The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [105]
She hoped all this was true. Being with Leonard made Madeleine feel exceptional. It was as if, before she’d met him, her blood had circulated grayly around her body, and now it was all oxygenated and red.
She was petrified of becoming the half-alive person she’d been before.
As she stood staring out at the black waves, a sound reached her ears. A soft thudding quickly approaching over the sand. Madeleine turned as a dark shape shot out, moving low to the ground. In another second she recognized Diane MacGregor’s standard poodle, galloping past. The dog’s mouth was open, tongue unfurled, her body as elongated and directed as an arrow.
A few moments later, MacGregor herself appeared.
“Your dog scared me,” Madeleine said. “It sounded like a horse.”
“I know just what you mean,” MacGregor said.
She was dressed in the same raincoat as at the press conference two weeks ago. Her gray hair was hanging limply on either side of her creased intelligent face.
“Which way did she go?” MacGregor asked.
Madeleine pointed. “She went thataway.”
MacGregor squinted into the darkness.
They stood together on the beach, feeling no need to speak further.
Finally Madeleine broke the silence. “When do you go to Sweden?”
“What? Oh, in December.” MacGregor seemed to be uninterested. “I don’t understand why the Swedes would bring anyone to Sweden in December, do you?”
“Summer would be nicer.”
“There will be hardly any daylight at all! I suppose that’s why they came up with the prizes. To give the Swedes something to do during the winter.”
Suddenly the dog sped past again, ripping up sand.
“I don’t know why it makes me so happy to watch my dog run,” MacGregor said. “It’s like a piece of me gets to hitch a ride.” She shook her head. “This is what it’s come to. Living vicariously through my poodle.”
“There are worse things.”
After a few more passes, the poodle returned, prancing in front of her owner. Noticing Madeleine, the animal went up to sniff her, and began rubbing her head against Madeleine’s legs.
“She’s not very attached to me,” MacGregor said, looking on objectively. “She’ll go to anyone. If I died, she’d forget me in a second. Wouldn’t you?” she said, calling the poodle over and scratching her vigorously under the chin. “Yes, you would. You would, you would.”
•
After they left Paris, going from France to Ireland, then back south, all the way through Andalusia and to Morocco, Mitchell began sneaking off to churches any chance he could. This was Europe and there were churches everywhere, spectacular cathedrals as well as quiet little chapels, all of them still functioning (though usually empty), each one open to a wandering pilgrim, even one like Mitchell who wasn’t sure he qualified. He went into these dark, superstitious spaces to stare at faded frescoes or crude, bloody paintings of Christ. He peered into dusty reliquary jars containing the bones of Saint Whoever. Moved, solemn, he lit votive candles, always with the same inappropriate wish: that someday, somehow, Madeleine would be his. Mitchell didn’t believe the candles worked. He was opposed to petitional prayer. But it made him feel a little better to light a candle for Madeleine and to think about her for a minute, in the peacefulness of an old Spanish church, while, outside, the sea of faith retreated “down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.”
Mitchell was perfectly aware of how strangely he was behaving. But it didn’t matter because no one was around to notice. In stiff-backed pews, smelling candle wax, he closed his eyes and sat as still as possible, opening himself up to whatever was there that might be interested in him. Maybe there was nothing. But how would you ever know if you didn’t send out a signal? That’s what Mitchell was doing: he was sending out a signal to the home office.
On the trains, buses, and boats that took them to all these places, Mitchell read the books in his backpack one by one. The mind of Thomas