There were, inevitably, second helpings. There was cheese. There were great wedges of tarte aux pommes, shiny with glaze. And finally, with the coffee and diamond-shaped almond biscuits, there was a compulsory snifter of Roussel’s venomous homemade marc.
By this time, Christie was anesthetized. She had arrived at that stage of overeating reached by certain species prior to hibernation and was barely capable of movement or thought, conscious only of an instinct to curl up in a quiet, dark place. Max was little better, and even Roussel had begun to show signs of wear, making only a token effort to persuade them into another glass of marc.
It had been, as Max assured Madame Roussel on the doorstep, a memorable evening. After a round of kissing and handshaking, he steered an unsteady Christie across the terrace and folded her into the car.
“I thought you did very well,” he said as they were driving home. “ California would be proud of you. I’m sorry to have put you through all that-I had no idea it was going to be such a marathon. Are you feeling OK?”
There was no reply. And when they reached the house, Max had to carry her, a dead weight smelling faintly of marc and almond biscuits, from the car. He took her upstairs, laid her on the bed, took off her shoes, and pulled a blanket over her. As he was putting a pillow under her head, she stirred, and whispered from the depths of her stupor, “No more. Please. No more.”
Thirteen
Max sat on the raised rim of the bassin, his head between his knees, wondering if the heart attack would come before or after breakfast. The heat of the morning sun and the overindulgence of the night before had turned what was normally a pleasant run into an exercise in masochism. He groaned, went over to the fountain, and put his head under the flow of cool water.
A screech from Madame Passepartout, who had been watching him from the kitchen window, cut through the fog in his brain. “Monsieur Max! Are you mad? That water! There are microbes in every drop. Come inside!”
Max sighed, and did as he was told. Madame Passepartout had taken it upon herself to assume medical responsibility for the cut on his head-his wound, as she called it-and had equipped herself with an interesting variety of salves and dressings, which she now laid out on the kitchen table. Muttering about the perils of infection and the virtues of sterility, she removed the old pink bandage and doused the cut with Mercurochrome.
“How does it look?” he asked.
“Silence,” said the great healer. “This part is extremely delicate.” With her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth, she applied ointment and a covering of gauze before sealing off the area with an excessively large adhesive pad. “There,” she said. “I thought you’d prefer white this time. The pink was most unsuitable.”
Max smiled his thanks. “Have you seen Christie this morning?”
“No.” There was a pause while Madame Passepartout stood back to admire her handiwork. “But I have heard her.”
“That bad, is it?”
Madame Passepartout nodded. “That brother-in-law of mine, he has a head like a stone. He forgets that others are not used to these things.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Pastis, wine, and marc-a recipe for catastrophe. C’est fou.”
There was the sound of footsteps making their slow and uncertain way down the stairs, and Christie appeared in the doorway, her face half-hidden by very large, very dark sunglasses. “Water,” she said. “Lots of water.” Like a sleepwalker on Valium, she made her way to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Vittel.
At the sight of someone who so obviously felt closer to death than himself, Max immediately began to feel better. “Must have been something you ate,” he said. “Those almond biscuits are killers.” The sunglasses and the clearly unamused face turned toward Max for a moment, then turned away. “Seriously, it would do you good to get out,” he said. “Fresh air, birdsong, sunlight on the slopes of the Luberon…”
“Coffee,” said Christie. “Lots of coffee.”
Sitting outside the café after a liter of water and almost as much coffee, Christie was sufficiently recovered to take an interest in what was going on around her. It was market day in Saint-Pons, and stalls had been set up under the plane trees in the square. It seemed as though half of Provence had come to shop, or to look, or to be looked at.
A system of color coding helped to identify the swarm of humanity moving between the stalls: the locals, most of them deeply tanned, with their faded clothes and well-worn straw shopping baskets; the summer visitors, their skin tones running from northern white to brick red, their new outfits bright with this season’s colors; the dark caramel complexions of the North African jewelry sellers; the blue-black of the Senegalese, with their trays of watches and leather goods. A well-tuned nose could pick out the scent of spices, of spit-roasting chickens, of lavender essence, of cheese. And the attentive ear could recognize snatches of at least four languages-French, Arabic, German, English-in addition to the Franco-tourist dialect, a kind of commercial Esperanto spoken by most of the stall holders.
Christie’s eye was caught by a group of middle-aged cyclists at the edge of the market taking a break from their exertions. Their gleaming bicycles bristled with gears and gadgets, including cell phone holders fixed to the handlebars, and attached to the back of each saddle was a slender pole from which bravely fluttered a triangular white flag. The owners of these splendid machines, gentlemen encased in too-tight Lycra, resembled plump, multicolored sausages topped off with lightweight crash helmets the shape of insects’ heads. They all wore the fingerless gloves and the narrow, wraparound sunglasses favored by riders in the Tour de France, and they were verbally slapping one another on the back for completing their grueling morning spin. Their voices easily carried above the din of the market.
Christie winced. “Why are Americans always the loudest? It’s so embarrassing.”
“They’re in pain,” said Max. “It’s those tight shorts. Actually, I’m not sure I agree with you. Have you ever heard the English in full cry? World-class bellowers, some of them.” He watched as one of the cyclists performed a complicated stretching ritual before getting back on the saddle. “The fact is, we’re always tougher on people from our own country. There are lots of wonderful Americans. One of them married my ex-wife, bless his heart.” He sat back and looked at Christie. “How about you? Is Mr. Napa waiting for you back in the valley?”
Christie shook her head. “I just broke up with a guy after two years. A lawyer. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to get away from California for a while.”
“Heart broken?”
“His more than mine, I guess. I think he wants to get back together.” She grinned at Max. “So with a bit of luck, he won’t sue.”
As Max was looking for the waiter to pay the bill, Fanny came past the café on the way to work, carrying a long brown paper sack stuffed with oversized restaurant loaves. She stopped to be kissed and to fuss over Max’s bandaged head. “Have you seen Roussel?” she asked. “He was looking for you. Something about a rendezvous at the house this afternoon. A private matter, he said.” She stood smiling at him, her dark eyes bright with curiosity. “As if anything in this village could be private.”
“Nice outfit,” Max said, taking in the abbreviated cotton vest and low-slung jeans that set off several inches of bare tanned midriff. “Probably the septic tank,” he said. “There’s a bit of a problem.”