Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

I nodded. ‘We're going to bury the bones here.’

‘May I look?’ Jean-Paul gestured at the bag.

‘Yes.’ He had an idea: I knew him well enough to read the signs. It was oddly comforting. My stomach, jittery since seeing the Deux Chevaux, settled down and demanded food. I sat on the rocks and watched him. He knelt and opened the bag, spreading it wide. He looked for a long time, touched the hair briefly, fingered the blue cloth. He glanced up, looking me up and down; I remembered I was wearing his shirt. The blue and the red.

‘I didn't wear it deliberately, really,’ I said. ‘I didn't know you would be here. Sylvie made me wear it. She said I wasn't wearing enough colour.’

He smiled.

‘Hey, speaking of which, it turns out Goethe stayed in Moutier for a night.’

Jean-Paul snorted. ‘That is no great boast. He stayed everywhere for a night.’

‘I suppose you've read everything by Goethe.’

‘What was it you said once? You would bring up someone like Goethe right now.’

I smiled. ‘ Touché . Anyway, I'm sorry I took your shirt. And it got – I had kind of an accident with it.’

He scrutinized it. ‘It looks all right to me.’

‘You haven't seen the back. No, I'm not going to show it to you. That's another story.’

Jean-Paul zipped the bag shut.

‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘But it may upset you.’

‘Nothing can upset me more than everything already has.’

‘I want to dig here. By the chimney.’

‘Why?’

‘Just a theory.’ He crouched by the remains of the hearth. There wasn't much left of it. It had been a large slab of granite, like the one in Moutier, but it had cracked down the middle and was crumbling away.

‘Look, I don't want to bury her right there, if that's what you're thinking,’ I said. ‘That's the last place I want to put her.’

‘No, of course not. I just want to look for something.’

I watched him shift bits of stone for a while, then got down on my knees and helped him, avoiding the larger rocks, careful of my abdomen. At one point he glanced at my back, then reached over and traced the outline of blood on the shirt with his finger. I remained hunched over, my arms and legs pricked with goosebumps. Jean-Paul moved his finger up my neck and onto my scalp, where he spread his fingers and pulled them through my hair like a comb.

His hand stopped. ‘You do not want me to touch you,’ he said; it was a statement rather than a question.

‘You won't want to touch me when you've heard everything. I haven't told you everything yet.’

Jean-Paul dropped his hand and picked up the shovel. ‘Tell me later,’ he said, and began to dig.

I wasn't really surprised when he found the teeth. He held them out to me in silence. I took them, opened the gym bag and got out the other set. They were the same size: children's teeth. They felt sharp in my hands.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘In some cultures people bury things in the foundations of houses when they're built. Bodies of animals, sometimes shoes. Sometimes, not often, humans. The idea was that their souls would remain with the house and scare away evil spirits.’

There was a long silence.

‘They were sacrificed, you mean. These children were sacrificed.’ 293

‘Maybe. Probably. It is too much of a coincidence to find bones under the hearths of both houses for it to be accidental.’

‘But – they were Christian. They were supposed to be God-fearing, not superstitious!’

‘Religion has never completely destroyed superstition. Christianity was like a layer over the older beliefs – it covered them but they didn't disappear.’

I looked at the two sets of teeth and shivered. ‘Jesus. What a family. And I'm one of them. I'm a Tournier too.’ I was beginning to shake.

‘Ella. You are far away from them,’ Jean-Paul said gently. ‘You belong to the twentieth century. You are not responsible for their actions. And remember that you are as much a product of your mother's family as your father's.’

‘But I'm still a Tournier.’

‘Yes, but you do not have to pay for their sins.’

I stared at him. ‘I've never heard you use that word before.’

He shrugged. ‘I was brought up Catholic, after all. Some things are impossible to leave behind entirely.’

Sylvie appeared in the distance, running in a zigzag, distracted by flowers or rabbits, so that she looked like a yellow butterfly flitting here and there. When she saw us she made a beeline for us.

‘Jean-Paul!’ she cried. She ran over to stand next to him.

He crouched beside her. ‘ Bonjour, Mademoiselle ,’ he said. Sylvie giggled and patted his shoulder.

‘Have you two been digging already?’ Mathilde picked her way through the rocks in pink slingbacks, swinging a yellow panier . ‘ Salut, Jean-Paul ,’ she said, grinning at him. He smiled at her. It occurred to me that if I had any sense I'd bow out and let them be together, give Mathilde some fun and Sylvie a father. It would be my own sacrifice, an atonement for my family's sins.

I stepped back. ‘I'm going to look for a place to bury the bones,’ I announced. I held out my hand. ‘Sylvie, do you want to come with me?’

‘No,’ Sylvie said. ‘I'm going to stay here with Jean-Paul.’

‘But – maybe your mother wants to be alone with Jean-Paul.’

I immediately realized I'd made a mistake. Mathilde began to laugh her high shriek.

‘Really, Ella, you are so stupid sometimes!’

Jean-Paul said nothing, but pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it with a smirk on his face.

‘Yeah, I am stupid,’ I muttered in English. ‘Very, very stupid.’

We all agreed on the spot, a grassy patch next to a boulder shaped like a mushroom, not far from the ruins. It would always be easy to find because of the shape of the rock.

Jean-Paul began to dig while we sat nearby and ate lunch. Then I took a turn with the shovel, then Mathilde, until we'd made a hole about two feet deep. I began to lay the bones out. We'd dug room enough for two, and though Jean-Paul had found only the teeth among the ruins, I set them in their place as if the bones of the whole body were there too. The others watched, Sylvie whispering to Mathilde. When I finished I pulled a blue thread from the remains of the dress and put it in my pocket.

As I stood up Sylvie came over. ‘Maman said I should ask you,’ she began. ‘Could I bury something with Marie?’

‘What?’

Sylvie pulled the bar of lavender soap from her pocket.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Take it out of its wrapping first. Do you want me to put it in for you?’

‘No, I want to do it.’ She lay down next to the grave and dropped the soap into place. Then she stood up and brushed the dirt off her front.

I didn't know what to do next: I felt I should say something but didn't know what. I glanced at Jean-Paul; to my amazement he'd bowed his head, closed his eyes and was whispering something. Mathilde was doing the same, and Sylvie imitated them both.

I looked up and saw a bird high above us, fluttering its wings so that it hovered in place.

Jean-Paul and Mathilde crossed themselves and opened their eyes at the same time. ‘Look,’ I said, and pointed upwards. The bird was gone.

‘I saw it,’ Sylvie declared. ‘Don't worry, Ella, I saw the red bird.’

After we filled in the dirt we began piling small rocks on the grave to keep animals from taking away the bones, building it into a rough pyramid about eighteen inches high.

We'd just finished when we heard a whistle and looked around. Monsieur Jourdain was standing at the ruins, a young woman at his side. Even from that distance it was obvious she was about eight months pregnant. Mathilde glanced at me and we grinned. Jean-Paul saw the exchange and gave us a puzzled look.