Crime Fraiche

by Alexander Campion

  “I brought you your coffee. We have to be there at nine sharp. The little bunnies will have returned from their morning’s nefarious sorties but will still be scuttling around their tunnels before they dig in for their daytime naps. Timing is all in ferreting.”

  “You seem very knowledgeable,” Capucine said, sleepily sipping a café au lait from a kitchen bowl.

  “Wild rabbit is the forgotten mainstay of French cuisine. The diabolic Disney stole them from us. It’s probably the only dish you don’t dare serve in Paris today—people look at you as if you were some sort of heartless ogre—and yet it’s the king of the white meats. When we get back, Jacques and I are going to spend the afternoon making a selection of pâtés and a lapin à la moutarde for dinner. You really need to get moving. I don’t want to be a minute late.” Capucine asked herself why on earth she had been in such a rush to get back.

  An hour later Capucine and Alexandre walked up to le Chêne de l’Evêque, their guns crooked on their arms. Alexandre might have been about to pose for a 1920s advertisement for an expensive brand of Scotch, peering about with a luminescent grin as if he were expecting a gaggle of paparazzi to erupt from the wood. Capucine wondered if he realized he had affected the most irritating of Jacques’s mannerisms.

  A large crowd had already gathered around the old oak tree, which, like everything else at Maulévrier, was steeped in Capucine’s memories. Jacques appeared out of nowhere and, without a word of greeting, said, “Ah, this gnarled old oak. Do you remember the time we climbed up in its welcoming branches and hid from everyone all afternoon and—”

  Mercifully, the two paysans who had been standing importantly by the tree, nursing wooden boxes with large holes drilled in the covers, came up to Capucine with broad tooth-gapped smiles.

  “Mam’selle, Monsieur le Comte told us to show you our ferrets before we started,” one said, reaching into the box slung from his shoulder and proudly producing a white and brown ferret with a long, slim, almost snakelike body. At first blush it was as cuddly and innocuous as one of Alexandre’s detested Disney cartoon characters. “He hasn’t eaten since the day before yesterday, and he’s dying to get down there,” the man said with a broad, ruthless smile, displaying all ten of his teeth. The animal looked dispassionately at her with eyes so black they seemed pupil-less and yawned sensuously, revealing its long, needlelike canines.

  Not to be outdone, the second paysan opened his box and proudly showed the six ferrets nestled in partitions inside. One of them shyly poked its head out of the box, blinking myopically, hooking strong claws on the side of the partition—the engaging eager to pursue the defenseless.

  Oncle Aymerie—with Emilien as his second in command—began to marshal the crowd. In addition to Vienneau, and his apparently inseparable acolyte Bellanger, there were a dozen of the usual shooting guests and a further dozen paysans. Vienneau looked bleary-eyed and disoriented, as if he had been up all night embracing a bottle. Adrift in the fumes of his hangover, he completely ignored Bellanger.

  Oncle Aymerie noisily cleared his throat to attract the collective attention. “All right, everybody. The purse nets are in place,” he said loudly. Looking around, Capucine saw that at least forty green nets had been positioned on short stakes over the visible openings to the warren. The outermost nets were at least a hundred and fifty feet from the tree. The perimeter of the warren was a lot bigger than when she had been a child. The rabbits had been industrious. “Now, as we all know,” Oncle Aymerie boomed, “the guns have to be particularly vigilant and concentrate on their sectors. The nets will get the rabbits coming out of the holes we know about, but most of them will come out of small holes we haven’t discovered. That’s why the guns are so important. Emilien is going to place you, and when the ferrets go down, I want you to face away from the tree and look into your sector and nowhere else. Otherwise, you’re not going to hit anything. Is that perfectly clear?”

  Emilien placed his “guns,” about twenty in all, including the handful of paysans who had turned up with rudimentary shotguns, in a circle about fifty feet out from the oak. The two paysans put their ferrets down holes close to the tree with muttered exhortative incantations. The air of expectation and excitement was palpable. The guns peered intently into their sectors with fierce concentration. Absolutely nothing happened. And continued to not happen for several long minutes.

  The bubble of excitement floated away. It became obvious to everyone that there was no reason for silence, but they were placed too far apart for conversation. One by one they abandoned their forward-leaning crouches with shotguns at the ready and began to slouch. Long, boring moments passed. Capucine fell into a reverie, imagining the ferrets creeping through the long tunnels as the rabbits stole away in controlled panic, soundlessly ducking into side tunnels and trying whatever tricks there were that rabbits used. Still nothing happened.

  Jacques, who was stationed next to Capucine, walked over to her. “I know what you’re thinking, you little vixen. You’re thinking of those long, thick ferrets squeezing through those tight tunnels, panting to sink their teeth into those furry bunnies’ behinds. I’m relieved that it isn’t just men who are titillated by the phallic nature of the sport.” He giggled his Amadean laugh, but quietly enough so it wasn’t heard.

  “Jacques, get back to your post. The rabbits are going to come out any second now!” Capucine hissed.

  A single shot boomed. Out of the corner of her eye Capucine saw the animal lifted in the air by the impact and then roll when it hit the ground. Bellanger had shot a rabbit two sectors away from his and was lowering his gun with a self-satisfied smirk. He had apparently decided that the gun assigned to the sector was asleep at his post and so the rabbit was his by rights. It had been a brilliant shot, but Capucine could feel the collective waves of hatred seeking Bellanger out like science fiction death rays.

  The firing erupted with the brio of a war movie, every gun firing out rounds as fast as he could. An army of rabbits scuttled back and forth in desperation at the perimeter’s edge, crossing each other’s paths, veering suddenly, and crossing again. Then, as if a conductor had lowered his baton, the firing ceased all at once. Oncle Aymerie called out loudly, “Congratulations. At least a hundred shot and over fifty in the nets. Well done indeed!”

  Everyone moved out to walk the area in front of their stations to collect dead rabbits and drop them in a heap at their positions. Several of the rabbits had big chunks of flesh chewed out of their hindquarters, and many were missing hind limbs.

  Naturally, the biggest pile of rabbits was in front of Bellanger. A bit surprisingly, there was only one in front of Vienneau. Even Alexandre had managed to shoot six. Capucine’s heart went out to Loïc, who seemed far too preoccupied with Marie-Christine to think about anything else.

  Oncle Aymerie, the gamekeeper, and Alexandre busied themselves arranging the rabbits into orderly rows, to be counted, photographed, and distributed. Capucine was astonished at how rapidly Alexandre had melded into life at Maulévrier. She felt the slap of rejection. Just as she should have been congratulating herself on her reconciliation with her family, Alexandre seemed to be usurping her spot.

  Alexandre came up to her. “Look at that. We did a total of a hundred and sixty-two of the little rascals. I accounted for six myself.” He was as delighted as a child who had successfully spelled anticonstitutionnellement, the longest word in the French language, and won a spelling bee.

  “If you think this is sport, then I imagine you deserve congratulations,” Capucine said, fully intending to hurt. To her dismay, Alexandre was oblivious and sauntered off to continue conferring with Oncle Aymerie, no doubt about the culinary potential of the morning’s harvest.

  Jacques came up. That was all she needed. “Little cousin, marriage is not easy, is it?” he said with a sneer so attenuated she almost thought he might be sincere. She put her arm through his.

  “Thank God,” she said, “the Calvados has arrived. About fucking time.”

/>   “My thoughts exactly, Commissaire Maigret,” Jacques said as he led her off to the Estafette, which had just arrived from the château with lunch for the paysans.

  There was the traditional awkward moment as the necktied made every effort to make conversation with the workclothed as they used their time-blackened Opinels and Laguioles to cut into enormous loaves of country bread braced against their chests and sliced saucisson and jambon de Bayonne into robust slabs. Emilien made a great show of uncorking label-less bottles of red wine the dark color of coagulating blood—the stuff the paysans liked to call “good red wine that stains”—and lining them up next to a half dozen large bottles of Calvados. But well before the alcohol spread the paysans’ wings, they were already soaring with the joy of a job very well done.

  Tranquil that the bridge across the class divide was as secure as ever, and knowing that it would take some doing to coax the ferrets out of the warren, Oncle Aymerie’s guests trooped off to the château for their own lunch, which turned out to be one of Odile’s bolder creations, roast chicken stuffed with ground pork on a bed of thinly sliced zucchini. Capucine was relieved when she saw the whole chickens but lost her appetite at the sight of the stuffing.

  Lunch was a boisterous affair, the guests’ early morning elation exacerbated by healthy doses of Calvados on empty stomachs. Alexandre and Jacques rattled like excited schoolgirls about a recipe for rabbit pâté involving chunks of apple, the very idea of which made Capucine lose what little interest she had left in the chicken. The only jarring note was Bellanger, who tried repeatedly to engage Vienneau in conversation with a conspicuous lack of success. Oncle Aymerie made no pretense of listening to any of the chatter and merely beamed happily at his tribe under his tent, concerned only with ensuring that their glasses were constantly full and that their faces were rosy and smiling.

  Vienneau seemed to reach a conclusion of some sort, became agitated, glanced right and left nervously, and finally banged his glass with his spoon. In the startled silence that followed, he announced, “I, well, I, um . . . I would like to invite you all to lunch tomorrow. I know it’s a bit sudden and it’s not the done thing and all, but I think I can promise you a truly exceptional rôti de bœuf. What do you all say?”

  Even if it had been the result of too much wine, it would still have been an unforgivable gaffe. One simply did not attempt to force a captive group of people into a social commitment, particularly without reasonable notice. The common knowledge of Vienneau’s misfortune did not lessen the sense of embarrassment. There were self-conscious shuffles and averted gazes.

  But Vienneau wasn’t about to give up. “I apologize for inviting you like this on such short notice,” he said. “It’s just that I can’t stand the thought of bouncing around that empty house on a Sunday. It’s too much for me. Please say you’ll all come.”

  Oncle Aymerie’s perfect manners saved the situation. “What a funny coincidence, mon cher Loïc, that you should invite us just as I was going to suggest it myself. I haven’t seen your élevage in a donkey’s years. And I’ve been pining away for a Sunday roast comme il faut. Of course we’ll all come.”

  CHAPTER 36

  If anyone had attempted to describe the lunch as a success, it could only have been because of the food. The Vienneaus’ cook—Loïc’s cook, now that one thought about it—seemed to have blossomed when released from the yoke of Marie-Christine’s hausfrau authority. Despite Vienneau’s instructions not to deviate a single iota from the traditional norms of a classic Sunday lunch, she had nonetheless managed to produce the sublime.

  The pièce de résistance was a rosbif that was the quintessence of all rosbifs. It had been presented whole at the table for Vienneau to slice, a darkly charred, lustrous brown cylinder elegantly tied with well-scorched sprigs of thyme trapped under the string. Once carved, the roast revealed its palette, a luminous bronze tan just underneath the crisp, almost black exterior, dissolving into a joyous pink and then into an erotic, moist, almost pulsing vermilion at the core.

  Chewing seemed entirely superfluous. At one point Capucine cut out a portion of the carmine heart and held it in her mouth to see if it really would melt. She might even have hummed to herself as she did so, but if she did, it was so quietly that no one could possibly have heard. She was astonished when Alexandre rebuked her silently with pursed lips and crinkled brow. As she fought down an attack of the giggles, she realized that Alexandre was having another of his food epiphanies. It was the potatoes. When the dish arrived, it had looked like yet another Sunday gratin, a pulpy mass of tasteless Gruyère and limp spuds. But this gratin had turned off the marshy road to flaccidity and had taken the straight and narrow toward being a feast for the gods. Transparently thin slices of potatoes had been interspersed with shavings of truffles and parchments of parmesan and delicately covered with a lightly seasoned topping of tart crème fleurette—sour cream—before being baked to perfection. No wonder Alexandre wasn’t in a mood for levity.

  No, the food was hardly the problem. It was the conversation. Topics fizzled like soggy fireworks. No matter how enthusiastically they were launched, they failed to burst into a cascade of interest and fell back to earth with a damp thud. Even though no mention was made of Marie-Christine, her specter dominated the room. If someone brought up politics, the conversation turned to a minister who had been caught in a compromising situation with his mistress; celebrity gossip inevitably brought up the latest mega-actor divorce; even the weather drew the ill-phrased observation that it was time to start thinking about the Caribbean, where everyone at the table knew full well that Marie-Christine was spending the week with her current lover.

  Vienneau was frustrated to the point of rudeness. When Bellanger attempted to jump into the breach by commenting that the CAC 40 stock market index had closed nearly one whole percent up on Friday, Vienneau quashed him with an unkind “Henri, there are other things in life than the goddamn stock market.”

  There was a collective sigh when it was over and Vienneau proposed a walk around the élevage to aid their digestion. Cigars were lit. Deep breaths were taken. Laughter was heard. The mood was that of a class of schoolchildren let out for recess after an interminable lecture.

  But the good cheer was short-lived. It wasn’t just Vienneau’s luncheon table; the entire élevage smacked of depression. The freshly painted white luster of the place seemed to have dimmed. Everywhere one looked, something seemed to need fixing. The workers seemed listless; the steers, morose. Had something changed, or was it just that the day was leadenly overcast?

  The group reached a fence enclosing a small herd of chalky white steers, who, in the way of steers, ambled over lackadaisically to investigate. There was much rubbing of rubbery noses and the sort of encouraging commentary one makes to farm animals and toddlers. A worker came up.

  “Monsieur Vienneau. I’m glad you’re here. There’s a problem with this fence. The railings are rotten under the paint.” To demonstrate, he yanked the rail they were all leaning against and the end came away from the post. “Last night some steers leaned against the next section and both rails came completely off. I hammered them back in this morning and tied them up with twine, but the field is so close to the road, I’m worried there’s going to be an accident if they get loose at night.”

  Vienneau seemed put out. He made a cursory show of examining the fence and ignored the worker.

  “Excuse me for speaking to you personally, monsieur, but this could be a serious problem.”

  “Yes, yes.” Vienneau looked around nervously, visibly attempting to escape. “Thank you for calling this to my attention. I’ll bring it up with Monsieur Martel.”

  “But, mons—”

  Vienneau walked away, leading his guests. The worker stared after them, looking frustrated and annoyed.

  They continued their walk. Alexandre, Jacques, and Oncle Aymerie fell behind, chatting in conspiratorial whispers, examining Alexandre’s cane. Capucine had second thoughts about her gift.
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br />   A little farther on they rounded a corner and came across Pierre Martel haranguing two North African workers. The two men hung their heads, utterly cowed. It was another awkward moment. Vienneau was trapped. He couldn’t very well turn the group around and force them to retreat, nor could he lead them into an embarrassing scene.

  Vienneau advanced as slowly as he decently could. As they approached Martel, his angry words became clearer. “I’m not putting up with this fucking shit anymore.” He grabbed one of the men by the shirt and shook him, raising his other hand threateningly. “All right, you two, get out of my sight. Get back to work before I get really mad.” Hangdog, the two workers shuffled off, staring at the ground.

  Martel walked up to Vienneau, shaking his head in an exaggerated show of dismay. The two shook hands with the quick pump of business associates. “I tell you, monsieur, getting these shiftless beurs to do a day’s work is more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “Of course it is. Of course it is. But you’re doing an excellent job,” Vienneau said, smiling stiffly. Capucine could easily read his mind as he told himself that staying at home after lunch, sipping Calvados around the fire, would have been a far better idea.

  “Monsieur, I was just coming to your house to give you these,” Martel said, handing Vienneau a thin sheaf of computer printouts.

  Vienneau looked a little bewildered.

  “It’s the week’s production statistics.”

  With obvious lack of interest, Vienneau riffled though the pages and prepared to put the stack under his arm.

  “Pardon, monsieur, but did you see this?” Martel pointed to a line at the bottom of the first page. Capucine peered over his shoulder, unnoticed.

  “Yes, yes, I see. The average weight of the steers slaughtered this week is down a little bit.” Vienneau shrugged his shoulders. “It’s seasonal. Happens every year. They know winter is coming. When you’ve been in the business longer, you’ll understand these things. I’ll bring the shortfall to the attention of Accounting on Monday. Voilà!” he said in clear dismissal of Martel, whose face flattened in anger as he turned and stamped off.