Silent Bird

by Reina Lisa Menasche

  Instead, I stumbled upon the proverbial fork in the road. Damn it, I knew this fork—didn’t I?

  Yes. A sign reading “Villefranche sur Lez” pointed vaguely toward the center of the fork.

  Oh.

  Headlights flashed angrily in my rearview mirror. Then I heard a blast of noise—bleeeeet!—as a white car zoomed at me like a spaceship about to fly over.

  Merdemerdemerde! I yanked on the wheel and ended up on one of the roads; who knew which one? The village was certainly nowhere in sight. There weren’t any mountains either; I had to be going the wrong way.

  A moment later I heard the cry of gulls. The beach?

  Had to be a mistake. Then I spotted a sign that said “Les Plages” and there was no doubt. How did I get here?

  Hurtling down a two-lane strip of road toward seagulls and swamps, nary an exit in sight, Monique’s car moved like a pinball shot straight and hard. Shit. Shit! Maybe we’d land somewhere good. Maybe not, but we had to land eventually, right?

  Bagels, I thought. Had to think about something other than crashing and death or Jeannot or Monique. Bagels and the beach. She cometh full circle.

  The pinball stopped, finally, at the entrance to Carnot. This spread of flat, silvery marshland was where flamingos flocked on one foot. After lurching to a halt, I shut down the Mini’s engine, managed to put both my feet on the side of the road, and walk in a straight line. My knees shook with relief.

  I had seen the flocking flamingos many times before, but today everything seemed different, more vivid; more symbolic. So, on a bridge whose name I had never learned, I paid nostalgic tribute to what was, to me, the quintessential France: the land unspoiled, the air humid, the scattering of pink and peach on the turn of a wing, a poignant promise. Flamingos clamored and swooped onto the shimmering surface of the bright grassy marshes. I knew what their little flamingo feet were doing under the water: picking at a banquet of algae on the swamp floor like folks picked at pig’s feet and calf brains and horsemeat and snails, or whatever else people ate around here. Bon apetit.

  Foreigners themselves, visitors from the distant south, these fascinating creatures had rooted themselves in France. In a way I envied them. They were now an indistinguishable part of the local scenery while I was not.

  When I’d had enough of admiring the flamingos I returned to Monique’s car and jerkily departed the beach. I was crying as I drove, but there was no one nearby to witness.

  Just me and the birds.

  III

  I guess you could say I found Jeannot’s village by accident. After thirty more minutes of speeding, stopping, turning, and stalling, I spied vineyards up ahead. Then came the familiar jumble of old stone on a hill; the crumbling wall, the dead moat. Villefranche sur Lez.

  Strange to come here without Jeannot. The village was as quiet as last time, a pedestrian here and there; a few older men playing pétanque; a young woman pushing a baby carriage with two baguettes swaddled like extra infants riding on the roof.

  Would I run into the little Arab girl again, walking sadly alone? She was probably still recovering. Or I could see her bullies. I hoped I’d see the bullies. I’d like to punch each one of them in the nose. Forget the law; how about some vigilante justice?

  The Courbois family was not at home, which surprised me. I didn’t see Jeannot’s car, either. Hopefully they had gone to Uncle Charles’ vineyard. Huh. I didn’t know the address but Villefranche sur Lez was a snug place and the vineyard in the direction of the brown hills and shimmery ribbon of river. I’d didn’t doubt I’d find it.

  I started walking. The air felt dry here, as if humidity had never existed. As I passed the village cemetery, silence seemed to magnify. I could almost hear the grasses whispering. Who are you looking for—Jeannot or the girl? If I wanted to find her, I could search for that window with the bright blue trim. If I wanted to be obsessive, I could also nose around asking village elders if anyone remembered Grandma as a young woman, visiting her cousin for exactly two weeks in the 1930s. I could try to link everything together in a story or I could concentrate on my own story, on my own life.

  Or I could do both.

  A bird twittered. Faint voices rose from the back of the cemetery. Ghosts? I smiled at my skittishness. After only the slightest hesitation, I pushed open the weather-worn gate.

  Tombstones scattered before me: a sad collage of stone, dirt, and straggly grass amid rashes of unlikely periwinkle and robust lavender. The headstones were mostly old, some lopsided, many adorned with neatly placed bouquets. I began to wander, reading. Mostly French names. All kinds of dates. Pierre Fouchard, age 18, from 1906. Sophie Chevalier, age twenty-two, 1879. An infant—I couldn’t make out the name—from 1750.

  Tragedy wasn’t new, of course. Nor did it belong exclusively to anyone. I paused at the gravestone of a kid named Eloise who’d died in 1852. Her mother mourned her most of all, the stone told me. I could almost hear the family’s sobs…

  …No, those were voices again. Real live people this time. I peeked behind a small grove of trees to see a woman and child standing by a newer tombstone. My heart popped into automatic fire. The woman was swathed in black hijab, her face young and somber. She and the child seemed to be speaking to the person buried; or to God. Maybe the air whispered secrets, too. I didn’t trust my imagination anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had conjured up the sight of this Arab woman and her child in the first place.

  Was this the kidnapped girl’s mother? The tombstone they were visiting looked brand new. From today?

  No…

  Then the child looked at me. A boy, not a girl, about eight years old.

  I straightened, wiped the dust and wrinkles from my summer dress. “Hello,” I said in my best French as I approached. “Please pardon my interruption, but…are you related to…the child who was…on the news?”

  I paused, dreading the woman’s response.

  She had a round face, meltingly dark eyes and smudges underneath. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five, though her look was ancient.

  “Are you”—my voice broke this time—“her mother?”

  The woman’s expression quickly changed. She scrunched up her brow while the boy gaped at me. I glanced from their confused faces down to the tombstone—and read the name: Najat Abbas.

  “You speak of Fatima Bazzi,” the woman said in a rush. Her voice was wispy, insubstantial, yet she had spoken boldly.

  In my relief, I smiled. “Oh thank you for telling me her name! I am so sorry to bother you. I know it is not my business. But I hoped for news of that little girl. You see, I am not from Villefranche sur Lez, but I know her. I met her once.”

  The woman lowered her head, obviously done with the conversation. I had turned to go when she said: “Wait, please.”

  Next to her the boy continued to stare. So very serious, I thought. And somehow familiar. Was every kid I ever met in this village going to seem related to Fatima?

  “Yes, we know her,” the woman said. “Fatima. She is my little cousin. You are kind to ask after her. She is…safe now, thank be to God.”

  “Oh thank you for telling me. I heard she came home and I…wanted to be sure.”

  The woman bit her lower lip as if deciding whether to say anything else. I waited.

  “She is not at her home anymore,” she said finally. “She is away. She was sent away.”

  What?

  “I cannot speak of this,” the woman added, cheeks flushing. She dropped the boy’s hand as if too agitated, or too sweaty, to keep holding it.

  I looked into the boy’s eyes. He looked back. Long eyelashes, an aquiline nose, a small bow mouth. He glanced around the cemetery as if making sure the coast was clear.

  “What?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  And he blurted: “Fatima shamed her family, so they sent her away!”

  “Ahmed!” his mother scolded. She followed this with a round of Arabic or Persian; who knew which?

  The child pursed his m
outh and looked down—and a well of anger from the center of my being almost knocked me over. I hated it when adults shut children up, for any reason. Unfortunately my ability to converse in French had suddenly abandoned me. All I could think was: Why? Why? Why send away the victim of a crime?

  Why face what you prefer to deny?

  “This gravestone is for my own child,” the woman said, more calmly now. She pointed down. “Najat died two years ago this week.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  She offered me a brief, cordial nod. Then she left, tugging the boy with her.

  IV

  Exiting the cemetery I turned toward the brown hills and distant river. By now the sun’s heat felt cruelly dry; bees buzzed lazily; fresh rosemary tickled my bare ankles. I crossed a meadow at the edge of the village where a country road offered a single, elegantly done sign: Chez Courbois.

  I had found it, either Uncle Charles’ home or vineyard or both. And he did still have a sheep farm somewhere, right? Filled with the luckier descendants of their exploding forefathers?

  I walked carefully down a cobblestone lane so rutted that it seemed to date from Roman times. According to Jeannot, Villefranche sur Lez was, in fact, only four kilometers away from an actual ruin called “La voie Domitienne,” which was built centuries ago to join Italy to provinces in Spain. The foundations of those old dwellings still clustered in the dust around these parts, echoing with emptiness.

  This, then, was what Jeannot meant by “roots.” If the opening for his roots had been dug with a good strong iron shovel, mine had been scraped out of loose sand with a child’s spoon.

  Chez Courbois and “La Bergerie,” appeared at the end of the long road. Vines baked in all directions, heavy with fruit—clusters of grapes fat and complacent with new life, like pregnant women in round purple suits. Part of me yearned to stop to sketch them instead of whatever else I was about to do. Truth was: I had fallen in love with this country and countryside. I wouldn’t mind living here as long as it was just me and Jeannot. Get rid of his father and the uncle—and Thérèse, of course—and maybe things would work out.

  I’d finally reached the villa, a one-story stucco structure with arches and shaded verandas. It was an odd and magnificent house that appeared to have been assembled in stages, like a series of footlockers lining the dusty ground. Ferns and palms and mimosa trees leaned against monotone stucco as if too tired to stand on their own.

  I tried, and failed, to imagine Jeannot working here. Tried, and failed, to picture his father working peacefully alongside…doing what? Singing Édith Piaf songs to grapes? Far easier to envision the famous Uncle Charles—“Sheep Man whose American ex-wife had just disappeared!—trying to whoop Jeannot if he accidentally blew up a barrel of wine or something.

  My stomach didn’t feel great. It still gurgled around as if winding up for the fight of its life. Though I knew I would not throw up. Nor would I have a panic attack. No time, no space, for that kind of thing.

  Right now, Jeannot needed me as much as I needed him.

  “Allô?” I called, knocking on the open front door. “Anyone home?”

  No reply.

  I stepped through an archway into a room both cool and cozy: thick Persian carpets on Moroccan tile, open windows draped in swaths of mauve-colored raw silk, a brass and wood ceiling fan churning lazily overhead. Bottles of wine peeked out of crates lining an entire wall like stacks of homing pigeons cages during World War II. A black granite bar flagged by leather-topped stools on the left and grand piano on the right.

  Another archway led to another jewelry box of a room. This one had a Gothic oak dining table, and king and queen chairs large enough for those extra rolls of belly. At the far end of the room a rambling kitchen began, pots and pans adrift like copper balloons; more blue and white tile merging with wall, counter, and floor; and small alcoves galore.

  Laughter rang outside. Laughter and voices and the shrill cry of a child along with the unmistakable splash of water. A swimming pool.

  Behind me, a door opened.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” said an unfamiliar male voice. “It seems you are lost, yes?”

  V

  A man in his sixties smiled at me across the broad terrain of his features. Uncle Charles, I presumed.

  And God help me he was wearing a Speedo. I didn’t want to notice that—who would?—but that would be like not noticing…never mind. At this point in my life I won’t make jokes about whales or bulging bellies swelling like wet, jiggling clay over snips of spandex. I won’t.

  He also had a white crown of hair, thick black mustache, and dark eyes. “Who do we have here?” he asked, giving me the revolting once over. He whistled. “You are a pretty one! May I help you, young lady? Do you understand French?”

  “Yes…yes, I do. Please, I am looking for…”

  “Ah, I know who you are!” But despite the triumphant tone, his eyes remained almost hypnotically flat.

  They were reptilian eyes except the wrong shape, the wrong color. He had, I realized, Jeannot’s eyes. Chocolate brown without the sweetness. These were dark with shadows, pupils under camouflage.

  I took a step back. And bumped against the King’s throne at the head of the table.

  “With those teeth you must be the American. I should have known immediately. And yes, I have heard all about you.” He paused, tongue grazing his hay bale of a mustache. “I see the stories were not exaggerated. Jeannot has good taste, yes?”

  Another creepy guy? Where did they all come from? Maybe I should throw up.

  Thank goodness I was dressed plainly—no more see-through scarf dresses for me. Just a pair of Levis and a white T-shirt and sneakers, my hair tied in a ponytail. Practically androgynous.

  Uncle Charles seemed to be busy chewing something in the back of his mouth. Tobacco? He paused, twirling the mysterious lump around inside his cheek and letting it sit there like a tumor. “Jeannot does lack some sense, it is true. But beautiful women…the Courbois men are so very susceptible to their charms! Fortunately this is not a crime even when the woman is American. I do know a bit about the crimes of Americans, you see…domestic and otherwise.”

  With this last comment, his eyes widened as if he were about to choke. Instead he only laughed: Whoo-hoop haw-haw!

  “Let me introduce myself. I am Charles,” he said, thrusting out a paw. “It is indeed a pleasure to meet you. Pilar is the name, yes?”

  He pronounced it: Peelarr.

  I nodded. We shook. His hand was powerful, almost crusty with calluses.

  “Of course you are here to see Jeannot. Is he expecting you?”

  “No…not really.”

  “I see.” He smirked behind the mustache. His belly quivered. “Well. It would be my pleasure to escort you.” And he held out his arm.

  I drew back reflexively.

  “What? Are you afraid?” His gaze held mine: challenging, mocking…but still flirtatious.

  Jeannot’s uncle, I reminded myself. These people are his relatives!

  So I reached for the arm. His skin was meaty, damp and covered with fur.

  I withdrew again.

  “You have a lovely house,” I said to cover up my disdain.

  He hesitated only a moment. “Yes, we like it. The house is two hundred years old. Our family has been here for five generations.” He made a grand gesture with that same beefy arm—after you, Mademoiselle!—and followed me into the warm Mediterranean sunshine.

  As always, the aroma of the air helped center me: earth and wild lavender and thyme and rosemary. A narrow flagstone path crowned those rolling brown hills, the fertility of grapes undulating in lines toward what seemed like eternity. Nothing to get rich by, but a way of life…

  Suddenly a shadow appeared before me. I stopped, and Charles collided against my back, his big bare feet stomping on the heels of my sneakers. “What are you doing?” he barked.

  I didn’t answer—couldn’t answer if my life depended on it.

&nbs
p; For on the path in front of me stood a tall, lean, teenage boy with Jeannot’s noble nose, deep brown eyes, and dark blond hair—under a Mets baseball cap.

  The same boy as in my photos.

  The boy who had plucked the white kerchief off that little Arab girl’s head and wiped it in the dirt.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I

  “It’s you,” I blurted. In English.

  The boy squinted at me as if searching for something he could not quite remember.

  Up close he seemed very young, under fifteen. He wore long shorts and a plain white T shirt. His skin, smudged pink by the sun, battled new acne.

  “Bonjour,” he mumbled then glanced suspiciously at Uncle Charles, as if I might be that charming man’s new squeeze.

  “This is Pilar, the fiancée of Jeannot. My son, Benoit.” Charles said.

  Jeannot’s cousin, I thought. So this—this awful kid from my pictures—was Jeannot’s cousin? How could it be? What kind of luck was that?

  Benoit stepped forward to give me the ritual three-kiss-on-the-cheeks. I did manage to kiss him back. I guess at that point I was still numb. It’s really him, I kept thinking. Jeannot’s cousin, his blood! What will it mean for Jeannot, for me—for us as a couple?

  Could my future in-law situation get any worse?

  “I have seen you before,” the kid said, shifting from one foot to the other. He was almost bouncing on his toes—either restless or uneasy. Or both.

  “Actually I saw you the day I took this,” I said on impulse, and reached into my purse. The package of photos was right there, eager to come out. My hand remained steady as I fumbled to find the picture of Benoit in action.

  She shamed the family. They sent her away.

  I held up the picture in question.

  Both Uncle Charles and Benoit looked without moving. There was a taut silence.

  “And so?” demanded Charles, at last. “Who is the bougnoule?”