The City of Montreal, Quebec, is really several cities rolled into one. Those who don't believe that statement really ought to take a closer look around. There are the French sections and the English sections, the white sections and the minority sections. Montreal-Nord is the most storied part of all, and it's mainly because, for the past two decades, if not longer, it has been a stronghold of the fast-growing and sturdy Haitian immigrant community.
While racism is rampant in provincial Quebec, even the most die-hard bigot is afraid to cross the Haitians on their turf. Everyone knows that, unlike other immigrant groups, the Haitians definitely don't play. Indeed, you fuck with them at your own risk. They'll come after you no matter who you are. Given those facts about the local culture, one wonders what life is like for the European-descended residents of this mini-chocolate city...
Sandrine Gauthier has been living in the Montreal-Nord area for ages, and the fact that most Quebecers consider this part of town off-limits doesn't bother her. Sandrine is fluent in Haitian Creole, unlike the majority of French Canadians, and feels quite comfortable around the Haitian immigrants who make up the bulk of the area's residents. Il faut s'adapter pour survivre, got to adapt to survive, Sandrine reminds herself.
What Sandrine knows, and the rest of the Quebecers ignore, is how friendly and welcoming the Haitian people are, when they're not riled up and angry, that is. Madeline often dines at Maison De Mamie, a popular Haitian restaurant located near Roland Street. The place looks alright, but the exterior doesn't do the restaurant justice. Indeed, with food this good, the owners really ought to charge more, but Sandrine loves the fact that they don't.
The owner of Maison De Mamie is a friendly, forty-something Haitian lady named Marjorie, who runs it with her husband Pierre Dumas and their daughter Angelique. They have a couple of drivers who make deliveries for large orders all over Montreal-Nord. The food is excellent, the service outstanding and the prices are simply neat. Sandrine goes there often, and no one minds that she's a middle-aged white woman. The mostly Haitian clientele is always friendly towards Sandrine, and she loves them for it.
In her fifty seven years on this planet, Sandrine Gauthier has seen it all and done it all. She's been a chef, a restaurateur, a library clerk, an escort, and a pimp, along with many other occupations. Sandrine has a mixed-race daughter named Lily Justinian, from a brief marriage to Isaiah Justinian, a tall, handsome brother from the island of Saint Lucia. That relationship ended in divorce, twenty years ago, partly due to Sandrine's wild lifestyle of drinking and partying in her younger days.
Sandrine Gauthier is estranged from her daughter Lily and her former husband and although she sees them sporadically, their relationship is too broken to mend. As far as Sandrine is concerned, that ship has sailed. These days, she's the superintendent of a building on Lucien Street, not far from the local library, where she once worked. Running the building isn't easy, and when it comes to settling disputes between the tenants and the absentee landlord, Sandrine is at her wits end.
