The Virgin Blue. Tracy Chevalier
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red in Eve’s hand. The Sin. Isabelle had not been inside the church for a long time, but she remembered the scene well, Eve’s look of desire, the serpent’s smile, Adam’s shame.
If they could have seen it once more, the sun lighting up the colours like a field dense with summer flowers, its beauty might have saved it. But there was no sun, and no entering the church: the priest had slipped a large padlock through the bolt across the door. They had not seen one before; several men had examined it, pulled at it, uncertain of its mechanism. An axe would have to be taken to it, carefully, to keep it intact.
Only the knowledge of the window’s value held them back. It belonged to the Duc, to whom they owed a quarter of their crops, in turn receiving protection, the assurance of a whisper in the ear of the King. The window and the statue were gifts from him. He might still value them.
No one knew for certain who threw the stone, though afterwards several people claimed they had. It struck the centre of the window and shattered it immediately. It was a sound so strange that the crowd hushed. They had not heard glass break before.
In the lull a boy ran over and picked up a shard of glass, then howled and threw it down.
—It bit me! he cried, holding up a bloody finger.
The shouting began again. The boy’s mother snatched him and pressed him to her.
—The devil! she screamed. It was the devil!
Etienne Tournier, hair like burnt hay, stepped forward with a long rake. He glanced back at his older brother, Jacques, who nodded. Etienne looked up at the statue and called loudly:— La Rousse!
The crowd shifted, steps sideways that left Isabelle standing alone. Etienne turned round with a smirk on his face, pale blue eyes resting on her like hands pressing into her.
He slid his hand down the handle and hoisted the rake up, letting the metal teeth descend and hover in front of her. They stared at each other. The crowd had gone quiet. Finally Isabelle grabbed the teeth; as she and Etienne held each end of the rake she felt a fire ignite below her belly.
He smiled and let go, his end tapping the ground. Isabelle grasped the pole and began walking her hands down it, lifting the teeth end of the rake into the air, until she reached him. As she looked up at the Virgin, Etienne took a step back and disappeared from her side. She could feel the press of the crowd, bunched together again, restless, murmuring.
—Do it, La Rousse! someone shouted. Do it!
In the crowd Isabelle’s brothers stood staring at the ground. She could not see her father, but if he was there as well he could not help her.
She took a deep breath and raised the rake. A shout rose with it, making her arm shake. She let the rake teeth rest to the left of the niche and looked around at the mass of bright red faces, unfamiliar now, hard and cold. She raised the rake, propped it against the base of the statue and pushed. It did not move.
The shouting became harsher as she began to push harder, tears pricking her eyes. The Child was staring into the distant sky, but Isabelle could feel the Virgin’s gaze on her.
—Forgive me, she whispered. Then she pulled the rake back and swung it as hard as she could at the statue. Metal hit stone with a dull clang and the face of the Virgin was sliced off, showering Isabelle and making the crowd shriek with laughter. Desperately she swung the rake again. The mortar loosened with the blow and the statue rocked a little.
—Again, La Rousse! a woman shouted.
I can’t do it again, Isabelle thought, but the sight of the red faces made her swing once more. The statue began to rock, the faceless woman rocking the child in her arms. Then it pitched forward and fell, the Virgin’s head hitting the ground first and shattering, the body thumping after. In the impact of the fall the Child was split from his mother and lay on the ground gazing upward. Isabelle dropped the rake and covered her face with her hands. There were loud cheers and whistles and the crowd surged forward to surround the broken statue.
When Isabelle took her hands from her face Etienne was standing in front of her. He smiled triumphantly, reached over and squeezed her breasts. Then he joined the crowd and began throwing dung at the blue niche.
I will never see such a colour again, she thought.
Petit Henri and Gérard needed little convincing. Though Isabelle blamed Monsieur Marcel’s persuasiveness, secretly she knew they would have gone anyway, even without his honeyed words.
—God will smile upon you, he had said solemnly. He has chosen you for this war. Fighting for your God, your religion, your freedom. You will return men of courage and strength.
—If you return at all, Henri du Moulin muttered angrily, words only Isabelle heard. He leased two fields of rye and two of potatoes, as well as a fine chestnut grove. He kept pigs and a herd of goats. He needed his sons; he couldn’t farm the land with only his daughter left to help him.
—I will plant fewer fields, he told Isabelle. Only one of rye, and I’ll give up some of the herd and a few pigs. Then I’ll only need one field of potatoes to feed them. I can get more animals again when the twins return.
They won’t come back, she thought. She had seen the light in their eyes as they left with other boys from Mont Lozère. They will go to Toulouse, to Paris, to Geneva to see Calvin. They will go to Spain, where men’s skin is black, or to the ocean on the edge of the world. But here, no, they will not come back here.
She gathered her courage one evening as her father sat sharpening a plough blade by the fire.
—Papa, she ventured. I could marry and we could live here and work with you.
With one word he stopped her.
—Who? he asked, whetting stone paused over the blade. The room was quiet without the rhythmic sound of metal against stone.
She turned her face away.
—We are alone, you and I, ma petite. His tone was gentle. But God is kinder than you think.
Isabelle clasped her neck nervously, still carrying the taste of communion in her mouth – rough, dry bread that remained in the back of her throat long after she had swallowed. Etienne reached up and pulled at her headcloth. He found the end, wound it around his hand and gave a sharp tug. She began to spin, turning and turning out of the cloth, her hair unfurling, seeing flashes of Etienne with a grim smile on his face, then her father’s chestnut trees, the fruit small and green and far out of reach.
When she was free of the cloth she stumbled, regained her balance, hesitated. She faced him but stepped backwards. He reached her in two strides, tripped her and tumbled on top of her. With one hand he pulled up her dress while the other buried itself in her hair, fingers splayed, pulling through like a comb to the ends, wrapping the hair around it as it had wound the cloth a moment earlier, until his fist was resting at the nape of her neck.
—La Rousse, he murmured. You’ve avoided me for a long time. Are you ready?
Isabelle hesitated, then nodded. Etienne pulled her head back by her hair to lift her chin up and bring her mouth to his.
—But the communion of the Pentecost is still in my mouth, she thought, and this is the Sin.
The Tourniers were the only family between Mont Lozère and Florac to own a Bible. Isabelle had seen it at services, when Jean Tournier carried it wrapped in linen and handed it ostentatiously to Monsieur Marcel. He watched it, fretful, throughout the service. It had cost him.
Monsieur Marcel laced his fingers together and held the book in the cradle of his arms, propped against the curve of his paunch. As he read he swayed from side to side as if he were drunk, though Isabelle knew he could not be, since he had forbidden wine. His eyes moved back and forth, and words appeared in his mouth, but it was not clear to her how they got there.
Once the Truth was established inside the old church, Monsieur Marcel had a Bible brought from Lyons, and Isabelle’s father built a wooden stand to hold it. Then the Tourniers’ Bible was no longer seen,