Amour Provence (25 page)

On her way back to her room that afternoon, the elevator doors slid open and Florence stepped into the hallway. On her arm she carried a gleaming handbag marked with the double
C
of Chanel, but sadly her clothes were dowdy. Flo had never developed the style that most women who
lived in big cities like Lyon seemed to achieve by osmosis. Even her beautiful orange hair was pulled back tight with a plain plastic clip.

“Hello,
Maman
, I've brought you a few things.” Flo held up a canvas tote.

“Oh, you darling!” Euphémie took her arm. “I'm so glad to see you!”

In Euphémie's room, Florence drew out some magazines. “I brought along a little sweater too in case you're chilly, though it's really quite stifling up here!” Florence stripped off her coat and scarf and threw them onto the bed. It was true that the heat on the top floor was cranked way up. Like hothouse flowers, the deranged and infirm required unusual warmth.

Florence flopped down onto the single chair. “How have you been?”

“I've never been better, but the nurses don't believe me when I say I'm just fine.”

“Well, you're not fine.” Florence sat up straight. “The doctor said your condition just hasn't manifested itself yet. You're only in the first stages, but you could be subject to a debilitating dementia overnight! That's why you're here. You need to be protected!”

“But how could he possibly know what might happen? That doctor only examined me once.”

“Physicians are well informed concerning these sorts of maladies.”

“But being put away like this seems so, well, so definitive. Even if one day I'll be disabled, I'm not now!”

Florence stood up and pulled her scarf back around her neck. “Listen,
Maman
, I'm doing this for you.
It's ridiculous to argue, so that's that. Oh, by the way, at the front desk they told me that Arab man of yours has passed by several times inquiring about you. At least the idiots down there had the sense to turn him away. I told them under no circumstances is he to be allowed up here.”

“Oh! But why not?” Euphémie cried. “It would be so lovely to see Hamidou again!”

“Please,
Maman
! It wouldn't do to have you sitting up here having a tête-à-tête with a Muslim. Who knows what sort of man he really is. Why, he might even be a jihadist!” Florence gave a dismissive shake of her head as if Euphémie was too thick to comprehend.

After Flo left, Euphémie stayed alone in her room. The rest of the afternoon stretched before her. She didn't feel like returning to the turret, where she was beginning to feel like a pet mouse darting senselessly through the same plastic tube. Instead, she stared out the window at the river that rose up in peaked whitecaps and crashed against the protruding rocks at its center.

Euphémie couldn't help but sigh. She and Florence had been at cross-purposes for years. When Florence was just thirteen, Euphémie's husband, Dominique, had gone off hunting in the mountains one day and never returned. Euphémie's regular walks turned into desperate searches even after the police had given up, but a body was never found. She never knew whether Dominique had fallen to his death in a ravine, committed suicide, or simply slipped away to begin a new life somewhere else.

After her husband's disappearance, she found that the estate she'd
inherited from her parents had been badly mismanaged. Only the big house and a dilapidated property in Saint-Tropez were left. Euphémie scraped together enough money to renovate the place in Saint-Tropez so she could earn some income renting it. But Flo, whom Euphémie did her best to love and take care of, became a high-strung, snobbish teenager, desperately clutching on to their titled name of de Laubry as if it were a life raft. When she enrolled at university, she quickly latched on to Victor, a person whose family owned a textile business in Lyon. Florence married him and fit right in with the bourgeoisie in La Croix-Rousse, making sure to set herself well apart from her mother. Euphémie blamed herself for the estrangement just as she had blamed herself for her husband Dominique's disappearance and his unkindness to her during their marriage.

Euphémie's truest guilt stemmed from the flood of relief she'd felt when she'd finally determined that Dominique was gone for good. He'd always been cold, something she put down to a formality that she at first believed was a virtue rather than a defect, having been used to her father's polite reserve, which in Augustin's case veiled a warm and humorous equanimity. But Dominique was not warm. In fact, he had a cruel streak, and being ten years older, he enjoyed making Euphémie feel inferior and ill educated. His treatment of her was degrading, but she'd dutifully put up with it during the years of their marriage. When he was declared legally dead, Euphémie determined she would never remarry. There was no need to put herself in harm's way ever again.

The only thing she and Dominique ever had in common had been their long treks through the mountains. When they'd first moved to her family home, her professorial husband had been willing to walk many kilometers with her, but for him, the passion was the hunt. He fired wildly at anything, indifferent to the natural beauty of the woodland and its inhabitants.

“Please, Dominique,” she would say, trying to deflect the barrel of his rifle when she saw him aiming at some bird or beast whose heart was pulsing with life. It pained her to see him kill. During their walks, her husband appreciated neither the intoxicating scent of yellow broom in June nor the sienna leaf of autumn; only the challenge of the rocky path before him and the lust for blood drove him onward. He always kept his rifle with him, even bringing it into their bedroom at night and leaning it against the headboard within easy grasp. When Euphémie protested, Dominique told her that he'd gotten used to having a gun around during the war. She'd tried to be understanding, not wanting to imagine what her husband might have gone through during those difficult years, and assuming that, like her, the experiences he'd had were too painful ever to be discussed.

During the long nights locked on the top floor of the rest home, Euphémie began to wonder if she had been imprisoned for her sins. She had failed to truly love her husband. She'd lost the love of her daughter. And long ago she had even ceased being a churchgoer, turning into a simple pagan who preferred to commune with trees and follow the cries of songbirds rather than attend religious services. Perhaps that's
why she was being punished, and perhaps she deserved it.

She thought of her last day of freedom, when she'd been drawn to the mountain as usual. On the path ahead of her, about halfway up, were two men, one a slight teenager wearing a Windbreaker made of bright turquoise material. The other man was stockier and dressed in a practical canvas jacket. When he turned his head, she saw a beard streaked white like a badger's pelt. Whenever the two made an about-face to look at the view, Euphémie stepped behind one of the overgrown boxwood hedges that lined the rocky path. She didn't want to converse with strangers and preferred to remain discreetly hidden. But when they reached a crest and turned again, Euphémie's heel rolled on a stone and she nearly fell. The men trotted down toward her.

“Why, it's Madame de Laubry,” said the bearded man. She recognized him at once, her neighbor Gaston Prost, whose family had lived for generations in the
gentilhommerie
up behind the ruined garrison. He had been a charming boy, the one child who made Euphémie wish she had also had a son. Gaston lived in Paris now, only using his natal house during vacations. It was May and the celebration of the feasts of the Ascension and of Pentecost meant long weekends when Parisians descended en famille to their country homes. Sure enough, after taking her by the elbow, Gaston introduced his son, Séverin, whom she also remembered.

“Madame de Laubry, what a pleasure!” Séverin said, giving her a winsome smile. “I remember being invited to your house one Christmas Eve, everything decorated with
holly and mistletoe hanging from the beams, just like a fairy's bower! You had all kinds of fascinating objects too—wasps' nests on the sideboard and a huge red glass vase filled with thousands of seashells.”

“Oh yes,” said Euphémie, “I used to collect those at our place in Saint-Tropez.”

Then Gaston asked, “Are you sure you're all right? We can help you walk back down if you like.”

“Oh no, really, I'm perfectly fine,” Euphémie affirmed. Before saying good-bye, Gaston told her that she must come for lunch soon and that his wife would telephone.

But when they departed, Euphémie recalled that she'd been invited to the Prosts the summer before, and in an act of sheer unthinking selfishness, she had stolen a small box of candy that had been displayed on the coffee table, sequestering it in her purse. That had been during one of those hungry end-of-the-months when her allowance from Flo and Victor had not been enough to pay for her meals. She had pushed that inadmissible deed out of her mind, but now the petty theft came back to her magnified into an egregious crime. She toiled on up to the crest of the hill and then found herself careening rapidly off into the forest in an effort to outrun her shame. Beneath the shadows of the great trees, she noticed the sky itself grow darker and soon a light rain began to fall that quickly grew heavy. She sheltered herself under a pine tree whose layered branches made a low roof just over her head. As she waited, she thought of the sweetness of Gaston and his son. Feeling quite positive that the Prosts would never invite her to anything ever again, she found herself weeping silently as the rain turned
to hail that danced across the rocky ground. The hailstones expanded in size and began to pelt her right through the protection of the overhanging branches. Flashes of lightning and hideous-sounding thunder rolled like grim laughter over the hills.
Never again at the Prosts!
it seemed to say. The air turned chill, and Euphémie, who had only brought along a light sweater, realized she would have to make the effort to get down the path and home despite the terrible weather. When she emerged from beneath the tree, an outsized hailstone hit the back of her head and nearly knocked her down. She stumbled toward the path and all at once one of those detested black Range Rovers that had no business on mountain paths ground to a halt in front of her. She held up her arm to protect her face from the juddering, pelting hail as a man exited from the car and lifted her bodily inside.

“What is the meaning of this?” she stammered, and was answered by a familiar voice.

“
Chère madame
, I realized that you must still be up here on the mountain.” It was Gaston Prost, busy tucking a blanket around her. “I came to find you and take you home. And not a moment too soon!”

Despite his kindness, Gaston's actions had been the beginning of the end for Euphémie. When she'd developed a fever, Gaston had telephoned her daughter, Florence. From then on she saw her liberty begin to dwindle, until finally, after Florence brought her to see a strange doctor who made the startling diagnosis of her impending madness, Euphémie wound up in her current abode, a locked ward of patients who were for the most part non compos mentis.

It had been more than half a year since she'd arrived
there, and that afternoon Euphémie almost wished for the onslaught of the predicted dementia. Maybe it would hit her suddenly. Perhaps her ravaged brain would recall everything from her past as if it was happening all over again. Maybe in this new life she'd have a second chance to change things for the better.

During the days that followed Florence's visit, Euphémie tried to stay out of her room as much as possible. She spent her time beneath the fluorescent lights of the hallway eagerly reading the magazines Flo had brought. Sometimes she sat back and dreamed of the plants and flowers she used to gather on the mountainside, wild orchids and miniature irises, tiny wild leeks and skinny asparagus that popped up in profusion from dark, ferny leaves.

One day, as her mind drifted, the elevator opened and Gaston Prost, looking distinguished in a dark suit, stepped into the hallway with his son, Séverin. “Madame de Laubry!” he greeted her. “When we heard you were here, we didn't believe it!”

Looking at the two of them, Euphémie remembered that spring day when she'd met them on the mountain path, a day that had promised to be so beautiful, and then everything had turned out so very badly. When her eyes filled with tears, Gaston and Séverin looked at each other. Gaston held out his hand. “Let's find a more cheerful place where we can sit down and have a chat.”

Pushing three chairs together in the common room, away from the flickering television set, Gaston spoke to her in his friendly way, so pleasant and informal that she felt just like a girl whom a handsome man was endeavoring
to cheer with his light banter. His son, Séverin, was very like him. He had the same humor and joy, and that perfectly exquisite smile that acted like a dose of oxygen for Euphémie. Toward the end of the visit, Gaston said, “We heard that you'd had a stroke, or worse, but you seem perfectly alert, perfectly coherent. There must be some mistake.” Séverin nodded in agreement, giving Euphémie another of his intoxicating smiles. Then Gaston leaned toward her and touched her hand. “You seem to be a person capable of facing things as they are. Do you mind if I speak frankly?” Euphémie made a vague motion with her head, fearful that he might address the very thing that she had so stalwartly managed to push out of her mind during her tenancy in the ward.

“If a family member is ill,” Gaston continued, “then it's normal that those closest might wish to make sure that person is in a safe place where she will receive the care and comfort she needs. That goes without saying. But I have heard of times when relatives take legal steps—or what they say are legal steps—to obtain certain goods or an inheritance, an act that deprives the original owner of his or her rights. I don't want to overstep, Madame de Laubry, but have you ever considered that this might be true in your case?”