Part 28 (1/2)

11.

By then I had been in Les Immortelles for over a week. Hilaire recommended another week's rest, but I was growing impatient. The skyscape through the high window taunted me; gilded motes filtered down to my bed. The month was almost at an end; in a few days the moon would be full and it would be time once more for Sainte-Marine's festival on the Pointe. I felt as if all these familiar things were taking place for the last time; every second was a final farewell I could not bear to miss. I prepared to go home.

Capucine protested, but I overrode her arguments ruthlessly. I'd been away too long. I had to face Les Salants at some time. I hadn't even seen my father's grave.

La Puce gave way in the face of such determination. ”Stay in my trailer for a while,” she suggested. ”I'm not having you in that empty house alone.”

”It's all right,” I promised her. ”I'm not going back there. But I do need to be on my own for a while.”

I did not go back to GrosJean's house that day. I was surprised to discover that I felt no curiosity about it, or any desire to look inside. Instead I went to the dunes above La Goulue and overlooked what remained of my world.

Most of our summer people had gone. The sea was silk; the sky crude and blue as a child's painting. Les Salants faded silently under the late-August sun as it had for so many years before: the window boxes and gardens, lately neglected, had withered and died; stunted fig trees gave up small, mean fruit; dogs loitered outside shuttered houses; rabbit-tail gra.s.ses went white and brittle. The people too had reverted to type: Omer now spent hours in Angelo's, playing cards and drinking cup after cup of devinnoise; devinnoise; Charlotte Prossage, who had been so sweetened by the arrival of the summer children, once more hid her face behind earth-colored head scarves; Damien was sullen and argumentative. Within twenty-four hours of my return I could see for myself that the Brismands hadn't simply broken Les Salants; they had eaten it whole. Charlotte Prossage, who had been so sweetened by the arrival of the summer children, once more hid her face behind earth-colored head scarves; Damien was sullen and argumentative. Within twenty-four hours of my return I could see for myself that the Brismands hadn't simply broken Les Salants; they had eaten it whole.

Few people spoke to me; it was enough that they had shown their concern with presents and cards. Now that I was well again I sensed a kind of inertia among them, a return to the old ways. Greetings were once more abbreviated to a single nod. Conversations flagged. At first I thought perhaps they resented me; after all, I was related to Brismand. But after a while I began to understand. I saw it in the way they watched the sea; one eye perpetually fixed on the floating thing out there in the bay, our Bouch'ou, our very own sword of Damocles. They weren't even aware of doing it. But they did watch it, even the children, paler and more subdued than they had been all summer. It was all the more precious, we told ourselves, because sacrifices had been made. The greater the sacrifice, the more precious it became. We'd loved it once; we hated it now; but to lose it was unthinkable. Omer's loan had compromised Toinette's property, even though it had not been his to stake. Aristide had mortgaged his house far beyond its value. Alain was losing his son-perhaps both his sons, now that the business was in decline. The Prossages had lost their daughter. Xavier and Mercedes were talking about leaving Le Devin for good, of settling down somewhere like p.o.r.nic or Fromentine, where the baby could be born without scandal.

Aristide was devastated by the news, though he was far too proud to say so. p.o.r.nic isn't far, he would repeat to anyone who would listen. It's a three-hour ferry ride twice a week. That isn't what you'd call far, is it, heh?

Rumors were still flying about GrosJean's death. I heard them secondhand from Capucine-village protocol demanded that at this time I should be left alone-but speculation was rife. Many believed he had comitted suicide.

There was some reason to believe it. GrosJean had always been unstable; maybe the realization of Brismand's treachery had pushed him over the edge. And so close to the anniversary of P't.i.tJean's death and Sainte-Marine's festival ... History repeats itself, they said in lowered voices. Everything returns.

But others were less easily convinced. The significance of the dynamite in the Eleanore 2 Eleanore 2 had not escaped notice; it was Alain's belief that GrosJean had been trying to demolish the breakwater at Les Immortelles when he lost control of the boat and was thrown onto the rocks. had not escaped notice; it was Alain's belief that GrosJean had been trying to demolish the breakwater at Les Immortelles when he lost control of the boat and was thrown onto the rocks.

”He sacrificed himself,” Alain had repeated to anyone who would listen. ”He knew before any of us that it was the only way to stop Brismand's takeover.”

It was no more far-fetched than any of the other explanations. An accident; suicide; a heroic gesture ... The truth was that n.o.body knew; GrosJean had told no one of his plans, and speculation was all we had. In death, as in life, my father kept his secrets.

I went down to La Goulue the morning after my return. Lolo was sitting with Damien by the water's edge, both of them silent and unmoving as rocks. They seemed to be waiting for something. The high tide was on the turn; dark commas of wet sand marked its pa.s.sage. Damien had a new bruise on his cheek. He shrugged when I commented about it. ”I fell over,” he said, not bothering to make it sound convincing.

Lolo looked at me. ”Damien was right,” he said glumly. ”We should never have had this beach. It's messed everything up. We were better off before.” He said it without resentment, but with a deep weariness, which I found even more disturbing. ”We just didn't know it then.”

Damien nodded. ”We would have survived. If the sea had come too close we'd just have rebuilt farther up.”

”Or moved.”

I nodded. Suddenly, moving didn't seem like such a terrible alternative after all.

”It's just a place, after all, isn't it, heh?”

”Sure. There are other places.”

I wondered if Capucine knew what her grandson was thinking. Damien, Xavier, Mercedes, Lolo ... At this rate by next year there wouldn't be a young face left in Les Salants.

Both boys were looking out toward the Bouch'ou. Invisible now, it would begin to show in five hours or so, when the tide uncovered the oyster beds.

”What if they took it, heh?” There was an edge to Lolo's voice.

Damien nodded. ”They could have their sand back. We don't need it.”

”Neh. We didn't want Houssin sand anyway.”

I was shocked to find myself half-agreeing with them.

In spite of that, since my return I found the Salannais spent more time on the beach than ever before. Not swimming or sunbathing-only tourists do that-or even in comfortable conversation, as we so often had earlier that summer. This time there were no cookouts or bonfires or drinking parties at La Goulue. Instead we crept there in secret, early in the mornings or at the turning tides, running the sand through our furtive fingers and not meeting one another's eyes.

The sand fascinated us. We saw it in a different way now; no longer gold dust but the debris of centuries: bones, sh.e.l.ls, microscopic pieces of fossilized matter, pulverized gla.s.s, vanquished stone, fragments of unimaginable time. There were people in the sand; lovers, children, traitors, heroes. There were the tiles of long-demolished houses. There were warriors and fishermen, there were n.a.z.i planes and broken crockery and shattered G.o.ds. There was rebellion and there was defeat. There was everything, and everything there was the same.

We saw that now; how pointless it all was: our war against the tides, against the Houssins. We saw how it would be.

12.

It was two days before Sainte-Marine's festival when I finally decided to visit my father's grave. My absence at the funeral had been inevitable, but I was back now, and it was expected of me.

The Houssins have their own neat, gra.s.sy churchyard, with a park keeper to tend all the graves. At La Bouche, we do our work ourselves. We have to. Our gravestones look pagan compared with theirs; monolithic. And we tend them with care. One very old one is the grave of a young couple, marked simply guenole-bastonnet guenole-bastonnet, 18611887. Someone still puts flowers on it, though surely no one is old enough to remember its occupants.

They had placed him next to P't.i.tJean. Their stones are almost twins in size and color, though P't.i.tJean's is older, its surface furred with lichen. As I came closer I saw that clean gravel had been raked around the two graves, and that someone had already prepared the earth for planting.

I had brought some lavender cuttings to plant around the stone, and a trowel to dig with. Pere Alban appeared to have done the same; his hands were covered with earth, and there were red geraniums freshly planted under both stones.

The old priest looked startled to see me, as if caught out. He rubbed his gritty hands together several times. ”I'm glad to see you looking so well,” he said. ”I'll leave you to your farewells.”

”Don't go.” I took a step forward. ”Pere Alban, I'm glad you're here. I wanted-”

”I'm sorry.” He shook his head. ”I know what you want from me. You think I know something about your father's death. But I can't tell you anything. Let it go.”

”Why? I demanded. ”I need to understand! My father died for a reason, and I think you know what it is!”

He looked at me severely. ”Your father was lost at sea, Mado. He went out in the Eleanore 2 Eleanore 2 and was swept overboard. Just like his brother.” and was swept overboard. Just like his brother.”

”But you do know something,” I said softly. ”Don't you?”

”I have-suspicions. Just as you do.”

”What suspicions?”

Pere Alban sighed. ”Let it go, Madeleine. I can't tell you anything. Whatever I may know is bound by the confessional, and I can't speak to you about it.” But I thought I heard something in his voice, an odd intonation, as if the words he spoke were at variance with something else he was trying to convey.

”But someone else can?” I said, taking his hand. ”Is that what you're saying?”

”I can't help you, Madeleine.” Was it my imagination, or was there something in the way he said ”I can't help you,” a little stress on the first syllable? ”I'm going back now,” said the old priest, gently prying my hand from his. ”I have to sort out some old records. Birth and death registers, you know the kind of thing. It's a job I have been putting off for a long time. But I have a responsibility. It preys on my mind.” There it was again, that peculiar intonation. can't help you,” a little stress on the first syllable? ”I'm going back now,” said the old priest, gently prying my hand from his. ”I have to sort out some old records. Birth and death registers, you know the kind of thing. It's a job I have been putting off for a long time. But I have a responsibility. It preys on my mind.” There it was again, that peculiar intonation.

”Papers?” I repeated.