Blackbird Fly

by Lise McClendon

  She startled. “Oui?”

  “Ca va? Votre main?” Merle pointed to her hand. Odile blinked, turned on her heel, and ran out.

  The doctor snipped off the cast with sharp pincher-scissors and rubbed her skin with various potions. The arm looked puckered and damp, almost moldy. The doctor told her to be careful with it for a week or two. No handstands.

  “Did you just treat Odile Langois?” He said yes. “Did she get burned in the fire last night?”

  “Oo la la, many burns. Docteur Angiers was up all night.”

  “Was she hurt badly?”

  “No, not Madame Langois. A cut. Sixteen points de suture, how do you say — stitches. She cut herself on a wine bottle. While packing them for shipment.”

  Merle flexed her hand as she walked home, dismayed with the wrinkled skin and puny muscles, the tan line from the faux beach. Château Gagillac had no bottles of their own. How had Odile cut her hand? What were they up to?

  She and Annie walked to a sidewalk cafe for lunch. They ordered house white with coffee on the side. Their lunches came, huge salads. Annie groaned, “I’ll fall asleep before this is done.” As they finished Annie leaned close and said, “There’s an old woman watching us. Over your left shoulder, on the sidewalk.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Talking to a shopkeeper, that woman at the grocery store. They are both looking now.”

  “At us?”

  “There’s nobody else out here. And they’re pointing.” The rest of the cafe was deserted. “Okay, look now, she’s about to go.”

  The woman was plump with gray hair pulled back from her lined face, wearing an ordinary black skirt and blue blouse ensemble, low black shoes. “I might have seen her at the market. She’s probably just related to the punks who flap their arms and caw like crows whenever they see me.” Annie looked incredulous. “Something about me they find ridiculous.”

  “Did you whoop their puny French asses?”

  “I’m trying to set a good example.”

  That night the violence continued. Roving bands of farmers tossed empty wine bottles at trucks as they passed on the highway and dropped water-filled bottles from second-story windows in town. Pascal came by just before dark as they were eating dinner, to warn them to stay inside. The rumor was the farmers had set the fire.

  Annie pulled him inside and gave him a glass of wine, Château Gagillac from the plastic jug. Tristan jumped up.

  “I better go tell Valerie and Albert,” he said. “Unless you did already?”

  Pascal watched the boy dash out the back. “I think he has, what do you call it, a shine? For the mademoiselle. You have it off,” he said, grabbing the jug and pouring Merle a glass. “Your arm.”

  She stretched out the pale limb. “Gorgeous, isn’t it. All skinny and moldy.”

  He was smiling at her when a crash of breaking glass came from outside. They ran to the windows in time to see a group of teenagers running away from a pile of green glass shards on the neighbor’s steps. Pascal said, “Come, let’s close the shutters.” Outside, they pushed the shutters of the front windows into place. Pascal was last in, closing the door shutters and locking them with a padlock from the inside.

  “And how will you get out, Pascal?” Annie said, smiling. “Or maybe you could stay and protect us from roving grape mobs. Just what are they after?”

  “A sort of peasant revolt. Probably they are not linked to the fire. They are using the fire, and the news coverage, to stir up things. They get into the paper, get the ear of their representative. When some persons rise up against the government, or corporations, the feelings that they are the little man, the peasant, the oppressed, all boils out.”

  “Like the revolution?”

  “Exactement.” As they latched shutters upstairs he said, “A short jump from water in bottles to the Molotov cocktail. Then, whoosh. Another fire.”

  “Who’s behind this?” Merle asked. “Gerard Langois?”

  “And others. They want the government to control imports. A little revolt is good for business. The price for grapes is very low because the imports flood the market. Many small vineyards like the Langois’s will go out of business.” Shouts, footsteps, boots running on cobbles, tinkling of broken glass punctuated the night. “It is a French tradition, I’m afraid, to strike or make a riot to get what you want from the government. The people do not like violence. They will demand an end to it.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Merle said. “Is Tristan back?”

  They trooped downstairs into the garden. The gate was ajar. Merle stepped out into the alley, but Pascal took her arm. “Wait. I will get them.”

  Annie crossed her arms. “Pascal is very protective. Does he work for the government?”

  Merle frowned. “I just found out.”

  Annie put her arms around her. “Oh, honey. It’s obvious he’s crazy about you.”

  “That’s why he used my — my loyalty, my trust, and my upstairs windows,” she said, pressing her face into her sister’s shoulder.

  “Maybe that was just the way it had to be. He had to find a place to look at the vineyards, and you were the lucky prize in the box of Cracker Jack.”

  “Like the Junior Birdman ring?”

  “That’s why those punks are making bird imitations. Everyone can spot a Junior Birdman.”

  Merle began to laugh, holding onto her sister, hiccupping and laughing. They didn’t notice Tristan and Valerie were back.

  “Mom? You okay?”

  They broke apart, wiping their eyes. “Um, yeah. Fine.” Pascal and Albert came through the gate.

  “Where’s the key?” Pascal asked. Tristan handed it over and he locked the gate.

  “I’ll take it back.” Merle put it back on the chain around her neck. “Did you get your shutters latched, Albert?”

  “They called, my sister’s daughter, very worried about Valerie, and what can I tell them? I am just an old man. And there are hoodlums running in the streets.”

  A frightened look made him look old. Annie took his arm. “You can stay here tonight. Safety in numbers.” She guided him inside toward the cognac and the music Tristan and Valerie were playing. Pascal stood half facing the gate as if ready to bolt.

  Merle crossed her arms. “What do you do in your cop line of work?”

  “Anti-fraud,” he said quickly. “Wine. Of course.”

  “Wine fraud? Like what?”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the purple sky. “Misrepresentation. Labeling fraud. Wine is big business in France.”

  “Like somebody says it’s a ’79 when it’s really a ’99?”

  “Or one of the big Burgundy producers uses grapes from Chile in his bottles. A big scandal.” He looked at her seriously from under his eyebrows. “I have been watching the Langois vineyard.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “Some things. Trucks.”

  “Odile Langois was at the clinic today with a cut on her hand from a wine bottle. Broken while shipping, she told the doctor. They must have shipped those bottles on the same night as the big fire. Is that helpful?”

  He swallowed. “Merle, I—“

  “I understand. It was convenient. My house, my roof, my view. It’s all right.”

  “You hate me.”

  She walked to him, feeling the air warm. “I don’t hate you, Pascal,” she whispered.

  He softened into her, his big hands around her waist. He kissed her hard then took her face in his hands. “I tried not to like you, to just do the job. I tried, I struggled. But I failed.”

  “I will have to serve you more Château Pétrus for fooling me.”

  “More? I like you even better.”

  He pushed her behind the pissoir, out of the light from the house, up against the wall. She bumped her head on the stone. “Sorry, sorry.” He unbuttoned her blouse, kissed her breasts in a rush, ran his hands down her hips then came back to her mouth. He pressed himself against her, wedging her
leg between his. They were in that position, her pinned to the wall willingly when the quiet was broken. Screeching of tires, crashing of glass then shouts: “Arretez!” Women, screaming.

  “Mon Dieu.” He rested his forehead on her shoulder. “I have to go.”

  “Is there fraud on the streets tonight?”

  He let his hands take a last ride down her body. “Tomorrow, cherie.”

  Chapter 36

  Next door Yves was sweeping up glass from the street when Merle and Annie came outside. It was early, before seven, but they had a long day ahead. Merle had sent Tristan with a note to the Inspector that she was seeing her lawyer today in Bordeaux. Yves stooped to scoop up shards into a dust pan.

  “Is everything all right at your house?” Merle asked.

  “No damage. But Suzette is frightened. She wants to return to Paris.” He dumped the glass in a garbage can.

  “Look at the flower pots,” Annie said, pointing to geraniums wilting on the cobblestones, pottery smashed.

  “Un policier from the Police Nationale just came by here, in riot clothes, the vest and helmet and stick, like in Paris.” Yves seemed more excited than upset. “I asked him who is doing this. And he says it is farmers, can you believe it? And they caught the one who set the fire. He owns a winery near here with his sister. They were both arrested in the night. They found empty gasoline cans hidden in their chai.”

  Château Gagillac? Where else were sister and brother in business together? Merle hated to think of Odile in jail. They walked the three blocks to the lot where Annie had parked her rental car. Tristan met them ten minutes later. Broken glass littered the streets but there was very little other damage. It would probably be over when they got back, especially now that the national police had arrived.

  Tristan wedged into the backseat with a picnic basket. He curled up and went back to sleep as they climbed the hills and dropped into the valley of the Dordogne River. Merle drove, letting her sister read her guidebooks and look at the vineyards along the river bottoms and the beautiful bridges.

  Bordeaux loomed ahead, with all the joys of civilization, graffiti, traffic, and parking. It took an hour to find the building after buying a map as big as the Peugeot. They split up at the door to the lawyer’s building. “Go do some shopping,” Merle said. “I’ll be back at the car in an hour.”

  The office was simple, with scratched wood floors and worn furniture. The girl behind the counter looked sixteen and wore thick black eye makeup on her pale face. Merle had to repeat herself to be understood. In a few minutes Monsieur Lalouche came into the reception and shook her hand.

  He was short, dark-haired, and younger than she expected, thirty or thirty-five. He dressed well, in a black shirt and tie, gray slacks. “You prefer English?”

  “Thank you. Yes.” She sat in his office, another worn chair in ancient leather. He sat on the edge of his desk and put on trendy eyeglasses. “Have you talked to the Inspector in charge of the case, Captain Montrose?” she asked.

  He hadn’t. In fact all the things she had requested he do before her appointment hadn’t been done. He was smooth and apologetic; he had a big trial coming up. But she had wasted her time. “Why didn’t you call and tell me not to come?”

  “Because there is one thing we should discuss.” He sat down in his chair. “The new political climate of the area. Because of the recent violence there is more pressure from above to maintain order. Montrose is incompetent. There is little chance he can make a case against you without witnesses. And has he found any?”

  “He says not.”

  “But still the pressure is building. He will have to produce a warrant against someone soon or lose his job.”

  She squinted. “And that someone will be me?”

  A Gallic shrug. “I spoke to someone I know in the courts in Bergerac. One murder of an old putain isn’t too much to get excited about. But now, with arson and riots, things must stop. The provincial government will not allow disorder. There is too much at stake with the tourist monies.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I will try to get your passport back, Madame. And when I do, I suggest you leave the country as soon as possible.”

  They returned home in late afternoon, hot and tired. At a small bistro, the one opposite the locksmith on the derelict block, they ate an early dinner. Merle felt strange, cramped, having left the village and returned. She wished she’d never seen Lalouche. As they walked home Annie peeked into the abandoned townhouses, talking about renovating this one, remodeling that one, but Merle watched passersby, suspicious of every look. Were they all Redier’s? Had they all decided to sacrifice her for the public good? She needed her passport, and she needed it now. But how could she run out on Justine? She was Harry’s mother. No one cared about her, not even the police. But maybe it was time. There were no more secrets. She knew who Harry’s real parents were, and what his father had done. That was plenty.

  In the evening Merle carried the trash to the can in the alley. An old woman stood in the alley nearby, sweeping up shards of glass. She wore a gray skirt and blue blouse, with a red and orange scarf on her head. Pumps even though she was cleaning. She bent down to pick up the dust pan, then met Merle’s gaze.

  Merle smiled, holding open the lid of her can. Was this the woman pointing at them at the café? “Beaucoup de verre, oui?” Lots of glass.

  Her earlobes hung with rhinestone clusters below the colorful scarf covering her steely gray hair. She looked brightly past Merle, into the garden.

  “Voulez-vous entrez?” Would you like to come in? She stood still as a statue for a moment, then stepped into the garden. Immediately she walked to the new bush, the Reine de Violette rose, cupping a mauve blossom in her hand. “Vous? You planted it?” Merle asked.

  She nodded, her eyes filling as she began to mumble in French. She was upset, rambling. Merle couldn’t understand her. “Lentement, madame,” she pleaded: slowly. But the woman sat down on the low terrace wall and let the story spill out of her. She sputtered, her face animated, joyful, sad, reminiscing, angry.

  Annie stepped out. “Who’s this?”

  “That woman on the plaza. I can’t understand her. I think she’s using patois. Get Albert.”

  Merle held the woman’s gnarled hand. She kept up her tale like she’d been waiting her whole life to tell the story. What was she saying — the house? Dominique?

  Pascal came through the kitchen door. Seconds later Albert arrived through the garden gate with Annie.

  Pascal looked like he’d been up all night, hair greasy and clothes sweated through with stains now dried. “I can’t understand her.” He sat down next to the woman and asked her name. “Josephine Azamar,” she whispered then launched again into her story.

  Albert whispered to Annie as she talked. Finally Pascal touched the woman’s knee, making her stop. “She is the aunt of someone named Marie-Emilie. Madame Azamar owned this house, inherited from her mother, and lived here during the war. Then she went to live with her husband’s family. Her husband has died, so she moved back to the village. She says she gave the house to Marie-Emilie when she married the American.”

  “Weston.” Merle turned to the woman. “Madame Sabatini?”

  “C’est moi,” the woman whispered, eyes wide.

  “Lorenzo Sabatini was her first husband," Merle said. "He died in the war or right after.”

  Josephine said something then jumped up, scurrying out the gate. “She’s coming back,” Pascal said.

  “Did she say anything about Dominique?”

  “She says Dominque was the American's … mistress. He flaunted her, took her places with him. Shocked the village.” He looked at each of them, ending on Merle. “She had his child. Did you know?”

  Merle nodded.

  “He turned the village against her relatives. They had to move away.”

  “But the mayor, and the gendarme? They are —“

  “It was the Chevalier relatives who moved away. Ma
rie-Emilie’s relatives. The Redier family closed ranks, burying the scandal. She says Weston came to her later to borrow money to go to America.”

  “Did she say anything more about the child?”

  “No. How did you find her?”

  “She was sweeping in the alley. She had the grocer point me out. I think she’s had a key to the gate all these years too. She planted that little rose bush, after Justine was killed. The whole village must have known she was Dominique.”

  Josephine rushed back through the gate, pausing to catch her breath. She thrust a small black-and-white photograph into Merle’s hands. The background was the garden, and the back wall of the house with a climbing rose blooming by their heads. The kitchen window was in the picture. Weston was a handsome man, with wavy dark hair, bushy eyebrows and a mustache like Clark Gable. A brunette woman stood next to him.

  “Qui est la?” she asked the Josephine. Who is that?

  “Marie-Emilie,” she answered.

  She stared at the photo, the dark hair. Marie-Emilie was blonde. “I’ll be right back.”

  In the front room Merle pulled out the stack of photographs from the cupboard.The old photograph, from the safe deposit box, showed Weston and Marie-Emilie in front of a brick house. A very blonde Marie-Emilie.

  In the garden she put the two photographs beside each other. “Regardez.” They all squinted at the images.

  Josephine said, “Cette femme n’est pas Marie.” Marie-Emilie was dark, like a gypsy, with black eyes and nearly black hair and a big bosom, she said. She was taller than Weston. He was very short, like Albert. This woman, this blonde, must be very small, her eyes are light, her nose is wrong. She is yellow-haired and not Marie-Emilie, Josephine said emphatically.

  Merle turned the photograph over: ‘Wes and Emilie.’ She pointed to Josephine’s photo. “This is Marie-Emilie Chevalier? Married to Weston Strachie?”

  “Absolutement.”

  So who was the blonde? Merle asked to borrow the photograph. Josephine said she had memories in her heart and some of them weren’t very good ones. She shook hands with Pascal and Merle, Albert and Annie, then walked her dignified walk, broom in hand, out the garden gate.