l'étrangère
We lived for a year in a cruel little village near the Spanish border.
It was our maiden voyage into small town France, and I entered giddy with visions of bucolic charm. Sweet air, lazy rivers and sun shafts through branches, old guys in caps who flirt while they prattle insider tales of the wars, dusty paths lined with fig trees and steep cobblestone streets, that neighbourly feeling and accordion dancing on the square through hot July nights.
Well.
There were figs for the gorging and cobblestone streets. There was a lazy, shady river where we bathed till we saw the adders swim slithering our way. There were bitter old men who would never more than crack the door open, even if you were pleading for help, because ‘I don’t know you. Who’s your mother? Go away.’ And you learned in the first week that anyone born more than 5 miles away was considered a foreigner, and never let in.
There were tight old ladies dressed heavy in black or housework smocks who wandered through your house as you were moving in, opening up your boxes then scuttling across to their friends’ to whisper, come see. News got out that you had books.
Later, these never sexed girls who still lived with their mothers would dart out of their doors as they spotted your children coming home from school, bribe them with candy and fat juicy berries and, once the children’s mouths were full with chewing and juice, would ask, ‘so, who was that young man I saw going into your house yesterday at 2:45?’
At school, your children were taunted with the echo of the other parents’ lavish conclusions on your character – the parents who turned away each time you said hello. Your daughter came home crying for a month. You taught her some swear words in English.
You ended up adopting a puppy that you didn’t want because you couldn’t stand watching her being beaten one more day.
One night, the mayor’s daughter came by out of the blue and offered you five hundred francs for a threesome. The only people who spoke to you were the equally shunned; it was the sole thing you had in common. The only job you were offered was dubbing porn films in the city near by.
And other things, the reasons you were there in the first place, that are still too much bile in your throat.
So you fled. With no friends, no money, no bearings and two children, two cats and a traumatized dog in tow, you spent the weekends driving and driving and camping out in fields, putting up house wanted signs in every bakery and tabac you passed by.
Four days before your lease was up, in a village 400 miles away you found an old stone house, with high beams and fireplace, hugged by vines and a lazy mill brook out the back – owned by people of guileless goodness.
A village where, soon, the old guys began to flirt and beckon, and tell funny and stunning tales of their wars and girls they’d known. Where people invite you over because you’re new in town, or drop by unannounced to bring you baskets of walnuts and figs, bottles of their homemade wine, or a meal because they know you’ve been so busy this week. And some, with books you might like to read.
And your throat still goes tight as you marvel at dumb luck in the universe, and how it can lead you to home.
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