The Silent Hours

by Cesca Major

  As I write, the moon has emerged in the failing light, a thin crescent, and I wonder if you too have seen it in the village tonight. I wonder whether we are both looking at it at the exact same moment. Take care of our parents and know that I love you all. I don’t say it enough but I am saying it now,

  Paul

  ADELINE

  1952, St Cecilia nunnery, south-west France

  Sister Constance approaches me as I work on the stone bench outside the door to the nunnery. Tucked around the corner, set back into an enclave, it must seem perfect for her purpose. The sun is directly overhead and her body forms a temporary shade as she greets me.

  Nodding her head at the space on the bench next to me, I shuffle up in a gesture of welcome. As she moves towards it, I squint at the burst of sunlight from where she had stood.

  She sits slowly, one hand on her lower back. I work the needle through the tapestry, a shock of yellow thread.

  ‘No doubt Sister Marguerite has told you a little of my plans,’ she states.

  I lift my head and nod an acknowledgement, not wanting the younger nun to be reproached if I lied.

  At this movement Sister Constance sighs and looks across the lawn, no doubt noting the uneven tufts of grass, the dozy sheep grazing in the corner beyond. She places one hand over the other, the sleeves of her habit showing off thin wrists. Her skin seems greyish-blue in the bright light.

  ‘There are places where I believe you might be better suited, somewhere in Toulouse that …’A pause as she worries at the bare skin of her ring finger. ‘It has been eight years,’ she says, perhaps attempting an explanation.

  I move the needle through the holes.

  ‘Some of the community feel that a change of scenery would perhaps suit someone in your condition.’

  The needle slips and I feel a sharp pain as a bubble of blood appears on my finger. Lifting it quickly to my mouth I suck at it, the metallic taste making my stomach leap and then settle. I don’t want the blood on my clothes or on the scene I am creating.

  ‘Your refusal to attend any of our services, to even enter the chapel … well, that is …’ She stops herself and stands.

  She hovers there, once more looking to the tree in the corner, sweeping her eyes across the grounds and then down at me. When I look up at her she has cocked her head to one side, lines deep between her eyebrows.

  ‘I will talk to the doctor,’ she says, one hand moving to touch the chain of the crucifix around her neck.

  I nod once more at her as she walks back around the corner, back into the nunnery, her footsteps on the stone there and then no more, as the heavy wooden door closes behind her.

  Sister Marguerite ushers the doctor into my cell and pulls up the chair by the side of my bed. I am waiting, propped up on two thin pillows, sitting awkwardly on top of the bedclothes. I smooth my skirt down as he comes in and realize I am nervous … hopeful?

  He smiles at me, his eyes crinkling to nothing, and thanks Sister Marguerite.

  She leaves the room, taking one last glance back at us before she shuts the door.

  The doctor gestures to the chair and sits expectantly. He doesn’t fill the silence, simply looks at me. I shift a little under his gaze, my hair brushing the back of the headboard as I turn away from him.

  He goes to open his case, the ageing leather testament to his long career, and then pauses. ‘Today you look a little different,’ he announces.

  I feel my eyebrows meet, lick my lips.

  He shrugs and turns to reach into his case, pulling out a familiar wooden stick and his miniature torch. ‘Well, madame, let’s check your throat and we’ll do some of the exercises we practised the other day.’ He leans over me as I dutifully open my mouth. ‘OK, say ahhh,’ he says automatically, then blushes, the wooden stick still pressing down on my tongue, ‘I’m … well, yes, say, I’ll …’

  I continue to look at him, my mouth still hanging open as he stutters. He returns to peering into my throat, squinting and umming as if my problems might be quickly diagnosed, treated and cured. He finishes, throws the wooden stick into the wastepaper basket and returns to sit on the chair by my bed.

  ‘Right then, if you remember, as we practised,’ he says, gesturing to his own mouth. ‘O,’ he enunciates, making an exaggerated shape of an ‘O’ with his mouth that makes him look not unlike a small child sucking on a straw. ‘A,’ he continues, his mouth moving into the exaggerated smile of a circus clown. All his teeth are shown in the process, a neat little row, slightly yellowing, but uniformly straight. ‘I,’ he demonstrates, nodding at me eagerly as I attempt to mimic the movements.

  I feel mildly ridiculous, as I do every time this routine is performed. I continue though, always spurred on by the eager look in his eyes as he waits for a breakthrough.

  He shows me how to say ‘E’. I copy.

  It seems so easy. Why won’t the words come? Have I simply forgotten how to speak? I stop copying his movements. The doctor continues for another few tries, determined to make some kind of progress with his patient.

  He gives up in the middle of an ‘O’, snaps his mouth shut. He presses his hair down. I know his first question: ‘When did you last speak?’ he asks, as he does in all our meetings. He waits an appropriate time and, when there is no response, asks another: ‘Can you remember what event might have triggered your condition?’

  I shake my head.

  He sighs. More seconds tick by and he shifts in his chair. ‘Have you ever been able to speak?’ he asks.

  I nod.

  ‘Good, good,’ he responds, almost as enthusiastically as he did the time before. ‘Can you remember when this ceased?’

  More seconds tick. I shake my head. Seeing a doctor’s bag, a bottle, the odour of anaesthetic, I feel a sharp stinging in my legs and flinch as if it is not imagined.

  The doctor doesn’t appear to notice as he smooths his hair once more and then places both hands in his lap. They are the hands of a professional: smooth, clean, fingernails clipped. He starts wiggling his fingers, perceptibly irritated by my focus on his appendages. ‘We’ll continue with some exercises. Now, slowly breathe in and breathe out …’

  An hour later, I see the cloud of dust in the road in the distance as the doctor’s motorcar speeds away. I’m sitting on a wooden bench in the garden stitching the hem of a brown skirt to give to Sister Marguerite – we are mending clothes donated to us for a family in the village.

  Sister Marguerite and Sister Constance are talking a little way off across the lawn, looking across to me every now and again. The stone walls of the nunnery rise up behind them, throwing half the lawn into shadow. A statute of St Clare in a stone niche just behind them kneels as if she is pleading to be heard too. Sister Marguerite points a finger towards me as she talks. I know she is keen to ensure the doctor’s visits continue in the hope that I will one day find my voice.

  I think I want that too.

  In the last few weeks I have started to feel alive again, aware of my surroundings, like putting on spectacles and having things come into focus. Whether I can talk or not I don’t know, but my thoughts are less fuzzy now, more distinct, and I can stay in them longer. Perhaps it is talk of moving me on. Sister Constance’s threat lingers in the corridors, on the faces of the nuns I have come to know. It is in Sister Marguerite’s worried looks.

  As I work I watch the hens claw at the soil, their great bottoms wobbling as they strut about the little square of ground allotted to them. Behind the wire that has been have put up to keep out the foxes is their entire world, and eight of them are happily pecking at the ground, scraping their feet along the earth, delving and scratching about the place, exuding a contented calm.

  We kept chickens.

  I was amused by their strange little habits, touched by their incessant babble of communication. One hen used to follow me right into the house, clucking
expectantly as if she was continuing a conversation I had begun. At the end of the day Paul would often be sent out to herd them back into the little wooden coop we had at the bottom of the garden. Swearing and sweating he would chase them, back bent, arms waving at his sides, his large hands snatching at the air, desperately homing in on them as they raced off every which way. I would stand at the kitchen sink, peeling vegetables or idly stirring whatever was bubbling on the stove, and laugh at his efforts. He would return with straw in his hair and mud on his shoes to sit and talk to me in the kitchen as the sun set over the fields beyond. It would be just us, the waning light, the easy talk that happens between families, and the sure knowledge that this would all happen again tomorrow.

  A new memory, conjoured perhaps by the still air in the garden. I’m not sure, but it stays, I can see it.

  I am in our garden. I am crouching down, alert, my skirts hitched up, eyes watching her every move. She is cornered. I can feel the sweat collecting on my hairline and the sun beating down on my back as I remain absolutely focused. She is trapped. In a breath it all happens: her wings flutter, she sees a gap and runs towards it, head jerking forwards, backwards, feathers bending a little in the breeze, her feet raised high with every step. I gasp and plunge and grab at her but she is too fast.

  I swing about again, feeling like a gladiator in an arena. I don’t have time for these games, but this chicken will not defeat me. Back bent over once more, I slowly advance, holding her eye contact, willing her to stay still. It is just at the moment when I am to pounce that I hear a shout of laughter – the chicken races past me, I dive, arms out-stretched, I hit the ground and Isabelle is running over to help me.

  She pulls me to my feet. ‘Maman, what are you doing?’ she asks. She sees me glaring at the hen, dusting my skirts down.

  ‘She,’ I say, pointing to the offender, who is now strutting backwards and forwards in my herb garden, victorious, ‘will not be caught.’

  Isabelle looks me up and down, at the marks on my clothes and the dusty scuffs on my face, and grins. ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘She will be going in the pot if she continues to evade me,’ I warn.

  ‘Maman.’

  Isabelle joins me, we look at each other. I nod. We rush. The chicken is confused, unsure where her best exit lies. She is being backed into a corner, noisily protesting as she steps into the shadow of the wooden fence. Her eyes dart left and right as we keep coming at her. Isabelle is breathing heavily, enjoying the game. The chicken decides to make a last bid for freedom and scrabbles between us both. I move swiftly, feel her bony body in my hands as I grab her running between my legs.

  Seizing her firmly on both sides, hands clamped down on her wings so she cannot flap and free herself, I hold her at arm’s length and carry her over to the coop.

  Isabelle throws herself into the little wrought-iron chair with its rusting arms and delicate patterns, resting in the shade of the wisteria that has grown out of control, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight. I shove the chicken back into the coop, see the grateful flap as I release her wings and slide the door across quickly, shutting her in with the rest. She turns, eyes me, resenting her loss of freedom and the chance to tear up my garden, feast on the plants, and then with a blink starts to scratch at the soil beneath her, all forgotten.

  Turning to the table I take in Isabelle. We meet in that moment, and I feel a smile spread across my face.

  Our garden, the scene of so many of the memories. I snatch at them, want more. My finger plucks at the skirt I am stitching, tracing a line on the material, but the present dissolves as more faces crowd onto the wooden bench with me. My family, fresh, tanned: Vincent with his rumbling laugh and large hands, Paul nudging me in the ribs, teasingly. And she is here, as if she really was at the table nearby.

  Isabelle traces a line on the garden table, expression peaceful, enjoying the warm wash of sunshine that is trapped in our little courtyard. I go to hang the clothes out, humming off-key, relishing the smell of the garden: rosemary and clean laundry. She gets up to return to the shop, waving at me to stay and enjoy the sunshine a while longer. I thank her and watch her return inside.

  She is replaced by another at the table. An argument returns.

  Vincent is sitting in the same seat, his expression furious, his eyes on me as I sit opposite him, my mouth half-open. I suggested Monsieur Coudran as a possible husband for Isabelle, a recently widowed farmer with at least fifty acres and a big farmhouse in need of a woman’s touch.

  He didn’t let me finish the sentence. ‘You would marry her off to that old man, who has barely any of his own teeth left?’

  ‘And how do you expect her to live? What are we going to be leaving her?’

  Vincent is silent. I see my chance.

  ‘It is true that Monsieur Coudran is a little older than she is …’

  At this Vincent snorts.

  ‘But he has the farm and …’

  ‘Do you remember when Renard had to sell his land? Monsieur Coudran only offered him a third of its real worth and the poor man accepted. Broke him. No, no, Isabelle won’t be offered up to him as a second wife.’

  In a quiet voice I persist: ‘Who is she to marry, then?’

  ‘There is time enough to think of that,’ he says, ending our conversation.

  As the daughter of a shopkeeper, we can’t hope for a particularly advantageous marriage. Vincent doesn’t seem able to grasp this fact. I know he wants to keep her close for as long as he can; ensure that easy smile never leaves his sight, keep hold of one child. A large part of me wants that too, but she can’t stay with us for ever, she deserves something more. And yet there seems to be no one suitable in the village – or no one up to Vincent’s exacting standards – and with so many men gone, the whole village seems to be a gaggle of women, no husbands in sight.

  I bite down my reply, reaching for the glass of water in front of me.

  Vincent is looking out at the fields beyond, mist stretched out like a wispy hand on a lilac horizon, a lone bird of prey hovers nearby, a sudden dive as it sees something in the long grass. His face has closed off to me, the knowing sparkle in his eyes dimmed. There will be no point continuing to nudge him. His enormous hands rest on his thighs, like he is posing for a portrait; traces of mud seem worn into the knuckles, testament to helping with the harvest. We will stay in this village until those hands became lined and cracked.

  Can he really expect her to stay here, too?

  I simmer, one finger sliding across the top of the glass. Beads of water cling to the outside. Staring at them, I take another sip. If only we could find her someone. She is blossoming before us, walking differently, straighter, wearing clothes in new styles, her hair loose, next to me in my aprons and wooden shoes she seems from another place entirely. I worry for her working in the town, the action and temptations of her new life.

  ‘Limoges,’ she had scoffed. ‘Hardly.’This from a girl who was so excited by the opening of the tram stop that she waited three hours to see the first carriage go by, pointing to the trail of tracks leading out of the village, out into the world.

  Where would she end up if she could?

  I want Vincent to be right: perhaps she will be able to attract a man with exciting prospects – a wealthy landowner who has a good eye for beautiful things.

  I am still in the courtyard but this is another scene, a different day; the time when things all shifted for us.

  I am watering the plants, watching the water trickle into the soil, form a pool on the surface, spray the leaves with fine droplets. The clouds sit fat and low in a greying sky but rain hasn’t fallen in days. I shiver and wrap my cardigan around me with one arm.

  Vincent stands inside looking out at me over the top half of the stable door. I am not sure how long he has been standing there. His face is grim, his normally ruddy skin washed out. As my eyes meet his my mouth go
es dry. He doesn’t need to say it, I see it in his hand.

  A square of paper.

  He announces it anyway, holding the telegram up. ‘Something’s arrived.’

  I have the same pit of dread in my stomach sitting in the sunshine on this bench, the nuns quietly working around me, as if I am back there living it all over again.

  But now I also know what came after.

  The hope drains away, my voice is lost to my past and no amount of doctor’s prodding will be able to find it for me.

  TRISTAN

  I arrive at the house to find Maman and Papa talking in the hall; their bodies form a semi-circle as they mutter to each other in low voices. ‘No, no chance at all, all five of them, apparently.’ Maman jumps as I appear and looks at me as if I’m no more important than the coat rack I’m standing next to. Her fingers are playing with the cross she wears around her neck.

  She comes forward and greets me in a loud voice, patting the top of my head. I run through to the kitchen to see if Madame Villiers has cooked anything, looking back at them briefly before I turn the corner. They are both staring at me, still. They look so serious. I skid to a halt, the rubber soles of my shoes squeaking as I stop.

  Have they been talking about me? Have I done something wrong? I rack my brains to think of something I might have done that could get me into trouble. Was it from a couple of days ago when I pinched Eléonore for taking the last of the clafoutis? She squealed and ran off at the time but, knowing her, she probably ran weeping to Maman with more stories of how I’d done her harm.

  I forget I’m hungry at all when Maman says, ‘Darling, your father wants to see you.’

  I gulp.

  Papa calls me into the study and sits me down in the leather chair Monsieur Villiers told us was for guests, so I know he wants to talk to me about something important. My hands get hot at the thought of all the things I might have done wrong and I note a cane right up on the top shelf. A plan forms. I will open my eyes wide and say that I would never do anything of the sort. I am going to remain brave as last time I cried and it only made him angrier.