That Time of Year

by Marie Ndiaye

  He was suddenly very animated, his face deep red, and he looked at Herman with an irritating stare of disbelief. Herman did his best to be distant and superior, but saying the words “something terrible” had brought all the misery of his situation crashing down on him again. And so, he thought, rather than expressing his dislike for his host, he would do better to give him a quick summary of his misfortune, then go off and start his own search. He pulled up a chair, sat down on the edge, took his head in his hands, and in a dull voice recounted Rose and the boy’s disappearance and how he was shown to this office instead of the mayor’s after his failure at the gendarmerie the evening before.

  “Oh, I can just see all that,” the president said slowly and emphatically, now ensconced behind his desk.

  “There’s probably not much you can do for me.”

  “More than you think, much more.”

  Dully, Herman observed that every picture of the region had been taken during the summertime. It was all cows and pastures, gentle wooded hillsides, skies unmarred by the slightest stippling of cloud.

  Still as enthusiastic as ever, overflowing with a slightly abstract interest in Herman, the president went on:

  “First of all, I’m going to see to it that the mayor hears of your misfortune, I mean before your turn comes to meet with him officially—not as easy as it seems, believe me, but at any rate I’ll do what I can. That said, it’s simply a formality, it will comfort you, nothing more. The mayor will listen gravely, give orders, make promises, but nothing will happen, and as a matter of fact there’s nothing that can happen as things currently stand.”

  “But this is a very serious case, very urgent,” Herman said, frustrated and out of patience.

  “Oh, don’t worry, he’ll see that at once. Our mayor is a man of superior intelligence, a sort of sage, do you see? No, that’s not the issue. Nor is the issue the power he does or does not have over the various authorities in the township. The fact is that our mayor can get essentially anything he wants—inquests, investigations, mobilizations of all the top men. He can get all the resources he asks for, but when it comes to results, that’s another thing entirely, you understand.”

  “No I don’t, I don’t understand any of this, and it’s not acceptable.”

  “The result depends on you, dear Monsieur, you must get that through your head.”

  At once grave and delighted, jubilant and serious, the president gave his desk a resounding smack. Herman vaguely sensed that some expertise this man had avidly acquired was finally finding an opportunity to come out, and that if Herman wished, it would take very little effort to gain this man’s friendship. The mere thought of it disgusted him, but he was now ready to throw his lot in with anyone at all if it would serve his interests.

  “What am I supposed to do, then?” he murmured.

  “Well,” said the president, his air wise and experienced, “the goal of our strategy, if I may put it that way, is to locate your family, or uncover information leading us to them. Very well. What do you do? Do you go out and question the townsfolk, plant yourself in front of them with your Parisian face and ask what they know? No! I know this place, people are as agreeable as can be but they only give outsiders the most superficial sort of help. You’ll need great patience, a delicate touch, and you’ll have to discreetly work your way into the life of the village, become a villager yourself—invisible, insignificant—and above all erase any memory of the fact that you’re a Parisian who’s stayed after summer, which is to say an intruder, who in theory has no right to see something that’s none of his business, that never interested him before, that we’d rather he know nothing of: the long, springless winter existence that begins here with the month of September.”

  “But how long will that take?” asked Herman, dumbfounded.

  “Oh, a long time, surely. You can’t very well change your skin in two days, can you?”

  “I haven’t got that kind of time! The gendarmes…”

  “I’m telling you, the gendarmes will only pretend to look. You’re the one who will find your loved ones again, and for the moment no one here will want to help you, not even the mayor.”

  “What a horrible place this is!” cried Herman.

  “No one will say it to your face, but they despise Parisians here.”

  The president leaned back almost proudly in his chair.

  “I used to be one myself. And then, as it happened, purely by coincidence I stayed here till fall came, fifteen years ago it was, and I haven’t left since. It all worked out beautifully, I became president of the Chamber of Commerce, head of the festivities committee, and now no one knows or remembers I belong to that hated race. I live in the Hôtel du Relais, where I advise you to take a room at once, because obviously you’re going to move out of your house on the plateau.”

  “I wasn’t planning on setting foot in it again,” said Herman loftily.

  “Good. In fact I recommend you forget it entirely, forget everything that attaches you to the life you led here as a Parisian vacationer. Watch what you say. And you’ll find that, little by little, without your even knowing it’s happening, you’ll be led to your wife and child, and then, who knows, then maybe you won’t be too happy.”

  Herman shrugged, too outraged to answer. The president’s unmistakable pleasure in taking on his case, the almost carnal delight illuminating his sly little eyes, left Herman dubious and wary. But he felt too weak, too alone, too helpless to spit out a scornful dismissal of the plan this man was urging on him. Besides, he had to admit, he had no particular grounds for thinking the president was trying to hoodwink him. On the contrary, it was a kind of humility, he thought, the humility of a man deeply committed to his cause, ready to make any number of personal sacrifices, that radiated from the president’s ardent manner.

  The president delightedly rubbed his hands. In his joy, he hurried on:

  “As a former Parisian myself, and so, shall we say, a compatriot of yours, allow me to take possession of you just a little, to make of you, just a little, my work, my son! You mustn’t hold anything back from me. I know everything there is to know about the village; in fact, I’d go so far as to say I’ve acquired a power here that can’t be questioned. If you have a problem, listen to no one but me. Oh, speaking of power…”

  He put on an anxious face and tapped one finger against his forehead. To his own disgust, Herman felt himself meekly slipping into acquiescence. After all, who was this man sitting before him? A nobody, an underling—once summer’s over, he probably does nothing but head the festivities committee. And what festivities could anyone possibly organize in this endless rain? But at the same time, it wasn’t unpleasant to have unburdened himself to someone. Suddenly Herman was so tired that he might not have gotten up from his chair, scarcely would have turned his head, if someone told him the mayor was walking by in the hallway. He listened with a distracted ear, as if his case had just been brought to a happy conclusion.

  “I forgot to tell you about the merchants. They’re the largest and most influential body in our village. Some say they’ve run the whole village for the past hundred years. They’re holding their little weekly meeting today, right in this very building, on this very floor. You have to be a merchant to attend, and since they’re smart and careful no one ever knows what gets said in there, everybody just assumes they’re devising new ways to increase their power and profits. They’ve got a stranglehold on the mayor, almost all of them have a seat on the town council. They place their children in all the region’s key positions, for instance the bakers’ son is now secretary to the prefect, fifty kilometers from here, and the owners of the Relais have a son who plays tennis with the district councilor every week, not to mention that many of them have special connections, close or distant, with the heads of the gendarmerie or the fire brigade. For your own safety, I’ll tell you straight out what I think: the merchants of this place are a bad lot, dangerous, cunning, their tentacles go everywhere; they’re as rich as k
ings but plead poverty and sigh and wring their hands as soon as someone says the word ‘money.’ Be careful, but be smart: try to make friends with a few of them, but steer clear of their indecipherable, infinitely varied, ever-changing rivalries. I wouldn’t be surprised if, without breathing a word of it to you, the merchants lead you to the very people you’re looking for; I wouldn’t be surprised to have it confirmed that they’re up on all the deepest, darkest things that go on in the village. Who knows? Maybe they’re talking about you at this very moment!”

  The president erupted into a merry laugh. Herman shivered.

  “All right, enough of this,” he thought, but he didn’t move, as if bound to his chair by weariness and an undefined fear of what awaited him outside.

  But his host got up from his desk, came and stood before Herman, and clasped his hand between his own two hands, which were shaded by a dense mass of long hairs.

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity,” he said in a genuinely moved voice, “to take on a worthy project, serving as your guide and at the same time testing the observations I’ve made here the past fifteen years. Please don’t let me down. Please, in a sense, be faithful to me. Be docile, learn from me, practice doing as I do. Nothing here is like what you know in Paris, people don’t speak the same way, there are other laws, other customs. I don’t miss it. Such a beautiful life I’ve made for myself here!”

  Tightly encased in a pair of corduroy pants, the president’s thighs twitched and jerked in what seemed a slightly overheated delight. Each thigh was as thick as both of Herman’s, which were excessively slender and weedy under the linen of his summer suit. Herman was stifling in the airless little room, oppressed by the president’s fervor. No one had ever given him such an effusive, heartfelt handshake, never had anyone but intimate acquaintances stood so close to him, knee to knee, and as a math teacher Herman never did anything to encourage such impulses.

  “All right, let’s get out of here,” he told himself.

  He disengaged his hand, finally stood up. His legs were trembling with fatigue. The president stepped back toward his desk, still smiling with confidence and affection, and Herman thought he’d noticed his exhaustion and was glad about it. He picked up the receiver of his desk phone.

  “I’ll have the Relais people send their little Charlotte to come get you,” he said with a wink.

  “What? Why is that?”

  “Because you’re going to take a room this morning, and then we’ll see.”

  “I have other things to do at the moment,” said Herman peevishly.

  “No, you don’t. What could you possibly have to do? I’ve told you, you won’t get in to see the mayor, and there’s no point to knocking at the gendarmes’ door. It’s very simple: you have to begin your life as a villager. And for that you need a room.”

  “I can get to the Relais on my own.”

  “It will look much better if you have Charlotte take you there,” the president said categorically. “Knowing you’ve just come from my office, they won’t ask any questions. Otherwise they’ll wonder what you could be doing at the hotel in this season. Please, stop arguing, trust me. Not to mention”—he smiled knowingly—“that dear little Charlotte has no ribbons, nor even the prospect or the promise of ribbons to come.”

  “Again these archaic rituals!” Herman exclaimed, exaggerating his sneer.

  “They’re very good, they’re exquisite. They keep me in a state of…of perpetual effervescence.”

  And the president laughed again, teasing Herman with gestures he didn’t fully understand, with a friendly, indulgent mockery that Herman found repellent. No one had ever spoken to him with such cajoling condescension. Herman was used to giving commands and directions, and he tolerated no displays of intimacy, however decorous, especially in the absence of a longstanding friendship. He always spoke, and was always answered, with a certain coldness—neck stiff, back straight.

  “And why should that change?” he asked himself.

  He gave the president a vexed sidelong look. The president called the Relais and curtly ordered that they send Charlotte at once. Then he went back to telling Herman how he would have to behave from now on, as Herman slumped in his chair, drained of all emotion but unfocused hatred, perplexity, and regret, all centered on the president.

  He was roused by the appearance of Charlotte. She half-heartedly held out her hand.

  “Well, you took your time,” said the president.

  She shrugged. He delicately pinched her cheek and chuckled with feigned goodwill. Charlotte’s pale pink face expressed only indifference. She’d hardly glanced at Herman as she said hello.

  “Tell your mother to give my friend here room twelve, right next to mine,” the president directed her. “Full meal plan, like me.”

  “And how much is this going to cost me?” thought Herman, roused from his torpor.

  “All right then, see you this evening.”

  “So, ready?” asked Charlotte, seeing Herman still inert in his chair.

  He jumped up to follow her down the hallway, still deserted and silent, and his weariness faded, his unease vanished as soon as the president’s door closed behind them. He knew the way, but he didn’t dare walk ahead of Charlotte, or even beside her. He sensed that for the moment at least he had to show absolute obedience to anyone willing to deal with him. But, remembering the president’s words, he felt an irresistible need to defend himself.

  “You know, I don’t care what he says, I’m not his friend, not at all,” he told her in a whisper, forcing himself to laugh.

  They were passing by the merchants’ meeting room. Herman stopped in his tracks.

  “They’re still there?”

  “Of course they are, till noon,” Charlotte answered in surprise. “Papa’s leading the deliberations today.”

  “Oh, so your parents are members.”

  He was impressed in spite of himself. All at once he found the girl more interesting, and not only because the president had told him he’d find his way back to his loved ones by way of the merchants. In truth, he hadn’t even remembered that promise at first.

  “You don’t want to be thought of as his friend,” said Charlotte, “but he seems to want only good things for you.”

  Herman didn’t answer. He ached to know what sort of things were being talked about on the other side of the wall, in the big conference room, and it was only with great difficulty that he held back from questioning Charlotte. She walked on with a leisurely gait, almost indolent, very different from the taut, resolute stride of the receptionist who’d led Herman down this hall in the other direction. He saw she was wearing the traditional blouse beneath her pink cardigan—no ribbons, just as the president had said—along with a pair of worn, dirty jeans and thick-soled tennis shoes. She wore her hair parted in the middle, and it hung limply down on either side of her face, its color the same whitish blond Herman thought he’d seen on every head in the village and the region. As for the equally blond president, Herman suspected his hair was dyed, though he had not pursued that conjecture with a more minute study.

  “And what about me, if I’m supposed to become a real villager…” mused the brown-haired Herman.

  He tried to laugh wryly, but a vague anxiety stopped him.

  “Listen, tell me, what do they talk about in those meetings? You must know.”

  “Business. Who cares?”

  “Are you proud that your parents are part of it?”

  She shrugged, not turning around. Her voice was as sluggish and listless as her gait.

  “This girl is just an idiot,” he thought.

  But the fact that on this of all days Charlotte’s father was chairing the meeting, and that, additionally, the president had underscored her lack of ribbons or any hope of ribbons, however off-putting Herman had found that remark, those two pieces of information once again made him more sensitive than he would have imagined to the possibility of getting to know the girl, and perhaps l
earning more.

  “Why doesn’t she have a boyfriend, at her age, with that nice face of hers? And what about that other woman, the receptionist? Oh, they’ll be able to help me,” thought Herman, “each in their way. I have to tell them about my problem first chance I get.”

  They made their way down the twisting staircase, ending up in the lobby just as the athletic-calved receptionist was striding by. She frowned and came over, without a glance Herman’s way.

  “What are you doing here, Charlotte? You know you have to ask me for a pass before you can go upstairs.”

  “I was in a hurry, they called me.”

  Charlotte made an impatient little gesture that ended in a limp wave, its cause all but forgotten. The receptionist sighed. A little surprised, Herman sensed that she was deeply agitated, her nostrils oddly flared.

  “When you have time,” she said, “stop by my place, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, we’ll see,” said Charlotte with a quick, practiced smile.

  She picked up her umbrella from where she’d left it by the front door and held it out to Herman, whereupon he remembered the distinctive trait of this region from the first of September to the end of May. The rain was pouring down, the main-street sidewalks were muddy, the light was so dim, even though it was nearly noon, that Herman would have found it hard to orient himself were it not for the glowing streetlights he found as he emerged from the town hall with Charlotte. When he asked, she told him the main street was lit day and night for the eight or nine months of the off season. Suddenly finding it all too much to bear, Herman wanted to run away. Like that morning, everything inside him seemed damp and mortified, shrunken, slowly rotting. He pulled his head down between his shoulders, bent forward, kept his eyes on his feet, and beside him Charlotte did the same, her fists in her jeans pockets. But the Relais wasn’t far. Its wood and brick façade overlooked the main square. In previous years, coming down to the village and vaguely glancing at the Relais’s windows, Herman had often told himself he would never spend a night in such a sad, dowdy hotel if he could help it. And now here was Charlotte ushering him into the little dining room and calling her mother, who soon appeared, slightly breathless, squeezed into her flowered blouse.