waiting for him to grow up and realize for himself that other people have rights as well. Be patient, it will come… Maybe you’re just jealous,” Angélique said.
“That’s quite possible,” Joseph retorted, “but I still would like to see him bring the furs back.”
Angélique was torn between her traditions and Joseph’s request, which seemed more like a demand. Eventually, she gave in. Membertou threw a terrible fit. He screamed, he threw himself on the ground, he broke his bow and arrows, he cried, he sulked, and he made threats. Nevertheless he did bring the red fox furs back to the storehouse.
Joseph breathed easier; now it felt like he could play a role in Membertou’s life. That evening, he lit a small fire in the centre of the big conical tent, spread pine branches on the ground to combat the humidity, and laid seal hides on top to make a bed. A bed for Membertou. Once the boy was asleep, Joseph took Angélique into his arms and forgot about having to become a father against his wishes. He was captivated by this woman who loved life, pleasure, beauty, and books. She was part-European after all, in love with the theatre, spending long hours as a child in the wild forests of Caraquet reading works by Molière, Corneille, and Racine brought in on French ships. She had been encouraged in her reading by her father who, as a youth, had shown an interest in the art of coin-making.
Membertou’s troubles had made Joseph think. He did not want the boy to become an obstacle in his relationship with Angélique. Which was why he decided to keep his distance as well, to feign indifference and act as though Membertou was not part of his life and wait for the boy to take the first step. The ploy was starting to work: one morning as they were fishing for trout, Membertou ventured a question about Quebec. “Are tents in Quebec bigger than Ruisseau’s?”
His question followed the sighting of large ships coming from Quebec, which were bigger than his people’s canoes…
* * *
The Mi’kmaq camp was still asleep, and the sun was just peeking above the point of Ile Caraquet, yet Saint-Jean was already boiling his morning tea in front of his home. He lived off on his own, in a log house with a roof covered in slate from the Anse à l’Etang quarry in the Gaspé. Until it went bankrupt, the quarry had supplied the city of Quebec with shingles. Saint-Jean, whose heart was ailing, added a special potion prepared by Angélique to his wintergreen tea: rye ergot to help his arteries contract. He had aged prematurely, his ten years spent on the king’s galleys having left their mark – wrinkled, cracked skin, hunched back, bald head, and long white beard. His soul was in a state of permanent revolt against injustice, governments, and institutions, which explained why he chose to live far away from so-called civilization. When hatred welled up at thoughts of the fate of his companions in misfortune, he channelled it into engraving onto moose antlers the facts of daily life on the galleys. He had a dream, too, that helped him go on: to create in America a fur empire to outfit the courts of Europe. “I want to show those good-for-nothings that they need those of us who aren’t as privileged as they are,” he proclaimed to all and sundry.
The animals of the forest held no secrets for Saint-Jean, nor did the different stages of hide preparation: cleaning, degreasing, brushing, lustring… His great weaknesses were those of the gourmand, namely the food and wine brought by the French ships that put in at Ruisseau. He had given himself over to these pleasures often since his wife’s death. But he’d been a gourmand since childhood, and his years of forced labour had only served to increase his appetite. He was obese, not a good thing given his health problems.
Joseph, too, had risen early. He pulled on a coarse linen shirt and baggy seaman’s pants cinched at the knee. He took his knife from where it hung at the entrance to the tent and headed in the direction of the great birch tree next to Saint-Jean’s house. Saint-Jean, whose survival had necessitated developing a biting sense of humour, called out, “Ready to make your getaway to Quebec?”
Pulled out of his revery, Joseph gave a start. “I want to write a letter to my mother, and mornings are my best time,” he answered.
His mother had taught him to read and write using old books from Normandy that told stories of Joan of Arc and William the Conqueror. The books also told his favourite tales – the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor – carrying the whiff of perfume from the Orient. Having leafed through the yellowed pages of the books hundreds of times, he knew all the tales by heart.
“Do you plan on telling her about Angélique?” Saint-Jean asked casually.
He viewed the relationship between his daughter and Joseph favourably, but he wanted to make sure Joseph would not be clearing out at the first snowfall. Joseph would rather not talk about it, but he decided to be open with the old man.
“That’s why I’m writing.”
“If you’re not sure, you should take some time to think about it.”
Joseph felt great affection for Saint-Jean; another man might not have trusted him so easily.
“No, my mind is made up. Sometimes I miss my family and the excitement of life in Quebec, but I feel at home here. The surroundings are beautiful, the people hospitable… and I love your daughter and I’ve begun to connect with Membertou.”
Satisfied, Saint-Jean lit his pipe and didn’t push the matter further. Joseph headed toward the huge birch tree and tore off large strips of bark for his letter to his mother concerning his future.
Chapter 3
“Suffering,” he said, “was nearly the sole occupation of those poor people; they were stricken by illness, and death took away many of them. Father du Marché had to go back to France; Father Turgis resisted for a while, comforting his small flock, listening to the confessions of some, giving strength to others through the sacraments of the Eucharist and Last Rites, burying those whom death spirited away. But eventually the work and the unhealthy air he breathed around the sickly felled him as they had others. He fought until the last breath, though. He had himself carried to the bedside of the sick and the dying, he inspired them, gave them strength, encouraged them, and after having buried the captain, the clerk, and the surgeon, in other words all the other officers and eight or nine other working people, he himself succumbed, leaving only one sick man to face death, whom he accompanied to that point before breathing his last. …He was the first of our Company to die of illness in this land. He was sorely missed by the French and the Savages who held him in high regard and loved him dearly.”
–“Account” of the Jesuits in Miscou in 1647, quoted by W.F Ganong in The History of Miscou and Shippegan
In late August, the Jesuit Ignace de la Transfiguration, wearing a tricorn hat with a wide, turned-up brim, arrived in Ruisseau. The news spread like an autumn fire through a pile of dead leaves. The missionary had devoted his life to bringing the gospel to the native peoples, and no weakness of the flesh had any hold over his asceticism. Not even a love for good food and drink. In fact, suffering made him happy, and mosquito bites replaced the hair shirt for God’s greater glory. Come from Quebec by water, he navigated the St. Lawrence and the Matapedia rivers then, after a halt at the Restigouche post, he entered the Baye des Chaleurs. During the ten long days the journey took, the missionary meditated on the difficulties he encountered. Only a few baptisms in ten years of evangelization. Why? How can I make them understand good and evil? As for transsubstantiation and the Trinity, the three persons of God, and the two natures of Christ, I’ll never get that across… he thought.
What the Jesuit did not realize was that even St. Peter would not have been able to teach the catechism, with its abstract concepts that had no connection with the daily concerns of
