Letters From My Windmill (2 page)

—Hush, baker.

But there was no stopping this interfering baker, and he warmed to his
theme:

—He's an idiot! No man of the world would complain about having wife
like that. There's never a dull moment when she's around! Think about
it! A really gorgeous girl, who every six months or so, ups sticks and
runs away, and, believe me, always has a pretty tale to tell when she
gets back … that's the way it is … a funny old menagerie, that one.
Work it out, monsieur, they hadn't even been hitched a year when she
breezed off to Spain with a chocolate merchant.

—The husband was inconsolable after that, sitting alone and drinking
and crying all the time like a man possessed. After a while, she
drifted back into the area, dressed like a Spaniard, complete with
tambourine. We all warned her:

—You'd better get lost, he'll kill you.

—Kill her indeed … Oh yes, I should say so, they made it up
beautifully, she even taught him how to play the tambourine like a
Basque!

Once again the coach rocked with laughter. Once again, the grinder
still didn't budge, just murmured again:

—Hush, baker.

The baker ignored this plea and went on:

—You might think, after her return from Spain, monsieur, the little
beauty would keep herself to herself?. But oh no!… Her husband
accepted the situation again, so easily, it has to be said, that she
was at it again. After Spain, there was an army officer, then a sailor
from the Rhone, then a musician, then … who knows?… What is
certain, is that, every time, it's the same French farce … She
leaves, he cries; she comes back, he gets over it. You'd better believe
it, he's a long suffering cuckold that one. But you've got to admit,
she is a real good-looker, the little she-grinder; a piece fit for a
king, full of life, sweet as could be, and a lovely bit of stuff. To
top it all, she has a skin like alabaster and hazel eyes that always
seem to be smiling at men. My word, Paris, if you ever pass through
Beaucaire again….

—Oh do be quiet baker, I beg you…, the poor grinder went once again,
his voice beginning to break up.

Just then the diligence stopped at the Anglores farm. Here it was that
the two Beaucaire men got off, and believe me, I didn't try to stop
them. What a trouble-maker sort of baker he was; even when he was in
the farmyard, we could still hear him laughing.

* * * * *

With those two characters gone, the coach seemed empty. We'd dropped
the Camargue Ranger in Arles and the driver led the horses on foot from
there. Just the grinder and myself were left on top, each silent and
alone. It was very warm; the coach's leather hood was too hot to touch.
At times I could feel my head and eyelids getting heavy and tired, but
the unsettling yet placid plea of "Be quiet, I beg you." kept echoing
in my mind and wouldn't let me nod off. No rest for that poor soul
either. I could see, from behind, that his broad shoulders were
shaking, and his course, pale hand trembled on the back of the seat
like an old man's. He was crying….

—This is your place, Paris! the driver said pointing out my green
hillock with the tip of his whip, and there, like a huge butterfly on a
hump, was my windmill.

I hurried to dismount … but as I passed by the grinder, I wanted to
get look at him under his cap before leaving. The unfortunate man
jerked his head back as if reading my mind, and fixed me with his eyes:

—Mark me well, friend, he mumbled, and if one day, you hear of a
tragedy in Beaucaire, you can say you know who did it.

He was a beaten, sad man with small, deep-set eyes; eyes that were
filled with tears. But the voice; the voice was full of hatred. Hatred
is the weak man's anger. If I were the she-grinder, I'd be very careful.

Francet Mamaï, an aging fife player, who occasionally passes the
evening hours drinking sweet wine with me, recently told me about a
little drama which unfolded in the village near my windmill some twenty
years ago. The fellow's tale was quite touching and I'll try to tell it
to you as I heard it.

For a moment, think of yourself sitting next to a flagon of
sweet-smelling wine, listening to the old fife player giving forth.

"Our land, my dear monsieur, hasn't always been the dead and alive
place it is today. In the old days, it was a great milling centre,
serving the farmers from many kilometres around, who brought their
wheat here to be ground into flour. The village was surrounded by hills
covered in windmills. On every side, above the pine trees, sails,
turning in the mistral, filled the landscape, and an assortment of
small, sack-laden donkeys trudged up and down the paths. Day after day
it was really good to hear the crack of the whips, the snap of the
sails, and the miller's men's prodding, "Gee-up"…. On Sundays, we
used to go up to the windmills in droves, and the millers thanked us
with Muscat wine. The miller's wives looked as pretty as pictures with
their lace shawls and gold crosses. I took my fife, of course, and we
farandoled the night away. Those windmills, mark me, were the heart and
soul of our world.

"Then, some Parisians came up with the unfortunate idea of establishing
a new steam flour mill on the Tarascon Road. People soon began sending
their wheat to the factory and the poor wind-millers started to lose
their living. For a while they tried to fight back, but steam was the
coming thing, and it eventually finished them off. One by one, they had
to close down…. No more dear little donkeys; no more Muscat! and no
more farandoling!… The millers' wives were selling their gold crosses
to help make ends meet…. The mistral might just as well not have
bothered for all the turning the windmills did…. Then, one day, the
commune ordered the destruction of all the run-down windmills and the
land was used to plant vines and olive trees.

"Even during of all this demolition, one windmill had prevailed and
managed to keep going, and was still bravely turning on, right under
the mill factors' noses. It was Master-Miller Cornille's mill; yes,
this actual one we're chewing the fat in right now."

* * * * *

"Cornille was an old miller, who had lived and breathed flour for sixty
years, and loved his milling above all other things. The opening of the
factories had enraged him to distraction. For a whole week, he was
stirring up the locals in the village, and screaming that the mill
factories would poison the whole of Provence with their flour. "Don't
have anything to do with them," he said, "Those thieves use steam, the
devil's own wind, while I work with the very breath of God, the
tramontana and the mistral." He was using all manner of fine words in
praise of windmills. But nobody was listening.

"From then on, the raving old man just shut himself away in his
windmill and lived alone like a caged animal. He didn't even want
Vivette, his fifteen year old grand daughter, around. She only had her
grandfather to depend on since the death of her parents, so the poor
little thing had to earn her living from any farm needing help with the
harvest, the silk-worms, or the olive picking. And yet, her grandfather
still displayed all the signs of loving Vivette, and he would often
walk in the midday sun to see her in the farm where she was working,
and he would spend many hours watching her, and breaking his heart….

"People thought that the old miller was simply being miserly in sending
Vivette away. In their opinion, it was utterly shameful to let his
grand-daughter trail from farm to farm, running the risk that the
supervisors would bully and abuse her and that she would suffer all the
usual horrors of child labour. Cornille, who had once been respected,
now roamed the streets like a gypsy; bare-footed, with a hole in his
hat, and his breeches in shreds…. In fact, when he went to mass on
Sundays, we, his own generation, were ashamed of him, and he sensed
this to the point that he wouldn't come and sit in the front pews with
us. He always sat by the font at the back of the church with the parish
poor."

* * * * *

"There was something mysterious about Cornille's life. For some time,
nobody in the village had brought him any wheat, and yet his windmill's
sails kept on turning. In the evenings, the old miller could be seen on
the pathways, driving his flour-sack laden mule along.

—Good evening, Master-Miller Cornille! the peasants called over to
him; Everything alright, then?

—Oh yes, lads, the old fellow replied cheerily. Thank God, there's no
shortage of work for me."

"If you asked him where the work was coming from, he would put a finger
to his mouth and reply with great seriousness: "Keep it under your hat!
It's for export." You could never get anything more than that out of
him.

"You daren't even think about poking your nose inside the windmill.
Even little Vivette wouldn't go in there.

"The door was always shut when you passed by, the huge sails were
always turning, the old donkey was grazing on the mill's apron, and a
starved-looking cat was sunning itself on the windowsill, and eying you
viciously.

"All this gave it an air of mystery causing much gossip. Each person
had his own version of Cornille's secret, but the general view was that
there were more sacks of money than sacks of flour in the windmill.

"Eventually, though, everything was revealed. Listen to this:

"One day, playing my fife at the youngsters dance, I noticed that the
eldest of my boys and little Vivette had fallen in love. Deep down, I
was not sorry; after all, Cornille was a respected name in our village,
and then again, it had pleased me to see this pretty little bundle of
fluff, Vivette, skipping around the house. But, as our lovers had lots
of opportunities to be alone together, I wanted to put the affair on a
proper footing at once, for fear of accidents, so I went up to the
windmill to have a few words with her grandfather…. But, oh, the old
devil! You wouldn't credit the manner of his welcome! I couldn't get
him to open the door. I told him through the keyhole that my intentions
were good, and meanwhile, that damned starved-looking cat was spitting
like anything above my head.

"The old man cut me short and told me, unfairly, to get back to my
flute playing, and that if I was in such a hurry to marry off my boy,
I'd be better going to look for one of the factory girls. You can
imagine how much these words made my blood boil, but, wisely, I was
able to control myself, and left the old fool to his grinding. I went
back to tell the children of my disappointment. The poor lambs couldn't
believe it; and they asked me if they could go to speak to him. I
couldn't refuse, and in a flash, the lovers went. When they arrived,
Cornille had just left. The door was double locked, but he had left his
ladder outside. The children immediately went in through the window to
see what was inside this famous windmill….

"Amazingly, the milling room was empty. Not a single sack; not one
grain of wheat. Not the least trace of flour on the walls or in the
cobwebs. There wasn't even the good warm scent of crushed wheat which
permeates windmills. The grinding machinery was covered in dust, and
the starving cat was asleep on it.

"The room below had just the same air of misery and neglect: a pitiful
bed, a few rags, a piece of bread on a step of the stairs, and notably,
in one corner, three or four burst sacks with rubble and chalk spilling
out.

"So—that was Cornille's secret! It was this plaster that was being
moved by road in the evenings. All this, just to save the reputation of
the windmill, to make people believe that flour was still being milled
there. Poor windmill. Poor Cornille! The millers had finished the last
real work a long time ago. The sails turned on, but the millstone
didn't.

"The children returned tearfully and told me what they had seen. It
broke my heart to hear them. I ran round to the neighbours straight
away, explaining things very briefly, and we all agreed at once on what
to do, which was to carry all the wheat we could lay our hands on up to
Cornille's windmill. No sooner said than done. The whole village met up
on the way and we arrived with a procession of donkeys loaded up with
wheat, but this time the real thing.

"The windmill was open to the world…. In front of the door, crying,
head in hands, sat Cornille on a sack of plaster. He had only just come
back and noticed, that while he was away, his home had been invaded and
his pathetic secret exposed.

—Poor, poor me, he said. I might as well be dead … the windmill has
been shamed.

"Then sobbing bitter tears, he tried to say all sorts of consoling
words to his windmill, as if it could hear him. Just then, the mules
arrived on the apron and we all began to shout loudly as in the good
old days of the millers:

—What ho there, in the windmill! What ho there, Monsieur Cornille!!

"And there they were, stacked together, sack upon sack of lovely golden
grain, some spilling over onto the ground all around….

"Cornille, his eyes wide open, took some of the wheat into the palms of
his old hands, crying and laughing at the same time:

—It's wheat! Dear Lord. Real wheat. Leave me to feast my eyes.

"Then, turning towards us, he said:

—I know why you've come back to me…. The mill factory owners are all
thieves.

"We wanted to lift him shoulder high and take him triumphantly to the
village:

—No, no my children, I must give my windmill something to go at first.
Think about it, for so long, it's had nothing to grind!

"We all had tears in our eyes as we saw the old man scampering from
sack to sack, and emptying them into the millstone and watching as the
fine flour was ground out onto the floor.

"It's fair to say that from then on, we never let the old miller run
short of work. Then, one morning Master-Miller Cornille died, and the
sails of our last working windmill turned for the very last time. Once
he had gone, no one took his place. What could we do, monsieur?
Everything comes to an end in this world, and we have to accept that
the time for windmills has gone, along with the days of the horse-drawn
barges on the Rhone, local parliaments, and floral jackets."