Quebec City always seems particularly cold on Jan. 29.
It certainly was that night four years ago when a gunman murdered six men at Ste-Foy’s Islamic Cultural Centre. Each year when the anniversary date arrives, events are organized to resist the city’s desolation in January and the cold terror of that night in 2017.
With COVID-19 restrictions in place this year, planning the fourth anniversary has been a challenge. This year’s memorial will be nothing like the last, where hundreds of people drew close in a warm room to share couscous and chickpeas, ginger juice and carrot cake, a meal intended to recall the Maghrebin, Guinean and Canadian roots of the victims and survivors of the attack. In a scene that seems almost impossible now, people traded stories over supper, embraced and shook hands, just weeks before COVID-19 changed everything.