The hotel: Wednesday Writing Essential's Prompt

This is 10 minute fiction based on Wednesday Writing Essential's prompt photo taken by Kathryn Esplin-Oleski. I've never visited Montreal and never had this experience but I do like to travel in this manner.

I was 18 and newly sprung from school with a diploma and plans for college and on my way to visit my aunt in Ottawa when I paid a final visit to my old French teacher, Mademoiselle (as she preferred to be called. I never knew her real name).

"But darling. You must see Montreal while you are there. There's so much to see: Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours Chapel, the Cross atop Mont-Royal, the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal, travel the underground."

She spoke in French, and though I'd like to appear more erudite and intriguing, I dare not maul your eyes with tatters of that lovely language after so many years of disuse.

I felt terribly independent at that age. I would be traveling alone with several hundred dollars in graduation gifts. Ottawa and Montreal were not far apart, less than 104 miles, only a slight detour actually. I decided to take Mademoiselle's advice though I didn't mention this to my parents who would probably worry and insist I take my aunt along.

Pretending to take the bus back home to Albany, I waved goodbye to Aunt Agnes and bought a ticket to Montreal. When an elderly couple sat next to me I thought. Oh great. I ditch one aunt and get grandparents instead. But that elderly couple turned out to be a fortuitous gift as they traveled often to Montreal and had a zillion suggestions about what was not to miss and even where to stay. "Le Petit Hotel on Rue Napoleon. It's a charming place run by a young couple who will take good care of you." They wrote the name of the hotel, address, and phone number on a piece of paper and suggested that I tell this couple, the Beaupre's, that they'd sent me. "A pretty young girl like you alone in a city. Well. Best to stay in a small and friendly place."

I took their suggestion and made my way to Rue Napoleon where a friendly Madame Beaupre whisked me up to my room and showed me how to work the shower and flush the pull toilet. My room was quiet, on the back of the house with a window overlooking a flower garden tucked into a tiny courtyard. Every evening I'd sit at the desk in front of that window and write in my journal, and when I climbed into bed at night, the soft gurgling of the fountain in the garden put me to sleep.

The other day, as I was paging through those old journals I came across this photo and entry:

"June 24, 1965

Imagine staying in a place where the owners pack you a healthy lunch to take on your daily adventures and wait for your return with a glass of wine and biscuits and want to hear what you did? Not exactly the excitment I envisioned but actually better. The adventure lies in finding my way about -- in French! Imagine?!!!! It's such hard work speaking in French that I've even begun to dream in French though in those dreams I am often lost and can't find the words to ask directions home. But just wait till Mademoiselle gets the post card I sent her today! I wrote it in French!"

© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2008