Where the roof leaked, the floor was stained. In places, the boards were so riddled with holes they were like planks of Emmental cheese. Mice? I wondered. Without thinking, I pulled up a board to see if I could. It gave easily, revealing a small, dark emptiness that released a moldy dampness. I left it out and pulled at some others.
One of the cavities right over by the wall was different. It was packed with straw, and under that I felt a smooth surface. I drew it out and saw it was a book. I sat back on my heels, marveling. It was a volume of Provençal tales, written for a child, with a pretty dust jacket, much damaged by age and moisture. I opened the title page. Thick, black print, dated 1935. The badly spotted pages crackled as I turned them. A silverfish darted into the tight cleft of the binding. What was the book doing under the floorboards? Was it hidden, and if so, why? I felt inside the cubbyhole again, but it was empty.
Once again, the house had given, but with these gifts came mysteries. With each one, the echoes of the past resonated ever stronger. The longer we stayed, the less it seemed to belong to us.
I showed the book to Dom, wondering aloud about the children who must have lived in the house. “Why would one of them hide this? Was it to keep it safe? Perhaps one of the others wanted it for themselves . . . and they wouldn’t have had many books like this, would they—too expensive . . .”
Dom smiled and raised his eyebrows. “You do know, you have the most extraordinarily overactive imagination,” he said. But his tone was affectionate.
The October mist was thick as fog as we bumped down the track from Les Genévriers, negotiating new ruts and potholes gouged by the rain. During heavy cloudbursts, there was a stream running between the main house and the row of tenants’ cottages.
We turned up to the village, and then took the road into damp whiteness toward Viens. The plateau flattened on either side of the empty road—fields and trees, the occasional house. In the passenger seat, I consulted the map spread across my knees. Tucked into tightly packed contour lines not far away, I noticed for the first time the words L’Homme Mort, the dead man. What was that, I wondered: a hamlet, a memorial at the site of a tragic accident, perhaps?
The whiteness in the air had begun to glow pale amethyst as we progressed, and as the cloud lightened, the sun finally broke through. The Luberon range was an irregular black smudge above the line of cloud. Only a few kilometers away from where we had started, and it might have been another country.
“This isn’t far from the place where the mysterious black boar is supposed to roam the high escarpment,” I said.
“What?”
“M. Durand told me. There’s a great black boar up here somewhere, which foretells disaster for those who are unlucky enough to see it, or so they say. Now and then it materializes to shepherds and walkers.”
Dom said nothing, so I lowered my voice and leaned closer. “It is a dreadful sight to behold . . . for it means soon they will be faced with their . . . doom . . .”
His mouth twitched.
“They say that . . . set into these rocky ledges . . . are the hoofprints of the beast . . .”
We both laughed.
It was a modern house, built in the style of a Provençal mas. Substantial, attractive, but strangely lacking in atmosphere. The pool was neat and clean, with an impressive electronic cover. The bearded man in a hunting jacket, who gave us a tour, was not the owner but the caretaker of the property. The owners were Belgian.
In the garden, a shaggy maturity ruled. Bushes were studded with vermilion beads, berries beginning to glow against the season’s premature browning.
A winter chill pinched the air as Dom asked about electronic pool covers and infinity effects. I wandered off when it became clear Dom had no need of me as a translator. What he could not say in French, he made up for in sketches. It was interesting to see how other people had ordered their surroundings, even if they weren’t to my taste.
On the way home, clouds were finally rising from our hillside, curling up between the damp trees.
A few days later, Dom returned with another purchase. It was a shifty-looking monk in highly polished wood, half life-size. Dom installed him just inside the door of what passed as the hall of the main house, which had a medieval atmosphere that probably had as much to do with the pervasive damp as our spiritual sensibilities. I could see why Dom thought the monk was an appropriate addition.
“Another sinister figure,” I only half-joked.
I hadn’t told Dom about the incident on the path. I didn’t want him questioning my rationality. Privately though, I’d been thinking a lot about the objects we’d chosen to surround ourselves with: the chipped plates and bowls; the secondhand mirrors and scratched paintings; the crazed broken statues. The way they spoke of a history that didn’t belong to us, even in their inanimate state, the way they blurred the distinction between the living and the dead.
Absently, I stroked the fine rosewood of the monk’s arm, trying to find something to like about the piece.
“Might be nice to see some living people up here,” I murmured.
Then I glanced up and saw the anguish on Dom’s face.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked. His voice sounded different, as if he was struggling to keep it under control.
“Nothing! It was just a— We don’t just want to surround ourselves with dead old statues, that’s all . . . What’s wrong?”
There was no answer. He had walked away.
It was all too plausible to think about ghosts, or spirits at least. It hadn’t occurred to me before that I was uncomfortable. But I must have been, subconsciously. How else was it that I had been spooked by some shifting play of light and shadow on the wall, and made it into a frightening presence in the garden? My overly active imagination, Dom would say.
All those people who had once lived here—naturally, there would remain vestiges of their stories, joys, and sorrows as well as the dull drudgery of daily life. This was a land of plenty, but it had been created by hard toil. Think of the shepherds and the tales they told as they wandered, how many hundreds of miles each year was that to keep the flocks fed and healthy?
The next time he came, I asked Claude the gardener, “What is L’Homme Mort, the place marked on the map over there?” I pointed vaguely north across the edge of our land.
“It’s a hamlet—like here.”
“What’s there? A farm?”
“Yes, I believe so. It’s still a farm.”
It was up to me to volunteer why exactly I wanted to know. He scratched the side of his face and waited.
“It’s just the name. I wondered why it was called that.” I made a face I hoped he understood: simple, light curiosity, but an interest, too, in the history held in these hills.
“I don’t know,” said Claude. “I’m not from around here. I’m from Apt.”
I smiled, then realized he was serious.
“Have you heard?” he went on. “They’ve found the body of one of the missing girls.”
“Which one?”
“Amandine. The one from near Roussillon. A man with his truffle hound, out over by Oppedette, came across her remains in the forest.”
“Dreadful . . .”
“It’s bad news and good news,” mused Claude. “The worst for her family, and the families of the others breathe again. They still have hope.”
“I guess, but still . . . it must be awful.”
“The man who’s doing this . . .”
“I know . . .”
But I didn’t know. Like everyone else, I wanted these events not to be happening, for our fantasy of a new life to last a while longer.
“Everyone’s talking about it. The truffle hound was the brother of one of the dogs bred here by the Millescamps at Les Peirelles.”
Chapter 5
When the wild cherries had dried on the trees, too small to pick, too hard for the birds, but chewy and delicious and left as treats for us children, we knew it must be close to the fourteen
th of July. The date was marked every year in Apt with a party in the big south square and a fairground and fireworks at ten o’clock.
Apart from the village fête votive, also an annual event, this was the highlight of the summer. School long-forgotten and too far in the future even to think about, we celebrated Bastille Day and freedom with a few traditions of our own.
Having spent the afternoon baking, Maman, in her best dress, hair gleaming, would climb daintily (helped by our proud father, suited in brown serge) into the front seat of the charrette, the little cart. The baskets would be handed up.
Then the rest of us piled into the charrette, and our neighbors in theirs. The horses had a last drink at the trough and were hitched, and off we went. It was quite a party. We could have walked, or even taken the bus down from the village, which stopped where our track joined the road, but it wouldn’t have been the traditional event without the family crammed into the old cart, eating sugar-dusted doughnuts Maman had made that afternoon and singing as we bowled down the hill, swapping jokes and invitations to race with the other carts, the blue of the sky deepening as the orange glow trickled like honey over the mountain ridge, the rippling hills growing taller and more mysterious over us as we descended.
In town, the streets were warm as day with all the crowds and fires and lamps. Legions of glasses and bottles stood to attention on tables in the square, restaurants were full, and a band was playing at full strength.
“Midnight, in the usual place,” said Papa sternly, and we were off to enjoy ourselves in all the unaccustomed light and noise.
Marthe, Arielle, and I linked arms and paraded around, stopping to see what the boys were up to at the fairground. For them, that meant the shooting gallery and the desirable prizes to be won by hitting the tin targets.
For Maman and Papa, and the other adults, the dancing was the great attraction. For hours, they showed off their steps, waltzing and fox-trotting, twirling and bending. I was awestruck to see them perform a passable tango, and wondered where on earth they had learned it.
The band was indefatigable, the accordionist mastering the complex rhythms and changes of direction with aplomb and liberal swigs of wine.
The fireworks had exploded, leaving smoky trails across the night and a drifting scent of burned excitement. Marthe, Arielle, and I were already at the stage of utmost tiredness, which must never be admitted for fear of not being allowed to stay up late for special events.
We were sitting on a low wall, watching the parade of dancers coming off the dirt floor, the men drinking in the bars, the lights strung up between the plane trees, the musicians beating and blowing and pulling, when Pierre emerged from the inner town.
He passed under the clock tower gateway, rubbing his face with his sleeve. There was an awkwardness to his walk and the slope of his shoulders. Up went his sleeve again. Expression set in anger or disgust, he was about to turn away when three of his friends came running up, shouting to get his attention. One put a hand up to his head and was shaken off.
I strained to see what was happening in the half-shadow of the archway. Now there seemed to be some kind of argument going on. Pierre’s mouth was moving quickly, hands were being raised. It was intriguing. Perhaps there would be a fight. It was about time my brother was on the receiving end of some pain, and it would have been quite satisfying to witness the event.
At the very moment, Marthe pulled at my arm and asked me to take her to the stalls where the doughnuts were frying. In the time it took to take in her request and stand up, Pierre and his friends had been swallowed up by the darkness.
At midnight, we assembled on the corner of the square, as arranged. We girls were the first, followed by Maman and the ladies of the party. The men fetched the horses and carts. Papa had taken out his fob watch and was about to comment, when Pierre and the boys came running up.
Pierre claimed that the crusty red mess on his face was the result of a nosebleed, and thanks to the silence from his friends, my parents had no reason not to believe him.
The next morning, Arielle told me, in whispers in the woods above the sheepfold, that her brother had told her what had really gone on. Pierre had been beaten up for stealing by the stallholder he worked for in the market.
The other boys had wanted to go and find the man and his gang, and give them a kicking in return, but Pierre had ordered them to leave it. It was as good an admission of guilt as any.
I don’t know how much of this, if any, our parents were told. Not much, I suspect, but I may have been wrong. Luckily, Pierre’s nose was not broken, or surely our father would have extracted the truth from the boys, and seen the man from the stall subjected to some rough justice.
Whatever theories I had, I decided to hold on to them in the event that they might prove a useful lever against my brother’s excesses.
For our return, the lanterns were lit on the cart and, tired, mouths sticky-parched with sugar, the stars so hard and clear above that you could make out the gleaming path of the Milky Way, we allowed ourselves to be jolted back up the hill.
Later, unable to sleep for the excitement, I got out of bed and went over to the open window. Below, in the courtyard, was an oil lamp burning on the ground beneath the olive, and around it, silently, majestically, Maman and Papa were dancing, alone. Her head was on his shoulder, her eyes were closed, and her lovely smile stretched right across her face. Papa was singing, at least I think I heard him, under his breath, so that only she knew what song it was.
Chapter 6
It is only six kilometers down the hill to Apt, but, to me, the journey signified much more. Until then, sliding into the car, I hadn’t fully realized how little time I’d spent on my own away from the house. Our world of two had been so enjoyable, so comforting in a way I’d never really experienced before, that I had been perfectly content to drift in the flow.
The road down is bumpy as well as sinuous. It makes for an uncertain ride, even before the locals in their extravagantly dented vehicles swoop around the blind bends and out of hidden turnings at top speed in the middle of the road, oblivious to the possibility of encountering anyone else. In town, the Calavon River was high, running through the valley here in its casing of concrete. During the summer, it had been a sad dribble of water along the bottom of the basin, so unthreatening that lush outcrops of grasses and scrubs had grown up on the stones of the riverbed. Warning notices to exercise caution when using the car parks contained within the embankments still seemed unnecessarily alarmist. I took one of the many empty spaces and then walked over the bridge into the main part of the little town.
The last time I was there, it had been market day. It’s one of the most famous in the region; they say that there has been an unbroken line of markets every Saturday morning in Apt for eight hundred years. The narrow medieval streets were crammed with stalls and people, shouting, discussing where to buy the best vegetables, the most succulent game; Dom made for his favorite cheese stall and started bantering with the owner; smells rose of roasting chickens and chestnuts and freshly made pizza; three squares—north, south, and west—offered meat, fish, fruit, carved wood, spices, kitchenware, linens, racks of Indian-made clothes and leather goods from North Africa, bead jewelry, the scented olive oil soaps from Marseille, and all varieties of products made from lavender.
Now the narrow paved road through the center was almost empty. My footsteps echoed loudly, and the same goods had been moved behind shop windows. The warmth and scent of food were gone. A winter smell rode the light wind: the wood smoke of mountain villages. It was possible to look up without fear of obstructing the flow of the crowd. In the bookshop opposite the Hôtel de Ville, I found what I’d been looking for: books about the area, the way life used to be when it was a lost and remote area of France.
Then I bought a newspaper and read it as I sipped a cup of coffee in a café on the square, with only one other customer.
The missing girl’s body had been removed from the wooded ravine below Opp
edette; a photograph of police tape that marked a forlorn muddy site. Other stories crowded the page; pictures documented the aftermath of a bad car smash, fatalities involved. More businesses were in trouble. The only good news was to be found in the small announcements of personal success, the civil marriages, and sports prizes.
As I drove back, there was a traffic jam, not unusual on the main road through town toward Manosque and Sisteron. Stationary behind a line of cars and vans, I looked around with interest rather than annoyance. That was the best of this life: there was no rush, no work stress, no beating against the clock; it wouldn’t have mattered to me if we were stuck here for hours.
Opposite was an Internet café I hadn’t noticed before. A couple of men in North African clothing were standing outside talking. Then another came out to join them and the wind caught the tails of their long, white shirts. Useful to know, I thought. It had never seemed odd until now that on our hillside we were all but cut off from the twenty-first century, living with no television, no fixed telephone line or broadband access. Then the car in front began to move and I pulled away.
Chapter 7
October winds post crisp deliveries of dry leaves, torn petals, pine needles, and grit-rolled insects under sun-shrunken doors.
For generations, we women swept them up with the brush and pan, on our knees. Twice a day, when the mistral raged.
There are one hundred and eighty different winds that blow across Provence, all with their different and special names: the mistral, of course, from the northwest; the tramontane from the north; the south wind; and all the minute grades in between. They say there are more than six hundred different variations of the names of the winds.
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