“Ja, ja,” Lucien had said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes sparkling and his skin like espresso against the creamy white wall. “But abolition does not mean the old ideas disappear. Ce n’est jamais si facile que ça, mes amis.” He looked at the teacher and then at Viola and cocked his eyebrow.

“Ja,” she said, eyes closing, in her mind sitting with Ben on the back porch of his family farmhouse, which had come down through five generations to him. They ate chèvre with sun-dried tomatoes on homemade brown bread. Don’t go on this trip abroad, Ben said, looking out over the beach, crying so quietly. Stay here and marry me. We’ll run your family inn and my mother’s farm, do the summer market for the tourists, and go sailing on Saturday afternoons. Viola had cried too but she did leave and had not returned.

Henry would always come to the park after class with the other students and they scattered to benches under the gloomy November clouds. Henry often sat by the fountain with Viola and asked her about Canada. At first she was reluctant to discuss where she had come from, but he was easy to talk with and every time they sat together she shared more and more. Viola wasn’t used to anyone but Ben having such interest in her. She told Henry she was living with Ralf, how they’d met in Saigon where Viola had moved after graduating from university with what Ralf called a useless arts degree. She had begged Ben to come with her but he said he already had a life on Campobello, commitments and responsibilities he couldn’t leave.

Viola’s only friend in Saigon was her roommate, Evangeline. They shared a tiny apartment and taught ESL at the same small school. She was a girl from Nova Scotia who made friends easily and, like Henry, spent most of her time asking questions and listening. She insisted on brushing her teeth with the tap water so she could get used to the local bacteria and as a result she had constant diarrhea. She said adventure was not all it was cracked up to be and they should both go home. But Viola wasn’t ready for that. She helped Evangeline pack and went with her to the airport where Evangeline gave her a small silver necklace with a delicate starfish hanging from the chain. Evangeline said it was a good luck charm for travellers that her father had given to her, but she didn’t need it as much as Viola would. Viola cried when Evangeline went through the gate. It wasn’t long after that she agreed to come to Germany with Ralf, rather than scurry back to the island in New Brunswick, embarrassed she had left in the first place.

After a month of their bench chats, Viola blurted out to Henry how she’d left Campobello because she wanted adventure, a journey which wasn’t halted by land’s end. She had never shared anything like this with Ralf. Viola knew he would roll his eyes. He was impatient with what he called inconsequential conversation. But Henry was the opposite and Viola couldn’t help herself. She told him about Ben and how she wept when she said she couldn’t marry him. She was too young. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.