From journal April 26 2009, Sainte Adèle
Revised November 16 2009
When I go to see the therapist I take the little white intermunicipal bus to the nearest large town, but from there to the village where she lives I have to take a taxi, and afterward another taxi back to town. I have gone five times now. I have had a few different drivers, but for the trip back from the village it has usually been the same person. And yesterday he showed up for both directions.Right from the start this taxi driver and I had hit it off so to speak. We conversed non-stop the whole way and I found him discreet, modest and kind, anxious both to talk and to listen. But besides finding him pleasant he made no great impression on me one way or the other; once out of the car and I'd closed the door, he was out of my mind until the next taxi trip some weeks later.
He is probably around my age, a physical appearance a bit declined, probably not excellent health, a little overweight but not bad, but kindness and humility in his eyes and especially in his voice and slow tentative drawl.
When we got back to the Petro Canada gas station which is where I wait for the bus headed back to Sainte-Adele, he stopped the car and as I was paying he suddenly broke into a whole new subject. This surprised me a little, not only because the way he was leading into it suggested that he expected that it was going to be a while before I got out of the car, but also because of the personal and intimate nature of the topic.
It was about a woman he knows. He wanted to tell me about her and about his relationship to her, and it soon seemed to me that he was hoping for my feedback or advice.
This woman has recently confessed to him of having thoughts of suicide. She has spoken of it to him on more than one occasion.
He said he'd heard or read somewhere that one way of sounding out how serious a person is in their suicide talk, or how critical the situation is, is to ask the person how they would go about it. If they have a ready answer to this, for example they would hang themselves with a rope, take an overdose of medication or whatever, then the situation is serious, for the person has been figuring out the details.
The woman is a qualified social worker, her father was a highly placed professional in a hospital, I forget the exact profession, and consequently social expectations for her career, or her own expectations, were fairly high.
But now she is down on her luck, she has separated from her spouse, or rather he left her, she is now a single mother with a two year old child, and she is subsisting on social assistance payments. Therefore not surprising that she has been having bouts of depression.
She is about forty years of age, and so, as the taxi driver explained, had had her baby, her first and only, at a relatively late age.
She doesn't have a car, has to take taxis often and I understood that that's how he'd met her, giving her rides in his taxi. They would converse and got to know each other a little more, and it turned out that they were meeting each other for coffee, or he was coming to help her with things, and before too long he was occasionally helping her monetarily with things she couldn't afford, for example it is always he who pays when they go to restaurants, he pays her phone bill when she is unable to, and so on.
She is still in love with her ex-spouse, the man who left her and who, I presume, is the child's father, and she is still hoping, whether or not hopelessly, that they will yet get back together.
As for the taxi driver, he says he respects that, but after seeing her regularly for some time, well he "couldn't help but fall in love with her".
This is where the taxi driver's story began to leave me perplexed. He is starting to feel like the situation is unjust for him, and that he is getting the short end of the deal, because he keeps paying out the money but she won't let him "go further", she holds off and tells him to forget about that, she is still in love with her former partner and she doesn't want to become intimate with the taxi driver. And he says he's feeling more and more frustrated. He asked me outright - do I think it's fair that he should keep paying when he's not getting anything in return?
And then he surprised me even more - he openly admitted, and in as many words, that he has been trying to buy her ("l'acheter").
"That's the way I am", he continued, "I tend to do that. I find a woman who's down on her luck, who is in a situation beneath mine, and I like helping them out, in order to get a chance. For if I meet a woman who doesn't need my help, who doesn't need money and whose situation is equal to mine, what chance would I have? I wouldn't have a chance, she wouldn't even look at me!"
Well well. At least the fellow is frank. And I suspect he is much more naive than bad or cynical. The way I figure it, he just doesn't know, he just doesn't get it. Unless it is I who am just not getting something. But I felt like he knows that he doesn't get it, he knows he needs more light on the subject, and that's why he was asking me, a client passenger who he doesn't know from Adam, for my opinion or advice.
Well I didn't have time to gradually and gently lead him around to my point of view. I hadn't bought my ticket yet and I wanted to have lunch at the adjacent restaurant before the bus arrived. So I thought to heck with it, I'll blurt right out what I think.
I said : "If you're paying for her and buying her things in view of getting something in return, I think it's already wrong. Either you should stop paying, or if you do it should be with no thought of getting something back."
"You have become friends with her now but are hoping for something more. But you shouldn't underestimate friendship. If you have friendship you already have something precious; your lives are already touching and you are sharing."
He smiled kindly at this. "Yes, that's true. But all the same! A person gets frustrated! I'm in love with her! And I have needs!"
I assented that that might not be easy, and that I could appreciate his feelings of frustration, but reiterated that I thought to buy her things was going about it wrong.
He told me that he has also been gently pressuring her, yes pressure is the word he used, he has been trying to pressure her into giving him more, and that she doesn't like it and it's not working. That was another startingly candid and unabashed confession.
I said that the more you try to press and advance, the more a person you want to be near might resist and retreat; and the more you ask nothing of her and expect nothing in return, while yet remaining available and ready to be helpful, the more she might be drawn to you and approach you.
For the first time his expression revealed a mildly cynical skepticism. He didn't say it but I seemed to read in his thoughts: If he didn't try to get anything from her, she would be quite happy with that, she would be happy to 'give him nothing' while continuing to take advantage of his 'generosity'.
Generosity, there is a relevant word, though he didn't use it himself. I'm not sure if he imagines he has been being generous or not, but to my mind he had practically explained to me in as many words that his helping her with money has had nothing whatsoever to do with generosity.
And I didn't say this of course but what occurred to me is that he has been trying, whether consciously or unconsciously, to engage this woman in a kind of prostitution - not metaphorically speaking but literally.
Well I suppose a calculated, mutually benefitting contractual exchange of services between adults might be justifiable, given that it is really accepted and fully understood by both parties. But this 'deal' is not mutual, and that's why the fellow is frustrated.
It also occurred to me that he himself is giving her additional reason and cause for depression and thoughts of suicide! If her pride and self-esteem have been suffering from living on social assistance and from accepting money from this fellow, how will her self-esteem fare if she were to begin giving him sexual favours, disguised as love or tenderness, in order to ensure his continued support?
I told the driver I had to go. We exchanged a brief goodbye, I got out of the car and closed the door. But I feel like if I'd had the time and inclination to continue the conversation, that I might well have told him, at the risk of hurting him, that last bit, that he expecting something for his 'investment' could in itself make her more depressed and suicidal, could even critically tip the scale.
As I left I didn't mention to him that I probably won't be making any more trips to Brébeuf now (this was my last appointment), and that he probably won't be giving me a ride again. Not because I was angry or anything, but because I really had to get going and buy my ticket.
He'd said he is in love with her. Can that be true? I suppose this man's sort of 'being in love' is by no means uncommon. I don't know if you can truly call that being in love, but if you can, then I suspect there is a big difference between being in love with someone, and loving someone.