Read Online A Fine Passage by France Daigle - Free Book Online Page B

same.”
    â€œJacques Arsenault.”
    â€œReally, there’s a whole bunch of them.”
    â€œGilles LeBlanc’s not too shabby neither.”
    â€œThere’s always an opening going on somewhere, with wine and bits of food to eat as well. Anyone can go.”
    â€œThe more business-minded ones often have the smoked salmon.”
    â€œLots of them don’t have loads of money, but they get by just the same.”
    The spontaneous enumeration amuses the man who’d shown no sign of reading.
    â€œHave you bought paintings?”
    â€œYvon Gallant gave us one. A small one. That time we drove him to Halifax to see an exhibition. He doesn’t drive himself.”
    â€œI’d like us to have one of Dyane Léger’s for our boy’s room. Or girl. We don’t know which yet.”
    â€œThere’s Francis Coutellier as well. His boats are pretty nice too.”
    â€œYou see, there again, it’s the colour.”
    â€œThere’s George Blanchette as well.”
    â€œFor the kid’s room?”
    â€œWell, no. I mean, just to have.”
    Hans inserts the last piece of the puzzle without ceremony. He hadn’t noticed, before fitting it in, that the shades on this last piece seem to represent a castle or a church. He bends down, examines it more closely. He can’t decide if it’s a detail intended by the artist or an effect resulting from the angle of the brush on the canvas.
    Hans now begins to study the painting in search of other details that may have escaped him. He finds himself enjoying again those elements he had previously admired, and he discovers a few others that also please him. Later, he will continue to glance at the work from a distance while, sitting cross-legged on his bed, he has a bite to eat.
    Claudia is cleaning up her desk, putting books and notebooks away, stacking those she will have to open before starting her courses again. She checks her watch, makes a phone call but does not leave a message on the answering machine. She washes up, redials the earlier number. Still no one. She dresses and goes out anyway.
    The sun is shining and a warm wind is blowing on the avenue. Claudia lingers in front of a few shop win-dows, goes into a record store, buys something, comes out, walks some more, goes into a café, hails a waiter, sits, pulls a magazine out of her bag while she waits to be served.
    â€œYou’re a musician?”
    â€œNo, not at all.”
    â€œStrange. I could have sworn.”
    Claudia found it odd that during the return trip, the pope-rabbi had asked her the same question as had the man who’d shown no sign of reading. She had no idea what it was in her appearance or attitude that would lead people to think she was a musician.
    â€œYou’re the second person to ask me that recently.”
    â€œYour neck, your shoulders give that impression. Mainly your neck, I think. It seems as though music would pass through there. It’s a fine passage.”
    With that, the pope-rabbi had fallen silent. Even though he maintained a kind of joviality in spite of everything, Claudia sensed he’d somehow changed in the past two weeks.
    â€œMy mother doesn’t love my father any more. She’s going to leave him. She’s thinking of coming to America.”
    â€œIt’s normal that she’d want to be closer to you. How about your father?”
    â€œHe’s sad, a little down.”
    â€œHe’ll get over it, although . . .”
    Claudia waited a moment for the pope-rabbi to complete the sentence, but the end did not come.
    The more time passes, the less I’m certain of what happened that day. I’m no longer sure what I was thinking when I saw that truck coming from the opposite direction. I remember it was a nice day, but something like an undertow seemed to be pulling down on the idyllic scene. I felt a need to spread myself thin over the surface of things, as though I were repulsed