AS IT HAPPENED, THE DAY LOUIS HAD ARRIVED IN SAINT LEON SUR Dême for the first time was June 21, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The town sat astride the Dême. It did not strike him as an exceptionally pretty town. Just in the last few days he had come through half a dozen which were more beautiful. In fact, this was a corner of France where the villages were said to be particularly charming, owing, at least in part, to their being typically sited on a stream in a protective valley, and owing also to the creamy stone and the bluish slate roof tile from which their houses were constructed.
Saint Leon was a plainer version of the typical town. It was a farm town mainly, with an unremarkable medieval church and a small, rather plain chateau from the fifteenth century. The chateau was privately owned and mostly hidden from sight behind high stone walls in a forested park. The town consisted of several streets of houses, which had seen better days, and a few small shops—a bakery, a butcher, a grocer, a small bar—which managed to provide their proprietors with a comfortable, if modest, living.
The Hotel de France had eight rooms which now remained mostly empty. Nonetheless, its windows were flung open expectantly each morning, on the chance that guests might suddenly arrive. Great masses of trumpet vine and Virginia creeper climbed up the sides of the building, and cascades of red geraniums spilled from the flower boxes hanging everywhere.
The Hotel de France was run by Monsieur and Madame Chal-font, even then. The Chalfonts were very friendly, and Madame had a way with flowers. Louis was astonished—and disappointed—to learn that the Chalfonts had once actually visited Washington and even knew where Arlington was. Louis decided to eat lunch at the hotel. He could then walk on to Bueil en Touraine, where several pilgrim trails came together, and where there were, according to his guidebook, two interesting adjoining churches. They contained some old tombs with carved lids, and the remains of old frescoes. He would, he had already decided, sleep near Bueil.
“But, monsieur,” said Monsieur Chalfont in alarm, his eyebrows arching skyward as he gestured with upturned palms around the square. He indicated the loudspeakers, which had been installed on strategic lampposts, and which were being tested at this very moment. He pointed here and there at the red, white, and blue bunting, at the small tricolor flags that fluttered everywhere, at the small stage, which had been set up opposite the hotel in front of the Gendarmerie. “It is the Festival of Music, monsieur. It will be a night to tell your friends about when you return to Arlington.”
Louis remembered having seen similar preparations being made in other towns he had passed through. Since Bastille Day was still more than three weeks off, he had assumed they were preparations for local festivals. But, as Monsieur Chalfont explained with great animation—and with incredulity that Louis could have walked this far through France without knowing anything about the Festival of Music, all over France in every city and village from Paris to . . . to Saint Leon sur Dême!—tonight was the Festival of Music. Tonight, an entire country, all of France, welcomed the summer by singing and dancing through the night.
Yes, the festival would certainly be celebrated in Bueil en Touraine, if Monsieur chose to go there. But—and here Monsieur Chalfont’s voice dropped to a whisper, Bueil was smaller than Saint Leon, and its celebration would be a much more modest one. In fact, Saint Leon was well known for its elaborate Festival of Music celebration, and people came from the surrounding villages, including Bueil, to take part in it. The celebration began after sundown—probably at around ten thirty, and different musicians would play through the night. The square would be transformed into one large dance floor. Of course, this one night the Hotel de France was completely full, but the Chalfonts had opened a small annex for the occasion, and a small room was available for Monsieur. He would be their guest. Louis could see no way out. He accepted their invitation.
Monsieur Chalfont brought Louis the room key and described how he could find the annex just across the Dême and through a narrow alley. Louis had a trout for lunch, accompanied by small, boiled potatoes, and a bibb lettuce salad with vinaigrette. He sat under an umbrella in front of the hotel and watched the preparations for the night’s festivities. He watched people come and go—some English tourists stopping to buy ice cream from the freezer stationed just outside the hotel entrance, the people of Saint Leon buying their provisions for this evening’s supper and visiting with their neighbors. He saw some fishermen heading toward the river.
Louis found the annex without difficulty. His room was cool, dark, and quiet. Lace curtains billowed into the room. The mattress sagged on its old iron frame. The dark paint on the wood floor had been worn away by a thousand scrubbings. Louis was unaccustomed to stopping this early in the day. In his journey thus far, he had rarely spent more than a few daylight hours in one place. He lay down on the bed to take a nap but was too restless to sleep. He tried to read but couldn’t.
He walked through the streets of Saint Leon where he unexpectedly encountered Monsieur Chalfont who, to Louis’s considerable discomfort, greeted him like an old friend and introduced him to the two men with whom he had been speaking. Monsieur Chalfont inquired whether the room was to his liking and enthusiastically repeated to his friends that Louis was on a “pilgrimage.”
As quickly as he was able, Louis excused himself and walked out of town. Up a small hill, just past the walled cemetery, he found a shady patch of grass under some poplars. He could see part of the town below him—the roof of the chateau through the trees, the church tower with its peculiar slate dome. In the fields around him, the wheat had already been taken, the wheat straw had been baled. A tractor pulled a flatbed cart slowly through one of the fields, while a farmer and his wife swung bales onto the cart. Their young son drove the tractor. The wheat stubble was almost crimson in the shimmering summer light. The shadows were purple. Because the breeze came from the south, Louis could not hear the tractor. Louis had never painted before and had never, until that moment, felt any inclination to paint. But the way everything was spread out before him, it seemed like an exquisite painting waiting to be made.
Louis lay back in the grass and gazed up through the branches, watching the leaves twist and turn on their stems, the golden clouds moving past above them. An occasional bird swept through his field of vision, but he did not follow it with his eyes. The first thing he was aware of when he awoke was the sound of children playing. He opened his eyes and saw three women looking down at him. All three were dark skinned, with black hair, and striking blue eyes. The youngest, a girl in her late teens, smiled broadly, shamelessly it seemed to Louis, revealing very white, but uneven, teeth. She was pretty. The other two were fat, their skin was leathery, and their teeth were turning black.
Louis sat up quickly. He was embarrassed to have been found sleeping. The women wore plain cotton shirts, partly unbuttoned in front, and not tucked in. Their brightly patterned, full skirts hung nearly to their feet, which were bare and dusty and flat. Behind them, several children were racing around a tall, wooden wagon, chasing, and in turn being chased by, a mongrel dog. The smallest of the children was naked. A man in a broad felt hat led a horse off, then tethered him to a long rope and left him to graze. The man went about his business, apparently paying no attention to Louis or the women.
“Did you have a good sleep?” asked one of the women in heavily accented French. She rolled the r’s like a Spaniard. Her tone was mocking, as if she were teasing Louis for allowing himself to be taken unawares by three gypsy women.
“Yes, thank you,” said Louis, wanting to tease them back, but possessing neither the immediate wit nor the facility in French to do so. Still, the women laughed uproariously as if he had said something enormously clever.
“Hey!” shouted the man holding up a half-made basket and shaking it in their direction. He shouted something in another language. One of the women shouted back at him, shaking two fingers in the air, then all three of them giggled behind their hands, as if they were all—Louis included—in on some delicio
us conspiracy.
“Why were you sleeping here?” asked the same woman who had begun the conversation and had shouted the curse at the man. Her arms were crossed. She looked into Louis’s eyes.
“I was taking a walk and I fell asleep,” said Louis.
“You fell asleep while you were walking?” The three again laughed uproariously. The man moved in their direction, followed by a boy of perhaps sixteen. The man had removed his jacket, but he still had on the broad-brimmed hat. His shoes were dusty, his clothes wrinkled and stained. As he approached the group, he suddenly ran at the women, kicking out with his feet, but he missed them, and they laughed and scattered as they ran from him.
He turned toward Louis, and as he did, the scowl dropped from his face, as though it had been a mask. He was dark like the women, with the same blue eyes. He had thick lips framed on top by a black pencil line of a mustache. He was shorter than Louis, with narrow shoulders, thin arms and legs, and a pot belly that pushed at the buttons of his shirt. But despite his almost comic appearance, there was something authoritative and imposing about him. When he kicked out at the women, it was almost as though he were doing an extravagant series of dance steps. He came to rest in front of Louis, his hands resting lightly on his hips. Louis half expected him to remove his hat and sweep into a bow. As it was, he smiled broadly, showing off a mouthful of gold teeth, leaned his head slightly to the side and said, “My sincerest apologies, monsieur.” He exaggerated the honorific in what might have been construed to be a sarcastic manner, and the way he stood there could hardly have been less apologetic. In any case, Louis did not know whether the man’s apology was for his own behavior, or for some impropriety he might have perceived on the part of the women. So Louis simply greeted the man in return.
“I am Phillipe,” said the gypsy, offering Louis his hand. He did not introduce the young man who stood just behind him. “Welcome to Saint Leon sur Dême,” he said grandly, gesturing to the town just beyond the cemetery below them. “You are here for the night of music.”
“I am passing through,” said Louis. He was not eager to get involved in a conversation with Phillipe, but he was uncertain as to how to avoid it.
“As are we,” said Phillipe, with another broad smile and a wink that seemed meant to suggest that they might be accomplices in some plot. “Where are you going, monsieur?”
“South,” said Louis, looking for the shortest possible answer that might also allow him an easy exit from the conversation.
“Ah, Provence. You are English, aren’t you? The English all love Provence. We have come from there. Marseille. By way of Orleans. Or is your trip business? Yes? And what business might that be? We are business travelers ourselves, in a manner of speaking.” He seemed to find this very amusing, and turned with a laugh to the young man behind him, acknowledging his presence for the first time. The young man laughed dutifully, a high, whinnying laugh.
“Why don’t you join me for a drink?” said Phillipe, at which point the young man darted off to the wagon, and returned carrying a small table, two folding chairs, an unlabelled green bottle, and two glasses. Louis protested and tried to excuse himself. “I must be getting back,” he said. But back to what, wondered Phillipe. Just have a drink. There were hours to go before the music began. He was in town for the music too, said Phillipe, and he and the boy laughed again. He put a chair behind Louis and gently pressed him down onto it. When he was quite satisfied that Louis was not going anywhere, he sat down on the other one. The chairs wobbled unsteadily on the uneven ground, so the two men balanced more than they sat, their legs spread wide to steady themselves. Phillipe put a glass in front of Louis. He took Louis’s hand in his own and wrapped it around the glass. Phillipe’s hand was long and fine, almost delicate. “Hold the glass while I pour,” said Phillipe. “Don’t let it spill.” He poured a half inch of clear liquid into Louis’s glass, then into his own.
“Do you know what this is?” asked Phillipe.
“No,” said Louis, wishing he had known.
Phillipe stared at him for a long moment. “Brandy. Plum brandy. Eau de vie. The water of life.” He said it again: “The water of life.” Then: “Sip it slowly.” He took a careful sip, keeping his eyes on Louis over the rim of the glass. Louis raised the glass to his lips, and the odor of ripe plums and alcohol filled his nose. It almost made him sneeze. The brandy was cool on his tongue and burned his throat. He took another sip.
“The best eau de vie is made from the Reine Claude plum that grows only here in the Touraine, a little plum with yellow-green fruit, and a skin so delicate that, by the time it is ready to eat, it is invariably covered with bruises. It ripens in August. It is the sweetest fruit on the earth. What is your name?”
“Charles,” said Louis.
Phillipe tilted his head to the side for a long moment and smiled. He looked into Louis’s eyes. “What do you know about the Rom, Charles?” Louis did not answer. “We are the Rom, Charles, the Tsiganes, gypsies. What do you know about our people? Who we are? Where we come from?”
“Very little,” said Louis and took another sip, thinking, if he drank a little more, he could leave.
“The Rom came from India originally,” said Phillipe.
“It is time for me to go,” said Louis putting his glass down and starting to rise.
“Stay,” said Phillipe and put his hand on Louis’s. “Stay while I tell you about the Rom. Then you can go.” He kept his hand on Louis’s. “Please, monsieur,” he said and smiled so that his gold teeth flashed. Louis sat back down. Phillipe took his hand away. He looked at Louis. He took a thoughtful sip of the plum brandy.
“The Rom, which is what we now call ourselves, came from India originally. We were called the Dom there, where we were one of the lower castes. We were not exactly driven out, but we were persecuted, so that leaving became our only alternative.” Phillipe spoke as though he had personally lived through the entire Rom history. “We first landed in Europe in the Middle Ages, and then went in all directions. Every country tried to break our backs, to regulate our trade, to stop our wandering, but we survive to this day as wanderers. The Rom are a people whose life is movement, who wither in houses, who die when they stay in one place. We are despised everywhere.
“You are a Jew, aren’t you, Charles?” He did not wait for an answer. “And you are a man who travels on business. You have seen the world. And you know about persecution. Your people, the Jews, have been persecuted for all time. So have we. My father and all his sisters and brothers died in Poland. They were rounded up in France and Italy and sent to Auschwitz where the Nazis used them in medical experiments. The Rom were disposable, not even people, Zigeuner, viewed as thieves and confidence artists, someone to be despised and gotten rid of. Did you lose people in Auschwitz, Charles?” Phillipe took a sip and studied the glass. He took the bottle and poured more into both their glasses. “Go on and drink, Charles,” he said. “It is the water of life.
“I have a question for you, Charles.”
Louis waited.
“Why did you say your name was Charles, when it is not?” Again he did not wait for an answer. “We are fellow travelers—the Jew and the Rom—strangers to each other, who share a history, and meet in our travels. We stop for a moment in the same place. I see you asleep in the grass. I see that you are alone. I am courteous, I am hospitable. My women are friendly and courteous to you. My son treats you as an honored guest. And still you are afraid of us. You hardly answer my friendly questions. You say that your name is Charles. You are fearful that, what? I will rob you, cheat you, do all the things you have heard and read that gypsies do?
“When I was little, my father taught me to read. But after a while, I stopped reading. It is too easy to write lies without even knowing you are doing it. You are a traveler. You travel for business. You have found in your travels that the world is a dangerous place. Perhaps your clients are not to be trusted. Maybe they have tried to cheat you. Or worse. True, the world is a dangerou
s place. Nobody knows that better than I do. Jews know that too. How could they not? But it is important not to allow a possibility to dictate your behavior, not to become a prisoner of your suspicions and fears. You are a young man, Charles.” Phillipe was no older than Louis, but he spoke now as though he might have been speaking to someone much younger. “You shouldn’t believe things, even if they are written, until you know them to be true.
“You are an educated man, Charles, I can tell.” He continued to call Louis Charles, and each time he did so he flashed his golden smile. “You know, education is often poisonous, I have found. People who are educated often seem to believe that education has given them knowledge, no, not exactly knowledge. What is the word . . .?”
“Certainty,” said Louis. “People who are educated believe they have acquired certainty.”
Phillipe looked into his eyes. Then he nodded his head emphatically. “Certainty. Yes. Certainty. That is it. But to pay for their certainty, they surrender their understanding, their compassion, their humanity. That is a high price to pay for certainty, especially when it is a false certainty, a mirage, the certainty of Auschwitz.
“Now, you may leave.”
Louis took a last sip of the eau de vie. “I thank you for your hospitality.” He gave Phillipe his hand.
“Maybe we will see each other tonight at the Festival of Music,” said Phillipe. “Or along the road. In any case, I wish you a good journey south.”
XIV
MONSIEUR AND MADAME CHALFONT HAD TAKEN IT UPON THEMselves to reserve a table for Louis in front of the hotel on the sidewalk facing the square. People arrived and mingled as they had earlier in the day. American pop music came from the loudspeakers, its sound made even more raucous by the loudspeakers’ poor quality. Paper lanterns had been hung over strung lights. They glowed in the early twilight. Louis sat at his table enjoying Monsieur Chalfont’s excellent coquille Saint Jacques. Eyelets of golden butterfat floated in the cream sauce. The scallops were tender, the potatoes perfectly roasted. He soaked up the last sauce with pieces of baguette. He drank a local wine he had never heard of before.
A French Country Murder Page 9
