THE COACH FROM BEAUCAIRE
I took the coach from Beaucaire to get to my windmill. It was a good old patache, a sort of rural coach, which, although it only made short trips, dawdled so much that by the end of the day it had the wearied air of having travelled a long way. There were five of us on top, plus the driver of course.
There was a thick-set, hairy, and earthy-smelling Camargue Ranger, with big, blood-shot eyes, and sporting silver earrings. There were two men from Beaucaire, a baker and his dough mixer, ruddy and wheezy, as befits their trade, but with the magnificent profiles of a roman Emperor. Lastly there was this fellow; no, not a person, really, just a cap. You were only aware of the cap … an enormous rabbit-skin cap. He said little, gazing miserably at the passing road.
These characters, well known to each other, were speaking very loudly, and even more freely, about their personal business. The Ranger announced that he was making for Nîmes in response to a Magistrate's summons for pitch-forking a shepherd. They're hot-blooded, these Camargue folk. As for the men from Beaucaire; they were at each others throats about the Virgin Mary. It appears that the baker was from a parish dedicated to the Madonna, known in Provence as the Holy Mother, and always pictured carrying the baby Jesus in her arms. His dough-mixer, on the other hand, was a lay-reader at a new church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, whose icon showed her with open arms and illuminated hands. The way they treated each other and their respective Madonnas, had to be seen to be believed:
—She's no more than a pretty girl, your "immaculate" lady!
—Well, you know what you can do with your Holy Mother!
—She was no better around Palestine than she should have been, yours!
—What about yours, the little minx! Who knows what she got up to. Only
St. Joseph can answer that.
You'd have thought we were on the docks in Naples. In truth, it only needed the glint of a knife blade, I'm sure, to settle this fine theological point once and for all; that is if the driver hadn't intervened.
—Give us some peace. You and your Madonnas! he said laughingly, trying to make light of the Beaucairian dispute: it's women's stuff, this, men shouldn't get involved.
He cracked his whip, from his high perch, as if to emphasise to his lack of religious conviction and to bring the others into line.
* * * * *
End of discussion. But the baker, having been stopped in full flow, wanted to continue in the same vein, and turned his attention towards the miserable cap, still morosely huddled in its corner, and quietly sneered:
—You there, grinder, what about your wife? What side of the parish border does she stand on?
It was as though it was meant to be a joke; the whole cart-load of them erupted into uproarious laughter … except the grinder himself, who didn't react to the remark. This prompted the baker to turn towards me:
—You don't happen to know his wife do you, monsieur? Just as well; she's a real queer fish; there can't be another one like her in Beaucaire.
The increasing laughter left the grinder unmoved except for a whisper, his eyes still downcast:
—Hush, baker.
But there was no stopping this interfering baker, and he warmed to his theme:
—He's an idiot! No man of the world would complain about having wife like that. There's never a dull moment when she's around! Think about it! A really gorgeous girl, who every six months or so, ups sticks and runs away, and, believe me, always has a pretty tale to tell when she gets back … that's the way it is … a funny old menagerie, that one. Work it out, monsieur, they hadn't even been hitched a year when she breezed off to Spain with a chocolate merchant.
—The husband was inconsolable after that, sitting alone and drinking and crying all the time like a man possessed. After a while, she drifted back into the area, dressed like a Spaniard, complete with tambourine. We all warned her:
—You'd better get lost, he'll kill you.
—Kill her indeed … Oh yes, I should say so, they made it up beautifully, she even taught him how to play the tambourine like a Basque!
Once again the coach rocked with laughter. Once again, the grinder still didn't budge, just murmured again:
—Hush, baker.
The baker ignored this plea and went on:
—You might think, after her return from Spain, monsieur, the little beauty would keep herself to herself?. But oh no!… Her husband accepted the situation again, so easily, it has to be said, that she was at it again. After Spain, there was an army officer, then a sailor from the Rhone, then a musician, then … who knows?… What is certain, is that, every time, it's the same French farce … She leaves, he cries; she comes back, he gets over it. You'd better believe it, he's a long suffering cuckold that one. But you've got to admit, she is a real good-looker, the little she-grinder; a piece fit for a king, full of life, sweet as could be, and a lovely bit of stuff. To top it all, she has a skin like alabaster and hazel eyes that always seem to be smiling at men. My word, Paris, if you ever pass through Beaucaire again….
—Oh do be quiet baker, I beg you…, the poor grinder went once again, his voice beginning to break up.
Just then the diligence stopped at the Anglores farm. Here it was that the two Beaucaire men got off, and believe me, I didn't try to stop them. What a trouble-maker sort of baker he was; even when he was in the farmyard, we could still hear him laughing.
* * * * *
With those two characters gone, the coach seemed empty. We'd dropped the Camargue Ranger in Arles and the driver led the horses on foot from there. Just the grinder and myself were left on top, each silent and alone. It was very warm; the coach's leather hood was too hot to touch. At times I could feel my head and eyelids getting heavy and tired, but the unsettling yet placid plea of "Be quiet, I beg you." kept echoing in my mind and wouldn't let me nod off. No rest for that poor soul either. I could see, from behind, that his broad shoulders were shaking, and his course, pale hand trembled on the back of the seat like an old man's. He was crying….
—This is your place, Paris! the driver said pointing out my green hillock with the tip of his whip, and there, like a huge butterfly on a hump, was my windmill.
I hurried to dismount … but as I passed by the grinder, I wanted to get look at him under his cap before leaving. The unfortunate man jerked his head back as if reading my mind, and fixed me with his eyes:
—Mark me well, friend, he mumbled, and if one day, you hear of a tragedy in Beaucaire, you can say you know who did it.
He was a beaten, sad man with small, deep-set eyes; eyes that were filled with tears. But the voice; the voice was full of hatred. Hatred is the weak man's anger. If I were the she-grinder, I'd be very careful.