iron pan. The kids would ask for ketchup! What to do? I puréed a few ripe tomatoes and made homemade ketchup. At the end of September, I started to worry. Seeing that Husband still wasn’t working, the baker gave me day-old bread and a few unsold buns for my kids. Were Husband’s pockets truly that empty? I had no idea how much he had. At the village coffee shop, the men were all talking about the terrible lack of good-paying jobs. — “Where could we go?” — “Maybe Germany?” whispered Thanassis. “Most Greek men are already there working in factories, on farms or in restaurants.” — “Germany, Canada or the US… it’s all the same!” barked Husband when I tried to test the waters. — “How about Hamburg, Munich or Cologne? Your two brothers live like kings in Canada with their restaurants. Their families want for nothing. Please let’s return to Canada. Let’s ask for the baby’s passport and go. Let’s not delay!” TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️