Piers followed Nelly to the door. When they were alone and heading across the wide plaza, she said, “By the way, Magali’s grandfather phoned earlier today. I invited him to join us. Léonce Martel, I’m sure you’ll find him interesting.”
Her tone was matter-of-fact, as if delivering an insignificant bit of information. Piers murmured polite approval, though it was a lie. He did mind. He’d been looking forward to an evening alone with Magali and Nelly as his guests in a great restaurant. The three of them chatting over a bottle of wine, the most innocent and natural scene he could imagine. In the presence of a stranger, conversation would have to be made.
TEN
AHMED MOURABED WAS locking his rifle away in the toolshed when Léonce pointed the electric starter at his Mercedes. The instant roar of the motor startled Ahmed; he dropped the clutch of keys and stooped to retrieve them, a painful gesture. A short, thick man of sixty, his bones ached from a life of farm labour.
“Any luck?” Léonce called out, as he sauntered down the tree-lined lane connecting his house with an L-shaped row of outbuildings.
Grim-faced, Ahmed shook his head. “Don’t count on wild boar for the holidays.”
“Ah! You give up too quickly,” Léonce chided, tossing his jacket into the back seat. “It isn’t Christmas yet.”
The Qur’an forbade pork and the smell of it cooking revolted Ahmed, but he loved the chase. He hunted alone and would have rejected the noisy joviality of a hunting party, had he been asked to join. On the cusp of sunrise, he liked to take a quick two-kilometre walk along less-travelled paths. Most mornings he was sure to surprise a drowsy herd that had foraged all night.
Léonce had no interest in guns, though he savoured the taste of fresh game and prided himself on knowing how to create a succulent sauce and which wines went best with wild boar. A ritual stretching back some thirty years, it served them well. Léonce hailed from the north, and even after half a century was still considered an outsider by the clannish society of Ste. Cécile les Vignes. A native Moroccan, Ahmed had worked in France long enough to earn a state pension, but his soul belonged to the other place where family life went on without him. The only permanent residents left at Domaine des Hirondelles, Léonce and Ahmed lived according to entrenched routines, an unspoken pact of duty and respect.
Ahmed emerged from his quarters next to the machine shed, wearing a suit jacket over his flannel shirt. He held the iron gate open as the Mercedes rolled through and locked up behind.
“It’s warm,” Léonce said as he pushed the cardoor open. Dutifully, Ahmed removed his jacket, laid it on the back seat, and climbed in beside him.
Part of the Gigondas appellation, Les Hirondelles was a spectacular 100-acre estate, an enterprise built up through decades of hard work and foresight. Prize-winning vineyards, productive olive groves, orchards and woodlots were managed from a central hub of house and barns set back from the highway, surrounded by stone walls and trees. Léonce took pride in his latest coup: convincing an ambitious young neighbour to manage the timeand labourintensive duties so that he could play Lord of the Manor, enjoy his golden years, giving up nothing but the slog. Five years on, the arrangement was working well. It pleased him to know it made tongues wag.
Solitary by nature, he enjoyed the quiet life. Tall and trim, he was still fit into his seventies. Since Brigitte’s death, he’d become a popular dinner party guest, though he saw no need for pointless socializing when silence would do. At first he enjoyed the quiet, but lately he’d fallen into a slump. Idleness, once a luxury, had begun to grate. He was restless. On the slightest excuse, he got into the car and headed out the lane.
By force of habit, he slipped a CD into the player. The clover-honey voice of Lynda Lemay roared from the back-seat speakers, Je voudrais te prendre dans mes bras. Lemay, a young Québécoise, was his latest discovery. The woman could fill a stadium, and the hollow space in a man’s life. Her voice assailed his sombre state and always won.
He glanced at Ahmed whose face was tight with worry. Suddenly aware the love song might be an intrusion on his passenger’s thoughts, he turned it off. The silence was awkward.
“Do you have any idea where he is?” Léonce ventured.
Ahmed shook his head.
“But you know people who’ve seen him?”
“He’s working at a market.” Ahmed had resisted the truth of Mouloud’s life on the lam. Only when he’d received a pointed call from Fatiha’s sister did he admit to himself the boy was not just too busy to call or write. He was not at university in Toulouse, never had been. He’d run away, chasing the girl. Then a letter came from the university declaring Mouloud absent. He’d skimmed the page and tossed it aside.
His other children had grown up in the midst of an extended family in a village near Tangiers, on wages Ahmed sent back from France. He visited every year, attended their graduations and weddings. Ahmed had missed family life, but exile made his family rich. Everything changed when Fatiha finally moved to France. Mouloud was born that year. He was younger than their first grandchild. The only one of seven they raised together, he was a mystery. Ahmed blamed himself for the kid’s rebellious ways; he’d grown soft with age. Fatiha blamed France. The day Mouloud started school she said, we’ll lose him now. She begged Ahmed to send them both home to Tangiers but he resisted. After she died, Mouloud seemed to spin out of reach. He was sullen, refused to speak Arabic and started drinking, money slipping away like sand. After Magali came on the scene, his joy returned, at least until she ran off to Paris. Mouloud followed. He came back alone, his mood sullen. It was a relief to see them both leave for university, but the peace was shortlived. A phone call from Fatiha’s sister in Montfavet meant he had to take action. Mouloud had been seen in Avignon. He was in with a rough crowd. Ahmed had hesitated before bothering Léonce, but the alternative had seemed worse. Now he wished he’d swallowed his pride and asked an Arab neighbour to drive him into the city. Chances were they all knew more than he did anyway.
Lost in anxiety, he failed to notice the urban clutter of malls and warehouses. The traffic picked up. Ahmed blurted out, “Turn here, Montfavet!”
Léonce braked just in time to make the turn and followed Ahmed’s directions past the sprawl of used-car lots, warehouses and apartments until they reached a block of four battered apartment buildings in the Arab quarter. Barely had he stopped the car when Ahmed leapt out, thanked him and said goodbye. Léonce had assumed they would look for Mouloud together, at least for a few hours. “What time should I pick you up?” Ahmed shrugged.
Taking a card from his pocket, Léonce scribbled his cell phone number and handed it over. “Call me when you’re ready,” he said. “Take as much time as you need. I’ve got things to do.”
Ahmed’s face remained impassive as he tucked the number into his pocket. All right, Léonce thought, you want to handle this alone, it’s understandable.
“Look, Ahmed,” he said. “I went through something like this with my son, Paul. He had to get out on his own, take a few bruises. He shaped up, at his own pace. Mouloud’s a good boy. He’s smart. Give him a few years and he’ll be running Les Hirondelles. You and I’ll be sitting in the shade, drooling old men.”
Ahmed’s eyes flickered with a smile. He didn’t need to say anything, his gratitude was obvious. For a moment Léonce thought Ahmed might reconsider and let him help with the search. But the smile passed and he disappeared inside a nondescript apartment building. A glorious November day, sunny and warm, the kind that lulls travellers into believing Provence has no winter, Léonce was happy to walk and observe, browsing in bookshops and stopping to read Le Monde, first in one café, then another. The energy of strangers brought his solitary life into relief, reminding him of an idea that had broken through his ennui since Brigitte’s death: he might return to Paris, where he’d lived as a young man, take a flat in the quiet residential quarter of St. Germain-en-Laye. The landm
arks would be familiar, though whenever he visited Paris now the roar was exhausting, the prices outrageous. By midafternoon he’d heard nothing from Ahmed. On an impulse, he called rue des Griffons hoping Magali would be home.
Nelly’s brisk hello caught him unaware. If Magali was there, she normally handed the phone over quickly. But this time her tone was cheerful, friendly. How are you? Her question so warm he was tempted to say, I’m not well at all. But he caught himself. Surely it was only a formality, she didn’t actually expect the truth. In the pause that followed his innocuous reply, she mentioned they were eating in a restaurant that evening. Would he care to join them?
He said yes immediately. Hanging up the phone, he wondered if he might have misunderstood. Softly lit and alive with diners, the Grand Café’s cavernous interior countered the medieval weight of Avignon with a touch of Left Bank chic. A classic French bistro with high ceilings, its battered charm was calculated to the last detail, the walls stripped down unevenly to a ravaged look and decorated with gilt-framed mirrors and Art Deco lamps. Lean young waiters buzzed around dark oak tables lit by candles floating in brass bowls.
The maître d’ led Léonce through the crowd of smartly dressed patrons to a table at the far end of room, where Nelly and a man were sitting elbow to elbow, in deep conversation. Seeing him, she flashed a broad smile and introduced her companion as the writer, Piers Le Gris. Up close, he looked younger than he’d seemed from a distance, dressed entirely in black, his long salt-and-pepper hair slicked back off his face, sharp grey eyes too intense for comfort.
Le Gris was drinking Scotch. Léonce ordered the same and they fell into conversation about the building, an artillery warehouse during the war, when the Papal Palace had served as a military compound and prison. He was surprised to find a foreigner so knowledgeable about French history, especially the papal presence, how it had come to a sudden, bloody end in 1791. The Palace had been declared French territory, and used as a prison for enemies of the Revolution. Le Gris became quite churned up about Commandant Jourdan, “the head cutter” who was responsible for the Glacier massacres — 60 suspects thrown to their death from the Latrine tower. “Miraculously,” he said, “the Palace escaped a post-revolution demolition order, and for better or worse was assigned to the army.”
For better or worse? Awfully generous with your opinions for a foreigner, Léonce thought. He was about to ask what else they might have done with it when Nelly said, “I wonder what happened to Magali?”
Léonce handed her his cell phone. “Why not give her a call?” She did, but there was no answer.
ELEVEN
AS SHE OPENED THE FRONT DOOR on rue des Griffons, Magali’s first thought was of Caesar. His hungry cries reached her midway down the hall. On the kitchen table was a note from Nelly saying she and Piers had gone to the reception and would meet her at the restaurant. A postscript mentioned her grandfather would join them, a pleasant surprise, though puzzling. He’d phoned on Sunday and said nothing about a visit. She boiled the kettle and added hot water to a bowl of milk, set it in front of the kitten and turned her attention to The General, who was waiting impatiently, always faintly hungry.
Nelly’s note confirmed the house was empty yet she couldn’t shake off the sense of eyes watching as she tiptoed into the dining room. The table had been cleared and covered with a linen cloth, fresh flowers placed at the centre. Scanning the bookshelf, she took a quick look through the stack of books by the fireplace. The small brown volume she was looking for wasn’t there.
She had not set out to read Nelly’s private diary, but the familiar cover had caught her eye one day by accident, and she hadn’t been able to resist a peek. Nelly’s handwriting — the first few lines read like an official historical account or a newspaper article about the war. But as soon as Roland appeared, it got interesting. Afterwards, she began to notice Nelly spent most evenings in the dining room with the door closed, and looked for the book again, but without success. Weeks went by. Finally she found it one afternoon, sitting on the dining-room table in plain sight, and raced through the new pages. The story stopped suddenly, just as the Germans took Roland away. She was sure it hadn’t ended there.
Some families like telling their stories, but not the St. Cyrs, she told herself, as she approached the bookcase. They behave as if nothing at all had ever happened and the reigning generation of parents somehow appeared fully formed at family gatherings. Knowing Nelly was safely ensconced at the Grand Café, she decided to make a thorough search for the missing diary. She rifled through a stack of newspapers in the corner of the living room and searched the bookshelf. No luck.
Racing up the stairs, she hesitated outside Nelly’s room. There was always a chance she might come back. The consequences of getting caught would be dire; family might forgive, but they never forget. Pushing the door open, she saw the clock on the dressing table said 19:05. Surely they would go straight from the museum to the Grand Café.
“Aunt Nelly?” she called out. Then closing the door, just to be sure, she began searching through the dresser drawers and the bedside stand. She was about to give up when she noticed a corner of the brown cover under a silk scarf on the dressing table chair. Careful not to disturb the folds, she slid the notebook out and sat on the bed. It opened easily at two pages separated by a bookmark, a black-andwhite photograph of a girl in a print dress standing beside the town fountain. She had dark hair and wore it pulled back off her face, a roll pinned up over her forehead. Only half smiling, yet she looked happy. The expression was lively, almost defiant.
Magali’s first thought was, it’s me. The resemblance was startling. She held the photo up to the dressing table mirror. It was a much younger Nelly. Flipping past the familiar pages, she came to the new chapter.
If not for the letter he had left behind, I might have been able to forget Roland, dismiss him as a girlish fantasy, or mourn his death, so total was the silence that followed his departure. He simply ceased to exist — no letters, no communication at all, not even to the Maquisard. Others took his place in the movement. My father remained his gentle, silent self. Mother was content to imagine him lost. A few times I found an occasion to mention his name in front of someone who might have information. The response was a shrug. If you weren’t born in Ste.Cécile, you simply did not count. (As far as I know that hasn’t changed.) I was too young, too troubled by fierce emotions to ask the right questions and demand answers. I could not lift the veil that fell over that summer. The war was over and France liberated. Naturally, it was an occasion to celebrate, though I have no recollection of celebration.
Only one person knew of my love for Roland, his qualities, his whispered promises, the immeasurable force of feelings he aroused, how terribly I suffered from his absence. The misery of waiting made me weak. I was naïve and maybe desperate, or surely I would never have confided my feelings. The confidant was my cousin B, daughter of my mother’s oldest sister. She was nineteen and had more experience. Her own tragic story drew us together. Her fiancé and first lover had been killed in ’42, so she had no one to wait for. In the many hours we spent together commiserating over fate, my stories of Roland moved us both to tears. I was foolish. I took pride in the pathos of details, squeezing every memory for the last drop of Roland. I retold stories of those moonlight moments so often it seemed they belonged to both of us. We cried together, finally decided he was dead, and cried for our loss.
In the fall of 1946, I was accepted into nurses’ training in Carpentras. B enrolled as well. We were eager to start our lives and resolved to leave the tight horizons of Ste. Cécile together. But at the last moment she changed her mind, saying her family needed her on the farm. They owned a great deal of land, and her brother had been killed in action. I did not envy her. The day I left she cried, “You’re the lucky one. You won’t end up a dry old maid like me.”
Leaving that village was a relief. I enjoyed being on my own with the chance to
meet new people and be known by strangers. Convinced Roland was dead, I resolved to mourn him properly and then forget. Mourning took the form of prayer. I talked to him night and day, telling him my troubles, asking for his help in the trials of study. He was dead and yet he lived and was loved.
A few months later, Ste. Cécile welcomed the last of the missing men who were destined to return. Midwinter, he travelled down from Paris under his own name which none of us had ever heard: Léonce Martel. He visited my father’s house. He was seen at mass in Ste. Cécile. He met B’s father who needed a man to replace his son. He met B. He asked after me, this much I am sure. My father admitted later he did try to contact me.
Magali stared at the page. Roland was Léonce. B was her grandmother, Brigitte. Her face burned. Suddenly it seemed there were eyes everywhere, a smiling but stern General de Gaulle watching from a photo on the wall above the bed. Nelly looking up at her from a snapshot. As if she’d been caught! Still, she couldn’t leave the room without knowing how the story ended.
Did he really try to find me? To this day, I don’t know. By that time, my ever-curious friend Adèle was engaged to be married. She wrote me a strangely vague letter by which I knew he’d come back, yet something was wrong. She said he’d changed. Then she said, maybe it was only a rumour. What rumour? I re-read the letter several times, finally decided to find out for myself. So I came home at Easter.
My mother knew immediately what I wanted, and lost no time saying to no one in particular(though in front of my father) that the mysterious hero had returned and he’d been courting B. I was too proud to show I cared. The next day, I called on B, but her sister said she was out. Days passed. She knew I was home but did not come calling so I figured the rumour was true. Did I dream the truth, or hunt it down on purpose?
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