The Virgin Blue (2 page)

He smiled and let go, his end tapping the ground. Isabelle grasped the pole and began walking her hands down it, lifting the teeth end of the rake into the air, until she reached him. As she looked up at the Virgin, Etienne took a step back and disappeared from her side. She could feel the press of the crowd, bunched together again, restless, murmuring.

— Do it, La Rousse! someone shouted. Do it!

In the crowd Isabelle's brothers stood staring at the ground. She could not see her father, but if he was there as well he could not help her.

She took a deep breath and raised the rake. A shout rose with it, making her arm shake. She let the rake teeth rest to the left of the niche and looked around at the mass of bright red faces, unfamiliar now, hard and cold. She raised the rake, propped it against the base of the statue and pushed. It did not move.

The shouting became harsher as she began to push harder, tears pricking her eyes. The Child was staring into the distant sky, but Isabelle could feel the Virgin's gaze on her.

— Forgive me, she whispered. Then she pulled the rake back and swung it as hard as she could at the statue. Metal hit stone with a dull clang and the face of the Virgin was sliced off, showering Isabelle and making the crowd shriek with laughter. Desperately she swung the rake again. The mortar loosened with the blow and the statue rocked a little.

— Again, La Rousse! a woman shouted.

I can't do it again, Isabelle thought, but the sight of the red faces made her swing once more. The statue began to rock, the faceless woman rocking the child in her arms. Then it pitched forward and fell, the Virgin's head hitting the ground first and shattering, the body thumping after. In the impact of the fall the Child was split from his mother and lay on the ground gazing upward. Isabelle dropped the rake and covered her face with her hands. There were loud cheers and whistles and the crowd surged forward to surround the broken statue.

When Isabelle took her hands from her face Etienne was standing in front of her. He smiled triumphantly, reached over and squeezed her breasts. Then he joined the crowd and began throwing dung at the blue niche.

I will never see such a colour again, she thought.

Petit Henri and Gérard needed little convincing. Though Isabelle blamed Monsieur Marcel's persuasiveness, secretly she knew they would have gone anyway, even without his honeyed words.

— God will smile upon you, he had said solemnly. He has chosen you for this war. Fighting for your God, your religion, your freedom. You will return men of courage and strength.

— If you return at all, Henri du Moulin muttered angrily, words only Isabelle heard. He leased two fields of rye and two of potatoes, as well as a fine chestnut grove. He kept pigs and a herd of goats. He needed his sons; he couldn't farm the land with only his daughter left to help him.

— I will plant fewer fields, he told Isabelle. Only one of rye, and I'll give up some of the herd and a few pigs. Then I'll only need one field of potatoes to feed them. I can get more animals again when the twins return.

They won't come back, she thought. She had seen the light in their eyes as they left with other boys from Mont Lozère. They will go to Toulouse, to Paris, to Geneva to see Calvin. They will go to Spain, where men's skin is black, or to the ocean on the edge of the world. But here, no, they will not come back here.

She gathered her courage one evening as her father sat sharpening a plough blade by the fire.

— Papa, she ventured. I could marry and we could live here and work with you.

With one word he stopped her.

— Who? he asked, whetting stone paused over the blade. The room was quiet without the rhythmic sound of metal against stone.

She turned her face away.

— We are alone, you and I,
ma petite
. His tone was gentle. But God is kinder than you think.

* * *

Isabelle clasped her neck nervously, still carrying the taste of communion in her mouth – rough, dry bread that remained in the back of her throat long after she had swallowed. Etienne reached up and pulled at her headcloth. He found the end, wound it around his hand and gave a sharp tug. She began to spin, turning and turning out of the cloth, her hair unfurling, seeing flashes of Etienne with a grim smile on his face, then her father's chestnut trees, the fruit small and green and far out of reach.

When she was free of the cloth she stumbled, regained her balance, hesitated. She faced him but stepped backwards. He reached her in two strides, tripped her and tumbled on top of her. With one hand he pulled up her dress while the other buried itself in her hair, fingers splayed, pulling through like a comb to the ends, wrapping the hair around it as it had wound the cloth a moment earlier, until his fist was resting at the nape of her neck.

— La Rousse, he murmured. You've avoided me for a long time. Are you ready?

Isabelle hesitated, then nodded. Etienne pulled her head back by her hair to lift her chin up and bring her mouth to his.

— But the communion of the Pentecost is still in my mouth, she thought, and this is the Sin.

The Tourniers were the only family between Mont Lozère and Florac to own a Bible. Isabelle had seen it at services, when Jean Tournier carried it wrapped in linen and handed it ostentatiously to Monsieur Marcel. He watched it, fretful, throughout the service. It had cost him.

Monsieur Marcel laced his fingers together and held the book in the cradle of his arms, propped against the curve of his paunch. As he read he swayed from side to side as if he were drunk, though Isabelle knew he could not be, since he had forbidden wine. His eyes moved back and forth, and words appeared in his mouth, but it was not clear to her how they got there.

Once the Truth was established inside the old church, Monsieur Marcel had a Bible brought from Lyons, and Isa-belle's father built a wooden stand to hold it. Then the Tourniers' Bible was no longer seen, though Etienne still bragged about it.

— Where do words come from? Isabelle asked him one day after service, ignoring the eyes on them, the glare from Etienne's mother, Hannah. How does Monsieur Marcel get them from the Bible?

Etienne was tossing a stone from hand to hand. He flicked it away; it rustled to a stop in the leaves.

— They fly, he replied firmly. He opens his mouth and the black marks from the page fly to his mouth so quickly you can't see them. Then he spits them out.

— Can you read?

— No, but I can write.

— What do you write?

— I write my name. And I can write your name, he added confidently.

— Show me. Teach me.

Etienne smiled, teeth half-showing. He took a fistful of her skirt and pulled.

— I will teach you, but you must pay, he said softly, his eyes narrowed till the blue barely showed.

It was the Sin again: chestnut leaves crackling in her ears, fear and pain, but also the fierce excitement of feeling the ground under her, the weight of his body on her.

— Yes, she said finally, looking away. But show me first.

He had to gather the materials secretly: the feather from a kestrel, its point cut and sharpened; the fragment of parchment stolen from a corner of one of the pages of the Bible; a dried mushroom that dissolved into black when mixed with water on a piece of slate. Then he led her up the mountain, away from their farms, to a granite boulder with a flat surface that reached her waist. They leaned against it.

Miraculously, he drew six marks to form ET.

Isabelle stared at it.

— I want to write my name, she said. Etienne handed her the feather and stood behind her, his body pressed against the length of her back. She could feel the hard growth at the base of his stomach and a flicker of fearful desire raced through her. He placed his hand over hers and guided it first to the ink, then to the parchment, pushing it to form the six marks. ET, she wrote. She compared the two.

— But they are the same, she said, puzzled. How can that be your name and my name both?

— You wrote it, so it is your name. You don't know that? Whoever writes it, it is theirs.

— But — She stopped, and kept her mouth open, waiting for the marks to fly to her mouth. But when she spoke, it was his name that came out, not hers.

— Now you must pay, Etienne said, smiling. He pushed her over the boulder, stood behind her, and pulled her skirt up and his breeches down. He parted her legs with his knees and with his hand held her apart so that he could enter suddenly, with a quick thrust. Isabelle clung to the boulder as Etienne moved against her. Then with a shout he pushed her shoulders away, bending her forward so that her face and chest pressed hard against the rock.

After he withdrew she stood up shakily. The parchment had been pressed into her cheek and fluttered to the ground. Etienne looked at her face and grinned.

— You've written your name on your face, he said.

She had never been inside the Tourniers' farm, though it was not far from her father's, down along the river. It was the largest farm in the area apart from that of the Duc, who lived further down the valley, half a day's walk towards Florac. It was said to have been built 100 years before, with additions over time: a pigsty, a threshing floor, a tiled roof to replace the thatch. Jean and his cousin Hannah had married late, had only three children, were careful, powerful, remote. Evening visits to their hearth were rare.

Despite their influence, Isabelle's father had never been quiet about his scorn.

— They marry their cousins, Henri du Moulin scoffed. They give money to the church but they wouldn't give a mouldy chestnut to a beggar. And they kiss three times, as if two were not enough.

The farm was spread along a slope in an L shape, the entrance in the crux, facing south. Etienne led her inside. His parents and two hired workers were planting in the fields; his sister, Susanne, was working at the bottom of the kitchen garden.

Inside it was quiet and still. All Isabelle could hear were the muted grunts of pigs. She admired the sty, the barn twice the size of her father's. She stood in the common room, touching the long wooden table lightly with her fingertips as if to steady herself. The room was tidy, newly swept, pots hung at even intervals from hooks on the walls. The hearth took up a whole end of the room, so big all of her family and the Tourniers could stand in it together – all of her family before she began to lose them. Her sister, dead. Her mother, dead. Her brothers, soldiers. Just she and her father now.

— La Rousse.

She turned round, saw Etienne's eyes, the swagger in his stride, and backed up until granite touched her back. He matched her step and put his hands on her hips.

— Not here, she said. Not in your parents' house, on the hearth. If your mother —

Etienne dropped his hands. The mention of his mother was enough to tame him.

— Have you asked them?

He was silent. His broad shoulders sagged and he stared off into a corner.

— You have not asked them.

— I'll be twenty-five soon and I can do what I want then. I won't need their permission then.

Of course they don't want us to marry, Isabelle thought. My family is poor, we have nothing, but they are rich, they have a Bible, a horse, they can write. They marry their cousins, they are friends with Monsieur Marcel. Jean Tournier is the Duc de l'Aigle's
syndic
, collecting tax from us. They would never accept as their daughter a girl they call La Rousse.