“I’m going to go back to Germany with my husband,” she said quietly.
Pascale knocked over her glass in shock.
“Please sit down right now,” whispered Jean-Rémy. “Quickly.”
Now everyone was staring at her with distrust, disappointment and astonishment.
“I’m not the right person for that seat,” said Marianne a little more loudly. “Please forgive me.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
—
As Marianne was packing her suitcase, Grete pushed open the door. “Have you lost your mind? What was that all about down there?”
Marianne pressed her lips together and continued to pile up her clothes.
“Hello, wake up! If you’re locked inside there somewhere, Marianne, send me a signal!” Marianne stopped.
“It’s just the way it is!” she shouted at her neighbor in a voice that was cracking with emotion. “I’m just the way I am! Nothing more! Not that…musician. Not a sex bomb for Yann.” It hurt her to utter his name. “Nor am I a healer or a sea-whisperer, and I don’t make mad people normal! I haven’t a clue about life. I’m nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing. Those people see a pure illusion.” She collapsed onto the bed, weeping.
“Oh you poor little botched Betty!” Grete couldn’t help saying.
“It’s true,” whispered Marianne, when her body was no longer shaken by sobs. “I can’t cope with life here. I’m not made for it. And however hard I’ve tried, I can’t manage to be the person I’d like to be, living freely, deciding what I want, not fearing death. That’s simply not me. What am I supposed to do here? Keep playing the neighborhood German witch? I’m scared of this life, always being more than I actually am. I can’t reinvent myself. Could you?”
Grete shrugged. If she’d been able to do that, she wouldn’t have spent twenty years with the faithfully unfaithful hairdresser.
“You can do anything you want,” she ventured.
“I want to go home,” murmured Marianne.
—
The taxi was waiting with its engine running. Marianne shook the bystanders’ hands, one after the other. Paul, Rozenn, Simon, Pascale, Emile, Alain, Jean-Rémy and Madame Geneviève.
“We never change,” Geneviève said by way of farewell. “That’s what you said, Marianne. We only forget who we are. Don’t forget who you are, Madame Lanz.” She gave Marianne an envelope containing her wages.
Marianne turned to Jean-Rémy and gave him a hug, whispering in his ear, “Laurine loves you, you daft man. And I know all about what you’ve got stacked in the cooler.”
Jean-Rémy wouldn’t let go of her. “I couldn’t do it, just as you can’t. We’re both daft people.”
Emile swung the accordion case into the trunk of the taxi without a glance. Marianne nodded to him and got into the car.
She didn’t look back. Her breathing became more and more strained. When they reached the junction to Concarneau, where she had once hitchhiked, and turned right toward Pont-Aven, Lothar spoke for the first time. “I didn’t think you’d come with me.”
“This is what I want.”
“Because you love me?”
“Did that ever matter to you?”
“Not enough, I presume, or you wouldn’t have left.”
She said nothing until they reached Pont-Aven, where she knocked on the door of Colette’s flat above the gallery. When Colette realized why Marianne was there, her expression hardened. “So you’re leaving the moment the going gets tough, eh?”
“I’m sorry…”
“No you’re not. Not enough. You’re obviously not sorry enough for yourself. You’re still not.” Colette slammed the door in her face.
Marianne stared at the wooden door. How was she supposed to take that?
The next moment, the door was flung open again. “Yann has his show in Paris on 1 September. At the Galerie Rohan, my old stomping ground. It was meant to be a surprise for you. That’s because he’s showing you. These are his first large paintings in thirty years. Now, though, he might as well hang them in a museum in the section called ‘Twenty-First-Century Illusions.’?” The door banged shut once more.
Marianne already had one foot on the step when Colette called out, “You’re dead to me, Marianne!” Just further evidence that she had only imagined she’d found a home here.
“What did she say?” asked Lothar.
“She wished us a safe journey,” Marianne replied.
—
As they stood outside Yann’s studio, Lothar took her hand.
“Do you have to do this?”
“It’s a matter of courtesy,” said Marianne, pulling her hand from his.
The curious courtesy of telling a man, I love you but I’m not the person you think I am, and I want to go home. All of a sudden Marianne was seized by the wild hope that Yann would do anything he could to keep her from leaving.
Walking past the tall, wide windows of Yann’s studio, it occurred to her that she had never seen the pictures he had painted of her. She took a deep breath. Was leaving the right choice?
As she entered the hallway that led to the bright, high-ceilinged room, Marianne heard sobbing. Neither Yann nor Marie-Claude noticed as she stepped into the studio. The aging hairdresser was weeping in Yann’s arms in front of a painting of a naked woman. A magnificent naked woman.
Yet her weeping soon turned to laughter; she had in fact been laughing the whole time. She hugged Yann and covered his face with quick kisses.
They’re laughing at you and your stupidity.
Marianne ran away. There was no need to answer the question of right or wrong now.
“So?” asked Lothar, when she was once more sitting beside him, holding back her tears. “How did he take it?”
“Like a man,” gasped Marianne.
“Incredible,” said Lothar. “Do you know, when you were away during that trouble with Simone, we had a chat. He raved about you so much that I found myself thinking, who’s he talking about? He would never have let go of the woman he saw in you.”
“It’s not Simone, it’s Sidonie, and there wasn’t any trouble with her—she died. Sidonie’s dead.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” After a while he said, “Shall we stay in Paris for a few days?” adding with a little worried laugh, “But only if you don’t run away this time.”
—
A car engine started up outside, and Marie-Claude released herself from Yann’s embrace. She had laughed as she told him that she hadn’t recognized her reflection in a shop window, thinking, Who’s that unfriendly-looking woman? until she had realized that it was her.
Claudine had only just told her mother about the dramatic delivery in Ar Mor, and that it was Victor who had got her pregnant. He was married, and Claudine had decided not to tell him about his baby. He should love her and choose her because he wanted her, not because he felt it was his duty.
Marie-Claude was a grandmother, and she had immediately run to see Yann to persuade him to come to Kerdruc with her so that she could thank Marianne.
“These are wonderful pictures. Has Marianne seen them yet?”
Yann shook his head.