Blackbird Fly (17 page)

She heard the little Citroën before she saw it pull
up outside. Tristan looked good, tanned, rested. He explored the
house, curled his lip at the mouse corpses his mother had dumped
into the water tank and christened the outhouse.

“
How was the trip?” She handed
Albert money for gas and supplies.

“
A beautiful day. This garden,
madame. So lovely.” He looked around, smiling, then turned back to
her with a tap to his beret. “Tristan and I talked about him
fencing with my boys.”

“
Really?” She laughed as her son
fell out of the outhouse, gulping air just as she had. “That would
be terrific, Albert. But first we have some serious work to
do.”

“
Jeez, there’s a lot of crap.”
Tristan stared at the pile growing by the locked garden gate. Merle
had dragged out the grain sacks, and the ruined
armchair.

“
You haven’t seen nothing yet.”
Merle turned him back toward the house. They climbed the stairs and
confronted the stuck, knob-less door.

“
Now what?” Tristan asked. “You want
some of this, Albert?”

“
I have to put my car — ”

A crash. Tristan had broken the door’s hinges,
flattening the old panels to the floor. Merle caught the back of
his pants to keep him from falling on his face. Squawking and
flapping of wings made her squawk too, as pigeons came at them,
flying madly in circles. Tristan broke free and waved his arms,
shouting at the birds as they beat their wings to lift that fat
bellies off the crown of an armoire, windowsills, and a large hole
in the ceiling. Two got by Merle and flew down the stairs.

“
Shoo them out, Albert!” Merle
stepped over the door and pried open the front window and flung
open the shutters. “Out!”

In a few dirty minutes the room was cleared.
Coughing, Merle stared up at the hole in the ceiling. Blue sky
shone through a hole in the tile roof. A pile of sodden plaster had
dried on the floor beneath. A window that faced the garden had two
panes gone and a shutter. Tristan stood covered in feathers and
white powder, hands on his hips. “Wow, this is so great. Very
exotic.” He picked a feather off his tongue. “Ack.”

“
Look at this.” Merle pushed open a
door to a side bedroom. A carved wood bedstead and moldy mattress
sat in the middle of the room. The pigeons had partied in here too,
along with a mouse colony of legendary proportions. But with a new
mattress, a lot of scrubbing, a luscious color on the walls? She
shivered. Maybe Harry was right about her. Harry — when would she
stop thinking about him?

“
Awesome.” Tristan frowned. “Looks
like a park in New York.”

“
Having a house in France is a
filthy business,” she said, leading him back downstairs to find
tools and plastic to cover the holes. If only he knew how dirty it
could get. She tried to put the legal problems out of her mind.
Enjoy these moments. Not the past or the future. Right now. It
could be over tomorrow, or next week. This time would end — but for
once in her life she intended to live right here in the
moment.

Chapter 18

Marie-Emilie walks up the road, her feet aching from
the long day. No rides for her, not this day. Some Malcouziac
farmers had slowed, saw who she was, and snapped the reins again.
So she walks on.

She can see the village ahead, up the hill. Sitting
on a log to rest she examines the soles of her shoes. The hole is
growing bigger on the left one, almost through. The right wore
through yesterday. Still she has no regrets. She has made it to the
convent and delivered her message. The sisters had been
understanding and given her meals. Without that food, and the loaf
of bread and cheese they pressed on her for her journey, she would
never have come back.

Perhaps she shouldn’t, she thinks, staring at the
dark cloud passing over the city walls. But Stephan is waiting for
her. He promised they would leave as soon as he arranges
everything. So she gets back on her feet and walks on.

Spring is almost over and with it the rains. Soon the
summer heat will return. Why is she still in this village where
everyone hates her? Soon, soon, she whispers to herself. She turns
the corner to her house. Someone has splashed red paint on her
shutters. She touches it, still damp. Unlocking the door she tales
her bucket to the garden and fills it. In minutes she has scrubbed
the shutters, leaving only a shadow of stain not unlike the stain
this village has imprinted on her heart. She looks down the street
in the evening dusk, an eerie purple bruise of a sky. Not a soul
watches, not a soul cares.

Exhausted she falls into her bed. She wants to stay
awake for Stephan, in case he hears she is back. Should she go to
his rooms above the bakery? She is too tired. Tomorrow is soon
enough. She’s walked nearly thirty miles today.

When the knocking begins she barely hears it from
upstairs. She is deep in a dream. She pulls herself up and walks
down the stairs. As she reaches the floor below she wakes up and
feels a flicker of happiness. It will be Stephan. He can’t wait to
see her. She runs her hands through her tangled hair and pulls her
dressing gown together as she unlocks the shutters.

Chapter 19

Fernand, a bandy-legged, leathery-faced old coot who
smoked a crusty pipe, got to work on her plumbing needs with his
homely son, Luc. They searched gamely for underground water lines.
After days of searching she felt lucky to find a willing plumber at
all. There was hope that a drain in the stone-floored kitchen
actually led to the sewer. Merle left them to explore, and Tristan
to scrubbing upstairs, to beg
Monsieur le Maire
to expedite
her utilities. The candles and flashlights, not to mention eating
all meals out, were getting old.

A waste of time with the mayor at city hall. The same
with tracking down the locksmith for the garden gate. His shutters
were closed, his door locked. She so wanted the pile of
vermin-infested debris in her garden to disappear. The only way to
do that was to open the locked gate. Could she take it off its
hinges? Break it down? She hated to ruin it. She stepped into the
bistro across the street to ask if they’d seen old Andre. The
waiter shrugged at her Idiot French and turned his back.

On the street this morning no sign of Jean-Pierre.
She ducked into the alley behind Andre’s shop. Maybe the old man
was hiding from her. Possibly the mayor and the gendarme had warned
him about helping her. She walked up the mossy cobblestones,
looking into open windows. These houses were in bad shape, in need
of even more help than hers. She stopped to peer inside a
vandalized house. A tree was growing in a pile of debris, right
through the roof. Beer bottles and trash were everywhere. Graffiti
covered the walls. Suddenly she was pushed from behind, into the
doorway.

“
Quiet,” the woman hissed, her
fingers tight on Merle’s wrist. She was shorter than Merle with a
blue knit cap pulled low on her head and brown curls poking out
below. She wore large sunglasses.

“
You speak English.” Merle had been
mugged twice in Harlem. Strong as she was, the woman wasn’t a
threat unless she had a weapon. She was slight, and weapon-less.
“Let go of my arm.”

“
Don’t talk.” The woman took off her
sunglasses and Merle saw the bruise on her cheek, just below her
eye, angry and purple. Her accent was French, but
British.

“
I don’t have any money. Look.” She
pulled out her pants pocket with her free hand.

“
Here.” The woman opened her fist to
show a large key. “Take care of her memory — her garden. Whatever
it is, they will kill for it. Be careful.” She pressed the key into
Merle’s hand, wrapped her fingers around it, then ran out the
door.

“
Who? Wait!” Merle jumped back into
the alley. The woman ran hard to the street. Tightening her hand
around the key Merle ran down the alley to the street.

Was that — yes, it must be. Sister Evangeline. Who
had the key to the gate. The knit cap and brown hair were a
disguise — or a new disguise. The baggy pants, the small nose: it
had to be her. Merle slipped on the mossy stones, ran in the
direction she’d gone but the street was empty.

Tristan leaned the extension ladder against the
house, estimated the distance to the roof and raised the top
section. He climbed slowly up to the edge of the sloped tile roof
slick with moss. His mother was tearing around the village, mad to
get the utilities hooked up and handymen hired. He might fix the
roof. Or just take a look.

He squinted into the sun, getting a long view of the
vineyards that wrapped and twisted around the hills that surrounded
the village. Tall trees swayed in the wind on top of a hill next to
a large house which he guessed qualified as a chateau. A creek ran
down the opposite hill, bisecting the vineyards laid out in careful
rows that matched the topography like a tight glove. The hole in
the roof was almost two feet across. Major. He climbed back down
and went to check on the plumber.

Fernand stood scratching his head in the back room of
the first floor where his mother wanted both a bathroom and a
kitchen, even though it wasn’t even half the size of their kitchen
at home. She also wanted to make the stone outhouse into a real
laundry room. But first Fernand needed to get water into the house.
He shook head sadly at Tristan.

“
No water? ”

“
Non, rien
.”

Fernand went on in French but Tristan couldn’t follow
it. He pointed down the drain in the floor. “Where does this go? To
the sewer line?”

Fernand held up a finger. “Ah!
Oui
!” He
motioned Tristan to follow him into the living room where the big
cupboard had been pulled back from the wall. He leaned down, stuck
two fingers in knots and pulled up the floorboards.

“
A trap door! Cool.”

Fernand jabbered away then began to close the door
again when Tristan held his arm. Grabbing a flashlight out of the
tool pile Tristan shone it down the opening. He made walking
motions with his fingers. Fernand looked alarmed. “Wait here.
Attendez-moi ici
.”

Tristan stepped onto the wooden stairs, tapping each
one with his toe for rotten planks before shifting his weight onto
it. Lower and lower he went, until only his head was above the
floor. He waved at Fernand and disappeared.

Merle pushed through the front door of the house,
noting again the weak hinges and need for grease. Tomorrow she
would paint it. Yesterday she’d scraped and sanded the door and
found the wood in decent shape, its curved top too pretty to
replace.

“
Mom!”

Tristan and Fernand turned toward her. Her son was
covered with dirt, cobwebs on his eyebrows. “There’s a cellar. It’s
full of old junk.” Tristan shone his flashlight down the hole in
the floor. “Fernand says that hole in the back room hooks up with
the sewer.”

Merle looked at the plumber. He shook his head.
“
Pas d’eau
. No water.
Mais
— How you say, sewage? I
put zee water down the hole and voila! It disappear!”

“
But you have to dig?”

“
Ah,
oui, madame
.” He said
the water line connected from the alley. “Tomorrow, we
dig.”

“
And today,” Merle said, marching
outside, skirting the debris, “we open the gate.” With a sort of
magic, the key slipped into the lock. She wiggled it and pushed
down the handle. It swung open.

She held the key tightly against her chest. The
encounter with Sister Evangeline, if that’s who she was, seemed
like a dream. Why had she given Merle the key? Did she kill Justine
LaBelle? It didn’t sound like it but who knew. She would have a
chat with the inspector.

But first, a trip to the dump. “Fernand? Do you know
a man with a truck?”

The next morning digging began in earnest. Merle
primed the front door as Tristan helped Fernand and Luc in the
yard. The blessed event of taking all the mattresses, upholstery,
preserves, and rotten trash to the dump had taken place late the
previous evening. The yard looked three times bigger without
it.

In late morning they took a break. Merle motioned
Fernand to the outhouse while Luc and Tristan draped themselves
over chairs, exhausted. The plumber called the small building
‘le pissoir’
with a sneer. He measured it and discussed —
mostly with himself — the legal, physical, and environmental
problems of closing up a centuries-old crapper.

Merle put her hands on her hips. You had to take a
firm line with workmen, she knew that from previous renovations. “I
want a laundry room. This is perfect.”

He took off his little hat and rubbed his nearly-bald
head. “We have no water.”

“
Keep digging and we will. We must,
Fernand.” She stuck her head through the outhouse door, a true act
of courage. “Is this wide enough for a washer and dryer?” She
stepped inside, stretched her arms and could touch both walls.
Clothes dryers were not common in rural France with all its
sunshine. Especially in medieval latrines.

Fernand got out his tape measure again and measured
the inside dimensions. He wrote in a little notebook, tapping the
pencil lead to his tongue like a character from a ‘40s movie.
Frowning, he measured again.“Bizarre. Forty-seven centimeters wider
on the outside.” He held his hands eighteen inches apart.

“
Maybe it’s the thickness of the
walls.”

They were only four inches thick. The latrine
appeared to match the stone on the back of the house, a more recent
addition, down to the stone sills on the windows.