Out of consideration for Nolwenn, Paul and Rozenn had never lived together, even though he had been with Rozenn for fourteen years and married for ten of those. Had been. Then that boy had come on the scene.
Rozenn’s actions after their divorce, which Paul had made no attempt to block, were greatly to her credit: she had made sure that he saw the twins on a regular basis. Nolwenn had been quick to spot the practical benefits of this arrangement: Paul was a cheap babysitter. She had laid down clear rules. No Breton stories, songs, proverbs or sayings about the weather. The girls were French, and that was that. She would have loved to put up one of the signs that had graced school classrooms for generations: No spitting on the floor or speaking Breton. Anyone caught doing either of those things had a clog hung around their neck.
Once he had given the girls a parting hug and pulled the door shut behind him, he hissed furiously, “Hep brezhoneg Breizh ebet!” No Breton, no Brittany! And no Brittany, no homeland.
My God, he was thirsty!
He had trouble releasing the handbrake—it was going rusty again in the damp, salty air—but finally he managed.
On the drive back to Kerdruc, he spied Marianne walking along the opposite side of the road. She’s very nice, he thought, winding down his window. “Trying to walk the length and breadth of Brittany, are we?”
She didn’t immediately answer, because they were suddenly separated by a cycling race. Having fought their way up a rise, elderly gentlemen in neon Lycra shouted cheerful greetings as they freewheeled downhill.
For a fleeting instant Paul had caught the despondent expression on Marianne’s face, but then she flashed him one of her bewitching smiles. She was like Brittany itself: hidden depths behind a beautiful facade. He wondered what she kept concealed inside her. She looked like she didn’t want to be disturbed, so he gave a wave and stepped on the accelerator. In the rearview mirror he saw that strangely distant look settle on her girlish features again, as if she had lost something but didn’t know what it was.
Paul needed some distraction. He rattled across Kerbuan farmyard, past Simon’s rowing boat on its props, parked the car and then clumped through the kitchen garden to the back door. Simon was sitting smoking on one of the two steps that were the traditional way of preventing korrigans—dwarf-sized trolls—from climbing into the house.
“Hi. Say, you old goat, you wouldn’t have something to drink?” said Paul.
“Young or old?”
“Something older than me.”
“That’s a tough ask.”
They drank the first bottle, a C?tes du Rh?ne, in silence, aside from Paul’s mumbled thanks when Simon pushed a baguette, some salted butter and a slice of peppered paté across the table to him. As always, Simon made a cross with his knife in the bottom of the loaf (out of superstition).
With the second bottle, a Crozes Hermitage, Paul found his tongue again. “Evit reizha? ar bleizi, Ez eo ret o dimezi?,” he said. I tamed the wolf by marrying it. “Why on earth did I choose Rozenn! If I hadn’t taken her, I couldn’t have lost her. What an idiot I am!”
“Well, da heul ar bleiz ned a ket an oan,” said Simon. The sheep doesn’t run after the wolf. “Especially if the wolf has already found a fresh prey.”
This didn’t really dispel Paul’s lovesickness for Rozenn, but there was nothing more to add.
Simon filled some galettes with goat’s cheese, figs and butter, lit the gas and pushed them into the oven. Five minutes later, the men ate the piping-hot savory pancakes with their fingers.
“Am I too old?” asked Paul when they’d moved on to the third bottle, his consonants drifting away on the red waves in his repurposed mustard jar.
“For what? Drinking? You’re never too old to drink, only too young. Yar-mat,” Simon said, and they clinked glasses.
“For women. Too old for women.” Paul ran his hand over his thinning hair.
“N’eo ket blev melen ha koantiri, A laka ar pod da virvi?,” Simon replied after a while. Blond hair and beauty don’t bring the pot to a boil. He burped under his breath.
“True, it’s personality…or something. I like all women—the brunettes, the small ones, the fat ones, the ugly ones—but none of them wants me! Why? Have I got too much personality?”
“You’re simply too good-looking, my boy,” said Simon, and finally Paul broke out into a chuckle. He laughed away all his misery with Rozenn and Nolwenn, and Simon staggered to his feet. He returned with champagne.
“Much too young. Underage,” he slurred, as he set down the bottle of Pol Roger in front of Paul. They poured the champagne into clean water glasses.
“No spitting on the floor or speaking Breton,” Paul roared in a commanding voice.
“Yes, sir,” cried Simon, and they looked over their shoulders and spat on the tiled floor.
When Paul had drained his glass in three long, vigorous swigs, he leaned toward Simon. “That Marianne…” he began.
“Hmm,” mumbled Simon.
“There’s something about her that makes you feel young again, as if everything you think and feel is okay. Know what I mean?”
“Nuh.”
“I once stood next to her as she was ironing napkins in the sun on the terrace and told her everything about Rozenn,” said Paul.
“What’d you tell her?”
“About Rozenn leaving.”
“And then?”
“Then she did something.” Paul got up and put his hand on Simon’s lower arm.
“That’s nuts.”
“I can’t do it as well as she can. Something was lifted from me. A shadow, I don’t know. And then…it didn’t hurt so much anymore. There’s something in her touch.”
Simon slowly nodded. “I told her about the sea. I don’t know why. She listens with her heart. I bring my boat in and she waves to me from the window. No one has ever waved to me. Since she’s been here, I don’t feel I’m missing something on land anymore. Know what I mean? Marianne is like the sea, but on dry land.”
Paul sat down again at the table next to Simon. “We’ve grown old, you rum goat,” he whispered, as he groped for his champagne.
The next time Marianne met Pascale Goichon, two weeks later, the old woman was cradling a dead crow in her hands.
“It’s a present,” she whispered, motioning with her chin to the skies. “She still loves me.”
Marianne was curious. And concerned. This was what had driven her back to the Goichons’ house. Jean-Rémy called Pascale folle goat, which almost earned him a slap from Madame Geneviève. “She isn’t some madwoman in the woods! She’s a dagosoitis! A white witch.”
When Marianne had enquired why Pascale spoke German, Geneviève had explained that she had once worked as a stewardess on flights between Germany and France, and later all over the world. When she had her wits about her, she could speak six languages, including Russian and Japanese.