I went up the two steps to Lanouaille’s shop, clapped my hands, and said loudly, “I have decided, before taking the two mares away, to put them through their paces and do one or two stunts with them on the château terrace, to warm them up for the journey. In fact, since it’s a very long time since they were last ridden, there may well be some sport. If you’re interested, would you like me to ask Fulbert if he will allow you to watch?”
Every hand shot up, and there was an explosion of delight that genuinely took me aback. Although my time was now limited, I lingered a little to observe their joy, so pitiful did it strike me as being in its implications. Was the life of these people so empty, so dismal, that the prospect of seeing a man riding about on a horse could put them into such a state of frenzy? I felt a small warm hand insinuate itself into mine. It was Evelyne.
I bent down. “Go down to the cart and tell Catie I want to see her at her uncle’s,” I said quietly. “And tell her it’s urgent.”
I waited till Fabrelâtre had his back to me, then went back to the cobbler’s house. Marcel followed me a few seconds later. He too was gayer than before.
“You don’t know the pleasure you’re going to give the folks here with your circus act, Emmanuel! What’s really killing us here is not so much the injustice, it’s the boredom. Damn-all to do, you see. Well me, of course, I can still work a bit at my trade. While there’s still the leather, that is. But what about the others? Pimont, Lanouaille, Fabrelâtre? And the farmers who can’t sow before October? And no radio, no TV, not even a phonograph. At first people used to go to the church just to be together and have someone talk to them. Fulbert, those first days, he was what they had instead of the TV. Only with a curé, unfortunately, you’ve soon had enough of what he has to tell you. It’s always the same tune. You won’t believe it, but we all used to volunteer every day to go up and clean out the horse droppings up at the château. It’s even become a reward, being picked to clean out the horse droppings! If you ask me, Fulbert’s tyranny would be much more bearable if only he kept us a bit busy with something. I don’t quite know with what. But for example, clearing the lower town, piling up the stones, salvaging nails and such. And doing it all together, you understand, as a team. Because here the tragedy is that there’s no community life. Nothing. Everyone crouching in his own corner. And waiting for our dinners like good little dogs! If it goes on, we soon won’t be men at all any more.”
I didn’t have time to answer. Preceded by Evelyne, who promptly came over and pressed herself against my legs, Catie burst into the room.
“Catie,” I said, “I haven’t much time to spare. And I don’t want to waste it in talk. Would it suit you to come with Evelyne and live at Malevil? Your uncle has agreed to it.”
She blushed, and an avid look came into her face. But she immediately caught herself up. “Heavens! Well, I don’t know,” she said, lowering her eyes and assuming a sweetly modest air.
“You don’t seem enchanted at the notion, Catie. You can refuse if you wish. I don’t force people to do things they don’t want.”
“Oh, no!” Catie exclaimed. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it makes me sad to think of leaving Uncle Marcel.”
“Well, well,” Marcel said.
“If it’s going to upset you that much,” I said, “then perhaps it would be better if you stayed. We won’t mention it again.”
She realized then that I was making fun of her. She began to smile and said with a peasant forthrightness I found much more attractive than the fancy airs she’d been putting on till then, “You’re joking. Yes! I’d love to leave with you!”
I burst out laughing, and so did Marcel. He too must have observed the little chats and the long looks outside the butcher’s shop.
“So you’ll come then?” I said. “Not too many regrets?”
“Not too heartbroken at leaving your uncle?” Marcel said.
She laughed in her turn, openly, honestly, and her full-throated laugh, rippling its way from one end of her body to the other, set her shoulders, breasts, and hips in luscious motion. It was a sight I enjoyed, and my eye lingered on it gladly. A fact that she, needless to say, perceived at once, and she redoubled her little dance while throwing me knowing glances.
I went on: “Now listen carefully, Catie. I don’t need to tell you that if we asked Fulbert’s permission we wouldn’t get it. You and Evelyne are going to leave on the quiet. In a few minutes from now everyone in the town is probably going up to the château terrace to watch me do an act with the horses. Don’t go with them. Stay in your room. If you’re asked why, it’s because Evelyne is having one of her asthma attacks. As soon as everyone is up at the château, pack your bag and Evelyne’s. Then take them out to the cart and hide them carefully under the bags we used to wrap the bread in. After that, leave on foot through the south gate, take the Malejac road, keep going for three miles, then wait for us at the Rigoudie turnoff.”
“Yes, I know it,” Catie said.
“Don’t show yourselves until you have recognized us. And Evelyne, you must do exactly what Catie tells you.”
Evelyne nodded her acceptance without a word, just gazing up at me with mute fervor. There was a silence.
“Thank you, Emmanuel,” Catie said with great feeling. “Can I tell Thomas?”
“No, you can’t tell Thomas anything. You haven’t time. Go up to your room right away with Evelyne.”
And she did as she was told, though not without a glance back over her shoulder to see whether I was watching her exit.
“Well, Marcel, time I left you. I don’t want Fulbert to see me in here. Too compromising for you.”
He kissed me on the cheek. I had scarcely gone out through the door when I turned and came back, took a small package out of my pocket, and laid it down on the table.
“Do me the pleasure of accepting that, will you? It will compensate a little for the tightening up on your rations when Fulbert finds out Catie’s gone.”
Out in the street I was approached by a massive towering female dressed in a blue sweater and an amply cut pair of slacks. She had thick short graying hair, a very strong jaw, and blue eyes.
“Monsieur Comte,” she said in a deep and well-articulated voice, “allow me to introduce myself: Judith Médard, mathematics teacher, unmarried. I say unmarried and not spinster in order to avoid any misunderstandings.”
I was pleasantly amused by this forthright approach, and since she didn’t have the slightest trace of a local accent, I asked her if she was from La Roque.
“No, Normandy,” she said, seizing my right arm firmly in one strong hand. “And I live in Paris. Or rather I used to live in Paris, in the days when there was a Paris. But I also had a house here in La Roque, which enabled me to survive.”
Another squeeze of my biceps. I made a discreet attempt to free my arm from that Amazonian grip, but without even being aware of the fact, I would swear to it, she tightened her fingers even more around my muscle.
“Which enabled me to survive,” she went on, “and to become acquainted with a very curious theocratic dictatorship.”
Here was one person at least who wasn’t allowing herself to be terrorized by Fabrelâtre’s listening ears. Because there they were, flapping away less than five yards behind us, those great flabby lugs, yet our Amazon didn’t even deign to give them a glance.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said in her forceful, clearly articulated voice. “I am a Catholic [third squeeze of my arm]. But an ecclesiastic of that ilk is something I haven’t come across often. And what is one to think of our fellow citizens and their passivity? They will take anything! It’s enough to make you wonder whether someone has relieved them of their manly attributes!”
Attributes of which she, on the other hand, clearly had plenty, despite her sex. Because there she was, firm as a rock in her tweed pants, square jaw jutting out over the turtleneck of her sweater, blue eyes blazing, boldly defying Fulbert’s authority in La Roque’s main street.
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“Except for one,” she said. “Marcel. Now Marcel, he’s a man!”
Did she squeeze Marcel’s biceps too? She might well have. There was plenty there to squeeze. Though past sixty, he was all muscles, Marcel, and there were other women—and not only unmarried ones—who liked to feel them still.
“Monsieur Comte,” she continued in that tribune-of-the-people voice, “I say bravo to you. Bravo for the immediate distribution of the food [squeeze], which was our only chance of receiving our fair share. And bravo too for having stood up to the local S.S. [another squeeze]. I wasn’t up at the time, otherwise I’d have backed you up.”
She suddenly leaned down toward me—I say leaned down because she gave me the impression of topping me in height by a good inch and more—and said in my ear, “If you should decide to make any kind of attempt against this unpleasing specimen one day, Monsieur Comte, I will help you.”
She had said “I will help you” in a low voice, but with great force. She straightened up, and becoming aware of Fabrelâtre almost at her back, she released my arm, swung abruptly around, and banged against him violently with one shoulder, which sent that long tallow taper staggering over the cobbles.
“Air! Let me have air!” Judith boomed with a great sweeping motion of her arms. “Heavens, man! There’s enough room in La Roque for us all!”
“Pardon, madame,” Fabrelâtre said feebly.
She didn’t even look at him. She offered a broad strong hand. I shook it and left her, with one biceps feeling rather sore. I was glad to have discovered such an ally.
I went down the hill to the cart. They had got a move on with the loading and it was almost finished. Craa, who had earlier been pecking up crumbs almost under Lanouaille’s feet, was strutting with a scholarly air up and down Malabar’s broad back. As I approached, he gave a friendly croak, fluttered over to perch on my shoulder, and began pushing at my head with his.
Thomas, red and tense, eyes constantly returning anxiously to the door of the cobbler’s shop, drew me aside and said, “What’s happening? Why did Catie leave us?”
I enjoyed that “us.” “Evelyne is having an asthma attack and Catie is staying with her.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Necessary? Of course it’s necessary!” I said in a shocked voice. “It’s a terrible thing, an asthma attack! The patient needs to be reassured and comforted.”
He lowered his eyes and looked shamefaced. Then he raised them again, seemed to gather his strength for a great effort, and said in a flat voice, “Tell me, would you see any objection to Catie coming over to live at Malevil with her sister and grandmother?”
I looked at him. The “with her sister and grandmother” was even better than his “us,” I felt. “Yes, I would see one very serious objection,” I said very seriously.
“What is it?”
“That Fulbert has forbidden all emigration from La Roque and would certainly oppose her departure. It would mean kidnaping her.”
“And why not?” he said in a vibrant voice.
“What do you mean, ‘And why not’? Do you want to risk an open break with Fulbert on account of one girl?”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t come to that.”
“Ah, but it would! Because Fulbert happens to have his eyes on the girl, I happen to know. He’s asked her to go up and work for him in the château.”
Thomas went pale. “All the more reason.”
“All the more reason for what?”
“For getting her away from that creature.”
“Really, Thomas, you are extraordinary. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you to ask what Catie thinks. Perhaps she finds Fulbert attractive.”
“That’s out of the question.”
“And besides,” I said, “we don’t really know anything about Catie. It’s only an hour since we first met her.”
“She’s a very fine girl.”
“You mean in her character?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Ah, then if you have formed that opinion it changes everything. Generally speaking, I put great faith in your objectivity.” I even underlined “objectivity” with my voice; but I might as well not have bothered. Thomas was impervious to humor at the best of times. Now I would have needed a rock drill.
“You mean it’s yes then?” he asked anxiously. “We can take her with us?”
I looked at him very seriously now. “You must promise me one thing, Thomas. That you won’t take any initiative yourself in the matter.”
He hesitated, but there must have been something in my tone and my eyes that gave him pause, because eventually he said, “I promise.”
I turned away from him, dislodged Craa from my shoulder because he was getting heavy by now, and set off back up the street. At the very top, the dark green gate had just opened, and all conversations came to a halt.
The first to emerge was Armand, pimply face screwed into a sullen glower. Then came a very odd little figure I didn’t know but whom I recognized as Gazel from Marcel’s description. And lastly, Fulbert appeared.
A good actor Fulbert. Because in fact he wasn’t content just to appear. He made an entrance. Leaving Gazel to close the door behind him, he came to a halt and let his gaze wander over the crowd with a paternal air. He was wearing his same charcoal gray suit, the shirt I had “let him have,” his gray knitted tie, and his pectoral cross, the lower end of which he was holding between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand as though he was drawing inspiration from it. The sunshine brought out the shine on his helmet of black hair and deepened the hollows of the ascetic mask lit up by those magnificent squinting eyes. There was nothing of the strut in his walk or stance. On the contrary, he held his body slightly back from his head, as though to emphasize how little importance he attached to it. Eyes fixed on his flock below, he had a benign, patient air about him, a humble, willing martyr.
As he caught sight of me climbing the hill toward him and making my way through the little crowd, he advanced to meet me, hands and arms outstretched with a joyful and fraternal air.
“Welcome to La Roque, Emmanuel,” he said in his beautiful, resonant voice, taking my right hand in his, then laying his left one on top of it as though imprisoning a precious treasure. “What a joy it is to see you again! And of course there is no problem,” he went on, regretfully relinquishing my fingers, “it goes without saying, since Colin is not a member of our parish. The decrees of La Roque do not apply to him. He is therefore free to remove his belongings.”
This was said very quickly and in the most offhand tone, as though the question had never really arisen.
“And so here is the cow,” he went on without a pause in a voice filled with wonder, turning toward the animal and raising his arms for all the world as though he was about to give her his benediction. “Is it not a miracle that the Lord should have created a beast that is able, from nothing but hay and grass, to provide us with milk? What is her name?”
“Noiraude.”
“But despite her name, Noiraude will give us white milk no doubt,” he said with a little ecclesiastical chuckle that was echoed by no one but Fabrelâtre and Gazel. “But I see you have your friends with you too, Emmanuel. Good day to you, Colin. Good day, Thomas. Good day, Jacquet,” he said in a kindly voice, though without moving toward them or shaking their hands, thereby demonstrating that he made a distinction between master and squires. As for Miette and La Falvine, they had to make do with a single nod between them. “I also know that you have made us splendid gifts, Emmanuel,” he said, turning those black eyes, glistening, brimming with kindliness back toward me. “Bread! Meat! Butter!” And at each exclamation he raised both arms in the air.
“The two loaves and the butter are gifts, yes,” I said in a very businesslike voice. “But the meat, no. Come and look, Fulbert.”
I led the way down to the butcher’s shop. “As you see, we have not skimped. A whole side of veal. I told Lanouaille not to wait to cut it up, si
nce the day looks like being a hot one and we don’t have refrigerators any more. As I have said, the bread and the butter are gifts. But the veal isn’t. In exchange for the veal, Malevil is asking La Roque for sugar and detergent.”
There were three things at least that displeased Fulbert in this speech. I had called him Fulbert inside his own fief; the division of the veal was now irreversible; and I was asking him to dip into his provisions. But he took care not to let any hint of his displeasure show.
Suavely, he admired the veal. “It is the first fresh meat we shall have had to eat since the bomb,” he said in his deep cellolike voice, allowing his melancholy eyes to wander first to me and my companions, then to the still silent inhabitants of La Roque. “I rejoice for all of us. But as far as I am personally concerned, as you know, Emmanuel, I have very few needs. As you can imagine, a man in my state of health, with one foot in the grave, can no longer eat a great deal. But on the other hand, as long as I am still alive I shall consider myself accountable for La Roque’s meager reserves, and you will forgive me for employing them with some parsimony in our dealings.”
“Gifts are gifts,” I said coldly. “But trading is trading. If such barter between Malevil and La Roque is to continue, then what we are offered in exchange must not be derisory. It seems to me that I am not being exorbitant in asking twenty pounds of sugar and fifteen cartons of detergent in exchange for half a calf.”
“We will see, Emmanuel,” Fulbert said in gentle tones. “I have no idea how much sugar we have left now [and I noticed him blast Gazel into silence with a look as the little man was about to speak], but we shall do the impossible in order to meet your demands, or at least to meet them as nearly as possible. You will already have noticed that we live here in the most total poverty. There can be no comparison, certainly, with the plenty you enjoy at Malevil. [Here he looked around at his parishioners with a knowing air.] You will have to forgive us, Emmanuel, but we cannot even invite you to share a meal with us.”
“I was intending to leave right away in any case,” I said, “after I have taken delivery of the horses, the guns, the ammunition, and the detergent and sugar, that is. Or rather, not quite right away. Because before we leave I must spend a little while loosening the two mares up a little.” And I explained the performance I had planned on the esplanade.