A Strange Country

by Muriel Barbery

  “What on earth are you doing, standing there stock-still and stupid? Come into the warm and we’ll talk by the fire.”

  As he awkwardly came forward, still wobbling in his clogs, she laughed, reached for the shutters, which she closed with a bang, then slammed the windows just as energetically. A second later, the front door opened.

  He slipped inside and found himself in a large room where a fire was burning in the hearth. There was a small crowd of people, who turned in unison to look at him.

  “Hello, friend, what are you doing out in such frosty weather?” asked one of the guests, motioning to him to join them by the fire.

  I understand, thought Petrus, but will I be able to speak? But he took the plunge, bowed politely, went closer, and felt the words roll naturally off his tongue.

  “I got lost,” he said, which was precisely what the guardian had instructed him to say, in any circumstance. “I was looking for an inn for the night, but I must have taken a wrong turn.”

  The man looked at him with amusement.

  “A bow, and a fine gentleman’s manner of speaking,” he murmured, “but not an ounce of ill intent, for sure.”

  He thumped Petrus on the back, almost knocking him head over clogs.

  “You’ve come at just the right time,” he said, “Cousin Maurice is visiting and we’re having a little feast.”

  He pointed to a man with a tanned, affable face, who gave a smile and raised two fingers to stroke his temple, briefly—so that’s how they say hello on the farm, thought Petrus.

  “What’s more, our Marguerite is in the kitchen, and that means a sight better food than you’d get at the inn,” added the farmer, before placing a tiny glass in Petrus’s hand identical to the ones the other men were holding.

  He reached for a bottle filled with a clear liquid. Petrus, prompted by some powerful hunch, doubted it was water.

  “Doudou’s plum brandy,” said the man, pouring him a splash of said liquid. “And Doudou never jokes around with serious things,” he added, while the others laughed.

  He looked Petrus straight in the eye.

  “My name is Jean-René Faure,” he said.

  “Georges Bernard,” said Petrus, something the guardian had also suggested, and for a split second he dreamt he might really be called Georges Bernard and stay forever in this farmhouse room with its fragrances of paradise.

  He’d never smelled such aromas, and he concluded that whatever was simmering in those pots was not what elves put in theirs—there were mysterious smells, powerful and musky, their warm sensuality both disturbing and enchanting at the same time. Just as he was thinking this, Jean-René lifted his glass right next to his and clicked them together, saying, Cheers! And Petrus, glad of a way to remedy the excessive salivation caused by the aromas around him, followed his example, tossing back his head and drinking the entire contents of his little glass in one go.

  He collapsed on a bench. Am I about to die? he wondered. A wonderful warmth spread all over him, and he realized everyone was looking at him and laughing.

  “This can’t be the first time he’s ever had a drop?” asked Jean-René, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  Petrus wanted to reply, but he could feel tears streaming down his cheeks. Suddenly letting go, accepting his fate, completely intoxicated by the fire in his gut, he began to laugh, too.

  “Thanks be to God!” exclaimed Jean-René, immediately pouring him another glass of Doudou’s plum brandy.

  And the feast began, and no one was surprised by the presence of the potbellied ginger fellow, who did not seem to know how to put one clogged foot in front of another, but they all immediately recognized him as a harmless, likeable sort, given the candor of his clumsiness.

  It was a time for drinking and joking about the day’s minor events. When the women, placing the fruit of their concoctions on the table, gave the signal, they sat down; Jean-René recited a prayer before slicing a gleaming loaf of bread, and the cooks served the first of four dishes—or were there ten? Petrus had lost count by the second glass of wine they poured him: it was a reserve, they told him, one they kept for special occasions. He’d liked Doudou’s plum brandy earlier on, and at the end of the meal he did justice to the jar of greengages in eau-de-vie opened to round out the experience. As for the wine, it was a brilliant finishing touch, and without it he certainly wouldn’t have been able to honor the contents of his plate—which would have been a great pity because Marguerite was reputed to be the best chef in all the low country. Moreover, the provender being served that evening was the product of last week’s hunting through the snowy woods where the trees cracked like ice floes and where the animals—caught straight out of their dens, no time even to blink an eye—had the succulent flesh of creatures who hadn’t registered their demise. To you who are familiar with human food, I will describe the menu and the adversity this implied for Petrus: in addition to the soup with bacon which was the farm’s everyday fare, he was made to suffer duck roasted on the spit, jugged hare, pheasant pâté, the leftovers of a doe terrine, braised endives, potatoes roasted in the fireplace, and a frying pan full of caramelized cardoons. Finally, after the half a cheese (from our own cows, if you please) per guest, they dished up a plum pie with an autumn crabapple compote, accompanied by a sauce that was both sweet and sour, known to refine the palate of any gourmet.

  For now, Petrus was gazing at the soup where, among the carrots, potatoes, and leeks, there floated pinkish, off-white bits, and he questioned his neighbor about them.

  “Pig, by Jove, pig!” answered the neighbor.

  Pig! I can’t eat pig! thought Petrus, horrified, picturing the Guard of the Pavilion crammed into a stewpot. But the pinkish morsels seemed to be winking at him, and the aroma was beguiling him like a succubus. After his third glass of wine, he mustered his courage and bit cautiously into the meat. He was met with an explosion of pleasure that dissolved any vestiges of the guilt that had already been diluted by the wines of the arrière-côte. While the fibers of bacon disintegrated on his tongue, he let the juice slip toward his throat and thought he might swoon with pleasure. What followed was even greater ecstasy, and after the sensual delight of the duck on the spit, he had no more scruples about wallowing in carnivorous debauchery. I’ll do penance later, he thought, attacking the terrine and its fat and chunks, which either melted in his mouth or resisted his bite in a demonic ballet. It will come as no surprise to learn that the next morning he could not recall having had thoughts so foreign to his culture and his nature, not to mention the fact that he resolved his moral conflict by convincing himself that a stranger must adapt to the customs of the countries he visits, and by deluding himself that the animals had been killed without feeling pain—which forces us to acknowledge the fact that Petrus was behaving in a perfectly human manner. I will leave it to others to judge whether one should be glad of this. After dinner, everyone behaved like humans and natives of France, particularly Burgundians: the men enjoyed their little nightcap, the women tidied up the kitchen, drinking herbal tea, and they honored the dinner with fine compliments. Maurice decreed that Marguerite’s pheasant pâté was the most tender in the civilized world, which caused much debate regarding a related existential problem of major importance (the consubstantial dryness of pheasant pâté) then, without batting an eyelash, he asked the chef to share her secret—to which she replied by saying she would rather be crucified alive and left to the crows of the six cantons than divulge the secret to her knack for pâté.

  And while Petrus may have enjoyed the evening’s fare, the wine had been an experience of another order. A first sip, and it was the land of Burgundy in his mouth, its winds and mist, its stones and vine stock; the more he drank, the deeper he penetrated the secrets of the universe in a way which the contemplation of the peaks in his Woods had never allowed; and while his elfin soul understood a hundredfold this magic born of the alliance between ear
th and sky, what was human in his heart could be expressed at last. In the dual story for which the winemaker and the drinker were responsible the most marvelous thing, beyond the enlightenment of intoxication, could be found; the vine told a slow adventure, vegetal and cosmic, an epic of low walls and hillsides in the sun; then the wine loosened tongues and gave birth in turn to stories which the prophecy had only foreshadowed. There was talk of miraculous hunting and virgins in the snow, of holy processions, of sacred violets, and fabulous creatures whose wanderings captivated the villagers, absorbed by their last drams of liqueur, while a new life was added to the everyday one, sparkling in the background of what was visible, and opening the freedom of dreams in waking time. He did not know whether he owed this metamorphosis to the talent of his new human companions, or to the exquisite floating feeling that each new glass of wine instilled, but he could sense the death throes of his old frustration that an intangible screen was keeping things from him. Now the screen had been shattered, and he had access to the throbbing pulse of his emotions; the world was radiant, more intense; although he had no doubt that this was possible without wine, the vine and the tale stood together with this transfiguration of levels of reality; and now that, seven decades on, he understood the message of the wild grasses in the channel, he was so moved by it that he stammered something his neighbor had to ask him to repeat.

  Everyone fell silent around the table.

  Maurice again asked Petrus to repeat what he’d said. They were all staring at him with those soft moist eyes that come from food and the vine, and he mumbled, his voice quavering slightly:

  “It would be as if the world was a novel waiting for its words.”

  How stupid he felt, dismayed by his own syntax, seeing that they were waiting for an explanation. But unexpectedly Jean-René came to the rescue, raising his little glass of brandy and declaring in a kindly tone:

  “For sure, what would we do without stories by the fire and old grannies’ fairy tales?”

  The congregation nodded their heads, sufficiently softened by wine to give credence to this cryptic translation. They cogitated briefly on the matter (but not too much), then returned to their conversation, which was slowed by the prospect of settling cheek on pillow, and snoring off the wine until the next day at dawn.

  Still, while they were halfheartedly making their final comments for the evening, one topic Maurice broached landed on the table like a flying spark and made everyone sit up straight in their chair to enter the debate with passion.

  “I say there’s no better season than winter,” he insisted, without batting an eyelid.

  Then, pleased with his contribution, he rewarded himself with a final splash of brandy.

  As one might have expected, the trap worked.

  “What ever for?” asked Jean-René, his tone falsely amiable.

  “For hunting and gathering wood, by Jove!” replied the simple man.

  This was the signal for a heated discussion that Petrus only dimly understood, other than that it was something to do with hunts and dogs, timber and orchards, and a divinity in those parts whom they referred to as the whip. It lasted a pleasantly endless amount of time, which he enlivened with a few additional glasses, but in the end (and to his great regret), because it was getting close to midnight and all good things must come to an end, Marguerite took it upon herself to end the discussion.

  “Every season is the good Lord’s,” she said.

  Out of respect for the granny, (something to do with her mastery of pheasant), the men fell silent and celebrated their renewed alliance with the courtesy of a final splash of plum brandy. Jean-René Faure, however, who could not ignore the laws of hospitality, asked Petrus what his favorite season was—and Petrus was surprised to discover how easy it was to think, despite his drinking and eating like a Burgundian pig. He raised his little glass to each man in turn, as he’d seen done, and recited the three lines from the Canto of the Alliance:

  Neither spring nor summer nor winter

  Know the grace

  Of languid autumn

  The others looked at him, astounded, then at each other, eyes shining.

  “For sure, if we start with poetry . . . ” murmured Jean-René.

  They all bowed their heads with unexpected deference. Marguerite was smiling; the women nudged a leftover piece of pie with a final dollop of sour cream in his direction; and everyone seemed happier than the little angels in the great heavens.

  “Time for bed,” said Jean-René finally.

  But instead of taking their leave, the men stood up, their faces serious, and the women made a sign over their breast which, Petrus would later learn, was the sign of the cross. Gripped by the solemnity of the moment, he wanted to imitate them, so he stood up, made the same sign, almost tripped over his own plate, steadied himself on his clogs, and listened to the final prayer.

  “Let us pray for those who fell in battle,” said the host, “and in particular for the village men whose names are carved on the monument across from the church, so that no one will ever forget them because, though now the fighting’s still recent, tomorrow they’ll all be gone from people’s minds.”

  “Amen,” said the others.

  They lowered their heads and stood for a moment in contemplative silence. So they have fought a major war, thought Petrus. Then there was a faint murmur as conversation started up again, and he felt that something was trying to make its way inside him—was it the beneficial effect of the wine, or the dignity of the moment; he could hear faint voices, intermittently.

  “Unfortunately, I have heard say that prayers are not enough to knock sense into a man’s brain,” said Jean-René, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder.

  After a pause, he added:

  “That is why I go to the cemetery every day to hear what my dead have to say to me.”

  The simmering echo suddenly exploded in Petrus’s head.

  “There was a great earthquake, and the moon became as blood,” he said, then stopped, stunned.

  What am I on about? he wondered.

  But the other man was gently nodding his head.

  “That’s it, precisely,” he said, “that is exactly what we went through, the lot of us.”

  Finally, the guests withdrew and Petrus was shown to his room, a little lean-to that smelled fragrantly of hay, where they had prepared a woolen mattress, a soft pillow, and a warm blanket. The visions from the long-ago dream at the teahouse were swirling through his brain, and the horror rumbling inside him made his heart sink, once again. Did I see images of some bygone war or of a war yet to come? he wondered, and then, surrendering his last weapons to the excellent local wine, he collapsed on his bed and instantly fell asleep.

  It was a sleep with neither tremors nor visions, a night of existential void that left no memories. On waking, however, he was painfully called back to life, and he more dragged himself than walked to the common room. There was an enticing smell, and a young woman was busy clearing a table where three cloves of garlic lay next to a glass of water and a large earthenware jug.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked him.

  Although he couldn’t open his left eye, the first sip did Petrus a world of good.

  “The men told me to tell you they send their regards and that you are welcome to stay at The Hollows for as long as you like,” she said. “It’s the first major hunt of the year, and they couldn’t wait for you this morning, but if you’re hungry, I can make something for you.”

  “Is The Hollows the name of the farm?” asked Petrus, politely declining her offer of food.

  “It is that,” she said, “and has been for longer than anyone can remember.”

  “Where are the other ladies?” he asked.

  She laughed.

  “Ladies, indeed . . . ” she said before stopping herself, then adding: “They’re with the pries
t at the Marcelot farm, where we heard the old woman won’t make it through the day.”

  And she made the sign of the cross.

  An hour later, Petrus took his leave, instructing his hostess to thank Jean-René Faure and to assure him that he had business to see to, but would not fail to come back again soon. Then, stumbling inelegantly in his clogs, he went out into the courtyard. There was not a breath of wind; a vast blue sky was set upon a pure white land; on the branches, pearls of ice twinkled like stars. Not sure what he was doing, Petrus set off down the main road until he came to a large wrought-iron gate. There were stone walls, and pathways in neat rows, and a large rectangle of tombstones and crosses: it was the cemetery. He stood before the graves, ignoring the cruel chill and the searing pain in his head. After a moment, he raised his head and said out loud: I want to go back to Nanzen.

  A second later, the Head of the Council and the Guardian of the Pavilion, arms crossed, were gazing at him with an expression devoid of all indulgence.

  “I hope you have a headache,” said the Head of the Council.

  Petrus turned into a squirrel, and he felt how greatly he had missed his animal essences.

  “I have a headache,” he said, wretchedly.

  “There was a great earthquake, and the moon became as blood. Where did you get that from?”

  “I have no idea,” said Petrus.

  “Revelation 6:12, although the quote has been truncated,” said the guardian. “If you are capable of reinventing the human Bible after a few glasses of their wine, perhaps we should think of forgiving you your wanderings.”

  “The Bible?” said Petrus.

  “We are going to have to educate you before we send you back among the humans,” said the Head of the Council. “We cannot leave things to chance.”