Those first words seemed to have been the hardest for Speranza to spit out, like bubbles building up behind a cork. The ones that followed came like an explosion.

‘She shouldn’t be here. Her name doesn’t belong here, engraved with the rest of the Idrissi family. I’m not the one who is the streia, the witch of the mountain, that’s your mother! You know nothing, you weren’t even born,’ she crossed herself quickly, ‘but your mother cast a spell on him.’

Speranza’s eyes stared at the name of Paul Idrissi inscribed on the tomb.

‘Believe me, women are capable of that. Your mother cast a spell on your father, and once she had him in her power, she stole him from us. She took him away, caught in her net, far away from all those who loved him.’

Far away, Clotilde thought, meant the Vexin, whether hunchbacked or not, north of Paris, where he went to sell hectares of lawn. She hadn’t guessed to what extent her father’s choice might have been difficult for his family to accept.

Natale gripped her hand, careful and reassuring, without intervening. Speranza furiously emptied the water from the second vase; faded petals settled like confetti on her black dress.

‘If your father hadn’t met her,’ Speranza continued, brandishing her secateurs, ‘he would have married here. He would have had children here. He would have started a family here. If your mother hadn’t emerged from hell to steal him away, then return here with him …’

Her hand decapitated three roses, two orange lilies and a wild orchid. Her voice grew calmer for the first time.

‘It’s not your fault, Clotilde. You’re a stranger here. You don’t know anything about Corsica. You’re not like your mother. Your daughter is. Your tall daughter is like her, and she will become a witch too. But you have your father’s eyes, his way of looking at things, of believing in things that other people don’t believe in. I’m not angry with you.’

For the first time, Speranza’s eyes settled on Natale. Her wrinkled hand nervously clenched the secateurs, which opened and closed in mid-air as if to cut off the oxygen that they were breathing. Then, suddenly, she aimed the blade at the marble of the tomb, and slid it screeching across the stone, trying to erase the name of Palma Idrissi. The steel of the secateurs left a white scar on the grey stone, splintering some of the letters: the A, and the M.

The old woman’s eyes rose to the name carved above it.

Paul Idrissi

Once again Speranza crossed herself.

‘Paul should have lived here, if your mother hadn’t killed him. He should have lived here, do you hear me? Lived here. Not come back here to die.’

~