by Ivo Fornesa
As he sat there enveloped in the smoke of the noxious cigars he liked to smoke – a blend of pungent Tuscan and reeking caliqueño tobaccos – Laurent de Rodergues let himself be carried away by his thoughts back to his first days in town, in the not yet distant past.
FOOD AND SHELTER
The train he’d boarded two hours earlier in Austerlitz left him at the station in Châteauroux. When he stepped outside, he could see practically nothing on that gloomy February morning except the gate of a girls’ boarding school, which inevitably brought to mind the novels of Enid Blyton he used to pilfer from his little sisters. From The Twins at St Clare’s to the more exciting Malory Towers saga, he spent his youth secretly in love with the alluring if contrived characters of Darrell, Pat, and Isabel.
A voice shook him out of his reverie. It belonged to a tall, energetic woman who held out her hand.
‘Monsieur de Rodergues? My name is Claudine, and I’ve got the taxi you requested through the town hall in Saint-Chartier.’ She cast a sideways glance at Laurent’s small, cheap travel bag. ‘Don’t you have any more luggage? Or are you just here on a short trip?’ Taxi drivers have a variety of interrogation methods, and no doubt the security services of several countries have adopted their techniques for making even the most tight-lipped passengers talk.
‘No, on the contrary, I hope to stay here permanently, but the rest of my things will be delivered by the movers.’
The driver’s eyes indicated her mind was already calculating how to extract as much information as possible from this outsider – information she’d of course pass on to her divorced cousin in Verneuil, such as the fact that the new arrival wore no ring and looked as tasty as a chocolate petit chou. Here in rural France, when it came to husband-hunting, women had to look out for each other: nearly all the local men were farmers who worked endless, draining days, and they weren’t always appealing, no matter how romantic the sight of cows lowing on emerald fields looked from afar.
Once inside the vehicle, the driver, who handled her car very well, didn’t let up until she’d learnt how he liked his vinaigrette on a duck gizzard salad. The battering ram she used to break through his defences was her praise of his perfect French – though she noted he had an enchanting accent she couldn’t quite place.
‘Is Monsieur from one of the overseas territories, from French Guiana, perhaps?’
Laurent welcomed the question with a laugh. He guessed at her intentions and decided to have a sense of humour about it. Certainly in the previous places he’d settled down, the rumour mill had been no less active, least of all in Chile, where he’d spent most of his life. Indeed, as Chileans themselves are the first to admit, they’re quite the busybodies.
So it was that Claudine gathered all the relevant data: he was forty-five, unmarried, his parents had lived in Indochina exporting tropical woods until they were expelled in 1954 and had to move to Chile, specifically to Valparaíso, where his aunt and uncle owned several flower nurseries … As he answered her questions, Laurent took in the flat, pleasant, peaceful landscape of carefully tilled fields surrounded by several wooded areas. These he supposed contained wild boars, deer and roebuck, for he’d read that this was a region with a serious hunting tradition.
The towns they passed by may not have been especially remarkable, but their buildings had a consistent style and an undeniable tidiness. Also evident was that French tradition of preserving the past even when its symbols had nothing to do with the present: there were boundary crosses in every village, monuments to those who had given their lives for the patrie, church towers and a general air of undisturbed comfort. When they reached a lookout point, he asked the driver to stop. The little hillock offered views onto an area known as the Vallée Noire, a vast and charming patchwork of dark thickets, green pastures and little villages spread out underneath a haughty sky of the most magnificent azure.
Back in the car, Laurent decided that the best way to avoid repeating his story over and over again was to tell it all now, since Claudine would no doubt relay it in minute detail to every living soul in the area. He didn’t omit a thing: his education in a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago, his stifling career as a sales engineer, the outdoor activities that Chile’s extraordinary geography offers, the many years he spent working as a guide and ski instructor at high-end hotels in national parks: Torres del Paine, the Atacama Desert, Chiloé, Easter Island, Osorno … Obviously, there was no skirting around the question of why he’d come to Berry, and when the driver learnt that Laurent’s grandfather was a Berrichon, she couldn’t contain her excitement: an attractive man with local blood to boot! That was too good to be true. In Berry, having a local pedigree, even just a single grandparent from the area, was very important.
Laurent knew that the dreaded question about his future plans couldn’t be avoided, though he clung to the hope that he might reach his destination without having to comment. When the time came, all he could do was answer, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. For some time now I’ve wanted a change, to live in a quiet, unfamiliar place where I can think, try to write a bit, ride, eat well and wait for destiny to give me a hint about what I should do next.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the perfect place, Monsieur. Saint-Chartier ticks all those boxes, plus a few more besides. Not only that, you’re in the land of Romanticism. Did you know that less than two miles down the road is the manor house that once belonged to George Sand? They hold the Chopin festival there, along with other cultural events where you can meet all sorts of interesting people. And once you get settled, I’d recommend getting a cup of coffee at La Cocadrille, where you can get to know some of the locals and find out the latest gossip. I’m pretty busy shuttling people to and from La Châtre for doctor’s appointments, but if you need anything, my cousin Annabelle in Verneuil will be happy to help you out.’ She looked at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘She’s cute as a button, I can tell you that.’ Here too, it seemed, the Amazons roamed free.
Laurent saw then that as peaceful as the town was, in Saint-Chartier, as anywhere else, the demands of the heart were anxious to be met. He sighed. That was one of the reasons he sought refuge here: at his former job he worked in idyllic settings that had left his emotional storehouse overflowing with enough fond memories and bedroom adventures to get him through several winters.
After paying and thanking the driver, Laurent spent a while figuring out which of the keys on the enormous ring would open the gate to the town’s vicarage or clergy house. No, his grandfather wasn’t a priest – that would have looked rather bad in France – but the sabotier, or clog-maker, and his home and workshop sat just behind the vicarage. Over many long years of hard work, he’d managed to save enough to buy the priest’s house and annex it to his own, hoping it might one day belong to his only grandson, whom he’d seen only in photos and once during a hurried meal in the Gare de Lyon. The thought of his grandfather filled him with regret. Laurent’s father had died when he was still a child, and his mother’s financial circumstances didn’t allow them to take holiday trips to the Old Continent, so he knew his grandfather only through the stories she told and a few letters and postcards he received. Now he was about to move into a house that the old man had bought for him with the savings of a life spent carving wood to make clogs, and he promised he wouldn’t let him down.
When he turned to pick up his single piece of luggage, he suddenly caught sight of a large structure that until then, unaccountably, he simply hadn’t seen: the château. He was astonished. Laurent thought himself very observant, and his failure to notice the large wall with turrets standing right in front of him could only be explained by how engrossed he’d been in the chit-chat with the taxi driver. He then recalled reading something about a château in the travel guides he’d looked through, but in France the word ‘château’ could be used rather pompously to describe anything a larger than a manor house. He hardly expected to find a medieval fortress looming in front of him, so close to what was now to be his
home. Awestruck, he stood for a moment in admiration. A man motored by atop a huge tractor, raising two fingers to his brow in a sort of salute. Then an old woman appeared out of nowhere with a quart of milk in an old-fashioned brass container, eyes gleaming as she practically shouted at him, ‘Bonjour, Monsieur. You must be the grandson of Monsieur Fanchier. I’m your neighbour, and I knew your grandfather very well. I’ve brought you some croissants and some milk for your coffee.’ Before Laurent could thank her, the lady was already shaking his hand, telling him she’d be happy to help with anything he needed.
A slight breeze, so bracingly cold he shivered, seemed to seize him from the inside, and in his head he heard the quiet voice of experience whispering that he was going to feel quite comfortable in this town.
LA COCADRILLE TAVERN
Some days went by, enough for Laurent to clean the house from top to bottom: it had sat empty for nearly ten years. He bought appliances and everything else he needed that wouldn’t arrive in his shipping container, and he made several trips to the town hall to find out how to set up his utilities and fill his tank with heating fuel, since he sensed winter would come rough and rude. Most complicated of all was the purchase of a car, because he was naturally clumsy, and mechanics weren’t his strong suit. In a fit of patriotism for his new home, he opted for a Citroën Jumpy van – cheap and efficient and as French as the Andouille sausage from Angoulême.
After a week, once his home had taken on a certain comfortable air, Laurent decided to take a break and get to know his new surroundings a little better. But first he needed to reward himself with a real coffee, if possible with a few fingers of one of those liqueurs that soothe an adverse fate and placate the deities of the home. He remembered the advice he’d gotten from Claudine, the taxi driver, and he headed straight for La Cocadrille, the tavern on the main road through town that he saw each time he drove to La Châtre or Châteauroux.
The tavern stood right next to the police station, up the street from the main entrance to the château. He stopped in front of the château gate, intrigued by the bustle he’d noticed from outside. Covering the building was an elaborate network of scaffolding of all shapes and sizes, while hoists, cranes and a bevy of small backhoes were scattered across the grounds, operated and surrounded by an army of construction workers. Clearly the château was undergoing a thorough renovation, as he saw from the notice that by law has to be posted outside every worksite. He couldn’t make out the names of the owner, the architect or the construction company, since the recent endless rains had partly washed out the lettering. But that didn’t matter, he thought, for the tavern was sure to be an extension of the taxi: a sort of living local newsletter. From the outside, though, it didn’t look terribly promising. With its slate roof and smoking chimney, it was identical to every other building in town. The only thing that stood out was the large sign hanging on the wall, a veritable tribute to traditional French ironworking, emblazoned with a strange mythological creature apparently made up of various animals that reminded Laurent of a velociraptor with feathers.
Nevertheless, what looked from the outside like an unremarkable house turned out to contain a delightful traditional bistrot, with little white marble tables with brass footrests and large rusty mirrors in antique gilt frames. Best of all, in spite of the signs forbidding smoking, an undeniable scent of tobacco hung in the air, and suspiciously empty coffee cups sat next to all the drinks the patrons were sipping.
The bartender, a hulk of a man with a head like a Roman bust and receding waves of black hair, didn’t look at all out of place in that setting. He wore his white shirtsleeves crisply rolled up to reveal hairy forearms that rested on the bar, and Laurent noticed him looking at him as though he’d been waiting for some time.
‘Good morning, Monsieur de Rodergues. I thought you’d never deign to stop by our establishment,’ he said, giving his hand an effusive shake. He had the hands of a pelota player. ‘I’m Gaston Le Juanch, the owner of this dive, and I can tell you I had a great fondness and respect for your grandfather.’
Then, noticing that the rest of his customers had turned to look, he took the opportunity to introduce Laurent. If anonymity had been one of Laurent’s hopes in moving here, he could strike that off his list. Still, he gladly agreed to be treated to a first round in memory of his grandfather, about whom everyone had something nice to say, and he had a nice chat with two old-timers who introduced themselves as friends who used to play belote with him.
Before long he was feeling tipsy but happy. Everyone insisted on buying him a drink to welcome him to town, on the grounds that it was time for the midday aperitif. He downed several glasses on an empty stomach: a sweet concoction of grapefruit juice and rosé, another of crème de cassis and white wine, as well as a pastis or two. Fortunately, the French take mealtime punctuality very seriously, and at twelve-thirty everyone left to go home for lunch. Laurent was used to eating on a Latin American schedule, and after unexpectedly ingesting all that alcohol, his stomach was in no mood for jokes.
When the others had gone, he sat alone chatting with Le Juanch, who turned out to be a crafty old fox and made his coffee a double-double. He downed it, and Le Juanch asked if he’d like something to eat. Even amid the distractions of the drinks and introductions, Laurent couldn’t help noticing an enticing and impressively wide variety of tapas and hors d’oeuvre arranged Spanish-style on one side of the bar, behind a pane of glass, and he could hardly say no. He was surprised to come across this bit of Spain here, knowing how rarely the French admit modifications to their culinary habits. Gaston explained that as a young man he worked in Andalusia for a French water-treatment company, and working as a salesman throughout Spain, he’d gotten used to having tapas at bars.
‘So whenever we don’t want to be understood, we can just speak in Spanish,’ he said, half in jest. Laurent raised his cup to that.
Then Gaston explained that the tavern, located as it was in a small town with few customers, offered a simple lunch menu consisting of an appetiser, a salade du jour and a traditional, hearty main course. They served no cheese course but did have homemade desserts. Laurent’s mind was made up – he didn’t even ask what the main course was. He felt at home in this place, and the smells wafting in from the kitchen indicated he was in for something rich and substantial.
He ordered the house wine Le Juanch suggested and sat down next to a large window looking out on to the château. From there, as the food was served, he watched the progress of the construction. The place had piqued his curiosity, and he’d tried to learn as much about it as he could, but the information he’d been able to find was limited. The Château de Saint-Chartier had, it seemed, quite a storied past, dating all the way back to the seventh century, when a Syrian monk named Carterius – or Chartier, in French – built a monastery fortress under the patronage of the Abbey of Déols. Later it passed on to the Lord and Lady of Déols, who married their daughter Denise to André de Chavigny, a crusader who followed his cousin Richard the Lionheart to the Holy Land and died in combat. A couple of centuries later Joan of Arc even stayed there, according to one historian, since at the time it belonged to the father of one of her lieutenants, a certain Lord Boutillier, and that was why the lone tower was still called the Tour des Anglais. The château survived the Hundred Years’ War, and several centuries and lords later it wound up with the Comte de Moreton de Chabrillan, Napoleon’s chief aide-de-camp. The emperor’s brief stay in the château after his defeat at Waterloo gave rise to the legend of its hidden treasure. In the nineteenth century, George Sand used it as the setting for her novel The Master Pipers, and since 1976 the château had been home to the famous Festival International des Luthiers. He had an easier time finding information about this event, an annual gathering of musicians and instrument makers that for over thirty years had been held on the château grounds. The previous year had been its last, because Carlos Shennan, the new châtelain – a term for feudal lords that the French still use for château
owners – had decided he would no longer host the festival. He gave many reasons, the main one being the restoration work, for he intended to renovate the building as his home.
From what Laurent could gather, this decision provoked the ire of a lot of the locals, as well as many musicians, artisans, scholars and instrument makers who regularly attended the festival. They’d become his fiercest critics, though it wasn’t lost on Laurent that part of their criticism was directed at the new owner’s foreign background. In local newspapers, and in articles and columns about the festival, he came across some very pointed remarks about the sale of the château and its buyer, who fuelled all sorts of speculations. He even found a physiognomic study of Shennan’s facial features published alongside his photo, signed by a woman using the name ‘Thracian Zither’. She went so far in her searing conclusions that Laurent decided that either she was a loon or she was dying to get her hands on the new châtelain’s flesh.
Still, after he studied the photo for a moment he could easily draw his own conclusions, since in his life he’d run into more than a few individuals like him. Carlos Shennan was one of those men born with all of the charms Mother Nature has to bestow, and which she so often distributes unfairly. He possessed an angular face and classic Irish grey eyes with a mischievous or cocky gleam. Laurent could tell he was thin but sinewy, with a good figure and skin made leathery by a sun that doesn’t shine in the more genteel latitudes. He also noticed a scar over his eyebrow, and another on the bridge of his nose, no doubt due to a type of boxing not sanctioned by the Olympics. But what stood out most to Laurent was his smile: it seemed to defy the whole world. He could tell that the face, while handsome, could swiftly and surely go from kindness to cruelty.
