“A hundred and fifty-two euros!” Colette repeated in disbelief. “That’s a lot of money for denouncing a woman!”
This earned her a glare from the baker. “Protection from the evil eye is priceless! La Mer charges a hundred and fifty-two euros for lifting evil spells from farms, a hundred and twenty-two euros for businesses and ninety-two euros for houses.”
“And Madame Morice?” the baker’s wife asked breathlessly.
“Ha! That woman! She immediately reported him to the police for defamation! She said that the whole village had embarked on a witch-hunt, and her children had been spat on at school! Then she cursed La Mer, and his powers have waned as a result. We ought to pray for his recovery.”
“Well,” stated Colette, “I don’t believe in faith healers who run around the house with a wet cloth, as La Mer does, to banish the devil. I do believe that the baguettes need to come out of the oven, though. May I have one, Géraldine? Or don’t you sell bread to normal people anymore?”
As Marianne and Colette emerged, giggling, from the bakery, Marianne bumped into a man who was gazing up into the sky, lost in thought. She apologized and pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes.
“Yann!” cried the gallery owner happily. After the obligatory three kisses on the cheeks, Colette turned to Marianne. “May I introduce you to the most underrated painter in France, Madame? This is Yann Gamé.”
Marianne felt the butterflies in her stomach. The way he looked at her!
Yann took her hand and pulled her toward him. The strength of his grip made her head spin.
“Hello again,” he said earnestly.
Marianne involuntarily closed her eyes as Yann’s lips brushed her cheek. He kissed her on the left, he kissed her on the right, and the third time his kiss was infinitely tender and very close to the corner of her mouth. Marianne hadn’t kissed him; she was incapable of moving a muscle. She was scared that she would stand rooted to the spot like an oak sapling.
“Hi, Yann!” Her voice was like a splintering branch.
Good grief! He had no way of knowing that he was the first man to kiss her since Lothar. Everyone was constantly kissing each other here, but for Marianne a kiss was as intimate as…Sweet Jesus, her thoughts were hopping about like a sparrow. She thought of Lothar, and she thought of what might happen after kissing.
“Well, I hear the call of work. A few crazy English people are coming and they want to decorate their entire house with pictures. Who am I to stop them?” Colette glanced at her watch. “I have to go. Yann, how about showing this fair lady the Yellow Christ in the Chapelle de Trémalo, so she knows why they call this ‘Gauguin country’? All those biscuit tins with pictures of chubby women on them can really get you down. Yes? Merci, mon ami. Au revoir!” With that, she bade them farewell, leaving Marianne and Yann alone in silence.
Marianne felt as if she were about to faint.
“Madame, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on Thursday to an…enterrement?” Yann cursed his words the moment he uttered them. Why hadn’t anything better come to his mind? He was out of practice at courting women, but it was too late now.
Marianne hadn’t really understood Yann’s suggestion, but she had registered that he wanted to see her again. The bubbles inside her chest burst from pure happiness. She felt a sudden surge of guilt, as if she were already being unfaithful and cheating on Lothar.
They didn’t talk as Yann drove her back to Kerdruc in his decrepit Renault 4, merely glanced at each other again and again, reading the budding love in each other’s face with astonishment, as if they were only now learning its vocabulary.
Marianne had been waiting on the quayside for twenty minutes by the time Yann picked her up. She simply hadn’t been able to bear sitting in her room any longer, wondering whether she was dressed smartly enough. She could have spent many more hours changing her outfit. Jeans or red dress? Tight blouse or soft sweater? High-heeled pumps or flat-soled linen slippers? Good heavens, she simply had too little experience of what a woman should wear on her first date to make herself attractive but not too inviting. She had opted for the dark-blue jeans, pumps and a white blouse, which she buttoned up to the top.
She was incredibly excited, and had been for two days. She could barely eat, and above all she couldn’t wipe this ridiculous grin from her face. Excitement didn’t even come close to describing what she felt. Naked panic, more like. Foolish joy. One moment her complexion was pale white, the next bright red.
Eventually she had gone down to the kitchen to see Jean-Rémy and had let him pour her a shot of rum without any objection. It had calmed her down a little, but only until Jean-Rémy undid the top two buttons of her blouse, turned up the collar slightly and signaled to her to tousle her tidily arranged hair a bit. “Très jolie, très rock’n’roll,” he had said, and Marianne had gone shakily out onto the quayside to continue her wait.
Increasingly she felt like a boat at sea, drifting farther and farther from land until the coast was out of sight. The land of her past was fading in similar fashion. Sixty years appeared to have flashed past like a single day, and it was as if that day had occurred many centuries ago.
When Yann got out of his car and walked toward her, she was scared that she might either burst out laughing or dissolve into a never-ending fit of weeping. She was so nervous, her hands were sopping wet.
He gave her that look again. No man had ever looked at her so intently: Marianne could almost feel herself growing warm in the spotlight of Yann’s eyes.
“Salut,” he murmured as he bent forward to kiss her. This time all three touches of his lips were close to the corners of her mouth. He kissed her slowly and deliberately, and she inhaled his fragrance. He smelled of the outdoors, with a whiff of paint and nice tangy aftershave.
He guided her to his dilapidated car, opened the door and made sure that he also got to close it. She had no idea what to do with her hands and where to look.
Yann prayed ardently that he wasn’t about to commit the most stupid mistake of his entire life. Over the past two days he had been continually tempted to come and withdraw his invitation. But a man didn’t do such a thing. Invite someone to a funeral? What on earth had he been thinking?
Yann had often visited the fisherman Jozeb Pulenn in Penmarc’h to purchase ray and cod. The now late Jozeb had also been helpful in Yann’s search for themes for his work. How often Yann had painted the Notre Dame de la Joie chapel, a Gothic church by the shore, and the Phare d’Eckmühl, France’s tallest lighthouse, which dwarfed the adjacent village of Saint-Guénolé. He loved to remove his glasses and paint everything his senses could absorb, not only what his weak eyes were able to perceive.