The Little French Bistro

by Nina George

  Marianne unstrapped the accordion. She would ride to Yann’s to face him and his love, even if, in his aggrieved state, he were to turn her away. For lying to him when he had asked about her past. For leaving him without answering whether she planned to go back to her husband. “Yann,” she whispered to the sea, and turned to go. A single white rose was poking from the sand.

  He must have left it there while Marianne was playing a song for the sea. He must have listened and watched as she played, wept and laughed, as she screamed at the sea and sought and found the right notes and words.

  She pulled the rose from the sand and held it to her nose. He was sitting on a rock, very close by. The golden gleam of the sea dappled his face, and the waves were breaking in his eyes. He looked at her as Marianne felt no man had ever looked at her before. His eyes rested on her with great intensity, as if she were an island.

  He was composed yet confused, as if he had known her the whole time he had searched for her. Marianne no longer found this strange. She too had found something, here at the end of the earth. In the mirror of the sea she had seen herself, and what she had once been intended for.

  Never again. Never again will I go without this.

  As she took a step across the heavy sand, he stood up and walked toward her. She let the accordion slide to the ground and flew into his arms.

  “Yann!” she cried, then a second time, “Yann!”

  “Salut, Marianne,” he whispered, and he embraced her with all his might and his love.

  —

  As he had sat there watching his lover, Yann had renewed a long-forgotten promise to himself: nothing insignificant ever again. Everything was to be experienced at the highest pitch of passion and life. To expect something greater after life was to forget that life was the greatest thing of all. He had forgotten that, and now he wanted to live with all his strength and with no further dread. Love, paint, love: nothing that would tire his heart or offend his soul.

  He wanted to tell Marianne that he understood. For a while her unexplained departure had almost killed him, but then he had understood. A few nights of love and caresses from him could not dissolve forty-one years of marriage. This woman had cast off her former life, but it still clung to her and would not yet let go of her. How could it?

  She possessed greater courage than anyone he had ever met, for she had set out into a foreign world, armed with nothing but her determination. Yet beneath all that strength there was still the other Marianne, the vulnerable one. The warrior carried serious wounds, which could prove fatal if they were reopened, and that man—her husband—had cut her to the quick with his TV appearance, reminding her of all the scars she bore.

  Yann had understood. Feeling her now, resting in his arms, was a second shock to his system. He stressed every word he whispered into her ear in a voice that brooked no contradiction and asked for no agreement: “Tonight I will not be without you, nor in any of the nights to come.”

  She looked up at him. “Why wait for the night?”

  They drove to Raguenez, and made their way across to the island off the northern end of Tahiti Beach. There, they made love before the tide came in. They were on an island that no one else knew. When they looked out later over the rolling waves that hurled themselves against the cliffs, Yann asked, “Are you going to tell your husband at some point that you’re alive? And that you’re not coming back? That you want to be free, whether for me or for you?”

  Marianne said nothing for a minute. “At some point, yes. Of course.”

  Colette had moved in with Sidonie to love her and be loved in return. In view of the certain transience of her love, she felt whole for the first time in her life. It was all there. It had always been there, but she hadn’t noticed: a love of women.

  The second week after she had moved in, Sidonie asked her to take her to the stones she had always longed to touch. Stonehenge, the wandering stones of Death Valley, the magical palaces of Malta and the altar stones of Palestine. Her doctor forbade her to travel. Colette flew into a rage and implored him, but he stood firm, warning of a premature death from exhaustion, and she fell silent.

  Everything had been in a state of flux recently, as if the steady maelstrom of the passing days had intensified its fateful blows in an attempt to catch up on something that could no longer be reeled in—the past.

  Though summer was all around, bathing the August days in Finistère in dazzling light, and the numbers of tourists were growing from day to day, their lives settled into a new pattern.

  When Marianne wasn’t working at the guesthouse or for the Goichons, she got up before dawn to play the accordion beside the sea and listen to the sound of the waves spilling their secrets to her—secrets that were older than the standing stones. On her days and evenings off she would meet up with Yann, and they would visit Sidonie and Colette as often as they could. The sculptress found peace in Marianne’s embrace. Marianne told her what the sea, and its queen, Nimue, had whispered to her during their private conversations. It had said that death and life were like water. Nothing was lost. Their spirits would flow through the other world and find a new receptacle in another place and another time. A decanting of souls. She never knew she could hear the sea. But it turned out that all she had to do was listen.

  Then, one afternoon, Colette and Sidonie were gone. A week later, Colette rang from Malta. “After all, it’s life that carries the greatest risk of death, so wouldn’t it better to do some living first?”

  Having simply upped and left, they had spent a few days in Paris with Sidonie’s children in the knowledge that they would never see each other again. Sidonie had insisted on this leave-taking: her children were not to watch her die. She wanted to tell them how much she loved them and how proud of them she was, and they threw a three-day party before setting out on their travels to see the world’s most beautiful stones.

  After 20 August, the French tourists would celebrate the end of their holidays in Brittany with one last fest-noz and head back to Paris, Provence, the cold cities and the French hinterland to dream of their Breton summer. “Crazy,” they would say. “Remember eating all that wonderful fish? The costumes at the Filets Bleus, the festival of blue nets, in Concarneau? That organic Morgana beer from the Lancelot brewery? And the pardon, where everybody walked around in special hats and asked to be forgiven for all manner of things? It was all so authentic!”

  Until then, it was possible to attend several parties each night. Every large village invited people to dance in the streets, which were covered with wooden decking for this very purpose. The gavotte dances excluded no one: the larger the circle, the more fun everyone had, and the quieter it was afterward in the woods and along the roads, where casual lovers strained not to make too much noise.

  The fest-noz in Kerdruc had to compete with other dances on the same night in Raguenez, Trévignon and Cap Coz, which drew the many tourists who wished to listen to music and watch Breton bands and fireworks.

  On the afternoon before the fest-noz, Geneviève Ecollier knocked on Marianne’s door and beckoned to her with an excited smile. She led her downstairs and opened the door that gave into the room containing the dresses. “Find one you like,” she said. “A musician must shine.”

  Marianne was going to play at the fest-noz. She would share with people the songs she had so far only shared with the sea, and Geneviève wanted to help her. She had come to this decision the previous night, as she, Marianne and Grete had sat chatting together. For the first time Marianne had spoken openly about how she had come to Kerdruc to kill herself, and how, day after day, she had put off her plans until nothing remained of her intentions other than a deep sense of shock that she might not have lived her life to the full. Then her untamed desire to seize her life with both hands had taken control.

  Geneviève had stood up and bowed to her. She had great admiration for this woman who had mustered up the courage to rectify the mistaken path she had taken.

  Unlike Geneviève herself. She w
as a woman who corrected nothing, hiding away the shadows of the past, in the form of dresses, like living corpses. She wished that a little of Marianne’s talent for rewriting the book of fate might rub off on her when she opened the door to her past.

  Marianne ran her hand over the dresses she had already touched once in secret. It was as if they were alive, disclosing their secrets in whispering voices and sighs, for in her fingers she felt an intermittent prickling that rose and then subsided.

  One of them seemed to be on fire. The dress held a memory so powerful that it could not be washed out of the fibers. It glowed, sending heat up her arm and into her chest. She gripped it and heard a sharp intake of breath beside her. It was the red dress. Marianne took a step back and let Geneviève remove the dress from its hanger. She laid it over her arm, and her gaze turned inward to memories languishing in cages of lost happiness.

  “I wore this dress to my engagement,” she whispered, her hands gliding over the smooth, shimmering fabric. “The day everything began and nothing ended.” Her expression softened. “I was wearing this dress when I fell in love with my fiancé’s brother. Life was good to me, I was young and beautiful, and I loved the wrong man. Loving is different from being loved. Giving and seeing how a person flourishes and feeds off your love: the amount of power you possess, and the fact that that power makes someone the best they can be.” She hung her head. “Alain didn’t want my love, so what was I supposed to do with it?” Tears fell onto the dress.

  Marianne let her weep. She realized that these tears were being shed for the very first time. Surrounded by the dresses in which she had lived for three summers, three autumns, two winters and two springs, Geneviève wept for the lost man and for the woman she had once been. There was nowhere her love was welcome, and through lack of use, its power had cooled and changed into hatred. It was easier to hate than to love when your love wasn’t wanted.

  Marianne ran a gentle hand over Geneviève’s hair. How closely this woman had guarded her love, never allowing it to take wing again! Alain. Of course—the man who lived on the other side of the river. He couldn’t be any nearer to the woman whose love he had batted away many years ago.

  “Do you still love him?”

  Geneviève exhaled, her mouth wide, and touched the dress again. “Every day. Every day I love him and hate myself for doing so.” She grasped her tight plait, then stood up. “Let’s make sure we get you into this thing, Marianne.” She held out the red dress.

  Marianne shook her head slowly. “You should wear it, Geneviève,” she said softly, reaching for a different dress—a blue one that glittered like the sun-kissed sea.

  Alain sat down next to Laurine on the bright stone parapet that ran along the river on the approach to the bar tabac. The sturdy sandstone blocks had been installed to prevent vehicles from taking an unplanned dip in the river, as had happened all too often in the past.

  Laurine gazed toward Kerdruc.

  “Homesick?” Alain asked. She nodded. He followed her gaze across the water to the far bank. It was a harbor that Alain was condemned to see, but where he wasn’t welcome. Yet something was different over there today.

  It was tempting him. It seemed to be quivering. In the blue-tinged light of dusk, sparks were dancing—though in actual fact they were merely the lights of a host of swaying red lanterns. Among them shadows shifted, gathering for the night’s festivities. Suddenly Alain caught sight of a red shadow. He recognized that red. From his breast pocket he took a pair of opera glasses, through which he had spent so many nights peering desperately for a glimpse of Geneviève.

  “Genoveva,” he whispered. She was wearing her engagement dress, the dress in which they had fallen in love with each other.

  Was that the sign he had been waiting for these thirty-five years? Or was it merely mockery. Look, I’ve managed to forget you, Alain, and who I was when I loved you.

  Laurine observed her new boss. He was good to her, gentle and clever, but the view through those binoculars had brought out something in his face that only a woman in love could comprehend: Alain Poitier was no more at home on this side of the Aven than she was. She took his hand, but it wasn’t clear who was clinging to whom—Alain to Laurine, or she to him. He belonged over there in Kerdruc, where two things were happening at that moment. Through his binoculars he could see that a van was rolling down the slope to the port and letting out four nuns and a priest; and from a taxi stepped a gray-suited man, who looked around with an expression of disbelief that he had washed up in this place at the end of the world.

  —

  “Is it normal to feel so sick?” asked Marianne, glancing from the gavotte players to Grete and back again with a pained expression.

  “It’s called stage fright, and it’s completely normal. Everyone gets it.” Grete burst out laughing. “Come on, Marianne. There’s no water lily in your lungs, stealing your breath. Breathe out. All of us should breathe out more often anyway.”

  They were sitting in the guesthouse dining room. The bandleader beckoned to Marianne. Her knees felt like jelly as she listed the pieces she was intending to play. Right then, a flock of nuns came swarming through the door.

  “Sister Clara!” Marianne cried happily. Behind her were Sister Dominique and Father Ballack. They walked toward Marianne, their robes swirling, and clustered around her. They had come to Kerdruc to thank her for rescuing Sister Dominique and had planned their trip to coincide with the fest-noz party.

  “I’m so pleased,” Sister Clara whispered as she hugged her. “So pleased that your journey has had a happy ending.”

  —

  Alain didn’t know what to do. The vibes on the other side of the river appeared to have intensified. That was no ordinary Breton port hosting just another fest-noz: it looked like an enchanted forest.

  Laurine was looking through the opera glasses. Alain had fetched his jacket and hung it around her shoulders. “That’s Madame Geneviève. She’s bringing out the racks to support the casks of wine. And that’s Padrig helping her. And that’s…” She paused and cleared her throat. “Monsieur Paul is dressed up to the nines. Claudine: dear me, she’s so pregnant, she’s going to burst soon! Ah, they’re pointing to Marianne!” Laurine was ecstatic now. “She looks so beautiful!”

  “Can you see Jean-Rémy as well?” asked Alain.

  “I don’t want to see him,” said Laurine, passing Alain the glasses.

  He scanned the far shore, and suddenly caught sight of Geneviève leading the man in the gray suit up the stairs to the guesthouse.

  —

  It was when the man had written his name on the guest form and passed it to Madame Geneviève that she started to tremble. She read his name a second time. She hadn’t recognized him in the lift, and even the creases stabbing down sharply from the corners of his mouth to his chin bore little resemblance to the man who had appeared on French television searching for his lost wife. It was Lothar Messmann.

  “Where’s my wife?” he asked in French, or what he believed to be French. For the first time in her life, Geneviève Ecollier decided to adopt the default French attitude: never understand anyone who wasn’t French.

  “Pardon?” she said in a blasé tone of voice.

  How I would love to chuck you in the river, you little gray rabbit. You booked under your own name, of course, not Marianne’s maiden name, and stupidly I only realized too late.

  “My wife, Marianne Messmann,” he said, raising his voice.

  Geneviève shrugged and walked around the reception desk to guide him up to his room, giving the dining room a wide berth.

  These French people, thought Lothar. Such an arrogant lot. Throughout his journey to the tip of Brittany, they had all refused to understand him. He had been forced to eat things he hadn’t ordered. In the bus from Rennes to Quimper, two toothless old men had spat on his German army sticker; and in Quimper he had repeatedly been sent in the wrong direction as he searched for a taxi. He had several times passed a crime bookshop, wh
ose saleswoman had observed him distrustfully.

  He remembered the letter he had received ten days ago from a teacher called Adela Brelivet, who had informed him in turgid school German that she regarded it as her civic duty to respond to his TV appeal for information and notify him that she had picked up the aforementioned Marianne on a minor road outside Kerdruc and given her a lift to Concarneau. She had immediately realized that the woman had given her a false identity. Despite this, she was absolutely certain of her identity, and Monsieur Messmann should enquire at Ar Mor in Kerdruc, because she had heard that there was a foreign woman working in the kitchen there.

  He wanted to find out how Marianne could prefer life without him. Why was she so unwilling to put up with him any longer? Oh, and how annoying it was that this women in the tantalizing red dress should refuse to tell him where Marianne was! She must be at the party, at which he would bet that they didn’t even serve beer, only champagne and frogs’ legs. Lothar hated this country. At least the room was all right, and he could look out of his window onto the lively quayside below.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted a woman in a blue dress, with an amber bob, shielded by a group of nuns. No, that couldn’t be Marianne. Marianne was smaller and not as…attractive.

  He left his room and took some Breton lager that a gloomy-looking young man with black hair and a red bandanna passed him across the counter of the bar outside. The breakwater had filled with excited women, laughing men, teenagers, and children chasing each other underneath the tables around the dance floor.

  Lothar began to push his way through the crowd, ignoring the looks that people shot at his formal suit with its six gold buttons. He was following the woman in the blue dress, which seemed to be constantly changing color and reflecting people’s laughter and the stars overhead. As she turned slightly toward him, reacting to a call from an urbanely dressed woman with a cigarette holder in her black-gloved hand, he knew that the woman in the blue dress was indeed Marianne.