The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  Gaëlle Dreyfus turned around to look at the judge and smiled when she saw that he was walking on, smoking a cigar, with a pink plastic Monoprix bag swinging in his left hand. Married life, she mused. He’s making dinner or at least doing the shopping. She had been impressed by Antoine Verlaque the previous evening and liked him even more today. Mutual acquaintances had judged him harshly, she thought, calling him a Parisian snob, an epicurean snob, and a ladies’ man. Her friends had told her of the family fortune, made from flour mills, but she hadn’t found Verlaque at all pretentious. Perhaps he had once been but had softened due to Marine’s influence? That was entirely possible.

  She continued up the rue Clemenceau, avoiding looking in the shop windows. The sales were coming up in July, but even with discounts she wouldn’t be buying clothes this season. At any rate, her weakness was for shoes and handbags, and she had enough of both. Five minutes later she was on the rue Granet, a street she had always liked as it contained no restaurants or bars but only small independently owned shops like her own. She rang at number 14 and a voice replied “Montez!” followed by a clicking sound as the red front door opened. They switched locations for meetings, and tonight’s was in the apartment of Anthony Sauze, a history professor at the university. Sauze, a tall, thin, angular man, wore a distinctive thin black moustache matched by a small goatee and round John Lennon–style eyeglasses. He was also the history association’s president and although she had been a board member of the Association Historique Aixoise, or AHA for short, for more than a year, Sauze was so discreet that Gaëlle had no idea if he was married, divorced, gay, or just a confirmed bachelor. When she got to the second floor, the door was open and she was about to say “Hello, Anthony” when the association’s secretary, Robert San Martin, leaned forward and gave her the bise, his breath already smelling of garlic. “Anthony’s in the kitchen,” San Martin announced, brushing crumbs off his wrinkled and gray-looking white shirt. “He’s made this divine anchoïade.”

  Gaëlle nodded. She hated anchovies. She walked into Anthony Sauze’s living room, which could have been in a hotel for businesspeople, it was so devoid of character. The bones were good, though, Gaëlle noted with sadness: high ceiling, carved moldings, and, rare for Aix, wood-paneled floors. There were a few historical etchings on the walls—prints, not originals—in cheap frames, and the furniture was dull and from a catalog, most likely Camif, used by France’s civil servants. Robert San Martin quickly sat back down and smothered a piece of baguette with more of Anthony’s apparently delicious anchoïade. Bénédicte Tivolle, Gaëlle’s neighbor in the Mazarin, looked up from a bowl of olives where she had been sorting through the black ones to find the green ones with a toothpick. Bénédicte taught philosophy at the Lycée Vauvenargues. “Oh, say, Gaëlle. Hello. Anthony’s anchoïade is to die for.”

  “I heard,” Gaëlle replied. “Anthony, are you going to spend all evening in the kitchen?” she hollered. Getting her fellow committee members to actually begin a meeting was always torturous.

  “I’ll be right there,” Sauze called back. She heard a cork pop out of a bottle and leaned back on the vinyl chair, glad there would be wine at least. Sauze came out of the kitchen wearing a plastic apron with Michelangelo’s David on it and Gaëlle laughed out loud. “People actually buy those things in Florence?” she asked.

  Sauze passed the wine bottle to San Martin and looked down at his apron. “My students bought it for me.”

  “Oh, sorry, Anthony,” Gaëlle mumbled.

  Sauze said, “And I remembered that you don’t care for anchovies, Gaëlle, so I have some salami in the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll come and help you, since the anchoïade bowl already needs refilling,” Bénédicte said, staring at San Martin.

  Gaëlle sank guiltily into her chair and watched as San Martin filled their wineglasses to the brim. She opened her mouth to suggest that he only fill them three-quarters, but after the apron comment she decided to stay quiet. Bénédicte and Sauze came out of the kitchen and set down more food on the coffee table. Gaëlle was relieved when Sauze suggested they begin the meeting on time, while they eat, as he wanted to finish early.

  “Hot date, Anthony?” San Martin asked, cutting another piece of bread.

  “There’s a special on Arte this evening about the Cold War,” Sauze replied, looking as dejected as he had when Gaëlle insulted his apron.

  Gaëlle sat forward and clapped her hands. “All right, then, let’s get started. The president has spoken.”

  Robert San Martin fumbled in his man-bag and pulled out a pen and a notebook, which Gaëlle noticed had a photo of a clown blowing bubbles on the front cover. She rubbed her eyes with her fingers and sighed.

  Sauze coughed as he usually did when beginning the meeting. “The meeting of the Association Historique Aixoise is about to begin.”

  Gaëlle glared at San Martin and held her breath. He hollered out, swinging his thick upper body back and forth, “The AHA! Ah-ha! Ah-ha! ‘Knowing me, knowing—’”

  “Robert, if you sing that stinking ABBA song, I’m leaving and taking the anchoïade with me,” Gaëlle said.

  “Our first topic is the hair salon on the rue Espariat,” Sauze cut in. “I’ve just found out that thanks to our complaints, and Bénédicte’s excellent photos, the owner has been asked by the city to change her storefront.”

  The group applauded. “She should change the name, too,” Bénédicte suggested. “Epi-tête! C’est horrible!”

  “Yes,” Sauze said, pulling at his goatee. “One wonders who would want to get their hair cut at a place called Spike Head.”

  “At any rate, a bubblegum-pink storefront has no place on the rue Espariat,” Gaëlle said. “Especially next to a medieval church.”

  “Agreed. Item two,” Sauze announced. “The restaurant on the rue Mistral.” He looked at Bénédicte and Gaëlle, who both lived nearby.

  “I’ll begin this one,” Bénédicte said. “The chef, who’s from Aix, is a very nice young man. And we all know how difficult it is these days to own a small business.”

  “Hear, hear,” Gaëlle said. She tried to smile but still felt outnumbered by the three civil servants (Robert San Martin had some post too high up in the Canal de Provence to ever be fired, despite being a nincompoop).

  Bénédicte went on. “But there is no way that a restaurateur should be allowed to open outdoor seating in the Mazarin.”

  “The restaurants on this side of town have outdoor seating,” Sauze reminded her. Aix-en-Provence was split down the middle by the elegant Cours Mirabeau. To the north was the vieille ville, whose twisting tiny streets revealed the city’s medieval origins. To the south was the ville neuve, or new town—Le Mazarin—built on a grid in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even then the Mazarin had been the more expensive place to live, and it still was. Sauze added, careful not to insult his co–committee members, “But I understand that the neighborhood must be protected. That should have happened here, too, years ago.”

  Bénédicte put her forefinger in the air. “But there’s even more reason not to disturb that garden.”

  “Other than the fact that both you and Gaëlle share it,” San Martin suggested, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Gaëlle was about to jump to their defense when she saw that he had a look of concern on his face: His comment had not been judgmental.

  “Oui,” Bénédicte said, pursing her lips and nodding as she did when explaining a philosophical idea in detail to her students. “La fontaine.”

  “The spring itself is ancient,” Gaëlle added. “And the fountain is listed, built by an anonymous sculptor in 1664. It was constructed in commemoration of a peasant’s execution by hanging on the same spot.”

  “When was that?” San Martin asked.

  “In 1660,” Gaëlle answered. “The year Louis XIV rode into town.”

  “Ah, the Su
n King,” Sauze cut in. “He was a young man then, in Provence to cool down protests against the monarchy. ”

  “He arrived on the seventeenth of January,” Gaëlle quickly said.

  “Good one, Gaëlle,” Bénédicte said, winking. “How can you remember that date so well?”

  “It’s my birthday,” Gaëlle replied.

  “I knew you were a Capricorn,” Bénédicte said, shaking her finger at Gaëlle.

  Sauze coughed. “Back to the seventeenth century. Louis stayed two months in Aix. It was a harsh winter; the Rhône froze in Arles—”

  “I can confirm that,” San Martin said, choking slightly on the tapenade he had eaten too quickly.

  Sauze grimaced and went on. “Louis reviewed his troops every morning and then went to Mass, and in the afternoon the hunt. The beginnings of a great king.”

  Gaëlle laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. He would later bleed the coffers dry. And it wasn’t an entirely joyous visit. There was a hanging . . .”

  “Ah, the peasant who refused to cry ‘Vive le Roi!’ when Louis road into town,” Sauze said.

  “He had a name,” Gaëlle said, her voice cracking. “Valère Maurin. He was twenty-three.”

  “Now I remember . . .” San Martin said. “He was killed in your garden.” He looked at Bénédicte and then over at Gaëlle.

  “That’s right. I’m going to include his story in my walking tour,” Gaëlle said.

  “You can’t take the group into the garden,” Bénédicte quickly said.

  Gaëlle started to protest, “I don’t see what the problem—”

  “Absolutely not,” Bénédicte said.

  Sauze said, “You could stop in front of your shop to tell them about Valère’s murder.”

  “That way you may sell some antiques!” San Martin said, cutting himself a thick slice of salami.

  “Thank you for the suggestion, Robert,” Gaëlle said.

  Sauze laughed and San Martin looked at him, perplexed. He leaned forward and asked, “And the curse? Is it true?”

  “Béatrice Germain—she’s the old woman who lived where the restaurant now is—told me quite a few stories, passed down by her grandparents who originally owned the house,” Gaëlle said. “Valère was hanged from an elm tree that immediately died after his death, and nothing has grown there since. Bad luck seems to strike those who live there or, in Béatrice’s opinion, those who tried to plant in that spot of the garden. Béatrice’s parents tried growing a vegetable garden—”

  “What happened to them?” San Martin asked.

  Sauze rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.

  “They lived into their seventies,” Gaëlle replied, “but lost two sons in World War Two. They were résistants and were shot by the Gestapo, in the garden.”

  “Ah, the plaque on the rue Mistral . . . ,” Sauze commented.

  “Yes, it’s for them. And Béatrice gave birth to a stillborn. Her only child. A few months later her husband walked out. She had no idea whatever happened to him.”

  “That explains the cats.” San Martin slowly set his wineglass on the coffee table. “What a sad story,” he mused.

  “Some families are cursed . . . ,” Sauze said.

  “It wasn’t only their family who had bad luck,” Gaëlle went on. “Every fifty years or so tragedy would strike, and just before”—she paused, swirling the wine around in her glass— “there would be a warning.”

  Robert San Martin’s eyes widened.

  “The spring would stop flowing,” Bénédicte answered.

  Chapter Six

  Lunch at La Fontaine

  T he next morning Bear Valets lay in bed, a freshly made cappuccino at his side, and went over the day’s specials. It was his daily routine: A prep list would form—he could see the written list in his head, jotted down as it usually was, on the closest piece of scrap paper he could find. His was a small kitchen compared to Cavolo Nero’s, and he never had the amount of leftovers that had to be reinvented as the London restaurant had. But still, he was careful with his stock; careful not to waste. The list began: mesclun, carrots, onions, garlic, and potatoes from an organic farmer who delivered; meat and bones from a butcher who drove down from the Drôme twice a week; seafood, also delivered, from Bandol, by a fisherman who hated driving into Aix and constantly complained about it; dairy goods that came with the above-mentioned organic farmer—her in-laws owned a dairy farm in the Savoie; and finally, various dry goods, including premium dried pasta from Italy, Arborio rice, organic polenta, and cases of Tuscan olive oil. Whatever else he was missing, or inspired him at the last minute, he would get at the market. Bear sometimes thought that he spent more time making lists than actually cooking.

  Both Florian and Mamadou had keys to the restaurant, and Bear could hear them thrashing around downstairs—probably fighting over whose music would get played on the kitchen’s cheap boom box. He threw off the covers and dragged himself into the shower. Not every chef could live upstairs above his own restaurant, and that kept Bear sane. Exhausted after the lunch rush he would climb the stairs, shower, and fall into bed, waking up to repeat it all over again for dinner. Florian and Jacques Oller had studios downtown near the Place des Cardeurs, but Bear was ashamed that he didn’t know where Mamadou lived. Could his dishwasher get home over the afternoon break, or did he live too far away? Did he wander the streets of Aix or lie down in the Parc Jourdan? Bear had no idea.

  After he had dressed, Bear walked slowly downstairs, irritated that because of the coffee in his right hand and his meal list in the other, he could not plug his ears. “Florian, turn down your music!”

  Florian looked at his boss across the dining room and shrugged. “I can’t hear you!”

  Bear laughed and looked out of the dining room’s back window. He could see Mamadou sitting on the edge of the fountain, washing leeks and talking to himself. Mamadou had walked in off the street after La Fontaine had first opened and was hired on the spot. He was enthusiastic, and when Bear asked him if he was interested in food and cooking, Mamadou’s eyes lit up. He described in detail the meals he had prepared with his mother on holidays and feast days in Togo. A few days later, as they were chatting during a calm period toward the end of a lunch service, Bear mentioned that Mamadou must miss his family terribly. He thought about all his own family had done for him, and they lived in the same town. The African nodded and turned his back to Bear, picking up a pasta pan to wash it. They hadn’t spoken of his family since.

  “Your music is so loud you’ve chased our dishwasher outside,” Bear said to Florian. He set his coffee cup on the stainless-steel work surface and, reaching around Florian, turned down the music.

  “You’ll never appreciate early nineties’ grunge music,” Florian complained.

  “No,” Bear answered, smiling. “But I do appreciate the way you get here every day on time and never complain about how many times you’ve had to do the same prep.”

  Florian saluted his boss. “Your wish is my command. By the way, I checked the fridge this morning and there’s enough cod from last night to do a lunch special.”

  “Great minds think alike. Let’s do the cod in a curry sauce.”

  Florian raised his eyebrows.

  “Even Italians love curry,” Bear answered. “I’ll add some saffron as they do. It will be our one-dish meal, served with basmati rice. Use a ring for the presentation. How’s our asparagus supply?”

  “We used it all last night.”

  “Let’s go to the market and get some more.”

  “Should we get some fresh cilantro, too? For the curry?” Florian asked.

  “Good idea,” Bear replied.

  The back door opened and Mamadou walked in carrying a colander. “The leeks are cut and washed by pure spring water!” he announced, tilting the colander for Bear to inspect.

  “Thanks,” Bear said
. “We have to wash the mussels and spinach next, dice tomatoes, and crush peppercorns . . .”

  “I’ll start on the mussels,” Florian said, adjusting his apron.

  “What should I do, boss?” Mamadou asked.

  “Say, why don’t you go to the market?”

  Mamadou gave Bear a huge smile. “Just give me the list!”

  Bear told him what to get and gave Mamadou some money out of his back pocket and a large wooden crate. “Just make sure you go to Mme Martin!” Bear hollered as Mamadou hurried out the front door. “Try to get most of the produce from her!”

  Less than an hour later Mamadou was back. “I have a great idea, boss,” he said, setting the crate down gently. “You should put the restaurant’s name on the front of the crate. Free advertising!”

  “Then people would see we buy fresh, too,” Florian added, holding a large meat cleaver in his hand. Mamadou backed away.

  “Florian,” Bear said, pointing to the knife. “I’ve warned you about that a few times. Be careful. Let’s see how you did, Mamadou,” he continued, sorting through the crate. He pulled out a large bunch of fresh cilantro and sniffed it. “Perfect.”

  “And free,” Mamadou said. “Mme Martin didn’t have any, but the young couple across from her did.”

  “The organic kids from Pertuis?”

  “Yes,” Mamadou answered. “I bought the mint and these strawberries from them. Mme Martin had strawberries earlier this morning, but she was already sold out by the time I got there.”