The Orphanage
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About this ebook
Richard Bergeron
Richard Bergeron leads the Montreal municipal party Projet Montréal and has twice run for mayor. An architect and an urban planner, he has written five books published in Quebec and in Europe. He is a Montreal city councillor. Richard Bergeron has travelled widely, particularly in Africa. His doctoral thesis in urban planning focuses on housing policy in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
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The Orphanage - Richard Bergeron
Cover
THE ORPHANAGE
Title Page
Richard Bergeron
THE ORPHANAGE
An autobiography
TRANSLATED BY PETER MCCAMBRIDGE
Montreal
Credits
Originally published as L’orphelinat, récit
© 2012 by Del Busso Éditeur
Publié avec l’autorisation de Del Busso Éditeur, Montréal, Québec
Translation Copyright © Baraka Books 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover by Folio infographie
Book design by Folio infographie
Translated by Peter McCambridge
Conversion to ePub format: Studio C1C4
Legal Deposit, 3rd quarter, 2012
ISBN 978-1-926824-65-9
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Library and Archives Canada
Published by Baraka Books of Montreal.
6977, rue Lacroix
Montréal, Québec H4E 2V4
Telephone: 514 808-8504
info@barakabooks.com
www.barakabooks.com
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Foreword
Everything in this book is true…
or false.
Telling the difference
is not what is expected of childhood memories.
Yet childhood does forge
worldview and character,
the foundations upon which an adult is built.
Later, and only then, do childhood memories
really take shape.
SCARED
I was a big boy.
Soon, I would be four years old. The four of us— the four oldest —were in the back seat of our father’s car. The baby was just six months old. He wasn’t with us.
A man with a loud voice was sitting up front in the passenger’s seat. Who was he? And why was he talking so loud? He had a scary voice.
Later I would find out it was my Uncle Léopold, a really lovely man. The other man, the driver, was my dad.
He looked sad. He smoked one cigarette after another, finding time for only a few words in between. Uncle Léopold answered him at length, in his big, scary voice.
It was night. Night comes early in winter.
Chicoutimi isn’t far from Alma, but the ride seemed to take forever. Because everything felt heavy and sad.
We could feel it from the back seat. We didn’t dare move, didn’t dare open our mouths. But where were we going anyway? They must have told us, the older children, but we didn’t understand…
When we got into the car, I think I saw tears in my grandmother’s eyes. It had been a long time since I saw anyone looking happy, it had been a long time since the adults around us spoke in anything other than hushed tones, heavy with meaning.
— Not in front of the children, I heard many times.
Even we, the children, hadn’t laughed much lately. Something bad must have happened. Something happened and that’s why we were in the car.
We drove on and on.
It looked as though we had arrived at last. A huge building began to take shape, bigger than any I had ever seen. And the car stopped in front of what looked like the main entrance.
We got out of the car. My older brother and I each took the hand of a younger brother. We walked up the steps to the main door. The door opened.
Two funny-looking women welcomed us.
Funny, first because of the way they were dressed. They were all in black, from head to toe, with a veil over their heads. Their faces were hemmed in by a piece of white cloth that opened out at the shoulders to become a broad collar.
I would learn later, much later, that this piece of clothing is known as a wimple.
The ladies’ foreheads, necks, and hair were all hidden. Did they even have hair?
The whole time we were there, we children— all the children, not just me and my brothers —would wonder if they did. Without