The Knitting Circle: The uplifting and heartwarming novel you need to read this year. Ann Hood
to teach and I would come with him; he had done it before, why not again? Perhaps, he sighed, he would leave Camille, get a divorce, marry me.
“I said nothing. I let him make love to me as if it was not the last time. Then I went directly to pick up my bag at Denis’s apartment, and from there to the train heading south. On that train I thought about nothing. Not what I was doing. Not what I had done. During the nights before I left, I wondered how Claude and I would be linked forever. Was it through this baby who would never be born? Or was it through our love? Did love’s energy continue even after the lovers separated? These thoughts kept me awake. But once I was on the train south, my mind stopped.
“On a whim, I had stopped at a yarn store near Denis’s apartment and bought a skein of light blue mohair and a pair of bamboo knitting needles. As the industrial cities passed my window, and cypress trees appeared beside barren fields of wheat and flowers, I knit. My hands seemed to knit away the noise that had kept me awake, to erase the questions for which there were no answers.
“My story could have ended here. In many ways, I wish it had. I arrived in the village, a village so small it is not on any map, and made my way to Frère Michel’s. People from all over France came to his bakery for his cannelles. They had perfect contrasting textures—the crunchy exterior, the almost-custard interior. The shop was filled with villagers, city people from Marseille, tourists holding guidebooks, vacationers. And Frère Michel, wrinkled, toothless, bent like a question mark. He yelled at people to be quiet, to make a better line. He threw out the ones who complained or pushed. He was a hateful man who baked heavenly pastries.
“I had my own house, a shed, really. One room with a bed and a table with one short leg and two chairs. When spring came I made a garden in the back and grew oregano and lavender, tomatoes and beans. My skin turned brown from the sun. I lost the pregnancy fat. All of it seemed long ago. I ordered more of that blue mohair yarn from the store in Paris and I kept adding on, knitting a blanket that I could eventually wrap myself in many times over.
“At work, Frère Michel screamed at me. I was an idiot. Too stingy with butter, unable to gauge when it was the proper time to take the dough for the cannelles from the refrigerator. His yelling did not bother me. He was teaching me something, after all. Cannelles are very tricky to bake. The sugar must be molten enough to form the shell, but if it’s too hot it will burn. Over time I learned that one day wasn’t enough for the dough, and four was too many. I learned to brush the old molds more generously and to whisk more firmly. I could tell by instinct when to remove the batter from the heat, or when it was too humid to bake them that day. The tourists liked to practice their English with me, despite Frère Michel’s grumblings.
“Then one day, in the dead of summer, Claude walked into the crowded shop. He was thinner, his face creased with worry. A big man, he seemed to fill the shop when he entered.
“ ‘Did you think I wouldn’t find you?’ he said quietly.
“I untied my apron and walked around the counter, through the crowd. ‘Let’s go outside,’ I said, not wanting a scene.
“Frère Michel yelled at me to come back, but I took Claude’s hand and walked with him down the crooked village street, through the field to my little house.
“ ‘I hate you,’ he said once we were inside.
“And then we were kissing each other, and it began again in a new way. He had left Camille, believing my disappearance came from a lack of trust in his promises. He had his own apartment near the university. He wanted to marry me as soon as the divorce was final, after Christmas.
“I felt I was ready to say yes. I could put what had happened behind me. We would have other children together. I would open a small shop and make cannelles and madeleines the way they did in the south. Our life together unfolded so clearly that I became gripped with happiness.
“Just like that, my simple life changed. Every weekend Claude came south from Paris and we began to make plans together. I wrote my parents that I was engaged. We would have a real wedding, we decided. My family would come from America. Frère Michel would bake our cake. Giddy with our new life, Claude decided that when he came the next time, he would bring the girls. Véronique was mad at him, he explained. But Bébé was excited and missed me. He rented a cottage on the sea and I would join them there in a week.
“I couldn’t stop speaking of our future to the regulars who came in each morning. The old women pinched my cheeks and made jokes about how rosy sex made them. Frère Michel grumbled that I was stupider than ever now that I had fallen in love.
“That Friday I took the local train to the village where Claude and the children waited for me. It was early September and the southern light had already begun to change. I arrived under a purple sky to find an eager Bébé and a sullen Véronique at the station, and Claude holding a bundle of lavender for me. I felt like a bride already, carrying the stalks of small fragrant flowers and walking hand in hand with Claude.
“Bébé chattered about her new puppy and the storybook she was writing and how she had thoughtlessly left Madame Chienne back in Paris. ‘Nothing feels right without Madame Chienne,’ she said sadly. ‘Do you think it’s bad luck to not have her with me?’
“ ‘Of course not,’ I assured her. ‘Madame Chienne does not like the sea.’
“Véronique said almost nothing. I decided to let her be angry instead of coaxing good cheer from her.
“In the morning, we hiked the mile or so to the beach. The hike was arduous—the path was rocky and the sun was hot. When we finally arrived, we put our blankets under the shelter of a cove of rocks, and prepared for a swim. Almost immediately, Claude realized that we had forgotten to bring the lunch he’d so carefully prepared; he wanted everything to be perfect and he’d gone into town early for fresh bread and to choose good meats and fruit at the outdoor market there.
“ ‘We’ll go back to the house for lunch,’ I said. ‘It’s no big deal.’
“ ‘No, no,’ Claude insisted, ‘we must have a picnic here, and swim to that sandbar, and stay until late.’
“He stood and put on his funny Indiana Jones hat. Like all Frenchmen, he wore a tiny Speedo bathing suit and his stomach hung over it slightly.
“ ‘You look funny and beautiful,’ I told him.
“He explained to the girls that he would be back with lunch and then he kissed me hard on the lips. I heard Véronique mutter as she pulled away from him.
“ ‘She’ll have to get used to it,’ he told me. He kissed each girl on top of her head and began the hike back.
“ ‘Papa!’ Bébé called after him. ‘I’ll collect sea glass for you!’
“ ‘Wonderful!’
“The three of us swam for a long time in the cool water. We could see our legs and toes flapping about beneath it, and hundreds of small fish swimming around us. Even Véronique enjoyed our time in the water. Then, feeling lazy, I stretched out on one of the hot rocks and closed my eyes.
“I woke to find Claude kneeling beside me with the backpack of food at my feet.
“ ‘Rouge?’ he said. ‘Where are the girls?’
“I sat up slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ I said, scanning the beach. ‘Isn’t that Véronique down there?’ I pointed.
“ ‘Yes,’ he said, relieved.
“He opened the backpack and spread the cloth, and the food, and took out a bottle of white wine. I watched as Véronique made her way back to us.
“ ‘Funny,’ I said, standing. ‘I don’t see Bébé.’
“Claude got to his feet and yelled to Véronique. ‘Where is your sister?’
“ ‘I can’t understand you,’ she yelled back. ‘Speak French!’
“Claude