Amour Provence (24 page)

Clément waved his hand and looked out the window without responding.

“My lovely big sister. I still miss her.” Gilberte made a motion of cleaning up the crumbs on the table, brushing them into her hand. “By the way, how did
Maman
fall and hurt herself so badly yesterday?” Clément looked up, his black eyes wide. For a brief second his nostrils flared, but he clenched his teeth and said nothing.

In the living room, Gilberte used the telephone to arrange for an
aide à domicile
to come the following day to look after her father. Then she drove to the hospital. Her mother's operation had been a difficult one and the doctors told her and her brothers to expect a long rehabilitation.

The next morning the
aide
arrived, a young woman named Blandine whose husband was a cheesemaker. The couple raised goats on a farm in the hills near Villemain. Blandine was a firm, capable person used to handling livestock. That seemed to Gilberte just what was called for, as her sympathy for her father now extended about as far as it would for an old and ailing dog.

When she introduced Blandine to him, her father shouted, “What do you take me for, some sort of doddering invalid?” He threw his coffee spoon at Gilberte, but she calmly responded that she was going to the weekly market and would bring home groceries so that Blandine could make his lunch.

The sun shimmered in a cloudless sky as she drove to town. She pulled into the sandy lot behind the armory and found a spot right away, happy to find that some things hadn't changed. That was where the locals parked, a place
eschewed by the tourists because they feared getting trapped in the narrow cul-de-sac.

Coming toward the entrance of the market, she felt a sudden faintness along with a terrible thirst and she remembered she'd had nothing to eat or drink that morning. She passed a workingman's café that was also a PMU betting parlor, aware that a respectable Provençal woman could never be seen in a place like that. It would be impossible for her even to stop in to ask for a glass of water. Though she felt quite ill, she knew that if she was seen in there she'd be accused of having forgotten the strict codes of what was done in the Midi and what was not. It would have been easier for her if she'd been a tourist, or simply retained her Scottish ways and paid no attention to the mores that had ruled her life as a girl and were again encroaching upon her freedom.

Once she found herself beneath the shady canvas awnings of the covered market stalls, Gilberte began to feel better. She spotted people she knew and occasionally stopped to chat for a moment and admit that yes she would be permanently living here now. She was careful to exaggerate her Provençal accent so people would know that Gilberte Perra still had her heart and soul in the Midi and, even after all those years away, had not been transformed into a foreigner.

Passing down the narrow alleys, she admired the usual stands of fresh and dried herbs, bouquets of lavender, jars of honey, and a display of heliotrope-colored bars of
savon de Marseille
emitting their subtle perfume. At the fishmonger, whom Gilberte had known since she was a child, she made a purchase of several small gilt-headed
daurades
then
continued on through the center of the market where the usual autumnal profusion of mushrooms, including cèpes, cut open to reveal their creamy interiors, were piled high in wooden flats. Near the central square she came upon a merchant selling a variety of olives in large glazed bowls. At the end of the display, standing in full sunlight, Didier Falque stood conversing with the olive seller. The
vendange
had been over for nearly a month, and though the fermenting of the new wine was in full swing, most vintners now had some free time after the intense labor of the harvest. She didn't remember ever running into Didier at the outdoor market before. Looking at him standing there, his weight on one leg as he purchased a bag of green picholines, he reminded Gilberte of the beautifully proportioned sculpture of a Greek boxer that she'd once seen displayed in a museum. The statue was of a bearded man, but Didier was clean-shaven and he wore his hair short, the wiry mass tamed now, the color of earth.

When he looked over and saw her, a grin creased his tanned face. “Is that you, Berti?” Once again, the sound of her childhood name gave her a little stab of pleasure. But she recalled the sordid gossip Marco had passed on about Didier and she found herself standing stiffly as he kissed her four times, twice on each cheek, in the manner of Provençal adolescents.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I've rented a house in Serret.”

“For a little vacation?”

“No, permanently,” she replied. “At least I hope so.” He frowned at her as if unsettled by the news. Then he looked
around and for a moment Gilberte wondered if he was concerned about the possibility of someone seeing them standing there together. Perhaps he understood that it wouldn't do for her to be taken for his friend, or something more, given the fact of the scandal that had attached itself to him like tar.

“I don't live in Serret anymore,” he told her. “Our house was sold after Christine and I divorced.” He looked at her steadily. “Of course, you must have heard all about that. I have a place in Sault now. It's better for me up there in the mountains with the stags and the wild boar.” He laughed, but there was no joy in it. “I'd lived in Serret too long.”

Just ahead, a woman paused and gestured at Gilberte, but her eyes widened as they darted over to Didier, and instead of coming to say hello, she proceeded on through the crowd. When Gilberte began to move as well, Didier suddenly reached out and took her arm. “I'll see something of you now that you're really home, Berti.
D'accord?
” Gilberte nodded, certain that despite his firm grip on her elbow, he understood that she could never be linked with him in any way. At the same time, she felt a sadness and regret, aware that these unwritten rules of behavior, particularly strict for women, were outdated and irrational and put a subtle stranglehold on the new life that she had hoped would be, at last, happy and free.

After saying good-bye, she pushed through the crowd toward one of the multiple cafés on the square, where she was pleased to put down her heavy shopping bag and order a glass of water and a café noisette. The encounter with Didier had made her feel a bit off balance.

It was surprising that all these years later people in Provence would still so ignorantly shun a person for something that may or may not have even been true. Perhaps he and Sabine Dombasle had something between them and Didier felt duty bound not to reveal it in order to protect her. As Berti sat in the cool shade of the terrace, it became clear that she'd have to come to terms with this life that had cast her back amid the terrible snares of provincial propriety. Surely there must be some way for her to circumvent them; if not, she might be forced to move somewhere else entirely, or simply turn her back on the unbearable constrictions of an old-fashioned and outdated way of life.

A
February cold snap caused frosty swaths of ice to form on sidewalks and turned tree branches into brittle, lifeless bones. Euphémie could feel the chill as she made her daily rounds in the glassed-in turret that surrounded the top floor of the locked ward of the
maison de repos
. Outside, the friendly auto mechanics, now huddled in hats and heavy jackets, no longer looked up at her to smile and wave hello. On Sundays, the churchgoers waddled to their automobiles with heads bowed, preoccupied with avoiding the treacherous slippery patches. People from the Midi hated the cold, and the continuing gray skies made them retreat into themselves like captured escargots. Even the white heron had departed from his rock in the river, perhaps escaping to the Côte d'Azur or some other more clement place.

Euphémie found herself feeling particularly isolated that afternoon as she walked around and around the enclosed hallway. When a nurse suddenly blocked her path, at first
she was startled to see another human presence, as others rarely came there.

“What are you doing out here?” The nurse looked Euphémie over as if she were something unpleasant that needed to be swept up and disposed of.

“I'm taking my exercise, as I do every day,” she replied. “You must have seen me here before.”

“We don't want you disappearing on us.” The nurse frowned. “Your daughter told us you enjoy flying up into the hills where nobody can find you. That kind of behavior is dangerous for you now, madame.”

“I assure you that I never fly.” Euphémie gave a wry grin. “Though, of course, I would vastly prefer to be outside.”

“Perhaps we'll take you for a walk through town when it warms up. It's not a prison here, you know. People can go freely in and out.”

Euphémie pressed her lips together. The nurses and visitors do, she thought, but never the patients.

When the nurse left her to herself, Euphémie increased her pace. She tried not to spend her days like the other inmates, lying in bed for hours or sitting in front of a television that blared idiotic drivel. Magazines fanned out in an orderly fashion on a hall table were years out of date. She had requested a newspaper or anything at all that was more current, but her entreaties to the staff were to no avail. She began to feel invisible. Everyone she had cared about was lost to her. Her dear friend Hamidou, with whom she'd eaten lunch on the mountain nearly every day, was just a memory. No one came to visit, not even her daughter, Flo,
the person who should have loved her best, but did not. Euphémie found herself with the strange feeling that she was reliving the past when World War II had raged and she'd had no freedom. Now the polyester whites of the nurses evoked the same feeling as the evilly curved helmets and heavy uniforms of the German occupiers. Both represented forces pitted against her.

She comforted herself with the thought that, at seventy-eight, she was still healthy and very much alive. But the reality was that even before being institutionalized, she'd been forced to relinquish control of her life. It had been a winter day like this when her daughter, Florence, had come down from Lyon with her husband, Victor. Euphémie had arrived home from a delightful spree on her favorite mountain path, returning just as the sun turned into a crimson-eyed flame. To her surprise, Flo had yanked open Euphémie's front door, her cheeks flushed and her red hair in wild disorder.

“Where have you been?” she'd demanded. “Your neighbor Monsieur Charavin says you are out at all hours of the day and night like a madwoman! Perhaps you
are
mad!” Then Florence had run her fingers over the hall tabletop and flicked off the feltlike dust in disgust. “Do you see the filth you are living in,
Maman
? Plus I see that your checking account appears to be overdrawn!”

Euphémie sat down on a wooden stool in the entryway. There was no other place to go since Flo's wide body blocked her entrance into the house proper. “That's impossible,” she replied. “You know that I've always been careful about my finances.” Her checkbooks and papers were carefully arranged
on her desk, the only place that was well dusted because she used it daily. But it was all too true that her house was neglected for the simple reason that she preferred to spend her days exploring in the hills rather than vacuuming and cleaning the two large parlors downstairs and the numerous bedrooms that lined the upstairs corridor.

Before Euphémie could defend herself, Flo's husband, Victor, had stepped forward, lacing his pallid fingers together into something that resembled a strangely entwined tuber. “It would be much more practical if Florence and I took charge of your affairs, Euphémie. That way you'll be free to do what you like and you won't have to concern yourself with these trivial annoyances.” Victor's black suit and narrow puce tie didn't flatter a complexion white and shiny as a slice of raw potato. In her effort to placate them, Euphémie failed to see the darkness mustering itself against her.

As she tried to gather her thoughts, Flo began to shout again about Euphémie's transgressions. “To top it all off, Monsieur Charavin mentioned that you have been seen walking with an Arab man. An Arab! What can you possibly be thinking of,
Maman
? They're fieldworkers, not friends!”

“Darling! You must be talking about Hamidou, whom I've known for quite a while now. Such a dear man!” Euphémie stood up and reached out to caress her daughter's face in order to calm her, but Florence veered away. Then, like a dance with prescribed movements, one step following another, Victor removed a folded paper from his inside pocket, smoothed it down, and held it out to her.

“We've felt for a while that you needed special looking after, Euphémie. I took the liberty of having this drawn up.” He put his waxen finger on the bottom, where her signature would go. “We'll go to the notary together in the morning and have everything put in order.”

At first, she'd convinced herself it would be pleasant not to have to deal with the monthly bills. Everything was sent automatically to Lyon. The rental income from her house in Saint-Tropez that had kept her afloat for years now went directly into Florence and Victor's bank account. And the allowance they gave her—which Victor had groaned was more generous than they could really afford—didn't last out the month, no matter how she scrimped. Euphémie found herself reduced to her last sou by the third week and could only dream about the fine cuts of meat to which she used occasionally to treat herself, and her weekly indulgence of a Paris-Brest, a pastry filled with nutted cream, had now become an extravagance. For the first time since the war she felt hungry.

At least here in the rest home she got plenty to eat, even though the institutional food was not to her taste. That day she had been served a dispiriting lunch of rice with flavorless creamed mushrooms. But she'd gained weight since her arrival, which was a good thing. She certainly felt a lot stronger and was no longer famished.