“Look in the glove compartment,” he said.

The girl took out the postcard and examined it closely. The man watched out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction. The card showed a typical Gaspé landscape: a small fishing village in the hollow of a cove; the message on the back was totally illegible except for the signature: “Your brother Théo.”

Camille Pouliot, La grande avenutre de Jacques Cartier, p. 42.

“Obviously it’s old handwriting,” said the girl.

“Obviously,” said the man, holding his breath.

“Old texts are always hard to read,” she said very calmly. “Is your brother Théo a historian or something like that?”

“He studied history, but he’s never worked in the field. Or any other field. He didn’t like to work. What he liked was trips and cars. He’d do odd jobs and when he got a bit of money he’d travel.”

The girl smiled faintly.

“And what did he look like?”

“The opposite of me: tall, almost six feet, and his hair was . . . black, like yours, and he wouldn’t work himself into a state over nothing.”

“But, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you looking for him now? After all, the postcard’s very old.”

“That’s true. I stuck it in a book and forgot it. I mean, I couldn’t remember what book it was in.”

He thought for a moment.

“Of course that doesn’t answer your question.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

The man was driving the Volks very slowly, in third gear. From time to time he looked in the rearview mirror to see if anyone behind him was getting impatient. Then eventually he stopped by the side of the road and switched off the ignition.

“I turned forty last week and . . .”

He shook his head.

“Actually it has nothing to do with age . . . Some days you feel as if everything’s falling apart . . . inside you and all around you,” he said, searching for the right words. “So then you try to figure out what you can hang on to . . . I thought of my brother. He used to be my best friend. I wondered why I’d stopped hearing from him, and I looked for the last card he’d sent me. And finally I found it. It was in a book with a gold cover called The Golden Dream. By Walker Chapman. Have you read it?”

“No,” said the girl.

“Anyway, that’s where I found the card. And since it had been mailed in Gaspé, even though it was a long time ago . . .”

“I understand.”

“Today I feel old and ridiculous.”

The girl resumed her scrutiny of the postcard. She absentmindedly stroked the head of the kitten, who was asleep in her lap.

“Is your name Jack?” she asked, reading the name and address to the right of the message.

“That’s what my brother used to call me. When we were little we gave ourselves English names; we thought they suited us much better!”