The City and Me
The city is still wet from the rain when I step into Villa-Maria station, shaking out my umbrella before heading down the stairs. It’s just past Havdalah, and the scent of cinnamon still clings to my fingers. The match I used to light the candle left a small burn on my thumb—just enough to sting. I rub at it absently as I check my phone.
Come on, we’re waiting!
Don’t be so frum about it, Chaya!
I almost turn around right there. I could be home in five minutes, back in Côte-Saint-Luc where the streets are quiet and familiar, where I don’t have to think about things like this. Where I am just myself—just another Jewish girl walking home, no one looking too closely, no one asking questions I don’t want to answer.
But I promised.
I step onto the metro, settling into a corner as the doors slide shut. The blue seats are damp from someone’s umbrella. The train hums forward, heading east. I know this route by heart—Villa-Maria to Lionel-Groulx, transfer to the green line, ride it straight to Peel. Simple.
Except my stomach is tight, and my reflection in the window looks like a girl trying too hard to be comfortable.
My blouse is high-necked and soft, my skirt long enough but still pretty. My bubbe’s Magen David sits steady at my throat. It feels like armor. My makeup is subtle, careful, just enough to soften things. The way I hold myself does the rest.
At Lionel-Groulx, I switch trains, slipping through the crowd with practiced ease. The green line is fuller, louder, a mix of students, workers, tourists. A man eyes me as I grab a pole. I keep my gaze forward, my arms close. The train rattles on.
By the time I step out at Peel, the city hums around me—loud, neon-drenched, hungry. Downtown is a different world. No nods of recognition from strangers, no kosher bakeries or old men studying daf yomi on the bus. Just crowds spilling out of bars, laughter ringing off the glass-and-steel buildings, the streets slick and shining under streetlights. Crescent is just a few minutes away.
The club is somewhere up the hill, a place my friends swear isn’t that bad. “Not one of those places,” they’d laughed, as if I had the same frame of reference. As if I had ever spent a Saturday night anywhere but at home, reading, or at someone’s apartment, singing zmiros between bites of cold kugel.
Inside, the bass is thick, the air sweet and sharp with alcohol, sweat, something else I don’t want to name. My friends are by the bar, already a little flushed, waving me over, but I hesitate—there are hands everywhere, hands touching, grazing, pulling. I am shomer negiah. I am shomer myself.
“Chaya!” Rivky calls, pushing through the crowd. “You made it! I swear, we’ll keep the boys off you, just have some fun for once.”
I want to laugh, but instead, I let myself be pulled into the circle of their joy, the easy way they belong here. I slip between them, lean against the bar.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asks.
“Gin and tonic,” I say, and my voice is steady, like I do this all the time.
The drink comes cold, sharp, bitter with just a thread of citrus. I sip it carefully, listening, nodding, smiling when I’m supposed to.
And then—
A boy.
Not one of ours. Not a boy from Côte-Saint-Luc, not a boy from shul, not a boy who would know what it means when I step back from touch. Just a boy, tall, dark-eyed, curious. He leans in, close enough that I smell his cologne, something smoky, like autumn.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. I know how I look—I’ve had to learn. The right cut of a blouse, the right way to hold myself, the right tone of voice. I know how much effort goes into making it effortless. But this is different. This is dangerous.
I step back, sharp, practiced, my hand at my throat, feeling for the Magen David, feeling for home.
“Sorry,” I say, voice light, polite, unyielding. “I don’t—”
He lifts his hands, grinning. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”
I nod, turn back to my friends, but something lingers. The knowing, the wanting, the impossible balance of it all.
It’s late when I leave, later than I meant to stay. The club is still pulsing behind me, the streets slick with mist. My head is light from the gin, my body warm from dancing, but my skin feels untouched, raw, as if I’ve spent hours bracing against a tide.
I take the metro back alone, descending into the tunnels where the city hums softer, deeper. The last train is quiet, just a few scattered passengers—students heading home, a man dozing in the corner, a couple whispering in a language I don’t recognize.
I sink into a seat, tugging my coat tight. My fingers find the Magen David again, turning it over like a worry stone.
I don’t regret going. Not exactly. But there’s something unsettling about it—the way the music pressed against my skin, the way the boy looked at me, like he saw a girl, but not the right kind of girl. Not one who had spent years fighting for her reflection.
I watch the stations blur past—Guy-Concordia, Atwater, Lionel-Groulx. Soon I’ll transfer, ride the orange line back toward home, back to where the streets are quiet and the air smells like rain and challah crumbs.
I think about the way Rivky had laughed, the way my friends had twirled under flashing lights, free in a way I’m not sure I’ll ever be. I think about the boy. I think about what it means to be beautiful, to be wanted, to be a girl in a city that doesn’t quite know what to do with me.
The train pulls into Villa-Maria, the doors sliding open with a tired sigh. I step out, the night air wrapping around me, and I breathe in deep.
I am here. I am whole. I am Chaya.
And that is enough.
— Chaya Feldstein
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