Awake at 3:30, I listen to his regular breathing for an hour, and finally give up. I fumble for my glasses, my watch, reach for the shoes under the bed. Last night's clothes are on top of my knitting basket; I take those and quietly feel for a pair of tights in the dresser drawer.
Out in the living room it's dark but I manage not to stumble over the backpacks we left there late last night. I peek through the shades: no snow, no traffic, just the click of someone's heels in the distance. The thermometer reads 39 F, warmer than I anticipated. I pull on tights, yoga pants, two cotton knit shirts, a sweater, two unmatched socks, find a thin black hat that will fit under my helmet, a fleece headband, my leather gloves. The closet door squeaks but I slide my down parka off its hanger for the first time this year, shoulder the backpack, and head out the door.
The cold air and night wind feel good on my face. I've forgotten a scarf but pull up the neck of the parka, and ride down the alley and up one of the Plateau's narrow streets, the cars sleeping nose to tail, the houses dark behind their lace-curtained doors. A cat. A single woman crossing Mont-Royal. A bus on St-Joseph, and one or two lone taxis, dorsal fins alight, like fish separated from their school.
In the space of two blocks the despondency of sleeplessness changes to quiet exhilaration, as if each round of my pedals is pumping a drug into my bloodstream, but it's the silence and solitude that are intoxicating me, and the familiar turned exotic by the unfamiliar hour. The shuttered depanneurs, the red lights I ride through unhindered, the empty schoolyard. I look at the blank school windows imagining drowsy hamsters and fish, and in the dark stone recesses of St. Stanislaus, a sanctuary lamp glowing with a red flame.
Laurier too is deserted but when I ride past the sous-sol windows of Fromentier I see lights, and circle back on the sidewalk. The smell of bread wafts up to the street, and yes, there they are in the back by the brick ovens, two bakers, one making croissants and one, baguettes. I lean my bike on the rail and take out my camera-- voyeur, amateur -- watching their practiced motions through the viewfinder; the baguette man lifts the risen loaves on linen canvas like a stretcher; they lie in pale rows awaiting the fire. He raises his head and sees me, I take the camera from my eye and wave, an apparition in a helmet; he smiles and goes back to his work.
At the depanneur au coin there's coffee brewing, and someone's getting gas. Down the street, the lights are on at Chez Menick the Sports Barber, and I stop to marvel at the painted floor, the red-white-and-blue color scheme, the hockey-stick tables I've never noticed during the day.
I turn into the factory block to head up to our studio. It's the darkest place I've been since leaving home, except for the cold silvery moon. She's a pin-up moon tonight - voluptuous and distant - hanging on the black wall of this oiled and gritty industrial landscape. A rumble begins to the east: a train on the Canadian Pacific tracks. Soon it clatters into sight, gaining speed, all muscle and steel, and I watch it pass under the cool gaze of the moon.
