There came the whistle of a soft breeze through the half-open window, filling the office with the smell of salt spray. Alan stiffened in his chair. He hesitated before saying anything more, struggling to find the right words. He knew how brittle these conversations could be, knew that at any moment his son could turn his back, walk away from a conversation that neither of them knew how to begin, let alone complete. He looked at the boy standing in the doorway, his cheeks still red with the cold, the unruly curl falling over his forehead, and that softness that had marked him out since childhood. It was a softness that, from an early age, had perplexed grown-ups, who were unsure whether to refer to Isaac as he or she, and would shower him with the praise they reserved for boys who possessed something of the gentleness of girls. As the years passed, though, age did not alter the delicacy of his features, and by adolescence people began to look at him differently; flattery gave way to insults, and Isaac encountered violence. On numerous occasions he had come home from school with a split lip or a black eye, having been the unwitting cause of a fight that spoke to the insecurities of boys his age. Every time Alan saw his injured son come through the door, he had had to choke back his rage and tend the wound without a word: having already experienced grief, Isaac was now experiencing what it meant to be different.
‘Night, Papa.’
His son disappeared, and Alan listened as he went upstairs. The bedroom door closing, the thud of dropped shoes, the creak of floorboards under the bed. Then there was no more sound from the room. Mistakenly, Alan assumed his son was asleep. He had no idea of the nightly ritual that took place behind that closed door: lying on the bed holding a picture frame, Isaac gazed for a long time at the photograph it contained, struggling to ward off sleep; sometimes he would feel his eyelids droop, but he persisted, desperate to prolong his silent conversation with his mother, until the frame would slip from his hands and he would surrender to a dreamless sleep.
The tricycle lies at the foot of the magnolia tree, abandoned to the rain. The torrent has reduced the border filled with hyacinths to a series of muddy puddles. Her grandmother planted the flowers last autumn, but the magnolia tree has stood here since before she was born. From the window, Sister Anne stares out at the garden, which is being lashed by the downpour. She should have put the tricycle in the garage; her grandmother had explained to her that water rusts metal. She hears a noise behind her. Turning, she sees that the room is bathed in a murky half-light. The thunderstorm has prematurely turned day into night. She can barely make out the dolls lining the shelves; she has just put them away, because it is not playtime. The stuffed toy monkey on the bed listens to the clatter on the roof tiles with his one remaining ear. There are no toys scattered around. Her attention is drawn to a presence: afigure perched on the edge of the bed with its back to her. A little girl. Instinctively, Sister Anne moves away from the window. Slowly, warily, she walks around the bed, trying not to scare the motionless child.
The girl does not see the nun who comes to stand by her: she is staring fixedly at the closed door. She is waiting. Here and there, old wooden joists groan. A dampness cools the wallpaper. Suddenly, the house echoes with a creaking sound: footsteps on the wooden staircase. Someone is coming. A breath of wind chills Sister Anne to the marrow. She looks down at the girl: her face is a mask of terror as she stares at the door. The door. With a bound, Sister Anne is there, both hands fumbling in the darkness for a key, a bolt, a lock; anything that might prevent entry to the room. On the other side, the footsteps continue to climb the stairs – slowly, because this is part of the pleasure, the moment deferred, the ascent that precedes arrival. The footsteps are louder now, gloating at the thought that they can be heard, that they are in the room even before they cross the threshold. Inside, Sister Anne frantically rushes around, searching for a chest of drawers, a chair, anything that could be wedged against the door. Her eyes alight on the child: in the gloom, her ashen face is contorted, her mouth twisted into a scream, a strangled cry that never comes; it is the face of someone who has seen death. Only the girl’s small hands still move, clutching at the hem of her skirt and pulling it over her knees,trying to cover her bare legs, to shield what these footsteps have come for. There is a creak on the landing: he is outside. Instinctively, Sister Anne leans against the door with all her weight; the handle turns, senses the resistance, perseveres, but Sister Anne does not waver. Digging her heels into the carpet, she redoubles her efforts, but the door slowly begins to open: the strength on the other side is much greater than her own. Sheer rage urges her on. She struggles, refuses to give in, even as the door continues to open, even as she sees his shoes through the crack. She turns and gives the girl a forlorn glance; then, suddenly, she is thrown backwards and left sprawling on the carpet. She looks up at the gaping doorway: he is here again.
Sister Anne woke with a jolt, sucking in deep lungfuls of air like a diver coming to the surface. She scrabbled back on the bed, huddling against the wall, tugging her nightdress over her bare legs all the way down to her ankles. She peered into the darkness. The familiar silhouette of a wardrobe. The legs of a desk. The crucifix above the door. There was no one there. The room was empty. Her heart was hammering; Sister Anne could hear it. She hugged her knees to her chest and curled into a ball. Her hair fell over her shoulders, brushing against her bare arms. She dared not get up yet.
Back at the convent, when she had the dream, she would grab a cardigan and step out of her cell, walk quietly through the corridors with only the glow of the stars to guide her, go out into the garden and wander the winding paths, trying to shake off the last of her fears, praying over and over to ward off this evil that had tracked her down. No one had ever seen her: the past came back to haunt her only when there were no witnesses.
Her feet slid out of the bed now and touched the cold floor. She took a shawl from the chair and wrapped it around her shoulders, the soft wool warming her skin. Soundlessly, she stepped over to the window and carefully opened the shutters; the smell of the sea took her by surprise, heightening her senses. Down below, streetlamps lit the deserted alley. Some cars were parked haphazardly in the nearby car park. The street was lined with privet hedges that separated it from the promenade running the length of the city walls; beyond them, she could sense the invisible sea. Darkness flooded every space. On the horizon, a beam of light skimmed the surface of the water, then instantly disappeared. A lighthouse. She peered into the darkness and eventually made out a second light, then another and another: a string of lights that traced the wide meanders of the shoreline.
It came to me in a dream last night – you’ll witnessan apparition of the Blessed Virgin in Brittany. She heard Sister Rose’s voice whisper in her ear, reminding her why she had come all this way, to this outpost by the sea, this town with no railway station; she who had never set foot outside the cloisters, who had never been tempted to go on mission, had been content to remain within the walls of the convent on the Rue du Bac, in the Mother House she had chosen to be her home since the tender age of thirteen. I saw it as clearly as I see you standing here. These words came back like a verse from a psalm, like a promise that responded to the vow she had pledged when she was still a little girl called Alice.
It had been Sister Rose who first noticed her in the immaculate chapel; an unobtrusive presence kneeling at the foot of the altar, her face upturned, gazing at the statue of Mary. One day, Sister Rose had approached the child, held out her hand to this motherless young girl who had been betrayed by her father and had come here to find in the bosom of the Virgin Mary something denied her by her parents – not simply a sense of presence, but more importantly, chastity. It was Sister Rose who had shown her the incorrupt body of Saint Catherine Labouré, which lay in the glass casket next to the altar, dressed in her habit, smiling beneath her white linen cornette, a rosary of ebony wound around hands clasped in prayer. She had recounted the story of how, one night, on these same altar steps, Sister Catherine Labouré had come face to face with the Blessed Virgin in one of those miracles that prove that every prayer, if it comes from the heart, is always heard.
In the years that followed, Sister Rose had watched as the timorous teenager took her first steps as a postulant, received the veil of the novitiate, chose her religious name – Sister Anne, in honour of the mother of the Blessed Virgin – and, three years later, made her religious profession, thereby becoming a Daughter of Charity, an earnest follower of Louise de Marillac and Catherine Labouré. She had watched as the girl blossomed beneath her veil, as her gestures became more assured and she acquired the special grace that elicited affection, as though already Sister Anne were among the blessed few to whom the Virgin had appeared.
Once more, the beam of the lighthouse pierced the darkness. Leaning against the window frame, Sister Anne watched as the light skimmed the surface of the water then disappeared again. The coastline shimmered, casting points of light into the night so that, in this boundless space, she felt as though she were contemplating a constellation.
Bells rang out. The panicked seagulls perched along the railings took to the wing as the belfry roared into life. A break in the clouds turned the granite to a pale ochre, the sun warming the damp caravelsfn1 carved into the stone. The church bells announced mass, spreading the word as far as the old harbour of Roscoff.
‘Not all of you at once!’
A crowd had gathered on the forecourt: the faithful surged forward, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the person who had aroused such curiosity. The young priest pushing his way through the throng raised his hands to temper their fervour. Father Erwann, a local boy, had only recently begun his ministry at Notre-Dame-de-Croas-Batz. At first, wary of his beardless, candid face, his tender years – he was barely thirty – the parishioners had argued that his narrow shoulders would not bear the burden of the cassock for very long. But on the very first Sunday, the new priest had won over his congregation with a sermon filled with nuance and wit; his innate sense of compassion and unaffected kindness had definitively put paid to the aspersions on his youth. Father Erwann was one of those priests with a sense of vocation that belied his age.
‘Go gently, this is her first day!’
Finding herself the centre of attention, Sister Anne shook hands with everyone, greeting them with a smile, patting their shoulders as though she had lived here all her life and knew every parishioner already. She leaned forward, her luminous green eyes meeting those of each parishioner in turn, and this was all that mattered, this wordless exchange, as if she was able to intuit the unique qualities of each individual. As she made her way through the crowd, the patch of sunlight seemed to follow this graceful yet affable middle-aged nun, and everyone she encountered had the poignant sense that they had finally been seen.
‘Sister Anne, I don’t believe you’ve met Michel Bourdieu.’
Hearing the priest’s words, Sister Anne turned and saw a silhouette coming towards her, a formidable figure who completely eclipsed the sun’s dazzling rays as he pushed his way through the crowd; around his neck, the gold crucifix glittered in the light.
‘Sister.’
A calloused hand grasped hers, crushing her slender fingers in a manner intended to test her strength and, through it, her character. Realizing this, Sister Anne withstood the iron grip without demur, making it clear that in her time she had shaken many hands, desperate hands, hands intent on testing her resolve, and she had not once capitulated. This hand would be no exception.
‘Collecting donations, recruiting volunteers, organizing catechism classes … I sometimes wonder where Michel finds the time to sleep!’
Oblivious to the power play, the young priest stepped closer to Michel Bourdieu as he lavished praise on his good works, his virtues not only as a person of faith but also a family man. Sister Anne studied the object of this praise: the clenched, determined jawline; the eyes obscured by an anguish whose nature she could not yet guess. Still holding his gaze, she did not disguise the irony in her smile.
‘It would seem that Michel Bourdieu has all the virtues of a Daughter of Charity.’
Her comment surprised the man, and she felt the coarse hand release hers. He returned her smile; his features relaxed and his expression softened, even revealing a glimpse of warmth. Michel Bourdieu’s approach to those he could not intimidate was to charm them.
‘Sister Anne, allow me to present my wife.’
A little way off, a woman stood waiting in the sunshine; a slight figure who seemed so fragile one could not help but wonder how she managed to carry the young girl in her arms. With a warm and tender gesture, she took the nun’s hand, just as twenty years earlier, on another occasion, she had taken Michel Bourdieu’s hand – on another forecourt, that of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Paris, when the two students were beginning their first day of voluntary work. The normal rules of seduction weren’t needed for some. That first brief touch had been enough for both of them to know that they would marry here, in the very church where they had first met.
‘This shy little girl is Julia. She’s the reason we moved here – Paris wasn’t good for her asthma. Right now, she’s very tired. She had another asthma attack last night.’
The little girl had her face pressed into her mother’s perfumed neck. From time to time, she turned and surreptitiously glanced at the nun, who reminded her of the holy statues she had seen in church. The child’s eyes were ringed with dark circles; she seemed resigned to the threat of her body, to nights spent struggling for breath, and for sleep; to an existence marked by struggle.
‘Our eldest son, Mathias, is in the army. Right now, he’s in Mali. We’re very proud of him.’
As he said this, the child he had not deigned to mention appeared; a dark-haired teenager, gentle like his mother. On seeing the boy, Michel Bourdieu’s tone changed:
‘And this is Hugo.’
A cloud cast the square in shadow. People glanced up, startled by this unexpected grey cloak; in anticipation of the rain, the crowd began to disperse. Michel Bourdieu’s wife stepped forward and invited Sister Anne to visit them on the Isle of Batz; then she and her family left, walking around the low wall that encircled the church grounds. Michel took the girl from his wife’s arms, hoisted her on to his shoulders. Sister Anne watched as the family walked away, falling naturally into a rhythm all of their own, and it seemed to her that nothing could shake this fervently solid household.
Drops of water fell on to the plate. Goulven glanced up and felt more droplets splashing his forehead: it was raining on the island. Muttering to himself, he pushed back his terrace chair with a crunch of gravel, picked up his plate and pushed open the door of the restaurant’s dining room, letting in a whistle of cold air. Behind the counter, Madenn was chopping chives.
‘Didn’t I tell you it was going to rain?’
The stocky man shrugged as he shambled awkwardly between the tables; some years earlier, he had had a fall while out fishing, leaving him with a limp that meant he could no longer trawl for shellfish. He settled himself next to the window, picked up his crab tartine with both hands and took a huge mouthful. The owner set her knife on the chopping board and shook her head.
‘Greedy slob.’
She took a pinch of chives and sprinkled it over the warm omelette in front of her; Madenn prepared the food with the same care and attention as she had on the very first day she had cooked for the child. She looked up suddenly and peered out at the road that ran past the restaurant; just as she did so, the parka appeared. Its hood was pulled down low, partially obscuring the face she was waiting to see. The restaurant door swung open, bringing in a new gust of wind.
‘And how’s my lad?’
In a single movement, Isaac pushed back his hood and shook his hair, scattering the raindrops that clung to his curly locks. The place was empty, except for Goulven, who was still sitting by the large picture window, wolfing down the rest of his crab tartine without bothering to chew. From the local radio station came a song in Breton, a woman’s keening voice singing a cappella, filling the empty restaurant with a deep and mysterious sound. Today was a far cry from the buzz of lunchtimes during high season: the tables thronged with summer visitors; boisterous, shrieking children; the smell of fish, grilled or fried; breadcrumbs strewn across the floor; ice cream that melted all over the white paper tablecloths. The long winter months deterred everyone except those who lived on the island.
