The whites of the priest’s eyes gleamed fiercely on the other side of the grille.
“You see, I have a husband I can’t bear to be with anymore. I had a life I can’t stand anymore. But I no longer want to end it all,” whispered Marianne. “That’s…too easy.”
Sixty. It definitely wasn’t too late. It’s never too late, she thought. Never, not even an hour before the void.
“I want to get drunk at last!” she said more loudly. “I want to wear red underwear! I want a family. I want to play the accordion. I want my own room and my own bed! I’m so fed up of hearing, ‘You can’t do that! What will people think? You can’t have your cake and eat it. Dreams are all an illusion.’ Mad—my husband thinks I’m mad, that’s what he announced on television! I feel so ashamed, and I hate him for making me feel that way.
“And now I want to sleep with Yann again! Do you know how long it had been since my last orgasm before Yann? So long! I want a man who’s interested in how I feel. I want desire and Yann and to eat lobster with my fingers.” She got up, bumping her head. “And I don’t want to leave Kerdruc. There you go!”
Oh no, I’m not going to leave Kerdruc of my own free will. They’ll have to catch me and tie me up and carry me away.
She let herself fall back onto the bench before addressing the priest again. “Thank you, you’ve really helped me.”
“You’re welcome, madame,” the man said in a low voice. In German.
Marianne jumped to her feet in shock and hurried out of the wardrobe at the same time as the priest. It wasn’t a priest, but a man in a black roll-neck sweater with thick glasses, thinning blond hair and a notepad in his hand.
“I live out in Cabellou for half the year. I’m from Hamburg and I’m a writer. I’m sorry I didn’t immediately…I was so surprised when you came in and sat down. And then you were in such full swing that…Good grief, no one could make up those things you said!”
Marianne stared at him. “Of course not,” she said. “It’s true.”
“I wonder if my wife sometimes thinks I’m not really interested in how she feels. Do you think that we men don’t respect women enough as women?”
“Do you have a car?” she asked instead of answering.
The writer nodded.
“Could you drive me to Kerdruc?”
When she had got back from Concarneau, her room was exactly as she had left it: the bed messy, the wardrobe open, roses in the vase. The only thing missing was Yann. The imprint of his head on the pillow was still visible.
The view from her window to the sea over Kerdruc’s breakwater, the old thatched cottages, the colorful boats and the swaying waters was just as it had been the first time she had seen it—so unsettlingly beautiful that it made the rest of the world difficult to bear.
She unpacked her bulky suitcase, went down to join Jean-Rémy in the kitchen, tied her apron around her waist and began to prepare batter for the pancakes, both sweet and savory, as if nothing had happened.
Jean-Rémy stared at her, his mouth gaping at first, then with a never-ending beaming smile. Geneviève Ecollier came into the kitchen and gave her a testing look. “Welcome back,” she said. “You’ve walked a long way to reach us at the end of the world.”
“And this is exactly where I want to stay,” replied Marianne.
“Fantastic. Champagne?”
Marianne nodded, and as they clinked glasses she said, “You can waste half your life only ever looking at the man who has caused you the greatest pain.”
“That’s typical of us women,” said Madame Ecollier after a while. “We think it’s a mark of bravery.”
“Thinking that someone else’s life is more important than your own?”
“Yes, it’s a reflex. Like the twelve-year-old girl who is placed at the exact position in the family where she disturbs everyone the least, punctually sets the table and clears away after her father, and waits patiently to be loved, as long as she behaves herself.”
“I think that’s stupid.”
“But only recently, right? Before that, you were stupid too and you didn’t even realize it. Everything was more sacred than yourself, and your own longings were the least sacred thing of all.”
Marianne thought of Lothar and nodded.
“You’ve changed,” said Madame Geneviève, her voice interrupting Marianne’s train of thought.
“People never change!” Marianne retorted. “We forget ourselves, and when we rediscover ourselves, we merely imagine that we have changed. That’s not true, though. You can’t change dreams; you can only kill them—and some of us are very good murderers.”
“Have you rekindled your dreams, Madame Lance?”
“I’m still looking for the rest of my dream,” whispered Marianne. And the part of me that dares to seize it. Oh Yann, forgive me. Please forgive me.
“Where’s Laurine got to?” she asked, trying to regain her composure.
“She has a job interview in Rozbras.”
“What? Why?”
Geneviève pursed her lips and left the kitchen. Marianne found Jean-Rémy smoking a joint outside the back door. She stood up as straight and tall as she could. “What. Have. You. Done?” She grew angrier with every word.
Jean-Rémy blew a smoke ring into the air.
“Slept with another woman,” he said with studied casualness. “It’s better that way. I’m not made for one woman, and definitely not for one like Laurine.”
Marianne pulled back her arm and dealt the young chef a resounding slap, which sent the joint spinning from his hand. His face twisted with suppressed anger, but he picked up the joint and hid his resentment behind an impassive expression. “Yann Gamé didn’t exactly look overjoyed when I saw him earlier either.”
Marianne slumped onto the stone step beside Jean-Rémy.
“Do you know what men do when they’re suffering, Marianne? They drink. They sleep with other women if they’re lucky enough to get it up despite their grief, and then they wait until things improve.”
He passed her the joint, and she took a quick drag, then a longer one.
“Merde,” she said disconsolately.
“Ya,” agreed Jean-Rémy.
The flush on Laurine’s cheeks bore witness to her exertions, her fury at Jean-Rémy and her aching heart. The waitress lowered her gaze as she gave Alain Poitier the outstanding reference letter that Genevière had handed to her with a stony face.
When Jean-Rémy had made his blunder, she’d felt as if something had sliced through her soul, and it wouldn’t stop bleeding.
Alain studied her. “Mademoiselle, you’ve been working at Ar Mor for years.”
“You know all there is to know, Monsieur Poitier,” replied Laurine. “And I know that you own the restaurant in Rozbras and that you’re Madame Ecollier’s competitor. You make life difficult for her. But I wanted to leave, and so here I am.”
Alain was confused by Laurine’s straightforwardness and honesty. “Is that what she says? That I make life difficult for her?”
“She doesn’t say anything about you, monsieur. Nothing bad and nothing good. Nothing at all.”