The Body in the Vestibule

jumped out, pulled notebooks from their pockets, spoke to a few people, then dispersed the crowd and took both clochards and the animals away.

Five minutes later, all that was left was the broken glass, spilled wine, and a large boodstain on the empty sidewalk.

Faith realized she was shaking. It was time to get Ben and she had to force herself to walk past the church.

The next morning, the clochard was back, looking slightly cleaner. Same animals, same radio, same casquette.

“Ah, Tom, you have put your linger exactly on the problem. What will happen to us poor French in 1992 when all Europe will be homogenized into one community? We will be flooded with Spanish and Italian wines and, quelle hor-reur, perhaps English cheeses.' Everyone laughed at Georges Joliet's gloomy prognostications, then proceeded to all talk at once. It remained for Madame Vincent's softer, yet more pronounced voice to rise above the rest as, slightly flushed from the white Cotes du Rhone, she declared, 'France will always be France. It has nothing to do with wine or cheese, but who we are. Whether you live in Paris, Lyon, the countryside —'la France profonde,' we French share something that politics and economics cannot destroy. It is our destiny to be French.' The rest cheered. It was a wonderful party.

The room was filled with a glow produced by the warmth of the food, the people crowded around the table, and the candles Faith had placed wherever she could find room. Everyone had brought flowers and she'd had to put the last bunch—beautiful arum lilies—in the teakettle and prop them up on the mantel. They looked perfectly at home.

They'd started with champagne and feuilletes sales— assorted small crunchy bits of puff pastry wrapped around an olive, flavored with cheese, or forming the base for a bite-sized pizza—the French answer to cocktail peanuts. At the table, she'd served the first asparagus of the season from the Luberon in Provence, delicate pale green stalks, steamed with a lemony mousseline sauce. Then bouillabaisse. She'd toyed with the idea of trying to create a real American meal—chicken and dumplings, baked country ham, but she had neither the ingredients nor the batteries de cuisine. With only one rather small frying pan, it would have taken a long time to fry chicken for eleven. She did have a big pot, though, and having walked past the seafood, artfully displayed on crushed ice day after day in the market, she'd longed for the chance to cook as many varieties as possible—which meant bouillabaisse. The only departure from her usual recipe—more a fish stew than a soup—was to remove the meat from the lobster and shrimp shells before serving. There wasn't enough elbow room at the table for the guests to do the dissections themselves, nor space for a bowl for the shells. There was room for a platter of slightly toasted bread liberally spread with rouille—the garlic and saffron mayonnaise, which is so delectable when dipped in the jus.

She'd been a bit worried that no one would want cheese after the first courses, but when she'd produced the platter from Richard, where admittedly she'd gone a little wild—charollais, epoisses, picodon, bleu de Bresse, reblo-chon, and more St. Marcellin, there was a murmur of appreciation. Paul Leblanc had eyed the fromages with delight. 'Cheese. You can always find room for cheese. It's like salad.”

Now they were all finding room for the cold compote of blood oranges with creme anglaise Faith had made the day before and the assortment of dark chocolates Tom had picked up at Bernachon—the correct answer on the analogy section of the SATs to the question 'Richard is to cheese as_____is to chocolate.”

Faith gazed happily at Tom, who was busy pouring a Sauterne to go with the dessert. He was a good host back hi Aleford, yet France seemed to inspire him to new heights. He was off the leash—or rather without the collar—and enjoying every minute of it. She knew his sense of humor and general joie de vivre were a surprise to some of the people they were meeting. Protestants, correctly or incorrectly, were regarded as a solemn, rather dour bunch, and Tom behaved more like a priest.

Throughout the meal, the talk had ranged from new movies to politics to gardens. Paul Leblanc and Clement Veaux had discovered they shared a passion for growing things, waxing lyrical about the taste of a certain pear, poire William, plucked straight from the tree.

They were continuing to talk quietly to each other' about pruning, while Georges Joliet again bemoaned the creation of the European Community.

“But you are a Communist, Georges,' Ghislaine Leblanc said. 'Surely you are hi favor of doing away with these artificial borders created by capitalistic wars?' Ghislaine wore her dark hair pulled back from her face, which emphasized her high cheekbones and the large full mouth that punctuated her question with a slightly mocking smile.

“Yes, it is true I am a Communist, but I am a Frenchman first—' he started to elaborate.

Valentina interrupted him. 'You just don't want to be under the same flag as your Italiano in-laws.”

She addressed the group, 'Georges is a Communist, but he draws the line at my family.”

Georges's face, under an untidy beard in classic anar- chistic style, was crossed by an expression of intense irritation. Then he apparently decided to treat his wife's remarks as a joke and forced a laugh.

The talk ambled on. Solange d'Ambert—a feminine and very slightly older-looking version of Christophe, despite five children—lit a cigarette. Her hair was shorter on one side than the other, and when she swept the chin- length side back across her head, only to have it tumble back in a silken curtain, the gesture looked so sexy and so fashionable that Faith instantly decided to find a coiffeur to duplicate the cut with her own thick blond hair.

“Were you here during the fight between the clochards yesterday?' she asked Faith.

“Yes, I watched from the window. Do you know what it was about?”

She shrugged. 'Not really. I was watching from the street and the old one was shouting about money. I think the young one had taken some coins from the bowl to get more wine and the old one thought he was stealing them. Or maybe he was stealing.'

“Does this happen often?' Tom asked.

“Oh no,' Solange reassured him. 'This is a very safe area.'

“Except for cars,' Delphine Veaux interjected. 'Lyon is noted for car theft, but with our Renault Five, we don't worry. Now if we could afford a BMW or Peugeot Six-oh-five, that would be something else. We would be lucky to have it a week.'

“Cars and jewels, which we also do not have in abundance and so have been spared,' her husband added. 'There has been a rash of burglaries around here, in Ainay, and a few across the river in the Brotteaux area. However, the thieves are not greedy. They leave stereos, TV, even cash and take only jewelry and occasionally a small and valuable bibelot.'

“Perhaps it's not greed but good taste,' Solange of- fered. 'In the Brotteaux, they find expensive new toys, in Ainay, all the valuables tout Lyon has passed down from generation to generation, and here—perhaps a melange.'

“This is a serious matter, cherie.' Jean-Francois d'Am-bert appeared surprised at his wife's flippancy. 'I can't understand why the flics have not been able to be a stop to it. What are we paying them for? To put tickets on our cars? Yes, they are very proficient at that, but when it comes to real crime, they have not a clue. Just last week, our friends the Fateuils were out of town for her mother's funeral and when they came back, pouf! All their good silver—dis-paru!”

Faith was happy to have the opportunity to use one of her favorite French words: 'Do you think it is the work of one cambrioleur—or cambrioleuse—or a gang?' Immediately, her mind was filled with scenes from To Catch a Thief—the female cat burglar being chased across the roof tiles of Monte Carlo by Cary Grant, roof tiles like the ones she could see from the apartment windows.

“There has been some speculation on both sides in the press. I myself think it is a well-organized gang, probably operating outside our borders. Are you interested in things of this nature, Faith? I would imagine you have a great deal of crime in your area. You are near to New York City, yes?”

The French whom Faith had met so far, unless they had traveled to the United States, had a very sketchy idea of distance. 'I have a cousin in Milwaukee. Perhaps you know the family?' someone at the Duclos' last week had asked her in all seriousness. But everyone knew two things—the location of Disney World and New York. They also assumed one had to have the equivalent of the Croix de Guerre to venture a visit to the latter and it was close