Guadalajara

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Armand ran into the workshop, making an engine noise with his mouth and stamping on the wood shavings on the floor so they crackled underfoot: the louder the better. He walked twice around the carpenter’s bench; looked at all the tools perfectly aligned on the wall, the saws, gouges, clamps and planes, each in their rightful place (marked by a suitable outline, roughly penciled in); and went up the passageway at the rear of which the house, properly speaking, began. Uncle Reguard had put his workshop in the back of his house, and although the grown-ups always entered through the front door, Armand preferred to go in via the workshop. He was fascinated by the fact that his uncle’s workplace was right at the back of his house. In contrast, he lived in an apartment, and his father’s carpentry workshop occupied a ground-floor space four blocks from where they lived. His cousins had a similar set up. Uncle Reguard was the only member of the family to have his workshop and home together; separated by a small bedroom, that now acted as a junk room. If you came from the workshop, you then reached the parlor with the big table, chandelier, armchairs, passages, and bedroom doors.

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