The thunderstorm had given birth to a radiant day. When Marianne walked over to her window after only a few hours’ sleep and opened it to let in the August sun, she saw Geneviève, Alain, Jean-Rémy and the nuns covering a long table with white tablecloths outside. Geneviève and Alain were teasing each other like playful children, and touching continually, as if to convince themselves that the other wasn’t simply a figment of their dreams.

The fest-noz guests who had stayed the night emerged from the guesthouse and sat down at the huge breakfast table. Birds were singing amid the lush green foliage, a light breeze carried the scent of the sea, and the white boats rocked on the glittering Aven. Father Ballack came out carrying an armful of baguettes. Protected from the morning sun by the red awning on the terrace, Emile and Pascale Goichon sat hand in hand, with Madame Pompadour and Merline sprawling at their feet. Next to them Paul was dunking a croissant in a glass of red wine and raising it to Rozenn’s lips. As the Gwen II drew closer from the Atlantic, heading for the quay, Marianne recognized Simon, and beside him a woman wearing a cocky sailor’s hat and a striped T-shirt. It was Grete. Max was sunning himself on the seat of the Vespa.

No sign of Yann. And no Sidonie, ever again.

Marianne looked at the open window and clapped her hands to her eyes. The others didn’t know yet. They didn’t yet realize that there would never be another Monday pensioners’ get-together in Kerdruc with Sidonie. When she lowered her hands, she saw Geneviève waving to her, her other arm curled around Alain, who was pressing his Genoveva tightly to his side. Geneviève pointed to an empty seat in the middle of the long table: everyone else had already sat down. The nuns, the Kerdruc pensioners, the pining chef. Grete. The summer guests, who thought they would never again spend their holidays without visiting this port. Only Yann, Marie-Claude the hairdresser, Colette and the most beautiful young woman in the village were missing. And Marianne. Geneviève pointed to the seat again.

That’s my seat? She looked at all these wonderful people.

There was a knock. Lothar came in and stood behind her. “Marianne,” he said. “I want to ask for your forgiveness. Give me a second chance. Or do you want to stay here?”

Marianne gazed down at the quayside. Whoever this seat among these extraordinary, loving people was for, it was not her. Not Marianne Messmann, née Lanz, from Celle, a woman who read magazines rescued from recycling containers and ate food past its sell-by date, who had done nothing except pretend. She had only imagined that she was something special, but she was no different than she’d been during the preceding sixty years.

Lothar was her life, and when he had arrived, he had reminded her of who she really was, where she came from and what would always be inside her, no matter how much makeup she applied and how much she strutted around onstage. There was a struggle inside her, but ultimately she felt that this, this here, was all a performance. She had had her share of happiness. She wasn’t fated for more: not for this land, not for the man with the marine eyes, not for the seat among these amazing people, who were so much grander and more wonderful than she was.

“Come on, or else we won’t ever start and we’ll starve to death!” called Alain.

Marianne despondently combed her hair, put on a white dress, rinsed her mouth and pinched her cheeks instead of applying rouge and lipstick as she had done with such joy in previous weeks. The stranger who looked her in the eye from the mirror wasn’t smiling. She was gray, and her eyes were empty.

“I am not you, and you are dead,” said Marianne.

I only lived as long as you allowed me to, the unknown woman, whom she had taken for herself, seemed to say.

Lothar appeared behind her and spoke directly to her face in the mirror. “I love you. Marry me again.”

—

As they approached the table, Jean-Rémy stood up with a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. “To Marianne. She can play the accordion, deliver children in kitchens and remove the salt from a soup.”

“And make stupid people clever,” called Geneviève to general amusement.

“And drive normal people mad,” added Pascale, before asking her husband, “Or was it the other way around?”

The others rose to their feet with Jean-Rémy. Emile leaned on Pascale, and they all raised their glasses and cups of cider. “To Marianne,” they announced as one.

Marianne didn’t know where to look. It was unbearable to think that they liked and admired her. She squirmed with shame.

I’m a fraud. I’m not even a shadow of what they see in me. I lied to them. I’m a con artist.

It was as if she had used up all her courage the previous night, and she didn’t dare to look a single one of them in the eye.

I’ve only pretended to them to be a special person, but none of it can be true. Nothing.

Lothar, who knew this nothingness so well, and had traveled here to find it, loved her nonetheless. He loved her. She knew that now. How could she simply discard that love?

“Why won’t you sit down?” asked Geneviève. Marianne swallowed hard.

I love you. Marry me again.

“I’m going to go back to Germany with my husband,” she said quietly.

Pascale knocked over her glass in shock.

“Please sit down right now,” whispered Jean-Rémy. “Quickly.”

Now everyone was staring at her with distrust, disappointment and astonishment.

“I’m not the right person for that seat,” said Marianne a little more loudly. “Please forgive me.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

—

As Marianne was packing her suitcase, Grete pushed open the door. “Have you lost your mind? What was that all about down there?”

Marianne pressed her lips together and continued to pile up her clothes.

“Hello, wake up! If you’re locked inside there somewhere, Marianne, send me a signal!” Marianne stopped.

“It’s just the way it is!” she shouted at her neighbor in a voice that was cracking with emotion. “I’m just the way I am! Nothing more! Not that…musician. Not a sex bomb for Yann.” It hurt her to utter his name. “Nor am I a healer or a sea-whisperer, and I don’t make mad people normal! I haven’t a clue about life. I’m nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing. Those people see a pure illusion.” She collapsed onto the bed, weeping.

“Oh you poor little botched Betty!” Grete couldn’t help saying.

“It’s true,” whispered Marianne, when her body was no longer shaken by sobs. “I can’t cope with life here. I’m not made for it. And however hard I’ve tried, I can’t manage to be the person I’d like to be, living freely, deciding what I want, not fearing death. That’s simply not me. What am I supposed to do here? Keep playing the neighborhood German witch? I’m scared of this life, always being more than I actually am. I can’t reinvent myself. Could you?”

Grete shrugged. If she’d been able to do that, she wouldn’t have spent twenty years with the faithfully unfaithful hairdresser.

“You can do anything you want,” she ventured.

“I want to go home,” murmured Marianne.

—

The taxi was waiting with its engine running. Marianne shook the bystanders’ hands, one after the other. Paul, Rozenn, Simon, Pascale, Emile, Alain, Jean-Rémy and Madame Geneviève.

“We never change,” Geneviève said by way of farewell. “That’s what you said, Marianne. We only forget who we are. Don’t forget who you are, Madame Lanz.” She gave Marianne an envelope containing her wages.

Marianne turned to Jean-Rémy and gave him a hug, whispering in his ear, “Laurine loves you, you daft man. And I know all about what you’ve got stacked in the cooler.”

Jean-Rémy wouldn’t let go of her. “I couldn’t do it, just as you can’t. We’re both daft people.”

Emile swung the accordion case into the trunk of the taxi without a glance. Marianne nodded to him and got into the car.

She didn’t look back. Her breathing became more and more strained. When they reached the junction to Concarneau, where she had once hitchhiked, and turned right toward Pont-Aven, Lothar spoke for the first time. “I didn’t think you’d come with me.”

“This is what I want.”

“Because you love me?”

“Did that ever matter to you?”

“Not enough, I presume, or you wouldn’t have left.”

She said nothing until they reached Pont-Aven, where she knocked on the door of Colette’s flat above the gallery. When Colette realized why Marianne was there, her expression hardened. “So you’re leaving the moment the going gets tough, eh?”

“I’m sorry…”

“No you’re not. Not enough. You’re obviously not sorry enough for yourself. You’re still not.” Colette slammed the door in her face.

Marianne stared at the wooden door. How was she supposed to take that?

The next moment, the door was flung open again. “Yann has his show in Paris on 1 September. At the Galerie Rohan, my old stomping ground. It was meant to be a surprise for you. That’s because he’s showing you. These are his first large paintings in thirty years. Now, though, he might as well hang them in a museum in the section called ‘Twenty-First-Century Illusions.’ ” The door banged shut once more.

Marianne already had one foot on the step when Colette called out, “You’re dead to me, Marianne!” Just further evidence that she had only imagined she’d found a home here.

“What did she say?” asked Lothar.

“She wished us a safe journey,” Marianne replied.

—

As they stood outside Yann’s studio, Lothar took her hand.

“Do you have to do this?”

“It’s a matter of courtesy,” said Marianne, pulling her hand from his.

The curious courtesy of telling a man, I love you but I’m not the person you think I am, and I want to go home. All of a sudden Marianne was seized by the wild hope that Yann would do anything he could to keep her from leaving.

Walking past the tall, wide windows of Yann’s studio, it occurred to her that she had never seen the pictures he had painted of her. She took a deep breath. Was leaving the right choice?

As she entered the hallway that led to the bright, high-ceilinged room, Marianne heard sobbing. Neither Yann nor Marie-Claude noticed as she stepped into the studio. The aging hairdresser was weeping in Yann’s arms in front of a painting of a naked woman. A magnificent naked woman.

Yet her weeping soon turned to laughter; she had in fact been laughing the whole time. She hugged Yann and covered his face with quick kisses.

They’re laughing at you and your stupidity.

Marianne ran away. There was no need to answer the question of right or wrong now.

“So?” asked Lothar, when she was once more sitting beside him, holding back her tears. “How did he take it?”

“Like a man,” gasped Marianne.

“Incredible,” said Lothar. “Do you know, when you were away during that trouble with Simone, we had a chat. He raved about you so much that I found myself thinking, who’s he talking about? He would never have let go of the woman he saw in you.”

“It’s not Simone, it’s Sidonie, and there wasn’t any trouble with her—she died. Sidonie’s dead.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.” After a while he said, “Shall we stay in Paris for a few days?” adding with a little worried laugh, “But only if you don’t run away this time.”

—

A car engine started up outside, and Marie-Claude released herself from Yann’s embrace. She had laughed as she told him that she hadn’t recognized her reflection in a shop window, thinking, Who’s that unfriendly-looking woman? until she had realized that it was her.

Claudine had only just told her mother about the dramatic delivery in Ar Mor, and that it was Victor who had got her pregnant. He was married, and Claudine had decided not to tell him about his baby. He should love her and choose her because he wanted her, not because he felt it was his duty.

Marie-Claude was a grandmother, and she had immediately run to see Yann to persuade him to come to Kerdruc with her so that she could thank Marianne.

“These are wonderful pictures. Has Marianne seen them yet?”

Yann shook his head.