Читать книгу A Woman, In Bed - Anne Finger - Страница 20

Lighthouse

It seemed to her that she did not sleep again, although that was not, strictly speaking, true: throughout the early hours of the morning she dove down into sleep and then darted just as quickly awake, moving in and out of sleep like a barn swallow swooping across the evening sky. She did finally fall into a real sleep, because she distinctly awoke, her room filled with mid-morning light—and Marcel’s cradle empty.

She washed and dressed as quickly as possible—given the lodgers in the house, it was quite unthinkable for her to come down in her dressing gown. Cecile, doing the last of the breakfast dishes, wiped a lock of hair back from her damp forehead, leaving a ribbon of grey suds on her brow.

“Sleep well?” her mother asked.

When that failed to produce a response from Simone, her mother said, “I trust our work here in the kitchen didn’t disturb you.”

Simone lifted Marcel from her mother’s arms. He squawked slightly at the change, and her mother shot her a look, Your own son prefers me to you.

“Shall I get you some coffee?” Cecile asked.

“Oh, she can get it for herself.”

“Thank you, Cecile.”

With her small hands, it was difficult for Simone to manage the morning bowl of coffee with a single hand while she held Marcel so he could nurse. She finally clenched the rim between her thumb and forefinger, despite her mother’s disapproving glare.

“What does the day look like?” Simone asked.

“Bright and sunny, as you can see for yourself.”

“No, I only meant—the others, the birdwatcher, of course I know—have they gone down to the sea, or—”

“To the seaside. The major and the two families.”

“And?”

“Yes?” her mother said.

“Albert and his friend?”

“Jacques. I know you haven’t forgotten his name is Jacques.”

Cecile walked past, lugging a pail of dishwater out to splash over the kitchen garden, the water sloshing from side to side, the heavy thump of her footsteps, the door slamming shut behind her.

“Did they go to the beach, too?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” her mother answered.

“Satisfaction brought it back.”

“We have quite enough satisfied cats about the place as is. Out in the barn, and now, it seems, in the house, too.”

During the remaining course of the morning, Simone managed to piece together the answers her mother had refused to give her. Albert and Jacques had risen early—the mother from Rouen had heard them whispering with the birdwatcher—her bedroom being directly above the kitchen, sound does travel—not to mention the kitchen smells! The poor woman from Rouen had never gotten back to sleep.

At lunch, the table was set for thirteen. Mme. Vidal mentioned it before anyone else could. “Of course, I’m sure no one here is so silly as to be superstitious. And who knows, we may only be twelve, sometimes our birdwatching friend’s rambles allow her to return, sometimes not. She’s left quite strict instructions that we are to start without her—”

“Have the young gentlemen taken their leave?” the major asked.

“No, they’ve only gone off for a day hike,” Mme. Vidal said.

“To the lighthouse,” Simone added, pleased to be in the possession of some intelligence.

“To a lighthouse?” the mother from Rouen said. “It seems a strange destination.”

“You can climb to the top—I believe there are six hundred stairs—and it’s a magnificent view.”

“Six hundred stairs!” The mother from Rouen did not approve.

The major, to head off the threatening unpleasantness among the ladies, began a discourse on lighthouses in his execrable French. The great lighthouse at Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, actually on the island of Pharos in the Alexandrian harbor, and it was from this word that the French word phare as well as the Spanish and Italian words faro had been derived. The lady from Rouen offered her opinion that Alexandria was in Palestine, and those at the table who knew better declined to correct her. Her husband’s cousin had known a man who was a lighthouse keeper and was a very strange sort indeed. Just when it seemed the conversation might flag, the Alsatian birdwatcher returned, darting to her seat at the table, saying, “Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t wait for me. I would have felt terrible had you waited. Just some soup, please, and then I’ll catch up with the—but I heard you were talking about lighthouses! Once at a lighthouse in the La Coruna in Spain, right among the rocks, I saw a black stork.” She clasped her hands to her bosom, leaned her head forward and looked about the table at each and every one: “Yes! A black stork. Now, as I’m sure you all know, the black stork is migratory, indeed—” While she spoke, she set her soup spoon down, and a perplexed Cecile stood in the doorway, uncertain of whether to serve the casserole or not. “It travels enormous distances, across Europe to northern India—”

Simone thought she might well go mad.

After lunch, Simone nursed Marcel. She slept (or tried to), went into the parlor and played a few hands of beloute, arranged and rearranged a bouquet of flowers, perched on a stool in the kitchen and polished the silver, nursed Marcel again, walked along the strand.

The table was again set for thirteen.

Mme. Vidal’s satisfaction was evident as she spoke. “Our rugged young men have plans to dine al fresco this evening—at some fisherman’s shack. Apparently the charms of my table can’t compete with those of perching on a boulder, eating fried fish off a cracked plate.”

“Ah, Madame,” said the father from Lyon, “any one who would shun your estimable table—”

“Hear, hear,” the major put in, in English.

“Perhaps they miss the trenches,” the father from Rouen said, and then guffawed, although no one else found humor in his remark.

The suppertime topics seem to have been set: discourtesies and slights delivered to hostesses, rude guests, fair weather friends. The conversation hopscotched around the table, each story followed by laughter or tut-tuts of disapproval and sympathy, and then by the next speaker telling a tale featuring even more loutish behavior.

Jacques and Albert returned, calling âllo from the passageway, refusing to enter the dining room—they were filthy and smelled of fried fish. They would wash and then retire: they had an early train to catch, “Farewell, to one and all,” Albert called. “I kiss the hands of all the ladies from afar, and warmly clasp the gentlemen’s hands.” Jacques nodded his head in agreement. Poor Cecile—before she’d even had a chance to clear the supper things—was swabbing their mucky footprints.