Concerto to the Memory of an Angel Read Free Page A

weddings, and banquets. When the media wanted to question her or take her photograph, she immediately contacted her lawyer to negotiate a fee. The previous winter when she was bedridden with a nasty flu, she was secretly pleased when the inhabitants, concerned they might lose their historical monument, paraded past her house to ask for news. That summer, one roasting afternoon when she stopped off at the café to drink a peppermint cordial, she found herself short on cash and rather than apologize to the café owner, she merely said “With all the money I have brought you, the least you can offer me in return is a drink.”
    Slow, somewhat bent, as if her body were cumbersome, she went back the way she had come and began to climb the hill to her house. Over time she had become increasingly skilled at acting the victim; she was now remarkably good at maintaining her pose as victim of a judicial error. To be sure, in the beginning she committed a few blunders: for example, not long after her release, a mainstream magazine had pictured her in her garden—smiling, joyous, and carefree, stroking her cat or tending to her beloved roses. The effect was disastrous: such shocking cheerfulness did not befit either a widow—which was what she was—or a woman who has been broken by years of unjustified prison—which was what she was supposed to be; and as soon as the feature appeared, there came a slew of hateful articles in response, raising doubts, exploring the gray zones, trying to revive the hypothesis of her guilt. Subsequently therefore she had adopted a more humble profile, as if she were some great injured bird, and she did not deviate from it.
    She walked up the street that ran through the heart of the village. On the hill, above the roofs and the bald plane trees, the vineyards extended in dull regularity, naked and dreary like a crop of barriers, in a month of March where only the gnarled vine stock wound its way around the wire supports.
    As she went past the chapel she shuddered.
    She could hear a hymn coming from the building. What? Could it be that . . .
    Marie rushed up the steps as quickly as her arthritis and corns would allow, shoved open the door, which gave a resounding creak, and then, transfixed by the scene, she let the swirls of music enfold her like a heady perfume, brushing against her, caressing her, penetrating her.
    A young priest was playing the harmonium.
    His beauty was pure, indecent. He was alone in the nave, and radiant. His skin was as pale as if he were wearing powder, his lips drawn in the shape of a kiss, his form framed by a golden light that glided in perfect sympathy from the stained-glass window to his shoulders. Brighter than any altar, more appealing than the Christ on the cross, the source of subtle sounds that rose scrolling to the vaulted ceiling, the young priest had become the center of the church.
    Marie was fascinated by his white hands as they caressed the keys, and she gazed at him with the emotion one feels in the presence of an apparition, until there came from outside the sound of a moped backfiring, which distracted their attention toward the entrance.
    When he realized he had a visitor, the priest stopped playing and got up to greet her.
    Marie Maurestier felt weak at the knees. He was thin, incredibly tall, in the way of a young yet manly adolescent, and he seemed to glow as he looked at her, like a lover meeting his mistress. As if he were on the verge of spreading his arms to welcome her.
    â€œGreetings, my child. I am so pleased to have taken up this post in Saint-Sorlin. I have just left the monastery, and this is my first parish. I’m very fortunate, am I not, to have landed in such a pretty village?”
    Disturbed by the deep, rich, velvety tones of his voice, Marie stammered that it was the village that should be pleased.
    Briskly, he stepped closer.
    â€œI am Abbé Gabriel.”
    She shuddered. An angelic name, in sharp contrast