by Ivo Fornesa
‘Hold on now, I didn’t say I minded, or that I’d rather not know. Besides, I’m fond of you. Did I ever tell you that when I was a boy, your grandfather gave me a pair of clogs, tailor-made, with my name carved in the wood? He was a good man. Pity he’s no longer here to see your chickens,’ he laughed.
‘Yes, yes. So tell me, this Mademoiselle Yael isn’t from around here. Has she lived in town for long?’
‘No, from what she told me she’s from Bordeaux, though her accent certainly doesn’t sound like it. She rented her house just a few months after the Shennans arrived. A little while after that came the Pazhattes, who are from Brittany and live with their two kids near the school. Then came Thierry, the tree pruner (or arboriste-grimpeur, as he insists on being called), who moved in behind the Auges’ farm, and then came you. We’ve never had so many newcomers in one year. Perhaps Monsieur Shennan will eventually manage to revitalise the town.’
Laurent wanted to know more. ‘What about her ceramics? Are they nice? Because for some time now I’ve been wanting to buy a salad bowl, and it’d be nice if we could all support each other here in town,’ he said, trying to appeal to René’s sense of local pride.
‘Sure,’ René replied sarcastically. ‘Buying a salad bowl is as good a way as any other to get a screw. You might even toss a salad.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘You’re practically making me blush,’ said René, aligning the rows for his tomato plants with a hoe.
Laurent thought for a moment.
‘Well, since it’s so obvious, and seeing as how we’re neighbours, fellow gardeners and fans of Pernod, not to mention the fact that my grandfather once gave you a pair of clogs, why don’t you drop the charade and tell me everything you know?’
‘Who says I’m a fan of Pernod?’ asked René, getting to his feet. He stuck his hoe in the earth, placed his foot on the top of the blade and studied Laurent carefully. ‘Come now, don’t tell me you’re seriously interested in the potter!’
‘I can’t explain it without sounding like a schoolboy, but yes, I think I am,’ said Laurent, stoically holding his gaze. ‘I’m really taken with her.’
‘You understand you’re going to owe me several rounds at Le Juanch’s tavern?’
‘As many as it takes, and whenever you please, but spill it.’
‘Let’s sit down under the fig tree,’ said René, pointing to a spot nearby. ‘Our old priest, Father Jacob, used to teach the catechism there. It’ll be quite pleasant, and we can also smoke one of those cigars of yours.’
Laurent took out two thin cigars from his jacket with religious care, and René began telling him what he knew.
‘The truth is, Mademoiselle Yael is rather elusive and very rarely leaves her house. Most of what she eats she grows in the little garden in her yard or gets from the farms in town. Once a month she drives out of town, according to her to Blois, though personally I suspect that’s not the case. At any rate, she always comes back with a lot of packages. She never has guests, though she’s kind to everyone. Every morning at six on the dot, no matter the weather, she goes jogging with a little rucksack on her back. And can she run! She just zips along. Beyond that, I don’t know what her house is like. I’ve never been inside past the living room or kitchen. Though one day the door was open, and I could see she had several screens and lots of books and things.’
‘And the pottery?’
‘Yes, there’s also a wheel and things for the trade, and several pots, and bucket for shards. But I’ve never had the chance to see her work, and she doesn’t sell what she makes in the markets nearby. I think she’s here for the same reason you are, to try to find answers … Because that’s why you’re here, right?’ René turned to look at him. ‘I do hope you’ll keep me posted on how things go with you two, but now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must get back to work. I want to make it home on time – my wife’s making a tête de veau, and it’s always spectacular. One day we’ll have to have you over to try it.’
With a handshake, Laurent left to meet Yael, stopping by the vicarage to change into more suitable attire. Then, with that pleasant feeling of having made good use of the morning, he left his house and headed to La Cocadrille, with no clear idea of what this date had in store.
THE ANGELUS AT LA COCADRILLE
The tavern was packed, as it usually was at this hour. Scanning the room, Laurent didn’t see Yael. He’d arrived a little early, nervous before this first date.
Le Juanch called him over and, taking him by the shoulder, spoke into his ear.
‘You’re waiting for Mademoiselle Yael, I assume? I saved you a table in the back that looks out onto the garden. It’s quite romantic. The only other people there are a few old ladies on the way to Nohant-Vic, and they’re not from around here.’ And in a more conspiratorial tone, he whispered, ‘Good luck! I think you’ve got this in the bag.’
Laurent could feel a migraine coming on. The idea that everyone in the town was scrutinising him and trying to work their matchmaking arts put him in a bad mood. And he didn’t think that Yael would be happy, either, if she knew everyone was cheering them on. As he walked through the main dining room toward his table, he could feel all eyes on him, along with some whispered comments that in all likelihood were about him.
‘Gaston, bring me some of that beer you’re trying to brew, on the double – in a pint glass, and make sure it’s ice cold,’ said Laurent, trying to gather his courage. ‘And also a shot of that plum liqueur, the one I know you’re bootlegging with the mayor.’
As Le Juanch brought a glass capped with a generous head of foam, the bar again went silent, and a thin voice could be heard very politely telling someone else where Laurent was. More silence, and then the sound of confident footsteps behind him. And as they drew closer, a rising murmur of voices followed in their wake.
‘Your lady has arrived. Bon courage!’ said Le Juanch, patting him on the shoulder. And referring to the beer, he added, ‘Let me know what you think of the Carterius.’ Then he turned and made his exit, bar towel draped over his shoulder. The tavern had become a stage, and the show about to begin promised to earn a standing ovation.
So it was that, lips and nose covered in beer foam, Laurent looked up and saw Yael standing before him, radiant enough to make a Greek statue sick with envy. She wore her thick tangle of curls pulled back behind her head, and now that he saw her face clearly, he found her even more beautiful than the night before. He also noticed different tones in her complexion in the daylight: it was desert-tanned skin, the colour of the Tamashek women in northern Mali, set off by her intoxicatingly bright, colourful eyes.
‘Hello, Laurent. I can see you’re already getting warmed up. Impressive, after the job you did last night,’ said Yael. He made a gentlemanly motion to get up but she stopped him, placing her hand firmly on his shoulder.
At that very moment, as if to heighten his feelings of guilt, the church bells tolled the Angelus, the noontime prayers. Yael remarked she liked how they maintained that tradition. Laurent looked at her in surprise as Le Juanch set a pint of beer before her.
‘Did you go to a Catholic school?’ he asked. ‘In Chile there’s a large Jewish population, and many have no qualms about going to Catholic schools and universities,’ he explained, this time taking a sip of the plum liqueur.
‘I spent a few years living in the Old City in Jerusalem,’ Yael explained. ‘With all the convents inside the New Gate, I learnt the language of the bells. It was a way for me to keep myself entertained.’
‘And from Jerusalem you moved to Saint-Chartier, of all places, where you’re now living across the street from an international man of mystery. I hope you’re not a Mossad agent!’ Laurent joked.
Yael, who’d closed her eyes and taken a long draught, opened them again to look at him over the rim of the glass. Then she set the glass down again very calmly.
‘What if I were? What would that change?’
‘Well, to start with,
I’d be scared to death. Mossad agents are famous for not messing around, and they don’t give a damn about collateral damage,’ Laurent defended himself.
‘But you’re not anti-Semitic. Or are you?’ asked Yael, narrowing her eyes.
‘If I were, I wouldn’t be here.’ Finally, Laurent was back on home turf. He needed to step up his game and stop acting like an amateur, he told himself.
The smile that spread across Yael’s face seemed to augur a happy ending to the encounter, when a door slammed and a huge commotion arose the bar. They both leapt up to see what was going on.
One of the workers from the château had just rushed into the tavern and was trying to explain with frantic gestures what the shouting was all about. The man’s atrocious French was peppered with an ill-treated Italian and something else that Laurent thought was Romanian. Still, Laurent could just about piece together that a fight had broken out in the château. Apparently one of the workers on the crew from Perpignan, who was Muslim, had started praying in the middle of the terrace just as the church bells tolled the Angelus. Shennan was inside the château, and when he saw him through the window, he bolted out to demand he stop. He tried to tell him, as politely as he could, that he wouldn’t stand for public expressions of religion on his property. The worker ignored him and went on praying, and Shennan, not used to such stubborn disobedience, dragged him to the gate.
Even now the worker, a man from Mauritania named Ahmed El-Kubri, as Laurent later learnt, stood outside, red with anger, shouting through the railing in Arabic and French that he’d kill Shennan and his whole family. So the worker’s boss, Monsieur Rataille, the contractor from Perpignan, had sent this Romanian to see if he could find any of the gendarmes who often stopped by the pub around lunchtime. As it happened, they weren’t at their usual spot at the bar, and as Le Juanch went to call the station, the rest of the customers poured out to see for themselves the scene the Romanian had just described, since La Cocadrille was just a few yards from the château.
Yael didn’t hang back and nervously pushed Laurent toward the street, where a crowd had quickly formed around the spectacle.
The worker, who turned out to be a brawny man much larger than Shennan, was in a sorry state. Just as the Romanian said, his face was a mess, and he was still rattling the heavy iron gate and shouting in Arabic. Shennan, on the other side of the bars, not two yards away from him, stood watching him in silence. Nothing in his immaculate clothes revealed that just a few minutes earlier he’d been in a scuffle. Some of the other workers looked on in astonishment behind him, while Monsieur Rataille, outside the gate, stood by the worker’s side and tried in vain to calm him down.
Suddenly Shennan spoke in a powerful, clear voice, so that everyone could hear. ‘This fellow was spoiling for a fight. I don’t know his reasons, maybe he was trying to get money or cause trouble for me, but I don’t give a damn: this is my house, and here no one’s going to pray toward Mecca, Salt Lake City or anywhere else. Muslim prayers have five parts, and the Salat az-Zuhr doesn’t start until after midday. But this bastard started praying while the church was ringing the Angelus, knowing full well that I could see him. He hasn’t done it any other day, so it’s clear his gesture was meant as a provocation to me. He can sue me if he wants. I have nothing against Muslims, and they have my respect, but I won’t put up with radical Islamists. They’re scum, and all they want is to kill us all off.’
And then, to everyone’s amazement, he let loose a string of curses in Arabic. The worker froze, slowly pulled himself away from the gate, pushed aside the people around him and hurried away, fear written across his face.
After he left, Shennan stood silently for a moment and looked at the crowd gathered around him. Then he let out one of what Laurent later came to know as his disarming laughs.
‘I beg your pardon for taking you away from such a pleasant establishment. Tell Le Juanch to cook up something good for me, I’ll be right over for lunch. And tell him I want to try that new beer of his. A round on me for all the infidels.’
The crowd began to break up and return to the tavern, not without some murmuring.
‘What the devil do you think he said to him?’ asked Laurent, returning inside with Yael. ‘And how on earth does Shennan know Arabic? Did you see how terrified the man looked when he left?’
Yael bit her upper lip before replying. ‘He told him to bugger off and never threaten him again. And he said that if he so much as thought about reporting him to the police, Shennan would have someone cut off his balls and do the same to his two male sons, who live with his wife and parents in Kiffa.’
Laurent stopped. ‘Seriously? Or are you kidding me?’
‘I promise. Incidentally, Shennan’s Arabic is pretty good,’ she added without stopping.
Laurent jogged a few steps to catch up with her. ‘Well now I know you’re a Mossad agent.’
‘Silly boy,’ said Yael, elbowing him in the ribs. ‘Don’t forget I’m Yemeni, from the Arabian Peninsula. They speak Arabic there, and it’s the language of my grandmother, who raised me.’
‘I don’t know,’ protested Laurent. ‘This is all very suspicious. And the fact that Shennan knows Arabic is very, very puzzling. The fact that you do, too, is a pretty unlikely coincidence.’
‘Come on, Laurent, pull yourself together. I was looking forward to being romanced.’
‘I know,’ he insisted, ‘but he even knew that the man has sons in … who knows where.’
‘In Kiffa. That’s east of Nouakchott,’ said Yael. ‘And it shows that Shennan, beyond that chatty, shallow demeanour, likes to keep all the variables around him under control.’
They went back into the bar, and from what they overheard the other patrons saying, they seemed uncertain what to make of the scene.
‘Quite a commotion! Good thing I decided not to call the gendarmes,’ whispered Le Juanch.
Laurent nodded and, taking Yael by the arm, led her back to their table, convinced that this woman had started to cast a spell over him. He got ready to use all the firepower at his disposal.
THE FINE
A few days after his encounter with Yael, Laurent awoke very tired. The previous afternoon he’d been helping Monsieur Roger with his horses and was worn out from the effort, with sore muscles in places he never suspected were part of his anatomy. He reluctantly looked at himself in the mirror and hardly recognised the man he saw. He made a solemn vow to get back into shape as soon as possible, since this easy life of eating well was wreaking havoc on his once enviable figure.
He made a few sad attempts at push-ups and sit-ups that only left him more depressed and then walked to the kitchen, head bowed, thinking he probably shouldn’t touch the oversized brioche that the Green Goddesses had given him. Such a shame: there it sat, covered in a thin white cloth that he guiltily lifted up. Golden and dusted with powdered sugar, the brioche looked heavenly, with a crispy layer on top no doubt filled with fruit preserves that they themselves, experts as they were, had made by hand. He could already imagine cutting it up into hearty portions and generously spreading on butter from the Bodart farm, when the doorbell rang and pulled him out of his sweet reverie.
Before him stood the most eminent representative of the local gendarmerie, Sergeant and Station Chief Gilles Lafonnier, better known as ‘Tartarin’, because, like the famous character from Daudet’s novels, he came from Provence and was fond of hunting – and because he too, according to local gossip, tended to exaggerate the number and quality of his kills. He often sported a triple-cartridge belt, like Pancho Villa, as if he thought he’d run out of ammunition for his double-barrel shotgun.
Laurent stood, mouth agape. The last thing he imagined was a visit from the local authorities. Tartarin raised his hand up to his képi in a military salute. It couldn’t be anything serious, Laurent thought. But his mind wasn’t running on all cylinders.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked
‘I’m afraid I don’t come bearing good news,�
� the sergeant said. ‘May I come in?’
‘Of course. Would you like some coffee? I was just about to make some,’ offered Laurent courteously, pointing the way to the kitchen.
Once inside, Laurent began fussing about with the coffee pot, and Tartarin said, ‘That looks like one of those famous filled brioches that Jacquotte and Colette make. You do know, don’t you, that you have to eat them within twenty-four hours, otherwise they go stale?’
‘I didn’t, but please cut a few pieces,’ Laurent said, happy to have found an excuse to try a bite. ‘Sugar or acacia honey?’
Mouth stuffed with brioche, the sergeant spoke a few words in praise of the brioche as Laurent handed him a cup. He downed the coffee and shook his head vigorously.
‘Mon Dieu, Monsieur de Rodergues! This coffee could rouse Tutankhamun from the dead!’
Then he took a notebook out from his chest pocket. ‘Now let’s see,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it’s an unpleasant matter, and the worst part is that I know it has nothing to do with you, even though it affects you directly. I suppose you’re aware that your grandfather’s house came with seven acres of pasture by the country road to Lourouer, off to the right from the cemetery.’ When Laurent nodded he went on. ‘How long has it been since you were last there?’
‘Honestly, I only visited the fields the day after I arrived in town. Then I agreed to let Monsieur Salssart graze his cattle there on the condition that he take care of the land, along with the irrigation ditches, the hedges and the access gate. Has something happened to it?’ he asked.
‘It seems someone lit a bonfire on your property, and the wind spread the flames to the neighbouring hedges, leaving them a bit singed and frightening several cows, which tried to escape. As a result, this neighbour has filed a complaint asking for damages for negligence. On top of that, I’ll have to fine you for setting the fire without permission from the municipality, even though I’m sure you had nothing to do with it. In any case, you shouldn’t worry, it’s not a steep fine, and you can contest it.’