The Virgin Blue (29 page)

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.’