Nevers Page 2

  The musicians were singing “À la claire fontaine”:

  In the clear fountain

  As I was strolling by

  I found the water so lovely

  That I bathed there.

  Long have I loved you.

  Never will I forget you.

  When they finished, the crowd cheered, then quieted, attentive for the next musical offering. And it was in that moment of expectant silence that a crash like the worst thunder, like a stampede of a hundred horses, like a mountain falling, filled the air. Guests screamed. Birds screeched. Dust billowed thick as smoke.

  The great castle wall of Sigy-le-Châtel had fallen. The air throbbed, swirling where it had not for centuries.

  Marcel ran toward the rubble and fell to his knees, moaning. Party guests rushed to comfort him (Odette noticed that they didn’t kneel in the dirt as Marcel did, but squatted so as to keep their formal trousers clean). Others clambered over the rocks, looking for casualties.

  In the midst of the chaos, a length of red silk sailed over the debris. Marcel caught it and clutched it to his chest, launching into louder paroxysms of unhappiness. When Odette asked to see her mother’s scarf, Marcel dabbed his eyes with it, then handed her the moist cloth.

  Odette recognized immediately that what her mother’s seventh husband took as a symbol of Anneline’s demise was in fact a message for her, the knot in it tied after the wall fell and just before her mother threw it. As the partygoers scrambled over the fallen rocks, calling her mother’s name into the dark openings, Odette sneaked toward the bushes at the edge of the ruins.

  Odette was sure her mother would not have perished in such an outrageous accident. Outrageous accidents were how her mother lived. No, Odette had never doubted that Anneline would die at the end of a boring day spent playing shuffleboard and eating mashed prunes. There would be no mayhem, no murder, no mystery—just a slowing of heartbeats, a little more silence between each breath, a little less air and a little more space.

  But the people in their evening gowns swinging lanterns over the rubble and crying, “Anneline! Anneline!” were fooled. For in their tidy, sleepy lives, walls did not fall. The world did not perpetually shift sideways, did not zig or zag. This was Odette’s life. Turmoil was always on the horizon—when it wasn’t under her feet.

  Odette put the scarf to her nose and smelled the Egyptian oil that her mother rubbed into her neck each morning as she murmured, “My neck will not collapse, my neck will not collapse. My neck is not the Roman Empire.” Sometimes the smell comforted Odette, but now it angered her.

  A dove cooed in the bushes, sounding much like the one she and her mother and Marcel had heard that morning while eating breakfast. Only this dove was articulate.

  “Coo-coo-Odette,” it said.

  “Coo-coo-coming,” Odette grunted in reply.

  Odette pointed across the heap of ancient stones and called out to the thwarted revelers. “Legs! Someone has been crushed!” It was true. As she was clambering over the rocks, she had come upon a pair of lifeless trousered legs sticking out from the wreckage.

  The men and women in fancy clothes flocked across the rocks, and Odette backed into the woods until a bony hand clamped onto her shoulder. “Time to change addresses,” Anneline said.

  Through the dark night Odette had led her mother across fields, over streams and through forests, Anneline complaining incessantly. “My feet are so sore. I didn’t eat even one oyster. Why is the moon so faint? Stop. I am out of breath.”

  But when they did stop, Odette felt the weight of the sky over her and the stars piercing its darkness like knifepoints, urging her to keep going and to never return.

  Three

  Odette and Anneline step into an alley thick with chickens squawking and scrambling over each other as a heavyset man in a cloak made of chicken feathers scatters handfuls of corn. “Feast, beautiful chickens, lucky chickens.”

  “Excuse us,” Anneline says.

  The man gazes at her wonderingly, as most men do. “M. Gustave feeds the chickens, and the chickens feed M. Gustave!” he jokes, clearly hoping Anneline will find him clever.

  Odette tugs on her mother’s cloak, wanting to steer her back toward the main road, but Anneline tosses her head and strides through the clot of clucking chickens.

  “Mother,” Odette pleads.

  “Did you ladies notice the rain early this morning?” The man raises his sturdy paw of a hand. “Drops larger than my thumb! Amazing liquid!”

  “Yes,” Anneline agrees. “The raindrops were enormous. Large as caterpillars.”

  Odette bites her tongue. Her mother didn’t see the rain—she snored among the cheeses as it fell.

  But Odette saw it. As they had rumbled up and down the hills and valleys of Burgundy, she had pressed an eye to a hole in the carriage’s canvas cover and watched happily as the glaring stars were swallowed by dark cloud. The drops that fell had indeed been unusually large.

  “They leapt when they struck the ground!” M. Gustave says, his broad, red face shining with enthusiasm.

  “Like sparks,” Anneline says. “Fairy lightning.”

  M. Gustave bows. “You are most interesting, Madame.”

  “And you have lovely chickens.”

  “I do.”

  “I will buy one from you one day and savor its meat.”

  “It is good meat. Tender and moist.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Anneline agrees flirtatiously. “My daughter and I will choose a big bird, with enough feathers for me to make a hood for your cloak, to protect you from large drops of rain.”

  Odette winces, knowing she will be the one to make the hood. She will be the one to buy the chicken. To wring its neck. To pluck it. To build the fire to roast it. Odette does not like to think about the promises her mother has made and broken. In her mind they lie like ribbons on a dirty road, fallen from the hair of wealthy girls bouncing along in a cabriolet.

  We will get your shoes repaired in the morning.

  I will trim your hair—I am very good with scissors.

  I will wash the pot—don’t you worry.

  You’ll like this one—he’s very nice and smart. We’ll be married forever.

  At least there is another side to the ledger. Anneline has never once scolded Odette. And Odette has never disappointed her mother. She has never complained. Until now. She was happy in Sigy-le-Châtel. She’d had a livelihood there, tending a neighbor’s hogs. She liked the hogs, and they liked her. Now they will think she abandoned them.

  “I will be the one to sew the hood,” she mutters, her jaw tight.

  Her mother studies her, confused. “Well, yes.”

  “I mean…” Odette starts. “You said you’d…” But her body rebels at this new tack. Her skin prickles with sweat. Her mouth goes dry. She can’t continue. A chicken runs past, chased by a rooster. “Never mind,” she mumbles.

  “My daughter and I are seeking a house to rent,” Anneline tells M. Gustave. “We are new to Nots.”

  “Nevers,” Odette says under her breath.

  M. Gustave doesn’t seem to care that this mother and daughter wear fancy clothes stained with mud, or that their hair is knotted, or that they smell faintly of cheese. Perhaps it is Anneline’s hypnotic green eyes or her assurance that she will one day buy one of his chickens, but M. Gustave stops casting corn and sizes up the pair with interest.

  “I know of an apartment,” he says. “The old gatehouse. Once upon a time, anyone entering Nevers had to declare themselves to the sentry, show their papers or whatnot and explain their business. Soldiers ran the place then, but now my hen Lisane rules the roost, ha-ha. If there is a prize for the highest-flying hen, my Lisane would win it. She flies in and out through a broken window.

  “I climbed the stairs not long ago, ducked through the old door and found my Lisane strutting happily between the two small rooms. The place needs a sweep and something in the windows to keep the wind out, and maybe it’s a bit noisy, with th
e carriages passing under all day. But there is a fireplace and even a mattress, and the roof only leaks in a few spots.”

  To Odette, the lodging sounds little better than a chicken coop. Still, it’s worth a visit.

  “The sooner we get settled, the sooner we can prepare a chicken feast,” Anneline tells M. Gustave.

  So M. Gustave leads Odette and her mother left and right down narrow streets and alleys until they stop at a small stone house straddling a road like a bridge. Fishmongers and carts and laughing children pass right under it.

  Its window is framed with battered shutters, and the little house is slightly askew. But it isn’t altogether awful, Odette thinks. It even holds some charm. It is draped with vines, which make it look cozy, and the roof slates are small and even. Odette takes a deep breath. She and Anneline may sleep well here.

  M. Gustave huffs and puffs up the stone stairs. Odette imagines he must be hot in his feathered cape. “Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen Lisane in quite a few days,” M. Gustave says. “I hope a fox hasn’t gotten in.”

  Odette and Anneline follow him through a small door into a small room that holds a weary mattress and a blackened fireplace. The second room is even humbler, except for a surprisingly graceful armoire on short, curved legs. Cherry wood, Odette deduces by its reddish color.

  The apartment floors are littered with mouse droppings, and the thick layer of dust on the floors, windowsills and mantelpiece is etched with chicken prints. Odette decides to leave a few of the cobwebs when she cleans, in case she or Anneline cut themselves—webs are excellent for sealing wounds. This is the kind of thing a young girl with a peripatetic life learns.

  Odette puts her head into the fireplace and looks up. The square of blue sky at the top of the chimney is as clear as the water at the bottom of a well.

  “Well?” M. Gustave asks, still catching his breath from the short climb up the stairs. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s what you want. Rare for a chimney that has sat so long to be free of nests. A good sign. Of course, some people go ahead and light a fire even when there is a nest. The birds flap fast and high into the air with their tails smoking. It is very, very cruel.”

  Anneline lowers herself onto a corner of the mattress. She looks at Odette and asks meekly, “Can we stay?”

  Odette nods. “We’ll take it,” she tells M. Gustave.

  “Four francs each full moon.”

  “But you don’t own it,” Odette argues. “Lisane does.”

  M. Gustave nods. “But I own her.”

  “We don’t have any coins at the moment—” Anneline begins.

  Odette gives her a look that is sharp as a knife. “We’ll bring the coins tomorrow,” she tells M. Gustave.

  “If you can’t pay, I will have to kick you out,” M. Gustave warns. He glances at Anneline. “Even if you’re beautiful.”

  “We’ll also want a bird on Thursday,” Odette says to restore good feeling.

  M. Gustave’s feathered shoulders relax. He glances at Anneline and raises his thick eyebrows. “It will be plump. And juicy.”

  “Yes, yes,” Anneline says wearily, removing her dirty gloves and falling back onto the mattress.

  M. Gustave bows, then skulks through the door. A small storm of white and brown feathers eddies in his wake.

  Four

  As soon as M. Gustave is gone, Odette draws up a list in her mind of tasks and chores. Anneline arranges her filthy cape over her as a blanket. She waves a hand at Odette. “Aline et Valcour.”

  Odette empties their velvet bag onto the uneven hearth and hands the novel, which she has mended numerous times, restitching the ragged spine, to her mother. Anneline sinks into its pages and is soon sighing and sucking her ring finger.

  Anneline’s fourth husband, the morose language teacher, had explained to Odette that Aline et Valcour was an “epistolary” novel: “From epistle, which means ‘letter.’ An epistolary novel is written as a series of letters between two characters. In this case the two are the fevered-with-love Aline and the wealthy Valcour.”

  “Could you read me some?” Odette had asked, curious.

  The teacher had pinched his glasses onto his nose, mumbling, “You really must practice your reading.” Then he had opened the book. “You purify all that touches you. My senses are confused, reason leaves me. Why did I ever lay eyes on you? Why did your charming features intrude upon my soul…”

  “Enough!” Odette had shouted at the teacher. She had felt woozy and nauseous, as if she had eaten too many puits d’amour stuffed with vanilla cream and gooseberry jam. Odette didn’t like desserts. She was an entrée person. She was not a dreamer; she was a doer.

  “A bit rich, isn’t it?” the teacher had agreed. “Well, the author sure is rich. He has sold many copies.”

  While Anneline sucks on her finger and sighs, Odette investigates their new home, breathing deeply from time to time to tamp down the excitement rising in her breast. She has moved too many times to be carried away with optimism. Still, she can’t wait to dip a rag in soapy water, wring it—the burbling music of industry—and scrub and scour, tidy and tame, and possibly turn a corner into a new life free of scuffs and humiliations.

  Odette discovers a straw broom, missing only a few twigs, tucked beside the fireplace. She knows her way around repair. “Repair is next to godliness,” Félix, her mother’s third husband, had once sung as he repaired their wood floor with a piece of copper. He’d winked at Odette, showing off an eyelid dark with cemetery dirt. Félix spent his days as a gravedigger. The expression was really cleanliness is next to godliness. Even Odette, with an agnostic mother, knew that.

  In addition to the broom, Odette finds a warped but serviceable wooden spoon, a hand spade, a sharpening stone and a battered tin pail. She holds the pail up to the window. Two spindles of light stream through. Not bad. The small holes will be easily repairable with a pinch of pitch mixed with pinesap.

  The best discovery, though, is inside the armoire. Odette hears rustling, but she isn’t afraid. She has met many mice and rats in her life. She pulls gently on the armoire door. As soon it is open a crack, a hen bursts out, screeching and flapping, black pinfeathers peppering the air.

  “You must be Lisane,” Odette says calmly. She grabs the anxious bird and holds her tight, squeezing her wings closed. “I’m sorry to disturb you. But I’m not a threat, I promise. Let me see what you’re so protective of.”

  Lisane feebly pecks Odette’s shoulder as Odette opens the armoire door wide. “I see.”

  A clutch of mottled brown eggs sits on a bed of twigs and cobwebs. As Lisane wriggles, Odette grazes the eggs’ domed tops with her fingertips. The eggs are warm, which is a good sign. Odette sets the black hen on top of her silent brood. Lisane plops down protectively, fluffing her feathers the way cats puff their fur out double on cold days.

  Odette closes the armoire door. Her head crowds with chores to be done. Firewood will be vital once the sun is down. A blanket too. Candles, rags, kettle and pot, lime and ash for soap, vegetables, meat, coins for rent. And corn and a dish for water so the black hen doesn’t have to leave her burgeoning brood in the coming days. The bottoms of Odette’s feet tickle, and her bones tingle. It’s the thrill of making do, the nimble calculations of resourcefulness.

  The apartment’s back door faces the front door. A leap across the meager hall could take a dog from one sill to the other. The back door opens onto a second flight of stone stairs, some of them worn so thin they seem to dribble into the next. The steps carry Odette down to a small yard walled in on all sides and tasseled in places with lemongrass and rosemary. A hoe nearly swallowed by brambles rests against a back wall.

  Odette fetches her knife from the velvet bag and cuts willow stems to mend the broom. The folding knife was a gift for Anneline from Félix on their first—and only—anniversary. Odette was young at the time, but she remembers her mother peeling apples with the knife—they often pic
nicked in those days—and once Anneline had risked the blade’s tip to pry open an oyster.

  With the hoe, Odette clears the weeds around the rosemary and uncovers mint and wild carrots growing in the long grasses. As she makes room for them to flourish, the toe of her sabot, her wooden shoe, strikes something hard in the dirt. She digs and uncovers what looks like an enormous shinbone. She soon learns that it belonged to a horse, because at the narrow end of the shinbone lies a horseshoe. She reaches for the horseshoe and brushes off the dirt. It has hardly rusted. Good luck, indeed!

  Odette surveys the ground. Lumps in the dirt sketch out the horse’s entire skeleton. She determines where each shinbone comes to an end, the little mound where the hoof would be, and then digs.

  M. Gustave had said that this house had been a guard’s hut, so perhaps she has found the bones of a military horse, abandoned at the height of the chaos that was the Revolution. Odette knows that in the most fervent days, everyday tasks fell away. People forgot to eat. There was even a couple in her village who forgot their wedding day. It would not be impossible for a horse to be forgotten.

  Odette uncovers all four horseshoes, as well as the twenty-four nails that once held them in place. The iron shoes, each stamped with a fleur-de-lis, have weight, and weight, Odette knows, is value. “I’ll cover you up again later,” Odette tells the forgotten horse. “I’m in a moment of need. Give me a night, and you will be at rest.”

  As she heads out of the yard, horseshoes jangling on her waist sash, she hears rock grind against rock. She turns as a shaft of light pierces the yard’s east wall.

  Odette’s new house shares a wall with another, larger house. Odette had noticed it as they approached. The windows of the other house stood open, and duvets hung over the windowsills, airing. Odette thought she saw, inside one of the rooms, diapers strung up to dry. The yards, like the houses, share a wall. From which someone has now removed a stone.

  Odette approaches the chink. When she is close enough, she swoops down and blazes her eye into the hole. Across the dark gap stares a dark eye with long lashes. It blinks, then pulls away.