by William Bell
Early next morning, well rested, I was on the road again, heading upriver through countryside showing more shades of green than I could have imagined. I came to a small village, parked in the leafy central square by the river, and trudged along a pathway that led into steeply rising hills where a crumbling ruin clung to the top of a rocky crag. The valley narrowed to a wooded gorge, the hills sharpened into cliffs, the river broke up into a long shaded fall of tumbling streams—a confusion of boulders and fallen tree trunks, rocky shelves and steps coated with moss. The cool air was heavy with the odour of vegetation and water. Finally I came to the source of the Sorgue River, called Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, a bottomless translucent green pool enclosed on three sides by sheer walls of rock soaring skyward. My guidebook claimed it was one of the most abundant sources of water in the world.
I sat on a huge boulder, cocooned by the peaceful solitude. I had never been to a place where a river was being born right before my eyes.
After a while I made my way back to the car. A kid was fly fishing from the narrow bridge near the square, his rod held high, his line a gold thread in the sun, hanging in a graceful loop behind him. I motored slowly back toward the town. The car was a time machine, slipping like a breeze through the centuries, rolling past ancient stone houses and outbuildings and fields that had been tilled since before Roman legions passed on their way to Spain or northern Gaul. And there was something more. As I passed slopes carpeted by olive groves, the thin leaves of the trees silvery grey against the sky, I realized what it was.
During the art gallery field trip when I had seen Ninon for the first time, with her jaunty beret and khaki greatcoat and clunky boots, I had learned that Van Gogh and other painters left northern Europe to paint in Provence. In Belgium and the Netherlands—and the place where I lived—the sun’s rays struck the earth at an angle, reducing their intensity. Here, the sunlight poured down into the landscape and flooded the wheat fields and vineyards and fruit groves, illuminating every single blossom and stone and blade of grass, so that the world was bright and clear.
And on that day when I’d commented to Ninon that the sky in Van Gogh’s painting of the yellow house couldn’t have been that blue, she had said, “Oh, in Provence the sky is exactly like that.”
And it was.
After lunch I left the hotel on foot, crossed the footbridge over the basin and followed the river a little way before turning into a lane barely wide enough to admit a car. Three- and four-storey shuttered stone buildings on each side formed a shaded canyon. I passed through Place de la Liberté, where a semicircle of shops, bakeries and a café faced the portals of a nine-hundred-year-old church. Plane trees shaded the cobblestones and the outdoor tables at the Café de France, where Ninon’s father had once worked.
I pulled a map from my pocket. None of the lanes or alleys of this old original part of town followed a straight line—which made sense, in a way, since the village was encircled by the river and seamed by a network of clear shallow streams, some narrow enough to jump across, a few running right under the buildings. On the wider branches, huge iron water wheels at least four metres in diameter revolved slowly, their broad plank paddles and ancient frames green with moss, the water raining down from them in sheets. They had once powered small factories and mills. Now, disconnected, they rotated majestically on their axles with the flow of the Sorgue, like gears in a clock with no hands.
On the quai Frédéric Mistral I found the stone building where Ninon and her parents had lived and where her mother had kept her seamstress shop on the ground floor. The windows were covered by shutters painted yellow and blue. Downstream, within view of the windows, a water wheel revolved. I checked my watch against the position of the sun, then headed to my hotel.
I slept late the next morning. I had lots of time. When I came downstairs the patio tables on the river basin were already busy, the mid-morning sun bright and strong and sparkling on the water. I ate a couple of croissants, pulling them to bits with my fingertips, washing them down with café au lait, and watched the trout glide back and forth over the river’s gravel bottom.
When the sun approached the right spot in the sky, I went to my room and pulled clothes from my backpack, replacing them with Ninon’s funeral urn. I slung the pack onto my shoulders and headed into the village. Liberation Square lay striped and dappled with sunlight and the patio tables were full at the Café de France. I followed rue Pasteur to the quai Clovis Hughes, turned downstream, passing Ninon’s home, and took the footbridge across the river. Along a short distance, a small landing allowed access to the water. A couple of ducks basked in the shade of the bank, heads tucked under their wings. I set down my backpack and took off my shoes. The ducks squawked their disapproval and plopped into the water and drifted downriver on the current.
I sat on the cement slab of the landing, swung my legs around and slipped into the icy river, sucking in my breath from the shock. I turned and removed the globe-shaped brass urn from the backpack and, clutching it tightly under one arm, felt my way along the gravel bottom, my free arm stretched wide for balance. The stones poked hard and cold under my stockinged feet, the relentless current dammed up against my legs.
I crept slowly into the flow, step by awkward step, my thighs quivering from the strain, until I was directly upstream from the water wheel. It revolved casually, its planks streaked with moss, the water hissing and showering like a million diamonds from the rising rust-coloured spokes and blades.
I heard a shout. Risked a glance toward the quay, where a small crowd had gathered. An old man in a jacket and necktie gesticulated with his cane. Others called out warnings, pointing at the water wheel. They wanted me to know that if I lost my balance and fell into the river I’d be swept under the wheel. But with the hot sun on my back, the fresh odour of the water in my nostrils, the aching cold on my skin, I held strong. And I felt a surge of happiness because I was able to do this last thing for the girl I loved. I had brought her home.
It was time. I braced my feet and legs and carefully unscrewed the top of the urn, dropping it into the river. Then, holding the urn firmly with both hands, I tipped it and gently shook Ninon’s ashes into the Sorgue. Her dust ribboned away on the surface of the water, wavering and undulating as if alive, borne downriver to the turning wheel where one after another the broad blades caught her ashes and lifted them up, higher and higher, into the bluest of all the blue skies in the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For generous sharing of their expertise, my sister, Carole Lashbrook, and Tony Gelmen; for reading the manuscript and offering ideas, my children, Dylan, Megan and Brendan Bell.
Thanks as always to my editor at Doubleday Canada, Amy Black, for her support, her insight and her patience.
And for everything, my soulmate, my first reader and helper, my inspiration and guide, Ting-xing Ye.