‘We didn’t hide. We hung about like a lot of bold moths, as I recall. Christ was preaching to souls, not bodies. He didn’t say anything we hadn’t already heard. But I remember that the resemblance frightened me. I hate this – how I’ve said twice tonight that one thing or another disturbs me.’
There was a gunshot by the house, and four thrushes took flight over the ridge, close to the ground, hurdled the man and angel.
‘Our Lord resembled who?’ Sobran was used to these shocks – almost enjoyed them – the pleasure of being unmanned as he’d been by very different things, the desire he’d felt for his friend Baptiste, his love for Céleste, then Xas, then Aurora; or the travelling he’d done with the army – the shock of strangeness, villages with shutters hinged at the top, or chimneys like upended shovels.
‘Tell me,’ Sobran said.
‘I should go.’
Sobran released the angel, let him stand.
Xas peered warily at the house, then moved a few steps away – Sobran almost expected to see him begin to hop, as hens do when they hurry. The angel put the tree between himself and the house windows. Sobran got up, halt and sore, and joined him. He put an arm around the angel, loose and easy.
‘Christ looked like me,’ Xas said.
Sobran, to show he wasn’t shocked, said that perhaps they looked alike because both were treaties: the Word a treaty between God and Man, and Xas between God and the Devil.
‘There’s a thought – of a sort,’ Xas said, amused. ‘Do you think there’s a –’ he described a shape with his hands ‘ – template of my face and Christ’s face, especially for treaties. As though God is forgetful, or lazy, and works to a pattern like a maker of fine bone china?’
‘If it’s true that there’s a resemblance, then there’s some reason for it.’
‘The same mouth that kissed me says “If it’s true” – when I tell you it’s true. I may be a copy, but I’m not a fake. I have to go, Sobran. It’s a clear day, I’ll be visible for miles as I make my climb.’
‘What does the Devil say about the resemblance?’
Xas looked into Sobran’s eyes, said Sobran was very bold now, asking him to report Lucifer’s words. ‘He says, “Don’t ask me.” He says, “Get out of my sight.”’
Xas stepped away from the tree and jumped into the air.
He was visible for miles. A shadow first, like geese in a V, then white and gold, not like a goose, or swan, or cloud, but an angel.
Broken lights. Trees with the sun lancing through them. The carriage jolted and Aurora raised a hand to beat the hinged clapper against the ceiling, above which her coachman sat. The carriage slowed and the coachman opened the trapdoor and looked at her, his eyes fat bags full of poached sleep. She had told him to sleep when she had left him the night before, and had only just waked him. Now his drowsy face incensed her – how dare the man still live in a reasonable world, where it was possible to doze off in the open air, when her world was suddenly as full of holes as the casing on a spiders’ nest after a shower of hailstones. Aurora called the coach to a stop and told the stonemason to get out, forgot to thank him for his company. Antoine was still ‘Dear Baroness’ing – concerned, and burning with curiosity about what it was she had seen that had her in such a fit.
Antoine went. Aurora signalled the coachman to drive on. She rested her head against the upholstered back wall of the carriage and closed her eyes.
Something had exploded on the road. Through the vines she saw what she took for a bloodstain and broken lights. Antoine kept his gaze turned that way, puzzling it out. He said later that he’d thought someone had discharged a gun, possibly at them. He’d put an arm across her, pressed her into the ground. Aurora obeyed, and as she did turned back to face the ridge in time to see the result of the gunshot. Or so she thought. She saw a falling swan. Then her eyes did their duty and made faithful nonsense of the size of the wings, and of the body that fell. A second ‘crack’ sounded as the wings opened, great and as pale as two facing mirrors in the morning. An angel dropped onto the ground out of Aurora’s line of sight. Sobran moved to stand near where it had fallen. Then he lay down; disappeared from view. Aurora’s bladder gave a sharp spasm and let go, soaking her bloomers, petticoats, skirt – but stopping at the lining of her cloak. She felt the stonemason say something against her ear, grunted and pushed him away. She watched as Sobran got up again and went to stand by the pepper tree, surveying the road. He stepped up to the table, raised the lantern and waved it back and forth, signalling; after that sat, unknotted his neckcloth and dabbed the side of his face. Aurora thought she saw him speak. She was sure of it. Later he leaned forwards to listen – but turned his eyes to the eastern horizon, well over her concealed head. Aurora noticed that his coat was torn at the back; she saw a white hernia of exposed shirt. For a long time he was still. Then he turned his face from the east, and down – a glance – stood and walked slowly closer to whatever it was that lay there, till Aurora could see by his tucked chin that he gazed straight upon something at his feet. Then he stooped and vanished from sight.
Aurora seized Antoine’s arm. ‘We must go now.’
They ran, doubled over, between the rows and along behind the wall by the road. She looked over her shoulder once at the ridge, saw tree, table, pale awning, and the boundary marker like some large-skulled guard dog sitting on its haunches. Then she and Antoine reached the bend in the road where the long row of oaks began, and found the hidden carriage, its horses drowsing in harness.
When Antoine was gone, Aurora had her coachman stop the carriage once more before they reached the château. They stopped where the road ran beside the river. She got out and walked down to the water’s edge. The river was opaque, and reflecting the morning sky with its smooth gradations of colour, from rose through gold to white, the water innocent and infantine, a child in its cradle. Aurora walked into the water. She went in to rinse her skirt, then walked faster, the water pushing in ripples before her belly, then her disfigured chest.
She was seized and struggled. The coachman carried her, sobbing and sodden, back up the bank. He held her up against the lacquered wood wall of the carriage and begged her, tears in his eyes, to consider her husband and son. His breath smelled of the sausage he had carried half the night in his greatcoat before breakfasting as he drove. He lifted her into the coach, took off his greatcoat and wrapped her – then climbed on the box and drove on.
*
That’s the story the coachman told, the story that went around, as a rumour, nearly intact. The coachman said that he had waited all night for the Baroness, whose carriage stood hidden in the oaks at the north-eastern boundary of Clos Jodeau. He slept. At dawn the Baroness arrived, not alone, but with the stonemason, Antoine Laudel, whom they dropped off at the path that leads around the back of Clos Kalmann. The Baroness made the coachman stop again at the river, got out and walked into the water, without hesitation for prayer.
It was a month before the news of this suicide attempt reached Sobran, who was sequestered by a terrible event.
Sobran wound the handle on the well, hauled up a bucket and set it on the coping. He washed his face. Baptiste came across the yard from the winery, cradling his gun. Baptiste wished his father a good morning then asked if he’d been up all night – pointed with the toe of his shoe at the lamp by Sobran’s feet. Sobran untucked his shirt to dry his face, then nodded. He looked searchingly at his son, whose expression matched his but was neither guilty, nor keen with knowledge. Sobran asked, ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yes.’ Baptiste hesitated, then asked, ‘Last night was that night, wasn’t it? It’s the same every year.’
It was time to lie. As soon as Sobran resolved to lie he realised he had finally relinquished any possibility of telling the truth. He said, ‘I killed a man.’ Played out a length of silence. He’d had this story ready for some years, but hadn’t wanted to lie. ‘When I was in the army – the night before the fires drove us from Moscow – there was a
n Austrian infantryman, a looter, and a Russian woman, great with child.’ He paused, pushed the bucket off the coping, let the rope run and wheel spin, heard the bucket’s wooden base slap the water metres below. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. What I did was wrong.’ (The truth was worse – the truth of this story – venal, and small. Sobran vividly remembered the Russian woman, and what he did to her. He saw the woman more clearly now than he did the dead wasps and withered pears in the bowl by her bed, which he had, at the time, taken for a sign from a betrayed and blessed guardian. Now, here he was suggesting that he had taken a life to save the woman’s honour. And his lie dishonoured her again.)
His son asked, ‘Have you ever told anyone about this?’
‘Baptiste Kalmann knew. I’m telling you now because you’re a grown man.’
Baptiste held out his free hand, took his father’s arm and led him in for breakfast.
They were sitting over milky coffee when the carriage came, the family’s own, piled with boxes. The groom got down to open the door, but was swept aside by Léon. The groom balked a moment, then folded the steps down and handed out Céleste, then Agnès. Céleste was smiling dreamily. Agnès was so pale her eyes looked pushed back into her head.
Sobran and his son watched all this from the morning room, then went out into the hall, too late to intercept Léon. Sobran caught Céleste by her arm.
‘Dear, do let me unpin my hat first,’ she said, and smirked lewdly, despite the presence of her son and daughter.
Sobran released her. ‘You must have been scarcely a day at St Florentin before you began back.’
‘Yes, that’s right. It didn’t suit.’
‘What’s the matter with Léon?’
‘He’s bilious. We drove very fast.’
‘And what was amiss with the spa?’
‘Do you hear this, Agnès? It seems that your father doesn’t want us.’
‘I’m happy to have you home – but as you can see it is very hot here, and the carpets and curtains haven’t been restored to their places.’
Céleste moved around Sobran to kiss Baptiste. ‘I’ll freshen up,’ she said. ‘Come, Agnès.’ She began up the stairs.
‘In a moment, Mother.’
Céleste turned. ‘Come now, dear.’ She held out her hand.
Agnès glanced at her father who said quietly that he would be in the winery. She ran upstairs.
When she was able Agnès reported that she hadn’t known her mother was dissatisfied with arrangements at the spa till the morning she was told to pack. They had been there two days – Agnès was busy, she’d learned a piano piece from another girl and had bathed twice and had been into the woods with her uncle looking for glow-worms. Mother was good at the suppers to which they’d been asked, she had behaved graciously, and they’d had another invitation to a picnic. But then Agnès found herself being bundled off by Mother and Uncle Léon. Neither spoke in the carriage. Mother was sick once. They had one noisy night in the big inn at Précy-sous-Thil. People seemed to be coming and going at all hours. But, strangest of all, they stopped last night in the little inn at Aluze. The innkeeper was very surprised when they arrived, but Mother said something about the carpets and curtains being washed. No one asked why, if the house was out of order, they didn’t just go on to Antoine and Sophie. Mother and Léon were fighting. Agnès could hear them half the night in the room next door – their savage muttering. They were only forty minutes on the road from Aluze and Uncle and Mother weren’t speaking to each other.
Sobran found Léon at his desk, writing a letter. He looked chilled, his neckcloth wound high and hard against the line of his jaw, his ears perhaps troubling him again, as they had used to. Sobran asked him a couple of questions. Léon stood to turn his chair sideways, reseated himself as though set to listen, but said, ‘May I just finish this – I have to do this. Then I’ll be right with you.’ He spoke while looking at his cat, who was upright and drowsing by a fire of burning papers – the rug was missing, being cleaned, and the cat was too spoiled to recline on bare boards.
‘Aline’s few letters,’ Léon said, looking at the fire.
There were more than a few.
When Sobran was out the door and about to close it he heard his brother say, absently, ‘I’m sorry, Sobran.’
Noon. Lunch was moved back to one. Agnès and Baptiste came to the table. The maid said Céleste had a headache, was going to take a bath. The maid had knocked at M. Léon’s door but got no answer. Sobran asked the cook to serve; took up his spoon (in his fist first, like a peasant, then properly, as he always did to tease Agnès) but didn’t eat. He watched the drifting globules of oil on the soup’s surface come together to form yellow optical lenses. He was lightheaded with tiredness. He put his spoon down and pressed on the top of his head as if it were a cork he was trying to sink. ‘What was that?’ he said.
‘Father?’ Baptiste asked.
Sobran had heard nothing. Nothing – like the silence that follows cannon fire. He pulled his napkin from his collar, got up, and went back upstairs. Céleste’s door was open a crack. He heard the water lap in the zinc tub; pushed the door and looked in at her – her gold hair draped on the sheet that lined the tub, her round arms steaming. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders, but didn’t hear him, didn’t turn. He went on to Léon’s room. That door was open also. Sobran opened it further.
Léon was hanging by the rope that was used to raise and lower the bracket of candles suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Léon had cut the lamp free; it lay tilted on the floor by the fallen stool. The stool had struck one of the frosted-glass candleholders, and there was broken glass on the floor. A candle had rolled to the base of the bureau where it lay crushed as though stepped on. Sobran went into the room, closed the door and leaned against it.
One of Léon’s shoes had come off. It was a new shoe: its scarcely scuffed sole was turned to Sobran. The feet, a sock down around the ankle of one, were pointed at the floor, as inert and unsupportive as the feet of a church statue portraying some levitating saint. Dye from the inner soles of the new shoes stained the heel and toe of the stockinged foot. The rope was invisible, sunk in the neckcloth that still scarfed that twisted neck. Léon faced the floor, toward which his tongue was trying to cast a mooring line of thick transparent spittle.
On the bureau lay a single sheet of writing paper. Sobran picked it up. He had to steady the paper with his other hand. Both hands trembled so badly it was as if they fought over the letter. Léon had written:
Brother –
I have tried to deserve the grace I was given although your charity has been rank misery to me without your friendship – which I know I have never deserved. I abused your hospitality and am a coward who, while wanting to confess all, cannot do so to your face. God knew what kind of man I was when He sent His angel to me in St Lawrence ten years ago. I have never understood why I was told to save my life and yet not instructed to go and sin no more. I own my carnality, the evil road that was my road. I am to blame. It was I who killed Aline’s sister Geneviève because she did what I enjoyed and hated to enjoy, and later murdered Marie Pelet – my lover – because she uncovered my crime. Why did God–
Léon had crossed out ‘spare’ and replaced it with ‘save’ –
– my life when he knew I would turn traitor even after repentance and contrition? Why show me His mercy in a manner so marvellous? The angel’s visit was a holy place-marker in the vile book of my life. Once I rejoiced to say: Thy Will Be Done. But for years I’ve been unable to see the good in God’s will. Why did God make me thus? I loved dear pure Aline but I was the cause –
The latterly frugal Léon had filled both sides of the sheet of paper, but there was no more.
Sobran crumpled the paper and thrust it into his pocket. He went out of the room and shut the door. He stumbled down the first flight of stairs then had to sit on the landing – his legs wouldn’t support him. Several minutes later Baptiste came into the lower hall and saw
him. Baptiste vaulted up the stairs to his side. ‘Father, are you ill?’
Sobran dug his fingers into Baptiste’s clothes, held him close and said quietly, ‘Your uncle has hanged himself. I want you to fetch Antoine and Sophie.’
Baptiste pulled his father to his feet, called out for Agnès. Together they helped Sobran downstairs and sat him in his chair at the head of the table. Sobran waved his hand at Baptiste. ‘Go.’
Baptiste ran from the room. Sobran heard him stop in the hall, then start quietly upstairs, having to see for himself.
‘Your hands are very cold, father,’ Agnès said.
‘Give me a minute.’
She sat before him, chafing his hands and peering at him anxiously. He heard Baptiste come back down the stairs and saw him look around the doorframe, his face the shade of soap, tan tallow in colour with no blood behind it.
‘Go,’ Sobran said again.
Baptiste went.
*
Sobran sat in a chair at the foot of the bed while the women washed Léon’s body. Agnès, newly introduced to this traditional task, stood by holding a ewer and towels. The room was candlelit, curtains closed on a rosy midsummer sunset.
Sobran watched Céleste wring out a cloth, heard the water chime in the basin.
The maid raised Léon’s head while Sophie unwound the neckcloth. It crackled as it came free of the trench the rope had formed in his flesh. Sophie sighed, a sigh that fluttered, like a candle flame disturbed by a breeze. Sophie unbuttoned Léon’s shirt and together she and the maid raised his body to strip it off. Sophie laid her younger brother back down, her arm beneath his neck. Céleste moved forward to wash his torso.
From where he sat Sobran could see that, under the entrenched purple wound by Léon’s jaw, there was another ring of bruising, a line like a grubby collar, level and even. Sobran had seen this before, had recognised it before. It was the same sight that had shocked him on that remote morning when he had watched Léon dressing by the stove in the kitchen of their former house. On the morning that he, Léon and their father were fetched to search for Geneviève Lizet. Sobran’s shock had, he now understood, been due not to seeing signs of an uncleanliness uncharacteristic of Léon, but to his recognition of evidence that someone had tried to throttle his brother. The bruises had been just like these. And Sobran had put them right out of his mind.