Free Amandine by Marlena de Blasi Page A

from the hem of Marie-Albert’s habit. It did no harm, Mater.”
    “No, no harm. Despite your indulging, I admit she remains demure enough. I suspect the child is more resigned to her fate than are you, Solange.”
    “And what is her fate, Mater?”
    “To be apart.”
    “I pretend neither to myself nor to her that she is the same as other children. Her health, her
circumstances …
But I think some of the older girls might champion her, be ready to help her along during her first days at school next year. The five-and six-year-olds will be concerned enough with their own settling in, will either ignore Amandine or nettle her as only little ones do to one another, and so I thought that the older ones might—”
    “How presumptuous you are, Solange, to think that you can anticipate and stave off that child’s pain. I admit that she shall hardly be well-prepared to commence her school days, but that is your doing. Your bear-like fostering of her, yours and the others’, and now you would have her schoolmates do likewise?”
    “Mater, I’m only asking to bring her to sit at table with us. She’s old enough now, she sits quietly, has learned some rudimentary manners.”
    Paul busies herself with the sheaf of papers, tapping them on her desk to even up their edges, tapping them again and again. “Why do you trouble yourself with seeking permission for this? For anything?
His Eminence
has—”
    “Respect, Mater. My respect for you.”
    “Yes. Polite regard. Your polite regard for me in the face of my impassiveness. With the bishop’s carte blanche in hand you might have taunted me.”
    “May I sit, Mater?”
    “Yes, yes, you may sit.”
    “There have been times when you tempted my rudeness, Mater, and I think that without Père Philippe and some of the others to hold me back, I might have sparred with you but, you see, none of us believes that your heart is stone—”
    “I permitted you to sit, Solange. The chair is not an invitation for a tête-à-tête, less is it meant to open dialogue regarding the material of my heart. Never mistake my occasional guile for a weakening of my will against your presence here. Yours and hers. If you wish to bring the child to the refectory, then you may. One day a week.”
    “Thank you, Mater. May I choose Friday as the day?”
    “Friday. You may go now, Solange.”
    “Do you know what Amandine believes, Mater? She believes that
you are
her mother.”
    Paul looks up sharply, begins to speak, but Solange steps fast upon her words. “Yes, it’s true. Yesterday when I took her to the park, two little girls whom we’d never seen before approached us. One said to Amandine, ‘Come to play with us. Ask your mother if you can comewith us to ride the carousel by the pond. And what’s your name, by the way?’
    “The little girls looked at me then, waiting for my response. And Amandine said, ‘My name is Amandine, but she, she’s not my mother. She’s my sister. My mother is at home with all the others. With all my other sisters. I will go to ask my mother about the carousel. Solange, may we go to ask Mater if I can go to the carousel? What is a carousel, Solange?’
    “The little girls began to laugh and ran to where their own mothers were sitting and watching from a nearby bench. The children pointed at Amandine and whispered and giggled and told their mothers that the little girl over there didn’t know what a carousel was. I lifted her into my arms, but she struggled to be released and, red with shame, she ran away. I went after her, took her hand. As we walked I explained about the carousel, about the ponies that gallop round and round in a never-ending journey to the tune of ‘
Elle descend de la montagne,’
and I promised her that, one day soon, I would take her to ride a white one with a silver saddle just like the pony in the song. And then I said to her, ‘Amandine, tell me about your mother.’
    “‘
Elle est fou
. You are so silly, Solange, to ask me about