Concerto to the Memory of an Angel by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt Read Free Book Online

or rather the courage of submission. She did not go home until it was pitch black.
    As she was turning her key in the lock, her neighbor opened her shutters and called out, “The priest was looking for you. He came twice.”
    â€œOh, did he? Thank you for telling me. I’ll go to the vicarage.”
    â€œI don’t think you’ll find him there. A car came and took him away just now.”
    A car? Of course he did not drive, and he didn’t even have a car.
    Marie went to the vicarage. Behind the drawn curtains the interior was dark and empty. She knocked on the door, knocked again, pounded. In vain. There was no one.
    She went back to her house, refusing to worry. It hardly mattered, she was firm in her resolution, and the priest was glad of it. No doubt he had wanted to compliment her one more time and offer to accompany her to Bourg-en-Bresse, who knows. She calmed down, certain there would be an explanation in the morning.
    And indeed, her phone rang at dawn. The moment she recognized Gabriel’s voice, she was immediately reassured.
    â€œMy dear Marie, the most extraordinary thing has happened.”
    â€œWhat is it, dear Lord?”
    â€œI’ve been appointed to the Vatican.”
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œThe Holy Father read my memoir about Saint Rita. He liked it so much that he has asked me to join a theological study group at the papal library.”
    â€œBut . . . ”
    â€œYes. It means I am obliged to leave you. Both you and Saint-Sorlin.”
    â€œBut our project?”
    â€œIt changes nothing. You have made your decision.”
    â€œBut . . . ”
    â€œYou will go through with it, since you made your promise. To me and to God.”
    â€œBut you won’t be there by my side! When I go to prison you won’t be coming to visit me every day.”
    â€œYou will do as you said, because you promised me.”
    â€œYou and God, I know . . . ”
    She hung up, disturbed, wavering between the ecstasy in which she had spent the previous day and anger. “The Vatican . . . He was supposed to be going to the Vatican because of me. The Holy Father was going to congratulate him on my confession. He could have waited just a little longer. It’s still better to go to the Vatican because you’ve done the impossible, because you’ve obtained the redemption of a criminal, than because of yet another text about some minor saint. What is the matter with him? How could he betray me like this?”
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    Two days later Vera Vernet, the “old bag” with her body as twisted as a vine stock, came to inform Marie in her sharp voice that a new priest had arrived.
    Marie went to the church.
    In his tight gray cassock with worn seams, the priest was sweeping the steps outside the church, chatting with the inhabitants of Saint-Sorlin.
    When she saw him—short, ruddy, with thick features, a man well into his fifties—Marie Maurestier immediately knew how she was going to spend the years to come: she would tend her garden, feed her cat, go less often to mass and remain silent until her dying day.
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THE RETURN
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    G reg . . . ”
“I’m working.”
“Greg . . . ”
    â€œLeave me alone, I’ve got twenty-three more pipes to clean.”
    Greg refused to turn around and leaned over the second turbine, his powerful back and prominent muscles stretching his cotton singlet fit to burst.
    Dexter the sailor insisted: “Greg, the captain’s waiting for you.”
    Greg whirled so suddenly that Dexter jumped. With sweat streaming from his naked shoulders to his lower back, the huge man was transformed into a barbarian idol: an aura of evaporation suffused his body as it gleamed with the wild flames of the boilers. Thanks to his talents as an engineer, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, the freighter
Grandville
sailed its course without flagging, crossing oceans to transport goods from one port to