Blackbird Fly (34 page)

“
After the revolution. They went off
to England, most of them, to save their necks — although some of
them went to the guillotine to save France — then they came back to
France around the 1850s.” Annie looked up. “Turn here, left, left.
It’s only a mile.”

A small sign on the lane read:
Monastère du
Carmel
. The buildings looked like a well-kept farmhouse, two
stories high and large, with numerous stone outbuildings and an
ornate iron gate where Merle stopped the car. “Is there a bell or
something?”

Annie looked through the windshield. “They might not
even talk. You know, vow of silence.”

Merle shut off the car. “We’ve come this far.”

A shield with crosses decorated each side of the
tall, padlocked gate. “Should we shout?” Annie whispered. A nun
stepped out of a building, her long habit, white wimple, and black
veil recognizable from the distance. They waited, neither Catholic
but sharing a glance of anxiety as the nun approached. This was
another world, inside these gates, where virtue and purity
ruled.

The nun was young, and surprisingly, wearing sandals.
Her scrubbed face was dusted with freckles under the tight wimple.
Merle asked her in French if it was possible to research birth
records here. That she believed a relative may have spent time
here. Not a nun, a lay person.

“
Birth records?” The young nun, her
hands hidden inside her sleeves, frowned.

“
Nineteen-fifty.”

“
We moved to this location in 1962,”
she said. “There have been no births here.”

“
Can we speak to Mother
Superior?”

The nun frowned and walked back to the house. The sun
was hot, and they had only brought water and fruit and a little
bread for lunch. Across the fields they could see women working in
the rows, hoeing, harvesting, watering. They wore blue shifts and
straw hats. Merle and Annie drank the rest of the water, sitting in
the car with the doors open, taking advantage of the shade the
vehicle gave them.

A half-hour later two nuns came out of the main
house. A tall, older nun unlocked the gate and waved them inside.
They passed several buildings then, moving through a large,
hand-carved door into a dark interior of a tile-roofed, windowless
building. Merle blinked in the dim light. The air was cool, heavy
with candle wax and incense. A barn-like space with a soaring roof
of rough wooden beams, stone walls, and wooden pews, in the front
sat a small altar with a white statue of a woman on it.

The tall sister, a wrinkled, haggard woman, pointed
to the back pew. “You may pray.” Their light footsteps faded, the
door closed. The only light in the chapel was from two small round
windows, one at each end in the upper point of the wall, under the
roof.

What did a cloistered nun pray for day in and day out
— world peace, a calm heart, rain? “I am not going to be a nun,”
Annie whispered. “Just so you know. And I’ll hold you back.”

“
You could be a Buddhist, wear pink
and shave your head.”

“
Not going to happen. If you become
a nun Pascal can’t give you hickies anymore.”

Merle snorted as the big door opened with a loud
crack. They jumped to their feet. The silhouette of a nun, short
and wide, her girth accentuated by voluminous garments, blinded
them for a second.

The nun with the keys, obviously her consigliore,
walked beside her. The round nun was old, they saw as she walked
toward them, with triple chins and jowls. Her eyes were bright but
her skin had the pallor of failing health. Her name was Madame
Françoise. The tall nun helped Madame Françoise into a pew. Merle
made her request to the Mother Superior, to look at birth records
for information about a relative who may have had a child here.

The tall nun answered first. “We were located in the
village until 1962. We have some records from the early years.” She
looked at Madame Françoise.

“
You are American?” the old woman
asked.

“
Yes, but my husband was born in
France. I think he was born in your monastery.”

“
Where is your husband
now?”

“
He died. In April.” Merle felt her
sister’s hand on her knee. “But for my son, for his legacy, I want
to know who his true parents were. My husband, I believe, was
adopted.”

Madame Françoise’s eyes were not gentle. “The records
are very sensitive. These girls came to us for sanctuary when they
had nowhere else to turn. We cannot break the trust they showed in
us.”

“
But she’s dead — ” Merle blurted,
then bit her tongue. Madame Françoise and the nun exchanged
glances. “All of them are dead now. My husband, his mother, his
adopted father and mother. There’s no one to ask.”

The nun said, “You know who is his mother?”

“
I did some digging in the church
records. Her name was Dominique Redier,” Merle said. “Better known
now as Justine Labelle.”

Madame Françoise sat very still. The other nun let
out a long breath that seemed to echo off the walls of the
chapel.

“
Do you know her?”

“
Dominique came to us many times
over the years. Here and in the village.” The old woman wet her
lips. “She was a troubled girl. We heard about her passing. We
prayed for her soul that night as we have many nights before, that
she found peace and love in Jesus.”

“
She was an excellent gardener,”
Merle heard herself saying. “She must have learned that from
you.”

“
She was excellent in many ways,”
the tall nun said sharply, “just not in the ways of the
world.”

“
Was she a nun?” Annie
asked.

“
She could not live a contemplative
life.”

“
Not after what happened to her,”
Madame Françoise added. “She tried, many times. We prayed together
for her salvation, for her acceptance of His will, but there are
sins of the world that even God cannot make right. We trust that
she made peace with the Lord, as He has forgiven her as he forgives
all sinners. We remember her in our prayers.”

“
But, what happened to her?” Merle
asked.

“
A man,” the nun spat.

“
A man brought her to us the first
time. She was with child, desperate. So very young,” Madame Anne
said softly. “He said her family had sent her to live in the
street, so ashamed were they.”

“
A man came with her?” Annie asked.
“Do you know his name?”

“
He was a stranger to us. A
foreigner.”

Merle bit her lip and asked, “An American?”

Madame Françoise closed her eyes. “I knew Americans
from the war, the ones who came down in parachutes. Yes, he was an
American.”

“
A soldier?”

“
In the past, he said. His French
was good.”

“
Do you remember his name?” A long
pause. “Was it Weston — Weston Strachie?”

Madame Françoise took her time, searching her memory,
as if wanting to be sure she was right. “Perhaps. It has been many
years.”

Outside the chapel a shuffle of feet began, suddenly,
then the chatter of women’s voices. The nun’s eyes flickered toward
the door as if eager to join whatever was going on out there. Merle
said, “She had her baby at the convent?”

“
No. She was with us for awhile, a
month or two, then the woman came to take her home. We didn’t see
her again for some years.”

“
The woman?” Annie asked.

“
She said she was the American’s
wife, that it was proper and Christian that Dominique have her baby
at the home of the father of her child. That she wanted to take
care of the girl, to make amends.”

The echoes in the chapel swallowed up the old nun’s
voice. Had she said the American was the father of her child?
Weston
was
Harry’s father after all? But that would mean he
had —

“
This woman,” Annie asked. “She was
Weston’s wife?”

“
So she said.”

Merle said, “
M-Madame, encore, s’il vous
plait
. The American’s wife came here, took Dominique away,
because he, the American, was the father of her child?”

“
Dominique went with her willingly.
She had received letters. From the woman, I think.” Madame
Françoise folded her hands. “I prayed we had made the right
decision, that God had sent Dominique to us, and the woman as well.
I was a novice then and these decisions were not mine. Dominique
was a young girl, so naïve about the ways of the world. She
returned to us years later when life was so hard for
her.”

“
It was always hard,” the nun
said.

“
But why? Why would Weston’s wife
take in the girl that he — you know, debauched?” Annie
asked.

“
I questioned that,” the Mother
Superior said. “But she was a very pious woman, kind and gentle.
She said this was penance for what her husband had done. To try to
make it right. The girl had no one. Her family would not help her.
They had disowned her. We prayed that the woman was as full of the
light of Jesus Christ as she appeared.”

She must have been a saint. Merle tried to picture
herself taking in Courtney while she carried Harry’s child. As much
as she felt sorry for Courtney, it was very unlikely.

“
One more question. Did you ever
have a Sister Evangeline here?”

The nuns looked at each other. “We don’t know that
name.” Madame Françoise took a rattling breath. “Then Dominique had
a boy? She told us of trips back to the village, but not about the
child. He was your husband? Was he a good man?”

The sky through the tiny window ached with blue
purity, the vast loveliness of ether. Merle thought of Harry, the
way he was years ago, when she’d married him. Full of mischief and
love. The day Tristan was born, the flowers he’d bought, dozens of
roses in every color. It all came back to her now, the good
memories. The dark house in the suburbs he’d bought for her, the
one he hated. Oh, Harry. She looked out the high window above the
altar, where the sky was as bright and new as a robin’s egg.
Are
you there, Harry?

“
Yes, Madame,” she said. “He was a
good man.”

Chapter 35

When they returned from the convent Tristan announced
that Albert had invited them all over for dinner. He had roasted a
chicken, and they sat around his table, drank wine, and ate chicken
and small potatoes and
haricots verts
. Tristan sat next to
Albert’s niece, Valerie, who was much more socially advanced than
he was. The little vixen flirted and pouted, making everyone laugh
and Tristan turn red. Merle sat next to Pascal and tried not to
flirt. Annie and Albert got to talk more tonight and were soon
swapping stories. Tristan told the story of discovering the
skeleton dramatically, with flourishes.

Valerie’s eyes glowed with excitement. “But who was
eet
?”

“
That is the question,
mademoiselle,” Annie said. “We’ll have to wait to find
out.”

“
Can they tell exactly who it was
from the bones?”

Annie explained. “They might, if they had a clue who
it was. But as it is, probably not. Just general stuff, like a man
or a woman, how old they were when they died. Unless they have
dental records. They’ll have to check for missing persons.”

Pascal said, “During the war — both wars — it was
chaos. It could have happened during the war, perhaps. After the
last war things were not —”

“
Organized. You think fifty years
ago then, not a hundred?”

“
Hard to say. But no one has lived
in the house since, what?”

“
Since 1952,” Merle said. “That’s
when Weston and Marie-Emilie went to the States.” She looked at her
plate, deep in thought. The scandal of Dominique’s pregnancy had
driven her family from the village. Did the village also drive
Weston and his wife away?

Albert told them of seeing a truck full of farmers
that afternoon. “I’m afraid there may be a strike.”

“
The grape-growers?” Annie asked.
“What would happen?”

“
Nothing much,” Pascal said. “At
least for the grapes it will be just talk until after the harvest.
They aren’t doing much now anyway, just worrying about what the
prices will be in the fall.”

Albert said, “There was a rally last year near here.
Some of the growers were very angry. They broke into a large cave
and stole bottles of wine in protest.”

“
Were they caught?” Tristan
asked.

“
Yes,” Albert said. “But they
received very light sentences because they were just making a
point.”

“
A mistake,” Pascal
growled.

Merle squeezed his arm. “You are such a political
roofer.”

Albert laughed. “Everyone is all opinion in
France.”

“
This sofa is horrible.”

“
As comfortable as I am French. No
wonder Albert wanted to get rid of it.”

It was nearly midnight. Merle opened the third bottle
in the stash in her suitcase, the Château L’Église-Clinet, after
dinner at Albert’s. They sipped and proclaimed it unspoiled and
amazing. The Victorian settee, horsehair stuffed and tattered,
found by Albert that morning at the local brocante, was lumpy and
unattractive even with the shawl thrown over the holes. They
arranged pillows from Tristan’s bed under themselves, improving
comfort slightly, as he ran in from the back.