Coastliners - A Novel Part 28

11.

By then I had been in Les Immortelles for over a week. Hilaire recommended another week's rest, but I was growing impatient. The skyscape through the high window taunted me; gilded motes filtered down to my bed. The month was almost at an end; in a few days the moon would be full and it would be time once more for Sainte-Marine's festival on the Pointe. I felt as if all these familiar things were taking place for the last time; every second was a final farewell I could not bear to miss. I prepared to go home.

Capucine protested, but I overrode her arguments ruthlessly. I'd been away too long. I had to face Les Salants at some time. I hadn't even seen my father's grave.

La Puce gave way in the face of such determination. "Stay in my trailer for a while," she suggested. "I'm not having you in that empty house alone."

"It's all right," I promised her. "I'm not going back there. But I do need to be on my own for a while."

I did not go back to GrosJean's house that day. I was surprised to discover that I felt no curiosity about it, or any desire to look inside. Instead I went to the dunes above La Goulue and overlooked what remained of my world.

Most of our summer people had gone. The sea was silk; the sky crude and blue as a child's painting. Les Salants faded silently under the late-August sun as it had for so many years before: the window boxes and gardens, lately neglected, had withered and died; stunted fig trees gave up small, mean fruit; dogs loitered outside shuttered houses; rabbit-tail gra.s.ses went white and brittle. The people too had reverted to type: Omer now spent hours in Angelo's, playing cards and drinking cup after cup of devinnoise; devinnoise; Charlotte Prossage, who had been so sweetened by the arrival of the summer children, once more hid her face behind earth-colored head scarves; Damien was sullen and argumentative. Within twenty-four hours of my return I could see for myself that the Brismands hadn't simply broken Les Salants; they had eaten it whole. Charlotte Prossage, who had been so sweetened by the arrival of the summer children, once more hid her face behind earth-colored head scarves; Damien was sullen and argumentative. Within twenty-four hours of my return I could see for myself that the Brismands hadn't simply broken Les Salants; they had eaten it whole.

Few people spoke to me; it was enough that they had shown their concern with presents and cards. Now that I was well again I sensed a kind of inertia among them, a return to the old ways. Greetings were once more abbreviated to a single nod. Conversations flagged. At first I thought perhaps they resented me; after all, I was related to Brismand. But after a while I began to understand. I saw it in the way they watched the sea; one eye perpetually fixed on the floating thing out there in the bay, our Bouch'ou, our very own sword of Damocles. They weren't even aware of doing it. But they did watch it, even the children, paler and more subdued than they had been all summer. It was all the more precious, we told ourselves, because sacrifices had been made. The greater the sacrifice, the more precious it became. We'd loved it once; we hated it now; but to lose it was unthinkable. Omer's loan had compromised Toinette's property, even though it had not been his to stake. Aristide had mortgaged his house far beyond its value. Alain was losing his son-perhaps both his sons, now that the business was in decline. The Prossages had lost their daughter. Xavier and Mercedes were talking about leaving Le Devin for good, of settling down somewhere like p.o.r.nic or Fromentine, where the baby could be born without scandal.

Aristide was devastated by the news, though he was far too proud to say so. p.o.r.nic isn't far, he would repeat to anyone who would listen. It's a three-hour ferry ride twice a week. That isn't what you'd call far, is it, heh?

Rumors were still flying about GrosJean's death. I heard them secondhand from Capucine-village protocol demanded that at this time I should be left alone-but speculation was rife. Many believed he had comitted suicide.

There was some reason to believe it. GrosJean had always been unstable; maybe the realization of Brismand's treachery had pushed him over the edge. And so close to the anniversary of P't.i.tJean's death and Sainte-Marine's festival ... History repeats itself, they said in lowered voices. Everything returns.

But others were less easily convinced. The significance of the dynamite in the Eleanore 2 Eleanore 2 had not escaped notice; it was Alain's belief that GrosJean had been trying to demolish the breakwater at Les Immortelles when he lost control of the boat and was thrown onto the rocks. had not escaped notice; it was Alain's belief that GrosJean had been trying to demolish the breakwater at Les Immortelles when he lost control of the boat and was thrown onto the rocks.

"He sacrificed himself," Alain had repeated to anyone who would listen. "He knew before any of us that it was the only way to stop Brismand's takeover."

It was no more far-fetched than any of the other explanations. An accident; suicide; a heroic gesture ... The truth was that n.o.body knew; GrosJean had told no one of his plans, and speculation was all we had. In death, as in life, my father kept his secrets.

I went down to La Goulue the morning after my return. Lolo was sitting with Damien by the water's edge, both of them silent and unmoving as rocks. They seemed to be waiting for something. The high tide was on the turn; dark commas of wet sand marked its pa.s.sage. Damien had a new bruise on his cheek. He shrugged when I commented about it. "I fell over," he said, not bothering to make it sound convincing.

Lolo looked at me. "Damien was right," he said glumly. "We should never have had this beach. It's messed everything up. We were better off before." He said it without resentment, but with a deep weariness, which I found even more disturbing. "We just didn't know it then."

Damien nodded. "We would have survived. If the sea had come too close we'd just have rebuilt farther up."

"Or moved."

I nodded. Suddenly, moving didn't seem like such a terrible alternative after all.

"It's just a place, after all, isn't it, heh?"

"Sure. There are other places."

I wondered if Capucine knew what her grandson was thinking. Damien, Xavier, Mercedes, Lolo ... At this rate by next year there wouldn't be a young face left in Les Salants.

Both boys were looking out toward the Bouch'ou. Invisible now, it would begin to show in five hours or so, when the tide uncovered the oyster beds.

"What if they took it, heh?" There was an edge to Lolo's voice.

Damien nodded. "They could have their sand back. We don't need it."

"Neh. We didn't want Houssin sand anyway."

I was shocked to find myself half-agreeing with them.

In spite of that, since my return I found the Salannais spent more time on the beach than ever before. Not swimming or sunbathing-only tourists do that-or even in comfortable conversation, as we so often had earlier that summer. This time there were no cookouts or bonfires or drinking parties at La Goulue. Instead we crept there in secret, early in the mornings or at the turning tides, running the sand through our furtive fingers and not meeting one another's eyes.

The sand fascinated us. We saw it in a different way now; no longer gold dust but the debris of centuries: bones, sh.e.l.ls, microscopic pieces of fossilized matter, pulverized gla.s.s, vanquished stone, fragments of unimaginable time. There were people in the sand; lovers, children, traitors, heroes. There were the tiles of long-demolished houses. There were warriors and fishermen, there were n.a.z.i planes and broken crockery and shattered G.o.ds. There was rebellion and there was defeat. There was everything, and everything there was the same.

We saw that now; how pointless it all was: our war against the tides, against the Houssins. We saw how it would be.

12.

It was two days before Sainte-Marine's festival when I finally decided to visit my father's grave. My absence at the funeral had been inevitable, but I was back now, and it was expected of me.

The Houssins have their own neat, gra.s.sy churchyard, with a park keeper to tend all the graves. At La Bouche, we do our work ourselves. We have to. Our gravestones look pagan compared with theirs; monolithic. And we tend them with care. One very old one is the grave of a young couple, marked simply guenole-bastonnet guenole-bastonnet, 18611887. Someone still puts flowers on it, though surely no one is old enough to remember its occupants.

They had placed him next to P't.i.tJean. Their stones are almost twins in size and color, though P't.i.tJean's is older, its surface furred with lichen. As I came closer I saw that clean gravel had been raked around the two graves, and that someone had already prepared the earth for planting.

I had brought some lavender cuttings to plant around the stone, and a trowel to dig with. Pere Alban appeared to have done the same; his hands were covered with earth, and there were red geraniums freshly planted under both stones.

The old priest looked startled to see me, as if caught out. He rubbed his gritty hands together several times. "I'm glad to see you looking so well," he said. "I'll leave you to your farewells."

"Don't go." I took a step forward. "Pere Alban, I'm glad you're here. I wanted-"

"I'm sorry." He shook his head. "I know what you want from me. You think I know something about your father's death. But I can't tell you anything. Let it go."

"Why? I demanded. "I need to understand! My father died for a reason, and I think you know what it is!"

He looked at me severely. "Your father was lost at sea, Mado. He went out in the Eleanore 2 Eleanore 2 and was swept overboard. Just like his brother." and was swept overboard. Just like his brother."

"But you do know something," I said softly. "Don't you?"

"I have-suspicions. Just as you do."

"What suspicions?"

Pere Alban sighed. "Let it go, Madeleine. I can't tell you anything. Whatever I may know is bound by the confessional, and I can't speak to you about it." But I thought I heard something in his voice, an odd intonation, as if the words he spoke were at variance with something else he was trying to convey.

"But someone else can?" I said, taking his hand. "Is that what you're saying?"

"I can't help you, Madeleine." Was it my imagination, or was there something in the way he said "I can't help you," a little stress on the first syllable? "I'm going back now," said the old priest, gently prying my hand from his. "I have to sort out some old records. Birth and death registers, you know the kind of thing. It's a job I have been putting off for a long time. But I have a responsibility. It preys on my mind." There it was again, that peculiar intonation. can't help you," a little stress on the first syllable? "I'm going back now," said the old priest, gently prying my hand from his. "I have to sort out some old records. Birth and death registers, you know the kind of thing. It's a job I have been putting off for a long time. But I have a responsibility. It preys on my mind." There it was again, that peculiar intonation.

"Papers?" I repeated.

"Registers. I used to have a clerk. Then, the nuns. Now I have no one."

"I could help." I wasn't imagining it; he was was trying to say something to me. "Pere Alban, let me help you." trying to say something to me. "Pere Alban, let me help you."

He gave a smile of peculiar sweetness. "How kind of you to offer, Madeleine. That would be a great relief."

Islanders mistrust paperwork. That's why we set a priest to guard our secrets, our strange births and violent deaths, to tend our family trees. The information is public, of course, at least in theory. But shadows of the confessional lie over it, buried as it is beneath the dust. There has never been a computer here, nor will there be. Instead there are ledgers, closely written in reddish brown ink, and mushroom-colored folders containing doc.u.ments crisp with age.

The signatures that sprawl or scurry across these pages contain entire histories; here an illiterate mother has stuck a rose petal onto the birth certificate of her child; there a man's hand has faltered on the entry for his wife's death. Marriages, stillbirths, deaths. Here two brothers, shot by the Germans for smuggling black market goods from the mainland; there an entire family died of influenza; on this page a girl-another Prossage-gave birth to a baby "father unknown." Opposite, another girl-a child of fourteen-died giving birth to a deformed infant, which did not survive.

The endless variations were never dull; strangely enough I found them rather uplifting. To continue as we do in the face of everything seems oddly heroic, knowing that in the end it all comes to this. The island names-Prossage, Bastonnet, Guenole, Prasteau, Brismand-marched across the pages like soldiers. I almost forgot why I was there.

Pere Alban left me alone. Perhaps he did not trust himself. For a time I lost myself completely in the histories of Le Devin until the light began to fail and I remembered why I had come. It took me a further hour to find the reference for which I was searching.

I was still not entirely sure what I was looking for, and I wasted time on my own family tree-my mother's signature bringing tears to my eyes as I came across it by chance at the top of a page, with GrosJean's careful illiterate's script next to it. Then GrosJean's birth and his brother's, on the same page though years apart. GrosJean's death and his brother's-Lost at sea. The pages, closely written to the point of being almost illegible, took long minutes to scan. I began to wonder if maybe I had misunderstood, and there was nothing for me after all.

And then, suddenly, there it was. A notice of marriage between Claude Saint-Joseph Brismand and Eleanore Margaret Flynn, two signatures in purple ink-a curt Brismand Brismand followed by an exuberant followed by an exuberant Eleanore, Eleanore, with a loop on the with a loop on the l l that goes on almost forever, intertwining like ivy with the names above and below. that goes on almost forever, intertwining like ivy with the names above and below.

Eleanore. I said it aloud, with a catch in my voice.

I'd found her.

"So she has, ma soeur ma soeur."

"I knew she would if she kept at it."

It was the two sisters. Both of them were standing in the doorway, smiling like apple dolls. In the dim light they looked almost young again, their eyes s.h.i.+ning. "You remind us of her, just a little, doesn't she, ma soeur? ma soeur? She reminds us of-" She reminds us of-"

"Eleanore."

After that it was easy. Eleanore was where it began and Eleanore Eleanore was where it ended. We unraveled the tale, the nuns and I, in the records room of the church, lighting candles to illuminate the old papers as the light began to fail. was where it ended. We unraveled the tale, the nuns and I, in the records room of the church, lighting candles to illuminate the old papers as the light began to fail.

I had already guessed a part of the story. The sisters knew the rest. Maybe Pere Alban had let something slip, when they were helping him with the registers.

It's an island story, bleaker than most, but then we are so used to clinging to these rocks that we have developed a resilience-some of us have, at least. It begins with two brothers, close as crabs, Jean-Marin and Jean-Francois Prasteau. And of course, the girl, all fire and temperament. There was pa.s.sion too; it was in the way her signature looped and sprawled across the page, a kind of restless romance.

"She wasn't from here," explained Soeur Therese. "Monsieur Brismand brought her back from one of his trips abroad. She had no parents, no friends, no money of her own. She was ten years younger than he was; barely out of her teens-"

"But a real beauty," said Soeur Extase. "Beautiful and restless, the dynamite combination-"

"With Monsieur Brismand so busy making money that after the wedding he hardly seemed to notice her at all."

He'd wanted children; all islanders do. But she'd wanted more. She found no friends among the Houssin wives-she was too young and foreign for their taste-and took to sitting alone at Les Immortelles every day, watching the sea and reading books.

"Oh, she loved stories," said Soeur Extase. "Reading them and telling them-"

"Knights and ladies-"

"Princes and dragons."

That was where the brothers first saw her. They had come to pick up a delivery of supplies for the boatyard they ran with their father, and she was waiting there. She had been on Le Devin for less than three months.

The impulsive P't.i.tJean had been instantly smitten. He started to visit her in La Houssiniere every day, sitting next to her on the beach and talking to her. GrosJean looked on stolidly, amused at first, then curious, a little jealous, then finally, fatally ensnared.

"She knew what she was doing," said Soeur Therese. "It was a game at first-she liked games. P't.i.tJean was a boy; he would have got over her eventually. But GrosJean-"

My father, a silent man of deep emotions, was different. She sensed it; he drew her. They met in secret, in the dunes or by La Goulue. GrosJean taught her to sail; she told him stories. The boats he built at the yard reflected her influence, those fanciful names from books and poems he would never read.

But by now Brismand had grown suspicious. It was mostly P't.i.tJean's fault; his adoration had not gone unnoticed in La Houssiniere, and although he was so young, he was much closer to Eleanore in age than her husband. Claude never seriously suspected him; but for Eleanore there were no more trips alone to Les Salants, and he made sure that there was always a nun out at Les Immortelles to watch over her. Besides, now Eleanore was pregnant, and Claude was overjoyed.

The boy was born a little prematurely. She named him after Claude-island tradition demands it-but with typical perversity she inserted another, more secret name there, on the birth certificate, for anyone to see.

No one made the connection. Not even my father-that complex, looping script was far beyond his skill to decipher-and for a few months Eleanore found her restlessness curbed by the infant's demands.

But Brismand had become more possessive now that he had a son. Sons are important on Le Devin-more so than on the mainland, where healthy children are so common. I imagined how he had been, how proud of his boy. I imagined how the brothers watched him, in scorn and guilt and envy and desire. I'd always a.s.sumed my father hated Claude Brismand because of something Brismand had done to him. Only now did I understand that the ones we hate most are those we ourselves have wronged.

And what of Eleanore? For a while she really tried to devote herself to her baby. But she was unhappy. Like my mother, she found island life unendurable. Women eyed her with suspicion and envy; men dared not speak to her.

"She read and read those books of hers," Soeur Therese told me, "but nothing helped. She got thin-she lost her s.h.i.+ne. She was like some wildflowers you should never pick, because they droop and fade in a vase. She talked to us sometimes-"

"But we were too old for her, even then. She needed life."

Both sisters nodded, their sharp eyes gleaming. "One day she gave us a letter to deliver to Les Salants. Veryvery nervous, she was-"

"But laughing fit to split-"

"And the next day-Pfft! She and the baby were gone." She and the baby were gone."

"No one knew where or why-"

"Though we can guess, can't we, ma soeur, ma soeur, we don't hold confession, but-" we don't hold confession, but-"

"People tell us things, all the same."

When had P't.i.tJean guessed the truth? Did he find out by accident, or did she tell him herself, or did he see it, as I had thirty years later, written on the child's birth certificate in her own exuberant hand?

The sisters looked at me expectantly, both smiling. I looked down at the birth certificate on the desk in front of me; the purple ink, the name written in that now-familiar looped, elaborate script....

Jean-Claude Desire St.-Jean Francois Brismand.