Bella...A French Life

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

“I’m feeling fine. Excellent.”

  “Good.”

  I want to end the call.

  “Give Marius and the girls my love.”

  “We are going skiing this Christmas. Switzerland. Saint Moritz. Very chic. Never been there. So we won’t be coming up north.”

  So this is why she is phoning me.

  “I think that I will go away for Christmas myself this year, Marion,” I lie.

  “Where to?”

  “I rather fancy - Italy. Rome. Venice.”

  “Rome’s awful at Christmas. Too many pilgrims and all crying buckets over the Pope’s Urbi and Orbi. Not for me! As for Venice, it’s damp in winter. Didn’t you know? Your hair will go all frizzy. You will hate it.”

  “Thanks for being so encouraging, Marion.”

  We say goodbye.

  I put the phone down.

  Sitting still, thinking of the call, the large - over one thousand five hundred pages - German-English dictionary on the shelf in front of me draws my attention. I fetch it. It is heavy and slips from my hands and falls onto my desk. I flip it open. My eye catches the word Schicksal. Its gender is neutral - das Schicksal; the noun capitalised as they are in the German language and which looks so odd to me.

  With my German, elementary as it is, taught to me, not at school, but by my father, I know that Schicksal means fate. Fate. Destiny. Karma. Karma: what we put into the universe, the universe will hand back to us. The good as well as the bad. For you reap whatever you sow: Book of Galatians, as Father Pierre so often reminds Sainte-Marie-sur-Brecque’s faithless when they pass him on the street and he blocks their path to reprimand them for not attending mass. Terrible thought, when you come to think of it: reaping whatever we are sowing. Even more terrible is what always goes with it - according to Father Pierre that is: not only would we have to pay for our sins but so would our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren - those who come after us. Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? asked John the Apostle on seeing a blind man. Vindictive, if you ask me. Like shaving a woman’s head because she fell in love with a German. Punishment, the French called it. And always did my uncles speak of the punishment that awaited my father for him having been a Wehrmacht soldier, for having worn the field-grey uniform. Therefore, from the time I read those books about the Second World War, I feared my father would reap what he had sown. So, understanding death as being a punishment, I used to seek out my father every morning on waking to make sure he had not died during the night. “You silly little person,” he always said when I threw my arms around him, happy I had found him alive, yet troubled because I would, in that case, have to be the one who would have to do the reaping. I, not Marius. Why I never thought that my brother, as much my father’s child as I, would have to do the reaping, I did not know.

  I read what the large dictionary further writes about das Schicksal. It can be merciful. Gnädiges Schicksal. It is good to know this. It can be hard, bitter, adverse, unkind, tragic, inexorable, sinister, sad. Cruel: Grausames Schicksal. It is good to know this too because it eliminates nasty surprises.

  I close the dictionary with a laugh. So much for das Schicksal: my father died in his sleep, never having had a day’s illness in his life. “His heart just stopped Dr Alphonse told me,” said my mother. She had telephoned me to Chartreux Hospital.

  Truth, be told, at the Brissard twin’s death, I did for a moment wonder whether it was not grausames Schicksal having come to collect its dues.

  “Tell me, did the baby die because I was negligent?” I asked Nurse Bonnec.

  “Of course not, Doc,” she replied. “It was the hand of God.”

  The hand of God. Karma. Fate. Destiny. There you have it!

  I put the dictionary back on the shelf and I walk from the library room, closing the door behind me. I will have to remember I am not alone here anymore and I will have to keep the door closed as I do when I have a house full of guests.

  -0-

  The Legros chicken which I bought two Thursdays ago has defrosted and it is lying on the work table in a pool of murky water. It will be our supper.

  I try hard to remember how Gertrude once told me to go about cooking poulet bonne femme. This is what we will have tonight.

  Wash and dry the chicken. Quarter it. Dice some carrot and a celery branch. Prepare some peas and do open a can of peas if you do not have fresh one. Tinned peas it will have to be. Peel and slice some onions. Peeling the onions, I hold a matchstick between my lips so my eyes will not water. They water all the same. Wash and dry some fresh parsley. I must not chop it up because it is for decorating the final dish. Wash and dry some white button mushrooms and chop them up too. Not too finely, mind. Get some salt and pepper from the cupboard in the larder. Get some rashers of lard from the fridge. Before closing the fridge, I take out the dish with the butter, and I fetch the olive oil can from the larder. Heat the butter and the olive oil. I do so in Gertrude’s favourite flameproof pot, the one with the pictures of some very yellow celery and very orange carrots around the side. I make sure the gas flame is not too high. Wait till the butter has melted and add the chicken. Brown the chicken on all sides. When it is brown, add the vegetables and the lard and fry all for about five minutes before adding the mushrooms.

  For a while, I stand at the bay window behind which dusk is falling and I listen to the sound of sizzling coming from the stove. I tell myself I am cooking poulet bonne femme for the first time in my life.

  Back at the stove, I stir the ingredients with Gertrude’s big wooden spoon which she is inclined to lick when she should not do so. Always, I reprimand her.

  “The chef must taste, Miss.”

  The ingredients, nicely brown, I pour a glass of dry white wine, and half a glass of chicken broth, and a few tablespoons of white port wine over it, and I cover the flameproof pot with its lid which also has very yellow celery and very orange carrots all along the rim. Gertrude usually allows the chicken to cook like this for about forty minutes and every now and then she pours a small glass of water into the pot.

  “Mustn’t dry out, must it, Miss.”

  The chicken cooking, I peel some potatoes and start boiling them in another of Gertrude’s pretty pots.

  Hoping that neither the chicken nor the potatoes would cook dry, and therefore burn, I go upstairs to my bedroom to make myself look presentable.

  I powder my nose, shiny from the heat of the stove, and I want to comb my hair. My hair looks awful. A mess. “My little Blondie,” my father sometimes called me, brushing my rebel curls with my mother’s large brush, strands of her dark hair caught between the steel teeth. Blondie: the cartoon character, wife of Dagwood. It was my father’s favourite cartoon strip. Whenever we went to Avranches he went to the newsagents to buy the London papers especially so he could read the Blondie and Dagwood cartoon strip.

  Ought I to go to Salon Larissa, Sainte-Marie-sur-Brecque’s hair salon next week, get Larissa to cut the mess? I have always hated my curls. I wanted straight hair like my mother. I never minded having blond hair though. Why, I do not know, especially as I should have hated being a blonde, because the German women on the photos in those books about the Second World War all had blonde hair.

  Having slipped into a clean blouse and pair of jeans, I sit down at the window, the bay and the mount in front of me in the distance, now dark.

  I wonder what time Colin will be back.

  Of course, I only want to know because I do not want the food to be overcooked.

  -0-

  Chapter Twenty

  I am in the courtyard. Because of the threshing of the rain, the trees and plants have shed some of their leaves, and I have come to clean up. Night having fallen and, as I have not switched the lights on here, I am working in semi-darkness, the only light coming from the kitchen.

  Colin returned a few minutes ago. It was a noisy return. Coming up the driveway he revved the motorcycle’s engine as if he were a stuntman and preparing to become airborne and
fly over the house’s roof for a scene in an action film. I have decided not to ask him what that was about, just as I will not ask him where he has spent the day, whether he has had a pleasant day. Not my business. This is what I am telling myself.

  He appears in the doorway.

  “I’m just going to brush up and then I will be down for supper.”

  Fine. Sure. I have cooked. Cooked for you, my winter guest.

  Back inside and carrying the food to the dining room, I see Colin has switched all the lights in the room off, but not the chandelier, which hangs right above the table where we have been sitting these past nights, and where I have again tonight set two places.

  He sees me.

  “I did not ask - I hope you do not mind, but I have switched off some of your beautiful chandeliers.”

  “No problem.”

  I do not look at him because I am not all that pleased he is making himself so at home at Le Presbytère.

  We sit down.

  “Shall we just help ourselves?” I ask.

  “Thank you, yes, and this looks delicious.”

  “I hope it will taste delicious too.”

  “Sure it will.”

  “Why? Why are you sure it will?”

  I can see he is unable to interpret the mood behind the question.

  “You’re French,” he says, hesitatingly.

  “And so?”

  “French cuisine … In England we believe all French can cook.”

  “Which is of course a myth.”

  I nearly accused him of sexism again. And racism.

  “I suppose so,” he says.

  “It is so.”

  “What did you do today?” he changes the subject.

  “My library needs a thorough clean up. I started on that.”

  “May I have a look at your books one day, please? I could not help noticing you have a few thousand. Must have a few thousand.”

  “I’ve a few.”

  Four thousand eight hundred and forty two: arranged alphabetically starting with A.Abdel-Malek’s ‘Egypte; Société Militaire’ which my father bought and ending with Stefan Zweig’s ‘The Royal Game’, which I bought from one of Paris’ bouquinists.

  “Which is the last book you’ve read?” he asks.

  I shrug, not sure to tell him about the German dictionary.

  “No, don’t reply to that. It was a stupid question. A childish one. I apologise.”

  “My father’s German dictionary,” I reply all the same, and of course, in all honesty.

  “Lord! I do not think I’ve ever heard of anyone reading a dictionary. I had a landlady once in Rome who read recipe books though.”

  “The dictionary caught my eye and I felt an urge to flip through it. I was not reading it as such. My eye then fell on a word.”

  “It would be interesting to know which word it was.”

  “It was the word schicksal.”

  “... destiny? Am I right to think it means destiny?”

  I nod. I wait for his reaction, my lips tightly closed.

  “Interesting.”

  “Do you believe in destiny, Colin?”

  “I was going to ask you whether you do.”

  “I do not know whether I do.”

  “Your compatriot Voltaire did.”

  “You are referring to his Zadig ou la Destinée.”

  “You’ve read it!”

  “Had to. School, you know. But I’ve a copy in my library. I did not buy it though. The book was my father’s. It’s a collector’s item. Must be worth a small fortune. ”

  “Well, Voltaire was not the only one to believe one’s life has been predestined and its course is beyond our - beyond human - control. May I speak of Pasternak?”

  “Of course. Please do.”

  “The Russian speaks of sud’ba which my Russian-English dictionary translates as destiny. Destiny or fate. Life deals us our cards but - and this is the interpretation - we alone play the cards. One cold October day, snow cascading down on Moscow, Pasternak walked into the Novy Mir office and someone said to him: Boris Leonidovich, let me introduce one of your most ardent admirers. The admirer was Olga Ivinskaya, and so began one of the world’s greatest but saddest love stories. That is sud’ba. Nearer home - a man who hated shopping and therefore tried never to have to go into a shop - had to buy a young lady, whom he was taking out for dinner, a bouquet of flowers so he had no choice but to go to a florist shop. It was in the cards which he had been dealt that from behind the counter stepped a most beautiful girl. Six months later they were married. That man was my father and the girl in the florist shop was my mother. That too is sud’ba.”

  “That’s beautiful,” I say.

  “That’s romantic. What we all need,” he says.

  The grandfather clock starts to chime. He lives to silence all my fears ... He lives to wipe away my tears ... He lives to calm my troubled heart ... He lives all blessings to impart ...

  I wait for the time to strike. It is a quarter past nine. Just as my father used to do, Colin sung quietly to the chime. His voice, like that of my father, is a baritone.

  Is it my imagination or did I this time find solace in those words?

  Not wanting to know, I drop my eyes and hurriedly I resume eating, my knife and fork scraping over the porcelain. There is no movement or sound from Colin. Is he looking at me? I feel that so he is, but I do not dare look up and at him. I continue eating. My poulet bonne femme has turned out quite tasty; not too salty, not tough, yet not overcooked either. I hear Colin clear his throat.

  “I wonder - I wonder if your clock will fit onto my bike? I would just love to take it with me when I leave.”

  His voice was loud and jovial. Too jovial to be natural.

  When I leave was what he said. Of course he will leave.

  The clock is ticking the seconds away. The ticking is suddenly ear-splittingly loud. Tick tock! Tick tock! Time never stands still.

  “You would have to dismantle the clock. Break it up into pieces,” I say, looking up.

  He nods. It is a nod which has a waiting quality to it.

  He rests his elbows on the table and drops his chin into his cupped hands and looks straight at me, wordlessly.

  He is playing with me. God Almighty, he is playing with me; the cat playing with the mouse, waiting for his moment to strike. The cat’s eyes are asking: Are you frightened of me … because if you are not, you ought to be, because I am capable of devouring you! I will devour you!

  No, bloody hell, this mouse is not for devouring.

  “I’ll wash up,” I say.

  “I’ll come and help you.”

  “No!”

  The word was almost a shout.

  “In that case, I will go see if I can write a couple of hundred words. I won’t type - don’t worry. Rest assured, I won’t type at night and rob you of your sleep.”

  At the door, he turns.

  “I almost forgot to say, I will be out all of tomorrow.”

  “So will I.”

  I lied.

  “In that case, don’t prepare anything for dinner. I will grab something when I’m out. I will be off first thing in the morning, so I won’t be having breakfast either. And oh yes, at what time at night will you be locking the front door?”

  “I won’t lock the door, not tomorrow night. You can lock it once you’re back in.”

  -0-

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Larissa is a redhead today. When I last came to the salon - about three months ago - she was a champagne-blonde. I have always found her regal in the Catherine Deneuve way; friendly but not to the extent of hugging and kissing her clients addressing them as ma chérie.

  “Good morning, Dr Wolff. What can we do for you this morning?”

  Larissa shows me to a lilac chair in front of a heart-shaped mirror within a lilac frame.

  “Oh Larissa, just the usual,” I tell her.

  “The usual no longer looks like the usual, Doctor Wolff.”

/>   “Tell it to me, Larissa!”

  “You should come in more often, Doctor Wolff.”

  She’s a name person: it will be Doctor Wolff this and Doctor Wolff that as long as I am in here. Should not have come.

  The tap water is cold.

  “How’s this for temperature, Doctor Wolff?”

  “Could be a little warmer, thanks.”

  Her assistant, a young gay with green spiked hair, puts a cup of black coffee down beside the wash basin. Larissa tells him to take it back to the kitchen and to keep it warm as I will still be under the tap for a while. She pours cold shampoo over my hair twice and after having rubbed it in thoroughly, her long, red nails, digging into my scalp, she applies a cream conditioner. It smells of coconut; coconut as she tells me will make my hair grow really fast.

  “Just don’t get it onto your face because you will become all hairy. Ghrr!”

  Jonny - the assistant - laughs revealing beautifully white teeth; he must have had an adoring mother who took him to the dentist every six months as our Ministry of Health advises, his equally adoring papa not having minded settling the bill.

  When I was a child, I hated going to the dentist. It was excruciatingly painful - emotionally painful. Dr Henri Brodard was the dentist’s name. His son was Baudelaire Brodard; he was my first ever boyfriend. Recalling both of the Brodards is still excruciatingly emotionally painful for me, but as there was not another dentist in Sainte-Marie-sur-Brecque it was not as if my mother could have taken Marius and me elsewhere to have our cavities filled. And … Baudelaire was at my school, a class ahead of me, and with his Californian surfing looks - curly blond hair, bulging biceps and sky-blue eyes - he was not easy to ignore.

  Dr Brodard was a Second World War hero. When France capitulated to the Nazi Germans in 1940, he set sail in the family pleasure boat for Dover and joined General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French in London. There are two kinds of French. There are those who resisted the Nazi Germans and those who joined them - the collaborators. But no, I need to correct myself here. There was still another kind; the women who, like my mother had slept with German soldiers, either for money or for love, the one kind having been, to their compatriots, as bad as the other. Dr Brodard having been with De Gaulle in London, a detail he never failed to remind his patients of, was therefore of the right stuff.