The Body in the Vestibule ff-4

by Katherine Hall Page

  How fascinated Tom would be with all this, she thought as she picked a few wildflowers, then looked at them slightly dazed, dropped them, and pinched herself. Keep walking. Keep moving. Don't stop. She started to say it out loud. It wasn't a desert, though it felt like one. Everything was so flat. She wasn't thirsty—there had been a stream in the woods—but mirages seemed to beckon. She thought she saw a cross ahead of her. She was hallucinating.

  “Don't waste my time!" Michel slammed the receiver down. He'd sent Tom back to the Leblancs ostensibly to check on Benjamin, but in reality to keep him from hearing too much of what was going on. Now Faith had been sighted in the chorus at the Folies Bergere in Paris.

  Gina Martignetti had disappeared into thin air. There was no record of anyone of that name and age living in Rome. Giovanni had been grilled but apparently knew nothing at all. The other two prostitutes, Marilyn and Monique, had also gone underground—and Michel hoped not literally. Everybody was missing and he was at a loss to figure out what it all meant. ^ It was a cross. Intricately carved and standing straight up. Cared for. No lichen. Which meant someone came here sometimes. Faith took it as the good sign it was and continued to walk. She was slowing down and she saw her shadow lengthen. It would be dark soon.

  Where was Christophe now? she wondered. Far, far away. Having failed to find her, she assumed he would have made for the nearest border. Spain? Poor Solange and Jean-Fransois. A child like that wasn't just sowing wild oats, but bad seeds. She'd feel a whole lot sorrier for them if she hadn't been the victim, or one of them.

  The two girls must have heard the shots or maybe they'd left by then. She couldn't figure out where they fit in or what the business with the clochards and the break-ins meant. She certainly had plenty of time to try now. She matched her steps to her mental gymnastics. The kids figure out who's going to be out of town and one of them robs the apartment—or maybe a pair of them. More than that would be too risky. She wondered how many kids were involved. Could there be a giant ring of adolescent cambri-oleurs in Lyon? Christophe, Dominique, Berthille, and the other boy, Benoit, had seemed so tight at the gallery—a little world unto themselves. She wouldn't be surprised if it was just the four of them. So they robbed the apartments and what did they do with the stuff? Hard to explain to Maman where the new diamond and emerald choker had come from.

  “I don't care about the clochards," Dominique had said, and something about their being lazy and drunk, that they could get jobs. Was it some sort of nouveau Robin Hood enterprise? Steal from the bourgeoisie and give to the poor? Passing the loot to Christophe's uncle to hand out to his friends? But the first time one of them tried to buy a bottle of wine at Monoprix with a gold medallion of the Sun King, the smiling lady at the register would be more likely to call the police than say "Merci beaucoup. Bonne journee," as she invariably did. So polite—like everyone else in other stores.

  And what about Faith's own clochard? The dead one. Bernard. Had he wanted too many goodies? No, the whole thing didn't make any sense at all, she thought wearily. And how did Marie connect with the kids? She wouldn't have been afraid of them. She'd have told their parents.

  Faith realized the land was sloping down again and decided to follow it. Nothing except sheep or goats could live on such a plateau. She might not know a great deal about animal husbandry, but this much was clear. She wouldn't mind encountering a sheep or two about now. They'd make cozy companions for the cold night ahead, plus she did have a very serviceable knife and a few matches. There was plenty of rosemary around. She began to salivate. Bo Peep would have done the same thing in Faith's place, she was sure.

  But there were no sheep and she started down the slope that soon became a steep incline. She had to walk sideways to keep from tumbling forward on the loose stones. The sun set slowly. It was glorious, streaking vivid pinks and oranges across the sky until they faded to deep violet. Another night alone. Yet, she was still alive, she'd saved her baby's life, and in the morning, she was sure she would come across a road and find help. She had faith, she told herself—both.

  Before long it was pitch-dark, but soon the moon rose, a bright golden half, joined by more stars than she had ever realized existed in the firmament. She noticed she was now following a rough track that showed an occasional tire mark in the ruts. Faith didn't think any find could excite her more than the Missoni sweater dress marked 50 percent off that she'd unearthed at Bergdorfs last January, but it paled in comparison with the exquisite pattern of these tires— proof that civilization and help were at hand. This track couldn't be called a road, yet it was bound to lead somewhere.

  It did. Straight down again.

  Standing at the top, Faith thought she detected the glimmer of a light far off in the distance. Without hesitating, she eagerly followed the trail down toward the speck and was rewarded to find it steadily enlarge as she moved closer. The way leveled off again, but the light did not disappear, and after about a half hour, she stood looking at a large, two-story stone house with a variety of outbuildings. An old Citroen truck was parked outside and she felt like kissing its fenders. The light was coming from the ground-floor front windows and she summoned all the energy she had left to go to the door and lift the heavy iron knocker. It fell with a thunderous bang. She was weeping in relief.

  The door opened wide immediately and a dramatic figure filled the frame. It was a very large man in his late forties, dressed like a farmer, but under his beret, his graying hair reached almost to his shoulders, where it mixed with a long beard, creating confusion as to where one left off and the other began. His bushy eyebrows rose slightly in mild surprise and he said in an incongruously soft voice, "Vous etes perdue, mademoiselle?”

  Very, very perdue. Tres, tres lost, Faith reflected as she answered, "Out.”

  A woman's voice called something out and the man stepped back, telling Faith to come in. It was a farmhouse, not unlike the one she had left but larger, and a different decorator had been employed—or rather, it was a matter of self-employment and frozen in tune at some point during the late sixties. Batik wall hangings, pots of geraniums swinging in macrame planters, and furniture that had been scrounged and/or made from scratch. She'd entered a time warp—a sensation heightened by the immediate appearance of the lady of the house, who wore her salt and pepper hair parted in the middle and down to her waist. She was clothed in multiple layers constructed, surely by her own hands, from bright, well-worn India-print cottons. Sandals with several pairs of wool socks completed the look—a look that identified the individual as belonging not so much to a particular nation as to the whole world—in 1968.

  “Pauvre petite!" the apparition exclaimed, and quickly pushed a chair stacked with pillows toward Faith. Faith let herself sink gratefully into their softness. She'd made it. She was safe.

  The man and woman began to speak at once, quickly. It was impossible.

  “Parlez-vous anglais?" Faith asked. She was so tired and speaking French took so much concentration.

  “You are English!" The man was thunderstruck. There might be some logical reason for a Frenchwoman to be wandering around what Faith would soon learn were the Gausses Mejean in the dark, but English? To be sure, they could be eccentric ...

  “No, I am an American and I hope you will be able to help me."

  “American! Sacrebleu!" Faith hoped he would not go into orgies over Route 66 or the Large Apple, or, judging from the posters of Che, Lennon, Roman Polanski's A Knife in the Water and the like, American foreign policy for the last twenty-five years.

  There were wonderful smells coming from the kitchen and she wanted to eat, but first she had to call Tom. Maybe call Tom while she was eating. She had to have something, anything, even a crust of yesterday's baguette.

  “American," he repeated in amazement. "But what are you doing here? Have you been with some kind of hiking group? At this time of year, it is not advisable, you know.”

  How to explain it.

  “My name is Faith Fairchild and
my husband, child, and I are visiting in Lyon. . . ."

  “Lyon! But that is two hundred kilometers away at least!"

  “Yes, I know. Do you think perhaps I could have something to eat and some water while I explain? I'd also like to make a phone call. Then, if you could take me to the nearest police station, I'm sure they will arrange for me to get back to my husband.”

  Faith didn't think she had made a joke, but her queries seemed to cause both her hosts great amusement.

  “Madame, the food is no problem, but you understand you are not in the centre ville of Lyon here. We have no phone, no electricity at all, and the nearest police station is in Meyrueis—fourteen kilometers away," explained the woman.

  “We would be happy to take you there," her husband continued, "but our fine old truck has at last refused all our attempts to start it and at the moment we are dependent on others to get our things to market. Tomorrow a friend will be here early to take us to Meyrueis and you can come, too.”

  Tomorrow! As pleasant as these people seemed—Faith was already planning on sending them an extremely nice bread-and-butter gift, shoes perhaps, or a new truck, which it was a shame someone hadn't thought of earlier—the idea of another night away from Tom and Ben when they still didn't know she was safe was too much. She put her head in her hands and began to sob.

  Mama and Papa Bear, as Faith had begun to regard them, were galvanized into action. He thrust a large glass of what smelled like pure alcohol into her hand, while his wife set a steaming bowl of thick vegetable soup on a low table next to Faith's chair. Faith sniffed mightily and wiped her eyes on the rough sleeve of the sweater she was wearing. Hard to know how to go about returning it, she thought disconnectedly as she set the glass down and grabbed the soup.

  “Thank you. Merci, you are so kind. It's just that no one knows where I am. I was kidnapped yesterday morning and only succeeded in escaping this morning."

  “Kidnapped! Terrorists! Here in the Cevennes!"

  “No, no, it was a neighbor in Lyon. You see he killed a clochard and I found the body, then he hid the body again and had his uncle pretend to be the clochard—" Faith stopped. Both their faces had "escaped madwoman" written in Bodoni bold type straight across their granny glasses. She hastily slurped down the rest of the soup. It was delicious.

  “I am not crazy, although I admit the story sounds bizarre. I should start from the beginning and tell you the whole thing."

  “But of course, madame. Let us sit in the kitchen. We were about to have our meal. If you sip some of this"—he indicated the glass Faith had set aside—"you will feel warm and perhaps calmer. It is my own eau de vie. I make it from the plums."

  “I'm sure it's wonderful, but I am pregnant and avoiding alcohol.”

  This was the last straw, as far as madame was concerned. Lost, kidnapped, pregnant. She virtually carried Faith out to the kitchen, tenderly installed her in a chair near the hot cast-iron stove, and began to assemble the meal rapidly.

  When it was ready, Faith had the distinct impression it was more than what had originally been planned.

  “I hope you like French food. Ours is very simple. We make everything here. It is not Paul Bocuse, but Clotilde," monsieur said proudly, with a sweeping gesture. Faith was amused that the chefs fame had spread to this tiny corner of the world, yet why not when his well-fed, smiling face appeared in restaurants and on products from Tokyo to Disney World.

  Clotilde was not Bocuse, but she was right up there. Dish after dish appeared on the round kitchen table: a fluffy omelet oozing with sauteed mushrooms, crisp pan-fried new potatoes, and thick slices of tripoux, which Faith recognized as a regional speciality—round sacks of tripe stuffed with an assortment of the chopped tripe, vegetables, and aromatic herbs. It was all sublime. This was followed by salad, picked moments ago, and fresh goat cheese made by madame herself, fromage fermiere. Throughout the meal, Faith devoured slice after slice of bread, a dense, chewy combination of white and whole wheat, pain de campagne, made in the oven sending out such comforting waves of warmth. She was just beginning to feel well and truly fed for the first time in days when her hostess produced a jar of apricots, spooning the succulent-looking fruit into large bowls and liberally dousing them with cream. The coffee appeared and Faith started her tale.

  By the time she had reached her escape from the kitchen closet, Clotilde and Frederic, first names having been urged at the same time as seconds of the omelet, were in tears—hers of sorrow and his of anger.

  Frederic exploded. He jumped out of his chair and pounded his fist on the table. "If only I could get my hands on this boy! Boy! He does not deserve to be called anything human. And what is even worse is that he is not alone. It is the majority of youth today. They have no morals to speak of, live solely for the sensation of the moment. They have nothing to fight for. They do not care. It is total anomie. They cannot make love without thinking of SIDA. They believe a nuclear war will occur. And look at us with all our potential Chernobyls and Three Mile Islands waiting to happen. We are in the last stages of the degeneracy of the capitalist state. They are the offspring of our failure.”

  Clotilde took up the chant. "They drift with nothing to do, nothing to believe in. At least we had a cause to cling to and it kept us alive. We have tried to live the rest of our life according to those ideals. That was why we came here to the Cevennes. We believe this is the real France, rural areas as yet unspoiled. We could be self-sufficient and live simply. It was very hard at first and many have left, but here, away from everything, we could bring up our children without the omnipresence of the world military-industrial complex and the corruption of a materialistic society.”

  Faith looked around. She didn't see evidence of any children. Perhaps there hadn't been any little pattering feet.

  “You did not have children?" she asked.

  “But of course we have children. Two—to replace ourselves. More would have been selfish. They are called Honore and Verite. Actually, Verite is legally called Valerie, because Verite is not on the list."

  “List?"

  “Yes, in France you must name your child an accepted French name. We wanted to name her 'truth,' but had to register her as Valerie. We have always called her Verite and I am happy to say she prefers it herself.”

  So, no little Moonflowers, Ringos, or Vladimir Ilyiches as a legacy of the times of turmoil in France. Faith often wondered how many of these had changed to Susan, William, or other common monikers upon entering junior high, that great leveler where blending in takes precedence over such mundane things as individual beliefs.

  “Where are your children now?" Faith wondered aloud. Surely it was too early for them to be upstairs tucked in their wee trundle beds. Although these children would be older.

  “Our daughter is studying to be a lawyer and is in Marseille. She is hoping to change the system from within. We have some interesting discussions about it. And our son works in a garage in Narbonne.”

  This didn't sound very revolutionary—within or without—or an occupation that would give rise to interesting conversations, but Faith refrained from comment.

  Honore's mother explained, "We believe each child must be what he or she wants to be. We only hope we have taught them to be honest and hard-working, and perhaps a bit of our philosophy of brotherhood, sisterhood, and peace. Honore was never a student and he didn't want to stay on the farm. He loves to work with engines, so this was a good job for him. And he comes home often to help us." Too bad he hadn't made a trip home recently to tinker with Old Faithful out in front of the house, Faith thought ruefully.

  They had gotten far afield of Christophe, yet Faith didn't mind. She was pleasantly full and getting sleepy.

  Clotilde and Frederic's life intrigued her. Did not beckon— not at all—but definitely intrigued.

  “Don't you get lonely here, and how did your children get to school?"

  “We are not so remote as you may imagine. We go to the market each week to sell what we gro
w and make. There we see our friends and also we all help each other when it is time to shear the sheep or repair a barn. It seems we are always going to parties, too. True, there are few of us here, but we know each other well. In the summer, we take guests and we've met many friends that way. One couple from England comes every year for two weeks in August to walk across the causses, the plateaus, and go into the ovens, caves—Aven Armand, a wonderful one, is not too far. It is a shame you cannot stay longer."

  “She doesn't want to sightsee, Frederic! She only wants to get back to her husband and small boy.”

  Frederic was a bit chagrined.

  “I hope to come back with them someday and then we will see all these places," Faith hastened to assure him. He seemed so proud of the region. "Did you grow up here?”

  This time, they did laugh out loud.

  “Frederic grew up in the eighth arrondissement in Paris and his only hikes were in the Pare Monceau. I fared a little better. I grew up in a suburb of Paris, but my grandparents had a house in Brittany and the best part of my childhood was going there.

  “You asked about our children. We taught them here. You can do this by mail. The government sent the lessons and we followed them with some revisions and additions of our own." Faith could well imagine. "Then when they were old enough for lycee, they went to live with Frederic's parents. It was quite a different life, but it did not spoil them and they were happy to come back here for all the va-cances." Her pride was evident.

  Faith knew the area around the Pare Monceau well— the beautiful homes, nurses keeping a close eye on their privileged charges in the carefully manicured park with the ubiquitous KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs. If Frederic appeared there in his present state, he'd be told to move on.

  The contrast was enormous and her head was aching with all that had happened that day. Fatigue was causing things to blur. This much was clear: She had escaped, made her way across the rugged Cevennes landscape to the door of the local chapter of the Scott and Helen Nearing fan club, and now she wanted to find a bed, collapse, wake up, and go home.