Just me.
To be fair, we had nothing else to do at this particular moment when we had cycled through the disorders and gotten around to depression. Maybe I was depressed. I had every reason to be.
Marylou and I had been in France for three days, and it really wasn’t going according to plan. Our mother is technically French, but her parents moved to America when she was only four. As a result, we had lots of French relatives who had been badgering my mom for years and years to send little Marie-Louise and Charlotte to see the land of their ancestors. Our cousin Claude, in particular, wanted us to come. Claude was some kind of big man in advertising in Paris and had done this ad that had babies in little suits of armor that apparently everyone loved. He had an apartment in the middle of town, and he wanted nothing more than to show his young cousins around.
Marylou and I were all in favor of the idea, because who doesn’t want to go and stay in Paris for four weeks? That was the plan: the entire month of August. Marylou had just finished her first year of college, and I was about to be a senior in high school, so it seemed like we were old enough and young enough, and the Time Was Right, and there was a special on Air France tickets.
So finally we were sent, and we landed in Paris, and there was Claude, who was about six foot eleven and blond and friendly. We spent one night in his apartment in Paris, sleeping off our jet lag in the guest room. We woke up expecting to take on the city and see the Eiffel Tower and ride down the street on scooters eating cheese. We wanted to embrace the life our fabulous French cousin wanted so much to show us.
Except that Claude said non non non, no one in Paris stays there over August. It was too hot and horrible and didn’t we want to go to the country? We didn’t, but we said we did to be polite. It really didn’t matter what we answered, because Claude had already rented a house in Provence to show us real French life. We were leaving that afternoon. And then Claude got a call. Something had gone wrong with the babies in the little suits of armor, and he would have to fix something, and we could just go, and he would catch a later train as soon as he could, and the landlord would be there to meet us and hooray for France!
So, less than twenty-four hours after our arrival, Marylou and I were put on a train to the French countryside, with no Claude. It was a nice enough ride, which we spent staring out the window and ordering small glasses of wine for seven Euros each because we were allowed to, and we still had jet lag, and we almost missed our stop. We were that confused and dopey. But Marylou, being Marylou, made a heroic leap for our bags, and we actually made it off the train instead of riding on until we hit Italy or the ocean or the end of the world.
Outside the station, a man in a small blue car was waiting for us. He was white-haired, looked furious, and spoke no English—but seemed to know who we were. That, and the complete lack of other possible landlords around, was enough for us to go with him. Our enormous suitcases didn’t really fit in his car, so we had to get in first, and then they were piled in on top of us, pinning us to the molten-hot seats.
Along the ride he thrust a government ID at us and we learned his name was Erique. Erique had a terrible cough that would shake him so hard he would lose control of the car for a second and we would weave hilariously around the road. Marylou and I both knew about three dozen French words between us, not enough for any kind of meaningful sentence, but every once in a while we would try to charm and entertain Erique by saying things like “hot” and “train” and “Paris” and “tree” in no particular order or context. He looked at us sadly through the rearview mirror whenever we spoke, so we stopped.
We passed through the village itself, which was as quaint and beautiful as anything you could possibly want from the French countryside. People were coming out of the bakery with long loaves of bread, drinking at tables outside of a café with a red awning. There were tiny French children circling on bikes, old men sitting by an ancient central fountain, hills in the far distance. The only things that disrupted the tranquil, language-textbook perfection of it all were an ambulance and police car with silently blinking lights parked in front of one of the picturesque houses. A small cluster of paramedics and officers placidly smoked and talked by an open front door, some leaning on an empty gurney. In this town even the emergencies were handled with languid grace.
We drove right through the village, off the nice paved roads onto much bumpier ones that passed through olive groves. Then we went off the pavement entirely and onto a pitted dirt road to nowhere and nothing. We were hot and crushed and shaken around for another fifteen minutes, when Erique turned down an even narrower nonroad and a house materialized from between the branches.
The house was made of a creamy white stone, with massive duck-egg blue shutters on all the windows. It stood alone against a backdrop of trees, trees, and more trees, along with the occasional rosemary or lavender bush. Walking down the gravel path that led to it, you were pretty much knocked over by the sweet smell of the herbs baking in the sun, and then you went under the thick canopy of green that shielded the house. Off to the side there was a stream that actually gurgled and had about ten million tiny black frogs hopping around.
Erique walked us all around our new French home, opening doors, turning on fans, picking up the occasional spider or frog and flicking it out the window. The house looked like it had been redecorated once every decade, starting in maybe 1750 and ending around 1970. The furniture was all big and heavy, like something out of The Hobbit. Some of the rooms were wood paneled, but mostly they were wallpapered. One room was covered in a bright yellow, sixties, psychedelic swirl, another in a plasticky representation of wood paneling, another in dull arrangements of brown-tinted apples and pears. Our bedroom had the most bearable pattern—a delicate one of bluebells and intertwining vines. I wouldn’t have wanted it in my own room at home, but at least it didn’t give me the shakes like the yellow room or depress me like the rotting-fruit room.
The main decorations were old, framed maps of France, all with creeping yellow stains in the corners from where moisture had gotten under the glass. There was a framed ad for Casio keyboards in the bathroom—one that looked like it was from the mideighties, with a guy in a big orange suit and a mustache with a keyboard tucked under his arm. I spent a lot of time staring at this, trying to figure out why someone had taken the time to remove it from a magazine, frame it, and hang it next to the sink.
Erique loaded up the tiny fridge with food, stacked loaves of bread and warm Orangina and bottled water on the shelf, and then putt-putted off in his car. We looked around for something to do. For entertainment there was a shelfful of French romance novels, detective stories, guidebooks, and history books—all in the early stages of pungent old-book smell. There were also some old board games and a television with antennae and no cable that got only one station, which showed only American cartoons dubbed into French, mostly Bob l’éponge, who lived in a pineapple under the sea.
To be fair to the place, I think most French people who rented it rolled up with their own bikes and kayaks and Casio keyboards or whatever else they needed. Claude had indicated he would be bringing all these things just as soon as he could get here, so all we had to do was “relax”—which, as everyone knows, is another way of saying “sit around and wait and feel the creeping hand of time run its fingers up your back.” I couldn’t stand it, all woody and quiet and smelling of rosemary and thyme. It was like being in a spice rack.
We walked around outside, but the smallness of the frogs freaked Marylou out a lot, mostly because they kept jumping across the path when we were least expecting it, and she stepped on one by accident, and she went through all five stages of grief about it. Marylou is famous for her squeamishness and her nonviolent nature. Spiders, silverfish, roaches, even flies…she’s helpless against them. At home she would make someone else, often me, come and deal with the problem. So killing a frog almost did her in. The rest of the afternoon was spent calming her down. That night we had dinner, read all the bo
oks we’d brought, and waited.
Two days went by like this. Erique came every afternoon and brought us delicious and rustic-looking French groceries and looked at us helplessly, sometimes pointing at the clock or shaking a bottle of milk in a meaningful way. We never had any idea what he was trying to say. The only time we could ever understand was when he showed us a tiny dead scorpion, laughed, then took off his shoe, and shook it. This baffled us at first, but since he did it every time he left us, we slowly began to realize that we had to shake out our shoes before we stepped into them because they might be filled with scorpions.
We were safe and well fed and generally looked after, but slowly going crazy. Or so Marylou thought, from the number of times she diagnosed me from the rocking chair in our bedroom. Over those days and nights I had: generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, body dysmorphic disorder, adjustment disorder, and borderline kleptomania (because I kept using her brush).
And then I was depressed. Now you’re all caught up. This was day three.
“You aren’t enjoying this either,” I said. “So I guess either we’re both abnormal or we’re both depressed. And why’d you bring that with you? That’s not exactly vacation reading.”
“It is if you want a four point oh. And what else is there to do?”
She had a good point. I was staring at an issue of French Vogue from 1984. I mean, it was fun looking at the big hair, but you can only do that for so long. I set it aside and picked up the useless little pay-as-you-go French cell phone Claude had gotten us (because our American ones didn’t work right and would have cost about a million dollars a second if they had).
“Maybe it’s the house that’s messing up the phone,” I said, not believing that for a second. The last time I had seen a signal, we were at the train station, ten or more miles away. “There’s got to be somewhere around here where a cell phone works. I have to find out.”
“Feel free,” Marylou said, flicking her hand but not looking up. “Go try.”
“Doesn’t this freak you out at all?” I said. “Three days. He said it would take him, like, one.”
“He never said that. He said he’d be here as soon as he could. He has someone bringing us food twice a day—really good food—and we’re in a beautiful house….”
“Beautiful?” I repeated.
“…we’re in a house in the middle of the French countryside. It’s important to try to adapt to a different way of life, a different pace. Quiet is good.”
I shuddered.
“I hate quiet,” I said.
She flipped a page, to whatever disorder it is that is characterized by a hatred of being in quiet, remote places.
“Why don’t you come?” I asked.
“Frogs,” she said. “I’m fine here.”
I went outside and sat down on the path with my legs out in front of me and let the little frogs jump over my ankles. They really seemed to like this. My ankles were clearly the best thing that had happened in tiny frog land for a while. It felt better to be outside at least and out of the airless house. I started walking back to the road. It was a pretty view, no question. But even the prettiest view will wear on your nerves if you’re feeling very cut off and bored and uncertain about what the hell is going on. So while I appreciated the soft yellow sunlight spread out over the white hills around us, the bright stripes of purple lavender crops, and the heady smell of pine…what I wanted to see were bars in my cell phone display.
I walked for at least two miles, with nothing but the beautiful view to keep me company. No people, no signal. I passed through an olive orchard, the trees heavy with fruit. I saw some fuzzy little animal scamper across the path. Otherwise, nothing.
I finally came to a small red cottage, one with an actual person milling around in front of it. I say milling because that’s really what he was doing. I’d never seen real milling before. Done right, real milling has a shambling quality to it, a true aimlessness that can be felt by any spectator. He was circling the lawn at the front of the house.
The miller was nice enough looking, in his twenties or thirties, with longish, artsy hair. He was covered in dirt, on his knees and shorts and hands, like he’d just been working in the garden. There was a plastic basketful of large tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants sitting on the stone front step. He had a look of total confusion on his face, and a nervous way of smoking, like he just couldn’t get enough nicotine and had to suck in quick, greedy gulps. He saw me, blinked a few times, waved stiffly, and said bonjour. I said bonjour back…but when he started speaking rapid-fire French, I shook my head and came closer.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak—”
“Oh,” he said quickly. “You are English? American?”
“American,” I said.
The man’s English was perfect, though he was clearly French. His accent was light—it just tweaked the ends of his words.
“My dog,” he said. “I’m looking for my dog. He often goes out hunting rabbits, but he has been gone for hours now. Have you seen a dog?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He bit his lower lip thoughtfully and stared at the trees again.
“I am afraid he may have gotten stuck in a hole or hurt,” he said. “I call and call, but he does not come.”
He sucked the last of the cigarette down to the butt and dropped it to the grass, still burning. It snuffed itself out.
“You are visiting?” he said.
“Yeah…my sister and I…we’re at the cottage up the road, and our cousin—”
“I know the cottage,” he said.
“I’m trying to make a phone call. Our cell phones don’t work out here. No reception.”
“Cell phones? Ah…mobiles. Yes, they do not work here. I’m sorry. I have no other phone. My name is Henri. And yours?”
“Char—” Everyone calls me Charlie. But it seemed like I should use my real name in France, to forge my new, Frenchier identity. “—lotte.”
“Charlotte. But you are thirsty? It is very warm. Would you like a drink?”
He waved me indoors without waiting for my answer, picking up the basket as we went inside.
“Did you grow those?” I asked.
He looked down at the basket. It seemed like he had forgotten he was holding it.
“Yes,” he said distractedly. “We have a very good garden.”
The door opened directly into a large farmhouse kitchen with a rough-hewn wood floor, dried bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling, and a huge red stove with massive, flat burners covered by heavy lids. The basket went onto the table.
“I have lemonade,” he said. “It is very nice.”
I thanked him, and he poured me a glass. It was certainly very authentic—so tart that I almost started weeping. But I felt like I had to get through it somehow, just to be polite.
“You are here with your family?” he asked.
Again, he said it vacantly, picking up another cigarette from the pack on the table, lighting it, and sucking it quickly.
“Just my sister, Marylou,” I reminded him. “Well, actually Marie-Louise.”
Henri’s eyes came fully into focus, like he was seeing me for the first time. He slowed down on the smoking, taking an easy drag and setting the cigarette down in an ashtray.
“Your names are quite funny,” he said. “Very historical.”
“They are?”
“Do you know much about the French Revolution?” he asked.
“A little,” I said. And by “a little,” I meant almost nothing, but it looked like he was prepared to do most of the talking, so I was okay.
“Well, as I am sure you know, the people overthrew the king and queen and killed off most of the aristocracy. There was a period called the Terror, where thousands of people were killed. Then there was the Law of Suspects. It meant that any citizen determined to be an enemy of the people could be locked up at once or executed. I suppose now we would call them terrorists…. Anyone could be accused. Anyone co
uld be killed. Anyone could be capable.”
I was nodding away, wondering where this was heading, but mostly I was trying to figure out how to drink the lemonade without getting it on the part of my tongue that really reacted to the sourness.
“Marie-Louise was the name of the Princesse de Lamballe, the confidant of Marie Antoinette. She was killed in the September Massacres in 1792. Do you know what they did to her?”
“No,” I said.
“They dragged her from the prison at La Force. A mob descended on her, ripping her to shreds. They sliced her head from her body and took it to a hairdresser to have it…how would you say it…styled? Then they put it on a pike and carried it to Marie Antoinette’s window and stuck it inside, like a puppet. And Charlotte…that is the name of the most famous murderess in all of France. Charlotte Corday. She stabbed Jean-Paul Marat in the bathtub. There is a very famous painting of this.”
“Right,” I said. “But our names are kind of common.”
“They are, of course. This is true.”
He lit up another cigarette, and I noticed that Henri was a bit on the twitchy side. He had to work his way through four matches before he could get it lit. I sort of knew what he was talking about, but now I was ready for him to be done. This was maybe more than I had bargained for, conversation-wise, and I was done with the lemonade. I still had no cell phone signal, and I was going to have to hurry back if I was going to make it on time for Bob l’éponge.
“This is just French history,” he said. “You learn it as a child. But it has always proved a point to me: anyone is capable of murder. Anyone. Many in the revolution said they killed to be free, but this does not explain the mobs…. The people who raided the houses, who dragged screaming people to the streets and tore their flesh, the washerwomen who cried for blood at the guillotine. Completely normal people, average citizens. The revolutionary spirit, it was called. It was never the revolutionary spirit. It was the spirit of murder. It is in France, it is everywhere….”
There was something officially weird about Henri now, at least to me. Maybe this was just a French way of being friendly: a little story about famous mass murders of the past to break the ice. He went on and on about various atrocities until I felt I simply had to bring a halt to the proceedings.