A Tangled Web (34 page)

September. My birthday. And I'll be home for good.

S
tephanie and Léon met on the sidewalk on the cours Gambetta as she was wheeling her bicycle from the shop and he was striding toward her.

“I was watching for you,” he said as they shook hands. “Perhaps you will let me join you on your ride.”

Her heart had lifted when she saw him and she was smiling. “But you have no bicycle.”

“Behind you, in the shop. We use the same repairman; it's a good sign, I think. May I join you?”

“Yes, I'd like that.”

“I'll be right back.”

In a moment he was wheeling his bicycle from the shop, unhooking his helmet from the handlebars as he stopped beside her. “Have you a destination?”

“No. I thought perhaps some of the hill towns. I've only ridden to three of them.”

“Have you been to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse?”

“No. I haven't even heard of it.”

“Then that is where we go. No, I'm sorry; that was high-handed. I'd like to show you one of my favorite
spots, but since what I want most is to spend the afternoon with you, I'll go wherever you choose.”

“Fontaine. Is it really a fountain?”

“An underground one, a spring that is the source of the river Sorgue. A beautiful spot; magical, I think.”

“Then that is where we go.”

He chuckled and they put on their helmets and began to walk the bicycles to the corner. “I saw you leave your shop; have you had lunch?”

“No, I didn't want to take the time. I brought an apple.”

“Have you the time when we get to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse? I'd like to show you Cafe Philip; another of my special places.”

Stephanie thought about it only a moment. “Yes. Not all afternoon, but for a little while.”

“Good.” They parted to allow a woman with a baby buggy to pass between them. “Where have you ridden around here?”

“Mainly around the vineyards, but last week I rode to Maubec and Robion and up to Oppède-le-Vieux.”

“A steep hill; you're very strong. But isn't it a wonderful ride? And beyond, to Ménerbes and Bonnieux as well.”

“How do you ride so much, and paint?”

“I almost always ride in the morning, seven, six, even five o'clock. I recommend it; perhaps we'll do it together. The traffic is light; the air is cool. By now, the end of June, it really is too hot to—” He stopped. “I just realized. Have you recently come to Cavaillon?”

“Yes, a few months ago. Doesn't the traffic seem worse than usual today?” They had reached the corner and stood on the curb, waiting for the light to change.

“It is bad, but I try to ignore it when I'm riding. My theory is that since no driver is anxious to hit me, nor I him, we'll manage to take appropriate action to avoid each other. So far that's been the case. When we cross, we'll
ride straight ahead and turn at the first cross street; it will be quieter then. I'll go first if you'd like.”

Stephanie nodded. She was feeling young and free and very happy. She had not seen Léon since the day they had met six weeks ago. He had not come again to Jacqueline en Provence; his new paintings were delivered by his friend who owned a large van. As she and Jacqueline had unwrapped them, Stephanie had asked casually if Léon would come to see how they were displayed in the shop, or if he would be bringing new ones.

“Oh, one cannot be sure,” Jacqueline replied. “He is totally unpredictable. But aren't these fine? So different from the landscapes, but with that same power, as if he could cut with his brush through all pretense . . .”

That was the last time Stephanie mentioned him. And after a while she stopped thinking about him; she was ashamed of feeling she could be adventurous with him. I'm married, she told herself; how did I plan to be adventurous with Léon? Just what did I have in mind?

But I shouldn't use Léon or anyone else to break away from Max; I have to do that by myself. I have to learn to do everything by myself; I can't always let other people clear a path for me.

“Green light,” Léon said, smiling at her, knowing her thoughts were far away.

They rode across the highway, then stayed close to the edge of the road as cars and trucks whizzed past. Stephanie gritted her teeth, her eyes on Léon's back, willing herself to ignore the noise and the rumble of the pavement as trucks barreled down upon her from behind. Her muscles were knotted and she cringed as she rode, certain every moment that the next truck would fling her aside like a piece of debris. But nothing happened; she and Léon pedaled furiously and it was only a few moments before he turned, and she followed, onto a narrow road that cut a straight line between high solid walls of cypress trees.

The sounds of the highway stopped as if a door had slammed; the air was still and hushed. Stephanie heard the
swish of their tires, the slow drone of bees, the distant call of a rooster, the descending scales of birds silhouetted against the silvery blue sky. She relaxed and caught up to Léon, who had slowed for her.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much. This is lovely.”

They rode in silence to the end of the cypresses, then between vineyards whose rows of vines, sprouting new leaves, seemed to radiate in perfectly straight lines from the farmhouse in the center. The sun blazed upon them and Stephanie wiped her forehead with the back of her bicycle glove, then reached down for her water bottle and drank from it as they rode. She liked Léon's silence and his smile when their eyes met; she liked letting her thoughts float, absorbing all that surrounded her: sprinklers spraying high arcs of water that glittered in the sun, wild thyme lining the road with tiny pale purple flowers, and rosemary bushes blossoming with pink flowers amid their pinelike needles, men walking on the road wearing undershirts and black pants that fell in folds over the tops of their boots and calling out an amiable
bonjour
as they passed, cherry trees with lush bunches of fruit peering through the dense foliage, the small postal wagon scooting along back roads like a child's toy. She felt strong and healthy, part of the earth, propelling herself through a landscape so serene and timeless that she could believe nothing existed beyond it, and she and Léon were the only two people in the world.

Oh, how happy I am, she thought, and she knew that whatever else she had felt, with Max and Robert, with Madame Besset and with Jacqueline, she had not said those words to herself in that way before.

The road widened, became busier; soon it was bordered by a low stone wall and there were power lines, light poles, signs of a town. Stephanie and Léon rode around a curve and saw just ahead an enormous stone bridge of tall arches, and they flew beneath it and then past high dark
gray cliffs pocked with deep caves that led directly into Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.

“We can leave the bicycles in the square,” Léon said, and asked a policeman where they could lock them. “Now we walk.” They skirted the crowded square shaded by ancient trees and strolled up a long inclined promenade with the river on one side and booths on the other filled with souvenirs to catch unwary tourists. When they reached a row of cafes, Léon stopped at the one with a sign that said Café Philip. “One moment.” He ran down a small stone stairway and quickly returned. “We have a reservation for lunch in half an hour.”

As they came to the top of the promenade, Stephanie caught her breath and moved ahead, forgetting Léon. She stood beside a pond as still as a mirror, reflecting a giant curved cliff behind it. But the stillness was only in the pond; at the edge, where the earth fell away, the water plunged straight down in a thunderous fall, flinging spray high in the air, churning foam over huge boulders and spinning in whirlpools and eddies as it roared down the steep grade. Then, as the land leveled, the river widened, moving in rapid currents, and then widened still more, tossing up little waves that caught the sun. Small waterfalls like silver ribbons lined its banks and it grew steadily calmer as it flowed: one of the mighty rivers of Provence, the Sorgue River.

Stephanie sat on the rocks beside the edge of the pond where the still water fell into the deafening waterfall. Around her, children ran and shouted, dancing on the rocks, daring the water, screaming to make themselves heard; their parents clicked cameras and dragged the children back, warning of danger. Stephanie was unaware of them. She stared at small rainbows in the river's dancing droplets, at rocks glistening purple and brown and black from centuries of polishing by that relentless flow, and she felt herself become part of it, merging with it, fighting it, being carried away by it. It was as if she were back in the hospital, imprisoned in a fog, unable to break out or even
move; it was as if she were in bed in Cavaillon in those early morning hours when she would wake from a dream and try to recapture it, to find in it a clue to her past, but would find instead an emptiness as loud, in its way, as the roaring water beside her.

Standing a few feet away, Léon watched her. She was very beautiful and he knew he wanted to paint her, but he was more interested in the impression she made of tentativeness: a woman unsure of herself, of who she was, where she was, even how she got here. He knew that was fanciful, but Léon believed in fancy: he believed in the furthest stretches of the imagination, in coincidence and unlikely circumstances, in events that seemed impossible or, more likely, unexplainable.

He knew that art could not be created or enjoyed without the unexplainable, nor could love and friendship grow, and so he trusted his emotions and his senses, his imagination, and his delight in complexity and perverseness to lead him, ultimately, to some kind of truth. Because of that, when he saw Sabrina Lacoste, stunningly beautiful, charming and intelligent, looking in this pensive moment like a woman who did not know who she was or where she belonged, he believed it was possible that indeed she did not know those things, and instead of brushing that idea aside, he found himself wondering about her past, and what part he could play in helping her, if help was what she wanted.

His painter's eye framed the landscape: a woman sitting on gray-white rock in front of a dark cliff where tenacious trees grew outward to catch the sun, the black water of the still pond, and the woman herself, wearing dark blue bicycle shorts and a white bicycle shirt open at the neck, her chestnut hair barely brushing her shoulders—it had been shorter when he met her six weeks ago—her slender body, her long legs, and a regal bearing that must have been drilled into her when she was young, so natural did it seem. Her gaze was fixed on the tumbling water, and he wondered what compelling memory it had brought to life.
And then he saw that her hands were clenched, the muscles of her arms taut, as if she were trying to swim against that fierce current, or to escape whatever thoughts were roiling within her.

He took a small sketch pad and a piece of charcoal from his backpack and drew swiftly and surely, first the landscape—crowds milling about the motionless woman, leaving a small private place for her as she stared at the water—and then the woman herself. Sabrina, he thought. A lovely name. A lovely mystery. Tantalizing and irresistible.

And married.

But I am involved with someone, too, Léon thought. Not a marriage, but still complicated. So we shall not look too far ahead, Sabrina and I. Not yet.

After a time, he went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “If you're ready, we can go to lunch.”

“Yes.” She came out of her reverie and took his hand and stood up. “Thank you for bringing me here; you were right: it is magical.”

“It reminds you of something.” Their heads were close together, in order to hear each other. “Something beautiful . . . or overwhelming?”

“It's overwhelming on its own—don't you think?—without reminding anyone of anything. How deep is the spring beneath the pool?”

“No one has found it yet, though Cousteau and many others have tried.”

“No one has found it? But isn't that amazing, that its beginnings are hidden, that only part of it is revealed, but still it has such strength and beauty . . .”

Léon was looking at her with curiosity. “Most of us reveal only parts of ourselves.”

“Yes. Of course.” As they turned, she looked back at the torrent. “I wish we didn't have to leave.”

“But we aren't leaving. You'll see.”

They walked back the way they had come, down the stone staircase to a glassed-in restaurant, and beyond it, a broad flagstone terrace shaded by an awning and extending
over the water. “Oh, perfect,” Stephanie said as they were shown to a table at the railing, with the river just below them. “What a lovely discovery.”

“It often seems that most of the world has discovered it,” Léon said with a smile as the waitress brought their menus. “When I want to be truly alone here, I come in the winter; it's truly magical then, with steam and snow and not a human voice to be heard, nor any presence but my own. Except, of course, for whatever gnomes and elves inhabit the caves in the cliffs.”