Letters From My Windmill (14 page)

Five minutes later, all lords, with the chaplain in the middle, are
seated in the great hall. Everything is lit up in the chateau, which
resounded with singing, shouting, laughter, and buzzing. The venerable
Dom Balaguère is plunging his fork into a grouse wing and drowning his
sinful remorse under a sea of wine and meat juices. The poor holy man
eats and drinks so much that he dies in the night suffering a terrible
heart attack, with no time to repent. So, the next morning, he arrives
in a heaven full of rumours about the night's revelries, and I leave it
for you to judge how he is received.

—Depart from me, you dismal Christian!, the sovereign judge, Our Lord,
says to him. Your error is gross enough to wipe away a whole life of
virtue…. Ah! You have stolen a midnight mass from Me…. Oh, yes you
did! You will pay for your sin three hundred times over, in the proper
place, and you will enter paradise only when you will have celebrated
three hundred midnight masses, in your own chapel, in front of all
those who have sinned with you, through your most grievous fault….

Well, that's that, the true story of Dom Balaguère as told in the land
of the olive. The chateau of Trinquelage is no more, but the chapel
still remains in a copse of green oaks at the top of Mount Ventoux.
Now, it has a wind-blown, ramshackle door and grass grows over the
threshold. There are birds' nests in the corner of the altar and in the
window openings, from where the stained glass is long departed.
However, it is said that every year at Christmas, a supernatural light
moves amongst the ruins, and when the peasants go to the mass and
Christmas Eve meals, they can see this ghostly chapel lit by invisible
candles, which burn in the open air, even in a blizzard. Laugh if you
will, but a winegrower in the area named Garrigue, no doubt a
descendant of Garrigou, assures me that once, when he was a bit merry
at Christmas, he got lost in the mountain around Trinquelage. This is
what he saw….

Until eleven o'clock at night … nothing. Everything was silent, dark,
and still. Suddenly, towards midnight, a hand bell rang at the very top
of the clock tower. It was an ancient bell which sounded as if it were
coming from far away. Soon, Garrigue saw flickering lights making
vague, restless shadows on the road. Under the chapel's porch, someone
was walking and whispering:

—Good evening, Master Arnoton!

—Good evening, good evening, folks!…

When everyone had gone in, the winegrower, a very brave man, approached
carefully, and, looking through the broken door, was met by a very
strange sight, indeed. All the people whom he had seen pass were
positioned around the choir in the ruined nave, as though the old
benches were still there. There were beautiful women in brocade and
lace-draped hair, lords in colourful finery from head to toe, and
peasants in floral jackets like those our grandfathers used to wear.
Everything gave the impression of being old, dusty, faded, and worn
out. Sometimes, nocturnal birds, regular visitors to the chapel,
attracted by the lights, came to flap around the candles whose flame
went straight upwards but looked dim as if seen through gauze. There
was a certain person in large, steel-framed glasses, who kept shaking
his tall, black wig where one of the birds was completely entangled,
its wings silently thrashing about, much to the amusement of
Garrigue….

Deep inside, a little old man with a childish build, on his knees in
the middle of the choir, was desperately and soundlessly shaking a
clapper-less hand bell, while a priest in old, gold vestments was
coming and going and toing and froing in front of the altar, and saying
prayers, not a syllable of which could be heard. It was Dom Balaguère,
of course, in the middle of his third low mass.

In Paris, oranges have the sorrowful look of windfalls gathered from
beneath the trees. At the time they get to you, in the dreary middle of
a rainy, cold winter, their brilliant skins, and their strong
perfume—or so they seem to your Parisian mediocre tastes—imbue them
with a foreign flavour, a hint of Bohemia. Throughout the foggy
afternoons, they line the pavements, squashed together in wheelbarrows,
lit by the low light of lanterns and wrapped in red paper. A thin,
repetitive shout of:

—Valencian oranges, two sous a piece!

accompanies them, often drowned by the sound of cavorting carriages and
boisterous buses.

For most Parisians, this fruit, gathered far away, and unremarkably
round, with just a clipping of greenery from the tree, reminds them of
sweets and desserts. The tissue they're wrapped in, and the parties at
which they make their appearance, add to this impression. Come January,
thousands of oranges are on the streets and their discarded skins are
in the muddy gutters everywhere, looking as though some giant Christmas
tree had shaken its branches of artificial fruit all over Paris.
There's just about nowhere free of oranges; they are in the carefully
arranged shop windows, sorted and prepared; outside prison and hospital
gates, among the packets of biscuits and the stacks of apples, and in
front of entrances to dances and Sunday street shows. Their exquisite
perfume mixes variously with the smell of gas, the noise of old
violins, and the dust in the gods at the theatre. It's easy to forget
that it takes orange trees to make oranges, for when the fruit arrives
from the Midi, by their thousands of boxfuls, the tree itself, pruned
and unrecognisable, is hidden in a warm greenhouse for the winter and
makes only a brief summer appearance in public gardens in Paris.

To really appreciate oranges, you have to see them in their natural
setting; in the Balearics, Sardinia, Corsica, and Algeria; in the sunny
blue skies of the warm Mediterranean. I can recall with great pleasure
a small orchard of orange trees, at the gates of Blidah, just such a
place where their true beauty could be seen! Amongst the dark, glossy,
lustred leaves, the fruits had the brilliance of stained glass windows
and perfumed the air all around with the same magnificent aura that
usually envelops gorgeous flowers. Here and there, gaps in the branches
revealed the ramparts of the little town, the minaret of a mosque, the
dome of a marabout, and, towering above, the immense Atlas mountains,
green at the base, and snow-capped, with drifts of snow here and there.

One night during my stay, a strange phenomenon, not seen for thirty
years, occurred; the ice from the freezing zone descended onto the
sleeping village, and Blidah woke up transformed, and powdered in white
snow. In the light, pure Algerian air, the snow looked like the finest
dusting of mother of pearl, and had the lustre of a white peacock's
feather. But it was the orange orchard that was the most beautiful
thing to be seen. The firm leaves kept the snow intact and upright like
sorbets on a lacquered plate, and all the fruits, powdered over with
frost, had a wonderful mellowness, a discrete radiance like silk-draped
gold. It was all vaguely evocative of a church saint's day; the red
cassocks under the lacy robes, and the gilt on a lace altar cloth….

But my most treasured memories concerning oranges come from
Barbicaglia, a large garden close to Ajaccio, where I was about to have
a siesta in the hottest time of the day. The orange trees were taller
and further apart than in Blidah and reached down to the road, behind a
ditched hedge. Immediately beyond the road, there was the deep blue
sea…. I have had such happy times in that orchard. The orange trees
in flower and in fruit, spread their delightful perfume around.
Occasionally, a ripe orange, would fall and drop to the ground near me
with a dull thud, and I just had to stretch out my hand. They were
superb fruit, with their purple, blood-colour flesh inside, and looked
exquisite, toning in with the surrounding stunning scenery. Between the
leaves, the sea was seen in dazzling blue patches, like shattered glass
sparkling in the sea mist. The ever-moving sea disturbed the atmosphere
far away and caused a rhythmic murmur that soothed, like being on a
boat. Oh, the heat, and the smell of oranges…. It was just so very
refreshing to sleep in that orchard at Barbicaglia!

Sometimes, however, at the height of the siesta, a drum-roll would wake
me up with a start. The boys of the military band came over there to
practice on the road. Through the gaps in the hedge, I could see the
brass decoration on the drums and the white aprons on their red
trousers. The poor devils came into what little shade was offered by
the hedge to hide for a while from the blinding light, pitilessly
reflected from the dust on the road. And they played on until they
became very, very hot! I forced myself from my dream-like state, and
amused myself by throwing them some of the golden, red fruit that I
could easily reach. My target drummer stopped. There was a short pause,
as he looked around for the source of this superb orange rolling into
the ditch beside him, before snatching it up and taking a grateful
mouthful without even bothering to peel it.

Right next to Barbicaglia, over a low wall, I overlooked a small,
strange garden of an Italianate design in a small plot of land. Its
sand-covered paths bordered by bright green box trees and two cypress
trees guarding the entrance gave it the look of a Marseille country
seat. There was no shade whatsoever. At the far end, there was a white
stone building with skylight windows on the ground floor. At first I
thought it was a country house, but on closer inspection, I noticed a
cross on the roof, and a carved inscription in the stone which I
couldn't make out from here. I knew then that it was a Corsican family
tomb. These little mausoleums can be seen all around Ajaccio,
well-spaced, and surrounded by a garden. The families go there on
Sundays, to visit their dead. A setting like that, gives death a less
gloomy air than the confusion of cemeteries; and there is only the
footsteps of friends to disturb the silence.

From where I was, I could see an old chap shuffling calmly around the
paths. All day long, he trimmed the trees, dug the ground over, and
watered and dead-headed the flowers with great care. At sunset, he went
into the small chapel, where the family dead lay, to put away the
spade, the rakes, and the large watering cans, while displaying all the
respectful tranquillity and serenity of a cemetery gardener. The man
worked with a certain subliminal reverence, and always locked the vault
door quietly, as if wary of waking somebody. Within its great and
glorious silence, the upkeep of this little garden troubled no one and
didn't by any means depress the neighbourhood; in fact, only the
immense sea and the infinite sky had more grandeur. This everlasting
siesta—surrounded as it was by the overwhelming sights and forces of
nature—brought a sense of eternal repose to everything in sight….

I was on my way back from Nîmes, one crushingly hot afternoon in July.
As far as the eye could see, the white, blistering road, was turning to
clouds of dust between olive groves and small oaks, under a great,
silver, hazy sun which filled the whole sky. Not a trace of shade, not
a whisper of wind. Nothing except the shimmering of the hot air and the
strident cry of the cicadas' incessant din, deafening, hurried, and
seeming to harmonise with the immense luminous shimmering…. I had
walked for two hours in this desert in the middle of nowhere, when
suddenly a group of white houses emerged from the dust cloud in the
road in front of me. They were known as the Saint-Vincent coaching
inns: five or six farms with long red roofed barns; and a dried up
watering hole in a would-be oasis of spindly fig trees. At the end of
the village, two large inns faced each other across the road.

There was something striking about these inns and their strange
setting. On one side, there was a large, new building, full of life and
buzzing with activity. All the doors were ajar; a coach was in front,
from which the steaming horses were being unhitched. The disembarked
passengers were hurriedly drinking in the partial shade by the walls.
There was a courtyard strewn with mules and wagons, and the wagoners
were lying down under the outhouses waiting to feel cool. Inside there
was the jumbled sound of shouting, swearing, fists banging on the
tables, glasses clinking, billiard balls rattling, lemonade corks
popping, and above all that racket, a joyful voice, bursting with song
loud enough to shake the windows:

The lovely Margoton,
Just as soon as night was day,
Took her little silver can,
To the river made her away….

… The inn on the other side was silent and looked completely
abandoned. There was grass under the gate, broken blinds, and a branch
of dead holly on the door; all that was left of an old decoration. The
entrance steps were supported by stones from the road…. It was so
poor and pitiful, that it was a real act of charity to stop there at
all, even for a drink.

* * * * *

As I went in, I saw a long gloomy, deserted room, with daylight,
bursting in through three large, curtainless, windows, which just made
it look even more deserted and gloomy. There were some unsteady tables,
with dust-covered glasses long abandoned on them. There was also a
broken billiard table which held out its six pockets like begging
bowls, a yellow couch, and an old bar, all slumbering on in the heavy,
unhealthy heat.

And the flies! Oh, God, the flies! I have never seen so many. They were
on the ceiling, stuck to the windows, in the glasses, in clusters
everywhere…. When I opened the door, there was a buzzing as if I had
just entered a bee hive. At the back of the room, in a window, there
was a woman standing, her face pressed against the glass and totally
absorbed in looking through it. I called to her twice:

—Hello, landlady!

She turned round slowly and revealed a pitiful peasant's face,
wrinkled, cracked, earth coloured, and framed in long strands of
brownish lace, like old women wear hereabouts. And yet, she wasn't an
old woman, perhaps the tears had wilted her.