Five Quarters of the Orange (12 page)

I gaped at him.

“You never thought at all!” I knew that he was furious, not with my ignorance, but with his own. “It’s just the same over there, stupid!” he shouted. “They’re putting things away to send home. Getting to know stuff about people, then making them pay to keep quiet. You heard what he said about Madame Petit. ‘A real black market free-for-all.’ You think they’d have let her go if he’d told anyone about it?” He was panting now, close to laughter. “Not on your life! Haven’t you ever heard of what they do to Jews in Paris? Haven’t you ever heard of the death camps?”

I shrugged, feeling stupid. Of course I had heard of these things. It was just that in Les Laveuses things were different. We’d all read about Nazi death camps, but in my mind they had got somehow tangled with the death ray from
The War of the Worlds
. Hitler had been muddled with the pictures of Charlie Chaplin from Reinette’s film magazines, fact fusing with folklore, rumor, fiction, newsreel broadcast melting into serial-story star-fighters from beyond the planet Mars and night fighters across the Rhine, gunslingers and firing squad,
U-Boots
and the
Nautilus
twenty thousand leagues under.

“Blackmail?” I repeated blankly.

“Business,”
corrected Cassis in a sharp voice. “Do you think it’s fair that some people have chocolate—and coffee, and proper shoes, and magazines, and
books
—while others have to do without? Don’t you think they should pay for those privileges? Share a little of what they’ve got? And hypocrites—like Monsieur Toubon—and liars? Don’t you think
they
should pay too? It’s not as if they can’t afford it. It’s not as if anyone gets hurt.”

It might have been Tomas speaking. That made his words very difficult to ignore.

Slowly I nodded.

I thought Cassis looked relieved. “It isn’t even stealing,” he continued eagerly. “That black market stuff belongs to everyone. I’m just making sure that we all get our fair share of it.”

“Like Robin Hood.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded again. Put that way, it did seem perfectly fair and reasonable.

Satisfied, I went to retrieve my fishing bag from where it lay in the blackberry tangle, happy in the knowledge that I had earned it, after all.

I
t was maybe five months after Cassis died—four years after the Mamie Framboise business—that Yannick and Laure came back to Les Laveuses. It was summer, and my daughter Pistache was visiting with her two children, Prune and Ricot, and until then it was a happy time. The children were growing so fast and so sweet, just like their mother, Prune chocolate-eyed and curly-haired and Ricot tall and velvet-cheeked, and both of them so full of laughter and mischief that it almost breaks my heart to see them, it takes me back so. I swear I feel forty years younger every time they come, and that summer I taught them how to fish and bait traps and make caramel macaroons and green-fig jam, and Ricot and I read
Robinson Crusoe
and
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
together, and I told Prune outrageous lies about the fish I’d caught, and we shivered at stories of Old Mother’s terrible gift.

“They used to say that if you caught her and set
her free, she’d give you your heart’s desire, but if you saw her—even out of the corner of your eye—and
didn’t
catch her, something dreadful would happen to you.”

Prune looked at me with wide pansy-colored eyes, one thumb corked comfortingly in her mouth. “What kind of a dreadful?” she whispered, awed.

I made my voice low and menacing. “You’d
die
, sweetheart,” I told her softly. “Or someone else would. Someone you loved. Or something worse even than that. And in any case, even if you survived, Old Mother’s curse would follow you to the grave.”

Pistache gave me a quelling look. “
Maman
, I don’t know why you want to go telling her that kind of thing,” she said reproachfully. “You want her to have nightmares and wet the bed?”

“I
don’t
wet the bed!” protested Prune. She looked at me expectantly, tugging at my hand. “
Mémée
, did
you
ever see Old Mother? Did you?
Did
you?”

Suddenly I felt cold, wishing I had told her another story. Pistache gave me a sharp look and made as if to lift Prune off my knee.

“Prunette, you just leave
Mémée
, alone now. It’s nearly bedtime, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth or—”

“Please,
Mémée
, did you? Did you
see
her?”

I hugged my granddaughter, and the coldness receded a little. “Sweetheart, I fished for her during
one entire summer
. All that time I tried to catch her, with nets and line and pots and traps. I fixed them every day, checked them twice a day and more if I could.”

Prune looked at me with solemn eyes. “You must really have wanted that wish, him?”

I nodded. “I suppose I must have.”

“And did you catch her?”

Her face glowed like a peony. She smelt of biscuit and cut grass, the wonderful warm, sweet scent of youth. Old people need to have youth about them, you know, to remember.

I smiled. “I did catch her.”

Her eyes were wide with excitement. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “And what did you wish?”

“I didn’t make a wish, sweetheart,” I told her quietly.

“You mean she got away?”

I shook my head. “No, I caught her all right.”

Pistache was watching me now, her face in shadow. Prune put her small plump hands on my face. Impatiently:

“What then?”

I looked at her for a moment. “I didn’t throw her back,” I told her. “I caught her at last, but I didn’t let her go.”

Except that wasn’t quite right, I told myself then. Not quite true. And then I kissed my granddaughter and told her I’d tell her the rest later, that I didn’t know why I was telling her a load of old fishing stories anyway, and in spite of her protests, between coaxing and nonsense, we finally got her to bed. I thought about it that night, long after the others were asleep. I never had much trouble sleeping, but this time it seemed like hours before I could find any peace, and even then I dreamed of Old Mother down in the black water, and myself pulling, pulled, pulling, as if neither of us could bear ever to let go….

Anyway, it was soon after that they came. To the restaurant to begin with, almost humbly, like ordinary customers. They had the
brochet angevin
and the
tourteau fromage
. I watched them covertly from my post in the kitchen, but they behaved well and caused no trouble. They spoke to each other in low voices, made no unreasonable demands on the wine cellar, and for once refrained from calling me
Mamie
. Laure was charming, Yannick hearty; both were eager to please and to be pleased. I was somewhat relieved to see that they no longer touched and kissed each other so often in public, and I even unbent enough to talk to them for a while over coffee and
petits fours
.

Laure had aged in four years. She had lost weight—it may be the fashion, but it didn’t suit her at all—and her hair was a sleek copper
helmet. She seemed edgy too, with a habit of rubbing her abdomen as if she had a pain there. As far as I could see, Yannick hadn’t changed at all.

The restaurant was doing well, he declared cheerfully. Plenty of money in the bank. They were planning a trip to the Bahamas in spring; they hadn’t had a holiday together in years. They spoke of Cassis with affection and—I thought—genuine regret.

I began to think I’d judged them too harshly.

I was wrong.

Later that week they called at the farm, when Pistache was about to put the children to bed. They brought presents for us all, sweets for Prune and Ricot, flowers for Pistache. My daughter looked at them with that expression of vacant sweetness which I know to be dislike, and which they no doubt took for stupidity. Laure watched the children with a curious insistence that I found unsettling; her eyes flicked constantly toward Prune, playing with some pine cones on the floor.

Yannick settled himself in an armchair by the fire. I was very conscious of Pistache sitting quietly nearby, and hoped my uninvited guests would leave soon. However, neither of them showed any desire to do so.

“The meal was simply wonderful,” said Yannick lazily. “That
brochet
—I don’t know what you did with it, but it was absolutely marvelous.”

“Sewage,” I told him pleasantly. “There’s so much of it pours into the river nowadays that the fish practically feed on nothing but. Loire caviar, we call it. Very rich in minerals.”

Laure looked at me, startled. Then Yannick gave his little laugh—
hé, hé, hé
—and she joined him.

“
Mamie
likes her joke,
hé, hé
. Loire caviar. You really are a tease, darling.” But I noticed they never ordered pike again.

When Pistache had put the children to bed, Yannick and Laure
began to talk about Cassis. Harmless stuff at first—how
Papa
would have loved to see his niece and her children.

“He was always saying how much he wanted us to have children,” said Yannick. “But at that stage in Laure’s career—”

Laure interrupted him. “There’ll be plenty of time for that,” she said, almost harshly. “I’m not so old, am I?”

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

“And of course, at that time there was the added expense of looking after
Papa
to think about. He had hardly anything left,
Mamie
,” said Yannick, biting into one of my
sablés
. “All he had came from us. Even his house.”

I could believe it. Cassis was never one to hoard wealth. He slid it through his fingers in smoke, or more often into his belly. Cassis was always his own best customer in the Paris days.

“Of course we wouldn’t think of begrudging him that.” Laure’s voice was soft. “We were very fond of poor
Papa
, weren’t we,
chéri?
”

Yannick nodded with more enthusiasm than sincerity. “Oh, yes.
Very
fond. And of course…such a
generous
man. Never felt any resentment at all about…this house, or the inheritance, or anything. Extraordinary.” He glanced at me then, a sharp ratty slice of a look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I was up at once, almost spilling my coffee, still very conscious of Pistache sitting next to me, listening. I had never told my daughters about Reinette or Cassis. They never met. As far as they knew I was an only child. And I had never spoken a word about my mother.

Yannick looked sheepish. “Well,
Mamie
, you know he was
really
supposed to inherit the
house
—”

“Not that we blame you—”

“But he
was
the eldest, and under your mother’s will—”

“Now wait a minute!” I tried to keep the shrillness from my voice but for a moment I sounded just like my mother, and I saw Pistache
wince. “I paid Cassis good money for this house,” I said in a lower tone. “It was only a shell after the fire, anyway, all burnt out with the rafters poking through the slates. He could never have lived in it, wouldn’t have wanted to either. I paid good money, more than I could afford, and—”

“Shh. It’s all right.” Laure glared at her husband. “No one’s suggesting your agreement was in any way improper.”

Improper
.

That’s a Laure word all right, plummy, self-satisfied and with just the right amount of skepticism. I could feel my hand tightening around the rim of my coffee cup, printing bright little points of burn on my fingertips.

“But you have to see it from our point of view.” That was Yannick, his broad face gleaming. “Our grandmother’s legacy…”

I didn’t like the way the conversation was heading. I especially hated Pistache’s presence, her round eyes taking everything in.

“You never even knew my mother, any of you,” I interrupted harshly.

“That’s not the point,
Mamie
,” said Yannick quickly. “The point is that there were
three
of you. And the legacy was divided into three. That’s right, isn’t it?”

I nodded cautiously.

“But now since poor
Papa
has passed away, we have to ask ourselves whether the informal arrangement you two made between you is entirely fair to the
remaining
members of the family.” His tone was casual, but I could see the gleam in his eyes, and I shouted out, suddenly furious.

“
What
‘informal arrangement’? I told you, I paid good
money
—I signed
papers
…”

Laure put her hand on my arm. “Yannick didn’t mean to
upset
you,
Mamie
.”

“No one’s upset me,” I said stonily.

Yannick ignored that and continued: “It’s just that
some
people
might think that an agreement such as you made with poor
Papa
—a sick man desperate for cash—”

I could see Laure was watching Pistache, and cursed under my breath.

“Besides the unclaimed third that should have belonged to
Tante
Reine—” The fortune under the cellar floor. Ten cases of Bordeaux laid down the year she was born, tiled over and cemented into place against the Germans and what came later, worth a thousand francs or more per bottle today, I daresay, all awaiting collection. Damn. Cassis could never keep his mouth shut when it was needed. I interrupted harshly.

“That’s being kept for her. I haven’t touched any of it.”

“Of course not,
Mamie
. All the same…” Yannick grinned unhappily, looking so like my brother that it almost hurt. I glanced briefly again at Pistache, sitting bolt upright in her chair, face expressionless. “All the same, you have to admit that
Tante
Reine is hardly in any position to claim it now, and don’t you think it would be fairer to all concerned—”

“All that belongs to Reine,” I said flatly. “I won’t touch it. And I wouldn’t give it to you if I could. Does that answer your question?”

Laure turned to me then. In her black dress, with the yellow lamplight on her face, I thought she looked quite ill.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a meaningful glance at Yannick. “This was never meant to be about money. Obviously we wouldn’t expect you to give up your home—or any part of
Tante
Reine’s inheritance. If either of us gave the impression…”

I shook my head, bewildered. “Then what on earth was all that—”

Laure interrupted, her eyes gleaming. “There was a
book
…”

“A book?” I repeated.

Yannick nodded. “
Papa
told us all about it,” he said. “You showed it to him.”

“A
recipe
book,” said Laure with strange calmness. “You must have all the recipes by heart already. If we could only see it…borrow it…”

“Of course, we’d pay for anything we used,” added Yannick hastily. “Think of it as a way to keep the Dartigen name alive.”

It must have been that—that name—which did it. Confusion, fear and disbelief warred in me for a while, but at the mention of that name a great spike of terror pierced me and I swept the coffee cups off the table, where they shattered against my mother’s terra-cotta tiles. I could see Pistache looking at me strangely, but could do nothing but follow the seam of my rage.

“No! Never!”
My voice rose like a red kite in the little room, and for a second I left my body and looked down upon myself emotionlessly, a drab sharp-faced woman in a gray dress, her hair drawn fiercely back into a knot at the back of her head. I saw strange comprehension in my daughter’s eyes and veiled hostility in the faces of my nephew and niece, then the rage slammed into place again and I lost myself for a while:

“I know what you want!” I snarled. “If you can’t have Mamie Framboise, then you’ll settle for Mamie Mirabelle. Is that it?” My breath tore through me like barbed wire. “Well, I don’t know what Cassis told you, but he had no business, and nor have you. That old story’s dead.
She’s
dead, and you’ll get none of it from me, not if you were to wait fifty years for it!” I was out of breath now, and my throat hurt from shouting. I picked up their most recent present—a box of linen handkerchiefs lying on the kitchen table in their silver wrapping—and pushed it fiercely at Laure.