by Olga Wojtas
“You Parisians with your fancy names and your fancy ways!” she went on, her wrinkled face wrinkling even more in disgust. I couldn’t help beaming; I was delighted to be mistaken for a Parisian.
“You can have beer, or red wine, or absinthe, or cognac,” she snapped.
I would never drink on a mission.
“Don’t you have anything else?” I asked and a definite frisson went through the assembled gathering.
“No,” growled the crone. “Nothing else.”
“Oh, come now,” said the mayor. “There must be something else you can offer our visitor?”
The undertaker and cheesemonger took a step towards him with a barely suppressed growl and the mayor backed away, raising his hands in an appeasing gesture.
“I meant coffee,” he said. “Without milk, obviously.”
It wasn’t obvious at all. It was quite impertinent of him to decide unilaterally how I took my coffee.
“Tea is all I require,” I said firmly. “I’m sure it won’t be too much trouble for you to boil a kettle. Perhaps a croissant if you have one. And just to let you know, I’m not from Paris, I’m from Scotland.”
“Where?” asked the muscular, moustachioed teacher, which made me doubt the quality of his teaching.
“Scotland,” I said. “Linked to you for…” (I did a quick calculation. Since they knew about Monet, this was clearly round about the late nineteenth century.) “…six hundred years.” It was a pity I couldn’t mention General de Gaulle describing it as the oldest alliance in the world, but they were already looking confused enough. “The bonds between our two nations are deep and unbreakable. You must remember Mary, Queen of Scots, who was also queen consort of France. And, of course, her mum, Marie de Guise, who was married to our King James V until he died of grief after Henry VIII unfairly beat us at the Battle of Solway Moss. Then Marie became Scotland’s queen regent.”
They exchanged bemused glances.
“Scotland,” I persisted. “Big island just across the Channel from you, top half, Scotland.”
The young judge’s face cleared. He turned to the others. “Ah, she’s English.”
The crone spat on the floorboards, her pale wrinkled face wrinkling even more in disgust. “Foreigners.”
I was so taken aback that, for a moment, I couldn’t speak. Eventually I managed to gasp, “I’m not English! I’m your ally.”
“But,” said the middle-aged, distinguished undertaker and cheesemonger, “you said you came from the island across the Channel. That’s England.”
“That’s Great Britain,” I said. “Made up of Scotland, Wales and England, with the Kingdom of Great Britain created in 1707 by the Acts of Union between the parliaments of Scotland and England. Although our own Scottish parliament was reconvened in…”
I tailed off, in case they thought I was a lunatic. But they were already looking at me as though I was a lunatic, and I saw the tall, bewhiskered police officer mouth, “English!” at the others. I decided to leave it for the moment. You have to choose your battles, and sometimes it’s just not worth it. The Battle of Solway Moss, for example.
The young, moustachioed teacher fixed me with his piercing stare. “Why are you here? Are you from the authorities?”
He started advancing on me in quite a threatening manner. I was preparing to go into a Tae Kwon-Do spinning kick when the chubby judge caught him by the sleeve.
“How can she be from the authorities? She’s a woman,” he said.
“She’s not got much of a figure,” said the teacher. “She might be a man pretending to be a woman.”
I really didn’t know which to tackle first, the sexism or the poor grasp of gender diversity. But before I could try to put them right, the middle-aged, distinguished undertaker and cheesemonger said, “Have you come to visit the English milord?”
I still didn’t quite know what my mission was, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t to visit an English milord. If he had any problems that needed sorting out, they could be sorted out by the former pupil of an English school, rather than misusing the resources of Marcia Blaine.
I glanced around for inspiration, and my gaze fell on a newspaper on the neighbouring table, looking as fresh as if the English milord’s butler had just ironed it for him. It must be that day’s edition. My eyesight is excellent, so I was able to make out the date: 9 July 1900. Five days before Bastille Day. With the quick thinking for which we Blainers are known, I said, “I’m here for your celebrations on the fourteenth.”
They started boggling again. “You know about our celebrations?” said the chubby, young judge.
They were conflating me with the English again, an insular people who know little of other cultures. Whereas we Scots are cosmopolitan and internationalist, as evidenced by the tens of millions of people of Scottish origin around the globe.
“Of course,” I said. “I’ve travelled a considerable distance to get here specially.”
The young, muscular teacher frowned. “I never heard that the cart had been booked. How did you get here?”
That was a difficult one to answer. “I imagine cosmic strings and transversable wormholes had something to do with it” would have been true but unhelpful. I decided it was wiser to say, “I didn’t book the cart. I made other arrangements.”
The attractively louche mayor rubbed his hands in glee. “Of course!” he said. “Of course! It is scarcely surprising that cosmopolitan visitors make other arrangements to attend our celebrations. This proves how successful I have been in promoting our beloved Sans-Soleil. Would you not agree, gentlemen?”
The judge, the teacher, the police officer, and the undertaker and cheesemonger muttered a bit at this. There was some underlying tension that I didn’t yet understand. If it was relevant to my mission, I would get to the bottom of it; if it wasn’t, I would leave them to sort themselves out.
I realised suddenly that they had all gone quiet, to the extent that they were scarcely breathing. All five of them, the mayor included, were gazing at the doorway, their eyes saucer-like in their pale faces.
At last the muscular, moustachioed teacher sighed, “La Madeleine!”
Two
I turned to see a young woman silhouetted against the dusk outside.
The teacher presumably wouldn’t make any non-PC criticisms of her figure, which was what one would describe as “hour-glass”, with a tiny cinched-in waist. She wore a thin cotton dress that reached just below her calves, the backlight turning her into that image of Princess Diana, displaying her spectacularly long legs. The dress had a V-neck, and the gold crucifix she was wearing round her neck drew attention to her impressive décolletage. She wore a headscarf, but it was arranged in such a way that stray curls enhanced her fine bone structure. She obviously cared a lot about her appearance. She was, in short, the sort of woman I find it a challenge to like on sight.
She waited for her eyes to adjust to the howff’s darkness, and when they had, she marched straight up to the tall, bewhiskered police officer.
“Is there any news?” she demanded. Now that she was indoors, I could see that she had a deep tan compared to the pallor of the howff’s other occupants.
The officer took a step back. “News?” he stuttered. “What sort of news?”
She looked as though she was about to punch him so he took another step back, colliding with the table and sending it clattering across the floorboards. I began to think very slightly better of her.
“You know what news,” she snapped. “News of my husband, my beloved Sylvain. Have you found him?”
The middle-aged, distinguished undertaker and cheesemonger came up to her and took her gently by the arm.
“You know where he is,” he said, his voice soothing. “He’s dead and buried in the graveyard. You know that, Madeleine. You were at the funeral.”
Impatiently, she shook her arm free. “Oh yes, I was at the funeral. But my husband wasn’t, since he’s not dead.”
“I can assure
you he is,” said the undertaker and cheesemonger. “You know why we couldn’t let you see the body – it would have been too dreadful for you. But he is in his grave.”
“He is not dead,” said Madeleine distinctly. “You fools! Don’t talk to me about bodies and graves. If he were dead, I would feel it here.” She clasped her hands to her bosom in such a way as to give it quite a lot of uplift. There was another collective sigh from the men.
She jabbed a finger at the mayor. “It should be up to you, as a civil officer of the state and overseer of the local constabulary, to find out what has happened. But we all know you’re so obsessed with the celebrations that you can’t think of anything else.” She turned back to the policeman, who was trying to hide behind the judge. “So, it has to be up to you, as an officer of the law, temporary replacement for my husband, who is not dead, to find him. I’m sure these other gentlemen will be pleased to help you.”
They all looked at their feet and shuffled a bit. I was almost impressed, and thought, again, very slightly better of her. When I came in initially, the gang of four had definitely been intimidating the mayor, if not preparing to do him serious damage. And now they were being put in their place by what I thought of, from my fifty-something perspective, as a wee lassie.
The mayor stepped forward. “Madeleine, you’re in the middle of the grieving process. It’s a difficult time, we all understand that. You need something to occupy you. I have the very thing. Madame Maque-Monet-Gueule.”
“What?” she said impatiently. “Maque-Monet-Gueule? What sort of a name is that?”
“Mine,” I said. “Don’t wear it out.”
She turned and stared at me. It was a decidedly unfriendly stare, even worse than the teacher’s piercing one. I stopped being almost impressed and thinking very slightly better of her.
“Madame Maque is a distinguished English visitor who is here to participate in our celebrations,” the mayor said.
“No, I’m not,” I protested. “That is, yes, I’m here to participate in your celebrations, but I’m not English.” Then I thought that made it sound as though I accepted that I was distinguished, which really wasn’t for me to say.
While I was pondering whether or not to argue about that as well, the mayor went on, “We thought she was here to visit the English milord, but she isn’t. Since she needs accommodation, obviously she should stay with you.”
“No,” I said, just as Madeleine said, “No.”
At least we agreed on one thing. Two things. We didn’t want to share accommodation, and we heartily disliked one another.
“I’ll just stay in a pension,” I said.
“But there is no pension in Sans-Soleil,” said the mayor. “Nobody ever comes here. Apart from you and the English milord.”
“I came here,” said Madeleine. “I came here to be with my beloved Sylvain.”
“So you did,” said the mayor equably. “And now, tragically, he’s dead, and you’re rattling around in your chalet all by yourself. What you need is a nice companion, like this English lady.”
“I’m not–” I began, but Madeleine was already talking over my protest.
“The only companion I want is my life’s companion, my beloved Sylvain. See to it.” And with that, she stormed out and disappeared from sight.
“Newly widowed,” said the mayor. “You have to make allowances. She’ll love having you to stay.”
The foursome seemed to be heading slowly towards him in quite a menacing way.
“Gentlemen! What will our English visitor think of you hanging around Chez Maman when you should be at work?” the mayor asked.
Nobody was paying attention when I said, “–not English.” They had all stopped where they were and turned to look at the old crone behind the bar. Grumbling, she got down off her seat, her pipe still clamped between her jaws, and went over to the far wall. From a series of coat hooks, she retrieved a long black gown, a white jabot and a black cylindrical hat, which she gave to the judge; a wing collar and tie for the teacher; a dark blue cape and kepi for the police officer; and a long white apron covered in bloodstains for the undertaker and cheesemonger. I hadn’t known that undertakers did post-mortems, but presumably in a small village you had to turn your hand to whatever was necessary.
“Sans-Soleil is ready for another day,” said the mayor, taking a white sash out of his pocket, and draping it over his chest. “To our posts, gentlemen.”
“I wonder if there will be anything of interest waiting for you in the town hall,” sneered the young, moustachioed teacher, taking an unfiltered cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it.
“Wait until the day of our celebrations, and there will be something of interest for the whole village,” said the mayor, sounding smug. “In the meantime, I shall escort our esteemed visitor to her new home.”
He reached for my suitcase and had barely lifted it off the ground before he dropped it back down, wheezing.
I said, “Let me get it,” and picked it up: the trick is to engage the lats and the abs. And of course, to keep up the strength training.
It was as well to be civil to everyone; so far, I had no idea who were the goodies and who were the baddies.
“Gentlemen,” I said, nodding to the foursome who were now dressed in their work clothes. “Madame Maman.” The crone, now back behind the bar, grunted and blew a smoke ring in my direction. I wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to indicate cordiality or disdain, but it struck me that I’d never got my cup of tea.
The mayor and I went out of the howff into the street. He was talking about them starting work, which suggested that this was morning rather than evening. I thought back to my first glimpse of daylight when I stepped through the town hall’s double doors, light so dim that I thought it must be dawn or dusk. A July morning should be bright and luminous, but the light was just as dim as it had been earlier.
“Do you never see the sun here?” I asked jocularly.
He gave me a bit of a strange look. “Of course not. That’s why the village is called Sans-Soleil.”
I studied my surroundings. I had been looking at the dark, pine-covered slopes before. Now I looked more closely, the sky above the sharp peaks was clear blue. There must be sunshine up there, but the topography of mountains encircling the high valley meant that the village was in constant shade. It wasn’t surprising that people here were a bit gloomy and bad-tempered.
“That explains the design of your village shield,” I said. “Those black upside-down Vs on a grey background. A very clever artistic representation.”
He stopped. “You’ve been in the town hall? But the town hall is nowhere near the road into the village.”
I stopped as well. I could scarcely say that was where I had arrived via time travel. And even though the door hadn’t been locked, perhaps I shouldn’t have been there. Having a coffin lying around was quite odd, and he might be trying to keep it private.
“I was in the vicinity of the town hall,” I said. It’s always wise to stick relatively close to the truth, especially as someone might have seen me. “I came up the Paris road into the village and had a wee wander round just to orientate myself. Since it’s such a lovely day. Well, it’s mild at any rate.”
“But our village shield,” he said. “How did you see that? It’s inside the town hall.”
“Your village shield is famous, didn’t you know?” I said. “I saw it in…” I gave a faint shudder. “…the International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry. In Glasgow. In 1888.” He wasn’t to know there was no way anyone from Edinburgh would go to an exhibition in Glasgow. “There was a competition for shields from around the world, and yours won third prize. Did you never get the prize money? Oh dear, I’m afraid that’s Glasgow for you. Someone will have nicked it and gone off to buy electric soup.”
“Electric soup?” he said. “I’ve heard there is electric street lighting in Paris, but I’ve never heard of electric soup.”
“It’s a Glasgow thing
,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand. I certainly don’t. Anyway, that’s how I know all about your artistic shield. Is the original in the town hall? I must come in and see it some time.”
“Of course,” he said. He didn’t seem alarmed by the prospect. “I’ve organised a grand concert for our celebrations, with a proper singer coming all the way from Paris. If that doesn’t consolidate my position as mayor, I don’t know what will.”
“No indeed,” I agreed, although I thought bringing in electric street lighting would be even more popular.
As we rounded a corner, I could see Madeleine at the far end of the street. She didn’t so much walk as sashay, her hips undulating from side to side. Since she was wearing wooden sabots, this would have been impressive had I not decided to be unimpressed by her.
All along the street, pale men standing at their chalet doors peered after her lasciviously, while white-faced women clipped them round the ear. It was depressingly heteronormative.
“Footloose and fancy free, is she, now that she’s a widow?” I asked, trying not to sound judgemental.
“Oh no,” said the mayor. “She has no interest in anyone except her husband Sylvain. Despite the fact that he’s dead.”
I reflected that denial could be the first reaction to bereavement. It was obviously taking her time to accept her loss.
We continued down the street, past one of the narrow lanes where a woman was rubbing down a rickety two-wheeled cart. Her brawny physique suggested she did an impressive amount of resistance exercise. She stared at me.
“Who’s this?” she called.
The mayor gestured towards me as though he was showing off a prize exhibit. “This is Madame Maque, an international visitor who has come here specially for our celebrations. Isn’t that wonderful news? Sans-Soleil is now firmly on the map – we’ll be inundated with visitors before you know it.”
