Amour Provence (3 page)

During their meetings, her teeth and lips were like a
drug for him. He stuck his fingers into her mouth and rubbed the sharp white points of her canines. He couldn't stop kissing her. And that mouth called him all sorts of things. At first, it was just
mon petit trésor
or silly nicknames she made up. But then came other names, dirty names and epithets that bent him more than ever to her will. Her deep growling voice showered him with curses. The foulest language, combined in phrases he'd never even thought of, began to be a potent force that made him desire her all the more.

One afternoon, as Didier was leaving school, a woman dressed in a black hijab with a facial veil beckoned to him. He turned expecting someone behind him to react, one of the Arab kids, but she moved her hand quickly at him, indicating that he should come. She was carrying a basket of ripe cherries and he thought that maybe she wanted to sell them. But when he came closer he saw her eyes and knew that it was Sabine. He followed her to a parking lot across the way and they drove up into the hills on one of the rough fire trails where cars rarely went.

“You're taking a big chance,” he said to her, uneasy at her boldness. “If anyone sees your car, they'll know it's you.” She pulled off her veil and laughed at him. Her teeth glinted whitely in the bright sunshine and she nearly drove them both off the road when he threw his arms around her and kissed her neck in complete abandon.

Later, under cover of a huge pine tree whose long boughs brushed the ground, Didier said, “What are we going to do? It was you who warned me not to take chances and now you're the one being reckless.”

“Bruno's away again. If we're careful it will be all right.”

“But we're not careful,” he said, indicating their half-naked bodies lying on the pine needles in full view of anyone who came close enough and had eyes to see.

And then she rolled toward him and out of that mouth came a song of the coarsest, most foul language. “
Putain, fils de merde
, stupid prick with your filthy scrub-brush hair.” Despite the words, her voice sounded to him like mournful cajoling, like begging. And though a part of him was disgusted, making him wonder if he should think seriously about ending what was between them, he found himself completely subject to her.

“Our Didier has become a contemplative type. Have you noticed?” Jeannot remarked at the bus stop one morning. “He's always looking away, his nose up in the air, as if he's considering some grand subject. Or is he simply musing about driving tractors and pressing grapes, the banal concerns of a fledgling vintner?”

Berti smiled at him and said, “That's exactly what Didi should be thinking about!”

Didier bumped his shoulder against Jeannot's without taking his hands out of his pockets.

“What's your opinion, Sébastien?” Jeannot asked.

“Maybe he's sorry to see school end for the summer,” Sébastien replied. “He's going to miss Madame Morin. She's given you how many detentions this semester, Didi? Maybe our math teacher has a perverse attraction to you.”

At the word perverse, Didier's eyes darted from Sébastien to Jeannot. But they seemed intent on the discussion of Madame Morin, who didn't bother anymore to ask Didier
if he understood the mathematical equations. Didier grinned guiltily at the boys, feeling relieved that his friends were off the scent.

“Maybe Didier is simply turning into a man,” said Eva kindly. “Not like you two perpetual infants.” The boys laughed, and Didier found himself scanning her face, afraid that maybe perceptive Eva might be the one to have guessed something. He was disturbed to find that he felt afraid.

The summer came and Didier spent all day in the fields. Even though there was a lot to do, he saw more of Sabine than ever. They met in the little
cabanon
even more frequently and Didier often had to lie about his whereabouts. On July 14, the celebration of the storming of the Bastille, there was the usual village fête
.
It was held in the main square that was surrounded by ancient sycamore trees whose leafy shade extended over the entire area. Everyone dined at long tables covered with strips of brown paper. A stage had been constructed for the
animateur
, who stood above the dancers and sometimes sang, but mostly played tapes that included everything from the paso doble and Edith Piaf to American rock and roll.

Before dinner that evening, everyone stood around drinking wine supplied by the local cooperative. Except for Didier's parents, who didn't enjoy dancing and never came to celebrate the Quatorze, most of the townspeople were there along with a smattering of tourists who had paid their twenty francs for the night's entertainment. Didier didn't drink except for a rare half glass of wine that his father offered when an exceptional vintage was opened for a special occasion. Instead he drank Cocas with Jeannot, Berti, and
Eva while standing off to the side of the stage where the music was loudest.

Didier spotted Sabine as soon as she appeared on the square. She wore white, the color that suited her best. That night, her hair swirled up into a knot of curls at the top of her head. She sat down on one of the folding chairs at the end of a table while her husband, Bruno, elbowed his way to the bar to get drinks. Sabine's eyes met Didier's, but she had warned him that if they looked at each other at a public gathering, it would be quickly obvious to any bystander that there was something between them, so Didier reluctantly broke eye contact and let his gaze wander over the crowd. At the bar, Bruno turned around, carrying a yellow pastis in one fist and a wineglass of rosé in the other. He surprised Didier not only by looking straight at him, but by advancing in his direction.

“Bonsoir,”
Bruno said when he reached Didier. Dombasle was on the corpulent side with a wide body, yet he was fit, tanned, and muscular. He had short gray hair and a direct gaze from the brown, slightly bloodshot eyes that were common among vintners who spent long days under the bright sun of the Midi.

“My wife tells me that you are always very polite to her despite that minor disagreement between our families over property. Manu likes you too.” Bruno kept his eyes on Didier. “It seems stupid that there's an animus between us.” Didier gave the man a half nod in return, fearing Dombasle might be aiming to ensnare him in some terrible trap, and he forced himself not to glance toward Sabine. “Maybe we can break the silence.” Bruno smiled.
“D'accord?”

Didier smiled back at the man, but felt it must look more like a grimace. So he asked, “Do you think that would be a good idea?”

“You'll spend your life here, a vintner like your father and me. There shouldn't be an unnatural rupture between us.” Bruno raised the glass of pastis toward Didier, a gesture meant to end all hostility.

“What was that about?” asked Jeannot when Bruno made his way back to the table where Sabine sat waiting.

Didier shrugged, feigning calm, but his heart was pounding. He took a deep breath and kept his eyes on the stage, where the disc jockey was inviting people to dance a lively polka. Didier gulped down his soda and watched as an elderly couple cavorted across the floor.

As the summer progressed and the hot days concluded in long, lazy evenings, Sabine became even more demanding. Didier was often in view working in the fields beneath her kitchen window, and that seemed to provoke her boldness. Sometimes she'd even walk by when he was in the fields and signal for him to join her at the
cabanon
. Whenever her husband was away on one of his fishing trips, she insisted that Didier come to her house.

“I don't think this is safe,” he told her one evening when they were naked together in the dark, shuttered salon. “What if Manu or anyone else saw me coming in? That would be hell for both of us.” But Sabine seemed strangely oblivious.

“Do you love your husband?” Didier asked her.

Sabine shrugged. “I'm comfortable with him.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Didier.

“It means there are advantages to being his wife.” Unlike many of the women in the village, Sabine didn't work and Didier wondered if that was what she meant. Bruno was quite a wealthy man. Didier knew how many hectares of vines he had and what that meant in terms of number of bottles sold, the best of his stock often shipped overseas. On the other hand, perhaps once the passion was gone, couples became pragmatic and were content to settle for something less than they'd originally hoped for. But for the first time Didier thought Sabine might have a hard, empty side to her that he had heretofore been unwilling to admit. He wondered if she repeated the same dirty phrases to Bruno that she said to him. Or perhaps it was Bruno who had taught those words to her.

“Are there advantages to being with me too?” he asked, hoping to get a word of affection from her.

She rolled toward him and ran her teeth over his chin as if to carve something there. Then she moved on top of him and said, “You are my enormous advantage.” And she began to whisper to him, foul things that mixed up into something entirely new and exotic, like a strangely perfumed flower, and he was swept away by her as he always was.

In the autumn, school recommenced. It would be Didier's final year at the lycée, the grade called
terminale
. Unlike Jeannot, he wouldn't be continuing his education. There was no reason to. But sometimes he thought about getting away from Sabine. He still desired her more than ever, but he had a feeling their luck was running out. How much
easier it would be if the following autumn he could simply go away to university in Montpellier or up to Grenoble like some of his fellow classmates. At times he couldn't believe he and Sabine hadn't already been caught. He imagined that some people might actually know about their liaison, but were keeping it to themselves. A word from just one of them could bring the whole world crashing down upon Sabine, her family, his parents, and himself.

One evening in late October, over the Toussaint holiday, when the Day of the Dead was remembered by visits to the cemetery, Didier was at Sabine's house. Bruno was away again, this time hunting in Romania, and Didier had told his parents he was spending the evening with Jeannot. He and Sabine would have hours together in rare tranquillity. Of course, they kept the lights off and the door locked so no one would know that Sabine was at home. She had made a
pain d'épices
, a seasonal treat, and the house smelled of honey and spice, reminding him of the first time he had entered it. He began to kiss her as soon as he came into the hallway. There was no reason to wait, so they went directly into the bedroom, though Sabine often preferred other shadowy places in which to fulfill her needs.

The shutters were closed, but the windows were open, letting in the sultry air of the mild October night. Sabine was more ardent that ever, perhaps encouraged in her abandon by the clement evening and Didier's obvious desire. She called him names and danced around him, she knelt on his chest and said every foul word he had ever heard plus others that mixed nonsense with filth, all said in that plaintive tone of hers, and Didier couldn't help but respond. She wouldn't
have had to do anything to make him desirous. The way she moved, looked at him, touched him, was enough. But the words were part of her theater and she created a private place that enclosed just them with her whispered, low-spoken, sometimes cried-out gutter words that made her seem to be at once violated and the violator. But he didn't mind. She met demands that he hadn't even dreamed he had. He could make love to her for hours, which he did without restraint because Sabine always was ready to receive him.

Around midnight he left her. They had agreed that his exit would be through the wild, overgrown garden, as he was less likely to be seen there than if he slipped out the front door. Even though winter was on its way, the air still held its last breath of summer, and as he passed through the village there lingered the smell of old roses that hung down in profusion over the stony walls of gardens belonging to high village houses. Sabine had told Didier to come the next night, Saturday, after dark. “Don't forget,” she said, caressing his chest. “Come through the garden.”

In the morning, there was plenty of work for Didier even though the grapes had all been harvested. One last special collection was to be done, the
grapillage
. If there were enough grapes still left on the vines, his father would make a sweet wine from the slightly wrinkled, heavily sugared fruit. Didier stayed out all morning. The vineyard he was working in was on the other side of the village, not near Sabine's house, but on the slope below the cemetery, where a man was already selling pots of chrysanthemums that would be purchased by people visiting their family
graves on the following day, the Feast of All Souls. His mother had given him a sandwich wrapped in paper for lunch. As he ate he wished he could drop by Sabine's, but it would be too risky. He thought about how long this could go on between the two of them. Sabine would be turning forty soon. That meant she was nearly an old lady and he worried she might not be so interested in him if her desire for sex waned with age. As for himself, he couldn't imagine not being completely enchanted by her and he hoped she would always respond to him when he lifted her up, her strong white calves tight around him and everything radiating pleasure.