Blackbird Fly (13 page)

“
What does it say?” she asked,
looking over his shoulder.

“
It appears to be a letter to the
convent — I shall read it? ‘There is so much I wish to say to her,
so much I wish I could say. Someday I will return and make my
feelings known. But for now let her know she will always have a
home with me, wherever I am. She will never be without someone
looking over her, someone who cares. I have not abandoned her. I
never will.’ It’s signed: Marie-Emilie Chevalier.”

“
Can I see it?” He handed her the
Xeroxed page. There was no mention of Justine LaBelle. It was
meaningless, legally. “Where did this come from?”

“
I assumed from Justine, but now
reading it, I wonder. It doesn’t mention her and is addressed to
the prioress. The Mother Superior.”

“
Why would Marie-Emilie use her
maiden name? She was married before she came to the village,” Merle
said. “I have some other letters, ones my husband kept. To
Marie-Emilie from someone. They’re in French. Do you think you
could take a look at them?”

“
If you wish.”

She pulled the small packet from the manila envelope
in her backpack. “They’re hard to read, they’re so faded.” He took
them, peering closely at the old, brittle envelopes. “Take your
time. I think I’ll knock on her garden door.”

They stood in the alley. Merle was determined to
speak for herself this time, woman to woman. She rapped on the
solid wood with peeling blue paint. “Madame LaBelle?”

No answer. She put her ear to the gate. “
Je
m’appelle Merle Bennett. Je suis Americaine.”
In French she
continued: “I want to help you find a new home.”

“
Allez! Fiche le
camp
!”

“
S’il vous plait, madame
. Can
we talk?”

The first rock sailed over the wall and hit Albert’s
wall with a thud. They turned, startled, watched it roll down the
alley. The second caused them to duck then dropped onto the mossy
alley floor.

Albert called out, “
Madame! Arretez
!”

Merle backed away from the gate. This wasn’t going
well, she was thinking, as the third stone hit her square on the
forehead. She staggered, stunned.

“
Oooh la la, you bleed, Madame!”
Albert cried as two more rocks arced over the wall, one barely
missing him. He yelled again at Madame LaBelle to stop then
insisted they take cover behind his wall. He made Merle come into
the house for examination, where, it was true, she was bleeding a
little. The goose egg would be a fascinating addition to her
forehead.

She held ice in a dishcloth to her forehead. Things
were going badly. Maybe she should just wait for the lawyer to get
back. She closed her eyes and was back at her desk at Legal Aid,
filling out a Section 8 form for an illiterate client. It seemed so
safe, so orderly, so
normal
. She opened her eyes. This was
the new normal: strange country, strange people, strange laws. For
a moment she wished herself back in the dark, rainy suburbs,
changing light bulbs.

Ice water tricked down her nose. On Albert’s dark
wood table was an open bottle of wine, a bouquet of pink
wildflowers in a cracked crystal vase, a small dish of black
olives. The sun shone through his lace curtain at the front of the
house, landing on a purple orchid. On the breeze, the smell of
lavender.

The odor of France went into her brain. Was she
crazy? Did it take a hard knock to the skull to make her wake up?
Did she want to be back in the shadows of Connecticut, or in a
windowless cubicle in Manhattan? Here she had sunshine, fresh
fruit, warmth.

This is France, stupid
. Here, now.

When Albert stepped into the room with his first aid
kit she stood up. “I’ll go lie down at my hotel.”

“
I have medicines, no?” Albert’s
face creased with concern. “Perhaps we should tell the gendarme
that she is dangerous?”

“
He doesn’t care,
Albert.”

“
They like to know, these
gendarmes,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

Chapter 14

Stefan whispers, “Leave it to me.”

How has it come to this — hiding, whispering,
touching, like some common peasant who doesn’t know the meaning of
time, of commitment, of consequence. Marie-Emilie doesn’t know,
doesn’t want to know. He brings her food, for her mind and her
body, that is all she knows.

Maybe she is careless now that Weston has gone. Maybe
she doesn’t care what her husband feels or thinks, what any of them
thinks. The village turned its back on her and it isn’t in her to
fight any more. Yes, she is careless. She knows it is wrong, this
thing, whatever it is, with Stefan. But there it is and she can’t
fight it. He is her friend, her only friend. When she so needs a
friend.

“
Leave it to me and all will be
well.” He kisses her hand, like a gentleman, looking into her eyes.
That is as far as she lets him go; she is no whore. She has felt
his lips on hers, just once. She closes the door and watches him
run with his long legs and floppy blond hair, around the corner. A
Dutchman by birth, he moved here as a boy. Who would think, a
Dutchman?

On the table are the books. This is how it began, at
church, over a discussion of a book. She had not read the one he
mentioned although she was quick to tell him she could read, that
she had passed all her tests. He didn’t make her feel stupid; he
listened. This book is just a story, nothing particular, about a
young man in the first war who meets a woman, fights and kills,
then comes back to her. She knows the type, she had read them.
Fantasies of what war meant, as if every man came back to love
again, as if nothing had changed. As if hearts didn’t need to be
mended, as if men were not shattered and children starved, as if
the land hadn’t gone to rot.

That Stefan had liked the story was what mattered.
That he had given her the book mattered.

Weston has been gone for months. She hasn’t heard
from him. She is glad. Things have been very bad in town. No one
will sell her even an egg at market, not a potato. She rides a
farmer’s cart to outlying villages where no one knows her and
spends what little money she earns helping at harvest and at
planting. The farmers use her then, they have no choice. Men with
strong backs are scarce, women too. She was the youngest woman bent
over the grapevines last fall, the youngest to plant seeds in rows
this spring.

For the first weeks he was gone she worried, keeping
the house the way he liked it, making sure she looked decent. He
might come home unexpectedly, just waltz in the way he’d done. But
when he doesn’t write or return, something changes in her. She
feels loose from him, as if a terrible burden has been lifted. As
if he had died in the war and she was a widow who was destitute but
could go on without worry now. She crossed herself and begged
forgiveness for her evil thoughts.

But he is dead to her. Now she could see he used her,
for this house, his carnal ways, whatever he wanted. He no longer
cares for her, if ever he had. From the moment Stefan walked her
home from church and she told him her name was Marie-Emilie
Chevalier, she was free. Her mother’s name, the good knight, the
avenger of sins.

Now to right the wrongs. She has no illusions about
changing the villagers’ minds. They will always hate her for
Weston. Doors will always slam. Children will be sent indoors to
avoid contamination. It doesn’t matter. She has a plan and Stefan,
who has a bicycle and a job at the
boulangerie
, will help
her.

She walks out into the garden and feels the sun heal
her spirit. She will not live like this forever, hungry and alone.
Things will change. With all her power she will erase his wrongs
from this earth. Then she will be a free woman.

Chapter 15

As she unlocked the hotel room Merle smelled the air
change of someone strange, their sweat. Every dresser drawer was
pulled and dumped, the closet thrown, suitcase upended. She stood
in the doorway, stunned, grateful she’d taken her wallet, passport,
documents with her. There was very little else she cared about. The
mattress had been searched, lying at an angle on the frame. She
backed out of the room and went to find the manager.

“
A thief, madame?
Zut alors
.”
Guy Framboise was young, a tall man who spoke several languages.
Together they walked up the stairs to the second floor rear guest
room. “Oh, madame!” The manager apologized, mortified. He insisted
she return with him while he called the police.

As he sat her down in the empty dining room, he
noticed the bump on her forehead. “Did he hurt you?”

Her hand flew to her head. “No.
Un petit
accident
. Could I get some ice for it?”

In a moment the chef brought out a glass of red wine
and a bowl of ice, pausing to listen to the commotion in the lobby
as the gendarme arrived. Monsieur Framboise cleared his throat as
he approached. Merle pulled the ice off her face.

“
Monsieur le Gendarme would like you
to accompany us back to the room so you can identify any things
that may be missing.”

Jean-Pierre Redier, the gendarme, seemed a lot
friendlier to the hotel manager than he had this morning, although
his manner was still a mixture of arrogance, laziness, and too much
wine with lunch. The manager translated, so she didn’t have to
actually speak to the policeman.

“
He would like you to carefully
enter the room,” the manager said, “and see what is
missing.”

As she stepped inside, moving around a mound of
underpants in their perpetually frayed state, she vowed to buy
French lingerie for the next viewing. All the undies were
unfortunately accounted for, as well as the stretched-out bras.

“
He asks if you left your passport
in the room,” Framboise called from the hall.

“
No, I had everything with me. In
here.” She patted her backpack. She pointed to a pile of clothes.
“Can I fold these?”

She picked up her slacks and t-shirts, folding them
onto the top of the dresser. She looked around, poked her head
inside the lavatory. “My watch is missing. I left it in the
bathroom.” Not like her to forget her watch but she’d had that
quick shower. “And a pair of gold earrings worth about fifty
dollars American.”

“
How much is the watch?” Framboise
asked.

Harry had given it to her years ago.
Time has run
out, King Harold
. A birthday, or something. Had they even
celebrated her birthday together last year? No, she’d gone into the
city and had dinner with her sisters.

“
Maybe five-hundred dollars. It had
a few little diamonds on it.”

The room seemed even smaller with the mess. The thief
had ignored a pair of earrings worth more and amazingly had left a
packet of traveler’s checks she’d stuck in the desk drawer. The
manager sighed dramatically.

Redier shrugged. The thief had been careless, that
was all. Or maybe disturbed before finishing. He turned his dark
gaze on her. “
Qu’est-ce que c’est
?” What is that, he asked,
pointing to his own forehead.

“
Rien
,” she said. Nothing. He
asked her something else and she waited for the manager’s
translation.

“
He asks if that is from Madame
LaBelle’s garden.”

Albert wasted no time calling him about crazy
Justine. “
Oui. Un pierre à la tête
.” A stone to the head.
She mimed an overhand toss.

“
He says, are you going to press
charges against her.”

“
No.
Non. C’est
okay.”

Redier looked at her for a long, silent minute. He
was just creepy, she decided, giving him an equal stare. He left
with the manager to question the housekeeping staff. Merle
straightened the mattress back on the bed and lay down. The smell
of the room’s violation made her uneasy, and her head hurt from the
rock. She got up to find her aspirin, scattered on the cracked tile
of the bathroom floor. She picked up two, blew them off, and washed
them down with water.

Just a quick nap.

At five in the morning the birdsong woke her. She’d
slept through dinner and somewhere around midnight managed to get
under the covers. Behind the hotel the sun hadn’t yet risen over
the chateau on the hill. She put on running shorts and shoes,
pulled back her hair. In the bathroom she examined the bump over
her eye: purple but not too terrible, she dabbed a little makeup on
it and went downstairs. In the kitchen the chef slumped sleepily
over a cup of coffee. Now that they were friends he waved her on to
help herself. She drank a glass of orange juice then walked
outside.

The cobblestone streets were silent. A rooster crowed
somewhere on the edge of town. Yesterday had been a disaster. Maybe
she had been too aggressive with Justine. And not enough with the
gendarme.
Step back, make some new calculations
. Turning
right she decided to make a pass by the house in case someone was
up early. Albert said Evangeline often went out first thing in the
morning, possibly to church.

A block away from Rue de Poitiers Merle saw them.
Orange hair, short skirt, and baggy pants, hiking boots. Evangeline
and Justine walked arm-in-arm out the alley onto the street. Merle
jumped into a doorway. Where to hide? She crouched into a ball
behind a large flowerpot, tucking her head down. Their shoes
squeaked against the cobbles as they passed, quickly, silently.

When they were well past Merle peeked out. Hiding
behind a flower pot, really. Why hadn’t she just spoken to them? If
she could just talk to Justine, get her to understand she meant no
harm. But she needed a new strategy, something to break down the
defenses, get them to listen. Hopefully the old woman wasn’t armed
with rocks today.