I would have loved to be beautiful, thought Marianne. Just for five minutes. I wish someone I love had loved me. She dipped a finger in the water and made circling motions. How I would have loved to sleep with another man than Lothar. How I would have loved to wear something red. I wish I had fought.
She got up. It wasn’t too late: she could still do what she wanted, and she wanted to do it in Kerdruc.
Marianne sat down on a bench next to the newspaper kiosk on the concourse of the Gare de Montparnasse and stared at the departures board, which showed the 10.05 TGV Atlantique 8715 for Quimper. She was trembling with joy and apprehension. When the letters began to spin on the board and her train was announced on Platform 7, she stood up. Her knee was hurting again.
She had put down most of her cash on the ticket counter and studied the painting on the tile. Her money would only take her as far as Auray. She would somehow have to make her way to Pont-Aven and Kerdruc under her own steam.
She looked around as she walked alongside the snaking high-speed train. With every step she had the impression that something was taking over her body, as if a foreign creature were determined to enter, fill her and shape her anew. A sense of irritation stopped her in her tracks. What was it?
She caught hold of the handrail and tried to pull herself up the steep steps into the carriage. She could still climb back down, look for a telephone and call Lothar to ask him to come and fetch her, to prevent her from putting her plan into action. But wherever I go, I’m already dead.
She hauled herself doggedly up onto the next step and searched for her seat, which was by the window. She sank into it, closed her eyes and waited for the train to roll out of the station at last. No one took the seat next to hers.
When she glanced up, her eyes met a smiling face. This woman could bounce back from failure, that much was clear; her big bright eyes sparkled. Their gazes met, and Marianne snapped her eyelids shut again. She couldn’t understand why the woman was staring at her like this. But she also wanted to store it away in her memory—the faint glimmer in her eye, the mauve cheeks, the sun playing in her hair.
—
When Marianne got off the train three hours later in Auray, she took a deep, long breath. The air was smoother and clearer here than in Paris, less oppressive. She decided to buy a map and a bottle of water and then hitchhike. She would make it to Kerdruc somehow, even if she had to walk the whole way.
As she emerged from the other side of the station building, she spied a nun on the only bench in the shade. The woman was sitting in a curiously lopsided position with her head thrown back. It looked as if she’d left the world for a better place. Marianne glanced around, but no one was taking any notice of the woman. Very slowly she walked over to her.
“Bonjour?”
The nun said nothing. Marianne tapped her lightly on the shoulder. The nun gave a loud snore, and spit trickled from her open mouth onto her habit. Marianne sat down next to her, took out a tissue and gently patted the nun’s chin with it.
“So now we’ve got to know each other, what do we do next?”
The nun let out a quiet groan.
“What a delightful conversation,” murmured Marianne.
The nun’s eyelids fluttered and she woke up. Her head twisted mechanically from left to right, and her eyes eventually settled on Marianne.
“You know,” lied Marianne, “this occasionally happens to me too. I often sleep better away from home. Do you sometimes come to the station to enjoy a nap?”
The nun slumped to one side with a faint sigh, leaned her head on Marianne’s shoulder and dozed off again. Marianne didn’t dare to move for fear of waking the nun, who blew warm air into her ear every time she breathed out. The shadows shifted in time with the sun’s progress across the sky. Marianne closed her eyes too. It was nice simply to sit there and let life and the shadows pass her by.
Some time later, a minibus screeched to a halt outside the station, startling Marianne from her torpor. A man in a cassock got out, followed by one, two, three, four…four nuns. They all gawped at Marianne and the sister, still slumbering on Marianne’s shoulder.
“Mon Dieu!” called the father. They surrounded Marianne and helped the two women to their feet.
The nun looked well rested now, Marianne noticed. The man in the white-and-green cassock turned to her. She listened to him politely without understanding a word. She gathered her breath and said, “Je suis allemande. Pardon. Au revoir.”
“Allemande?” the priest repeated, before grinning to reveal teeth that were as crooked as the headstones in an abandoned forest graveyard. “Ah! Allemagne! Le football! Ballack! Tu connais Ballack? Et Schweinsteiger!” He held up his hands as if he were clutching a ball.
“Ballack!” he said again, and pretended to kick something.
“Yes, Ballack,” Marianne repeated with some irritation, but she raised a clenched fist as he had and gave a halfhearted smile. The priest beamed back, and the nuns began to lead Marianne and their still slightly disorientated sister toward the minibus.
“No, no, no,” said Marianne hastily. “Our ways part here. You go with God, I’ll go…Oh, forget it. Au revoir, au revoir.” She waved one last time and made to leave.
A young nun tugged at her sleeve. “They call me Clara. My grandmother was German. Do you understand me?”
Marianne nodded.
“We wanted to thank you,” explained the nun. “Please come with us to the convent.”
Marianne noticed how the other nuns were stealing glances at her and giggling.
“But…I have to keep traveling. I want to reach Kerdruc today,” said Marianne. She pulled out the map and tapped on the hamlet at the mouth of the river Aven.
“Pas de problème! Lots of tourists visit the convent, and their buses take them to many other places, including here,” said Clara, pointing to the town of Pont-Aven to the north of Kerdruc. “Paul Gauguin lived there. Many painters.”
The other nuns were already sitting in the minibus. Marianne hesitated for a second, but maybe it would be better to travel with the nuns than stand on the side of the road. She got in.
Inside the minibus, the old nun leaned forward from one of the tattered leather-upholstered seats. “Merci,” she said, squeezing Marianne’s arm. Clara turned around in her seat to look at Marianne. “Dominique is…ill. She disappeared from the convent yesterday and she can’t get by on her own. She has no idea who she is, where she is or how to get home. Vous avez compris, madame? Thanks to your help, all good now, yes?”
Marianne guessed that Dominique might have Alzheimer’s.
Clara turned around again. “What is your name?”
“My name is—”
“Je m’appelle…” the nun corrected her gently.
“Je m’appelle Marianne.”
“Marie-Anne?! Nous sommes du couvent de Sainte-Anne-d’Auray! Oh, the Lord moves in mysterious ways!” The nun crossed herself.