Memories

...I walked up to the tallest and the blondest girl

I said, "You don't know me now but very soon you will..."

 

Someone sent me this article in August 2020 -- it was the first time I had seen it. Leonard never mentioned it to me. Maybe there are reasons for that.

I know Leonard was scared of journalists and liked to have protection set up when they came around. 

So I met Leonard in November 1977. Stephen Williams interviewed him that same week on November 11. (Remembrance Day was not yet a holiday in Quebec and it fell on a Friday of a week I was working in a bank downtown, which happened to be the week Leonard phoned me up and invited me over for tea). I was 26, temping for a living - as a temporary secretary I only ever worked in one bank and only for that one week.

So yes that is me  - I was very tall and thin-- but if I was fasting it would probably have been near the weekend, a fleeting experiment not a habit - 

I have no memory of Stephen Williams  whom I did actually meet in 1994 in Toronto at the time he was writing his book about notorious Toronto serial killer Karla Homolka.

But despite my partial amnesia, that's definitely me, back in 1977, seated in Leonard's kitchen in a trance-like state that gets mentioned in the April 1978 issue of Toronto Life magazine.

 

This is the only published evidence I have of my adult MK programming resulting in an instance of missing time.

I only found out in August 2020 when the pdf was sent to me by Cohen biographer Michael Posner (based in Toronto, originally from Winnipeg which is why I never suspected he could be the brother to Gerald Posner - CIA hack - yes that Posner who wrote the coverups on JFK and Mengele. And it turns out he is not, but does have a brother named Gerry. Glad we cleared that up).

I was surprised to see my cameo appearance at the very end of the piece. I remember the early part of that evening clearly. Cohen invited me over for the second time that week. I was in an effervescent mood. Definitely that's me at Cohen's kitchen table when journalist Williams arrives for their second interview of the day.

Earlier on in the article there is a reference to a very young woman staying with Cohen. That's not me. Later another woman rings the doorbell at 28 Vallieres - Cohen speaks to her briefly then confides to Williams that her husband was murdered by a cult.... that's not me either.

I'm the third of a series that Williams meets that day at Leonard's house while he's gathering material for his article.

What I remember of 11-11-1977 is that after I got home from work Cohen invited me over. On my way to his place, only about four blocks away from my apartment at 4900 Clark Street, I stopped in a little Greek grocer and bought two ripe persimmons. Not "pomegranates" -- Williams makes a common mistake -- they are two different fruits.

Pomegranates have hard red skins and are about the same size as persimmons which are also red but soft and come to a nipple-like point on top.

Sitting down next to Leonard at his kitchen table I open the small paper bag and pull out one ripe persimmon and bite into it. 

It's very juicy. I swallow about half. 

"Would you like a bite?" I ask.

Cohen nods.

"Where would you like it?"

Craning his head he points to a spot on the side of his neck. I aim for that spot with the wet bottom half of the persimmon. 

He laughs and wipes his neck.

"Very funny."  He gives me an odd, sly look

We're off to a good start. I've tricked him and made him laugh. It's up to him to make the next move.

I don't recall the doorbell ringing, but that must have happened next. Williams climbing the stairs, coming into the kitchen, me telling him I'm working in a bank -- none of that stuck in my memory but it sounds accurate.

Apart from my temp career I was also freelancing in my spare time and had sold my first short story to a Toronto magazine that month - so I ought to have remembered this encounter with a journalist. And why was I so "serene" - even to the point of annoyance? Or was Williams annoyed to find Leonard with yet another woman, the third that day?

It was only my second date with Leonard and I would expect my memory to be as detailed and vivid as the first time, and other times.

How could I forget skipping through the park with Cohen and some hapless guest? Maybe I didnt go for ouzo with them - the nearest Greek restaurant was blocks away in the other direction from my apartment. If I had though, I definitely would have recorded it in my journal. But I didnt. And how the evening ended, or how I got home (probably on foot) has always been a blank.

When memories are erased, there often seems to be a wall around them that makes them undetectable to your conscious mind. Or you may tack another memory onto the missing one to fill in the blank. That's what I did with my persimmon prank- I added it to another evening a week or two later, and mixed up the dates. But this article in Toronto Life magazine brings it all back and nails down the date. There I am, tall thin Anne, that sixties relic who works in a bank. It can only be the Friday, November 11, 1977 because Williams flew into Montreal to interview Leonard and left for Toronto on the plane.

The following spring the article gets published but I never hear about it and don't read "Toronto Life" -- 

Looking back on my persimmon prank, I wonder why I have no clue what happened next. Surely he would have retaliated in some equally clever way. Like putting me into a deep trance. Or maybe the sound of the doorbell triggered my hypnotic induction.

The first thing the journalist sees on coming into the kitchen is Leonard eating a persimmon. Not a pomegranate, which is more complicated, because of the seeds. A persimmon. The next thing he notices is me. Bummer.

* * *

Part Two of this story happens in 1994 when I travel to Toronto to interview poet/editor Barry Callaghan for a piece I am writing on him for Books in Canada.

We meet downtown in Bistro 990 which is his personal hangout. He orders a meal and lots of wine. He is a regular and knows all the waiters by name. He tells me he made all his money (he owns a mansion in Rosedale) by betting at the track. (His dad Morley Callaghan was a boxer who hung out with Hemingway in Paris).

So we are hitting it off - he's entertainingly Irish and easy to talk to. His novel, which is what I am interviewing him about, is very readable and is about a cult in southwestern Ontario and I am trying to get more background for  my article. He seems pleased to be getting attention, which he says is lacking in Toronto, a city ruled by "Ulster Scots" --

He says he will organize a dinner "in my honor" the following evening and invite some of his friends, mostly writers. Successful writers.

One of these writers is Stephen Williams, who is just finishing up his book on serial killer Karla Homolka -- 

I sit across from Williams and chat with him about Homolka, thinking I am meeting him for the first time.  He doesn't bring up, and probably doesn't remember our evening of skipping and ouzo - but then again, why is he here at this "dinner in my honor"? 

Wolfing down a steak, he described how preternaturally evil Karla was (he had interviewed her in prison) and the real mastermind of the crimes she committed with her partner Paul Bernardo -- 

Like most of the people around the table that evening he did a lot of bragging. I recall him announcing that his newly redecorated apartment would soon be featured on the cover of Toronto Life magazine. 

Then Callaghan delivers a cringe worthy toast. "Welcome to Toronto, Ann Diamond. Today is the first day of the rest of your life!"

Everyone is already pretty drunk and they're all ordering huge plates of food which Callaghan is paying for.  It's a scene of excess and boredom. Each takes a turn bragging about how much money and prizes they're taking home that month, before all conversation dies. The Barbadian novelist on my left falls asleep with his face in his plate.

It's not the first time this has happened to me while visiting Toronto. This is what we, in Montreal, call "Toronto Life." An oxymoron, we joke.

Getting to her feet, Callaghan's wife Clare presents me with a special gift: a large coffee table book of her original artwork with a foreword by D.M. Thomas (author of The White Hotel, an international holocaust best seller).

I take it, thanking her, and examine the pages, recognizing the first few images. I'm surprised and blurt out "Kathe Kollwitz!"

Her large pen and ink drawings are mostly copied from Kathe Kollwitz, an east German artist whose work I knew well. Some friends in Montreal owned several of her prints. Her sculpture of a grieving mother stands outside the national museum in Berlin.

But apparently no one in Toronto had ever heard of her. And neither had D.M. Thomas when he wrote the glowing introduction to her book of pirated images. Frankly that's hard to believe but --

For the rest of the evening Clare stares at me with pure hatred. At some point she comes and sits next to me and says "I want you to know I don't care about people like you. Because I have everything I want and you have Nothing."

I think yes, and let's keep it like that.

I am relieved to be catching the night train back to Montreal, where everyone I'm going back to is poor (except Leonard) but at least we don't have to sit through dinner with zombie writers and artists.

Needless to say I never contacted that publisher again and my career pretty much fizzled, or came to a dead halt. Sometimes angels protect us or we find our own level.

Some years ago Stephen Williams' home was raided and the police confiscated his computers and files - he was in possession of confidential tapes of Karla Homolka that he was not supposed to access. Or something to that effect. I couldn't find any trace of him when I searched. He hasn't responded to my private query on his Facebook page, which I left on January 31, 2021 - but he definitely saw it four days later.

His book Karla makes it pretty clear that she was MKed from childhood. I hope that's all she and I have in common.

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