Free The Islands of Dr. Thomas by Francoise Enguehard Page B

which he was probably treated, the poor man seems to have gone from smile to despair. Look at the contrast, for example, between the photo of Cap Blanc, which is like a heart-wrenching cry from a desperate artist, compared to the horseback ride in the Goulet, the very image of carefree harmony. See what I mean?”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I thought!” she exclaimed.
    â€œSo, is the work progressing? I’ll be there soon, you know,” François announced at the other end of the line.
    She could sense his impatience. He was somewhere in North America, in Washington, she thought she had heard. To be honest, she had not really paid attention; she was completely caught off guard by his voice. She loved the intonations that were so typical of him, the warm tone of his voice, the spontaneity that moved her each time, especially since she knew how more restrained he was in his working life. He had only to utter a word or two for her to be able to see him as clearly as if he were right beside her.
    This time he was calling from nearby, he explained. Somewhere in America, in a four-star hotel, in a huge room that was neutral to a fault, totally impersonal, with two big double beds. It could just as easily be in Tokyo, Singapore, or Berlin. How many times had he woken up in the middle of the night in a hotel room, feeling totally disoriented and not knowing where he was? However, tonight he felt close to the people he loved. At least a thousand kilometres, as the crow flies, separated them, but even so, because they were on the same continent, with an hour and a half time difference, it seemed to him that he was breathing their air and feeling the same Atlantic breeze on his cheeks.
    As they approached North America, François had felt rather than seen a patch of his islands under the clouds. He always insisted on booking a window seat, and halfway over the ocean he would begin searching the horizon. First he watched for the coast of Newfoundland to slowly emerge. The island had plenty of rocky cliffs and mountain peaks, but seen from high above, he could barely see it emerging out of the waves. An immense landmass, where lakes, rivers, fjords, and bays seemed to overtake the rocks, peat, and heather, Newfoundland looked like a sponge soaked in water doing its best to float on the surface of the ocean.
    He plunged back into a familiar universe. He tried to identify the coast that was visible, to make out, in the lunar landscape, the minuscule communities hugging the cliffs as tightly as they could, to get even closer to the cod. A few years earlier, during a trout fishing expedition on the southern coast of Newfoundland, he had seen these villages, without streets, isolated from everything and sometimes built directly on the water, houses perched up on stilts, straddling the coast and the wave, like modest Venices of the north where dories were used as gondolas.
    The architect had been mesmerized by the ingenious skill of people who were ready to make any sacrifice in order to pursue their trade as fishermen. He had also realized the size of the material gap between the residents of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon and Newfoundlanders. Aside from a few fishing shanties at the tip of Savoyard or the Allumette Cove, which were used a few days every summer, no one on the French islands lived in such precarious conditions.
    His nose pressed up to the window, he kept watch for the islands, for the moment (rather unpredictable, since the route changed often) when the coast of Newfoundland disappeared and made way for the islands. He crossed his fingers that no clouds would get in the way, because they could be seen only for a fleeting moment. First the cape of Miquelon emerged, then the dune of Langlade, and the lighthouse at Pointe Plate; if he was sitting on the other side of the airplane, it was Saint-Pierre and the minuscule Île-aux-Marins that came into view.
    He had just enough time to look at his tiny