Moments in Time, Volume 2: Finding My Way, Sharing

By Peter Cavelti

In the second part of his memoir Peter Cavelti chronicles his arrival in Toronto, where he easily settles into the city's bohemian and corporate worlds and embarks on a most unusual business career. Torn between his passion for adventure travel, creative pursuits and corporate opportunities, he struggles for context and direction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Legacy Editions
• Release date: May 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778031649

Peter Cavelti

Peter Cavelti was born in Switzerland and spent his early adult years backpacking through Africa and Asia. In 1972, he emigrated to Canada, where he still lives. His early writing focused on investments and geopolitics, topics he was very familiar with from his successful career as a financial executive. In 1997 his widely acclaimed cultural study of the South Seas, "Tuiavii's Way", was published in Canada, Australia and Japan. He also has a novel, "A Dangerous Remedy", to his credit. He loves the outdoors, adventure travel and family life.

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Cover: Moments in Time, Volume2 by Peter Cavelti. Pink-purple background image with bubble of various sizes containing images of the author.Back cover: pink-purple gradient with the floating names of serveral cities, countries, and regions significant to the story.

MOMENTS

IN TIME

Also by Peter C. Cavelti

Tuiavii’s Way: A South Sea Chief’s

Comments on Western Society

Legacy Editions, Toronto

and Sanseido, Tokyo

A Dangerous Remedy

Legacy Editions, Toronto

How To Invest In Gold

McClelland & Stewart, Toronto

and Follett Publishing, Chicago

Gold, Silver & Strategic Metals

McClelland & Stewart, Toronto

and McGraw Hill, New York

Title page: Moments in Time, volume 2: Finding My Way / Sharing

Peter C. Cavelti was born in Switzerland. He lived in Africa and Asia, before immigrating to Canada, where he pursued his career as a financial executive and writer. His books have been published internationally.

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Copyright © 2022 by the Author

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission by the Author.

ISBN 978-1-7780316-4-9

Library and Archives Canada

Cavelti, Peter C. (Peter Christian), 1948-

Moments In Time: The Experience Of My Life / Peter C. Cavelti

Volume 2

Cover Design: Richard Moore Associates, New York, Hanoi and Saigon

Content Design: Laura Brady, Toronto

Finding My Way

Sometimes I catch myself telling my grandchildren how I arrived in Canada with little money and only one personal contact, Norman. There’s no need to tell them what I achieved and how well-off I am. They know that. So, instead, my narrative centres on my many struggles and my determination to prevail. For a few seconds I see myself as a young man, enduring rejection and overcoming obstacles and, driven by vision and willpower, succeeding against colossal odds. I feel a bit giddy then, but soon after the mists of self-delusion lift. I correct myself, awkwardly adding that determination was only one factor behind my accomplishments, and, more importantly, that I came here with bequests far greater than the sum of money I carried and the person who welcomed me.

I keep it vague, tell them about the obvious things. How, having experienced life in Africa and Asia, the opportunity of being in one of the most stable and prosperous countries was not lost on me. How precious a gift good health was, and how being blessed by intelligence helped me in my new existence in Canada, and would surely help them.

I don’t talk about thornier issues, the ones that took me years to figure out. It would be too complicated to explain how, after leaving home for good, I thought of my parents in emotional terms, as flawed, tragic figures, each caught in a dynamic that denied them appreciation for their goodness and their generous intentions. Here was my mother, socially inept, overly judgmental, and completely absorbed by the minutiae of her home life, over which she exercised complete control. And there was my dad, charmingly simplistic in his always positive outlook, but starving for intimacy, love and acceptance, which were unattainable in his marriage but which he found in abundance elsewhere.

For years, this gloomy assessment of my parents kept me from seeing the obvious: I had inherited priceless traits from each. If I could only absorb Mami’s acceptance of responsibility and organizational ability and combine it with Papi’s unbridled confidence and his ability to reach out to others, I’d have it made. But I wasn’t there yet, nor did I see two other, even greater, gifts I had arrived with.

The most important is that my parents, against all odds, managed to infuse me with a feeling of stability and love. No doubt my grandparents had contributed to that too: Grossmami and Grosspapi had always been vessels of limitless acceptance and infinite love. But the fact is that my visits to Chur were relatively rare. After all, I spent the majority of my time living with my parents and siblings. When I consider the emotional upheaval we lived through as a family, with Gaby’s and Reto’s near-deaths and subsequent health struggles, Mami turning inward to keep chaos at bay and Papi seeking solace elsewhere, it’s remarkable, if not miraculous, that I always felt loved and protected.

In my thirties, I became aware of yet another gift, which I acknowledged in one of my books. I devoted it To my parents—for always letting me be myself. How hard it must have been for them to give me the choice to stay in school or drop out, to stay near home or go to a country far away, to never try to influence my decision by using persuasion or guilt as an instrument.

These were the many gifts I brought with me when arriving in Canada, some apparent to me right away and others revealing themselves only in stages—gifts without which I might not have overcome the hurdles blocking my way forward, no matter how determined I was.

Even my determination needs to be viewed under a microscope. How many of my accomplishments were due to resilience and fortitude, and how many attributable to other factors? When I reflect on my personal growth and my professional advancement during my first fifteen years in Canada, terms like relentless work and perseverance want to be heard. But when I consider how many others struggled as valiantly as I did and were left behind, the story changes.

I’ll never know what exactly was responsible for my successes, but I can guess. Starting out with low expectations was helpful, in that it made even modest accomplishments appear as triumphs. I felt motivated, had fun. No matter how long the hours or how daunting the challenge, my journey was deeply gratifying.

On a few occasions it stopped being so and I stepped back, ignoring the idea that I had to stay some imaginary course. Oddly, putting logic aside and listening to some inner voice led to ever greater accomplishments. It seems that once I let intuition, gut instinct, or whatever one might call that guidance, take over, fortune smiled on me.

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Jessie, wearing a velvety lilac outfit, is doing half-turns on some kind of spinning wheel, her abundant hair flying in one direction, then another. A jazzy tune emanates from the portable stereo system on the cabinet near her. Jessie is Norman’s Jamaican girlfriend and we’re in a large apartment in Toronto’s east-end.

Norman lounges on a huge sectional couch, looking at a newspaper. I’ve just woken up to my first full day in Toronto and he tells me he’s already checking ads for me. I think I’ve found a room for you, very inexpensive and close to here. It’s next to the subway station, too, ideal until you have a job and can afford something better. He asks me whether I’d like to check it out later on, then takes me to the kitchen, pours me coffee and shows me where cereal, yogurt and milk are.

A couple of hours later, I’ve rented an upstairs room at 2 Thyra Avenue, which is to be my first Toronto residence. The place is simple. It holds a bed, a table and two chairs. Against one wall stretches a shelf with an electrical cooking plate on top and a tiny bar-fridge underneath. A small window looks out on a quiet suburban street, revealing a few modest gardens fenced in with hedges. Compared to our street in Herisau it makes for a triste portrait. Maybe summer will make it more charming.

This being the weekend, Norman suggests we go to look for things I’ll immediately need, and before long we’re in a parking lot that must hold a thousand cars. I’ve never seen anything like it. Surrounding it on three sides are sizeable store fronts, the largest of which, Eaton’s, is where we first shop. Once we enter and move through aisles stacked high with everything from bath towels to tea kettles, clothing items and power tools, I see that the goods are pretty well the same I could buy in Switzerland, but the selection is infinitely larger and the shelves are stacked more deeply. Besides, in Switzerland I’d have to visit a dozen different stores to find what’s available here under one roof.

I recognize that I should take advantage, especially since Norman will soon be off to Jamaica and I’ll be without a car. But I’m also unsure of what I should get, given the smallness of my room, the tenuous nature of my arrangement, and my limited budget. After transferring most of my savings to pay for the property I’ve purchased from Norman, I’ve arrived with exactly one thousand Canadian dollars, my Swiss bank account depleted and closed. Like he did when I left for South Africa, Papi wanted to give me some money to help me get started, but this time I proudly refused his offer.

As we leave Eaton’s there is another surprise. The cashier asks me whether I want to charge it, a question I’m not familiar with. Norman tells me I could use a card instead of cash. Apparently most Canadians use a thing called Chargex, which allows them to buy now and pay later.

On the way back to the car, my friend points toward a store window showing a dozen or so television sets, each with a sign showing the sticker price and what the monthly cost would be if rented or bought on a payment plan. Norman explains how this works and adds, People buy almost everything this way—furniture, lawnmowers, and even cars. Then he suggests we go inside, so I can get myself an inexpensive black-and-white TV. When I decline, Norman seems disappointed and a bit concerned, reminding me he’ll be around to help me for only another few days. When we leave the shopping plaza, the only items in the trunk of my friend’s fashionably red Cadillac convertible are an electrical coffee maker, a set of cutlery, drinking glasses and a small transistor radio.

In the evening, back in the apartment, Norman, Jessie and I sit down on the sofa in front of small pop-up trays holding our dinner and watch television. My first TV-dinner.

The day before his departure, Norman takes me to see my property. It’s quite a distance from Toronto, eastward along the Trans-Canada Highway, a more than 8000-kilometer stretch reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When completed in a few weeks’ time, I’m told, it’ll be the world’s longest uninterrupted highway. The part we travel on takes us from Toronto to a place called Belleville, two lanes in each direction, mostly along Lake Ontario. To the left and right are mostly flat, muddy, snow-covered fields, every now and then dotted with farm houses, barns and grain silos. In Belleville, we turn North toward a town called Madoc, then a few more kilometres further to Banockburn, the name I know from my property deed. When we come to the end of a side road and stop at a gate, I take in the gently rolling hills surrounding us. Then I look at my watch; we’ve been in the car just short of three hours.

We get out and walk to the crest of the nearest knoll, our pace laborious as we sink into knee-deep snow. When we come to a second set of fencing, Norman points to a removable plank, explaining that when I come here next time, I can open it up and walk down to my land. The hundred acres you own are near the bottom of the valley. You can’t see much at this time of the year, but what’s snow-covered now is open meadow, and behind those trees is the lake. The area he points at is nothing much to look at, but my imagination runs wild, evoking images of summer, the grassy area a luxuriant green, the forest harbouring wildlife, and the water below us inviting me to swim and shake off the summer heat. No matter how far away it is from Toronto, this is heaven. In Europe only the very rich could afford a piece of land like this.

When entering Canada, the customs officer asked me about the purpose of my trip and how long I intended to stay. I told him I hoped to be here for a long time. I owned Canadian property and wanted to immigrate. I held out the legal documents Norman had sent me, but the officer didn’t want to see them. He briefly checked the personal information in my passport, then started turning pages, commenting on how much I’d travelled. When eventually he found a blank space, he stamped it and made a notation underneath. I’ve registered you as a Landed Immigrant, and here’s the date by which you have to report to the authorities for your final interview. He handed me a sheet with government phone numbers and addresses and welcomed me to his country.

Now I’m on University Avenue, a remarkable place, grandiosely designed with mostly colonial buildings on both sides and six lanes of traffic in between. There is a generous median too, and I can see how attractively it’s laid out, even now, with flecks of snow still covering what will soon be cultivated lawns and flower beds. There are monuments, too, and benches, on a few of which people huddled in coats are sitting. To the South of where I left the subway train is Toronto’s downtown and, beyond that, Lake Ontario; to the North is a huge circle accommodating a vast park and the province’s parliament building. University Avenue strongly reminds me of Adderley Street in Cape Town, another magnificent British creation. I wonder if I’m giving North Americans too much credit for thinking big—maybe they simply adopted their way of thinking from their colonial masters.

Both the immigration department and the Swiss Consulate General are here, so I’m combining the two visits. The trip from Victoria Park station, not far from my apartment, has taken me just under 45 minutes, all on the subway system. I’m impressed by Toronto’s transit network, but am starting to see the advantage of living much closer to the city centre.

I happen to be the only visitor at the Swiss consulate, which gives me the opportunity to chat with the lady who’s seeing me. While registering my presence, a must because I’m still compelled to serve in the army or pay a stiff avoidance tax, I learn a few things about the Swiss community here. Apparently, there are 15,000 of my compatriots in the Toronto area alone, just shy of the number of residents in my native Herisau. Another 25,000 or so live in other parts of Canada, mostly Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. On my way out, I see evidence of their presence. A huge notice board invites people to leave messages. There must be close to a hundred pieces of paper pinned to its cork surface, some left by those looking for jobs or social connections, others offering or seeking a place to live.

A short distance away are the Toronto headquarters of the immigration authorities. There are quite a number of people waiting, but the system in place is user-friendly and efficient. I’m handed a number and told to be back in 45 minutes. When I return, I’m called after a pleasantly short wait.

The official escorting me to his office is a man not much older than I am. He invites me to sit and we casually chat for a minute or two—how am I liking Canada so far, and have I found a place to stay? This strikes me as unusual. The front-line public servants I had to deal with in Switzerland were invariably middle-aged and stand-offish, keeping conversation to the barest essentials. In contrast, the young officer opposite me exudes friendliness, now telling me that his parents were immigrants as well, from Northern Italy. I tell him I visited there many times and we talk about that for a few moments. Only then am I asked about my education and work experience, and where I plan to apply for a job. HeThe officer seems pleased with my choice of Toronto and says my languages, especially French, could be of much help. I let it slip that I own a property near Belleville and offer to show him the relevant documents, but he dismisses the idea.

And then he gets up, explaining that I can look forward to a positive final decision, subject only to a background check with the Swiss authorities. It should take no more than a month or two, he says. That will give you time to familiarize yourself with the job market.

I’m stunned. The whole approval process has taken less than 20 minutes. I’m elated, too. I can start planning my future here.

✧✧✧

I’ve spent most of April getting to know Toronto better. Spring is making itself felt. Two weeks ago a cold wind chilled my bones, now the trees are budding. I love taking the subway to various parts of the city, making use of the guide Norman gave me. At the station I buy the Toronto Star, then read through the employment ads until I reach my destination. Once outside I walk around, taking in as much of the flavour of each area as I can, popping into small stores and sometimes restaurants, walking in parks, and visiting galleries. One morning, at the Royal Ontario Museum, I see several school classes being guided through the exhibits by their teacher. I’m surprised how much there is to see and get quite upset that our Kanti professors never took us to any comparable venue. How hard can it be to motivate a curious child?

I think about school a lot, my decision to drop out, my juvenile notion that I’d teach the establishment a lesson by doing so, my subsequent dread that I may not do well at anything in life, and my surprise when I entered the work force and not only had a positive experience, but succeeded. Will I be able to repeat what I accomplished in Zurich and again in Cape Town? What will it be like, working in Canada?

One of the areas I’ve visited several times now is High Park, a 160-acre greenspace that runs from the lakefront all the way to Bloor Street, Toronto’s mid-town artery. I’ve walked around the park several times, a distance of roughly five kilometres, ponds giving way to cultivated gardens, sports facilities interspersed with wilderness. I’ve decided I want to live somewhere near here. I’ll still have to commute to the financial centre, if that’s where I’ll be working, but the area is both more vibrant and soothing than where I live now. Norman was right. My Thyra Avenue place has been ideal to get settled and find my way around. Now it’s time to move.

I walk along Pacific Avenue, one of the streets just North of the park, admiring the handsome houses with their generous backyards and the mature trees along the sidewalk. Most dwellings have a porch facing the sidewalk, and attached to one of them is a sign: House for Rent. I try to imagine the inside, then walk on. A few minutes later, my exploration of Pacific Avenue complete and intent on returning to the park, I stop outside the same house again, looking at its garden, where a man is now engaged in raking up leaves and debris blown here by the storms of late fall and winter. As I watch him, he straightens up and, looking at me with curiosity, asks if he can help me. I’ve spent enough time in the English speaking world to know that means, What are you doing here? So I tell him.

I’m admiring your house, I say. As it happens, I’m looking for a place to stay and I love this area, but this is much too large. Picking up on my accent, he asks me where I’m from, and now I notice that he has a noticeable accent himself, probably German. We start talking and I tell him my story. Soon, he asks me whether I know others with whom I could share the house. Apparently it has five bedrooms and is ideal for a large family or, alternatively, several people sharing. This, he tells me, is what the previous renters did. I don’t think it’s possible, but if I got some Swiss friends together and we rented your house, how much would you charge us? He laughs, saying he’ll offer me a good deal, then asks me to wait while he’ll go inside to write down his contact information. When he returns, introduces himself as Peter Spee and hands me a piece of paper with his phone number on it, I know he’s serious. I return to the Swiss consulate the same afternoon and copy down the names of a dozen people looking for accommodation. In the evening, I make calls, using the payphone at the supermarket near my place.

The best part of my new arrangement at 36 Pacific Avenue is that I live virtually rent-free. The rents I collect almost make up what I owe Peter Spee. The less attractive part is that I’m responsible to the landlord for keeping the place in good shape and that I’ll be out money if one of the rooms becomes vacant.

We make for an interesting group. Everyone is Swiss and we’re all more or less the same age. Unlike me, the others are all employed. Margrit, at 34 the oldest, has been in Canada for several years. She’s from Appenzell and works as a hostess in a restaurant. Beat is from the Valais and is training to become a steward with Air Canada, while Maggie works at a medical laboratory. Finally, Kurt is a chef working in a kitchen that services several restaurants downtown.

Less than a month into this arrangement, I’m called on to mediate conflicts. Kurt has informed me that his Italian girlfriend Miranda will join him, and Maggie has fallen in love with Beat and suggests they move together. Financially, it all works out for me. Each of the two couples will now share a bedroom and pay me one-and-a-half times the room rate they paid before. I’ve also gained an unrented room, which will improve my business model. Instead of paying into the rental pool, I’ll now make a $30 profit each week. That more or less pays for my groceries. Still, one problem remains: Margrit is profoundly unhappy. She’s virulently opposed to having shared rooms, telling me privately that she wishes the co-habitants in our midst well, but hopes to spend her nightly reading hours without the sounds of passionate lovemaking coming through the thin walls.

As it turns out, Beat and Maggie are discreet, but Miranda turns out to be more unrestrained than Margrit could have imagined. Almost nightly, the diversion starts with repeated bangs, probably of a hand against the wall or the side of the bed. These slowly increase in tempo and intensity until Miranda finally reaches her climax and starts screaming at a frightening volume. Her words are in Italian, so we can’t understand most of them, which is probably a good thing. Margrit loudly complains and threatens to leave, but the rest of us feel royally entertained.

Miranda has other habits that Margrit disapproves of: she leaves unwashed dishes in the sink and forgets to replace the toilet paper when it’s used up. Luckily, the new roomer I’ve found, a husky Austrian I’ve befriended at the park, makes up for Miranda’s shortcomings. His work as a butcher allows him to buy meat at a steep discount and he’s taken a liking to Margrit. He frequently asks her what sausages and cold cuts he should bring her, which pleases her immensely.

While our household comes to grips with these recent changes, I’ve spent time learning to play tennis. Unlike in Switzerland, where courts belong to clubs that charge stiff membership fees, Toronto offers public facilities, one of which is located in High Park. Armed with my new racket and a supply of balls, I walk the five minutes to the courts and join others waiting for suitable partners.

Tennis has made me realize that I smoke too much. I’ve had several embarrassing on-court coughing fits and am determined to quit. Today, I’ll buy my last carton of Lucky Strikes. I’ll smoke twenty on the first day, nineteen on the next, and so on, until I reach the logical end.

I’m good at things which have been taught to me and routines I’ve designed for myself. On the other hand, I’m noticing that I’m prone to bungling when it comes to random things that need attention. A good example of the latter is how I nearly screwed up my immigration proceeding. It’s sheer luck that the letter from the government confirming my status has been forwarded to me. I gave the authorities my Thyra Avenue address and never informed them of my move. Luckily, I listed Norman as a local contact and when they wrote to him he communicated my new coordinates. A close call!

✧✧✧

It’s June now and I’ve still been unable to land a job. I tried the banks first, hoping my South African experience would quickly translate into at least a junior position. To my growing disappointment, I’ve heard the same response wherever I applied: We can’t hire you without any Canadian experience, and, Please come back to see us once you have some Canadian experience. I’m offended by this circuitous reasoning. How can I ever gain experience if no one gives me a job? Besides, if Canadian banking experience were such a magnificent thing, how come banking isn’t something the country is famous for?

When trying my luck in various other branches of commerce, applying to stock brokers, travel agencies, and insurance companies, I got the same response. Someone must have infused human resources managers across the nation with the belief that foreigners must never be engaged, unless one of their ill-informed peers erred and gave them a chance first. The bland manager who’d interviewed me for an insurance job in Switzerland not that long ago, suddenly looks better.

Relating my frustration to my fellow roomers helped. Margrit, who came to Canada much earlier than any of us, pointed out that people with a trade always had a much easier time here. Walter, the Austrian butcher, related how he got a well-paying job literally two days after arriving and quickly advanced to supervising part of the meat plant at which he works. Kurt, often the most pragmatic thinker in our group, asked me why I didn’t look for a temporary solution. Keep up your search for a bank job, but get something else in the meantime, he suggested. Why not apply with the people I work for? They’re actually looking for staff. When I asked him what I’d do there, he confidently announced that I could work as a cook. My reaction was one of disbelief. How could I work in a kitchen if the most advanced dish I’d ever prepared for myself was scrambled eggs? Ha!, he responded, I can train you to be a Garde-Manger chef. You’ll learn how to prepare cold dishes. Everyone around the table laughed, except for Kurt.

Now I find myself walking the fresh produce aisle at the Dominion store with Kurt, looking for zucchini, carrots, beets, potatoes, apples, pears and anything else that lends itself to being peeled, chopped, diced or carved. Next, we’ll be standing at our kitchen counter as we have been most afternoons, pretending that I can do what it takes to get a cook’s job. Band-Aids cover the spots where I’ve repeatedly cut myself while practicing speed-chopping. I’ll have to let my wounds heal before showing up for the interview Kurt plans to arrange.

The main kitchen in the Toronto Dominion Centre services several restaurants and does a lot of catering. Some, like the 54th Floor and the Safari Room are located at the top of the city’s tallest building and are predictably upscale, while others are at the underground pedestrian level. When Kurt introduces me to Mr. Pilsner, the executive chef, I’m terrified, wondering how many minutes, or even seconds, this charade will last. What Kurt hasn’t told me is that my would-be employer is German. Talking to Herr Pilsner in our native language makes me feel a bit better.

I listen to Kurt saying that I’ll make a decent addition to the team, especially since they’re short-handed on the Garde-Manger side. Pilsner, a fleshy, tall man, looks me up and down, his ruddy face in stark contrast with the 10-inch-high white hat above it, then turns back to Kurt and says, Well, why don’t we see if we can use him. Ignoring me, he instructs Kurt to take me to the supply room and get me outfitted, then introduce me to Thai, who can show me what needs to be done. A few minutes later, sporting a white jacket, an apron around my waist, and a shorter version of the hat Pilsner wore, I meet Thai, a young oriental man who I’m told assists with Garde-Manger orders. If he’s the assistant, what am I? I whisper to Kurt in German. When he answers that this makes me Thai’s boss, I feel even worse than when I arrived here.

Once we are alone, I ask Thai where he’s from, a question which has helped me in uncomfortable situations before. He’s from Chang Rai, in the North of Thailand, and is delighted to hear that I’ve been there. He also confides that his real name is Tanawat—Thai is just what his co-workers call him. I tell him that I shall always use his proper name and he seems extremely pleased. Then he explains what needs to be done: Mr. Pilsner says we have a large party coming for dinner. We’re in charge of the herring salad. He wants 120 servings. Completely out of my comfort zone, I ask where the ingredients are. He takes me to a large stainless steel double-door, opens it, and we enter a cavity the size of a small apartment. I have no idea what a herring salad consists of, and luckily I don’t have to embarrass myself. Tanawat nimbly flits around the shelved offerings, picking up a huge bucket of pre-peeled potatoes, then grabs a smaller container, explaining that it contains onions, and eventually shows me where the herring bits are kept.

What else do we need? I muse, almost swallowing my words as I realize I may have given myself away. But Tanawat takes this as an invitation to show off his knowledge and says that a supply of apples, as well as sour cream, vinegar and oil, are already at our station. I take the heaviest bucket, feeling most comfortable dealing with potatoes, and when we return to the lengthy counter that is the domain of the Garde-Manger team, I ask him another risky question: How do they like the potatoes cut here? Tanawat says we’ll need to cook them first, then dice them into bite-size chunks.

It’s well past midnight when Kurt and I ride back home on one of the last subway trains. Step by step, I relate what happened and tell him I wonder if Thai is onto me. Kurt dismisses such concerns, praising me for carefully watching, then imitating how it was done. Apparently, Pilsner told him to bring me back tomorrow and report to the office first, so they could register me.

I’m exhausted.

Garde-Manger encompasses the preparation of cold dishes, which is what Kurt taught me and Tanawat, unknowingly, helped me get good at. I enjoy the challenge of being a chef and have now been going to work and coming home with Kurt for several weeks. The pre-summer rush is over and many Canadians have put socializing and eating out on the backburner, enjoying a more leisurely pace of work and, on weekends, visiting their cottages.

What I like best is my schedule. I get to bed around one, sleep until nine, then have my breakfast and head out to the tennis courts, where I’m now considered a regular. Having quit smoking has helped me regain my fitness.

My financial situation is improving too. I’m paid a good wage, live rent-free and have a small surplus from my room rentals. Dinner, my major meal of the day, is free. Not all is well, though. A couple of weekends ago, on my Sunday off, I drove to Banockburn to see my land, at the wheels of the mid-night blue, second-hand Pontiac Parisienne I had just bought for $700, cruising along the Trans-Canada highway and, later, along a country road flanked by gentle, lush hills speckled with groups of grazing cattle, toward my destination. I drove up to the gate Norman had taken me to and got