the cassandra pages

La Vie en Rosé - Parts Five and Six

PART FIVE

In the distance a dog barked once, twice, paused for ten seconds, barked again twice then repeated the whole pattern until Susan stopped counting. Crickets sang their crickety tunes, lavender, thyme and oranges dispensed their perfume generously and time-worn cobblestones massaged her tired feet. Everything about this evening felt heightened, momentous, as if she had stepped outside her usual life and seen it from another angle.

"It's not just the booze," she said aloud.

The party was still on at the Morrison's house. Susan could hear familiar English voices making loud party noises in the back garden. Apparently her absence had not been noticed or if it was, had not caused much concern. Susan couldn't remember how long she'd been gone. It seemed a very long time. Her car was still parked in front. No doubt George's conversation with Mrs. teetotally bitch had progressed to a quickie upstairs. The thought of re-entering all that stress made her feel sick. Susan decided to walk home. Let George take the car. She wanted to hold on to the new calm mood as long as possible.

* * *

Père Lafitte finished his evening prayers and reached up to a shelf high above his bed. He pulled down the book he read every night, a book he had stolen, aged thirteen, from the public library. He was not sorry for the theft because the book was meant for him: of this he was certain. It was his companion, his entertainment, his inspiration: Exploits Etranges et Extraordinaires. In these accounts - truth or fiction, no matter - of amazing, outlandish exploits by ordinary/extraordinary people, he found a kind of faith which religion didn't entirely supply. He turned to his favourite story. No matter how many times he read it, each time it was new and thrilling.

As he settled back in his narrow bed, the heavy book propped up against his knees, Père Lafitte heard a dog barking once, twice, pausing for ten seconds, barking again twice then repeating the whole pattern. The priest smiled contentedly. Every night the dog performed this ritual. Every night Marcel Lafitte read the same book. Every morning he would say mass. Things were as they should be.

PART SIX

"I like Lafitte. He's completely free from bullshit." Susan was talking to herself, caressed by a warm breeze. "Rare in anybody but in a priest, that's a bloody miracle. I should have got to know him sooner."

The way home was through the village and then twenty minutes down a pot-holed road with a boarded-up tile factory and a couple of abandoned farms as the only scenic attractions. When they decided to move to France, minimal traffic was the first item on George and Susan's list. All the picturesque places shown to them by over-excited estate agents could only be accessed in summer if you were willing to spend hours sitting nose to tail in traffic queues longer than those in London. So they went off on their own, driving randomly around the country, drinking a lot of wine and following hunches until, eventually, they found La Rive and an unremarkable house with potential to become their home.

Susan shivered, one of those sudden, mysterious shivers not caused by the weather but by some inner climate change. George. She did not believe in love at first sight and it was not love when she first laid eyes on him. Only a certainty that all the affairs and occupations which had crowded her life until then were merely rehearsals and that here, at last, was the role she was meant to play. No question, no hesitation. Whoosh! Her past was swept off the map and the future was clear: George. She had no illusions. He was so transparent you knew immediately that he was trouble. No matter. He was the only unambiguous decision she had ever made. And decisive she became. Susan seduced him slowly, trusting her instincts, ignoring all obstacles, especially those designed by George to make her fail. " I'm not your man, " he'd say repeatedly. But year by year, denial after denial, he grew to depend on her. Susan was making an adequate living as a free-lance proof-reader and typist and he had come to her recommended by a friend. George was well-enough established among the cognoscenti but he was no literary superstar and too disorganised to go after superstardom, though he craved it. Susan, he discovered, was an excellent organiser and it was foolish to  keep on resisting when she was so eager to take on the task of ensuring his immortality, as if her own life depended on it.

* * *

By the time George got home from the party Susan was asleep. "You could have told me you were leaving," he said, getting into bed, "I looked all over for you."

"No you fucking didn't. You were busy entertaining Mrs. Morrison."

"Look,' George said, turning away and closing his eyes,  " If you want to go back on the booze, that's your choice, Susan. But I'm not  going down that road of paranoia with you."

La Vie en Rosé - Part Four

 
by Natalie d'Arbeloff
 
Marcel Lafitte was used to silence, he craved it as others craved 
communication. But the insistent, demanding silence which now 
inhabited the room oppressed him. C'est toujours la même chose avec 
ces gens, he thought, le sexe, l'argent, le mécontentement.
 
"Alors c'est quoi?" he could not hide his irritation, "The problem? 
Sex? Money? Discontent with yourself?"
 
Susan stared at him. "The money's fine, the rest is a mess." The 
priest's lack of social graces was surprisingly encouraging. "I was 
looking out the window. My husband and yet another other woman. All 
these voice were chattering around me and suddenly I couldn't 
understand anything. Nothing real. C'etait pas vrai, you know? So I 
drank all the booze and walked out."
 
"You went looking for a nunnery."
 
Susan shrugged. "I was drunk. I am a drunk. A reformed one, at least 
until tonight. Three whole years! Trois ans j'ai pas touché la 
bouteille! Not even a sniff. "
 
"Alors, what is your next step?"
 
"I have no fucking idea!" She laughed. "What kind of a priest are 
you? You're supposed to be telling me what to do next."
 
"Madame, this collar does not give me wisdom. A gendarme's uniform 
does not make him obey the law. I have little experience of the life 
you speak of. And I must retire now, I have an early mass tomorrow. 
Do you wish me to accompany you back to your friends' house?"
 
Susan stood up reluctantly, disappointed, like a child being sent to 
bed. "No, I can manage on my own, Padre. Thank you for your 
hospitality." She extended a limp hand which the priest shook 
politely, gravely.
 
"If I can be of any assistance, you can always find me here or in my 
church. Bonne nuit, Madame."
 
Swaying a little, Susan walked out into the warm night, carrying her 
shoes. The village street was deserted, lit only by the moon.

La Vie en Rosé - Part Three

by Natalie d'Arbeloff

The walls of the priest’s kitchen were stained brown and black -  tobacco brown, soot black, with a patchy patina of grease like badly applied varnish.

“Like those old brown paintings by forgotten artists lining the walls of remote museums,” Susan said aloud, talking to herself.

Alcohol had always given her words and thoughts which she would never have expressed when sober, even if they occured to her. The priest did not respond, absorbed in ritual coffee preparation: the struggle to open the rusty lid of the tin, the search for the measuring spoon, never where it should be, the rinsing of the pan still ringed with the morning’s grounds, the boiling of the water and finally, triumphantly, the hot strong black grainy liquid poured into chipped, thick-rimmed cups.

“Voilà. You take milk?”  He sat down at the rough wooden table. Susan’s eyes were searching the crowded shelves above the stove.

“Vous avez brandy? Le cognac?”

“Non,” the priest lied. His one bottle of Courvoisier was safely stored away to be eked out slowly on winter nights. He was not about to let it disappear down this woman’s greedy gullet. Susan smiled, reading his mind.

“I am a vampire. But I crave alcohol, not blood.” She leaned forward, inspired. “I am a vampoholic!” Susan laughed, suddenly unreasonably happy. “Vous comprenez? Vampoholique!”

Père Lafitte was not at ease. Such uninhibited behaviour, such joking, came from a world that was not his world. He smiled guardedly. “Oui, je comprend. But the couvent, the nunnerie, you were serious?”

Susan’s face darkened. She did not want to be reminded of George or of anything at all outside this reassuring room. She looked up at the halo of summer insects circling the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“No. I was not serious. Well, yes, I was. But not now.”  She wrapped her hands around  the hot coffee cup. “Were you born in this village, Father?”

The priest sighed wearily. Here we go, he thought, la biographie obligatoire.

“Non. I was born in Toulouse. My mother became ill. I looked after her many years. Many years. Then she died. She left me un terrain, a piece of land, near here. I became a priest. I became the village priest. I am sixty-three years old. Voilà. C’est tout.”

(to be continued)

La Vie en Rosé

La Vie en Rosé was the title that my dear friend Natalie d'Arbeloff of Blaugustine gave to her installment of the Consequences game just recently concluded. She's decided to expand her vignette into a serialized story, and I suggested that we post them here as well, since my readership is somewhat different and because the story, with its French/English implications, seemed perfect for this space too. Plus, I'm a fan of anything this abundantly creative woman does - and, during the next three weeks of our final move from Vermont to Montreal, I'm going to be busy and unable to post as much. So, watch this space, and follow along with Natalie, her heroine Susan, and La Vie en Rosé. Part Three will appear later this week.

PART ONE

“We gulp what is here and ours and nobody’s and nothing’s” George said, handing her his glass of rosé.

That’s how he talked. She couldn’t understand him half the time but he was a poet so she had learned not to ask for explanations. “Guard it with your life,” he added,  “I’ll be right back.”

Nothing he says ever means what it sounds like, Susan thought. 'Right back' could mean ten minutes, three hours or even three months. She surveyed the drinks table: two bottles of the local wine, two Perriers, two Evians and fourteen cans of sugary fizzy kid stuff. Their hosts were strictly teetotal and stingy to boot but the isolated expat community never turned down an opportunity to socialise so the room was buzzing with familiar talking heads. Through the window to the garden Susan could see the teetotal host’s teetotally blonde wife in intimate tête a tête with George.

Susan leaned back and tipped the wine down her throat. Three years on the wagon and five years of compliance suddenly vanished as she poured the remains of the first bottle into her husband's glass, drank it, then dispensing with formalities, expertly guided the rosy stream into her mouth straight from the neck of the second bottle .

Oblivious to the guests' shocked stares, Susan stumbled out of the house and down the village street just as Père Lafitte was passing by. She grabbed his arm, shouting:

"Portez-moi  à une nunnery!"

------------------------------------------
PART TWO

Marcel Lafitte’s immediate impulse was to pull away from Susan’s urgent grip but he had just been mulling over something he overheard earlier in the day, a couple of old parishioners talking about him.

“He’s so farouche,* Père Lafitte. I always have the feeling he has to make a big effort just to say bonjour.”

“Beh! He should have joined the Trappists instead of coming here.”

Père Lafitte hesitated, then took Susan’s hand and holding it in both of his, looked steadily into her tear-smudged face.

“Une nunnery!” she repeated, “Une couvent. Tout suite! S’il vous plaît.”

Père Lafitte’s English is slightly better than the French of les Anglais who have gradually moved into La Rosière in search of a paradise which does not exist anywhere on earth. Although none of them are church-goers, he knows them all sufficiently to engage in minimal small talk whenever he sees them, thankfully not too often. Of course there is the gossip, dished out by the ladies who clean the church, but he pays no attention to it.

There is something about this Englishwoman’s tipsily desperate determination which moves him. She is middle-aged but seems childlike, bewildered.

“Would you like a cup of coffee pour le moment? We can talk about the nunnerie.”

“ Yes! Oh oui! Please. Thank you.”

“Come along then. I will make coffee.”

Père Lafitte moved away at his usual brisk pace, Susan stumbling on her high heels several paces behind stopped to remove her shoes. Barefoot on the warm cobblestones she caught up with him.

“Padre,“ she whispered, “I am a bit drunk and I should not be.”

“Bon Dieu!” he thought, “I will have to listen to drunken confessing without the shelter of the confessional!” But when Marcel Lafitte decides to do something he does it and in the past half hour he decided to be more responsive to people. Père Lafitte does not like people. He likes God who is silent and demands nothing. And he loves his land, the ten wooded acres which his mother left him outside the village of La Rosière.

*2. Farouche: Exhibiting withdrawn temperament and shyness coupled with an air of cranky, often sullen fey charm: "small, farouche poems illustrated with doodles, a cross between Ogden Nash and Blake"(The Free Dictionary)