the forking.
The old
'Listen!' Hannah pled. 'Is there someone who could drive me to the Chateau of Etchebar?'
A quick conference was held between the cafe owner and the
'No.'
It had been decided that this foreign girl wearing walking shorts and who had a rucksack was one of the young athletic tourists who were notorious for being friendly, but for tipping very little. Therefore, there was no one who would drive her to Etchebar, except for the oldest of the
With a sigh, Hannah took up her rucksack. But when the cafe owner reminded her of the cup of coffee, she remembered she had no French money. She explained this with expressions of lighthearted contrition, trying to laugh off the ludicrousness of the situation. But he steadfastly stared at the cup of unpaid-for coffee, and remained dolefully silent. The
Finally, the proprietor sighed a rippling sigh and looked up at her, tragedy in his moist eyes. Was she really telling him that she didn't have two francs for the coffee—forget the tip—just two francs for the coffee? There was a matter of principle involved here. After all,
Hannah was between anger and laughter. She could not believe that all these heavy theatrics were being produced for two francs. (She did not know that the price of a cup of coffee was, in fact,
Dominated by the mentality of the
Finally realizing that his dumb show of pain and disappointment was not going to extract the two francs from this young girl, the proprietor excused himself with sardonic politeness, telling her be would be right back.
When he returned twenty minutes later, after a tense conference with his wife in the back room, he asked, 'You are a friend of M. Hel?'
'Yes,' Hannah lied, not wanting to go into all that.
'I see. Well then, I shall assume that Mr. Hel will pay, should you fail to.' He tore a sheet from the note pad provided by the Byrrh distributors and wrote something on it before folding it two times, sharpening the creases with his thumbnail. 'Please give this to M. Hell,' he said coldly.
His eyes no longer flicked to her breast and legs. Some things are more important than romance.
* * *
Hannah had been walking for more than an hour, over the Pont d'Abense and the glittering Gave de Saison, then slowly up into the Basque hills along a narrow tar road softened by the sun and confined by ancient stone walls over which lizards scurried at her approach. In the fields sheep grazed, lambs teetering beside the ewes, and russet
The heat stewed a heady medley of aroma: the soprano of wild-flower, the mezzotones of cut grass and fresh sheep droppings, the insistent basso profundo of softened tar.
Insulated by fatigue from the sights and smells around her, Hannah plodded along, her head down and her concentration absorbed in watching the toes of her hiking boots. Her mind, recoiling from the sensory overload of the last ten hours, was finding haven in a tunnel-vision of the consciousness. She did not dare to think, to imagine, to remember; because looming out there, just beyond the edges of here-and-now, were visions that would damage her, if she let them in. Don't think. Just walk, and watch the toes of your boots. It is all about getting to the Chateau d'Etchebar. It is all about contacting Nicholai Hel. There is nothing before or beyond that.
She came to a forking in the road and stopped. To the right, the way rose steeply toward the hilltop village of Etchebar, and beyond the huddle of stone and
She sighed deeply and trudged on, her fatigue blending with protective emotional neurasthenia. If she could just make the chateau... just get to Nicholai Hel...
Two peasant women in black dresses paused in their gossip over a low stone wall and watched the outlander girl with open curiosity and mistrust. Where was she going, this hussy showing her legs? Toward the chateau? Ah well, that explained it. All sorts of strange people go to the chateau ever since that foreigner bought it! Not that M. Hel was a bad man. Indeed, their husbands had told them he was much admired by the Basque freedom movement. But still... he was a newcomer. No use denying it. He had lived in the chateau only fourteen years, while everyone else in the village (ninety-three souls) could find his name on dozens of gravestones around the church, sometimes newly cut into pyrenean granite, sometimes barely legible on ancient stone scrubbed smooth by five centuries of rain and wind. Look! The hussy has not even bound her breasts! She wants men to look at her, that's what it is! She will have a nameless child if she is not careful! Who would marry her then? She will end up cutting vegetables and scrubbing floors in the household of her sister. And her sister's husband will pester her when he is drunk! And one day, when the sister is too far along with child to be able to do it, this one will succumb to the husband! Probably in the barn. It always happens so. And the sister will find out, and she will drive this one from the house! Where will she go then? She will become a whore in Bayonne, that's what!
A third woman joined the two. Who is that girl showing her legs? We know nothing about her—except that she is a whore from Bayonne. And not even Basque! Do you think she might be a Protestant? Oh no, I wouldn't go that far. Just a poor
True, true.
As she passed, Hannah looked up and noticed the three women.
'Yes, Madame.'
'That's nice. You are lucky to have the leisure.'
An elbow nudged, and was nudged back. It was daring and clever to come so close to saying it.
'You are looking for the chateau, Mademoiselle?'
'Yes, I am.'
'Just keep going as you are, and you will find what you're looking for.'