Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

I scowled at the ground. He was so reasonable and so right that I wanted to hit him. I sighed and said, ‘Right. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just that I didn't find anything and then I came back and you weren't here and oh, I've drunk too much coffee today. It's made me queasy.’

Rick laughed and put his arms around me. ‘Tell me about what you didn't find.’

I buried my face in his shoulder. ‘A whole lot of nothing. Except I met a nice woman and a crotchety old man.’

I felt Rick's cheek shift against my head. I pulled my head back so I could see his face. He was frowning.

‘Did you dye your hair?’

The next day Rick and I strolled through the Saturday market, his arm draped around my shoulders. I felt more relaxed than I had in two months. To celebrate the feeling and the fact that my psoriasis seemed to be receding, I wore my favourite dress, a pale yellow sleeveless shift.

The market had been getting bigger and bigger each weekend as summer approached. Now it was the busiest I'd ever seen it, filling the square completely. Farmers had come with truckloads of fruit and vegetables, cheese, honey, bacon, bread, pâté, chickens, rabbits, goats. I could buy candy in bulk, a housecoat like Madame's, even a tractor.

Everyone was there: our neighbours, the woman from the library, Madame on a bench across the square with a couple of her cronies, women from a yoga class I was taking, the woman with the choking baby and everyone I'd ever bought anything from.

Even with so many people around I spotted him immediately. He seemed to be arguing ferociously with a man selling tomatoes; then they grinned and slapped each other on the back. Jean-Paul picked up a bag of tomatoes, turned around and almost ran into me. I jumped back to avoid getting tomato all over my dress and stumbled. Rick and Jean-Paul each grabbed an elbow and as I regained my balance they both stood holding me for a second before Jean-Paul dropped his hand.

‘ Bonjour , Ella Tournier,’ he said, nodding at me and raising his eyebrows slightly. He was wearing a pale blue shirt; I felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch it.

‘Hello, Jean-Paul,’ I replied calmly. I remembered reading somewhere that the person you address first and introduce to the other is the more important person. I turned deliberately to Rick and said, ‘Rick, this is Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul, this is Rick, my husband.’

The two men shook hands, Rick saying Bonjour and Jean-Paul Hello. I wanted to laugh, they were so different: Rick tall, broad, golden and open, Jean-Paul small, wiry, dark and calculating. A lion and a wolf, I thought. And how they distrust each other.

There was an awkward silence. Jean-Paul turned to me and said in English, ‘How was your researches in Mende?’

I shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Not too good. Nothing useful. Nothing at all, in fact.’ I wasn't feeling nonchalant, though: I was thinking with guilt and pleasure that Jean-Paul had called Mathilde and I hadn't called him back; that Jean-Paul's awkward English was the only thing that revealed inner turmoil; that he and Rick were so different from each other; that both were watching me closely.

‘So, you go to other towns for doing this work?’

I tried not to look at Rick. ‘I went to Le Pont de Montvert too but there wasn't anything. There isn't much left from that time. But anyway it's not so important. It doesn't really matter.’

Jean-Paul's sardonic smile said three things: you're lying, you thought it was going to be easy and I told you so.

But he didn't say any of this; instead he looked intently at my hair. ‘Your hair is turning red,’ he stated.

‘Yes.’ I smiled at him. He had put it just the right way: no questioning, no blame. For a moment Rick and the market disappeared.

Rick slid his hand up my back to settle on my shoulder. I laughed nervously and said, ‘Anyway, we have to go. Nice to see you.’

‘ Au revoir , Ella Tournier,’ Jean-Paul said.

Rick and I didn't speak for a few minutes. I pretended to be absorbed in buying honey and Rick weighed eggplants in his hands. Finally he said, ‘So that's him, eh?’

I shot him a look. ‘That's the librarian, Rick. That's all.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes.’ It had been a long time since I'd lied to him.

I was coming back from a yoga class one afternoon when I heard the phone ringing from the street. Running to answer it, I managed an out-of-breath ‘Hello?’ before a high, excited voice spoke so rapidly that I had to sit down and wait for it to finish. At last I interjected in French, ‘Who is this?’

‘Mathilde, it's Mathilde. Listen, it's wonderful, you must see it!’ ‘Mathilde, slow down! I can't understand what you're saying. What's wonderful?’ 120

Mathilde took a deep breath. ‘We've found something about your family, about the Tourniers.’

‘Wait a minute. Who's “we”?’

‘Monsieur Jourdain and me. You remember I mentioned working with him before, in Le Pont de Montvert?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I wasn't working at the main desk today, so I thought I'd drive out and visit, see that room you told me about. What a garbage can! So Monsieur Jourdain and I began going through things. And in one of the boxes of books he found your family!’

‘What do you mean? A book about my family?’

‘No, no, written in the book. It's a Bible. The front page of a Bible. That's where families wrote down births and deaths and marriages, in their Bibles, if they had them.’

‘But what was it doing there?’

‘That's a good question. He's been terrible, Monsieur Jourdain. Imagine letting valuable old things like that lie around! Apparently someone brought in a whole box of old books. There's all sorts of things, old records from the parish, old deeds, but the Bible is the most valuable. Well, maybe not so valuable, given its condition.’

‘What's wrong with it?’

‘It's burnt. Most of the pages are black. But it lists many Tourniers. They're your Tourniers, Monsieur Jourdain is sure of it.’

I was silent, taking it in.

‘So can you come up and see it?’

‘Of course. Where are you?’

‘Still in Le Pont de Montvert. But I can meet you somewhere in between. Let's meet in Rodez, in, let's see, three hours.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I know. We can meet at Crazy Joe's Bar. It's right around the corner from the cathedral, in the old quarter. It's American so you can have a martini!’ She shrieked with laughter and hung up.

As I drove out of Lisle I passed the hôtel de ville . Keep going, Ella, I thought. He has nothing to do with this.

I stopped, jumped out, ran into the building and up the stairs. I opened the library door and poked my head inside. Jean-Paul sat alone behind his desk, reading a book. He glanced up at me but otherwise didn't move.

I stayed in the doorway. ‘Are you busy?’ I asked.

He shrugged. After the scene in the market a few days before, his distance wasn't surprising.

‘I've found something,’ I said quietly. ‘Or I should say, someone else has found something for me. Concrete evidence. Something you'll like.’

‘Is this about your painter?’

‘I don't think so. Come with me to see it.’

‘Where?’

‘They found it in Le Pont de Montvert, but I'm meeting them in Rodez.’ I looked at the floor. ‘I want you to come with me.’

Jean-Paul regarded me for a moment, then nodded. ‘OK. I'll close early here. Can you meet me at the Fina station up the Albi road in fifteen minutes?’

‘The gas station? Why? How will you get there?’

‘I'll drive there. I'll meet you and then we can take one car.’

‘Why can't you just come with me now? I'll wait for you outside.’

Jean-Paul sighed. ‘Tell me, Ella Tournier, you have never lived in a small town before you live in Lisle?’