Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

‘It is better that you know now,’ Lucien said, ‘so that if you can help it you don't bring a child into a world without love.’

I swallowed and nodded. We sat listening to the rain; I concentrated on calming my stomach.

‘Do you want to steal something from there?’ he asked suddenly, nodding toward the farm.

I thought about it. ‘No. I just want to find something. Something that is mine.’

‘What? You left something there yesterday? Is that it?’

‘Yes. The story of my family.’ I sat up straight. ‘You'll still help me?’ I asked briskly.

‘Of course. I said I would help you, so I'm going to help you.’ Lucien met my eyes with a steady gaze.

He's not so bad, I thought.

It seemed that Petit Jean was not going to stop. Isabelle stepped into the middle of the path, forcing him to pull up the horse. She reached up and grasped the bridle. The horse pressed its muzzle into her shoulder and snorted.

Neither Petit Jean nor Gaspard would look her in the eye, though Gaspard removed his black hat and nodded at her. Petit Jean sat tensely, eyes fixed ahead, waiting impatiently to be released.

– Where are you going? she asked.

– Back to the farm. Petit Jean swallowed.

– Why? Have you found Marie? Is she safe?

He did not reply. Gaspard cleared his throat, keeping his blind eye towards her.

– I'm sorry, Isabelle, he mumbled. You know I would have nothing to do with this but because of Pascale. If she had not made the dress I wouldn't be obliged to help now. But – he shrugged and put his hat back on. I'm sorry.

Petit Jean hissed between his teeth and pulled savagely at the reins. Isabelle lost her grip on the bridle.

– Help with what? she shouted as Petit Jean kicked the horse into a flying start. Help with what?

As they galloped away Gaspard's hat fell off and rolled into a puddle. Isabelle watched them disappear down the path, then leaned over and picked up the hat, shaking it free of mud and water. She held it loosely in her fingers as she followed the path home.

It was raining harder. We ducked into the devant-huis , my flashlight picking out the padlock on the door. Lucien gave it a brief tug. ‘This was put here to keep les drogués out,’ he announced.

‘There are, um, druggies in Moutier?’

‘Of course. There are druggies everywhere in Switzerland. You don't know this country very well, do you?’

‘That's for sure,’ I muttered in English. ‘Jesus. So much for appearances.’

‘How did you get in yesterday?’

‘Jacob knew where the key is hidden.’ I looked around. ‘I didn't notice where. It shouldn't be hard to find, though.’

We used the flashlight to check all the obvious places in the devant-huis .

‘Maybe Jacob accidentally took it with him,’ I suggested. ‘We were all upset yesterday. It would have been an easy thing to do.’ I felt vaguely relieved that I wouldn't have to go through with this after all.

Lucien looked at the tiny windows on either side of the door; their broken panes of glass could easily be pushed in, but neither of us would fit through them. The windows at the front of the house were also small and high up. He took the flashlight from me. ‘I will look for a bigger window around the back,’ he said. ‘You can wait here alone?’

I forced myself to nod. He ducked out of the devant-huis , disappearing around the corner. I leaned against the doorway, hugging myself to keep from shivering, and listened. At first I could hear only the rain; after a while other sounds began to emerge – traffic on the main road below us, a train whistle – and I felt a little comforted by the normal world so close.

I heard what sounded like a shriek from inside the house and jumped. ‘It's only Lucien,’ I told myself, but stepped out into the yard anyway, rain and all. When the light flashed through the window next to the door and the face appeared I stifled a scream.

Lucien beckoned me to the window and handed me the flashlight through the jagged pane. ‘I'll meet you at the window at the back.’ He disappeared before I could ask him if he was all right.

I headed around the house as Lucien had a few minutes before. It was hard turning the corner: the side and back of the building were private territory, the part hidden from public view. Circling the house I was stepping into another, unknown world.

It was muddy at the back of the house; I had to pick my way between puddles to find drier, firmer footing. When I saw the open window and Lucien's dark outline just inside I stepped too quickly and slid to my knees.

He leaned out. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

I staggered to my feet, the flashlight beam swinging wildly. The knees of my pants had soaked up two circles of mud. ‘Yes. Fine,’ I muttered, flapping the pants legs to shake off whatever mud I could. I handed him the flashlight, which he kept trained on the window sill while I scrambled in.

It was cold inside – colder, it seemed, than outside. I pushed the wet hair out of my eyes and looked around. We were in a tiny room at the back of the house, a bedroom or storage room, empty except for a pile of lumber and a couple of broken chairs. It smelled musty and damp, and when Lucien shone the flashlight up into the ceiling corners we could see tatters of cobwebs fluttering in the draught from the open window. He pushed it closed; the frame made the shrieking sound I had heard a few minutes before. I almost asked him to open it again, to leave an escape route free, but stopped myself. There's nothing to escape from, I told myself firmly, my stomach somersaulting.

He led the way to the main room, stopped by the hearth and shone the flashlight on the chimney. We looked at it for a long time in silence.

‘It's impressive, isn't it?’ I said.

‘Yes. I have lived in Moutier all my life and heard about this chimney, but I have never seen it.’

‘When I saw it yesterday I was surprised that it is so ugly.’

‘Yes. Like those ruches I saw on television. From South America.’

‘ Ruches? What's a ruche ?’

‘A house of bees. You know, where they make honey.’

‘Oh, a hive. Yes, I know what you mean.’ Somewhere, probably in a National Geographic , I had seen the tall, lumpy beehives he was referring to, encased in a greyish cement that hid a ridged form, like a cocoon before it hatched, graceless but functional. An image of one of the ruined farms in the Cévennes flashed through my head: the perfectly placed granite, the elegant line of the chimney. No, this was nothing like that; this was made by people desperate for a chimney at all, where anything would do.

‘It's strange, you know,’ he said, staring at the hearth and chimney. ‘Look at its position in relation to the rest of the room. It's not where you would expect a hearth to be. It does not set the room up the way it should. It makes it – awkward. Uncomfortable.’

He was right. ‘It's too close to the door,’ I said.

‘Much too close. You almost walk into it when you come in. That is very inefficient – so much heat would escape whenever the door is opened. And the draught from the door would make the fire burn fast and it would be hard to control. Dangerous, maybe. You would expect it to be against the far wall, there.’ He pointed. ‘It's strange that people have lived here for hundreds of years and put up with it in that position all that time.’

Rick, I thought suddenly. Rick would be able to explain this. This is his territory, these interior spaces.

‘What do you want to do now?’ Lucien sounded baffled. What had seemed straightforward in my imagination was infinitely more absurd in reality, in the dark and the damp.