A man whom love has ignored must do something mindless until he is once more capable of lucid thought, which was why Simon spent hours sanding his old boat. Colette hadn’t wanted him.
It was a steamy July day, the kind one wished would end with a thunderstorm; the kind that brought new insights, coolness and dreams, which it then poured into people’s hearts. Paul was sitting on a folding chair.
“There are many mazy paths to love. Probably more paths than there are in the whole of Brittany.”
Simon kept sanding.
“I mean, look at that chef. He thinks no one knows he’s in love with Laurine, but everyone knows—apart from her. Maybe Laurine doesn’t know herself whether she’s in love with him.”
“So you’re the great expert on women now, are you?” grunted Simon.
“I divide women into three types—”
“You’re always doing that.”
“The first love being in love, the second love making people fall in love with them, and the third—”
“Are you back together with Rozenn?”
“Partly.”
“I can imagine which part.” Simon stretched with a grimace.
“I’m her lover.”
“What? She’s staying with Serge?”
“She likes him.”
“And she sleeps with you.”
“She likes that even more.”
“Tell me, Paul, haven’t you learned anything in your life? Women don’t take seriously men who claim to be lovers. That’s just the way it is: every woman wants a man who says to her, ‘I want you entirely, or not at all.’ ”
“As if you’d know what you’re talking about! Because you and Colette hit it off so—” Paul didn’t manage to finish his sentence, because a motorbike cruised into the yard. It was Jean-Rémy.
“Now don’t come on all uncle-like and offer him your accumulated wisdom about love, Paul.”
The three men exchanged greetings, and Jean-Rémy took receipt of the honey that Simon had reserved for him and that he would need to make the honey sauces Parisians adored.
“A glass of cider?” asked Simon before Jean-Rémy could get back on his bike. The chef declined. “Would you want to be the lover of the woman you loved?” Simon asked sneakily.
Jean-Rémy glanced from Paul to Simon. “You must be crazy. You can only be a lover if you don’t love the woman. Otherwise, it’d be the death of you.”
“That, my lad, is hearsay. Just wait until you’re my age, then you’ll realize that a man can do anything when he puts his mind to it.”
“Aha. Kenavo,” said Jean-Rémy, starting up his motorbike.
Paul and Simon arrived at Ar Mor just in time for the afternoon news. As there were no Monday guests, Madame Geneviève had allowed a television set to be carried out onto the terrace. Jean-Rémy wasn’t back yet, and she guessed that he must still be scouring the markets.
“Can you all be quiet?” shouted Simon.
“It’s time you bought your own television, mate,” said Paul. “They’ve been around for sixty years—you can trust them.”
“Hey, isn’t that Marianne?” said Sidonie, the elegant sculptress, pointing to the screen. Simon reached for the remote control and turned up the volume. Madame Ecollier stopped polishing the glasses, and Laurine moved closer, clutching her broom. They all listened intently to what the newsreader was saying.
“There is a search on for Marianne Messmann from Germany. The sixty-year-old is mentally deranged and requires medical attention. Her husband, Lothar Messmann, last saw her in a Parisian hospital, from which she is assumed to have escaped after a suicide attempt.”
Then Lothar Messmann appeared on screen, speaking in German. The newsreader continued: “Please report any information to your local police station or call this number—”
Madame Geneviève grabbed the remote control from Simon’s hand and pushed hard on the off button.
“We don’t need that number,” she said decisively.
“She has a husband?” asked Sidonie.
“And an attractive one too!” mumbled Marie-Claude.
“She never struck me as being mad,” said Simon. “A bit, but not mad-mad. Pretty normal, actually.”
“There’s no way we’re handing her over to the police,” Paul said firmly. “She must have her reasons.”
“For changing her name as well? She introduced herself as Marianne Lance!” stated Marie-Claude.
“That’s her maiden name,” Colette said calmly. “She adopted it and walked out on her husband.”
For a second there was silence, then everyone started to speak at once. “Remember when she first got here?”
“She had nothing with her except for her handbag.”
“And no clothes.”
“No money. Maybe he beat her?”
“And she was sad,” Laurine interjected.
“What are we going to do?” asked Sidonie.
“The best thing would be to ring the TV station—”
“Have you forgotten that you’re Bretons?” Geneviève Ecollier interrupted Marie-Claude. Paul and Simon immediately spat on the floor. “Well, that’s that! No need to waste our breath on the police or telephone numbers.”
Everyone nodded.
Marianne had stood stock-still in the bathroom doorway, as if numbed by the sound of Lothar’s voice from her bedroom.
“I love you, Marianne. Please give me a sign. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done; we’ll find a solution. And if you don’t hear this, my angel, please get some help. Please, my dear French friends, help me to find my beloved wife. She’s confused, but she belongs to me, as I do to her.” This was followed by the newsreader’s French translation.
Mentally deranged. Medical attention. Oh God, the card! The card she’d sent to Grete! Had that given her away?
The speech Lothar had made sounded so sincere, but now Marianne knew how to distinguish a true sound from a false one. The Breton language had taught her this: she didn’t always understand the words, but she could sense the emotion behind them.
With Lothar there had been nothing behind the words. I love you. He’d never said that before, and it sounded like a cheap imitation of a feeling, like a fake Dior handbag.
As she hurried back into the room, her hair still wet from the shower, she saw Yann sitting on the bed, his expression lifeless. “You have a husband.”
Marianne didn’t answer. She had to be quick now, very quick. The brittle brown suitcase she had found in the cupboard full of dresses closed with an easy click after she had stuffed her clothes, the tile and her other possessions inside.
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve ever really known.” She hastily pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater, and hid her damp hair under a beret.
“Where are you going? To him?”
Marianne didn’t reply. She had no answers to these questions; she knew only that she had to leave. Leave Yann, from whom she’d kept secret her identity and her past, hiding the fact that she was only an old woman from Celle who’d lived a dull life. Not the kind of woman a man like him truly deserved. She had led him to believe that she was free, but she wasn’t.
“Marianne. Please. Mon amour—”
She put her index finger on his lovely curving lips. The way he was looking at her, without his glasses in the bright afternoon light…My God, they had made love with ravenous desire the night before, gazing hungrily at each other, but it was clear in the hard light of day that neither of them was young anymore; they were aging. Yet their feelings were young, and old yearnings had waited to be woken inside them. Now, though, Marianne was overwhelmed with a wave of shame.
I’ve committed adultery.
And she’d enjoyed it. She would do it again if she could, but she couldn’t. She had all these conflicting emotions inside her, but they couldn’t be spoken.
She put on her jacket and slipped into her linen shoes, then reached for her suitcase.
“Marianne!” Yann got to his feet as he was, naked. He looked at her with eyes full of grief. “Kenavo, Marianne,” he said quietly, pulling her into his embrace. She threw her arms around this man who was already more to her than Lothar had ever been. Her husband had never given the slightest hint that she was special or loved. This delighted and terrified her at the same time, and the terror drove her down the stairs and out of the guesthouse.
As she emerged into the afternoon sun, she drowned in a saturated blaze of light, air and intense color all around, in the trees and in the water. She cast a glance through the open kitchen door. Jean-Rémy. She had to tell Jean-Rémy that…
She heard a murmur of voices from the terrace, and the sound of a television set. She heard her name repeated in the general hubbub and she knew that everyone had seen her. Everyone now knew that she was a fraudster, a runaway and a crazy suicidal wife.
She didn’t dare to face them. The little cat wound its way through her legs. She stepped around it without a glance, and the animal began to shriek. It didn’t meow, it didn’t hiss; it let out a shrill scream, as if it were straining its vocal cords to produce something other than a cat sound.
Marianne made no attempt to stem the flow of tears that blurred her vision as she strode up the narrow street that would lead her away from the harbor, away from Yann, away from the cat, away from everything and out of Kerdruc.
She walked and she didn’t look back. The farther she walked, the greater her feeling of being sewn into a bag and drowned. She was finding it harder and harder to breathe. She felt as if she were about to die. Only now, that was no longer what she wanted.