CHAPTER 24
That month flew through our hands. Each morning, we would take our breakfast with the more normal hotel guests, and then I would join some older women for the making of beds and tidying of rooms. The work was not hard, only an hour or two each morning, and then we were free. Maman prepared meals three nights each week, and when I visited her in the kitchen I finally saw the respect my mother had earned. She was no potwasher, no servant, but the chief and director. Thierry smiled at me when I showed my surprise.

“Your mother, she has a talent, a gift from the Lord, Sophie. This was my gift from Henri: we have a number of things that we serve to our customers, but your mother has others, new ideas to amuse the mouth. And, perhaps, she can take our own dishes with her”

Maman laughed at that. “So he says, but I still have to master the allioli. Your Benoit will need to become accustomed to the taste of garlic!”

I pushed her arm. “And Guillaume too?”

I had seen my mother go each evening before dinner to Thierry’s office, where he had a computer, and I suspected she was having conversations using the internet. She had also purchased a digital camera, and I am sure the photographs were being sent with the words.

Photographs we now had in great plenty, pictures of the beach and of the mountains, especially of the Canigou. One day Maman took me by train through Collioure to a tiny and shabby town called Cerbá¨re, where we walked down a tunnel onto the beach from the railway station. There was a cement path leading around the rocks of its bay to a beach of grit, and then Maman puzzled out a dirty path that led us past cactus plants that looked like something from an American cowboy film. It was steep, and the weather was hot, but we arrived at the road again, my basketball shoes having done their job. There was a view to the South, rocky promontories reaching out into the blue sea. Maman embraced me.

“My sweet, that is Spain. Without an identity card to say who you are, we cannot go there, so I thought you should at least be able to look at another country”

“But I have my CNI with me!”

“Yes, my little one, but what does it say about you, eh? If you were to show it to a Spanish flic, or worse, someone like your brother when we returned?”

“Ah”

“I would not risk spoiling our time here. It is a precious thing”

I understood what she was saying. I had become so accustomed to being myself, ignoring that little bit of flesh that seemed increasingly to have no importance, that I would sometimes forget it was there. I wanted it gone, of course, but away from Benny the urgency decreased. I felt once more then like Moses had, looking over to the Promised Land. I laughed.

“You do know you are the most wonderful mother one could ever desire?”

She smiled. “I do my best”

“Then I shall spend some of my money and we shall have ices on the beach!”

Happy times indeed. We spent most afternoons on the other beach near the hotel, and I was getting very bronzed. Roser was there most days, and as I now had my own mask for swimming she came out into the water with me to show me things. Once, in the rocks where the mountains stepped down into the sea, she pointed down.

“Can you see all those empty shells there on the bottom?”

“Yes”

“There is a pop there, they eat the crustaceans and leave the shells”

“Pop?”

“Octopus. Very nice on the plank, or with potatoes. Take a breath and swim down”

He was there, one eye looking at me from a hole in the rocks, and so charming. I know some people think they are ugly or dangerous, but I felt kinship with him. Or her. We left him alone, and I resolved never to eat such a dish if offered it.

There were evenings away from the hotel, too, for Roser insisted that we must dine with her and her family. Happy times, with Maman and our new friend breaking all the rules of entertainment of guests, because my mother ended up in the kitchen as a pupil. We lay in our beds after the first dinner, and as Maman said goodnight she actually giggled. “When we get back, Henri is going to have to change all of his menus. But from where shall I obtain the necessary ingredients?"

“Food parcels, Maman. As with the prisoners of war, we will ask for the Red Cross to send us packages of all the necessary items”

There was silence from her for a few moments. “Sometimes, Sophie, you say things in which you do not fully see the truth. This place…this place is like freedom for a prisoner, and home, will it not feel just a little more confined?”

I reached across the space between our beds for her hand. “We have family, Maman, and we have friends, and then we have the dream of our next visit, and perhaps, one time, I shall be able to wear the cobwebs and postage stamps”

“These young girls are all the same! Good night my dear one”

Still the days flew, and I had my talk each evening with my Benny, and asked Maman if she could send some of her pictures to him as well as Roland and Guillaume. Even in Annecy, that man could read her messages, due to the internet, and it was better than a postal card, but I still sent several. They are something that can be held and cherished, unlike the pictures and writing on a computer screen.

And then it was the final day, and our cases were taken with us all the way to Narbonne by Roser in her car, to spare us the hot and slow ride across the lagoons, which I actually wanted to take but kept my silence about. There were many people travelling, and the station was crowded, but we found a space to say good byes, and as Roser hugged me she simply whispered “You were never a boy, not really”

I went stiff, and she kissed my cheek. “Do not worry, my sweet friend. You cannot fill such a prescription without the chemist knowing, and he is my son. When we next meet, perhaps you will be entire?”

Such kindness, and I thought of what Maman had said about Serge, how only Sophie could speak to strangers and make such friends, and the train bore us away with our tears. Connections at Avignon, at Paris; cooler air, even some rain at Caen, and then my brother at the station. I was shocked to see his eyes moist, but his embrace was strong and sure.

“How I have missed you both! We have been such a family this year, not to have you for a month is a torment. Sophie…you have been eating much garlic?”

Laughter took us all home. We had dinner that evening with Margot and her Papa, at their house, and the love that shone around the room made my heart fly. Margot and Roland, of course, and Guillaume I caught with Maman embracing in the kitchen in a very, very close way. I decided I must speak with her on the subject, and as we put the house to its own sleep that night I entered her room.

“Maman, can we talk?”

“Of course, my sweet. What concerns you?”

“Margot’s Papa”

“Ah”

“Maman, I am not upset! I think it is wonderful. Margot said…she said she needed to marry Rollo before you married her father, for otherwise it would get very complicated, so we have seen how you are, and it is not a problem for us because he is a very nice man and–“

“Slowly, my sweet, slowly. Yes, Guillaume is a very nice man, but he is still in mourning, no?”

“That is it, Maman, you are not being slow. I…heard, that night, the night of the betrothal”

“Sit down, my sweet, sit down. You think this old woman is rushing too quickly after a man? You should know that we have known each other for a very long time. Yes we made love again that night”

“Again? You have been doing this for some time?”

“Now and again, for about eighteen years, my sweet”