Missing Adelaide

On Saturday I ride the white bicycle to the market in Lourmarin. It is busy in the town square and I walk the bicycle through the crowds. There are colored scarves and tablecloths hanging at eye level. There are strings of pouches containing lavender. I see vendors selling shirts and blouses. I see stalls with meat—hams and chickens, and at the end, a lump of meat with the paper label lapin stuck onto it. I see big bowls of many different kinds of olives, and tables of melons and other fruits and vegetables. On one table there is a yellow bowl of candied lemons. I turn my head and sneeze.

I see an old woman in a butterfly dress. She is spooning olives into a plastic jar. I look at her carefully but it is not Adelaide. I feel wetness on my cheeks and I am crying. I pick up one of the T-shirts from a table and then put it down.

A vendor comes and points to me and says something in French. I think he is trying to steal my money but then I notice that the pouch I am wearing is unzipped and money is falling out of it. I quickly stuff the bills back inside and zip the pouch shut. The man smiles. I smile back and wave. This is just as smart as saying thank you.

There is nothing I want to buy at the market but I stay there as long as it is open. The thing I want to do, which is to see Adelaide, I cannot do. When the last stall closes, and the last bowl of olives is scraped into a bucket and put inside a white truck, I turn away from the town square and ride around the village. Eventually I ride up to the Lourmarin castle and lean the white bicycle against a wall, locking its wheels together so it can't be stolen. I pay my entrance fee and go through the gift shop, where there are lavender sachets twice the cost of the ones at the market. I climb the stairs to the highest turret. From here I can look down at the pond in the courtyard, where mottled koi rise among the water lilies. Last time I was here I saw a Gold Ogon koi that was probably worth a thousand dollars. I don't see it now. I wonder if the heron came for it, too. I see a Kohaku koi, and a Platinum koi, and two Ginrin koi, but no Gold Ogon.

I think about winter coming. Will the ponds freeze here like standing water freezes in Canada? I think about being here in the middle of a long winter, listening to the crackling ice. Deep in the pond the slow koi turn, the water congested with their milky breath. Heaviness fills me and I am afraid to take a step away from the railing but I am afraid to lean forward. Something flutters past and I remember spring, clover gathering the bees, their quick excited singing. I start walking away from the edge, towards the stairs. I think it was a Painted Lady butterfly back there but I am not sure.

If I look out past the castle grounds I can see the whole village. I can see where the market was, with all the wares for sale, but now it is gone. Now it is gone but it will come back next Saturday. It will come back but Adelaide will not. I look into the distance but I cannot see Cassis. I cannot see Adelaide's house, or the garden, or the pool where no little orange fish dart to the surface.