by Julia Stuart
As they wandered through the dank, grey monotony, repeatedly having to step out of the way of visitors coming towards them, they came across a grotto into the walls of which had been cut a series of square holes. It was then that Yves Lévèque, who had been following Sandrine Fournier, noticed to his utmost irritation that they were now at information panel Number 24, and had missed out the preceding half-dozen. His horror was complete when the mushroom poisoner then attempted to read its English translation out loud and at considerable volume. So unfathomable was her delivery that when the torment was finally over, the dentist, despite his reasonable grasp of the language, had not the slightest idea that he was standing in a dovecote. Nor had he been able to ascertain that pigeons had not only been greatly appreciated by the monks for their meat, but also for their droppings, which were used as fertilizer, in which there had been a flourishing trade.
Passing deeper into the caves, sleek with luminous slime, Sandrine Fournier suddenly felt a chill judder down her spine. The cause was not the sudden drop of temperature, however, but the touch of Yves Lévèque as he grabbed her arm, startled by the sudden ringing of the bells.
When they reached the Cave of the Last Judgement, with its grotesque carving on the back wall depicting a divine figure surmounting Death who was hovering over a line of severed heads, Sandrine Fournier declared that it represented ‘good over evil’. However, Yves Lévèque saw in it something quite different.
‘I see it more as the triumph of Death,’ he muttered, his long, pale instruments of torture twitching.
And when they arrived at the ancient fountain cut out of the rock face with its tiny ferns and dripping moss dedicated to Saint-Sicaire, they stopped to run their hands under the cool water. But both recoiled in terror when they read that it used to attract thousands of pilgrims on account of its miraculous ability to bestow fertility.
As they left through the entrance, they resisted the lure of the town’s restaurants whose terraces overlooked the slothful Dronne into which willows dipped their branches. Neither did they stop to admire the blue-shuttered houses on the other side of the river, nor the faded words on a wall above the teak-coloured water indicating it once served as the Bains Publics. Instead, they immediately headed back to the car park. Once there, they turned to face each other for only the second time that morning.
‘I’ve had a marvellous time. Those caves were fascinating,’ lied Yves Lévèque. ‘We really should meet up again.’
‘I couldn’t think of anything nicer,’ lied Sandrine Fournier. And as they kissed one another on each cheek, the assistant ambulant fishmonger held her breath. But it was no use. As soon as she inhaled again, she was flooded with the putrid tide of his cologne.
Two days later, Émilie Fraisse sat on the curiously unworn steps of the Romanesque church in Amour-sur-Belle fiddling with a lizard baked like a biscuit in the sun that she had picked up from the ground. The châtelaine had no idea whom she was waiting for. She had received a phone call from Guillaume Ladoucette, who sounded in a particularly gleeful mood, telling her that he had found her the most perfect match. The gentleman was an outstanding communicator, with a particular interest in trees, who had suggested that they go to the floralies at Saint-Jean-de-Côle. The matchmaker then explained that the annual flower festival had been delayed by a couple of weeks while the village recovered from the scandal caused by its mayor getting caught with his fingers in another woman’s Venus flytrap.
While Émilie Fraisse failed to understand the matchmaker’s euphemism, of which he had initially been proud but later deeply regretted, she happily accepted the suggestion, immediately remembering the village as a rival to Brantôme on account of its beauty. As soon as she put down the phone, she abandoned the heavy, dusty tapestry she had been repairing and raced up the stone spiral staircase, her bare feet slapping on the lamentable repairs. Opening her wardrobe, she scanned the row of antique dresses, hanging like captured butterflies, which she had found in the leather chest studded with brass. But suddenly she was no longer certain of their appeal. She then heaved open the gentleman’s chest under the window, but when she tried them on, she feared that the doublets and hose would be too hot in such weather. Returning to the wardrobe, she searched again through the silk and taffeta and came across a cream organza gown which she had never worn. And when she tried it on, to her surprise it fitted. She hurried back downstairs, the hem of the dress rippling down the lamentable repairs, found the kitchen scissors and hacked off the bottom third, as well as the arms that had been ravaged by moths. She then ran upstairs again, looked into the mirror dappled by age, put up her hair and secured it with a jewelled pin from the tortoiseshell box on the dressing table. Before leaving, she rubbed the llama’s tailbone for good luck and crunched her way across the pigeon droppings on the drawbridge.
As she waited on the church steps, the châtelaine noticed Madame Ladoucette approaching on the other side of the street. Émilie Fraisse had not seen her since her return. But the old woman failed to hear her greeting and the châtelaine watched her slow crane-legged procession, wondering what the red splat marks were on the back of her green dress, and why she was being followed by a shuffling crowd of pigeons, which had grown morbidly obese since forgetting how to fly.
Soon after Madame Ladoucette came Fabrice Ribou sporting an unfathomable haircut, and for a moment Émilie Fraisse thought that it was he she was waiting for. But the bar owner simply returned her greeting, cursed the heat and continued on his way. She then spotted Denise Vigier coming from the other direction wearing a pink dressing gown and matching slippers, a white towel slung over one shoulder. Several minutes later, Didier Lapierre drove up and parked underneath one of the lime trees. Émilie Fraisse couldn’t help but notice that his haircut was equally as baffling as that of the bar owner, and wondered whether Guillaume Ladoucette had been forced to give up his job because he had lost his discerning barber’s eye. She was just about to get up to greet him, assuming that he was her match, when the carpenter approached the village noticeboard outside the church, pinned something on to it and walked back to his car.
Once he was out of sight, Émilie Fraisse immediately got up to inspect it. ‘CLANDESTINE COMMITTEE AGAINST THE MUNICIPAL SHOWER’ it read. Underneath were detailed the date and time of the next meeting, as well as the location. It was signed ‘Yves Lévèque, Chairman’.
The dentist had formed the group partly out of residual bitterness that his efforts to pass off the village as a town in order to secure a municipal swimming pool had failed. Having now to appear in public in his pyjamas was one humiliation too many. Twenty-seven people attended the first meeting held at the old washing place by the Belle, a square of shallow water on the edge of the river where women traded gossip until running water arrived in 1967. Sitting under the tiled pitched roof, with the scent of wild mint fluttering through the open sides, it took over an hour to sort out the squabbles over code names. Yves Lévèque then declared that it was time for the pot d’amitié, but when he turned to Fabrice Ribou, the bar owner confessed that he had forgotten the drink. Ordered back to the bar for four bottles of red and four of rosé, the chairman then asked Denise Vigier to fetch some plastic cups from her shop. But she insisted on being paid for them, and only started walking down the riverbank to fetch them after the dentist assured her she would be reimbursed from committee funds. Sandrine Fournier then turned to the chairman and enquired: ‘What committee funds?’ It was then that Yves Lévèque asked for a donation of five euros each ‘to further the cause’. The protests were not only loud, but impolite. And by the time they reconvened at the washing place the following week, numbers were already down by half.
Bored of tracing designs in the ground with the stiffened lizard, Émilie Fraisse got to her feet to look round the twelfth-century church. She pushed against the studded, wizened door and immediately inhaled incense laced with mould spores. Descending the stone steps into the crypt, she was surprised to see that the bones of priests wh
o had once served in the church, which had been desecrated during the Revolution, were still scattered on the floor. Back upstairs, where all traces of beauty had been plundered during the same raids, she contented herself with admiring the flourishing emerald fungus which was crawling up to the stations of the cross.
Startled by the viciousness of the sun when she came out, the châtelaine didn’t immediately recognize the person who was standing with his back to her on the steps. It was not until he turned round that she saw that it was Gilbert Dubuisson the postman. Seizing the chance to ask him about a package she was expecting, the châtelaine approached him. It was then that she noticed his unusually smart trousers and a fresh blob of shaving foam the size of a lark’s egg behind his ear lobe, and she suddenly realized that the man she had been waiting for was him. The postman, who looked momentarily taken aback, then kissed her on both cheeks. They then worked out that during the time that she had lived away from Amour-sur-Belle, they had seen each other at three weddings, one cancelled funeral and two annual fêtes in honour of the village patron saint, whose name no one could remember.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll fill you in on what’s been going on,’ said Gilbert Dubuisson, walking towards his car underneath one of the lime trees and opening the passenger door.
As they drove out of the village Émilie Fraisse looked at the memorial to the Three Victims of the Barbarous Germans and asked how Madame Serre was. The postman replied that the old woman still lived next door to Guillaume Ladoucette, and always attended the annual commemoration service at the memorial, as did most of the villagers. He then reminded Émilie Fraisse of how the three villagers had been killed, even though she could never have forgotten. There was one detail, however, that he didn’t tell the châtelaine because neither he nor anyone else outside the Serre family was aware of it. Unlike the other two men who were shot in Amour-sur-Belle by a group of young German soldiers on 19 June 1944, Madame Serre’s twin had never been a member of the Resistance. Too fearful of becoming a maquisard, and too young to be conscripted, Christophe Serre slept in one of the troglodyte caves behind the village during the day and worked on the family’s farm at night to ensure that they had something to eat. It was never known who had whispered to the enemy that he had been involved in subversive activities, but their reward of a plundered ham was guaranteed. On one of the rare occasions that Christophe Serre ventured into the village during daylight, the young German soldiers spotted him talking to the two Resistance members they had come in search of. All three were felled in an instant by a bullet in the head.
For a while Émilie Fraisse sat in silence as she thought of the terrible fate of Madame Serre’s twin, and the savagery of the perpetrators, whom the village had never forgiven. Her mind then turned to the nice German tourist who had visited the château and she found that it was too much to comprehend.
‘Do you remember the mobile butcher?’ asked the postman as they turned left at Brantôme and passed through the avenue of plane trees.
‘Didn’t he die in a car accident?’ asked Émilie Fraisse.
‘Oh, I don’t mean Pierre-Albert Robert, but yes he did, poor soul. It was me who found his car in the ditch at the side of the road. Shocking business. Anyway, watch out for his replacement. They took his licence away for two months earlier this year because he was putting trompettes-de-la-mort mushrooms in his pâté and trying to pass them off as truffles.’
As they passed along the flat-bottomed green valley, the postman then asked: ‘Remember where we were standing on the church steps?’
‘Yes,’ Émilie Fraisse replied.
‘They found Patrice Baudin’s spectacles in the guttering above,’ continued Gilbert Dubuisson. ‘Remember him, the pharmacist? He became a vegetarian after eating Guillaume Ladoucette’s cassoulet, although the matchmaker claims he must have joined a secret cult for his mind to have become so horribly twisted. Anyway, Patrice Baudin blew away during the mini-tornado and Modeste Simon hasn’t spoken since. Fancied him rotten. Some say she’s even hired a private detective to try and find him. But I keep telling them that if she has, the company must use plain envelopes. Of course, Guillaume Ladoucette uses his disappearance as yet more evidence for his ridiculous cult theory. But for God’s sake don’t mention anything to do with pharmacies, severe weather or sudden weight loss the next time you see him as you’ll only get him started.’
Eventually, they reached Saint-Jean-de-Côle and found a parking space on the side of the road, which was unheard of. They walked up the narrow lane that led to the château, across which were strung garlands of tangerine and red paper flowers made in the village hall for the past fortnight by locals thrilled by the recent scandal involving the mayor. When they stopped at the table to pay, Émilie Fraisse got out her purse, but Gilbert Dubuisson politely told her to put it away and that the pleasure was all his. After the back of their hands were stamped with a dark blue tulip, they continued up the narrow lane, past the man with the beard selling honey and candles, and stopped to look at the first flower stall. As they gazed at the battalion of geraniums and pelargoniums in astonishing colours lined up on the ground with the precision of a Roman army, the postman admitted to taking considerable pride in his window boxes. He then pointed out the ‘Madame Nonin’ pelargoniums with their red petals and pink and white centres, and said that he found them most pleasing. Émilie Fraisse, who agreed that they were indeed charming, then pointed to the ones in front, saying she particularly liked their star-shaped leaves, which Gilbert Dubuisson correctly identified as ‘Distinction’. They then both agreed that you should never buy anything from the first stall you come across, and that you should look around first. But as they left, the postman glanced longingly at the ‘Madame Nonin’ pelargoniums and the châtelaine glanced longingly at the ‘Distinctions’, and they considered the worrisome prospect of the stallholder selling out. Within moments, there were two carrier bags of plants behind the counter already paid for to be picked up on their way out.
Bonded by the warmth of an early purchase, they turned right at the end of the narrow lane. Émilie Fraisse instinctively headed towards the stall selling laurels as Guillaume Ladoucette had told her that her match had a particular liking for trees. But when she mentioned this to the postman, he was at an utter loss as to what the matchmaker could have meant.
Stopping for a moment in the main square, they looked at the splendid Château de la Marthonie. The words monument historique were hand-painted on the sign in case anyone doubted its fifteenth-century provenance. They gazed at the marvellous pointed roofs, which clearly did not leak, and took in the floral scented air, which carried no hint of bat droppings.
They then strolled into the open market hall with its ancient wooden pillars and steep tiled roof, but quickly came out, agreeing that the striped petunias were too vulgar for their taste. Instead, they stood and looked at the church behind it and admired the hideousness of the monsters, wrestlers and fearsome beasts carved in the stone beneath the eaves.
As they approached the main street, the postman pointed towards the roofs of the pastel colour houses and asked whether they were the ones referred to as ‘the finest in the Périgord Vert’. And when the châtelaine replied that she thought they had been called ‘the finest in France’, the postman said: ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
Wandering along the stalls, they stopped to gaze at the pepper plants, and when Émilie Fraisse read out their curious names–Bulgarian Carrot, Hungarian Hot Wax, Banana Early Sweet and Jamaican Hot Chocolate–Gilbert Dubuisson asked her where she had mastered her English.
Shortly afterwards, they came across a collection of tiny flowered geraniums underneath a vast umbrella, with a small hand-written sign saying ‘Touch and Smell!’ Émilie Fraisse stretched out a hand, rubbed one of the leaves and brought her fingers to her nose. ‘It smells of walnuts!’ she exclaimed.
The postman then rubbed the leaves of another plant, and smelt his fingers. ‘It smells of eucalyptus!’ he said.
She then rubbed the leaves of another plant. ‘It smells of carrots! How funny,’ she remarked.
As they crossed the Gothic humpback bridge over the river Côle, with its bulbous cobbles the colour of bruises, the postman took the châtelaine’s arm lest she tripped. But there was nothing much to see on the other side since the succulents failed to interest either of them, and when they made their way back over the bridge, Émilie Fraisse took Gilbert Dubuisson’s arm again when it was offered.
‘Shall we have something to drink?’ suggested the postman.
‘What a good idea,’ replied the châtelaine, and they sat down at the bar opposite the rose-seller with her butterscotch, vanilla, raspberry ripple, marmalade and cassis blooms.
Gilbert Dubuisson returned with a bottle of red Saint-Jean-de-Côle, and when they had filled their glasses, they looked around and suddenly noticed how busy it was.
Émilie Fraisse then asked Gilbert Dubuisson about his job, and he told her how much pleasure it gave him. While it meant having to get up early, it left him the rest of the day to please himself. His vines took up a fair bit of his time, he added, and then, of course, he felt morally obliged to pop in to see Guillaume Ladoucette in his shop opposite as he seemed so lonely, and it was only fair that someone should provide him with a little bit of conversation during the day.