Papillon excerpt:
Photo of the Cape Breton Highlands in the fall: Traci Brake-Young
And so it begins one evening—a chilly evening for so late in the spring—when several friends gather over a potluck dinner and wine to celebrate Sabine's successful art opening, in the cozy kitchen with butter-coloured walls in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As the friends inch their chairs closer and her restless hands fly in the manner of her Acadian ancestors, Sabine sets up the scene: Cape Breton—also known as the thought-control centre of Canada--was the birthplace of her mother, an otherwise ordinary young woman, who, for a brief moment in time, believed she was meant for an extraordinary life.
“Have you all heard of those winds called suètes that blast through the Cape Breton Highlands?” Sabine asks. “When I moved to Papillon, I'd never heard anything like it. The first sign it's coming is a flatass calm. The wind always seems to brew at the wolf hour—that's what the locals call it—and unleashes its fury in the middle of the night, or at dawn, when the villagers are most vulnerable.”
The older man to Sabine's right, a retired journalist turned poet named Tony who smokes like a freight train, interrupts Sabine. “I thought you grew up in Paris?”
“I did, sort of. We moved to Papillon when I was four.”
“Now, there's a switch.” Tony's laugh turns into a cough.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. But, about the suètes: Mom used to call them the Great Upheaval, though I preferred Matante Bijou's take on things. She compared the aftermath of a suète to the day after a catholic goes to confession. Their slate so spic and span, she’d say, the very memories of their sins were wiped out. That’s kind of what happened to my Mom after her accident.”
Sabine downs a third glass of wine. At the long harvest table, the feast begins weaving its magic. Spirits from the simple (mostly white) monuments of the forgotten start rising, breaking ground.
Sabine jumps at a cracking noise as the wind catches one of the window shutters and snaps it shut. She bites into her wine-stained and cracked bottom lip, and continues.
“That wind blew in the same day my uncle swore he saw an iron pot casting a ball of fire on the ocean. He said it turned into a ship and then disappeared. That night, I heard a gust slam the church steeple in Papillon that made the oddest squeal. I was sitting frozen next to a window watching this tree coated with millions of tiny birds—”
Tony resumes his coughing, full of fits and starts, ending with him clearing his throat and sighing loudly.
“Well, there were at least hundreds of tiny clinging birds.”
Lowering the wine glass from her lips, slowly, Sabine makes eye contact with Tony, who lights a cigarette and hands it to her with a nod.
“Fat with leaves, the tree strained until one whole branch began cracking. Birds flew madly in all directions. The cracking grew louder as another branch severed from the tree. And then another.”
Sabine takes a long drag, exhales a smoke cloud, and dabs the end of the cigarette into Tony's overflowing ashtray.
“I couldn't take my eyes off the destruction.”
By the time the sun rose in Papillon the next day only the tree trunk remained standing. Shadows disguised in rain slickers and sou'westers arrived later to chop the trunk. In the end, a gaping hole in the ground disappeared, the earth filling herself up.
“It was as if the tree had never been there.”
Sabine mourned the tree's death. After the storm, she'd started to paint trees as if she were a lone archivist faced with the possible extinction of written history. She often painted at the very spot where the tree had clung to life as if her being there somehow bound her to something sacred. Under the imagined tree canopy, Sabine came upon an ineffable luminosity that opened up to her when she felt most vulnerable. At such times, she possessed a rare ability, and could climb the (non-existent) tree to gain secret vantage.
When she painted there in the spring, Sabine could smell the memory of verdant leaves—vital and full of fresh promise—as if the tree were coming back to life after the long winter. These sensibilities coincided with another habit. (. . .)
“Have you all heard of those winds called suètes that blast through the Cape Breton Highlands?” Sabine asks. “When I moved to Papillon, I'd never heard anything like it. The first sign it's coming is a flatass calm. The wind always seems to brew at the wolf hour—that's what the locals call it—and unleashes its fury in the middle of the night, or at dawn, when the villagers are most vulnerable.”
The older man to Sabine's right, a retired journalist turned poet named Tony who smokes like a freight train, interrupts Sabine. “I thought you grew up in Paris?”
“I did, sort of. We moved to Papillon when I was four.”
“Now, there's a switch.” Tony's laugh turns into a cough.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. But, about the suètes: Mom used to call them the Great Upheaval, though I preferred Matante Bijou's take on things. She compared the aftermath of a suète to the day after a catholic goes to confession. Their slate so spic and span, she’d say, the very memories of their sins were wiped out. That’s kind of what happened to my Mom after her accident.”
Sabine downs a third glass of wine. At the long harvest table, the feast begins weaving its magic. Spirits from the simple (mostly white) monuments of the forgotten start rising, breaking ground.
Sabine jumps at a cracking noise as the wind catches one of the window shutters and snaps it shut. She bites into her wine-stained and cracked bottom lip, and continues.
“That wind blew in the same day my uncle swore he saw an iron pot casting a ball of fire on the ocean. He said it turned into a ship and then disappeared. That night, I heard a gust slam the church steeple in Papillon that made the oddest squeal. I was sitting frozen next to a window watching this tree coated with millions of tiny birds—”
Tony resumes his coughing, full of fits and starts, ending with him clearing his throat and sighing loudly.
“Well, there were at least hundreds of tiny clinging birds.”
Lowering the wine glass from her lips, slowly, Sabine makes eye contact with Tony, who lights a cigarette and hands it to her with a nod.
“Fat with leaves, the tree strained until one whole branch began cracking. Birds flew madly in all directions. The cracking grew louder as another branch severed from the tree. And then another.”
Sabine takes a long drag, exhales a smoke cloud, and dabs the end of the cigarette into Tony's overflowing ashtray.
“I couldn't take my eyes off the destruction.”
By the time the sun rose in Papillon the next day only the tree trunk remained standing. Shadows disguised in rain slickers and sou'westers arrived later to chop the trunk. In the end, a gaping hole in the ground disappeared, the earth filling herself up.
“It was as if the tree had never been there.”
Sabine mourned the tree's death. After the storm, she'd started to paint trees as if she were a lone archivist faced with the possible extinction of written history. She often painted at the very spot where the tree had clung to life as if her being there somehow bound her to something sacred. Under the imagined tree canopy, Sabine came upon an ineffable luminosity that opened up to her when she felt most vulnerable. At such times, she possessed a rare ability, and could climb the (non-existent) tree to gain secret vantage.
When she painted there in the spring, Sabine could smell the memory of verdant leaves—vital and full of fresh promise—as if the tree were coming back to life after the long winter. These sensibilities coincided with another habit. (. . .)
The photo below is of the village where I grew up called Chéticamp (sneakily similar to Papillon:)
Cheticamp, mon village natal
Photo: Kevin Fiset
To see more photos of this beautiful corner of the world you can refer to my World's Most Scenic Drives (Cape Breton Highlands/Cabot Trail) Blog