There’s nothing a man can count on for sure
Not his strength nor his weakness nor his heart
And when he believes that he’s opening his arms
His shadow is that of a cross.

“It’s a poem by Aragon,” she said. “Do you know it?”

“Of course,” he said, without taking his eyes off the grey and dreary highway.

“I like it when he says ‘nor his heart,’” she said.

“Me too.”

“It might even be the saddest song in the world.”

“Could be.”

He knew other sad songs and he sang some of them, including “Un Canadien errant,” and the girl sang two or three as well, until finally they decided to organize a competition that would be called “Contest to Find the Saddest Song in the World.”

There was a long silence, then the girl said that the Volks’ motor was running well; the valves were a little noisy but everything seemed normal. She had a great affection for the Volks, even though it was old and slow and temperamental. She thought it was just big enough for two. And it had been fixed up so handily, with the retractable roof and the table that could open for making meals, and the seat that could be turned into a double bed when you wanted to sleep; you just had to draw the curtains and you were at home. Like a house . . . The girl had never had a real house. She had been born in a trailer because when her mother married a white man she had lost her house on the reservation at La Romaine; she had been expelled and lost her Indian status. But whites still considered her an Indian, and they had refused to rent or sell a house to the newlyweds. In the end, her parents had bought a trailer.

She told him that she had actually thought about the trailer the night before, because of her father and because of a road sign between Chatham and Windsor that read “Merlin County”. The sign had reminded her that, in her father’s trailer, there were the thirteen volumes of the Encyclopédie de la Jeunesse and that when she was little she had read in one of them a story about Merlin the Sorceror. There was King Arthur and his miraculous sword, Excalibur. And Sir Lancelot of the Lake. There were the knights in search of the Holy Grail. She recalled an illustration on the right-hand page that showed a young and noble knight beside a white horse; he had come to a stop in the middle of the forest, and his face was illuminated by the vision of the Holy Grail; the caption under the illustration read:

Sir Galahad
His strength was as the strength of ten
Because his heart was pure.

From time to time there was another road sign that read “Soft Shoulder”. The girl said that was her favourite sign; she didn’t like the French expression accotement mou, but whenever she saw Soft Shoulder, she thought about all sorts of pleasant things: a soft place to lay one’s head, friendship and the warmth of another person. Then she said that she was very comical, with her stories about knights and road signs, and she was probably carrying on like this from fatigue.