She had been away from home for so long—but not long enough. She had swum into an entirely new life, yet the forty-one years with Lothar were overpowering in scale; she couldn’t shed them like an old nightie. They followed her wherever she went and with whomever she laughed. They were like this sea, gnawing away at the land, never leaving it in peace.
“Merde,” she whispered, hesitantly at first, then more vigorously, “Merde!” She screamed at the waves, “Shit, shit, shit!” and began to underscore every word with a chord. A tango de la merde. Her fingers didn’t immediately hit the right buttons, for everything was mixed up on the accordion: the F was below the C; the D was under the A; the G above the C. She cursed, she squeezed, and the accordion produced entreating noises, screams of hatred, passion and longing. She tamed them, gave them space and strength, allowed them to expand in the darkness. She let the bellows breathe in the salty air, and when she was too exhausted to continue playing, she rested her head on the instrument.
She breathed in. She breathed out. She thought she heard a woman’s laughter. Maybe it was Nimue, the lady of the sea? She looked up to find a crescent moon: a pale silver cradle, shrinking from the sun.
Her fingers started tentatively to move, trying to remember the most beautiful song she had ever heard played on an accordion—the song about the son of the moon. D minor, G minor, F, A7. “Hijo de la luna.”
—
Marianne practiced until her fingers could no longer defy the early-morning cold and damp. Her left arm ached from pulling and squeezing the bellows, and her back hurt from the instrument’s weight. Dawn had uncloaked the night, and behind her there were the first signs of the rising sun in the east.
Exhausted, she released the instrument. She was on edge. She didn’t know what was real and what was a dream. Slowly she played Piazzolla’s Libertango.
Still no answers. Nowhere. Questions; only questions.
Four days later, on 14 July, Ar Mor and the guesthouse looked to Marianne as if someone had turned them upside down. Since early morning they had been transporting tables, chairs, half of the kitchen utensils and a makeshift bar from the restaurant out onto the breakwater. On all sides colorful lanterns were hanging from strings, there was a covered stage on the quayside, and French and Breton flags fluttered from the windows.
Pascale Goichon was still chasing evil spirits from the rooms and purifying them of negative energy. She was going to round off by blessing the hearths—the fireplace in the lobby and the one in the dining room—and casting a protective spell.
“Are we throwing a big party to mark the reopening of the guesthouse?” Marianne had asked with amazement.
“Yes and no,” replied Geneviève. “We’re actually celebrating the national holiday, but is there any better day to celebrate a renaissance than that of the bal populaire?”
The Bastille Day ball! That meant moving every activity out into the street: eating, drinking, singing, music and dancing. That evening, waltzes and tango would ring out in Kerdruc, as well as gavottes and traditional folk music. Everybody would be celebrating in the open air. In every village in France, the whole day was given over to the ball.
Jean-Rémy and Marianne had been in the kitchen making preparations since five o’clock that morning. That evening there would be buckwheat pancakes and cider, steak frites and lamb cutlets, scampi and quiche, fish soup and lobster, cheese, lavender ice cream, mutton for the locals, and oysters, oysters and more oysters for the tourists.
Behind the open-air kitchen unit, a young man called Padrig was helping Jean-Rémy to serve. Laurine lined up bottles of apple cider, Calvados, pastis, champagne, rosé wine, Breton beer, Muscadet and large volumes of red wine.
Madame Geneviève was only partially satisfied with Padrig. The mason’s son was overly jealous and protective of the alcohol stocks, tempted to drink them himself rather than leave enough for the guests. She hadn’t been able to find any other temporary staff, though: Alain Poitier in Rozbras had already hired everyone she’d asked! What a sight it was over there. A bouncy castle in the form of a pirate ship, an ice sculpture of the revolutionary Marianne (scantily clad, with pert breasts) and a wooden dance floor with blue-white-and-red garlands. Geneviève cursed.
Marianne had been put in charge of tidying, washing up and providing regular food and drink for the musicians. She tried not to trip over the quintet’s instruments as she carried sandwiches and bowls of cotriade to the men on the open-air stage. She pointed to the wind instrument. “It’s a pommer, Madame,” said the smallest of the five men, who had bandy legs and a wrinkled face. He picked up the pipe and struck up a tune. The others set their soup bowls aside, took up accordion, violin and bass and began to play along. Marianne was catapulted back in time.
She was in Paris, in a dazzlingly lit hospital room, listening to music on the radio. Music you wanted to dance to. She saw old men dancing with young women; she saw a long, richly laid table, laughing children and apple trees, the sunlight on the sea at the horizon; she saw blue shutters on old thatched sandstone cottages.
When she opened her eyes, the vision had come true. She felt the warmth of the sunshine, and a wave of infinite gratitude swept through her. The men were in traditional costume—round black hats with silk ribbons, and cummerbunds—and they were playing a song just for her.
Without thinking, she shut her eyes, raised her arms and began to spin in time to the music. She danced and danced on her own, and let herself be carried away to a place where there were no lurking secrets, no questions, to a place where everything was fine.
She only stopped dancing when the musicians ceased their playing. She had been filled with a calm that blanketed every somber question.
“What’s your name?” asked the violinist.
She called it out.
“Marianne!” cried the musician, turning to his colleagues. “Our first lady, our beloved, the heroine of our republic, our revolution, our freedom. Gentlemen, freedom just danced for us!”
“Vive Marianne!” they shouted in unison, bowing low to her.
Marianne went back into the kitchen with the feeling that she had just taken a great step forward in her true life.
The ball wasn’t yet officially open, but the first Ar Mor regulars had already arrived: Marie-Claude, her highly pregnant daughter Claudine, Paul and the twins, who were watching them set up the buffet, Jean-Rémy nimbly, and Padrig with infuriating sloth.
Paul leaned forward to give Claudine’s tummy a gentle tickle. “Don’t you think Claudine looks fantastic? So…so pregnant.”
“I don’t want to look fantastic. I want to look slim,” grumbled Marie-Claude’s daughter.
“Why? You look great, especially your wobbly backside,” Marie-Claude said, laughing.
“My backside keeps flirting with men while I’m looking the other way, and there’s nothing I can do about it!”
—