Three Women in a Mirror (23 page)

“There are only two sorts of movie stars: the ones who are sick and the ones who are miserly. The miserly ones, when they act, they don't move, don't make faces, they're borderline inexpressive. They wear a mask, and beneath it you can sense a certain restlessness. So the camera goes after them, scrutinizes them, digs deep for feeling, but they are miserly through and through, and all they give is an illegible manuscript, crossed out everywhere, and the viewers only manage to read it thanks to the editing. The other category, the sick ones, give themselves entirely, every moment they are acting; they are only happy between the time they hear ‘action' and ‘cut.' And why are they happy? Because they can forget themselves, let themselves go; because there they exist entirely in the moment; because at last the hyper-vulnerability that makes their daily life unbearable has found a place where it can blossom. You belong to this group, the ones who are crippled by life. With each passing day they collide with reality, become disjointed, and are shattered.”

She grabbed Anny's hands.

“Why were the movies invented? To persuade people that life has the shape of a story. To try and convince them that in all the disorderly events we experience there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. Movies have replaced religion, making order out of chaos, making the absurd rational. The best box office figures are always on Sunday! Viewers need it and so do you, my chipmunk. You want a script to give you a point of departure and a point of arrival, and an itinerary. You want it to tell you what you have to say and feel and do; it has to show you where there is an abyss, where there is a summit. You have to have someone draw you a map, otherwise you're lost. You are a genius, my dear, it's so sad! It would be much better to be mediocre . . . You will leave a great light behind you but you will not be happy.”

When Vuitton Bag exhorted her in this way, with her theatrical grandiloquence, Anny sat up and listened.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Decide to be what you are: a Chosen One. This means that you will be tossed around between duty and privilege. But as for pleasure . . . ”

The two women kissed on parting. Vuitton Bag was tormented at the thought of this fragile young woman, for she could see the storm clouds gathering over her head. Anny put her arms around her shaky friend and wondered if she would see her again. Each one feared for the other.

As soon as Anny had seen the doyenne into her taxi, she went back to the restaurant to pay the bill: Vuitton Bag never paid, even when she had initiated the invitation.

She went to find the redhead in the cloak room.

“Where are you off to?”

He had finished his shift and was already high.

“I'll take you back,” he answered.

“Back where?”

“My place.”

She accepted without hesitation.

Anne had been radiant since her arrival at the béguinage.
In the vast, leafy courtyard, nearly identical little houses gazed at each other through the thin trees. Anne's house was the eighth on the right from the entrance, the farthest from the well, a little house with red shutters. It was comfortable and pleasing both inside and out; Anne liked the way it was furnished, with only the basics. The rear windows looked out on the cathedral of the Saint-Sauveur, and let in the richest light of all, from the north, a white, diffuse opalescence that illuminated without leaving shadows.

A visitor could not help but be struck by the feminine aspect of the béguinage, and this was not solely due to its population—no men were allowed to stay there—but to the tiny size of the buildings, the delicacy of the façades of interwoven pale red bricks and beige stones, and their meticulous cleanliness. A feeling of peace reigned. The welcoming rectangular courtyard, overgrown with trees, made the houses seem like mushrooms growing at the edge of the forest.

Anne shared her dwelling with a seamstress from Antwerp.

It had been a relief to leave aunt Godeliève's place—a relief from her past as much as from her future. Now there was no one to remind her that her mother had died in childbirth; there was no one to force her to marry; other forms of salvation lay ahead, imprecise.

Braindor had used his influence with the Grande Demoiselle to find a spot for Anne in this place.

The Grande Demoiselle was an elderly woman with fine features, known for her lavender eyes, and she ran the béguinage with the tranquil authority of those who are in harmony with their accomplishments. She was an educated aristocrat, well-read in philosophy and theology, and she did not take advantage of her position or her education when governing this nonreligious community. The gifts she had received from birth and education, which raised her well above the others, were something she kept to herself as if on a shelf only she could reach. She applied her will to organizing a simple, pure life for the beguines, a life of work, prayer, and contemplation.

Although Anne was not of noble birth, the Grande Demoiselle took her in—perhaps for that very reason. There were rumors, indeed, that had begun to circulate in Bruges, and which criticized the present-day tendency of the béguinage, which was to accept only girls of high birth, whereas it was originally meant to protect the common woman.

When Braindor introduced Anne, the Grande Demoiselle stared at her for a long time.

While Anne and Braindor were expecting an interrogation, she prolonged the silence by raising her index finger. The two women faced each other and did not move: it was as if the Grande Demoiselle were entering Anne's mind telepathically, with no need for words. Braindor sensed that they were carrying on an open conversation without a word being said.

Finally after half an hour had gone by, the Grande Demoi­selle concluded, “A soul can only see beauty if it is beautiful itself. One must be divine to see what is divine. Welcome, Anne.”

With no further explanation, the Grande Demoiselle granted a stipend and a roof to the young woman that all of Bruges was talking about.

Although, thanks to Braindor's connections, the obstacles had been removed, Aunt Godeliève resisted, unable to see that this was a godsend: since the town viewed her niece as an exceptional person, she wanted the best convent to take her in. Braindor, however, suggested that Anne should first go through a transitional stage at the béguinage, while waiting to determine her true vocation.

Anne was a novice here. She felt as if she were embarking on a second childhood.

On settling in, she had had to choose the tasks she would perform in this community of women who did not take vows. Since she knew how to read and to count, she was offered a position in the steward's office, for the Grande Demoiselle deemed that there were already enough beguines washing the wool, spinning, and carding.

The next day, when she saw that there were old women doing exhausting physical labor, she offered to contribute to the gathering of firewood: she would carry the bundles, stack the logs, and chop them if need be; and she added that on occasion she could sweep the courtyard and clean the outdoor drains.

She cheerfully kept her word. Every day she found she was filled with boundless energy. The harder she worked the stronger she felt.

Braindor came to see her often. Officially, he was preparing her for the interview she would soon have with the archdeacon; in truth, he was intrigued by the young woman, and wanted to observe her and grasp the nature of the widespread fascination surrounding her ever since the episode of the tamed wolf.

She agreed to stop what she was doing, and sat down next to him on a stone bench.

Initially he could not get much out of her. She was not wary, but she was reticent, and dreaded any long conversations. Through the clever questions she asked, candidly, Anne managed to make him speak more than she did.

Once he picked up on her maneuver, he decided to lay down the law.

“Anne, I want you to speak to me, not listen to me.”

“Here, I cannot.”

“What is stopping you?”

“These walls around us.”

Braindor made a face, convinced she was inventing a strategy to elude him. She held out her hand and quietly suggested that he follow her.

They walked as far as a tree in the middle of a patch of grass.

“Here,” she insisted, “under the linden tree. It will be easier.”

Braindor recalled how attached she had been to the oak during her flight into the forest; consequently he winked at the tree as if to greet it.

Anne noticed.

“Are you acquainted?”

“Not yet.”

She laughed.

“You will like each other.”

They sat beneath the branches, their backs against the trunk. They remained silent in order to get used to the tree, unless it was the other way around, that the tree had to get used to their presence.

After a reasonable amount of time, Braindor asked, “Have you finished the Bible?”

“No. It is too terrifying.”

“Anne, I had advised you to leave the Old Testament and devote yourself to the New. You can no longer go without reading the Gospels.”

The monk immediately cast a worried glance around them, to make sure no one had heard him, for it would have been dangerous if someone had interpreted his words as a profession of Lutheran faith.

“In any case,” he continued, “you have heard the story of our Lord Jesus Christ thousands of times at mass.”

Anne pursed her lips, skeptical.

“I don't really listen during mass.”

“What do you do?”

“I sing, I look at the light, I admire the stone statues, I notice my neighbors' smell, I try to hear how the priest's voice dissolves into echoes.”

Braindor sighed.

“And you do not pray?”

She turned to him, indignant.

“Oh, yes, I pray a great deal. I do not pray only at prayer time, I pray during the entire service. During the day, as well. I pray almost continually.”

“What do you mean by praying?”

“I send thanks. I concentrate, to avoid evil.”

“Are you asking favors of God?”

“I do not wish to bother him with personal matters.”

“Do you ask him to intervene for others?”

“If it's possible, I prefer to act.”

Braindor clenched his teeth: Anne's declarations, depending on the listener, would betray either a culpable vanity or an angelic faith.

“And what do you feel when the priests speak to you of God?”

“I'm bored.”

It was a good thing he had imposed this quarantine before her entry into a convent; any one of her assertions would have shocked a man of the church.

“Tell me why you are bored.”

“The priests should speak of God as if they were in love—dazzled, enchanted, filled with recognition and admiration. We should envy them for being so close to Him, for representing Him, yes, we should want to die of jealousy, and want to take their place—if only they praised Him in a proper way. Instead, they brandish God like a whip: ‘God will punish you, and if it is not during this life on Earth, it will be in Hell!' With their flames and fire and infernos, and roasting on the spit, and their penance and everlasting torment, they terrify me. I feel as if I am a piece of poultry destined for the rotisserie.”

She turned to Braindor.

“If the priests are right, ducks have greater fortune than human beings: ducks do not spend their life hearing how they are going to end up on the grill.”

A gentle wind came to play among the foliage. Anne breathed deeply.

“That God, Brother Braindor, does not help me to live. On the contrary, he prevents me from living.”

“Why do you say, ‘that God?' Might there be another one, in your opinion?”

Anne fell silent. And the silence did not express an void in her thoughts, but rather such a multitude of thoughts that they refused to come out.

As he did not manage to draw her from her silence, Braindor decided to pursue the interview no further.

 

In the days that followed, he merely observed her.

Although she labored from morning to night, she was radiant with joy. There was a constant smile on her face, tender when she was speaking to others, radiant when she was gazing at the sky, loving when she was around animals.

Once she had checked the sums of the weavers who came to fetch their wool, she would go under the linden tree and stay there, leaning pensively against the trunk. She often went away from the tree and lay down on the ground, face down, her arms spread.

Braindor could not help but go and fetch the Grande Demoi­selle, and as he pointed to Anne lying in the grass he asked, “What is she doing?”

“She is prostrating herself in the shape of a cross, in imitation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is plain to see, brother Braindor, why are you asking me?”

“Anne does not even know what she is doing. She has no religious culture.”

A smile lit up the old woman's face.

“Blissful ignorance,” she sighed. “This simple soul, without realizing, is attaining the summits of Christian inspiration. Her intuitive soul reigns above words, ideas, or reasoning.”

They smiled at one another, happy to see their secret belief justified through Anne's innocence.

“The pure are also pure through knowledge.”

On saying this, the Grande Demoiselle was also revealing her incredible erudition, her knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, her acquaintance with ancient patristics and the theologians of every era. In that moment, one might have said that her many wrinkles came from the fatigue of having read so many pages.

They fell silent again.

After Braindor had seen the Grande Demoiselle to her rooms, he came back to wait for Anne.

“What were you doing, Anne, lying on the ground?”

She blushed.

He asked again. Assuming that he was scolding her for getting dirty, she showed him her spotless clothing. He shook his head, and said again, “Were you praying?”