Blackbird Fly (10 page)

“
I'm done in Harlem. I got packed
off to Development. They don't need me until fall, or until I get
my attitude adjusted.”

“
They said that? Come on.” She
squeezed Merle’s hand, suddenly serious. “You’re really taking
summer off? Are you all right?” Despite her stunning beauty and a
bright, easy charm unknown to the other sisters, Francie could be a
loving sister. Merle squeezed back, thinking she should call her
more often. Tell her about the nasty family secrets. One of these
days.

Merle raised her glass. “To attitude adjustment —
it’s not just alcohol anymore.”

Francie giggled. “I’ll go drinking with you any
time!”

Someone called: “To Elise!”

As they clinked crystal Merle stood up. “Excuse me,
Elise, for using your graduation day for this.” Elise smiled,
dipping her head in gratitude. She was a little tipsy, draining her
glass as if another toast in her honor was in the offing. She
turned for a refill to her boyfriend, a pudgy classmate who
wouldn’t last, they all could tell.

“
As you know in his will Harry left
me — and Tristan — a house in France. His family home. Sort of a
surprise but what the heck, right? Who are we to look a gift-horse
in the mouth? Let’s just hope it’s not a Trojan gift-horse. Anyway,
at the end of the term we will be traveling to the small village of
Malcouziac, somewhere in France, to throw out the freeloaders and
see if we can sell it.”

After a shocked pause Annie said loudly, “Hey. You
mean, no work? A vacation? An honest-to-God summer holiday?”

Her father turned to her frowning: “You’re going
where?”

“
To France,” Bernie shouted in his
ear.

A holiday
. Mystic Seaport popped into her
head. That was a holiday. Those days, whatever they were, were
over. Long over, if they only knew.

Put a face on it, Merdle
. Vacation sounded a
whole lot better than the drudgery, legal wrangling, and endless
spending ahead. Harry would have liked that. He goes his own way
and she gets stuck with his dirty work.

Oh, yeah, let's see that smiling face.

She raised her glass. “To vacations. What a
concept.”

BOOK TWO

France

Chapter 11

After all these weeks, from a wet April morning to a
hot June day, not so long in time but emotionally an obstacle
course of peaks and valleys, she was here. Across the sea, over the
deep blue ocean. Exactly ten weeks and three days, nine Sundays, a
Memorial Day. Over the miles and the hours, after packing and
arranging and explaining, here she was, in France where Harry was
born. Where he lived. Where not a trace of him remained.

They stared at the house. Monsieur Rancard — ‘Arnaud’
after four hours together in his perfumed Benz — rolled down the
window, letting in hot, dry air. The lawyer, although handsome in
that suave Mediterranean way, was business-like, even blunt. No
passes, no intimate taps on the knee. She had sweated through her
safari shirt and stuck to the seat. They talked nonstop and she was
exhausted. Yet, a flutter of anticipation rose in her as they
turned the last corner, pulled up to the curb.

No cottage, the house rose two stories of
washed-yellow stone with a tile roof at various angles. Four
windows, one extra-wide, faced the street. Only a narrow cement
sidewalk with a granite curb separated the living quarters from the
cobblestones. The shutters were devoid of paint, a weathered gray,
an upstairs one hanging on one hinge. A high wall circled the
place, starting at both front corners. The only house on the block
with side yards, it was slightly grander than most yet looked
abandoned.

The house sat adjacent to the crumbling city wall,
six feet high here, eight there. Across most of the street it was
lower, knee-high, as if a Nazi Panzer tank had crashed through.
Beyond the broken wall the slope fell away into rows of staked
vines. Across the swale stone-and-tile houses nestled close to the
earth, thick forests darkened the hilltops, more grapes undulated
with the curves of the hillsides, marching relentlessly toward
wine.

They got out of the car and stretched. Merle had seen
a lot of country with Arnaud between Toulouse and Malcouziac,
villages along streams and on hilltops, bigger towns with gas
stations, supermarkets, and modern buildings, but this land of
vineyards and buttery stone was as pretty as it got. Maybe she was
already biased toward the village, proprietary in a way. Maybe she
was just tired.

“
It’s big,” she said, taking off her
sunglasses to look at the house. The day was sunny and warm in a
way a Connecticut summer so rarely was. Heat reflected off the
stone house opposite hers, a tidy, plain house with geraniums in
pots. Next door to her house the shutters and door were freshly
painted in a glossy royal burgundy. Upstairs music and a lace
curtain blew out the open window while at the Strachie’s all was
closed and silent.

“
So you see, all these shutters are
locked,” Arnaud said. He rattled the door shutter, its curved top
matching the rock framework. “I can see the padlock there, through
the crack.”

As Merle peered through the half-inch space between
the shutters the shouting began inside. Through the inner glass she
caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow. She looked at Arnaud and
raised an eyebrow.

“
That is the lady,” he said,
sighing. He yelled back at her in French.

“
What is she saying?”

“
Babble. This is her house. Leave
her alone.” He took Merle’s arm and led her back toward the middle
of the village. “Perhaps best not to provoke her too much,” he
said, though he obviously had. “She has the ear of the village now,
some of the old people especially. They had no good to say of her
when I first came but now? Suddenly, pfft! She is the poor old
lady, the martyr.”

She heard them again, outside the shutters. Devils,
trying to enter her sanctuary. Evil ones.

Sister Evangeline said God would smite them, but He
was taking His sweet time. Justine called out with her own curse.
Satisfied they had gone, she turned from the dark room back into
the sunshine of the garden. Eden, she sometimes called it, it was
so lovely. She lived out here in the summer. With the hammock
stretched into the corner, the only reason she had to go into the
house was to store her meager ration of food and to curse the
Devils.

The batteries on the radio seemed to be going out.
The music sounded faint. She must ask Sister Evangeline for more
batteries. Carefully she picked at the plastic cover on the back of
the pink box radio, trying to ease it off with a fingernail. She
knew how things worked, she’d been around. This radio had been with
her for years, a reliable friend.

The sun beat down on her head. Her grip turned moist
with sweat. Her finger slipped, slipped again, and suddenly the
radio lay in pieces at the bottom of the wall. No sound came from
it — no music — no Piaf — nothing. She stared at the pieces. It was
the Devils’ fault.

Evangeline came through the back gate, locking it
quickly behind her. Justine became aware of the tears on her face
from Evangeline’s shocked look.

“
Qu’est-ce que tu
fait?
”

Justine let the sun dry her cheeks. “Batteries,” she
mumbled.

Evangeline frowned at the broken radio. “It’ll need a
whole lot more than that.” She took Justine’s hand. “Did you have
trouble with it? Don’t worry, dear. Sister will get you another.
Sister takes care of her flock.”

The woman’s hand on Justine’s bony shoulder was warm
and sticky. Justine didn’t like to be touched. She frowned at the
old nun. Sister E was to be tolerated. She was kind, she brought
food, and a pretty rose-colored blouse just yesterday. And she kept
the Devils away, those who would take Eden away from Justine.

Still, she couldn’t help but step back, away from
Sister’s humid grasp. What did the old nun really want, her mind
shouted. Why had she showed up here? Who had told her to come, that
Justine needed help? Did she hear it directly from above?

“
I’ve brought you something,” Sister
E said, smiling, holding a paper bag. Her hair made her look like a
man, Justine thought, a friar really, with the short, bowl shape.
And so gray, very sad. Nuns disliked their hair — why was that?
Hair was meant to be adored by all, even God loved hair or he
wouldn’t have put so much on the angels. Justine patted her own
locks, once famous for blocks and blocks, all the way to the
Gironde. She felt pity for Sister’s plainness, her ugly shoes and
baggy trousers.

“
What?” Justine said.

Sister reached into the bag and pulled out a small
bottle of pills from the pharmacy. “Some pills to help you sleep.
See? One before bedtime,” the nun said.

“
I sleep fine,” Justine said. She
eyed the small bottle warily. The Sister was trying to poison her
now?

Sister E looked at her, making her squirm. Justine
felt like she was under a microscope. “The American is in town. I
know how that upsets you,” the nun said. “Just take one at
bedtime.”

Justine hesitated then took it.

Sister E smiled. “I’ll clean up the radio. Okay?”

“
They were here.”

“
Who, dear?”

“
The American. I saw her and her
trained dog of Hell.”

“
Did you speak to them?”

“
I called on St. Joseph to curse
them for their greed.”

Sister Evangeline paused, a piece of broken pink
plastic in her hands. “We use the church for good, Justine. It is
up to God to judge, not we humans.”

“
But I prayed to St. Joseph to find
me a home and he brought me here. So he must curse them.” Justine
sat down on the low terrace beside the hydrangea bush. “He
must.”

Sister Evangeline laid her hand on Justine’s shoulder
again. “You must have faith.”

Justine looked at the bottle of pills in her hand.
She wanted to have faith, really she did. But everyone wanted
something from her, that was too obvious. Even Sister E. She wanted
her to sleep. Why? So she could ransack Eden, steal her belongings?
Was she in league with the dogs of Hell?

While Sister E was bent over the pink plastic chards,
Justine poured the pills into the watering can. She smiled sweetly
at the old nun.

So plain. Such a plain woman. Poor old thing.

Arnaud stood an inch taller than Merle, with longish
dark hair. His olive green summer suit and starched white shirt,
immaculate yet casual, set off his deep tan. His Mercedes sedan was
equally well-groomed; he had carefully wiped out the leather
passenger seat for her. He was well-versed in the twists and
tangles of French estate law, and had given her a tutorial on the
drive from Toulouse.

Outside the café under an umbrella they drank iced
coffee while he smoked and made phone calls. They had an
appointment with the mayor in an hour. The stone plaza was large
and square, empty except for café tables. Curved arcades ringed
three sides for covered market stalls in medieval days and perhaps
today. A few tourists rested on benches in midday shade. The
village was sleepy, almost deserted at this hour. As they drove up
from the south she could see it perched on the side of the hill,
surrounded by vineyards, looking like Cinderella’s ruined castle
with its crenellated towers and sloping defensive walls.

Merle looked over the notes she’d made in the car.
French law was confusing and yet precise. Interesting too, as it
reflected a completely different set of values than American law.
She'd always thought of the French libertine ways, the keeping of
mistresses, the lack of matrimonial rites, as a little too loose
and leaning toward men's rights over women's. But now she wasn't
sure. Marriage or not, the law was clear. Maybe that was why the
ceremonial was deemed unnecessary. Keeping property in the family
was valued — one couldn’t cut one’s children out of a will here —
it was also excruciatingly complicated. And therefore, expensive.
Lawyers like Arnaud did not lack for work.

He would only be here today. She couldn’t expect him
to stay and hold her hand. He had found her a small hotel that was
stuffy and cramped but would do for the week she planned to stay.
Tristan, Stasia, and Oliver would be enjoying their first day in
Paris. They'd gone to the airport together but Merle flew alone to
Toulouse. By Saturday she hoped to have her business wrapped up and
join them. She had debated about bringing Tristan here, showing him
his grandparents’ home, giving him a little history. But Paris
beckoned. The countryside had no chance.

Arnaud set his phone on the table. “Pardon, madame.
Business never stops. You should feel lucky you are not that woman
I am speaking with. Her husband had two mistresses over the years,
and three other children besides their own. Now that he is dead she
must share the family villa with five children.” He held up all
fingers of his manicured hand. “And the kids don’t even know each
other. Can you imagine the troubles?”

“
Will she buy out the
children?”

“
Possibly. She will try. But as you
know, money in hand is not the same as stone walls.”

“
Yes, well, there is one more child,
as Ramon must have told you.”

He nodded and had the grace not to comment. Merle had
tossed the subject around in her mind. She had to tell Courtney,
for Sophie's sake. It would be dishonest not to. She would tell her
when they sold the house for lots of money. Courtney, who had
called once and been given ten minutes to complain, had enough on
her plate. She didn’t need these headaches now.