Good Hope Road: A Novel (11 page)

Then there’s the motion pictures. These first weeks in the Legion, we kept plenty busy durin’ the day, but most evenings we got to ourselves. I run into James often times in town, waitin’ in line for the westerns they screen here, straight from the good old US of A.

‘You a John Finch fan too?’ I ask and he shrug as if he don’t care one way or the other. ‘See you often enough here,’ I press.

‘They show them for free,’ he says, as if that explain everythin’.

Slowly, we start to get the ins and outs of being a legionnaire. Oh we still yelled at plenty every day durin’ the drills, but the number of times we hauled up for showin’ up to the grounds a minute or two late, for not standin’ straight enough and such, those become fewer. We figure out how to tie the long blue sash that goes on beneath our belts – it goes easiest with two men. James, he got the bed next to mine, so the two of us pair up. I hold one end of his sash, real tight. He start at the other end, twistin’ it ’bout his middle, turnin’ round and round towards me till all nine feet go on, flat and smooth. Then he do the same for me. Sometimes I shake things up by puttin’ a little rhythm in my step, a click clackin’ of my heels and fingers, a little dippin’ and bowin’, with real sharp turns. He look startled at first, but then I see the twinkle in his eyes.

Then there’s System D.
Demerdez vous
, or System D, simply mean this: do whatever you gotta do to get yourself outta shit. Or as James translates it, more polite like: fend for yourself.

James and the other college boys have a harder time with System D, but I been livin’ with it most of my life and ain’t got no trouble with it at all. Time for drill already and your gear ain’t in order?
Demerdez vous
: ‘borrow’ someone else’s. That rifle lyin’ shined and proper polished on someone’s bed, the shirt, freshly washed and left unguarded on the clothesline – all fair game for System D,
merci beaucoup
!

It work well for food too. We awful hungry all the time – the Legion, it sure feeds its recruits, but only as much as it needs to, and not one itty bitty crust more. The company cook’s a right ornery bastard besides. He touched with
le cafard
, the
anciens
say – the illness of the brain that befallen many of them after the Legion’s Algerian campaign. ‘Like black beetles crawlin’ inside your head,’ Gaillard tell, a sickness brought on by the desert sun. Durin’ one of those endless marches there, the cook gone and passed out, tumblin’ ass over head. When he finally woken, he gotten up as if ain’t nothin’ happened and everythin’ okay. Everythin’, ’cept for this: from then on, he been fixated on the notion that he the double of King George of England.

Mind you, there’s some resemblance between the two. ’Bout the same height and broadness, the same shape of the head with the hairline startin’ to pull back, and them big, far-spaced eyes. The cook though, he convinced they look like twins. From now on, he must be called by his rightful name, he insist, and in the humour-filled manner of the Legion, everyone agree, even the officers, callin’ him King George.

George, he be guardin’ the kitchen supplies like the treasury of all England. We try our luck, and even bribes when we got them, but ain’t no second helpings comin’ our way.

I start hotfootin’ it to the patisseries in town as often as I can. My legionnaire wages of one sou a day don’t stretch none too far, and even when I make a little on the side – games of poker, a boxin’ match or two, and a laundry service that I start up in the barracks – it don’t add up to much. Too many waterin’ holes in this town besides, and I ain’t never had too many coins left for cakes and such.

Et voilà
: System D. I set myself instead to learnin’ my way around the chers that work the counters at the patisseries. Here in Toulouse, the bakeries, they still open, and I set ’bout schoolin’ them chers in this and that, and our back-home ways of lagniappe. They don’t believe me none at first, that our bakers down South be throwin’ extras for free into our bags, but I swear on Pappy and all things bayou that it be true, and soon they been givin’ me some lagniappe too. Extra cake and left-over marzipan, sometimes even a
corniotte
or two.

I seen James hangin’ ’bout the patisseries enough times to figure that this here Yankee, he as sweet on chocolate and spinned sugar as any bayou born. I figure he got some money of his own ’cause the low wages never seem to bother him none. Even still, damned if the man don’t take forever in front of the pastries, figurin’ out which ones be the best bargain, and which of those be the thickest, the tallest, the most covered with chocolate.

‘
C’est combien
?’ he ask, pointin’ at a custard tart. One sou, the madame tells him.

He frowns. ‘
Celle-là
?
C’est quoi
?’

‘
Une St Honoré
,’ she replies patiently, and for him, only two sous.

He moves on. ‘That one?’ Walnut torte, that one over there is a fruit tart, and those are chestnut creams, she tell him.

He look them all over before pointin’ to another. ‘That one.’

So sure he seem of his choice that Madame reaches in to cut a slice. ‘
Non, non
,’ he stops her. ‘How much for it?’

Before Madame go so boo coo crazy that she throw her rollin’ pin at the lot of us, ‘Stonebridge,’ I call out, shakin’ the paper bag in my hand. ‘Here. I got plenty for two.’

Now that bag, it hold somethin’ real special. I been tellin’ the chers at the patisserie all ’bout bayou livin’, talkin’ to them of gumbo and
étouffée
, and warm beignets. Well, damned if them dolls don’t go and rustle up a batch of beignets special for me.
Beignets
! They still warm and so thick with powdered sugar, there’s only bits of golden brown that you can see here and there through the white. A right slap-up job them chers have done, and I know from the way James near swallows his beignets whole that he think the same.

‘These here beignets be a speciality down South,’ I say, proud like.

He shrug like he ain’t one bit impressed. ‘They’re alright,’ he say, ‘but nothin’ like the apple pies you get in Vermont.’

My mouth just ’bout fallen open at that. The Yankee, he’s been sittin’ there lickin’ the sugar off his thumb and checkin’ his fingers for every last itty bitty beignet crumb! I just start to laugh at his cussedness. He makes at first like he don’t notice, and this get me chucklin’ all the more.

He look over at me sheepish like. ‘They’re very good,’ he admits. A sudden grin, the first I’ve seen on him – it makes him look young – ‘Thanks.’

We share the rest of those beignets while they’re still warm, and we ain’t thinkin’ ’bout no Boche and no war as we sit in the square eatin’. There’s sugar dust on our hands and the sun on our shoulders. It’s a warm day, so bright you can see clear to the Pyrenees. There’s music spillin’ from the open windows of the cafés. We get to talkin’, ’bout huntin’ and country ways, ’bout growin’ mirlitons, and the smell of apple orchards in springtime Vermont. He ask plenty questions ’bout fishin’, ’bout cold-eyed gators and the pirogues we cut from cypresses to float downstream, and tell me ’bout grouse season, and the woolly mammoth tusk they found one time, in the peat bogs not far from his place.

When payday come around, a few of us plan on an evenin’ out, and I invite James along. It must be a powerful hard-hittin’ cider that his family been brewin’ up there in Vermont, ’cause the Yankee sure can drink. Turns out he ain’t so quiet no more either, not with a few down his throat.

Our talk turns natural to country things again, to fields and summer pastures, to cotton stackin’ and bundlin’ hay. One thing lead to another and soon we locked in a friendly bout of arm wrestlin’, ginnin’ bale against farmyard hayrick. The Yankee’s face go red from strainin’, the sweat tricklin’ down my forehead, both of us being exactly equally matched. I try hookin’ my wrist around his hand, he respond by twistin’ his grip higher. Back and forth, givin’ and takin’ in its and bits of an inch as more and more of the legionnaires gather round, cheerin’ us on. Ain’t no use, ain’t nobody goin’ to win this one though, and we finally call it a draw. Gaillard slam his glass down on the table and only now do I notice the bunch of
anciens
gathered ’bout us too.

‘
Eh bien
, if it isn’t my translators,’ he grins as he drags up a stool. ‘Tell you what,’ he say, ‘how about we have another match? Either one of you, against me.’

James and I, we look at his bulgin’ arms, the knotted veins, thick as rope under them tattoos. ‘
Non
,’ we say, together.

‘Come on,’ he push. ‘I will make it easier – I will go with my left hand.’ He take out his purse – it made from his own skin, I heard tell – and empty it on the table, the coins rattlin’ down on the wood.

Gaillard’s left arm, it don’t look any less hefty than his right. We shake our heads again.

‘
Merde
!’ He throws up his hands in mock disgust. ‘Although it is bad form,’ he points out, ‘to ever ask a man outright, let me tell you why I joined the Legion. When I was but a growin’ boy, I fell madly in love. She was the prettiest girl in our village. In all the world. Eyes like . . . like . . .’ Gaillard wave a fist large as a ham, tryin’ to find the words. ‘
Beautiful
eyes. Hair like silk, the most glorious girl you could imagine. The only thing was, she was in love with someone else. He was rich, handsome, a bit older, and I knew it was all quite hopeless. She would never notice me.

‘That summer, there was a wrestling match organised in the village. All ages, all sizes.
Et voilà
! My chance to shine, and I grab it. Maybe now she will throw a glance my way. I fight with everything I’ve got, slowly working my way through the rounds, until it’s just me and her boyfriend left.

‘She comes to see me the evening before the final match. For a second, I hear violins, I see tiny angels,’ his fingers jab the air, ‘playing the harp.
She came to see me!
She looks at me with those lovely eyes. She’s watched me fight, she says. She knows I am going to win tomorrow. Could I, she begs, throw the match? If her boyfriend were to lose, it would be too hard on him, the indignity of losing. Well, what could I do? I threw the match. I let him win, let him beat the shit out of me, staring at her all the while. And afterwards, I climbed down from the ring and walked away. Walked out of the village, down the road, just kept on going till I found the Legion. No women here, no matches to be thrown, just men, fighting with real heart.’ Gaillard heave a mighty big sigh, rubbin’ his hands together. ‘At least that is what I thought, till we recruited you lot.

‘You see the sort of
jeunes
we’ve got this time,’ he complain to his friends. ‘Only good for reading books and cleaning out the crap holes. No fighting spirit at all.’

That rile us, like he known it would. ‘See here,’ I begin hotly, but Gaillard cuts me off.

‘Tell you what,’ he say, crackin’ his knuckles real slow, one by one. ‘Final offer. Me against both of you, together.’

‘Together? Two men against one?’

‘
Oui
.’ He shift the pile of coins to one side. ‘Both of you together, and the winner – or winners – takes it all.’

Now
that
be an offer that make sense to me. I look at James and he shrug. We add our coins on the table too, and the match is on.
Ancien
against
les
jeunes
, and now the whole bar is gathered around, placin’ bets and cheerin’.

We should have known better. James and I, we push until our eyes ’bout ready to pop from their sockets, but it’s like tryin’ to move an oak with our bare hands. The veins in Gaillard’s forearm stand out, blue and knotted as he hold his position. A small, easy-lookin’ shift of his wrist and – slam! – both our arms lie flat against the wood.

The
anciens
burst out laughin’ – clearly this a game they seen before. Gaillard grin as he scoop together all the money on the table. ‘No fighting spirit,’ he chuckle, shakin’ his head.

‘How about a rematch?’ James ask.

‘Wait a minute,’ I start, but he lift a hand, quietin’ me.

‘A rematch,’ he repeat. ‘Just me, against you. If I win, I take the winnings. If you do, I clean the latrines for a month, unasked.’

Gaillard’s lookin’ at him like he gone crazy. Hell, we
all
lookin’ at him like he gone crazy. ‘One more thing,’ James say. ‘How about we try a different technique? New England special. You turn your arm the other way – make a fist and turn the fingers towards you, and I hold on to your wrist.’

‘That goin’ to give him all the leverage,’ I say urgently to James, but he don’t pay me no notice. The Yankee’s gone boo coo crazy.

Gaillard grins. ‘How about you use two hands?’ he offer generously. ‘Both hands at once, and okay, we go with your method.’

James nods.

They set up once more, each squatted on a stool, elbow to the table. Gaillard turns his fist inwards, James latches on with both arms. Too easy, this goin’ to be way too easy for Gaillard. The
ancien
begin his move, this is it, I can see it in his eyes, the muscles in his arm shiftin’ position. Just as he start the powerful yank inwards, James, he let go.