The Dream Maker Read Free

not detect anything unusual. The odor of baking bread, which the serving girl made with my mother once a week, covered the fustiness of fur we were all used to. I shut the dog in the storeroom where my mother kept linens and cushions, and went quietly down the stairs to see what was going on. I was careful not to make the steps creak, because my parents did not allow us into the downstairs rooms without a good reason.
    A glance through the open door was enough to ensure that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen. The courtyard was deserted. I went over to my father’s workshop. The shop workroom that gave onto the street was closed, as on every evening, by panels of solid wood. That meant that the journeymen had left for the day, after the last customers. Yet my father was not alone. From where I hid by the door that led to the courtyard I could see a stranger, from behind. In one hand he was holding a burlap bag in which something was moving. The silhouettes of my father and the visitor stood out against the white background of a wall hanging made of squirrels’ bellies that was being assembled. A torch cast a bright light into the room. I should have gone back upstairs right away, as my presence there—during a visit, especially—was strictly forbidden. But I had no desire to leave, and besides, it was too late. Everything happened very quickly.
    My father said, “Open it,” and the man let go of the neck of the bag. The animal that leapt out of it was the size of a small mastiff. A collar held it to a chain. The chain suddenly went taut when the beast pounced toward my father. It gave a stifled sound then arched its back. It looked in my direction, then with its mouth wide open, gave out a hoarse roar such as I had never heard. I abandoned all caution, stood up straight and went to stand in the doorway. The animal was looking right at me, and its eyes were a porcelain white fringed with a sharp line of black fur. It was standing at an angle to me and I could see its haunches. I had never seen such a color, and could never have imagined a coat like that existed. In the light from the candlestick its fleece was golden, and scattered against this background of motionless sunlight were round spots shining like dark stars.
    My father initially seemed cross with me, then just as I realized the folly of my behavior, he reassured me.
    â€œJacques,” he said. “You have come at the right time. Come closer and take a look.”
    I took a hesitant step forward and the animal reared up, straining against the chain, which the man held tight in his fist.
    â€œNo closer!” cried the stranger.
    He was an old man, his thin, wrinkled face tarnished by a short, scruffy beard.
    â€œStay where you are,” ordered my father. “But take a good look, you may never see another. This is a leopard.”
    My father, with his marten fur cap on his head, gazed at the feline as it blinked slowly. The man smiled, revealing his toothless mouth.
    â€œIt come from Arabia,” he whispered.
    I kept my gaze fixed on the animal. Its golden fur merged with the word I had just heard for the first time. And the man sealed this union even tighter by adding, “Is desert there, sand, sun. Always hot. Very hot.”
    I had heard of the desert at my catechism, but I could not imagine what that place must be like, where Christ withdrew for forty days. And suddenly that world had come to me. Today I can see it all, but at the time there was nothing that clear in my consciousness. Particularly as the animal, which had been standing calmly, almost at once began to roar and pull against his chain, knocking my father backwards into a bundle of beaver skins. The stranger took a stick from his tunic and began to beat the creature so hard that I was sure he had killed it. When the beast lay lifeless on the ground, he grabbed it by the paws and stuffed it into his bag. I saw no more, because my mother had