Fiction
1. "Monsieur Marty," Southern Humanities Review 37 (2003): 64-68.
2. George's Career: Tales of the Fifties.
3. Hedges: Tales of Southwestern France.
4. Who I am. (A detective novel.)
5. Another World. (A novel) In progress.
6. Alley Oop. (Essays) In progress.
SAMPLES OF FICTION
Samples are given in section II below. Please note that all material is copyrighted and may not be used commercially without permission. I am currently looking for a publisher for the works described below, and would welcome inquiries. Comments from readers are also welcome; please write me at [email protected].
I. About community narratives:
The rise of the novel, critics have been telling us for some time, was intimately connected with the rise of modern individualism, and usually focuses on the life of an individual character. Thus the titles of early novels were often taken from the names of their protagonists: Don Quixote, Simplicius Simplicissimus, La Princesse de Clèves, Moll Flanders, Pamela, Tom Jones, Wilhelm Meister. This is one of the ways in which the novel differs from the epic, whose hero, the Hungarian critic Georg Lukacs argued, typically represents a community. But if, as Lukacs maintained, the epic community is a coherent whole that can be represented emblematically by a heroic individual, modern society is not such a coherent whole; instead, it is often represented, both in fiction and in the social sciences, as a fragmented collection of atomic individuals.
However, the novel is not the only way of representing modern society in literary form. The story cycle--as represented, for instance, by the Canterbury Tales or the Decameron--offered an early alternative. In modern American letters, the archetype of this kind of book is Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, though it differs from some other books often described as story cycles--for instance, Eudora Welty's The Golden Apples--in that, like Chaucer's and Boccaccio's works, it focuses on a single community at a single point in time.
Another, analogous solution is represented by historical studies such as Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie's best-selling Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (trans. Barbara Bray, Braziller, 1978), which examines the lives and interrelationships of the inhabitants of a village in the Pyrenees at a crucial point in the fourteenth century. Like many contemporary historians, Ladurie rejects les grandes histoires, those sweeping historical accounts that seek to explain vast areas of human experience by means of a few simple schemas, and argues that history should focus instead on detailed, concrete studies of specific communities and structures.
Anderson's and Leroy Ladurie's books are what might be called "community narratives," because they focus not on an individual protagonist but on a community. They do not have a single plot line moving inexorably from beginning to middle to end (though there is a certain development in each case), but instead a network of interlocking characters and themes that creates a different kind of unity in diversity.
My fiction is situated in such a framework. The first book, George's Career, is about life in a fictional Springfield, Illinois in the 1950s, while Hedges focuses on a small village in southwestern France called La Bastide. A detective novel, Who I Am, is also set in La Bastide, as is Another World, a novel in progress that explores the development of rural life in twentieth-century France and the challenges it posed.
II. Samples
1.George's Career: Tales of the Fifties
George's Career offers a mosaic portrait of life in a midwestern American town of the 1950s. It ranges across classes, races, religions, professions, ages, genders, and sexual preferences (as we say nowadays). The narrative represents the voices and outlooks of these different groups through the languages they speak, and thus relies primarily on dialogue for both characterization and plot development. The episodes are interlinked by recurring characters and themes--television, careers, baseball, cars, the Korean War, writing. The perspective is generally realistic, though there are certain fantastic elements that are intended to suggest the craziness that lay just beneath the bland surface of 1950s America, and occasionally raised its head in the form of McCarthyism, the specter of nuclear war, and an obsession with sex.
Synopsis of the chapters in George's Career :
1. An accountant discovers that he can make his swivel chair sing.
2. A girl learns just how important exposure is in television.
3. A man bankrupts himself by building a bomb shelter in his back yard.
4. A boy discovers a strange parallel between the Yanks in the pennant race and the Yanks in Korea.
5. A Korean War vet takes a job as a used car salesman.
6. A professor is consumed by his ambition to rise to the top.
7. A rake rediscovers his Jewish roots.
8. Three lawyers indulge in unwitting McCarthyism.
9. A boy and his father invent a time machine.
10. A couple ventures into the heart of darkness in the wild west.
11. A "loose" girl recovers her self-respect.
12. An old woman refuses to give up her farm.
13. A psychiatrist is seduced by one of his patients and acquires a new identity.
14. A housewife suspects that her friend is a lesbian.
15. A man is overcome by a suppressed memory.
16. Two co-eds idolize a black teacher and find racism next door.
17. A Catholic mother believes that her pregnant daughter is a virgin.
18. A boy reading Kerouac meets a bum who claims to be a writer.
19. How an old woman became a recluse.
20. A writer exhausts his dreams.
2. Hedges: Tales of Southwestern France
Hedges is set in Southwestern France, where I have been living for the past twenty years. The main theme of the stories is the modes of solidarity and exclusion in a fictional French village called La Bastide. In the second story, for instance, the long-standing enmity between two village families is temporarily erased when a young woman cyclist in black spandex passes through La Bastide, disrupting the social structure of the village in alarming ways. Other stories deal with the villagers' reaction to outsiders--foreigners, gypsies, loners, deviants of all kinds--and with the ways they define insiders.
Thus Hedges is concerned not only with what makes a village a community but also with the ways in which that community is both challenged and invigorated by having to incorporate or reject outsiders. Such a community is not a seamless whole, and its sense of identity is constantly forced to adapt to difference--and that is what constitutes its modernity, and its relevance to our world.
While Hedges is a work of fiction, it is based on things I have seen and heard in the village where I live, and to that extent it offers a relatively authentic image of life in a contemporary French rural community.
Hedges will interest anyone who would like to know more about rural France--or just read a good story. One of the chapters has appeared in the Southern Humanities Review under the title "Monsieur Marty." Hedges consists of twenty-two episodes:
1. Hedges: Cutting down a hedge raises an even more insurmountable barrier.
2. Spring: A woman cyclist in black spandex upsets an ancient village enmity
3. The Schoolmaster's Story: A flood proves to be the moral equivalent of war
4. Land: A farmer loses, then regains family land
5. Masonry: An old mason decides to build his own tomb
6. Madame Pacelli: A wife confronts her husband's mistress
7. Steeple: The village church's steeple collapses--whose fault is it?
8. Monsieur Marty: An atheistic communist who lives in the presbytery shoots an intruder
9. Legacy: Marcel Fabre's father hid his money--but where?
10. Albert: The village idiot is caught mounting a dog
11. Crossing the Tarn: Friendship and romance during the Occupation
12. Gypsies: A family of gypsies has a car accident, but are they thieves?
13. The Chatelaine: A love affair between an aristocrat and a farmer's son during WW II
14. Skull: When a skull is stolen from the cemetery, the theft has to be concealed
15. The Eye of the Village: A gay man in the village closet
16. The Frog War: French-British détente is derailed by anurans
17. The Great Fear: A peasant saves the baron during the Great Fear of 1789
18. Giovios: An internet search turns up a con man
19. Lluisa: A Spanish refugee family's struggle for survival
20. On the Road: A man waits for his wife to come home
21. A Way of Life: Small farmers face a grim future
22. The Bridge: A new bridge will transform the village but leave old enmities intact
SAMPLES
1. From George's Career (Chapter I):
“Goddammit, if he does that one more time, I’m going to throw my stapler at him,” Ray said.
“Try your file cabinet,” growled Carl. “Here he comes again.”
“Don’t you dare!” Lucille was pushing forty but still took people literally.
They worked in the shipping department at Central States Office Supply, on Springfield’s East Side. George was the bookkeeper. Recently, he'd started rolling up and down the hall in his swivel chair, and he was driving everyone bananas.
Ray had already asked him, “Can’t you just walk down to Charlie’s office, like everyone else?”
“Sure,” George answered. “But it’s faster and easier this way. And it’s sorta fun.”
“For you,” Ray said.
This week George was doing it more often, and he was going faster. The guys in the shipping department began to suspect he was doing it just for the hell of it. Or maybe to bug them. Something had to be done.
“Come on, Lucille,” Ray said, “it’s important that we all go.” They marched down the hall to George’s office. “George,” Ray said, “we want you to stop rolling around in your chair. It’s bothering us, and if you keep it up we’ll have to complain to Charlie.”
George seemed surprised, but agreed to stop.
“Well, it looks like we fixed that,” Carl said as they walked back to the shipping department. “I hope he really stops.”
A month or two later Ray and Carl were up in arms again. “It’s that damn chair. He’s squeaking it,” Ray complained.
“All the time,” Carl said. “How can it possibly squeak that much? Is he jerking off in there or what?”
“Carl!” Lucille said.
“Sorry, Lucille, but he’s driving me crazy.”
They all tramped down to George’s office again.
Ray said, “George, please stop squeaking your chair. We can hear it all the way down in the shipping office. It’s keeping us from concentrating on our work.”
“I’ll try,” George replied. “But it’s old and made of wood, and it just squeaks.”
“Why don’t you ask Charlie to get you a new metal one with a nice soft cushion and a hydraulic gizmo for adjusting the seat?” Carl asked. “That thing must be a million years old.”
“I’m kinda fond of it,” George said.
The squeaking got worse and worse. Again, the guys in the shipping department began to suspect that George was doing it on purpose.
One day Ray showed up for work carrying a small red and white can. “3-in-One,” he said. “For you know who.”
Carl’s desk was nearest the door, and Ray asked him to keep an eye out to see when George went to Charlie’s office. Twenty minutes later, Carl said, “There he goes, Ray.”
Ray picked up the can of 3-in-One and went out. When he came back he said, “That’ll fix the fucker.”
“Ray!” Lucille was shocked.
The next time Lucille went to George’s office, he was sitting in a chair upholstered in brown leatherette. “You got a new chair, George,” she said.
“Yup. I decided you guys were right, and I asked Charlie if he could get me a new one. He had this in his old office and he gave it to me. He said I could take the other one home.”
Lucille told Ray and Carl. “Thank God,” Ray said. “Finally.”
Two weeks later, Carl came into the shipping department looking uncharacteristically flustered. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “You’ll never believe it.”
“What?” Lucille said.
“George and that goddamn chair. I saw him at the Drive N' Save.”
“So?” Ray said. “What’s that got to do with his chair?”
“He was rolling up and down the aisles in it. I swear to God,” Carl said. “Just the way he used to roll up and down the hall.”
“Oh, dear,” Lucille said. “I hope he’s all right.”
“And it was squeaking to beat the band,” Carl said.
“Of course,” Ray said. “I should give him that can of 3-in-One. I wonder how he got the chair to the Drive N' Save.”
Ray got an answer to his question the next Saturday. As he was walking to the park to shoot a few baskets with his son, he heard a strange rumbling and squeaking behind him. And there, careering down the sidewalk at an alarming speed, came George. In his chair. Ray stared, but didn’t say anything as George flashed by. His son said, “Cool!”
“Come on,” Ray said. “Let’s shoot those baskets.”
When he got to the shipping department on Monday morning he said, “This is getting serious. I saw George out on the street in his chair.”
“What do you mean, “ Carl asked, “out on the street?”
“Well, not exactly on the street,” Ray said. “On the sidewalk. And he was going fast.”
“Where was he going?” Lucille asked.
“How would I know?” Ray said. “Maybe he was going to do his shopping.”
“Shouldn’t we do something?” Lucille asked.
“What?” Ray said. “Are we going to tell him to stay off the street?”
“I think he’s gone nuts,” Carl said. “I’d go nuts too if I had to sit in that office and punch an adding machine all day.”
“And the damn chair was squeaking worse than ever,” Ray said. “It sounded like a kid practicing the violin.”
Lucille decided to go and see George. Not at the office, at home. She felt a little odd about going to see him at home, all by herself, but she felt somehow he wouldn’t misunderstand. She just wanted to talk to him, to be sure he was all right. She looked up his address in the phone book.
When she got to his apartment building, she hesitated. She wasn’t sure she should be doing this. Then she pushed the button marked “G. Beltran.” George’s voice came over the intercom: “Who is it?”
His voice sounded strange, but Lucille told herself it was just the intercom. “It’s me, Lucille. From work. I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”
“OK,” George said. He buzzed the door. Lucille opened it, stepped inside, and went up the stairs. As she walked through the hall to George’s apartment, she found herself wondering whether he rolled up and down it in his chair.
George was waiting for her at the door to his apartment. “Hi,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here. What’s up?”
“Oh, nothing special.” She blushed. “I was just passing by and wanted to see how you were.”
George looked pleased. “Well, it’s nice of you to come up. Would you like a drink?”
Lucille blushed again. “Just a little water, thanks.”
“I’ve got plenty of that,” George said. “Would you like an ice cube in your water?”
“Please."
George brought her a glass of water. While he was pouring himself a beer, Lucille glanced around the apartment, looking for the chair. It was next to the kitchen table.
“I see you brought your old desk chair home,” she said.
“Yeah,” George said. “I’m kinda attached to it. And I needed another chair here.” He sipped his beer.
“Have you lived here long?” Lucille asked.
“About two years,” George said. “I moved here after I started working at Central States. I used to live over on the West Side, near the big A & W on Elmhurst. My place there was convenient, but I like it better here. I have a nice view of the river from my window. Would you like to see it?”
They went and stood at the window. Below, a man and a woman were walking down the street, hand in hand. A few blocks away, the Drive N' Save sign glowed against an evening sky filled with dark blue clouds. Beyond, the river ran black under the elm trees. “Very nice,” Lucille said.
“Would you like some more water?” George asked. “Or maybe a beer? I’ve got some Miller’s.”
“No, thanks. I have to be going now,” Lucille said.
As Lucille was walking out to the parking lot after work the following Thursday, George came up to her. “Hi, Lucille,” he said.
“Hi,” Lucille said.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner with me tonight. I know this place near my apartment, and it’s pretty good.”
Lucille fidgeted with her car keys. “Well, I don’t know, I’ve got a lot of things to do at home tonight,” she said. “OK.”
They took George’s new Nash, leaving Lucille’s old Ford in the lot. “I’ll bring you back later so you can pick up your car,” George said.
After dinner, George invited Lucille up to his apartment for coffee. They sat at the kitchen table. George offered Lucille the swivel chair, but she laughed and said that it was his chair. She sat down on the other one, which was made of tubular, chromed metal and plastic. She noticed that George squeaked his chair in a rhythmical way as they talked. It made her somewhat uneasy, but at the same time it was rather pleasant and homey.
George’s apartment was near the Laundromat where Lucille did her laundry every Saturday. She got into the habit of stopping by to say hello to him. One day the entry door was propped open because the cleaning lady was doing the floors, and Lucille walked in without ringing George’s bell. As she walked up the stairs to his apartment, she could hear his chair squeaking, loudly and rhythmically. Remembering what Carl had said, she blushed. She was standing in front of his door trying to decide whether to knock when the squeaking suddenly stopped and George appeared at the door. “Lucille!" he said. "I was hoping you’d come by.”
They decided to split a beer, and as they sat at the kitchen table, Lucille kept looking at George’s chair. Finally she said, “I guess your old chair still squeaks. I heard it as I came up the stairs.”
It was George’s turn to blush. “Yeah,” he said. “Was it very loud?”
“Pretty loud,” Lucille said. “You should put some oil on it. Though in a way I kind of like it. It almost sounded like music.”
George stared at her. “Do you mean that?” he asked.
“Mean what?” Lucille said, vaguely alarmed.
“That it sounded like music.”
“Oh, yeah, well, sort of,” Lucille said.
George smiled. “Would you like to split another beer?”
One day a few months later, when Lucille came to visit George she heard the chair squeaking as she walked up the stairs, even though she’d rung the bell in the entryway. It did sound like music, and she even seemed to recognize a melody in it, something she’d heard on the radio. “I must be going crazy, too,” she thought. “I do like him, though.”
The door to George’s apartment was open, and he was sitting in his chair. “Come on in,” he said. “How about a beer?”
“George,” Lucille said, “how does your chair make that sound?”
“What sound?” George asked, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
“Well, that funny sound it makes. It almost sounded like a song I’ve heard,” Lucille said. She blushed.
“Really?” George said. “That’s great. Would you like to hear some more?” Without waiting for her to answer, he began to rock his chair, rotating it slightly from side to side as he did so, but after a few squeaks he stopped. “Wait, let me shut the door first,” he said. He shut the door and then came back and sat down in the chair again.
"George," Lucille said, "I think maybe I should be going."
“Wait,” he said, “listen to this and tell me what you think.”
As she listened, Lucille could hardly believe her ears. It was music. Like a crazy fiddle it soared and dipped, punctuated by staccato clicks and deep thumps. When he had finished, George sat quietly in his chair, looking intently at her. “Well?” he said.
“George, that’s amazing,” Lucille said. “How did you learn to do that?”
“I don’t know,” George said. “I guess I just started trying to make it sing.”
“Well. Fancy that.”
“Lucille, I want to ask you something.”
“OK,” Lucille said, a little apprehensively.
“There’s this talent show down at the local TV station, you know the one, it’s on Saturday night?”
“Yeah,” Lucille replied. “I’ve watched it a couple of times.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about taking my chair down there.”
“On the street, you mean?” Lucille said, alarmed again.
“Not necessarily. I want to take it to the talent show.”
Lucille was afraid she knew what George meant. “George,” she said somewhat desperately, “they have seats for the audience there. You don’t have to take your own.”
“No, I mean I want to play my chair on the talent show. Do you think they’d let me?”
Lucille went pale. “George, that’s crazy. They’ll never let you do that.”
“Why not?” George asked. “You said it sounded like music. You even said you recognized the melody. It was “Bali Hai,” right? You know, from South Pacific?”
“Well, that’s what it sounded like to me, but...”
“Anyway, I’m going to try,” George said. “Will you come with me?”
Lucille looked sick. “I'm not sure, George,” she said. “OK.”
Lucille decided to have a permanent before she went to the television studio with George. “I don’t know, Flo,” she told the operator. “He’s a nice guy but he’s a little strange.”
“How do you mean, ‘strange?’” Flo asked as she wound another strand of Lucille's hair around a curler. “All men are strange, so far as I can see.”
“Well, he likes music,” Lucille said lamely.
“So does my brother, Larry. What’s strange about that?”
“Nothing, I guess. Do you think I should put a little color in my hair?”
When they got to the studio, they asked the man at the door where you went if you wanted to be a contestant. He pointed down a hall. “Over there, second door on the right. You’ll have to wait your turn.” There were already two people in line; one was a young man holding a guitar, the other a middle-aged woman with large rings on her fingers. They looked at George and Lucille, trying to size up the competition.
“What do you do?” the woman asked Lucille.
“Oh, it’s not me, it’s him,” Lucille replied, blushing. “He’s a musician.”
“What kind of musician?” the woman asked.
“Just a musician,” Lucille said.
“I’m a singer,” the woman said. “Does he sing or play an instrument?”
“I play a swivel chair,” said George.
The young man laughed. “Pretty funny,” he said.
The man who selected the contestants was tired of his job. He glared at George and Lucille and said, “Well? What’s your racket?”
“I make music with a swivel chair, and I’d like to be on your show,” George said.
“You do what?” the man said.
“I make music with a swivel chair, and I’d like to be on your show,” George repeated.
“I heard you the first time,” the man said. “Now wise up or get the hell out of here. I don't have time for fooling around. Or are you supposed to be some kind of comedian?”
“Maybe I could show you,” George said. “I could bring my chair in and play it for you, if you’d like.”
“Get outta here,” the man said.
“Wait,” Lucille said. “He really can do it.. I’ve heard him. It’s amazing.”
George beamed at her.
The man sighed. "Listen,” he said, looking at Lucille, “you’re kinda cute. If you’ll have dinner with me tonight, I’ll let this guy do whatever he does on the show. Is it a deal?
Lucille stared at him, then looked at George. George looked at his shoes. “OK,” Lucille said.
When George saw Lucille at work the next day, he asked her how the dinner had gone. “OK,” she said.
“He didn’t try anything afterward, did he?” George asked.
“No. It wasn’t too bad.”
“Thanks, Lucille. I really appreciate it. Can we have dinner Saturday night? Before the show?”
“OK,” Lucille said.
They arrived at the studio at about 7:30. George told the man at the front desk that he was a contestant for that night’s show and was sent to a room where six other people were already sitting on folding chairs. Neither the guitarist nor the woman with rings was there. George rolled his chair into the room and said, “Lucille, are you sure you don’t want to sit in it? It’s OK.” But Lucille said she’d rather sit on a folding chair. George sat down on his chair, being careful not to let it squeak. Lucille’s hands were sweating, and she wished she’d had a drink before dinner after all.
Soon a man came in and gave each contestant a card with a number on it. George got number seven, and that gave him confidence. “We’ll be starting in ten minutes,” the man said. “When the light over the door flashes, that’s your cue to go on stage. Number one goes first, number two goes second, and so on. Understand?”
George said, “Lucille, I guess you’d better go get a seat if you want to see me play. And I need a little time to get myself ready. I’ll see you right after the show, OK?”
“OK,” Lucille said.
When George rolled out his chair, Lucille felt as if she were on stage. She scrunched down in her seat, but kept her eyes fixed on George. The MC looked at his cue card and said, “And next, we’ll have the pleasure of listening to Mr. George Beltran, who plays...the swivel chair?”
“Right,” George said, and sat down.
The audience laughed. Lucille sank further into her seat.
Then George began to rock and spin his chair, and a strange melody filled the hall. The audience chuckled and coughed, then fell silent. George rocked faster and faster, swiveling back and forth, and the music grew louder and more insistent; then he began to play variations on the melody. Suddenly, he slowed down, moving almost dreamily, while the music softened into a sweet adagio. Then he began to whirl on his chair; the tempo accelerated again, becoming more and more frenetic, and the chair’s soprano reached into a higher register. At the climactic moment, George shot across the stage in his chair, stopped just short of the footlights, and launched into his finale. His eyes closed, he played the coda with deep feeling, bringing the audience almost to tears.
Lucille had never heard anything like it. Neither had the audience. They clapped wildly, and the MC shook George’s hand. George smiled, bowed modestly, and left the stage, pushing his chair in front of him. A few minutes later, a platinum blonde led him back onto the stage. The MC shook George’s hand again, and announced that he had won that evening’s competition. He gave George a pink envelope with a check in it. The blonde gave him a kiss. The audience clapped. George smiled and bowed again. Lucille was very proud of him.
And that was how George’s career began.
2. From Hedges (Chapter 2):
Marcel Fabre stood under the spreading branches of a plane tree in front of his house, watching his neighbor, Robert Vidal, a heavy-set man who was also getting on in years, drive his tractor up and down the field. "He's plowing our land," Marcel said to himself. "The salaud."
A century earlier, to gain more land for cultivation, Vidal's great-grandfather had cut down the broad hedgerow that separated his land from that of Marcel's great-grandfather. The Fabres claimed that at least half of that land, perhaps five meters wide, was theirs, and the two families had been on bad terms ever since. It had never occurred to either side to have the land surveyed; in any event, a survey would have settled nothing. In La Bastide, people knew where the boundaries were, or thought they did, and nothing some surveyor said could change that.
The land around La Bastide had once been crisscrossed by hedgerows like the one the Vidals had cut down. Most of these hedgerows had not been planted, but left to grow into natural tangles of thorny acacias, brambles, morning glory and nettles. Mice, rabbits, weasels, hedgehogs, and foxes lived under them, and multitudes of wrens, sparrows, larks, and thrushes sang on their branches, while hawks wheeled overhead, keeping an eye on them all. When he was a boy, Marcel had spent many hours trapping the rabbits and building nets to catch the larks and thrushes, delicacies his mother carefully cleaned and roasted. Sometimes he rowed across the river and climbed the ochre-colored cliffs on the other side; from the top, he could see the oddly-shaped fields separated by hedgerows like heavy seams of dark yarn on a patchwork quilt.
As he looked out now across Vidal's land, Marcel saw the red tile roofs of the houses in the village, and beyond them, the church with its missing spire. Both he and Vidal had been baptized in that church. And, as he knew, they would soon both be buried in the churchyard cemetery. But when they attended mass on Sunday mornings Marcel and his family avoided looking at Vidal and his family. "I'll look at him when I go to his funeral," Marcel used to say, grimly.
Of course, everyone in the village was aware of the feud, and no one would ever have considered inviting a Fabre and a Vidal to the same gathering. In fact, the Fabres made it clear that anyone who was a friend of the Vidals was no friend of theirs, and the Vidals felt the same way. And so virtually the whole village was divided into two mutually exclusive camps. These divisions corresponded in part to relationships between families: the Fabres were related to the Cazalens, the Lafargues, the Viguiés, the Delcasses, and the Labarthes; the Vidals were related to the Delthils, the Bousquets, the Larroques, the Durands, and the Guilhems. But within these families there were often schisms that complicated the picture considerably; sometimes one branch of a family was in Fabre's camp, and another in Vidal's. Moreover, if you went back four or five generations, all the old families in La Bastide were connected in one way or another. Thus François-Marie Fabre and Alexandre Vidal, the two patriarchs who initiated the quarrel, were great-uncles of the current mayor of La Bastide, Gaston Delprat, who steered a careful course between the two camps.
Marcel watched Vidal plowing the strip of land where the hedgerow had once stood, as he did every spring. He spat on the ground in disgust and turned aside, just in time to see a strange contraption come noiselessly down the road alongside his house. It was a bright blue recumbent bicycle--Marcel had never seen one before--with a bucket seat to the back of which was attached a rectangular, fringed parasol. On the seat was a young woman dressed in black spandex, with flowing blonde hair and large sunglasses. Marcel stared as she glided on toward the village. Then he turned and walked swiftly into the house. "Did you see that?" he asked his wife Odette, who was sitting at the kitchen table, slicing up leeks for the midday soupe.
"See what?" Odette asked.
"That woman on the strange bicycle."
"No. Who was she?"
"I don't know. I never saw her before."
"Who was she with?"
Odette got up and looked out the window. Although motorists who had lost their way were occasionally seen in La Bastide, and middle-aged men on racing bicycles sometimes rode through the village on Sunday mornings, a lone, unknown woman on a bicycle was an unusual event. "I don't see anyone," Odette said.
"She was going toward the village," Marcel said. "She was lying down on her bicycle."
"Lying down?"
"Yes, with her legs going straight out in front of her. It was some kind of foreign bicycle. She had long blonde hair and..." Marcel decided not to tell his wife what the young woman was wearing. "And huge sunglasses. And there was a big parasol on the bicycle."
Odette gave him an exasperated look. "Why are you telling me such tales?" she asked, shaking her head and turning back to her leeks.
"No, it's true, I saw her," Marcel insisted. His wife sighed and went on with her work. For some time, she'd been noticing that her husband was becoming more forgetful, and she worried about him, especially since his mother had become senile at about his age. She remembered how the old lady had waited for a visit from beaux who had died years before, confused Marcel with her brother, and ultimately recognized neither him nor his father.
Marcel walked out of the house and peered down the road. The woman on the bicycle had vanished. Vidal had stopped his tractor and was talking to his son Jean-Luc, who stood alongside him. Vidal was shouting and gesticulating wildly. Marcel briefly considered asking Vidal if he had seen the woman on the bicycle but decided against it. Instead, he climbed into his old 4L and drove into the village, studiously avoiding Vidal's eyes as he passed. He parked on the village square, in front of the cafe. When he came in, five or six other people were already there. Marcel stood at the bar, listening to what the other patrons were saying. No one was talking about a woman on a bicycle. He turned to Maurice, the cafe's owner, who was standing behind the bar, wiping glasses with a dirty towel. "Have you seen any cyclists go by this morning?" he asked.
"No," Maurice replied. "They come by on Sundays, mainly. Why do you ask?"
"I just wondered," Marcel said. "I'll have a pastis."
Maurice had never known Marcel to drink anything alcoholic in the morning, and he watched him mistrustfully as he set a glass on the bar and put a shot of Ricard in it. He pushed the glass toward Marcel and handed him a small bottle of water. "Nice day," he said. "Have you done your plowing yet?"
"The soil's still a little too wet," Marcel said. "I thought I'd plow tomorrow, if it doesn't rain."
"According to the weather report, it's not supposed to rain until the weekend," Maurice said. "Of course, the report is always wrong." Marcel nodded. Maurice lost interest in him and picked up his towel again.
Marcel began to wonder if he'd been seeing things. The woman on the bicycle must have passed in front of the cafe on her way through the village; how could all these people have failed to see her? He told Maurice he'd be back in a minute, and leaving his pastis half finished, he walked out into the street. There was no one in sight except Madame Cazalens, who was leaning out her window. Marcel walked over and greeted her. They exchanged views on the weather, and then Marcel asked her if she'd seen anyone pass by within the last hour.
"Well," Madame Cazalens said, "the bakery man was here a little while ago, and Madame Chauderon said hello on her way to the butcher's to get some more lard. I tell her she shouldn't eat so much lard; it's not good for her liver, but she won't listen to me. And I saw Monsieur Miramont going down to the cafe. He's getting so lame he can hardly walk, poor thing. But he has to get out of the house because of that wife of his. What a harridan! I don't blame him for spending all day at the cafe."
"Did you see anyone on a bicycle?" Marcel asked.
"Well, the postman, of course. He brought me the new Redoute catalogue. Did you get yours yet?"
"Not yet," Marcel replied. "No one else on a bicycle, then?"
"No," said Madame Cazalens. "Why do you ask?"
"I just saw someone I didn't know go by on a bicycle and wondered who it was," Marcel said.
"You can't be too careful," Madame Cazalens said. "I heard that Monsieur Albret saw a stranger on a bicycle pass his house the day before someone broke in and stole his silver candlesticks."
Marcel nodded, said goodbye to Madame Cazalens, and returned to the cafe. As he stood brooding over his pastis, the door flew open and Vidal and his son came in. When Vidal saw Marcel at the bar, he looked startled, but quickly turned away and sat down at a table at the other side of the room. "Maurice," he said in a loud voice, "tell this young twit that you saw a blonde woman riding a funny bicycle down the street this morning."
Maurice said, "Tell him I saw what?"
"A woman wearing nothing but tight black underwear and big sunglasses. She was lying down on her bicycle. What a sight!" He laughed. The other people in the cafe watched him apprehensively.
Maurice glared at Vidal. "Is everyone in the moon this morning? What kind of story are you telling me?"
"It's not possible that you didn't see her! Go on, tell Jean-Luc, he doesn't believe me."
Maurice shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't see anyone on a bicycle this morning except the postman, and I've no idea what color his underwear is. Do you want to order something?"
Vidal ignored Maurice and turned to the people sitting at the other tables. "You must have seen her--come on!" He approached an elderly man who looked at him with alarm. "You, Monsieur Lafargue, you're right there by the window, you saw her!" Lafargue shook his head. Everyone was staring at Vidal as if he'd suddenly gone mad. Vidal glanced at his son, whose eyes were full of pity. Vidal's face grew red, and he stood for a moment with his head bowed, as if studying his green rubber boots. Then he spun around and looked hard at Marcel.
Marcel felt everyone's eyes on him. He hesitated. Then he said, "I saw her."
There was a long, stunned silence in the cafe. Maurice stood transfixed, his mouth hanging open and his towel dangling from his hand. Finally Vidal said to his son, "You see, I told you." He turned to Marcel again. "She was wearing tight black underwear and sun glasses, wasn't she?"
"Yes," Marcel said. "And she was lying down on the bicycle."
"Are you telling me you actually saw this?" Maurice asked Marcel.
"Yes, I did. She had long blonde hair, and there was a kind of canopy over her head to keep off the sun."
Lafargue got to his feet and hobbled out of the cafe. Two or three others appeared inclined to follow his example, but they remained in their seats, unable to leave.
"She went right past your place, didn't she, Marcel?" Vidal said.
"Yes, she was riding into the village," Marcel replied. "But she was moving very quietly. Maybe no one heard or saw her as she passed through."
"That's right," Vidal said, turning to Maurice with a broad smile. "You must have missed her, poor devil. What a sight!"
That afternoon, Madame Cazalens saw Lafargue walking down the street. She leaned out her window and said, "Bonjour, Monsieur." Lafargue returned her greeting, and for a while they talked about the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. Then Madame Cazalens said, "I heard something unusual happened at the cafe this morning."
"Yes, indeed, Lafargue said. "I've never seen the like."
"Do tell."
"Eh bé, Marcel Fabre came in and asked Maurice whether he'd seen anyone ride past on a bicycle."
"Why, he asked me the same question!" cried Madame Cazalens. She and Lafargue both belonged to the Fabre camp.
"Then Monsieur Vidal came in and asked everyone if they'd seen a blonde woman riding a bicycle in her underwear."
"What's that you say? In her underwear!"
"In her underwear. It was black and she was lying down on her bicycle." Madame Cazalens was speechless. "Then Marcel said he'd seen her too, pardi!"
"Marcel? He said that?"
"He did. I couldn't believe it. It was so strange that I didn't know what might happen next, so I got up and left."
"I don't blame you. But I wonder what happened afterward?"
"Pierre--he was there, too--came by my house on his way home for lunch, and he told me that the two of them--Marcel and Vidal, think of that!--went and sat at a table in the back of the cafe and talked for almost an hour. Then they went out and got into Marcel's car and drove off together!"
"Marcel took Vidal away in his car? It's unbelievable!"
"It was as if they'd both gone mad!"
"These sudden changes in the weather can make people crazy. I told Madame Chauderon just this morning that this warm wind out of the south would give me a headache. They must have been out in the fields without their hats on."
"I've never seen either Marcel or Monsieur Vidal without his hat on, except in church," Lafargue said, doubtfully.
"Well, whatever it is, it's very disturbing." Madame Cazalens said goodbye to Monsieur Lafargue and hurried off to tell her neighbors the troubling news.
When Marcel got home, his wife said, "Where have you been? The soup has been ready for an hour."
"I've been at the cafe, talking with Vidal."
Odette dropped the spoon into the soup she was stirring. "What's that you say?" she asked. "With Vidal?"
"Yes, with Vidal. He saw her too."
"Saw who?" Odette was getting seriously concerned.
"The woman on the bicycle." Odette went pale and sank onto a chair. Her lips moved but no sound came out of her mouth. "And he said she was wearing black underwear and sunglasses," Marcel said, triumphantly. Odette began to weep, silently. "And she had long blonde hair!" Marcel shouted. "He saw her!"
The next morning, Marcel came storming into the kitchen, where his wife was mopping the floor. "Now he has gone too far!" he cried. "Vidal is planting trees on our land!"
Odette sighed with relief. "It's an outrage," she said, smiling.