Yann was the first to move, pulling on his jacket over his vest, kissing Marianne softly on the forehead and whispering, “Je t’aime.” Lothar took off his tie, unbuttoned his collar and asked, “Should I go too? And never come back?”
“As if that wasn’t completely beside the point at this particular moment,” Grete muttered almost inaudibly.
“Just go to bed, Lothar,” Marianne said wearily.
“I don’t know you anymore,” he replied.
Nor do I, she thought.
“But I’d like to,” he added softly, beseechingly. When Marianne said nothing, he delicately touched her cheek and left.
“I wonder who Victor is,” said Marianne after a while. At this name, Claudine gave a start, and Marianne registered the silent request in her eyes.
Once the doctor had tended to Claudine, he came over to Marianne and shook her hand, saying “Nice work, Madame,” before taking a sheet of paper on which he needed to fill out the relevant details: birthplace and time, people in attendance, father.
“Unknown,” Marianne said to this last question.
The doctor turned to Claudine. “Is that correct?”
She nodded with wide-open eyes.
“Have you already chosen a name, Mademoiselle?”
“Anna-Marie,” whispered Claudine, smiling at Marianne.
Sidonie’s pebble was resting near the girl’s face between Claudine’s full breasts. It was the first thing Anna-Marie saw when she opened her eyes.
—
Over in Rozbras, a young woman was still standing beside the stone wall. Laurine felt alone, but not lonely. She realized that she would never be lonely as long as she was capable of taking even a single step. Yet she was saving this step until she found out toward whom she should take it. Life might often decide for her, but it would not completely rule her movements.
She was still gazing over at Kerdruc when Padrig brought the Peugeot to a halt beside her. He made her get in and drove her to a place filled with unbestowed flowers and unread letters.
The thunderstorm had given birth to a radiant day. When Marianne walked over to her window after only a few hours’ sleep and opened it to let in the August sun, she saw Geneviève, Alain, Jean-Rémy and the nuns covering a long table with white tablecloths outside. Geneviève and Alain were teasing each other like playful children, and touching continually, as if to convince themselves that the other wasn’t simply a figment of their dreams.
The fest-noz guests who had stayed the night emerged from the guesthouse and sat down at the huge breakfast table. Birds were singing amid the lush green foliage, a light breeze carried the scent of the sea, and the white boats rocked on the glittering Aven. Father Ballack came out carrying an armful of baguettes. Protected from the morning sun by the red awning on the terrace, Emile and Pascale Goichon sat hand in hand, with Madame Pompadour and Merline sprawling at their feet. Next to them Paul was dunking a croissant in a glass of red wine and raising it to Rozenn’s lips. As the Gwen II drew closer from the Atlantic, heading for the quay, Marianne recognized Simon, and beside him a woman wearing a cocky sailor’s hat and a striped T-shirt. It was Grete. Max was sunning himself on the seat of the Vespa.
No sign of Yann. And no Sidonie, ever again.
Marianne looked at the open window and clapped her hands to her eyes. The others didn’t know yet. They didn’t yet realize that there would never be another Monday pensioners’ get-together in Kerdruc with Sidonie. When she lowered her hands, she saw Geneviève waving to her, her other arm curled around Alain, who was pressing his Genoveva tightly to his side. Geneviève pointed to an empty seat in the middle of the long table: everyone else had already sat down. The nuns, the Kerdruc pensioners, the pining chef. Grete. The summer guests, who thought they would never again spend their holidays without visiting this port. Only Yann, Marie-Claude the hairdresser, Colette and the most beautiful young woman in the village were missing. And Marianne. Geneviève pointed to the seat again.
That’s my seat? She looked at all these wonderful people.
There was a knock. Lothar came in and stood behind her. “Marianne,” he said. “I want to ask for your forgiveness. Give me a second chance. Or do you want to stay here?”
Marianne gazed down at the quayside. Whoever this seat among these extraordinary, loving people was for, it was not her. Not Marianne Messmann, née Lanz, from Celle, a woman who read magazines rescued from recycling containers and ate food past its sell-by date, who had done nothing except pretend. She had only imagined that she was something special, but she was no different than she’d been during the preceding sixty years.
Lothar was her life, and when he had arrived, he had reminded her of who she really was, where she came from and what would always be inside her, no matter how much makeup she applied and how much she strutted around onstage. There was a struggle inside her, but ultimately she felt that this, this here, was all a performance. She had had her share of happiness. She wasn’t fated for more: not for this land, not for the man with the marine eyes, not for the seat among these amazing people, who were so much grander and more wonderful than she was.
“Come on, or else we won’t ever start and we’ll starve to death!” called Alain.
Marianne despondently combed her hair, put on a white dress, rinsed her mouth and pinched her cheeks instead of applying rouge and lipstick as she had done with such joy in previous weeks. The stranger who looked her in the eye from the mirror wasn’t smiling. She was gray, and her eyes were empty.
“I am not you, and you are dead,” said Marianne.
I only lived as long as you allowed me to, the unknown woman, whom she had taken for herself, seemed to say.
Lothar appeared behind her and spoke directly to her face in the mirror. “I love you. Marry me again.”
—
As they approached the table, Jean-Rémy stood up with a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. “To Marianne. She can play the accordion, deliver children in kitchens and remove the salt from a soup.”
“And make stupid people clever,” called Geneviève to general amusement.
“And drive normal people mad,” added Pascale, before asking her husband, “Or was it the other way around?”
The others rose to their feet with Jean-Rémy. Emile leaned on Pascale, and they all raised their glasses and cups of cider. “To Marianne,” they announced as one.
Marianne didn’t know where to look. It was unbearable to think that they liked and admired her. She squirmed with shame.
I’m a fraud. I’m not even a shadow of what they see in me. I lied to them. I’m a con artist.
It was as if she had used up all her courage the previous night, and she didn’t dare to look a single one of them in the eye.
I’ve only pretended to them to be a special person, but none of it can be true. Nothing.
Lothar, who knew this nothingness so well, and had traveled here to find it, loved her nonetheless. He loved her. She knew that now. How could she simply discard that love?
“Why won’t you sit down?” asked Geneviève. Marianne swallowed hard.
I love you. Marry me again.