Mirepoix, France, Summer 1981
Last year, while Frances’s parents were there, they liked to enjoy the downtime, space away from two busy careers, where more often than not they were on their feet. As a cardiothoracic surgeon, her father rarely sat down, and spent most of his time staring at a person’s inner workings through the open mouth of their chest. Sometimes when Frances spoke to him he seemed surprised by her wakefulness, as if during his working life it was possible to forget that people could speak and move and have opinions. Frances figured that if you were used to holding somebody’s life in your hands, perhaps it was only natural that all the other things that made a person who they were had the tendency to sound like little more than trivial background noise.
Often Frances would reason that this was why her father couldn’t understand her desire to work in a museum. When she had first suggested it, they had gone along with it, took her to visit countless collections, to let the fantasy play out. But the longer it had gone on, and the closer it came to choosing subjects to study at school, her parents, and her father in particular, began to raise their concerns. It all felt so very staid to him it seemed, the idea of dealing with artifacts all day long, turning pages of an ancient book with soft cotton gloves in the search of history. It was dead information, stuff that had already passed. Working in a museum, he said, would have been the equivalent of operating on a corpse; pointless, tiresome, and with no obvious landmarks of success. Perhaps that was why the knowledge of that secret book, hidden on the shelves that somebody had built into the eaves under her window, excited Frances every time she thought of it. Finally, she had found another person who could revel in that which she loved. Somebody who saw her as more than a strange anachronism. To leave that book on her bed, to sneak into her world to leave his mark, made the things she loved real, and more than an idea to be stifled and surpassed.
At that time last year, with nothing more than a book in her possession, she knew nothing of the man who left it, or where she might find him again. When she thought of his size, his loose clothes and the sunglasses dangling from his shirt, the casual way he held himself, he seemed almost like a fiction she had crafted in her mind. He was so different from the boys she knew, in their tracksuits and scuffed trainers. Was he really that good-looking, or was she imagining it? Had he really winked at her before he turned to walk away?
A month before that night she had kissed a boy, and it hadn’t left much of an impression. At least not in the same, positive way. Peter Jenkins had been a boy in the year above, who, at the time, had seemed sophisticated in comparison to the rest. Moving differently, he held his head high with his hands in his blazer as he sauntered along, a satchel slung over one shoulder rather than down at his knees like the rest of them. She always had liked different. They had arranged to go to the park that Saturday, and he bought her an ice cream. He had less to say than she had expected, asking about safe things like which subject she preferred and whether she thought the rumor about Mr. Bolton and the blond girl in year twelve was true. When he asked where she normally went on a Saturday and she replied “the library,” she knew it had been the wrong answer. Still, before walking her home he had kissed her, their mouths spread wide with his tongue poking in and out like a piston while they hid from view behind the boating shed. Afterward he had rested his arm across her shoulder and she had tried to be excited about it, even though in truth she felt a bit stupid, walking along at a funny angle so his arm didn’t pull her hair. How pathetic that all seemed now.
One afternoon not long after receiving the book they all traipsed down the lane toward the market square. There, her parents, aunt, and uncle ordered small, strong coffees to while away the next few hours with various interludes for cheese, wine, and cigarettes. Not long after she arrived, Amélie appeared. They had become friends years before, when language barriers were insignificant and all that was required for friendship to bloom was an earnest willingness to try. Amélie beckoned her over to a merry-go-round and they rode the horses for half an hour because Amélie’s dad owned the ride, even though their ages were beyond it. While they were out of view of their families, Amélie pulled the cigarette from her sleeve; slim, white, and contraband.
“Where did you get that?” Frances whispered, slipping from her horse. By now Amélie’s English was better than Frances’s French.
“My papa. He never notices. Come on,” Amélie said, taking Frances by the hand. They ran from the merry-go-round of garish colors that continued to kaleidoscope behind them. Unseen in the shade of the cloisters, they ran until they were out of sight, where they tucked themselves around a corner, secure on a set of steps to a long-abandoned shop. Amélie sat down and Frances huddled in alongside her. She was taller than Frances, mousy brown hair, a face that Frances always thought seemed particularly French in characteristics, which probably arose from her disinterested nonchalance rather than any particular facial feature. Frances would never have tried a cigarette with anybody else, and yet suddenly it seemed like the only thing she wanted to do.
After they exhausted a few broken matches they managed to get the thing alight. Amélie held it between awkward fingers, her joints unsure and rigid. Frances wasn’t entirely sure what looked wrong about it, but something about the picture wasn’t right. Amélie drew in a long breath, before doubling over to cough.
“Give it to me,” Frances said, laughing. “You’re not supposed to swallow it.” Taking the cigarette she mirrored her father, the slack fingers, the gentle curve, the slow way he took in the smoke. It took her all her efforts not to cough, but she managed.
“Let me try again,” Amélie said, taking the cigarette back. This time, with more poise, she managed a full, if somewhat shallow breath. “It was just the first time, that’s all,” she said, making excuses. “I know what I’m doing now.”
Their relationship was one of discovery, first experiences, and subtle lies. With Amélie, Frances fit alongside her in ways she never could with her peers at school back in England. Her interest in museums and artifacts did little to spoil her credibility with Amélie, guaranteed because she was foreign and interesting and different. The same applied to Amélie, like the fact she liked to swim naked. It must be the French way, Frances always thought, and so that’s just what they did. In England somebody would probably have called her a dyke if she suggested getting naked to swim together, and the girls would have likely avoided her even more than they did already, but it didn’t seem to matter here.
“So, did you do anything else with him?” Amélie asked, reinstating the conversation that had been cut short by Frances’s mother yesterday lunchtime. Telling the story about Peter Jenkins had been something Frances had been anticipating for weeks.
“No,” Frances said. “Well, not much anyway. I guess he touched me a bit.”
“Where?” Amélie asked, her eyes narrowed with voyeuristic excitement. “You mean up here, or down there?” Amélie hovered her hand around her belt and moved it up and down like a barometer moving with the weather.
“Give me the cigarette first, and then I’ll tell you.” Reaching across, Frances moved to take it, but it was then that she heard a bell, and felt the draft as the door opened behind her. Both frozen to the spot, Frances said nothing as the man from the book festival crouched down behind them. Frances couldn’t breathe. It was him. There she was talking about Peter Jenkins, and all the while he was behind her. He reached out, took the cigarette from Amélie, and drew in long and hard.
“Benoit,” Amélie said, and nudged his leg, as if she knew him. Something else followed in French that Frances couldn’t quite catch, but it seemed good-natured enough because they were both laughing. They did know each other. They were . . . friends?
“She is angry at me, because she says I have spoiled your fun,” the man she now knew to be called Benoit said as he took another drag on the cigarette. “You are here talking about boys and smoking cigarettes, and I am just an old man, getting in the way. At least that’s what Amélie thinks. Do you think I am an old man?” he asked, his eyes on Frances. She felt her cheeks flush berry red.
“No, I don’t.”
“Good. But these are strong,” he said, turning the cigarette as if to appraise it. “Where did you get it?”
“Her father,” Frances said, not wanting to take any responsibility for the acquisition.
“Well, you can’t smoke this. Amélie, go and get something better.” From his pocket he pulled a money clip, fingered a twenty-franc note, and handed it to Amélie. “Go to George, on Rue Delcasse, and tell him they are for Monsieur Benoit.” Snatching the money, she was on her feet and turning to leave.
“Francis,” she said. “Are you coming?”
“You can go if you want,” Benoit said, his voice quieter, as if he was speaking just for Frances. “But I would love to show you the shop. I think you will like it. Amélie can meet you back here.”
Behind her a narrow window gave a wink as to what was inside. Up against the glass she could see stacked books, knickknacks, and oddments of a time gone by. A grand clock ticked on the wall.
“I’ll stay here, wait for you,” Frances said to Amélie. With a roll of her eyes, Amélie headed down the street.
“Come on,” Benoit said, stamping the cigarette on the ground. “Let me show you inside.”
Ducking through the doorway, Benoit led her into a narrow room, dark from its position under the cloisters where the sun couldn’t reach. It was a relief, the day hot, the atmosphere close. Wooden floorboards sloped along a gradient, giving everything a slightly off-center appearance, making her steps feel unbalanced. In the center of the shop was a wooden table, stacked high with boxes containing unknown items, and along the walls were empty shelves, thick with dust from decades past.
“I only got the place recently, so it’s a bit of a mess. And this is just the back room,” Benoit said. Pointing to a doorway, he stood aside to let her pass. “The front of the shop opens to the square. What, you don’t want to see?” he asked when she made no move to go through.
Whatever he had at the front of the shop could be seen another time. There was something much more pressing that she knew she had to ask. “It was you who left that book in my bedroom, wasn’t it?” she said.
Folding his arms across his chest, she was sure she saw him blush. “I did. Was I wrong to leave you a gift? I’m sorry if you did not like it.”
“I liked it. I was just surprised.”
“No man has ever given you a gift before?”
“Not one like that,” she said. “And not by breaking into my bedroom.”
From a shelf he pulled a pack of cigarettes. Holding them out, he offered her the box, but she shook her head even though the pack was full. Moments later he lit one, balanced between his teeth, and he sat back on a stool just a couple of meters away. He held it differently from her father, down in the place where one finger met the next.
“You are the same age as Amélie?”
“No, I’m older,” she said, sure that those additional months mattered.
Nodding, he took another long drag on the cigarette. The smoke stung her eyes. The space was too small for them both. “I thought so. Amélie is childish, but you are not. So, you must be studying, right?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And what is your subject?”
There were so many different things she had to learn that seemed so irrelevant to her. School was full of things she took little joy from, like math, German, geography. None of it useful. Only one subject came to mind, the only thing she really loved. “History.”
“Ah, a woman after my own heart.”
That evening when she went home, she would play that conversation back over in her mind time and time again, and it was always the use of that word that got her. Woman. He didn’t see her in the way that anybody else did. Had she lied when she said she was older? Had she misled him by claiming only one subject? She knew that she had let him believe something that wasn’t true, that she was older, available. It was at that point that she had sat down on the other wooden stool, had leaned in close, her movement bringing their faces just an arm’s length apart. She had chosen to ignore her lie, because more than the truth, she wanted to be seen by Benoit in exactly the way he saw her. From beneath his shirt where it gaped with the weight of his glasses, she noticed the hairs on his chest.
“So, what period of history are you interested in?” he asked then.
“All periods,” she said, not wanting to say the wrong thing. “I don’t just like dates, but pieces of history. I like the objects. The things I can touch and see. Touching something that somebody last held centuries ago. Like pots, say, or paintings. I’ve got a collection of plates back in my aunt’s barn.”
“I would like to see that. And paintings, eh? I like paintings too.” He sat back and ran his hand through his dark hair. Smiling, the little scar on his cheek creased, making his face asymmetrical. She wondered what it would be like to touch that scar, whether it would be soft, or hard like a knot. “Myself, I like the neoclassical period of the French Revolution. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. This is something you know?”
“No,” she confessed, but was eased when he didn’t seem put off.
“My favorite of the three is Liberté. Liberty, Frances. A man’s right to choose for himself. To do what he thinks he must. To be free to be himself.” Everything he said made her feel as if she knew nothing, yet when she spoke he watched the movement of her mouth as if there was nothing more important to be said in the whole world.
“I like that one too. The freedom to be who you are.” Thinking of her father just a short distance away, she realized that he was trying to stop her from being who she truly was, trying to guide her down a path she didn’t like. Medicine, law at a push; this was not who she was. Why didn’t they want her to be herself?
“You know,” Benoit said then. “Amélie will be back soon.”
“Yes, she will.”
He drew long and hard on the cigarette. “Before she comes back, can I tell you something?”
“Yes.”
After stubbing his cigarette out in a small china dish, he leaned in close, his voice dropped to a whisper. “I wanted to say that I overheard your conversation on the steps, about that boy. That he had kissed you, and touched you. No, no, please do not be embarrassed,” he said when she felt herself blush. “But I wanted to give you a little advice. About men, and how you should look upon us. May I?” She nodded. “You see, there are a lot of men who will like you. Your hair . . .” he began, his fingers trailing through from her face, all the way to where it skimmed down her back. “I love dark hair like this, and your eyes are so bright. I have never seen a blue like it. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. Everybody can see it, I am quite sure. Perhaps everybody except you. Perhaps that is what makes you even more striking. So, before you let a man touch you, you must first make sure he is worth it.”
Her next question was formed before she could do anything about it. “How will I know he’s worth it?”
“How to know if a man is worth it? Hmm,” he said, as if he was contemplating the very meaning of life. “That is a hard thing to know. Even harder to explain. Perhaps you cannot know, until he touches you.”
Floorboards creaked as he shuffled closer. The smell of coffee and cigarettes met her as he leaned in. Then he took his fingertips, their touch as soft as silk, and beginning just behind her ear, let them slip slowly and softly along the side of her neck. Goose bumps shivered across her arms, her stomach turning in knots. A pressure built between her legs although she couldn’t have explained it at the time. Across the knot of bone that marked her shoulder his touch descended, before his fingers meandered onto her chest. All the way down he moved, across her nipple, until his hand cupped the entirety of her breast. His touch grew intense, and then just a moment later his hot lips pressed against hers. How long did that last, that moment when they were connected? What would they have said if Amélie had walked back in?
“When this other boy touched you, did it feel like this?” he whispered, his breath tickling her cheek.
“No,” she said. “It was nothing like this.”
From the corner of her eye she caught sight of Amélie running down the street, just a few seconds away from the shop. “Then that, Frances,” he said, standing up from the stool as the bell rang to announce her friend’s arrival, “is how you know.”