Blackbird Fly

by Lise McClendon

  Albert was busy when Merle arrived. She edged along the side of the gym, watching the fencing matches already going. A referee stood between two of the boys in white jackets and masks, their baggy pants an odd choice with the sleek protective jackets. The official spoke rapidly to the boys in a cautionary tone. Merle couldn’t understand what he was saying. She sat down on the end of the bleachers and searched the far side of the gym for Tristan. He was sitting with a couple other boys on the floor, their masks and foils next to them.

  Tomorrow Tristan was scheduled to take the train back to Paris and get on his flight. He started camp at the end of the week. She didn’t like to think of him taking the trip alone, but there wasn’t much choice. She’d been to see the inspector again to plead with him to let her at least take him to Paris, but again she was refused. She had no passport, she couldn’t flee the country. She’d also pleaded with the American consulate in Nice but with legal action pending, a possible murder charge, they weren’t encouraging.

  She fingered her new cell phone and looked at the people on the bleachers. They didn’t look familiar. She had no idea there were so many people this age in town, that is middle-aged. Maybe they ran the shops and restaurants. The phone was sleek and familiar, a Nokia just like her one at home. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find the counter at the back of the stationery store — where she’d also bought a rather bad British novel — to buy phones and start up cell service. The nice young man at the counter explained that with so many farmers and remote homes, cell phones, or mobiles, were gaining in popularity. Don’t use it in a restaurant though, he warned her with a smile.

  She hoped to see Tristan fence before Annie returned her call. The display of technique, the swooshing and cracking, was fascinating but she had things to do. Would he be done before dinner? Probably not.

  She looked up to see Pascal, standing in front of her. A man behind her said something and Pascal ducked down, sliding into the bleachers.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be up on my roof?” she whispered.

  “Albert insisted.” He glanced at her. “I will make it up to you.”

  Merle felt the heat in her face and glanced up at the audience beyond him. Some were staring at them, talking behind their hands. Had her English identified her? Did they all think she was a killer?

  “What is it?” Pascal said.

  “Nothing.” She tried to shake the feeling that everyone had tried and convicted her of murder. “It’s good of you. To sit with me.”

  His dark eyes flicked up the bleachers. “When does Tristan fight?”

  “Soon I hope.”

  They watched two bouts, clapping politely. In one round a small boy fenced a much bigger one who whacked him with a side cut that was apparently illegal. The small boy began to groan and moan and the bout was called.

  “Is he one of ours?” Merle whispered, nodding toward the writhing fencer.

  Pascal nodded. “On the drama team.”

  Her phone twittered in the middle of the next bout, causing frowns and comments from all around. “Come on,” Pascal said. “I’ll walk you out. I have a roof to finish.”

  She answered the phone on the way to the door, waving to Pascal as he left. It was Annie. It was so good to hear a friendly voice. Outside the gymnasium the late afternoon was warm but not as hot and stuffy as the gymnasium. “You won’t believe where I am. At a fencing tournament, watching Tristan.”

  Merle talked about the house, the colors of paint, the garden. How the woman, the squatter, had moved out. That was the way she was putting it. That her roofer was good looking, all the positive stuff. Annie told her that she had a ticket left over from an old boyfriend’s Christmas generosity, a trip to Barbados she declined to join him on.

  “It’s burning a hole in my money belt. Can I come?”

  “I would love it. Just tell — ”

  Inside the gym Merle heard shouting, a commotion. She turned to the door and heard a name. “Annie? Call me tomorrow, I’ve got to go.”

  Tristan had stepped up to the table to register before his mother arrived, her money tight in his fist and his mask under his arm. The small gymnasium was hot and getting hotter. Albert told him several out of town groups were coming, and the boys standing at the far side of the gym looked foreign, all right. They were wiry, mostly tall and dark-haired, with stubble on their chins.

  The boy in front of him, one of Albert’s students named Francois, finished filling out his paperwork and moved away. Tristan took a step forward and suddenly dropped his mask and foil with a clatter, prompting chuckles. He gathered them up and bent to sign his name on the registration forms.

  The man behind the table, a wrinkly old guy who was completely bald, said something in French. “Pardon?” Tristan said. He repeated it, just as fast but louder. “Je ne sais pas,” Tristan said. He for sure did not know what the old man was saying.

  The bald guy turned to a referee standing by the table, and said something about Tristan. The referee looked at him and waved his hand. Bald Guy — his name, Tristan found out later, was actually Guy — took his money and rattled off directions that were incomprehensible. Tristan went to find Albert.

  “I couldn’t understand what he was saying at the table,” he told the old priest.

  Albert patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. All you do is start when they say ‘Commencez’ and stop when the buzzer goes off.”

  “Where are those guys from?” He looked toward the bearded crew.

  “Bordeaux. They look tougher than they are.” Albert lowered his voice. “They are in some kind of summer camp for delinquents, I heard.”

  Tristan put on his borrowed jacket over his shorts and t-shirt. He slipped on his mask and warmed up with Francois, feeling the muscles in his right arm tense. He was nervous, feeling butterflies in his stomach.

  A voice said something over the loudspeaker. Francois, who didn’t speak English, stopped fencing and turned to his friends. Tristan saw his mother come in and sit by herself on the bleachers. He watched the first bout, a fencer who was way too quick for the other, with the referee calling off points like an auctioneer. Albert said they were trying to get electronic scoring for the next tournament, that it eliminated lots of arguments, and sure enough, in the next match-up one of the Bordeaux boys erupted after a call, arguing with the ref about where a hit occurred.

  His turn finally came. He had drawn a short boy, with reddish hair and freckles who didn’t look too tough. Good, there was a chance that he wouldn’t totally humiliate himself. He took his position on the line. The referee was the one who had waved him into the tournament, but now he was saying something long and complicated, in French.

  Tristan froze, his feet in position to fence but his foil pointed down. Did that mean ‘Begin’? The red-haired boy didn’t seem to be paying attention. Tristan raised his foil to the ‘en garde’ position, vertical against the face mask.

  “Non, non, non!” The referee was yelling and walking toward him. The boys waiting their turns quieted, watching. Strange words flowed from the ref’s mouth. What was he saying? Now two boys jumped into the argument, in his face, talking loudly. They seemed excited and were poking their fingers in his chest. Tristan felt confused and anxious.

  The referee saw Albert walking over and began to point in the old man’s face. Tristan felt helpless; the boys from Bordeaux were pissing him off. He pulled off his mask and glared at them.

  “Get the fuck out of here! Mind your own business.”

  The boys looked at each other and burst out laughing. And Tristan did the only thing he could think of to shut them up. He heard his father’s advice, dropped his foil, and punched them — one, two — in the face.

  They dropped like timber, crumpling onto the floor. Merle’s heart sunk. Thundering shoes of the spectators in the stands running into the fray echoed throughout the gym. A melee ensued, boys fighting, pushing, yelling at each other, parents holding them back and some egging them on, even swinging a few
rounds themselves. Bedlam for a few minutes, not long but long enough to get a bunch of adolescents worked up, no matter what their ages. Finally a voice came on the loudspeaker demanding quiet. The fighting stopped as quickly as it started.

  She clenched her jaw and stepped up to Tristan. Albert was yelling at the referees who were doing a good job yelling back.

  “Catch ‘em unawares, did you?” she said to her son. He squinted angrily at her, his face red. He’d taken a hit to the chin. He raised his hand, shaking it. “Did you break your hand?”

  His knuckles were swelling. “It was worth it,” he grumbled.

  The gendarme burst into the gym. The two boys on the floor had picked themselves up, sitting now with friends or family at their sides. One’s nose was bleeding. Jean-Pierre was talking rapidly with the referees, who pointed at Tristan. Albert joined the lively discussion, pointing fingers at the two boys. Lots of finger-pointing. Very mature, she thought.

  “Come on, buster.” She picked up his mask and foil. “You’re out of here.”

  Jean-Pierre, the gendarme, cut them off. He said something to Tristan, about Tristan. Merle turned back. “Albert? Could you come here?”

  The old priest shuffled over, his face rosy with heat and anger. “I am so sorry, Merle. If I’d known they had a language requirement I would never have brought the boy. No one has ever said such a thing. I never thought.”

  All Albert saw, after the referee stopped poking his finger in his face and ranting about fluency tests, was a swarm of boys from the stands and floor. They rose up en masse to take sides. The friends of the boys on the floor began to swing at Tristan, and other boys helped Tristan fight them off.

  “It’s over. Now tell the gendarme that we are going home.”

  Jean-Pierre yelled again. Albert turned to her. “He says you can’t leave until we have a full investigation of what happened.”

  “Tell him this. These boys were harassing my son. My son put a stop to it. End of story.” Merle folded her arms. She had recognized one of the boys now. He wasn’t from out of town at all. He had been one of the boys in front of the tabac who laughed at her name. “He can find us at home if he needs anything else. He knows where we live.” She took Tristan’s arm, walked around the gendarme, and out the gymnasium door.

  Tristan looked ashamed, appalled, his head bowed. Merle plunged his hand in a bowl of ice to keep down the swelling. The bruise on his chin didn’t amount to much but he held ice on it too. She held her tongue. If ever there was a good explanation of consequences of hitting someone, a riot was pretty definitive. He’d never gotten to fence. So much for channeling that aggression. A perfect ending to the rural French idyll.

  At six Pascal knocked on the back door, signaling his departure for the day. Merle opened the door. “How did it go, the tournament?”

  “Just great.”

  “Yes?” He looked at her again. “What is wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tristan hollered from the front room: “World class fuck-up lives here!! Photographs ten cents!!”

  Merle closed her eyes. “You better go see for yourself.”

  Albert showed up a half-hour later with a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers, like a suitor. He felt terrible, he said over and over. He was so angry with the officials that made rules that they told no one. He stayed for dinner on the condition that he help cook.

  Tristan set the old table with a new green tablecloth and the cheap white dishes. The priest had examined him for injuries and exclaimed over the lack thereof. A little stiffness, a little swelling, that was all. Pascal was invited to dinner too. He went home and returned, showered and in American blue jeans, his curls dripping on a chamois shirt, carrying a bottle of Bordeaux, a cru bourgeois but very fine according to him. Only seven euros, he told her with a wink. “You must improve your taste buds.”

  “What is cru bourgeois then?” she asked, holding the bottle. “The workingman’s version of grand cru?”

  “If it were only so easy,” he said. He ticked them off on his fingers. “There is Premier Grand Cru, Deuxieme, Troisieme, and so on. Second, third, fourth, fifth. Then, Cru Grands Exceptionels, Grand Bourgeois, Cru bourgeois, Bordeaux Superieur. And that is just for the Médoc and the Graves. For each classification specific techniques must be used in the making. Only a few are Grand Cru, from the old houses.”

  Albert beamed at him. “Your father taught you well, Pascal.”

  “Papa had a keen taste for the grape,” Pascal said quietly. “Too keen, some might say.”

  Tristan’s mood improved with the company of men, Merle noticed. He so needed a man in his life again, even if it was someone as part-time as his father had been. She hadn’t told him about Courtney and Sophie yet. She hated to burst the shining image of Harry that his son carried in his heart. It seemed cruel, yet it also seemed inevitable. Pascal mimicked a boxing match and made him laugh.

  “I have a special wine I want to share with you tonight.” Merle had taken the three bottles from the wine cave up to her bedroom, stashing them in her suitcase under the bed. She ran up, pulled out the Château Pétrus, and carried it downstairs. She had to know if it was spoiled. And what better time to see, and to share it, than with friends who know wine.

  Pascal looked stunned. He examined the bottle, rubbed the label, showed it to Albert who shrugged. “Where did you find this?”

  Tristan opened his mouth and she kicked him under the table. She said, “We don’t have to open it. It’s probably spoiled. Let’s drink yours.”

  “Not so fast. It looks — well — possible. If it was stored properly, and the cork kept its integrity — ” He sniffed the lead and raised his eyebrows. “You never know until you open it.”

  Tristan handed him the corkscrew.

  They held their breaths as Pascal carefully peeled off the lead and tapped the cork with his fingertip. The lip of the bottle was gray with mold.

  “Good?” Merle asked. His eyebrows wiggled in anticipation. He positioned the corkscrew and gently pressed down as he turned it. When it was down as far as it would go, he gripped the handle, his elbows in the air, and looked wide-eyed.

  “Go on, Pascal. I don’t care if it crumbles,” Merle said.

  He pulled it out slowly, carefully. With a low, mellow pop the cork came out, all in one piece. Pascal beamed as they clapped. “Well done,” Albert said. “Smell it.”

  He unscrewed the cork from the screw. Albert’s sniffer was a huge Gallic nose like Harry’s. Pascal’s was more proportionate and possibly, after that mini-lecture about levels of quality, educated. He sniffed the cork then nodded.

  “Seems — okay.” He picked up the bottle and put it to his nose. His eyes closed as he breathed in and smiled as he handed it reverentially to Merle. “Pour it.”

  She poured the wine for the three of them, in small juice glasses. At home she would be bothered by her lack of appropriate stemware, but here it didn’t matter. Wine was one of the four food groups. Pascal raised his glass then stopped. “No wine for the mighty warrior?”

  Albert cried, “He is a man, isn’t he?”

  Tristan grinned, manfully. Another glass appeared, and the circle was complete at four. They held their glasses high. “To Tristan who may never fence like a Musketeer but can fight like a man,” Pascal said. Merle shot him a warning look that he ignored. He kept his glass high and added, “And American friendliness.”

  “And French friendliness, wherever you may find it,” Merle said.

  Pascal held up his free hand. “Wait. You must look the person you toast in the eye as you touch glasses. If you don’t it is an insult. Do it again.” They laughed, clinked again, then stared pointedly at each other as instructed. “To friends, wherever you find them,” he said as he looked into her eyes.

  Merle put her nose over the lip of the glass and breathed in slowly. She remembered the proper way to taste, and swirled, sniffed again. The flavors began to change, to move up through the midnight black wine. T
hey each took a small sip the dark, thick liquid from the old bottle as if it might poison them. Merle felt the flavors slide over her tongue: oak, berry, anise, tarragon, limestone, apple, a whiff of lemon. She closed her eyes and refused to swallow, buoyed, caught by the viscous essence. The moment lingered, the fluid thick as motor oil, as complex and layered as an autumn breeze. It sank down her throat reluctantly.

  Pascal’s breath, close to her ear, whispered, “Ooh lala. You have hit the wine jackpot.”

  BOOK THREE

  Winging it

  Chapter 26

  Smoothing her skirt Merle felt the sun on the back of her neck, a warm breeze drying her skin, the unexpected pleasure of the haircut. It had been a sudden decision, of the moment. Having the same hairstyle for twenty years wasn’t a reluctance to face change, now was it? No, it was a terror of it. She felt almost giddy, this dangerous pleasure, this haircut, then felt ridiculous and immediately took it back. What would Annie say? Don’t get your prayer flags in a twist.

  She looked over the crowd milling around the door to the tasting room, a little nervous, counting heads; they were still waiting for two tourists to show. So, new haircut, new job. She took a deep breath, almost afraid of what she might do next.

  She touched her bare neck. The haircut was a symbol, of something. A new life, a new phase, an imperative that sent her flying madly across the ville. Preparations for whatever happened next. She’d be ready, if only because her hair was up-to-date. All her life she never gave her hair a thought until the very last moment, until her mother rolled her eyes, until her sisters dragged her to a salon, until Harry dragged her to a formal party. Then there was no time for changes, for new directions. This was different. This time a change seemed deeply, deeply necessary. She looked at the trees blowing in the wind and nodded to herself: yes, this is vain, shallow, and — and yet. It felt right.