The unshakable progress of days in the convent begins when Sister Sabine from Toulouse—eyes red from sleep, feet bare, and still adjusting skirts and veils about her short, pendulous figure—stands in the pitch-black corridor along the sisters’ cells at 4:30 A.M. An accidental Spanish dancer masquerading as a nun, Sabine flings her right arm high above her head, rips the dark with the fierce click of wooden castanets, and, in a rich mannish voice, shouts: “Ave Maria. Rise and worship our Mother and her Son.”
Situated on the plateau’s northern descent is a hamlet of red-roofed, stone houses, tall and narrow as small ships and raised up in the shape of a horseshoe. Here abide the metaires and their families who work in the vineyards, the adjoining fields—convent lands all. Nearby are dairy barns, hay barns, granaries, winemaking sheds, a distillery, a meeting hall, a washhouse, a communal kitchen. An ocher stone chapel and a churchyard cling to a small shank of land farther below while, on the valley floor, a larger village sits along the Lez. Its quick waters lick the sorrel edges of the riverbanks, where old men fish and children cheer flotillas of leaf-sailed boats. Here there are shops, civil offices, town houses, the small red marble-faced church of St.-Odile. A public park with a carousel.
As though the Carmelites’ trafficking with God were a private business, the villagers and the metaires in the hamlet are rarely blessed with the benevolence of their holy sisters on the plateau. One might say that, in this case, benevolence, rather than descending from the top, is carted upward, pushed and pulled in wagons and bundled on muleback, along the chalk white roads from the bottom. Hunters leave birds—still warm, heads askew, piled in a brown canvas bag—haunches of venison and wild boar, while others leave strings of tiny, still-breathing river fish, foraged mushrooms and grasses, fallen chestnuts, a tin pail of wild berries. These are gifts from the farmers, often poor, and extraordinary to the convent’s “half portion” of the farms’ bounty: jute sacks of flour and cereals, laid reverently as holy relics in the pantries; each morning’s milk from a small herd; glass bottles of double cream; cheeses, just made and dripping whey from their cloth netting; white butter spread into half-kilo wooden forms; barrels of wine rolled gently down sagging paint-spattered planks into the musty gloom of the chai. To further sustain its table there are the convent gardens and fruit trees, its goats and sheep and chickens and geese, a rabbit hutch. Yet by some quirk of nature—even in the longest memory—there has never been a single instance of sufficiency that afforded the good sisters the means to send, say, a bushel of pears or plums back down the chalk white roads to the bottom. A token. Some say the virtue of charity has yet to take hold up on the plateau. It should be noted, though, that to stand in the convent hall among Mater Paul and her sorority on the afternoon of Epiphany, to sip tepid, watered chocolate from yellow and green faience cups, the villagers, the metaires, are all invited. But since the price of entry to the amusement is a small white envelope with a year’s tithe for the Carmelite missions, many more stay away than attend, their own missions having urgency enough. Even so, since the metaires, many of the villagers, and the sisters have similarly dedicated their lives to work and prayer, one might presume their affinity. Yet it’s want that separates them. When the good sisters’ woodpile dwindles, they send word to the metaires to bring more. As they do about their wine. For meat and wool and fine sturdy boots, they send to the shops while the metaires and the less prosperous of the villagers patch and save and count and portion. Do without in their own lives of work and prayer. Thus the convent remains remote from the hamlet and the village, each place observant of its own spiritual law and cultural prescription, its own rituals marked hour by day by year.
On her way from the larder to the kitchen gardens to harvest the day’s needs for vegetables and herbs, Solange carries a deep oval basket over her arm. Inside the basket, on a length of soft blue wool, Amandine sleeps. Solange walks quickly from the larder, where she’d fetched the basket—fetched the baby—from Sister Josephine. Josephine, who had carried Amandine about earlier in the morning as she’d moved from cell to cell to see to the week’s fresh linen, had gone then to the larder to await Solange. Once Solange is in the garden, bending to inspect the new onions, flitting her hands through the peas, Sister Marie-Albert, the youngest and the most petite of the sisters, appears from the washhouse carrying an empty basket. Marie-Albert walks to Solange, looks furtively about, exchanges the empty basket for the one that holds the baby, hoists it hip-high, and—her doll’s body slanted from its weight—lopes back toward the washhouse singing a lullaby. Setting about to dig potatoes, Solange smiles to herself. How the sisters love the child, how they quarrel over who will hold her, who will feed her. I would rather share her less, and yet I know that my taking on a full roster of duties makes me less prone to Paul’s disdain. Too, Amandine benefits from each one who cares for her.
Solange looks about the land, the air scented with the last sunburst figs trickling sticky juices and maddening the bees. Beyond the garden, the fruit hangs heavy on the vines now. Everywhere the vines. At home the grapes will be less mature, she thinks, perhaps another month before the vendage. Père Philippe likes that I know so much about grape growing, winemaking, and so he teaches me about these southern grapes. Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan. Not the grapes of my Champagne. Strange how what grows up from the earth in a given place reflects the people of that place. Here the vines grow taller, leaner, taller and leaner like the people. The vines of Champagne grow closer to the ground, thick, lush, plump. Like the plump, red-cheeked Champenois themselves. Slabs of shale piled up, pell-mell, into walls about the garden, box-edged plots of sprawling cabbages and trellised beans, clumps of lavender enclosing herbs, a patch of fat, bruised pumpkins, a hayfield, freshly shorn. Sunflowers. Then the vines. A row of cork oaks, their leaves marbled russet, lean over the hollow creek bed, narrow as a goat path. How good the earth smells, this southern earth, like corn and sheep and clay. Older, sun-leached, melancholy. This southern place. I like it here. Days pass without my thinking of home, of them. I say their names in my prayers as though they were part of my past and not still there, a two-day train journey away. I do not miss them. Or is it only that I do not miss her? Maman. Or is it that I miss her too much?
Philippe, who has been working in a far corner of the garden, approaches her, pushes back upon his forehead a broken straw hat, wipes his hands on his soutane, leaving mud streaks to mingle with dribbles of wine and long-cooked sauces. He nods to Solange. Smiles.
“Bonjour, Solange.”
“Bonjour, Père Philippe.”
From her sentinel’s post at the chapel window, Paul watches this complicit greeting just as she has the last passing of the basket. Worrying the beads hung from her belt, Paul broods.
Even Philippe has joined them. Their little girls’ game. A relay race, their baton a baby. They know that I know. Such esprit de corps, every last one of them, and nothing I say or threaten will turn them from their playing house with her, toting her about, precious chattel, gurgling, cooing. Moonstruck hens. And Philippe barely able to contain his glee for their tactics. Imbécile ancien. It was dear Fabrice, a single visit from His Eminence, my own Eminence, and every rule was dust.
“Ah, let me see her. Let me see our baby girl,” he’d said.
A beauty queen clasping a sheaf of roses, Solange drifted slowly down the stairs, carried her to him. Rather than only look at her, he took her in his arms—a florid old uncle—walked with her up and down the salon, held her to his breast, pronounced her “Jolie. Jolie angeau de Dieu.”
He asked that the house be called together and, still holding her, bade them kneel while he blessed them, blessed her.
“Remember, my dears, work and prayer and meditation. And now a shared ministry to this motherless child. I shall hold it a special favor to me every time one of you shows her love. Keep her among you, even in the réfectoire, in the chapel, during your evening work. With Père Philippe and Mater Paul as your exampl
es, treat her as a rare gift and teach her the ways of our holy life.”
A rare gift, yes, I’d thought then. Rare enough. I wonder the sum the little thing represents. Sufficient to buy more land? Another château to restore to his imperial taste, at least enough for that. To keep the ways of our holy life.
Their eyes downcast, I heard them then, the collective “Mais oui, Votre Eminence” as he waddled away. Dear Fabrice.
Now, all these months later, still they play the game, still they pretend that the child stays in the apartment—swaddled, fed, and left to herself as I’d instructed—while Solange is about her work. The child has never stayed longer than three seconds without one handmaiden or another. They keep the farce to save my face. Let them be, Annick, I tell myself. Heed Philippe, I say. Try to heed Philippe. You are too old, Annick who became Sister Paul, Mater Paul, too sick from plots far thicker than this.
CHAPTER VIII
A FLAWED PORCELAIN DOLL, SHE IS NOT BEAUTIFUL, YET ALL THE WRONG pieces form a splendid whole. Another kind of loveliness, enduring, I think, beyond the perfect sort. Pale blue tendrils show through the diaphanous skin of her small, pointed face, and thick black ringlets are a coquettish frame for such solemn eyes. Great black solemn eyes, she closes them, totters or sits or lies down, arms outstretched, and waits to be embraced by the sisters, by Philippe. When Paul is anywhere near, Amandine scuttles to her, tries to hug her about the ankles, is fascinated by her headdress, I think, holds up her arms to the old nun, quietly beseeching her, but Paul, barely breaking stride, consents only “Bonjour, Amandine.” Amandine lets her arms drop, looks up at Paul, inclines her head, nods, barely nods, just enough to tell her, I understand. I know. Somehow she knows.
Ah, how you grow, little one. One hundred twenty grams this month, nearly a year old and plump as a dove you are. A small dove, perhaps. Jean-Baptiste, dear Jean-Baptiste, so devoted to you. Friday mornings at ten, he listens to your heart, thumps his fingers about your chest, looks at the color of your skin under his lamp, takes you to the window, all the better to see its tone, feels the flesh of your legs for swelling, the pulsing mound of your abdomen. He looks into your eyes with his light. Holds you to him then, tells you how lovely you are, passes you to me to tie the strings of your undershirt, slip on your long pink knitted stockings, all the while repeating his instructions.
“Keep her warm. Keep her away from anyone who is sick. Even with a simple cold, keep her away. Feed her as she is hungry, as often as she wants, but never force her to eat or drink. Fresh air two hours a day, three when possible. Any sign that her breathing is labored, call for me immediately. Mater knows how and where to find me.”
“Her surgery? When?”
“I don’t know yet, Solange. We’ll take her again soon to be seen by Lucien Nitchmann. He’ll be seeing patients in Montpellier next month. We’ll know more then.”
Our exchanges are always the same. But I can see that he is less troubled now when he looks at her, listens to her. The muscles in his jaw not so prominent. As I dress Amandine, I watch the form his brown ink scratching makes across the page in her folder. Apparent compensation of congenital myocardial insufficiency; atrial septal defect closing; weight progress within low-normal limits.
I say the words over and over again all the way back to our rooms, and Amandine giggles, thinks it’s a new song I sing to her. I put her down in the cradle, sit at the desk, and write the words as best as I can remember them, as best as I can spell them. When I go to the village, I will stop by the bibliothèque communale, riffle through the medical encyclopedias. How often have I done this? I always swear it will be the last time, since I manage to increase only my fear and not my understanding. Better to look in Jean-Baptiste’s eyes than to stare at the menacing script in the books. Better still, to look in Amandine’s eyes. Yes, into your eyes, my love. Happy birthday, sweet child. Happy first birthday, Amandine.
I like it that most of the sisters spend their evening recreation time in what has come to be known as Philippe’s parlor. Even in summer, he keeps a fire. After vespers and supper, after the convent girls and the teaching sisters have returned to their dormitory, there seems almost a rush among the rest of us—like a family whose company has finally gone home—to get to the next part part of the evening. Some go to take a book, others their work bags, then settle down in the candlelit place. Philippe is already established in his black velvet, high-back chair when I carry in Amandine. Holding out her arms to him or flailing her hands as though fanning a flame, so anxious is she to go to him, she holds her breath until she’s in his arms. Paul, too, draws up to the fire. Not in the spirit of the gathering family come to soothe the hurts of the day, she comes to assure that our happiness be flawed. Less and less does she triumph as Philippe makes you laugh aloud and you flail your feet and arms when he hoists you, tummy down, a squirming lamb upon his shoulder. He dances you about. Cheek to cheek then, he nuzzles you—your soft to his rough—and you, loving that caress, push your face into his and stay quiet, eyes closed, as though you would fix him with your stillness. He pulls cherries from the pocket of his soutane, dips one into the tiny glass of Armagnac that waits for him on the table near his chair and, by its stem, holds the dripping cherry to your lips. You lick your lips where the cherry touches them, smart, lick your lips again. Philippe tells you your mouth is “just like a tiny cherry.” You flail your arms again as if to beg another drop of the lush amber stuff, and he repeats the gesture. The sisters giggle, goad you on to another lick of the cherry, ignoring Paul’s harrumphing, a foiled effort to check the game.
And when Philippe places you down upon the small blue rug beside his chair, then sits, opens his book, you are content to lie on your tummy and look up at him, the thin wings of your back arching through the white batiste of your nightdress. He reads, and you stay becalmed upon your tiny blue sea, hushed save some intermittent gurgle or chuckle or the sound of your sucking to soothe your aching gums upon the cool metal of the crucifix that falls from his belt.
I was right about you, Amandine. On that first day when I held you in my arms, I told Paul that you would hardly ever cry. You are almost never cross or contrary. It makes me fearful, though, this restraint. Even when you topple in the garden or when Baptiste pricks your forearm to draw blood each month, you hold your sobs within. Squeezing shut your eyes, the tears streaming, your mouth opened in a scream, you make no sound. Cry, Amandine, screech, I howl at you, let it out, let it go. I shake you up and down in my arms as though the rough movement will dislodge the choked sound, but it does not. It terrifies me, this voiceless cry. Your distress is not that of a child who waits for rescue but that of one who understands she is alone. You are not alone. Do you hear me, child? You are not alone. I’m here with you, I’ll always be here with you.
In the hours when Solange and Amandine keep to their rooms, they are serene together, a young mother with her growing daughter. Solange sings to Amandine as she bathes her, fixes little suppers for her over their fire, supplement to the good custards and cereals and paps that the kitchen sisters prepare. She tempts the child with a paper-thin slice of pink ham set to sizzle in a small black iron pan with an egg. Sometimes with figs roasted soft and warm over the embers then dusted in dark sugar and bathed in cream, and often apples stewed in a copper salver with a nugget of white butter. She sets a tablet of thick milk chocolate near the hearth to soften, feeds it to Amandine with a tiny silver spoon. When Solange sits with Amandine in her arms to read to her, the child closes the book, places her hand near Solange’s mouth, signals that she prefers the stories Solange invents.
On her second birthday, Philippe gifts Amandine a miniature rosary made of seed pearls. The string of beads in her baby hands, she squats or tries to kneel with Solange of an evening, earnestly watching, imitating Solange’s fingering, and making her own repetitive devotional sounds.
Though she walks daintily and with perfect balance, Amandine prefers to mimic Philippe’s lurching gait and accompanies th
e motion with sounds alarmingly like his breathlessness. So clever is she in this guise that Solange, when she first saw it, called for Baptiste.
Amandine calls the sisters by name, addresses Paul as Mater and Philippe as Père just as she has heard the others do and, though her stutter and lisp seem normal infant noises to the rest, Paul pronounces them marks of the devil. Philippe tells her, “The household has understood that the child’s presence is your burden, Paul. Now will you have the child herself understand it as well? Who, indeed, does the devil inhabit in this place?”
CHAPTER IX
“AMANDINE, DOUCEMENT, DOUCEMENT. HOLD MY HAND NOW, DON’T run. You musn’t run. Amandine, stop now and look at me. You know you must not run. And I can’t pick you up right now, don’t you see all that I’m carrying in my other arm? Hold my hand, walk slowly. Père will wait for you. All right, now you may go alone.”
Philippe holds his arms out straight as the two-year-old—willful against the rules—runs to him at startling speed, shrieking his name. Bending to catch her, he holds her to him, stands and swings her about then in his awkward fashion. Dear Philippe. His great Gallic nose, rutilant badge of the good Languedocian abbé, his soutane fluttering, the long black muffler wound about his neck, even in summer, a tail of it flopping against the hunch of his back, how vehement he seems in his ceremonial meandering about the gardens, among the vines, head down, prowling in the sunstruck southern light as though bent on crucial enterprise. How late his muse came. Lisping, wan, adoring.
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