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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781781720646 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Seren |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Mary-Ann Constantine studies Romantic period literature at Aberystwyth University, and has published widely in this field. She is the author of The Breathing and has been published in the New Welsh Review and Planet.
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All the Souls
Stories of the living and the dead
By Mary-Ann Constantine
Poetry Wales Press Ltd
Copyright © 2016 Mary-Ann ConstantineAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78172-064-6
CHAPTER 1
The Collectors
Le peuple immense des âmes en peine s'appelle l'Anaon.
The vast population of penitential souls is called the Anaon.
Anatole Le Braz, La Légende de la Mort (1902)
Si vous voulez voir des lépreux, hâtez-vous, le dernier ne tardera pas à disparaitre en France au moins, avec l'augmentation du bien-etre et la propreté individuelle.
If you wish to see lepers, then hurry: it will not be long before the last of them disappears, from France at least, with the rise in living standards and personal hygiene.
Dr P. Aubry, 'La lèpre et les lépreux en Bretagne'
Bulletin de la Société d'Émulation des Côtes-du-Nord (1895)
A village near Plouaret,
Côtes-du-Nord
22 June 1892
Anaon I: Shapes
You will imagine us as bats, or something like. Flittering at dusk, with strange little faces. But it would be best if you think of birds, the tiny brown ones, virtually invisible, that flick at the edges of your vision as you pass a clump of willow or a coppiced ash. Think of a wren in a holly bush, a warbler scuttling down a thick trunk; think, and then, if you can, unimagine the shapes, and remember the movement.
Size varies, as in life, but I have never known anyone bigger than a gull, and she was a rarity, she didn't stay long.
Waiting
He has arranged his best things on the desk like a child, he realises. They are too obvious. So he scatters them artlessly around the study, as a lover would, hoping to reveal himself more slowly, hoping to impress. The Roman coins go in a glass bowl on the broad windowsill; the delicate bronze head on the mantelpiece. A couple of rare editions are shifted to the walnut side table, and the desk is freed up for the business in hand. His annotated copy of Danielsen on top of the photographs and sketches, with Z's letters; a pile of notes to the side. Or should the pictures go on top? He tries it several ways; he cannot think straight. It will be fine, the effect of the room will be fine. Z will be impressed. He goes out through the French windows into the garden for another cigar. He leans against one of the apple trees, furred up with moss and laden with tiny green fruits. Breathing out smoke, he acknowledges the sun, the beautiful yellow light of a June evening that shows his house and garden at their scented, bewitching best. It has been a long afternoon on the longest day of the year.
They watch him waiting, and smile briefly at each other. But his nervousness affects them too, and Madame hustles little Katell back up to the dining room to check the placements again while she tastes the soup and adds a little cream, a little salt. It is delicious. She is sure of that. She knows it would not disgrace a dinner party in Paris, because she worked for his mother for many years in Paris, and was often praised. But she also knows that what is categorically delicious in one country may not be so in another. Who knows what will please this gentleman from the East? Still, they discussed the menu for days and in the end it was his decision. She has done her best.
Katell is so absorbed in the geometry of the dining table – there is something, she feels, not quite right about it – that she does not hear him come in. His sudden voice makes her judder; her face turns pink. He is pleased, however, with the table and pats her benevolently on the shoulder. She waits for a second or two in case there are further orders, prays that she will be able to understand them. But he says nothing else, and so she bobs, and disappears back to the kitchen, leaving him in her place, staring tranced at the three tall unlit candles and the interplay of white and silver. What he remembers has more colour. A deep-blue glaze on a bowl patterned with yellow and red. The pilaff piled into it, coloured and scented and spiced. The pleasure of the faint burning in the throat, like hot sun on skin. Dark faces and eyes of those waiting on, and Z's own slender hands breaking pitta bread, passing it over. Smiling, and talking, and talking.
Z will be at least another hour, but Le Coadic should be getting here by now; his train was due at Plouaret half an hour ago. He heads out again, for the front garden this time, down past the lavender and the roses to the gate.
The click of the latch flusters them until Katell jumps up and sees that it is just the restless doctor leaving. Madame relaxes, lets slip an irreverent proverb in Breton. Katell giggles, goes back to chopping parsley, starts singing.
Anaon II: Twigs
In theory we're supposed to have an Allotted Twig. In practice a certain amount of jostling goes on, especially if a few arrive at once. They do tend to turn up with preconceived ideas about the best spots, the likeliest perches. When you've been here as long as I have you get a certain pleasure from noting just how wrongheaded the new ones can be. I once witnessed a dogfight in a hazel where the resident was actually displaced. The new arrival, a tough little bully, settles on this beautiful straight rod thinking next season's walking stick or broom handle if ever I saw one, and left the resident, whose time was nearly up, all torn and pitiful clinging to a fussy splayed-out twig overhanging the road. What happens then? Nothing at all for three years, three drops in the great eternal ocean, and then one bright morning along comes a little boy with a pocket knife and cuts off the entire overhang to make a roof for his den, so the displaced resident, and several of his companions, are released more or less on time.
Which merely confirms that you cannot cheat the System. Or at least not by trying. I've known plenty get off way ahead of time through the unpredictable behaviour of their nearest and dearest left behind. Complete strangers, too; I've seen him, for example, go out of his way to cut a fly-swat or a letter-opener or a cane for his sweet peas as if permanently driven by pity. On the other hand, I have heard of those who try to plan in advance, as if they were simply making arrangements for their old age: I'll be in the big ash, says the matriarch, the fine old ash that practically embraces the farmhouse by now, so mind you cut it down next year when I'm gone and make furniture, make fenceposts, fix the gate to the marshy field, use the twigs for bedding, burn the rest; mind you do it all within the year. And the family, more reluctant to lose the old tree than the old woman, do as they're bid, and of course she's anywhere but: probably in a scrubby little hawthorn down the lane, hopping mad. Not, of course, that they know that, so they do have the rewarding glow of filial piety for all their effort. And think of all the others released from such a tree! But best, on balance, not to fight the System, such as it is. You'll do your time.
The splendid straight hazel rod was ignored for another seven years, and then it was only used to prop up the collapsing door of an old outbuilding. Pity, as it would have made a lovely walking stick. Much like his, now.
Arrival
Le Coadic sees the figure at the end of the lane and curses him, mildly, for spoiling the last ten minutes of his walk. He raises his stick in greeting and presses on at a faster pace past the honeysuckle and elderflower, the shocking-pink ragged robin and the darker pink of the foxgloves, past the general tangle of speedwell, nettle, stitchwort, dock. He has observed them all by now in any case, and expects few surprises between here and the house. He has rehearsed their pretty names in French and Breton and rolled half-a-dozen rhyming couplets around his head. Cures and prophylactics, indicators of weather. If any of it worked, he thought vaguely, the people would be bursting with health and good fortune. But it was hard to resist a rhyming couplet. He spent a good half hour last week boiling up eyebright to bathe his tired eyes. He had made her try it too. He thought today they felt a little better, even walking in bright sun. What an evening. And here was the good doctor, almost running, just a little out of breath, to meet him.
'I'm sorry I'm late.' He squeezed the plump hand and lied courteously. 'The train was slow getting into Plouaret.' He had, in fact, spent a quarter of an hour investigating an overgrown spring he had heard about from a friend. The saint had long gone from his, or her, niche, but the friend claimed there was an inscription on the stone above. Le Coadic had pulled off the nettles and brambles, and scraped at the moss with his knife, but had not found the marks conclusive. He washed his hands in the clear water and threw in a little coin for Élise.
'Not at all, mon ami, I am so glad you could come at all. How is your wife?'
'Better. She's better. Thank you for asking: she sends her greetings.' He hoped, at some point soon, that he would be able to stop telling lies, that common courtesy and the truth would at least get themselves back on speaking terms. It would be very wearing otherwise. They stuck to the weather, which had been, even for June, quite extraordinary.
'Oh, but this is lovely!' He meant it this time. A family house in stone, with unusually large windows and two old apple trees in the front garden. The doctor was delighted.
'My parents built onto the old farmhouse. We used to come here in the summers from Paris when I was a child. I moved back a few years ago, after they died. I'm here at weekends, mostly; the surgery as you know is at Saint-Brieuc. Too big for me I suppose but it does mean I can receive guests now and again. Let me show you your room; or would you prefer a drink first?'
'Oh, the room please,' said Le Coadic, and let the little man pass.
Katell emerged, smoothing her apron and rubbing flecks of parsley between her finger and thumb.
'Would you show the professor to his room, Katell? You have no other bags?'
'I left the larger one at the station, since we'll be back there tomorrow morning.'
'You travel light, mon ami; join me when you're ready.'
Le Coadic smiled and nodded and followed the girl up to a room with a sloping ceiling, overlooking the front garden and the lane.
'Are you from round here?' He spoke to her in Breton and she relaxed immediately, pointing beyond a cluster of trees to a small group of grey buildings.
'That's our farm.'
'Many of you? Brothers and sisters?'
'Six, monsieur, but two of them in the churchyard.' She crossed herself.
He nodded again. 'I like it here,' he said. 'My grandparents came from not far away – I think I may still have relations somewhere near – Guéguen?'
'Blacksmith at Plounevez, monsieur?'
'Possibly.'
'He married one of my father's cousins, monsieur.'
'Ah, then we are cousins too. Excellent.'
A loud cough downstairs. Le Coadic looked amused; Katell went pink again, curtsied and vanished. He moved to the little window and let the scent of roses in.
He had thought about having drinks in the library; it would look more professional. But part of him wanted Z to be the first in, so he opted for the garden and was gratified again by Le Coadic's pleasure.
'Honeysuckle,' he raised a glass to his host, 'and those delicious roses. You lucky man.'
'Ah, but you have the sea breezes, my friend. Healthier, more invigorating. I feel quite dreamy, tangled up in all this vegetation.'
They drank peaceably.
'I must thank you properly,' said the doctor, 'for helping me to organise all this.'
'Not at all. Your colleague's work sounds fascinating. I hope the itinerary has given him the opportunities he needed?'
'His last letter was encouraging. Two at Brest, he said, straight off. The hospital, I think. But you were quite right to think of the pardons; and the old colonies. And it is kind of you to come with us.'
'It suits my work too. But tell me how you met him. Was it in Paris?'
For the first time all day, the doctor forgot that he was waiting. He was back in Paris, younger, slimmer, full of ambition and good intentions. The clatter of Z's arrival caught him and threw him like a huge wave breaking. He got to his feet gasping for breath and almost ran round the side of the house to the front gate in time to see his colleague from Constantinople jump neatly down from the carriage and stretch out both his hands with a smile.
'I am late, I am late, ah, my friend, you must forgive me.'
'Oh no no, no no, not late, not late; I really did not expect you till now.'
The bags were unloaded, the driver paid, the carriage clattered off back to Plouaret.
'Please, please come in; no, really. Katell will take the bags.'
'Allow me,' said Le Coadic, who had appeared quietly by the front door. He held out a hand: 'Le Coadic. We have corresponded.'
'Our guide!' said Z with a glorious smile. 'Our Virgil! It is an honour, sir.' They shook hands. He had beautiful hands: long-fingered, manicured, with two big rings. Le Coadic let the two doctors pass him, and went down to the gate.
Madame, he could tell, was getting increasingly uptight. He put off the library again, and after drinks outside in the last of the sunlight they were soon at the white dining table, pulled together by the pooled light of three tall candles and the energy of their conversation. Z's hands danced expressively.
'And the birds,' he was saying. 'Definitely one for you, mon ami. Birds with astonishing blue breasts – and we saw them close that day, didn't we? An astonishing blue. They are supposed to be souls, the souls of the damned, never alighting, up and down the Bosphorus, round and round forever.' He smiled. 'Is that not picturesque?'
Aubry nodded. 'That does sound like you, Le Coadic. Is there a Breton parallel?'
'Cruel,' said Le Coadic thoughtfully. 'Here, no, almost the opposite, they perch. For as long as it takes. Though I suspect they are no happier.'
'And when we arrived,' said Aubry, 'at Scutari. And it was so hot I thought I would faint, I remember you said wait for the cemetery, you'll find it chilly enough in there.'
'You did not believe me, mon ami.'
'The cypresses are packed so closely, Le Coadic, so black. You cannot imagine how dark it is, how surprising.'
'After all the heat and colour you describe it would be a surprise.'
'Every grave white marble, head and foot, but no sunlight to make it shine. Kilometres and kilometres, dark and cold – have seen hospitals and morgues all over the western hemisphere but I've never been anywhere more like death.'
Katell came in quietly to remove their soup dishes. Le Coadic thanked her and sent his compliments to the cook. 'I could taste nettles,' he said, 'my mother used to make a soup like that.' Aubry looked embarrassed. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but would you mind speaking French? We don't use Breton here, even in the kitchen: the girl's parents asked especially. Till she gets fluent, you know.'
Le Coadic bowed his head in apology. 'Of course,' he said.
'I notice,' said Z smoothly, 'that you people keep your dead closer. I have been to several places now where the graveyard is right in the centre of the village. In fact I saw ...'
'Markets held in cemeteries?' said Le Coadic with a smile. 'Fairs? Courting couples? You're right, monsieur. We keep our dead close.'
Z laughed. 'At Rumengol they were making crèpes and mending shoes.'
But Aubry was still in Scutari. 'And those strange turbaned pillars to mark the graves of villains,' he said, 'and the sudden glimpses of the great city over the river, shining in the sun.'
'The dead at Scutari must feel excluded,' said Le Coadic.
'But it's worse for the living,' said Aubry, with some relish at the effect. 'Ah, it is much worse for them, in that crumbling marble mausoleum and it would be even more pitiful were it not for our generous friend here.'
Z looked mildly amused at his colleague's sense of drama.
'My lepers,' he said modestly.
Not trusting Katell, Madame arrived with the duck; the gentlemen applauded.
Anaon III: Three Candles
Teir goulaouen 'bars an ty ... He can't not know that, surely? He can't be sitting comfortably at a dinner table with three lighted candles? Why doesn't he say something, or do something, knock his water over, create a diversion? This is not a good beginning, that is the general feeling, he should be more careful.
Some of us however say that it is not his bad luck, it is the little doctor's: his house, his table, his mistake, and that the sudden and violent death which must inevitably result from this oversight will be his concern, not our man's. To which a sizeable portion of the community of souls-in-waiting reply, in an indignant shiver, that the one with the knowledge should always act, it is his responsibility. I feel for the poor man, myself, because the more he knows, and I fear he insists on knowing it all, the harder it will be for him, hemmed in on all sides by the endless dos and don'ts of proper procedure, in all their tedious and conflicting regional variation, until he daren't cross his own threshold for fear of infringing some rule or other. I've known some it gets to like that. They do not walk like other people, for fear of crushing us.
The lack of unanimity is typical, too. If you have ever sat on a rock at the edge of the beach on a sunny day near a clear sea with a light wind you will know what I mean. The sun and the wind reveal the patterns made by small colliding waves, and the effect, very pretty from a distance, is of a rippling net of light, or fishscales, but what is significant is the number of directions involved, as the waves move in and pull back and deflect off the rocks, passing through each other. The knowledge of the anaon, which is, for the record, a very partial and deficient knowledge at best, passes like that from group to group, in clashing ripples, deflected, strengthened, weakened; we call it the gossips. I can already hear the anaon from Bro Leon expressing their scorn; it's four candles, obviously, as anyone knows. Three, confirm the Pays Pourlet, but only if they are in a dead straight line with nothing in between, which is not the case here because of the silver salt cellar, though if anyone reaches for the salt of course it's curtains for someone. The Book, when it comes, we hope, will solve this endless bickering, will nail it once and for all. Teir goulaouen ' bars an ty / Zo zin pront d'eur maro cry.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from All the Souls by Mary-Ann Constantine. Copyright © 2016 Mary-Ann Constantine. Excerpted by permission of Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,The Collectors,
Camera Obscura,
Absolution,
Warrior,
Tethered Angel,
Lancaut,
The Hostage,
Centaur,
Fish,
Lake Story,
Copyright,