Blackbird Fly (21 page)

“
Truth hurts.”

Albert pushed over a tray of sliced baguettes and
olive tapenade. “I cannot come tomorrow. The boys have a special
practice for the tournament. But Pascal says he can go.”

“
If you allow me to come down off
the roof,” Pascal said. “Merle.”

He rolled her name on his tongue as if it filled his
mouth with something sweet. Tristan was watching her with his
chunks of melon paint in his hair and hands.

“
You may come down if you use the
ladder, Pascal.” She turned to Albert. “But you must let me use
your bath. Before it becomes an international incident.”

“
Hey,” Tristan said. “It was in the
paper. They’re calling it a public health crisis.”

Merle thought it might be a Thursday. So unlike her.
What would Harry say about his Calendar Girl now? He wouldn’t even
recognize her. The lists, the perpetual calendar in her head: gone.
Well, almost gone. It might be Thursday, June 25. If it was, she
had been in France almost three weeks.

Albert lent Pascal the Deux Chevaux. The roofer
ground the gears but managed to turn the car around, as tricky as a
French verb, then drove through the old medieval gates to the city.
He’d rolled down the roof and the wind blew through their hair.
Merle wished she’d worn the scarf but at least her hair was clean.
Albert’s tiny bathtub was a lifesaver. She smoothed her skirt over
her knees. It was the last clean thing in her suitcase.

“
Are you from around here?
Originally?”

“
From the Languedoc, but I am here
one year.”

“
Do people treat you like you’re an
outsider?”

“
Small villages are like that. They
are dying. They have no new jobs, no more land for the sons to take
over. So they resent foreigners who have so much money.” He watched
the road. “They warm up when they get to know you. Everyone knows
you.”

“
I know. I finally had to bribe my
neighbor with a tart.” Madame Suchet who swept her front steps in
high heels and jewelry had still been too wary to invite her in.
But it was a first step. And she’d met the next door neighbors too,
a young arty couple from Paris, Yves and Suzette who were very
chic.

“
Did you know Justine LaBelle?” she
asked Pascal.

“
Um, no.”

“
Did you see her around
town?”

“
Once or twice. She was hard to
miss. With that hair.”

“
I’ve seen other women with orange
hair. Did she have friends?” He shrugged again. “What about this
so-called nun, Sister Evangeline?”

“
Never heard of her.”

“
Do you know the
gendarme?”

“
You ask a lot of questions.” He
glanced at her. “I see him around. Jean-Pierre is a good
man.”

“
You think so? He seems pretty cocky
to me.” Pascal shrugged, noncommittal. Probably a friend of
Jean-Pierre’s, they drank together, or played cards in that
restaurant where she’d seen him at lunchtime. “The inspector thinks
I am somehow involved in Justine's death.”

“
And were you?”

“
No. But here I am living in the
house she claimed as her own.”

He glanced at her. “They will find the killer.”

The small sign for Château Gagillac peeked out of the
overgrown bushes in the ditch by the road. He muscled the little
car onto the dirt lane. Unruly hedgerows gave way to roses blooming
along the rows. The gravel crunched under their shoes as they
walked to the stone building. A thought came to her. “What if they
ask about a work permit?”

“
This is what you say.” He shrugged
dramatically, palms skyward, his voice high like a girl’s. “
Ah,
monsieur, peut-être
.” He grinned at her. “Believe me, they will
not ask.”

And they didn’t. An hour later they were back on the
road, instructed in the proper sniff, swirl, and spit routine, and
marginally familiar with the modern stainless steel tanks of the
mixing room, the limestone soil, and the barrels stacked in the
chai
for aging. Odile Langois had been cool and efficient,
her brother Gerard moody and brusque.

On the drive back Pascal shook his head in sympathy.
All that fancy technology, he said, good for nothing.

“
Without ‘
mis en bouteille au
château’
— bottled on site — on the label the wine will go into
a cheap bottle at the
super-marche
. Or even,” he crossed
himself, “a wine in a box.”

“
God forbid.”

“
I don’t know why he bothers to age
it. He will not make serious money from his wine until he can set
up bottling.” Pascal seemed angry about the whole setup. “All those
barrels and a very fine aging
chai
and expensive modern
equipment and yet no bottling.” He was quiet a moment then said
quietly, “I have heard Gerard is active in politics for
vignerons
, grape-growers and small wineries. Be careful of
him.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
He is ambitious, that’s
all.”

“
Because there’s no
grand cru
on his label?” She knew that much, that grand cru and premier grand
cru were the grand, old class of Bordeaux wines. “Is this about the
strike they keep talking about?”

“
What strike?”

“
The growers. The newspaper says
they’re planning some big strike to protest foreign grapes coming
into this country for wine.”

“
It is just politics.” He glanced at
her knees. “Gerard has no label at all, just juice in a jug. But it
is good to improve yourself, be something more than when you were
born. Don’t you agree?”

“
I’m an American. Striving
always.”

“
So Gerard is a closet American?”
They laughed. No one could be more French than Langois, so serious
about the grape and a little bitter about his ambitions.

“
And you? Did you strive to be a
roofer?”

“
My father was one, my grandfather
also. From a rooftop, my grand-papa told me, you can see the
world.”

“
So you were born into it. Me too.
My father was a lawyer, and all my sisters are.”

“
All?”

“
Yup. Five sisters, all
lawyers.”

Pascal put his hand on his heart. “
Zut alors
.
I see them coming toward me like Charlie’s Angels but in more
clothing and briefcases snapping. Ready to — how do you say? — kick
my ass.”

He pulled the Citroën into the tiny garage two blocks
away from Albert’s, a space he rented from an old lady. They walked
back toward rue de Poitiers. Back to reality, she thought, feeling
the strange lightness of the morning at the winery and laughter
with Pascal.

At the corner the gendarme lounged against a wall,
smoking. He straightened at the sight of them but held his ground.
His uniform was always perfectly pressed. Merle wondered if he
lived with his mother, or who was the woman who took such care. Did
the vain bastard press it himself?

Pascal nodded to him, as if they were acquaintances.
She simply stared at him, turning back as they walked toward the
house, to stare over her shoulder. Just to give a good dose of what
he gave her. He fumed, clenching his jaw, then crushed his
cigarette on the sidewalk.

The front door was unlocked. Pascal told her that was
a very bad idea, leaving the door open like that. “You must tell
Tristan to always lock the door.”

Fernand had made progress. The water heater, sitting
out in the bathroom like a fat friend who won’t leave, was hooked
up and filling the water. The floor was torn up for drains to
connect with ‘big smelly,’ the fragrant drain, and three intakes
poked through the back wall for the toilet, kitchen sink, and
bathroom sink. Luc was busy outside chipping away a last hole for
the shower line.

There was a note from Tristan saying he was
practicing until six. The tournament was Saturday and he hoped to
compete even though he was a beginner. On the roof Pascal began to
pound.

Merle grabbed her notebook and escaped. The gendarme
had disappeared from the corner. At the post office she waited her
turn at the internet kiosk, slipping her smart card into the slot.
She checked her email, wrote cursory notes to her sisters and
parents, read one from Annie wanting details, gave them all
Albert’s phone number and said the house repairs went well. Then
she did a search for information about the making of French wine.
There was a long, juicy site sponsored by the Bordeaux Wine Office
that she printed out.

The line behind her grew longer, techno-savvy seniors
and tourists. Ignoring them she entered ‘Justine LaBelle +
Bordeaux’ into the search engine. Nothing but hospitals in Quebec.
She went to a French white pages site. This time she got three
matches. Scribbling down the numbers she checked her time. One
minute left. She entered ‘
Monastères
+ Dordogne’ in hopes of
finding Sister Evangeline’s convent, in case she was a nun. One
hit, a Carmelite convent fifty miles away. Then the old woman
behind her began to smack her cane on the marble floor.

Back at the house a large truck was unloading at the
curb. The beds were here, with bedding, and the dining chairs with
rush seats. She ferried the chairs in and grabbed Luc to carry her
mattress upstairs. She had decided on a soft yellow the color of
sunrise for the bedroom. One day she’d paint it, when she could
face that much cheer.

Upstairs she pulled white sheets over the mattress,
their clean newness mocking the state of the house. She buried her
nose in the fresh linen, savoring its starchy, unspoiled odor. Life
could be as simple as virgin white pillowcases. At least for a
moment.

Chapter
23

The lush evening scents of moist earth and roses were
ruined by the smell of the cigarettes. Last two, and then the pack
was done.

It was very late. The surrounding houses were dark. A
faint glow on the rooftops from a faraway streetlight, nothing
more. Stars were strewn across the sky, millions of them, more than
she’d ever seen. As if that milk bucket in the sky had been
refilled and spilled using full-fat cream for once.

Merle watered the grapevine and the pear tree and
stamped on the loose earth filling the trench. She had tried and
failed to sleep. She was so far from home. She had a strong desire
to call someone, to speak to her family. The village was beginning
to feel very small, especially without a telephone. The distance
felt good for awhile. She didn’t want her family worried. But now
she felt very alone, cut off from the world. How were her parents?
Had Elise found a job? Were the cousins swimming in the pool? Did
Annie have a new boyfriend? Had anyone asked questions about her
character or checked her criminal record?

She and Tristan had a real meal in the garden, made
at home, then returned the rollaway cots to the hotel. She’d
actually cooked in her new French house. Her new French house —
what a phrase! As if it belonged to her, as if she would build a
life here. It gave her a moment of wonder, and lightheadedness. But
she woke up before midnight, the thought that Weston and
Marie-Emilie had slept in that room heavy on her mind. They had
conceived Harry there. There was something wrong with that. But
what? What could be wrong with a married couple bringing a baby
into the world?

The
pissoir
sat dark, still wound up with
orange tape, off limits. It had to be a woman, or a child. The
skeleton was small. Who had been so hated, so unloved, that they
were encased inside a wall and forgotten? It was sad, as sad as the
fresher death of Justine LaBelle. She thought of the Bordeaux phone
numbers in her notebook. Tomorrow she would get a cell phone. She
would get back into the mix, call her sisters. Damn the
expense.

Looking at the million stars, picking out
constellations, the
what-what
suddenly slammed into her
head, loud and insistent as ever. She clamped her hands over her
ears. What the hell did it want? What question was it asking?
What? What?!
She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know
what the question was. But it wouldn’t leave her alone.

Stop!
But it shouted again, the siren cry of
the unknown:
What? What?!

Then she remembered Dr. Murray, the gray-haired,
ruddy-complected psychologist. He had peered at her with watery
blue eyes full of compassion. It had been hard to look at him, she
thought she might start crying. Weeks ago at Tristan’s evaluation,
what had he said? They had a short, clinical discussion about
grieving, about the way different people handle the mourning
period. He said you couldn’t make rules, set schedules for
recovery, for normalcy. That you had to listen to whatever was
going on inside you. You had to respect your subconscious, or it
would be your demon. Better to listen to your demon, to try to
understand it, than ignore it and pay a worse price, he said.

Okay,
listen
. She took her hands off her ears
and closed her eyes, tipping her face to the starlight.
I’m
listening
. What is the question?

Something to do with life, and the end of it. The
finality. Harry’s death wasn’t the initial trigger, no, it had been
coming on for awhile. His presence, his living self, had started
it. Or something else, something only she could see or touch or
feel. Something deep inside her that required answers, that refused
to go stumbling through life, blinders set, doing what she “ought
to.” The subconscious asked on, even when answers were scarce: What
do you want from life? What is it about? What are you doing with
your time above ground? What will it take to feel alive?