Volkswagen Blues

The sun is just rising over the Baie de Gaspé—in the Gulf of St. Lawrence—when “the meowing of a cat” awakens a man sleeping in an old Volkswagen minivan (1). Looking out his window, the man, who goes by the name Jack Waterman, sees “a tall thin girl in a white nightgown walking barefoot” through the campground with a black kitten trailing behind her (1). Jack dresses, eats, and drives off toward the town of Gaspé, his destination.

When he sees the tall girl hitchhiking, he stops. She settles into the passenger seat but doesn’t close the door until her cat has explored the van and seemingly signals that “[i]t’s all right” (3). She says, “People call me La Grande Sauterelle […] because my legs are way too long, like a grasshopper’s” (5). Like Jack, she is travelling to Gaspé, but she has no itinerary beyond going to the Gaspé museum. Jack, a francophone Quebecois, has just turned 40 and is looking for his brother, Théo, whom he hasn’t seen for 15 years. Some 10 years ago, Théo sent Jack his last postcard, bearing a picture of Gaspé on one side and an illegible inscription on the other.