The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

by Bridget Asher

  “What have you been reading lately?” I asked Charlotte.

  “No need to read anymore to be able to say stuff like that. That’s just banter.”

  “I didn’t banter about patriarchal oppression until college.”

  “Banter has evolved,” she said. “Plus, my boyfriend, well, my ex, he was a good banterer and very anti–patriarchal oppression.”

  And so there was Adam Briskowitz: not a boyfriend, a disaster. And now her ex. How awful could Adam Briskowitz be, really, if two of his defining characteristics as a young man were to be very anti–patriarchal oppression and a good banterer? I knew there was more to it, and so it was my turn not to push. I would push later.

  Near Les Halles, we came across a giant statue of a tilted head resting in an open palm. We took turns posing with it as if we were picking its nose.

  We were Americans, after all.

  our days after arriving in Paris, we took the TGV—an incredibly fast train—to Aix-en-Provence, and I was relieved that we wouldn’t have to keep up the pace of tourism. It hadn’t worked as a foolproof distraction, as I’d hoped. We were going to set up house, create daily rhythms. We weren’t going to have to comment on what we saw, photograph it, treat it as a memory in the making. We were just going to live, to be. I’d gotten fairly good at faking this at home. How much harder could it be in Provence?

  With much confusion and anxiety, I picked up our rental car near the Aix-en-Provence train station—which is not to be confused with the other Aix-en-Provence train station, as my mother had. This was a sad reminder that my mother hadn’t been to Provence in decades. We’d never talked about the details of her return home after her lost summer, but I knew that she and my father had reached some agreement. Had she promised never to return to the house in Provence if my father promised never to stray again? Or was it unspoken? Had my mother simply felt that she had to give up some part of herself in order to keep the marriage intact?

  While we loaded our baggage into our rented Renault, I realized what was wrong. It wasn’t simply that I was frazzled after demanding a rental car in the wrong place then having to take a taxi across town to the right train station. I was going to have to drive—in France. I remembered my mother navigating these roads, peeling out anxiously into rotaries, pulling over onto shoulders choked with high weeds to avoid oncoming cars. French drivers terrified her. And although I once prided myself on my driving, Henry’s crash had shaken me. I would sometimes grip the wheel and imagine its impact on his ribs, his chest. As I asked Charlotte to get the map and directions out of one of the pockets in my bag, I must have sounded nervous.

  “Do you want me to drive?” she asked tentatively. “I will, you know, even if it’s illegal or something here.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her.

  “But you know the way,” Abbot said from the backseat, where he’d already buckled himself in. “You were here when you were little a lot.”

  “Things have changed,” I said, “but we’ll be fine, and eventually I should recognize things. Mountains don’t change.”

  I started up the car and pulled onto the narrow street. Aix-en-Provence was a bustling city, traffic zipping everywhere. We took the highway to lesser roads via rotary after rotary—what is with the French and their love of rotaries? The signs, the tollbooths, the rest stops were all foreign, the strange scenery that tried to lure my eyes from the road—maybe these were good. I couldn’t think too much of Henry. I had to focus.

  Charlotte called out route numbers and matched them with road signs. She kept me on track. Eventually we found ourselves in the countryside, which was somewhat calmer. The ancient Mont Sainte-Victoire looked like it had only freshly torn itself up from the ground—muscled ridges, pockets of light and shadow from the spotty dark clouds set against a bright, bruised sky.

  I thought of the stories from my childhood—this landscape, the promise it held for me then. “In the beginning,” I heard myself say, just as my mother had always started the first story of the house—the birth of the house itself, one of my ancestors, who built the house, stone by stone, alone, without stopping, for one year, all to win the heart of a woman. “And she fell in love with the house and the man who’d built it.” The car was quiet, and each of us was windblown from the open windows as we drove on past farmland, a fruit and vegetable stand, and beautiful, old Provençal homes.

  “The sky is like one of Uncle Daniel’s paintings,” Abbot said, his voice wistful. “If you tilt your head and squinch your eyes.”

  “Everything looks like my father’s paintings if you squinch your eyes enough,” Charlotte said. “In fact, it’s best if you close your eyes altogether if you want the full effect of my father’s work.” Charlotte’s resentment of her father’s career—or maybe, more accurately, not his career but his singular, passionate focus on it—cropped up in an angry edge to her voice.

  “But Abbot’s right,” I said. “His new work with the thick lines reminds me of the mountains.”

  Charlotte didn’t reply, but leaned forward to turn on the radio. For the next several minutes, she fiddled with the dial, finding only techno-pop and French ballades. Eventually she landed on Pat Benatar singing “Hit Me with Your Best Shot.” I started belting it out and she and Abbot joined in. The cicadas were noisy in the tall grass, so noisy, you could even hear them over the noise of the engine and the music and our boisterous singing.

  Benatar was followed by a Jacques Brel song. I told Charlotte to leave it on. I remembered it from my mother’s albums. I hummed along, following signs to Puyloubier, the small village in walking distance from the house.

  The kids had both seen photos of the house—my mother’s, and Elysius’s most recent album, too, from her trip with Daniel the summer before, when he’d proposed to her. Her photos showed an older, wearier version of the house than in my mother’s pictures.

  “There will be a small sign and a long shared driveway,” I reminded them, “and two houses set way off the road. The smaller one, with blue shutters, is ours. The mountains will be there, pressed up to the backs of the houses, and big trees. On our land there’s a fountain with fish in it—fat orange koi—and a pool.”

  They knew all of this, but they listened quietly. Maybe they wanted to hear it again. On either side of us, there were vineyards—long rows of thick stalks, green leaves, the posts, and thin guide ropes. The whole valley was trilling with cicadas. I remembered describing their sound to Henry, and the way that, in early spring, he would always take Abbot and me out to hear the peepers in the swamps, the frogs’ shrill mating calls, a chorus of love songs.

  As we pulled onto the route leading directly to Puyloubier, the road narrowed, the tall weeds and fences dotted with small white snail shells I remembered from my childhood. I was sure only one car could manage at a time but soon realized that cars coming in the opposite direction weren’t afraid of the tight squeeze. They barreled along at breakneck speeds, their engines roaring by as I bumped off onto the road’s edges. I held my breath when they passed—an instinct to suck in my stomach, as if that would help. My heart felt like a battering ram in my chest. I thought of Henry—I imagined the steering wheel in my ribs, an engulfing fire …

  We didn’t see the sign or the shared driveway that led to the house, and so before we realized it, we ended up in the town. “How did I miss it?” I said aloud, jangled.

  “It’s still back there somewhere,” Charlotte said. “I mean, it didn’t disappear! We should just get out and walk around.”

  “I want to see what the town is like!” Abbot shouted.

  “Okay, we could take a little walking tour and hit the market for some groceries,” I said, trying to calm down.

  I parked near a small bus stop in front of a wine shop. Another Renault parked beside us. As we were getting our bearings, the two passengers were stretching their legs, preparing for a hike on one of the nearby trails. Both men wore man capris, and I assumed they were German tourists. By the way they lo
oked at each other, almost furtively, I thought maybe they were lovers.

  We walked past a group of boys, shirtless, in long madras and flowered shorts, playing soccer in the square, and old men playing bocce under small trees in a dusty courtyard in front of a large municipal building, painted deep orange with large windows and a Spanish-style roof. A beautiful woman with straight black hair had parked a stroller with a sleeping baby inside of it and was sitting on a bench near the circular fountain surrounded by a cobbled square. She was watching another child ride his bike around the courtyard. “Doucement, Thomas!” she called to him, wanting him to be more careful. “Doucement!” Other than that, the town was quiet, almost empty.

  The village was small, the kind to have only one of everything—one store, one café, one church, one school—all nestled amid a grid of only six or so main streets. The streets, steep and winding, were lined with tall, narrow row houses, interrupted occasionally by alleys of stone stairs. Built into the base of the mountain, it was a sturdy village, as if hunkered against stone. We wandered to a scenic overlook on a hillside covered in lilacs. Beneath us was an expanse of farmland, rich earth, well tended.

  “Do you smell that?” Charlotte asked. “It’s like I finally understand what all those scented candles want to be.”

  Abbot had to pee, and so he found a hidden spot among the lilacs. He discovered the snails. “They’re everywhere! Look.”

  We examined them closely—their long-stemmed eyes, the fragile swirls of their shells.

  “Escargot,” Charlotte said. “I know that one.”

  We strolled up a side street, past the schoolyard and the church with its bell tower and row houses with steep front steps and colorful shutters, washed-out blues and greens. We passed a small fountain with a statue of a cherub holding a water jug. An old woman was scrubbing a marble bench.

  And then we were heading downhill. We passed a sign that read LES SARMENTS. Up an alleyway of stone steps, there was the promise of a restaurant, hidden away somewhere. Sarments—I didn’t know what the word meant. I’d have to look it up.

  We turned left, passing Café Sainte-Victoire. There were a few locals standing at the bar, a television mounted in the corner playing a French music video that had to have been produced in the eighties. Charlotte and Abbot dipped into the ice cream cooler and pulled out ice cream cones wrapped in thick paper. I ordered a coffee. We lingered by the tables in front of the shop as the waitress shuttled back and forth, handling the customers who sat on the raised, shaded deck, eating late lunches. I remembered the bustle of this little hub not far from the square. The air was what felt most familiar—crisp and clear. I felt like my lungs were learning to breathe in a new way.

  Next door was the Cocci market, a tight grocery store with a wall of produce and a half dozen rows of essentials. Abbot was obsessed with the Haribo candy stand, with its small pictures affixed to the flip-out windows. He wanted to pull all of the knobs and peer inside. But knobs? Touched by hundreds if not thousands of grimy kid hands before him?

  He stood there with his hands in the pockets of his shorts. He’d stopped wearing his gym shorts a few weeks earlier, opting for shorts with pockets only. He glanced at me, but I pretended not to notice his dilemma and instead told him that I’d buy him one packet. “But that’s it, so choose wisely.”

  Charlotte waltzed by. “Get the Gummi Fizzy Colas.”

  He looked at Charlotte then at me. “I just had ice cream,” he said. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You don’t eat candy because you’re hungry,” Charlotte said. “That’s a very basic rule of childhood. Are you an alien?”

  She didn’t say it with any malice, but still Abbot looked at his shoes and shook his head. I knew that he felt like an alien sometimes.

  “We’ll be back,” I said.

  We bought simple necessities: bottled water, milk, Brie, crackers, strawberries, shampoo.

  And that was it. That was the town. Simple. Lit up with afternoon light. As we walked back to the car, we noticed a few gloomy clouds collecting overhead, a light, whipping wind. Still, the air was so clear and light, it felt otherworldly, as if some of the rules of gravity might not apply here.

  As we piled back into the car, Charlotte said, “So, let’s give this another shot.”

  “I’ll call Véronique,” I said, “to let her know we’re coming and maybe ask for a landmark or two.”

  “Or six,” Abbot said.

  I started the car and reached for my phone in the side pocket of the door. It was gone. “Where’s my phone?” I asked, then turned to Charlotte. “Maybe it’s in the camera bag or in with the laptop.”

  Charlotte looked in the footwell and then twisted around to check out the backseat. “Where’s my camera bag?”

  “Abbot,” I said. “Do you see the laptop bag?”

  “No!” Abbot said anxiously.

  We’d been robbed. The realization washed over me slowly. I popped the trunk and jumped out of the car, cursing vividly. Abbot’s suitcase and mine were gone. Charlotte had carried an Army-issue duffel bag that had been sitting in the backseat—gone, too. Plus all of our electronics—camera, laptop, Charlotte’s iPod.

  “Wait,” Charlotte whispered, “my music!”

  I thought of the two guys in the other Renault, stretching in their man capris, the two gay German tourists who probably weren’t gay or German or tourists, but ordinary thieves who’d followed our rental car off the highway. Their car was gone.

  “It’s only stuff,” I said, trying to be calm. “They only stole things. It’s okay.”

  But Abbot looked stricken—pale and stunned. “The dictionary,” he said. “The dictionary!”

  “No,” I said, “we didn’t pack it, remember? It’s on your bedside table.”

  He started crying uncontrollably. “I hate robbers,” he said. “I hate them! I hate them!”

  “Yes,” I said. “But it’s okay. We’re all fine.”

  Charlotte was furious. “I can’t believe it!”

  “How did they get in the car? Did I not lock it? Is that possible?” It was possible, I realized in a sickening flash. I’d been so on guard in Paris, on the train, but here, in this little idyllic village, I’d let my guard down.

  I looked around for witnesses. The old men playing bocce were too far away. The mother with the stroller and the boy on the bike were gone. But at a nearby bus stop, there was the group of shirtless boys who’d been scuffling around with a soccer ball earlier. They were staring at us, still scuffling.

  I decided to start with them. Maybe they’d seen something.

  Abbot was out of the car now, too, clinging to me, his arms wrapped around my waist. He was crying. “I packed important stuff,” he was saying. “Really important.”

  Charlotte stepped out of the car, too. “It’s okay, Absterizer,” she said, but she looked shaken herself.

  It had started raining, only lightly, but the kind of rain that could build into a fleeting summer storm.

  I glanced at the group of boys again, not one of them older than thirteen. “I’m going to ask them if they saw anything.”

  Just then, a boy, a little taller than the rest in filthy sneakers and flowered shorts, lifted a gun over his head and very slowly and methodically lowered it so that it was pointing right at us.

  “Get in the car,” I said in a low, urgent voice. “Now.”

  “What? It’s only rain,” Charlotte said, getting into the passenger’s seat and looking around.

  I picked Abbot up by his armpits and threw him into the backseat, slamming the door. “Heads down!” I shouted as I jumped into the driver’s seat. My heart was hammering in my chest.

  Charlotte and Abbot crouched low in their seats.

  “What is it?” Abbot screamed.

  “Nothing. Just keep your heads down.” I threw the car into reverse, peeled out, and then jammed the car into drive and drove off.

  Charlotte and Abbot shrank down farther into the foot-wells.
r />   Charlotte said, “I saw it. I saw it, too.”

  “Saw what?” Abbot cried.

  “I can’t die,” Charlotte whispered. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  I was thinking now only of how to get away, how to push the car as fast as it could go, how to put as much distance as possible between the gun and us. The robbery was nothing now. My hands gripped the wheel. I leaned into the windshield and gunned the gas. The rain had picked up and was now drumming down on the car’s roof. My head was full of noise. I drove the cramped roads, the wipers beating back and forth. I could barely see through the windshield. It had been raining on the morning Henry died; fog had rolled onto the highway. I turned on the headlights. The road was a blur.

  “I’ve got my phone!” Charlotte said triumphantly, pulling out her cell phone from one of her many pockets and handing it to me.

  I glanced at it—forty-one missed calls. Forty-one? I flipped it open and dialed 911. It was the only thing I could think of. It started ringing. I felt relieved. “It’s 911! It works!” I slowed down a little.

  And then an officer answered in French. Well, of course. Had I been expecting English? I suppose I had.

  “Bonjour!” I said, reverting to primary French. I told the officer, in short, declarative French sentences, that I was in Puyloubier, that we’d been … violated, then I said, no, not violated. Robbed. The two words are similar in French, but one means “raped,” the other “robbed.” The car was robbed, I told him. And then I said, “Je suis Américaine.” I don’t know why this seemed crucial. Did I expect someone to call the American embassy? I told him that there was a boy with a gun.

  “Non, non.” He laughed and then corrected me. The words for gun and rocket are also similar.

  “Oui! Correct!” I said that it was a boy with a gun. Not a rocket.

  An oncoming car came at me down the narrow road and I swerved. The Renault stalled out on a shoulder of high weeds.

  The officer said he would put me through to someone at the station in Trets, someone who spoke English.