Mistral's Daughter (20 page)

At one point the wall turned
into the bottom of a big round tower with two unshuttered windows open high
above them, but whoever had abandoned the
mas
had made sure that there
would be no intruders for there was no gap anywhere.
 
As they made the circuit they could see five
tilted roofs of various heights, and the tops of some window frames. The walled
mas
was the hub of a wheel of wedge-shaped fields, each separated from
the other by tall windbreaks of cypress or cane. One section of the wheel was
an olive grove, the next an unworked expanse of red earth; then came a vineyard
heavy with unpicked grapes; and next to this lay an apricot orchard, laden with
rotting fruits; then another vineyard and more sections of unplanted fields,
the earth clumped as if a plow had never passed over it.

"It's incredible!"
Mistral exploded. "Here, in a land whose every millimeter of good soil is
used
—
I can't believe the shame of it! Look at those grapes, look at
the olives! And the apricots! They grew and ripened and no one picked
them.
 
It's a disgrace!"

"It must be for
sale," Kate ventured.

"There's no sign
posted.
 
All I saw was the name on the
mailbox.
 
La Tourrello
—
a
Provençal word
—
must mean tower
—
little tower, or something
like that," he said angrily.
  
"It's probably part of an estate and the heirs are fighting about
it
—
that's what often happens.
 
If they don't agree to work the land in shares they have to sell it at
auction."

"Why don't we find
out?
 
They must know in Félice,"
Kate suggested.
 
"If it's for sale,
we could at least ask to visit it."

"No, I don't think so. I
don't want to go in." Mistral sounded troubled.

"You?
 
You've
been inside every
mas
from Maubec to Bonnieux.
 
Why not this
one?"

"I can't explain
it.
 
It's just a feeling."
 
He was protecting himself.
 
An intuition told him that he would never
forget the look of this securely locked, valuable, walled domain.
 
Even though he had seen only
the
outline of the shallow slant of the tilted roofs inside, their simple geometry
had such a rightness that they had touched his heart.
 
The
mas
on the knoll was perfectly at
one with nature and he preferred to see no more of it than the outside since it
was empty and therefore available.

Mistral had never owned a
house and the house-lust that most of the human race feels had never touched
him before.
 
He had been content to look
at the farms of Provence with the simple understanding that they were the only
possible structure that could be perfectly mated with this wondrous
countryside.
 
It was an esthetic joy, not
tainted by the itch to own; but one step inside the doors of this
mas
would change him forever.

"All right," Kate
said, respecting his wish.
 
Both she and
Mistral were profoundly alike in the limitation they placed on the things they
did not want to know.

In the week that followed,
they returned four times to the deserted
mas
and she never repeated her
suggestion although she was irritated almost beyond bearing at his fascination
with the place.
 
He's courting that old
farmhouse, she thought jealously, wooing it as if it were a woman, prowling
around the walls like a lovesick adolescent.
 
Between the café and the boules and mooning around this farm he manages
to put in a full day without accomplishing one damn thing.
 
When will he paint again?

In the café in Félice,
several days later, Josephe Bernard questioned Mistral.

"You say you're a
painter, eh, Julien?
 
We've seen them
come and go for years
—
there's always a painter hanging around in these
parts.
 
But I never saw one who did
anything but paint the countryside.
 
I
say that a real painter should be able to make a picture of another human being
that looked exactly like him.
 
What do
you say to that?"

"Not every painter does
portraits, Josephe, and not every portrait looks like its subject, or the way
he thinks he looks, which is never the same thing at all."

"I
was afraid you'd come out with high-class crap like that,' Josephe replied,
disappointment evident in his open face.
 
"So you couldn't paint me the way I look in the mirror, is that
it?"

"Maybe
yes, maybe no, but I can do something that will make you smile, my
friend." Mistral took a pencil from the bar and drew rapidly on the back
of a slip of paper used for the game of Lotto.
 
"What do you think of this?" He shoved the paper over to
Bernard.
 
In a few spare lines, in less
than a minute, using a knack he had had since he was a teenager, a knack he
never thought twice about, he had distilled the essence of Josephe Bernard into
a caricature.

"Damn
if it's not me!
—
big nose and all!" Bernard bellowed with
laughter.
 
"Now do Henri
—
he's
got another ugly mug!"
 
He grabbed
an old farmer and thrust him in front of Mistral and slid another piece of
paper at him.
 
Soon Mistral was
surrounded by men, clamoring for their caricatures, vying with each other like
school boys for the next turn.
 
He ripped
them off with an ease that astonished the crowd.

Now
that was something, they told each other, an image that looked so much like you
that it could be no one else in the world, and done so quickly that it seemed
like magic.
 
Each one of them pored over
his caricature
—
how had the painter managed it? Those of them who lived
near the café hurried home to bring their wives and children back with them,
all waiting in line for one of the
 
amazing
slips of paper.
 
Better than a game of
belotte,
this was.
 
Soon Mistral had to take
another pencil and then another, as the point wore down, but nothing stopped
the slashing strokes of his cunning hand.
 
Finally there was no one left in Félice who hadn't been caricatured, who
hadn't carefully carried away a slip of Lotto paper, to look at over dinner and
compare with many a friendly insult.

It
was late, almost seven o’clock, when Mistral and Kate finally left Félice to go
back to Villeneuve.
 
His heart was so
swollen with thanksgiving that he didn’t want to talk.
 
Caricatures, a simple party trick he had
forgotten he could do,
caricatures
, by all the saints in heaven, had
given him back the demon of creation.
 
His fingers itched for the feel of a brush, his nose craved the smell of
oil paint and turpentine, his gut was alive again with images he
had
to
throw on canvas — and all because he’d taken a pencil without thinking and
spilled out foolishness to entertain those simple folk he liked so much.
 
They had responded with such wholehearted
appreciation, the caricatures had gone directly from his hand into their
hands.
 
Theirs was the only reward he
could accept with ease, without feeling disconnected from his work.

For
the first time Mistral enjoyed that feeling of triumph he had not been able to
absorb into himself on the night of the
vernissage.
 
Every muscle, every nerve and sinew of his
body was newborn, as full of power as it had ever been.
 
Mistral could scarcely contain his
excitement. How could he wait till morning?

After
dinner that night Mistral set out by himself for a walk.
 
He felt a wild energy that was too great to
be contained under a roof and his jubilation was all the companion he wanted as
he roamed along the banks of the Rhône, accepting with pleasure the feeling of
the chill of the air against his skin, rejoicing in the free rustle of the
trees, the tumble of water.
 
As he walked
he understood, with so clear a conviction that he marveled that it had not come
to him sooner, that he must never leave Provence.

Never
again,
he thought, never again the
loneliness of cities.
 
Never again the
anthill of Montparnasse, where too many people spoke too many languages in too
many cafés, and talked too much rot about government and religion and schools
of painting.
 
Never again the cold
Parisian winter with the dismal rain killing the light.
 
Never again a day without a view of the
horizon.

Even
as he enumerated for himself the reasons for not going back, he knew that he
didn't need them, they were only the outward expression of an inward feeling
that held him in the tightest grip.
 
He
must not leave Provence because here he could work.
 
It was as if he had had a revelation, as
if he had seen a vision, it was stronger than any superstition and clearer than
any logic.

At
dawn he awakened Kate.

"
The vacation’s over, Kate.
 
I’m going back to work."

Kate
blinked with relief.
 
"Give me half
and hour
—
I’ll dress and pack as quickly as I can."

"
No, don’t rush, no need.
 
Stay on awhile if you like."

"
But you just said you’re going back to work.
 
What are you talking about?"

"
I’m staying here, Kate."

"What?"

"Right here. Madame Blé
is open all year around, which solves one problem and there are plenty of empty
houses in Villeneuve to rent as a studio.
 
As soon as the store's open, I'll telephone old Lefebvre and have him
ship down all the supplies I need on the next train and send the bill to
Avigdor
—
nothing could be easier.
 
I’ve got it all planned."

"I suppose you're doing
all this to be on that damn boules team," Kate said viciously.

"That wouldn't be a bad
reason, but no, I have a better one."
 
Mistral paced restlessly around the room, not seeing Kate's face, white
with shock.
 
"It's this place, Kate,
this place."
 
He didn't know how to
explain his conviction to her, and, he realized, he didn't need to.
 
"It's the light here, don't you
understand?"

"I see perfectly,"
she said evenly.
 
Nothing could be gained
by further discussion.
 
One thing Kate
was never wrong about was the strength of another's position and Mistral's was
of unquarried marble.
 
"I'll stay on
a day or so then."

"You don't have to rush
back
—
stay as long as you like, unless you'd be bored when I start
working all day.
 
I'd enjoy having you
here Kate, very much."

"We'll see."
 
Did he think she'd hang around like a house
cat? she thought furiously.
 
Kate
realized that his announcement snapped her out of a coma.
 
Love, concealed with so much difficulty, had
made her inattentive.
 
She'd been
dreaming the days away, dangerously sidetracked by her body.
 
"Since you're staying, I don' think I'll
go sight-seeing today, Julien.
 
I'll be
in that car long enough on the way back.
 
I've got a few things to put together
—
and I have to go into
Avignon to buy some heavy sweaters for the trip, or a decent coat if they have
such a thing.
 
I'll get the taxi to take
me into town."

"No, you can have the
car.
 
I'm going to walk around and see
what's for rent."
 
He didn't try to
conceal his eagerness.
           

 
Kate was out all day, not
returning for lunch.
 
When she finally
appeared late in the afternoon Mistral was impatient.
 
It was a good forty-minute drive to Félice
and he was anxious to announce his decision to his friends in the café.

A thousand meters along the
small road that led to Félice Kate put her hand over Mistral's. "Turn
left," she said.

"Why?
 
We'll be late for the game.
 
I can visit
La Tourrello
any time
now."

"There's something I
want to show you.
 
It won't take
long.
 
Please."

He turned the car onto the
path and parked, as usual, on the strip of meadow.