The Islands of Dr. Thomas (4 page)

Sometimes François noticed that his friends looked a bit nervous, no doubt worried that their daughter was going too far.
They don't understand either
, he realized, saddened to see a limit to the vast expanses of their friendship. On the other hand, he liked everything about Émilie. Nothing she said shocked him; the fears he could sense under her friendly teasing and chiding, her sensitive attention to people and things, and even her thoughts that seemed so close to his.

She took his arm as though they were used to walking together. They strolled along the shore, then turned left on a little road that led up from the beach. François stopped in front of an old house with a tambour, a removable porch that protected the inside door from the weather. Snow had piled up during the night and the driveway had not been cleared, a sure sign that the house was abandoned. Against the inside wall of the tambour were some empty flower pots that must have once held the magnificent red and pink geraniums that traditionally brighten dull days and grey seasons.

Peering at the lace curtains pulled shut, she could imagine the kitchen table next to the stove, the chairs carefully lined up, the framed image of the Virgin Mother right next to the schedule of the tides and the barometer. She could feel the penetrating, paralyzing cold of the room where there used to be a blazing fire...life suspended. She shivered. He looked at her a moment, as if her thoughts had led him, along with her, into the abandoned kitchen. Then he grabbed his camera and began to take pictures.

“What's so special about it?” she asked.

As far as she was concerned, there were dozens of houses just like this in town and this one was far from being the most beautiful.

“Look at the tambour. It could be a simple square box. But it isn't; instead, there's that nice trim up at the top. Look carefully. In a few years there will be no more houses like this.”

She did as he asked, listening attentively until he finished talking. She looked at the snow hugging the stairs up to the entryway, untouched by footprints, forming a splendid arch between the steps and glistening in the sunlight as pure as the first day on earth. This is what the islands must have looked like before the settlers arrived, she suddenly realized. These few metres of virgin snow were a miniature of that unspoiled universe.

When he had finished taking pictures, François took her arm and led her down another street. On this Saturday morning, the day after a big storm, the place was deserted. Émilie had the dizzying sensation of being free from the laws of time and space. They walked, without any set destination, through this winter decor where the everyday landmarks had been erased by the snow and wind, where there were no cars in the lane or passersby in the streets; there was only the raw glare of sunlight—so rare at this time of year—and of course, especially François, holding her arm, their breath mingling in the white whirlwind blown by the harsh and persistent wind. The whole scene transformed their walk into an escape from reality.
Perhaps I've slipped into that other life of mine, the one that is invisible
, she thought. And with that, Émilie who usually chose to analyze every little detail, let herself focus fully on the present moment and rely on her memory for the rest.

A few minutes later, François stopped in front of another house, its shingles—worn down by mist, rain, and snow—had lost all colour. This time he walked right up to the house and began to take pictures.

“You can't tell me it's pretty,” she said, a little put off by all the attention he was paying to something she did not find attractive.

“Come here,” he said, as if he had noticed her doubts. “Look at the way the unpainted wood is warped. And there, where the snow is sticking to it...Doesn't that remind you of something? No? Don't they look like the waves the wind carves into the sand on the dunes? And look at all the shades of grey, of white. See how different they are? This is so beautiful.”

So he, too, had been struck by the magic of the untouched snow, but instead of seeing eternity in it, the way she did, he had thought of the sand on the dune.
Well
, she thought,
I guess he is more down to earth than I am!

In an effort to please him, she tried to see the town through his eyes. As they went from house to house, she studied the shingles greyed by the seasons and the houses leaning into the winds like the stubby evergreens on the cliffs of Langlade, the marks of a past she had, up until that point, paid no attention to.

He was fascinated by the low, boxy houses built in the last century, bourgeois residences or simple fishers' homes which had always seemed to her so old-fashioned compared to the North American style houses all the rage among young couples these days.

Exasperated, he declared, “All of this is going to disappear now that people are buying prefab houses. How horrible! You may as well order meccano from the Eaton's catalogue. You see, these houses here were built to last. If you look carefully, in the simplest fisherman's shanty you will see some detail, a little frieze, a decoration that has the sole purpose of making the house more beautiful, of showing how proud they were to build it.”

“The way you are, when you're working.”

“Yes, the way I am.”

It was just like her to get right to the point. He was passionate about his work. From the time he was a child, admiring his own house, he had never tired of the textures of the materials, the angles, the balance that you had to bring to the whole project. Actually, it was a miracle that happened every time a building was completed, however big or small. He especially loved looking at the blueprints when it was all done, seeing it through new eyes and discovering a new bit of himself in it, an extension of his personality, a
je-ne-sais-quoi
that made the building his and his alone.

“The carpenter who took the time to make these little patterns in the doorway—and I'm sure he had lots of other things to do—but he did that so that, year after year, whenever people look at the house, they would know it was him who built it. I use details like that in my designs too,” François explained to her. “Depending on the location, I'll use different kinds of wood. You know, some of them change when they are weathered, so that after a few years the whole building looks different. I'm known for using wood with concrete and glass. In some places, wood isn't used to insulate walls the way it is here. But wherever I use it, it adds something unique and local to my buildings.”

Émilie drank in his words. If he had been in his architect's office in Paris, his colleagues would have listened distractedly as he spoke. Here, where people bought prefabricated houses and formica was replacing hardwood furniture, he would have been met with polite smiles and patient explanations about how quickly a prefabricated house could be put up, the “clean and practical” quality of these new materials that could be washed with soap and water and did not have to be dusted day after day.

“Of course,” he added, “I take pictures of all these houses to give me ideas, but also because they are a dying art. I want to honour all those workers who showed me the way. What is left here, today, is nothing compared to what we had in the past...”

She listened, hanging on his arm and his words, nodding from time to time but not saying a word. She was busy rearranging the way she saw the world around her. She stopped suddenly, right in the middle of the street, and turned towards him. He saw her face light up with such a bright and meaningful expression that he sometimes wondered whether she really needed to speak for him to understand her.

“Since you're talking about buildings from the past, I have something to show you if you'd like. They're old photos that have just been found in an abandoned warehouse. I saw some of them in the studio, and apparently there are hundreds of them.”

“Photos? Where did they come from?”

“From a man who is said to have lived here at the turn of the century. A doctor, apparently. Wait...what's his name? Doctor...Thomas, that's it.”

“Well, let's go!” he exclaimed like a little boy. He grabbed her hand and led her, nearly running, to the town square in front of the church, where the photo- graphy studio was located.

Their laughter rang out, sweet and clear, above the church bells chiming the half-hour. It could be heard in every corner of the town square.

The unrelenting winter wind followed them through the door into the little shop. The room was divided into two parts by a long counter that also served as a showcase, where photo albums bursting at the seams were crowded together under the plexiglass window. At the back of the room, a heavy, black velvet curtain hung in a doorway, hiding the actual studio. The store was mostly frequented by customers looking for passport photos, which were essential because the residents of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon had to go through Canada to get anywhere they might be going. The photographer was also busy with portraits of children posing piously for their First Communion; it was a local custom to give out these photos with boxes of sugared almonds or sweet rolls to family and friends.

“Just a minute! I'm coming.”

A muffled voice came from the back room. The photographer was working.

The two of them walked up to the counter, took off their gloves, tuques, and scarves. Émilie pointed to some of the photos, laid out on black velvet.

“Look!” she cried, obviously enthralled.

She was pointing to a picture of the shore they had just left. In the foreground, capelin were drying over hundreds of fish flakes oriented towards the sun; in the background stood big houses, most of them gone now. The mountain, as the hill behind the town was called, just as bare centuries ago as it was now, cut off their view from what was behind.

François leaned over. He was drawn to something different, a grand residence that reminded him vaguely of things he had seen in his childhood, and outbuildings including a big warehouse where piles of salt cod and dried capelin were stored.

“That's the old Folquet building,” announced Jacques, the photographer, as he stepped out of his studio to see a young customer to the door. This young man was evidently a bit agitated at the sight of this important person who built houses all around the world, and who had been the subject of conversation in his home for several days now.

“Around 1914, I'd say.”

François straightened up and shook his hand. The two men knew each other quite well, since they were about the same age. They had not gone to the same school though; one had gone to the Catholic school, and the other a public school that a priest (or was it a nun?) had once baptized “the Devil's School.” Jacques had salt-and-pepper hair and a pleasant, honest face. He was tall and slim and was wearing brown corduroy pants and a sweater with suede elbow patches that made him look like a perpetual student. He turned to greet Émilie, whom he knew well, having taken her photo at First Communion and again at Confirmation, and more recently for her passport.

“Do you want to see the others? Hold on.”

He motioned for them to follow him behind the counter and into a corner of the studio where boxes were stacked. He opened them haphazardly and pulled out an assortment of glass plates, prints, and enlargements that he spread over his work desk.

“There are so many of them, I haven't been able to develop them all yet! And the problem, François, is that there is no note, no indication...I have to tell you, dating them and finding their locations is quite a puzzle!”

“But Jacques, where in the world did you find them all?”

“Oh, that's quite a story! A few months ago, a friend and I went to an old warehouse where the Prohibition building was, you know, the one near the Boulot bridge? My uncle had just sold it and asked me to clear it out. Under a staircase, I found two old crates that contained glass plates, all neatly placed in straw to protect them.”

“So they've been there a long time, eh?”

“For sure! And it's a good thing I was the one who found them, because you know where they would have ended up...”

He certainly did know! François had never been able to understand why people loved their city dump so much that they threw out all kinds of treasures. They said they were dirty, tarnished, rusted or, worst of all, “germy.” As if they could catch scabies or old age from these things!

So old ladies who, for decades, had jealously guarded their belongings, would decide overnight to throw them in the dump: wooden kitchen tables tossed out and replaced by formica, and oak headboards replaced by wrought iron beds, claimed to be “so much easier to look after.” The same fad of modernity pushed homeowners to tear down their old houses and buy prefabricated ones in Halifax. François could easily imagine what fate these photographic treasures would have met had they fallen into the wrong hands.

From the pile of photos displayed on the counter emerged a forgotten view of the island at the turn of the century, with its buildings and houses, ships, docks and especially its people, men who worked on the open sea, women and children, public servants, Terre-Neuvas and Newfoundlanders. Fishing dories, capelin and cod drying on the shore, winter and summer scenes of the Langlade dune or the gully in Miquelon, religious ceremonies—communion processions, celebrations for the mariners—all the details that offered an engrossing portrait of life on the islands by an artist who had a heartfelt wish to see and understand everything, but also to explain everything, in black and white and without a word.