We All Ran into the Sunlight

by Natalie Young

  She didn’t bother to mix the brandy with water but drank it neat, cradling the cup in her hand before climbing in beneath the blankets on the floor. The fire flickered in the grate. On the window ledge, the glass jars glittered, like a row of blinking eyes.

  But the night brought strange dreams, dreams of the women from the village coming through the chateau gates carrying baskets. In her kitchen window Lucie stood, a much smaller woman than she knew herself, a girl in a nightdress, with hair curling thinly down her back. She stood in the kitchen window watching the women gather in the chateau courtyard, hundreds of them, squawking, with their little tiny aprons on.

  She woke sweating, to knocking on the shutters, once, twice, a sharp rap, then silence and nothing. She put the dream to the back of her mind and stood slowly, comforted by the embers still glowing softly in the fire.

  The shutters were rapped at again, and she walked towards them and opened them up to nothing but the white winter morning and the fog stretched three foot thick on the ground.

  She could have sworn it was then that the bird flew into the kitchen because when Arnaud came back to Canas that evening he found his wife sitting under the kitchen table still wrapped in the thick cotton nightdress. All day she had been under there. She was hiding from the bird; you never saw anything so wild, she said.

  3

  The storm came at the end of February. The rain began and needled the ground; five days, pelting the courtyard, bringing up deep whorls like a thousand worms turning the earth.

  From the kitchen window Lucie stared at the ground. It was 1950. The century on its fold. But the days were dark and seemed endless. She mopped the floor, washed the walls so that everything, inside and out, was washed in synchronicity. Life didn’t begin again. It merely tried to release itself from the past.

  The rain seeped into everything. Who knew what happened upstairs, in the rest of the house? She imagined pools of water, rain coming in through the roof. She imagined empty rooms with mottled and cracked walls. The temperature cooled. The streets ran red with sand.

  ‘It’s from Africa.’

  Arnaud was leaning in the kitchen window, a cup of brandy in his hand. He wore a black oilskin with the hood slumped on his back. All the shutters on the ground floor he had repaired and painted a soft silvery green. But he didn’t admire his work. Not for longer than a minute or two. He saw only what there was left to do. He saw only the vineyard, the endlessness of it, his need to clear it, to tug at the roots.

  The light on his face was steely grey, the rain reflected in streaks. He was thin and hard, like an animal trapped.

  ‘It’s from the desert. A five-day storm. Tomorrow it will stop. Everything, the streets, the cars, will be red.’

  ‘The vineyard?’

  ‘What does it matter? We are pulling it up, vine by vine. It can just rain now and churn the earth and make it soft, make it new.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and she smiled prettily at his back. ‘It might bring all kinds of goodness to the ground.’

  She had dressed herself in brown; a thick wool dress bought several sizes too big at the market and tapered severely at the waist with a belt. Heaven knew what she looked like, but she was warm at least, and that was what mattered for now. Doctor Clareon had told her if she wanted to have a child she had to eat well – eggs, meat, cheese – and keep herself warm.

  ‘You must think of yourself as an incubator. Fatten yourself.’

  ‘Like a goose?’

  ‘And try to be joyful, Madame. This white face, these dark circles about your eyes. No child could grow beneath this heart, which is heavy and takes up everything.’

  She tried to laugh him off but the doctor bent his knees and placed his hands around her diaphragm, tried to lift her, his fingers between her ribs. He lifted her clean off the ground and the puff came out of him through grimaced lips. Then, just as suddenly, he let her down. She felt the colour rush to her cheeks. The doctor looked appalled. He turned round, looking for the other, more spirited version of himself.

  Lucie hadn’t forgotten Doctor Clareon’s words, and she hadn’t forgotten his hands either, the warmth and tenderness in them, the strength holding her up. There were other things he told her, about how to tell if a woman was ready to conceive by the heat in her hands, here, on her heart.

  In the chateau kitchen she took the coffee cups down from the shelf above the cooker and polished them to make them shine. Round and round she went with the duster; not rushing but taking pride in the work, humming to herself as she went. She stretched up, her small feet on points, and lined the cups back on the shelf.

  She would take them down in a day or so and polish them once again. She heard the rain clatter down. She teased the ceramic red hen to the side and stood back, her face intense with the business of seeing her kitchen look like this: clean and bright with a few modern touches, the spotlights from Arnaud’s brother in Paris, the bin on wheels, the pressed stack of tea towels on the shelf straight from an American magazine. Soon the kitchen would be perfect and then the women would come from the village; she would get Arnaud to invite them all with their husbands and so they wouldn’t be able to refuse. They would see her kitchen looking like a kitchen of Mrs America, and they would love her then – she felt sure of it – at last they would let her in.

  In the grate, the fire burnt hungrily through dead vines, and a sweet-smelling smoke curled away from the rain and escaped from the top of the fireplace in waves.

  She spoke loudly to make herself heard.

  ‘They may not come today, Arnaud.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because of the rain.’

  ‘I thought I would make a cake in any case. For when they come. I’ve got a basket of eggs from…’

  ‘I haven’t invited anyone yet.’

  ‘But still they might come of their own accord.’

  He drained his glass and belched. It was only recently that he had become like this. Sullen towards her, rude at times. He pressed her at night to lie with him but she found it so hard to relax here, she found it hurt so much she couldn’t bear to let him near.

  ‘Lucie, wake up. You are screaming. Your face. What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she whispered as he leant towards her, clambering over the blankets on his own mattress to get to hers.

  ‘God, have you gone out of your mind? We sleep every night in this kitchen. There is this whole enormous chateau to live in and we sleep, just in here, just in the kitchen, Lucie. Every night we sleep. Nothing else. How can you expect us to have a child like this?’

  He placed his hands over her collarbones, moved his fingers under the cloth and ripped the material down over her shoulders, hooking her breasts out from underneath. She grunted. He held the breasts, like little fruits, in his hands.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she whispered.

  ‘But this is how – the only way to get what you want and make a child.’

  ‘But I don’t want to, Arnaud,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear it.’

  The Algerians came to help Arnaud in the vineyard. They arrived at dusk, pushing at the old gates, and stopping by the silvery brush of the olive tree, the men with dark coats over their dresses, a woman dressed from head to toe in grey, a black cloth covering her head. Three of them. Three bundles of cloth wrapped up at the entrance.

  Lucie had been waiting for them, standing in the last of the light at the kitchen window and now she saw them and rushed out of the house without a cardigan on, her skirt swinging about her knees. She was thrilled to have some company at last.

  ‘Come! You are welcome! Come inside!’ she said, and she urged them into the house, not knowing at first what on earth to say. They had come from the desert, of course, and they would not know much, if anything, about the life of a modern woman. But Lucie knew that despite their differences they would be friends. She had made up a room for them on the second floor.

  Inside, they sat in their coats and stared
at the fire. The men looked up from time to time at the ceiling, as if to get a clearer sense of the size of the place.

  Lucie fussed about, boiling water for coffee on the cooker, removing the cake she had made from its tin, sinking the knife into large slices.

  The woman was looking down at her hands, the black veil making a baby of her head. In the village the dogs were barking. Their silence compelled Lucie to speak.

  ‘My husband believes there is the best wine in the world to be made on these hills. But we are not there yet. When we came here just a few months ago, we had so little. We have acquired almost everything in this room since then. The rest of the house, we do not inhabit much.’ She smiled. ‘But we’re getting there. You’ll be sleeping upstairs. It looks big and draughty but there are only five or six rooms on each of the floors upstairs. It’s not nearly as big as it looks. It’s certainly formidable, though. And the weather. Come summer you will find it terribly hot. More what you are used to, I expect.’

  The men laughed. They were dirty. They had heavy circles under their eyes. One of them, the one who didn’t speak, was older. He had a scarf about his neck and a long, thick nose, like a beak. His eyes were hooded behind it.

  Lucie felt for this woman being married to this man. It probably wasn’t her choice. But the woman bore her cross gracefully. And this was to be admired.

  ‘I’ve put a few things in a basket for you,’ she said, ‘washing powder, some Madeleine cakes, in the basket.’

  The three of them were watching the fire, watching the shadows dancing on the wall. Lucie pushed the plates of cake and the cups of coffee towards them, placing things up, as neatly as she could. She was trying desperately hard.

  ‘It’s almond cake. We have almonds everywhere here. It’s the most wonderful thing to have the blossom in the winter.’

  Then she stood to the side of the table, biting the inside of her cheek, her little white face set with concentration. They fell on the food at once, poor lambs, and they didn’t look up at her.

  ‘My husband will be here in a minute.’

  Lucie turned to the window. Arnaud wasn’t out there. As always he was nowhere to be seen. Only the pine tree with its top-most branches swaying in the breeze and the pale pink sky. Only a bird banking ten feet above the ground, giant and inky black, its wings shining brilliantly as if it had bathed in preparation for their new guests.

  The Algerians slept and they prayed, five times a day. Water ran through the pipes upstairs. By day they worked in the vineyard. At the end of the day the men came in and took off their boots and took the food Lucie made upstairs to share with the woman who was soon expecting a child. Nobody spoke about this when it became clear. Arnaud said the work they were doing in the vineyard was incredible. They were strong. Their backs and their arms were thick and strong. In the evenings, in the kitchen, Arnaud was pleased.

  The weeks passed. Lucie spent time getting out and about in town. On a Monday, Arnaud took her down in the car. On other days she walked. She brought back cookery books, and a magazine with a picture of Mrs America. In the bookshop there was a pile of these: Mrs America bending down in a pretty dress with a wide mouth painted red and big eyes and rosy cheeks and a tiny waist, nipped. Bosoms pointed. Mrs America. Her yellow kitchen. Appliances all over.

  ‘The women all want one,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘The old women, they scoff and snort and walk past with their noses in the air. But the young women. Young women like you, my dear. You all want to be Mrs America.’

  Lucie clutched hold of the woman’s sleeve.

  ‘Will you come? Will you come to my house for some tea, Madame? I’d so like to talk to a female. I’d so like to have someone like you to talk to.’

  ‘Madame, you are shaking. What is it, please?’

  ‘Oh God, I’m so tired, I can’t sleep.’

  ‘Then you must go to see Doctor Clareon. He has many things to help the women here sleep.’

  Then Arnaud came into the shop. He tripped on the step and stood in the darkness, scowling.

  ‘We have to go, Lucie. I need to get back, to work. I have work…’

  ‘Yes, can I just pay for…?’

  She hooked her purse out of her basket and clicked it open but Arnaud had already taken her arm. The shopkeeper said to pay for Mrs America next time. ‘You keep it, dearie. You go now. Go to Dr Clareon now. We don’t have to live in pain.’

  Arnaud had been to the bank. On the way back from town, he drove the motorcar as if he was trying to run it into the ground. Across the heath the sky was brilliant blue. The sun shone down. Wild iris flower everywhere, deep purple skirts fluttering in the clear air. Spring was leaping. The Algerian woman was nearly due.

  ‘I will go to Paris tomorrow, Lucie. I don’t see that I have any choice.’

  ‘To see your brother?’

  ‘What can I do? I need money. He has money.’

  ‘Will they know, the men, what to do in the vineyard without you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Lucie came back to the fire. The nights were getting warmer now but there was still a week or so to go before they would sweep out the fireplace.

  ‘I think she is about to give birth, Arnaud.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘By the way she walks. Her back is aching. In two weeks she hasn’t left the chateau.’

  Arnaud stood by the fire, teasing the burning vines with his foot.

  ‘And you?’

  Lucie closed her eyes.

  The water was green.

  ‘Not all true.’

  ‘Um?’

  ‘Not true that people can start again. Not really. I don’t think I can.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Start again. I don’t know if I can.’

  She lit the cigarette in its holder. Her hands were small. The woman upstairs, Fatima, her hands were also small. Lucie thought of the nice things, the bin on wheels, Mrs America, the hand cream in the basket, the spotlights from Paris. They were the things that kept her afloat. But she wasn’t a fool. She knew what she did. She knew there was no escape from the past. There was never anything but the baggage, and each man and woman moving beneath it; sideways, lurching forward in a brief moment of light and forgetting, tottering backwards, collapsing under the weight. She tried to tell him. All he said was:

  ‘We can’t make a baby if you won’t let me touch you, Lucie.’

  ‘Arnaud,’ she pleaded, but she knew of course that this was true.

  Arnaud had gone to Paris. She woke in the night to the sound of someone screaming. She pulled on the brown wool dress.

  Upstairs the moonlight fell on everything, seeking out corners, lifting everything in its ghostly tint. She didn’t need the candle and she blew it out, placing it carefully down on the ground at the entrance to the room.

  She had reached the door at the far end of the corridor, the fifth room. The Algerians told her this room had a fine view on the garden and the old stone storehouse nestled among its trees.

  Lucie took a deep breath, holding the air in, using it to try to undo the knot of fear that sat high in her chest. Her heart thumped as she pushed at the door.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said the doctor, standing as she walked inside, gesturing towards the figures huddled on the floor.

  ‘How did you get here?’ she whispered excitedly. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘One of the men came to get me,’ he said. ‘Walked all the way into town. I brought him back in the car and we came straight up here.’

  Lucie was pleased to see him.

  ‘Two hours old,’ whispered Doctor Clareon.

  ‘Asleep?’

  ‘Both of them. Exhausted. A long labour, made much worse by her fear.’

  ‘Fear?’

  ‘It seems she can’t have a man about her now for at least seven days; she can’t pray or fast now for forty days.’

  ‘Were you here for the birth, Doctor?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Wha
t name did they choose?’

  ‘Baseema.’

  ‘Baseema?’

  ‘It’s Arabic. It means “smiling”. They will sacrifice a goat in time. Give her a proper naming ceremony.’

  ‘A goat?’

  ‘They will find a goat. They will kill the goat and eat it and give the child her name.’

  ‘Baseema,’ whispered Lucie, rolling the name around her tongue. ‘I’ll buy them this goat, Doctor. I’ll sell something – anything – and buy them this goat.’

  ‘That would be a noble thing to do, Madame.’

  ‘Noble? God no, not noble.’

  The doctor smiled; his eyes were kind but tired. Lucie placed her hand on the soft grey hairs at the back of the doctor’s neck.

  ‘Where is the husband now?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said the doctor quietly. ‘He wanted air.’

  Lucie felt her eyes moving all around his strong, confident face. Deliverer of children, kind, gentle deliverer of women.

  ‘Is she happy, Doctor?’