chapter Ten, continued

to read from the FIRST CHAPTER

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EPISODE 21

in the garden of my heart

the flowers of peace bloom

beautifully

The End of Suffering with Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh

'Noooooooo!' -- I woke up screaming, and Catherine almost jumped out from the bed by my side. I don't actually remember what the nightmare was.

'Mérde! You have been screaming and talking in your sleep all night through!' -- Catherine complained -- 'What is so wrong with you?'

I apologized. And then I recalled that she had gone to fetch me at the beach during the night, and I apologized for having taken her out of the bed, too.

'You must have dreamed that...' -- Catherine promptly dismissed my apologies -- 'Just this morning I got up to go to the bathroom, having been woken by your chatter... But I went to the toilet, of course, I didn't go to the beach...'

'How come you did not, Catherine? I had... joined Armand in meditation and you called me...'

'Last night? You did not leave this bed, darling. Like I said, you screamed a few times, and talked within your sleep all night long, and as much as I have poked you, you never woke from your tormented sleep; only turning to the other side to resume with your chatter.'

'It can't be...' -- it was impossible that Armand's mea culpa had been a dream of mine... The words were so beautiful and wise, his thinking was so clear... I'd be uncapable of imagining that! Maybe having heard him call me in a whisper was a dream, but I had in fact awakened and gone down to the beach, and Armand's discourse forgiving me and Catherine and her mother and father, all of it had been... real?

But there was one way to find that out.

'What is it, anyway? You're looking weird today...' -- Catherine wanted to go back to sleep, but my agitation made ​​her uneasy too.

'I'll be right back! I need to check something!' -- and I ran out of the room towards Armand's office.

I clearly remembered Armand's instructions the night before about where the money was, hidden in the false bottom of a box.

And in fact the money was there, like he had said. I had not been dreaming.

'Will you steal that money?' -- I suddenly heard Catherine's question at my back, while I counted a bundle of French franc notes. She had been intrigued with my behavior and had followed me to the office, from where she had already removed her books and notebooks, all stored in her backpack.

'Of course not!' -- I replied, indignantly -- 'Armand told me I could take as much as we needed... He agreed on paying me, so we'll have enough for our trip.'

'When did he tell you that?' -- Catherine raised her eyebrows -- 'I just glanced from our balcony onto the beach, and he is still sitting there, in that same spot since yesterday, playing statue... what a madness! He must have pissed and shited on himself by now...'

'He told me about it last night, Catherine!' -- I was trying to ignore her scorn and irony -- 'How come you don't remember having gone to fetch me at the beach?'

'So that's it? You guys go crazy together? This meditation thing unites you on a trip... I saw a lot of drunk and drugged people, but this is new to me... You may get crazy, but I won't! I know exactly what happened last night, and in no moment did I go down to the beach. Nor did you...' -- Catherine was peremptory -- '...get out of bed after we... did it, babe.'

'Catherine!' -- why should she insist that I was lying or inventing my telepathic conversation with my friend? -- 'Do you think that I could steal from Armand?'

'I don't care!' -- she shrugged -- 'Gaston has given him this money, then it's mine, too! Anyway, daddy will replace whatever you take... Daddy is always so nice to his firstborn, the brilliant Armand, the good student, the good son... the great pretender! Take all that stupid money! Take it all at once! He should have more hiding somewhere else, that... faggot! We'll need to eat, shop for new clothes, and books, and I want to stay at the best hotel!'

I didn't tell Catherine that I intended to stay at the hotel next to the port, just as Armand had recommended, and where he would pay for the bill -- very generously, as always.

Later, when we spotted the boat, we were ready. 

I mean, we were dressed and our things packed, and maybe Catherine was ready to go -- but I wasn't ready to leave the Île du Blanchomme.

I went to say goodbye to Armand, who was still in deep meditation, and Catherine decided to go with me, revealing a curious preoccupation with her half-brother.

'What if this idiot should die of hunger or thirst or heat stroke? If they later find out that we're taking his money, they may want to incriminate us for murder... This is so absurd, to stand still for so many hours! We're not in a circus!' -- Catherine had raised her voice thinking that she would be heard by Armand, but I was sure he was in a contemplative state in which nothing would distract him, just like the Buddha had not been distracted even by the passage of an army.

I tried connecting Armand's mind again, to tell him the last words and still try to apologize, since I hadn't done it overnight, but Catherine wouldn't stop chattering next to me, and I only managed to pray a little and thank him for everything, At the end, I bowed to my good friend.

'Now, what is that supposed to be?' -- Catherine was allergic to anything even slightly religious, and she was horrified thinking I was somehow adoring or venerating Armand, though in my salute and demonstration of respect to him there was indeed reverence.

While I placed our few belongings inside the boat, Catherine put into action a crazy plan she had just devised. She made the few passengers disembark, and led them to the side of the island where Armand was.

'Mérde, aren't they a lazy bunch! Why is it that they don't want to disembark?' -- people seemed to resist her orders -- 'Don't they understand French?' -- and since I had never explained to her that the Île du Blanchomme was considered taboo, probably that being the main reason for the natives to be so reluctant to leave the boat, on those final moments I thought I shouldn't say anything.

'And why do you want people to disembark on the island, Catherine?' -- I asked, puzzled. Had Catherine given up on our trip and wanted to found a colony on the island? Oh, I was so heartbroken, and my desire was to stay behind... All the walls I did not paint, the garden I did not finish... was I really abandoning all that... forever?

'I want them to kick Armand, to check that he is still alive!' -- Catherine replied as she was  driving those few scared people with the least patience, roughly, as if she led cattle -- 'They shall be our witnesses that we did not kill him!'

But Catherine was to be disappointed in her intention! Upon seeing Armand levitating and shinning light, the natives threw themselves to the ground and started doing prostrations, praying and worshiping Armand, but without approaching him. Catherine became even more furious when, having finally given up on making them poke her half-brother, she had difficulty when she tried to make them leave his presence.

'So... they didn't kick Armand after all!' -- I was amused with Catherine's frustration.

'How ignorant these people are! This corner of the world is more savage than it seems! That idiot just sitting there, playing statue, and people were worshiping him, as if he were actually the statue of some god to be venerated... And they kept repeating something like Xanadu, Xanadu, Xanadu...'

'Wouldn't it have been saddhu, saddhu, saddhu?' - I laughed, correcting her.

From that moment on, she ignored me, and also all other passengers on the vessel, considering us foolish and ignorant. And in such a mood the journey of nine hours to the Elder Sisters Islands wasn't pleasant, with Catherine again feeling sick.

And while she was trying not to vomit, I was crying, as I saw myself leaving the Île du Blanchomme, from where I had not intended to depart so soon, nor ever leave my best friend and his sweet company...

I thought I had seen Armand waving goodbye to me from the beach, but it probably was just another hallucination.

The last image I was to keep from that island in my heart was clouded by tears.

So many recollections... The sunset and moon rising sessions like film festivals that had evoked our frequent movie sessions at the Cinémathèque française... our lively conversations on the veranda like once in the room that we had shared during the École... and Armand's exotic culinary preparations that had so improved since our common times in Paris... I seemed to have so many memories with him on that island, but the fact is that we had stayed together for only a week... and one more day, on the Île du Blanchomme. Was it due to the fact that I had thought of him daily, or almost every day, even during his absence? Or because of his coming out to me, so heartfelt... or because like our single kiss under the moonlight, everything had been so intense... 

It seemed I was leaving a piece, the main piece, of my own life behind.

At first, Catherine hated the hotel recommended by Armand, that was more like a pension. She only agreed to stay there for a day or two because she was too weak to go in search of a better one. She felt the neighborhood was awful, but in fact there wasn't any neighborhood -- apart from the port just across the street, some sparse houses, a couple of pensions for travelers, and the brothel for the sailors from a few ships that actually halted a bit longer at the Elder Sister Islands. Our hotel had its front overlooking the port, and its back to a desolate small town atmosphere, where our room was -- number 8, as recommended by Armand.

Catherine was not pleased to learn that Armand used to stay at that same hotel -- although I was not naive to tell her we were in the same room he had usually occupied, too...

But the only other hotel stood on the other side of the island, which would make our access to the port more difficult and costly. I had not taken all of Armand's money, and although I had in my hands a larger amount than I had ever dreamed of, still I had to save it to make sure that we could buy our tickets. Unfortunately, we had lost a ship by three days -- maybe even the one Armand had arrived on? -- and the next one would arrive within ten days or so, and it was a freighter, which did not exactly thrill Catherine.

We found the nicer hotel when we went to the hospital to make an international call. Catherine had tried two other public telephones, but she finally agreed to return to the hospital, which to her was linked to many bad memories.

But that other hotel, although still more luxurious than our pension by the port, was mainly occupied by relatives of the patients, or even by some patients who were awaiting surgery or in recovery, and it had a mood just as gloomy as the hospital. I was happy when Catherine gave up staying there, since it was far more expensive.

Again, Catherine wouldn't let me stay by her side when she called Paris. I just wanted to make sure that she wouldn't tell anything about me to her family, but she assured me that she would not announce her pregnancy until we got back to France; her return -- on her own -- was the only news she wanted to communicate.

By chance, or was it a stroke of luck, or even bad luck as we first thought, the doctor who had first examined Catherine spotted her and wanted to examine her again. Catherine would not obey nor subject herself to many people, but that woman doctor seemed to have power over her.

'What is it, Catherine, for heaven's sake?!' -- I almost cried when I saw her again leave the hospital looking devastated -- 'Did something happen to the baby?'

'That woman... she said I'm not healthy enough as to spend so many days on a boat to France! She... forbid me to travel. Mérde!'

The only option was to fly back to France, but I hadn't brought enough money to go by boat to a  larger island that had an airport, much less to buy two airline tickets to France. We checked the prices at the port, but that was not why we gave up that scheme -- the fact was that Catherine was insanely terrified of flying!

She had flown only once as a child, for a holiday in Tunisia with Celeste, but her despair had been so great on the flight, and she had been so sick in Tunisia just thinking that she would have to fly back to France, that her mother had actually agreed on returning by ship and then on a train to Paris.

'Flying is for birds! And for fools!' -- she had said.

Saint-Exupéry, Glenn Miller, Rocky Marciano, Carlos Gardel, Roald Amundsen, Jacques Thibaud, Carole Lombard, Leslie Howard,  and most recently Alexander Onassis, the son of Aristotle Onassis... Catherine's list of famous people who had died on airplane crashes, or went missing,  was extensive and eclectic. And by no means she would fly.

I was pacified because, at least, we wouldn't have to spend money we didn't have. However, she didn't want to give birth in that part of the world.

'No!' -- she protested -- 'I don't want to stay here! No, I don't want it!'

We pondered that we could dope Catherine with tranquilizers so she could cross the oceans, but at that proposition the doctor looked at us as if we were dangerously mad, and threatened us with the police again. According to that woman doctor, the baby was going to be born in the Elder Sisters Islands.

'I don't want to stay here, I don't want it!' -- Catherine helplessly repeated every day, disconsolate and angry -- 'And I don't understand that woman's insistence that I should have this baby... Isn't this world wronged enough, and overpopulated already?'

But the fact is that none of us knew what else to do.

If the baby would be born on the Elder Sisters Islands indeed, I started considering getting a job and probably moving to simpler accommodations, because we could not live off to Armand's money and generosity for seven or eight months.

'Why not?' -- Catherine was indignant -- 'The money is not his! That money is coming from my father!'

'Then how about asking for more money from your family?' -- I suggested. Catherine was going to call Paris again, to announce that she wouldn't be returning to France so soon, though we hadn't yet prepared an excuse for that delay.

'And why not ask your family?' -- she confronted me.

I was getting ready to write to my grandfather, explaining him the whole situation and informing him about his great-grandson or great-granddaughter to be born, but the money he could send would be little. And it would take a long time to arrive because, unlike Monsieur de Montbelle, he had no chance to wire money to us. There was not even a tiny village close to his farm, and no cities at all on those mountains!

There was no longer how to hide my reality from Catherine. She was completely baffled.

'Are you really that poor?' -- but she did not express disdain, nor sympathy for me, just concern for her own complicated situation that my company seemed to aggravate, putting us on a cul-de-sac.

Finally, Catherine realized whom and what I was. Not an exotic native, as she had thought at first, neither a heir from Armand's millionaire's club, as she had fantasized. A nullity, she would accuse me in the following years. Another lame middle-class European, so uninteresting and bland. 

Slightly worse, perhaps, since I was a peasant simpleton.

For several days, on which we expected and awaited nothing, her grief was so immense that she even lost sexual interest in me. If she had once been excited at the mere sight of my penis, she now averted her eyes at my nakedness, and always looked terribly bored.

And we started losing our intimacy as she refused my touch, creating an almost unbearable tension in our small, claustrophobic hotel room that smelled to rust, damp and camphor. 

While Catherine was glad to be back to civilization, having doors to lock and windows to shut, commonly afraid of burglars and insects as she was, that same reason  made me miserable -- and I missed the freedom and the vastitude of the Île du Blanchomme badly!

How naive I was. I had imagined myself to be a dynamo of pleasure in her life, but the truth is that Catherine would have been content to just have had sexual experiences with me -- she had come to perceive me as Armand's sex toy; except for the fact that I was hung and tireless, she was unable to see any other quality in me that would keep her aristocratic brother's interest in me -- and I'm sure she would have dumped me at the end of her stay on the Île, if she hadn't gotten pregnant.

Just sex, no love -- but we made a baby.

I could not imagine a past for Catherine, and probably I was afraid to inquire about it, for fear of feeling even more inferior.

By the way she had led me in bed, I could imagine that Catherine had had a lot of sexual experience. But still I could not have known how much freedom she had had during the years at the Université... L'amour libre was not just another theoretical discussion for Catherine. Neither simply a justification that she gave for never marrying me the following years and the whole time we stayed together -- I am sure it would have been different and "Free Love" would never have been mentioned to me if I was a wealthy heir.

Her father's double conduct, foundational of her family and life, had given Catherine the ease to live several lives herself. She behaved with the utmost demure and elegancy, but always very seductive, with the dates that her mother would arrange her, usually with rich heirs -- which often led to the same programs that Armand was also going on with his arranged girlfriends. More than once she had seen her half-brother at L'Opéra, as she would later tell me, though Armand still hadn't known about her existence.

A different behavior she reserved to the Université  and its students and teachers' ranks, where her studies ran parallel with romances that could boost her academic career. Although she did not feel attracted to older men, among the young students and scholars there was a handsome variety of promising writers, prestigious film-makers, and bold leaders to the student's movement that contented her both intellectually and sensually.

But to the intellectual crowd, although Catherine gave more freedom, she yet held a certain reputation for modesty and being a difficult girl, who could on a fickle change her opinion and favours about her expectant male companions, as rapidly as she changed hairstyles and fashion, often trying to look prettier than Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Dorléac, two actresses to whom  she was often compared and secretly, privately competed with.

Catherine did not intend to have a continuation of her mother's tumultuous love liaisons -- the advice coming from Celeste herself, who did not wish for her daughter a life of being relegated to "second choice" and conforming to the role of a man's entertainer, and therefore insisted on choosing Catherine' dates among Europe's finest, wealthiest young men, with whom her daughter could engage in "something serious". Catherine accepted that game of interests -- was it the lure of money, was it the lure of intellect, she kept her companions of both careers, the economic and the educational, in the narrow confines between thrill and frustration.

It was a great achievement for someone that young, and she was usually self-contented with her life many and varied scenarios, and the glamorous prospects of picking her chosen partner among the richest or the cleverest. 

As to her body, that would not accept to be disdained, she reserved it to strangers, especially immigrants and foreign tourists who abounded in Paris. She was glad to have a renewed stock of them constantly available, because she did not need establish any connection with these men. Her first time was with an immigrant who had been deported shortly after. Catherine hadn't been the least heartbroken when he was arrested and sent back to North Africa, because she hadn't been in love, not even involved with him -- as the guy had found out himself when he pleaded for her help.

In such a transient atmosphere, Catherine pursued her sensuality with freedom. She hungered for the exotic as much as she feared it. With her passion for words, she'd have preferred to understand what her lovers were grunting while they were doing it to her, may it be swearings, or compliments to her body, but that was not mandatory. She had already learned a few of these words, the most common in Arabic, that men expeled in their love making just like sweat and semen. And her skills in English and Dutch were enough for the rather limited repertoire of conversations in bed, that usually took place while undressing, or when putting the clothes back on. Above all, she wanted to stay in control of her feelings as opposed to the other way around -- and in bed, had a few men made her lose control, I wasn't one of them. They made Catherine surrender to them -- while I had always been obedient, perhaps the most obedient of them all. I was too gentle even to bite her, unless she demanded it, and  slapping her flesh never occured to me during those first years. I never opposed to her domination in bed, and my passivity somehow diminished her pleasure in being the dominator, just because I was too naive to comprehend the subtleties of an intercourse, already enough worried in being technically satisfying. 

How did I discover so many things about Catherine? I learned how to read between her lines -- paying a lot of attention when she was talking to other people, when she revealed herself more than she ever would to me --, carefully reading her books and their heroines' stories to distinguish between her imagination and experiences. That's how I became aware of Catherine's "extra marital" affairs, through her books, but that's not the case now, since we were never married...

In a way, and quite unexpectedelly, we were living our honeymoon, albeit unintentional a honeymoon it was. 

We'd go every day to the port, considering now the possibility of travelling to France with many stops at various ports to give Catherine the chance to recover, before boarding back on another ship. We had several months at our disposal until we reached France, where Catherine would finally give birth.

I had envisioned that possibility during the first time we went to a beach on the Elder Sisters Islands. 

Catherine had kept on ignoring me, even sexually, seeking refuge in her books and writings, while I felt very lonely, without any connection to anything around me -- not even to the future mother of my child.

Although I never mentioned it, I really missed Armand and the Île du Blanchomme, without actually being able to distinguish between the two very well. The Île wouldn't have existed in my life without my friend's invitation, and only at that tropical paradise had he felt safe to open his heart to me, and had thus transformed himself before my eyes -- and heart. Armand and the Île were inextricably intertwined, but similarly had Armand and the Île brought me Catherine, and through all of them, my future son... or daughter... -- and that was what brought me back to the present, where I had a family coming in a deadlock situation that I was trying to solve while sun bathing.

I don't know exactly how I had that insight. At that time, I used to meditate without assuming the lotus position in order not to irritate Catherine, who had become a bitter enemy of meditation. 

There, on the lonely beach while apparently sun bathing, I concentrated on my breathing, and since Catherine did not speak to me, didn't even look in my direction, and all around us it was only emptiness and silence, I finally was able to again cultivate a bit of calm and clarity, and in that stability and mental space, the solution had emerged.

As she listened to it, and it hadn't been easy to make her leave the pages of a book, Catherine was silent and expressionless for a moment, but suddenly she surrendered to the idea that would actually solve our problem. The strategy was quite "reasonable", she pondered, but above all she was fascinated with the possibility of turning her tormented return to France, her via crucis on a ship or a plane, into a world insular tour.

Catherine was delighted with the idea, and more than that, soon she was all excited about it!

'After all, you're not as unresourceful as I had imagined you to be!' -- Catherine gave in and was quite contented, and that was enough for her to end the sex strike she had put me on, and right there on the beach we made ​​love, madly and swiftly, without even getting undressed.

Happy days followed, when we started making our travel plans. The problem was again financial. Several short trips would cost far more than a single long trip, and Catherine was not considering boarding freighters along the way -- no matter how much sailors had attracted and excited her fantasies, as I was beginning to suspect, for in our neighborhood next to the port I had more than once noticed Catherine's long, langorous looks towards the seamen.

We also had to consider -- or I was to consider it -- that stopping at several islands meant more food and lodging expenses. And Catherine, once she had begun dreaming of the journey, could only think of paradisiac islands and luxury resorts.

Finally, she agreed on asking money from her mother. She could not mention my existence, and the plan was that I would be using Armand's money for my own travel expenses, while all the money that Catherine's mother would send should be used for her travelling. 

Yet I feared I wouldn't have enough money for the entire journey, and certainly not to stay at resorts, but I could always work on the vessels we boarded in exchange for my own transportation and food... and why not also at the resorts? As a waiter or cleaning staff, I might be able to get to France accompanying Catherine, and taking care of her. But I decided to hide that scheme from her, assuming she wouldn't be happy to have a servant as her travel companion.

Celeste, Catherine's mother, was a little surprised with the new plans, and asked many questions about them. Catherine had justified the sudden change by means of health problems, claiming that her mother had always known that she got sick on ships -- hadn't it been so since their first sea voyage returning from the holidays in Tunisia? Celeste pondered that Catherine should just get on a plane under tranquilizers and fly straight back to France.

'Don't you think it's better to suffer only a few hours of fear, no matter how tremendous, than many, endless hours of seasickness?' -- Celeste inquired.

But Catherine had become obsessed with the idea of ​​a journey full of stops at different ports -- or perhaps imagining that with such a long journey she would have more chances of losing the baby... because I still feared she was thinking about that -- and with her talent for words she tried to convince and to pass her excitement on to her mother. By the end of their conversation, Celeste had agreed on seeing how she could help.

Those crazy plans brought us an unprecedented complicity, and at times we actually seemed like a couple on honeymoon. I felt truly happy during several conversations with Catherine, and it finally felt like she was my wife, that I could take care of her in my own way, and that together we would take care of our baby, and we would make a happy family.

But at other times, it was enough to look at Catherine to understand she wasn't actually satisfied with her new status, and that ultimately I could not make her happy, not ever.

'This is a wonderful evening, don't you think so?' -- I tried to cheer her up.

I was content with the prospects of our trip, joyful with the prospects of our family, and also happy with my present, waiting for the next ship that would soon take us towards our future. 

It had been one beautiful starry night, and not too hot nor humid, on the Elder Sisters Islands. We were having dinner in the restaurant at the quiet back of our hotel, and since there were no ships parked in the harbor, the island was lazily silent. There no sailors with whom I would have to compete for Catherine's attention, and we were the only customers in the restaurant. The cook herself, a funny fat woman who smelled to a misture of spices, had been waiting on us.

'What is it nice about it?' -- Catherine replied in disbelief.

I had dropped my worries and was feeling generous, and on that evening I had even ordered a bottle of champagne, for the first time in my life.

'Don't you think that champagne makes everything special?' -- I asked naively.

'You don't actually know the difference between champagne and sparkling wine, do you?' -- Catherine asked me, sighing.

I then realized that we didn't share the same notions for life nor values​​, and that my "wonderful" was rather simplistic, humble and narrow-minded near the wonders of her universe.

My poor sparkling wine in a tropical night could never have competed with the Veuve Cliquot that her handsome and rich dates would have offered Catherine at the best restaurants in Paris. Her memories of those glamorous moments were plenty and still fresh, gleaming like the myriad of crystal chandeliers she had dined under, to let her actually notice the candle at our table in that tropical restaurant, emiting a feeble light over our simple meal, and an acrid smell to keep the insects away.

I could not get a sense of how much Catherine was abdicating at that point of her life, except for the tremendous unhappiness that she sometimes revealed. Her academic career, the vibrant Parisian life, her smooth transit among so many wealthy boys, all handsome, and others less so, but certainly more interesting and stimulating, both intellectually and sexually, than me.

As much as I was the trophy she had snatched from her brother, I wasn't after all a very valuable trophy.

At last, when Catherine talked again to Celeste, we learned about our first destination -- Punaouilo. Yet another island which I had never heard of. But Catherine was all excited about it, because it was an island for the rich and famous, very exclusive and fancy -- we would be staying at the home of one of Celeste's friends, who was also a famous actress. There, Catherine's mother would send more money through her husband's friend, who used to travel between Punaouilo and France several times a year.

It seemed wonderful to us -- Catherine was enthusiastic about heading to an island visited by the international jet-set, and I did not have to worry about our hosting and food, at least for that first leg of the trip. 

She agreed to lie about me -- once we got to Punaouilo, I would be presented as someone whom she had met on the ship, and as her tropical date I would also stay as a guest with her mother's friend. I would also use a false name, something that sounded fancier and nobler than Carlo D'Allegro -- fortunately enough, that suggestion came from Catherine herself, and it would also solve my problem on the ships owned by Monsieur de Montbelle's friends. All seemed to fit perfectly well.

'But we have to buy new clothes for you! That's a must!' -- Catherine had stated -- 'You cannot pretend to be my date if you keep on using these rags.' -- I was about to reply that I was actually wearing nearly to new clothes that had been given to me by Armand, but I new I'd better shut up -- 'We're going downtown tomorrow, to see if we can find something at least acceptable to buy in these savage lands.'

Finally, we found a ship headed to an island near Punaouilo, and from there a smaller vessel that would take us to our final destination. 

We just forgot to check it on the map. Unless Celeste had confused the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal, she was sending us in the wrong direction.

Punaouilo was further into the Pacific, towards French Polynesia and South America, and even farther from Europe than we were, already. 

But we only found we were heading the opposite direction of France after we had already boarded.

 NEXT CHAPTER

(INTERLUDE ONE)

If you would like to listen to a podcast with the intrumental tracks that have inspired  me while writing this first part of Book One of "the last canvas", please check it at the SOUNDTRACK page.