A Leap of Faith

A Leap of Faith (review title)

The train had left Montreal’s Central Station as scheduled, but that was not Father Vaillancourt’s preoccupation at the moment. He was tired, and wished for sleep to come quickly. But too many thoughts dwelled in his mind, squatters of brain space in need of eviction. The train passed by the Imperial Tobacco building, a remnant of the times he tried to reconcile with, and the view distracted him for a few seconds. Then it was mostly dark outside.

He had just spent three days in the big city on his first trip away from the Gaspé Peninsula. He had retired without ever receiving an acknowledgment from the absent Bishop, and taken a ticket all the way to Vancouver, with planned stops in Montreal and Winnipeg. He couldn’t know at this time whether he wanted to continue or not, whether to return to his quiet room overlooking the ocean where nothing ever happened or to be immersed again in the chaos he had encountered. They used to refer to it as a “Capharnaum,” probably because Jesus had found the Galilean city chaotic.

In Montreal he had stayed with his nephew Richard in a flat shared with a nice, polite young man. They had let him sleep in the only bedroom, in the only bed, while they slept in sleeping bags in the living room. He wanted to avoid judging the situation, and never asked any questions, however subtle they may be. After nearly 70 years of an uneventful life, of ignoring the Diocese’s communications about the new ways of life out there, he had found himself “out there” not knowing how to react. Not reacting resulted in having it all caught in his mind at the same time. Had he encouraged his nephew’s behavior by not saying anything? Had he implicitly approved? He took the book that Richard had given him and looked at it: André Gide’s La Symphonie Pastorale[1]. He did not remember reading any of Gide’s books, but he vaguely remembered the name: it may have been on the index, someone in Rome thinking that others might enjoy reading it too much. It was strange to look at such a book: one day someone says you can’t read it, and years later it appears in your hands and you don’t have to hide it at all. The retired Father had decided he would read it. From the back cover, he could see it talked about a clergy man, most likely Protestant, who takes care of a young blind girl. He read a few sentences randomly chosen from the pages of the book, as if to check the appropriateness of the contents.

Combien heureux les hommes, s’ils pouvaient ignorer le mal![2]

He was glad to be away from the rush of the city. It looked like everybody in town needed to get somewhere quickly. There were people walking on the sidewalk who looked like they were talking to themselves, but in fact were talking on the telephone. There were people from every country in the world, large and small, sometimes talking languages he could not understand. There were people of races he had only seen in pictures or on television, and seeing them in person had fascinated him but also frightened him a bit.

Father Vaillancourt was so tired that he could hardly keep his eyes open when the conductor came to check his ticket. They only exchanged greetings and thanks, as this conductor did not seem eager to start a conversation either. The ticket back in his pocket, he fell asleep, but awoke suddenly after a frightful dream. In the dream, he was back as a child leaning against the white picket fence in front of the cliff overlooking the ocean. As he often did as a child, he was looking for sharks in the water. In the dream, the fence had collapsed under his weight and he had fallen to his death. Then he had seen himself at his own wake in his parents’ living room, hearing his parents tell everyone how they had instructed him numerous times not to play near the cliff. They had seemed upset mostly about his disobedience. Waking up in the train, he had to touch the seat, the window, and himself to know that he was back in the real world. In the dream he had died and seen his parents say “we told him so.” He went to the rest room, where he could turn the light on, to be awake and away from the other sleepers in the darkness of the train. Splashing cold water on his troubled face, he wondered if the dream was telling him something about his trip, this adventure, which could be related to “disobedience.” But no, he reasoned, looking at the other passengers on the train: everybody else travels to see something new and unique. The fence was only in his mind, and he went back to sleep.

Son univers obscur était borné par les murs mêmes de cette unique pièce qu’elle n’avait jamais quittée;[3]

At the train station in Toronto he could hear public announcements made in a French that reminded him of the tourists passing by his church. It was likely that people would not be able to speak French here, in the same way there were people who could not speak English back in his province. His English was not much better than when as kids they would pronounce French words with a labialised “R” and elongated vowels to play English. Needless to say that was not going to help him to have meaningful conversations with Torontonians. To him, Toronto was still the city of the Maple Leafs hockey team, the opponents of the Montreal Canadiens in many games he had known as a child. At the time this was the only rivalry of importance between the two cities and the two identities. Even at the Seminary, they would accommodate their prayer schedule to listen to the exploits of Maurice Richard on the radio. He wondered if the Rocket had taken this train and passed through this station on his way to a game in Toronto. Did they not like him here? From the crowds of busy people he saw rushing from incoming trains, it probably did not matter any more: he himself could be Maurice Richard and they would not even notice him.

He was glad that there were no escalators to deal with, but he had to walk a good distance before finding himself in the hall. The station was different than the one in Montreal, but he could easily find the bilingual sign “INFORMATION – INFORMATION” over a desk where a man, probably in his fifties, his hands joined over the desk, seemed to be waiting for him. He took his ticket out to help in case the man could not understand his question, but the man spoke French with no accent (or rather, with a Montreal accent). It warmed Father Vaillancourt’s heart to be speaking his language freely to a man almost his age. The man was originally from Montreal, but his only daughter had relocated to Toronto for her computer job and he had followed her. There were a few francophone people in Toronto, and in fact if he wanted to go to have some breakfast (he had enough time) he could go to a diner nearby where the waitress was from Abitibi. Hungry beyond belief, Father Vaillancourt ventured to follow the information man’s directions to Emily’s Coffee Shop on Yonge Street. As instructed, he observed the “WALK” signals that his nephew had told him to ignore in Montreal. But here, the anonymous car drivers seemed to yield to him and he saluted each of them. He found the coffee shop, the regular kind with a long counter and round red stools, red leatherette booths against the wall. He went in.

Mr. Beauregard, the information man, had called Francine who greeted the visitor with a warm “bonjour” and had him sit at the counter so they could talk. Father Vaillancourt had forgotten his nostalgic moments of the night and the disturbing dream. He discovered that he was not alone in his journey away from the Belle Province.

“You will find many French Canadians in Florida too,” said Francine, pouring him a cup of coffee. “This way you can plan your future trips just by figuring out where they are!”

The French toast in real maple syrup warmed his heart and he almost forgot about his train. It was a busy hour at the coffee shop, so he could not ask Francine how she had landed and stayed in Toronto.

“Stop by on your way back from the West,” said Francine, “here’s my card with my phone number on it: call me before you arrive and I will find you a place to stay for a couple of days.” His reading glasses still on after paying the discounted bill, he read the card: “Women Shelter Network – Réseau d’Aide à la Femme.” Answering the unexpressed question, Francine said “we help girls and women who are in any kind of trouble. Monsieur Beauregard often sends young women who come on the train from Montreal and need help.” But she was glad that today an older man had been sent from the station. This man reminded her of her father, whom she had not seen in so many years after she had taken that same train. This man looked like he had no wife or family, and she wondered what had motivated him to travel. Maybe she would learn about that if he stopped by on his way back. She liked to think that he would, as she delivered him back to the city.

« Je ramène la brebis perdue », dis-je avec le plus de solennité que je pus.[4]

On his way back, he had time to stop by the information desk and exchange a few words with Monsieur Beauregard, who was glad that his breakfast recommendation had been successful again: he himself would go there for lunch. But it was time to go to the Winnipeg train, which was on platform 2. For the second time that morning, he looked like he parted with a friend he was going to see again soon.

Father Vaillancourt knew his way to the right car and seat he had been assigned. He thought of Monsieur Beauregard and Mademoiselle Francine, his two hosts in an otherwise impersonal Toronto. Like his nephew in Montreal, these two had chosen to live in a place where people were really different, not all Catholics, and not all speaking the same language. It just looked like a lot to deal with. He had never asked the tourists passing by his parish if they were Catholics, but now he realized that he was likely to be surrounded by Anglicans, Jews, and maybe even pagans. He had recently learned on TV that there were many Hindus and Muslims in Toronto and Vancouver. He had also learned that the Anglicans had ordained women and he had wondered what changes were required to accept women in their seminaries and how the other priests had adapted.

A lot remained to be discovered: this country was very different from what it was in the times of Maurice Richard. In Montreal, he had seen how they had transformed a Christian Brothers’ school into condominiums. He wondered what would have happened to him, had he been born in the 50’s. Would he be a priest? That didn’t seem to have been an option for his nephew. He had heard of men who had worked at jobs for twenty, maybe thirty years when their factories closed. Nobody knew what to do any more, as their jobs no longer existed. The way he looked at it, his job was no longer needed, but there was no boss, no highly paid executive to tell him to just go away. In any case, it made no difference because priests were not even paid minimum wage. Come to think of it, the fishermen weren’t paid much either.

He could see from the schedule that this trip to Winnipeg was going to be 1 day, 7 hours, and 45 minutes. The 1943 km ride was to end at a quarter to four the next afternoon. There were 20-minute stops in unheard of places called Capreol, Homepayne, and Sioux Lookout, so he made a point of asking the conductor if passengers could get off the train to get some fresh air at these stations. A woman conductor told him he could, in what he thought to be very good French. Looking at his ticket, she said:

“You came all the way from Gaspésie? That’s a long way!”

“Yes,” the father said proudly, “first time!”

“Well, you have a good trip, and look for me if you need anything, OK?”

“OK!”

The train was soon out of the city and its suburbs. The landscape had changed from fields to a seemingly endless forest. There was even a place on the schedule called “Laforest” which he thought announced what it would be like most of the day. In the afternoon the conductress came back and said:

“There are two ladies from Montreal on this train, and they would like to have dinner with you.”

“With me? But I don’t even know them!” said the worried priest.

“Oh, no worry, you don’t have to go. They don’t know you either, I just told them there was a gentleman from Gaspésie on the train and they said wouldn’t it be fun to have dinner with him. I’m just passing the message, but I think you should go. They said they’ll reserve a table at six o’clock, that’s in the restaurant car which is three cars behind this one. Have fun!” She went away, not giving him any time to reply.

What was he to do? He had never been on a “blind date” as they called those arranged meetings, and it did not feel quite right. For one, he was a priest, and the invitation sounded like it was from women in search of an available man. It was not going to be fair of him to show up as if he were such a man. He also did not have much money to spend on dining, and he had heard that prices on the train would be high. He had crackers and sandwiches he had bought at the last stop, so he chose to ignore the invitation.

Nancy, the conductress, had passed the message from those two women in the first class car because she thought it would be good to let the rich ladies pay for the poor old man. She did not really like rich people, although she remained professional all the time with them, and once in a while she enjoyed this kind of opportunity to redistribute wealth. Returning to the coach class car, she saw the old man and asked him if he was going to accept the meeting.

“Oh, no,” said the man, “I can’t do it. And I have these sandwiches anyway.” He showed her the wrapped canteen sandwiches. She liked him more because he had the courage to say no, and because he was so simple. She had some time before the next stop, so she took a moment to talk with him.

“I understand,” she said, “I myself would probably not enjoy having dinner with them.” She was bold. She reminded herself to refrain from expressing personal feelings on the job.

“Well, you know, I’m a Catholic Priest,” said the father, “and they would need to know that before inviting me.”

“Oh, really?” said Nancy, surprised but not really pleased. She and her Catholic family were estranged, as she had sinned too much in their view. No priest she knew of would be able to understand the issues that young women in small Canadian towns had to face. The male-dominated church had decided a long time ago that women like her could only be sinners regardless of the fact that they could also be the victims. She had been rescued by women at a shelter in Toronto and she had started a new life there. Now she had this job and a few friends in Toronto whom she liked to consider as her new definition of a family. Without censoring her speech, she said:

“I’m sorry I have no faith left in me to talk about religion.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I have had plenty of it in 70 years,” said the father without thinking either. “But I am curious to know how you came to have no faith left?” He remembered his duty to retrieve the lost sheep.

“It’s a long story... I have to go.” She went out towards the back. This would be a long story indeed, and it was not going to help anyone to tell it now. A priest would be likely to put any part of her story in question and would want to get her back in the mold.

Father Vaillancourt was perplexed by her answer. His nephew in Montreal didn’t go to church either. For that matter he didn’t know anyone under age 50 who went to church, but that was because the young people had left the village to find new jobs in the city. He would have to find out, because maybe there was something that the city did to people, transform them and cause them to forget their heritage. He also knew that priests could be too moralistic and forget that their words could alienate the listener. That had always been an issue, a contradiction in their role: on the one hand they were to teach good Christian virtues, but on the other hand they also needed to help people in their struggles, whatever they were.

Three cars back, in the first class dining room, Beatrice and Blanche were hoping to see their blind date materialize. They both sat on one side of the table, reserving the seat for the mystery guest to be watched by their four eyes and four ears. They had warned the steward that a man would come from the coach class looking for them, and that they would pay for his meal, so that the steward would not tell him to go back to his car. Every time someone showed up at the door, they would say things like “this one is good looking, but too young,” or they would giggle at the sight of a man they had found inadequate one way or another. They both knew what they expected.

“He may not have accepted our invitation,” said Blanche. “We haven’t seen that woman conductor: I wonder if she has forgotten about it. We should have given her a tip, like you do with a Maitre d’”

“She didn’t look like she would have done anything for a tip,” commented Beatrice. “It was just an unusual request, and you know these people are state employees after all.”

“I know, they have those trade unions. Can’t fire them or blame them for anything. The government needs to do something about it, or we’ll end up paying more taxes! Oh! Here she is!”

Nancy saw the two women and wanted to laugh at the situation. “Sorry, ladies, he doesn’t want to come.”

“Really? Did you tell him we were going to pay for it?” Although Beatrice had said that, she didn’t want to have dinner with someone cheap.

“Oh, yeah,” Nancy said, realizing that she hadn’t. She also didn’t want to disclose any more of the identity of the priest than she needed to. But then she said: “He’s a really nice man, retired, and single.”

“Augh, single!” cried Beatrice, “you see, Blanche, what you’ve missed?”

Blanche made a face that meant it didn’t matter.

“Well, if you would like to see him in person, he’s in car 203 up ahead,” said Nancy, stepping away. “Good luck.”

Beatrice moved to the other side of the table. They went on talking about the missed opportunity and called the waiter to order dinner.

“I wonder if she even asked him,” said Blanche.

“Oh, you’ll never know. Plus, he could have been a real bore. Let’s have some red wine, and forget about men, OK?” concluded Beatrice.

It was very dark outside the train: nothing to see. The Father took the book out of his bag and started to read again. He had not seen why this book, this author could have been judged inappropriate by the Catholic censors. Was it that the clergyman in the story doubted St Paul? Anybody could understand that, he thought, subversively. Or perhaps it was the fact that the man had inadvertently fallen in love with his pupil. But the book did not imply anything sinful had been done. The censor had probably thought the readers could find it too lax in its morals, but that was nothing compared to other books Father Vaillancourt had heard about. What he saw in the book was how a man could find renewal in saving a child, while the censor had probably dwelled on the doubts the man had raised in the teachings of his church. If only they knew how much goes through any priest’s mind, the father thought, falling asleep.

Mais en effet les lois de la nature permettent ce qu’interdisent les lois des hommes et de Dieu.[5]

When he woke up, the train had stopped in a clearing nowhere to be found on the schedule. This had been his third night on a train, and at his age every bone wanted to give up. Although his profession called for a lack of accommodation, it had been easier to bear at a younger age. Now he just wanted to lie down in his bed, in his room with the incessant sound of the waves breaking against the cliff. He saw young people with huge backpacks boarding the train. As they passed by him he could smell the many campfires they had lighted that week. He imagined them steering their canoes on a quiet lake reflecting the blue sky and the pine trees. It was still possible to go out there and experience what the coureurs des bois[6] had experienced three hundred years ago. Maybe with fewer risks, he thought.

He started thinking about the friend he was going to meet in Winnipeg. He had not seen Gratien for forty years, and he worried about how different they would be now. Gratien had written that he was no longer a priest and had married a nice woman. This unexpected reply had worried the priest: had he been wise to try to renew the friendship after such a long separation? He would know in a few hours.

At the station one of the young backpackers had offered to take his suitcase out for him. He was pleased and accepted the offer. But his next challenge was to figure out which of the many white haired heads he saw was his friend. He looked at some in the eyes, until one returned the glance. The man smiled, nodded, and somehow looked familiar: he had found his friend.

“Marcel!”

“Gratien!” they said in French Canadian exclamations. The youth left the suitcase by them, as if the object had been lost. The hands shook vigorously as they inspected each other to see who had changed the most.

“It’s incredible, I was afraid I would not recognize you,” said the father. They kept agreeing on each other’s impressions as they walked out of the station to Gratien’s beat up car.

“What? You drive?”

“You mean you don’t? How old fashioned!”

They drove to St Boniface, the French city now annexed to the greater Winnipeg. It looked less intimidating than Toronto and Montreal. Gratien dragged Marcel’s suitcase up the stairs to his flat, opened the door and called Marie. Inside it smelled of something cooking like it does when you enter a happy house. Marie in her apron greeted her husband’s friend with a kiss on both cheeks. He was welcome in this humble house, she said. There was a crucifix hanging over the kitchen door. They showed him all four rooms of the flat, including their bedroom and the “computer room” where he would sleep. He marveled at the idea that it could allow him to learn how to use it. They let him rest, wash, and change (he felt he was starting to smell like those campers on the train). He lay down on the bed for a moment, letting his muscles and bones fall back into place.

He had not had dinner like that in a long time, and complimented his hostess. He was even impressed by the Chianti bottle wrapped in straw, and the candles, as if it was a holiday. They talked of the old days, when they were at the Seminary together.

“Remember Brother Poulain?”

“No donkey will ever make money” he said while pinching his nose.

“He’d always start his lecture with some anecdote that would end with a moral, like ‘what you spit up in the air falls back on your nose’”

“Oh yeah, I was expecting him to demonstrate it, but he never did!”

“He brought his violin once.”

“I liked that. He was trying to reach out to us with the things he liked.”

“Yeah, a whole life with no wife, but a violin. Sorry,” Gratien said, seeing that the remark applied to his friend and had affected him. There was an awkward silence.

“That’s OK, you didn’t mean it.” After more silence, he said:

“Tell me, did you always want a wife, I mean you’re married now, but when you were a priest, a young one, did you look at women?”

“I tried not to, but it was very hard. I had a lot to confess! Poor Father O’Neil. But then it would come back, like a fox crawling towards the chicken coop. One Sunday there was that woman at mass and I could just not concentrate on what I was doing. Oh, the embarrassment at Communion! I might have said something crazy instead of ‘the body of Christ,’ who knows, when she came by and extended her tongue towards me.”

“You had not told me about that woman!” said Marie in a mock reproaching tone.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have married me then!” he responded, and they all laughed.

“So after twenty years I just had too much of it, I had to get out. I already knew Marie, and it didn’t take too long before we developed a little romance.” They looked like the ideal old couple. “And you, Marcel, how did you deal with it? Apparently it didn’t affect you as much.”

Father Vaillancourt was embarrassed. His friend could see in his eyes that he was going to cry. He got up and took him in his arms. “It’s OK, give it a good cry, come on,” he said encouragingly. Overwhelmed by the possibility of letting go from a lifelong repression of his strange desires, the Father did not utter a word. The eyes said “I want to talk,” but the mouth couldn’t find anything to say.

J’aurais voulu pleurer, mais je sentais mon coeur plus aride que le désert.[7]

“It’s OK, you don’t have to say anything,” said Gratien. He knew there was nothing to say. Even in his work at the College, kids who broke up had a long way to go towards healing.

“You know, even today I have the ghost of guilt haunting me when I look at women on the street. ‘No, no, you must not’ it says, and I say ‘buzz off and let me look!’” It made the Father laugh: he was recovering.

Marie stayed quiet. She liked her ex-priest husband and his priest friend when they talked about the forbidden thing. Many of her friends had become strangers to their own husbands, discovering after so many years that their marriages had been based on faith alone.

Gratien, always ready to entertain, asked “What do you say, there’s a fiddler playing at the cafe down the street, do you want to go?”

“Sure,” said Marcel. Anything to get him out of his sobbing would be good. Marie wanted to go as well. They put their coats on and went out. Nobody bothered about locking the door, as usual.

It was not difficult to find a table at the cafe, being a Wednesday night. They got themselves herb tea or apple juice, what with old age and trying to cut down on the stuff that digs holes in your stomach. The fiddler was good, Bertrand was his name, and he came to talk with them at their table. He was pleased to see someone coming from so far away to hear him play. As with Brother Poulain, his violin had been his most faithful companion, something about the energy and the rhythm that playing the instrument gave him. He was an interesting man, and Gratien suggested that he come to their house during the day, for more conversation. Something good was happening with his friend: he seemed to be enjoying the music and the conversation very much.

Around midnight, as they walked home, Father Vaillancourt felt the comfort of being surrounded by good friends. He was like a child again, when everything is new around you and you can play. He kicked an empty can on the sidewalk, making noise that echoed around the silent street. Marie and Gratien smiled. It was always good to see a child happy again after something had gone wrong. This child was no exception, except maybe for his true age, but to them this was quite all right.

In the morning he got up in a silent flat. He looked at his watch: 9 o’clock. He walked to the kitchen and found a note: they were out working and would be back for lunch. He ate breakfast, looked at his hair in the bathroom mirror and determined he needed a shower. For once, he made it hot and relaxing. After shaving and brushing his teeth, he went out for a walk around the block.

At noon Gratien and Marie came home with Bertrand, whom they had invited for lunch. The father was pleased, apologizing for not being able to cook anything. “What did you do at home? Kept a housekeeper around, eh?” joked Gratien. But it was not so, he would just have his meals at his brother’s house, and other parishioners would invite him over to their homes.

In the conversation the Father disclosed that he could play the spoons. They were all surprised by the news and asked for a show, the instruments being at hand on the table. Bertrand was apparently impressed, because he fetched his violin, tuned it a bit, and said “let’s see what you can do.” He started a gigue, and the newly discovered spoon player picked up. Gratien and Marie applauded, and suggested that he join Bertrand at the cafe that night. “No, no,” said the Father, dismissive of the compliment, but glancing at Bertrand for a sign of approval. Bertrand said “yeah, why not? But I’d like us to rehearse some of the tunes before. Meet me at six at the cafe and we will take some time to get through a few.”

At five minutes to six the new musician entered the café with a pair of spoons in the right pocket of his gray overcoat. He wondered if he had not exaggerated his prowess earlier. He was prepared to apologize to Bertrand and go back home. But Bertrand arrived and did not give him a chance to discuss. Instead, he guided the Father through his repertoire, telling him when to start, when to stop, and when he didn’t want percussions. It was not easy, but the two seemed to play well together. Mr. Gelinas, the owner of the café, looked with interest.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone play those!” said Mr. Gelinas. It pleased the two old men: Mr. Gelinas had a good heart. They wanted to please him, and they tried their best that night. The few customers who came that night seemed to like the new addition, enough to do it again.

This was the start of a new life for Marcel Vaillancourt, as he was now called by most people, conveniently stripped of his Father title. He was developing a new interest, or rather his interest was developing into a daily activity. He had enthusiastically added other “instruments” to his collection, such as glasses filled with different amounts of water, and wood planks to tap on with his feet. The news had gone quickly around the little town that this newcomer had enhanced the fiddler’s act, which had become too much of a routine. Mr. Gelinas had even offered a modest portion of the profits to the two musicians.

But our transformed priest felt he needed to continue his journey. “It is time for me to go on, finish my trip,” he said one day, at the dinner table.

“Why?” asked Marie, who was more than happy to have him as a guest.

“Yeah, you’re not bothering us here, get that idea out of your head,” said Gratien.

“I know, you two have been so good to me. But I had set as my goal to go all the way to Vancouver, and as you know I don’t have so many years to do it.”

“Don’t say that,” they said, “you’re as strong as a horse and you’ll bury us all.” But they knew, they understood what he was talking about. Time flies and crushes you against a wall, THE wall.

“I’ll probably be back in a week,” he said, “not too many chances of finding a cafe there in need of an old spoon player.”

“No,” they said in chorus. “This is the last big French Canadian community this far west. Out there in Vancouver they have a lot more Chinese than French Canadians. It’s like another country.” They actually liked that.

Bertrand was saddened by the news of the departure. He had grown accustomed to being given the rhythm for his tunes: he knew that with old age he forgot and the second brain helped him keep the music going. He also liked talking to his new friend, as they both had stories to tell that nobody else wanted to hear. Bertrand risked an offer:

“If you want to come back here, I would like you to stay at my place. As you know, there’s an empty room, and...” He paused, not knowing how to say the rest of it.

Father Vaillancourt was moved by the offer. He thought of his nephew for a moment, but he knew this was different: it was just about two lonely men who had found renewed rhythm together. At his age, one wants to hang on to life, trying to avoid solitude before the great jump to the other side. After a life of promising the eternal life to the dying, he found he himself would need someone else to promise it to him.

“Thank you, Bertrand, I’m very touched by your offer. I just don’t know. I have found a new life here but I keep wondering about the old one. It could take me a while before I figure it out. Thank you.”

They started shaking hands, but it was a shaking that demanded a hug. So they did, and ignored the remaining taboo that prohibited men from being close to each other.

The departure was set for the next Monday. Gratien took him to his work at the College for a couple of days, which gave him an opportunity to see young people and to get a sense of what their issues were. It was all part of the discovery, and at times it felt strange that he was not missing his old work as a priest. In fact he had been at the church there and met the Parish Priest, which made him feel good about his retirement. He just couldn’t enjoy it anymore, if, as he now thought, he had ever enjoyed it as much as playing with the fiddler.

They told him he should consider staying a longer time on his way back. They knew someone who could let him a room for not much money. He said he would consider it, but in his mind it was unlikely. One of his issues was that he did not have much savings left. He told them about Bertrand’s offer.

“That is the best idea I have heard in a long time,” said Marie, “you two get along well.”

“I think so too,” said Gratien, looking for signs in his friend’s face that would make it happen. He saw something that he liked, a subtle sign of hope.

“I’ll think about it,” is all that the father offered back. He did not know how to choose between what he wanted to do and what he ought to.

The day before his departure, he called his sister-in-law back home. These calls were never long because of the long distance charges but this time she kept asking him how he liked the trip so far, as if she wanted to talk about something difficult. She had written him a letter and was surprised that he had not received it yet. After more hesitation she told him that a young priest had started to come to their church to say mass on Sunday. She said he was not living there, just coming for mass and leaving afterwards. She said he was a bit modern, and did not know how to deal with the villagers yet. There were more details in her letter.

Father Vaillancourt hung up and although he thought he should be happy that his relief had finally come, he felt sad. He felt sad that it meant he was no longer needed there. It meant he could take as long as he wanted to come back home, because someone else could preside at the funerals of his old parishioners. A young priest now walked up to his altar and talked to his parishioners.

After talking to Gratien about it, he cancelled the train reservation. He would wait for the letter which should arrive soon, and then advise. In Gratien’s view it was better to stay there with his friends rather than continuing the trip to places where he would find himself lonely.

The letter arrived the next day and confirmed what he already knew. Although it just freed him from any obligation to return, he missed his village, his parishioners, his room, his view on the ocean. Here, he thought, he had made new friends, but this was not his home: he was still a guest. He was still a traveler. Gratien disagreed with his view.

“Listen, you are not very young any more. You will not have this opportunity again, ever. Think about it. You have lived there all your life, and right now, at this very moment you are 2000 km from there and you have friends and a choice of places to stay. Stay!” said Gratien the counselor.

That night, in the computer room, he tried to talk to God. He looked straight at Jesus on his crucifix and asked him what he would do in his place. As usual there was no answer, so he continued by using examples from Jesus’ life to compare to his situation, maintaining the monologue without coming to a resolution. Then he thought of the blind girl in the book learning a new life after the old woman had died. At the beginning of the book, she could not even talk. In her new environment she had learned new life skills and become independent. Maybe he himself was learning new life skills and needed to be patient. But what was wrong with going back home and resuming his old secure life? After all, he was old, and that’s what old people did. He replayed Gratien’s voice in his mind, telling him to be adventurous. In bed, he turned and turned for hours until he finally was exhausted and fell asleep.

He got up at ten o’clock in the morning, still tired but unable to sleep. He chose to walk to the cafe and have breakfast of coffee and toast there. The cold wind reminded him that he would soon need a winter coat. Mr. Gelinas, surprised to see the musician still in town, welcomed him back and asked him what had happened. He only gave vague answers about the possibility of cutting his trip short and returning home.

“Maybe we should find you a wife here, so you would stay,” joked Mr. Gelinas.

But that was not what the father wanted. The most difficult thing to understand now was what did he really want? Returning home was the easy and obvious solution, but as Gratien had warned him, also final. Like putting an old chair in the attic because you don’t know what else to do with it, and then when you need to make space in the attic, you just use it as firewood. Staying in St-Boniface was the unusual solution. He saw Bertrand come in, his violin case in hand, surprised to see his friend there. They talked. Mr. Gelinas interrupted occasionally to offer coffee and his opinion, particularly about the fact that he wanted to host a New Year’s Eve party and needed musicians for it.

“Look, I don’t have a winter coat, I can’t stay,” the father said, semi-seriously.

“We’ll find you one,” said Mr. Gelinas, “with or without a wife!”

Bertrand agreed, mentioning they could go to a thrift store on the English side of town. It pleased the ex-priest that someone here still wanted him, while at home he would probably sit in his room most of the time talking to a crucifix. He agreed to play again with Bertrand at the cafe that evening.

Three days later he decided to stay in St-Boniface and move to Bertrand’s place. He would request to receive his pension checks there, so he could pay his share of the rent. His friends expressed their joy at the news, a kind of joy he had not seen before, the kind of joy needed to warm up old souls when winter looks at them from above with its bag full of old tricks.

[2] How happy men could be if they could ignore evil!

[3] Her obscure universe was enclosed in the walls of this single room that she had never left;

[4] “I bring back the lost sheep,” said I as solemnly as I could.

[5] But indeed the laws of nature permit what the laws of men and God prohibit.

[7] I wanted to cry, but I felt my heart dryer than the desert.