by Liza Wieland
The pelican lifts suddenly, flies off to the east. Elizabeth follows, tacking carefully, still hugging the shore. She reckons forty minutes have passed, and she’s tired of maneuvering the boat by herself. Dominique had said they would fish in the first little cove, and so when the coastline seems to pull open, she sails in. There, as promised, is the stone house with the blue door. She casts the anchor overboard, douses the sail. Fishing poles already set with hooks and bobbers lie at her feet, and she untangles one from the pile, frees the hook, casts toward shore. No bait, but a catch is not really the point, is it? Who really cares to feel a tug, have a little fight, lose the fish or throw it back? The point of fishing is stillness and false purpose, a kind of waking sleep. And not having to steer. Clara and Dominique must have registered the calm of the boat, and this will surely bring them up from below, as soon as they are able.
Onshore, fifty yards away the stone house waits, two stories high, surrounded by tall, bright flowers, maybe something like a zinnia, orange, red, yellow, vivid pink. A vegetable garden to the left, staked tomato plants, beans growing on a fishing net stretched between two poles. A wooden dock reaches out into the cove like a pleading gesture, one armed, odd. A rowboat bobs at the end of the dock. While she looks, the white curtains in the downstairs windows twitch, and two beats later, the front door opens. A figure in dark trousers and a bright green sweater emerges, moves without urgency toward the dock. Elizabeth believes this is a young woman, the balance between arm and hips, the light steps into the rowboat. The woman unties the dock lines, takes up the oars, begins to row slowly toward the Sirène. She keeps her eyes fixed on Elizabeth but does not speak. The only sound in the cove is the beat of the oars and the chuff of little waves. As she approaches Elizabeth, the woman seems to grow older. When the boats are a foot apart, and she throws Elizabeth the lines, she’s become elderly, the age Elizabeth’s grandmother would be. Still, the woman says nothing. Elizabeth pulls the rowboat alongside the Sirène, and their faces are so close that Elizabeth can see a faint scar running from the woman’s left eye to the middle of her cheek.
Dominique? the woman asks.
Below, Elizabeth says, pointing to the closed cabin door. She expects to hear, Who are you, and listens hard for the who, the qui. Instead, the woman makes a gesture, slicing the air horizontally. They stare. The woman is not frightened and not angry. She seems intensely calm, that paradox of emotion. Again she slices the air and then sets both hands, palms flat, on the deck railing. Elizabeth realizes this must mean Move aside, I’m coming in, and so she shifts to make room. In a neat hoist and swivel, the woman is sitting beside her.
Léonie, she says, offering her hand. She stands then, moves expertly, catlike, around the tiller toward the cabin door. She knocks loudly, calls Dominique’s name. Silence.
Elizabeth wonders if she could possibly explain. French phrases for love flood her mind, a blue contusion of language. Léonie turns, stares at Elizabeth. The clear translation is What have you done with him? Elizabeth shakes her head, raises her hands, palms up, widens her eyes, turns down the corners of her mouth, all the French she has learned for I haven’t a clue. The fishing pole, which she had set down, flies off the boat like a possessed javelin and disappears beneath the swells.
Léonie laughs. Bravo, she says.
They hear shuffling below. A hand slides the hatch open, and Dominique appears, head and shoulders. Elizabeth is surprised to see that he is very clearly frightened and then immediately shocked to see Léonie, the cove, her house.
You told me the first cove, Elizabeth says. The stone house.
He speaks to Léonie in French, too quickly to follow, an argument that seems as if it will go on and on, until Clara’s voice rises out of the cabin, a piercing Excusez-moi!
And then in English: Is Elizabeth all right?
I’m fine, Clara, Elizabeth calls. How are you? She cannot keep the nervous laughter out of her voice.
Nothing is funny, Clara says.
Elizabeth sits down behind the tiller. Mysterious agitation and anger salt the air. Léonie is too old to be Dominique’s wife, but really one never knows about such things. His mother? Elizabeth is also terribly sorry about the fishing rod, though that seems to be the least worrisome detail now.
Dominique removes the boards and helps Clara out on deck. Her hair is pinned neatly, her clothes perfectly tidy. Still, there was time to put herself together. She shakes hands with Léonie, who regards Clara with frank curiosity.
Elizabeth, Clara says. Mon amie.
Léonie nods as if this is obvious and utterly uninteresting. Then her expression tightens and she turns to Dominique, who shrugs.
You can’t help it, Clara says, but Elizabeth can’t tell whom she’s addressing.
This exchange causes Léonie to shake her head and set her mouth as if she’s smelled something disagreeable. She steps closer to Dominique and takes a bunch of his shirtfront in her fist so violently that he stumbles. Then she turns from him, slides past Elizabeth, steps into her boat, unties the line. She takes up an oar and uses it to push off.
Okay, Bien, she calls. Mangez!
So much happens without the help of language. No, Elizabeth corrects herself, that’s not quite right. In spite of language.
Léonie is a friend of Dominique, Clara says, and Dominique is a friend of my brother-in-law Charlie. You remember the incident, Elizabeth, the shooting at Gare du Nord.
Charlie was the ambassador to Italy. He was on his way to see Dominique in Brussels when he was shot by a madwoman who claimed he had poisoned Mussolini against her. Naturally, Dominique was concerned. As soon as Charlie makes a full recovery, Dominique will go home.
The gulls’ voices sound like children crying. One of them in particular, directly overhead. You want to do something for the poor thing. Capture it in your arms, smooth its feathers, feed it. But it’s a bird. It’s up there, out of your reach. Elizabeth wonders what drama is playing itself out here in front of her. The water distorts and reveals. Sometimes things are inverted but not distorted. Or not much. While the tides work steadily away at everything solid. And if you fall into it, the water, from any height, it’s hard as diamonds and just as sharp.
The weak sun catches suddenly in the front windows of Léonie’s house, making a flash, a brilliance like explosion. Or more like fire because it doesn’t fade. Elizabeth wants to show this to Clara, but Dominique begins to haul in the anchor and Clara tips the fenders overboard. Elizabeth watches helplessly, of course she could do these things, but no one asks. She moves closer to Clara, and when Clara steps up and slides around the mast, Elizabeth follows.
Can I ask who she is? she says. And why we’re here?
You can ask, Clara says.
Elizabeth recognizes the arch tone some women take after lovemaking. Louise for example. She tries to laugh but feels frightened.
What do you tell your husband, Clara?
About what?
Traveling. With me. Dominique.
Clara’s expression is a confusion of changes, like a sped-up film. Elizabeth can hardly keep track. She waits until Clara’s eyes and mouth settle. Behind them, Dominique breathes heavily, winching up the last of the anchor line. Clara turns toward him, then away.
I don’t tell him anything, Clara says finally. Anyway, he’s too busy with travels of his own. It’s not what you think, Elizabeth.
She looks past the mouth of the cove and out to sea. And then she says something very odd.
You are a necessary angel.
She steps past Elizabeth, grasping the lifelines, and climbs the companionway ladder down into the cabin.
The thud and clang of the anchor into the cockpit unsteadies the Sirène. Elizabeth reaches for the mast, slides her hand up the weathered wood, worn smooth as glass, gray as clouds. Some days, the mast must be invisible against the sky. Dominique starts the engine, steers to Léonie’s dock, reverses to stop just alongside. The fenders do their necessary work, screaming a little,
more like a squeal, a barnyard noise.
Mademoiselle, Dominique calls, gesturing to the dock, lifting the line and pretending to throw it. Elizabeth steps over the doused sail to the foredeck and then over the lifelines onto the dock, movements she usually doesn’t even have to think about, and yet she does now. It all feels like a dream, in which one can do either more or less than in life, but not the same. Which may be the real purpose of dreams—to instruct, to show us where we’re wanting or wrong.
Someone has driven a metal loop, like a croquet wicket, into the dock. Elizabeth sees that Léonie’s rowboat is tied to a similar device on the other side. It is a funny, Victorian substitute for a cleat. The simple iron arch reminds Elizabeth of Simone’s bed upstairs at Mademoiselle Indira’s establishment, a visit that feels like a thousand years ago. The same curve, only these two are smaller, of course, like the head and foot of a mermaid bed, a merchild or some small creature who would sleep here and not die from too much oxygen. Dominique tosses Elizabeth the line and she makes it fast to the loop, a clove hitch. Dominique nods in approval, then glances away, down into the cockpit, and begins to laugh. He moves the remaining fishing rods with his foot.
Je regrette, Elizabeth says. A fish took it. I’m very sorry. I’ll buy you another in town.
Tant pis, Dominique says. He calls for Clara to come up and translate.
That fish will have a story, Clara says. Another story. The ones who take the lines have always done it before.
Elizabeth hears a splash and turns to look. There it is, kindly returning the fishing rod. Behind her, she hears Clara let out a little cry. Then she sees it: a long, wet undulation just beyond Léonie’s rowboat, the smooth back of a dolphin, but brown.
What in the world? Clara says.
Lion de mer, Dominique tells them.
The sea lion swims and breaches, back and forth, toward shore and then away. On her third pass (Elizabeth has decided this must be a female), the animal turns and looks at them, then slips below the water with a great sigh.
In Douarnenez, Elizabeth says, there was a circus, and one of the seals climbed a stepladder carrying a lighted lamp with a red silk shade and bead fringe on his nose.
That’s good luck, Clara says. She’s come a long way from Calais. They like singing. I understand they prefer hymns. I only know a few lines. Triumphant gladness. Mighty fortress. Chantez, she says to Dominique.
Dominique clears his throat, not theatrically. He begins “Ave Maria.” He has a warm tenor. The sky and sea take it willingly up and away out of the cove. Elizabeth hopes the sea lion will walk out of the water on her tail, over the grass and down the dock. Give her a message, handwritten, inside a watertight box, to explain the meaning of necessary angel. Then she will bellow like a foghorn and slip back into the sea. It might be alarming, though. She would have to fall over sideways like a creature shot.
What Elizabeth sees first inside Léonie’s house is a blizzard of lace: tablecloth and napkins, curtains, wall hangings, doilies, antimacassars on the sofa and chairs. Léonie doesn’t seem like the type to want so much in the way of frill. But of course, Brittany is to the west and Belgium to the east, so really what else would she have? And all of it heavily starched, which seems certainly like Léonie, who ties on a lace apron with large openwork, like eyeholes in a mask.
Léonie offers coffee and cider, then puts out a pot and cups, a large brown bottle and thick glass tumblers. Coffee now, Elizabeth decides, but Dominique pours glasses of cider without asking.
The kick is fast and tremendous, a warm whirling through her brain, down her spine.
I might never drink anything else, she whispers to Clara. I might never leave this kitchen.
Léonie is carving a roast chicken, uncovering a bowl of potatoes, mixing green beans with oil and vinegar. Dominique reaches into a cupboard for plates, the drawer below for cutlery. So he has been here before. Which is a clue toward nothing. But the cider is helping her decide to give in to the mystery and stop trying to understand what happened on the boat. Stop trying to know. What a relief!
This cider is a gift, she says, and Clara looks pleased.
They serve themselves, sit and eat without much conversation. When they have finished, Léonie brings out an apple tart, still warm.
Was she expecting us? Elizabeth asks Clara, who shrugs. Not like Clara at all, not to know.
Dominique pats his belly and says something about the boat. Clara translates: We will sink the boat.
Léonie does not smile. Impossible! she says, as if she will now explain the physics of flotation.
There is more conversation in brisk French among Dominique, Léonie, and Clara. Elizabeth cannot keep up. She takes small bites of the tart, which tastes like candied apple, and she’s reminded of trips to the circus with Miss Moore, an experience from another universe. In her head, she composes the letter she will write tonight and send to Sigrid in the morning. She excuses herself to look for the WC, hoping it’s not outside. Léonie points toward the bedroom.
The cider has made walking a bit of a test. The hallway is narrow and dark. Framed pictures line the walls, portraits of men and women and groups. She imagines Léonie’s family, only with the faces of her own grandparents, aunts, and uncles, country people who have fished in a cold climate for hundreds of years.
On one side of the bedroom, Elizabeth sees an infant’s crib, painted bright turquoise, the same shade as the door of this house. She gasps at the sight, an overwrought, slightly drunken response, but she had not expected anything like it. The smallest shard of a memory breaks loose in her head, a splinter, actually a sting if you touch it too much. The crib is empty, though the bottom sheet is wrinkled and a pair of multicolored afghans are bunched at one end. A giraffe and another animal of indeterminate species (a bear?), both made of lace, lie nestled in the folds. Elizabeth rests her head on the crib’s high rail. She can’t recall any talk of a baby, a baby’s appearance or departure. Léonie wouldn’t have left a child alone when she rowed out to the Sirène. She notices now that the crib is really quite wide, larger than usual, certainly big enough for two infants.
She locks herself inside the WC, washes her hands and face in the small sink, reaches for a towel from the stack, and realizes what she holds is a baby’s cloth diaper. The proper towel hangs on a hook to the left. She gazes for a long moment at her face in the mirror, wonders whether the children have died, if she should ask. Maybe Léonie is the grandmother and the children live nearby, visit regularly, nap in the crib. A nap would be nice right now. Elizabeth turns to contemplate the adult bed beside the crib, its smooth lace counterpane, the navy blue blanket folded neatly at the foot.
Back in the kitchen, the question surprises her even as she asks it. Is there a child somewhere? Enfant?
Dominique and Léonie exchange a glance. Their expressions soften and then mask over. It is astonishing to see, cartoonish, surreal, the flesh seeming to move, adjust into oblivion.
Sometimes, Clara says. Lately about one a week, as I understand it. From Brussels.
Goodness, Elizabeth says. Shock is an actual, physical weight—her legs feel heavy and her shoulders ache. She sits down at the kitchen table.
You’re quite right, Clara tells her. Goodness, indeed. They’re Jewish. Some are orphans.
But . . . then . . . Where do they go?
To Paris, most of them. To the nuns at the Convent of the Sacred Heart.
Nothing more is said. Forks scrape against plates.
The nuns drinking coffee at Café Varenne. Elizabeth feels as if she’s woken with a hangover: overnight the world has become a cubist puzzle. The parts (is it a painting or a sculpture?) seem dislocated, but then the longer one stares, the more one is convinced. The parts make an argument. Normandy, the nuns, travel. Suzanne even. Help me, Clara had said. Clara had argued her here, piecemeal, to this place.
Do you like children? Clara had asked.
A sound comes to Elizabeth now: a child crying, a child in a
crib, crying, like a gull.
I was one once.
The nuns at Café Varenne were the last piece. She sees them now, at the next table, dark blotches of fabric, sideways, inverted, irregular, the silver coins gleaming like moons in the dish beside their cups of coffee. The nuns had been taking her measure. She was not found wanting.
Elizabeth, Clara says. Come outside with me a moment.
Elizabeth follows Clara through the front door, across the lawn, onto the dock. She hopes to find the sea lion there, waiting for her. Instead there are only gulls, still as decoys, and the late sun making sharp points of light on the water. Ahead of her, Clara strides down the dock as if she plans to reach the end and keep going. Or maybe she will turn suddenly, grab Elizabeth by the collar, and hurl her into the sea. Something about this scene causes Elizabeth’s chest and lungs to freeze. Some echo, following a woman in a blue coat, with her hair done up in back—chignon is the word—down a wooden peninsula like this one. The panic comes from what she remembers, but also from the sensation of not knowing what will happen when the woman stops and turns.
Suddenly, it is the pier at Economy Point, west of Great Village, and the woman is her mother.