Miss Veegaete nodded in agreement.
The priest moved away from my desk towards the centre of the classroom. “Well, we’ve got quite a Noah’s Ark here, haven’t we, with all these animals …” he said, and suddenly, as if by magic, his face took on an indulgent, fond look. There had to be a church directory of regulation smiles and benign expressions, I thought, for priests always smiled in exactly the same unctuous way, as if they were posing for a portrait in oils.
“During holidays, too,” he went on, “we must do our duty every day. Every day without fail … Say the Lord’s Prayer … some Hail Marys, too. And don’t forget to recite a rosary from time to time. And the Acts, of course. Which of you knows the Acts?”
No one moved. The Last Judgement had begun. The shepherd, wolf in sheep’s clothing, pillar of black salt, looked round for a likely victim. His large hands, which he held clasped, were level with my eyes. The skin was wrinkled and scattered with tiny capillary veins, the nails were cracked, the fingers bony and tipped with brownish-yellow stains. One of his thumbs rubbed slowly and raspingly over the other.
Looking past him I caught a glimpse of Miss Veegaete hunched over her desk. She had opened Marcel’s letter and was reading it attentively, holding her fingers to her forehead.
My heart was pounding in my throat. The priest moved a little to one side, thereby obscuring my view of Miss Veegaete.
Peering from under my eyebrows my gaze left his hands and slid up his chest, past the greasy stains and traces of hastily flicked-off cigar ash up to the wide dingy dog collar and the head emerging from it. The thick, shiny lower lip. The ginger hair protruding from the nostrils. The shaggy eyebrows and bulging eyes which, like his hands, had a tracery of little veins.
The hands separated. One slipped into a side pocket of his cassock and reappeared holding a checked handkerchief. The other hand lay heavily on the top of my head.
“Allez, come now my boy, let’s hear you recite the Act of Charity …”
I braced myself.
“The Act of Charity: my Lord and my God …” I murmured, summoning up all my courage to flounder on.
The hand left the top of my head and joined the other hand, and together they raised the handkerchief to the flared, bushy nostrils.
He blew his nose, sounding a fanfare of snot.
I fastened my eyes on the swarm of ink stains and names scratched in the varnish of my desk.
“Normally he is perfectly capable of it,” Miss Veegaete gushed from behind the priest’s back. “Normally he’s up to it all right.” The priest turned round. Miss Veegaete hove into view again. She eyed me with dismay. The letter, I could see, was no longer on her desk.
The shepherd was satisfied, now that one member of his flock had been ritually humbled. He strolled down the classroom and pointed to a boy in the back row, who promptly reeled off the whole text.
“Well done. Such diligence is always pleasing to Lord Jesus.”
*
The letter had vanished. Miss Veegaete kept her eyes averted from mine, despite my imploring looks. When the priest drew himself up to bestow the blessing she rose from her chair and stared over my head at the class. She crossed herself demonstratively, keeping time with the hallowing gestures of the shepherd as he laved us with the grace of God.
Then it was time for break. I wanted to go up to her, but she hurried off to the coat rack by the door, put on a cardigan (which didn’t go very well with the dress, I noticed), and crossed to the priest’s side.
There had been a heavy shower, but now the sun had come out again. Everyone was relieved that the ceremony could be held out of doors after all. The village worthies stepped into the courtyard and shook the raindrops off their umbrellas. Miss Veegaete sailed towards them gushing words of welcome and shaking hands. She seemed to swell up all over. Where could she have hidden the letter?
Not on her desk, for it was bare except for the inkwell next to the blotting paper and the tray of pens with crystal handles. In one of her drawers, maybe. The knobs, polished monthly, gleamed invitingly, but I hung back. What if I was caught red-handed?
The platform filled up with bow ties and Sunday hats. The pupils were herded into the rows of wooden benches. The headmaster gave his speech in a voice akin to a wailing siren owing to the faulty microphone, but I was so distracted that I barely noticed. Miss Veegaete was sitting in the front row close to the yellow paper frill, conversing with her neighbour, the priest, who, so the grandmother had confided in me, was not averse to speaking French from time to time.
What had she done with my letter? She must have hidden it about her person, I thought. Slipped it under the elastic of her bloomers, say, in which case it was closer to the secret hairs between her thighs than any human being could conceivably come. Or further up, tucked into the waistband. Perhaps the eagle was hovering over her navel. What if it sought refuge in her bosom, where it would rub against her nipples along with Marcel and his tomatoes as sweet as apples?
There was a burst of applause and everyone turned to stare at me. Only Miss Veegaete went on chattering. Before I knew it I was heading toward the platform together with another boy — he was top of his class, I of mine. We were carrying a heavy basket of fruit between us.
“In gratitude,” it said on a card sticking out of the mound of fruit.
Miss Veegaete looked up. For an instant her smile seemed to freeze on her face. Perhaps I was staring at her too fixedly. My cheeks were ablaze. My jaws itched, my tongue groped for something to say, something razor-sharp that would slash her dress to shreds.
The shepherd leaned forward, turned his oily smile on the pair of us, patted us on the head and graciously accepted the basket of fruit.
I was presented with a book about the tundra, entitled Polar Bears and Volcanoes. The local photographer turned up to make a group portrait. There was no need to use a flash, as the sun was shining with dazzling brightness — but not brightly enough for me to be able to see through Miss Veegaete’s dress.
Afterwards the courtyard was deserted once more. The older boys carried the benches into the school, the potted palms were loaded onto wheelbarrows and taken away.
*
I set off home, and as I went past Miss Veegaete’s kitchen window I caught the reek of chips frying in boiling fat, and I could hear meat sizzling in a pan. Louise would be cooking supper. In my mind’s eye I saw her patting her wig and glancing furtively at her reflection in the shiny paint on the kitchen cupboards.
No one came to the door — not that I had knocked. Somehow I thought she would appear on the doorstep of her own accord, but there was no sign of life behind the net curtains. Miss Veegaete had made a breach in my soul, a letterbox, envelope-sized.
I turned into the lane leading out of the village, where the asphalt gave way to sand. I looked round one last time, expecting to see her tottering to the corner on her dainty shoes, out of breath and red-faced, waving the envelope. There was no one. The fields sparkled with the lushness of summer. Sparrows swooped down from the poplar trees and flocked round the puddles in the verge. They took flight as I approached, leaving me to churn up the water with my shoes.
CHAPTER 8
FOR DAYS NOTHING MUCH HAPPENED. THE HEAT lay becalmed on the roof, vaporising time. Lulled by the whirr of the sewing machine the hours slid by in an ungraded continuum. The village saint’s day was coming round again: for Stella and the grandmother the busiest time of year. Everyone with any status, real or imagined, wanted something smart to wear, even if it was only a new blouse to brighten up last year’s skirt, a new collar for a jacket, or at the very least a scarf or a stole, anything for a whiff of sophistication.