The Virgin Blue

8 – THE FARM

I flew from Toulouse to Geneva, then caught a train to Moutier. It all happened fast and easily: there was a flight, there was a train, and Jacob sounded more pleased than surprised that I wanted to come on such short notice. Very short notice: I called him at noon; at six the train pulled into Moutier.

On the train from Geneva my mind began working again. I'd sat in a daze on the flight from Toulouse, but now the rhythm of the train, more natural than a plane's, shook me awake. I began to look around.

Across from me sat a sturdy middle-aged couple, he in a chocolate blazer and striped tie, reading a carefully folded newspaper, she wearing a grey wool dress and darker grey jacket, gold bows clipped to her ears, Italian shoes. Her hair had just been done, puffed out and newly coloured a reddish-brown that wasn't so far from my own except that it looked synthetic. She held a sleek leather handbag on her lap and was writing what looked like a list in a tiny notebook.

Probably doing her Christmas card list already, I thought, self-conscious in my limp, wrinkled linen.

They didn't say a word to each other the whole hour I sat across from them. When I got up to change trains at Neuchâtel the man raised his eyes briefly and nodded. ‘Bonne journée, Madame,’ he said with a politeness only people over fifty manage gracefully. I smiled and nodded to him and his companion. It was that kind of place.

The trains were quiet, clean and punctual. The passengers were also quiet and clean, soberly dressed, purposeful in their reading, deliberate in their movements. There were no couples making out, no men staring, no skimpy dresses or barely covered breasts, no drunks lolling over two seats – all common sights on the train from Lisle to Toulouse. This was not a lolling country; the Swiss never took up two seats if they'd only paid for one.

Maybe I was looking for such order after the chaos I'd left. It was typical for me to pinpoint national character traits after only an hour in a country, to come up with an opinion I could tinker with as I went, altering it to encompass the people I met. If I really wanted I could probably have found sordidness somewhere on those trains, torn clothes and raised voices, romance novels, someone shooting up in the toilet, some passion, some fear. Instead I looked around and clung to the perceived normality.

The new landscape fascinated me: the solid mountains of the Jura rising steeply away from the train tracks, the banks of dark green firs, the sharp lines of the houses, the crisp order of the fields and farms. I was surprised that it was so different from France, though logically I shouldn't have been. It was a different country, after all, as I had pointed out to my father. The real surprise was realizing that the French landscape I'd left behind – the gentle hills, the bright green vineyards, the rust colour of the earth, the silver light – was no longer strange to me.

Jacob had said over the phone that he would meet me at the station. I knew nothing about him, not even how old he was, though I suspected he was closer to my father's age than to mine. When I stepped onto the Moutier platform I spotted him immediately: he reminded me of my father, though his hair wasn't grey but brown, the same colour mine had been. He was very tall and wore a cream sweater stretched out of shape across shoulders that sloped down like a bow. His face was long and thin, almost gaunt, with a delicate chin and bright brown eyes. He had the energetic look of a man in his late fifties, still driven by work, not yet part of that group who have relaxed into retirement, but knowing he would join them soon and wondering how he would cope with so much freedom.

He strode up to me, took my head in his large hands and kissed my cheeks three times.

‘Ella, you look just like your father,’ he said, using the familiar form, in clear French.

I grinned up at him. ‘Ah, then I must look like you, because you look just like my father!’

He picked up my bag, put his arm around me and led me down a flight of stairs and out to the street. He swung my bag in a wide semicircle as he gestured with his whole arm. ‘Bienvenue à Moutier! ’ he cried.

I took a step forward and just managed to say ‘C'est très -’ before I fell to the ground.

I woke up in a white room, small and rectangular and plain, like a monk's cell, with a bed, table, chair and bureau. Behind my head was a window; when I rolled my eyes back to look out, I could see upside-down the white steeple of a church, the black clock face on it partially obscured by a tree.

Jacob was sitting in the chair next to the bed; a strange man with a round face hovered in the doorway. I lay looking at them, unable to speak. Jacob said gently, ‘Ella, tu t'es évanouiée.’ I'd never heard the word he used, but I understood immediately what he meant. ‘Lucien -’ he gestured behind him at the man – ‘was passing in his truck just then and he brought you here. We were worried because you were unconscious for a long time.’

‘How long?’ I struggled to sit up and Jacob gripped my shoulders to help me.

‘Ten minutes. All the way in the car and into the house.’

I shook my head slowly. ‘I don't remember a thing.’

Lucien stepped forward with a glass of water and handed it to me.

‘Merci,’ I murmured. He smiled in reply, barely moving his lips. I sipped it, then felt my face; it was wet and sticky. ‘Why is my face wet?’

Jacob and Lucien glanced at each other. ‘You were crying,’ Jacob replied.

‘While I was unconscious?’

He nodded and I became aware of my sore, runny nose, my hoarse throat, my exhaustion.

‘Was I talking?’

‘You were reciting something.’

‘J'ai mis en toi mon espérance: Garde-moi, donc, Seigneur. Yes?’

‘Yes,’ Lucien replied. ‘That was -’

‘You need to sleep,’ Jacob interrupted. ‘Just rest. We'll talk later.’ He pulled a thin blanket over me. Lucien raised his hand in a motionless wave. I nodded and he disappeared.

I closed my eyes, then opened them just as Jacob was closing the door. ‘Jacob, does this house have shutters?’

He paused and tipped his head into the room. ‘Yes, but I never use them. I don't like them.’ He smiled and shut the door.

It was dark when I next woke, sweaty and disoriented. Outside there were windows lit up all around; it seemed that no one used their shutters here. The church steeple was spotlit. At that moment the bells in the tower began to chime and I automatically followed them, counting to ten: I'd been asleep four hours. It felt like days.

I reached over and switched on the bedside lamp. The shade was yellow and cast a soft golden light around the room. I had never been in a room with no decoration whatsoever; the spareness was oddly comforting. I lay for a while, studying the way the light fell, not sure that I wanted to get up. But I did finally, leaving the room and feeling my way down the dark stairs. At the bottom I stood in a square hallway facing three closed doors. I chose one with a string of light along the bottom and opened it into a bright kitchen painted yellow, with a polished wood floor and a bank of windows along one wall. Jacob was sitting at a round wooden table reading a newspaper propped against a bowl of peaches. A young woman with dark frizzy hair leaned into the kitchen sink, scrubbing at a pan. When she turned at my entrance I knew she must be related to Jacob: she had the same gaunt face and pointed chin, softened by wisps of hair on her forehead and long lashes around the same brown eyes. She was taller than me and very slight, with long thin hands and small wrists.

‘Ah, Ella, there you are,’ Jacob said as the woman kissed me three times. ‘This is my daughter, Susanne.’

I smiled at her. ‘I'm sorry,’ I said to them both. ‘I didn't realize it was so late. I don't know what was wrong with me.’

‘It's nothing. You needed to sleep. Will you eat something now?’ Jacob pulled out a chair for me at the table. Then he and Susanne began to set out cheese and salami, bread, olives and salad. It was exactly what I wanted, something simple. I didn't want them fussing over me.

We said little as we ate. Susanne asked me in French as clear as her father's if I would drink some wine, and Jacob remarked on the cheese, but otherwise we were silent.

When we had pushed our plates aside and Jacob had refilled my glass, Susanne slipped out of the room. ‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

From another room a delicate music began, like a piano but stringier. Jacob listened for a moment. ‘Scarlatti,’ he said with pleasure. ‘Susanne studies harpsichord at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, you see.’

‘Are you a musician too?’

He nodded. ‘I teach at the music school here, just up the hill.’ He gestured behind him.

‘What do you play?’

‘Many things, but I teach mostly piano and flute here. The boys all want to play guitar, the girls flute, all of them violin or recorder. A few piano.’

‘Are there good students?’

He shrugged. ‘Most take lessons because their parents want them to. They have other interests too, horses or football or skiing. Every winter four or five children break their arms skiing and can't play. There is one boy, a pianist, who plays very good Bach. He may go on to study elsewhere.’

‘Did Susanne study with you?’

He shook his head. ‘With my wife.’

My father had told me Jacob's wife was dead, but I couldn't remember how long ago or the circumstances.

‘Cancer,’ he said, as if I'd asked him aloud. ‘She died five years ago.’

‘I'm sorry,’ I said. Feeling the inadequacy of the words, I added, ‘You miss her still, yes?’

He smiled sadly. ‘Of course. You are married yourself?’

‘Yes,’ I replied uncomfortably, then changed the subject. ‘Would you like to see the Bible now?’

‘Let's wait until the morning when the light is better. Now, you look better but you're still pale. Are you pregnant, maybe?’

I flinched, astonished that he asked me so casually. ‘No, no, I'm not. I – I don't know why I fainted but it's not that. I haven't been sleeping well for the last few months. And hardly at all last night.’ I stopped, remembering Jean-Paul's bed, and shook my head slowly. It was impossible to describe my situation to him.

We'd obviously entered shaky territory; Jacob saved us by pointedly changing the subject.

‘What do you do for work?’

‘I'm a, well, I was a midwife, in America.’

‘Really?’ His face lit up. ‘What a wonderful thing to do!’

I looked at the bowl of peaches and smiled. His response was similar to Madame Sentier's.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was good work.’

‘So of course you would know if you were pregnant.’

I chuckled. ‘Yes, I guess so.’ I usually did know if a woman was pregnant, even in the early days. It was apparent in the deliberate way they carried themselves, their bodies like bubble-wrap around something they didn't even know they held. I had seen it earlier in Susanne, for instance: a certain distracted look in her eyes, as if she were listening to a conversation deep inside, in a foreign language, and not necessarily pleased with what she heard even if she didn't understand it.

I looked at Jacob's open face. He doesn't know yet, I thought. It was funny: I was family enough for him to ask me personal questions, but not so close that he would be afraid to hear the answer. He would never ask his own daughter so directly.

I slept badly that night, my mind burdened with thoughts about Rick and Jean-Paul, and harsh thoughts about myself. I got nowhere with them, just worked myself up into a state. When I finally managed to fall asleep, I still woke early.

I brought the Bible downstairs with me. Jacob and Susanne were already at the table reading the paper, along with a pale man with orange-red hair like a carrot rather than chestnut like mine. His eyelashes and brows were red too, giving his face a fuzzy, undefined look. He stood up as I came in and held out his hand.

‘Ella, this is Jan, my boyfriend,’ Susanne said. She looked tired; her coffee was untouched, its surface beginning to form a wrinkled scum.

Ah, the father-to-be, I thought. His handshake was limp. ‘I am sorry I was not here to greet you last evening,’ he said in perfect English. ‘I was playing at an engagement at Lausanne and arrived back only very late in the evening.’

‘What do you play?’

‘I play the flute.’

I smiled, partly at his formal English, partly because his body was a bit like a flute: thin, rounded limbs and a certain stiffness in his legs and chest, like the tin man in The Wizard of Oz.

‘You are not Swiss, no?’

‘No, I am Dutch.’

‘Oh.’ I couldn't think of anything else to say, his formality freezing me. Jan remained standing. I turned awkwardly to Jacob. ‘I'll put the Bible in another room for you to look at after breakfast, OK?’ I said.

Jacob nodded. I went back to the hall and tried another door. It led into a long sunny room painted cream, with unfinished wood trim and gleaming black tiles on the floor. It was sparsely furnished with a sofa and two battered armchairs; like the bedroom, there was nothing on the walls. At the far end of the room stood a black grand piano, lid closed, and a delicate rosewood harpsichord facing it. I set the Bible down on the grand piano and went to the window to get my first real look at Moutier.

Houses were scattered willy-nilly around us and up the hill behind the house. Each house was grey or cream, with a steep slate roof ending in a lip that jutted out like a flared skirt. The houses were taller and newer than those in Lisle, with freshly painted shutters in sober reds, greens and browns, though just across from Jacob's house there was a surprising electric-blue pair. I opened the window and leaned out to look at Jacob's shutters: they weren't painted at all, but left a natural caramel-coloured wood.

I heard a step behind me and pulled myself back inside. Cup of coffee in each hand, Jacob stood laughing at me. ‘Ah, you are spying on our neighbours already!’ he cried, handing me a cup.

I grinned. ‘Actually I was looking at your shutters. I wanted to see what colour you painted them.’

‘Do you like them?’

I nodded.

‘Now, where is this Bible? Ah, there. Good, now you can go home,’ he teased.

I sat next to him on the sofa as he opened the book to the front page. He gazed at the names for a long time, a pleased look on his face. Then he reached behind him and from a bookcase pulled a sheaf of papers taped together. He began unfolding and spreading them on the floor. The papers were yellow, the tape brittle.

‘This is the family tree my grandfather made,’ he explained.

The handwriting was clear, the tree carefully plotted. Even so it was a messy affair: there were tangents, branches shooting off, gaps where lines petered out. When Jacob finished setting up the sheets, they formed not a neat rectangle or pyramid, but an irregular patchwork, with sheets tacked on here and there to hold information.

We crouched next to it. Everywhere I saw the names Susanne, Etienne, Hannah, Jacob, Jean. At the top of the tree it was sketchier, but it began with Etienne and Jean Tournier.

‘Where did your grandfather find all this?’

‘Various places. Some at the bourgeoisie in the hôtel de ville here – there are records that go back to the eighteenth century, I think. Before that I don't know. He spent years studying records. And now you've added to his work; you've made the great leap to France! Tell me now how you found this Tournier Bible.’

I recounted an abbreviated version of my search with Mathilde and Monsieur Jourdain, leaving out Jean-Paul.

‘What a coincidence! You've been lucky, Ella. And you've come all this way to show it to me.’ Jacob ran his hand over the leather cover. A question lurked behind his words, but I didn't answer it. It must have seemed extreme to him, my coming here so suddenly just to show him the Bible, but I didn't feel I could confide in him: he was too much like my father. I wouldn't dream of telling my parents about what I'd just done, the scene I'd left behind.

Later Jacob and I went for a walk around town. The hôtel de ville, a deliberate building with grey shutters and a clock tower, stood in the centre. Shops were clustered around it, making up what was called the old town, though it seemed very new compared to Lisle: many of the buildings were modern, and all had been modernized, with fresh plaster and paint and new square roof tiles. There was a peculiar building with an onion-shaped dome to one side and a stone monk placed in a niche under it, holding a lantern over the street corner, but otherwise the buildings were uniform and unadorned.

In the last century the town had expanded to 8,000 people, and houses had spread up the hillsides around the old town to accommodate the population. It all had an unplanned feel about it, strange after living in Lisle with its grid of streets and sense of being an organic whole. With a few exceptions the buildings were functional rather than aesthetically pleasing, built for a purpose, with no decorous brickwork or cross-beams or tiling like in Lisle.

A little out of the centre we strolled along a path next to the River Birse. It was small, more like a stream than a river, and lined with silver birches. There was something cheering about water running through a town, connecting it with the rest of the world, a reminder that the place was not so static or isolated.

Everywhere we went Jacob introduced me as a Tournier from America. I was greeted with a look of recognition and acceptance I hadn't expected. It was certainly different from my reception in Lisle. I mentioned this to Jacob, who smiled. ‘Maybe it is you who are different,’ he said.

‘Maybe.’ I didn't add that though the people's attitude toward me here was gratifying, I was also slightly suspicious of such wholesale embracing of a family name. If you knew how awful I've been, I thought grimly, you wouldn't think Tourniers were so wonderful.

Jacob had classes to teach. On his way to the school he took me to a chapel in the cemetrey on the edge of town and left me to inspect the interior. He told me there'd been monasteries at Moutier from the seventh century; the existing chapel of Chalières dated from the tenth. Inside it was small and simple, with faded Byzantine-style frescos in rust and cream on the choir walls and whitewash everywhere else. I studied the figures obediently – Christ standing with his arms outstretched, a row of Apostles below him, pale circles of halos framing their heads, some of the faces washed out beyond expression – but except for the faint trace of a sad-looking woman off to one side, the frescos left me cold.

When I came out I saw Jacob partway up the hill, standing in front of a headstone, head bowed, eyes closed. I watched him for a moment, ashamed of my own worries when here was real tragedy, a man grieving over his wife's grave. To give him privacy I went back inside the chapel. A cloud had crossed the sun and it was darker inside; the fresco figures hung suspended above me like ghosts. I stood in front of the faint lines of the woman and studied her more closely. There was little left of her: heavy-lidded eyes, large nose, pursed mouth, framed by a robe and a halo. Yet these rudimentary elements captured her misery precisely.

‘Of course. The Virgin,’ I said softly.

There was something about her expression that made her different from Nicolas Tournier's Virgin. I closed my eyes and tried to remember it: the pain, the resignation, the strange peace in her face. I opened my eyes and looked at the figure in front of me again. Then I saw it: it was in the mouth, the tight little turns at the corners. This Virgin was angry.

When I left the chapel again the sun had come back out and Jacob was gone. I walked toward town through the newer houses, ending finally at the Protestant church, the one I'd seen when I first woke up in Jacob's house. It was a big building, made of limestone and surrounded by old trees. In some ways it reminded me of the church in Le Pont de Montvert: both were situated in the same place in relation to the town – not in the centre, but still dominant, halfway up the north slope of a hill, with a grassy porch and wall where you could sit and look out over the town. I circled the church and found the front entrance open. Inside there was more decoration than there had been in the church at Le Pont de Montvert, with marble floors and a bit of stained glass in the choir. Still, it felt bare, austere and, after the Chalières chapel, large and impersonal. I didn't stay long.

I sat on the wall in the sun, just as I had before in Le Pont de Montvert. It was warm now and I took off my jacket. Underneath, my arms had broken out with psoriasis again. ‘Dammit,’ I muttered. I folded my arms to my chest, then straightened them and held them up to the sun. The stretching movement made a patch on my arm fill with blood.

At that moment a black Labrador bounded up to me, scrambled half onto the wall and pushed his head into my side. I laughed and petted him. ‘Perfect timing, dog,’ I said. ‘Don't let me wallow.’

Lucien appeared across the green. As he approached I got a better look at him than I had the night before, at his baby face, dark wiry hair and wide hazel eyes. He must have been about thirty, but he looked like he'd never been touched by worry or tragedy. A Swiss innocent. I glanced down, deliberately keeping my psoriasis exposed. I noticed another patch on my ankle and cursed myself for forgetting to pack my cortisone cream.

‘Salut, Ella,’ he said, standing awkwardly until I invited him to sit down. He was wearing old shorts and a T-shirt, both covered in spots of paint. The Lab looked at us, panting, tail moving; when he was sure we weren't going anywhere, he began nosing around the nearby trees.

‘Are you a painter?’ I asked to break the silence, wondering if he'd heard of Nicolas Tournier.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I'm working up there.’ He gestured behind us up the hill. ‘You see the ladder?’

‘Ah, yes.’ A house painter. This shouldn't make a difference, I said to myself. But my questions dried up; I didn't know what to say.

‘I build houses too. I fix things.’ Lucien was looking out over the town, but I could see he was also surreptitiously glancing at my arms.

‘Where do you live?’ I asked.

He pointed out another house up the hill, and glanced at my arms again.

‘It's psoriasis,’ I said abruptly.

He nodded once; he was not a talkative man. I noticed his hair had streaks of white paint in it and his forearms were covered with a mist of white speckles that comes from using a roller. I was reminded of moving with Rick: the first thing we did when we got a new place was to paint every room white. Rick said it was so he could see the dimensions of the rooms better; for me it was like cleansing them of ghosts. Only after we'd lived in a place for a while, when its character became apparent and we felt comfortable living in it, did we start painting rooms different colours. Our house in Lisle was still white.

The phone call came a day later. I don't know why it caught me off-guard: I'd known my other life would intrude eventually, but had done nothing to prepare myself.

We were eating fondue at the time. Susanne had been amused to learn that after Swiss Army knives, clocks and chocolate, fondue was the fourth thing Americans associate with Switzerland and insisted on making it for me. ‘From an old family recipe, bien ŝur,’ she teased. She and Jacob had invited a few people: Jan was there, of course, as well as a German-Swiss couple who turned out to be the neighbours with the blue shutters, and Lucien, who sat next to me and stared at my profile from time to time as we ate. At least I had covered my arms so he couldn't stare at the psoriasis.

I'd tried fondue only once, when I was young and my grandmother made it. I didn't remember much about it. Susanne's was wonderful and extremely alcoholic. On top of that we'd been drinking wine steadily and were getting louder and sillier. At one point I dipped a piece of bread into the cheese and my fork came up empty. Everyone began to laugh and clap.

‘Wait a minute, what is it?’ Then I remembered the tradition my grandmother had taught me: whoever loses their bread in the fondue pot first will never marry. I laughed too. ‘Oh, no, now I'll never marry! But wait a minute, I am married!’

There was more laughter. ‘No, no, Ella,’ Susanne cried. ‘If you drop the bread first it means you will marry, and soon!’

‘No, in our family it means you won't marry.’

‘But this is your family,’ Jacob said, ‘and the tradition is that you will marry.’

‘Then we must've gotten it wrong somewhere. I'm sure my grandmother said -’

‘Yes, you got it wrong the way the family's last name is wrong,’ Jacob declared. ‘Tuurr-nuurr,’ he pronounced dolefully, drawing out each syllable. ‘Where are the vowels to lift it and make it sound beautiful, like Tour-ni-er? But never mind, ma cousine, you know what your real name is. Do you know,’ he continued, turning to his neighbours, ‘that my cousin is a midwife?’

‘Ah, a good profession,’ the man replied automatically. I felt Susanne's eyes on me; when I glanced at her she looked down. Her wine glass was still full and she hadn't eaten much.

When the phone rang Jan got up to answer it, glancing around the table, his eyes coming to rest on me. He held the phone out. ‘It is for you, Ella,’ he said.

‘Me? But -’ I hadn't given anyone the number here. I got up and took it, everyone's eyes on me.

‘Hello?’ I said uncertainly.

‘Ella? What the hell are you doing there?’

‘Rick?’ I turned my back on the table, trying to create a little privacy.

‘You sound surprised to hear from me.’ I'd never heard him sound so bitter.

‘No, it's just – I didn't leave the phone number.’

‘No, you didn't. But it's not that hard to get the number of Jacob Tournier of Moutier. There were two listed; when I called the other one first he told me you were here.’

‘He knew I was here? Another Jacob Tournier?’ I repeated stupidly, surprised that Rick had actually remembered my cousin's name.

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, it's a small town.’ I glanced around. Everyone was eating, trying to look like they weren't listening to me, but listening all the same, except for Susanne, who got up abruptly and went over to the sink, where she took a deep breath by the open window.

They all know my business, I thought. Even a Tournier across town knows my business.

‘Ella, why did you go away? What's the matter?’

‘Rick, I – Look, can we talk another time? Now's not a good time.’

‘I take it you left your wedding ring on the bedroom floor as some kind of statement.’

I spread out my left hand and stared at it, shocked that I hadn't even noticed it was gone. It must have fallen out of my yellow dress when I was changing.

‘Are you mad at me? Did I do something?’

‘Nothing, you just – Oh, Rick, I – you haven't done anything, I just wanted to meet my family here, that's all.’

‘Then why rush off like that? You didn't even leave me a note. You always leave me a note. Do you realize how worried I was? And how humiliating it was to find out from my secretary?’

I was silent.

‘Who answered the phone just now?’

‘What? My cousin's boyfriend. He's Dutch,’ I added usefully.

‘Is that – guy with you?’

‘Who?’

‘Jean-Pierre.’

‘No, he's not here. What made you think that?’

‘You slept with him, didn't you? I can tell from your voice.’

That I hadn't expected from him. I took a deep breath.

‘Look, I really can't talk right now. There are – people in the room. I'm sorry, Rick, I just – don't know what I want anymore. But I can't talk right now. I just can't.’

‘Ella -’ Rick sounded slightly strangled.

‘Just give me a few days, OK? Then I'll come back and – and we'll talk. All right? Sorry.’ I hung up and turned around to face them. Lucien was staring at his plate; the neighbours were chatting deliberately to Jan. Jacob and Susanne looked at me steadily with brown eyes the same colour as mine.

‘So,’ I said brightly. ‘What were we just saying about me getting married?’

I got up in the middle of the night, feeling dehydrated from the wine, the fondue sitting like lead in my stomach, and went down to the kitchen to get some mineral water. I left the lights off and sat at the table with the glass, but the room still smelled of cheese and I decided to move to the living room. As I reached the door I heard the faint stringy sound of the harpsichord. I opened the door quietly and saw Susanne sitting at the instrument in the dark, a distant streetlight picking out her profile. She played a few bars, stopped and just sat. When I whispered her name she looked up, then let her shoulders slump. I went over and put my hand on her shoulder. She was wearing a dark silk kimono smooth to the touch.

‘You should be in bed,’ I said softly. ‘You must be tired. You need lots of sleep now.’

Susanne pressed her face into my side and began to cry. I stood still and stroked her frizzy hair, then knelt next to her.

‘Does Jan know yet?’

‘No,’ she replied, wiping her eyes and cheeks. ‘Ella, I'm not ready for this. I want to do other things. I've worked so hard and am just beginning to get more concerts.’ She placed her hand on the keyboard and played a chord. ‘A baby now would ruin my opportunities.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two.’

‘And you want to have children?’

She shrugged. ‘Someday. Not yet. Not now.’

‘And Jan?’

‘Oh, he would love to have children. But you know, men don't think in the same way. It wouldn't make any difference to his music, to his career. When he talks about having children it's so abstract that I know I would be the one to look after them.’

That was a familiar refrain.

‘Does anyone else know yet?’

‘No.’

I hesitated, unaccustomed to talking to women about abortion as an option: in my profession, by the time women consulted me they'd decided to have the baby. Besides, I didn't even know the French for ‘abortion’ or ‘option’.

‘What are the things you could do?’ I finally asked lamely, taking care at least over the verb tense.

She stared at the keys. Then she shrugged. ‘Un avortement,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘What do you think about – abortion?’ I could have kicked myself for the clumsiness of my question. Susanne didn't seem to notice.

‘Oh, I would prefer to do it, even if I don't like the idea. I'm not religious, it would not be offensive like that. But Jan -’

I waited.

‘Well, he's Catholic. He doesn't go to church now and he thinks of himself as liberal, but – it's different when it's a real choice. I don't know what he will think. He may be very upset.’

‘You know, you have to tell him, it's his right, but you don't have to decide with him. It's for you to decide what to do. Of course it's better if you agree, but if you don't agree, it has to be your decision because you carry the baby.’ I tried to say this as firmly as possible.

Susanne glanced at me sideways. ‘Have you – have you yourself -’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to have children?’

‘Yes, but -’ I didn't know what to explain first. Unaccountably I began to giggle. Susanne stared at me, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the streetlight. ‘Sorry. I have to sit down,’ I said. ‘Then I'll tell you.’

I sat in one of the armchairs while Susanne switched on a small lamp on the piano. She curled up in a corner of the sofa, legs tucked under her, green silk pulled tight over her knees, and looked at me expectantly. I think she was relieved the spotlight was no longer on her.

‘My husband and I talked about having children,’ I began. ‘We thought now would be a good time. Well, actually, I suggested it and Rick agreed. So we started to try. But I was – disturbed. By a nightmare. And now, now I think – well, we're having problems now.

‘There was also – there is also something else. Someone else.’ I felt humiliated putting it like that, but it was also a relief to tell someone.

‘Who?’

‘A librarian in the town where I live. We've been – flirting for awhile. And then we -’ I waved my hands in the air. ‘Afterwards I felt bad and had to get away. So I came here.’

‘Is he handsome?’

‘He – oh, yes. I think so. He is kind of – severe.’

‘And you like him.’

‘Yes.’ It was strange talking about him; I actually found it hard to picture him. From this distance, in this room with Susanne curled up in front of me, what had happened with Jean-Paul seemed far away and not as earth-shattering as I'd thought. It was a funny thing: once you tell your story to others it becomes more like fiction and less like truth. A layer of performance is added to it, removing you further from the real thing.

‘How long have you and Rick been married?’

‘Two years.’

‘And the man, what is his name?’

‘Jean-Paul.’ There was something so definite about his name that saying it made me smile. ‘He's helped me look into my family history,’ I continued. ‘He argues with me a lot, but it's because he is interested in me, in what I do – no, in what I am, really. He listens to me. He sees me, not the idea of me. You know?’

Susanne nodded.

‘And I can talk to him. I even told him about the nightmare and he was very good, he made me describe it. That helped.’

‘What is it about, this nightmare?’

‘Oh, I don't know. It doesn't have a story. Just a feeling, like a – like I have no – respiration.’ I patted my chest. Frank Sinatra, I thought. Ole blue eyes.

‘And a blue, a certain colour blue,’ I added. ‘Like in Renaissance paintings. The colour they painted the Virgin's robe. There is this painter – tell me, have you heard of Nicolas Tournier?’

Susanne sat up straight and gripped the arm of the sofa. ‘Tell me more about this blue.’

At last, a connection with the painter. ‘It has two parts: there's a clear blue, the top layer, full of light and-’ I struggled for words. ‘It moves with the light, the colour. But there's also a darkness underneath the light, very sombre. The two shades fight against each other. That's what makes the colour so alive and memorable. It's a beautiful colour, you see, but sad too, maybe to remind us that the Virgin is always mourning the death of her son, even when he's born. Like she knows already what will happen. But then when he's dead the blue is still beautiful, still hopeful. It makes you think that nothing is completely one thing or the other; it can be light and happy but there is always that darkness underneath.’

I stopped. We were both quiet.

Then she said, ‘I have had the dream too.’

‘I had it only once, about six weeks ago, back in Amsterdam. I woke up terrified and I was crying. I thought I was being smothered in blue, the blue you describe. It was strange because I felt happy and sad at the same time. Jan said I'd been saying something, like reciting something from the Bible. I couldn't sleep afterwards. I had to get up and play, like tonight.’

‘Do you have any whisky?’ I asked.

She went to the bookcase and opened the cupboard at the bottom, taking out a half-empty bottle and two small glasses. She sat back in the corner of the sofa and poured us each a shot. I considered saying something about her drinking in her condition, but didn't have to: after handing me my glass she took one sniff of hers and grimaced, then uncorked the bottle and poured the whisky back.

I gulped mine. It cut through everything: the fondue, the wine, my misery about Rick and Jean-Paul. It gave me what I needed to ask awkward questions.

‘How long have you been pregnant?’

‘I'm not sure.’ She put a hand up each sleeve of the kimono and rubbed her arms.

‘When did you miss your, your -’ I gestured at her.

‘Four weeks ago.’

‘How did you get pregnant? You weren't using anything? I'm sorry, but it's important.’

She looked down. ‘I forgot to take the pill one day. Usually I take it before I go to bed, but I forgot. I didn't think it would matter.’

I began to say something but Susanne interrupted me. ‘You know, I'm not stupid or irresponsible. It's just that -’ She pressed her hand against her mouth. ‘Sometimes it's difficult to believe there is a connection between a little pill and becoming pregnant. It's like magic, two things that are completely unrelated, that they should have anything to do with each other, it's crazy. Intellectually I can understand it but not truly in my heart.’

I nodded. ‘Pregnant women often don't make the connection between their babies and sex. Neither do men. The two are so different, it is like magic.’

We were quiet for a minute.

‘When did you miss that pill?’ I asked.

‘I don't remember.’

I leaned forward. ‘Try. Was it around the time of the dream?’

‘I don't think so. No, wait a minute, now I remember. Jan was in Brussels at a concert the night I forgot the pill. He came back the next day and that night I had the dream. That's it.’

‘And you and Jan – did you – make love that night?’

‘Yes.’ She looked embarrassed.

I apologized. ‘It's just that I only had the dream after Rick and I had sex,’ I explained. ‘The same as you. But the dream stopped when I began using contraceptives, and for you it stopped once you were pregnant.’

We looked at each other.

‘That is very strange,’ Susanne said quietly.

‘Yes, it is strange.’

Susanne smoothed her kimono over her stomach and sighed.

‘You must tell Jan,’ I said. ‘That is the first thing to do.’

‘Yes, I know. And you must tell Rick.’

‘It seems he already knows.’

The next day I looked at records in the town hall. Though Jacob's grandfather had done a thorough job on the family tree, I felt the urge to hold the source material in my own hands. I had acquired a taste for it. I sat all afternoon at a table in a meeting room, looking through carefully recorded lists of births and deaths and marriages from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I hadn't realized how established a family the Tourniers were in Moutier: there had been hundreds and hundreds of them.

These brief records told me a lot: the size of families, the age they married – usually in their early twenties – the men's occupations – farmer, teacher, innkeeper, watch engraver. A lot of babies died. I found a Susanne Tournier who between 1751 and 1765 had eight children, and five of them died within a month of birth. She died giving birth to the last. I'd never had a baby or a mother die on me. I'd been lucky.

There were other eye-openers. A lot of illegitimacy and incest were openly recorded. So much for Calvinist principles, I thought, but underneath my cynicism I was shocked that when Judith Tournier gave birth to her father Jean's son in 1796, it was recorded in the official records. Other records baldly stated that children were illegitimate.

It was strange seeing all the first names in use back then, to know that they were still being used. But among all the names – many of them Old Testament names favoured by Huguenots like Daniel, Abraham and even a Noah – I noticed there were plenty of Hannahs and Susannes, and later Ruth and Anne and Judith, but not one Isabelle, not one Marie.

When I asked about records earlier than the mid-eighteenth century, the woman in charge told me I would have to look at parish records held at Berne and Porrentruy, advising me to call them first. I wrote down the names and phone numbers and thanked her, smiling to myself: she would have been horrified by my spontaneous trip to the Cévennes and my success despite myself. This was a country where luck wasn't involved; results came from conscientious work and careful planning.

I went to a nearby café to consider my next move. The coffee arrived, presented on a doily, with the spoon, sugar cubes and a square of chocolate arranged on the saucer. I studied the composition: it reminded me of the records I'd just looked at, precisely recorded facts in clear handwriting. Though they were easier to decipher they lacked the charm and haphazardness of the French records. It was like the French themselves: irritating because they weren't accommodating to strangers, but also more interesting as a result. You had to work harder with them, so you got more out of it.

Jacob was at the piano when I got back, playing something slow and sad. I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes. The music consisted of clear notes, simple lines of melody, like the sound was being picked out with a needle. It reminded me of Jean-Paul.

I was just dozing off when he finished. I opened my eyes and met his gaze across the piano.

‘Schubert,’ he said.

‘Beautiful.’

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘Not really. Jacob, could you make some phone calls for me?’

‘Bien sûr, ma cousine. And I've been thinking about what you might want to see. Family things. There's a place where there was a mill that Tourniers owned. There's a restaurant, a pizzeria now, run by Italians, that used to be an inn run by a Tournier in the nineteenth century. And there's a farm about a kilometre outside of Moutier, toward Grand Val. We're not sure it really is a Tournier farm, but family tradition says it is. It's an interesting place anyway because it has an old chimney. Apparently it was one of the first houses in the valley to have one.’

‘Don't all houses have chimneys?’

‘They do now, but long ago it was unusual. None of the farms in this region had chimneys.’

‘What happened to the smoke?’

‘There was a false ceiling, and the smoke gathered between that and the roof. The farmers hung their meat up there to dry.’

It sounded appalling. ‘Wouldn't the house have been smoky? And dirty?’

Jacob chuckled. ‘Probably. There's a farm in Grand Val itself without a chimney. I've been inside and the hearth and the ceiling above the fire are completely black with soot. But the Tournier farm, if it is a Tournier farm, isn't like that. It has a kind of chimney.’

‘When was it built?’

‘Seventeenth century, I think. Maybe the end of the sixteenth. The chimney, that is. The rest of the farm has been rebuilt several times, but the chimney has remained. In fact, the local historical society bought the farm a few years ago.’

‘So it's empty now? Can we go see it?’

‘Of course. Tomorrow, if it's a nice day. I don't have any students until late in the afternoon. Now, where are those phone numbers?’

I explained what I wanted, then left him to it while I went for a walk. There wasn't much left to see of Moutier that Jacob hadn't already shown me, but it was nice to walk around and not be stared at. After three days here people even said hello to me first, the way no one ever did in Lisle-sur-Tarn after three months. They seemed to be more polite and less suspicious than the French.

I did find one new thing as I zigzagged through the streets: a plaque announcing that Goethe had slept at the Cheval-Blanc inn on that spot one night in October 1779. He'd mentioned Moutier in a letter, describing the rock formations surrounding it, in particular an impressive gorge just to the east of town. It was a stretch to put up a plaque commemorating one night spent there: that was how little had happened in Moutier.

I turned from the plaque to find Lucien coming toward me, carrying two cans of paint. I had a feeling he'd been watching me and only now picked up the cans and moved.

‘Bonjour,’ I said. He stopped and set down the cans.

‘Bonjour,’ he replied.

‘Ça va? ’

‘Oui, ça va.’

We stood awkwardly. I found it hard to look straight at him because he was looking so hard at me, searching my eyes for something. His attention was the last thing I needed right now. That was probably why he was drawn to me. He was certainly fascinated by my psoriasis. Even now he kept glancing at it.

‘Lucien, it's psoriasis,’ I snapped, secretly pleased to be able to embarrass him. ‘I told you that the other day. Why do you keep looking at it?’

‘I'm sorry.’ He looked away. ‘It's just that – I get it myself sometimes. In the same place on my arms. I always thought it was an allergic reaction to paint.’

‘Oh, I'm sorry!’ Now I felt guilty, but still irritated with him, which made me feel even more guilty. A vicious circle.

‘Why haven't you seen a doctor?’ I asked more gently. ‘He'd tell you what it is and give you something to put on it. There's a cream – I left it at home or I'd use it now.’

‘I don't like doctors,’ Lucien explained. ‘They make me feel – maladjusted.’

I laughed. ‘I know what you mean. And here – in France, I mean – they prescribe so many things. Too many things.’

‘Why do you get it? The psoriasis?’

‘Stress, they say. But the cream isn't bad. You could just ask the doctor to -’

‘Ella, will you have a drink with me one night?’

I paused. I should nip this in the bud: I wasn't interested and it was inappropriate, particularly now. But I'd always been bad at saying no. I wouldn't be able to bear the look on his face.

‘OK,’ I said finally. ‘In a couple of days, all right? But Lucien -’

He looked so happy that I couldn't go on. ‘It's nothing. Some night this week, then.’

When I returned Jacob was playing again. He stopped and picked up a scrap of paper. ‘Bad news, I'm afraid,’ he said. ‘The records at Berne go back only to 1750. At Porrentruy the librarian told me the parish records for the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were lost in a fire. There are some military lists you could look at, though. That is where my grandfather got his information, I think.’

‘Probably your grandfather found everything there was to find. But thanks for calling for me.’ Military lists were no use – it was the women I was interested in. I didn't tell him that.

‘Jacob, have you heard of a painter named Nicolas Tournier?’ I said instead.

He shook his head. I went to my room and got the postcard I'd brought with me.

‘See, he came from Montbéliard,’ I explained, handing him the card. ‘I just thought he could be an ancestor. A part of the family that moved to Montbéliard, maybe.’

Jacob looked at the painting and shook his head. ‘I've never heard of there being a painter in the family. Tourniers tended to have practical occupations. Except for me!’ He laughed, then turned serious. ‘Ah, Ella, Rick called while you were out.’

‘Oh.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘He asked me to tell you he loves you.’

‘Oh. Thank you.’ I looked down.

‘You know you can stay with us as long as you want. As long as you need to.’

‘Yes. Thanks. We have – there are some problems. You know.’

He said nothing, just gazed at me, and for a moment I was reminded of the couple on the train. Jacob was Swiss, after all.

‘Anyway, I'm sure everything will be fine soon.’

He nodded. ‘Until then you stay with your family.’

‘Yes.’

Once I'd said something to Jacob about Rick and me I no longer felt like I had to justify being there. It rained the next day so we put off our trip to the farm, and I felt comfortable sitting around all day reading and listening to Susanne and Jacob play. That night we ate at the pizzeria that had once been a Tournier inn but now felt decidedly Italian.

The next morning we all went to see the farm. Susanne had never been to it, though she'd lived in Moutier most of her life. At the east edge of town we took a path clearly marked with a yellow sign proclaiming it a ‘Pédestre tourisme ’ and telling us it would take forty-five minutes to walk to Grand Val. Only in Switzerland do they say how long a walk should take rather than how far it is. To our left was the beginning of the limestone gorge Goethe had written about: a dramatic wall of yellow-grey rock extending from mountains on either side, crumbled in the centre to allow the Birse to pass through. It was impressive with the sun shining on it; it reminded me of a cathedral.

The valley we followed was gentler, with a nameless stream and a railroad track along the bottom, fields on the lower slopes, then pines and a sudden steep incline into rocks high above us. Horses and cows grazed in the fields; farms appeared at regular intervals. It was all neat, in clean lines and bright, sharp light.

The men walked briskly together while Susanne and I followed. She was wearing a blue-green sleeveless tunic and loose white pants that billowed around her slim legs. She looked pale and tired, her cheerfulness tacked on. I knew from the way she kept a certain distance from Jan and glanced at me guiltily that she hadn't told him yet.

We lagged further and further behind the men, as if we were about to say something private to each other. I shivered, though it was a warm, sunny day, and wrapped Jean-Paul's blue shirt around me. It smelled of smoke and of him.

Jacob and Jan stopped where the path forked, and as we reached them Jacob pointed to a house a little way above us, near the point where the fields stopped and the trees began to climb into the mountains. ‘That's the farm,’ he said.

I don't want to go, I thought. Why is that? I glanced at Susanne. She was looking at me and I knew she was thinking the same thing. The men started up the hill, while she and I stood looking at their backs.

‘C'mon,’ I gestured to Susanne, and turned to follow the men. She came slowly behind me.

The farm was a long low structure, the left side a stone house, the right a wooden barn. The two sides were held under one long shallow roof and shared a gaping entrance that led to a dim porch like area Jacob said was called a devant-huis. A kind of porch, it was strewn with straw and bits of lumber and old buckets. I'd thought that the historical society would have done something to preserve it, but the place was slowly falling apart: the shutters were askew, the windows broken, and moss was growing on the roof.

Jacob and Jan stood admiring the farm, while Susanne and I looked at our feet. ‘See the chimney?’ Jacob pointed to a strange lumpy formation poking up from the roof – nothing like the neat line of stone up one wall that I'd expected. ‘It's made of limestone, you see,’ Jacob explained. ‘Soft stone, so they used a kind of cement to shape and harden it. Most of the chimney is inside rather than up the outside wall. Let's go in and you'll see the rest.’

‘Is it open?’ I asked reluctantly, wanting there to be a lock on the door, a sign saying ‘Propriété privée ’.

‘Oh, yes, I've been in before. I know where the key is hidden.’

Damn, I thought. I couldn't explain why I didn't want to go inside; after all, we had come here for my sake. I could feel Susanne looking at me helplessly, as if I were the one who had to stop everything. It was like we were being dragged inside by a cool male logic we couldn't fight. I held out my hand to her. ‘Come,’ I said. She put her hand in mine. It was ice-cold.

‘Your hand is cold,’ she said.

‘Yours too.’ We smiled grimly at each other. I felt like we were two little girls in a fairytale as we entered the house together.

It was dim inside, with only the light from the door and a couple of narrow windows to see by. As my eyes adjusted I was able to make out more lumber and some broken chairs lying on the packed dirt floor. Just inside the door was a blackened hearth, jutting lengthwise into the room rather than laid parallel to the wall. At each corner of the hearth stood a square stone pillar about seven feet high, supporting arches of stone. Leading up from the arches was the same lumpy construction as outside, an ugly but serviceable pyramid to channel out the smoke.

I let go of Susanne's hand and stepped onto the hearth so I could look up the chimney. It was black above me; even when I stood on tiptoe, holding onto a pillar and craning my neck, I couldn't see an opening. ‘Must be blocked,’ I murmured. I felt dizzy suddenly, lost my balance and fell hard into the dirt.

Jacob was next to me in a second, giving me a hand up and brushing me off. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, concern in his voice.

‘Yes,’ I replied shakily. ‘I – I lost my balance, I think. Maybe the stone isn't even.’

I looked around for Susanne; she was gone. ‘Where's -’ I started to say before a sharp pain jabbed at my stomach, propelling me past Jacob and outside.

Susanne was doubled over in the yard, arms crossed over her abdomen. Jan stood next to her, speechless and staring. As I put my arm around her shoulder she gasped and a bright red flower appeared on the inner thighs of her pants, spreading rapidly down her leg.

For a second I panicked. Holy Mother, I thought, what do I do? Then I had a sensation I hadn't felt in months: my brain switched over to automatic, a familiar place where I knew exactly who I was and what I had to do.

I put both arms around her and said softly, ‘Susanne, you must lie down.’ She nodded, bent her knees and slumped forward in my arms. I lowered her carefully onto her side, then glanced up at Jan, still frozen in place. ‘Jan, give me your jacket,’ I commanded. He stared at me until I repeated myself loudly. He handed me his tan cotton jacket, the kind I associated with old men playing shuffleboard. I stuffed it under Susanne's head, then took off Jean-Paul's shirt and draped it over her like a blanket, covering her bloody groin. A red patch began to seep outward on the shirt's back. For a second I was mesmerized by the two colours, made the more beautiful by contrasting with each other.

I shook my head, squeezed Susanne's hand and leaned toward her. ‘Don't worry, you're all right. Everything will be OK.’

‘Ella, what is happening?’ Jacob was towering over us, his long face screwed up with worry. I glanced at Jan, still paralyzed, and made a quick decision. ‘Susanne has had a-’

What a time for my French to fail me; Madame Sentier had never prepared me for using words like miscarriage. ‘Susanne, you must tell them. I don't know the word in French. Can you do that?’

She looked at me, eyes full of tears. ‘All you have to do is say it. That's all. I'll do the rest.’

‘Une fausse couche,’ she murmured. The two men stared at her, bewildered.

‘Now,’ I said evenly. ‘Jan, do you see that house down there?’ I pointed to the nearest farm, a quarter of a mile down the hill. Jan didn't respond until I spoke his name again, sharply this time. Then he nodded.

‘Good. Now, run there, quickly, and use their telephone to call the hospital. Can you do that?’

Finally he snapped out of it. ‘Yes, Ella, I will hurry to that farm for to telephone the hospital,’ he said.

‘Good. And ask the people at the farm if they can help us with their car, in case an ambulance can't come. Now go!’ The last word was like a whip cracking. Jan crouched down, touched the ground with one hand and took off like he was in a playground race. I grimaced. Susanne has to get rid of this guy, I thought.

Jacob had knelt next to Susanne and placed his hand on her hair. ‘Will she be all right?’ he asked, trying to muffle his desperation.

I addressed my answer to Susanne. ‘Of course you'll be all right. It probably hurts a little now, yes?’

Susanne nodded.

‘That will stop soon. Jan has gone to call an ambulance to come and get you.’

‘Ella, this is my fault,’ she whispered.

‘No. It's not your fault. Of course it's not your fault.’

‘But I didn't want it and maybe if I had this wouldn't have happened.’

‘Susanne, it's not your fault. Women have miscarriages all the time. You didn't do anything wrong. You had no control over this.’

She looked unconvinced. Jacob was staring at the two of us like we were speaking in Swahili.

‘I promise you. It's not your fault. Believe me. OK?’

Finally she nodded.

‘Now, I need to examine you. Will you let me look at you?’

Susanne held my hand tighter and tears began to roll down the side of her face. ‘Yes, it hurts, I know, and you don't want me to look, but I have to, to make sure you're all right. I won't hurt you. You know I won't hurt you.’

Her eyes darted to Jacob, then back to me; I understood. ‘Jacob, take Susanne's hand,’ I ordered, transferring her thin hand into his. ‘Help her onto her back and sit here next to her.’ I positioned him so he was facing her and couldn't see what I was doing.

‘Now, talk to her.’ Jacob looked at me helplessly. I thought for a moment. ‘Do you remember you told me you have one good student of piano? Who plays Bach? What will he play for the next concert? And why? Tell Susanne about him.’

For a second Jacob looked lost; then his face relaxed. He turned to Susanne and began to speak. After a moment she relaxed as well. Trying to move her as little as possible, I managed to wriggle her pants and underwear down her legs far enough to get a look, mopping up the blood with Jean-Paul's shirt. Then I pulled her pants up again, leaving them unzipped. Jacob stopped talking. They both looked at me.

‘You've lost some blood, but the bleeding has stopped for now. You'll be fine.’ 240

‘I'm thirsty,’ Susanne said softly.

‘I'll look for some water.’ I stood up, pleased to see they were both calm. I circled the farmhouse, looking for an outdoor spigot. There wasn't one; I would have to go back inside.

I slipped into the devant-huis and stood in the doorway of the house. Sunlight was falling in a thin beam across the hearthstone. In the shaft of light I could see thick dust, kicked up by our visit. I looked around for a source of water. It was very quiet; I couldn't hear anything, no comforting sounds like Jacob's voice or the wind in the pines above us or cowbells or a distant train. Just silence and the sheet of light on the slab before me. It was a huge piece of stone; it must have taken several men to set it in place. I looked at it more closely. Even discoloured by soot it was clearly not local stone. It looked foreign.

In a corner opposite the door there was an old sink with a tap. I doubted it worked but for Susanne's sake I would have to try it. I walked around the hearth, heart racing, hands clammy. When I reached the sink I wrestled with the tap for a minute before I managed to turn it. For a moment nothing happened; then there was a sputter and the tap began to shake violently. I stepped back. A great spurt of dark liquid suddenly gushed out into the sink and I jumped, cracking the back of my head against the corner of one of the pillars holding up the chimney. I cried out sharply and whirled around, stars shooting before my eyes. I sank to my knees next to the hearth and pulled my head down. The back of my head was damp and sticky. I took several deep breaths. When the stars disappeared I lifted my head and lowered my arms. Drops of blood left the broken psoriasis patches in the creases of my elbows and rolled down my arms to meet the blood on my hands.

I stared at the tracks of blood. ‘This is the place, isn't it?’ I said aloud. ‘Je suis arrivée chez moi, n'est-ce pas? ’

Behind me the water stopped.