6

ARLETTE

Louis knocked on the bedroom door. Clean-shaven, and dressed in a new white shirt, he seemed to radiate freshness. Arlette looked at him skeptically, only half awake. She had slept too little to appreciate Louis' flamboyant appearance.

She had spent the night thinking, constantly tossing and turning in her sheets, wondering if she was going to live here, in Maine, or leave the management of the land to someone else. Was she going to do as her uncle had told her, preserving the forest?

Could she if she didn't live there? Would she be able to live in nature again, after so many years in the cities? Seeing the dark circles under the young woman's eyes, the driver's smile only widened.

"The call of the wild kept you awake?"

She suddenly remembered who he was, where she was, and what awaited her that day. His dissipation quickly gave way to a morning spirit. His eyes lit up at the mere mention of the forest. Yes, it was that first bite of nature that had sown doubt in her. Living in Pinewood had become an option, then a temptation.

"There's so much to do today! Are you already ready? Give me a minute to get ready-

She was about to close the door but was stopped by a thought. She turned to him again and asked worriedly:

"Have you had your breakfast yet?" »

The driver shook his head no before heading back down the hall. Reassured, she slammed the door and took out of the suitcase her brown velvet skirt and a burgundy blouse that she pulled tight to her waist.

She was going to meet the mayor and make her first impressions on the people of her new town, Richmond. She was going to see for the first time the characters of her new life. She vigorously brushed her red hair, then rushed to her suitcase to put her things away.

Armand's letter had left him with a deep sense of duty. She was going to continue where he left off and build herself the life she dreamed of. She opened the curtains and the rays of the sun streamed through the room.

It was the main street in Bangor. The brick houses lined up in a line of honor leading to the church, which stood in the distance on the hill. The street was already bustling with activity. Cars came and went, while stores took down their wooden shutters one after another. The day was looking bright.

Arlette grabbed her suitcase and went downstairs. Louis was waiting for him there, standing, combing his slicked-back hair, his jacket tucked under his arm. She stopped for a moment when she saw him from behind and found something profoundly youthful about him.

Was it her brother she saw again in her attitude? The last time she had seen her brother comb his hair was the day he left to join the Front, in 1916. The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth which she swallowed quickly. She saluted the butler and they left.

"Well, now we have to do two things. The first, the one that is most important to you I believe, is to find a breakfast that will last you until the beginning of the afternoon. It is unlikely that the mayor will invite us to lunch... It's not his style.

"And then we need to get you a coat and some warmer clothes." It is much cooler in Richmond, and the opportunities to return to larger cities like here will be fewer. »

They quickly found the restaurant in town, where plates of local blueberry pancakes were prepared. They were as thick as books, served with an equally thick maple syrup.

The Frenchwoman had the feeling that she had to prepare for days of scarcity, thinking of the state in which she would find her uncle's kitchen, and made a point of devouring three of these enormous sugary, and spongy discs.

During this time, Louis had gone running errands for her garage and had bought some groceries that she would need to settle down. A pot, rice, beans, and tea to start.

When he returned to the restaurant, he found her helping herself to coffee after finishing her third pancake. She paid her bill and they left for the clothing store Louis wanted to take her to.

It was barely ten o'clock and groups of young girls was already crowding in front of the window to look at the new collection. It was a renowned brand in the region. Arlette couldn't say if she felt proud to pass in front of all these kids, to be on the other side of the window, when years ago she couldn't even imagine ever entering such a place.

It was a fairly new store, not like the general store selling animal skins and wilderness wolf traps that Arlette had expected. Maybe they were still too far south.

Inside she was offered several models and she finally chose a long, thick brown coat that came down to her knees, ingeniously padded. She also took a thick scarf and a black felt hat, the kind of Stetson normally for men that she had seen in Westerns at the movies.

It was a set that seemed to date from the previous century and that made the saleswoman laugh, but Arlette found in it the new appearance she had dreamed of, her American costume.

Louis also made her take a pair of leather boots that were way too big for them. He advised her to stuff them with newspaper and always wear two pairs of socks with them. Arlette noticed that he spent more time giving her advice than explaining to her what they were going to do in Pinewood.

She wasn't sure if he was so far-sighted because he'd been asked to be with her, or if they were forming a friendship.

When they left, it was already past eleven. They took the road north, abandoning Bangor. Louis talked a bit about himself. He had grown up alone with his mother, with the sole objective of building fast and powerful cars.

His dream had been shattered into a harsh reality when he joined a Ford engine assembly plant where he spent his days welding the same two little pieces onto every engine that passed him. He had been laid off long before the Depression of 1929 and had set up his garage with what he had, rendering service to the locals, and repairing tractors and cars.

It had become indispensable to the loggers who left Richmond to work all summer long along the rivers. Once, he had even been able to touch an airplane engine, when an aviator had come to try to photograph the region, he recounted with passion.

It was before the Spirit of Saint Louis crossed the Atlantic, to land on a Parisian racetrack. It was the most beautiful engine he had ever seen in his life.

Louis couldn't help smiling as he spoke. When he resumed the story of his existence, abandoning the heights of the world of airplanes, his lips dropped and he concentrated again on the road.

The business had never been better for him. Certainly, since the Depression, many of his customers who came for tractors had disappeared.

They had been chased off land belonging to the banks and now ran the roads west or sought work on the farms in the area. But he was finally being accepted and appreciated for his work in the county and beyond.

His only fault was that he didn't speak French. Acadians and Quebecers were numerous in the region and he could not understand them when they used their language.

He tried to imitate their accent Arlette and she had to hold back her laughter because he seemed sure of himself while imitating an Acadian saying "caribou" with its American pronunciation.

Arlette studied him more carefully. She hadn't realized it during the trip, but he had changed in appearance and attitude.

The big build and impressive personality she had found in Boston now gave way to a hunched young man in his car, who spoke with an almost childish naivety and enthusiasm.

She had thought him much older at first, but he revealed to her that he was only twenty-five. Was it a game he was playing or was he just being himself again by coming back here?

He asked her a few questions about the war and she answered them this time. She felt like her uncle's letter had helped her bury something she had kept inside her for too long.

She told how she and her mother fled the front with her as early as 1914. She tried to explain to Louis the mountainous frontier where she had always lived without a hitch with the Germans, but he had a hard time imagining the peaceful frontier with everything that he had heard about the Germans as a child, during the war.

She explained how she and her mother had survived on their own, finding work in the war hospitals, and how they had been pushed further inland each time as the Germans advanced.

These stories seemed to animate something in Louis's eyes, a kind of excitement that eventually convinced Arlette that he was still just a kid.

Then she thought of the men she had seen in Boston carrying cases of liquor.

-Did Prohibition stop the consumption of alcohol? she asked abruptly.

-No, she only transformed what was a bad habit of Americans into a real addiction, he replied sadly, the police do nothing and people are poisoning themselves with bad-quality alcohol. The leagues that had fought to implement prohibition are unable to act because everyone is involved in trafficking.

"You mean it's illegal but everyone does it?"

—Exact.

-And you? What do you think?

"I think alcohol is like the Reds, the Communists. It is believed to be always there, somewhere, ready to take your children away, and it is when you want to remove it totally that it becomes most attractive. I don't drink. It doesn't suit the life of a driver. It is forbidden for most truck drivers too.

"Did you say the Reds?" So it's also forbidden to be a communist here?

"Almost," he answered briefly.

He looked at her sideways, mixed with mistrust and embarrassment. She had the impression that this subject came up as soon as they spoke. In any case, being a communist seemed more serious than being a bootlegger, or an alcohol trafficker, thought the young woman.

They crossed stretches of forest, seeing only woods on the horizon, dotted with clearings where a few houses were built, sometimes with a chapel. Far to the north, you could see the mist-covered mountains which added to the feeling of the vastness of the landscape.

The young woman imagined herself treading on these sacred lands of the Indians, walking in the woods, drinking from a stream, armed only with her walking stick and her boots, as when she was going up the course of the rivers of his childhood. And the sky was still there, this immense sky, endless. What was different from the French sky? The light was the light that seemed different to him.