People began to drift toward the doors at the back. Pons noticed and changed his tone.
“We don’t want to be here all night, so let’s move to the main business of the evening, the vote. We have two voting tables—Green Party members to my left, Socialist Party members to my right. Show your membership card and get your ballot paper, cast your vote and put it in the boxes provided. Thanks to our student volunteers from the college, we’ll have the result counted within five minutes. And let’s give a big hand to our young people for volunteering to come and help us with our town meeting tonight.”
This brought scattered applause, the sounds of chairs being pushed back and then a chaotic muddle of people moving left and right to get to the voting tables as they paused to greet one another and shake hands and forget which table they were heading for.
“Well done, Bruno,” murmured Xavier in his ear. “For a moment there I thought we were going to elect him mayor by popular acclamation.” The deputy mayor squeezed Bruno’s arm and moved on. Then came a thump on Bruno’s back, and Montsouris, the only Communist on the council, put his burly arm around Bruno’s shoulders.
“Good question, Bruno. And even better timing,” he said, and moved to rejoin his much more left-wing wife.
“I have to go and vote,” said Pamela at Bruno’s side. “I didn’t know you were so serious about the town budget.”
“I didn’t know you’d joined a party. You have to be a member to vote tonight,” Bruno said. “That’s why I can’t vote. I’m nonpolitical.”
“Oh yes, I joined the Greens yesterday,” she said. “It seemed like a good idea to get involved. Bill signed me up himself. I’ll be right back. Are you still coming for supper afterward?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for anything. No time for lunch today.”
“You handled that well,” said Fabiola, once Pamela was out of earshot. “I didn’t know what to do, but I felt we had to do something. I hate that crowd thing, when people all get caught up in an emotion like that. You’d think we’d have learned by now.”
“You haven’t joined a party?” Bruno asked her.
“I got all that out of my system when I was a student,” she said, smiling. “Very militant, I was. I began with straight Marxism and then drifted off to the Trotskyists. I almost became a Maoist, but then the feminist movement got me, then the mountain climbing. The mountains cured me of politics. And there was also a very cute mountain climber who rescued me from the feminists just in time to settle down to study for my medical finals.”
“Well, you know the old saying: If you’re not on the left when you’re twenty, you have no heart.”
“And if you’re still there when you’re thirty, you have no head. My dad used to say it to me, and he’d been a Communist.” She paused. “I get the impression this is Pamela’s first flirtation with politics,” Fabiola said. “It can be a dangerous experience, when you come to it late.”
She looked meaningfully across the hall to the stage, where Pons was bending down attentively to talk to Pamela. Bruno noticed that Pons’s Chinese chef was standing watchfully at the side of the stage, getting his first taste of French democracy. He reminded himself that he really needed to check on getting the man’s nieces into school, but was distracted when a very pretty young blond girl whirled into his arms and gave him a strong hug. A large paternal presence loomed behind her, his plump face in a wide grin and his hand out to be shaken.
“Stéphane, Dominique,” Bruno said, returning the girl’s hug with his left arm while shaking his friend’s hand with his right. “You’re supposed to be at university in Grenoble. Don’t tell me your dad approves of your playing truant.” Stéphane laughed, proud of his daughter and beaming in delight at her unexpected arrival.
“I came back specially for this,” Dominique said. “Cheap travel for students. But I couldn’t miss it, the chance of finally getting a Green mayor for St. Denis. And my politics professor was all in favor.”
“I’m not sure Pons will be a Green mayor so much as the head of a coalition,” Bruno said. “That means compromises.”
“We’ll see,” Dominique said. “I’m glad you asked your question. I hadn’t thought about the money.”
“Money and how to spend it are what politics is all about,” said Bruno.
A howl came from the loudspeakers, and Alphonse had the microphone again.
“We have the results of your votes,” he announced. “And I’m pleased to say that majorities of all parties have voted for the common program. The Greens voted for it by forty-six to twelve. And the Socialists voted seventy-six to forty-six in favor. So we have it. And we have even bigger majorities for Guillaume Pons, whom we all know as Bill, to be our joint candidate for mayor. I now hand the microphone to him.”
Pons began by thanking them all for coming this evening and promising to organize other evening meetings like this one, so that the town’s twelve elected councillors would be accountable to the voters and party members. Then he explained that the list of candidates had some deliberate gaps, to save some places for useful and worthy citizens who are not party members to sit on the council.
“For example, I’d like to be sure we elect one of the residents of the retirement home here, so we never forget our senior citizens and their interests,” Pons said. “And I think we need a good local businessman as well, and perhaps a student. Even if they’re too young to stand for election to the town council, we can have a representative at the table because it’s their future we are talking about.”
Pons waved at the young students from the local college who had counted the votes, and they gave him a cheer. Then he made a show of shading his eyes and looking around the hall, peering from one side to another. Then he muttered an exaggerated “Aah,” gave another wave and spoke again.
“And seeing our friend Pamela here in the audience tonight, I think it would be an interesting idea to have one European citizen who is not French on our council to represent all those British and Dutch and other nationalities who have homes here and who bring money to our tourist trade. Maybe we could also find a place for our chief of police, who reminded us all tonight of the importance of keeping track of our town budget. What I’m saying, my friends, is that politics is too important these days to be left to the politicians. We need to include everybody if we are to fulfill the promise of this evening of a new day of democracy for St. Denis. Good night, and our thanks to you all, and Vive la France.”
“Councillor Bruno.” Fabiola sniffed. “I think I prefer you as chief of police. Just to keep you in your place.”
12
Bruno woke in his own bed and alone. Back at Pamela’s home after the meeting, he and Pamela and Fabiola were invited to share the chicken Pamela had left slowly roasting on a bed of potatoes and garlic. Bruno had opened a bottle of his Pomerol. Fabiola set the table in the kitchen, and Pamela opened a large can of petits pois.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m feeling drained after that event and I’d rather eat at once than wait for some vegetables to be cooked. I think I was pretty tired anyway.” She yawned.
Bruno decided to play it by ear, but he’d probably leave after the meal. He stayed the night here often enough to know where everything was, so he pulled down the decanter from the top shelf and went to the sink to pour the wine. It should have been opened a couple of hours earlier, but the decanting would have to serve. Fabiola sliced a baguette and arranged a cheese tray. Nobody was speaking and the silence was starting to become oppressive when they all spoke at once.
“Did you hear…,” began Bruno. “Sorry…,” said Pamela. “I meant to say…,” said Fabiola. “Go ahead, Pamela,” said Bruno.
“I’ll just get the chicken,” Pamela said. “I was just going to ask what you two thought about this idea of Bill’s about my going on the council. He mentioned it to me just before he spoke publicly. I think you’d do a better job, Bruno.”
“I can’t do it, and I think he probably knows that,” B
runo replied as the steaming pot came from the oven. He sniffed deeply, savoring the scents of garlic and chicken and lemon. “I’m employed by the mayor and the council. So I couldn’t be in charge of myself, it’s against the rules. I think you’d be good on the council.”
“They still talk of me as the Mad Englishwoman, don’t they?” She put the pot in the center of the table.
“That was before they got to know you,” Bruno said. “Country people always invent a nickname for strangers. It’s a way of placing them when you don’t know their parents and grandparents and how they looked when they were babies. Now everybody knows you as Pamela.”
“Would it be a lot of work?” she asked.
“It’s usually one evening every other week for the council meeting, more in the week when the budget gets approved,” Bruno replied. “But you’d have to be available to your voters. In your case, that would mean the other foreigners here, and some of them don’t speak much French. You might find yourself acting as an unpaid translator and a guide through the thickets of our French bureaucracy. And then it would depend on which committee they put you on. Avoid the ponts et chaussées committee or every farmer will be badgering you to make his cart track into a commune road so that the town has to pay for the upkeep.”
“It’s flattering just to be considered,” said Fabiola as Bruno poured the wine.
Pamela had seemed distracted, picking at her food rather than dispatching it with her usual appetite. But she drank as much wine as the other two together. After the chicken, Bruno took a small sliver of the Tomme d’Audrix, the local cheese that his friend Stéphane had invented, and a final swallow of wine. Then he rose, pleading an early start in the morning and a busy day and pretending not to notice the brief frown that passed across Pamela’s face.
“Don’t be upset,” Fabiola had said as she walked him to the Land Rover. “She’s a bit confused and distracted. A friend of hers in Le Buisson saw you with some old girlfriend at the station yesterday evening. You know how word gets around.”
Bruno replayed the scene in his head as he lay in the dark of his bedroom. There had been no time at the station for anything more than a brief peck on Isabelle’s cheek as she dashed for the waiting train. He’d always nurture a sweet tendresse for Isabelle, but she had made it clear the last time they’d parted that any romance was over. Bruno smiled to himself, remembering the look of her beside him in this bed, the scent she left on the pillows, the way she liked to wear his shirts as a dressing gown.
He opened his eyes and looked at the darkness of the woods through the window. The worst thing about winter was that dawn came so late he always rose in the dark. At least the house was warm, the thick stone walls holding the heat pumped out by the woodstove. He climbed out of bed, opened the door to let Gigi in to smother him with doggy affection, turned on Radio Périgord and began the usual routine of exercises he’d learned in the army. The second item on the news was a fire at an Asian supermarket in Bergerac. This was getting worse.
He made coffee and began toasting yesterday’s baguette for breakfast. He’d better start on the venison casserole for Hercule’s wake. Gigi looked hopeful at his feet as Bruno took down the large ham that hung from the beam that supported the kitchen roof. He sliced off some of the dense fat with the meat, chopped it into lardons, tossed them into his big casserole dish and lit the gas. He pulled down six shallots from the string that hung from the beam and began to peel them. The toast was ready, and he and Gigi ate slice and slice alike before he began cutting the venison into rough cubes. He stirred the lardons and judged whether there was sufficient fat. Not quite, so he added more from the ham and put the shallots into a separate pan to fry them with duck fat. He put more duck fat into the casserole and threw in the venison to brown.
Radio Périgord had started to play music so he tuned to France-Inter for the news and the newspaper review as he sipped his coffee and began turning the chunks of meat so they browned on all sides. From his larder he removed a large glass jar of the mushrooms he had dried in September. Then he began to peel heads of garlic. When the venison was well browned, he sprinkled flour onto the meat to soak up all the juices and then tipped in the shallots and added half a dozen cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. He took a bottle of the Bergerac red he bought for everyday drinking and poured a splash into the pan where the onions had been and grated what was left of the baguette into the glaze. He then took a fat blood sausage, made from last year’s pig, squeezed out the rich, black contents from its skin and added them to the pan, crumbling the sausage meat that would help thicken the sauce, and then scraped the result into the casserole. He added the rest of the bottle of wine, added the dried mushrooms and closed the lid.
Now for the dessert, he said to himself. He had decided on crème brûlée with truffles and began by taking a jar of truffle scraps and trimmings and tying them firmly into a small bag of doubled cheesecloth. Then he poured three quarts of heavy cream into a saucepan, turned on the heat and dropped the bag of truffle trimmings into the thick liquid. As it heated, he began—with thanks to his chickens for their fecundity even this late in the year—to crack two dozen eggs, tipping the egg halves quickly back and forth over a bowl so that the whites slithered out and the yolks were left in their half shell. In a separate bowl, he mixed the egg yolks with a dozen tablespoons of sugar until they were thickened and had turned pale yellow.
The cream was about to boil, and the heady scent of truffles began to fill the kitchen. He turned down the heat, poured in the egg yolks and whisked until the mixture began to steam. Careful not to let it boil, he tested it with a wooden spoon to see if it would coat the wood, and once it did he poured the mixture through a sieve into his largest soufflé dish. He chopped one of the black truffles he had been saving into the mix and set it aside to cool. He’d leave it in the refrigerator throughout the day to set, and then all it would need would be a layer of sugar on the top and a minute with a blowtorch to melt it. The result would be a dessert fit for royalty. No, better than that, fit for a hunters’ feast. Fit for Hercule, he thought sadly.
He turned to the sink, washed his bowls and cleaned the kitchen, put on his boots, winter jacket and woolen cap and took Gigi out for their predawn walk. The night was cold and the stars brilliant, throwing enough light to gleam on the white frost at his feet. From his barn came the soft hooting of an owl, and somewhere far off in the woods a fox barked. Bruno took a flashlight from his pocket and checked his chicken coop, and at the sound of his footsteps his cockerel gave the usual hesitant crow of a winter’s morning while the hens stayed sound asleep, heads tucked under their wings so they looked like balls of feathers. The coop was secure, and the wire netting around the chicken run was intact. That fox had better look elsewhere. His ducks were stirring, waiting for him to toss them their feed from the large bin where he kept the dried corn. From his vegetable garden he took some sprigs of thyme and plucked two leaves from the bay tree and put them by his door before taking Gigi into the familiar woods behind his home.
It was his best time for reflection, knowing the terrain so well he barely needed to think where he stepped as Gigi darted out to the left and now to the right sniffing furiously. He had the scent of the fox, and Bruno called him back. Once a basset hound had a scent he could track his prey all day. Gigi waited until Bruno approached, and even in the darkness of the trees Bruno knew that his dog would be eyeing him reproachfully, not understanding why he’d been called from his hunter’s duty. Bruno bent and fondled his head and stroked the long ears and murmured encouragements as his dog rubbed the side of his muzzle against Bruno’s leg. If only he could begin to understand women as he understood his dog.
But that would mean understanding himself and knowing what he wanted. What did he expect or hope for from Pamela? She had made it clear that she wanted no permanent relationship and that she insisted on keeping her independence. Bruno had never suggested otherwise, but he knew that she was a woman with whom he could be content.
She was considerate and kind, and the cool self-confidence of her public face became wonderfully sensuous in private. There was also the spice of her being foreign. Her French was almost perfect, but her sensibility was altogether different. They did not share the same references to old pop songs and advertising jingles, to the names of old movie stars and the reputations of old politicians.
Pamela would ask him about the different street names that he took for granted. Why was this street called the Eighteenth of June and that one the Seventh of May? And what was the Dix-huit Brumaire and the Twenty-first of April? He supposed he had absorbed all the dates at school along with the memories that were seared forever into the soul of France: the Massacre of St. Bartholomew and the Voie Sacrée of Verdun, the horn of Roland at Roncesvalles and the siege of La Rochelle, the sun of Austerlitz and Léon Blum’s Front Populaire. He could define them for her, but not the echoes and the sentiments they carried, that core of Frenchness that loved the sound of an accordion and the taste of andouillettes.
But not sharing all that was part of Pamela’s charm, he admitted. It made her just faintly exotic, with a touch of the adventure that Bruno relished in his life. Still, had it been adventure he wanted, then life with Isabelle in Paris and working for the brigadier would have been a great deal more attractive. Isabelle was wonderful and tantalizing and exciting in a way that made him want to match her daring and her pace. But not all the time. He sniffed the cold night air, saw the very first light of dawn, and he knew that he loved these woods and his home and St. Denis and never wanted to leave them.
He turned back toward his home, taking the long route along the ridge, strangely comforted that his conversation with himself had ended as it had before, with a realization that both women answered to something essential in his own nature. But neither one of them could offer him all that he needed. He loved Isabelle, but not the life and career she insisted on leading. And he loved Pamela and the country life she represented, and the way she adored this dear corner of France enough to leave her own country for it. She would be a fine woman to settle down with, but she did not want to settle down. And nor, if he were honest with himself, did he—not yet.
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