Maybe she had had way too much coffee that morning, I thought. Or she wasn’t used to strangers. Or she had a phobia about Americans and other savage animals. “I could get it for you, if you want,” I offered, thinking that might help.

A sheet of music fell from her hands to the tiled floor, and she bent to pick it up. “Oh, no, that is, no, I don’t . . . Let me go get some of my books, and I’ll show you what I have.”

Sébastien sidled over to whisper to me while she was out of the room. “Do you think she’s having a nervous breakdown?”

“What are we going to do if our organist has a nervous breakdown? The priest said we couldn’t use anyone else. And how are we supposed to get an organ in there?” There was no piano or organ in the churches themselves. The organist had the only instrument available, an organ that she carried around with her in the back of a special van for four Masses every Sunday.

The organist came back in the room with a giant book of hymns, none of which I recognized. “This one’s really beautiful,” she said, starting to play and producing a cacophony. My lips parted. I looked at Sébastien, still attentively calm, although his gaze lingered on her hands. Within two chords, her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn’t get them on the right keys. Maybe she was under the close supervision of a psychologist and had gotten off her meds?

“What about Schubert’s Ave?” A Catholic Church organist had to be able to play at least one famous Ave.

She trembled more paper together, dug under her piano bench, brought out a few sheets, and played two or three chords. Her hands were jittering so badly now that at least one finger hit the wrong key for each chord. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them, my suppositions growing increasingly wild. Maybe, after an accident, she had been grafted with the hands of a murderer. Maybe those hands were shaking so badly because they wanted to lunge for our throats and strangle the life out of us. Maybe the bridal couple’s bodies would be found only years later, when a tough, female detective finally traced the start of a serial killing spree back to this spot. Sure, the organist looked so frail we might assume we could fight her off, but pianists have really strong hands.

She stopped. “An organ just couldn’t do it justice.”

“Mendelssohn,” I suggested in desperation. Surely anyone who played for all the weddings in the area could manage his Wedding March.

Although she made no effort to play this song, her hands bounced on the keys of the organ so hard that traces of notes vibrated forth. She stared down at her fingers as if they were totally out of her control.