The Virgin Blue. Tracy Chevalier
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disappointment must have been obvious, for Jean-Paul tapped the table impatiently and remarked, ‘Cheer up, Ella Tournier. It is not so easy, finding out about the past. You Americans who come over here looking for your roots think you will find it out all in one day, no? And then you go to the place and take a photograph and you feel good, you feel French for one day, yes? And the next day you go looking for ancestors in other countries. That way you claim the whole world for yourselves.’
I grabbed my bag and stood up. ‘You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?’ I said sharply. ‘Thanks for your advice. I’ve really learned a lot about French optimism.’ I deliberately tossed a coin on the table; it rolled past Jean-Paul’s elbow and fell to the ground, where it bounced on the concrete a few times.
He touched my elbow as I began to walk away. ‘Wait, Ella. Don’t go. I did not know I was upsetting for you. I try just to be realistic.’
I turned on him. ‘Why should I stay? You’re arrogant and pessimistic, and you make fun of everything I do. I’m mildly curious about my French ancestors and you act like I’m tattooing the French flag on my butt. It’s hard enough living here without you making me feel even more alien.’ I turned away once more but to my surprise found I was shaking; I felt so dizzy that I had to grab onto the table.
Jean-Paul jumped up and pulled out a chair for me. As I dropped into it he called inside to the waiter, ‘Un verre d’eau, Dominique, vite, s’il te plaît.’
The water and several deep breaths helped. I fanned my face with my hands; I’d turned red and was sweating. Jean-Paul sat across from me and watched me closely.
‘Maybe you take your jacket off,’ he suggested quietly; for the first time his voice was gentle.
‘I—’ But this was not the moment for modesty and I was too tired to argue; my anger at him had faded the moment I sat back down. Reluctantly I shrugged my jacket off. ‘I’ve got psoriasis,’ I announced lightly, trying to pre-empt any awkwardness about the state of my arms. ‘The doctor says it’s from stress and lack of sleep.’
Jean-Paul looked at the patches of scaly skin like they were a curious modern painting.
‘You do not sleep?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been having nightmares. Well, a nightmare.’
‘And you tell your husband about it? Your friends?’
‘I haven’t told anyone.’
‘Why you do not talk to your husband?’
‘I don’t want him to think I’m unhappy here.’ I didn’t add that Rick might feel threatened by the dream’s connection to sex.
‘Are you unhappy?’
‘Yes,’ I said, looking straight at Jean-Paul. It was a relief to say it.
He nodded. ‘So what is the nightmare? Describe it to me.’
I looked out over the river. ‘I only remember bits of it. There’s no real story. There’s a voice – no, two voices, one speaking in French, the other crying, really hysterical crying. All of this is in a fog, like the air is very heavy, like water. And there’s a thud at the end, like a door being shut. And most of all there’s the colour blue everywhere. Everywhere. I don’t know what it is that scares me so much, but every time I have the dream I want to go home. It’s the atmosphere more than what actually happens that frightens me. And the fact that I keep having it, that it won’t go away, like it’s with me for life. That’s the worst of all.’ I stopped. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to tell someone about it.
‘You want to go back to the States?’
‘Sometimes. Then I get mad at myself for being scared off by a dream.’
‘What does the blue look like? Like that?’ He pointed to a sign advertising ice cream for sale in the café. I shook my head.
‘No, that’s too bright. I mean, the dream blue is bright. Very vivid. But it’s bright and yet dark too. I don’t know the technical words to describe it. It reflects lots of light. It’s beautiful but in the dream it makes me sad. Elated too. It’s like there are two sides to the colour. Funny that I remember the colour. I always thought I dreamed in black and white.’
‘And the voices? Who are they?’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes it’s my voice. Sometimes I wake up and I’ve been saying the words. I can almost hear them, as if the room has just then gone silent.’
‘What are the words? What are you saying?’
I thought for a minute, then shook my head. ‘I don’t remember.’
He fixed his eyes on me. ‘Try. Close your eyes.’
I did as he said, sitting still as long as I could, Jean-Paul silent next to me. Just as I was about to give up, a fragment floated into my mind. ‘Je suis un pot cassé,’ I said suddenly.
I opened my eyes. ‘I am a broken pot? Where did that come from?’
Jean-Paul looked startled.
‘Can you remember any more?’
I closed my eyes again. ‘Tu es ma tour et forteresse,’ I murmured at last.
I opened my eyes. Jean-Paul’s face was screwed up in concentration and he seemed far away. I could see his mind working, travelling over a vast plain of memory, scanning and rejecting, until something clicked and he returned to me. He fixed his eyes on the ice-cream sign and began to recite:
Entre tous ceux-là qui me haient
Mes voisins j’aperçois
Avoir honte de moi:
Il semble que mes amis aient
Horreur de ma rencontre,
Quand dehors je me montre.
Je suis hors de leur souvenance,
Ainsi qu’un trespassé.
Je suis un pot cassé.
As he spoke I felt a pressure in my throat and behind my eyes. It was grief.
I held tightly to the arms of my chair, pushing my body hard against its back as if to brace myself. When he finished I swallowed to ease my throat.
‘What is it?’ I asked quietly.
‘The thirty-first psalm.’
I frowned at him. ‘A psalm? From the Bible?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how could I know it? I don’t know any psalms! Hardly in English, and certainly not in French. But those words are so familiar. I must have heard it somewhere. How do you know it?’
‘Church. When I was young we had to memorize many psalms. But also it was in my studying at one time.’
‘You studied psalms for a library science degree?’
‘No, no, before that, when I studied history. The history of the Languedoc. That is what I really do.’
‘What’s Languedoc?’
‘An area all around us. From Toulouse and the Pyrenees all the way to the Rhône.’ He drew another circle on his napkin map, encompassing the smaller circle of the Cévennes and a lot of the cow’s neck and muzzle. ‘It was named for the language once spoken there. Oc was their word for oui. Langue d’oc – language of oc.’
‘What did the psalm have to do with Languedoc?’
He hesitated. ‘Well, that’s curious. It was a psalm the Huguenots used to recite when bad things happened.’
That