“Go on, Larivière, for God’s sake!” Miron cries. “We’re listening!”

I place the sheet of paper back on the desk. I don’t need it. I lean forward. My voice changes, I can hear it. I sound just like the teacher at the residential school The words roll off my tongue in big waves, my voice swells like sails filled with wind. I recite the poem in a clear voice.

How many gallant captains and brave hands

Who joyfully set out for distant lands

Have over somber skylines gone like ghosts!

How many has fortune overtaken

In soundless seas on nights by moons forsaken

Submerged beneath blind waters in their hosts!

Monsieur Thibeault is rooted to the spot in the corner, his mouth open, his arms dangling at his sides. Everyone looks at me as if I’ve just landed from another planet.

Whenever he felt sad, whenever he missed his home in the Gaspésie, our teacher at the residential school would go to the back of the classroom and recite these lines to himself in a loud voice — lines I repeated to myself until I knew them by heart. But I never heard myself say them out loud before. I thought I’d forgotten them, but now they have come back to me.

I always thought it was something he learned from his mother or his grandmother. Now I find out it’s a poem by someone called Victor Hugo.

I walk out of the classroom and hurry outside. The bell rings behind me. I don’t want anyone to see the tears rolling down my cheeks. They’ve come up to the surface like water that suddenly gushes up when you break through the thick ice in winter.

17

ON FRIDAYS, MONSIEUR Thibeault always has a surprise for us. This week he’s standing at the front of the room with his hands behind his back. He’s hiding something. As usual, Miron is acting up, swearing, banging down the top of his desk, swinging around noisily in his seat.

Gradually things quiet down, like the calm after a gust of wind. Without saying a word, Monsieur Thibeault shows us an envelope that he’s been holding behind his back. It’s long and light, with red, white and blue stripes around the edge. He waves it in the air like a flag. He walks back and forth in front of the class and waves it under the noses of the kids in the front, the ones who are nearsighted. He makes some of them touch it, sniff it.

“It’s a funny kind of paper,” says a kid in the second row. “Like toilet paper.”

Everyone laughs.

“And to whom is it addressed?” the teacher asks quickly, before the laughter gets any worse.

The kid squints at the writing. “To…uh, Monsieur…uh…G. Thibeault.”

“Right!”

“At 320, rue La…la…violette…Mont-Laurier…”

“Right!”

“Canada.”

“Good. Do you see anything else?”

“It says By Airmail.”

“And the stamp?”

The kid’s forehead wrinkles up.

“Republique f-f-française!”