The Island of Books

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Dominique Fortier. The Island of Books

Acknowledgments

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For Fred, and Zoé.

Twenty-five years would pass before I would see it again. When the time came to return, I suggested that we not go: we didn’t have much time before we had to head back to Paris; they were calling for rain; it would probably be crawling with tourists. In truth, I was afraid, the way you’re afraid any time you go back to the places of your childhood, afraid of finding them diminished, which means one of two things: either they appeared larger because your eyes were so small, or along the way you lost the knack for wonder, either of which is a devastating idea. But it hadn’t changed, and neither had I.

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In the year of our Lord 14**, Mont Saint-Michel towered in the middle of the bay; the abbey stood tall at its centre. In the middle of the abbey, the church was nestled around its choir. A man was lying in the middle of the transept. The heart of this man held a sorrow so deep that the bay wasn’t enough to contain it.

He didn’t have faith, but the church didn’t hold that against him. There is suffering so great that it exempts you from believing. Sprawled on the flagstones, arms spread wide, Éloi was himself a cross.

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