And Miles to Go Before I Sleep
Page 18
The problem is that Léonard Mostin doesn’t seem in a rush to finish his novel. On my last visit to Toronto, Lisana had received a postcard from Moscow.
‘Moscow, that’s far,’ Bernie commented, and I saw a smile of satisfaction at knowing that the novelist was thousands of kilometres from his desk.
Are we condemned, Léonard Mostin and me, on either side of the Atlantic, to chase a story without an end?
For the time being, Clova is the centre of the world. Time flies, friendship is precious, and I prefer to sit at Suzan’s table or, even better, on her porch.
‘Que je sois, que tu sois, qu’il soit, que … ’
‘ … nous soyons, que vous soyez, qu’ils soient.’
‘It’s so complicated. I don’t have enough years left.’
For the time being, Suzan has got it into her head to learn French, and she has a hard time with the subjunctive. When a train goes by, and she settles deep down into her chair, I know that it is a verb conjugation that I see moving on her lips.
‘Que je publie, que tu publies, qu’il … ’
‘I won’t publish.’
‘Que j’oublie, que tu oublies … ’
‘I won’t forget.’
‘Que … ’
‘That I liberate myself, that I liberate my pages, that I let them take flight … ’
‘ … on one train, then another, and … ’
‘ … and I will have finished my chronicle.’
I will have to explain it to Bernie.
Acknowledgements
From the author
For their support, friendship, and invaluable information throughout my travelling chronicle, I would like to thank:
Chantal Côté, Robert Moreau, Diane Armstrong, Carl Ouimet, Marthe Brown, Claude Chartrand, Nicole Perron, Anne-Marie Perron, Craig Kennet, Danièle Coulombe, Denis Cloutier, Sylviane Martineau, Denis Morin, Bettie Ethier, Nancy Hollmer, Marie Lebel, Julie Langevin, Normand Renaud, Julie Latimer, Bill McLeod, Karen Bachman, David Yaschyshya, Marie Daviau-Aumont, Frederick Bonin, Jean-Pierre Villeneuve, Claude Villeneuve, Renée Lamontagne, Carolyn O’Neil, and, of course, Bernie Jaworsky.
From the translator
Thank you to Alana Wilcox, Coach House Books, and Jocelyne Saucier for waiting. Eternal thanks to Owen Egan, Joni Dufour, and Donna for giving me a place to land.
Jocelyne Saucier’s Il pleuvait des oiseaux (And the Birds Rained Down) garnered her the Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie, making her the first Canadian to win the award. The book was a CBC Canada Reads Selection in 2015 and its movie adaptation premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019.
Rhonda Mullins has translated Jocelyne Saucier’s two previous novels for Coach House. And the Birds Rained Down was a finalist for CBC Canada Reads and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation. She received the Governor General’s Award in 2015 for translating Saucier’s Twenty-One Cardinals.
Typeset in Jenson Pro and Morison.
Printed at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane in Toronto, Ontario, on Zephyr Antique Laid paper, which was manufactured, acid-free, in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, from second-growth forests. This book was printed with vegetable-based ink on a 1973 Heidelberg KORD offset litho press. Its pages were folded on a Baumfolder, gathered by hand, bound on a Sulby Auto-Minabinda, and trimmed on a Polar single-knife cutter.
Coach House is on the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. We acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We are grateful to live and work on this land.
Edited by Alana Wilcox
Interior design by Crystal Sikma
Author photo by Ariane Ouellet
Translator photo by Owen Egan
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