Amour Provence (11 page)

“And you, Rachida! What kind of wife runs behind her husband's back to a strange man's house!” He sat down beside her on the bed.

Rachida touched his arm. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone there without asking you. But, Mohammed, I don't want to stay home all day doing nothing. I want to be out in the world!”

“We'll talk about this in the morning, Rachida.”

“Will you remember?”

“Of course! I had one glass of pastis!”

“One is too much!”

“Don't worry.” He laughed. “I'll remember.”

The next morning, as Mohammed washed himself in the small closet using a bucket of cold water that he'd filled from the kitchen tap, he thought about what he would do about Rachida working at the château. One thing was certain: he would insist on meeting this Monsieur Descoing before he would allow his wife to do anything there.

Rachida stood flipping flattened bread dough over a low fire as she did every morning, toasting it brown on both sides. Several loaves were already on the table for their breakfast, while others cooled on a rack. Before Mohammed left for work, they would be folded neatly into a package along with cooked aubergine and salad for his lunch. She slipped her hands into the ends of her sleeves when Mohammed sat down.

“Is that to warn me that you are ready for a fight?” He pointed at her hidden hands.

“No, I thought we were going to talk.”

“All right. Let's begin again. Tell me what you want to do.”

Rachida took a deep breath. “I'd like to go up with Amina on Saturday and work for one night. Then we can decide together what I will do.”

Mohammed passed his hand over his face. Then he nodded his head in the sideways manner he had that meant yes and no at once. “All right. One night,” he finally said. “But first I want to meet this Monsieur Descoing.”

The meeting was arranged, and as Mohammed towered over the slighter man, Descoing seemed sincere as he explained that he always treated his employees fairly, that he employed people of all races and religions without distinction, and that he had enormous respect for Muslims. “I'm not originally from France,” he told Mohammed. “So believe me, I am no stranger to prejudice and hatred. I promise you that your wife will be respected and well treated here.” And so it was agreed that Rachida could help Amina.

But the next day, when Mohammed had already left for work, Rachida heard her husband's car pull back into the gravel inlet off the side of the road where he parked when he returned home.

“What's the matter?” she asked, leaning out of the doorway as he trotted up the hill toward her.

“A bomb exploded on the
métro
in Paris. Many people have been killed and wounded. They're saying Arabs were responsible.”

Rachida heard his words but didn't understand. “What do they mean Arabs?”

“Algerians probably.”

“Why Algerians?”

“They are fighting a civil war with a lot of killing. Maybe the French are involved. We'll never know. But this is going to make problems. The police are going to be looking to arrest people. We must be careful.”

“But it happened all the way up in Paris!”

“It doesn't matter. This is going to make a lot of people believe once again that Arabs are the enemies of the French.
Things are going to be harder for us all. I want you to stay in the house today, Rachida. Understood?”

She nodded and he told her to lock the door. Then he got back in his car and drove down the hill to work.

The following Saturday, as Rachida was getting ready to go up to the château, Amina came to fetch her. She was breathless as if she'd run from her own house to Rachida's. “Let's go. We have a lot to do,” Amina said. Her flesh was the color of yellowed plaster and her round cheeks drawn.

“What's the matter?” Rachida asked. Amina's face crumpled into something unrecognizable. “My son Fahmy was fired from his mechanic's job in Marseille,” she sobbed. “His boss says he doesn't want him around because Arabs make his customers nervous.”

“Because of the bombing?”

“What do you think?! Tariq says there will be roundups.”

“Of Muslims?”

“Yes,” said Amina. “Fahmy was born here and is a French citizen, but they automatically treat him like he's an illegal immigrant—or a criminal! I'm praying to Allah that he finds a new job soon. I don't like the idea of him wandering the streets in times like these.”

As they mounted to the château, Rachida could see that Amina was trying get a hold on her emotions. She held her head high and said no more about her worries. It would be undignified to show how upset she was in front of Monsieur Descoing.

Together they set the dining table, something Rachida had never done before. In addition to the regular utensils, there were dessert forks and spoons placed at the top of each
setting along with extra knives and forks for the first course. Rachida thought of her own country, where no cutlery was used and food was served in communal dishes and eaten with small pieces of bread, so simple and so neat.

In the kitchen, Rachida stayed silent, listening to Amina's occasional sighs and mutterings as they chopped vegetables and grated onions to make sauce for a special Moroccan lamb dinner. Rachida didn't know what to say to her friend. How could anyone truthfully tell another that things would turn out for the best? One could only trust in Allah.

Soon the enormous clay tagines with their glazed covers were in the oven. Rachida opened the glass doors with a view of the hill that led down to the huge stone grange. She imagined herself and Mohammed living there together one day. As she stepped outside there came the scent of freshly cut grass. Monsieur Descoing had told them he'd consulted with a local vintner named Didier Falque to help restore the badly neglected hectare of vines planted on the hillside. “I'm going to have the best wine in the region with the help of young Monsieur Falque,” he told her. “Even though he's only in his thirties, he's the most innovative winemaker down here!” In the meantime, the vintner had sent one of his hired hands, a young Tunisian named Musa, to do the rough work of cutting back the dead trees and mowing the grass. It was clear that Monsieur Descoing was a man who enjoyed new projects. He was even planting a grove of olive trees, though they wouldn't bear fruit for years. And he'd told Rachida, “I still want flowers planted on the terrace when the things I've ordered from the Côte d'Azur arrive. I have a lady friend coming to visit and I know you'll give
it that special female touch!” She'd nodded, but thought with anxiety of Mohammed, who had objected to the idea of her working in Descoing's garden.

That evening, as the sun hovered above the distant peak of Mont Ventoux, casting long shadows, the terrace filled with guests. Jacques Descoing poured champagne into a dozen slender glasses and regaled his friends with stories about the château, boasting that it had once been a
commanderie
of the Knights Templar. “The original owners of this place were not just crusaders,” said Descoing. “The Templiers became landowners, farmers, and above all bankers, who amassed so much wealth that Philip the Fourth, the so-called king at the time, got nervous and had most of them burned at the stake!”

Mohammed had been right, Rachida thought as she passed around plates of hors d'oeuvres. The wealthy Knights Templar might have hidden their gold somewhere right there, especially if they were aware that the king was plotting against them.

When Rachida discreetly whispered to Monsieur Descoing that dinner was served, he held his hand out toward her and said in a loud voice, “This is my newest employee, who I hope will become a permanent fixture here. She's Moroccan and her name is Rachida. I'm pleased she will be working for me.”

“You might not say that if you had been on the
métro
this week, Jacques,” said a woman dressed in white silk.

“I'm very sorry about the bombing,” said Descoing. “But every time something like this happens, people start saying, ‘France is for the French! Foreigners go home!' I'm
a naturalized citizen, but people dare to tell me I don't deserve what I've earned and that I'm a dirty so-and-so because I wasn't born here. Meantime, I'm one of your most valuable citizens,” he declared. “I pay enough taxes to merit the Légion d'honneur!”

Everyone laughed. But Rachida heard a woman near her whisper, “Rich as he is, Jacques makes sure to hire the cheapest labor—Arabs!”

Rachida stepped back and as she did a light hand fell upon her shoulder. When she turned, a man with dark eyes stared into hers. “Don't pay any attention to her, Rachida,” he said. “Some people are simply ignorant.” Despite words meant to be kind, the idea of being touched and spoken to by a strange man made Rachida look away in embarrassment. She inadvertently reached up to her throat and was surprised when her fingers glided over her gold necklace. She hadn't meant to wear it that night and she was ashamed at the thought that perhaps it was the glitter and extravagance of the serpentine chain that had attracted the unwanted attention. She moved backward into the shadows of the corridor that led to the kitchen.

“Well, Jacques, now you have your own bit of French patrimony,” said an older man standing next to Descoing and raising his glass in a toast. “A real fortified
commanderie
. That guarantees you're one of us!”

At dinner, the guests drank bottle after bottle of red wine. Their laughter grew raucous and Rachida wondered what the imam at the mosque would say if he could see her there. Would he chide her for continuing to bring more wine to the table? She must remember to ask his advice the
next time she and Mohammed went to the mosque together.

At the end of the evening, the guests wandered out onto the terrace to drink demitasses of coffee while Monsieur Descoing passed around glasses of cognac from what he called his private stock. Rachida cleared the table. The double doors of the entrance were opened to the warm night, and as she passed with a stack of plates, the man who had spoken to her stood in the doorway smoking a cigarette, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. She hurried by him, suddenly feeling the same constricting pain that she'd been plagued with for several days. As she entered the kitchen, she released the plates on the nearest countertop with a loud clatter.

Amina turned from the sink. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing. I'm just not used to so many people.”

“Come here, my sweet bird, and dry these things while I bring in what's left. You've done too much.”

As she polished the glasses with a linen towel, Rachida couldn't help turning to look behind, fearing that the dark-eyed stranger might reappear.

It was well past midnight when the two women finished their work. As they walked down the driveway Rachida took another look at the grange. She knew that Monsieur Descoing would soon begin renovations there and that with luck the apartments for his servants would be ready sometime the following spring.

“I think Monsieur Descoing was pleased,” said Amina. He had given them each a three-hundred-franc tip in addition to their salaries. “Tonight was a fine evening. And I
feel better about Fahmy too. My son's a good boy who can take care of himself. I shouldn't let myself imagine terrible things.” As Amina kissed her and disappeared behind the church, Rachida wished that she didn't have to walk home alone on such a dark night. There was only a tiny fingernail of a moon and no lights coming from any of the houses below. As she arrived at the top of the alley that led to her house, she saw the red coal of a cigarette in the darkness of the churchyard and she felt herself grow faint with fear. But when the person stepped forward, she saw it was her beloved Hamidou come to take her home.

“You're very late,” he said.

“There was a lot to do.” Rachida put her hand in his.

“Your fingers are so cold!” Mohammed squeezed her hand and Rachida looked up at him knowing she couldn't mention the drunken guests, or the rude remark the woman had made, or the strange man who had touched her. When Mohammed asked about the evening, she told him with a nervous lilt that it had gone just fine and that Monsieur Descoing had asked her to plant some flowers for him. Mohammed shook his head in that yes-no fashion of his, but he didn't object, so she took it to mean that she was free to do as she pleased.

Rachida lay awake that night knowing that what she had communicated to Mohammed was as evil as a lie and that her father had been right when he'd called her a willful girl. She had never before come close to telling her husband the smallest untruth and she felt she had not only brought a terrible curse down upon herself but that something between her and Mohammed had been irreparably shattered.

The following Monday, Didier Falque's field hand Musa dropped by Rachida's house to announce that the plants and flowers had been delivered to the château. He was a nice-looking young man who put his hands on his hips and told her, “It's crazy of Monsieur Descoing to order such fragile things. They don't have a chance of surviving a summer in the Midi.”

“What if they are watered every day?”

Musa shook his head. “They're simply not made for this climate.” He cocked his head and gazed at her, a friendly grin on his face. “Listen, it's hot. No fun to be working up there. I'd be happy to plant everything for you and then I'll take the blame when they shrivel up.”

Rachida was grateful for his offer, but it wouldn't be honest to let Musa do the work. She colored slightly, realizing that honesty hadn't been her chief virtue during the past few days. “I was hired to do the planting,” she told him. “I must fulfill my promise.”

She went immediately up to the château. Monsieur Descoing had given her a large steel key to the front gate, and when she arrived on the terrace she saw that Musa had already planted the larger bushes and plants, many of which already looked parched and fragile under the midday sun. There were bushes clipped into the shape of singing birds, begonias whose delicate flowers drooped over the sides of basins, and azaleas, forced into bloom in greenhouses, whose flowers were already wilting despite the patches of damp earth indicating that Musa had given them a good soaking with the hose. She found several dozen thin-slatted wooden boxes filled with small flowering things sitting in
the shade of the terrace. A case full of low-growing succulents, the one thing that could survive well in a dry climate, had a scent like the perfumed sand of Morocco, and she bent happily to remove the little celluloid pots.