There were maybe a dozen girls of the right age waiting by the fountain. I remember them all: Jeannette Crespin in her too-tight communion dress, redheaded Francine Hourias with her mass of freckles that no amount of washing with bran could fade, Michèle Petit with her tight braids and eyeglasses. None of them could hold a candle to Reinette. They knew it too. I could see it in the way they watched her, set slightly apart from the others in her red dress with her long hair unbound and berries woven into her curls, with envy and suspicion. With a little satisfaction too: no one would vote for Reine Dartigen as harvest queen this year. Not this year, not with the rumors flying about us like dead leaves in the wind.

The priest was speaking. I listened with mounting impatience. Tomas would be waiting. I had to leave soon if I was not to miss him. At my side Paul was staring at the fountain with that look of half-stupid intensity in his face.

“It has been a year of many trials…” His voice was a soothing drone, like the distant bleating of sheep. “But your faith and your energy have brought us through once again.” I sensed impatience akin to mine from the people in the crowd. They had already listened to a long sermon. Now was the time for the crowning of the queen, for the dancing and the celebration. I saw a small child reach for a piece of cake from her mother’s basket and eat it quickly, unnoticed, behind her hand, with furtive, greedy bites.

“Now is a time for celebration.” That was more like it. I heard a low shushing from the crowd, a murmur of approbation and impatience. Père Froment felt it too.

“I only ask that you show moderation in all things,” he bleated, “remembering who it is that you are celebrating-without Whom there could be no harvest and no rejoicing-”

“Get on with it, Père!” cried a rough, cheery voice from the side of the church. Père Froment looked affronted and resigned at the same moment.

“All in good time, mon fils,” he admonished. “As I was saying…now is the time to begin our Lord’s festival by naming the harvest queen-a girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen-to rule over our celebrations and to wear the barley crown-”

A dozen voices interrupted, crying out names-some of them quite ineligible. Raphaël yelled out “Agnès Petit!” and Agnès, who wasn’t a day under thirty-five, blushed in delighted embarrassment, looking for a moment almost pretty.

“Mireille Dupré!”

“Colette Gaudin!” Wives kissed their husbands and shrieked mock indignation at the compliment.

“Michèle Petit!” That was Michèle’s mother, doggedly loyal.

“Georgette Lemaître!” This was Henri volunteering his grandmother, aged ninety or more and cackling wildly at the joke.

Several young men called out for Jeannette Crespin, and she blushed furiously behind her hands. Then Paul, who had been standing in silence at my side, suddenly stepped forward.

“Reine-Claude Dartigen!” he called loudly, without stammering, and his voice was strong and almost adult, a man’s voice, quite unlike his own slow, hesitant drawl. “Reine-Claude Dartigen!” he called again, and people turned to look at him curiously, murmuring. “Reine-Claude Dartigen!” he called once more, and walked across the square toward the astounded Reinette with a necklace of crab apples in his hand.

“Here. This is for you,” he said in a softer voice-but still with no trace of a stutter-and flung the necklace over Reinette’s head. The little red-and-yellow fruit glowed in the reddish October light.

“Reine-Claude Dartigen,” said Paul for the fourth time, and, taking Reine’s hand, led her the few steps to the straw throne. Père Froment said nothing, an uneasy smile on his lips, but allowed Paul to place the barley crown on Reinette’s head.

“Very good,” said the priest said softly. “Very good.” Then, in a louder voice; “I hereby name Reine-Claude Dartigen this year’s Harvest Queen!”

It might have been impatience at the thought of so much wine and cider waiting to be drunk. It might have been the surprise of hearing poor little Paul Hourias speak without stammering for the first time in his life. It might have been the sight of Reinette sitting on the throne with her lips like cherries and the sun shining through her hair like a halo. Most of the villagers clapped. A few even cheered and called out her name-all of them men, I noticed, even Raphaël and Julien Lanicen, who had been at La Mauvaise Réputation that night. But some of the women did not applaud. Only a few abstained, only a handful, but enough. Michèle’s mother, for one, and spiteful gossips like Marthe Gaudin and Isabelle Ramondin. But they were still few, and although some looked uneasy they joined their voices to the rest-some even clapped as Reine threw flower heads and fruit from her basket at the Sunday-schoolers. I caught a glimpse of my mother’s face then as I began to creep away, and was struck by the sudden look on her face, the sudden soft, warm look-cheeks flushed and eyes almost as bright as in the forgotten wedding photograph-the scarf pulling from her hair as she almost ran to Reinette’s side. I think I was the only one to see it. Everyone else was looking at my sister. Even Paul was looking at her from his place at the side of the fountain, the stupid look back on his face as if it had never left. Something inside me twisted. Moisture stung my eyes so sharply that for a second I was sure that some insect-a wasp, perhaps-had landed on my eyelid.

I dropped a pastry I had been eating and turned again, unnoticed, to go. Tomas was waiting for me. Suddenly it was very important to believe that Tomas was waiting. Tomas, who loved me. Tomas, only Tomas, forever. For a moment I turned back, fixing the scene into my mind. My sister the harvest queen, the most beautiful harvest queen ever crowned, the sheaf in one hand and in the other a round bright fruit-an apple, maybe, or a pomegranate-pressed into her palm by Père Froment, their eyes meeting, he smiling in his sweet sheepy way, my mother, the smile freezing on her bright face in a sudden gesture of recoil, her voice coming to me thinly over the sound of the merry crowd-What’s that? For God’s sake, what’s that? Who gave you that? Not an apple then, I realized, or even a pomegranate. The harvest queen’s prize was an orange.

I ran then, while attention was diverted from me. Almost laughing, with the invisible wasp still stinging at my eyelids I ran as fast as I could back to the river, my thoughts a blur. Every now and again I had to stop to quiet the spasms that cramped my stomach, spasms eerily like laughter but that sent tears spurting from my eyes. That orange! Stored with care and love for just this occasion, kept hidden in tissue paper for the harvest queen, globed in her hand as Mother-as Mother…The laughter was like acid inside me but the pain was exquisite, rolling me to the ground, tugging at me like fishhooks. The look on my mother’s face convulsed me whenever I thought of it, the look of pride turning to fear-no, terror-at the sight of a single, tiny orange. Between spasms I ran as fast as I could, calculating that it might take ten minutes to arrive at the Lookout Post, adding to that the time we had spent at the fountain-twenty at least-gasping with fear that Tomas might already have left.

This time I’d ask him, I promised myself. I’d ask him to take me with him this time, wherever he was going, back to Germany or into the woods on the run forever, whatever he wanted as long as he and I-he and I…I prayed to Old Mother as I ran, brambles snagging at my bare legs unheeded. Please, Tomas. Please. Only you. Forever. I met no one on my mad run across the fields. Everyone else was at the festival. By the time I reached the Standing Stones I was calling his name out loud, my voice shrill as a peewit’s in the silky silence of the river.

Could he already have gone?