Floralie, Where Are You? by Roch Carrier

Author:Roch Carrier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2013-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

***

On that night, when the face of the man seated close to her was as unknown, as removed from her as the moon, Floralie was sound asleep.

Néron briskly tightened the reins. The horse stopped as it felt the tearing in its mouth and Floralie was almost thrown out of the buggy.

“You see what’s down there?” asked Néron.

“Where?” murmured Floralie, her eyes still full of sleep.

Néron pointed.

“There, in front of us. On the other side of the trees, the other side of the forest. Where the road stops there’s another road that leads into town. At the end of that road is the United States. Look. There. That’s the United States. You see?”

“All I can see is the night. Everywhere.”

“Your eyes are bad. Look at the smoke coming out of the factory chimneys. When that smoke comes down to earth it falls in a rain of gold.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Néron sees everything. Listen. What do you hear?”

“Nothing.”

“Those are machines singing. They bite into metal and spit out chunks of gold.”

“I can’t hear a thing.”

“Come on, little forest girl, let’s go to the United States.”

“Let’s go to the United States,” a chorus of clear children’s voices repeated.

“I don’t see anything and I don’t hear anything,” Floralie insisted, her voice pleading.

“Woman, you’ve got blind eyes and deaf ears. I’ve read in your heart that you like gold. Néron’s taking you where the gold grows like wild strawberries.”

“No! I want to stay here!”

“Here! What does ‘here’ mean? ‘Here’ just means wherever you happen to be. When the gold comes raining down on us we’ll say, ‘Here it’s raining gold.’”

“I want to get out of here.”

“No. Néron knows that you like gold, even if you aren’t acquainted with this marvel. You’re poorer than one of my little mice and you like gold. I’m going to have a white hat and a gold watch and I’ll buy you anything you want.”

“Let’s go to the United States!” insisted the children.

“Giddyup horsey!”

Painfully, the carriage was pulled out of the mud where it had stuck.

“Stop!” Floralie ordered.

Néron did not hear. In his mind gold was falling like a musical shower. Floralie, standing, was about to jump from the buggy.

“Stop! Stop!” she pleaded.

Néron had heard, but the rain of gold was singing louder and louder in his head. He had made up his mind to go to the land where the golden song would be wafted to him on the wind. He would have liked Floralie to come too, but she refused to go to the United States with him.

“When Néron works his wonders women kneel before him. They don’t refuse him anything.”

“Stop!”

Néron wouldn’t stop her, this idiotic girl who was afraid to go to the land of gold.

“Go on and get lost in the night.”

Néron pushed her scornfully. Floralie tumbled into the thick woods, which lashed at her face. She got up, dazed, astonished that she was unharmed.

The children opened the mouse-trunks and began to throw the maddened little creatures at Floralie. Instead of giving in to his first

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