Butin Beach, Honfleur, late December:

“Have you ever felt,” Hélène asked her brother, “that there was some point in the past when everything had a certain luminous quality? Maybe in your—in our—childhood? When we were young?”

“As if,” she continued, “the world was infused with promise that you only had to discover. And then there comes a point where everything changes. After that, nothing is quite the same, and you can’t go back. But it still exists—that feeling. That’s the strange thing.”

She looked out over the Channel. There were no ships in sight now, which was rare—perhaps because it was misty. Or maybe they were farther out, where she couldn’t see them.

Hélène mused on, “The feeling isn’t gone. It still exists, that time before—like a memory so real you feel it’s still a reality somewhere. You just can’t reach it. It’s like a continent you know exists but can’t visit.” She turned to him. “Do I make sense?”

François stopped beside her, gazing across the misty water. It was a cold morning in the last days of December, but there was no snow. He thought for a long time.

“I think what you’re talking about is growing up,” he then said. “The loss of innocence.” But he hesitated; he was sure she meant more than that.

She hesitated too. “No, not quite. And it’s not because of the way Mama and Papa died, or how sudden it was.” She looked down. “It actually happened before. The … shift.”

“It did?” François’ eyes widened. “But I thought—”

“Yes,” she said. “That would be natural to assume. But there was a certain shift before that summer when the Gestapo took them. I think it happened several months earlier, when I noticed that my feelings—my perception of the world—had irrevocably changed.”

“Maybe then we’re back to just growing up,” François said. “Unless your religion also embraces clairvoyance, aside from the occasional prophet, of course.”

Her lips became a thin line, but she said nothing.

François realized he’d gone too far. “Well,” he said after a pause, “I suppose things have gone well for the Christmas dinner, and right now Clara is probably serving them more breakfast than they can eat.”

“Yes,” Hélène said. “Better than expected. Though it would be nice if you and George could see more of the same things.”

“What do you mean?” He chuckled. “The same things? We see vastly different landscapes, your husband and I, and that’s just how it is. But I have nothing against … the religion,” he added deliberately. “It’s the way George takes it out on everyone—his certainty that he alone knows what’s right. It would be nice if he were a little more thoughtful.”

Hélène turned to study him, her gray-blue eyes making him uneasy.

“What is it now? Surely you agree he has a chip on his shoulder. You’ve told me so often enough.”

“Yes,” she said. “But he’s not the only one.”

“You can’t compare it,” François said. “There’s a big difference between deciding what truth is and being—well, I admit to being a hobbyist, but still an explorer. I was never meant for university, apparently. Unlike my eldest daughter, whom I was lucky to be able to send to Paris. But I’ve accepted that. I read in the evenings when the lighthouse light is on and the day’s work is done. And that’s the difference between your husband and me. The books I read aren’t always the same.” He made a face.

Hélène wouldn’t let him go. “No, they’re not. But I read the same books, as you well know.”

“Yes,” he said. “But you take away something quite different.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s because I was once nominally Catholic—like you still are,” she said, stressing the word.

“Well, you know Clara likes that we go to mass,” he said. “And Père Marchand is a good man, with a lot of wisdom.”

“Of course,” she said, but her eyes were far away.

They walked in silence for a while. Then he said, “We should go back. You know Clara and food—she takes it personally if you even say you’re full.”

He tried to smile and pat her shoulder, but she didn’t react.

“I still think about that summer,” she said. “The summer of 1942. Not what happened later, but that something that shifted before. It wasn’t because of the war. Even the smell, the feeling of the sea—it changed. I don’t know why. There was just this indefinable point where everything changed. I remember it clearly, and I want to go back. And it has nothing to do with—”

She looked at him. “I wish I could explain it. It doesn’t seem as if there’s a logical reason.”

“I think it can be explained,” he said.

“I mean expressed,” she said. “And I just wanted you to know.”

“Well, I think such things could be explained.” He nudged her as if to turn her back, but she kept walking, slower now, through the thickening sand and seaweed.

“I think there is an explanation,” he repeated.

“All right.”

“But does George know about this feeling that … preoccupies you? Have you told him?”

“Yes,” she said, and her face brightened slightly. “And he agrees.”

“Oh,” François said. “’He agrees’. On what?”

“He agrees that it’s there. He knows it. For him, it was another summer, before he went to war, on his father’s farm. He agrees that it was something precious that was lost.”

“But does he then have an explanation for it? Maybe something from—what is that favorite of his—Doctrines and Covenants?”

“No,” she said. “He doesn’t. But he says if we look long enough in the scriptures, we’ll probably find one.”

“I’m not so sure,” she added quietly. “But he agrees that it was there.”

“Ah,” François said. “But he’s already decided what the explanation is, as usual.”

“He didn’t say he wanted to find it for me,” she replied. “He said he was sure it was there in the scriptures—if I wanted to find it.”

“That’s even worse,” François said. “Whatever this is—and I can hear it’s important to you, like your journaling and your writings—it shouldn’t be reduced to one ready-made conclusion from one source. You should find your very own explanation.”

Finally, she smiled. “I’m glad you said that. That’s all I wanted to hear. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet. Let’s go back.”

He looked at her, confused. She knew he relished the fight, and she had escaped the ring, before his very eyes.

“I still think—”

“Maybe I just want to live with it,” she said. “Maybe there is no explanation. Maybe it just is.”

“All right,” he said. “If that’s what you’ve decided, that’s fine. But I’ve been reading Jung lately—he has interesting things to say about … this.”

“I’m sure he does,” she said. “But I’m content. You and I and George can agree that it was there. And if we can agree on that, perhaps there’s hope for us all.”

He snorted softly. “Well, if you say so.”

“I do,” she said, taking his hand as they started back. “You and I and my husband can agree that it was there.”

“You’re always like that, bless you,” François said. “You try to see the best in people and situations, and I admire that. I really do. But if I’m honest, I think the only thing George and I can agree on is that there’s a horizon out there—” He made a gesture towards the quiet sea. “Something very concrete you can’t debate. And that’s it.”

“And I can agree on that too,” she said, with a soft smile. “So let that be the starting point. ‘By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.’”

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HÉLÈNE AND FRANCOIS DELACROIX, 28 Dec 1967

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Photo by Ian Wetherill on Unsplash