Crazy Genie

Marie lives with her mother, Genie, in a ramshackle house by a willow-lined river in rural France, among farms, vineyards, and wheatfields. Her grandparents’ house is nearby, beyond a hill of white sand overrun by foxes, but she and her mother are not welcome there. Every morning, Genie walks to the neighboring farms and houses to do what work there is to be done—pruning vines, husking corn, feeding livestock, making sausages and preserves. When farmers and villagers greet the woman, she says nothing, and keeps walking.Once, she was lighthearted, a lovely girl from one of the best families in the valley; but now they all call her “Crazy Genie.” While her mother works, Marie waits at the edge of the fields, or in the corners of dark kitchens, yearning for her mother to turn from her work and notice her; longing for the moment when they will be back in their lonely house by the river.  “I wanted to love her every minute of my life, so that she would want me,” Marie thinks. “I followed he