A Very Bold Leap Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitchen chair and pointed his huge index finger at the kitchen table, where Céline had placed a sugar bowl and a cream pitcher on the yellow formica top. He touched the table thoughtfully.
    “This came from the other apartment, then?”
    “Yes, and the coffee maker,” replied Céline.
    “And my statue of Hachiko, along with a few dishes and two pots,” Charles said sadly. “That’s about all I was able to salvage.”
    The beginnings of his novel, all his notes, and even his typewriter had suffered the same tragic fate as the library in Alexandria. The fire had, however, had one favourable result: it had melted the chill that had settled in between Charles and the hardware-store owner.
    On the morning in question, Charles, still numb and exhausted, had gone to the Michauds’ to ask for their hospitality. Amélie had made him take a hot bath, then sat him at a table with a towel over his head above a steaming bowl of eucalyptus oil, “to get the pneumonia out of your lungs,” as she said, convinced he had contracted the disease.
    While Charles slept, Parfait Michaud had called the Fafards to tell them about the disaster, and ten minutes later the hardware-store owner was at their door, like a fireman arriving too late but determined to fight the fire anyway. It was all Parfait could do to prevent his friend from waking Charles up and bringing him back to the Fafards’ house. Under such circumstances, Fernand said fervently, a son should be in his father’s house.
    “Let him sleep, Fernand, please. The boy can barely stand on his two feet.”
    “You promise to call me the minute he wakes up? Promise, swear to it, cross your heart? I’m making this a point of honour, Michaud.”
    And he made the notary recount once again everything he knew about what had happened the previous night. Then he returned to the store to let Lucie come to the Michauds’ to hear the story for herself.
    The next day Charles agreed to return temporarily to the Fafards’;, and Fernand took the following measures:
He found a three-and-a-half-room apartment, quite comfortable and at an affordable rent, at the corner of Dufresne and Champagne. Charles would be living on the same street as the Fafards, but far enough from the house and the hardware-store owner that he would feel completely free and independent, which is what he wanted.
Taking Victor with him, he made a sweep of the area’s junk shops and second-hand stores, and in two hours replaced almost all of Charles’s furnishings; he intended it to be a gift, but Charles insisted on paying him back immediately.
Knowing that Wilfrid Thibodeau was capable of anything, he called Liliane, the carpenter’s former mistress, to get the name of Thibodeau’s employer in Winnipeg, then called there to make sure that Charles’s father had in fact been in Manitoba on the day of the fire. That being confirmed, he went down to the police station to find out how the inquiry into the cause of the fire was proceeding, where he succeeded only in increasing the blood pressure of everyone present and in unleashing a few choice but ineffectual epithets.
He topped off his day at dinner, just as dessert was being served. After much clearing of his throat and playing with his utensils, and looking as awkward as a teenager the first time he had to bare a buttock to a nurse, he offered Charles a part-time job at the hardware store.
    Deeply touched, and to Fernand’s great relief, Charles accepted on the spot. The hardware-store owner had dreaded another instance of Charles’s spirited independence, but in fact Charles was very nearly at the end of his savings, and the job offer fitted in perfectly with his plans to become a writer. Fernand’s offer and Charles’s acceptance marked the final reconciliation between the two men.
    The following night, Fernand invited Charles out to a tavern for a beer. Charles agreed, although he was astonished; Fafard hardly ever set foot in such an establishment. He went