Marlena de Blasi

by Amandine (v5)

  “‘Here within these walls, Mater. A person who knows what to look for, what criteria to use in judging the execution of your word. This person knows how to effect things should effecting be necessary. Even you, especially you, shall never know who this person is.’

  “Can you truly wonder, Fabrice, why I have never accepted, shall never accept the child’s presence?”

  “From the beginning I’ve known you were a sham. That you are still. That you have no calling, that you were deposited here and left a prisoner of sorts. I’ve always known that. But have not forty years of even a sham life of piety, have not these marked you with sufficient humility to allow an orphan child into your midst?”

  “More someone’s abandoned bastard than orphan.”

  “And so? Does that make her less needy? Children die from abandonment. Another kind of hunger. Be they orphans or merely ‘unclaimed.’ Either way the child is wounded. In the case of Amandine, one must add her condition to the quotient.”

  “‘Children die from abandonment. Another kind of hunger.’ At five months. At seventeen, too.”

  “Touché. You speak of yourself, of course. At seventeen, one can hardly still be called a child, Paul. The gravity of the wound is not the same. But if you recognize that you and Amandine have shared a common fate, all the more I should think you would have embraced her. It might have helped you, Paul. It still could. No. It’s too late, isn’t it? I didn’t know that until this moment. You prefer to pass on your pain. Not so different from the pest-infected souls who wiped their spit on doorknobs. Yes, you suffered and, by all that’s heavenly, let her suffer more. That’s it. You who inspire no love are envious of a child who inspires it so deeply. As I look at you, I can’t help but think that your profanity, your godlessness, have made an ugly old woman of you, Paul.”

  The stab finds its mark. She gasps, flutters her hand about her face, feeling it, checking it—feminine impulse—as though homeliness is palpable. She recovers. “You? You can call me profane and godless when—”

  “I am as proficient a priest as I am a sinner. I have given almost equal energy to both sides of my character, and the balance, the outcome of my life shall be judged by no one less than God. Good day, Paul.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE PLASH OF A LEAPING TROUT IN THE CREEK, THE DRY RATTLE OF the November leaves still on the vine, the chaste duet of his wheeze with her snuffling, Amandine and Philippe sleep in the bluish light under the walnut tree. Solange smiles to herself as she fusses with the quilt, already tucked in around them. Au revoir, mes petits.

  As she does always when she and Philippe rest together, Amandine wakes before Solange returns to call them to vespers. But rather than stay quiet until Solange arrives, she gently shakes Philippe, tells him it’s almost time to go and will he please finish the story. The one about the giant horseman who rides across the sky lighting up the stars with the sparks from his spurs. “Père, wake up.” She shakes him harder. He must be so tired. She lies back down deep in his arms, closes her eyes tightly. Why does it hurt in my heart? Why is it thumping as though I’d been running when I’m lying here so quietly? I must slow the pounding as Baptiste has taught me. Think about wildflowers and baby rabbits, just born, and about the baby Jesus in his crib. Still her heart beats a hard two-note tattoo, an unfastened shutter against the stones of the house. “Père, wake up. Have you gone away to that place where your grandmother lives? Your grandmother had blue hair and she went to live with God and now you’ve gone there, too, I know you have.”

  Fried corn cakes and duck sausages. Warm apple charlotte with cream. A good supper Josephine has prepared. As Solange hurries toward the creek, she tastes each dish. Fifteen minutes until vespers. What is that sound? An animal, some small animal wounded. Where—

  A high, screeching wail. In the darkening under the walnut tree, Amandine kneels beside him, rocking on the heels of her muddy red boots, tugging at his sleeve.

  CHAPTER XV

  HE ASKS TO BE LEFT ALONE WITH PHILIPPE. FABRICE DOES. ARRIVING at the convent a scant hour after Paul had telephoned the curia, he descends the long black official automobile—no badge of office, no pontifical vestments—his great girth wrapped in a simple soutane, black velvet slippers on his oddly dainty feet as though he’d been settled by his fire for the evening. A pandering retinue neither precedes nor follows him. Paul scuttles behind him. “I shall call you and the others later,” he tells her.

  In sconces on the walls, in black iron holders on the dresser, twelve white candles light the small spare room that was Philippe’s. Over the flame of one of the candles, Fabrice warms oil, washes the breathless body of his friend, dresses him in the starched white undergarments and the black soutane laid out by the sisters. He combs Philippe’s hair, shaves three days’ growth of whiskers. Amandine so loved the roughness of it that, for years now, Philippe had kept his beard in stubbles for her. Fabrice says the canonical prayers for a newly departed soul, reads from the Bible, picks up a Jesuit text that lies open on the bedside table and reads aloud from it. He pulls a chair close to the bed, then sits and talks for a long time to his friend. He kisses Philippe. Both cheeks, forehead. Kneels.

  By then half a hundred people—clergy, townfolk, a contingent from the pompes funèbres, the press—have gathered outside the room where Philippe lies, there and in the convent salon.

  Fabrice, still in his slippers, addresses them. “There will be no public funeral for our beloved Philippe. I will personally see that his wishes, expressed long ago and repeatedly to me, be honored. Now I will ask you all to leave, to pray, each of you in your own way, for the salvation of his soul, for his heavenly peace.”

  Many believe the bishop’s directive is meant for others, certainly not for them. Fabrice confirms otherwise. He asks Paul to call the sisters from the chapel, where they have been praying. The sisters crowd inside Philippe’s room, round his bed. The sorority says the beads. Paul keeps the first hour of vigil. The others will take their turns.

  That night Fabrice sleeps in the convent, in the room nearest to Philippe. He shoos away the offerings of embroidered linens and towels. “It’s not my wedding night, Paul. Leave me to mourn my friend.” Next morning at five, it’s he, still wearing his country priest’s soutane, his slippers, who says mass for the sisterhood. At breakfast he announces the wishes of Philippe. All that day and into the evening, it’s he who oversees the events.

  The grave is dug in a patch of meadow only meters from the smallest, farthest-away vineyard. There will be no monument. No beribboned chrysanthemum pillows. No eulogies.

  Solange has kept Amandine by her side every moment since she found her with Philippe under the walnut tree. Though she knows that Amandine understands what has happened, Solange does not speak of Philippe or his death. Rather she tries to comfort Amandine with the familiar rites of their life. In their rooms she lights the kindling in the hearth as she does every evening, fills the tub with warm water, handing the bottle of almond oil to the child, looking on as Amandine carefully measures out a capful and leans over the tub to pour it directly under the sputtering faucet. Amandine takes a jar then from the shelf over the tub, deftly pulls out one then another round purple capsule, throws them under the running water, replaces the jar. She looks at Solange and, as if on cue, they inhale the lilac scent. Just as they do always. Still in her muddy red boots and outdoor clothes, Amandine begins to undress, allows Solange to help. Concession to the evening’s incidents. Solange bathes Amandine, washes her hair, helps her to stand up in the tub while she rinses her tangled black curls with fresh water poured from a small yellow faience bowl again and again over her head. Usually protesting this last step in the ablutions by pushing away Solange’s hand, tonight Amandine holds her small, pointed chin high, closes her eyes tightly, awaits the assault. Lifting her from the tub, swinging her in a wide arc to stand on the chair beside it, Solange wraps Amandine in a large linen cloth, carries her to the fire, kisses her “fairy’s wings,” rubs her d
ry, burnishes her skin to a sheen with two quick shakes of talcum from the pale blue tin with the baby on it. Pink flannel bloomers and nightdress, long pink stockings, slippers. Supper. One of the sisters has left a basket on the table. A small covered copper pot wrapped in a yellow striped napkin. Solange spoons out bits of chicken stewed in cream. Mashes a piece of boiled carrot into the sauce. She butters bread, fills Amandine’s glass with milk from a quarter-liter glass bottle. Sets down a little white porcelain pot of caramel pudding by each plate. Though neither of them has spoken a word, the slow, tinny whine of the funeral bells in the hamlet chapel fills the silence. A thrush laments somewhere among the vines. A thrush who would sing at night. Another concession. Philippe is dead.

  On an afternoon a few days later, when Solange had left her resting in their rooms, Amandine pulls on her sweater, slips into her raincoat even though the weather is fine. It’s the pockets of the coat, large and deep, that she needs. Boots, hat, she descends the stairs to the quiet kitchen, opens the door to the garde-manger, takes thick slices of black bread from the drawer where they are stored, ready to toast in the morning. She lays the bread flat on a shelf, lifts the cork from one of the large gray stone jam pots. Blackberry. With its own wooden spoon she spreads the thick, dark fruit onto the bread, folds each slice in half, pressing on them with the heel of her hand. She wraps them then in a sheet of brown paper, which she tears from the roll attached to the wall. She closes the drawer, corks the jam pot. Shuts the door on her deed.

  Package in one of her pockets, she walks to the garden, directly to the herb patches. She tears basil from its bed. Sometimes by the roots, sometimes only the leaves. She hurries, knows that, if someone sees her, she will be scolded, sent back to bed. When the other pocket is full of basil, she starts off toward the vineyards. Her mission is a long way away. Though she walks slowly, her heart thumps, her breath is short. She walks to the edge of the smallest vineyard. She knows this is where he is. She heard them talking. She knows exactly where Philippe is. She tears the basil leaves, lets go of the bits here and there almost artistically over the sod where new grass has already begun to grow. She sets down the brown-paper-wrapped bread and jam on the stone with his name written on it. She can read it. Philippe. She notes that it does not say Père. She thinks it should. She looks about for wildflowers, but none are in sight. The basil will do, she thinks. He loved basil. Kept leaves in the pocket of his soutane. To chew after lunch. She liked when he smelled of basil. She takes a few steps backward to look at Philippe’s new place.

  “I love you. I still love you. But I wish you hadn’t gone away.”

  “Where have you been? I was so frightened. I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I had to go somewhere. I had to go by myself. I knew where it was.”

  “Where what was?”

  “That place.”

  “What place, Amandine?”

  “The one near the grapes.”

  “Do you mean that you walked all the way to, to where Père sleeps?”

  “I know he’s dead, Solange. You can say it. And I know he’s under the ground. I’m not little anymore, and so you don’t have to use special baby words.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  I’M BAD. HORRID THINGS HAPPEN TO ME BECAUSE I AM HORRID. I DON’T know why or how, but it must be true. She would never have left me if I’d been good. My mother. And Philippe never would have gone away. I understand. I didn’t have to wait until I was big to understand. It’s me. It’s because of me that I don’t have a mother and that Philippe died and that Paul can’t love me and that Solange doesn’t live with her family. It’s all me. I’m bad.

  Amandine’s power to conceal flourishes with her new conscience. Her burden. She can find no reason for all that’s wrong save her own wickedness. She is ashamed. Others mustn’t know, mustn’t ever find out how bad she is so, from now on, she will be extra good. She will be perfect.

  Amandine does not speak of Philippe. When Solange asks if she would like to visit his grave again, gather wildflowers to take to him, she shakes her head no. In her prayers, she does not name him. If less allègre than before his passing, Amandine remains—it would seem—cheerful enough. More than to play in the garden or the park, she prefers to stay quiet with her books or to sit for hours at the pianoforte pounding out scales and arpeggios, endless repetitions of “Für Elise” with a heavy, dispassionate hand.

  She is six now and ready to enter the convent school. She reads and comprehends in the third-and often fourth-grade primers, draws and paints and sings with—once again what would seem like—enthusiasm. As though she’d been attending it for years, she observes the convent school program meticulously.

  Five A.M. rising, community cold-water washes while dressed, for modesty’s sake, in long gray bathing shifts, hair brushing and braiding with the help of the dormitory sisters, a brisk walk to the chapel, mass, breakfast, classes, recreation, lunch in the convent refectory, rest, study, chores in the convent, the dressing bell—twenty minutes to rinse faces, rebraid hair, unlace the boots and slip into black patent ballerinas with floppy grosgrain bows at the toes, add a ruched velvet hair band, a wide Alençon lace collar—vespers, supper, prayers, lights out. Pliant, meek Amandine tells herself, The others mustn’t know, mustn’t ever find out how bad I am.

  At St.-Hilaire the girls are coddled precisely as their parents—who pay handsomely for such gentle handling—wish them to be. Stitched by hand in an atelier in Montpellier, their winter uniforms are of dark gray wool bouclé: high-waisted dresses, velvet-collared with elbow-length puffed sleeves; the wide velvet-bordered hems reach to the ankles, just to the tops of their lace-up boots. Black wool capes and matching basques for outdoor jaunts. For summer, the same but in gray linen with white batiste trimming. In the classrooms, once the villa’s sitting rooms and parlors, long, low tables and diminutive upholstered chairs have been arranged to serve as community desks. There is good furniture, mostly from the Empire and Directoire eras, carpets, threadbare but fine, heavy draperies and, according to the weather, wood fires smoldering in raised marble hearths. Hardly less elegant than the rooms arranged years before for Amandine and Solange, one might wonder that Paul had found those quarters decadent. Early proof of her resolute animus. She would be tranquil with nothing about or concerning the child. Nothing.

  Apart from its status as a regionally approved scholastic institution, St.-Hilaire is an accredited école d’arts d’agrément. A finishing school. Thus, feminine skills such as comportment, elocution, etiquette, conversation, voice, and ballroom dancing are practiced under the tutelage of local maîtres. Perhaps the most unique studies on its rich agenda are: the art of dining, the training of the palate, a fundamental knowledge of haute cuisine as well as the traditional dishes of the Languedoc.

  A swift, silent meal is breakfast; porridge, bread and jam, and small brown bowls of hot chocolate thick as pudding. At midday there is soup, cheese, and fruit. In a flurry of fish knives and sauce spoons, hot copper casseroles, covered tureens, butter molds, finger bowls, it is at the evening meal that the little French girls sit leisurely to dine.

  Confit of duck and potatoes sautéed in duck fat; cabbage leaves stuffed with black bread and eggs and pinches of quatre épices, the plump rolls tied up in kitchen string and braised in broth and tomatoes; hefts of pâté de foie gras set down with toasted brioche and Sauternes jelly; wild mushrooms baked in cream; braised beef chaud-froid; white beans cooked overnight in deep terra-cotta dishes with sausages and lamb; thick soups of dried peas and smoked bacon ladled over butter-fried croûtes; potato pancakes with plum jam; roast chicken stuffed with prunes; trout in brown butter; truffled turkey; apricots set in long metal pans, cut sides up, and strewn with black sugar, pinches of sea salt, a batter of cream and eggs and vanilla, and baked until bubbling and charred. How the little French girls dine.

  Solange had despaired for their separation, for Amandine’s leaving behind the intimacies, the established rhythms
of their life together. On the façade, it seems she needn’t have worried so. It is a Saturday afternoon at the end of Amandine’s first week in the school, and the two are preparing for a walk into the village. Loosening the tight plaits in which the dormitory sisters have arranged Amandine’s unruly hair, Solange feels anxious, perplexed by Amandine’s remoteness.

  How grown up she is. Flush with her own sufficiency. An act, of course.

  “Do you miss me, Amandine?”

  “Of course I do. But I’m fine.”

  “And the girls, how have you been getting on with them?”

  “Fine.”

  “Have you made a special friend with any one of them? I saw you holding hands with that girl called Sidò, Sidò with the blue glasses.”

  “We have to hold hands, walk two by two, to the chapel. When we lined up the first day, there was no one left but her and me. We’re partners now. For the walk, I mean. She bites her nails, and the sisters put red stuff on them so they taste bad and so she won’t bite them anymore.”

  “Did it work? Did she stop biting her nails?”

  “No. She says the red stuff is not so bad after a while. She asked me if I wanted to taste it, but I said no.”

  “I see. And the classes?”

  “Fine.”

  “Are you eating well? Finishing everything on your plate.”

  “Paul and all the others force us to. They stand over us, nodding their heads. And we have to change forks a lot. Spoons, too.”

  “I see. What chores have you been assigned?”

  “Helping Marie-Albert with the lace collars. We soak them in bleach water, rinse them, then starch them in sugar water, lay them flat to dry in the sun. Marie-Albert doesn’t need help to iron them, or at least I don’t think she does. We get a clean one every Monday evening.”