Murder in Lascaux (25 page)

“Toby, you can put your eyes back in your head.”

“Huh?”

“And for your information, those are implants.”

“How can you tell from here?”

“Because they look like megaphones.”

“Yeah, they do, sort of. It's embarrassing.”

“True enough.”

Dotty was shimmying into her halter. Once ensconced, she waved again and started to troop over, followed by Patrick, who gathered up their towels and slung them over an arm.

“I didn't know you were coming to the beach today,” said Dotty brightly, directing her remark more to Toby than to me.

“We didn't either,” replied Toby. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

Patrick spread out their towels, and they sat down. He gave a wan smile. It occurred to me, and not for the first time, that he might not be attracted to women. That must have dawned on Dotty too, for she fixed her attention on Toby.

“Still thinking about that armoire?” she asked, with a tilt of the head.

While I had been working in the library, Dotty, Roz, and Toby had spent the early part of the afternoon at an antique fair in Le Castang. Toby told me he had thought of buying a small cherry wardrobe but had decided against it.

“It was a nice piece, but awfully expensive,” he answered. Toby dutifully made eye contact with Dotty rather than letting his gaze drop lower. I gave him points for that.

“What about you, Patrick?” I asked. “What did you do today?”

“I've been reading up on local restaurants, comparing reviews from various guides, you know, Michelin, Gault and Millau, and a couple of others.”

“Got any tips?”

“Well, tomorrow in Domme we're scheduled to have lunch at l'Esplanade. They say it's very good. It had a Michelin star until a few years ago when the original chef retired, but it's still supposed to be right up there. And the site, they say, is spectacular, with a dining room overlooking the whole valley.”

“I'm up for that,” said Dotty. “You know, I never really was into haute cuisine until Roz took me in hand. Until I married Tom, I never had the money for it. But I will from now on, and I won't mind spending it. Making up for lost time, you might say.”

“Why not?” said Patrick, “though from what you said the other night, I gather you and Roz don't always see eye to eye.”

“Not always. There are a few issues about Tom's will that need ironing out, and we're talking about them.” She shifted her attention to the river. “Isn't it gorgeous here?”

“It is,” I replied. Shading my eyes, I looked up at the castle, behind and high above us, looming atop its jagged cliff. The sun had now dipped behind one of its towers. People around us were slowly getting up to leave, shaking out blankets and gathering their belongings. No one spoke for a few minutes. Then Dotty pointed to a couple just arriving at the beach.

“Say, isn't that our friend Marc with that redheaded woman?”

The woman carried a towel in one hand; the man had an arm wrapped around her shoulder. Sure enough, it was Marc Gounot, and the woman he had his arm around was the librarian.

“Look who's an item,” Toby said quietly.

Yes, I thought to myself, and so much for Marc's alibi.

S
UNDAY MORNING FOUND ME
groggy and regretful. “Everything hurts,” I whined to Toby. “I can't even face the coffee. Can you get me a couple of aspirins to go with my croissant?” Soundless bells were clanging in my head.

The meeting on the beach had led to an epic drinking bout. It was Dotty's idea that we splash in the river and then go for tapas at the Spanish restaurant by the bridge. She jumped at the chance to charm three men at once. I figured she couldn't get too far with Toby right under my nose, and over drinks we'd learn more about Marc. So I said yes for both of us. It didn't work. The tapas were tasty, but the six of us drowned our social discomfort in sangria, and no one but Dotty found anything much to say. The hours were wasted, if we'd expected to find out anything about Marc's relationship with the little librarian, never mind why he was arguing with Fernando. The talk was about spiked wines—the merits of Spanish, Basque, and Perigordian versions of the same.

Having drunk less than the rest of us, Toby was in reasonably good shape, in spite of what was for him an early wake-up call. This was lucky, as I needed a helper or I'd never make it to the van in time for our departure. Marianne wanted us to start early, because thousands of visitors would be converging on Domme for the Félibrée. The police had restricted entry to one narrow road, which winds up a high hill to the town gate. “Grand as it is,” she warned, “the gate can accommodate only one car at a time.” We needed a two-hour start to make the journey. Our first scheduled event was ten o'clock Mass, so we had to depart by eight.

Thanks to Toby's ministrations, I was ready in time to mark the entrance of Marianne and Guillaume, who appeared on the front steps of the château in full holiday regalia. Marianne wore a white lace bonnet that framed her face becomingly. Her ankle-length dress was topped by a snowy lace collar so wide it formed a shoulder shawl. The fabric of the dress was royal blue, with gold bees as a repeated pattern. The beehive, she explained, is the emblem of the Félibrée; the bees symbolize the
félibres
, the celebrants, and their industrious preparations. She looked attractive as she smoothed her skirt down with one hand and motioned the gathered group into the van with the other. As usual, Fernando was the driver. We gave him a wide berth as we waited near the van, and he in turn avoided eye contact with us.

Guillaume, in contrast to his sister, looked austere. He was dressed in stark black and white: round-brimmed black hat, black vest, and black pants, tighter than they should be, possibly because they had been in use just once a year since his slimmer days. A black string tie at the collar of his white shirt gave him the air of a stern Amish patriarch, a contrast to his usual persona of dapper aristocrat. I saw him glance up at Marianne as if unsure of his appearance, searching for approval.

After giving his sister an arm's assist to mount into the van, he seated himself next to Fernando in front, and turned to the rest of us to announce proudly that Marianne was wearing the same dress their mother had worn when she was queen of the Félibrée.

“It was the summer after the war,” Marianne added. “They say it was the happiest of all the Félibrées. We have photographs of it—but of course we weren't there. It was the year before our mother was married, in her hometown of Montignac. But now let me tell you about Domme.”

As our van made its way slowly down the wooded road that descends from the château to the river, and then through the morning-lit streets of Beynac, Marianne gave us a lesson about
bastides.
These rectangular walled towns were built in the thirteenth century as military strongholds when England and France contested dominion over Aquitaine. Domme, built by the French at the edge of a towering cliff, is irregular in plan, but its spectacular site makes up for what it lacks in symmetry. Marianne predicted that Domme would be a glorious setting for today's celebrations.

Every Félibrée starts outside the city walls. The queen of the festival throws open the city gate to admit the waiting crowd, who then parade up the town's cobblestone streets, under arches of brightly colored paper flowers made by women from nearby villages. All through the cold evenings of winter and early spring, the women meet to make flowers that will transform a summer street into a floral arcade.

Marianne guessed that we'd miss the opening ceremony, but we'd be there in time for the next event, which was the Mass to bless the Félibrée. This year the Mass would be sung by the Bishop of Sarlat, and since the
langue d'oc
is the language of the Félibrée, he would sing in Occitan. At this point Guillaume spoke up sharply in rapid-fire French, seeming to forget that half the group wouldn't understand him.

“At least this bishop speaks Occitan,” he declared in an offended tone. “Last year the festival was held in another diocese, and their bishop didn't speak the language at all. He was from the generation after the war. They were too bent on being modern to learn the patois of their parents. Besides, they were forbidden to speak it in school.” He sounded angry now. “In fact, people in that generation didn't realize their dialect was a form of Occitan. They were told it was peasant language and they had to speak proper French to be civilized. Now, I'm happy to say, children are taught Occitan in school.”

Marianne took over in unruffled English, observing calmly, “Our bishop is young enough to have learned to speak and sing in the old language. You will hear the old words and the old music from morning Mass to the end of the day.”

It took the full two hours to get to Domme. Not to miss Mass, we piled out of the van before it reached the Porte del Bos and left Fernando to park while we climbed the steep, flower-bedecked streets. Walking with us were groups led by men who carried poles sailing the flags of their towns and cities. As we approached the church, I spotted someone carrying the flag of Castelnaud, with its yellow rampant lion, and I wondered whether we would run into Marc.

When we reached the church, we found a long line ahead of us in front of the entry. Once inside, we sought the back of the church and found seats together in one of the last pews. There was quite a din, so Marianne felt free to continue her tour-guide functions as we waited for Mass to begin. She fell silent at the first notes from the choir, and the congregation hushed too, as an all-male chorus began singing in plaintive tones. They were up at the front of the church, at the bottom steps to the right of the altar: twelve men, all dressed like Guillaume, in black and white. Their round-brimmed hats hung at their backs. Two strummed guitars as they sang, and one played a small keyboard instrument like a miniature harpsichord. The music was mournful, with a sad and longing tenor part, set against a bass part that sounded low and strong like a drum. To this strange chorus, the bishop, attendant priests, and altar boys marched in step from the church door, up the aisle to the altar.

I remembered enough from my upbringing to follow along, since what the bishop and congregation sang was an Occitan version of the Latin Mass with all the familiar phrases and gestures. The most memorable parts were the choir's haunting choruses, which punctuated the ritual. I wasn't prepared, however, for the finale, when the bishop, having said the Occitan equivalent of “
Ita missa est
” (“The Mass is ended”), raised both hands, gestured for all to rise, and then led the assembled hundreds in a full-throated rendition of an Occitan song, which all the locals, including Marianne and Guillaume, knew by heart.

As the bishop and his entourage “recessed” from the altar, down the aisle, and out the door, the choir continued with verses the congregation didn't know. Once the church was half empty, Marianne huddled us into a side chapel. There she explained the parting song was the hymn of the Félibrée, “La coupa santa,” taught to every Perigordian child at least once, maybe twice: first, in school in the curriculum of Occitan studies and, then, if you were the child of Catholic parents, in catechism class in preparation for First Communion.

“What are those black boxes all over the wall?” asked Dotty, as if she had not been listening at all to what Marianne was saying.

Marianne turned to look where Dotty was pointing, the left and right sides of the chapel, which in the middle had an altar topped with a very old bust of the Virgin and Child. “Those are—I don't know the word in English—sort of offerings. On the face is a plaque with writing that thanks God, or Mary, for an answer to the person's prayers. In this church there's a little box behind each plaque where the grateful person can put money or jewelry as an offering. In some chapels, there's one locked box for the offerings. The priest collects the offerings periodically and gives the proceeds to the poor of the parish.”

“That's done in some way all over the world, isn't it?” I asked, accessing dim memories of my grandmother's church in Gloucester—and the more recent memory of plaques in the little chapel on the château grounds.

“I think so,” said Marianne. I've seen this sort of thing in Spain and Italy, I'm sure.”

“That is so sweet,” said Dotty, taking note of a quaint foreign custom.

Guillaume looked at her reprovingly. “Gratitude is a universal duty,” he intoned. His posturing broke the mood, and Marianne told us we were free to go.

“Enjoy the festival, and let's meet at twelve thirty sharp in front of the Hotel Esplanade just across the way from here. Don't eat too much at the stands. You'll want to have an appetite for our lunch!”

In the jostle of exiting the church, Toby and I fell in with David and Lily, and we drifted into touring the town together. Following the crowd, we veered to the left, which brought us to the square with its old covered market. The stone pillars were swagged with pink paper roses, and more strings of artificial flowers were strung up to the rafters. We entered into this giant bower, stopping at tables where women sold walnut candies, or slices of walnut cake, or the wafer-thin crisps they called
gaufres
. Lily and I were debating whether we could split a treat, when Toby said he'd catch me at the same place in a few minutes.