Young Lionel does not need to be asked twice to finish his plate.
The delightful treat waiting for him makes him squirm with impatience. To claim he would find the same pleasure in the softness of a warm doughnut or in the heart of a baked apple would be pure absurdity! His mother, both hands in the dishwater, will keep at least one eye on the frenzied race of her little boy, until he pulls open the heavy door of grandpa's shed.
The child climbs onto the creaking stool and watches his grandfather patching up curious objects. He knows not to interrupt him. The setting sun casts an incandescent ray across the table. Fine dust swirls inside. Lionel thinks of the rolls of mist on the sea in the morning. Soon, twilight, cloaked in its cape, will envelop the boy, pressing him against its blue body.
The plane spits out a final curl of wood, almost as blond as his grandson's hair. The old man finally puts away his tools. The strands of his beard, like dry hay covering his chin, seem to blaze in the lantern's glow.
A breach opens in space-time.
His voice sings in Lionel's ears in the same way birds grow excited at the arrival of the lobster boats. It carries joys, by the mouthful, by the ton, and fills him with such reverence that he often remains speechless. His grandfather plays so well with words that he turns them into malleable tales. Thus, boundaries overlap and sweep away in their wake everything Lionel can imagine; a universe crammed with mysteries, improbable and whimsical peoples.
He uses colorful language and mimes the playful jig of a mischievous being, clad in a dark costume and bearing strange ornaments on his forehead. On his shoulder, a violin blacker than the belly of the stove comes alive, flooding the night with nonsense. Behind the window frame, Lionel would swear he sees the sky burst with dancing figures. He hears the moon mocking. The wind moaning through a spectral sail. The hooves of a beast circling the cabin. His grandfather hops and bounces as if walking on burning coals. He gestures. He makes his bow dance in magical ways. The tone is clear and the rhythm steady. His nimble fingers tumble along the strings and tell their stories. They reveal delight, melancholy, sometimes even dread or tragedy. And Lionel, on his stool, no taller than three cabbages, listens with all his soul. And Lionel on his stool, motionless, praying that bedtime will never come.
A freshly pressed life, the patina of another, withered under the curve of years. Between the two, the frank complicity born of the most beautiful feeling.
One day, when his own voice has matured, when Lionel himself will handle his tools, the memory of the stories heard in grandpa's shed will bear the unique—and above all priceless—stamp of the time spent with him, under twilight's cover, on Wednesdays.
