Marlena de Blasi

by Amandine (v5)

  Catulle has invited Amandine to sit with him in the garden. He has set out two heavy iron chairs under the apple trees. Though it’s still light, he has lit a small lantern, hung it from a tree branch.

  “Amandine, I understand your wanting to get to Madame Jouffroi. Though I don’t know all of your story, I know that, well, I know enough to understand why you would like to see her.”

  “Do you know about Solange?”

  “Yes. I know that she was your guardian, that you and she were traveling north to her home. I know that she was killed.”

  Catulle waits. Amandine, satisfied that he knows this much, at least this much, waits for him to proceed.

  “But it isn’t possible. Not now. It’s not the imprudence of trying that I’m against but the futility of it. There is no way to get through. There would have been no way for you and Solange to get through. Their village lies in what the boche have designated ‘the forbidden zone.’ It’s an area that has been, well, it’s been cut off from the rest of France. No one can get out, no one can get in. Not without authorization. Not without permission.”

  “How do I get permission?”

  “You don’t. You can’t. I meant military permission, authorization. And those do not apply to you. Please listen. Just as I believe Dominique and her friends did, my friends and I have done our best to contact Madame Jouffroi. We’ve even tried to contact people who might know her, people who live nearby. The search has been an empty one, Amandine.”

  “Do you mean that she’s dead?”

  “No. Not at all. It’s likely that Madame Jouffroi and her mother, her daughters, it’s likely that they were displaced by the boche. That means that the boche could have taken over their house, their farm. That’s probably what happened. Until the war is over, until people begin to return to their homes, to their villages, there’s not much to be done. Can you try to begin thinking of this as your home? Not for a week or a month. Perhaps for a very long time.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. As you’ve come to realize already in this brief, inconceivable life of yours, no one of us knows very much at all.”

  “It seems to me that everyone is either dead or hiding. Or lost or waiting.”

  Catulle is quiet. He looks at Amandine, looks away. “You’ve just about covered all the possibilities. But I am not dead. And Madame Isolde is not, and all the—”

  “I know, but you could be by tomorrow, and Madame Isolde could go for a walk and not ever come back because the boche decided to shoot her, let her fall into a ditch, and then cover her up with dirt. And where is Dominique, and where are your sons? Where is Solange’s mother? Where is mine?”

  This is the most that Amandine has spoken since Solange’s death. Perhaps it is more than she has ever spoken. The most she has given voice to the words that stay inside. Philippe and Baptiste, Paul and the convent girls. Josette. They march past her now. Solange is there. Hedy Lamarr, who impersonates her mother, she is there. She looks at this man sitting near her. Wonders why he is crying.

  “That’s the part of your story that I know less of, Amandine. I know that you’re an orphan. That—”

  “I don’t know much more than that, myself, monsieur. Just as it says on my papers: mother, unknown; father, unknown. I worry so much about her. Not so much about my father. I don’t know why I’ve never wondered about him, but I think it might be because of Philippe. Père Philippe. He was a priest at the convent. I used to think that he was my father. That was when I was very little. And so he sort of became him. You know, became my father. But even though I used to think that the abbess in the convent was my mother, when I learned that she wasn’t, well, eventually I was glad. Glad that she wasn’t my mother. Do you understand?”

  “I think so. Because she wasn’t, she wasn’t …?”

  “Like a mother. Solange was. I guess I’ve had two mothers. One is dead, and one is lost. I miss the one who’s dead and I worry about the one who’s lost.”

  “You worry about her?”

  “Of course. Wouldn’t you worry about your mother if she was lost? I don’t even know her name. How shall I find her, how shall I begin?”

  “Maybe it’s she who must find you.”

  Built of round gray stones, it is long and low, Catulle’s house. Endlessly turning corners and forming small river-shale-paved courtyards from which curved wooden doors—each painted with an appropriate fruit or vegetable—open onto root cellars and pantries and a wine cave, it would be the typical mid-eighteenth-century village house of, perhaps, a prosperous merchant or, in his case, a prosperous farmer who prefers the convenience of village life to the isolation of living on his land. When his sons and his daughter were at home, when they were growing up—albeit without their mother but in the care of a revolving procession of devoted aunts and cousins and always Madame Isolde—the house was ripe with cheer. Under the low-beamed ceilings against the annually whitewashed walls, hearths smoldered in every room, the curtains were starched, the heirloom mahogany glossed, the tile floors waxed to peril. Masses of flowers and blossoming branches and fruits spilled from vases and jugs and bowls, and there were cupboardsful of green-and-yellow faience plates and silver and crystal and some tiny jot of old lace was everywhere there was a space for it, that’s how it was, Catulle’s house. And the smells of supper and wood smoke, of some voluptuous potion—a brace of fine putrid birds, the haunch of a boar—shuddering away in a bath of noble wine perfumed with a faggot of wild herbs in Isolde’s great black iron casserole at the back of the stove. For the epoch of those twenty-odd years between the wars, that’s how it was. The village, too.

  Close enough but not too close to Paris, the place thrived from the overnight carting to the city of bounty from its rich earth—vegetables and fruits, which were sold each dawn at Les Halles. At least as much did the village thrive by its own essential frugality. There were cafés and pâtisseries, wine shops, épiceries, bakers, butchers, little restaurants with wide guinguettes cantilevered out over the river where, on a summer’s evening in the light of pink and yellow lanterns, people would dance. If one was careful, one could partake of all of this and still put something aside in the wooden cigar box in the bottom drawer of the kitchen armoire. But now, life with the boche, under the boche, the villagers have adjusted. Jours maigres to be sure, yet often there are good days. Another kind of good days. The houses, the park, the school, the mairie show only a mild embattering from early boche strafing. Unlike in the Great War, this time France saved herself. In some ways, she saved herself.

  Up and down the main street of the village, much seems as it was. The pastry shops are closed, of course, and the butcher hands out what the boche give him. Likewise the épiceries. Though in the bars the café machines are quiet and the only offerings are thick glass tumblers of watered wine or some unrefined homemade poteen that the boche didn’t want, the old men still play cards at the oilclothed tables, still cheat and challenge, if with less voice and less heart.

  The restaurants survive in an interesting way. Villagers bring some part of their rations to barter with the cooks for a plate of soup, some sort of braise or stew. A sweet concocted from salvaged fruit, a piece of honeycomb, yesterday’s bread, an egg, some cream. And then, next morning, the foods that the villagers had brought the evening before to barter are put to use for that day’s menu, a self-sustaining concept that flourishes upon French culinary ingenuity and the truth that says: A good cook can make a good supper from nothing. And though one of the old men might strap on his accordion and play for a bit, no one dances on the guinguettes stretched out over the river. No one save the girl whose fiancé was shot on the first day of the Occupation because he moved too slowly into roll call to suit the boche. She dances sometimes on the terrace of one little place, her arms an arc about his ghost.

  The effect of the Occupation on the village is like that of a Vermeer left to the ravages of sun and rain and the slashing of a small, sharp knife. Still recognizable, eve
n still good, certainly still precious. Perhaps more precious to one who has known it as it once was.

  Catulle and a troupe of older village men work his land. The vast portion of his crops is requisitioned, as are those of his neighbors. And those of most of France. What he manages to set aside or glean helps. There are rations. There are the forests, the river. Among his treasures he counts three goats, a bevy of hens, a gallant rooster, a rabbit hutch. Madame Isolde. He waits for his children to return, opens the doors to their rooms each day, more than once a day, walks to their windows, touches their beds. Beds where boche slept and might sleep again while his sons and his daughter slept, sleep … where? He thinks of the girl. This Amandine. Her ancient little soul. Nothing more than a scuffed valise and someone else’s shoes to call her own, still she worries for her mother.

  Though she’s been with Catulle and Isolde for two months, she still shakes hands with both of them as she enters the kitchen every morning. Still thanks them before she sits down at table and again when she rises. She has grown fond of them, of how they look and speak, what they do, the simple ceremonies of their life. She thinks what she feels is something like the happiness she felt with Solange. Something like it. She wonders if it’s terrible that hours pass without her thinking of Solange. Or is it that she never stops thinking about her? Is it that Solange is always nearby? No, not nearby but rather inside her. Yes. Inside her.

  After Catulle has gone about his business of a morning, Amandine and Madame Isolde begin theirs. Isolde is surprised by the little girl’s will to work and the strength of her delicate body. She polishes and scrubs and lifts and carries, can soon anticipate what’s next to be done and, from time to time, will have an idea of her own. Especially about lunch.

  The lettuces need to be thinned. May I make a custard with the broken leaves? I would need two eggs and some milk. I know we have cheese. Do we have nutmeg?

  Together Amandine and Isolde queue for rations, wander about the shops to see what might be there, visit the place behind the church where a group of farm ladies set up tables to present whatever they’ve been able to keep from their gardens and orchards that day. As though she was her own dark-eyed, curly-haired triumph, Isolde is proud of Amandine, of her manners, her beautiful speech, her ease with adults, with strangers. Her composure.

  She has remade two of her best dresses—ones she’d been saving for occasions that never quite arrived—to fit Amandine. A powder pink silky one she’s cut down into a pinafore with short ruffly sleeves, made a belt and a shawl from the scraps. The brown one with the white buttons from the collar to the hem, Amandine prefers. Isolde has found some used things in the market, a gray seersucker pinafore and two white cotton blouses with lace collars, a pair of wide canvas trousers like the farmers wear in the fields, wooden clogs, never worn and still bound together with a length of string, and black oxfords and a pair of boots for working in the garden and walking in the woods. From a length of batiste meant for curtains she has made chemises and threaded pink ribbons through their buttonholes, culottes with elastic waists, and a nightdress. Isolde is already worried about finding a winter coat for Amandine and has put the word out to her neighbors.

  The two walk to the small metal bridge from which old men and little boys fish. Isolde makes arrangements with one or two to trade part of a catch for cheese or, sometimes, for supper. The old men, especially, seem to prefer an invitation to supper, and this pleases Isolde and it pleases Amandine as well and they set off down the road talking about what they’ll cook and bake as though it was a grand dinner party they planned.

  After a while Amandine begins to notice that every time a certain woman is in a shop or walks anywhere near them, even on the other side of the street, Isolde turns her shoulders inward, pretends to peer into some shop window, or drags Amandine into a café and orders a glass of water. Amandine observes, too, that whenever this happens, Isolde smoothes her hair, pats her topknot, takes a few anise seeds from her pocket and chews them nervously. Her lashes, which flutter like a fan, move in double time.

  “Who is that woman?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one over there talking to the man with the dog. The pretty woman.”

  “Pretty? She’s a lurid cow strung with pearls.”

  Though Amandine laughs, she will not be deterred. “I think I know who she is. Dominique told me about her. She’s from another country, isn’t she? And she likes Monsieur Catulle.”

  “Everyone likes Monsieur Catulle. And yes she’s from another country. Her name is Madame de Bazin.”

  “Why does she make you so nervous?”

  “She does no such thing. I just don’t like her and so I avoid her.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s all,” Madame Isolde says, pinching anise seeds into her mouth and chewing them with her front teeth. The lashes move in a blur.

  When it’s five minutes before noon and Amandine hears Catulle opening the gate, she walks—she does not run—down the path to greet him. He bows to her, she nods her head, and, side by side, they go into the house to lunch. Amandine praises Isolde’s food, drinks the “single finger” of wine that Catulle pours for her, and after the meal, when Catulle goes to rest and she and Isolde have put the kitchen and dining room in order, they walk the hundred meters to Isolde’s little place above a café in the rue Lepic. A tiny kitchen with a stone sink and a two-burner gas plate, a sleeping room with a narrow cupboard bed, an open hearth, and a zinc bathing tub set up in the middle of the wooden floor, a bathroom painted chartreuse, which is down the hall and to which Isolde has the only key. The two lie in the cupboard bed. Sometimes they sleep a bit, but often they just stay quiet, rest. When they do talk, it’s about food. About what they shall fix that evening, the next day, about what they would fix if they only had…

  Isolde talks about chicken poached in cream set over sautéed apples and onions splashed with Calvados. Though she has been twenty-five years in the Île-de-France, she—a born and bred Normande from Dieppe—is always spiritually hungry for her native cuisine. She speaks of buckwheat crepes—thin and delicate—rolled with applewood-smoked ham and Camembert, then gratinéed under a flame with good white Norman butter and more of the cheese. She longs for a stew of mussels—just harvested—poached in their own sea-salted liquors with cream and bay leaf and the buds of dried wild thyme rubbed between the fingertips.

  “But I do like working with river fish, with whatever the boys and the old ones bring to me—carp, catfish, pike, once in a while a salmon lost from his school. I bone them, salt them, lay on branches of bay and thyme, and cover the whole mess with a plate weighted with a stone. In a few days … Ah. With a sauce of pounded mustard seed and cream … And what about the peas? Let’s make a soup tomorrow. We’ll poach the pods with mint, and when they’re tender, we’ll pass them through the mouli and add the tender peas whole—poached for two or three minutes in sea-salted water—to the puree. A knob of butter if the rations are full, a fistful of crisp lardons, and fried bread.

  “I can taste the mint. And the lardons,” Amandine tells her in a dreamy voice.

  “It’s late for wild asparagus, but sometimes a few shoots come up near the river. An omelet—”

  “I used to make stone soup when we slept in the woods. A potato and hard bread, wild herbs, and, if we had one, an egg stirred in. It was good, madame.”

  “In September if you’ll find me some chanterelles, morilles, a handful of trompettes de mort, along with a few noisettes, I’ll make the most luscious …”

  Neither speaks of her life before they knew one another, though Isolde inquires.

  “There might come a moment when you want to tell me something, you know, something about you. Or about others. Should that happen, I want you to know that—”

  “I do know.”

  In the evening after supper, after Catulle pours some wine into the last spoonful of soup, raises the shallow bowl to his lips and drinks from it, after he cracks a few of the
walnuts from the basket of them by the hearth and warms the kernels over the fire in a copper pan, after he pours out a small glass of marc and tips it down his throat and pinches up some of the leaves and weeds and whatever else it is he keeps in the tobacco tin next to the walnuts and tamps the stuff down into his pipe, lights it, sucks hard to keep it going, once the foul smoke spirals into a fine white cloud, he stands up, thanks Isolde and Amandine for his supper, goes to take his sweater from the rack by the garden door. Drying a dish or putting away the silver, Amandine watches him. In the same way she likes seeing the kitchen table set for three when she comes to breakfast in the morning, she likes seeing the three sweaters on the rack. She likes that hers hangs on the lower peg between theirs. Her yellow one—the one with the little pearl buttons and the satin loops, the one that belonged to Solange and, before that, to Solange’s mother—her yellow sweater between Isolde’s white and his gray and brown tweed.

  As he is putting on his sweater, that is the moment when she wants to ask if she might go with him. She knows it’s to the river he is headed, to the bridge at the edge of the village, the one with the high wooden walls that curve like the hump of a camel. She knows he will look down at the water and smoke his pipe and stay there till the light changes. From her window at the top of the house, she always goes to watch him down there on the bridge. Some evenings other men come to join him, and she sees them nodding their good evenings, lighting one another’s pipes if they are spent, shaking hands sometimes or patting one another on the shoulder. Mostly he’s alone there, though, and she wonders what he thinks about as he leans on the high wooden wall.

  One night after she helps Isolde with the washing up, Amandine takes her yellow sweater from its peg and follows him.

  He hears her before he sees her, hears her mincing steps on the wooden floor of the bridge, and he straightens up, turns to her, smiling, as though he’d been expecting her, which, of course, he had. Neither one needing to talk, they both look down at the river then. After a while, Catulle says, “I like the sound of the river beating on the stones, bent on the sea. I like how small I feel under the stars.”