Bella... A French Life (14 page)

“That’s usually the case with snobs.”

He is smiling scornfully.

Discreetly, I watch him. I am, of course, doing so only because I want to know whether he is really enjoying the food.

His hands, like Jean-Louis’, also bear no witness to a life of hard physical labour. They are pale, unblemished; his nails, shiny like those of a woman who has just had a one hundred-franc manicure on Paris’ Rue du Faubourg-St-Honoré. Small, dark hairs creep from under the black crocodile-skin strap of his watch. A Swiss watch? Ought to be, yes, because the suitcases he had carried in on his arrival bear the logos of French and Italian designers, and his socks, as I saw earlier when he crossed his legs and his trousers pulled up, are of silk.

“Thank you, Bella, for all the trouble you’ve gone to this evening ... today ... for me. This is a delicious meal,” he says.

He’s eaten what I served him.

“Would you like another helping?”

“I would love it, yes, please.”

“No need to be polite.”

“I am not being polite.”

“Help yourself,” I encourage him.

I push the two dishes towards him.

“Your guests must love it here.”

He is scooping more of everything onto his plate.

“We have regulars, which, yes, shows there is something they like about the place.”

We fall silent, the only sound is the delicate noise of cutlery scraping over porcelain, and of the grandfather clock ticking away the seconds. I am reminded of Talleyrand’s paradox which my father always quoted
. Language was invented in order to conceal our thoughts from one another.
  If this is so, Colin must have no thoughts he wishes to hide. Unlike me.

“Grapes?” I ask, confirming to myself I do have thoughts I wish to conceal.

He has finished his second helping of the
boeuf miroton
.

“Would love some.”

I push the silver basket with the grapes towards him. He plucks a few grapes from a bunch and puts them down on my plate.

“I was not going to have any myself.”

“But now you will have to.”

He takes his dessert knife and starts to cut away the semi-translucent peel of each grape. Never have I seen anyone peel grapes. Astonished, I watch. He cuts each peeled grape in half and removes the pips with the tip of the knife.

“We French eat grapes peel and all,” I say.

“That’s how one should eat grapes, I’ve been told. The skin and pips are full of antioxidants apparently, which our bodies need, but you, the physician, should know more about this than I do. Were you in private practice by the way?”

Dangerous ground.

“Hospital. I was with a hospital?”

“Locally?”

“Paris.”

“Ah, which one? And why did you give it up? I think it is so rewarding - healing people.”

“It is.”

“Which hospital was it?” he asks again.

“You wouldn’t have heard of it. A small one. Chartreux Hospital.”

I have dropped my voice and my eyes.

“Don’t know it.”

He has eaten the grapes.

“Coffee? Would you like a coffee or a tisane perhaps, Colin?”

“Tisane?”

“We French drink a tisane after a meal. To assist the digestion, that is.”

“Ah, the doctor speaking.”

“Not at all. It’s common knowledge that a tisane will ease the digestive processes.”

“In that case, I think I will try it. Not - I must say - that this meal will in any way play havoc with my digestive system. You are a fine chef, Bella. And I thank you!”

He remains sitting at the table while I am preparing the tisane in the kitchen.

“I chose citronella. It not only assists digestion but also boosts the immune system. And it relieves morning sickness,” I explain, returning to the dining room.

“Morning sickness. Heavens!”

I fill two glasses with the deep-yellow tea from which drifts the sweet, tartly aroma of fresh lemons.

“I am a paediatrician,” I say. “Used to be a paediatrician.”

Oh hell. Why did I tell him that? I only have myself to blame should he now ask about it.

“How interesting. I mean it must be an interesting branch of the medical profession.”

“It is. Was. For me.”

“Why did you give it up? I mean it is lovely here and I can understand that this place must have been irresistible ...”

“My mother fell ill. Died. So I came here. What do you think of the tisane?”

“It’s nice. I like it. But what made you give up your medical work?”

I will have to try again to change the subject.

“Would you be looking around the region? I mean - Normandy is beautiful and merits a visit. The mount, for example, you ought to go there. I mean you must go there. You might also walk the bay. Have you seen the Bayeux tapestry? It’s a little bit of a drive - bit of a ride - but it would be worth it. But you must have seen it. I presume. And the mount too. Though the mount is so extraordinary one can see it over and over again. I can. At least. But you may have no time to spare.”

Language was invented in order to conceal our thoughts from one another.
Oh yes, Talleyrand knew what he was talking about.
Papa, dear Papa, Talleyrand knew what he was talking about.
 

Colin pushes his chair back and gets up.

“I’m going to call it a day, Bella.”

“Sure.”

“Can I help you with the washing up?”

“Oh no. No need to. Thanks.”

He nods.

“Good then, I will wish you a good night. Please do not go to trouble to give me breakfast tomorrow morning. I will just grab a cup of tea myself. I am sure I will find my way around your lovely kitchen.”

“Sleep well, Colin.”

Did he notice I had not replied to his questions about why I was no longer working as a doctor?

At the door he turns round.

“I will have time to spare. I will certainly visit the mount. Thank you for suggesting it. Maybe - I don’t know - but maybe you would like to come with me one day? But - it is as you wish, of course. It will have to be by car though - that is, if you do not wish to have the wind upset your hair. Kind of. Sort of. Your hair looks so nice very day.”

-0-

I stack the dish washer and I clean up in the kitchen. It has started to rain again. The tinkling of a cow bell drifts from somewhere in the night. A dog howls. Up in the bedroom I pull the curtain aside and I put my face against the cold windowpane. I see only the black of the night. Land, sky, sea. Black. Black like the soul in its darkest hour. And I know all about that.

I crawl into bed and I pull the blanket over my head.

What got into me to have agreed to a guest this winter?

-0-

Chapter Eighteen

Pulling a blanket over my head is something I used to do when I was a child. “Bella,
meine liebling
, hiding from a problem is not how to solve it,” my father always said. He used to come and sit on my bed and always he sang the Christmas carol,
Rudolph, the red-nosed Reindeer
to try to cheer me up.
Rudolph, das kleine Rentier, seine Nase war so schön, denn sie war leuchtend rot. Das war nicht zu übersehn.
He sang until my head would pop from underneath the blanket when he would kiss me on my forehead and say, “There you are. Life’s not bad, you know, my child.”

The first time he coaxed me from underneath the blanket in this way was when Miss Matigot, my teacher, decided we in her class should draw up a family tree. She gave each of us a stencilled copy of a drawing of an oak tree onto which she had pasted thirty-four blank squares of paper. On these we were to write the names and whatever details of date and place of birth and death we had of our ancestors, going into the past as far as our great-great-great grandparents. I was eleven years old and I already knew what Miss Jambenoire talked about when she spoke of loins and of
un sale Boche
. I therefore knew my family tree was going to be different from those of my classmates. Of that of Marie Dumay who sat next to me, of Anselme Mathiot who sat behind me, of Nestor Toussaint, who was best in spelling, of Vincent Lebar who walked with elbow canes because he had polio when he was little, and of Florence Dubois whose father shot himself dead because his lumber business had gone bankrupt.

I took the drawing home as Miss Matigot said we should for our parents to help us fill in those thirty-four blank squares. “Ah
merde
!” I thought I heard my father exclaim when he saw the drawing. Had I not so feared the soap mouthwash, I would have said so too. One consolation was, that I knew, that with my mother’s side of the family, I would not encounter a problem. Her people - the Desmarais - were French to every little hair on their body. Natives of Normandy, they had been marsh dwellers from way back and hence their surname. The family even had a coat of arms. My mother had a small tapestry on which the coat of arms showing green acacia branches around a suit of armour was embroidered in fine cross stitch. Proudly, she hung it in the first floor corridor.

After my father’s initial expletive he announced he was not ashamed of being German. “I just do not want Bella to feel awkward in front of her classmates,” he said.

Did I feel awkward!

“What do we have here?” Miss Matigot, her black hair braided into what I thought looked like a Roman emperor’s crown, muttered on first seeing my tree.

“Miss! Miss!” Vincent Lebar called to her.

He banged one of his canes against the floor to attract her attention, as was his habit.

“Not now, Vincent.”

She waved her right hand, the many metal bracelets hanging from her wrist, jingling like the bells around a cow’s neck.

She called me to her table. A pencil stuck from the Roman crown. At times she took hold of the pencil to scratch underneath the hair; my classmates and I used to giggle about it saying behind her back that she had lice. She always did the scratching when she was angry, but on that morning she did not do so, which told me my family tree was not angering her. It had caught her interest.

“Bella, dear Bella, I see that your father was a German.” she said quietly as if she and I were sharing a great secret.

“My father is still a German, Miss. When my mother goes voting he walks with her to the poling booth, but it is only because he does not want her to go on her own, as he is not allowed to vote because he is German. One day my brother and I will be able to vote because we are French.”

“I see, Bella.”

How could she not have seen what the situation was with all those German names, which my father had, eventually, proudly written down for me so I could copy them out onto the squares of white paper, stuck like the steps of a staircase over the left side of the oak tree. Wolff. Brunner. Hille. Werner. And more Wolff. Wolff. Wolff. The right side of the oak was for my mother’s ancestors.

I was told I could return to my desk.

“Children!” Miss Matigot called out. “Bella’s father was born in Berlin. Any of you have a parent who was not born here in France? It will be interesting to know.”

“Miss! Miss! My father says her father is a
Boche
!” shouted Anselme Mathiot from his desk.

He kicked against the back of my chair as if to establish a fact.

“Anselme, if you wish to speak - as you know - you have to put up your arm and wait for me to give you permission to say something,” Miss Matigot reprimanded him.

Anselme put up his arm, which like his face, was covered in freckles as large as wedding confetti.

“Yes, Anselme?” Miss Matigot acknowledged the raised arm.

“Miss, my father says Bella’s father is a
Boche
.”

“And what is a
Boche
, Anselme?”

“It is what Bella’s father is, Miss.”

Again, he kicked the back of my chair.

“Thank you, Anselme, for the information. Now, do sit down.”

Miss Matigot gave me a smile.

We had to pin the family trees to the blackboard with tiny coloured pins she had handed out. I thought I was going to bring up the boiled egg I had had for breakfast, my stomach heaved that much. There were all those French surnames on the family trees. Du Pont. Du Toit. Lacoffe. Leconte. Leborgne. Allais. Renard. Bruel.  

“Your dad was a murderer!”

Anselme stood beside me at the blackboard and had whispered that to me.

“Did you say something, Anselme?” Miss Matigot asked.

She had stepped over to stand beside us.

“No, Miss. Nothing, Miss,” said Anselme.

Later that day, in the playground, when my classmates were playing
escargot
- hopscotch - I sat out with Vincent Lebar as if I, like him, also had a shrivelled leg.

Walking home, knowing that my classmates knew what I had known since my first day at school with the help of Miss Jambenoire, I just wanted to cry, and, getting home and seeing my father, the sweat pouring over his handsome face and his blond hair pasted to his face from the effort he was putting into chopping up logs for our fireplace so we, his children and his wife, would not be cold, I, overwhelmed by my love for him, burst into tears.

“Bella,
meine liebling, was ist loss
?” he asked.

He reached for me.

“It’s you … you’re a
Boche
… and …”

I was going to say
and I love you all the same
, but the pain on my father’s face at that moment had shut me up. Oh heaven! The pain ... the pain I had caused him, my dear wonderful father having called him a
Boche
! The smile he had on seeing me was swept away as if it had been snatched off his face. And his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, had become glassy and grey like the eyes of the dead fish at one of our Thursday markets.

“Don’t you of all people speak to your father like that!” shouted my mother from behind me.

She told me to apologise to my father.

“Leave her, Henriette, leave the child … she’s just a child,” my father begged.

“I will do no such thing, Rody!” she shouted.

Rody
.