Two Crosses (12 page)

A graying man, thin, with a prominent nose, took a seat at his table. Jean-Louis greeted his friend, Pierre, a boulanger who occasionally slipped away from his bread store in the afternoons, leaving his wife to tend to the customers.

“
B’jour
,” he mumbled, offering his hand.
“Tu vas bien?”
His accent was thick and the words strung out.

Jean-Louis had never adopted the Southern French drawl, though he had lived in Castelnau for twenty-three years. His French was purely Parisian.

They chatted about the weather and the mistral, which had picked up the night before and blown tiles from the roofs of several houses in Teyran, ten minutes down the road.

“Must’ve been a hundred kilometers an hour, rushing down the Rhône Valley and spilling out to blow us away. First bad wind of the season. Right pleasant outside now.”

Jean-Louis agreed with his tablemate, and they talked on.

“You’ll be joining us for a game of pétanque this afternoon, Pierre?” Jean-Louis questioned.

“Don’t mind if I do, don’t mind if I do.”

The two men walked out of the café-bar, nodding and gesturing, and sometime in the course of the afternoon, Jean-Louis put his hand in his tweed jacket pocket and touched an envelope that had not been there that morning.

Every evening at six thirty Mother Griolet took a stroll around the courtyard within the walls of the church. In the summer, when the sun was still high, she sometimes sat in a wicker chair and read from the Gospels. Now, in the early days of October, she pulled her navy cardigan over her nun’s habit as a crisp breeze played in the leaves.

She walked for twenty minutes, time enough to make five laps around the courtyard, and as she walked, she prayed out loud. On the south side, by the church and parsonage, she prayed for some of the forty-two girls in the Franco-American program.

“Thank You, Lord, for sending me Gabriella. I was wrong to be afraid for her. You always know best. She is so good and gentle with the children. Please help her to discover who she is in You.” Then, as if adding a postscript to a letter, she addressed the Lord again. “And do help her to be wise about M. Hoffmann. Oh yes, Lord. Open her eyes.”

She passed the refectory, where the children would soon be eating dinner. The quiet in the hall would be shattered by happy little voices and clanking silverware. And singing. That was the best part, when the children sang the blessing in a round. For all the heartache and trouble of the orphanage, she thanked God for the cherubic voices.

“And do, please, Lord, take away little Christophe’s rasping cough. It worries me, even though he looks quite healthy. And you remember, Lord, of course, that little Anne-Sophie has lost her
nounours
. You know how much that teddy bear means to her. And Jérémie …
ooh là
! What will we do with Jérémie? He is so angry in that little heart of his.…”

By the time she reminded the Lord of the special needs of the orphans, she was on her third lap and just passing the dormitories. “And thank You, too, dear Lord, for Sister Rosaline and Sister Isabelle. They have been faithful to You and to me all these years. Help them now as they prepare the evening meal. Give them laughter as they work.”

She leaned against the stone wall at the north end of the courtyard. The back of the church and the parsonage stood in front of her. To the left, the lights in the refectory shone into the courtyard. The dormitory lay dark on the right. Together the buildings joined to hold hands, making three quarters of a square, while the stone wall against which she leaned completed it. She loved this piece of earth. For forty-five years she had called this abbey her home. “And, Lord, this new little adventure that I’m involved in … it is a bit worrisome. I am getting older. Help me do my part well.”

She walked straight across the courtyard and let herself in the back door of the parsonage that led into her modest den. The ground floor held her living quarters, a bedroom, office, den, dining room, and kitchen. Years ago she had transformed a second bedroom into a student lounge. It made for less privacy but gave the exchange students a place to gather and visit between classes. The second floor was reserved for classrooms and a language lab. The orphans had their schoolrooms in the basement. The old building had served the church well for over a hundred years, she reflected.

Mother Griolet unlocked the door to her office and stepped inside, then switched on a lamp. Her desk faced the south wall with its large window overlooking the courtyard. On both sides of the window were bookcases lined with aging volumes. The other walls were wallpapered with simply framed photographs. She settled into the large chair behind her desk.

A lone white envelope sat on the desk. There was no writing on the outside. She flipped it over and opened the seal, and a small piece of paper slipped out. In the top left-hand corner was scribbled the image of a Huguenot cross. In the middle of the page was typed
14h30JeudiSNCF
.

She breathed out heavily. “So, Lord, You answer an old woman’s prayer quickly. But will I be ready? Thursday at two thirty. Less than a week away.”

She tucked the slip of paper into the pocket of her dress and switched off the light. Closing the door behind her, she locked it and walked down the hallway, back into the courtyard and across to the dining hall. The children’s voices were singing the blessing as she entered through the side door.

“Pour ce repas, pour toute joie,

Nous te louons, Seigneur.”

She closed her eyes.

“Yes, Lord, for this food we give You thanks. And for the grace to meet each day’s challenges.”

By the time she took her tray and sat down with Sister Rosaline and Sister Isabelle at the head table, her face radiated peace, warmth, and composure. Someone else was looking after Mother Griolet’s problems. That was good enough for her.

10

By mid-October all the girls in the exchange program thought of Gabriella Madison and David Hoffmann as a couple. It was their delight to examine every look or word that passed between the two in public and to dream of what passed between them in private. They wrote the script down to the last detail.

Everyone except the couple themselves. Gabriella knew that David Hoffmann did not consider her his girlfriend. Sometimes she wished it different, but his heart was not up for bid. Of that she was certain.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him in class as he spoke eloquently about the Impressionists, describing the beauty and intensity of art from Delacroix and Géricault’s flashing social statements to the peaceful painting of sailboats that now appeared on the projector screen.

“Of course Monet became the leading member of this expression of art, known around the world as Impressionism. The term was first used by a critic to ridicule one of his paintings called
Impression Sunrise
, part of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. It is just that—the
impression
of an image that Monet leaves you with. The goal is to capture the moment and reveal it with dots or streaks of color that the eye will blend into detail from a distance.”

As he continued to flash slides on the screen, Gabriella jotted down the names of the paintings in her spiral notebook.
Red Boats at Argenteuil; The Artist’s Garden at Giverny; Wild Poppies, Near Argenteuil.

David spoke again. “Look at the poppies, with the artist’s small son lost in the field of wildflowers. The contrast of colors, the rich variety of the landscape. Nature and human life blended together in a vibration of light. Poppies in spring. Their bright red garment that surprises and delights the eye.”

Gabriella could feel his eyes on her, and she tossed her hair over her shoulder self-consciously. Hope and springtime. But fall was barely in the air, and Gabriella did not want to think beyond one day at a time.

“It’s a lovely afternoon, Gabby. Why don’t you come for a ride through the vineyards with me? It will certainly beat hobbling around on those crutches.” David nodded toward her foot, wrapped in heavy bandages. “How much longer do you have to wear that thing?”

“Another week at least, the doctor says.”

“Poor you. You will join me then?”

She could think of no good excuse to turn him down. “Why not?”

The car left the limits of Castelnau and headed north. Before them on the smaller roads lay field after field of vineyards.

“The migrant workers and starving students have finished picking the grapes now. Nothing left on those vines. But look at the colors.” The sun was slipping down, and its reflection on the vines was brilliant. “See there, the bright red ones. And the yellows and oranges. It’s my therapy in autumn, to drive among the vineyards and watch their colors change. The nearest thing I can find to fall in Princeton.”

“Princeton? In New Jersey, right?”

“Yes, I was in school there for four years. Autumn is magnificent there. Cold and frank and bold. The maples are fiery red and crackling orange and bright yellow. Your hair would fit in perfectly.”

“I can hardly imagine it. Senegal’s vegetation doesn’t change at all during the year. There’s the rainy season and the dry season and not many trees.”

“Do you miss Africa?” He changed the subject as smoothly as he had advanced the slides in the tray that morning. A simple flick of the finger.

“I miss it a lot. Sometimes more than others.”

“When do you miss it the most?”

She gazed at the blue sky descending on the vines with purple and pink hues mixed in. “I guess when things get hazy where I am. When I can’t see what’s ahead. Then I picture myself back there, comfortable in my little niche.”

David was staring at her, his eyes barely on the road. “What are you wearing around your neck?” he demanded.

“Haven’t you seen it before? I guess it’s usually tucked inside my blouse. Surely you recognize the Huguenot cross?”

“Yes, of course. I just didn’t know you wore one.”

“My mother gave it to me before I left Senegal. She got it in Montpellier. She was here, you know, after the Second World War. Dad sent her here with Jessica and Henrietta and me for a few months’ break. That’s when she met Mother Griolet.”

“Ah, I see.” His eyes were on the road, but occasionally he glanced again at the shining chain around her neck. “Do you remember Montpellier? You were how old then?”

“Five or six. No, I don’t remember anything. Hardly anything.”

“What made you come back?”

She fiddled with the cross, sliding it up and down its chain. “A family member offered to pay for a year of study abroad—
abroad
meaning Europe. I thought this program sounded safe, since Mother knew the town and the director. Really just circumstances and …”

“And what?”

“Circumstances.” Her tone signaled the end of her revelations. “Do you miss Africa, David?”

“And why should I miss it, Gabby?”

“Because you lived in Algeria for a year, before this war broke out.”

He laughed and gave her an inquisitive look.

“Mother Griolet told me, from your résumé. I help her with the orphans now, and she was filling me in on the school and its professors.”

“I see. A fine woman, Mother Griolet. No wonder you came back.” He seemed a million miles away.

“Well, yes, but it was more because my mother knew her and spoke so highly of her. But we were speaking of Algeria.” Gabriella gently urged him back to the subject she wanted to hear about.

“Yes, I lived there briefly. A lovely spot, before the war. Of course, I could see trouble coming fast.”

“Where did you live?”

“Algiers. The capital. In the pied-noir neighborhood.”

“Was everything segregated then?”

“No, not really. The pied-noirs were friends with Arab merchants and the Jews. Everyone got along pretty well.”

“And are the pied-noirs now all leaving Algeria?”

“Most likely. Of course, the large majority don’t believe even now that France will lose the war. They stay because they have nowhere else to go. Algeria is their home, their roots for over a hundred years.”