by Michelle Wan
The four of them drove out on Monday evening, when the bistro was closed. They found Gaston in the garden, eating a roll of petit-suisse mashed up with sugar, like a schoolboy. White flecks of the creamy cheese stuck to his teeth. The bruising around his eyes had faded to an unattractive yellowish-green. His nose, no longer bandaged, was the color of an underripe aubergine. Paul and Mado gave him chocolates. Julian, who carried the flowers that Mara had brought as a get-well present, dumped them unceremoniously in the facteur’s lap.
Gaston dragged it out as long as he could. First he commanded his daughters to bring chairs. The guests were then served apéritifs and a tasty homemade pâté spread on little slices of grilled bread. After that he and his family had to hear in detail about Mara and Julian’s encounter with Vrac and her visit to the château. Gaston was particularly fascinated by Mara’s description of the interior of the house, for he had never been farther than the kitchen. He was dismayed that the de Sauvignacs had refused to help her.
“Hmm,” he said judiciously. “More to this than meets the eye. But why would they cover up for Vrac? It doesn’t make sense.”
“They tried to make him out as simple but harmless,” Mara said. “Alain, too. But I don’t believe it for a moment. I’m sure he had something to do with Bedie’s disappearance. We’ve got to find some way of searching the farm without their knowledge.”
“She means me,” Julian pointed out unnecessarily.
Gaston rubbed his chin.
Finally, what he told them was this: Vrac fished, and la Binette went sometimes to market to sell cheese. That was their opportunity, when the two of them were away from the farm.
“And when exactly would this be?” Julian inquired sarcastically.
“Well…” Gaston pushed his fat lips out and considered. “The old woman sometimes goes to the market in Le Bugue, which is on Tuesdays. Or sometimes she sells her brebis over in Montignac, which has its market day on Wednesdays. However, she doesn’t go every week. Only when she has cheese to sell. But since it’s May, you’re probably in luck because the ewes are milking. Now, if it were winter, that would be a different story.”
“What about Vrac?” asked Julian. “He’s the one I’m worried about.”
“I’m getting there. Don’t rush me. Vrac, on the other hand, comes and goes like a wild animal. Why, I’ve seen him standing still as a heron, up to his hips in the lower reaches of the Nauze one day, and prowling around the north shore of the Dordogne the next. The trick, as I said, is to hit on the very day when both of them are away together.”
“How?” they all wanted to know.
“It’ll take some planning,” Gaston admitted. “However, if you just give me a little moment, I think I can come up with une stratégie that’ll work.”
He then went deep into thought. Mara stared at him in frustration. Paul slumped in his chair. Gaston’s wife and daughters sat forward in theirs, goggling. Mado paced at the edge of the group, blowing smoke in the direction of the rosebushes. Damaged though Gaston was, Julian had to resist an urge to shake him until his neck snapped.
“What I suggest you do,” Gaston said slowly, coming up and squinting into the middle distance, “is go out early on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning. There’s a copse above the farm, just below where the road winds up to Les Colombes. Hide your car in the trees, walk down, and find a spot where you have a good view of the farm. But you’ll have to keep a sharp eye out for the people in the château, too. That’s important because Madame walks in the woods every day and Monsieur still likes to shoot the occasional rabbit. You don’t want them to see you. It would give everything away. Monsieur de Sauvignac would be perfectly in his right to order you off since all of the uphill land around there still belongs to him.”
“What about the son?” Julian wanted to know. “He might be wandering around.”
“Hmm. You’ll have to take your chances there. Anyway, wait until you see la Binette and Vrac go off. The old woman drives the truck. Sometimes she takes Vrac with her and drops him somewhere along the way. Other times he goes off on that bicycle of his. That’s the chance you want to watch for. But be careful. The mother’s usually back before noon. Her brebis sells out fast. With him, it’s hard to say. Sometimes he can be away for days. People say he sleeps in the woods.”
Julian thought it a hit and miss plan and said so, but no one had anything better to suggest. He sulked in the car all the way back to Grissac. The following day was Tuesday, and he had been prevailed upon by the others to go out to La Binette at the crack of dawn. He pictured himself in the misty chill, crouching in wet grass, peering through leaves, while others slept. He liked to start his day out slowly, with several cups of well-sweetened tea, which he sometimes shared with Edith on the occasions that she chose to drop in. Except that Edith was still missing. Old Hilaire was beside himself, and the entire population of Grissac was worried and on the lookout for her.
“Courage, mon vieux,” sniggered Paul. “If you’re not back by the end of the day, I’ll send in the gendarmes.”
“It’ll come off fine, chouchou,” Mado assured him. “Afterward we’ll all have a big lunch at Chez Nous. I’ll make you something absolutely to bring water to the mouth.”
His own susceptibilities got the better of him, but just. Chouchou was what she called dogs and cats. Rabbits, too, before she slaughtered them.
•
So it was agreed that Julian would set out at first light the following day, armed not with a shotgun but with his camera and binoculars. He was to take photographs of anything that could be used as evidence linking Bedie to the farm. He was expected to report back at Chez Nous by noon.
Mara turned up at the bistro at a little before twelve to find it doing unusual business, owing to the car-crash death of France’s legendary soccer goalie, Jimmy Bartholème, otherwise known as le Mur, the Wall. Patrons sat at the tables, talking in hushed tones. The newsvendor portion of Chez Nous had sold out of papers early; indeed, Paul said that every copy of Sud Ouest in the region had been snapped up by eleven that morning.
By one o’clock, there was still no sign of Julian. Paul, in his multiple role as garçon, barman, and caissier, repeatedly went to the door to scan the road leading into the village. Mara brought periodic reports to Mado in the kitchen.
“No sign of him yet.”
“But it’s nearly two!”
“I hope he hasn’t run into Vrac.”
“Dieu l’en garde!”
The afternoon slid by. Mara, as an alternative to nervous collapse, lent a hand clearing off the tables. Jazz slept unconcernedly in the doorway, where everyone had to step over him.
It was not until half past three that Julian’s battered van finally pulled up. He had scarcely pushed his way through the beaded curtain before they jerked him out of the hearing of a last, lingering pair of customers and cornered him at the far end of the restaurant. No one seemed to notice that he was tired, muddy, and scratched.
“Well? Did you—”
“What happened? I was worried—”
“What the hell took you so long?”
Julian avenged his lost morning by refusing to tell them anything until he had been allowed to wash up and was seated with a beer. Even so, he doled it out slowly with each course. By then they had the restaurant to themselves. Over a white bean soup, he informed them that he had left his car in the spot Gaston had described and walked down through the woods in the direction of the farm. He had found a place where he could watch the farmhouse from a safe distance and had seen la Binette drive off at around six-thirty, backfiring through a cloud of smoke.
“I got a good look at her through my binoculars,” he told them. “She’s about six feet tall, wears rubber boots, and has a face that would stop a clock.”
Over a next course of foie gras en croûte, he informed them that Vrac had not appeared until much later.
“Mado, this smells terrific.” He broke off to fork open a steaming dome of light, flak
y crust and allowed himself the luxury of a slowly savored mouthful of baked goose liver before continuing. “Then he spent the morning sticking sheep.”
Paul ceased chewing, nudged Jazz away with his knee, and glared at Julian in disbelief.
“By the way, he has two good eyes. I saw him without those sunglasses of his. Anyhow, he had this long pole with a sharpened end, and he went down to the pasture and poked sheep. He wasn’t rounding them up or anything, just chasing and sticking them for the hell of it. He seems to be the type who enjoys random acts of violence.”
Mara moaned and put down her fork.
Julian went on in a pastry-thickened voice: “I was about to give up, thinking he’d be at it for the rest of the day, when suddenly he went back to the house and came out again with a shotgun. Then he stalked off through the trees. I sat tight, I tell you. The last thing I wanted was to run into him and have to explain my presence on his land. If he even gave me the chance to explain.”
He paused while Mado brought out the principal dish, a ballottine of pork braised in wine and served in a cream sauce. It came accompanied by asparagus and his favorite, pommes de terre sarladaises, potatoes richly browned in goose fat and dressed with parsley and garlic.
Breathing deeply, he resumed. “I waited for what seemed like forever. Eventually, when he didn’t come back, I figured he’d gone hunting for the day. It seemed too risky to approach the house, but I was able to check the pigeonnier out. It’s the same one all right. I photographed it from roughly the same angle as in Bedie’s photo and had a quick look inside. It was full of junk, old farm implements, empty bottles. No pigeons, though, because the nest holes are all blocked up. And nothing suggestive.”
“Such as what?” asked Mado.
“Er—signs of digging. Of course,” he added lamely, “there wouldn’t be by now, would there? Anyway, by then it was nearly ten. I figured I had a couple of hours tops before the old woman got back. But I was less worried about her than him, roaming around with that shotgun. However, since he’d gone off in one direction, I did the only thing that made sense. Went off in the other, which took me east along the stream at the bottom of their land. It was very soggy going and fairly open in parts, so I was at a disadvantage from the viewpoint of my personal safety. That is, I expected at any moment to get a backside of shot or manual strangulation, if Vrac spotted me groping around on his property. Not that any of you would care, of course.” His sarcasm was lost in a mouthful of hot, succulent pork.
“Did you find any orchids?” Mara demanded, watching him enjoy his food with barely concealed impatience.
He swallowed. “I’m coming to it. I floundered on like that for a bit until I came to a footpath that veered off through the trees. And suddenly I found myself in a water meadow, up to my knees in Dactylorhiza incarnata. Early Marsh Orchids to you. The lay of the land looked damned similar to Bedie’s photo. Naturally I took pictures for comparison. Now, I assume you all see the importance of the Marsh Orchids …”
He paused for another mouthful and also to let them take this in. Since no one offered any comment, he explained: “The point is, they were the next photo in sequence after the pigeonnier. So, if it was the same spot, this clearly established that Bedie had come in from the west, which is where the Bird’s-nests are, through the forest, along the bottom of la Binette’s farm, past the pigeon house, and onto the footpath leading into the water meadow. It’s also possible that Bedie did this in a single walk, which answers our question about continuity. It’s no more than four or five kilometers between the Bird’s-nests and the Marsh Orchids—nothing for a seasoned hiker like Mara’s sister.”
“Parbleu!” uttered Paul.
Julian fell to plying his fork and knife, giving them more time to admire his deductive skills.
“What remained, of course,” he mumbled, coming up after a bit for air, “was to figure out where she went from there. If you remember, Mara, the final sequence of orchids all needed higher, open ground. But I had three problems.”
“What?” The others watched as he mopped up a pool of sauce with bread and chewed lengthily.
“First, the water meadow was low-lying and enclosed by forest, so I couldn’t get a clear view of the surrounding area. Second, the trail branched off in three different directions. And, third, I was beginning to feel a little nervous because by that time I really had no idea where Vrac was.” Pushing away from the table, he leaned back with a sigh.
“So?” Paul inquired, rising to clear away the plates.
“So there was nothing for it but to follow my nose. I assumed Bedie would have stayed on a path, so I picked the first branch and followed it for a couple of kilometers. It went through the woods and then into some fields, and for a while things looked promising, scatterings of Butterfly and Bee and Man Orchids, but then it led down into big pine forest with lots of ferns. I knew the soil there would be too acid for most of the orchids I was looking for, so I turned back and tried the second path.”
He paused to help himself to cheese, which Paul had set out. “This one took me up to a hanging meadow. I saw lots of Pyramidals mixed in with sage and daisies, tons of Twayblade, and a nice pair of Monkey Orchids along the way, but nothing indicative. So I went back and tried the third path, which I must admit seemed the least likely of the three because it led straight down into wetland. But then it wound up along the face of a hill. Things started looking promising when I found some Lizard Orchids. Then a scattering of Bees and Flies intermixed with lots of Man Orchids with a few dried out Ladies here and there. Then I came to a beautiful big stand of Serapias lingua, Tongue Orchid. Of course, you realize what this means, Mara.”
And while she was working it out, he cried, “Well, dammit, don’t you see, those were all the orchids in the photographs, in order of appearance. I’d pretty much reconstructed the forward part of Bedie’s path!”
“Mais, c’est incroyable!” breathed Mado.
Paul whistled appreciatively.
“And the Lady’s Slipper?” Mara asked eagerly.
“Ah. Yes.” Julian scratched his beard. “The Cypripedium. Well, obviously, I knew if I could find that, it would be the clincher. I also knew the most likely place for it to grow would be on elevated, cooler ground. Now, I’d spotted a long, high, wooded ridge off to my left, just the kind of habitat I was looking for. So I made for it. At one point, I was surprised to realize the path I was on had actually taken me in a wide arc running below Les Colombes. By the way, what’s for dessert?”
“Apple-and-prune upside-down cake with crème fraîche,” said Mado, placing the handsome confection before him.
“My favorite! Mado,” Julian declared, “you’re a twenty-first-century Brillat-Savarin. Curnonsky would have devoted chapters to you alone.” He leaned over and gave her a greasy and, since Paul was looking, chaste kiss on the cheek.
“Get on with it,” growled the husband.
“Okay. Okay. It was quite a rocky climb, pretty much straight up. En route I found a great patch of gentians. Quite a few Butterfly Orchids as well. It’s a splendid view from up there, by the way. I could make out Géraud’s house on the road beyond Malpech quite clearly.”
“The Lady’s Slipper?” Mara reminded him exasperatedly. “Did you find it?”
He paused to pick his teeth. “Er … no.”
Their collective letdown was palpable. Julian was especially sensitive to the disappointment on Mara’s face.
“Look,” he burst out defensively, all of his accumulated grievances surfacing. “You didn’t really think—I mean, I was possibly looking for a single flower, for pity’s sake. I want to find it as much as you, Mara, but it was hopeless doing it like that. The only way is to go back and do a proper search, square off the area, and this time all of you can get off your backsides and help.” He threw down his napkin in disgust.
Mara was immediately contrite. “I’m so sorry, Julian. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”
“Well, that’s how
it came across.”
“I think you did very well,” soothed Mado.
An awkward silence persisted through to coffee. Julian dumped more sugar in his cup than he really needed and stirred angrily. Mado lit a cigarette and sat leg over knee, dangling a backless sandal. Mara stared bleakly at the floor.
Paul, after some inner struggle, heaved himself away from the table, disappeared momentarily, and returned with a dusty bottle of very fine old cognac, possibly by way of amends. Reverently, he served out four small glasses. They had by then been over two hours at table. The afternoon was drawing to a golden finish. A soft breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows of Chez Nous. They sipped in meditative silence.
Eventually, mollified by the cognac, Julian said, “While I was out there, I did a lot of thinking.”
“Parbleu!” intoned Paul.
“I mean, I’d established to my own satisfaction that part of Bedie’s trail cut across La Binette land. But what I started wondering was how she’d got there in the first place. I don’t mean to La Binette. I mean to the beginning of her path, which was off a logging road in the middle of the Bessède Forest. If her last stop was Beynac, she couldn’t have walked there. It’s nearly thirty kilometers away.”
“Someone gave her a ride.” Mado shrugged.
“But why there?”
Paul suggested, “If she was hitchhiking, she could have been on her way someplace else and simply got put down there.”
“But in the middle of the forest, Paul,” objected Julian. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Mara shook her head impatiently. “How or why she got there isn’t as important as what happened to her afterward. We’ve always thought the Lady’s Slipper was the key to everything, Julian. Unfortunately, it’s the one flower you couldn’t find.”
“Oh, look, don’t rub it in, will you?” he snapped.
FOURTEEN
Julian put all of his other contracts on hold so that he could concentrate on Prudence’s courtyard. With luck, everything would be ready for her party that weekend. It wasn’t the kind of work he particularly liked, but he had to admit that the effect he’d created was nothing short of a marvel of container landscaping. She had wanted a tropical look. The walls dripped with hanging baskets of fuchsia and bougainvillea. The pièce de résistance, on which he was still working, was a kind of botanical tour de force built up in the middle of the courtyard, a temporary jungle of potted palms, lacy umbrella plants, flame coleus, and even orchids (rented from Géraud at exorbitant cost) in beds of sphagnum moss. He had not yet presented Prudence with his bill, but she was looking so pleased with everything that he hoped she wouldn’t care.
