At the Edge of Summer (13 page)

Until then I am playing as much tennis as I can. I'm currently ahead of Bauer, 89-62. He avoided me all autumn and then moped through the winter. He clearly does not have a friend in Spain sending him cheering paintings. Did you take his good humor away with you?

So, if you can forgive me for showing Papa your orange, know that it's tacked inside my desk drawer here at school. Know that it's brought me a bit of sunshine in the middle of a gray French spring. Know that it's made me think of you.

Luc

Mercredi, le 1 mai 1912

Dear Clare,

I wanted to tell you, Papa has taken on another illustrating commission. It's for an edition of la Fontaine's
Fables.
Of course Maman is ecstatic; it'll be a return to the sort of stuff he painted with
Mère l'Oye
all those years ago. Poor Papa, though, has tried to separate himself from that style for too long. But he'll do it. He'll do it for her. I've been watching him work on the preliminary studies. Never fear,
le Monsieur
Crépet still has the golden brush.

Since Papa is quite occupied, Maman took it upon herself to write to you, and has instructed me to include her letter (really, almost a novel) with mine. Papa told her that she must write to you about color and brushstrokes, that someone must, so that you can capture the sands of Iberia or Africa (or wherever else you venture next) without resorting to nothing but Indian yellow.

Enclosed (also from Maman) is a packet of brushes, as they are both quite certain that you can't find a decent brush outside of Paris. Do you even have badgers there? Papa's guess is no. He's added a postscript onto her letter (if you can call a whole page of cross-writing a “postscript”) with instructions as to the proper care of said brushes.

Since a parcel was already coming to you, I added my own bit of inspiration to the bundle. It's not much of a pebble, but it's from the caves below Brindeau. I even took a step and a half inside to fetch it for you. Perhaps it will lead you to a fairy or two.

This will be my last carefree, unhurried summer, did you realize? I'm already planning weekends at Mille Mots: lying beneath the chestnut tree reading Dumas and Hugo and Nodier, eating all of the mushroom potages coming from Marthe's kitchen, wearing out a bagful of tennis balls against the wall of the chapel, pleading with Maman yet again to install a clay court.

Because come next autumn, I'll be in army camp, for my two-year compulsory military service. Can you think of a greater misuse of youth than that? When I'm done, there will be a couple more years to finish my course at École Normale Supérieure and then hopefully a steady job at a school somewhere. In the meantime, Bauer and I are planning for one last hurrah (he's also bound for military service, in Germany). In only a few months, the Olympics are in Stockholm. We're doing what we can to get there. He has a cousin with a yacht (but of course) and a Swedish dictionary. I have nothing but crossed fingers. Will it be enough? Cross yours for me, Clare.

Luc

Seville, Spain

3 June 1912

Dear Luc,

You talk of plans for a steady job. But no plans for taking the tennis world by storm? Of sketching Paris? Of taking sail in search of pirate treasure?

I've seen your face glowing as you talked of the Championship of France and of all those tennis players. You speak almost with reverence. Your mentions of your games and the practices you sneak in when you really should be studying or working. I've watched your face as you played at Mille Mots, so focused, so devoted, so
good
. I never feel the same passion when you write to me about your studies, about the history and rhetoric and philosophy. I never see the same excitement underlining your words.

Of course your future is your future. But is it the one you want it to be? Would you be content, sitting in the stands at the Stockholm Olympics, already resolved to never standing on the courts?

Clare

Stockholm, Sweden

Mercredi, le 10 juillet 1912

Dear Clare,

Eight days of tennis. Can you believe it, Clare? I shook hands with Otto Kreuzer and fetched balls for Albert Canet during a practice. He gave me advice and a ball he had used. I even saw the King of Sweden, who sat straight down the row from me. One day when the competitions were interrupted because of a downpour, Bauer and I snuck onto the outdoor courts for a stolen game (because what is a little rain to the pair of us?). Halfway through, a man in a dripping overcoat approached us and I was sure we were caught and would be deported straight away. Bauer, rule-following German that he is, was terrified. But it wasn't the Swedish police. Our audience of one was none other than Monsieur Thibauld, the writer and coach. He said that if he didn't see us on the courts at the Berlin Olympics, he would eat his left shoe. Bauer and I shook on it right there.

You're right, Clare. The way I feel when I'm on the court, it's nothing like how I feel in the classroom. Out here, the sun in my eyes, arms burning, feet aching, I feel alive. The way Papa feels with his paintbrush, you with your pencil, even Uncle Théophile with his
Iliad.
Like this is what I was put on earth to do. Like this is
my
Something Important.

The games are over, the prizes have been given, and the boat sails tomorrow, but my head is still in the clouds. Clare, do I ever have to come down?

Luc

Marrakesh, Morocco

14 August 1912

Dear Luc,

We've moved again. That Berber dialect. You were right in your guess of Africa, as now we are in Marrakesh.

Oh, Luc, all of the languages swirling in the marketplace, the stacks of warm clay jars, the smell of spices in the air! Rugs woven in reds and oranges and deep nighttime blues. Women swathed in white, edging through the streets with baskets on their head. Melons as big as fairy tales. Rows of pointed leather shoes, every color on the palette. Streets tented by billowing sheets of cotton, freshly dyed and drying in the hot breeze. I try to paint the way your father explained, to capture all the quickness and light of the souks, but my colors run together. There's too much here to take in. Grandfather had an easel made for me by a man in the Carpenter's Souk. It's flimsy, but it stands straight and folds when I want it to and smells wonderfully of cedar.

I read your letter from Sweden, knowing that you understood. I'm in the clouds and, Luc, I can't feel the ground beneath me. I feel the way I did that time in the steam of Marthe's kitchen when we confessed our passions. You doubted yours then, but now, hearing you claim it, hearing you
want
it, I feel we can conquer the world. I won't let anything weigh me down. I can't imagine stagnating away in that house in Scotland the way my mother did for so many years, rather than being here, where everything is warm with life and possibility. I can't imagine trading all of this for a quiet domestic life. At this moment, I'm standing at the path to my own Something Important. I just have to trust myself to take the first step.

Clare

Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, Paris

Lundi, le 9 septembre 1912

Dear Clare,

He's gone and done it. Poor Uncle Jules has gone to the great dueling ground in the sky.

The other night he was as drunk as a marquis and, at intermission, challenged a playgoer who made some uncomplimentary remarks about Véronique's legs. Uncle Jules's secret shame was that he'd grown nearsighted and so his shot missed by a kilometer. The other gentleman was just as nearsighted and, unfortunately, hit my uncle square in the chest. He'd planned to delope, as he was Uncle Jules's next-door neighbor and oldest friend, but didn't miss the shot as he intended. We are sad, of course, but Jules always said that it was the way he wanted to go. Either that, or on the field in glorious battle. He'll have to settle for a somewhat blind and botched duel.

Véronique has draped the apartment in meters of black crepe, even down to the birds' cages. She goes around dabbing at her eyes and murmuring about what a “good run” they had. She's vowed to not drink Champagne until after the funeral. Uncle Théophile is measuring how long before he can evict her and sell the apartment to cover Jules's latest round of debts. In the week before his death, he bought seven new pairs of shoes. Jules, that is; Théophile has worn the same pair for a decade. The apartment, though, is in Véronique's name, and she won't budge a centimeter. Papa spends his time sniffling around the black-draped salon and leaving all the arrangements to his older brother.

The amazing thing is that I was in Uncle Jules's will, too. He left me a sizable amount, to be held in trust until I turn twenty-one, only a year off. It will come in handy when I'm in the army, I'm sure. I've heard that recruits are willing to be bribed in wine. He also left me Demetrius and Lysander, though two foul-mouthed parrots are less of an asset in the army. Véronique has said she'll care for them when I leave next fall and has invited me to come visit the parrots, and her, whenever I happen to be in Paris.

Life moves on in its grand march. Though some companions only walk along with us for part of the journey, we'll always hear the echo of their footsteps.

Luc

Marrakesh, Morocco

1 October 1912

Dear Luc,

Things are as usual here. Grandfather's widow friend brought over a tagine again. It's disgusting, how he'll smile and simper and eat around the pieces of mutton so that he doesn't have to admit that he follows a Pythagorean diet. With as often as she comes around, I don't imagine she'll stop if she finds out that he doesn't eat meat.

When she started making camel eyes at him (and she always does), I escaped to the Djemma el Fna. Grandfather thinks it's too crowded and no place for a girl, but I wear a robe and scarf and, anyway, I have a bicycle now. I'm faster than I used to be. And besides, I can't resist going. All of the snake charmers and storytellers and dancers in their horned hats. The square is so full of life.

With that heavy paper you sent, I've taken to sketching the water sellers. They're usually young boys in tattered robes, bent under the water skins on their backs and the strings of tin bowls around their necks. If I keep buying bowls of water, they'll patiently ignore me while I draw. There's one, a boy with a limp, who reminds me of you. He's always on the edges of the group, looking like he's waiting to begin life. But his eyes watch me. Though he's afraid to say a word to me—a girl, and a Western girl at that—he looks as though, more than anything, he needs someone to listen. It still amazes me that, after so many years, you let me listen to you. As long as I can, I'll walk with you on your “grand march.”

I love it here, the swirl and commotion of the markets, the color-drenched scarves and robes, the aching warmth of the clay walls. I speak Moroccan French now, and a spattering of Arabic, and I can bargain like a camel trader. Everything is so alive. And yet, all someone has to do is mention the word “Scotland,” and I'm suddenly hungry for it. I can smell gorse in the air, hear the Tummel rippling past, feel the breath from the Highlands. In those moments, I want to be there, too.

Grandfather doesn't understand. Whenever I mention Perthshire to him, he just laughs and waves a hand and says, “Isn't it better to be away from there?” I know Grandfather and why he's been away so long. It was my grandmother's death and all of the things that remind him of her. For him, memories haunt the halls of Fairbridge, though they are memories softened by distance. It has been too long since he's known the word “home.” These days, the whole world is his home.

Distance has softened my memories, too. Instead of a cold, echoing, lonely place, I can't help but think of Fairbridge with a warmth not warranted. I remember my old nursery, with my collection of china dolls tucked high on a shelf. Father used to buy those for me, you know, every time he finished a commission. The curiosity room, packed full of things Grandfather sent from his travels. Even when I felt alone and adrift, there was someone in the world who loved me. Even the way Mother's room used to always smell like lilacs. I miss her, Luc. I know now that she's never coming back, but I miss her still the same.

Maybe it's because, out here, I understand her a little more. I know why she couldn't wait quietly in one place when the world is so full of possibility. I wouldn't trade my travels for anything. But, even so, I don't understand why she left. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive her that. She chose the world over me. She couldn't have both.

I know you're like me. Adventure is adventure, but there's something about home. Maybe it's because it makes us feel like children. Maybe it's because it reminds us of summer. When I talk about the river, the grass, the flowers on the air, you understand. Because you're thinking about Mille Mots.

I do, too. Think of Mille Mots, that is. It's not my home, but sometimes, during that one summer, I'd pretend it was. Before my grandfather came, I'd pretend that your home was mine. I wanted to have a place to belong. That's why I was always outside drawing the château, you know. I wanted to be able to capture Mille Mots down to every blade of grass, every ripple in the Aisne, every crumble of white stone, so that if I were ever to leave one day, I could bring the château away with me. I didn't know that once you fall in love with something, it never really leaves you. Does it? I've even found a sweet chestnut tree here that reminds me of ours, though it's lonely beneath it all by myself. I've sent you a leaf, pressed flat. Remember?

Yearning for home, yearning for those warm, safe days of childhood, that doesn't halt our steps forward. It doesn't mean we regret or fear. It means that we're built of so much more than our future. We have the past to stand on. And we're stronger for it.

Clare

Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, Paris