by Ward Just
The sun was gone now and the wind had come up, no longer cool but cold, a wintry gust from the mountains. The clouds were boiling up out of the west and Thomas stepped up his pace, taking long strides, the clock-tick of his walking stick a comfort. If a car came along he decided he would try to hitch a ride. He heard thunder somewhere back of him and he knew from the look of the sky that the region was in for a drenching and possibly something worse. He remembered that the windows of his house were open, the car windows, too. One car and then another flew by, too fast for him to wave or put his thumb out. The cars were traveling much too fast for the narrow road but everyone was hurrying home. Then the rain began, fat drops that hit the pavement like pistol shots. The wind increased and the rain became a deluge, first a thumpa-thumpa and next a minutes-long pause. Thomas thought of a prizefighter circling the ring before closing, playing rope-a-dope, knowing his opponent was defenseless and giving him time to consider what was about to happen, a terrible beating. Thomas put his head down, determined not to yield.
The deluge came, rain so heavy he could not see the road beyond twenty yards. When he looked backward the village had vanished behind a curtain of water. He was a mile or more from his house when he wondered if the distance was not too great and if he would be better off in a crouch, hunkering down for as long as it took. A gust so fierce it nearly knocked him off his feet caused Thomas to wheel around and face the advancing tempest. He raised his walking stick, brandishing it like a medieval warrior in combat with a dragon or other supernatural phenomenon. Drenched now, he stood his ground and fenced with the wind as if it had a human face and the face was known to him, a face from the past or a face to be seen in the near future. Thomas talked to it in a kind of growl, egging it on, all the while thrusting with his walking stick. The sky was black as the ocean depths except when brilliantly illuminated by lightning. This was the known world. The face was all around him, overhead and underfoot, in front and behind. He was forced backward by the strength of the wind, and yet he believed he must close with it, not yield one inch. He remembered Florette's intimate descriptions of the gods of the Pyrenees, cold, remorseless, reckless, indifferent, heedless of consequence. They could not be grappled with. They were permanent and implacable, like the force of gravity or of inertia. Thomas bellowed a great roar and turned his back on the wind, which seemed to him to slacken slightly. No doubt it was his imagination, a vainglorious belief that he had prevailed. From somewhere overhead or underfoot he heard what he thought was a ghostly cackle but it was only the drumming of the rain on the pavement. As if to emphasize the peril of the moment, a gigantic thunderclap and a string of lightning arrived simultaneously. But now the lightning illuminated nothing but itself.
Thomas knew he had no choice but to soldier on, one footstep after another, the wind and rain at his back, no slack. His trousers were plastered to his legs, his shoes soaked also but holding the ground. He counted as he walked, trying to calculate feet per step and wondering all the while if his house would be there when he arrived or was floating downslope like the biblical ark. Close by in the field to the north the firs were bending in the wind with bits of branches and unidentifiable debris flying here and there. He had been a fool not to accept old Bardèche's offer, and he wondered again if he would be wiser to quit the road and find shelter until the storm passed. But there was no shelter nearby. He knew the storm would blow itself out, nothing could maintain this level of rage forever, and then he thought of Granger's war, four years of carnage and the end was as bloodthirsty as the beginning. He had been walking uphill and now he sensed he was walking downhill, a feeling only, because the wind had thrown off his balance. He believed he was no more than half a mile from his house. That hopeful thought vanished when he saw a blaze of light not far to the south followed by a furious roar of thunder. The rain backed off, seemed almost to give up, then recommenced in a flood of water.
He thought they were in competition, the lightning, the thunder, the rain, and the wind. There were two more flashes, close together in sound and in location, and he believed that the storm had him bracketed like coordinated artillery fire. No point to try to dodge it; the storm was living in its own context. So Thomas continued on, one foot in front of the other, his eyes on the pavement, which now resembled a river in flood. And then he was down, carried in the cold current, ship's wreckage bound for some appalling void. His elbows and backside scraped concrete and for a moment he lost consciousness, a sense of where he was and why, his mouth full of water, his shoes gone. He had fetched up in the ditch, and not fifty yards away was Granger's house, and beyond it his own. The treacherous wind paused and he made off across the field, sloshing through water a foot deep, mud beneath the water. He saw the silhouette of his house and the thick plane tree in the front yard but his strength was waning and he did not believe he would make it. Thomas leaned against the tree, embracing it, holding on, his arms slipping on the wet trunk, his knees collapsing, the tree itself seeming to give way. His brain was stuck fast in neutral, an ox-brain without agility, animation even. Thomas struggled to his feet. His house was twenty yards distant but in his confusion and ox-mindedness he did not recognize it. Oxen had no memory. Still, everyone had an emergency reserve, something extra when the limits of endurance were reached. The idea was to concentrate. Forget the hopelessness of the situation. Forget exhaustion and forget pain. Pain was ephemeral, although it, too, had something in reserve, a little extra in the event you tried to forget it was there. And so Thomas stood on his rubber legs and focused on the front door of his house and the warmth beyond. The wind and rain gathered force once again but Thomas's attention was elsewhere and he did not notice, any more than he noticed the serial claps of thunder and lightning now far distant in the east. Thomas leaned on the front fender of his Renault and peered through the windshield. Seeing what appeared to be a foot of water in the car, he rolled up the windows. Then he stumbled forward and stepped inside the house.
An inch of water covered the floor. He bumped the front door shut and stood shivering, listening to the rain and the hollow rolls of thunder echoing in the mountains far away. Everything here was familiar to him and he knew he was home at last. When he reached to turn on the overhead light his hands were shaking so badly he could not grasp the switch; finally he moved it with the palm of his hand and the room filled with light. His body was shaking, the cold deep into his bones. So this was how it felt to be a castaway, or the first reptile slithering from the ooze onto dry land. Some part of him was back on the road and later in the ditch; he had no recollection of the trek from the ditch to his house. His face was frozen and he had no feeling in his feet. He knew he should change into dry clothes but did not have the will to do it. He had left everything in the storm. He thought to grab the bottle of calvados and a glass from the sideboard and with them in hand he sloshed his way to the armchair in front of the fireplace, wood and kindling already expertly laid in the grate. After a dozen or more tries he managed to get paper to burn and then sat back, watching the flames, his ruined feet as close to the fire as he could get them. The fire assumed fantastic shapes as he watched, a man hypnotized. Thomas had forgotten the calvados although the bottle and the glass were still in his hands. He watched the fire and in minutes was lost in a dreamless sleep.
Dr. Picot arrived at noon the next day to check him over. She bandaged his feet and the scrapes on his arms. He had a deep cut on his forehead and she bandaged that after sewing five stitches. All the time she complained about the storm and his behavior, stupidly walking from the village in a downpour, and worse than a downpour because of the wind, which according to the radio was eighty kilometers an hour and gusting to one hundred. You could have been killed walking alone on that road. You are a reckless old man without the sense of a baboon. You are fortunate to be alive, and as it is you may have a fine case of pneumonia in your future. Stop smoking at once, she said and gingerly picked up his pack of Gitanes and threw it into the wastebasket. She checked his blood pressure and his
heart, commenting that he had a murmur. Have you always had it? she asked, not waiting for an answer. She listened to the rattle in his chest and shook her head in disgust. She jabbed him twice with three-inch-long needles—antibiotics, she said, and vitamins. Then, putting her instruments away in her black bag, she began to talk about Florette, how much she was missed in the village. He, Thomas, had the sympathy of everyone; even old Bardèche was running a pool for anyone who wanted to predict how soon he would marry again. Men your age are a menace, she said, chortling fractionally to indicate the humor of the situation. How could such a thing happen to Florette? People still can't believe it. Do you know if anything's been done? When Thomas shook his head, either yes or no, it was hard to tell which, the doctor said inaction was typical of the authorities at Toulouse and Paris. Tragic occurrences in the countryside did not interest them. They were not concerned with the countryside. We might as well be living in Timbuktu. In France every community lived in its own orbit and Paris was the worst. It has always been so, she said. She stood up and snapped shut her black bag.
Goodbye, Thomas.
Come to my office in one week.
Meanwhile, remain in bed. Do not smoke.
You are a very foolish man.
But you have very good luck.
Thank you for coming, he said, but by then the doctor had already left his bedroom and was clomping down the stairs. He heard the front door open and close and immediately turned on his side, shut his eyes, and waited for sleep. He thought he could sleep for a week. In his mind he retraced his route from the village, remembering now when he had wheeled around to do combat with the storm, the storm that he believed had a human face. He attempted to slay it as if it were a dragon, raising his walking stick—and what had become of that? In a ditch somewhere, probably miles away. He wanted to retrieve it, the physical evidence of his moment of blindness. Lunacy was the better word. He remembered thrusting and thrusting again as if the storm could be skewered, run through and bled to death. The moment had come and gone in an instant but it was vivid still. He could not remember what he had been thinking but he was sure it had given him no pleasure in the sense that Florette had given him pleasure, or his work did, or even the sense of well-being on a clear autumn day when it was sufficient merely to be alive. Merely. Well, he had survived the tempest but had lost something, too. He could never do it again. He could not summon the required rage, hot-blooded and hot-minded. You needed a certain lunacy for artwork, a lunatic's confidence that you could finish what you started, that you had a God-given right to make portraits. But the life should never be confused with the work. His actions were vainglorious, but there was a possibility that they had saved his life.
He rose late that afternoon and pulled on slippers and a bathrobe and shuffled downstairs to survey the damage. He could tell that Ghislaine had cleaned up. The floors were dry. The cloth skirts of the furniture were damp. The kitchen was immaculate, the counter polished and the plates and glasses neatly put away, a shipboard ambiance; the bottle of calvados sat in a bath of bright sunlight. He stood at the foot of the stairs, then stepped painfully to the billiards table. Thomas was shocked to see a damp spot dead center, and when he looked at the ceiling he observed drops of water clinging to the timbers. The green baize was black where the water had dripped and spread. He bent to look under the table but could not bend far enough. His feet and back hurt so much that he was unable to see if the leak had soaked through. He stood looking at the table, worried that it would warp or the baize soften and separate, making the table useless for play. He had grown used to it in the living room of his house. Removing it would be like removing one of his portraits, Florette's or the unsatisfactory Granger. He moved slowly to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside.
When he looked at the roof he saw the damage at once. A ten-foot-long branch from the plane tree lay athwart the roof. His house looked like a dismasted schooner, topside in bad repair but most everything secure below decks, except of course the billiards table. The billiards table was the ship's rudder and without it no navigation was certain. He pulled the cloth robe closely around himself and inspected the plane tree. Two large branches were missing and the lawn was scattered with debris. Here and there were deep puddles of rainwater. His Renault was plastered with leaves but otherwise intact, and then he noticed the windshield cracked from side to side, one of the wipers askew. The other downed branch of the plane tree was at the end of the drive; it would take two men to remove it. He saw the scars of tire tracks across the lawn, the doctor's Peugeot. Thomas's feet were cold now and when he looked at the mountains to the south he saw new-fallen snow glittering like ice. On the low slopes houses were buried in snow. What caused people to live in such inhospitable conditions? Probably they were born to it and couldn't imagine anything different. He had had a friend in Madison who went on and on about the beauty of the Great Plains, the horizon as flat as an infinite ruler. His name was Ballard, a farm boy from Nebraska, training to become a chemist. What ever happened to him? Thomas stood shivering, surveying the wreckage of his lawn, the car windshield, and the roof of his house. He plucked a Gitane from the pocket of his robe, lit it, and immediately began to cough; he remembered that Ballard was a chain smoker. They all were then. He peeked around the corner of the house to look at the olive grove and saw to his surprise that it was mostly intact. Florette would not have been surprised. She loved her olive trees and knew they were tough. After a last look around, he turned his back and went inside to brew a pot of coffee. From the kitchen window he could see Granger's low-slung farmhouse, apparently undamaged. However, one of the fruit trees in the back yard was gone, its branches tangled like razor wire. It looked to have fallen on the dogs graves.
Thomas poured a dram of calvados while he waited for coffee, mentally making a list of things to be done. Repair the roof, repair the car windshield, fetch wood for the fireplace, lay in some wine, get someone to inspect the billiards table. The lawn could wait until spring. He had never been good with repairs. His instinct was to ignore them, move along, another city, another country. But this was the only place he had ever actually owned, held title to, paid taxes on, insured; and in its particulars the house was Florette's. Florette had handled the insurance and he wondered now if automobile windshields and the roofs of houses were included in the coverage. Likely not, nor billiards tables either. He had never in his life collected on an insurance claim. Thomas poured coffee and drank, making a face; much too strong. He ran his hand over his chin, feeling two days' stubble. Nearly dusk now, shadows lengthening, a bite to the air, unshaven, unshowered, wearing his bathrobe at four in the afternoon, sipping coffee corrected with calvados, he thought he had a glimpse of the future. His domestic arrangements were breaking down, his house damaged, his lawn in ruins, a tree branch dug into his roof, Granger's beautiful billiards table damp with mountain rainwater, and in the adjoining field the orchard was dying. Ghosts were in every corner of his house. Thomas felt as if he had wandered from the pages of one of Chekhov's stories, a character surrounded by decay.
A week later, late on a Tuesday afternoon, he finished the portrait of old Bardèche. He cleaned his brushes while he looked at it; there was nothing more to be done. The piece was finished. He lit a Gitane, inhaling especially deeply as he remembered the lecture that morning from the officious Dr. Picot, how fortunate he was to have escaped pneumonia but he would learn soon enough that he was on parole only. If he continued to use tobacco, pneumonia would be the least of his worries. Emphysema and heart disease would surely follow, at which time he could look forward to an early and unpleasant death. Gitanes were the worst. Meanwhile, she poked and prodded, looked into his nostrils and ears, his mouth and eyes. She announced she would leave the rectal exam for another occasion, nor would he be required to cough. The cut on his head was not infected. His feet were almost healed. All in all, a fortunate outcome which smoking would negate. All this time he had said barely a dozen words, half of them "yes" or
"no" in answer to her impertinent questions. He was thinking about old Bardèche's portrait, finishing it in his mind. And when she was done at last he thanked her, paid her, and departed, but not before she reminded him of his heart murmur. She advised him to consult a cardiologist. Cardiology was not one of her specialties.
How are you getting on otherwise?
Fine, he said.
You don't look fine. Your color's not good. You should lose weight. Fifteen pounds at least.
Nevertheless, he said as he closed the door to her office.
Thomas cleaned the last brush and put it in the oversized coffee tin. He looked up when he heard two sharp raps on the front door. Through the window he saw a black Mercedes in the driveway, a man in a Bailey hat at the wheel. He could not see who was at the front door but he knew who it was.
Victoria Granger was snugly turned out in a red beret and a loden coat, eskimo boots on her feet. She smiled nicely and said she was back for the closing on her house, the buyer an engineer for Airbus in Toulouse—a German, as it turned out. She didn't have to come back but she wanted to, for a last look around. Also, she wanted to meet the German. This time she brought her husband with her—she gestured at the man in the car—so that he could see the place.
We'd like to invite you for a drink, she said.
A last get-together before the German takes over.
Well, thank you, Thomas said.
She looked at him, wrinkling her nose. Have you been painting?
Finishing up, he said.
I didn't realize oil paint smelled so.
It's the turpentine, he said.
She wrinkled her nose again and looked at her watch. Come at seven.
He said, All right. I'd like that.
We sold the wine cellar with the house. But I held back a few bottles. We might as well drink them.
