The Islands of Dr. Thomas (9 page)

Not knowing what to say, Émilie shrugged and then made an attempt to explain. “First I tried to represent all the aspects of Doctor Thomas' work. But along the way I realized that my choices would illustrate his way of looking at things, at life, but also yours...and mine. I didn't set out to do it; I just followed my instincts...”

“It just happened, you mean.”

“Yes. Because the project was for you. It's a little like when you develop photos. First the images are invisible, then they're printed in negative, and finally they appear as they really are...”

“What I see is superb, and moving. Do you realize, Émilie, that we three, the doctor, you, and I, all see life differently than other people?”

She nodded.

“What a masterful achievement!” he exclaimed.

The photographs were a testimony to a complete communion of spirit, with no dark shadow or ambiguity, among three souls that everything separated, even death. “Finally!” he wanted to cry out. He took both her hands, drew her close and held her for a long while without moving or speaking. An inexplicable urge to cry came over him.

She smiled shyly at first. Then her eyes started to sparkle and her mouth opened into an irrepressible smile. Even though an instant ago he had been trying to repress his tears, and she was waiting in agony for his reaction, now they were both laughing, and hand in hand they went to look at the exhibition again from the beginning.

He wanted to know everything. Where had that photo been taken? When? Had she managed to identify the people in them? She answered his questions, explained a few of the difficult choices she had made, shared some of the details of her discussions with the photographer. The conversation was smooth and relaxed, in an atmosphere of total understanding and intimacy. In front of the photo of the doctor in Île aux Marins, François looked at Émilie, held her hand more tightly and murmured, “We have come a long way.”

A few minutes later Jacques came in. They were all smiles, standing in front of the photo taken after a goose hunting trip. “That one is definitely there to make you happy,” Émilie told François. Behind their bursts of laughter an intense emotion lingered.
Mission accomplished, my dear
, thought the photographer, as he energetically shook their hands.

On his capstan, Doctor Thomas, his eyes staring out into space, just wanted to die.

Four

As he usually did when he came to the islands, François went to visit Émilie's parents the evening he arrived. He tried to communicate the depth and purity of the feeling that connected him both to their daughter and, across generations, to this doctor to whom she had introduced him.

He explained as best he could how it had happened: Last January they had crossed paths by chance, she had taken him to see the photographs Doctor Thomas had taken, and he had asked her to choose some of them for his office in Paris. Jacques had found them so beautiful that he had convinced Edmond to exhibit them in the museum before he took them back to France with him. Simple and true, although the most essential part was missing.

“Why didn't you tell us?” her parents asked, concerned that their daughter had hidden things from them.

“I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it,” she replied. At best, her words were misleading, at worst, a lie. Although she had been afraid, for a while, that she would not have enough time to look at them all, she had never doubted her abilities. For him, she was capable of anything—that was the most magical thing about her bond with François. While she was often hesitant, tentative, uncomfortable in her everyday life, in this exceptional parallel life she lived, nothing prevented her from taking flight. But try making other people understand that! And all the more so your parents...

Émilie's parents accepted her explanations. They knew there was something else between their daughter and their friend that they could not grasp, a connection that escaped them. They were, however, sure that there was nothing to be worried about. Sometimes trust wins out over understanding. And they were very proud of their daughter.

The photography exhibit opened to the public with great pomp; Edmond did not want to miss such a perfect opportunity. Everyone rushed over to see it. Each image incited a treasure hunt in the town's collective memory. One person recognized a particular spot, another a schooner, still another could date the photo: “Look, it must have been after 1912; our house was already built.” The older people recalled details they had believed long forgotten: the Légasse palace, the Boulot Bridge under the snow banks. The radio and television stations gave the event top billing on the local news reports. And of course, people swarmed to interview Edmond and Henriette, Jacques, and François.

François made sure he highlighted Émilie's role in the project, her careful choice and the challenges she had faced. Naturally, some wondered why he had entrusted the selection to a girl to whom he was not even related. He answered that question immediately, talking about the friendship that linked him to her parents and explaining that she had volunteered because he spent most of his time in France. The journalists then turned their attention to Émilie, which incited her classmates to call her arrogant.

“You know townspeople don't look kindly on people who stand out from the crowd,” her father explained. “Everyone will be more than happy to tell people in France the story of the young girl who put together such a beautiful exhibition, but here, among ourselves, people will say she was just trying to be better than everyone else.”

When they asked him about this important “first” for the museum, Edmond said he was thrilled about it, although he did add that “If we had a real museum, we could organize exhibitions like this more often. That would certainly be a good thing for the islands.” The politicians seemed to take note of this. Henriette, for her part, stated that it was about time people showed some interest in the incomparable work of Doctor Thomas, and that she hoped he would be “discovered” in France. This time François took note.

Jacques was busy capitalizing on his success. Business was going swimmingly. Everyone wanted Doctor Thomas' photos. He sold them framed, as greeting cards, or simply prints for photo albums. They were spread in the homes across the island and around the world, given as gifts to expatriates or bought on visits home by people who no longer lived on the island but appreciated their little “rock,” as they call their islands, with a sort of derision that often turns to melancholy. There was even talk of publishing a book of the best examples of Doctor Thomas' work, a project the
Conseil Général
might fund in order to promote the islands.

However, the whole mystery of Doctor Thomas remained. Although the secrets behind his photos were being revealed, thanks to the memories of a few townspeople, the artist himself still hid in the shadows. Henriette had managed to track down some basic information about his visits to the islands. He arrived in 1912, left in 1914 (no doubt for the war), returned in 1915 and left in 1916—But why? He took a final trip in 1923, which lasted until 1926.

“Three trips for a military doctor is quite a lot,” Henriette remarked.

“It is indeed,” Edmond confirmed. “Generally a stay for a few years is quite enough. Even today,” he added with sarcasm in his voice, “there are a few who want to leave as soon as they get here.”

“Doctor Thomas must have loved the islands if he was so determined to be posted here,” Henriette concluded. “That doesn't happen often.”

In the days after the exhibition opened, François and Émilie had many opportunities to spend time together. She was even invited to cocktail hour at Edmond's. They served her Ginger Ale. Her exceptional parallel life was becoming real. There was so much to write about, to remember, to explain, to understand, and to immortalize that, for the first time since she had begun her diaries, she had to start a second notebook in the middle of the year.

Along with Jacques, they formed an odd trio, bonded together by a similar passion for Doctor Thomas and his work. Jacques feverishly set about printing the last few glass plates. Louis Thomas emerged from the shadows as quickly as his photos were printed. Everywhere people talked about him, came to see the exhibition of his photos, and hurried into the tiny studio to buy reproductions of them, glimpses into a life that had nearly fallen into oblivion.

“To think that such a beautiful building as Folquet's has disappeared,” sighed an old fisherman. “The pebble beaches by Houduce's place were beautiful before they built the road along the shoreline,” another viewer commented.

Suddenly, Doctor Thomas gave back to his Saint-Pierre audience their heritage when they came to admire his work: the reek of cod-liver barrels, the ancestral rhythms of the work of the sea, the splitting, washing, cleaning, drying, moving around the dried cod, putting the capelin in barrels, all the actions that islanders used to perform almost automatically but had now forgotten. He also gave them back their family and friends.

“Look, that's old man Sollier, there, showing the capelin drying.”

“This is Larranaga, with his hands hooked into his suspenders. What a nice belly that is, eh?”

“And here,” an old native of Dog Island said, “is Father Lavollée in front of the cross in the cemetery. Look, he's kneeling down, must be praying with Simone and Marie-Jo Lemétayer. Not sure who the other girls are.”

“What's Father Lavollée like?” his wife asks him, curious, when he came home from one of his weekly trips to Dog Island.

In Saint-Pierre, everyone has heard about the priest on Dog Island, his sermons warning parishioners of the vices of Saint-Pierre society that were threatening to corrupt “his good island women” are legendary.

“My dear, I have to admit, he's a madman. There's no other word for him. In his opinion, women in Saint-Pierre don't know how to work. All they think about is having fun,” the doctor sighs, thinking of all the women exhausted by their frequent pregnancies, the hard work of getting the cod ready, turning the soil in the garden, milking the cows, cooking the meals, washing the clothes, feeding the children...and who only go to the hospital as a last resort!

“Not like the good girls from his island?”

“Exactly. And that's not all! He's really worried about them...It's hard to believe, but the priest is horrified by the fact that there are girls and boys who hold hands when they skate on the pond. He says it's a scandal!” adds the doctor, half-amused and half-indignant.

“Oh, how very inappropriate, indeed!” his wife teases.

“But there's nothing to be concerned about, because good Father Lavollée has a solution for this scandalous behaviour. He even showed me his invention. It's a piece of wood about this long,” explains the doctor, spreading his hands out in front of him, “with a place for the boy's hand on one side and the girl's hand on the other side. Incredible!”

“And what did you say when he showed you his marvellous invention?”

“Nothing. I just left. I would have said too much if I had stayed.” He lets out an exasperated sigh. “You would think he had better things to do. Things are hard enough as it is.”

The doctor seemed to be tickling the collective memory of Saint-Pierre from beyond the grave. Thanks to his photos, a wave of memories flooded the islanders' hardened minds. Jacques was moved by the sight of elderly people, sometimes leaning on a cane or the arm of a family member, who came into his studio to look at the albums. With their eye glued to the magnifying glass, they would add a new detail, sometimes insignificant but always interesting. Jacques was touched to see their gaze wander into the misty territories of their memory, hear the lump in their throat as they talked about having to come to terms with the cruel passage of time.

François and Émilie had noticed that Jacques often gave away copies of the snapshots to the old people who looked at them longingly.

“When they're living on their old age-pension, whether former workers or fishers, there's no way they can afford them,” he said frankly.

One evening, Jacques, François, and Émilie decided to review the complete collection of photos, one by one, in order to organize them by theme, season, and place.

“So here's the final count: more than one thousand, two hundred,” announced Jacques.

François should have made his way back to France—to his office, his plans, his tenders—but like an archeologist on a dig in a field of unexpected treasures, under no circumstances could he bring himself to miss these exciting moments. He had announced that he would return once the exhibition was over, which resulted in endless conversations with his partners. He began his third week in Saint-Pierre, and never had he been away from his office for so long.

“Are you sure this isn't going to cause problems?” his mother asked. She was always nervous about a boss becoming angry.

“Absolutely sure,” he replied, with a smile. “I know because I'm the boss.”

All of a sudden, this man, who took his responsibilities and his obligations so seriously, to the point that he sometimes forgot to take care of his most basic needs, realized that nothing could stop him from taking a break from his activities, that no one could say anything about it. He was entirely free to make his own decisions. A new serenity enveloped him.

For the moment, the most important thing was to get to work with his friend and for the doctor, and make sure the photographs did not end up making the Atlantic crossing by themselves. Nearly fifty years after they were taken, it seemed terribly important to François to correct the error the doctor had made when he left the islands and abandoned all the photographs without even trying (as far as he could tell, at any rate) to get them back.

“How could he have just left them?” he often said, looking at yet another striking view of life in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.

It was still a mystery, even if the exhibition had at least enabled people to add a few details to the doctor's portrait. One person remembered he had seen the doctor walking on the mountain with his camera; another said he was a friend of Ernest Hutton's, the pharmacist, and that it was in Hutton's attic—“under the rafters” added the old man—that he had set up his darkroom. Mrs. Thomas was also remembered. She was a nurse.

“Mother went to see her just after I was born,” explained a woman in her fifties. “Apparently, I cried all the time and Mrs. Thomas told her that her milk wasn't right for me.” Interesting anecdotes, but they did not reveal any of the now-famous photographer's secrets.

Before hammering in the last nail in the crates he was shipping to France, Jacques had an idea: “What if we put the photos on display in Miquelon?”

“Miquelon?”

“After all, the doctor spent quite a bit of time there. And if we managed to find a place for an exhibition in Saint-Pierre, we'll certainly be able to find one there.”

Miquelon, Saint-Pierre's sister island, had a population of seven hundred, eight times smaller than Saint-Pierre's. A boat ride there took only a few hours; still, it was as if the two communities were situated on opposite ends of the earth so completely different were their lifestyles and their mindsets.

Jacques, who had had a chance to spend several summers there as a child visiting relatives, had never figured out how two communities as isolated and tiny as Saint-Pierre et Miquelon could keep such a distance between each other.

“The photos will interest them just as much as us, maybe even more,” he continued. “There's no reason not to go there, and if I lived in Miquelon, I tell you, I would be insulted if I weren't given a chance to see them.”