by Nina George
“As if you’d know what you’re talking about! Because you and Colette hit it off so—” Paul didn’t manage to finish his sentence, because a motorbike cruised into the yard. It was Jean-Rémy.
“Now don’t come on all uncle-like and offer him your accumulated wisdom about love, Paul.”
The three men exchanged greetings, and Jean-Rémy took receipt of the honey that Simon had reserved for him and that he would need to make the honey sauces Parisians adored.
“A glass of cider?” asked Simon before Jean-Rémy could get back on his bike. The chef declined. “Would you want to be the lover of the woman you loved?” Simon asked sneakily.
Jean-Rémy glanced from Paul to Simon. “You must be crazy. You can only be a lover if you don’t love the woman. Otherwise, it’d be the death of you.”
“That, my lad, is hearsay. Just wait until you’re my age, then you’ll realize that a man can do anything when he puts his mind to it.”
“Aha. Kenavo,” said Jean-Rémy, starting up his motorbike.
—
Paul and Simon arrived at Ar Mor just in time for the afternoon news. As there were no Monday guests, Madame Geneviève had allowed a television set to be carried out onto the terrace. Jean-Rémy wasn’t back yet, and she guessed that he must still be scouring the markets.
“Can you all be quiet?” shouted Simon.
“It’s time you bought your own television, mate,” said Paul. “They’ve been around for sixty years—you can trust them.”
“Hey, isn’t that Marianne?” said Sidonie, the elegant sculptress, pointing to the screen. Simon reached for the remote control and turned up the volume. Madame Ecollier stopped polishing the glasses, and Laurine moved closer, clutching her broom. They all listened intently to what the newsreader was saying.
“There is a search on for Marianne Messmann from Germany. The sixty-year-old is mentally deranged and requires medical attention. Her husband, Lothar Messmann, last saw her in a Parisian hospital, from which she is assumed to have escaped after a suicide attempt.”
Then Lothar Messmann appeared on screen, speaking in German. The newsreader continued: “Please report any information to your local police station or call this number—”
Madame Geneviève grabbed the remote control from Simon’s hand and pushed hard on the off button.
“We don’t need that number,” she said decisively.
“She has a husband?” asked Sidonie.
“And an attractive one too!” mumbled Marie-Claude.
“She never struck me as being mad,” said Simon. “A bit, but not mad-mad. Pretty normal, actually.”
“There’s no way we’re handing her over to the police,” Paul said firmly. “She must have her reasons.”
“For changing her name as well? She introduced herself as Marianne Lance!” stated Marie-Claude.
“That’s her maiden name,” Colette said calmly. “She adopted it and walked out on her husband.”
For a second there was silence, then everyone started to speak at once. “Remember when she first got here?”
“She had nothing with her except for her handbag.”
“And no clothes.”
“No money. Maybe he beat her?”
“And she was sad,” Laurine interjected.
“What are we going to do?” asked Sidonie.
“The best thing would be to ring the TV station—”
“Have you forgotten that you’re Bretons?” Geneviève Ecollier interrupted Marie-Claude. Paul and Simon immediately spat on the floor. “Well, that’s that! No need to waste our breath on the police or telephone numbers.”
Everyone nodded.
—
Marianne had stood stock-still in the bathroom doorway, as if numbed by the sound of Lothar’s voice from her bedroom.
“I love you, Marianne. Please give me a sign. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done; we’ll find a solution. And if you don’t hear this, my angel, please get some help. Please, my dear French friends, help me to find my beloved wife. She’s confused, but she belongs to me, as I do to her.” This was followed by the newsreader’s French translation.
Mentally deranged. Medical attention. Oh God, the card! The card she’d sent to Grete! Had that given her away?
The speech Lothar had made sounded so sincere, but now Marianne knew how to distinguish a true sound from a false one. The Breton language had taught her this: she didn’t always understand the words, but she could sense the emotion behind them.
With Lothar there had been nothing behind the words. I love you. He’d never said that before, and it sounded like a cheap imitation of a feeling, like a fake Dior handbag.
As she hurried back into the room, her hair still wet from the shower, she saw Yann sitting on the bed, his expression lifeless. “You have a husband.”
Marianne didn’t answer. She had to be quick now, very quick. The brittle brown suitcase she had found in the cupboard full of dresses closed with an easy click after she had stuffed her clothes, the tile and her other possessions inside.
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve ever really known.” She hastily pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater, and hid her damp hair under a beret.
“Where are you going? To him?”
Marianne didn’t reply. She had no answers to these questions; she knew only that she had to leave. Leave Yann, from whom she’d kept secret her identity and her past, hiding the fact that she was only an old woman from Celle who’d lived a dull life. Not the kind of woman a man like him truly deserved. She had led him to believe that she was free, but she wasn’t.
“Marianne. Please. Mon amour—”
She put her index finger on his lovely curving lips. The way he was looking at her, without his glasses in the bright afternoon light…My God, they had made love with ravenous desire the night before, gazing hungrily at each other, but it was clear in the hard light of day that neither of them was young anymore; they were aging. Yet their feelings were young, and old yearnings had waited to be woken inside them. Now, though, Marianne was overwhelmed with a wave of shame.
I’ve committed adultery.
And she’d enjoyed it. She would do it again if she could, but she couldn’t. She had all these conflicting emotions inside her, but they couldn’t be spoken.
She put on her jacket and slipped into her linen shoes, then reached for her suitcase.
“Marianne!” Yann got to his feet as he was, naked. He looked at her with eyes full of grief. “Kenavo, Marianne,” he said quietly, pulling her into his embrace. She threw her arms around this man who was already more to her than Lothar had ever been. Her husband had never given the slightest hint that she was special or loved. This delighted and terrified her at the same time, and the terror drove her down the stairs and out of the guesthouse.
As she emerged into the afternoon sun, she drowned in a saturated blaze of light, air and intense color all around, in the trees and in the water. She cast a glance through the open kitchen door. Jean-Rémy. She had to tell Jean-Rémy that…
She heard a murmur of voices from the terrace, and the sound of a television set. She heard her name repeated in the general hubbub and she knew that everyone had seen her. Everyone now knew that she was a fraudster, a runaway and a crazy suicidal wife.
She didn’t dare to face them. The little cat wound its way through her legs. She stepped around it without a glance, and the animal began to shriek. It didn’t meow, it didn’t hiss; it let out a shrill scream, as if it were straining its vocal cords to produce something other than a cat sound.
Marianne made no attempt to stem the flow of tears that blurred her vision as she strode up the narrow street that would lead her away from the harbor, away from Yann, away from the cat, away from everything and out of Kerdruc.
She walked and she didn’t look back. The farther she walked, the greater her feeling of being sewn into a bag and drowned. She was finding it harder and harder to breat
he. She felt as if she were about to die. Only now, that was no longer what she wanted.
On his way back to Kerdruc, Jean-Rémy had made an unplanned detour via Rospico and on to Kerascoet, a five-hundred-year-old weavers’ village of renovated thatched cottages built of standing stones.
Madame Gilbert lived on the edge of the village. Jean-Rémy let his motorbike coast into her courtyard, which was surrounded by pine trees. As he removed his helmet, he heard the boom of the sea. He thought of the letters to Laurine that lay freezing in the cooler.
He found Madame Gilbert on one of the hidden terraces high above the coastal path. She was alone.
“Take off your sunglasses.” Those were the first words they exchanged once he had pulled her from her chair and pushed her before him into her bedroom. She took off her glasses, laid them on the bedside table next to a picture of her husband and placed her hand, palm up, over her eyes to hide her wrinkles.
She had blocked out the heat of the scorching sun behind the blue shutters. When Jean-Rémy’s eyes had got used to the half-darkness, and he had repeatedly moved himself against Madame Gilbert, his thoughts turned to Laurine. Then he forgot her and thought of nothing, merely feeling, as Madame Gilbert occasionally moaned in amazement at his frenzy. Only when he felt from the tension in her body that she had come did he pull back.
Jean-Rémy didn’t love Madame Gilbert, which was why he had become her lover. He hadn’t been to see her for a long time, a very long time—almost as long as he knew he had been in love with Laurine. Since then he had not slept with any other woman to save himself for Laurine. It was stupid; then again, it wasn’t.
Madame Gilbert didn’t ask where he had been for the past two years. She was experienced and she knew that the pleasure of a man twenty years her junior wouldn’t last forever.
She stroked the damp hair at the back of Jean-Rémy’s neck with the tips of her immaculately manicured fingernails. In her arms, Jean-Rémy felt as if he were bidding farewell to an idea, an alternative life. After a time on the margins, he had now returned to his homeland, where affairs flourished but nothing lasted: everything could be carried off by the wind. Beyond the border had lain love, where things had deep roots that allowed them to withstand storms and fear. Sleeping with Madame Gilbert meant there would be no more room for love in his life.
She lit a cigarette and sat up. “There’s going to be a storm later,” she said.
“Will you welcome me again soon?” asked Jean-Rémy.
“You know the times, mon cher. Don’t ring in advance, or else I start imagining what might happen when you’re here.”
“What do you imagine?”
Madame Gilbert pulled his head down until his ear touched her lips. Her lipstick was smudged from his kisses. She whispered what she imagined to him, and as she spoke, he closed his eyes. She kept speaking as he levered himself on top of her and into her again, and as she painted her arousal in words, he came for a second time.
Afterward, he gathered his clothes, the last of which—his helmet and scarf—he found out on the terrace next to the deck chair. The ice cubes in her glass had melted, turning the orange juice a milky hue.
When he bent over Madame Gilbert to kiss her, she said, “By the way, today is our anniversary. My husband thought it would be a good idea to celebrate our twenty-three years together at Ar Mor. So please reserve a table for us, will you, darling?” She peered at him through inscrutable eyes like bright marbles as cool as the sea.
—
Riding back to Kerdruc, Jean-Rémy flicked up the visor of his helmet. When his eyes began to water, he could be sure that it was the wind. It was always the wind that extinguished things and drove them away, even tears.
—
He arrived at Ar Mor and walked past Laurine, who was laying the tables for dinner, without daring to look her in the eye.
She called quietly after him, “Jean-Rémy? Marianne’s gone. She was on television. She has a husband who’s looking for her, and she must be traveling to meet him now. Jean-Rémy, what’s wrong? Are you crying?” She walked toward him, her eyes full of concern.
He shrank back from her. He still had the smell of sex about him, a mixture of perfume and the scent of Madame Gilbert on his mouth. He put the counter between himself and Laurine, washed his hands and face in the sink and then pretended to study the bookings.
“The Gilberts are coming for dinner,” he said. “They’ve reserved for their anniversary. We should put some flowers on their table.”
Laurine stared at him. “He just rang,” she whispered.
“Yes, I was at the Gilberts’ running some errands,” Jean-Rémy hastened to add. “But Monsieur Gilbert said he would ring anyway.”
“Monsieur Gilbert called from the airport in Paris. You’re lying about seeing him.” Her voice was as fragile as fine crystal.
After a long silence, he knew that she realized that he had spent the afternoon at Madame Gilbert’s.
“I wish you were really crying,” said the waitress.
Please, Jean-Rémy begged wordlessly. Please don’t let this be happening.
It was only when she had walked away that he realized that he had lost two special women as he was moving between Madame Gilbert’s thighs. Laurine. And Marianne.
He went into the cooler, double-locked the door behind him and cursed until he wept, spattering furious tears onto the letters he had written to Laurine but had never sent.
Marianne had stumbled three miles along the road before she realized that she wasn’t fleeing toward the sea. She was standing at the crossroads that led right to Pont-Aven and left to Concarneau. She set down her suitcase, sat on it and rested her hands on the leather. She could hardly breathe for pain. Weakly she raised her thumb—the international signal of runaways and loners, of all those who can no longer bear to be stuck where they are.
No one stopped. The occasional car honked its horn. She continued to hold her thumb out into the empty air.
Eventually, a yellow Renault Kangoo drew up alongside her. A woman with a curly blond bob opened the door for her. Marianne scrutinized the woman’s face to find out whether she had only stopped because she had recognized her.
The woman introduced herself as Adela Brelivet from Concarneau. “My name’s…” Marianne began, then paused. There was a search on for Marianne Messmann, so that was the one person she wasn’t. Also, the woman’s smile irritated her: she showed her teeth, but her eyes remained cool. “My name’s Maïwenn.”
“Maïwenn? That’s an interesting name. You know it’s a combination of Marie and ‘white,’ don’t you? White Maria?” Adela babbled. “Adela means something too. I’ll let you in on a secret: it means love.” She let out a shriek of laughter.
Adela talked for a full twenty minutes as the landscape flashed by. The small villages, the roundabouts, the red-and-white place names. Tears ran in a continuous stream down Marianne’s cheeks. Yann. Yann! It hurt as much as if her heart had been cut out without anaesthetic. Adela prattled on, oblivious, as Marianne wept silently.
Concarneau, at last. When they pulled up at the traffic lights outside the covered market, Adela leaned across Marianne to open the door and wished her a pleasant journey. It sounded mocking. Marianne got out, pulling the suitcase after her, and the yellow Kangoo roared away.
Marianne turned this way and that. Where to? Where do I go from here? She watched a flock of crows heading inland from the Atlantic. Pascale Goichon, her dear friend and witch, had said that crows were a sign, so she followed them. She approached the market, her suitcase growing heavier and heavier. When she had reached the far end of the market square, still guided by the birds’ flight, she came to the marine center, then the harbor wall, and suddenly she was gazing out over the wide, glittering gray-blue Atlantic. The clouds, hanging low over the land, did not venture out beyond the shore, acting as if they were an invisible wall that divided the sky into two—one part a deep, noble blue, the other a land sky, dotted with whitecaps. Two
separate worlds.
The soft roar of the waves and the erratic, flighty beating of her heart overlapped inside Marianne’s head. Fifty yards on, she happened upon an old, squat church whose thick sandstone walls had been eaten away by salt water.
In front of the plain portal, a sign read: “Priest available.” For spiritual emergencies, Marianne thought. Next to the church was a telephone booth. She stepped inside, took out a few coins, pushed them into the slot and dialed the number of a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Celle. There was a whistling on the line, as if the wind were rushing through it, but then the sound changed and the phone rang. Once. Twice. After the third tone, Lothar picked up.
“Messmann!”
Marianne clapped her hand to her mouth. His voice was so close!
“Hello? This is Messmann!”
The digital display showing her credit blinked: a cent less every ten seconds. What should she say?
“Answer me. Now!”
Marianne’s mind was empty.
“Marianne? Annie, is that you?” There was not a single word she wanted to say to her husband. “Marianne! Don’t mess things up! Tell me where you are right now! I can see on the display…Is that France? Are you still in—”
She hurriedly hung up and left the telephone booth, wiping her hands on her coat as if she had to get rid of an invisible stain. She went into the church, and the cool air inside the sandstone building dried her sweat. Plain, bare wooden pews, a silver cross above the altar, a model ship in a corner. She made her way cautiously to the confessional box next to the sacristy; it looked like a worm-eaten wardrobe with three doors.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“Allo,” replied a deep voice from inside the wardrobe.
She opened the left-hand door, saw a bench and a prayer stool with a purple velvet cushion on it, entered and closed the door behind her. She gave a sigh of relief. On the other side of the close-meshed iron grille the vague outline of a face hovered white and pale, its dark nostrils gigantic. The figure mumbled reassuringly.