Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

In a corner opposite the door there was an old sink with a tap. I doubted it worked but for Susanne's sake I would have to try it. I walked around the hearth, heart racing, hands clammy. When I reached the sink I wrestled with the tap for a minute before I managed to turn it. For a moment nothing happened; then there was a sputter and the tap began to shake violently. I stepped back. A great spurt of dark liquid suddenly gushed out into the sink and I jumped, cracking the back of my head against the corner of one of the pillars holding up the chimney. I cried out sharply and whirled around, stars shooting before my eyes. I sank to my knees next to the hearth and pulled my head down. The back of my head was damp and sticky. I took several deep breaths. When the stars disappeared I lifted my head and lowered my arms. Drops of blood left the broken psoriasis patches in the creases of my elbows and rolled down my arms to meet the blood on my hands.

I stared at the tracks of blood. ‘This is the place, isn't it?’ I said aloud. ‘ Je suis arrivée chez moi, n'est-ce pas? ’

Behind me the water stopped.

Isabelle stood silent in the devant-huis . She could hear the horse shifting in the barn; from the house came the sounds of digging. – Marie? she called softly, uncertain if she should say the name aloud, who might hear it. The horse whinnied at the sound of her voice, then stopped moving. The digging continued. Isabelle hesitated, then pushed the door open.

Etienne was working on a long hole near the slab of granite, extending from its base out into the room. It was not along the far wall where he had earlier decided the hearth would go, but near the door. The floor was packed hard and he was having to slice violently at it with his spade to loosen the dirt.

When the light from the door fell on him he glanced up, saying: – Is she – then stopping himself when he recognized Isabelle. He straightened up.

– What are you doing here?

– Where is Marie?

– You should be ashamed, La Rousse. You should be on your knees praying for God's mercy.

– Why are you digging on a Holy Day?

He ignored the question.

– Your daughter has run off, he said loudly. Petit Jean has gone to look for her in the woods. I thought you were he, coming back to say she is safe. Aren't you concerned about your own shameful daughter, La Rousse? You should be looking for her too.

– Marie is all I'm concerned about. Where did she go?

– Behind the house, up the mountain. Etienne turned back to the hole and began to dig again. Isabelle watched him.

– Why are you digging there rather than against the far wall, where you said the hearth was to go?

He straightened up again and raised the spade above his head. Isabelle jumped back quickly and Etienne laughed.

– Don't ask stupid questions. Go and find your daughter.

Isabelle backed out of the room and pulled the door closed. She remained in the devant-huis for a moment. Etienne had not begun digging again and it was very quiet, a silence full of secrets.

I am not alone with Etienne, she thought. Marie is here, somewhere nearby.

– Marie! she began to call. Marie! Marie! She went out into the yard, still calling. Marie did not appear – only Hannah, labouring up the path. Isabelle had not waited for her outside Chalières, but had left her with Jacob and run along the path towards the farm until she had been sure Hannah could not catch up. Now when she saw Isabelle the old woman stopped, leaning on her stick and breathing hard. Then she lowered her head and hurried past her daughter-in-law to the house, banging the door shut behind her.

It wasn't easy getting Lucien drunk. He gazed at me across the table and drank his beer so slowly that I had to let my gulps trickle back into my glass to wait for him to catch up. We were the only customers in a bar in the centre of town. American country and western played over the sound system; the waitress read a newspaper behind the counter. Moutier on a rainy Thursday in early July was as dead as a stop sign.

I had a flashlight in my bag, but I was relying on Lucien to have tools in case we needed them. He didn't know it yet, though; he sat tracing patterns in the wet glass rings left on the table, looking uncomfortable. I had a long way to go to get him to do what I wanted. I'd have to resort to desperate measures.

I caught the waitress's eye. When she came over I ordered two whiskies. Lucien stared at me with big hazel eyes. I shrugged. ‘In America we always have whisky with beer,’ I lied airily. He nodded and I thought of Jean-Paul, who would never have let me get away with such a ridiculous statement. I missed his prickly, sarcastic edge; he was like a knife, cutting through the haze of uncertainty, saying what needed to be said.

When the waitress brought two shots, I insisted that Lucien drink his in one go rather than sip it delicately. When he finished it I ordered two more. He hesitated, but after the second he visibly relaxed and began to tell me about a house he'd built recently. I let him run on, though he used a lot of technical words I didn't understand. ‘It's halfway up the mountain, on a slope – always harder to build,’ he explained. ‘And then there were problems with the concrete for l'abri nucléaire . We had to remix it twice.’

‘ L'abri nucléaire ?’ I repeated, not sure of the French.

‘ Oui .’ He waited while I looked it up in the dictionary I kept in my bag.

‘A nuclear shelter ? You built a nuclear shelter in a house?’

‘Of course. It's required. It's the law in Switzerland that every new house has a shelter.’

I shook my head as if to clear it. Lucien misunderstood my gesture. ‘But it's true, every new house has a nuclear shelter,’ he repeated more fervently. ‘And every man does his national service, did you know that? When he is eighteen a man serves for seventeen weeks in the army. And after that, for three weeks every year in the reserves.’

‘Why is Switzerland so military if it's a neutral country? You know, like during World War II?’

He smiled grimly. ‘So that we can remain neutral. A country cannot be neutral unless it has a strong army.’

I came from a country with a huge military budget and no sense of neutrality at all; it seemed to me that the two had little to do with each other. But I wasn't here to talk politics; we were getting further and further away from my intended topic. I had to find a way to get onto the subject of chimneys.

‘So what's this nuclear shelter made of?’ I asked awkwardly.

‘Concrete and lead. You know, the walls are a metre thick.’

‘Really?’

Lucien began to explain in detail how a shelter was constructed. I closed my eyes. What a nerd, I thought. Why on earth am I getting him to help me?

There was no one else. Jacob was too shaken by Susanne's miscarriage the day before to go back to the farm and Jan wasn't a rule-breaker. Another wimp, I thought grimly. What is it with these men? Again I wished Jean-Paul were here: he would argue with me about the usefulness of what I wanted to do, he would question my sanity, but he would back me if he knew it was important to me. I wondered how he was. That night seemed so long ago now. One week.

He wasn't here; I had to rely on the man at hand. I opened my eyes and interrupted Lucien's soliloquy. ‘ Ecoute , I want you to help me,’ I said firmly, deliberately switching to the familiar form in French. Up until now I'd persisted in remaining formal with him.

Lucien stopped, looking surprised and suspicious.

‘Do you know the farm near Grand Val with the old chimney?’

He nodded.