Epilogue

Charming wooden cottages, all of them hastily constructed and given over to holiday commercialism, are everywhere, offering the merchandise of master glassmakers, cabinet makers, liquorists, wood carvers, milliners, jewelers, confectioners, butchers, and beekeepers. Above these makeshift structures, garlands of holiday lights add to the fairyland ambiance that delights both children and young-at-heart adults.

In this resplendent souk appealing to the eye and tickling the nose, a woman threads her way to the Strasbourg cathedral. Her long black coat is sprinkled with snow, as is her curly hair, which peeks out from a thick woolen cap.

Her pace is urgent, and her eyes seem reddened from the cold. She lowers her head as if to avoid the delighted faces of children hanging onto their mothers’ hands. This overwhelming feast, with its lacquered toys and smells of licorice and honey nauseates her. She heads for the entrance to the cathedral, and without even looking at the tympanum, she enters the massive space.

Obviously, a Mass has just ended. Two acolytes in white vestments are cleaning the side table and extinguishing the candles. In the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a woman is arranging Christmas roses in a huge vase. When she bends down to collect a few stems that have fallen to the floor, the old woman reveals her swollen ankles and the pale flesh of her calves. She’s quietly chanting a prayer.

The woman in black is much younger than her somber coat suggests. She plunges her fingers into the holy water and makes the sign of the cross. She slips into a pew in the back and kneels for a moment. Then she quickly stands again. The baby’s movements in her womb are too strong. She covers her face with her clasped hands, but doesn’t pray. Tears are rolling down her cheeks, still rosy from the cold. She doesn’t hear the tourists who, under the tutelage of their guide, are gathered in front of the monumental clock.

The woman learned this morning that her unborn child will never know his father. The previous night, André Deutzler slit his wrists in his prison cell in Oermingen. His cellmate, a young Madagascan with cauliflower ears, heard nothing and discovered him at dawn, lying in a pool of blood.

The visitors are hanging onto the words of the young guide, who’s reciting a memorized presentation. He’s talking about angels, the four seasons, calendars, movable feasts, apparent solar time and mean solar time, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the lunar globe, Copernicus and Galileo…

The Grim Reaper interrupts the guide. He strikes the bell with his ivory femur. It’s noon.

The Schwilgué clock’s parade of apostles can now begin. As the tourists marvel at the sight, Véronique begins to sob. She has made up her mind: she will never return to Ribeauvillé. At two o’clock she will take the train to Germany and carry with her nothing but this new life in her womb.