the biggest city to the smallest hamlet had a name for themselves, from Parisiens (Paris) to Nuitons (Nuits-Saint-Georges) to Buissoniers (Buisson).
“ Magnotins,” Franck said, pronouncing the word with a soft “g”. “The women are called Magnotines. ”
“I like that. It has a medieval ring to it.”
We made our way past the stone house of the maître d’école who had taught Franck, Franck’s sister Stéphanie, and their little brother Emmanuel-Marie at the village school. His garden was taken over by wild hollyhocks, many taller than Franck. Next was the communal well where an old red rose climbed up and over the crumbling stone wall behind. The road wound down in front of the village church. It was a small, Roman affair like the one on Marey. It glowed ochre in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Have I ever brought you here before?” Franck asked me.
I shook my head. It had been Franck who had come to Burgundy on his own and toured every single church in Villers and the surrounding villages, looking for the perfect one for us to get married in. I had stayed back at Oxford, chained to the casebooks in the law library.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but this church was actually my first choice for our wedding.”
“What happened?”
“It was booked for a christening so I booked the one in Marey instead.”
The wooden door, intricately carved and only made more beautiful by the scars of the centuries, was fitted with one of the most ancient iron locking mechanisms I had ever seen. The metal swirled this way and that, and the notched keyhole could undoubtedly only be opened by a mammoth key. Franck turned the handle and pushed open the door.
The church was cool and seemed almost pitch black until my eyes began to adjust to the softly coloured light that filtered through the stain-glass windows. On the floor were massive stones carved with names and dates in old French. The biggest ones led up to an austere little nave of pale stones behind a wooden altar.
To the left of the door stood a stone basin with a pool of water at the bottom. Franck dipped his fingers in it and crossed himself with the ease of someone who had been baptized, confirmed, and communed a Catholic. Envy prickled at my fingertips.
I had never had a religion. Well, that was not technically true - I had been baptized in an Anglican ceremony and to this day I’m not really sure why except that my cousin was also baptized then. Perhaps the church was running a two for one deal. It was definitely odd considering that my family and most of our friends considered organized religion suspicious at best. My father never failed to regale us with tales of the hypocrisy of churchgoers, such as the local bishop who bet the entire diocese’s money on racehorses and lost, the Catholic priest who was found to have a wife and children stashed away in Vancouver, and the minister who fiddled with the altar boys.
As a result, I felt like an interloper in every church I entered. There was something about this church, though, that made me want to believe in God the same way I had believed in Santa Claus during those brief but magical years of early childhood.
I didn’t discover the truth about Santa Claus until I was eleven, rather late in the scheme of things. I had begun to notice that Santa and my mother had remarkably similar handwriting and often used the same wrapping paper. That morning I bounced into my parents’ bed at the ungodly hour of five o’clock and began pestering my mother.
“Is it really Santa who puts the presents under the tree or is it you?”
“What do you think?” she asked me, groggy.
“I think it might be you. Is it?” I wanted more than anything for her to tell me I was wrong.
“Yes.”
That single word turned my world of magic into a gray, rational planet where everything had an explanation. An aching void remained.
“ Viens. ” Franck pulled me over to one of the wooden benches near the front. The
“ Magnotins,” Franck said, pronouncing the word with a soft “g”. “The women are called Magnotines. ”
“I like that. It has a medieval ring to it.”
We made our way past the stone house of the maître d’école who had taught Franck, Franck’s sister Stéphanie, and their little brother Emmanuel-Marie at the village school. His garden was taken over by wild hollyhocks, many taller than Franck. Next was the communal well where an old red rose climbed up and over the crumbling stone wall behind. The road wound down in front of the village church. It was a small, Roman affair like the one on Marey. It glowed ochre in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Have I ever brought you here before?” Franck asked me.
I shook my head. It had been Franck who had come to Burgundy on his own and toured every single church in Villers and the surrounding villages, looking for the perfect one for us to get married in. I had stayed back at Oxford, chained to the casebooks in the law library.
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but this church was actually my first choice for our wedding.”
“What happened?”
“It was booked for a christening so I booked the one in Marey instead.”
The wooden door, intricately carved and only made more beautiful by the scars of the centuries, was fitted with one of the most ancient iron locking mechanisms I had ever seen. The metal swirled this way and that, and the notched keyhole could undoubtedly only be opened by a mammoth key. Franck turned the handle and pushed open the door.
The church was cool and seemed almost pitch black until my eyes began to adjust to the softly coloured light that filtered through the stain-glass windows. On the floor were massive stones carved with names and dates in old French. The biggest ones led up to an austere little nave of pale stones behind a wooden altar.
To the left of the door stood a stone basin with a pool of water at the bottom. Franck dipped his fingers in it and crossed himself with the ease of someone who had been baptized, confirmed, and communed a Catholic. Envy prickled at my fingertips.
I had never had a religion. Well, that was not technically true - I had been baptized in an Anglican ceremony and to this day I’m not really sure why except that my cousin was also baptized then. Perhaps the church was running a two for one deal. It was definitely odd considering that my family and most of our friends considered organized religion suspicious at best. My father never failed to regale us with tales of the hypocrisy of churchgoers, such as the local bishop who bet the entire diocese’s money on racehorses and lost, the Catholic priest who was found to have a wife and children stashed away in Vancouver, and the minister who fiddled with the altar boys.
As a result, I felt like an interloper in every church I entered. There was something about this church, though, that made me want to believe in God the same way I had believed in Santa Claus during those brief but magical years of early childhood.
I didn’t discover the truth about Santa Claus until I was eleven, rather late in the scheme of things. I had begun to notice that Santa and my mother had remarkably similar handwriting and often used the same wrapping paper. That morning I bounced into my parents’ bed at the ungodly hour of five o’clock and began pestering my mother.
“Is it really Santa who puts the presents under the tree or is it you?”
“What do you think?” she asked me, groggy.
“I think it might be you. Is it?” I wanted more than anything for her to tell me I was wrong.
“Yes.”
That single word turned my world of magic into a gray, rational planet where everything had an explanation. An aching void remained.
“ Viens. ” Franck pulled me over to one of the wooden benches near the front. The
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