Max was swimming on his back with his arms spread wide.
On deck Cuneo had his face in his hands.
None of the men dared look at the others.
27
Without a word they motored south through Burgundy along the side canal of the Loire, through mighty green cathedral-vaults of trees that arched over the canal. Some vineyards were so large that the rows of vines seemed to stretch off to the horizon. Everywhere flowers were blooming; the locks and bridges were bright with them.
The three men ate in silence, sold books to customers on the banks in silence, and avoided one another. That evening they read, each in his own corner of the boat. The bemused cats wandered from one to the other, but even they could not tear the men from their wilful isolation. Head nudges, intense stares and questioning meows elicited no response.
The deer’s death had scattered the three-man star. Now each man drifted alone through time – the hideous mazes of time.
Jean spent a long time pondering the lined school notebook he was using for his encyclopedia of emotions. He stared out of the window without noticing how the sky was ablaze with every colour from red to orange. Thinking felt like wading through treacle.
The next evening they passed Nevers and after a brief, tense discussion – ‘Why not Nevers? We can sell some books there.’ ‘There are enough bookshops in Nevers, but no one who can sell us diesel’ – they tied up minutes before the locks closed for the night near a tiny village called Apremont-sur-Allier, which nestled on a bend in the Allier River. Cuneo knew some people there – a sculptor and his family who lived in an isolated house between the village and the river.
From here, in the ‘Garden of France’, it wasn’t far to Digoin and the turn-off onto the Canal du Centre, which would carry them towards the Rh?ne and thence along the Seille to Cuisery, the town of books.
Kafka and Lindgren scampered off into the riverside woods to hunt. Seconds later a flurry of birds exploded from the trees.
As the three men walked through the village, Jean felt as though they had stepped back into the fifteenth century. The tall trees with their broad canopies, the many unpaved lanes, the smattering of houses built of yellow sandstone, pinkish earth and red tiles, even the flowers in the farm gardens and the ivy sprouting over the buildings – it all combined to suggest that they had entered a bygone France of knights and witches. There was a small castle perched above this erstwhile village of stonemasons and builders, its walls shining golden red in the rays of the sinking sun. Only the modern bicycles of touring cyclists picnicking on the banks of the Allier spoiled the impression.
‘A bit bloody twee, this place,’ griped Max.
Passing behind an ancient squat round tower, they crossed a garden of flowers, which were blooming in such myriad pinks and reds and whites that the sight and scent made Jean dizzy. Enormous wisterias bowed over the paths, and a lake was dominated by a lonely pagoda, which could only be reached via stepping-stones.
‘Do any real people actually live here, or are they all movie extras?’ Max asked. ‘What’s it meant to be? A picture postcard for American tourists?’
‘Yes, Max, people do live here. The kind who resist reality a little more than others do. And no, Apremont isn’t for Americans; it’s for the pursuit of beauty,’ answered Cuneo.
He parted the branches of a large rhododendron bush to reveal a concealed door in a high old stone wall. He pushed it open and they stepped into a spacious garden with a well-tended lawn leading to a splendid manor house with tall casement windows, a turret, two wings and a terrace.
Jean felt awkward and out of place. It had been a long time since he’d last been to someone’s home. As they drew closer, they heard the tinkle of a piano and peals of laughter and, crossing the garden, Perdu caught sight of a woman sitting on a chair under a copper beech, dressed in nothing but a stylish old hat and painting a canvas. Near her a young man in an old-fashioned English summer suit was sitting at a piano on wheels.
‘Hey! You with the pretty mouth! Can you play the piano?’ the naked woman called when she spotted the three men.
Max blushed – and nodded.
‘Then play me something; paints love to dance. My brother doesn’t know a B from a B-flat.’
Max wedged himself in between the stool and the piano on wheels, and tried not to gawk at the woman’s breasts – especially as she had only one, the left one. A fine red line on the right-hand side betrayed where its round, full young twin had once been.
‘Take a good look to satisfy your curiosity,’ she said. She took off her hat and exhibited herself to him: a bald skull covered in sprouting fuzz, a cancer-damaged body fighting its way back to life.