‘For God’s sake! Listen to yourself … How can you say that she’s been cured?’
Michel Bourdieu leapt to his feet with a sudden burst of anger that surprised even him, a blind rage that stifled his tears, because that’s just what he felt right now: a sob in his throat, tears in his eyes. His wife and daughter were walking out of his house; they were going back to that accursed place; they refused to heed his warnings, refused to acknowledge his suffering. Their home had been broken beyond repair; now, whenever they met, it was only to go their separate ways.
His wife looked at him with a mixture of incomprehension and pity.
‘Where’s your faith, Michel?’
The front door closed, and the sound of footsteps retreated. The house returned to shadows; the past days had been one long, interminable night. Michel Bourdieu strode across the living room and slumped on to the sofa. Hugo stood silently in the doorway. Darkness seemed to be closing in on his father, crushing him, turning him into a ghost doomed to haunt a place it could never leave.
The boy went over and quietly sat down on the sofa next to his father. Michel finally looked up and noticed him.
‘You could go with them.’
‘I’d rather stay here.’
This was the son who had lived in the shadow of his older brother, the son he had loved a little less and had sorely underestimated, for it was Hugo who stayed and sat with him all evening in the half-empty house. Michel Bourdieu looked at the boy, not knowing how to express his gratitude. All he could think was that, for those upon whom the Lord heaped troubles, He also sent comfort.
The Virgin had announced one last apparition. Over in Roscoff, in the cafe by the old port, the excitement had begun well before daybreak. Rumours had spread through the whole town, neighbours banged on each other’s doors, phones rang off the hook, and now everyone had crowded into this cafe, the only place that was already open as the sun rose above the horizon and painted a golden tracery on the dark ceiling. ‘Mankind can live only through faith. I promise a miracle that shall be visible to all.’ These were the words brought back by the seer, as attested by multiple witnesses. The miracle was scheduled for the following day, on the island, but this time it was to take place at noon, amid the ruins of the chapel of Saint Anne. Finally, the moment had come; they would see, just as others before them had seen, fortunate witnesses to a divine manifestation: during the visitation of 1947, in L’Île-Bouchard before a joyful crowd, a mysterious ray of sunshine had streamed in through a stained-glass window, illuminating in the choir the precise spot of the apparition, and forcing those near the altar to shield their eyes; in 1917 in Fátima, fifty thousand people watched as the sun was transformed, turned multi-coloured, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and hurtle towards the earth as though to crush it with its fiery weight; in 1948, at the Carmelite Monastery of Lipa in the Philippines, rose petals fell in showers at the spot where the Blessed Virgin had appeared; all around the world there had been miraculous cures, the scent of incense, haloes of light, statues of the Virgin coming to life, moving their eyes, weeping real tears; and now, a moment in history was about to take place on the island – that morning, no one in the cafe was in any doubt.
Sister Anne was only too aware of the coming moment. Standing at the foot of her bed, she folded a woollen jumper. The half-open shutters let in a muted morning light through her windows. She had not fully opened her shutters since the Bourdieu family had delivered her back here; nor had she left her room, claiming she had a migraine when Sister Delphine had come to see her. She had remained here, between these four walls, no longer looking out to sea, indifferent to this place where she felt so profoundly alien. She placed the jumper in her open suitcase. Her face was calmer, her movements more confident, despite the physical pain she felt each time she folded another piece of clothing, each time she heard the waves outside crashing against the harbour wall. In the suitcase: her crucifix and her Bible, some warm jumpers she had packed in preparation for winter on the coast. She had contacted her Mother Superior and told her she was renouncing her mission in the provinces. She’d had to resort to subterfuge, to convince without giving the true reason for her decision; she could hardly explain to her Mother Superior that she had come here believing she would see the Virgin, convinced that she, like Catherine Labouré, like Bernadette Soubirous, would be among the blessed. She had been naive, and guilty of the sin of pride, and that was why Heaven had favoured another – a boy whose heart was as simple as his body was pure. She had made a spectacle of herself in front of strangers, had flouted common sense and decency. Now all she wanted to do was leave, go back to the sanctuary of the convent, the wan light of Paris, the louring clouds that never seemed to part; she wanted to return to her canonical routine – Lauds, Vespers, Compline – helping to teach novices, taking visitors to see the chapel. Sister Anne wanted nothing more than this peaceful existence, this salutary existence, for it was a life without longing, without aspirations. She had come to realize that we sin even in our expectations.
There came a knock at the door; Sister Delphine appeared and saw the room stripped bare, the wardrobe emptied, the little suitcase almost packed. She did not ask the reason for this departure. She stood in the doorway, a little pale, her hands trembling, until Sister Anne finally noticed her. She left her packing, went over and laid a hand on her shoulder, effortlessly, as she always did, with the instinct she had for drawing people to her.
‘Don’t worry, Sister Agnès will be arriving in a couple of days. She’s young and willing, she’ll be very happy here …’
‘The little Bourdieu girl has been cured.’
The elderly nun, her gaunt face lined with wrinkles, was still troubled by the news she had heard on the church steps, as though she had experienced nothing like it in her long life.
‘A doctor went to examine her and says her asthma has completely disappeared. It’s a miracle.’
Sister Delphine’s bony hands gripped Sister Anne. She was quivering with emotion; having staunchly resisted the hysteria sweeping through the town, now she had finally succumbed, had finally accepted what she had never dared to believe had happened: after sixty years of prayer and service, she at last had proof.
‘And tomorrow, at noon … She will appear to us all!’
She turned and left, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. In a low voice, Sister Anne repeated the words she had just heard. She did so cautiously, making sure not to twist the meaning of what she had been told: the little Bourdieu girl cured of her asthma; a doctor had examined her; it was a miracle. The church bell sounded ten o’clock. Ten times the bell tolled in Sister Anne’s heart, then faded to an echo.
She turned round: on the bedside table, the little statue of the Virgin that she only ever packed at the last minute, placing it on top of everything else. There, carved into the bronze, she saw nothing but the smiling face, and suddenly there seemed to be nothing tender, nothing graceful in that smile: it was a disdainful smile, a mocking smile; the statue was taunting her for being so gullible, heaping scorn on this nun whose prayers she had never answered. Sister Anne grabbed the statue and stormed out of the apartment; outside, a warm drizzle was falling, a net of raindrops that fell without a sound. She crossed the road, heading straight for the harbour wall, for the line where land met sea, where all of this would end. The sweep of her arm as she hurled the miraculous statue – now nothing more than a tacky bronze figurine – into the waves; it sank, disappearing into murky green waters to join the submerged rocks. Meanwhile, on the distant horizon, swathed by mist, lay the ghostly amethyst coastline, the island where Sister Anne had vowed to herself never to return.
The doorbell rang. Julia set her comic book down on her lap. Over on the sofa, Hugo was asleep, a book lying on his chest – The Hidden Reality – which told of the potential parallel universes that he was probably dreaming about. The house was hushed: that particular silence that fell when parents were away, when the space and time of children was not interrupted. Again, the doorbell rang. Her brother didn’t wake. Julia closed her comic and wandered out of the living room.
She immediately regretted opening the door. Her parents had told her over and over again not to open the door to anyone while they were gone; she could have woken her brother, told him that someone was ringing the doorbell, but despite the countless warnings, Julia had come alone, opened the door, and felt a wave of fear. Standing on the threshold was Sister Anne – at least, it looked like her: the same blue habit, the wimple covering her hair, the Miraculous Medal around her neck. Yet there was something about her that Julia did not recognize. Perhaps it was that strange smile contorting her face, her eyes that seemed to be a slightly different shade of green, piercing like those of a snake; or perhaps it was the tense, nervous way she was holding her body, as if ready to pounce on her, because everything about Sister Anne seemed threatening. Yes, Julia felt it so keenly that she was unable to move.
‘Are your parents not in?’
‘They’re in town … They had to get something …’
She should have lied, of course, should have said her parents were home, but the Citroën was not parked outside the gate, and Sister Anne had already realized that Julia was alone in this house. She crouched down and took the girl’s hands in hers. She stroked and squeezed them, which only added to the child’s unease.
‘Do you want to go for a walk? Just you and me?’
The little girl looked behind her, hoping her brother might appear at the far end of the hall, but he was still asleep. In that moment, Julia was alone, her hands gripped by this woman who kindly, deviously, insisted, until she finally managed to drag the little girl from the house she was never supposed to leave.
The sky, spitting its fine rain. The washed-out coastline; the drab shore; the black, charred cypresses; the mottled brown earth. Everywhere seemed grey, the mist and drizzle; everything looked as though it were dying. The child had no choice now – she was tethered to Sister Anne, who was hauling her faster and faster up the steep escarpment towards the headland. She panted for breath, slipped on the muddy path, stumbled over branches, unable to cry out, like those nightmares in which she longed to scream but could not.
The shrubs grew sparser here and the path widened out: the two were now moving across the heights, traversing the vast, vertiginous abyss where the sea kissed the sky, a boundless grey world.
On they ran, Sister Anne leading the way, never letting go of the child’s hand, striding blindly through the rain. The Heavens she had come to defy, this child she was determined to prove wrong, it was a fever, an overwhelming, uncontrollable obsession, a madness Sister Anne only half glimpsed; it was evil, and she too was capable of evil.
‘No!’
A terrifying, heart-rending cry petrified Sister Anne; they were a few steps from the cliff edge that plunged down to rocks like giant gravestones. This whole island was a cemetery. Sailors lost at sea, bodies washed up on the shore, those treacherous rocks – the curse of every boat – that were visible only at the last moment, a last memory before death.
Sister Anne felt something squirming – the little girl was wriggling her hand free, wresting herself from her rain-wet fingers. Sister Anne turned and saw that she had sinned. She had not wanted to. It was grief that had brought her to this place, she who had never hurt a soul in all her life. She looked into the innocent face distorted by pain as the girl struggled to catch her breath, wheezing every time she inhaled, the wheezing that everyone said had been cured.
Sister Anne clapped her hands over her mouth in horror, as the girl turned and ran back to her house through the driving rain.
The skylight was half open, allowing in a breath of damp, salty air. Lying under the duvet with the photo of his mother on his chest, Isaac smelled the scent of the sea. From time to time, he closed his eyes but could not seem to sleep. Time dragged slowly once night had fallen, when he was forced to wait. Mankind can live only through faith. I promise a miracle that shall be visible to all. After that, you will not see me again. This would be the last visit; the wonder of the past days, of everything he had experienced so far. From now on, there would be no absence: everywhere, at every moment, even in emptiness, even in silence, he would have this certainty. Nor would there be loneliness; this was something he might have learned much later, or never learned at all, but he had been lucky.
At the end of the road, outside the Bourdieu house, the Citroën’s engine revved in the darkness. Isaac listened as it sped along the dirt track and up the hill. The sound faded. He thought about Hugo, wondered whether he would be there tomorrow among the ruins where, a few days earlier, they had been pulled apart and told never to see each other again. He thought of Hugo’s gentle face, the friendship he offered without expecting anything in return. Until this moment, he had not realized that he felt the same way.
The first rays of dawn sent shadows scurrying across the empty room, and it was as though the end had already begun.
That morning, the island looked almost as it did on the last Sunday of July, when pilgrims, islanders and children processed along this very road – the women wearing white lace mantillas and traditional dress; the men, black wide-brimmed hats and embroidered waistcoats over white linen shirts – all heading towards the ruined chapel on the east of the island. This was the Pardon of Saint Anne, a pilgrimage that, like thousands of others across Brittany, took place when the fine weather returned: the abundant light of summer; the stirring music of the bombardesfn3 and the Breton bagpipes; the fluttering pennants of the saints; the statue of Saint Anne held aloft above the crowd; the fervent, festive atmosphere that continued into the ruins of the old chapel where the priest performed the Pardon, drawing from those fallen stones the vibrations of an earlier age.
This was almost like the Pardon of Saint Anne – the crowd of people moving along the path, the chapel already filled to capacity – but today there were no bagpipes, no bombardes, no pennants, no traditional dress, not even a square of white lace or a black hat; no, this was a silent procession of people dressed in winter coats, braving the stiff westerly wind, walking across the island in the gloomy light. In the ancient chapel, there were no psalms or hymns, only anxious muttered conversations as people noted that time was passing and Isaac had still not arrived.
‘Where on earth is the lad?’
