“Maman said I had to get some fresh air,” Léa replied.
We chatted for a bit, and Sandrine told Léa that we had taken the photograph, the one with me and Maria Callas, into Aix to get framed. In fact, the framer’s shop was next to the hospital, and we explained that we had been in to see Michèle, whose condition had not changed. I asked Léa if she knew of any good walks in the area, and she jumped up and called to her mother, who was walking between the barn and the house, carrying what looked like beakers full of red wine. Hélène yelled hello and gave Léa permission to accompany us. In fact, it was the other way around. Léa hurried down the road and said to follow her. Instructed us, really. We must have made a curious trio: the old writer, whose apparitions I was now convinced stemmed from guilt; the short-skirted, fast-talking housekeeper, who may or may not have pushed my fellow writer down the stairs; and a little girl leading us along.
We walked in single formation when we got onto the main road, which isn’t that busy, but, still, when those village boys drive, they drive quickly. A taxi approached, leaving the village toward Aix, and as it drove by we stopped walking and, naturally, watched it go by. An old woman wearing sunglasses and a large straw hat sat in the backseat. “The blind lady,” Sandrine said.
“It would be terrible to be blind,” Léa said, “but worse to be deaf.”
“You think so?” I asked.
“Not to be able to see your parents?” Sandrine added. “Or see flowers or your mother’s vineyards?”
“But it would be worse,” Léa answered, “if I couldn’t hear their voices.” I now knew the Paulik family better, and was aware of Léa’s musical gifts. Neither Sandrine nor I argued, and we let the conversation slide into other, less melancholic, subjects.
“Are we almost there?” I joked after about fifteen minutes.
Léa ignored me and turned up a dirt road that led southeast of the village. We obediently followed. I was going to make another joke, about the blind leading the blind, but it was corny, and, besides, Léa wasn’t blind. She knew exactly where she was going.
The road twisted and turned around two or three old stone farmhouses and one garish, recently built yellow stucco bungalow. I almost pointed out the ugliness of the bungalow—its obvious cheap materials, its unimaginative blockiness, the windows that were too small (here, in the country, one could have big windows!)—but I decided to stay quiet. Sandrine probably grew up in such a house, on the other side of Aix, where her sister, Josy, might still live.
Then we saw, at the edge of an olive grove, where Léa was taking us. It was a quintessential snapshot of Provence: a small white chapel, its front door flanked by two light columns and topped by a semicircular window. There were two tiny arched windows on either side and a bell tower at the roof’s peak. A very large, old cypress tree guarded the chapel. The only blemish was a bright yellow watering hose that had been left out on the front lawn, parched from the sun. Someone from the village must water the lawn, or make an attempt to, but judging from the golden grass, watering in this summer heat was a losing battle.
“Venez!” Léa called to us as she began running, not into the chapel, whose door I could see was open, but around to the back. When we got to the far side of the chapel we could see her sitting on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the lawn, taking off her sandals. She waved and yelled, “Saint Pancrace!” then she stood up and slowly began walking on the smooth rocks.
“Who in the world is Saint Pancrace?” I asked Sandrine.
“Don’t ask me,” she answered. “Josy and I would sneak novels into Mass. We never listened.”
“Probably my books, you little heathens,” I said.
“Look, you two!” Léa said when we finally reached her. She was putting her little feet into a set of worn-out footprints embedded in the rocks. “These are the footsteps of Saint Pancrace!” she said. There were four, and Léa skipped back and forth between them.
“Is that so?” I asked.
“Yes,” Léa answered matter-of-factly. “Saint Pancrace walked here from . . . I can’t remember, but it was far . . . and he sat here and rested his feet in this hollow in the stone, which was full of water, because it had rained. And when he rested his feet, a miracle happened. The stone turned all mushy and soft, and his footprints were left in the rock. Look!”
What, Justin? You believe in that kind of stuff? I figured you did. Let me continue.
“You have to do this,” Léa said quite seriously. “It’s good luck to put your feet in his footsteps. We did it in May. A bunch of us kids from the village, after a Mass in the chapel.”
“How does it bring you good luck?” I asked.
Léa answered, “Because you’re following in his footsteps, and . . . well . . . it will help you have a good life.”
I didn’t comment that it surprised me that the Pauliks went to Mass. They seemed too liberal. But that was my Parisian Left Bank intellectualism screaming out. They may have made an exception for that May Mass, like one goes to Mass at Easter or Christmas but never at any other time. Or perhaps they did go every Sunday. I didn’t really know, nor was it my place to judge.
I asked Léa to show us the church, and she sat down and put her sandals back on, then jumped up and was
