When they saw her in the doorway, they became a little jauntier. The first sight of a woman — with the prospect of nine hours’ respite from their backbreaking work — was a reminder of the other sweet side of the world.
I heard your saws.
Forty heads, miss.
Father’s the one who counts, said a thickset one with sawdust in his hair. They all laughed and then fell shy.
You think it’ll rain? one of them asked.
No, the birds are flying high.
Not tomorrow.
Forty!
Forty of ’em, shining like fish!
We strip ’em as we fell ’em.
It’s steep, your Pair.
Pair? That’s how you call it? asked the thickset one with sawdust in his hair.
St. Pair, she said.
Everywhere, on their arms, faces, vests, shoulders, they were smeared with a grey dust stuck to sweat and resin. This covering was so thick that in the half-light it looked as if their faces were covered with fur.
Steep and hot, said the boy.
In the trough there’s running water, she said.
The men turned to look where she was pointing. A little distance from the chalet was a massive, scooped-out tree trunk, placed horizontally on some stones. In front of it waddled four geese, phosphorescent in the half-light, and above the trough was a water pipe which came directly out of the grassy mountainside behind.
It’s a spring … if you want to wash.
We’ll be home in twenty minutes, said the one they called Father, who wore a beret and a leather waistcoat.
Home?
The geese came towards the house in single file, breasts stuck out.
We’re sleeping in the Chalet Blanc, explained Father.
There’s no spring there, she said, only rainwater.
We’ve got jerry-cans.
Wash there, it’s a spring, she said, a spring that never stops. You got soap?
Sure — and pyjamas! said a tall one.
In that case, I’ll get you some.
She went inside. When she came out she handed a large cube of soap to Father. The men left their sacks on the ground and went over to the trough, which was long enough for them to stand side by side.
In the early night breeze she could smell the smell of their washing: a mixture of soap, stale shirts, petrol, smoke, pine resin, sweat. She observed them, stripped to the waist. The backs of the younger ones were suntanned. The elder ones always wore vests and their backs, in contrast to their arms and shoulders, were white. The Father had taken off his beret. They were throwing the soap to one another and laughing. They found the two brushes she kept there for scrubbing the churn. A woman, she thought, washes herself quite differently from a man; a man washes his body like he washes down a wheelbarrow; it’s not by washing himself that a man learns to caress.
By the time they had put on their shirts it was dark. Under the eyes of Father each of them solemnly shook Danielle’s hand, thanked her, and pronounced his name. The name she remembered was that of the thickset one with sawdust in his hair. When he arrived he was the dirtiest, and she sensed that this was because he worked the most ferociously. Pasquale was his name.
They dumped their sacks in the trunk of the Mercedes. Four got in behind. Father sat in the front, and Pasquale was the driver. He sat behind the wheel, hunched up, concentrated and impossible to distract.
Every night on their way home the woodcutters stopped to wash themselves in the trough by Danielle’s chalet. She prepared coffee. They drank it outside sitting on their sacks. Virginio, who was tall and wore glasses, left a razor behind so that he could shave if he wanted. Danielle found a piece of broken mirror which she hung on a wire by the trough. She learnt that five of them came from the same village on the other side of the Alps, near Bergamo. Alberto came from Sicily. Every winter they returned home. She learnt that they were paid by the cubic metre of wood felled: the harder they worked, the quicker they earned. Father did the cooking. The Mercedes belonged to Pasquale.
Sometimes, when they passed in the very early morning they left a present for her: a tin of peaches, a bottle of vermouth. Once they left a scarf with a design of roses printed on it.
The first time I saw Pasquale out of his work clothes was when he knocked on the door whilst I was drinking coffee one morning.
I don’t work on Sunday, he said.
You deserve a day of rest.
To do what?
There was a long silence.
Once we worked on a Sunday and I had an accident.
What happened? I asked.
The trees were falling badly, one after the other. We weren’t working fast enough. That’s why we decided to work on Sunday.
Would you like some cider?
He shook his head.
Some eau-de-vie?
I’m not thirsty.
I’ll whip you some cream, I said.
His thick lips smiled and he opened his enormous hands in a gesture of submission.
Tell me what happened while I whip the cream.
A long silence.
About the Sunday you worked? I prompted him.
The very first tree I had to strip had fallen badly. Where we were working was very steep, like here. Rocks everywhere. Crevices. Gulleys. I told myself I’d work toward the head, so as not to have to walk back along where I’d already stripped. They’re as slippery as fish when you strip them. Sometimes the resin splashes your face when you are axing the bark off.
The cream was thickening, leaving the side of the bowl. I watched Pasquale talking. There was a sadness in his face. He had stopped his story. Silence.
Do you have a brother or sister? I asked.
Not one. My mother died when I was born.
And your father?
He went to America and we never heard from him. He disappeared into America like a tear into a well, my aunt says.
Again silence — only the noise of my fork in the bowl.
Go on, I said, go on.
I started stripping her from the top and she began to roll from the head. Nothing stops a rolling tree except another tree or a rock. I hesitated because I was worried about the machine. It was a new one we had just bought. If you hesitate, you’re lost. I jumped too late, holding the machine above my head. In the gulley I began to slide, it was as steep as the side of a pyramid. I slid over onto some dry rocks below and they broke a leg.
Could you get up?
The machine wasn’t hurt!
No machine is worth a broken leg.
A machine like that costs half a million.
A long silence.
You couldn’t get up?
They carried me home to the hut and laid me on the bed. Father said: Pasquale, can you wait till tomorrow? At first I didn’t understand. Wait for what? Before we take you to hospital. That’s twenty-four hours, I said. I’ll sit with you, he replied, pain gets worse when you’re alone. No, go back and work, I told him. Next day, Monday, they took me to hospital. I handed him the bowl and he began to eat the cream. His huge hands rested on the table. To eat he lowered his head to the spoon. When he had finished he screwed up his face and smiled.
I’ve never tasted cream as good as that, he said.
Why didn’t they take you to hospital immediately?
Because it was Sunday.
Well?
On Sundays we are not insured. What we do on Sundays is at our own risk. He looked at me very seriously. Like what we do today, he said.
There was another long silence and we did nothing.
If you come next Sunday with your friends, I said, I’ll make a tart to go with the cream.
A few days later Danielle had the idea of passing by the arolle tree to get to the ridge above Nîmes — blueberries abound there — and then climbing down the scree to surprise Marius, whom she had neglected to visit for a week or two. She filled her bucket with berries and her fingers were stained blue as they used to be when she wrote in ink at school.