‘You can put it over there. Thank you for your donation.’
Goulven did not leave immediately; he wanted to share the secret that Madenn had confided to him, like a child who had discovered the lure of the forbidden. He set down the bag and stepped closer to the nun.
‘There’s a lad on the island says he sees the Virgin.’
Surprised at his own words, he gave a chuckle, revealing his toothless mouth. At first, Sister Anne did not understand, saw only the glittering, mischievous eyes gazing at her as though they were casting a spell; she tried to back away, but the man grabbed her wrist.
‘Seen her three times already, he has.’
‘I’m sorry, Goulven, we’ve got work to do. Go and tell someone else your silly stories.’
Hands on her hips, Sister Delphine looked the ex-fisherman up and down; normally, the islander rarely uttered a word.
‘She told the lad to come back today.’
‘Well, tell her we said hello. Now, go on! Shoo!’
Goulven turned back to the nun whose wrist he was still holding. He looked at her, felt the goosebumps on her skin quivering under his fingers; he had the instinct of those who had sailed the seas for many years, those who had learned to read the shifting light, interpret a shadow passing beneath the surface. Careful not to hurt or frighten her, he leaned forward and whispered to her:
‘It always happens at the far end of the Route de Sainte-Anne.’
He hobbled away from the churchyard and disappeared into an alley. Sister Delphine shook her head sadly as she folded a jacket.
‘Now the poor man’s rambling about visions of the Virgin Mary. It can’t be healthy, living out on that island the way he does.’
Next to her, Sister Anne stood bolt upright, her face impassive, staring at the space that Goulven had just left. She could still feel his hand on her arm, gripping her wrist as though he recognized her, as though she were the one he had come to seek out. Her hands tensed, crumpling the fabric she was holding. A voice came back to her, intoning the same words, like a salutation: You’ll witness an apparition of the Blessed Virgin in Brittany …
The breeze blew across the headland, grazed the statuette that was held in place by pebbles around the base, rosary beads draped over the small resin figure. The Blessed Virgin stood, her bare feet tickled by the grass, palms raised to receive entreaties, happy with this altar being built before her eyes. Next to her, Madenn was filling a clay vase with water. Her eyes were intent, her movements solemn; she was still shaken by the memory of the day before. She could still feel Isaac falling into her arms, his body chilled to the bone yet somehow weightless, as though relieved of all mortal cares. She had slowly led him back to the house, his room; once in bed, the boy had looked at her, still overwhelmed by doubt, uncertain of which world he should trust: ‘She asked me to come again tomorrow.’
Madenn had stroked his forehead until he dozed off. Then she had sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling as if her legs might give way, overcome by an emotion she had never known until this point. Her mother had told the truth – her mother always told the truth, and Madenn had never doubted her, had always believed that her stories were true, but to see what only the heart has known was something else entirely: the Blessed Virgin walking among mankind.
‘Madenn!’
Goulven came trudging along the path, his face still flushed from his trip to ‘the Continent’. Madenn had knocked on his door that morning, holding a large bag of second-hand clothes, and told him to take them to the church collection in Roscoff. She had also asked him to bring her back a spray of white lilies. ‘Isaac sees the Blessed Virgin.’ She had said these words naturally, as though stating something obvious, as though no further explanation were needed. Goulven had taken the bag and asked no questions; during his days at sea, he had witnessed things much more improbable than an apparition of the Virgin.
When he reached the headland, panting and breathless, he proudly held out the bouquet.
‘Lilies for the Blessed Virgin, just like you asked!’
Madenn turned round, her blue eyes wide.
‘You didn’t go telling the florist they were for the Virgin, did you?’
‘Nope!’
The man shook his head a little too vehemently for Madenn’s liking; she took the flowers from him and placed them in the terracotta vase, focusing on each bloom, studying its height and slant, ensuring there was not a single withered petal, since the sacred called for perfection. And as she arranged the flowers, she thought that perhaps She who had promised to return might already be here, watching her prepare these perfect lilies for her arrival, and the thought made her heart beat faster. Below the headland, the tide had receded, revealing the shallows of the beach, the damp sand criss-crossed with rivulets of water flowing back to the sea. Scattered brown rocks speckled the strand like seaweed, as though tossed at random; further out, in the waters of the ebbing tide, the rocks were covered with a greenish moss, like stateless ruins caught between land and water that told the story of these lands and the spirit of their people.
‘Here comes his father, Alan …’
Alan had just appeared on the path: when he had opened the windows of his living room, he had recognized the two figures standing out on the headland. The previous night he had waited hesitantly until dawn, longing to go upstairs, to shake his son awake and demand an explanation. He recalled the sight of Isaac’s face, frozen like a statue, like someone paralysed by shock. He had paced the living room, chain-smoking cigarettes, listening to the ticking of the clock, but still he could not bring himself to go upstairs, dreading what his son might say, dreading the thing he might not understand. No man experiences feelings of inadequacy the way a father does.
Now, here Alan was, looking at the bouquet of white lilies, the little statue of the Virgin in the grass garlanded with rosary beads, the cantankerous old fisherman he usually saw only at lunchtimes, with Madenn quietly tending to her arrangement – both suddenly transformed into disciples, venerating this spot simply because this was where Isaac had stared into the empty air.
‘Oh, come on, Madenn, you can’t be serious!’
‘You saw what happened as well as I did, Alan.’
Madenn reached into her bag and took out two novena candles. Alan simply could not comprehend this devotion. This faith that had no need to see. This conviction that had no demand for proof – or perhaps Madenn thought she had experienced that proof the day before, in Isaac’s silence, in what she herself had felt; for some people, feeling was enough. But Alan sided with his senses, believed only in what he could see. Moreover, putting aside the faith that had ceased to matter to him since the death of his wife, what was happening here involved Isaac, and he was determined not to allow this circus to take place in his son’s name.
‘I didn’t see anything and neither did you. Don’t project your crazy ideas on to my son.’
‘What’s happening here is bigger than Isaac.’
Madenn got to her feet and handed Goulven a candle. She faced Alan, standing straight and calm, certain of what she was doing, filled with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, because she knew, she understood the divine, she understood all the things that Alan could not yet grasp. In that moment, she looked like one of those sanctimonious sorts who vaunt their faith, who see it as the ultimate virtue, who pride themselves on being better than other people.
Alan took a deep breath and drew on his last reserves of patience.
‘Pack up all of this stuff before someone sees it.’
‘I’m not taking down that altar.’
‘Madenn, I won’t say it again …’
‘No, absolutely not.’
Seagulls glided above the shore, laughing, amused by the scene playing out beneath them. It was a conflict in which there could be no winner, a clash of words that could not be reconciled; faith and denial, between those drawn to the unseen and those rooted in reality. A light drizzle fell on the coast, a linen veil that blurred its contours, and suddenly, behind them, in the heart of this nebulous space, Isaac appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost materializing. As soon as he saw his son, Alan raced over.
‘I forbid you from coming here!’
