The Virgin Blue

9 – THE CHIMNEY

Isabelle stood silent in the devant-huis. She could hear the horse shifting in the barn; from the house came the sounds of digging. – Marie? she called softly, uncertain if she should say the name aloud, who might hear it. The horse whinnied at the sound of her voice, then stopped moving. The digging continued. Isabelle hesitated, then pushed the door open.

Etienne was working on a long hole near the slab of granite, extending from its base out into the room. It was not along the far wall where he had earlier decided the hearth would go, but near the door. The floor was packed hard and he was having to slice violently at it with his spade to loosen the dirt.

When the light from the door fell on him he glanced up, saying: – Is she – then stopping himself when he recognized Isabelle. He straightened up.

– What are you doing here?

– Where is Marie?

– You should be ashamed, La Rousse. You should be on your knees praying for God's mercy.

– Why are you digging on a Holy Day?

He ignored the question.

– Your daughter has run off, he said loudly. Petit Jean has gone to look for her in the woods. I thought you were he, coming back to say she is safe. Aren't you concerned about your own shameful daughter, La Rousse? You should be looking for her too.

– Marie is all I'm concerned about. Where did she go?

– Behind the house, up the mountain. Etienne turned back to the hole and began to dig again. Isabelle watched him.

– Why are you digging there rather than against the far wall, where you said the hearth was to go?

He straightened up again and raised the spade above his head. Isabelle jumped back quickly and Etienne laughed.

– Don't ask stupid questions. Go and find your daughter.

Isabelle backed out of the room and pulled the door closed. She remained in the devant-huis for a moment. Etienne had not begun digging again and it was very quiet, a silence full of secrets.

I am not alone with Etienne, she thought. Marie is here, somewhere nearby.

– Marie! she began to call. Marie! Marie! She went out into the yard, still calling. Marie did not appear – only Hannah, labouring up the path. Isabelle had not waited for her outside Chalières, but had left her with Jacob and run along the path towards the farm until she had been sure Hannah could not catch up. Now when she saw Isabelle the old woman stopped, leaning on her stick and breathing hard. Then she lowered her head and hurried past her daughter-in-law to the house, banging the door shut behind her.

It wasn't easy getting Lucien drunk. He gazed at me across the table and drank his beer so slowly that I had to let my gulps trickle back into my glass to wait for him to catch up. We were the only customers in a bar in the centre of town. American country and western played over the sound system; the waitress read a newspaper behind the counter. Moutier on a rainy Thursday in early July was as dead as a stop sign.

I had a flashlight in my bag, but I was relying on Lucien to have tools in case we needed them. He didn't know it yet, though; he sat tracing patterns in the wet glass rings left on the table, looking uncomfortable. I had a long way to go to get him to do what I wanted. I'd have to resort to desperate measures.

I caught the waitress's eye. When she came over I ordered two whiskies. Lucien stared at me with big hazel eyes. I shrugged. ‘In America we always have whisky with beer,’ I lied airily. He nodded and I thought of Jean-Paul, who would never have let me get away with such a ridiculous statement. I missed his prickly, sarcastic edge; he was like a knife, cutting through the haze of uncertainty, saying what needed to be said.

When the waitress brought two shots, I insisted that Lucien drink his in one go rather than sip it delicately. When he finished it I ordered two more. He hesitated, but after the second he visibly relaxed and began to tell me about a house he'd built recently. I let him run on, though he used a lot of technical words I didn't understand. ‘It's halfway up the mountain, on a slope – always harder to build,’ he explained. ‘And then there were problems with the concrete for l'abri nucléaire. We had to remix it twice.’

‘L'abri nucléaire?’ I repeated, not sure of the French.

‘Oui.’ He waited while I looked it up in the dictionary I kept in my bag.

‘A nuclear shelter? You built a nuclear shelter in a house?’

‘Of course. It's required. It's the law in Switzerland that every new house has a shelter.’

I shook my head as if to clear it. Lucien misunderstood my gesture. ‘But it's true, every new house has a nuclear shelter,’ he repeated more fervently. ‘And every man does his national service, did you know that? When he is eighteen a man serves for seventeen weeks in the army. And after that, for three weeks every year in the reserves.’

‘Why is Switzerland so military if it's a neutral country? You know, like during World War II?’

He smiled grimly. ‘So that we can remain neutral. A country cannot be neutral unless it has a strong army.’

I came from a country with a huge military budget and no sense of neutrality at all; it seemed to me that the two had little to do with each other. But I wasn't here to talk politics; we were getting further and further away from my intended topic. I had to find a way to get onto the subject of chimneys.

‘So what's this nuclear shelter made of?’ I asked awkwardly.

‘Concrete and lead. You know, the walls are a metre thick.’

‘Really?’

Lucien began to explain in detail how a shelter was constructed. I closed my eyes. What a nerd, I thought. Why on earth am I getting him to help me?

There was no one else. Jacob was too shaken by Susanne's miscarriage the day before to go back to the farm and Jan wasn't a rule-breaker. Another wimp, I thought grimly. What is it with these men? Again I wished Jean-Paul were here: he would argue with me about the usefulness of what I wanted to do, he would question my sanity, but he would back me if he knew it was important to me. I wondered how he was. That night seemed so long ago now. One week.

He wasn't here; I had to rely on the man at hand. I opened my eyes and interrupted Lucien's soliloquy. ‘Ecoute, I want you to help me,’ I said firmly, deliberately switching to the familiar form in French. Up until now I'd persisted in remaining formal with him.

Lucien stopped, looking surprised and suspicious.

‘Do you know the farm near Grand Val with the old chimney?’

He nodded.

‘We went to see it yesterday. It used to be my ancestors' farm.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. There's something I need to get from it.’

‘What?’

‘I'm not sure,’ I replied, then added quickly, ‘but I know where it is.’

‘How can you know where it is when you don't know what it is?’

‘I don't know.’

Lucien paused, peering into his empty shot glass. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked after a moment.

‘Come with me to the farm, to look around. Do you have any tools?’

He nodded. ‘In my truck.’

‘Good. We might need them.’ He looked alarmed and I added, ‘Don't worry, we don't have to break in or anything – there's a key to the lock on the door. I just want to look around. Will you help me?’

‘You mean now? Right now?’

‘Yes. I don't want anyone to know I'm going there, so it has to be at night.’

‘Why don't you want anyone to know?’

I shrugged. ‘I don't want people to ask questions. To talk.’

There was a long silence. I braced myself for his no.

‘OK.’

When I smiled, Lucien returned it hesitantly. ‘You know, Ella,’ he said, ‘that's the first time you've smiled all evening.’

It was beginning to rain when Isabelle entered the woods. The first drops filtered through the new leaves on the beech trees, shaking them gently and filling the air with a soft, rustling sound. A musky smell rose from the dampening mix of dead leaves and pine needles.

She began to climb the slope behind the house, calling Marie's name occasionally, but more often standing still and listening to the sounds behind the rain: crows cawing, the wind in the pines further up the mountain, horse hooves on the path towards Moutier. She didn't think Marie would go far – she didn't like being alone or away from home. But she had never been shamed before either, in front of so many people.

It comes with your new hair, Isabelle thought, and with being my daughter. Even here. Yet I have no magic to protect you with, nothing to keep you safe from the cold and the dark.

She headed further up, reaching a ridge of rock halfway up the mountain and turning west along it. She knew she was being drawn to a particular place. She entered the little clearing where she and Jacob had kept the goat all summer. She had not been back since Jacob traded the goat for the cloth. Even now there were signs that an animal had been kept here: the remains of a shelter of branches, a ragged bed of straw and pine needles, droppings dried into hard pellets.

I thought I was so clever with my secrets, Isabelle brooded sombrely, looking at the goat's bed. That no one would ever know. It seemed a long time ago to her, a winter away.

Once she had visited one secret place she knew she would go to the other. She did not try to fight the impulse, even knowing it was unlikely Marie would be there. When the ridge descended towards the gorge she threaded her way through the rocks to the spot where Pascale had knelt and prayed. Here there was no trace of the secret: the blood had been absorbed in the ground long ago.

– Where are you, chérie? she said softly.

When the wolf stepped from behind the rock, Isabelle jumped and screamed, but did not run. They faced each other, the flames of the wolf's eyes alert and penetrating. It took a step towards Isabelle and stopped. Isabelle stepped backwards. The wolf stepped forwards again and Isabelle found herself moving backwards down through the rocks. Fearful of falling, she turned round but kept glancing over her shoulder as she walked to make sure the wolf came no closer. It kept the same distance from her, slowing down or stopping when she did, speeding up when she did.

It is driving me like a sheep, Isabelle thought, forcing me to go where it wants. She tested this by veering to one side. The wolf jumped to that side and ran close to her until she turned forwards again.

They came out from the rocks to the path by the edge of the trees that led from Moutier to Grand Val, the way back to the farm. Trotting towards her from the Moutier direction was the Tourniers' horse, carrying Petit Jean and Gaspard. It was the horse she had heard moving in the barn and, she now understood, galloping along the path earlier.

Isabelle turned to look at the wolf. It was gone.

Lucien had an old Citroën truck stuffed with tools – exactly what I'd hoped. It rattled and coughed down the main street so loudly I was sure the entire population had come to their windows to watch our departure. So much for discretion.

It had just begun to rain, a fine mist that slicked the streets and made me pull my jacket tight around me. Lucien switched on the windshield wipers; they scraped against the windshield, setting my nerves on edge. He drove cautiously through town, not that he needed to: at nine-thirty not a soul was on the streets. By the train station, the only place showing any signs of life, he turned onto the road toward Grand Val.

We were silent during the drive. I was grateful that he didn't ask a lot of questions the way I would have if I were in his position: I didn't have any answers for him.

We turned into a small road which dipped under the railroad tracks and headed up a hill. At a cluster of houses Lucien swung onto a dirt road I recognized from our walk that morning. He drove about 300 yards, stopped and switched the engine off. The windshield wipers came to a blessed halt, the truck coughed several times, then with a long wheeze went dead.

‘It's over there.’ Lucien pointed to our left. After a moment I could make out the outline of the farm fifty yards away. I shivered; it was going to be hard to get out of the truck and walk up there.

‘Ella, can I ask you something?’

‘Yes,’ I replied reluctantly. I didn't want to tell him everything, but I knew I couldn't expect him to help me blindly.

He surprised me. ‘You are married.’ It was more a statement than a question, but I confirmed it with a nod.

‘It was your husband who called the other night, during the fondue.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was married too,’ he said.

‘Vraiment?’ I sounded more surprised than I'd intended. It was like his telling me he suffered from psoriasis: it made me feel guilty that I'd assumed he wouldn't have the kind of life I did, with stress and romance.

‘Do you have children?’ I asked, trying to give him back his life.

‘A daughter. Christine. She lives with her mother in Basle.’

‘Not too far from here.’

‘No. I see her every other weekend. And you, do you have children?’

‘No.’ My elbows and ankles started to itch, the psoriasis demanding attention.

‘Not yet.’

‘No, not yet.’

‘The day I found out my wife was pregnant,’ Lucien said slowly, ‘I had been planning to tell her I thought we should separate. We'd been married two years, and I knew things weren't going well. For me, anyway. We sat down to tell each other our big news, our thoughts. She went first. After she told me I couldn't tell her what I'd been thinking.’

‘So you stayed together.’

‘Until Christine was a year old, yes. It was like hell, though.’

I don't know how long it had been growing in me, but I realized suddenly that I felt nauseous, my stomach swimming in concrete. I swallowed and took a deep breath.

‘When I heard you on the phone with your husband it reminded me of phone calls I used to have with my wife.’

‘But I hardly said anything to him!’

‘It was your tone.’

‘Oh.’ I stared out at the dark, embarrassed.

‘I'm not sure my husband is the right man to have children with,’ I said then. ‘I've never been sure.’ Saying it aloud, to Lucien of all people, felt like breaking a window. The very sound of the words shocked me.

‘It is better that you know now,’ Lucien said, ‘so that if you can help it you don't bring a child into a world without love.’

I swallowed and nodded. We sat listening to the rain; I concentrated on calming my stomach.

‘Do you want to steal something from there?’ he asked suddenly, nodding toward the farm.

I thought about it. ‘No. I just want to find something. Something that is mine.’

‘What? You left something there yesterday? Is that it?’

‘Yes. The story of my family.’ I sat up straight. ‘You'll still help me?’ I asked briskly.

‘Of course. I said I would help you, so I'm going to help you.’ Lucien met my eyes with a steady gaze.

He's not so bad, I thought.

It seemed that Petit Jean was not going to stop. Isabelle stepped into the middle of the path, forcing him to pull up the horse. She reached up and grasped the bridle. The horse pressed its muzzle into her shoulder and snorted.

Neither Petit Jean nor Gaspard would look her in the eye, though Gaspard removed his black hat and nodded at her. Petit Jean sat tensely, eyes fixed ahead, waiting impatiently to be released.

– Where are you going? she asked.

– Back to the farm. Petit Jean swallowed.

– Why? Have you found Marie? Is she safe?

He did not reply. Gaspard cleared his throat, keeping his blind eye towards her.

– I'm sorry, Isabelle, he mumbled. You know I would have nothing to do with this but because of Pascale. If she had not made the dress I wouldn't be obliged to help now. But – he shrugged and put his hat back on. I'm sorry.

Petit Jean hissed between his teeth and pulled savagely at the reins. Isabelle lost her grip on the bridle.

– Help with what? she shouted as Petit Jean kicked the horse into a flying start. Help with what?

As they galloped away Gaspard's hat fell off and rolled into a puddle. Isabelle watched them disappear down the path, then leaned over and picked up the hat, shaking it free of mud and water. She held it loosely in her fingers as she followed the path home.

It was raining harder. We ducked into the devant-huis, my flashlight picking out the padlock on the door. Lucien gave it a brief tug. ‘This was put here to keep les drogués out,’ he announced.

‘There are, um, druggies in Moutier?’

‘Of course. There are druggies everywhere in Switzerland. You don't know this country very well, do you?’

‘That's for sure,’ I muttered in English. ‘Jesus. So much for appearances.’

‘How did you get in yesterday?’

‘Jacob knew where the key is hidden.’ I looked around. ‘I didn't notice where. It shouldn't be hard to find, though.’

We used the flashlight to check all the obvious places in the devant-huis.

‘Maybe Jacob accidentally took it with him,’ I suggested. ‘We were all upset yesterday. It would have been an easy thing to do.’ I felt vaguely relieved that I wouldn't have to go through with this after all.

Lucien looked at the tiny windows on either side of the door; their broken panes of glass could easily be pushed in, but neither of us would fit through them. The windows at the front of the house were also small and high up. He took the flashlight from me. ‘I will look for a bigger window around the back,’ he said. ‘You can wait here alone?’

I forced myself to nod. He ducked out of the devant-huis, disappearing around the corner. I leaned against the doorway, hugging myself to keep from shivering, and listened. At first I could hear only the rain; after a while other sounds began to emerge – traffic on the main road below us, a train whistle – and I felt a little comforted by the normal world so close.

I heard what sounded like a shriek from inside the house and jumped. ‘It's only Lucien,’ I told myself, but stepped out into the yard anyway, rain and all. When the light flashed through the window next to the door and the face appeared I stifled a scream.

Lucien beckoned me to the window and handed me the flashlight through the jagged pane. ‘I'll meet you at the window at the back.’ He disappeared before I could ask him if he was all right.

I headed around the house as Lucien had a few minutes before. It was hard turning the corner: the side and back of the building were private territory, the part hidden from public view. Circling the house I was stepping into another, unknown world.

It was muddy at the back of the house; I had to pick my way between puddles to find drier, firmer footing. When I saw the open window and Lucien's dark outline just inside I stepped too quickly and slid to my knees.

He leaned out. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

I staggered to my feet, the flashlight beam swinging wildly. The knees of my pants had soaked up two circles of mud. ‘Yes. Fine,’ I muttered, flapping the pants legs to shake off whatever mud I could. I handed him the flashlight, which he kept trained on the window sill while I scrambled in.

It was cold inside – colder, it seemed, than outside. I pushed the wet hair out of my eyes and looked around. We were in a tiny room at the back of the house, a bedroom or storage room, empty except for a pile of lumber and a couple of broken chairs. It smelled musty and damp, and when Lucien shone the flashlight up into the ceiling corners we could see tatters of cobwebs fluttering in the draught from the open window. He pushed it closed; the frame made the shrieking sound I had heard a few minutes before. I almost asked him to open it again, to leave an escape route free, but stopped myself. There's nothing to escape from, I told myself firmly, my stomach somersaulting.

He led the way to the main room, stopped by the hearth and shone the flashlight on the chimney. We looked at it for a long time in silence.

‘It's impressive, isn't it?’ I said.

‘Yes. I have lived in Moutier all my life and heard about this chimney, but I have never seen it.’

‘When I saw it yesterday I was surprised that it is so ugly.’

‘Yes. Like those ruches I saw on television. From South America.’

‘Ruches? What's a ruche?’

‘A house of bees. You know, where they make honey.’

‘Oh, a hive. Yes, I know what you mean.’ Somewhere, probably in a National Geographic, I had seen the tall, lumpy beehives he was referring to, encased in a greyish cement that hid a ridged form, like a cocoon before it hatched, graceless but functional. An image of one of the ruined farms in the Cévennes flashed through my head: the perfectly placed granite, the elegant line of the chimney. No, this was nothing like that; this was made by people desperate for a chimney at all, where anything would do.

‘It's strange, you know,’ he said, staring at the hearth and chimney. ‘Look at its position in relation to the rest of the room. It's not where you would expect a hearth to be. It does not set the room up the way it should. It makes it – awkward. Uncomfortable.’

He was right. ‘It's too close to the door,’ I said.

‘Much too close. You almost walk into it when you come in. That is very inefficient – so much heat would escape whenever the door is opened. And the draught from the door would make the fire burn fast and it would be hard to control. Dangerous, maybe. You would expect it to be against the far wall, there.’ He pointed. ‘It's strange that people have lived here for hundreds of years and put up with it in that position all that time.’

Rick, I thought suddenly. Rick would be able to explain this. This is his territory, these interior spaces.

‘What do you want to do now?’ Lucien sounded baffled. What had seemed straightforward in my imagination was infinitely more absurd in reality, in the dark and the damp.

I took the flashlight from him and began going over the chimney methodically, the four square pillars at the corners of the hearth, the four arches between the pillars that held up the chimney.

Lucien tried again. ‘What do you want to find?’

I shrugged. ‘Something – old,’ I replied, standing on the hearthstone and gazing up the tapering tunnel. I could see remains of birds' nests on ledges formed by jutting rocks. ‘Maybe something – blue.’

‘Something blue?’

‘Yes.’ I stepped off the stone. ‘Now, Lucien, you build things. If you were going to hide something in a chimney, where would you hide it?’

‘A blue thing?’

I didn't answer; I just stared at him. He looked at the chimney. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment, ‘most parts of the chimney would get too hot and things would burn up. Maybe further up the chimney. Or -’ He knelt down and placed his hand on the hearthstone. He rubbed his hand over it and nodded. ‘Granite. I don't know where they got this stone; it isn't local.’

‘Granite,’ I repeated. ‘Like in the Cévennes.’

‘Where?’

‘It's part of France, in the south. But why granite?’

‘Well, it's harder than limestone. It spreads heat more evenly. But this slab is very thick, so the bottom of it would not get so hot. You could hide something under it, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’ I nodded, rubbing the bump on my forehead. It made sense. ‘Let's lift the granite.’

‘It's much too heavy. We would need four men to lift it!’

‘Four men,’ I repeated. Rick, Jean-Paul, Jacob and Lucien. And one woman. I looked around. ‘Do you have a, a-in English it's block and tackle.’ He looked blank, so I got paper and pen from my bag and sketched a crude pulley system.

‘Ah, un palan! ’ he cried. ‘Yes, I have one. Here, in my truck. But even so, we would still need more men to pull it.’

I thought for a moment. ‘What about your truck?’ I asked. ‘We could attach le palan here, then attach it to the truck and use that force to pull up the stone.’

He looked surprised, as if he had never considered his truck for more noble purposes than transportation. He was silent for a long time, looking at the position of everything, measuring with his eyes. I listened to the dripping outside.

‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Maybe we can do that.’

‘We will do it.’

When she got to the farm Isabelle quietly tried the door of the house. It was bolted from the inside. She could hear Etienne and Gaspard grunting and straining, then stopping and arguing. She did not call out to them. Instead she went into the barn, where Petit Jean was rubbing down the horse. He barely reached the horse's shoulder but he handled the animal confidently. He glanced at Isabelle, then continued rubbing. She saw him swallow again.

Like the man on the road when we were leaving the Cévennes, she thought, remembering the man with the pronounced Adam's apple, the torches, Marie's brave words.

– Papa told us to stay here so we wouldn't get in the way, Petit Jean announced.

– We? Is Marie here?

Her son jerked his head towards a pile of straw in the darkest corner of the barn. Isabelle hurried over.

– Marie, she said quietly, kneeling at the edge of the pile.

It was Jacob, curled in a ball and wedged into the corner. His eyes were open wide but he didn't seem to see her.

– Jacob! What is it? Have you found Marie?

Draped over his knees was the black dress Marie had worn earlier over the blue one. Isabelle crawled over and snatched it from him. It was sodden, heavy with water.

– Where did this come from? she demanded, examining it. It had been torn at the neck. The pockets were full of stones from the Birse.

– Where did you find it?

He looked dully at the stones and said nothing. She gripped his shoulders and began to shake him.

– Where did you find it? she cried. Where?

– He found it here, she heard from behind her. She looked over at Petit Jean.

– Here? she repeated. Where?

Petit Jean gestured around him. – In the barn. She must have taken it off before she ran off into the woods. She wanted to show off her new dress to the devil in the woods, eh, Jacob?

Jacob flinched beneath Isabelle's hands.

Lucien backed the truck up as close to the house as possible. He ran the rope from a small metal loop under the truck's rear fender through the devant-huis and the little window next to the door – all the broken glass knocked out so it wouldn't cut the rope – and into the house. He attached the block to a structural beam running across the room and ran the rope from the little window up through the block's pulley and down to the hearthstone, tying the end to one point of a triangular metal frame. Clamps were attached at the other two points.

Then we dug around one end of the stone until we'd exposed the base. It took a long time because the floor was packed hard. I hacked at it with a shovel, stopping now and then to wipe the sweat out of my eyes.

Lucien positioned the metal frame over the end of the stone and fixed the clamps around it, wedging their teeth into the dirt under the bottom. Finally we went around the stone with the shovel and a crowbar, loosening the dirt around it.

When everything was ready we argued about who would stay inside and keep the block and tackle in place and who would go in the truck.

‘You see, this is not set up well,’ Lucien said, looking anxiously at the rope. ‘The angle is not good. The rope will rub against the window, there, and against the chimney arch, there.’ He flashed light on these points of friction. ‘The rope could fray and break. And the force is not even on both clamps because we could not hang the block directly over the stone, but at the side, on the beam. I have tried to compensate for it but the pull on each side is still different and the clamps could easily slip. And the beam. It may not be strong enough to carry the weight of the stone. It is best that I watch it.’

‘No.’

‘Ella -’

‘I will stay here. I will watch the rope and the clamp, and le palan.’

The tone of my voice made him back down. He moved to the little window and looked out. ‘OK,’ he said quietly. ‘You stand here with the flashlight. If the rope begins to fray, or the clamps slip, or there is any reason that I should stop the truck, point the light on the mirror there.’ He aimed the flashlight at the side mirror on the left of the truck. It flashed back at us. ‘When the stone is lifted far enough,’ he continued, ‘flash the light in the mirror also, so I will know to stop.’

I nodded and took the flashlight from him, then lit the way to the back window for him, bracing myself for the screech when he forced the window up. He glanced at me before disappearing. I smiled weakly; he didn't smile back. He looked worried.

I took up my position by the little window, tense with nerves. At least my queasiness had disappeared with all the activity and I felt I was in the right place, as absurd as the situation was. I was glad I was there with Lucien: I didn't know him well enough to have to explain myself the way I would with Rick or Jean-Paul, and he was interested enough in the mechanics of the task not to ask too many questions about why we were doing it.

It had stopped raining, though there were still dripping sounds everywhere. The truck sputtered to a start and sat shaking while Lucien switched the headlights on and revved the engine. He stuck his head out of the window and I waved. Slowly, slowly the truck inched forward. The rope came to life, the slack taken up, the line quivering. The block hanging from the beam swung out toward me. There was a cracking sound as the beam took the strain of the pull from the truck; I jumped back, terrified that the house would fall down around me.

The beam held. I trained the flashlight back and forth along the rope, to the block, down to the clamps around the stone, back along the rope, down through the window and out to the truck. There was a lot to keep an eye on. I concentrated, my body tight as a spring.

I'd let the flashlight fall for several seconds on one of the clamps when it began to slide from the stone. I quickly flashed the light through the window to the mirror. Lucien stopped the truck just as the clamp came free from the stone and the metal frame hurtled up toward the block, knocking into the chimney before smashing into the beam. I shrieked and pressed my back against the door. The frame clattered to the floor. I was rubbing my face when Lucien poked his head through the little window.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It was just one of the clamps, it slipped from the stone. I'll put it back on.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course,’ I replied. Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the frame.

‘Let me see it,’ Lucien said. I brought it to him to examine. Luckily the metal wasn't damaged. He watched from the window while I placed it around the stone and tightened the clamps as I'd seen him do. When I finished I shone the light on it and Lucien nodded.

‘Good. You know, maybe we can do this.’ He went back to the truck; I returned to the window as before.

Isabelle crouched in the straw and looked out through the devant-huis. The rain was falling hard now and the sky was dark. It would be night soon. She watched her sons. Petit Jean continued to brush the horse, glancing around nervously. Jacob sat studying the stones from Marie's dress. He licked them, then looked up at his mother.

– They chose the ugliest stones, he said softly. The grey ones, with no colour. Why would they do that?

– Be quiet, Jacob! Petit Jean hissed.

– What do you mean, you two? Isabelle cried. What are you keeping from me?

– Nothing, Maman, Petit Jean replied. Marie has run away, you know. She's going back to the Tarn to meet the devil. She said so.

– No. Isabelle stood up. I don't believe you. I don't believe you!

The clamps slipped twice more, but the third time they kept their grip on the stone. Lucien inched the truck forwards slowly and steadily, making a tremendous racket but maintaining an even pull. I had the flashlight on the block when I heard the sound, a sucking noise, like a foot being pulled from mud. I moved the light and saw the hearth separating reluctantly from the dirt, rising an inch, two inches, three inches, steadily. I watched, frozen. The beam began to groan. I left the window, crouched next to the stone and shone the light into the crack. There was a terrible din now, with both the beam and the block groaning, and the truck outside straining, and my heart pounding. I looked into the dark space under the hearth.

They heard the boom of rock hitting the ground and froze. Even the horse went still.

Isabelle and Petit Jean moved towards the door, Jacob uncurling himself to follow them. Isabelle reached the door and tried it. As she pushed, the bolt was slid across and the door opened by Etienne, red-faced and sweating. He smiled at her.

– Come in, Isabelle.

She started at the sound of her name, then stepped past him. Hannah was on her knees next to the newly set hearth, eyes closed, candles placed on the stone. Gaspard stood back, head bowed. He did not look up when Isabelle and the boys came in. I have seen Hannah like that before, she thought. Praying at the hearth.

I saw a flash of blue, a tiny piece of blue in that dark hole. Then the stone had been lifted five inches, and I stared and stared without understanding, and then it was six inches, and then I saw the teeth and I knew. I knew and I began to scream and at the same time I reached into the grave and touched a tiny bone. ‘That's a child's arm!’ I shouted. ‘That's -’ I reached in further and took the blue between my fingers and pulled out a long thread wound around a strand of hair. It was the Virgin blue and the hair was red like mine and I began to cry.

She stared at the hearth, placed so strangely in the room.

He couldn't wait, she thought. He couldn't wait for others to help and he let the stone drop where it would.

It was a huge slab, set too close to the entrance. They were crowded between it and the door, she and Etienne and Petit Jean and Jacob. She stepped away from them and began to circle the hearth.

Then she saw a flash of blue on the floor. She fell to her knees, reached out to it and pulled. It was a piece of blue thread and it came from beneath the stone. She pulled and pulled until it broke off. She held it up to the candle for them to see.

I heard the snap and a sizzling of rope in the air. Then with a vast boom the stone fell back in place, the clamps smashing into the beam. I knew I'd heard that boom before.

– No! Isabelle cried, and threw herself onto the hearth, sobbing and banging her head against the stone. She pressed her forehead against the cold granite. Clutching the thread against her cheek she began to recite: – J'ai mis en toi mon espérance: Garde-moi donc, Seigneur, D'éternel déshonneur: Octroye-moi ma délivrance, Par ta grande bonté haute, Qui jamais ne fit faute.

Then there was no more blue; all was red and black.

‘No!’ I cried, and threw myself onto the hearth, sobbing and banging my head against the stone. I pressed my forehead against the cold granite. Clutching the thread against my cheek I began to recite: ‘J'ai mis en toi mon espérance: Garde-moi donc, Seigneur, D'éternel déshonneur: Octroye-moi ma délivrance, Par ta grande bonté haute, Qui jamais ne fit faute.’

Then there was no more blue; all was red and black.