The Orphan's Tale (17 page)

POTATOES, PHILOSOPHY AND FRIENDSHIP

Elise eyed the pile of potatoes and sighed.
She hated peeling potatoes, but if she planned to get the evening's meal done in any time, they would have to be done quickly, and done by her alone since Yvette was out milking the inn's two cows, and she had given the maidservants and cook the afternoon off. She frowned at her paring knife and picked up another potato.

She was coming late to this task.
The luncheon near the Île de la Cité had been very pleasant, although their host had been rather withdrawn, and she had lingered over her wine. She and Yvette had strolled along the river afterward, and then gone to a draper's shop to purchase fabric and some ribbons. The time had passed almost too quickly, and now, she thought ruefully, she was paying for it.

She smiled to herself, though.
It had been a perfectly lovely day. She felt cleansed and renewed. She was singing as she set the peeled potato aside and took up another one.

The door opened and closed, and a light breeze stirred her hair for a moment.
She looked up and saw Inspector Malet standing in the doorway and staring at the pile of potatoes.

She had discovered that he preferred not to enter through the taproom, and now she was used to seeing him going quietly through the kitchen.
He had even swiped a small sugar-cake that Yvette had just finished icing - and then looked amusingly like a guilty schoolboy when he was caught at it. She found herself looking for him at the end of the afternoon. He seemed to be hesitating now, his hand still on the latch as though he were just about to turn and leave.

His eyes met hers.
His slightly wary expression eased as she stretched out her hand to him. "Come on in, M'sieur, and welcome!" she said. "Have you ever seen so many potatoes? I certainly haven't, not since I came home from Spain!"

"
You do seem to have an eternity of them. Are they all for tonight's supper?"

"
Of course," Elise said, watching as a strip of brown peel came away beneath her knife. "And if I don't get them peeled quickly, they'll never be done in time. But you, M. l'Inspecteur: did you require something?"

"
A glass of water," said Malet. "I am thirsty..."

"
There's wine in the taproom, as you well know," said Elise. "Have Alcide pour you some, or, better still, some ale. It will be my treat."

Malet relaxed a little.
"No," he said. "Water will serve just as well. I see a pitcher there. Is that for drinking?"

"
It is," said Elise. She watched him go to the pitcher and fill a glass. Her smile was unsteady; she remembered all that had happened the night before. It had been like watching a granite statue melt into flesh and blood, and then take up a sword to defend her and her kind.

Elise was not given to making snap
judgments about people, but she knew quickly when she liked someone. It had been that way with Yvette, with Charles and L'Eveque, with Yves and Georges and the others she counted as friends. Inspector Malet was no exception. She had liked him from the moment she had met him in the parlor the morning Charles had left for the Bois de Boulogne, and the liking had ripened quietly to something deeper.

He still seemed just a little hesitant.
The granite statue was gone forever, and the man in its place was vulnerable and very dear to her. She gave him her warmest smile and returned her attention to her knife and the potato she was holding.

He set down his glass and took a sealed packet from his breast pocket.
"This came for you today among the messages for the Prefecture," he said. "I had planned to give it to you at supper, but I think you would probably be happier to get it now."

"
What is it?" she asked as she wiped her hand.

He handed it to her with a smile.
"Look and see," he said gently.

It was another letter from Charles, as chatty as the others.
She was smiling as she looked up. The smile vanished almost immediately.

Malet was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs.
He had taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. She could see a bandage on his upper arm through the fine cambric cloth of the shirt. He was attacking the pile of potatoes. He had peeled ten of them in the space of time it took Elise to read the letter.

"
M. l'Inspecteur!" she protested, torn between laughter and astonishment.

He looked up from digging out a diseased spot from one of the potatoes.
"Yes, Madame?" he said.

"
You shouldn't be doing that!"

"
Why not?" he asked mildly. "I assume we'll be eating them."

"
But it - it isn't seemly for one of your rank to be peeling potatoes!"

He finished the potato and took up another.
"Oh?" he said. "For what rank would it be seemly? I remember hearing that Marshal Gerard would peel potatoes when he wished to think. I have reviewed his campaigns, and it's obvious that he didn't peel many potatoes. Who should peel potatoes, if not me? M. Guillart? M. de Saint-Légère, maybe? Does he help peel potatoes? I must remember to ask him when he returns. There are some who think that the Police aren't fit to muck out stables, much less peel potatoes, but I don't agree with them. We're perfectly capable of mucking out stables. What would be seemly for one of my rank?"

Elise was laughing in spite of herself.
"Stop it!" she said. "You know very well what I meant!"

"
Do I?" Malet asked reasonably. "I am not so sure. I suppose it wouldn't be seemly for me to peel potatoes, say, in the middle of my headquarters. Although," he added, after a moment's thought, his head slightly tilted as he considered, "I suppose I might be excused for peeling potatoes if we were in the middle of a siege! Even St. Louis did menial things like that, and he was a little more exalted than a Police inspector, I think."

Elise gave up.
"Well, I can do it, you know," she said.

Malet tossed a coil of peel to the side.
"Don't let me stop you," he said. "The more who peel, the sooner these get done." He finished the potato, took another and set to work on it.

"
You'll soil your clothing!"

He shook his head.
"I think not," he said. "You appear to have scrubbed these quite thoroughly."

She began to laugh.
"Oh very well!" she said. "Peel them, since you insist - and thank you!"

He was smiling as he set the potato aside.
The animation and warmth suddenly vanished from his face as she watched, and he became very quiet. She turned and saw one of her customers standing in the doorway.

"
Madame, is Claude here?" the man asked. He ignored Malet, who was sitting with his eyes cast down, working with a silent economy of movement.

"
I think he went to the farrier," Elise answered. "He left a little under an hour ago, so he should be back soon."

"
Thank you, Madame!" the man said and withdrew.

Elise turned back to Malet.
The light mood was spoiled, and she was sorry, for she had enjoyed seeing him laughing.

She set a coil of peel to one side.
"You went into danger last night," she said quietly. "I wanted speak to you about that."

She spoke very directly.
She knew he could be very elusive if he chose, but she was willing to chance it. He was more than just a guest in her eyes. He had entered the circle of her loved ones.

The silence stretched out, broken only by the rasp of a knife against a crisp potato.
Malet raised his eyes to hers. He seemed slightly puzzled. "Did that trouble you?" he asked.

"
No!" she exclaimed. "What a foolish thing to say! Claude showed me the articles in the Moniteur: you saved many people from a hideous death, and you know it!"

He looked up at her and shrugged.
"I am an officer of the Police. I was only doing my duty."

"
Is duty, then, the only important part of your life?" Elise asked. "Does affection have no place?"

Malet frowned and raised his eyes to hers.
"Is that a fair or kind question to ask me?" he said, speaking as directly as she had.

"
It's an honest one," she replied.

Malet looked down.
He was distressed; Elise watched his expression for a moment and then relented a little. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, just above the bandage. She could feel that he had tensed. "This conversation is between you and me only," she said. "If you think the question is unfair, don't answer it. I will understand."

He looked down again and selected another potato from the dwindling pile.
His expression was completely unreadable. Elise had the impression that he was engaged in a silent struggle within his own heart. It was like his reaction the previous evening just before he had admitted, ashamed, that he had been raised in a prison.

Elise watched him with sudden concern.
The question could have been taken as impertinent, though she had not meant it to be so. And she had confided in him, after all. Had she offended him?

"
I am sorry, M'sieur," she said desperately. "I had no right to ask such a question. I never meant to presume, but after last night - I - I have come to think so highly of you... If I have annoyed or embarrassed you, I truly regret it, and I beg your forgiveness!"

She started to withdraw her hand.
Malet set the knife aside and raised his hand to cover hers. His eyes held no anger or shame; she realized that she was looking into the eyes of a friend, and that he was answering willingly.

"
I - do care for you," he said. "Your friendship is-is good to have. As to whether duty is the only truly important part of my life, I don't really know any more. I am beginning to wonder just what it really is and to whom it is owed. Now I see that I - I just don't know."

He released her hand and took up his knife again, his brow wrinkled slightly.

"Everything was so clear once," he said. "I resolved sincerely to defend and protect those within my care. I chose that path the day I left that prison. I saw my life before me and I wished to use that life for something - " he paused to seek the proper words. " - something worthy of a life's work. It was a gift: I had so little to give, but what I had I gave freely."

He looked down at his hands: his voice had become very quiet.
"I thought it would be so simple," he said. "To offer that life and one day have it taken. I was ready. But the day has never come. I don't think it ever will. And now here I am. Here I am..."

His voice trailed off into silence.

"And now what?" asked Elise.

"
I don't know," Malet said as he set the peeled potato into a bowl of water and selected another. "I wonder if I chose the easy way out all those years ago."

"
But you had decided that you were willing to die for others," Elise pointed out. "What greater resolve could there be?"

"
I was a melodramatic young fool.  I decided that I was willing to die for them, true, but I had never given any real thought to living for them. Now that I am a grown man and not a child of fifteen, I know that is the greater service, not standing back and thinking myself somehow set apart because I was ready to give my life! How foolish! We all owe a duty one way or another. We can't live for ourselves alone. There's always something for which we give our lives. And isn't the measure of a man in part the cause for which he is willing to give his life?"

Elise's lips had parted and she gazed at him, still and motionless, her mind grappling with the thought of all the busy, empty years behind her, years spent trying to forget the past and keep from thinking.
"You really believe that!" she said on a note of wonder. "But you were raised in a prison, among criminals!"

"
Of course I believe it. Nothing ever happens by accident. We can choose to make of ourselves and our lives a blessing or a curse. I chose the first way. It was the only choice I could make, really... How could I take the weapons put in my hand and turn them against those who needed protection? So I chose as I did, and I don't regret the choice."

"
No," said Elise, more to herself than to him. "No, you wouldn't regret it, ever. No matter what the cost to yourself."

Malet had not looked up.
He paused and searched for words. "As for me, the years are passing and I wonder what will become of me. What happens to a guard dog grown old in service? You can't teach that sort to fawn."

Elise recovered herself with an effort, though she still seemed to see him with new eyes.
"They don't need to fawn," she said. "One takes the dog into the house, pets it and loves it the rest of its days. That's all. But there is a difference between men and dogs, M'sieur.

"
Let me ask you this: what if I were to tell of one who sojourned in a strange land for many years. Let us say that while he knew the language and the customs, he felt himself apart from the others, and yet he sincerely tried to serve them for many years. Unbeknown to him, those people had come to love him: what if one of them came up to him and said, 'You are one of us now: come and dwell with us and be our friend as well as our guardian'? What would the sojourner do?"