Amandine by Marlena de Blasi Page B

Yes, I do. I did. She has also gone to heaven. I had a grandmother, too.”
    “Also in heaven?”
    “Yes
.”
    “What was she like? Your grandmother.”
    “Do you mean what did she look like?”
    “Yes.”
    “She was tall, or so she seemed, since I was barely eight when she went away. Yes, I would say that she was tall. She always smelled likesugar. She wore a yellow dress with red roses all over it. And on Sundays she wore a brown dress, very soft. And a brown hat, I think. And she liked to kiss me, she was always kissing me. A four-kiss kiss. Just the way Solange kisses you.”
    “Right cheek, left cheek, right cheek, lips.”
    “Yes, like that.”
    “Look over there, do you see how the creek looks in the rain? That was the way her hair looked, barely blue, like thin blue silk, and pinched into tight waves just like the creek water.”
    “I’d like to have blue hair someday.”
    “And perhaps someday you shall.”
    “I wish you were my own father.”
    Tears catching in the ruts in his cheeks, Philippe says, “I have the same wish.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes. I do.”
    “Good.”
    “In fact, before God and the angels, right now, right here, I choose you as my child.”
    “I choose you as my father. Before God and the angels. Is it real now?”
    “Absolutely real.”
    “It is not. I know it isn’t. It isn’t real, but I think it’s true. Between us, it’s true.”
    “Between us and God and the angels. Maybe it’s as true as anything can be.”
    “Maybe. I love you, Père.”

CHAPTER XIII

    M ORE OFTEN THAN WAS HIS FORMER HABIT, BISHOP FABRICE VISITS the convent. The ostensible motive is that Philippe seems less inclined to visit him at the curia in Montpellier, and though it’s true that the bishop misses his old friend’s company, perhaps there is yet another reason for this change in his routine.
    Unannounced, His Eminence,
en entourage
, arrives just before vespers, prays with the sisterhood, and then, in a parlor off the kitchen, dines alone with Philippe, their schoolboy laughter seeping out from under the closed doors, pouring in upon the household. In visceral response, the sisters, even Paul, grow flushed and chirping, glide about the place.
The masters are at home and dining in the parlor
.
    Often Fabrice arrives earlier in the day, sometime after lunch and, wearing Wellingtons under his purple skirts, follows Philippe down into the
chai
, where the two sit on tottering wooden chairs at a small table, uncorking bottles, swirling the fine old juice, swallowing and spitting as they wish, plumbing the depths of a terra-cotta urn—exclusive cache of molding, grainy cheese buried in grapewood ash—Philippe gouging crumbles of the stuff, passing it to Fabrice from the blade of a corkscrew. Weary lions languishing in their den.
    The bishop always asks to see Amandine, bends to bless her, holds her on his knee for a moment, remarks on her growth, her brightness, hears her recitation of a prayer. Polite and dutiful, Amandine endures, performs, glancing—now and then—over her shoulder for Philippe. When she climbs down from the bishop’s wide, princely upholstered lap, runs to the shelter of Philippe’s embrace, Fabrice looks long at the pair, listens to their chatter, a half smile playing about his pendulous old mouth.
    On one morning visit, Paul—always seeking greater attention than he is wont to pay her—requests a private audience with Fabrice. “Of course, Paul. At noon, while the house is in meditation. A walk in the garden? Will that please you, Paul?” She hears the chaff, understands what he does not say.
If you could be pleased, that is
. She returns to her rooms, repeats her earlier everyday ablutions. Washes her face with lavender soap, presses a linen towel to her cheeks. Does she rub so vigorously only to dry them or also to bring on a blush? She brushes her teeth, holding the towel against her starched collar, her stiff white wings juddering as she moves. Once again the