practise his English, visit all the museums he could and not lose patience when Aunt Mildred read him the Holy Testament at night. She used to do the same with him, and he could assure Phileas that, for teenagers, there’s no soporific more powerful.
Book slipped out the window that night and ran over to Mélanie’s house and tapped lightly on her window. He told her that he had to go and that he’d be away for a whole month. They sprinted over to wake Gustave and ended up sitting in the shed with the lawnmowers. They vowed eternal friendship and sealed it by mingling their blood in the dark. Gustave gave him the precision measuring stick that they’d used for treasure hunting to guarantee that Mélanie and he wouldn’t search for the Moors’ treasure in his absence. Mélanie consulted her Cousteau wristwatch and told Phileas that he’d be crossing the central European time zone and so would be living an hour ahead of them. Gustave wondered whether that meant that he could inform them of world events an hour before they happened. Book promised that if that were true he would call them on the telephone and reveal the winning lottery numbers an hour before they’d be drawn. They’d laughed out loud, rolling on the floor, until Gustave’s dog started barking and lights flew on in the Thomases’ veranda, which precipitated a hasty exit through the hole in the shed wall.
He didn’t linger when his mother kissed him as the little ones were looking on and he feigned annoyance and wiped some imaginary saliva from his cheek. He hoped that his face didn’t betray how forlorn he felt as he heaved the suitcase into the taxi and followed it in. The twins leant down to the lowered window to show him words in the Franco-English dictionary and little Fabienne traced a butterfly on the dusty pane. The vineyards had never before seemed so attractive and hospitable as they did that morning.
Ireland proved to be everything he’d imagined it to be. Perhaps due to the time difference, Book felt that he was in the wrong reality and time. He filled pages and pages of letters in his best calligraphy to pass time. “I’m certain that the Moors passed through Dublin,” he wrote to Mélanie, and pretended to have found ideograms on depressing towers and on the stained-glass windows of Gothic churches to excite her interest and to attract Gustave’s admiration, but in reality, to make sure they remembered him. During those first ten melancholy days in Ireland, he’d thought of them every minute of the day – the first ten days of his new circumstances and the last ten days of the world he had known. Strangely, in those ten days, they’d all managed to write him a letter. His mother, “How did Auntie like the shawl I sent?” The twins, “Also, the word for cercueil in English is coffin, which must be pronounced something like our coffee.” Even little Fabienne, “Okay, I’ll draw a hippopotamus for you, but promise not to laugh.” Even his father, who hated writing, “We miss you, goddamn it, and now I keep finding the car keys where I left them,” and Gustave in his illegible scrawl, “Vateau examined us in algebra. Jammy bugger, you missed it!” and, of course, Mélanie, “Is it the same moon we gaze at at night?” Mélanie had never been as tender as she’d been in her letter, which filled him with hopes and longings. He would bury himself deep under the covers, holding his precious letters in his hand and reading them again and again to ward off the fears that arose from having a strange roof with the wooden rafters over his head, from the creaking of the great iron bedstead every time he moved and from the padding of Aunt Mildred’s slippers on the floor as she admonished herself, “Oh, I’ve misplaced my glasses again”, “Oh, what have I done with the aspirins now?”, “Oh no, I’ve left the cooker on.”
*
He stood awkwardly next to his black-clad aunt, holding her hand while his completely unknown
Book slipped out the window that night and ran over to Mélanie’s house and tapped lightly on her window. He told her that he had to go and that he’d be away for a whole month. They sprinted over to wake Gustave and ended up sitting in the shed with the lawnmowers. They vowed eternal friendship and sealed it by mingling their blood in the dark. Gustave gave him the precision measuring stick that they’d used for treasure hunting to guarantee that Mélanie and he wouldn’t search for the Moors’ treasure in his absence. Mélanie consulted her Cousteau wristwatch and told Phileas that he’d be crossing the central European time zone and so would be living an hour ahead of them. Gustave wondered whether that meant that he could inform them of world events an hour before they happened. Book promised that if that were true he would call them on the telephone and reveal the winning lottery numbers an hour before they’d be drawn. They’d laughed out loud, rolling on the floor, until Gustave’s dog started barking and lights flew on in the Thomases’ veranda, which precipitated a hasty exit through the hole in the shed wall.
He didn’t linger when his mother kissed him as the little ones were looking on and he feigned annoyance and wiped some imaginary saliva from his cheek. He hoped that his face didn’t betray how forlorn he felt as he heaved the suitcase into the taxi and followed it in. The twins leant down to the lowered window to show him words in the Franco-English dictionary and little Fabienne traced a butterfly on the dusty pane. The vineyards had never before seemed so attractive and hospitable as they did that morning.
Ireland proved to be everything he’d imagined it to be. Perhaps due to the time difference, Book felt that he was in the wrong reality and time. He filled pages and pages of letters in his best calligraphy to pass time. “I’m certain that the Moors passed through Dublin,” he wrote to Mélanie, and pretended to have found ideograms on depressing towers and on the stained-glass windows of Gothic churches to excite her interest and to attract Gustave’s admiration, but in reality, to make sure they remembered him. During those first ten melancholy days in Ireland, he’d thought of them every minute of the day – the first ten days of his new circumstances and the last ten days of the world he had known. Strangely, in those ten days, they’d all managed to write him a letter. His mother, “How did Auntie like the shawl I sent?” The twins, “Also, the word for cercueil in English is coffin, which must be pronounced something like our coffee.” Even little Fabienne, “Okay, I’ll draw a hippopotamus for you, but promise not to laugh.” Even his father, who hated writing, “We miss you, goddamn it, and now I keep finding the car keys where I left them,” and Gustave in his illegible scrawl, “Vateau examined us in algebra. Jammy bugger, you missed it!” and, of course, Mélanie, “Is it the same moon we gaze at at night?” Mélanie had never been as tender as she’d been in her letter, which filled him with hopes and longings. He would bury himself deep under the covers, holding his precious letters in his hand and reading them again and again to ward off the fears that arose from having a strange roof with the wooden rafters over his head, from the creaking of the great iron bedstead every time he moved and from the padding of Aunt Mildred’s slippers on the floor as she admonished herself, “Oh, I’ve misplaced my glasses again”, “Oh, what have I done with the aspirins now?”, “Oh no, I’ve left the cooker on.”
*
He stood awkwardly next to his black-clad aunt, holding her hand while his completely unknown
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