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would make him able to build a house like the one in the dream to which he often abandoned himself as he sat at the window, smoking. On Sundays he would select a volume, always the same one, from a series of books filled with pictures of far-off countries. He never read, but from page to page travelled to those countries where snowstorms didn’t exist. One day, he stopped before a Greek temple: ‘Wife’, he said, ‘that looks like the house I’m going to build you some day.’ Later we would often see him open the book and, surrounded by the smoke from his pipe, spend long hours dreaming of the Greek temple.
    When he had accumulated the necessary money, my father went to see the contractor, carrying the book under his arm. They spent the day arguing before the book, opened to the page with the Greek temple.
    â€˜Defraud the government,’ said my mother, ‘as though we weren’t honest.’
    â€˜Defraud — I don’t even know what it means …’
    We were on the stairs, bewildered by our parents’ despondency, and we were silent. Suddenly my father rushed outside, furious. Never had anyone in the village seen him in a hurry. But that morning he ran, and people still remember it.
    The contractor had just arrived to begin his day’s work. My father stood, arms spread open, in front of the rusty,dented truck, which stopped with a squealing of its old brakes.
    â€˜I’m stopping the work!’ my father shouted. ‘I’m stopping everything!’
    The contractor burst out laughing. My father was famous for the funny stories he brought back from the other side of the mountains (and which he never told in the house); for the contractor, this joke about interrupting the work when he hadn’t yet put the roof on the house was really very comical.
    â€˜You’ll have the only house without a roof in the whole county! Makes sense, though: you won’t have to shovel off the snow in the winter!’
    The contractor’s face was red from laughing.
    â€˜I’m stopping the work!’
    My father was shouting so hard there were tears in his eyes. The women had come out on the galleries, lingering there as they pretended to be busy. The contractor, seeing my father cry, didn’t dare believe it was a joke. He silenced the motor of his truck. My father got in and sat beside him.
    Through the windshield, where the sun was reflected in the dust and mud, you could see only the two men’s shadows. The children dared not come any closer and the women gradually went back inside the houses.
    Then my father got out of the truck, which rattled, shook, turned around and went sheepishly back up the hill. My father came and took his place at the table where my mother waited for him, in front of the letter from the government. They didn’t speak to each other.
    A few minutes later the contractor walked into the house:timidly, without saying hello, without looking at my father or mother, he placed a fat envelope on the table, then left as he had come in. My father’s fingers, stained brown by tobacco, tore open the envelope and took out some banknotes in different colours, which he pushed towards my mother. She counted them carefully, almost piously.
    â€˜Now then,’ my father ordered, ‘you’re gonna write to the Tax Government in Ottawa and tell them, around here we know more about paying than defrauding.’
    Meanwhile, the workers dismantled the scaffolding, tossing the pieces into the contractor’s old truck.
    â€˜Walls without a roof…’ they grumbled.
    â€˜â€¦ it’s like a man without a head.’
    September nights aren’t as warm as July. The villagers paraded past our house, trying to see without looking.
    My father immediately prepared to drive his black Ford to the other side of the mountains. Along came the bank manager: he’d been told of our misfortune. He hastened to offer his help. My