for nine days? I still can hear the melody of “Desafinado.” It’s following me, a lyrical germ of my state of mind and of my desire to escape by hiding in this woods near the Château de Coppet, and in the piece of writing that is taking me back to Switzerland and helping me get over my hunger while I drive my passenger into the forest, brushing against the branches of the Jurassic pines that fill this woods where other exiles have ventured before me.
I turn off the ignition. A religious silence surrounds the little blue car. The air feels good, very mild. The only sound is the peaceful murmur of nature. Nothing suspicious. I take the gun from the waistband of my trousers; I turn the cylinder, check the safety, the trigger, the number of cartridges. Everything’s in order. Still nothing around. I can make out the hum of a train in the distance: most likely it’s the fast train between Zurich and Geneva that departs the Lausanne station at 11:56. I study the ground around the car: no trap, no unexpected difference in level, and, all things considered, enough clear space to give me room to play with my favourite banker. Now is the time. Not a sound from inside the trunk; I press my ear against its sun-warmed wall and hear absolutely nothing: it’s as if I’ve transported a corpse. Really, there’s no sign of lifein the little overheated coffin. But surely H. de Heutz hasn’t disappeared by magic. This is getting on my nerves. I lift the licence plate that acts as a double panel and insert the key to unlock the trunk.
Ever since I got up this morning I’ve been fighting a constantly renewed emotion. It’s Sunday. A beautiful day. And on highway 8 between Pointe-au-Chêne and Montebello, I see a beige car travelling without me. There’s something thrilling about the countryside as you leave Pointe-au-Chêne to go up the Ottawa River towards Montebello and arrive at Papineauville. I like that winding road, the lazy twists and turns of the Ottawa, the elegant hillsides along our border – secret undulations stamped with intimacy and a thousand memories of happiness. I also like this extreme landscape where there is still room for me. When all this is over, I’ll settle there in a house set back from the road, not on the shore of the Ottawa but in the hinterland with its lakes and forests on the road between Papineauville and La Nation. That’s where I’ll buy a house, close to La Nation, near the entrance to the big estate on Lac Simon where you can portage all the way to Lac des Mauves and La Minerve. And I’ll cry because it’s taken me so long to find the house between Portage-de-la-Nation and La Nation or between La Nation and Ripon or on the Chénéville road between La Nation and Lac Simon. I’m terribly afraid I’ll die hanging from the bars in a penitentiary cell with no time to return to La Nation, lacking the freedom to go there and stretch out in the warm summer grass, to run along the edge of the great forests filled with deer, to gaze at the enormous sky above the house where one day I’ll live a sweet life without tears. Where is the country that resembles you, my true and secret native land, the country where I want to love you, where I want to die? This morning, a Sunday flooded with childlike tears, I cry like you, my child, because I’ve not yet arrived at the sunny fields of the countryside around La Nation that spreads out in thewarm light of the country we’ve come back to. The next hours will break me. A few more hours would give me time to get on highway 8 at Saint-Eustache, where our brothers died, then go up the Ottawa through Oka, Saint-Placide, Carillon, Calumet and Pointe-au-Chêne, and from Pointe-au-Chêne to Montebello and on to Papineauville, where I’ll head for La Nation by way of Portage-de-la-Nation and Saint-André-Avelin. A few hours would bring me to La Nation, near a house set back from history which I’ll buy one day. Will I be there a few years from now? Let me
I turn off the ignition. A religious silence surrounds the little blue car. The air feels good, very mild. The only sound is the peaceful murmur of nature. Nothing suspicious. I take the gun from the waistband of my trousers; I turn the cylinder, check the safety, the trigger, the number of cartridges. Everything’s in order. Still nothing around. I can make out the hum of a train in the distance: most likely it’s the fast train between Zurich and Geneva that departs the Lausanne station at 11:56. I study the ground around the car: no trap, no unexpected difference in level, and, all things considered, enough clear space to give me room to play with my favourite banker. Now is the time. Not a sound from inside the trunk; I press my ear against its sun-warmed wall and hear absolutely nothing: it’s as if I’ve transported a corpse. Really, there’s no sign of lifein the little overheated coffin. But surely H. de Heutz hasn’t disappeared by magic. This is getting on my nerves. I lift the licence plate that acts as a double panel and insert the key to unlock the trunk.
Ever since I got up this morning I’ve been fighting a constantly renewed emotion. It’s Sunday. A beautiful day. And on highway 8 between Pointe-au-Chêne and Montebello, I see a beige car travelling without me. There’s something thrilling about the countryside as you leave Pointe-au-Chêne to go up the Ottawa River towards Montebello and arrive at Papineauville. I like that winding road, the lazy twists and turns of the Ottawa, the elegant hillsides along our border – secret undulations stamped with intimacy and a thousand memories of happiness. I also like this extreme landscape where there is still room for me. When all this is over, I’ll settle there in a house set back from the road, not on the shore of the Ottawa but in the hinterland with its lakes and forests on the road between Papineauville and La Nation. That’s where I’ll buy a house, close to La Nation, near the entrance to the big estate on Lac Simon where you can portage all the way to Lac des Mauves and La Minerve. And I’ll cry because it’s taken me so long to find the house between Portage-de-la-Nation and La Nation or between La Nation and Ripon or on the Chénéville road between La Nation and Lac Simon. I’m terribly afraid I’ll die hanging from the bars in a penitentiary cell with no time to return to La Nation, lacking the freedom to go there and stretch out in the warm summer grass, to run along the edge of the great forests filled with deer, to gaze at the enormous sky above the house where one day I’ll live a sweet life without tears. Where is the country that resembles you, my true and secret native land, the country where I want to love you, where I want to die? This morning, a Sunday flooded with childlike tears, I cry like you, my child, because I’ve not yet arrived at the sunny fields of the countryside around La Nation that spreads out in thewarm light of the country we’ve come back to. The next hours will break me. A few more hours would give me time to get on highway 8 at Saint-Eustache, where our brothers died, then go up the Ottawa through Oka, Saint-Placide, Carillon, Calumet and Pointe-au-Chêne, and from Pointe-au-Chêne to Montebello and on to Papineauville, where I’ll head for La Nation by way of Portage-de-la-Nation and Saint-André-Avelin. A few hours would bring me to La Nation, near a house set back from history which I’ll buy one day. Will I be there a few years from now? Let me
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