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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

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BOOK: The Body In the Vestibule
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“Not me, you vultures,” she yelled at them, and felt better.
As she approached the pile of rocks, she was disappointed to discover it was not a shepherd's hut where she might have bedded down for the night, but a dolmen, a burial chamber from megalithic days. Whoever had occupied it thousands of years ago had become one with the plateau, yet even if she could have squeezed into the chamber, Faith was uneasy with the implications. Besides, it was still daylight and she needed to press on.
How fascinated Tom would be with all this, she thought as she picked a few wildflowers, then looked at them slightly dazed, dropped them, and pinched herself. Keep walking. Keep moving. Don't stop. She started to say it out loud. It wasn't a desert, though it felt like one. Everything was so flat. She wasn't thirsty—there had been a stream in the woods—but mirages seemed to beckon. She thought she saw a cross ahead of her. She was hallucinating.
 
“Don't waste my time!” Michel slammed the receiver down. He'd sent Tom back to the Leblancs ostensibly to check on Benjamin, but in reality to keep him from hearing too much
of what was going on. Now Faith had been sighted in the chorus at the Folies Bergère in Paris.
Gina Martignetti had disappeared into thin air. There was no record of anyone of that name and age living in Rome. Giovanni had been grilled but apparently knew nothing at all. The other two prostitutes, Marilyn and Monique, had also gone underground—and Michel hoped not literally. Everybody was missing and he was at a loss to figure out what it all meant.
 
It
was
a cross. Intricately carved and standing straight up. Cared for. No lichen. Which meant someone came here sometimes. Faith took it as the good sign it was and continued to walk. She was slowing down and she saw her shadow lengthen. It would be dark soon.
Where was Christophe now? she wondered. Far, far away. Having failed to find her, she assumed he would have made for the nearest border. Spain? Poor Solange and Jean-François. A child like that wasn't just sowing wild oats, but bad seeds. She'd feel a whole lot sorrier for them if she hadn't been the victim, or one of them.
The two girls must have heard the shots or maybe they'd left by then. She couldn't figure out where they fit in or what the business with the
clochards
and the break-ins meant. She certainly had plenty of time to try now. She matched her steps to her mental gymnastics. The kids figure out who's going to be out of town and one of them robs the apartment—or maybe a pair of them. More than that would be too risky. She wondered how many kids were involved. Could there be a giant ring of adolescent
cambrioleurs
in Lyon? Christophe, Dominique, Berthille, and the other boy, Benoît, had seemed so tight at the gallery—a little world unto themselves. She wouldn't be surprised if it was just the four of them. So they robbed the apartments and what did they do with the stuff? Hard to explain to
Maman
where the new diamond and emerald choker had come from.
“I don't care about the
clochards
,” Dominique had said, and something about their being lazy and drunk, that they could get jobs. Was it some sort of nouveau Robin Hood enterprise? Steal from the bourgeoisie and give to the poor? Passing the loot to Christophe's uncle to hand out to his friends? But the first time one of them tried to buy a bottle of wine at Monoprix with a gold medallion of the Sun King, the smiling lady at the register would be more likely to call the police than say “
Merci beaucoup
.
Bonne journée,
” as she invariably did. So polite—like everyone else in other stores.
And what about Faith's own
clochard
? The dead one. Bernard. Had he wanted too many goodies? No, the whole thing didn't make any sense at all, she thought wearily. And how did Marie connect with the kids? She wouldn't have been afraid of them. She'd have told their parents.
Faith realized the land was sloping down again and decided to follow it. Nothing except sheep or goats could live on such a plateau. She might not know a great deal about animal husbandry, but this much was clear. She wouldn't mind encountering a sheep or two about now. They'd make cozy companions for the cold night ahead, plus she did have a very serviceable knife and a few matches. There was plenty of rosemary around. She began to salivate. Bo Peep would have done the same thing in Faith's place, she was sure.
But there were no sheep and she started down the slope that soon became a steep incline. She had to walk sideways to keep from tumbling forward on the loose stones. The sun set slowly. It was glorious, streaking vivid pinks and oranges across the sky until they faded to deep violet. Another night alone. Yet, she was still alive, she'd saved her baby's life, and in the morning, she was sure she would
come across a road and find help. She had faith, she told herself—both.
Before long it was pitch-dark, but soon the moon rose, a bright golden half, joined by more stars than she had ever realized existed in the firmament. She noticed she was now following a rough track that showed an occasional tire mark in the ruts. Faith didn't think any find could excite her more than the Missoni sweater dress marked 50 percent off that she'd unearthed at Bergdorf's last January, but it paled in comparison with the exquisite pattern of these tires—proof that civilization and help were at hand. This track couldn't be called a road, yet it was bound to lead somewhere.
It did. Straight down again.
Standing at the top, Faith thought she detected the glimmer of a light far off in the distance. Without hesitating, she eagerly followed the trail down toward the speck and was rewarded to find it steadily enlarge as she moved closer. The way leveled off again, but the light did not disappear, and after about a half hour, she stood looking at a large, two-story stone house with a variety of outbuildings. An old Citroën truck was parked outside and she felt like kissing its fenders. The light was coming from the ground-floor front windows and she summoned all the energy she had left to go to the door and lift the heavy iron knocker. It fell with a thunderous bang. She was weeping in relief.
The door opened wide immediately and a dramatic figure filled the frame. It was a very large man in his late forties, dressed like a farmer, but under his beret, his graying hair reached almost to his shoulders, where it mixed with a long beard, creating confusion as to where one left off and the other began. His bushy eyebrows rose slightly in mild surprise and he said in an incongruously soft voice,
“Vous êtes perdue, mademoiselle?”
Very, very
perdue
.
Très
,
très
lost, Faith reflected as she answered,
“Oui.”
A woman's voice called something out and the man stepped back, telling Faith to come in. It was a farmhouse, not unlike the one she had left but larger, and a different decorator had been employed—or rather, it was a matter of self-employment and frozen in time at some point during the late sixties. Batik wall hangings, pots of geraniums swinging in macramé planters, and furniture that had been scrounged and/or made from scratch. She'd entered a time warp—a sensation heightened by the immediate appearance of the lady of the house, who wore her salt and pepper hair parted in the middle and down to her waist. She was clothed in multiple layers constructed, surely by her own hands, from bright, well-worn India-print cottons. Sandals with several pairs of wool socks completed the look—a look that identified the individual as belonging not so much to a particular nation as to the whole world—in 1968.
“
Pauvre petite
!” the apparition exclaimed, and quickly pushed a chair stacked with pillows toward Faith. Faith let herself sink gratefully into their softness. She'd made it. She was safe.
The man and woman began to speak at once, quickly. It was impossible.
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
Faith asked. She was so tired and speaking French took so much concentration.
“You are English!” The man was thunderstruck. There might be some logical reason for a Frenchwoman to be wandering around what Faith would soon learn were the Causses Méjean in the dark, but English? To be sure, they could be eccentric …
“No, I am an American and I hope you will be able to help me.”
“American!
Sacrebleu!”
Faith hoped he would not go into orgies over Route 66 or the Large Apple, or, judging from the posters of Ché, Lennon, Roman Polanski's A
Knife in the Water
and the like, American foreign policy for the last twenty-five years.
There were wonderful smells coming from the kitchen and she wanted to eat, but first she had to call Tom. Maybe call Tom while she was eating. She had to have something, anything, even a crust of yesterday's baguette.
“American,” he repeated in amazement. “But what are you doing here? Have you been with some kind of hiking group? At this time of year, it is not advisable, you know.”
How to explain it.
“My name is Faith Fairchild and my husband, child, and I are visiting in Lyon … .”
“Lyon! But that is two hundred kilometers away at least!”
“Yes, I know. Do you think perhaps I could have something to eat and some water while I explain? I'd also like to make a phone call. Then, if you could take me to the nearest police station, I'm sure they will arrange for me to get back to my husband.”
Faith didn't think she had made a joke, but her queries seemed to cause both her hosts great amusement.
“Madame, the food is no problem, but you understand you are not in the
centre ville
of Lyon here. We have no phone, no electricity at all, and the nearest police station is in Meyrueis—fourteen kilometers away,” explained the woman.
“We would be happy to take you there,” her husband continued, “but our fine old truck has at last refused all our attempts to start it and at the moment we are dependent on others to get our things to market. Tomorrow a friend will be here early to take us to Meyrueis and you can come, too.”
Tomorrow! As pleasant as these people seemed—Faith was already planning on sending them an extremely nice bread-and-butter gift, shoes perhaps, or a new truck, which it was a shame someone hadn't thought of earlier—the idea of another night away from Tom and Ben when they still
didn't know she was safe was too much. She put her head in her hands and began to sob.
Mama and Papa Bear, as Faith had begun to regard them, were galvanized into action. He thrust a large glass of what smelled like pure alcohol into her hand, while his wife set a steaming bowl of thick vegetable soup on a low table next to Faith's chair. Faith sniffed mightily and wiped her eyes on the rough sleeve of the sweater she was wearing. Hard to know how to go about returning it, she thought disconnectedly as she set the glass down and grabbed the soup.
“Thank you.
Merci
, you are so kind. It's just that no one knows where I am. I was kidnapped yesterday morning and only succeeded in escaping this morning.”
“Kidnapped! Terrorists! Here in the Cévennes!”
“No, no, it was a neighbor in Lyon. You see he killed a
clochard
and I found the body, then he hid the body again and had his uncle pretend to be the
clochard
—” Faith stopped. Both their faces had “escaped madwoman” written in Bodoni bold type straight across their granny glasses. She hastily slurped down the rest of the soup. It was delicious.
“I am not crazy, although I admit the story sounds bizarre. I should start from the beginning and tell you the whole thing.”
“But of course, madame. Let us sit in the kitchen. We were about to have our meal. If you sip some of this”—he indicated the glass Faith had set aside—“you will feel warm and perhaps calmer. It is my own
eau de vie
. I make it from the plums.”
“I'm sure it's wonderful, but I am pregnant and avoiding alcohol.”
This was the last straw, as far as madame was concerned. Lost, kidnapped, pregnant. She virtually carried Faith out to the kitchen, tenderly installed her in a chair
near the hot cast-iron stove, and began to assemble the meal rapidly.
When it was ready, Faith had the distinct impression it was more than what had originally been planned.
“I hope you like French food. Ours is very simple. We make everything here. It is not Paul Bocuse, but Clotilde,” monsieur said proudly, with a sweeping gesture. Faith was amused that the chefs fame had spread to this tiny corner of the world, yet why not when his well-fed, smiling face appeared in restaurants and on products from Tokyo to Disney World.
Clotilde was not Bocuse, but she was right up there. Dish after dish appeared on the round kitchen table: a fluffy omelet oozing with sautéed mushrooms, crisp pan-fried new potatoes, and thick slices of
tripoux,
which Faith recognized as a regional speciality—round sacks of tripe stuffed with an assortment of the chopped tripe, vegetables, and aromatic herbs. It was all sublime. This was followed by salad, picked moments ago, and fresh goat cheese made by madame herself,
fromage fermière
. Throughout the meal, Faith devoured slice after slice of bread, a dense, chewy combination of white and whole wheat,
pain de campagne
, made in the oven sending out such comforting waves of warmth. She was just beginning to feel well and truly fed for the first time in days when her hostess produced a jar of apricots, spooning the succulent-looking fruit into large bowls and liberally dousing them with cream. The coffee appeared and Faith started her tale.
BOOK: The Body In the Vestibule
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