“Crows are messengers from the other world,” said Pascale dreamily. “It fell directly at my feet.” She glanced up at the bright blue sky again and sang quietly, “Moon, mother, wise old woman, heaven and earth, we greet you. You shine for all those who are wild and free.” Then she walked off toward the back of the garden, singing as she went.
Next to the old stone hut in which many unused garden tools were stored stood some rosebushes in full bloom. Marianne noticed a closed screw-top jar beside one of the bushes. At first she thought it contained a tiny snake, but then she realized it was a pale umbilical cord.
Pascale pressed the bird into Marianne’s hand; its feathers were as soft as silk. Then she kneeled down awkwardly and picked up a trowel. She dug a small hollow, slid the umbilical cord into it and shoveled the earth back on top. Then she did something that shook Marianne to the core: with one finger she drew three intertwining flames in the soil. It was almost identical to her birthmark!
By the time Pascale got back to her feet, the slightly dreamy look had vanished from her eyes; they were now alive with intelligence and alertness.
“You must think me a strange woman,” she said.
“I think you’re a special woman.”
“Isn’t ‘special’ another word for ‘strange’?”
“Your German’s good, but not that good,” countered Marianne.
Pascale laughed. “I think you’re a special woman too, Marianne. Come on, pass me that fowl.”
“What did you just do?”
Pascale glanced down at the little heap of earth. “Oh, that. One of those old traditions. A woman from the village brought me her newborn granddaughter’s umbilical cord. Ask a witch to bury your child’s umbilical cord under a rosebush, and you can be sure that the child will have a fine voice.”
“And that’s true?” Marianne remembered helping her grandmother with home births. They would burn the umbilical cords in the stove so that the cat didn’t get hold of them.
Pascale flashed her a mischievous grin. “It depends. There’s nothing more real than your most fervent dreams. Am I right?”
Through the ivy-surrounded transom window Marianne could see Emile Goichon sitting reading at his huge desk. He looked up, but his impassive face showed no particular joy at seeing her there. He turned back to his book.
“I don’t know,” she said with a hint of sadness. “I’ve never hoped for much.”
“You poor woman! Well, it’s good that you’ve finally made it here then. We’re always hoping for everything; it’s in our blood.”
Pascale laid the crow on the worn garden table and covered it with a napkin. “This land…You see, the Bretons are proud of their superstitions, which is why they sometimes feel superior to other people. Here, we are at the world’s outer extremity, the penn-ar-bed. This is where the sun goes down, and everywhere we feel the breath of death, Ankou. It’s the everyday half-shadow inside us all. We like mystery, the unusual. We long to discover a wonder behind every stone and every tree.”
Pascale preceded Marianne into the kitchen, which looked as if it would have been the height of fashion sometime back in the thirties.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“I’ll make it,” Marianne said. She put the enamel kettle on to boil and tipped some coffee into the cafetière. Pascale was rummaging in the cupboards and drawers. “Where have they got to?” she asked impatiently, handing Marianne a packet of flour. “Is this what you drink coffee from?”
“No.”
“How about this?” This time she was holding up a pot of jam.
“I’m afraid not.”
“How odd one becomes. I cannot find anything. I don’t even know what that is!” she said, pointing to the softly humming fridge.
Marianne thought back to the Post-it notes she had stuck on the equipment and appliances in Jean-Rémy’s kitchen on her first working day. She found a sheet of jam stickers in the cool larder. While Pascale was sipping her coffee, Marianne wrote words on the stickers and attached them to the cupboards and shelves before attacking the larder. Pascale observed her and then studied what Marianne had written. She pointed to some jars. “Honey! Right?”
“Perfect.”
“And that over there is sugar?”
“Exactly.”
Marianne was caught off guard when Pascale impetuously hugged her. When the older woman released her, she caught sight of Emile standing sullenly in the kitchen, inspecting the notes on the cupboards, pots and machines. His dark eyes bored right into Marianne.
“What do you want here?” he asked in guttural Breton.
Marianne looked helplessly from him to Pascale, who translated for her. “He’s very happy.”
Marianne didn’t believe a word of it. “I…I was trying to help.”
Pascale translated again. Marianne didn’t look away. If she did, she sensed that she would shrink in this tight-lipped man’s estimation. Time seemed to expand to a bursting point. There was no movement on Emile’s face; he was as inscrutable as the rock of the prehistoric cliffs.
“You’re German,” he said gruffly, and Pascale translated.
“You’re unfriendly,” replied Marianne in French.
It was the corners of his mouth that decided to twitch first, then Emile blinked, and finally the ghost of a smile spread across his face, lending it a magical glow for a couple of seconds.
“I’m Breton,” he corrected her in a slightly milder tone before turning on his heel.
“I think he likes you,” Pascale commented, adding with a sigh, “Don’t hold it against him. For our generation the Germans aren’t simply northern neighbors. They were occupiers; they bled our land dry.”
Marianne didn’t hold anything against him. He reminded her of her father, and yet her heart was pounding like that of a rabbit in a trap. She had been surprised by her own courage.
Pascale clapped her hands. “So what are we going to do now?”
“I…I must go back to Ar Mor. My shift’s about to start. It’s the summer holidays, and everyone’s eating like mad.”
Pascale’s face crumpled. “Oh. I thought we might…” Her voice trailed off.
“Should I come again tomorrow?” Marianne enquired gently.
“Oh yes! Oh please do!” Pascale snuggled into Marianne’s arms. “See you tomorrow, Marianne,” she mumbled happily.
A new little bell seemed to be chiming over Marianne’s head, and it had a courageous, impatient ring to it.
It was already the third afternoon she had spent with Pascale before her evening shift at Ar Mor—Emile had barely dignified her with more than two or three words—and she was attempting to put the overgrown garden in a semblance of order. As the two of them, dressed in dirty red overalls reminiscent of those worn by aircraft mechanics, pulled up weeds and chucked them into the wheelbarrow, Pascale told Marianne, in her lilting German, more about these people at the end of the world. A lughnasad, a Celtic harvest festival with a convention of druids, had taken place the previous night a few villages away.
“Druids? You still have druids here?”
“Brittany is teeming with them! There must be thirty thousand, all very Dionysian, and the convention was called to organize the samhain—the night from 31 October to 1 November when the living meet the dead. It needs planning.” Pascale ran her fingers over her chin, and a few clumps of soil stuck to her skin.