Amandine by Marlena de Blasi

cereals, laid reverently as holy relics in the pantries; each morning’s milk from a small herd; glass bottles of double cream; cheeses, just made and dripping whey from their cloth netting; white butter spread into half-kilo wooden forms; barrels of wine rolled gently down sagging paint-spattered planks into themusty gloom of the
chai
. To further sustain its table there are the convent gardens and fruit trees, its goats and sheep and chickens and geese, a rabbit hutch. Yet by some quirk of nature—even in the longest memory—there has never been a single instance of sufficiency that afforded the good sisters the means to send, say, a bushel of pears or plums back down the chalk white roads to the bottom. A token. Some say the virtue of charity has yet to take hold up on the plateau. It should be noted, though, that to stand in the convent hall among Mater Paul and her sorority on the afternoon of Epiphany, to sip tepid, watered chocolate from yellow and green faience cups, the villagers, the
metaires
, are all invited. But since the price of entry to the amusement is a small white envelope with a year’s tithe for the Carmelite missions, many more stay away than attend, their own missions having urgency enough. Even so, since the
metaires
, many of the villagers, and the sisters have similarly dedicated their lives to work and prayer, one might presume their affinity. Yet it’s
want
that separates them. When the good sisters’ woodpile dwindles, they send word to the
metaires
to bring more. As they do about their wine. For meat and wool and fine sturdy boots, they send to the shops while the
metaires
and the less prosperous of the villagers patch and save and count and portion. Do without in their own lives of work and prayer. Thus the convent remains remote from the hamlet and the village, each place observant of its own spiritual law and cultural prescription, its own rituals marked hour by day by year.
    On her way from the larder to the kitchen gardens to harvest the day’s needs for vegetables and herbs, Solange carries a deep oval basket over her arm. Inside the basket, on a length of soft blue wool, Amandine sleeps. Solange walks quickly from the larder, where she’d fetched the basket—fetched the baby—from Sister Josephine. Josephine, who had carried Amandine about earlier in the morning as she’d moved from cell to cell to see to the week’s fresh linen, had gone then to the larder to await Solange. Once Solange is in the garden, bending to inspect the new onions, flitting her hands through the peas, Sister Marie-Albert,the youngest and the most petite of the sisters, appears from the washhouse carrying an empty basket. Marie-Albert walks to Solange, looks furtively about, exchanges the empty basket for the one that holds the baby, hoists it hip-high, and—her doll’s body slanted from its weight—lopes back toward the washhouse singing a lullaby. Setting about to dig potatoes, Solange smiles to herself.
How the sisters love the child, how they quarrel over who will hold her, who will feed her. I would rather share her less, and yet I know that my taking on a full roster of duties makes me less prone to Paul’s disdain. Too, Amandine benefits from each one who cares for her
.
    Solange looks about the land, the air scented with the last sunburst figs trickling sticky juices and maddening the bees. Beyond the garden, the fruit hangs heavy on the vines now. Everywhere the vines
. At home the grapes will be less mature
, she thinks,
perhaps another month before the vendage. Père Philippe likes that I know so much about grape growing, winemaking, and so he teaches me about these southern grapes. Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan. Not the grapes of my Champagne. Strange how what grows up from the earth in a given place reflects the people of that place. Here the vines grow taller, leaner, taller and leaner like the people. The vines of Champagne grow closer to the ground, thick, lush,