The Little French Bistro

by Nina George

  Marianne followed the woman into the kitchen, where she picked up the next tray. Marianne guessed that this was breakfast for the dogs she had seen. She took the heavy tray from the woman’s hands and followed her outside.

  Pascale stroked a greyhound. “Madame Pompadour. She founded a theater and a china factory, which is why her dinner is served on Sèvres porcelain. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “Official mistresses,” Pascale lectured as she fed the dogs, “were the rulers of kings. They decided more questions of state with their vaginas than historians would care to admit.”

  “Oh,” said Marianne, feeling herself blush.

  A strawberry-blond poodle with a cauliflower ear came strutting toward her. “Anne of Brittany. Our queen. She married the king of the Franks in order to protect her lands from him. She created the House of Princesses with nine courtesans and forty noble maidens. A state brothel.”

  Pascale gave the poodle’s tummy a proud tickle, then introduced the other mistresses to Marianne: Madame du Barry; Julia and Vannozza, the mistresses of Pope Alexander VI; Lady Jane Stewart. Lastly, she pointed to a dachshund with perky ears and a jaunty tail. “Julie Récamier, who gave her name to the récamière chaise longue. It was her friend, Baroness de Staël-Holstein, who called Germany ‘a land of poets and pinschers.’ ”

  “Poets and thinkers,” Marianne corrected her.

  “Oh, same difference,” answered Pascale. “And who might you be?”

  “I’m Marianne Lanz.”

  “Aha, Madame Lance. My name is Pascale.”

  “What’s going on in your garden, Pascale?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I never had a garden like this.”

  “What did you have?”

  “A lawn.”

  “A lawn? What kind of a flower is that?”

  Marianne realized that this approach wouldn’t get her very far. “Do you have anyone…living here with you?”

  Pascale thought for a while. “I don’t know,” she said sadly. “All I know is that I don’t tick properly anymore. But you know, Marianne…the worst thing is knowing and being unable to do anything about it. It just happens: one moment I’m here, and then everything’s gone.” She reached for Marianne’s hand. “In America, people confiscate their stupid grandma’s passport, cut the labels out of her clothes, drive her to the next state but one and leave her there. Granny-dumping, it’s called. Not very kind, is it?”

  Marianne shook her head. Although she knew Pascale was exaggerating, the thought made her shudder.

  —

  Emile watched from the terrace with crossed arms as the two women roamed through the garden. He had the feeling that the woman he recognized as Ar Mor’s new cook would not be put off by his crazy wife. Who knows, maybe she was crazy too. Crazy people had it easy in Brittany: it was ordinary people who found it tough. Still, she wasn’t from Brittany; she wasn’t even French! And as with most older Frenchmen, he didn’t take too fondly to Germans.

  Emile hobbled into the house and returned with a jug of chouchen, a form of mead, and some glasses, along with a baguette, ham and cheese. Pascale was often oblivious to hunger and thirst, and Emile had to remind her to eat and drink—and then stop again.

  Having devoured the baguette, Pascale fell asleep on the lounger on the terrace with one of the cats warming her stomach. Emile covered his wife with a blanket and set a straw hat on her head to make sure that the sun wouldn’t burn her face.

  He didn’t offer Marianne a glass of water or anything to eat. He didn’t address a single word to her, even when Marianne took her leave with a quick “Kenavo!”

  Océane and Lysette’s birthday party looked at first as if it was going to be a disaster. A dozen five-year-old girls had swept through Ar Mor like a storm, stuffed themselves with cocktail sausages and continually demanded that Paul play with them. How was an old grandad like him meant to play with little sprites like these? That was until Marianne had somehow lured the screeching little princesses out onto the quayside to play blindman’s buff and run egg-and-spoon and sack races. Paul burst out laughing when he recalled Jean-Rémy’s kitchen fairy appearing with a bundle of flour sacks in one hand and a bouquet of spoons in the other. The girls had been enchanted, and Paul had been left alone to eat his plate of scallops with cider apples.

  Now back at their mother’s house, and with their birthday coming to an end, all that remained was to persuade the twins to go to bed.

  “Kement-man oa d’ann amzer,” Paul began. “Back in the days when hens still had teeth, there was a brave little boy called Morvan. He lived very close to here and his fondest wish was to become a knight. When he was ten years old—”

  “I don’t want to hear that story about Morvan. It’s so stupid,” said Lysette.

  Océane nodded. “Nor do I.”

  “Do you always want the same as your sister?” asked Paul.

  Océane sounded as if she had a whole bag of marbles in her mouth as she said, “Of course I do, Nono!”

  The three of them had made themselves comfortable on the old swing chair with the torn blue awning. Lysette was kneeling to his left, scrutinizing intently the hairs protruding from Paul’s ears, while Océane was curled up to his right, resting her little head with its loose light-brown plaits against his upper arm, with her bent index finger, rather than her thumb, in her mouth.

  “You don’t want to hear the tale of Morvan Leiz-Breiz, who led our beloved Brittany to independence?”

  “No, Nono,” said Lysette and Océane in unison.

  “All right then. How about the mischievous tricks of Bilz, the merry robber from Plouanet?”

  “Stupid!” chanted Océane.

  “Yeah!” said Lysette.

  “Princess Goldilocks, Prince Cado and the Magic Ring?”

  “Bor-ing.”

  “I can’t believe you don’t want to hear all our wonderful Breton stories again.”

  “We’ve had enough of them, Nono,” said Lysette, tugging at Paul’s ear hairs. The ex-legionnaire kept completely still as the five-year-old prodded his head.

  “What do you want then?” he asked.

  “The tale of Ys,” Océane decided.

  “The one about Dahut, princess of the sea.”

  “And the golden key.”

  “And how the underwater city was lost.”

  Dahut—the twins had fallen in love with her. Paul had told them the story of the sunken city of Kêr Is in Douarnenez Bay many times before, but had always tried to leave out the salacious details about the fairy Dahut—especially her habit of receiving a new lover every night.

  He started all over again. “It was back in the days when the Romans began to build roads through Armorica. One of these Roman roads still leads from Carhaix to Douarnenez Bay. But there it disappears into the sea. It used to lead to the world’s greatest, most beautiful city, called Ys, known to some as Atlantis.”

  “But maybe the Romans just wanted to collect fish directly from the beach?” whispered Océane quietly.

  “And what if they didn’t?” Paul whispered back even more quietly. Océane nodded breathlessly.

  “The wise and powerful King Gradlon had built Kêr Is, the city in the deep, for his beloved daughter Dahut. Princess Dahut was the daughter of a fairy whom the king had once loved deeply. She ruled over water and fire. Dahut was not baptized, as she would have lost her fairy powers.”

  “Like us! We haven’t been baptized either!” cried Lysette.

  Oh dear, oh dear, thought Paul.

  “The city was protected from the sea and the tides by a system of dykes and iron gates. King Gradlon alone had the golden key to the sluice gates and he wore it continually around his neck so that no one might open the gates by night and let in the tides. The city’s cathedrals and golden houses, glittering silver towers and diamond-encrusted rooftops were visible from far inland. Every inhabitant lived like a king, and the children never had to go to
school.”

  Paul gave a very free rendition of the rest of the story of Ys, but there was one part he simply could not leave out. One night Dahut stole the golden key from the chain around her father’s neck to let her lover into the city, and it was this dullard who was responsible for the flood, having opened the doors at an unfortunate moment.

  “King Gradlon leaped through the waves on his horse and was heaving Dahut onto the saddle behind him when the sea claimed its tribute by pulling her back beneath the surface.”

  “Aargh, that’s so mean,” said Lysette.

  “Yeah!” added Océane.

  “Are you going to make us a krampouezh now, Nono? With Nutella?”

  “Name it and you may have it, my little sprites.” These two were the only women to whom he would give anything. Anything, even pancakes until they were fit to burst.

  “I hate it when you tell the children stories like that. You know you’re not allowed to speak Breton to them!” said a voice from inside the house.

  Paul closed his eyes.

  Nolwenn signaled to the twins to go up and get ready for bed. She tossed Paul his car keys. “Make me happy: drive into a ditch!”

  Lysette began to weep at the possibility that Nono might die, and Océane wept along in sisterly solidarity.

  “Now look what you’ve gone and done!” Nolwenn hissed.

  Paul’s stepdaughter didn’t like him. No, actually, she loathed him: a relatively major nuance. He didn’t like her either, but loathing would have been too strong a word for his feelings. After all, she had given birth to the twins, who were the single best thing about her. Her mother, Rozenn, was a fabulous woman—a classy woman, a she-wolf. However, Paul had two unforgivable flaws in Nolwenn’s eyes: his past as a foreign legionnaire, and the fact that he wasn’t her biological father. There was nothing he could do about either of those matters, and therefore their relationship never changed.

  Out of consideration for Nolwenn, Paul and Rozenn had never lived together, even though he had been with Rozenn for fourteen years and married for ten of those. Had been. Then that boy had come on the scene.

  Rozenn’s actions after their divorce, which Paul had made no attempt to block, were greatly to her credit: she had made sure that he saw the twins on a regular basis. Nolwenn had been quick to spot the practical benefits of this arrangement: Paul was a cheap babysitter. She had laid down clear rules. No Breton stories, songs, proverbs or sayings about the weather. The girls were French, and that was that. She would have loved to put up one of the signs that had graced school classrooms for generations: No spitting on the floor or speaking Breton. Anyone caught doing either of those things had a clog hung around their neck.

  Once he had given the girls a parting hug and pulled the door shut behind him, he hissed furiously, “Hep brezhoneg Breizh ebet!” No Breton, no Brittany! And no Brittany, no homeland.

  My God, he was thirsty!

  He had trouble releasing the handbrake—it was going rusty again in the damp, salty air—but finally he managed.

  On the drive back to Kerdruc, he spied Marianne walking along the opposite side of the road. She’s very nice, he thought, winding down his window. “Trying to walk the length and breadth of Brittany, are we?”

  She didn’t immediately answer, because they were suddenly separated by a cycling race. Having fought their way up a rise, elderly gentlemen in neon Lycra shouted cheerful greetings as they freewheeled downhill.

  For a fleeting instant Paul had caught the despondent expression on Marianne’s face, but then she flashed him one of her bewitching smiles. She was like Brittany itself: hidden depths behind a beautiful facade. He wondered what she kept concealed inside her. She looked like she didn’t want to be disturbed, so he gave a wave and stepped on the accelerator. In the rearview mirror he saw that strangely distant look settle on her girlish features again, as if she had lost something but didn’t know what it was.

  Paul needed some distraction. He rattled across Kerbuan farmyard, past Simon’s rowing boat on its props, parked the car and then clumped through the kitchen garden to the back door. Simon was sitting smoking on one of the two steps that were the traditional way of preventing korrigans—dwarf-sized trolls—from climbing into the house.

  “Hi. Say, you old goat, you wouldn’t have something to drink?” said Paul.

  “Young or old?”

  “Something older than me.”

  “That’s a tough ask.”

  They drank the first bottle, a Côtes du Rhône, in silence, aside from Paul’s mumbled thanks when Simon pushed a baguette, some salted butter and a slice of peppered pâté across the table to him. As always, Simon made a cross with his knife in the bottom of the loaf (out of superstition).

  With the second bottle, a Crozes Hermitage, Paul found his tongue again. “Evit reizhañ ar bleizi, Ez eo ret o dimeziñ,” he said. I tamed the wolf by marrying it. “Why on earth did I choose Rozenn! If I hadn’t taken her, I couldn’t have lost her. What an idiot I am!”

  “Well, da heul ar bleiz ned a ket an oan,” said Simon. The sheep doesn’t run after the wolf. “Especially if the wolf has already found a fresh prey.”

  This didn’t really dispel Paul’s lovesickness for Rozenn, but there was nothing more to add.

  Simon filled some galettes with goat’s cheese, figs and butter, lit the gas and pushed them into the oven. Five minutes later, the men ate the piping-hot savory pancakes with their fingers.

  “Am I too old?” asked Paul when they’d moved on to the third bottle, his consonants drifting away on the red waves in his repurposed mustard jar.

  “For what? Drinking? You’re never too old to drink, only too young. Yar-mat,” Simon said, and they clinked glasses.

  “For women. Too old for women.” Paul ran his hand over his thinning hair.

  “N’eo ket blev melen ha koantiri, A laka ar pod da virviñ,” Simon replied after a while. Blond hair and beauty don’t bring the pot to a boil. He burped under his breath.

  “True, it’s personality…or something. I like all women—the brunettes, the small ones, the fat ones, the ugly ones—but none of them wants me! Why? Have I got too much personality?”

  “You’re simply too good-looking, my boy,” said Simon, and finally Paul broke out into a chuckle. He laughed away all his misery with Rozenn and Nolwenn, and Simon staggered to his feet. He returned with champagne.

  “Much too young. Underage,” he slurred, as he set down the bottle of Pol Roger in front of Paul. They poured the champagne into clean water glasses.

  “No spitting on the floor or speaking Breton,” Paul roared in a commanding voice.

  “Yes, sir,” cried Simon, and they looked over their shoulders and spat on the tiled floor.

  When Paul had drained his glass in three long, vigorous swigs, he leaned toward Simon. “That Marianne…” he began.

  “Hmm,” mumbled Simon.

  “There’s something about her that makes you feel young again, as if everything you think and feel is okay. Know what I mean?”

  “Nuh.”

  “I once stood next to her as she was ironing napkins in the sun on the terrace and told her everything about Rozenn,” said Paul.

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “About Rozenn leaving.”

  “And then?”

  “Then she did something.” Paul got up and put his hand on Simon’s lower arm.

  “That’s nuts.”

  “I can’t do it as well as she can. Something was lifted from me. A shadow, I don’t know. And then…it didn’t hurt so much anymore. There’s something in her touch.”

  Simon slowly nodded. “I told her about the sea. I don’t know why. She listens with her heart. I bring my boat in and she waves to me from the window. No one has ever waved to me. Since she’s been here, I don’t feel I’m missing something on land anymore. Know what I mean? Marianne is like the sea, but on dry land.”

  Paul sat down again at the table next to Simon. “We’ve grown ol
d, you rum goat,” he whispered, as he groped for his champagne.

  The next time Marianne met Pascale Goichon, two weeks later, the old woman was cradling a dead crow in her hands.

  “It’s a present,” she whispered, motioning with her chin to the skies. “She still loves me.”

  Marianne was curious. And concerned. This was what had driven her back to the Goichons’ house. Jean-Rémy called Pascale folle goat, which almost earned him a slap from Madame Geneviève. “She isn’t some madwoman in the woods! She’s a dagosoitis! A white witch.”

  When Marianne had enquired why Pascale spoke German, Geneviève had explained that she had once worked as a stewardess on flights between Germany and France, and later all over the world. When she had her wits about her, she could speak six languages, including Russian and Japanese.

  “Crows are messengers from the other world,” said Pascale dreamily. “It fell directly at my feet.” She glanced up at the bright blue sky again and sang quietly, “Moon, mother, wise old woman, heaven and earth, we greet you. You shine for all those who are wild and free.” Then she walked off toward the back of the garden, singing as she went.

  Next to the old stone hut in which many unused garden tools were stored stood some rosebushes in full bloom. Marianne noticed a closed screw-top jar beside one of the bushes. At first she thought it contained a tiny snake, but then she realized it was a pale umbilical cord.

  Pascale pressed the bird into Marianne’s hand; its feathers were as soft as silk. Then she kneeled down awkwardly and picked up a trowel. She dug a small hollow, slid the umbilical cord into it and shoveled the earth back on top. Then she did something that shook Marianne to the core: with one finger she drew three intertwining flames in the soil. It was almost identical to her birthmark!