Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

‘So it's empty now? Can we go see it?’

‘Of course. Tomorrow, if it's a nice day. I don't have any students until late in the afternoon. Now, where are those phone numbers?’

I explained what I wanted, then left him to it while I went for a walk. There wasn't much left to see of Moutier that Jacob hadn't already shown me, but it was nice to walk around and not be stared at. After three days here people even said hello to me first, the way no one ever did in Lisle-sur-Tarn after three months. They seemed to be more polite and less suspicious than the French.

I did find one new thing as I zigzagged through the streets: a plaque announcing that Goethe had slept at the Cheval-Blanc inn on that spot one night in October 1779. He'd mentioned Moutier in a letter, describing the rock formations surrounding it, in particular an impressive gorge just to the east of town. It was a stretch to put up a plaque commemorating one night spent there: that was how little had happened in Moutier.

I turned from the plaque to find Lucien coming toward me, carrying two cans of paint. I had a feeling he'd been watching me and only now picked up the cans and moved.

‘ Bonjour ,’ I said. He stopped and set down the cans.

‘ Bonjour ,’ he replied.

‘ Ça va? ’

‘ Oui, ça va .’

We stood awkwardly. I found it hard to look straight at him because he was looking so hard at me, searching my eyes for something. His attention was the last thing I needed right now. That was probably why he was drawn to me. He was certainly fascinated by my psoriasis. Even now he kept glancing at it.

‘Lucien, it's psoriasis,’ I snapped, secretly pleased to be able to embarrass him. ‘I told you that the other day. Why do you keep looking at it?’

‘I'm sorry.’ He looked away. ‘It's just that – I get it myself sometimes. In the same place on my arms. I always thought it was an allergic reaction to paint.’

‘Oh, I'm sorry!’ Now I felt guilty, but still irritated with him, which made me feel even more guilty. A vicious circle.

‘Why haven't you seen a doctor?’ I asked more gently. ‘He'd tell you what it is and give you something to put on it. There's a cream – I left it at home or I'd use it now.’

‘I don't like doctors,’ Lucien explained. ‘They make me feel – maladjusted.’

I laughed. ‘I know what you mean. And here – in France, I mean – they prescribe so many things. Too many things.’

‘Why do you get it? The psoriasis?’

‘Stress, they say. But the cream isn't bad. You could just ask the doctor to -’

‘Ella, will you have a drink with me one night?’

I paused. I should nip this in the bud: I wasn't interested and it was inappropriate, particularly now. But I'd always been bad at saying no. I wouldn't be able to bear the look on his face.

‘OK,’ I said finally. ‘In a couple of days, all right? But Lucien -’

He looked so happy that I couldn't go on. ‘It's nothing. Some night this week, then.’

When I returned Jacob was playing again. He stopped and picked up a scrap of paper. ‘Bad news, I'm afraid,’ he said. ‘The records at Berne go back only to 1750. At Porrentruy the librarian told me the parish records for the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were lost in a fire. There are some military lists you could look at, though. That is where my grandfather got his information, I think.’

‘Probably your grandfather found everything there was to find. But thanks for calling for me.’ Military lists were no use – it was the women I was interested in. I didn't tell him that.

‘Jacob, have you heard of a painter named Nicolas Tournier?’ I said instead.

He shook his head. I went to my room and got the postcard I'd brought with me.

‘See, he came from Montbéliard,’ I explained, handing him the card. ‘I just thought he could be an ancestor. A part of the family that moved to Montbéliard, maybe.’

Jacob looked at the painting and shook his head. ‘I've never heard of there being a painter in the family. Tourniers tended to have practical occupations. Except for me!’ He laughed, then turned serious. ‘Ah, Ella, Rick called while you were out.’

‘Oh.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘He asked me to tell you he loves you.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’ I looked down.

‘You know you can stay with us as long as you want. As long as you need to.’

‘Yes. Thanks. We have – there are some problems. You know.’

He said nothing, just gazed at me, and for a moment I was reminded of the couple on the train. Jacob was Swiss, after all.

‘Anyway, I'm sure everything will be fine soon.’

He nodded. ‘Until then you stay with your family.’

‘Yes.’

Once I'd said something to Jacob about Rick and me I no longer felt like I had to justify being there. It rained the next day so we put off our trip to the farm, and I felt comfortable sitting around all day reading and listening to Susanne and Jacob play. That night we ate at the pizzeria that had once been a Tournier inn but now felt decidedly Italian.

The next morning we all went to see the farm. Susanne had never been to it, though she'd lived in Moutier most of her life. At the east edge of town we took a path clearly marked with a yellow sign proclaiming it a ‘ Pédestre tourisme ’ and telling us it would take forty-five minutes to walk to Grand Val. Only in Switzerland do they say how long a walk should take rather than how far it is. To our left was the beginning of the limestone gorge Goethe had written about: a dramatic wall of yellow-grey rock extending from mountains on either side, crumbled in the centre to allow the Birse to pass through. It was impressive with the sun shining on it; it reminded me of a cathedral.

The valley we followed was gentler, with a nameless stream and a railroad track along the bottom, fields on the lower slopes, then pines and a sudden steep incline into rocks high above us. Horses and cows grazed in the fields; farms appeared at regular intervals. It was all neat, in clean lines and bright, sharp light.

The men walked briskly together while Susanne and I followed. She was wearing a blue-green sleeveless tunic and loose white pants that billowed around her slim legs. She looked pale and tired, her cheerfulness tacked on. I knew from the way she kept a certain distance from Jan and glanced at me guiltily that she hadn't told him yet.

We lagged further and further behind the men, as if we were about to say something private to each other. I shivered, though it was a warm, sunny day, and wrapped Jean-Paul's blue shirt around me. It smelled of smoke and of him.

Jacob and Jan stopped where the path forked, and as we reached them Jacob pointed to a house a little way above us, near the point where the fields stopped and the trees began to climb into the mountains. ‘That's the farm,’ he said.

I don't want to go, I thought. Why is that? I glanced at Susanne. She was looking at me and I knew she was thinking the same thing. The men started up the hill, while she and I stood looking at their backs.

‘C'mon,’ I gestured to Susanne, and turned to follow the men. She came slowly behind me.

The farm was a long low structure, the left side a stone house, the right a wooden barn. The two sides were held under one long shallow roof and shared a gaping entrance that led to a dim porch like area Jacob said was called a devant-huis . A kind of porch, it was strewn with straw and bits of lumber and old buckets. I'd thought that the historical society would have done something to preserve it, but the place was slowly falling apart: the shutters were askew, the windows broken, and moss was growing on the roof.