Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal (23 page)

Nelson now seemed more interested in the filing cabinets lining the far wall. He walked closer to inspect them. Starting with the top-left one, he slid open the drawer.

“Are you snooping, Nelson?”

“I’m just scanning the folder tabs. I’m not taking anything out.”

“And?”

“Pretty wide range of topics. Spanish-American War, Mako Sharks, Oedipal Complex, Punishment Ancient Rome, Napoleon, Nondormant Volcanoes, Geospheric Strata Theorem, Pavlov, 5th Century Egyptians, Raising Chickens, Coal Mining, Brazilian Beetles, Psychedelic Bands, Poisonous Tropical Plants.”

“Doesn’t sound like they’re in any kind of order.”

“Each one has a number. Somewhere he must have a ledger that tells him where everything is.” He counted 24 drawers. “There have to be thousands of documents.”

“No wonder he can’t function in the real world. He has the brain of a Martian.”

“Well, well, what’s this?” he said, as he studied a drawer on the far right. “It says
B-a-n-q-u-e Declarations.
That’s bank, right?”

“Stop.”

“There’s no lock. How private could it be? You said he doesn’t care about money, so—”

The moment he pulled out the drawer an alarm began to wail.

“What the hell did you do!”

“SHIT!”

They looked everywhere for a way to stop it. Under the desk, in the closet, inside a lampshade. No matter how much they cursed and banged into each other and cursed some more, they couldn’t get it to turn off.

“I told you not to snoop!”

“I just opened the filing cabinet. I didn’t look at anything!”

“You were going to!”

Within a few minutes, the piercing sound of the alarm was joined by a police siren.

“Great, Ally! Just great!”

“You still have the cape on!”

He ripped it off and threw it at her. “You’re practically naked.”

“Why would I be wearing—”

“Wait,” he said, “I have an idea.”

She and Nelson opened the front door with a smile.

“
Bonjour!
” she sang out. “
Excusez-moi de vous déranger, madame, mais j’ai un problème.
We accidentally tripped the alarm and cannot turn it off.”

Call them Jacques and Gilles. Jacques was the taller, tough one. Gilles the shorter, nice one. They regarded Alyce in the cape and Nelson in the black leather pants and mask (without the tape over the eyeholes). An amused look was traded.

Gilles asked for identification while the other went upstairs to turn off the alarm.

“I’m a student at
Marlaison Ecole Française.
This is my fiancé. We were just having a little, uh, fun. You know, a
sieste crapuleuse.
” That caused him to smile broadly.

They escorted her to the cottage. She showed them her school I.D. and their passports. A mute Nelson followed. They were more interested in her body. Good! Anything to make them forget what had happened.

Gilles asked in a friendlier tone. “Where is Jean-Luc?”

“He left a couple of days ago. I have no idea where he went. He knows we’re here.”

The two officers walked away and spoke in hushed tones. At one point they laughed. She took that as a good sign. Nelson kept giving her the strangest look.

“We will not tell him this happened, but do not touch anything that is not yours.”

Jacques added, “And next time, take your Bad Boy Nap in your bedroom.”

After they left, Nelson said, “So what the hell did they say?”

“That they won’t tell Jean-Luc and to stay in our bedroom.”

“What did you say?”

Then it hit her. “Holy shit! I spoke French the entire time!”

They calmed themselves with a round of beers by the pool and were soon laughing about the incident. She wondered, “Do you think he has hidden cameras, too?”

“Maybe that’s why he wanted to leave us alone.”

She waved to the house. “Hi, Jean-Luc! Come on, Nelson. Smile.”

He looked far from happy. “I bet he’s going to write about us.”

She thought about that as she took a sip of her beer. “I never would have learned French if it hadn’t been for him, which makes him look good. How unflattering could he be?”

He reclined in his lounger. “I love how positive you are, but you can also be very naïve.”

Her faced burned with embarrassment. “I’ll take naïve over negative any day.”

She walked into the cottage and slammed the door. He was only able to put her in a good mood when he talked about a wedding date.

“How does next spring sound?” he asked. “Unless, of course,” he eyed her stomach, “we’ve made a lasting souvenir. Then we’ll move it up.”

That suited her just fine. All of it.

Avignon

Raymond had a good laugh seeing Jean-Luc in orange spandex shorts that a previous guest had left behind. Then he turned uneasy.

“You are going to run? Not in those shoes. Try mine.”

They were a bit big and almost as garish as the shorts but would work.

“Do not overdo it, Jean-Luc. I know how you are. Let me give you some bottled water. Take it easy. Do plenty of warm-up exercise.”

He dismissed him with a “Yes, yes.”

“Go to the park down the road about a mile. There is a track there.”

“Is it flat?”

“Yes.”

“I want a challenge. I’ll find a hilly area.”

Raymond shook his head. “You do not listen to anyone, do you?” As Jean-Luc walked to his car, he called out, “Did you make a decision about the job yet?”

“No!”

“Wait! The water.”

Ten minutes later, Jean-Luc was pulled off to the side of a remote road. He stretched for 15 seconds before slapping his thigh and saying, “Come on, girl.”

Didon, still looking dainty as lace, came bounding toward her master. When he started to run she stopped and whined.

“I’m in my prime! Come, Didon. Come.”

She obeyed. They began running up a long slope.

Jean-Luc had had enough of regurgitating the past. He concluded what he really needed was fresh air. He was impressed with Alyce’s discipline with her daily jog; how she eyed the trim, toned Nelson. Only five years separated him and his preppy opponent, yet his gray hair made him look like he could be Nelson’s father. Alyce’s “metrosexual” suggestion that he dye it didn’t seem so ridiculous all of a sudden.

He also had to clear his head of something else. Raymond uncovered that a professor in the Department of Modern Letters at the nearby
Université de Provence
had left unexpectedly. They were frantic to find someone for the fall semester, two months away. He mentioned Jean-Luc
might
be interested in filling in. Within 24 hours, Jean-Luc had received five separate ego-stroking calls from people he knew there, including the dean.

He stopped, panted, cursed, kept going. Didon again whined and did not want to go on.

“It’s called exercise,” he wheezed to her. “The way I eat and drink, it’s—” He gasped. “It’s only a matter of time before—”

He had to stop talking out loud to his dog. Not only because he looked foolish, but because he could barely breathe.

As the road grew steeper, the pain increased in his chest, along with the feeling that he was going to throw up or pass out.

He slowed down.

Raymond’s words that he was in love with Alyce returned to him.

Nelson was sure to propose to her in Paris. Would he write it in the sky as they were milling among the throngs at the Eiffel Tower?

She soon would be out of his life forever.

Thank God. Yes. Thank God.

Jean-Luc looked at Didon, his companion for the last 10 years. Her eyes had become milkier. How much longer would she be with him?

Another wave of indigestion. A sharp jab in the middle of his back.

As he ran, barely, he entertained once more the possibility of teaching. That’s why he felt sick. Being a guest lecturer was one thing. Teaching full time?

More shooting pain. Was he that out of shape?

He must exert control over his mental state. He had been reading Herrigel’s
The Method of Zen
that morning and was stopped by the sentence:
He must get beyond the opposites in which he is still caught, as a prelude to a transformation that is no longer of his own doing, but is something that “happens” to him.

Damn. Was an elephant sitting on him? He sank to his knees, clutching his chest, trying to catch his breath. Didon barked in his left ear, sounding far away.

He crumpled to the ground like an aluminum can being stepped on.

Oh, the indignity of dying this way. He had envisioned something more grand and romantic. A lightning bolt through the top of his head. Flames engulfing him while trying to rescue someone. A spray of bullets from a jealous lover.

A heart attack. How
American
.

At least he was dying in France.

In damn bright orange spandex shorts!

23

Hog Heaven

Marlaison

The first class of the day usually began informally, with everyone talking about what they had done the night before or over the weekend. Alyce’s Monday news of becoming engaged was met with applause.

“But Al-
ees
,” commented Ulrike, “I do not see a ring.”

When she pulled it out on its chain, more than one hand clapped onto a mouth.

“That is the biggest diamond I have ever seen!” Jutta cried.

Alyce quickly slipped it back out of sight. She thought about telling them it wasn’t real, but before she could, the trim, chic instructor Claire in fashionable red glasses had found the hook she was looking for. They were soon off and running on the subject of marriage in France.

“We are more pragmatic about it,” Claire said, in French, of course. “Often couples do not become formally engaged. They live together first. The wedding itself is often low-key.”

Trousseau came from the French word
trousse
, or bundle. A bride wearing white originated with the French.
Chiverie
, the banging of pots and pans outside the newlyweds’ room, was also Gallic. That led to everyone talking about customs in their various countries. Interestingly, India and Japan, where many marriages were arranged, had some of the most lavish weddings.

Not many of the MEF students stayed as long as Alyce. As a result, she hadn’t formed any lasting friendships. That changed with Ulrike and Jutta from Germany. They were about Alyce’s age and there for six weeks. They spoke English well. During a class break, Ulrike, the more forthright one, said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t fall for Jean-Luc. I read about him online. He would have messed up your head.”

Jutta added, “But he can mess up mine any day! I’m kidding. I am off French men after—”

Ulrike nudged her with her elbow.

“What? Is there something I should know?”

“Ulrike, Al-
ees
is engaged now. She should know.” Turning to Al-
ees
, “Your previous hosts, Julian Devreaux and his father…”

“They tried to seduce us.”

“At different times. Not together.”

“We found out they are famous for doing that.”

Yves was no surprise. But I’m-not-a-dog-like-my-father Julien? That adorable prick.

Back at Jean-Luc’s, Nelson convinced Alyce to road test Jean-Luc’s wild carved granite shower. It was easily agreed it would not be touched should they buy the place. Alyce still had no idea whether the sale was going to happen. Nelson said “I need time to think about it” and she was effortlessly giving him that space. Pre-France she would have been nagging him.

As they dried off, he asked, “What delicious meal are you going to whip up tonight?”

“Something simple. A chicken daube.”

“What’s that?”

“A braised dish marinated in wine, deglazed and then slowly stewed.”

“I can’t believe what a good cook you’ve become.” He sheepishly added, “Remember when I told you not to cook at my apartment because the ventilation wasn’t working? It was really so you wouldn’t burn anything again.”

“What?”

Instead of being upset, she laughed.

“I’ve become very picky about freshness,” she said. “I need to clip some herbs in the woods out back. Want to come?”

“Have to check my email.”

She changed into a long shirt and sweatpants for added protection against the scratches and bites she received the last time. Before she headed into the woods, she remembered Jean-Luc’s warning about dangerous boars and found the suede bag he kept his gun in. She made sure the weapon was locked.

Holding it with both hands, arms straight in front of her, she aimed it at nothing in particular as she revisited what it felt like to shoot one. She was a pretty good marksman in her Camp Wumpamockasee days.

She slung the bag over her shoulder, picked up a wicker basket, and was off.

She passed the rabbit hutch, the
pigeonnier.
Then which way did they go? She headed to the left. After walking for a bit, she glimpsed something. Pulling back branches, she stared at a headstone: blank, gray, about two feet tall and not old.

She walked around it, lifting off more foliage to make sure nothing was written on it.

As she was assuring herself it wasn’t a headstone at all, just some kind of art Jean-Luc had made or put there, the brush about 20 feet away moved, followed by a loud, ugly snort.