by Ivo Fornesa
Madame Mayumi was seated at a table whose legs, Laurent realised to his horror and amazement, once belonged to a zebra. At the end of the room, arrayed on a shelf alongside some anthropomorphic hairpins, he noticed some very strange figurines that seemed to be looking at him.
‘Those are headrests, mainly from Ethiopia and the Congo,’ explained Madame Mayumi, seeing his puzzlement. ‘But please, sit down.’
He did so, and she poured two cups of tea from a heavy Japanese cast-iron teapot, just as Xiao Li approached to whisper something in her ear.
Once the secretary left, Laurent tried to break the silence.
‘Impressive collection,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ his hostess agreed flatly. ‘Though I think “cumbersome clutter” would be a better description. Forgive me for bringing you here, but it’s the only room where everything is finished, so I thought it would be the best place for us to speak alone.’
‘So you’re not a hunter.’
‘I likely have better aim than my husband, but I don’t need to surround myself with trophies. That’s more a trait of male insecurity,’ she replied, eyes fixed on the lovely, fragile teacup, and the column of steam rising into the air. ‘And speaking of trophy hunting, I understand you’ve just met Madame Pia.’
Laurent looked at her in wonder. Madame Mayumi possessed an impressive self-control, and no doubt an exceptional intelligence.
‘I ran into her outside the bedroom. She was checking on something about the wiring on that landing.’
‘Quite a peculiar woman, wouldn’t you say?’ She gave a slight smile, holding the cup in both hands with her delicate fingers. ‘Oh, she’s a professional, but she likes to pry and seems not to understand the meaning of private property. But let’s talk about something more interesting. Such as what brought you to this bucolic little village.’
Laurent made one last attempt to avoid the topic.
‘Did your husband shoot everything here? It’s an amazing assortment.’
‘Yes, he’s not only childlike, he’s also charmingly obsessive. Though as I was saying, I’d rather we’d put the music room here. All these masks, all these bones and hides – they can’t bring us good luck. But do drink your tea, it’s very nourishing. It’s made with toasted rice.’
Laurent sipped the brew and found that it really did have a flavour unknown to him, a light fragrance that seemed to permeate him with a pleasant warmth.
‘I understand why you might find the hall overwhelming, Madame Shennan, but all hunters are like this,’ he offered, in an attempt to comfort her. ‘And while I don’t hunt myself, in my humble opinion I think this room fits in perfectly in a château that looks a bit like a military fortress. One can easily imagine medieval lords riding in from the chase, wild boars slumped over their horses’ haunches, and holding gargantuan feasts in front of these fireplaces.’
Madame Mayumi was in no mood for historical reveries.
‘You’re a good man, Monsieur de Rodergues, and I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I just wanted to thank you for how wonderfully you reacted to today’s little mishap. My daughters were totally smitten, and we hope to see you often. Rest assured that my husband will want to meet you, too.’
Laurent cleared his throat and replied, ‘That’s very kind of you. I’d just like to say how impressed I am by the restoration work you’re doing on the château. Everyone in town is delighted, since they consider this a sort of local treasure. I’m sure you and your husband are spending like a country at war, but the results will be spectacular.’
Mayumi frowned and shook her head.
‘Alas, Monsieur Laurent, nothing is what it seems! Yes, my husband is spending far more than is advisable or necessary, since he’ll never recover the money he’s pouring into this project. As I said, he has an obsessive personality, and sometimes I’m even afraid that by investing so much he’s putting my daughters’ futures at risk, which I’m not about to let happen. As for whether people are happy or like us,’ she continued, opening a drawer in the table and producing a bundle of letters, ‘take a look. These are the messages we’ve received this week alone.’
Laurent picked up one of the letters at random and read:
Capitalist pig! Don’t think you can buy us all out.
One day your castle will burn to the ground. Thief!
Madame Mayumi put it back with the others.
‘Surprised, Monsieur Laurent? Wait, here’s a better one.’ She took out a postcard with a few sentences scrawled in a jerky, angry hand:
Chink bitch! You know he’s cheating on you, don’t you? Of course you do.
Laurent blushed upon reading it, and Madame Mayumi returned the stack to the drawer, adding with a sense of humour, ‘I suppose the “chink bitch” is me. People around here aren’t exactly experts in ethnography. As you can see, not everyone is so delighted.’
Laurent wanted to come to her aid.
‘Please, Madame, those lowlifes are not … are not representative. You’re a woman of the world, you know there are always some people with sour grapes. Besides, the part about the cheating can’t possibly be true; you’re a beautiful woman …’
‘Fear not, Monsieur. I’m strong, and I come from a family that’s stronger still. I only worry about these things on account of my daughters – I don’t want anyone to harass them. In any case, thank you for saying I’m beautiful. One always likes to hear that at my age. And now please be off. It’s a gorgeous afternoon; it’d be a pity if you missed it.’
Mayumi gave him her hand, and this time Laurent thought it proper to kiss it.
‘Au revoir, Madame Shennan. I hope to run into you again soon in town or in La Châtre.’
Outside, he crossed the broad terrace with its worn red granite flagstones and decided to walk home around the right flank, in order to see the part of the garden blocked from view from the street. The construction outside was quite noisy, and it occurred to him the new windows must be thoroughly soundproof. Nothing could be heard inside the château, and no doubt the reverse was likewise true.
Walking by the large wooden doorway at the base of the terrace, he caught sight of Pia, who now had boots on, and he couldn’t fail to notice that even these were dazzling. She was speaking to a gentleman of a certain age, probably a supplier, and pointing to a wall with some damp patches on the newly applied cladding treatment. Pitying him, Laurent quickened his pace and returned her rather indifferent wave goodbye.
The château park or garden was probably eight acres at most, but it looked as though it would soon become a very interesting spot, as he could see from a project diagram posted on a bulletin board. On the ground nearby some planters and plants were waiting to be given a home. Laurent looked around, and in the areas bordering the cemetery he could see half a dozen people digging and preparing the ground for them. Nearby stood a thin, young, beautiful woman inspecting some bulbs, oblivious to his presence. Her enormous eyes were as dreamy as they were sad.
Laurent turned down the pathway to the right, which threaded through various families of giant ferns, making him feel he’d entered some sort of Jurassic garden. Just then a sudden shiver came over him. The spot was beautiful and would no doubt become more so, but there was something in that garden he couldn’t put his finger on, a je ne sais quoi that caused him to shudder. He didn’t put much stock in omens, but he had the unmistakable feeling that something dreadful had occurred, or was occurring – or worse yet, would occur very soon.
He again looked around him, unable to find the source of this foreboding. The sun shone gently through the plants in a pretty dappled light. He chalked it up to his imagination, clicked his tongue in self-reproach and continued on his way.
THE RIDING SCHOOL
IN LA BERTHENOUX
Men have their codes of friendship, action and conduct; in Laurent’s case, he felt an affinity with Roger, the farmer whose property lay on the border of Saint-Chartier and Nohant-Vic, and they quickly forged a good relati
onship.
Roger and his wife Isabelle not only worked from sunrise to sunset, tending their fields, orchard, chickens, rabbits, cows and goats, and making an excellent chèvre cheese, they also kept various breeds of horses. He was surprised to learn they had Appaloosas, an American breed descended, like mustangs, from the horses the Spaniards lost or the indigenous people took in the early days of the conquest. Appaloosas are good horses, docile and strong, and Laurent liked how their spots set off one of his saddles, an ornate Mexican piece that a client had once given him.
It turned out Roger had been a professional jockey, educated at the school in the Château de Chantilly, though as much as he loved horses, he never had time to ride. Laurent eventually decided to buy a horse on instalments, a three-year-old grey mare with black spots ringed in white that he decided would answer to the name Malinche. Of course, Roger offered to stable and train her, but Laurent was well aware that his neighbour’s good intentions were no match for his endless daily responsibilities, so he found a more practical solution. The owner of the Château de la Vallée Bleue, a local hotel, told him that just five miles away, in La Berthenoux, there was a riding school run by a lovely woman who had once won the Miss Berry pageant. Given these qualifications, Laurent decided a visit to the riding centre was now de rigueur.
The drive from Saint-Chartier to La Berthenoux was one of Laurent’s favourites, regardless of whether he went through Verneuil or spent twice as long going through Saint-Août. The landscape along the way was a veritable cross-section of rural France: tilled fields, sweeping pastures full of cattle – mostly Charolais – farmhouses with slate or clay-tile roofs, hawthorn or rose hedges dividing the lands, highway shoulders neat and well maintained. Best of all was the wildlife that in other countries is almost impossible to see: hawks perched proud and sphinx-like atop lamp posts, white cranes calmly pecking in ponds, enormous beavers scurrying away in channels and irrigation ditches, red squirrels, tottering hedgehogs, bristly boars and, above all, deer of all kinds: fallow, chamois, roebucks. Groups of them would often cross the roads, stopping what little traffic there was, but their grace and beauty made the driver forget his initial irritation at the interruption – and in any case, Berry isn’t a place for urgency or haste.
Whenever he drove, Laurent had a longstanding habit of putting on cuecas, rural Chilean folk songs. Many Chileans would find this practice incomprehensible, but he was an aficionado, both because of the essentially good memories of his adoptive country, and because he liked the lyrics and tunes, which he always sang along to in his dubious voice. With a soundtrack that went from ‘El viejo lobero’ to ‘Gallo de la Pasión’, he arrived at the riding centre. There he had negotiated with Caroline de Flalois a fair and equitable arrangement: she’d take care of Malinche for free, and in return he’d let her use the horse with her students. From what he’d seen, most of them were girls, and that reassured him, since girls tend to be more empathetic and careful with horses than boys.
Caroline was, just as he’d heard, a beautiful woman, and very tall. Yet her appeal really came from her spontaneous, natural kindness: it was impossible not to notice that she was a good person. She’d recently married, much to the sorrow of the men in the region. And in the opinion of some women, her husband, Pierre, possessed similar qualities. Their estate covered sixty hectares on a hill that offered good views of the surrounding area, and while the farm wasn’t exactly an ode to orderliness, it had its charm, with a jumble of carts, sheds with various animals, two Mongolian yurts for extended stays, setters barking at everything, horses of different breeds and sizes and of course children – plenty of children. Kids who love horses are never in short supply, and Caroline, her kindness notwithstanding, had the rare, enviable gift of authority, and she knew how to use it.
One day Laurent took a long ride with Caroline, Pierre and another couple they were friends with, Lilly and Hervé. By the time they returned it was already getting dark, so they decided to set up a barbecue right there in the little yard at the riding centre, opposite the house. It quickly became apparent that Pierre was the expert in such matters, so the others, after pitching in with the preparations, sat back in their chairs overlooking the valley, well provisioned with cups full of warm punch.
‘Make yourself comfortable, Laurent. There’s someone coming I want you to meet, a good friend of mine who also lives in Saint-Chartier. She’s gorgeous, and I just know you’ll adore her,’ said Caroline with a wink. Laurent wasn’t fussy – he didn’t even know the meaning of the word – and being single in the French countryside was revealing itself to be something wonderful: everyone insisted on introducing him to women.
As the scent of blood pudding and white sausages filled the air with an invitation to gluttony, the conversation turned to the Château de Saint-Chartier and its new owners. All the questions ultimately were addressed to Laurent, who after all lived there and had a front-row seat.
‘It never ceases to amaze me how endlessly curious people are about the château,’ he said. ‘After all, France is teeming with châteaux – they’re everywhere you look. Near Saint-Chartier, off the top of my head, I can think of Montgivray, Sarzay, d’Ars and many more besides.’
‘True, there are a lot,’ Caroline conceded, ‘but they’re almost all owned by the same old families, or by the municipality or regional governments. Some of them do draw attention, like the Château de Magnet, which people said was bought by some sort of group or cult that wanted to recreate the Middle Ages. In the end it all turned out be just rumours, and the owner is apparently a gentleman who came into it by chance.’
Pierre brought over a tray of roasted kidneys seasoned with parsley, garlic and a dash of sherry.
‘The unusual thing about the one in Saint-Chartier,’ he chimed in, ‘isn’t just that there’s so much history behind it, it’s that it’s getting such a radical facelift, and is now home to a sort of United Nations of people from all sorts of places. On top of that, there’s a constant stream of lorries going in packed with mysterious crates from all four corners of the earth. There’s even something strange about the people working on the restoration. And the cherry on top is Monsieur Shennan.’
At the mention of that name, Caroline and her friend Lilly couldn’t hold back a giggle. Then they stopped short, hearing someone approach, their footfalls audible in the leaves and brush.
‘Shennan? He’s a bastard,’ said a voice from the darkness. Everyone turned at once, and Laurent was literally blinded by the singular beauty before him, immediately aware that he had perhaps just reached a watershed moment in his bachelor’s life.
Caroline got up to embrace her and, taking her by the hand, introduced her to everyone else.
‘This is Yael, a very good friend of mine. She’s a potter, and she doesn’t live far from you, Laurent.’
Everyone else had clearly already met her, though the men’s eyes showed that excitement that’s always stirred in the presence of beauty. Not only was this woman a potter, she was living proof of the biblical theory that in shaping human clay God sometimes liked to show off.
Her green eyes had that rare ability to pierce whomever she spoke to, shoving them to a perilous sea of insecurity. So it was that as she said hello to everyone one by one, the normally self-assured sweet-talker Laurent could only manage to mumble a pathetic, ‘My pleasure.’
The new guest accepted the glass of red that Pierre offered her and inserted herself into the conversation with a smile.
‘As I was walking up here I heard you talking about something very interesting. Please go on; I want to know everything there is to know about the château.’ Turning toward Laurent she added, ‘And since you’re a frequent visitor, I hope you can tell us quite a bit.’
Then she sat back in her chair, holding her glass with both hands, and looked at him squarely, awaiting a reply.
‘I don’t know why you think that,’ Laurent said in his defence. ‘I’ve only been there once, and very briefly. What I do fi
nd strange, though, is that I’ve never seen you in town. If we’d crossed paths with each other I’m sure I would have remembered.’
Hervé, Lilly’s partner, could hardly repress a grin.
‘We’re all quite certain you’d remember if you’d seen her.’ Lilly shot him such a withering look that he had no choice but to keep quiet.
By this point Laurent had started to recover his courage. He gave a laugh and shot Yael a rather cheeky glance. She held his gaze for a moment before replying.
‘I don’t often leave my workshop, which is right on the square, next to the house of that Scottish couple who spend the summers there. But I’ve seen you strolling about this way and that. Apparently you have plenty of free time, or not many responsibilities, which is something to envy or to pity, depending on how you look at it. In any case I have a small, lovely garden in the back, and I spend a lot of time there.’
Laurent noticed that the rest of the party followed this exchange with rapt attention, and he wanted to put a stop to it. The only way he could think to do so was to quickly recount his experience with the inhabitants of the château, since they appeared to be so interested. He told an entertaining tale, and their silence was interrupted only by their laughter at some of the details. As Laurent spoke, he couldn’t help stealing glances at Yael: he really wanted this woman to like him. True, he was a bit taken with the Shennans’ nanny, but only because she possessed a perfect beauty and inspired a gentle desire to protect her. But he now realised he hadn’t thought of her even once since he’d left the château. Yael, on the other hand, was like a climbing ivy vine that digs its roots in and takes out your heart before you even realise it.
