Amour Provence (7 page)

Gautier heaved off his backpack and she saw a military insignia with his name sewn on the flap in block letters.

“Were you in the army?”

“At one point.” Gautier came over to her and slid his hands over her shoulders. Then he began to play with her hair, twirling it around his fingers. He had a wry grin on his face as if he was well aware of the kinds of emotions he was causing each time he touched her.

She stepped away and said, “My father was in the cavalry when he lived in Algeria.”

Gautier cocked his head. “Your father is Algerian?”

“No, his family was French.”

“So after the war they all got thrown out. Not before he'd killed his share of Arabs, I'd wager.”

“He never talks about that,” said Berti. “But I know he feels that his family's land was stolen.”

“What about the French who took the land from the people living there in the first place!”

Berti didn't want to get into an argument over something about which she knew little. Instead she asked, “Have you ever been there?”

“We were sent all over the place—Mali, Chad, Algeria. I was with the Foreign Legion.”

Berti had heard that the Legion attracted desperate people and its recruits were considered nothing more than well-trained cannon fodder, shipped out to places too dangerous for the regular army.

“Why did you join?”

“I was forced to.” Gautier scowled at her and Berti thought he wouldn't confess anything more. But after a moment he said, “When I was a kid I was always in trouble, mostly petty crimes. But then a friend of mine got a pistol and we were caught robbing someone. The judge gave me the choice of prison or joining the Legion. So I started over. They even gave me a new identity.” Gautier stopped talking and stared at her. Finally he said, “I was born in France to a French mother, but my father was Algerian, so I had an Arab name. As you know, it's so much easier when people believe you are purely French.”

“I thought you might be Spanish.”

Gautier laughed. “I thought you were! I've seen your father and now it makes sense that he comes from Algeria. Perhaps with his dark skin he's a mixture like me.”

Berti said nothing, wondering if that could be possible. Her father rarely talked about his family. But he had always had an animus toward North African immigrants and never hired them to work at the vineyard. Even during the harvest, when many hands were needed and there were truckloads of Arab workers who lived in the region, her father always chose the Spanish or Portuguese migrants who crossed the border for the sole purpose of picking grapes.

Gautier came close to her again. “I don't usually tell anyone about myself. Somehow with you it's different.” He wrapped his arms around her and she felt his lips run along her cheek.

Berti stepped away, suspicious of the effect he had on her, particularly the strange feeling that there was something already dangerously intimate between them.

“I know when a woman is something special,” Gautier said. And then he made a leap up onto a rocky outcropping and twirled exuberantly around in front of her, his man's body looking like a picture out of a book, a bounding Bacchus in a tale of goats and talking foxes. All he needed were the vine leaves entwined in his hair and Pan piping away in the background. And then, several thin high notes of a flute burst from above. The hair on Berti's arms stood up.

“What was that?” she asked.

Gautier shouted, ”Who's there?” The flute stopped, but there was no response. “It's probably just a bored shepherd spouting his music.”

“But there are no sheep on the mountain. There's nothing to graze on,” Berti told him.

She wondered who might be lurking there on the ledge
above them. Maybe it was Manu Dombasle playing a trick. It would be just the kind of juvenile thing he would find amusing.

Gautier put his arm around her waist and pulled her forward on the narrow path. The mountain air smelled like pine with the sweet undercurrent of woodland flowers and the sun reflected pink off the burnished cliff above them. She could feel Gautier's thigh move against hers as they walked in tandem. The air seemed to vibrate as the sun appeared and disappeared behind the branches overhead, and she felt a dreamy drunkenness, as if she'd had a glass of wine on an empty stomach. She wondered what it would be like to make love to Gautier. She'd only gone that far once with a boy she'd met on a camping trip the previous summer. He'd been sweet, but was as inexperienced as she, and she'd known there would be no commitment because she'd never see him again. It would be quite different with Gautier, who lived just on the other side of Beaucastel. She didn't have to imagine how her father would react if he knew she was seeing an older man, a man with Arab blood.

Soon they stopped and Gautier pointed up at the rocky face of the mountain, where there was a circular opening about a meter high. “This is the place,” he said. He pulled her up onto the ledge. When she hesitated he said, “Don't be afraid!” She let him help her jump down after him. As soon as she landed, damp humid air surrounded her like clammy hands, and the springtime heat that she had been enjoying quickly dissipated. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that they were inside an immense domed chamber, but as Gautier led her farther in, the light dimmed.
A sickly odor of the sort that she'd smelled in their basement when her father laid out mousetraps and neglected to collect the cadavers pervaded the place. Gautier pulled her along and she found herself passing through a doorway into a cold and uninviting blackness.

“It's so dark,” she said, wishing to break away and return to the warm sunlight outside. Gautier began to stroke the inside of her forearm as if she were a cat who needed calming. Then he leaned back against the cave wall and pulled her against him, his legs splayed on either side of her. For a moment she fell into a dream, enjoying his touch, but when she felt him start to undress her, she said, “I don't like this place. Let's go outside again.”

She tried to move away, but Gautier gripped her arms and held her in place. She raised her voice and told him no, but his hands tightened painfully. Tears sprang to her eyes, not because of fear, but because there was something all too familiar about the struggle. Her father held her in precisely the same manner when he was angry. She always felt that somehow she deserved Clément's punishments, even if she'd done nothing, and his violence expiated whatever deep sin of hers might have provoked him. Now she blamed herself again. She'd been an idiot not to have known that this was what Gautier had led her up there for, not friendship or affection, just sex pure and simple. She should never have left her friends and she cursed her own stupidity.

When Gautier pressed her hard against the wall, Berti screamed and it seemed that the prolonged cry that reverberated throughout the caverns originated from some other place.
Gautier immediately put his hand over her mouth. As she struggled against him, her body became slick in the clammy air. And then, within the surrounding darkness, there came a subtle change of atmosphere, as if the hot breath of some enormous primitive god had wafted through the chambers. In a great convulsive motion, the area overhead came alive as a wave of what at first felt like dry leaves blew over them in a roiling tide. Berti perceived the touch of sinewy wings, the tiny furry bodies of a horde that must be exiting through some opening quite near them as the bats moved en masse through the air, dipping and rising and finally exiting the cave in one long, hot stream that coursed just over their heads.

Gautier deflated like a balloon. He flailed his arms at the teeming, darting bats, a futile effort, as they kept coming. Berti crouched and began to run back through the cavern over the uneven rock floor, keeping her eyes on the circle of light. She hoisted herself through the hole and was well along the path when Gautier stumbled out of the cavern's entrance. He was covered in a grayish powder and had a nasty snarl on his lip as he turned toward her. As she started to run again, a voice came from the overhang above. “Eh-oh! Who disturbed the chiroptera? It's against nature to bother them when it's their bedtime!” A man with thick white hair embedded with straw like a farm animal's pelt peered over the ledge.

“What the hell?” Gautier shouted.

Berti recognized that singular face. It was the eccentric that everyone called Lapin, who lived on a tiny farm above Serret where he grew just enough to earn a living selling
vegetables and mountain sausage at the weekly market. Some said he was a madman, but Berti had known him since she was a child and he'd always been kind to her whenever they crossed paths. With Lapin there, Gautier wouldn't dare come after her.

As soon as Berti reached the cliff edge she felt like one of the surefooted chamois she'd seen on the high mountain as she managed to jump from rock to rock with ease, not missing a step. She had never been so well coordinated. Perhaps it was just adrenaline, but she flew through the air as if suspended from a trapeze. The sun was still shining, though part of the valley was already in the deep shadow of Ventoux. When she could see a glimmer of the Toulourenc and hear the waterfall, she jumped down even faster, hoping to find Seb and Eva waiting for her below.

In Serret, Filou used the ladders he had placed the day before to ascend to Euphémie de Laubry's roof. The middle-aged widow was rarely around because she spent her days wandering in the mountains like a wood nymph, arriving at dusk with an armful of wildflowers or a basket of leeks that grew willy-nilly on the hillsides. The previous week, she'd pressed a clutch of skinny wild asparagus into his hands. From his perch by the chimney, he could see into the ravine that ran behind the de Laubry mansion. It might be fun to go down there one day, he thought. As a child, he'd explored the stream that ran beneath, all but hidden by the tall cypress trees that grew on the high banks. But for now, he had to finish up and not be tempted by other amusements. Still, he couldn't help
but glance from time to time across the way at Victorine's window, relieved to see that the place was dark.

As the afternoon light slowly began to change, he thought of Pierrette, who would still be at the lab where she worked as a technician. Later, she'd pick up Françoise and Gaspard at the
garderie
at school. He wondered if the children would ask why he wasn't at dinner that evening and what Pierrette might say. Suddenly Filou realized he'd have to hurry to return to the Toulourenc in time. It was not only necessary to get Berti away from Gautier Marcassin, but if Clément got into one of his furies, it could adversely affect the security of his temporary lodgings. It was important to have the little dwelling to himself for a few days, as he was sure that Pierrette wouldn't be convinced of his contrition until she'd had some time to cool off.

As he was about to descend the ladder, Victorine suddenly leaned out her window wearing a décolleté blouse that revealed an abundance of soft white skin.

“Filou,” she said with a smile. “If you've finished, why not come over and see me.”

“I can't today,” he replied, giving her a sad shrug. He made certain to keep his head down as he hefted his equipment, not daring to look up again for fear that he wouldn't be able to resist all that attractively swelling flesh.

When he arrived at the Toulourenc, there was no sign of anyone and he wondered if they'd all left. He decided to walk upstream to see if the kids were still there. It was late afternoon and Filou felt his stomach contort, as he hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day except the coffee that
Liliane had prepared for him that morning. Usually he brought along a sandwich or a slice of vegetable
tian
left over from the night before. Pierrette was an excellent cook and always made sure there was something good that he could bring for lunch. At the thought of her, his feeling of hunger disappeared and he felt that he was just a sad specimen who had brought unnecessary unhappiness down on them both.

Filou had never seen the river so wide and deep. In places it made great curves and swirling eddies along the usually dry swaths of piled-up stones. Along the way, he spotted some papers fluttering by the riverside, probably where Berti's classmates had stopped to picnic. He continued on, trying to stay in the shallows, but at times he found himself jumping from rock to rock, and soon icy water began to work its way inside his boots. There was no sign of anyone and he wondered if he should continue. But the thought of Berti and Gautier Marcassin alone together made him press forward. Filou felt his mood lighten briefly when he remembered how desirous Pierrette had been when they'd first met, chasing him around, jumping into his arms in an enthusiastic embrace, and making love to him wherever she could. He'd never met a woman quite like her and that had kept him more faithful to her than he had ever been with anyone else. But he had occasionally made mistakes, and this time he was afraid that he might have definitively extinguished whatever passion Pierrette still felt for him.