by Nina George
The cat scampered toward the car park—the site of Marianne’s first impression of Kerdruc, the place with the glass-recycling container. Under the trees was a raspberry-colored Renault, and Marianne spotted a lifeless figure on the reclined front seat—Marie-Claude’s daughter Claudine!
The young woman’s face was pale and bathed in sweat, and a damp patch had formed underneath her. She was holding a mobile phone, but the battery was dead. Marianne grabbed her hands and felt her racing pulse with her middle finger. It was beating like mad. She was having contractions!
With all her might, Marianne pushed back the seat and sat down between Claudine’s spread legs. She reached for the cat and set it down on the passenger seat beside her, then started the car and drove off with a screech of tires.
“The baby…” Claudine groaned. “The baby’s coming! Too early. Two weeks early!” She was hit by another wave of contractions. “Did you call it? When you put your hand on my tummy?” She gasped with pain again.
“Stop your nonsense,” Marianne ordered. She kept her hand on the horn as she sped down the ramp to the harbor and raced across the dance floor, braking directly in front of the entrance to Ar Mor. Then she gave three short, three long and another three short blasts of the horn—the international SOS signal.
Three people hurried out of the restaurant: Yann, Jean-Rémy and Lothar. They were all a bit drunk.
Marianne instructed them to lift Claudine, who had almost passed out from the pain, out of the car. “Take her into the kitchen and lay her on the table!” she called, curling her fingers around Sidonie’s pebble in a reflex. It felt warm, as if it had soaked up and preserved Sidonie’s living heat. Marianne closed her eyes and sought to conjure up her memories of helping her grandmother Nane with home births. This time, though, she wouldn’t be helping someone; she would have to do it all on her own. She hoped that her hands would recall the movements. She pushed the button that opened the car’s trunk and found the first-aid kit.
The three men’s faces turned to expressionless masks when they had laid the moaning Claudine on the cool stainless-steel table. Jean-Rémy rushed to the telephone and asked the operator for an ambulance. “We need to get her to the clinic in Concarneau,” he whispered, waiting for Marianne to give the final command.
She turned over a large cooking pot and arranged bandages, scissors, compresses and the pebble on it. Then she held her hands under hot water to warm them up, and pulled on sterile latex gloves.
“Support her, Lothar,” she said as she pushed her fingers into Claudine.
Claudine shrieked. “Oh my God! Bloody hell!”
“Her cervix is open, her perineum is bulging and she’s cursing like a trooper!”
Jean-Rémy passed on this information to the emergency services. “They say we shouldn’t drive her in that state.”
The contractions came at ever shorter intervals, and Claudine screamed ever more loudly. “Bleeding son of a bitch!”
“Now they’re saying that they’re going to come to us.” Jean-Rémy ran away.
“Men! They always want to be there at the beginning, but never for the outcome,” mumbled Marianne. “She needs to breathe regularly,” she instructed Yann, who was standing there watching her with inscrutable eyes. “Tell her everything’s normal, everything’s fine.”
“Don’t you need hot water?” the painter asked.
“The only reason midwives need hot water is for making coffee and keeping the men busy,” growled Marianne. “Bring me a glass of brandy and some towels—clean tea towels. And the electric heater. Lothar, stop rubbing the woman. It’ll drive her crazy, all that pushing and shoving. Move her nearer to the edge.”
Yann bent over Claudine and urged her to breathe regularly.
“Fuck your mother, you bastard!”
—
When Yann had gone out to fetch the towels, Lothar asked, “Why did you leave me?”
“Do you really want to talk about that now, Lothar?”
“I just want to understand!”
Yann came back into the room and directed the heater at Claudine.
“Jean-Rémy!” called Marianne. “Where’s Grete?”
“She’s in her room. With the fisherman. Simon.”
“He can stay put, but fetch Grete. Are there any other women in the house?”
“A few fest-noz guests who’ve stayed on, and…Oh my God!” The top of a little head had appeared between Claudine’s legs. Jean-Rémy turned away and threw up into the sink.
“Shut up!” roared Claudine.
“Don’t push anymore!” Marianne said loudly. “Pant! Jean-Rémy! Grete!”
She panted to demonstrate to Claudine what she wanted her to do, then sat down on a second pot, pushed a few towels under Claudine’s thighs and gently laid her hand on the advancing head, applying pressure to guide it. Claudine braced her feet against Marianne’s shoulders, leaving dirty marks on the skin. Jean-Rémy staggered out of the kitchen.
“What did I do wrong, Marianne?”
“Lothar! Everything. Nothing. You are who you are, I am who I am, and we don’t go together—that’s all there is to it.”
“We don’t go together? What are you talking about?”
Claudine screamed and pushed, but the baby didn’t want to come out any farther. Marianne let her hands do what they needed to do, without thinking. She steered the little head downward using both hands until a shoulder appeared. The perineum seemed to tear, and she glanced up at Lothar, who shut his eyes in shock, and Yann, who was holding the brandy with a strangely enraptured expression. Then she looked back down to the tiny body as it forced its way entirely out of the womb.
She supported the child’s chest so that its head didn’t hang upside down. The remaining amniotic fluid splashed onto the floor.
“Take off your shirt, Yann,” she said calmly.
“Victor!” cried Claudine, then again, “Vi-ic-tor!” She sank back onto the table and all her muscles slackened.
It was here. Marianne was holding the infant in her hands. She took a quick look at the clock: five past five. The baby was bloody, slippery and covered with yellow grease. She dabbed it with the sterile compresses, then took Yann’s body-warmed shirt and wrapped the baby in it.
“It’s a girl,” she whispered into Claudine’s ear, as the young woman slumped back heavily into Lothar’s arms.
“It isn’t crying,” murmured Yann.
Marianne ran her hand along the little girl’s spine and rubbed her feet. Nothing. Not a sound.
Come on. Cry! Breathe!
“What’s wrong?” She asked the baby softly. “Don’t you want to? You’ll have a wonderful life. You’ll love, be loved, laugh—”
“Am I too late?” asked Grete as she rushed into the kitchen in a negligee over which she had thrown on Simon’s fisherman’s shirt and jacket.
“The baby isn’t crying, and I don’t have a free hand to cut the umbilical cord.”
“What’s wrong with my baby? WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY BABY?” Claudine bit Lothar’s hand, and he let go of her in surprise.
“What a couple of heroes we have here!” whispered Grete, gently pinching the baby’s ear. The child didn’t cry.
Claudine looked at Marianne, wild-eyed, and reared up. Grete held the umbilical cord higher and pressed down on Claudine’s abdomen with the other hand. Marianne’s gaze fell on Sidonie’s pebble. She picked it up, prized open one of the newborn’s tiny fists and gently pushed the stone between its fingers. Marianne felt a slight discharge from the small body similar to the lightning in the sky a little earlier. Silent, but mighty.
Sidonie? she asked wordlessly. Is that you?
The baby filled her lungs, her cheeks turned red and all of a sudden she let out a cry of affirmation. There was a huge clap of thunder outside. The men laughed with relief, and Marianne laid the child on Claudine’s chest. The young mother gently embraced her daughter, her eyes full of astonishment, gratitude and shame.
Gre
te tore the straps off her nightdress and tied them around the umbilical cord in two places, while Marianne cut it with the sterile scissors. Tomorrow she would bury it under a rosebush, as sure as sure could be.
Claudine’s face had regained some of its color, and Marianne got up to fetch her a glass of cold water, as Grete continued to staunch the bleeding from the umbilical cord. Marianne suddenly felt exhausted. The day’s events could easily have filled a few years. The goddesses had demonstrated to her that life and death could take place within a single day, and sometimes it was impossible to distinguish between them.
—
A team of paramedics came running into the kitchen. At last!
Marianne reached for the brandy, drank half of it and passed the glass to Grete, who drained the rest. She looked at Lothar, and from him to Yann. They were both standing there as if they expected something of her.
Yann was the first to move, pulling on his jacket over his vest, kissing Marianne softly on the forehead and whispering, “Je t’aime.” Lothar took off his tie, unbuttoned his collar and asked, “Should I go too? And never come back?”
“As if that wasn’t completely beside the point at this particular moment,” Grete muttered almost inaudibly.
“Just go to bed, Lothar,” Marianne said wearily.
“I don’t know you anymore,” he replied.
Nor do I, she thought.
“But I’d like to,” he added softly, beseechingly. When Marianne said nothing, he delicately touched her cheek and left.
“I wonder who Victor is,” said Marianne after a while. At this name, Claudine gave a start, and Marianne registered the silent request in her eyes.
Once the doctor had tended to Claudine, he came over to Marianne and shook her hand, saying “Nice work, Madame,” before taking a sheet of paper on which he needed to fill out the relevant details: birthplace and time, people in attendance, father.
“Unknown,” Marianne said to this last question.
The doctor turned to Claudine. “Is that correct?”
She nodded with wide-open eyes.
“Have you already chosen a name, Mademoiselle?”
“Anna-Marie,” whispered Claudine, smiling at Marianne.
Sidonie’s pebble was resting near the girl’s face between Claudine’s full breasts. It was the first thing Anna-Marie saw when she opened her eyes.
—
Over in Rozbras, a young woman was still standing beside the stone wall. Laurine felt alone, but not lonely. She realized that she would never be lonely as long as she was capable of taking even a single step. Yet she was saving this step until she found out toward whom she should take it. Life might often decide for her, but it would not completely rule her movements.
She was still gazing over at Kerdruc when Padrig brought the Peugeot to a halt beside her. He made her get in and drove her to a place filled with unbestowed flowers and unread letters.
The thunderstorm had given birth to a radiant day. When Marianne walked over to her window after only a few hours’ sleep and opened it to let in the August sun, she saw Geneviève, Alain, Jean-Rémy and the nuns covering a long table with white tablecloths outside. Geneviève and Alain were teasing each other like playful children, and touching continually, as if to convince themselves that the other wasn’t simply a figment of their dreams.
The fest-noz guests who had stayed the night emerged from the guesthouse and sat down at the huge breakfast table. Birds were singing amid the lush green foliage, a light breeze carried the scent of the sea, and the white boats rocked on the glittering Aven. Father Ballack came out carrying an armful of baguettes. Protected from the morning sun by the red awning on the terrace, Emile and Pascale Goichon sat hand in hand, with Madame Pompadour and Merline sprawling at their feet. Next to them Paul was dunking a croissant in a glass of red wine and raising it to Rozenn’s lips. As the Gwen II drew closer from the Atlantic, heading for the quay, Marianne recognized Simon, and beside him a woman wearing a cocky sailor’s hat and a striped T-shirt. It was Grete. Max was sunning himself on the seat of the Vespa.
No sign of Yann. And no Sidonie, ever again.
Marianne looked at the open window and clapped her hands to her eyes. The others didn’t know yet. They didn’t yet realize that there would never be another Monday pensioners’ get-together in Kerdruc with Sidonie. When she lowered her hands, she saw Geneviève waving to her, her other arm curled around Alain, who was pressing his Genoveva tightly to his side. Geneviève pointed to an empty seat in the middle of the long table: everyone else had already sat down. The nuns, the Kerdruc pensioners, the pining chef. Grete. The summer guests, who thought they would never again spend their holidays without visiting this port. Only Yann, Marie-Claude the hairdresser, Colette and the most beautiful young woman in the village were missing. And Marianne. Geneviève pointed to the seat again.
That’s my seat? She looked at all these wonderful people.
There was a knock. Lothar came in and stood behind her. “Marianne,” he said. “I want to ask for your forgiveness. Give me a second chance. Or do you want to stay here?”
Marianne gazed down at the quayside. Whoever this seat among these extraordinary, loving people was for, it was not her. Not Marianne Messmann, née Lanz, from Celle, a woman who read magazines rescued from recycling containers and ate food past its sell-by date, who had done nothing except pretend. She had only imagined that she was something special, but she was no different than she’d been during the preceding sixty years.
Lothar was her life, and when he had arrived, he had reminded her of who she really was, where she came from and what would always be inside her, no matter how much makeup she applied and how much she strutted around onstage. There was a struggle inside her, but ultimately she felt that this, this here, was all a performance. She had had her share of happiness. She wasn’t fated for more: not for this land, not for the man with the marine eyes, not for the seat among these amazing people, who were so much grander and more wonderful than she was.
“Come on, or else we won’t ever start and we’ll starve to death!” called Alain.
Marianne despondently combed her hair, put on a white dress, rinsed her mouth and pinched her cheeks instead of applying rouge and lipstick as she had done with such joy in previous weeks. The stranger who looked her in the eye from the mirror wasn’t smiling. She was gray, and her eyes were empty.
“I am not you, and you are dead,” said Marianne.
I only lived as long as you allowed me to, the unknown woman, whom she had taken for herself, seemed to say.
Lothar appeared behind her and spoke directly to her face in the mirror. “I love you. Marry me again.”
—
As they approached the table, Jean-Rémy stood up with a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. “To Marianne. She can play the accordion, deliver children in kitchens and remove the salt from a soup.”
“And make stupid people clever,” called Geneviève to general amusement.
“And drive normal people mad,” added Pascale, before asking her husband, “Or was it the other way around?”
The others rose to their feet with Jean-Rémy. Emile leaned on Pascale, and they all raised their glasses and cups of cider. “To Marianne,” they announced as one.
Marianne didn’t know where to look. It was unbearable to think that they liked and admired her. She squirmed with shame.
I’m a fraud. I’m not even a shadow of what they see in me. I lied to them. I’m a con artist.
It was as if she had used up all her courage the previous night, and she didn’t dare to look a single one of them in the eye.
I’ve only pretended to them to be a special person, but none of it can be true. Nothing.
Lothar, who knew this nothingness so well, and had traveled here to find it, loved her nonetheless. He loved her. She knew that now. How could she simply discard that love?
“Why won’t you sit down?” asked Geneviève. Marianne swallowed hard.
I love you. Marry me again.
“I’m going to go back to Germany with my husband,” she said quietly.
Pascale knocked over her glass in shock.
“Please sit down right now,” whispered Jean-Rémy. “Quickly.”
Now everyone was staring at her with distrust, disappointment and astonishment.
“I’m not the right person for that seat,” said Marianne a little more loudly. “Please forgive me.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
—
As Marianne was packing her suitcase, Grete pushed open the door. “Have you lost your mind? What was that all about down there?”
Marianne pressed her lips together and continued to pile up her clothes.
“Hello, wake up! If you’re locked inside there somewhere, Marianne, send me a signal!” Marianne stopped.
“It’s just the way it is!” she shouted at her neighbor in a voice that was cracking with emotion. “I’m just the way I am! Nothing more! Not that…musician. Not a sex bomb for Yann.” It hurt her to utter his name. “Nor am I a healer or a sea-whisperer, and I don’t make mad people normal! I haven’t a clue about life. I’m nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing. Those people see a pure illusion.” She collapsed onto the bed, weeping.
“Oh you poor little botched Betty!” Grete couldn’t help saying.
“It’s true,” whispered Marianne, when her body was no longer shaken by sobs. “I can’t cope with life here. I’m not made for it. And however hard I’ve tried, I can’t manage to be the person I’d like to be, living freely, deciding what I want, not fearing death. That’s simply not me. What am I supposed to do here? Keep playing the neighborhood German witch? I’m scared of this life, always being more than I actually am. I can’t reinvent myself. Could you?”
Grete shrugged. If she’d been able to do that, she wouldn’t have spent twenty years with the faithfully unfaithful hairdresser.