‘Lord God… restore me to Your friendship and to full fellowship in Your church. Amen,’ the soft voice intoned. Then he heard gentle footsteps… silence.
The following morning at nine, Sybilia walked hesitantly into the walled garden of the priest, situated between the cemetery and the forest. She sat on a bench and waited — a demure figure in her blue-and-white school dress. Father Andrews was raking leaves at the other end. He was dressed in dungarees and boots, and he looked happy. The garden was overgrown with weeds. There was a broken statue and a disused fountain sprouting moss, but there were signs of recent hard work in the neat piles of leaves and stones. A few of the beds had been tilled.
She was not really interested in his garden, Father Andrews could see that. She had brought him one of Michel’s statues. It was of a bird trying to take off from the twisted bough on which it perched. The bird’s feet were stuck fast to the gnarled branch. It was a simple thing, and not clearly defined, but the message of its agony and terror could not be overlooked. A strange piece of work in both wood and marble. For a moment he forgot about the artistic merits of the statue and thought about the bird’s plight. How he hated that cruel Corsican habit of painting the branches of trees with glue, so that migrating birds were snarled until they were pulled off, legless, and cooked into a traditional pat£.
‘What do you think, Father?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I’m no expert, my child, but it seems to me that he has the power to convey emotions and feelings through his art, even though the finish is rough and the bird is not very well proportioned.’
He put it down, folded his hands, and said. ‘Just talk. Let it all out.’
An hour later he knew that he must help her.
‘Leave the statue with me,’ he told her. ‘I know a stonemason in Bastia. He’s well established and a good Catholic, too. I’ll talk to him next time I’m that way on a buying trip. Maybe he could offer Michel a job. A few years away from Taita might do you both a world of good. Bring me a few more examples of his work, not too many and not too heavy. It’s a tough trip, as you probably know.’
She went off happily, eyes shining with gratitude, but as Father Andrews watched her leave, his mind was clouded with confusion. Was he doing the right thing? If she were unhappy, she would have no one to turn to in Bastia.
He knelt in prayer and remained on his knees for a long time.
Chapter 22
Two months later Father Andrews returned from Bastia with an offer of work for Michel from Angelo Serra, the stonemason in Bastia. The pay was low, the hours long, but it was a start. At least Michel would be learning a craft, Sybilia reminded herself. If their dreams did not materialize, they would always have this to fall back on.
In addition, the priest had spoken to Maria’s cousin, Pierre Gaffori, a fisherman who owned a house in the old city, and the young couple could have the attic for as long as they liked, in return for Sybilia's help with the laundry.
‘Pierre’s mother is a bit of a dragon,’ Father Andrews had told her, ‘but you’ll win her over, as you always do.’
So they set off early one morning in midwinter, accompanied by the priest’s pack donkey and a small boy who would lead it home later. They dispensed with good-byes to the villagers, reasoning that the past few weeks had been one long good-bye. Xavier, smarting at their show of independence, was sulking and had spent the night in Chiomia, while Maria was tearful and apprehensive.
It was a tiring journey, for their route was a steep, curving goat track worn into granite rock. Below them sheer slopes fell away into blue mists. Above, ancient pines flattened by the wind grew between granite outcrops.
On the very lip of the pass, Sybilia insisted on stopping. She opened the hamper and produced bread and sausage and a Thermos of hot coffee. She wanted to look back for one last time. This was a mistake, she soon realized. She could see her old school and the roof of her father’s house, and the church where she had been christened and confirmed. But what was Chiornia, after all? Merely a cluster of roofs lost in an immense forest. Once she had felt so secure. Oh, what a fool she had been, believing in the sanity of her world, feeling loved, protected, and safe. As for Taita, which she could see clearly on a protruding rock outcrop, she neither loved nor hated but accepted it as her fate. She knew she was not escaping. Taita would always be there, lying in wait for her.
What am I crying for? she wondered, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Am I leaving anything worth crying for? Perhaps Maria, who was her only friend, she decided. So she sobbed into her handkerchief for her lost childhood, her school, her hopes, and for poor, forlorn Maria.
Michel became impatient with her and went on ahead, so after a while she packed the food and hurried to catch up with the donkey, which was slithering and sliding down the steep goat track toward the bus stop.
At the nearest bus junction a village had sprung up to cater to travellers en route to the coast. A friendly man directed them to a cafe owned by an Italian who made delicious pizzas. The whole place smelled of simmering olives and pastry. Behind the counter his wife was stirring a luscious mixture in a copper cauldron. Michel spent some of their precious money from Maria’s hoard on a pizza and two glasses of raw red wine, and they sat there feeling extravagant and very adult.
The bus to the north passed in the early afternoon, so they sat in the sun to wait. It arrived three hours late. Anxious to make up for lost time, the driver accelerated recklessly, and soon they were racing through villages, dazed by a flash of pink roofs and white walls, past bays of turquoise water, rocky creeks and briar-tangled hedges.
By the time they reached the junction, where they would spend the night, the sea had turned from turquoise to oyster pink, and the sun had fallen like a ball of molten steel, spreading over the purple-hazed sea and finally disappearing into it. Sea and sky merged into a grey haze as the bus disgorged its passengers under a chestnut grove.
They were met by a hefty girl named Anita, one of Michel’s cousins, who led them toward the cafe she ran with her father. Sybilia followed, feeling light-headed and bewildered.
No sooner had she put down her boxes and bags than Anita called them for supper. They ate langouste, with homemade bread, olives, and tomatoes, washed down with red wine, followed by goat cheese. Anita’s father was at the bar all evening, and Anita was serving at the tables, so she had little time to talk to them. After the journey and the strong wine Sybilia was too sleepy to talk but merely ate her food hungrily and listened to a little wizened man crouched over his guitar playing an old Corsican lament with strong, skilful fingers. It was a love song, full of burning passion and melancholy passages, and it disturbed Sybilia.
She began to pulsate with the music. She was filled with strange yearnings and needs that she could neither recognize nor overcome. What was she longing for? She did not know, she only knew that she felt like crying. She wanted so much more than she had. She felt like their cow at home when it had not been milked, overfull, bursting at the seams, desperately needing someone on whom she could pour her excess of love.
She studied Michel speculatively. If only she could fall in love with him, but he had been particularly irritating all day and was even worse now. She understood him and knew that he felt threatened. The peasantlike surroundings, the hassles of the crowded bus, all conspired to threaten his fragile ego and his misplaced sense of his own artistic excellence. So he had been showing off all day, affecting a jarring Parisian accent, and hardly bothering to be polite. He had lied quite shamelessly to Anita on the short walk from the bus stop, telling her he was en route to Bastia to begin work as a sculptor. He would soon be famous, he had told her, but she had not looked all that impressed, and Michel had been disappointed. At the moment he was looking bored and ashamed of his uncle.
‘What’s so superior about us when we depend upon them for our supper and bed?’ she whispered. Michel pretended that he did not understand her.
If only they were in love. How wonder
ful it would be. Imagine the excitement of starting a new life together! Imagine the joy! She pictured a tall, strong, handsome man gripping her to his broad chest and making passionate love somewhere upstairs on the strange feather mattress bed that awaited them.
The fantasy was so thrilling that she reached out and took Michel’s hand, but he pulled away and frowned. A public display of affection was not his style. It would spoil the world-weary, superior air he had adopted.
They ate and went upstairs. The bed was a four-poster with a thick feather mattress. No sooner had Sybilia’s head touched the bolster than she fell into a deep slumber, only to be awakened by Anita’s impatient shouts. Strong sweet coffee and a roll lay beside the bed, and there was hardly time to wash and dress before the bus left for Bastia.
Most of the travellers settled themselves down for the day. They had bread, garlic, wine, onions, sausages, cheeses; one woman had three live chickens she was taking to her cousin, another a small goat. Children sprawled over the floor with their dogs, and the travellers shouted to each other about the war, the crops, and their neighbours. By midafternoon Sybilia was feeling extremely sick. When she threw up into a paper bag, helpfully supplied by a neighbour, Michel went to sit at the front of the bus, as far away as he could get.
Suddenly she was longing for her mother and for school and Sister Agnes, who was her favourite of all the nuns. How clean and fresh they had always been! The premonition of doom, which she had been fending off since her marriage, seemed to be hovering over her head. ‘Oh, sweet Mary, Mother of Jesus, help me,’ she prayed. ‘How can I ever endure Bastia with that silly, stuck-up boy?’
Their route across the hinterland to the east coast was hazardous yet breathtaking. A gravel road had been carved along one side of a deep ravine cut by the San Colombano River. They were driven Corsican style, at breakneck speed, over ruts and bumps on the narrow, curved highway. On their right sheer cliffs of granite fell to the wide river over a thousand feet below. On their left the harsh granite peaks of the Mutereno and Pinzali mountain ranges loomed high above them. They passed countless holes in the low wall bordering the pass, where vehicles had smashed into the ravine, and from time to time they saw the rusty wrecks of lorries and buses that had fallen down and been abandoned.
In the late afternoon they suddenly came in sight of the sea. Around a bend in the road they saw Bastia. Sybilia felt overcome with awe at the size of the city. It was ugly, admittedly, but it spread for miles: a tangle of grey houses and streets under the low, hazy sky.
The humidity seemed unbearable. She had to open the neck of her tight black dress to breathe. Down and down they went along a winding road, through narrow cobbled streets of granite buildings, some peeling and neglected and some painted in beige or pink or rose. The familiar sight of washing billowed from every balcony.
The streets were bordered with aloes, camelias, oleanders, hibiscus, and wild shrubs blown from the maquis. The busy city centre seemed to be intermingled with waterways of the old harbour, teaming with steamers, fishing boats, and the occasional yacht. The pavements were crowded, but, more than anything else, the women caught her attention, for they were not wearing black. She had never seen married women wear anything but black, and she could hardly control her astonishment. The entire city was lined with cafés, and everyone was sitting around on the pavements drinking. Didn’t anyone work here?
The main square, where the bus came to a halt, was lined with palms. The passengers tumbled out, crumpled and dazed by the sudden change of environment. So many packages and no donkey. How would they manage? Somehow they did. Doubling back for the extra cartons and cases, they made their burdensome way up narrow alleys, almost too narrow for a laden donkey to pass, up more steps, past gardens thick with wisteria until they reached the Gafforis’ house. It was old and worn, with a strong smell of garbage.
‘Oh!’ Sybilia gasped. ‘How awful.’ Gathering her skirts around her knees, she stepped up among the rotting vegetation on the steps and knocked on the old but solid wooden door. Maria should just see this filth, she thought. A middle-aged woman, worn looking but with merry brown eyes, opened the door.
‘Madame Gaffori?’
The woman grabbed her and hugged her. ‘So you are Father Andrews’s little waifs. Come in, come in, both of you. She smelled strongly of garlic, but there was no mistaking the warmth of her welcome. She kissed Michel on both cheeks, then drew them into a large room, shabbily furnished but comfortable, and plied them with coffee, pastries, and questions.
Sybilia left most of the answers to Michel. After all, it was his family they were describing, while she pondered her impressions of the Gaffori family.
Madame Gaffori, who insisted she should be called Aunt Lucilia, had once been very pretty, that much was clear even now. Although she was past fifty, she gave an impression of elegance. Her hair was naturally wavy and jet black with only a few strands of grey, and she wore it cut very short. Her brown eyes were always shining, and even when serious she seemed on the point of bursting into laugher. She was plump but well shaped, and she was obviously proud of her curved, slender legs, for she wore her skirt shorter than she should. Her blouse was red and frilly, and Sybilia could not help admiring it. ‘You’ll have to get out of those awful black peasant clothes, my dear,’ she said to Sybilia. ‘I’ll see if I can find a few old things you can use.’
Sybilia also took to Uncle Pierre immediately. He was a short, wiry man who gave the impression of great strength. His was a fisherman’s face, deeply lined and tanned by the sea and sun. They had two pregnant daughters-in-law living in the house with them, for their sons were in the French Foreign Legion. Both were short and dark and pretty, but openly antagonistic toward their country cousin. Granny Gaffori was a slim, vivacious woman of seventy-odd who resembled her son, Pierre. She had a crippled leg and walked with a stick.
‘She’ll put you to shame, Lucilia,’ she said in a loud voice, for she was deaf, while waving her stick at Sybilia. ‘That one’s a worker, I can see that, in spite of her beauty. She’ll have this place spotless in no time at all, you mark my words.’
My goodness, Sybilia thought fearfully. Was she expected to be the maid?
‘Don’t take any notice of Granny,’ Lucilia whispered when they were carrying her belongings up the stairs to their flat. ‘She’s an old dragon, but no one bothers with her.’
Their attic apartment was the worst shock of the day. There were two small rooms, plus a cupboard-sized cubicle with a small window that Lucilia called their kitchen. It was a mess of peeling plaster and rotting wood under sloping eaves. There was a four-poster brass bed with a dirty mattress in one room, and an old table and four cane chairs in another. Nothing else. The floors were bare boards that had not been polished for centuries, while broken windows overlooked the street.
Sybilia could not disguise her disappointment and despair, but Lucilia patted her on the back.
‘Don’t fret, Sybilia. Tomorrow we’ll go down to the secondhand shop and get a few bits and pieces for you. Pierre will lend you the money, don’t you worry. We’ve got a few cans of spare paint in the basement. If you work hard, you can turn this into a home.’
Michel and Sybilia stood in awkward silence after the Gafforis left them alone. They held hands for the first time that day and sat on the bed side by side.
‘Let’s go back,’ Michel said. ‘How could we endure this place? I’d rather live in my cave, or under a bush. Any damn thing, rather than endure this.’
‘All it needs is some paint and a bit of furniture,’ she said without much confidence in her voice. ‘You’ll see, it will come right.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Of course. You’re the artist. Can’t you visualize it after we’ve finished with it?’
‘No,’ he said miserably.
‘Well, I can,’ she said defiantly. ‘But not now. I’m so tired.’
‘Me too.’
‘Do you think we should go down f
or supper? After all, they invited us.’
‘I couldn’t face another Gaffori today.’
‘Neither could I,’ Sybilia said. ‘Let’s go to bed. Do you know which box our bedding is in?’
Eventually, with boxes strewn open and no where to put anything, she found pillows and an eiderdown.
‘Where d’you think this leads?’ she asked, pointing to a door at the other end of the living room.
‘God knows.’
It was not locked. Sybilia opened it gently. She peered out and then gave a whoop of joy. They had a balcony. Not just any balcony, but one twice the size of their tiny flat. Admittedly it was a shambles now, filled with old discarded tins and boxes and dead plants, but what a view! They could see right over the row of houses opposite to the sea. There was the fishing harbour and the main port with the ferry making its way into berth. The old town was laid out like a map between them. In the distance was the square where the buses stopped. Suddenly Sybilia’s spirits soared. With a balcony like this there was hope for their apartment.
She went to sleep feeling optimistic, filled with ideas for improving their quarters. It might take a while, maybe as long as a year, but this was exactly how it would be. I'll make this place look divine, and I'll make my marriage work, too. Determinedly she snuggled closer to Michel. At least he was too tired to move away.
Chapter 23
A few months later some of Sybilia’s dreams had come true. She was almost happy and almost self-supporting. She had two new dresses that were only calf length, and she had three pairs of smart, lace-up shoes.
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