IN THE MORNING, THE COURTYARD WAS BLANKETED WITH POWDERY snow. On it, bright winter sunshine sparkled in flecks of light. The long shadow of the outhouse stretched toward the west in the palest lavender blue. Pascal would have noticed that, his eye trained by Pissarro.
“Look, Maxime. How beautiful. I hate to spoil it with my footprints, but—”
“You don’t have to.” He swept me up in his arms and I lost touch with the earth as he carried me, laughing and making spumes of breath-clouds, and set me down at the outhouse door.
“I would have flown you here, like a Chagall painting, if I were capable of it.”
Despite the cold, we stood outside for a few moments after I came out, to enjoy the view. All the rough edges of fence posts and rooftops were softened, and the round cap of the windmill across the ravine looked like a mound of whipped cream, but it wouldn’t last. Some roofs already showed surprise patches of red tiles where the weightless snow had blown off. Bare grapevines threaded the hills in dark lines.
“The vines are like ranks of thin men in the prison yard holding out their arms to each other,” Maxime said.
“You have to train yourself not to think those thoughts. Look at the beauty of the land instead. Look at the foothills of the Luberons. Don’t they look like the humps of white elephants praying on their knees?”
He smiled at me. “If you think so.”
The change of seasons reflected the timelessness of the land, which had endured whatever storms or armies had passed over it. A black-and-white magpie landed on our fence rail. His white shoulder feathers lifted in a breeze.
“A Monet painting,” Maxime said, so softly that the quiet lying over the valley and over us was not disturbed. “It’s peaceful here. I’m glad you were here during the war years.”
We waited until the magpie warbled, which made us laugh because it sounded like a puppy whining. When it flew off, Maxime swept me up again, and I felt Bella’s exuberance in being freed from gravity. He was careful to walk backward, stepping in his own footprints, as he carried me to the house.
I had just started milking Geneviève when the exultant clucking of Kooritzah Deux announced that she had just laid an egg.
“That’s chicken language for ‘Pick it up.’ Go inside her coop and find it before it freezes.”
The instant Maxime bent down and entered, Kooritzah let loose a fury of squawking and wing flapping at the stranger in her domain.
“Vite! Vite! Vite!” I said. “It’s under her.”
He mustered his courage and snatched it from beneath her. “I’ve got it!” he shouted, cupping it in his hands.
“Bravo, you city boy. Eh bien, lapushka! Merci.”
“What does that mean, lapushka?”
Feeling myself blush, I said, “Something like ‘darling.’ It’s Russian.”
GLAD TO BE INSIDE, I laid the pages Pascal had written in front of Maxime at the table. “It’s Pascal’s handwriting. I found them in one of his drawers yesterday.”
As he read, silently at first, then punctuated with murmurs of interest, I went to work making cheese. “This will be ready for you to take home with you.”
“Lisette, this is priceless! Is it true? Did this conversation happen?”
“I don’t think he could have made up such detail.”
“Monsieur Laforgue should see this. Do you mind if I take it to him?”
“I was hoping to do that myself someday.”
“You’re right. You should be the one.”
I served him un petit noir made with real coffee and laid a round loaf of René’s pain d’épeautre on the table, explaining that it was a traditional bread made with primitive wheat grown near Sault, a village to the north.
“You’ve learned a lot about this region.”
“I should think so. It has been nine years.”
He broke apart the loaf and tore off big morsels and ate them one after another. I was sure Provençal bread would make him hearty again.
He stopped eating long enough to concede that there might be ways to find the paintings in rural Provence that he didn’t know about.
“Is there anyone here you trust who might help you?”
“Yes. Maurice. The bus driver. And ‘madame his wife,’ Louise. My best friends.”
“Let’s go see them.”
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT the Chevets’ house, Maurice welcomed Maxime robustly, pounding him on the back, and Louise insisted that we join them for cream of potato soup, boiled beets, and red rice from the Camargue. In a rush of words I spilled out why we had gone to the woodpile and what we had discovered there.
“I’m certain André put the paintings there. Why else would his boards be there but to make a double platform to keep the paintings flat and dry?”
“A pretty poor hiding place, if you ask me,” Maurice said.
“It does have a roof,” Louise responded.
“That’s irrelevant now,” Maxime said. “Who could have found them? The wood gatherer?”
“Not likely. He has the round eyes of a goby,” Maurice said.
“What’s a goby?” Maxime asked.
“A useless little fish in our rivers here. Not worth the hook to catch him,” Maurice said. “A simpleton.”
“Could they be in someone’s house?” Maxime asked.
Maurice blew a puff of air. “Nobody would hang them in their house. This is a small village, monsieur. We have all been in each other’s houses. No house is private. Everyone knows the paintings belonged to Pascal.”
“It is possible that he hid some under the woodpile and others elsewhere?” Louise ventured.
“Where? Where is a likely place?” Maxime asked.
“If it were Pascal and not his grandson, I would say in the Bruoux Mines,” Maurice said.
“That still could be André’s hiding place,” Louise said.
“Or someone else’s who found them in the woodpile and hid them again until they could be sold outside Roussillon,” Maxime said.
That seemed more likely. “Who?” I asked.
“Who has contacts outside Roussillon?” Maxime asked.
“The mayor, Aimé Bonhomme, but he is honorable. He would never do anything underhanded. The whole village respects him,” Maurice said.
“We were trusting of Monsieur Pinatel when he was mayor,” Louise said, “but his fleeing on the night Hitler committed suicide has cast suspicion on him. He has contacts outside Roussillon.”
“Then I suppose it might have been him,” I remarked. “Monsieur Voisin complained early in the war that Monsieur Pinatel had taken all the wood, down to the platform, but I had thought he was just exaggerating. He could have lifted the top plywood and have taken the paintings anywhere,” I wailed.
“No,” Louise said. “I can’t picture him creeping around at night to steal them.”
“But I can picture him telling that German lieutenant,” I said.
I thought of one other person who had contacts outside the village, and I was surprised Louise didn’t mention him. The words “you’ll be sorry” echoed in my mind. Bernard was enough of an enigma that he might be the one.
I was about to say so when Maxime launched a speculation. “Let’s assume, for the moment, that they were stolen with selfish intent. You probably know that Hitler, Göring, and other high-level Nazis amassed huge collections of art that were found in salt mines, particularly Altaussee, in Austria.”
“We heard. We’re not that isolated here.” Maurice sounded peeved. “There is a radio in the café.”
“Surely the mayor would have had knowledge of that. So he might have hidden Lisette’s paintings in a mine near here until such time that he could sell them to a German officer or government official, who would then ingratiate himself with a gift of art to someone of higher position. The paintings could have traveled up the ranks. Paris is buzzing with such stories.”
“Pascal’s paintings in German hands!” I cried.
That possibility silenced the four of us. Priva
tely I thought how devastated André would have been.
A few minutes later, Maxime said, “It would have to be someone not very knowledgeable about art—”
“No one here is knowledgeable about art,” I muttered.
“—because Lisette’s paintings would have been considered too modern, what the German chief of culture, Goebbels, called degenerate art. So if the thief intended them as a gift to a German cultural officer, he would have made a mistake.”
“Can we at least look in the mine?”
“There are many mines. The earth under the commune is riddled with passageways,” Maurice said.
“It’s not smart to go into a mine you don’t know, Lisette,” Maxime warned. “I would have to go with you.”
“Puh! You don’t know them either.”
“The closest mine stopped its operations when the war started. Only a small exploitation of one area has begun again,” Maurice said. “We can’t go where they are working, but we can explore other areas in it.”
“How do you know where?” Maxime asked.
Maurice pantomimed wielding a pickax at imaginary walls to his right and his left. He tapped his chest. “Ambidextrous. You are, my good man, looking at a miner of progress, the forward-most miner of Team Three at the Bruoux Mines. Aimé Bonhomme worked directly behind me. Being a left-hander, which was rare, he was paid more than right-handers. Miners of progress were paid by the distance we picked in a day. One meter was a good day.”
Louise waved her hand as though she were sweeping away a fly. “All right, all right, Maurice. They don’t need to know that. You will have to excuse him, Maxime. The miners of Roussillon are proud men.”
“I know the portion of the mine excavated by 1920, but not after that,” Maurice said.
“Would there be safe places to hide paintings there?” I asked.
“Some. There are wall niches we axed out for statues of Sainte Barbara, patron saint of miners. A couple of the miners were talented at carving them. Paintings could be hidden behind the statues. The question is whether I can remember where they are. It’s been twenty-five years. I won’t go in without thinking it out.”
“You shouldn’t go in there in winter anyway,” Louise said. “Lisette would freeze. Wait till summer.”
“In the meantime, I’ll work on a map.”
Another wait lay ahead.
IN THE MIDDLE OF the night, I heard Maxime yell, “The timber! Get out!” I ran into his bedroom and found him in the throes of a nightmare, gasping and choking and thrashing around in his bed. I grabbed his arms to bring them to his sides.
“You’re here in Roussillon. You’re not in a mine. It was a bad dream, but you’re all right now. I’m here.”
He turned away from me and covered his head and drew up his knees. I sat on the edge of the bed and threw my arm over him until his shuddering stopped.
THE NEXT MORNING I poured Maxime’s petit noir into a small cup as if we were in Paris, rather than into a bowl, which was the Provençal way.
“It’s enough that I go with Maurice,” I said. “You don’t have to.”
“I can’t let you do that. I’ve got to be there.”
“No, Max. I’m not going to put you through that. There’s no sense in fueling more nightmares.”
He shrank at the reminder and looked so ashamed that I was sorry I had said it.
“This is it, Lisette. This is as good as it gets. I’ll never be clear of it. Accept it.”
“I don’t believe that,” I whispered.
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug.
“I might never be whole enough to live without attacks of fear or fury. I even raged at my mother.”
“A little at a time, Max. Roussillon has taught me how to wait.”
“How long will you stay here?”
“I told you. Until I find the paintings.”
“What if they can’t be found? What if they’re not here?”
It was my turn to shrug. How could I know?
“Can you stand the cold enough for us to take a walk?”
He answered by putting on his coat.
The snow had melted off the cobblestones but had left them wet and slippery. We took the downhill with caution, holding on to each other. In the lower village, we stopped at the bakery to buy two brioches. Maxime pulled out the moist center knob of his and fed it to me. We ate them as we walked toward the end of the village.
“I want to show you something extraordinary, the only thing in Roussillon worth visiting.”
“You are worth visiting. I didn’t come to see any sights. I’m not a tourist.”
“This sight you’ll never forget. People who hope for tourists call it the Sentier des Ocres.”
We passed the cemetery, walked along a ridge edged with pines, and descended a little way into a bowl or basin with its high walls grooved and striped in all the shades of ochre.
“Originally, the walls were scooped out by centuries of mistrals, which exposed the ochres, and then miners went at them with their pickaxes. Pascal said they are sixty meters high.”
Pinnacles and cliffs surrounded us. The red-orange glowed in the morning light, and deep green pines shaded patches of snow.
“It’s as though waves of color swirled against the canyon walls and then froze,” Maxime said. “Someone should paint this.”
“Apparently, it is even more magnificent farther on, but the paths are treacherous when they’re wet. We can come back in the summer and bake in the heat reflected off the walls.”
“I wouldn’t mind some of that heat now.”
We both shivered at once and turned toward home. What I had to tell him weighed heavily on my mind as we trudged uphill. I resolved to tell him later, after we had onion soup and felt warmer.
Stalling, I took a long time selecting the onions in the root cellar. Back in the house, I sliced them very thin, then sautéed them, poured in water, and dropped in three beef bouillon cubes. I cut three slices of baguette at an angle, floated them on top of three bowls of the soup, then grated some ricotta over them. After kindling a fire in the firebox, I set the three servings in the oven to toast. “Why three?” he asked.
“You’re going to have two of them.”
Then I sat down to watch him eat.
“I have something to tell you,” I said softly.
He waved his spoon aloft. “Tell on, lapushka.”
That nearly dissolved my resolution.
“Remember when we were coming back from the borie?” I began. “A lorry stopped and the driver offered us a ride.”
“Yes. He glared at me suspiciously.”
“The garde champêtre, Bernard Blanc. An arrogant fellow they call the constable. He’s extremely moody, veering from kindness to aggressiveness. Without my asking, he gave me things I needed during the war. A stewing chicken, seeds to start the garden, wood. He implied that in accepting them, I owed him something. Some feminine favor. Twice he grabbed me in a forced embrace.”
He stopped eating. Broth spilled from his spoon.
“Max, please understand. I gave him no indication that I was interested in him. In fact, I have been rude.”
“How?”
“I closed the door in his face once. Another time, he came right into the courtyard, entering by the side gate while I was shoveling out the outhouse. He taunted me by swinging a string of sausages and saying something crude, trying to tempt me into going to his house, where he would provide a sausage every night. When he said I was frolicking with you instead of grieving over André, I couldn’t bear it, and I dug the shovel into the outhouse pit and drew out a big pile and flung it at him.”
Maxime laughed, a buoyant, guilt-freeing laugh that exploded and filled the room. “Served him right.”
“Then he flung the string of sausages over the cliff and threatened me. Seeing that string of sausages sail through the air was actually droll.”
“That’s something Chagall would have put in a painting,” Maxime said. �
��He has fish and chickens in the sky. Why not sausages?”
Chuckling, Maxime went upstairs and returned wearing a wry look. “After hearing how he tried to win you over with gifts, I hesitate to give this to you, but I brought it, so here it is.”
He placed on the table a small box, only about eight centimeters square, with gold letters spelling À LA MÉRE DE FAMILLE, the name of the oldest confiserie in Paris, on rue du Faubourg Montmartre.
I lifted the lid. “Marzipan! You remembered how I adore them.” I held the box’s lid to my chest and gazed down at four perfect fruits—an apple, a pear, a cherry, and a peach. “The colors of Roussillon!”
A man who would give a gift of marzipan would surely not have nightmares forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
OCHRES OF ALL HUES
1946
SPLENDID SUMMER, AT LAST! I SUSPECTED THAT THE ENTIRE département of the Vaucluse was sweetly blooming. The passionflower vine climbing the side fence was covered with delicate, intricate blossoms—the pale green petals spread wide like a sunburst, a circular fringe of violet rays, a yellow center with a red ring within it, from which sprouted chartreuse filaments supporting pockets of pollen. The air in front of Louise’s house wafted fragrances of lavender and sweet pea. My almond tree was sprouting nuts as green as new parsley, their velvet casings taunting me to touch them, but if I ate one now, it would be as bitter as vinegar. Provence was teaching me to surrender to the seasons, and to wait with patience.
But when Maxime stepped through my doorway in the middle of August, I didn’t wait. I hugged him instantly. I had been patient long enough.
He looked healthier and had put on some weight. His chest was no longer concave, the skin around his eyes not so drawn. Even his wrists were not so thin.
He had come for the exploration of the mine, not to enter it, just to be here in case Maurice and I came home with the paintings.
THE BRUOUX MINES, WHERE Maurice and Pascal had worked, were about six kilometers east of Roussillon, near the village of Gargas. Behind some rusty ore carts on rails, a row of mine entrances, tall rounded arches cut into a cliff, loomed ominously. Fifteen meters high, Maurice said. He took great pride in explaining that the width of each passageway—which he called a gallery, claiming that Roussillon did have a gallery after all—was measured by two miners, one right-handed and one left-handed, standing side by side and reaching out their outside arms with their pickaxes. By measuring frequently, they had made all the galleries the same width, which gave the ceiling vaults stability without the need for timbers.
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