‘Papa told us not to open the door, Julia!’
But the little girl ran out into the hall, curious to see who it was now, surprised by all the strange visits. She opened the door and a beaming smile lit up her guileless face.
‘So, you’re the boy who sees the Virgin Mary?’
The three figures slowly made their way up the dunes. The island seemed deserted, lashed by an icy wind that clawed at their faces. A nor’easter, Hugo thought to himself. He had learned the names of the winds and felt slightly less disconnected from the island now that the invisible had meaning. The tall grasses bowed as he passed. Here, the last sounds of the shore died away, the lapping of the waves, the cries of the seagulls; all those things that betokened the living, the familiar, faded into the distance. They were moving inland, entering a world of whispers and susurrations, a world that was initially intimidating, then gradually comforting, as though the human mind knew these landscapes, recognized the things to which it belonged.
Isaac, who was leading the way, turned back to Hugo and his sister, and suggested they go down to the old chapel. He still hadn’t told them the reason for his sudden visit; he had trouble enough understanding it himself. He had knocked at Hugo’s door filled with a self-assurance that was unfamiliar to him, surprised that he had been unable to stay in his bedroom.
Falling into step, they walked down the steep slope towards the ruins that rose from the hollow. Ten centuries had put these stones to trial – by storm, by sand, by fire – but still they stood: the arches, the gable windows, the pillars of the nave, the apse that had become a shrine to Saint Anne. The island had encroached upon the petrified church: lush grass carpeted the nave; pennywort sprouted from narrow crevices, the veins and arteries of a body that still breathed; and ivy tumbled from above the northern transept, springing straight from these ancient stones – a lesson that life can burst forth even from decay.
‘Look, Julia, that’s Saint Pol slaying the dragon.’
Isaac had stopped in front of the rusty gates leading to the altar: on one side the statue of a monk stood on a stone pedestal. He wore his chasuble and carried a stole in one hand and his sacred sceptre in the other; the colours of the vestments had been washed away by the constant rain. Head bowed, he calmly observed the snake he was crushing beneath his feet, the timeless pose of one unsurprised to see faith prevail over evil.
‘They say that, once upon a time, the people on this island were terrorized by a dragon …’ said Isaac.
According to legend, Saint Pol was summoned to rid the island of the dreaded beast: having no sword and no army, this man of faith trussed the dragon using his stole and dragged it by the neck to the westernmost promontory of the isle before hurling it into a great hole known ever since as Toull ar Zarpant, the Pit of the Serpent, which was today covered with imposing rocks.
‘During storms and spring tides, the waves crashing against the rock sound like the dragon’s roar …’
As Julia stared at the statue, she could hear the beast’s cries, could imagine it imprisoned beneath the rock, still alive, waiting for the day when it would be free to impose its reign of terror upon the island once more. The wind wound itself through the arches, played ethereal notes in the vault of the nave; it was almost as though you could hear the ancient voices that had sung psalms and prayers here so long ago in now-forgotten tongues.
Standing to one side, Hugo could not hear this ancient music. Nor was he listening to what Isaac was saying, uninterested in the island’s legends, indifferent to everything that did not relate to the present. He wandered through the ruins, hands behind his back, the same hard knot in his stomach; from time to time, he looked up and anxiously gazed around: some force weighed ominously over these ruins, and he was afraid to discover what it was.
‘Did you ask the Virgin for a miracle?’
His sister was staring at Isaac. Until now, she had only ever bumped into him on the road or outside Madenn’s restaurant; she had never seen him up close, never seen this face that now held her captive.
Isaac smiled gently at her.
‘She did not say who she was.’
‘All you’ve got to do is ask her to perform a miracle – that way you’ll know if it’s her.’
The little girl nimbly hauled herself up on to a pillar, clasped her hands and thrust them towards the heavens.
‘O Blessed Virgin, prove to Isaac that it’s really you! Do a miracle!’
‘Julia!’
The deep voice rumbled around the ruins, and the girl was so scared that she almost fell off the pillar: at the top of the dune stood her father – the last person she had expected to see – his face a mask of black fury at finding his children here when he had expressly told them not to go out, and – worse – hanging around with this boy whose very name he abhorred. He barrelled down the slope, a great wave crashing down on them, ready to engulf them and obliterate what remained of the ruined church. He picked up his daughter, ordered his son to go home, then turned to Isaac as though he were the devil himself.
‘I don’t want to see you anywhere near my family ever again.’
The nor’easter whistled though the nave, or perhaps he was just imagining the sound: Michel Bourdieu could see nothing but the ruined church, a broken chancel with a broken cross forgotten by the centuries. He ran from the place, deaf to his daughter’s cries, without a second glance at the boy who had filled him with nameless dread. It was as though the world was spinning. He raced back across the dunes and reached his house, panting for breath, weighed down by a burden that did not belong to him. Setting his daughter down, he ran over to his son who was standing at the foot of the stairs and stopped the boy in his tracks.
‘You lied to me, Hugo!’
He grabbed his son’s arm, ready to snap it in two at the slightest false move, to throw the boy out on to the street if he dared defy him again.
‘When I asked if you and that boy were friends, you lied to me!’
‘I don’t think of him as a friend.’
Hugo spoke without looking at his father; he was calm and composed, proving that he had risen precisely where his father had failed. Michel Bourdieu stared at his son, disturbed by this answer, not sure what to make of it, whether there was some nuance, some subtlety that had escaped him.
His wife laid a firm hand on his shoulder.
‘That’s enough now.’
She fixed him with a stern glare that Michel Bourdieu rarely saw in her; his wife possessed the terrifying authority that only the kindliest people can muster. Julia was sobbing in her arms, not daring to look at the father who had pushed her around more than seemed reasonable. Michel Bourdieu released his grip on his son; he felt a sharp pain in his fingers. Then everyone disappeared: his son stamped up the stairs and slammed his door; his wife locked herself in their ground-floor bedroom.
Michel Bourdieu stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing around the house in which everyone had fled from him.
This was the time of day when dinner was usually prepared: the strains of banal music from the kitchen, the hum of the oven as it heated up, a baguette being cut into slices, vegetables bubbling in a saucepan, the harmony of hearth and home; all the things that Michel Bourdieu prided himself on having achieved, all the things that he could not hear at this moment. Night stole into the house. Sitting in the living room, he was no more than a shadow on the sofa, stolid and serious, staring around him at a gloomy space in which not a single lamp was lit, in which his daughter’s laughter did not break the silence. From time to time, there came a creak, and he would listen, thinking his wife was emerging from her room, thinking his son was coming downstairs to join him. Then the sound would fade, and Michel Bourdieu would sigh: every man founders when his family bursts apart.
There was a knock at the door. Michel Bourdieu pulled himself from the silence and grabbed his leather jacket. Outside, four men stood waiting.
‘Ah, Michel, there you are … We saw all the lights were off, so we thought …’
One of the parishioners took off his cap and stepped closer.
‘I have to warn you, there’s a whole crowd up there.’
Michel Bourdieu did not answer; he simply pulled on his jacket and set off. As they headed up the track, the five men felt the icy grip of the wind, that glacial coastal wind that seeks out the slightest patch of exposed skin and chills it to the bone. Each of them steeled himself, pulled up his collar, and focused on the struggle between the body and the elements.
‘Over there. On the headland.’
