"Don't worry," I said, "I'll make sure your fees and costs are covered in full-cash on the barrel."
She didn't answer. My first impression had been right, I thought: she wasn't someone you could bargain with.
She released the emergency brake and pulled out.
"It won't make a difference to you;" I continued. "I mean, if I stay orgo…
She remained silent. I thought I'd touched on her two soft spots, one after the other: her pecuniary desire and her indifference to others. Boy, was I wrong! The pike has an integrity beyond reproach. Mindful of its mission, it doesn't pretend to hunt small fry through clouded waters and scummy ponds, it lies in wait and snaps them up in its jaws and tears them to pieces once and for all. Mrs. Charon waited until the hearse was rounding the curve leading to the bridge. There she gave a show of determination and sangfroid that left a vivid impression on me. Using the centrifugal force we both felt, with her left hand on the wheel to negotiate the bend, she suddenly flung open with her right the door I was leaning on with all my weight.
I got up just in time to glimpse my wife's face in the window of a passing car. She was biting her fist, eyes brimming with tears. Was she blaming herself for having gone along with Mrs. Charon's plan? I'm not much dumber than the next man, and I understood her reasons. I wouldn't have been any use in the struggles ahead of her: to survive, and raise the children. Quite the opposite, in fact: I would've complicated, perhaps even compromised everything. Already the other cars had passed me in a great squeal of tires. Already the cortege had reached the bridge and the toll barrier they'd never let me past.
I shrugged and, turning from the ramp to the bridge, went down limping lightly to the river. I saw then that I'd never wondered where it began, or where it was going.
Lozere, April 1993
The Beautiful Coalwoman
or an audience of two-himself and the wind-Maxence often hummed the only song he'd ever written.
There were fourteen couplets in all, each as mournful as the last, which he did his best to sing in his most plaintive voice. Long ago-in truth, as long as his youth had held out and he'd passed for a handsome lad-the lament had won him the sympathy of little girls and older women wherever he'd stopped for the night. He sighed. Now women heard his song and poured him a swig of wine before sending him off to sleep alone in an attic or a shed, and little girls no longer listened at all.
Once, Maxence had knelt with six other young men, none yet of age. The war in its impatience harried apprentices, rushing them through training, and the Prince, as he tapped their shoulders with his sword, believed iron would separate the wheat from the chaff. Of these hastily made knights, two would perish in their first battle. They alone, thought Maxence, could have boasted on reaching heaven of never betraying their vows. He tried to remember their faces, but the great wheel of the seasons had rolled thirty times over his memory and the ground where they lay. He suddenly regretted not lying down beside them. He envied those unbearded knights who'd smiled at the augur of death in spring. His own hair had grown, then grayed; he'd known fear and was far from blameless-he'd misused widows and raised a hand to their children.
He must have tensed his thighs against his horse. The animal had strained to speed. There, there! Easy now! What is it? Do you smell fresh water? Then go ahead, I'm thirsty, too! Maxence loosened his hold on the reins. A hundred yards away, tall and straight on either side of the path, two oaks mingled branches at the edge of a clearing. As he entered the yellowing vault, he spotted a thatched cottage beside a pigsty at the clearing's far end, and reflected that not the haughtiest lord could have wished a more dizzying arch for his estate than the one these two giants formed in the very center of the sky. Not far from the pigpen, a spring trickled from a pile of mossy rocks, and two small children were frolicking naked in the nearby grass. Children of the poor, their clothes hanging out to dry in the sun. They raised their heads at the sound of hoofs and gave out great shouts of joy when they saw the knight. An older boy that Maxence hadn't seen at first stepped between the children and the stranger.
"Fear not, boy, I only want some water for my horse and myself."
From beneath disheveled hair, two suspicious eyes watched his every move. The backwoods boy's scrawny legs trembled a bit, but he seemed ready to seize his brothers, one under each arm, and dash off into the underbrush. Maxence softened his voice as best he could.
"Don't worry, I won't eat you! My name is Maxence. I am a knight. What's your name?"
The boy didn't say a word. His brothers, excited a moment earlier, and wanting a closer look at the man in metal, were now growing alarmed by their elder's silence. Time passed, fear and discomfort overcoming the little ones in turn, and Maxence steeled himself for the moment when the three would all burst into tears. He was about to set foot on the ground, even if it meant terrifying the little brats, and reestablish his authority, when an old man appeared in the cottage door.
"Well, didn't you hear his lordship, you little ninnies? He's thirsty. You, boy, fetch an ewer, and the rest of you run off and play in the sun.
Maxence dismounted. The old man had reached him but kept a few steps away, beret in hand. Maxence guessed that his servile demeanor hid a burning curiosity and, despite his own weariness, tried to make a good impression. But he saw, from an easing of the man's fawning manner, that he'd been sized up for what he truly was: a knight, yes, but a lowly lord, quite old and poor, from whom there was little to fear and even less to hope. Despite it all, Maxence made sure the long sword hanging at his side struck his greave with a ringing sound.