Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

I took the flashlight from him and began going over the chimney methodically, the four square pillars at the corners of the hearth, the four arches between the pillars that held up the chimney.

Lucien tried again. ‘What do you want to find?’

I shrugged. ‘Something – old,’ I replied, standing on the hearthstone and gazing up the tapering tunnel. I could see remains of birds' nests on ledges formed by jutting rocks. ‘Maybe something – blue.’

‘Something blue?’

‘Yes.’ I stepped off the stone. ‘Now, Lucien, you build things. If you were going to hide something in a chimney, where would you hide it?’

‘A blue thing?’

I didn't answer; I just stared at him. He looked at the chimney. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment, ‘most parts of the chimney would get too hot and things would burn up. Maybe further up the chimney. Or -’ He knelt down and placed his hand on the hearthstone. He rubbed his hand over it and nodded. ‘Granite. I don't know where they got this stone; it isn't local.’

‘Granite,’ I repeated. ‘Like in the Cévennes.’

‘Where?’

‘It's part of France, in the south. But why granite?’

‘Well, it's harder than limestone. It spreads heat more evenly. But this slab is very thick, so the bottom of it would not get so hot. You could hide something under it, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’ I nodded, rubbing the bump on my forehead. It made sense. ‘Let's lift the granite.’

‘It's much too heavy. We would need four men to lift it!’

‘Four men,’ I repeated. Rick, Jean-Paul, Jacob and Lucien. And one woman. I looked around. ‘Do you have a, a-in English it's block and tackle.’ He looked blank, so I got paper and pen from my bag and sketched a crude pulley system.

‘Ah, un palan! ’ he cried. ‘Yes, I have one. Here, in my truck. But even so, we would still need more men to pull it.’

I thought for a moment. ‘What about your truck?’ I asked. ‘We could attach le palan here, then attach it to the truck and use that force to pull up the stone.’

He looked surprised, as if he had never considered his truck for more noble purposes than transportation. He was silent for a long time, looking at the position of everything, measuring with his eyes. I listened to the dripping outside.

‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Maybe we can do that.’

‘We will do it.’

When she got to the farm Isabelle quietly tried the door of the house. It was bolted from the inside. She could hear Etienne and Gaspard grunting and straining, then stopping and arguing. She did not call out to them. Instead she went into the barn, where Petit Jean was rubbing down the horse. He barely reached the horse's shoulder but he handled the animal confidently. He glanced at Isabelle, then continued rubbing. She saw him swallow again.

Like the man on the road when we were leaving the Cévennes, she thought, remembering the man with the pronounced Adam's apple, the torches, Marie's brave words.

– Papa told us to stay here so we wouldn't get in the way, Petit Jean announced.

– We? Is Marie here?

Her son jerked his head towards a pile of straw in the darkest corner of the barn. Isabelle hurried over.

– Marie, she said quietly, kneeling at the edge of the pile.

It was Jacob, curled in a ball and wedged into the corner. His eyes were open wide but he didn't seem to see her.

– Jacob! What is it? Have you found Marie?

Draped over his knees was the black dress Marie had worn earlier over the blue one. Isabelle crawled over and snatched it from him. It was sodden, heavy with water.

– Where did this come from? she demanded, examining it. It had been torn at the neck. The pockets were full of stones from the Birse.

– Where did you find it?

He looked dully at the stones and said nothing. She gripped his shoulders and began to shake him.

– Where did you find it? she cried. Where?

– He found it here, she heard from behind her. She looked over at Petit Jean.

– Here? she repeated. Where?

Petit Jean gestured around him. – In the barn. She must have taken it off before she ran off into the woods. She wanted to show off her new dress to the devil in the woods, eh, Jacob?

Jacob flinched beneath Isabelle's hands.

Lucien backed the truck up as close to the house as possible. He ran the rope from a small metal loop under the truck's rear fender through the devant-huis and the little window next to the door – all the broken glass knocked out so it wouldn't cut the rope – and into the house. He attached the block to a structural beam running across the room and ran the rope from the little window up through the block's pulley and down to the hearthstone, tying the end to one point of a triangular metal frame. Clamps were attached at the other two points.

Then we dug around one end of the stone until we'd exposed the base. It took a long time because the floor was packed hard. I hacked at it with a shovel, stopping now and then to wipe the sweat out of my eyes.

Lucien positioned the metal frame over the end of the stone and fixed the clamps around it, wedging their teeth into the dirt under the bottom. Finally we went around the stone with the shovel and a crowbar, loosening the dirt around it.

When everything was ready we argued about who would stay inside and keep the block and tackle in place and who would go in the truck.

‘You see, this is not set up well,’ Lucien said, looking anxiously at the rope. ‘The angle is not good. The rope will rub against the window, there, and against the chimney arch, there.’ He flashed light on these points of friction. ‘The rope could fray and break. And the force is not even on both clamps because we could not hang the block directly over the stone, but at the side, on the beam. I have tried to compensate for it but the pull on each side is still different and the clamps could easily slip. And the beam. It may not be strong enough to carry the weight of the stone. It is best that I watch it.’

‘No.’

‘Ella -’

‘I will stay here. I will watch the rope and the clamp, and le palan .’

The tone of my voice made him back down. He moved to the little window and looked out. ‘OK,’ he said quietly. ‘You stand here with the flashlight. If the rope begins to fray, or the clamps slip, or there is any reason that I should stop the truck, point the light on the mirror there.’ He aimed the flashlight at the side mirror on the left of the truck. It flashed back at us. ‘When the stone is lifted far enough,’ he continued, ‘flash the light in the mirror also, so I will know to stop.’

I nodded and took the flashlight from him, then lit the way to the back window for him, bracing myself for the screech when he forced the window up. He glanced at me before disappearing. I smiled weakly; he didn't smile back. He looked worried.

I took up my position by the little window, tense with nerves. At least my queasiness had disappeared with all the activity and I felt I was in the right place, as absurd as the situation was. I was glad I was there with Lucien: I didn't know him well enough to have to explain myself the way I would with Rick or Jean-Paul, and he was interested enough in the mechanics of the task not to ask too many questions about why we were doing it.

It had stopped raining, though there were still dripping sounds everywhere. The truck sputtered to a start and sat shaking while Lucien switched the headlights on and revved the engine. He stuck his head out of the window and I waved. Slowly, slowly the truck inched forward. The rope came to life, the slack taken up, the line quivering. The block hanging from the beam swung out toward me. There was a cracking sound as the beam took the strain of the pull from the truck; I jumped back, terrified that the house would fall down around me.