Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  Camille stepped down towards me and placed the wriggly animal in my arms. ‘His name is Bonbon. He’s a chihuahua. Which I guess means that he cost a fortune.’

  The dog licked my face and wagged his plume-like tail so vigorously that his whole body shook. I stroked his silky coat and let him nibble my fingers, forgetting for a moment that Camille was watching me.

  ‘And see,’ she said, ‘he likes you better than me already.’

  I looked up at her. ‘You want me to take him for walks?’

  ‘God, yes,’ she replied, stroking her chin and studying me from head to foot. ‘I’m no good with animals.’

  I cradled Bonbon in my arms, rolling him onto his back and tickling his tummy. It was then I realised that Bonbon was a girl, not a boy.

  Aunt Augustine took half of the fifty centimes Camille Casal paid me to walk Bonbon for an hour. But I didn’t care because of the chance it gave me to be out of the grim house. Each time I stepped out the door and Bonbon pranced ahead of me, leading me through the crooked streets and out on to the quays, I felt that I was living again. We listened to restaurant hawkers plying their dishes and the gypsies playing violins. Bonbon and I strolled along Marseilles’ main boulevard, the Canebière, stopping to sniff the roses bursting from buckets in the doorway of a florist or to ‘window lick’ outside the chocolaterie, where we watched pralines being packed into boxes tied with gold bows. Whether we passed the men drinking apéritifs in the sidewalk cafés or the women in their hats and pearls, sipping their cafés crèmes, they all lifted their eyebrows to see a girl in a faded dress walking a dog with a diamanté collar.

  One afternoon when Bonbon and I returned home, the prostitutes from the house next door were standing on their doorstep, waiting for the evening trade. They shrieked when they saw me with Bonbon.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got on the end of your string? A rat?’ the one closest to us laughed.

  Although Aunt Augustine had told me not to speak to our neighbours, I couldn’t help smiling at the women. I picked up Bonbon and held her out to them. They scratched her under the chin and stroked her fur. ‘She’s a cute one. Look at those ears—bigger than she is,’ they said.

  It was only close up that I realised the women were much older than they appeared at a distance. Their wrinkles and blotched skin showed through the layers of powder and rouge, and the rose water scent that wafted from their hair and clothes could not hide the musty smell of their skin. Although the women were smiling and laughing, they made me sad. When I looked into their eyes, I saw broken dreams and thwarted chances.

  As soon as Bonbon reached the doorstep of Aunt Augustine’s house her tail drooped, and I was sure that if I’d had a tail it would have been drooping too. I bent down and scratched the ruff around her neck and tickled her ears.

  ‘I’ll have her as a boarder,’ I heard Aunt Augustine say as I stepped into the front room, ‘but I won’t have such a woman wandering about the house or bringing home men.’

  I closed the door as quietly as I could. Bonbon’s claws scratched on the floorboards and she plunked herself down, staring at me with her intelligent eyes. I swept her up and tucked her into my pocket, then crept towards the kitchen to hear more of what Aunt Augustine was saying. There was a tilted mirror on the picture rail in the dining room and reflected in it was my aunt sitting at the kitchen table with her feet in a bucket. Ghislaine was cleaning some mussels, tossing the empty shells into a basket. Aunt Augustine lowered her voice and I had to strain my ears to hear her.

  ‘They wear practically nothing. Nothing!’ she hissed. ‘The women stick a piece of material over themselves with spirit gum and the men put padding…well…you know where.’

  I clamped my hand over my mouth to suppress a giggle. How did Aunt Augustine know all this?

  Ghislaine waited until she had shelled her last mussel before she answered. ‘I don’t think Simone will be corrupted just by walking Camille’s dog.’

  Although Marseilles had frightened me at first, I came to like the city on my walks with Bonbon. The Vieux Port was picturesque in the long Provençal twilight. At that time of day there was none of the harried toing and froing that there was at dawn when the fish market opened. The evening walkers promenaded at their leisure. The barkers were out in force, luring people into their restaurants from which the smells of garlic and fish stew wafted in spicy currents. Gypsies gathered on the quays, selling woven baskets and tinware or enticing passers-by to have their palms read and fortunes told. Ghislaine had told me they were arriving from all over Europe for the annual festival of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer and would spend most of the summer in southern France. The air was alive with violin music and singing. The yellow and red skirts the dancers wore made me think of the wildflowers that dotted the hillsides in Pays de Sault, and reminded me that now I had a bit of money I could reply to Aunt Yvette’s letter and tell her and my mother how I was keeping.

  I passed one stall with what I thought were plucked birds strung up between two posts. The meat smelt gamy and I asked the seller what it was. He scratched his head and tried to draw the creature in the air with his finger before he remembered the French term: le hérisson. Hedgehog. I recoiled and scurried away. The bodies resembled Bonbon too much for my liking.

  A seagull squawked overhead. I followed its path through the sky and watched it land on the dock. At the same time I noticed Camille standing at a fruit wagon on the corner of Rue Breteuil. She held a bunch of irises wrapped in newspaper in one arm, and pointed out some grapes to the grocer with the other. Her blondeness stood out amongst all the dark faces like a streetlamp in a dim alley. She was wearing her green dress with an Indian shawl draped over her shoulders and her hair swept back from her face with a ribbon. After collecting her purchase, she glanced in my direction. But if she saw me, she gave no indication of it and turned in the direction of the Canebière.

  She must be on her way to the music hall, I thought. Bonbon wriggled in my arms and I set her down on the ground. She scampered her way through the tangle of legs, running towards Camille and tugging me after her. It was a strange thing for Bonbon to do, for she was much more attached to me than to her mistress. I wondered if she understood how much Camille stimulated my curiosity and was giving me a chance to talk to her away from the house.

  The Canebière was crowded at the best of times but it was especially so that night because of the gypsies. For once I was thankful for my unfeminine height because I could just make out Camille’s blonde head bobbing among the sea of others in front of us. She turned into an avenue shaded by plane trees; Bonbon and I followed behind. The street was crowded with well-turned-out women walking arm in arm with their sophisticated companions. Food vendors lined up their carts against the gutters and ripe melons and peaches scented the air. Bonbon pranced on, ignoring the bejewelled poodles and fox terriers that wagged their tails and sent her longing glances. Had she travelled this way before? I wondered. Was she remembering her way home?

  It seemed devious to be following Camille but I couldn’t get close enough to her to call out. At each corner I hoped that she would turn around and see me, but she never did. She marched on, fixed on her destination. After a while, she turned into a narrow street whose houses blocked the last rays of sun. The cobblestones reeked of alcohol and vomit. The façades of the houses—those that weren’t covered with ivy—were eyesores of peeling paint. Prostitutes, much scrawnier than those who lived next door to us, peered from the doorways, beckoning to the groups of sailors loitering on the streets. I picked up Bonbon and glanced over my shoulder, wary of going any further into the side streets but too scared to turn back either.

  Camille disappeared around a corner and I broke into a run to keep up with her. I found myself in a square with a fountain in the centre. At the end of it was an enormous stone building with four columns and a carved panel of dancing nymphs on either side of its double doors. Le Chat Espiègle, the sign above it read. The building was grand in size but dilap
idated in detail. The columns were cracked and stained and the reliefs, probably once white, were black with grime. I reached the fountain in time to see Camille enter an alley at the side of the building. I bolted across the square in pursuit, and was about to call out to her when she ran up some stairs and disappeared through a door. I hesitated a moment, wondering if I should follow her. I climbed the steps and turned the latch, but the door was locked. The faint strains of piano chords and a tappety-tap sound drifted out through an open window on the second floor. Bonbon pricked up her ears and I stopped to listen.

  Footsteps echoed on the cobblestones and I jumped down the stairs and hid behind some crates of rubbish. I was just in time to miss being seen by a procession of women coming towards us. They were young and slender with short hair and pretty faces. I eased myself further back into the scrunched newspapers and empty bottles. The air smelt of gin and fish. Bonbon lowered her ears and pressed her head close to my chest.

  A redheaded girl strode up the stairs and rapped on the door. The others slouched on the railing or sat down. They wore fashionable dresses, cut just below the knee, but even from where I crouched I could see that the lace was stiff and the dull beads were cheap.

  A girl with peroxide-blonde hair took a comb out of her bag and ran it through her fringe. ‘I’m hungry,’ she moaned, bending forward and wrapping one hand around her stomach.

  ‘That’s what happens when you don’t eat,’ the girl next to her said. Her accent was stilted, and although she had elegant features she spoke ‘washerwoman’ French.

  ‘I can’t eat,’ replied the first girl, looking over her shoulder at the redhead who was banging on the door again. ‘The rent’s due tomorrow.’

  ‘Mon Dieu! The heat!’ complained a dark-haired girl, dabbing at her florid face with a handkerchief. ‘I’m wilting like a flower.’

  ‘It’s died down a bit,’ said the hungry girl. ‘It was worse this afternoon. I was dripping greasepaint. They won’t turn on the fans for rehearsals.’

  The redheaded girl turned around. ‘Marcel dropped me during the Arabian dance.’

  ‘I saw!’ exclaimed another girl. ‘You fell right into the puddle of sweat at his feet.’

  ‘Lucky I didn’t drown!’ the redhead roared.

  The other girls giggled.

  The latch clicked and they sprang up into a line, as if by force of habit. The door swung open. ‘Bonsoir, Albert!’ they sang out one by one before disappearing into the darkness.

  Bonbon wriggled and licked my fingers. I was about to stand up when I heard more footsteps on the cobblestones and ducked down again. I peeped between the piles of rubbish to see a matronly woman heading towards us with a stack of hatboxes in her arms. The boxes were so high that she had to peer around them to see where she was going. Two swarthy-looking men with instrument cases tucked under their arms followed not far behind. The threesome came to a stop at the door and one of the men knocked. As with the girls, they waited a few minutes for it to open before disappearing inside. Although my calves and feet were aching, and Bonbon was squirming in my arms, I was mesmerised by the parade of people passing by. Compared to my life of drudgery, they possessed mystery.

  The door opened and I jumped. A man stepped out and cast an eye over the street. I was sure that he would see me, but his gaze stopped short of my hiding place. Despite the heat he was wearing an overcoat that reached to his heels and the collar of his shirt was turned up. The man propped the door open with a brick and leaned on the railing for a moment before reaching into his pocket and assembling a cigarette. My right ankle was burning from crouching and I shifted my foot to ease the cramp. My shoe knocked a wine bottle and sent it rolling into the gutter where it came to a stop with a clink. The man wheeled around and our eyes met. My breath caught in my throat. ‘Well, hello there,’ he said, scratching the stubble on his chin.

  ‘Hello,’ I replied, standing up and straightening my dress. Then, unable to think of a reason to be hiding in the rubbish, I said, ‘Good evening’ and ran off down the alley.

  Intrigued by what I had seen, and having no other entertainment, I returned to the theatre the following night. But when I reached the alleyway it was deserted. I thought that perhaps Le Chat Espiègle didn’t have a show on Saturday nights and raced around to the cashier, who assured me that they did and pointed to the ticket prices. I returned to the alley. There were strains of a violin warming up and I was reassured that I would be entertained again by the arriving performers. I found an empty crate amongst the rubbish and set it under the awning of the junk shop opposite the stage door. I sat down on the box with Bonbon in my lap, clasped my arms around my knees and stared expectantly at the corner. I didn’t have to wait long before the chorus girls showed up, giggling and parading like a line of ducklings on their way to the pond. The redheaded girl spotted me first. ‘Bonsoir!’ she called out, not in the least surprised to see a girl sitting on a box with a dog on her knee. The other girls nodded or smiled as they passed. They knocked on the door, it opened and they disappeared into the darkness.

  A while later, three men and two women appeared from around the corner. I was struck by the way they marched rather than walked, their broad shoulders pushed back and their chins pointing skyward. The men’s arms were as thick as tree trunks while the women’s limbs were sinewy and their faces taut. Two of the men carried a trunk between them. When they were closer I could see the words ‘The Zo-Zo Family’ painted on the side along with a picture of six trapeze artists balanced on a tightrope. The rope was strung over a river of crocodiles and in the background I could see mountains and prehistoric-looking trees. There were six acrobats in the picture and five people in the group. I wondered what had happened to the sixth performer.

  One of the women knocked on the door. It opened and this time I could see the figure of the doorman lurking in the shadows. After the acrobats had entered, he stepped out on the landing.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘You’re early. Usually we don’t let fans in until after the performance. And then only if they’ve paid to see the show.’

  My heart pounded. I had a terrible feeling that he was going to send me away. I stammered that I only wanted to see the performers arriving, and that I didn’t have money to see the show itself, but that if I did have the money I would certainly pay to enter his fine establishment. The doorman’s eyes twinkled and the corner of his mouth twitched.

  A man wearing a battered suit with worn knees and a white shirt with a grey tinge to it walked towards us. His eyes were fixed on a crumpled piece of paper he was holding. His other hand was jammed into his pocket.

  ‘Bonsoir, Georges,’ the doorman called out. The man stopped for a moment and glanced up but didn’t return the greeting. He mumbled something to himself and climbed the stairs. The doorman raised his voice and repeated, ‘Bonsoir, Georges.’ When the other man still didn’t respond, the doorman blocked the passageway with his body and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘It’s bad manners enough to not greet me,’ he said. ‘But can’t you at least say “Bonsoir” to the young lady and her dog over there? They’ve been waiting to see you.’

  The man lifted his eyes to the doorman, then turned around and threw me a fearsome glance. Bonbon recoiled and yapped.

  The man’s brow wrinkled as if he had just woken from a dream. ‘Bonsoir,’ he nodded sternly at us before slipping past the doorman into the darkness. His pock-marked complexion and hollow eyes made a macabre impression on me. I wondered if he was one of those black magicians I had read about, the ones who cut pretty girls in half with a saw.

  The doorman watched the man disappear. ‘That’s the comic,’ he grinned.

  The sound of heels echoed on the cobblestones. Tap! Click! Tap! Click! All three of us looked up. Camille was walking down the alley, her legs stockingless because of the heat. She was wearing a red dress and her hair was swept to the side with a comb. Perched behind one ear was an orchid. She picked grapes from the bunch she carried i
n her hand and slipped them into her mouth one by one, chewing each globe thoughtfully while staring into the distance. Heavier footsteps followed behind her. I saw a man in top hat and tails turn the corner, a bunch of roses tucked under his arm. I was wondering what his line of entertainment was when he let out a moan of pain: ‘Caaamiiille!’

  I shivered with the sound of it. But if he was hoping for a reaction from Camille, he didn’t get one. She strolled on with her eyes fixed on the stage door, not even seeing me. The man’s face reddened and he bit his lip. He was about thirty years old but his puffy cheeks and weak chin made him look like a baby.

  ‘Camille,’ he pleaded, running up behind her.

  Her brow pinched and she turned to face her pursuer. ‘Can’t you leave me alone for even a minute?’ she snarled.

  The man paused and swallowed, then took a step forward. ‘But you promised.’

  ‘You’re boring me. Go away,’ she said, her voice rising. The man stiffened. He shot a glance at the doorman who returned the look with an expression of sympathy.

  ‘You’ll meet me after the show, won’t you?’

  ‘What for?’ Camille shrugged. ‘So you can give me another dog? I gave the first one away.’

  Bonbon pricked up her ears. I assumed that the man must be Monsieur Gosling, the admirer who had given Bonbon to Camille after she received five curtain calls. He looked out of place in the surroundings.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Camille, jabbing her finger into his chest. ‘I don’t let people treat me like a toy. I don’t have time for anyone who’s not serious.’

  She pushed him out of her way and was halfway up the stairs when Monsieur Gosling let out another groan and dipped at the knees. I thought he was either going to faint or crawl after her. He pulled out the roses, which he had been holding under his arm. I was sure that it was the wrong time to make the gesture to Camille. Her mouth formed into a cruel smile. She looked as though she was about to spit out a scalding remark, when she paused and stared at the flowers. Something she saw in them made her change her mind. Her face softened like a bud opening to the rain.