The Lost Carousel of Provence

by Juliet Blackwell

  “I didn’t . . . I didn’t really know anyone made mac-n-cheese except from the box. The bright orange kind, with powder.”

  “Well, now you know,” Maxine said, scooping a steaming spoonful onto Cady’s plate. “My mama made it for us all the time. Sometimes she’d put a little bacon or chicken in there, or add peas and carrots to get us to eat vegetables. Whatever she felt like—that’s the beauty of a go-to recipe. Try it.”

  Cady could barely eat for the lump in her throat. She put down her fork, willing herself not to cry, but it didn’t work. A little hiccup escaped, and then she put her head in her hands and sniffled.

  Maxine said nothing. When Cady looked up, Maxine had a bemused look on her face and the whisper of a smile.

  “It’s nothing special, child. I just mix macaroni with a couple of different cheeses and a little cream. Would you like me to teach you how?”

  After that, they spent many hours together in the kitchen, trying new recipes and perfecting Cady’s “go-to” dishes. They shucked corn, fried chicken, made cornmeal pizza and fresh-tossed salads from whatever was in season at the farmers market. Maxine encouraged Cady to try foods she’d never eaten before, like eggplant—which was not related in any way to eggs, she discovered to her surprise—and persimmons, figs, and fish that wasn’t tuna and didn’t come from a can.

  The first dinner Cady made for Maxine all by herself was a simple vegetable stir-fry. Maxine couldn’t stop exclaiming about how delicious it was. Cady, her eyes on her plate, was embarrassed but pleased to the tips of her toes.

  When they finished, Maxine put down her fork with a sigh and said, “Cady, if I can get through all the paperwork and the bureaucratic nonsense, would you like to come and live with me?”

  And once again, Cady burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1944

  PARIS

  Fabrice

  Paris was nearly emptied of young, healthy men. Almost two million were prisoners of war; others fled with General de Gaulle and the Free French to London; thousands more were missing or hiding. Fabrice was often stopped and questioned, his papers demanded. But he was young enough to escape suspicion, and he had blond hair, which the Nazis idolized.

  Still, women and girls could more easily move through the city, so they were the primary couriers, carrying weapons and incriminating documents.

  Members of the Résistance were not the only ones who showed bravery. A young music student named Vivou Chevrillon played her violin outside the wall of a Compiègne concentration camp, hoping her friend inside would recognize the song. A gallery owner named Jeanne Bucher defiantly showed the work of Kandinsky and other despised abstract artists, many of whom were Jewish.

  But most citizens resisted in more prosaic ways. By managing to get enough to eat, Parisians demonstrated they would not be starved into submission. At the theater or in the movies whenever a banquet scene came on, the audience would cheer. Also, since no one knew who could be trusted, food became the constant—and only truly safe—topic of conversation: What can you find to eat? Where can you find it? How can you make dubious ingredients appetizing?

  Fabrice’s new friends would taunt and tease one another with descriptions of their favorite meals and menus. Paulette loved to recite recipes from her hometown: truite Provençal, daube—a kind of traditional stew—tapenade, pan bagnat.

  Fabrice didn’t care what she spoke about; he cherished the lilt of her voice. He listened, rapt, as she talked about picking bouquets of muguets—lilies of the valley—in the forests surrounding her village. Paulette had an entrancing way of tilting her head when she paid attention, and she would do this when listening to Fabrice, as though trying to figure him out.

  He felt accepted by her, as though she understood him. His parents called him “moody,” implying that his seesaw emotions were troubling and wrong. But Paulette seemed undaunted when he was miserable one moment and euphoric the next.

  “You are an intelligent, passionate young man,” she said with an endearing shrug. “That is the way of it. C’est normal.”

  Also, though his parents had discouraged his fervent love of words, Paulette assured him his writings were playing a part in history, in the rescue of La Belle France. Fabrice thrilled at her comments, and while he printed pamphlet after pamphlet, virtually asleep on his feet, he would imagine what it would be like to take her into his arms, to be able to claim her, to make a home together.

  Sometimes Fabrice would go by the doctor’s office, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, even though he was supposed to keep his distance from Dr. Duhamel except when absolutely necessary.

  One night they shared a flacon of wine with Claude and the Belgian in the back room of the printshop. When the others left, Fabrice found his courage. He leaned in toward Paulette.

  She shook her head, pulling back. “You are very young, mon petit garçon.”

  “I’m not that young,” he whispered in return. Perhaps it was the fervor in his voice, his absolute conviction. Perhaps it was the wine. But whatever the reason, she reached one graceful hand to him and ran her long finger across his smooth cheek where the whiskers did not yet grow. The pad of her finger left a trail of tingling heat on his skin.

  She dropped her hand and blew out a long breath.

  “It is because of this war,” Paulette said. She gave him a shaky smile, but her sky blue eyes were filled with sorrow.

  “What is because of this war?” Fabrice asked in a quiet voice, searching her face.

  “That you are having these feelings. We are a generation out of place, Fabrice. Our childhoods have been robbed, ripped from our hands as surely as the Germans rob us of our food and art, our happiness, our very souls.”

  “But if I’ve been robbed of my childhood, then I am already a man. You could love a man, could you not?”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “My dear, dear Fabrice. You are so brave, so capable . . . but you are still very young, and naive. Let’s not get off track. Sit back, relax, and let us plan the victory dinner we shall make when we win this wretched war. What will be our aperitif?”

  * * *

  • • •

  One day Fabrice was summoned to the doctor’s office.

  Paulette ushered him into an exam room as though he were a patient. The doctor asked him to take off his shirt and placed the cold end of a stethoscope against his chest, as though examining him.

  “There is a submarine base in Saint-Nazaire,” Dr. Duhamel said in a low voice. “The British forces want to attack it, but they need photographs. Cough.”

  Fabrice coughed.

  “The only people allowed to come near are children on field trips, who are shown the base as a way to impress them with the strength of the Nazi fleet. Garçon, you are doing an exemplary job with the informational pamphlets. But there are not many who could manage this assignment.” He paused, gazed out the window for a moment, then turned back. “You are young enough to be in school. Are you good with a camera?”

  This was his chance. Fabrice’s heart pounded; it embarrassed him that the doctor would be able to hear it through his stethoscope. This was his chance to prove to Paulette that he was more than a boy.

  “I will go,” said Fabrice. “I will take photos.”

  “This is a very dangerous mission,” warned the doctor. His tone had a resigned sort of hope to it. The physician had been a healer of bodies for decades, but was now called on to help heal his country, and seemed unsure that he was up to the task.

  “I understand.”

  “I would not ask this of you, but this intelligence is essential for the Allies.”

  “I am not afraid. I want to do it.”

  Just then Paulette came to the door to tell the doctor he had a phone call.

  Fabrice held Paulette’s gaze and repeated, “I will go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIG
HT

  PRESENT DAY

  CHTEAU CLEMENT

  Cady

  The château grounds looked different in the morning sunshine. The phantoms of the night had vanished, replaced by glistening trees and buildings freshly washed by the rain. Still, the beautiful morning did little to improve the estate’s ramshackle appearance, much less the broken windows and graffiti.

  As Lucy sniffed at the grass, Cady looked around.

  Who would paint graffiti out here in the otherwise bucolic French countryside? Cady was accustomed to seeing “tagging” on the streets of Oakland, but she was disappointed to find it in this pastoral setting. She preferred to think of Château Clement as a place out of time, as in a fairy tale, but apparently it was as depressingly real as anywhere else.

  The tag read JTC, in a stylized graffiti script Cady recognized from her days running the streets of Oakland. She had never been a tagger, but had known plenty who were. Jonquilla had tried her hand at it for a while, before she lost interest in anything but pursuing the next high. The last time Cady had seen her childhood friend, Jon was panhandling on a street corner in downtown Berkeley. Neither of them spoke. Cady gave Jon her last five-dollar bill and walked away.

  Gravel crunched underfoot as Cady led Lucy across the courtyard to peek into the same window as last night. But now, in the daylight, she didn’t hear band organ music, much less see what she’d thought—for an instant—she had seen last night. There seemed to be another structure within, as though the outer building were a shell built around a smaller interior construction. There were some covered items, what looked like old tractor parts, random pieces of lumber, an old tire. Panels here and there, like a very large three-part folding screen. Maybe she had imagined that one of the tarp-covered lumps was a carousel figure. Had she wanted to see it that badly?

  It was still hard to make out much through the grime of the windowpane, but there were several large panels that appeared to be blackened with soot.

  Jean-Paul had told her the carousel had been destroyed by fire.

  She tried the doors, but they were locked.

  Cady knew she shouldn’t snoop, but other than holding a gun on her, Fabrice hadn’t seemed overly concerned about her nosiness last night. She had started to go around the side of the building in search of another door when she heard the sound of breaking glass.

  “What was that?” Cady asked Lucy, who sat waiting patiently, wagging her tail.

  They hurried around to the back of the building.

  A teenage boy was throwing rocks at a high window of a barnlike structure. He was tall and skinny, dressed in jeans and an oversized hoodie. He would have fit in well on the streets of Oakland.

  “Hey!” Cady yelled in English, before realizing she wasn’t sure of the equivalent in French. The kinds of informal utterances that were so important to actual communication were rarely taught in language class. At least she knew how to demand: “What are you doing here?”

  She yelled: “Qu’est-ce que tu faites ici?”

  The boy whirled around in her direction, slapped one hand on the opposite bicep and raised his arm into a fist, then ran.

  “Little pissant vandal!” Cady yelled, again in English. She figured that her words, like his rude gesture, would need no translation. “Come back here and clean this up!”

  The dog just stood there, wagging her tail.

  Cady looked at her askance. “A lot of help you are.”

  Lucy’s only response was to wag her tail with more enthusiasm.

  “I’m going to assume you’re not exactly of the guard dog variety.”

  Lucy sat very erect and licked her chops.

  “Let me explain something to you, Lucy. Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you don’t need to show your teeth every once in a while. For instance, when some little idiot is vandalizing your master’s property.”

  Lucy wagged her tail some more.

  Cady continued her explorations, peeking into other windows. The first building seemed locked up tight, but the door on another outbuilding stood ajar, and within was a very old black car that looked like something out of a movie about World War II. Next she found a small square stone building, two stories high, its original purpose unknowable. It was unlocked, so she and Lucy walked in and climbed the stairs, Lucy sniffing the old wood, checking for mice. From the arched windows of the second floor—with two broken panes—Cady could see that the garden had once been laid out in a formal fashion, with a greenhouse-looking building at one end, a sunken garden surrounded by statuary, and a small pond at the end. A waterwheel still turned in the lazy current.

  Cady took Lucy out to explore the remnants of the garden, finding shallow pools and fountains that no longer spewed. Statuary—an enormous pelican, a ball atop an elongated pyramid, an obelisk—was studded with orange and pale green lichen. Stone benches and trees were fuzzy with moss.

  A soggy newspaper sat by the front gates. She picked it up, then gathered a few wildflowers in Olivia’s honor—it was the sort of thing her friend was forever doing: slowing down and appreciating nature.

  Shaggy hedges along the walkways had probably once been manicured into topiary. Cady wondered what shapes they might have taken then—geometrical or whimsical? Animals, or maybe spirals? Who were Yves and Josephine Clement, and what had their château been like in its heyday? Did they have a fleet of gardeners, or might Josephine have come out and snipped the trees into shapes, while Yves snapped his photos?

  Cady remembered watching such a tree, in California.

  Not the tree so much as the artist who tended to it: an old man. Impossibly old, it had seemed to Cady at the time. He was small but seemed uncomfortable with his body, as though accustomed to being a larger man. Or taller, at least. He used to stand before that tree, sometimes for hours, as if he were praying to an idol. Some days he would do nothing at all besides simply studying and assessing. Most times he took his clippers from his pocket and snipped, sprigs so small that Cady could hardly see them as he flicked them aside.

  From his labors emerged a Chinese-style dragon, like the ones in the Chinatown parades: flared nostrils and ears and all, wrapping around the trunk of the stunted tree.

  Cady used to spend long stretches, sometimes hours, hiding behind the hedge, watching that old man as he sculpted the tree, conjuring his dragon.

  One day the old man stopped coming. Soon the dragon grew ragged. Long, haphazard shoots sprang from its back, sprouted from its claws. The man returned and clipped it into submission again, but eventually he stopped coming altogether. The tree stood, still, but not the man.

  When the shoots emerged again, there was no one to stop them. Eventually the tree came to look like any other, betraying no trace of the fierce dragon lurking within.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  PRESENT DAY

  CHTEAU CLEMENT

  Cady

  Cady brought the flowers into the kitchen, filled an old Perrier bottle with tap water, and placed the bouquet on the table in front of the fireplace. She filled Lucy’s water bowl and petted the mellow dog while deciding what to do next.

  Peeking into windows was one thing, but breaking into buildings was a step too far. Cady had left her miscreant days behind her. What she needed to do was to persuade Fabrice to speak with her about his family’s history in general, and about the carousel in particular. He must know something.

  Fabrice had responded well to the idea of her walking the dog and taking over the cooking. And if she was going to stay here, she wanted to dust and vacuum her room and clean the bathroom. All the living quarters seemed to be in need of a good scrubbing.

  Cady roamed the château’s ground floor in pursuit of cleaning supplies. She found the original estate kitchen, a massive room with scarred marble and wooden counters long enough for an assembly line of chefs, a wall of intricate cabinets, and an iron oven. C
ady imagined the cooks tending bubbling cauldrons atop the stove, kitchen staff bustling about while chopping and slicing and peeling, farmers delivering baskets filled with local fruits and seasonal vegetables, hunters carrying in deer and rabbits hanging from rods, the day’s catch.

  A smaller room next to the large kitchen must have been a pantry. It was lined with shelves, on which still sat a few Mason jars full of canned fruits and vegetables as well as jam jars caked in grime and spiderwebs.

  Cady peeked into half a dozen windowless chambers reminiscent of nun’s cells, wondering if they had been servants’ quarters, or offices, or storage rooms, or some combination of all three. She could practically see the flickering forms of spirits as she meandered along: an efficient head housekeeper, a dignified butler, an arrogant chef, a handful of scurrying housemaids.

  At long last she yanked open a stuck wooden door and discovered a storage closet with cleaning supplies. They, too, were covered in dust, but trusting that soap didn’t have an expiration date, she took an armful to her bedroom. She flung open the windows to allow the cool, fresh, early-spring air to chase away the staleness, and then she got to work.

  An hour later, Cady noted with satisfaction that the bedroom looked and smelled much more inviting.

  Her stomach growled. Last night Jean-Paul had mentioned that Fabrice had someone bringing him groceries, but if she was going to be doing the cooking, she wanted to do the shopping as well. Also, her phone still wasn’t working, and she needed to call the rental agency to figure out what to do with the car. Surely her phone would work in town, or maybe she could find an Internet café.

  The village of Saint-Véran was only a few miles away. She could walk there, if necessary.

  Cady was gathering her things—her camera bag, her cell phone, her jacket, her money—when she heard the scrape-thump of Fabrice’s crutch. She went out into the hall and peered down the stairs.