To Ease the Passing of Time

I had never met anybody like him before and I have never met anybody like him since. He was unique. His name was Wilford Benjamin Latrémouille, but we called him Willie. Just like Pierre Elliott Trudeau, his father was French and his mother was English. He was perfectly bilingual. He had a hint of a British accent, even though, to my knowledge, he had never set foot in England. We were both French teachers at the Bank of Canada in the 1980s.

Willie was tall and looked a little bit like Borat.[1] He had a unique way of speaking. Maybe it won’t make sense to you, but it was like a loud whisper. It doesn’t matter what he was saying, it was always like he was saying it in a tone of confidence. Willie would burst into your office[2] like Kramer in Seinfeld’s apartment and start telling you a story without any preamble. Let me give you an example:

“What a pity! All those people who died! They didn’t have to die. They all died because of the stupidity and the carelessness of one man.”

“Who died Willie? Whose fault was it? Who was stupid and careless?

“The captain of the Titanic! He was drunk. I saw it on TV last night.

“Of course! I should have known.”

And Willie went on to explain to me that he had seen a program the night before that revealed that the captain of the Titanic was drunk when the ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912.

Borat

There is nothing that Willie liked better than buying something on sale, no matter if he needed it or not. One day he told us that he had just bought three Chinese carpets, each of them guaranteed for a hundred years. We asked him why he had bought three instead of just one since they were guaranteed for one hundred years. “Because they were on sale”, he answered. Willie wouldn’t throw out anything. He was a hoarder before the word ever existed. Besides buying stuff on sale, Willie enjoyed watching pornographic movies. He had an impressive collection.

One day, as usual, Willie burst into my office without knocking. He looked like he had seen a ghost:

“I don’t know what I did to God that He let something so awful happen to me.”

“What happened, Willie?”

“Last night I taped a French TV program about the economy to watch with my students during my class today. I didn’t want to use a new videocassette so I taped over a movie that I had on an old videocassette.” The first thirty seconds were not erased.”[3]

“Don’t tell me it was a dirty movie!”

“Very dirty, indeed!”

“Wow! Who were the students?”

“Four women. Three laughed but one of them was Rebecca.”

“And Rebecca didn’t laugh?”

“Of course not! What do you think? I should kill myself but I’m too afraid to die.” Bloody videocassette!

Rebecca was a voluptuous looking woman who happened to be very prude. She was from Trinidad or Tobago. I don’t remember which one. She was very religious. She sang in the choir of her church. Rebecca had been one my students before, but only for a few months. One day, during a class, she told us that when she went to the Vatican in Rome, a man pinched her butt when the pope was blessing the crowd. She said, “Not only did he do it in the Vatican, but he did it when the Holy Father was blessing us.”, and she was still mad just talking about it. There was another student in the class by the name of Charlie. Charlie liked to tease Rebecca. I think he had a crush on her. He said to her, “Perhaps the guy should have waited after the blessing to pinch your butt. It wouldn’t have been so bad.” You should have the look in Rebecca’s dark eyes.

There was a knock on the door of my office. It was Rebecca. She was looking for Willie. Someone had told her that he was with me in my office. After she came in, Willie looked at me, turned to Rebecca and whispered, “He knows.” Rebecca didn’t beat around the bush. She said, “What you did was wrong, Wilford.[4] I talked with the three other ladies. I f you apologize, we’ll forgive you. Everybody can make a mistake.” “I’m sorry, deeply sorry”, said Willie. “Next time, I’ll use a new videocassette.” He bowed his head and left. Before leaving, Rebecca smiled at me and winked. I got to know her better later. It’s true that she was very religious and prude, but she was also a lady with a big heart and a great sense of humour.

A few months after that incident, I was Rebecca’s teacher. One afternoon, she announced that she had to leave early because she was going to do volunteer work in a Hospital. As she was leaving, one of the other students jokingly said to her, “Don’t work too hard, Rebecca!” Without turning back, with a straight face and in an evenly voice, she said, “I’ll work like a nigger.” When she passed in in front of me, her back to the rest of the class, she winked. The other students were speechless.

A few years ago, I found out that Willie had died.